Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 53

How is it determined if a topic is "fringe"?
I would like to know the process and standard by which it is determined Wikipedia-wide whether a topic is "fringe" or "not fringe" please? Also, are there degrees of "fringeness" or is it a boolean value wherein something is either "fully fringe" or "fully not fringe"? Please advise. Whether or not a topic is categorized as "fringe" changes the sourcing policy within Wikipedia to a huge extent for the topic, so i think it's absolutely crucial that we have a clear procedure and guidelines for how something is determined to be "fringe" and therefore to know what sourcing rules apply to the topic. Thanks in advance. SageRad (talk) 15:01, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * By consulting how widely shared the viewpoint is among independent reliable sources that don't exist to promote it. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:13, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok. Do you mean those sources must say "Concept X is 'fringe'" explicitly, or simply to say "Concept X is incorrect". Also, what if different editors have different reckonings about whether concept X is "fringe" and therefore are operating by different sourcing rules within Wikipedia, like expecting normal reliable sources to be used? Also, do you think it's possible for a topic to be partially fringe and partially not fringe? I am seriously trying to get my mind around this bunch of rules of Wikipedia because it's the one part that i really can't get. It seems to be a flip-flopping bunch of relativity when you can change sourcing rules on the fly if you declare something to be "fringe" because you think it's fringe. What is half the reliable sources seem to think something is largely valid while half seem to think it's mostly not valid? What do you do then? See, i think it's a lot like the definition of "pornography" that is really elusive when you get down to it. A Supreme Court justice even failed to define it and said only "I know it when i see it" -- and surely there is some material that's clearly pornography and some that's clearly not pornography, but isn't there some that's really not clear and would be in the eye of the beholder, somewhat subjective according to the perspective from which it's seen? Maybe your grandma would call it pornography but the person working in the coffee shop would call it an "excellent movie about human emotions that happens to show some sex as that's part of human life"? SageRad (talk) 15:25, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Some more thoughts. Obviously, we can't use the most conservative people or judgments to guide us. In that case, anything that even admits that sexuality exists would be called "pornography" and any topic where there is any question at all about its total validity would be called "fringe". We must somehow be able to discuss it with some balance. I have seen how "fringe POV pushing" has become a term of disparagement here on Wikipedia against some editors (myself included) and it's not healthy if there is not a clear definition of the term. It becomes an "allowable slander" if it's allowed, which it surely has been allowed to this point. I've never seen it called out as a "personal attack" by community with any sanctions to call someone that. But when the definition of "fringe" is fuzzy and subjective, then isn't this an invitation for people to declare whatever they don't like or agree with "fringe" and thereby be able to use "parity" sourcing rules to include blogs from sources who agree with them in articles, and likewise to take actions against anyone who would want to -- as they see it -- restore NPOV balance to an article as being a "fringe POV pusher"? That's the pattern i have seen.

Is there a place within Wikipedia where it's recorded whether something is determined to be "fringe" or not? Is that place this message board? What sort of level of agreement does it take for something to be categorized as "fringe" here? If 3 people think it's fringe and 2 people think it's not wholly fringe, then is it or isn't it? These are the things that don't make sense to me. And "i know it when i see it" isn't enough of a guideline for me, because anyone can reckon things differently, and many things are not so either/or. SageRad (talk) 15:53, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No, this is not only simple, but this has been explained to you in detail before (numerous times). I'll run it down one more time for you though, because reasons.
 * First we look at what subject the topic resides in. Physics, politics, medicine, history, etc.
 * Next, we look at what particular part of that subject the topic addresses. Fundamental particle interactions, relations between the U.S. and Russia, cancer cures, the holocaust, etc.
 * Then we gather RS's that cover that part of that subject.
 * Then we compare the conclusions and postulates of those RSs to those of the topic. We give more weight to differences in postulates (statements of fact, in many cases) than we do the conclusions (which are often interpretations of the postulates).
 * Then we look at what other RSs have to say about the topic (note that this was the only part you focused on above).
 * If the postulates and conclusions of the RSs and the topic vary greatly, and other RSs discredit the topic more often than they seriously consider it, it's fringe.
 * I know that sounds far more complicated than what you see here, but that's because most editors here already have some knowledge of a subject. They already know what RSs say about it. In many cases, they already know that a topic is fringe. Just because we didn't go through the motions in front of you doesn't mean we didn't go through them. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  15:55, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why you are there instead of at Talk:Fringe theories. The article itself has a section on identifying fringe theories. And just to make sure you understand, pseudoscience, pseudohistory, pseudoarchaeology, and similar terms denote fringe material. Doug Weller  talk 16:12, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps that's a more appropriate place to ask these questions as they're not about a specific topic, but about the topic of fringe theories in general and the procedures within Wikipedia regarding them. Thanks. SageRad (talk) 16:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Regarding the suggestion to pursue this at the fringe article talk page, isn't it likely that this page is watched by more editors? Anyhow, I am offering my comment here, and will watch the article talk page as well.


 * The policy WP:FRINGE definitely identifies a range of "fringeness", making a distinction between "pseudoscience" and "questionable science" or "alternative theoretical formulations". Also, The neutral point of view policy requires that all majority and significant-minority positions be included in an article. Articles about fringe topics are acceptable if the topic meets the notability guidelines and if there is sufficient coverage in reliable secondary sources.


 * I would think the description "Fringe POV pusher", applied to an editor, would be appropriate only if that editor is violating the rules in WP:PROFRINGE. As an editor who enjoys working on fringe topics, I always appreciate guidance as to when I might be crossing the boundary to profringe. But I don't appreciate when I'm personally attacked because of my interests or opinions.


 * The guideline on WP:PARITY is written with examples drawn from obvious pseudoscience, leaving me uncertain as to whether it would apply to criticism of respectable minority positions.


 * If there's a disagreement among editors about whether a topic or point of view is "fringe", would it be appropriate to have an RfC to discuss the question? I don't see any reason why not. JerryRussell (talk) 16:30, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * imho, Sage, if you write using reliable sources, it doesn't matter if the topic is fringe or not, you can't go wrong. Also, as this is a collegial project, asking at this noticeboard seems a good idea, and people offer good advice, just like elsewhere on the project. Unfortunately, your track record regarding advice is, shall I say, unfortunate. -Roxy the dog™ bark 16:35, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Roxy the dog, thanks for the comments, except for the last part. I appreciate the welcome to have this question here, and the advice about using good reliable sources, as that is what i strive for anyway. I hope this project to be collegial. I'm sorry your estimation of my track record is low. Hope that improves. SageRad (talk) 21:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately Sage, the last part is the most important. Your reply saddens me. -Roxy the dog™ bark 17:33, 16 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Ya gotta do that, huh? Well if advice seems good to me, then i take it. SageRad (talk) 23:28, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Worth noting that calling something "fringe" in an article and calling it "fringe" in a wiki discussion are not necessarily the same thing. If something is usually recognized to be a minority viewpoint or has no support in reliable sources it's can be fringe viewpoint in a wiki discussion. To call it fringe in an article you want sources that call it that and which are a representative sample. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:43, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * There's a very long, recent (June) discussion of this general issue at Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories. Reading through that discussion, I see huge confusion over whether the term "fringe" is meant to apply only to "pseudoscience", pseudohistory etc., or whether it applies to all minority positions. There is also huge confusion over whether different guidelines would be appropriate depending on how a topic is classified within the range of fringiness. However, I think most editors agree that there is a range of fringiness, so I think there's hope that the issues can get clarified. JerryRussell (talk) 16:56, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In discussing whether a subject is notable, WP:Notability states We consider evidence from reliable independent sources to gauge this attention. Perhaps science subjects should be considered in the same way and if an editor wants to label a subject as "fringe", this should be verifiable with independent RS. DrChrissy (talk) 17:25, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I think we have to delineate between how a single editor identifies fringe content and how Wikipedia identifies such content. Fringe as Wikipedia uses the term is not necessarily something we'd find in a source so I'm  not sure we can require a source specifically using the term fringe. I also don't agree that fringe and pseudoscience are interchangeable terms. As I understand it, pseudoscience refers to the quality of the research; there may be fringe topics that while on the edge of the main stream may  be represented by legitimate research. Most research is fringe to the mainstream in its earliest incarnations, while so called pseudoscience research would probably never be considered, at any time, as legitimate research. (Littleolive oil (talk) 18:15, 15 October 2016 (UTC))
 * The problem as I see it is that without external verification, as with the term "scientific consensus", the discussion here on WP turns into a case of "who can shout loudest". As editors, should we be labeling science subjects in such a way without some external validation that others consider this to be true? DrChrissy (talk) 18:54, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree. However, we do have to be careful in clarifying how Wikipedia uses certain terms and how sources do. As with any content one would think that the addition of content would require a sources or sources and in some case this is possible. In other cases, how we define something and how sources do is not the same. I don't know what the answer is. Much on Wikipedia depends on collaboration and good will between editors. This is seldom the case in many articles. Right now Wikipedia defines fringe and this seems to allow use of the term in articles with out a source. This seems to be our only constant.(Littleolive oil (talk) 19:16, 15 October 2016 (UTC))
 * I've seen that phrase "reliable independent sources" used in circular fashion, with the mere fact that someone advocates a fringe position viewed as evidence they are not "independent". It seems to me this is silly, "dependence" should mean some sort of financial or institutional COI, not merely advocating the fringe point of view. JerryRussell (talk) 19:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a reasonable objection from the perspective of the logic of the words themselves, but doesn't account for the observed behaviour: the holders of the fringe viewpoint know very well they're perceived as fringe, so their internal media is not merely coverage but advocacy for the viewpoint in question, in a way that non-ingroup sources just aren't. Compare pseudojournals. This is also a behavioural difference from merely specialist press. So it's talking about an actual thing - David Gerard (talk) 19:25, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * One of the problems here though is that some editors automatically assume that an editor who introduces content into an article, believes in that point of view. This is not always the case.  I edit a lot in animal welfare.  In trying to make some articles neutral (e.g. Dog meat) I try to inform the reader by introducing RS-based content on e.g. dog meat consumption, however, that does NOT mean I support the consumption of dog meat.  The same can be said of many "fringe" science subjects. DrChrissy (talk) 19:37, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Dr Chrissy, but have concerns with "the holders of the fringe viewpoint know very well they're perceived as fringe,". As above, the judgement of who is a holder of a fringe viewpoint as opposed to someone simply adding content is probably the basis for a false paradigm. How can we assume the motivations of editors? We shouldn't, but we do. Do we equally assume those who add anti fringe content are holders of the anti fringe viewpoint? We can begin to judge motivation when editors on talk page give themselves away by attacks on both editors and subject areas. The center line which describes NPOV can be and often is skewed towards the skeptical viewpoint severely violating weight. When that center, supposedly neutral line has been moved towards the skeptical any neutral content or editor immediately looks non- neutral. I agree there are serious problems with the addition of content that is not neutral or supported by good MEDRS sources, but the pendulum has swung towards the other extreme. The antidote for this is collaboration and consensus but in a circle of mistakes, the supporters of the skewed may ban together and what is left is a cycle of weighted content supported by those supporting weighted content, which can exclude the truly neutral editor.(Littleolive oil (talk) 20:00, 15 October 2016 (UTC))


 * NPOV can be and often is skewed towards the skeptical viewpoint severely violating weight There's been a number of arbitration cases on this sort of claim. If you can provide clear examples of precisely this happening and being an ongoing problem, that may be more convincing - David Gerard (talk) 20:23, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * LOO and SageRad: this board is not a forum for discussing putative skeptical bias in WP.  You could of course make comments at Rome Viharo's "wikipedia we have a problem" website, start a yet third thread at Jimbo's talk page (following SageRad's two similarly-titled prior postings here and  here, or make approving comments at Natural News' postings on the topic, for example www.naturalnews.com/053869_science_skeptics_Wikipedia_guerrilla_propaganda.html  here].  This board is for discussing FRINGE content appearing in WP. Jytdog (talk) 20:25, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Jytdog.This board is a forum for discussion and you do not have the right to select per your own opinions what and how a discussion can develop. This discussion, a legitimate one about how fringe is determined takes editors down paths that are connected to the topic of the discussion, in that, fringe once determined must be added to the articles. How those additions take place is also a connected topic. Please refrain  from attempts to police the forum here and with barely concealed sarcasm. You have interjected the kind of comments I am talking about as you attempt to take control of a discussion. Case in point. And by the way, although I have watched the Jimbo Wales discussion you mention the other two websites you point to are unfamiliar to me so perhaps you could stick with Wikipedia related discussions. (Littleolive oil (talk) 20:49, 15 October 2016 (UTC))
 * If people continue to abuse this board as a WP:SOAPBOX that will be addressed accordingly. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And again, case in point. My comments did not attack anyone or exclude any views You have. Please don't.(Littleolive oil (talk) 20:57, 15 October 2016 (UTC))
 * LOO commented above that we should try to assess the way that "fringe" is used by individual editors. I tend to agree with this. Some editors use the expression "Fringe POV pusher" to attack other editors they disagree with.  I believe this is why the term "fringe science" now has a pejorative connotation in recent useage, which was perhaps not originally intended when the word entered Wikipedia. We may have a WP-Centric connotation of the term "fringe science". DrChrissy (talk) 21:06, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You made a broad claim concerning skepticism at Wikipedia and bias. I asked for examples. Do you have particular examples of such bias that you consider unambiguously illustrate your claim? - David Gerard (talk) 21:43, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * If the claims were unambiguous we and I woudn't be here. There wouldn't have been any arbitrations as you mentioned above, ongoing discussions, notice boards  and so on. I like others here expressed an opinion. Since you have already stated this position has resulted in arbitrations, I can't imagine that you would really expect a single editor to cough up diffs  knowing the kind of research this would take. I have no desire to convince anyone of anything. I am however part of a discussion here on what I consider to be the problems facing a collaborative community on an aspect of its environment that is contentious. You can take my word for it or not; no worries either way. I am however being singled out to support an opinion while others aren't. I'll pass on the time and effort this would involve and with no perceivable use to anyone in that I have yet to see editors change a position based on the notion that their view may be skewed. I will however note that in my experience multiple contentious articles suffer this kind of bias and I'd add that the line of bias can swing either way. That is the nature of the way we edit here. In some cases the positive view may have skewed our neutral line in the sand. That line is  not fixed (as in line in the sand). The problem may be when editors think that  the line should be fixed in any direction. I'm not being evasive here. Bluntly, I have no intention of taking the amount of time I would have to both collect content and diffs to make this point. If this was an arbitration the time might be worth it. Comments like Jytdog's don't convince me that what I might post would be worth the effort.(Littleolive oil (talk) 22:19, 15 October 2016 (UTC))


 * That appears to be an extremely long-winded way of saying "no, I don't". Given that you are literally refusing to support your claim in any manner, there doesn't actually appear to be anything concrete to discuss - David Gerard (talk) 22:58, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * you appear to be editing another editor's posts. This is a very serious abuse of a noticeboard.  Please stop immediately and do not do this again. DrChrissy (talk) 23:13, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Its fine Dr Chrissy. I think there was a mess up when saving a cmt and it is being corrected. I don't think David was attempting to edit my comment And David please don't confuse no I don't, with, no, I won't. To be honest I don't feel you asked me in good faith, and further as I said, that along with Jytdog's cmts don't leave me with any reason to put the effort into something that would have zero impact. (Littleolive oil (talk) 23:42, 15 October 2016 (UTC))

Yes. Research that has not yet entered the mainstream (if ever) is not a pejorative. Most of humanity's greatest discoveries where at some time fringe to the mainstream view. (Littleolive oil (talk) 21:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC))

Coming back a few hours later, i am very glad to see fruitful dialog on the topic. I hope it continues. It's really good to hear the thoughts of others on this subject and i'm impressed by the amount of thought put into this by others and their experiences. This is what dialog is for and i appreciate it. The "circular logic" aspect, or the sort of "It's all relative" feeling is troubles me on some subjects where something gets defined as "fringe" and then a host of new sources enters the content through "parity" and then it's forever locked into a particular viewpoint which may be off from NPOV according to reliable sources by normal sourcing guidelines. I hope that it's apparent that this is not a "soapbox" but that i've asked legitimate questions and people have responded with legitimate answers. SageRad (talk) 21:26, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Sage, you are not using this as a sooapbox. It is a perfectly legitimate question to ask and you are to be applauded for raising it - I'm sure others wanted to raise the issue but did not because they were fearful of the expected lambasting from other editors.  It is apparent that the labeling of content as "fringe science" here on WP is contentious, and it would be a great advantage to the project if editors had better guidelines on what is and what is not "fringe". DrChrissy (talk) 21:36, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, it turned into a soapbox, but this is not your fault. This happens 100% of the time when you ask a question "about life, universe and everything", even if it is "perfectly legitimate". Staszek Lem (talk) 22:08, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

If you claim this is happening, you really will need to provide examples if you want to convince someone who doesn't already agree with you - extended general complaints lacking in any examples to support claims are unlikely to persuade - David Gerard (talk) 22:58, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Direct answers to original question
My answer is 42:
 * The standards are described in the guideline Fringe theories. Did you read it? If yes, the please use Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories to specify what exactly is missing and unclear
 * The process is standard in wikipedia: WP:CONSENSUS : if you cannot determine/agree whether it is a fringe theory yourself, post your question in the corresponding article talk page or at this Fringe theories/Noticeboard, if the question concerns several articles, and follow the procedures of dispute resolution. In other words, it is a "process" indeed not a standard algorithm. If in the "process" some standard decisions are identified, people will suggest updates for the policy, so that the "process" will be simplified in the future.
 * There are degrees ; some of them are mentioned in WP:FRINGE. If it becomes necessary, they will be added to the guideline.
 * re: "Whether or not a topic is categorized as "fringe" changes the sourcing policy within Wikipedia to a huge extent for the topic" -- no it does not change the sourcing policy, whichever policy you have in mind.
 * re: "i think it's absolutely crucial" -- who prevents you from making suggestions, then? That said, "I think" (read: "the policy sucks") is an insufficient argument to make moves with respect to our policies/guidelines. First, you have to have a specific proposal for the policy update. Second, if it is not outright evident, you have to provide a solid evidence that (a) there is a hole in the policy which had led to troubles many times and (b) your suggestion covers the hole, i.e., it will help to handle a similar trouble in the future.

"We may have a WP-Centric connotation of the term "fringe science"." -- Yes we have, and it corresponds to WP:FRINGE guideline. Just as the WP-Centric connotation of the term "vandal" corresponds to WP:VANDAL. What is your concern? And if someone uses the term "Fr sci" inappropriately, we have to educate people, in the same way as we warn people who write misjudged "rv vandalism" edit summaries. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:08, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * My concern here is that the way the term "fringe" is now used on WP is simply not clear. Even though we have WP:Fringe as a guideline, this is being interpreted in different, sometimes polarising, ways.  The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories is a prime example of this lack of agreement. DrChrissy (talk) 22:28, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories is the proper forum for the improvement of the guideline. But it sizzled. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:36, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And so the problem of different interpretations remains. This becomes particularly problematic, and even toxic, when more hostile editors label others as a "Fringe POV pusher" when they themselves are adopting an interpretation of "Fringe" that is not consistent with WP:Fringe. DrChrissy (talk) 22:44, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I wonder if this problem can be solved, or at least ameliorated, by considering the quantification of reliable sources in the subject area. First, let me quote WP:Fringe For example, fringe theories in science depart significantly from mainstream science and have little or no scientific support (my emphasis). We could therefore have the following labels for categories of alternative hypotheses.
 * Fringe = 0-10% of RS in the subject cover the alternative hypothesis
 * Minority hypothesis 11-40% of RS in the subject cover the alternative hypothesis
 * Alternative hypothesis 40-49% of RS in the subject cover the alternative hypothesis
 * DrChrissy (talk) 18:55, 16 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I can see astonishing difficulty in evaluation both the numerator and denominator of such a pseudo-quantification. Start from "What counts as a reliable source?" and "What counts as coverage?", and go down the rabbit hole from there.  (I'll leave aside the entirely arbitrary selection of the percentage cutoffs.  Wearing my "working research scientist" hat for a moment and speaking from personal experience, any hypothesis that isn't at least touched on as plausible in the majority of high-quality on-topic review articles is likely a long way out of the mainstream.)  In proposing such a definition, have you actually ever tried to apply it to any hypothesis in any field? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:51, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * First, reliable sources are already well defined here on WP. Second, coverage means the subject matter is the focus of the paper (easily identified by the title and/or keywords and/or abstract). Third, yes the cut-offs are completely arbitrary at this stage - I am putting up an idea up for discussion, not trying to write guidelines. In answer to your last question, yes, with my "working research scientist" hat on, we use such categorisation in animal behaviour all the time.  The cut-offs are arbitrary, but as long as they are reported correctly, other scientists can agree or disagree and move the discussion forward. DrChrissy (talk) 20:04, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * "First, reliable sources are already well defined here on WP." Bwah.  Ha.  Hahahahaha!  Bwhahahaha!  I appreciate your sense of humor; I haven't had the chance to laugh like that for a while.
 * "Second, coverage means the subject matter is the focus of the paper (easily identified by the title and/or keywords and/or abstract)." Ah, so all fringe theories actually score 100% by your measure, because the only papers which will focus on fringe theories are out on the fringe&mdash;mainstream papers will ignore the fringe concepts. Now, I know that (probably) isn't what you intended, but that's the hole you're going to fall into. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:25, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstand me. I am talking about alternative hypotheses in general.  I am suggesting that if only 0-10% of papers discuss a hypothesis, this could be labeled "fringe", however, there are many alternative hypotheses out there where they have much more support.  I am suggesting a way of labeling these and thereby drawing a distinction from fringe. If other RS absolutely do not discuss the hypothesis, then it is fringe - I quoted WP:Fringe above stating that, so I'm not sure what the problem is. DrChrissy (talk) 22:44, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Clarifying question, and an example about a minority view about earthquake precursors
I would like to ask a clarifying question. If some viewpoint is held by a minority, but it's clearly not "pseudoscientific", is it categorized as WP:FRINGE and covered by fringe policies such as WP:ONEWAY, WP:FALSEBALANCE & WP:PARITY? Is their notability determined only by the extent to which they have attracted criticism by mainstream sources? Or, not?


 * Statement If I may be permitted to climb on my soapbox for a moment, I do have an opinion about this. It seems to me that there is such a thing as a respectable minority position. That is, a position whose proponents are a small minority, but there is nothing obviously pseudo-scientific or pathological about the belief.


 * By "pseudo-scientific" I mean theories such as flat-earth or creationism. These theories have many modern proponents, but invariably the ultimate source of these beliefs is fundamentalist religion (a literal reading of the Old Testament, Koran or other ancient text) rather than adherence to the scientific method. By "pathological" I mean the pursuit of a theory according to the scientific method, but in the face of a severe lack of experimental evidence and/or apparent contradiction to well-known physical laws.


 * In every topic where there is passionate disagreement, it is going to be possible to find voices within the majority who think that the minority are crackpots, and there will be criticisms arguing that the minority are pseudo-scientific or pathological. But aside from such strident voices, it can be difficult to know exactly what the majority is really thinking. And, voices from the minority may in some cases vigorously defend themselves against charges that they are practicing pseudo-science or pathological science.


 * So my position is, first of all, we should be very clear that there is such a thing as a respectable minority position, and that WP:FRINGE policies are not written to deal with respectable minorities.


 * This means that editors need to be able to make a distinction between pseudo-science and pathological science (aka "crackpot") vs. respectable minorities. In making such a distinction, it should be permitted to look at mitigating factors.


 * If the alleged crackpots are publishing their work in respected peer-reviewed journals, that ought to be a mitigating factor against the idea that they are "Fringe". If there are voices within the majority that are arguing with the minority in a respectful fashion, again that ought to be a mitigating factor. And if the idea is simply not widely known (while meeting notability criteria) again that argues against classification as "Fringe" simply because the proponents are a small minority.


 * On the other hand, we might find that there are documents purporting to speak for the consensus, describing the minority clearly as pseudoscience. We might find that the proponents defend their positions using religious (or simply bigoted) arguments, rather than scientific arguments. And we might find that editors who are advocating for the ideas, are themselves acting like crackpots. In these cases the entire range of fringe policies should apply in force, IMO.


 * It is also possible to find situations where there is clearly big money involved, and tremendous political policy implications. The mainstream might be dominated by corporate interests, and scientists could be motivated by considerations aside from pure technical findings. When this sort of thing is going on, I feel it's often obvious that both sides are in fact manipulating the science to some degree to conform with political goals. Is it really necessary for Wikipedia to take one side or the other in these cases?


 * Our article about Fringe theories mentions a demarcation problem, that it can be difficult to tell the difference between theories that are simply crazy, and theories that might have merit, or might eventually even be accepted by a majority. Certainly I agree that there is a demarcation problem. But that doesn't mean we can avoid making editorial decisions. And if we have editorial policies that are often interpreted to mean that any minority position is automatically "Fringe", and policies that encourage editors to treat all "Fringe" as crackpot, is it any wonder that we have problems?


 * Another oft-stated policy is that Wikipedia is not a WP:BATTLEGROUND. A nice sentiment, but to me nothing could be further from the truth. Any debate about FRINGE has serious BLP implications: we are implying that the proponents of fringe ideas are indistinguishable from crackpots. That's potentially legally actionable talk. And if editors personally hold fringe views, policy debates blend into personal attacks.


 * And it's important what Wikipedia says, because so many people on the Net check Wikipedia first. (It's a measure of the success of the policies in general, that this is the case.) So, no minority viewpoint can afford to ignore what Wikipedia says. The success is a magnet for advocacy, and that makes Wiki a battleground. For evidence of that, look at all the activity on the block list, and all the effort that goes into sock puppet hunting.


 * If all minorities are treated as crackpots around here by policy, Wikipedia should at least make the policy clear about that. If that's the case, I won't waste my time editing here. My preference would be that the fringe (crackpot) policies be clearly delimited from policies applying to all minorities, and that the encyclopedia should be extremely careful about describing anybody as fringe, unless all the evidence is very clear to that effect. JerryRussell (talk) 18:22, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

One example I'm currently involved with is electromagnetic earthquake precursors. The proponents of the idea that EQ are preceded by EM signals are clearly scientists. They have faculty positions, and publish in respected peer reviewed journals. Some of them have been denounced for pseudoscientific practices by a few of their critics, while others have never been treated as anything other than reasonable people in any literature I can find. As to what the majority of seismologists, I think most would say that these efforts are futile in terms of their potential to yield a successful prediction method. But they generally don't deny that the science is at least partly correct, or plausible. So are these fringe scientists, or not? See Talk:Earthquake prediction for labyrinthine discussion. JerryRussell (talk) 22:05, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * There is a gray area between "fringe science" and "rejected hypothesis". In our case, judging from the brief scanning of Talk:Earthquake prediction, the topic of e/m precursors is discussed in by mainstream, therefore it is not fringe. Specifically referring to WP:FRINGE, it does not "have little or no scientific support." Staszek Lem (talk) 22:23, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That said, it does not matter that "scientific support" may be questioned. Scientists have right for an error. I read the term "scientific support" as "support provided by the scientific method". The crux here is that this support is falsifiable.  Staszek Lem (talk) 22:30, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean to make it a specific question about EQ precursors. I was using that as an example of a live debate I'm involved in. But the question is more general: if a topic can be judged to be a respectable minority position, does the policy WP:FRINGE apply, along with WP:ONEWAY, WP:FALSEBALANCE & WP:PARITY?


 * It seems like a classic very "minority view" as that is defined in NPOV; not quite FRINGE but almost. But here is the key thing -- looking at Earthquake prediction one is led to think that the most important prediction method is "Electromagnetic variations" - it is what has been given by far the most WEIGHT of all the prediction sections. This is of course wrong and is the product of squabbles among editors who have completely lost sight of the article and the mission of WP.  Probably the result of people POV pushing the minority view and mainstream editors pushing back.
 * The article fails NPOV by miles due to this skewedness.  If there is any "shame" for WP (discussed at the talk page of the article) it is that.
 * I also notice that the suite of articles around that is a mess - the "main" article cited in that section is Seismo-electromagnetics which is an undersourced stub (the "main" article should be way bigger, not way smaller, than the section dealing with it in a broader article) that also looks like the product of COI editing and which completely overlaps the more developed Seismoelectrical method article, and there is a separate huge article on VAN method. A mess.  The VAN group doesn't seem to have published any research applying their work for a long time; the last thing appears to be a book published in 2011 that appears to be more theory than application; if that is not accurate the VAN stuff is all outdated anyway.
 * If you are working on the article, the WEIGHT issue is what most urgently needs to be addressed. Jytdog (talk) 01:48, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Please allow me to partially disagree. First off, the lede clearly says the majority regards all this mo better than crystall ball. Second, the E/M section section is 90% criticsm, so a serious reader hardly concludes it is most important method. I do agree that the subject fails badly to wollow Summary style. Usually it happens when multiple editors add text into the first best article they see, not that they are particularly pushing their POV. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:18, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * While i hear you, the section is still entirely UNDUE weight. Is the controversy over EM the most important thing in the field?  I think not. Jytdog (talk) 02:41, 16 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Jytdog and Staszek Lem, thanks for taking a look at the article. I agree completely that the length of the EM section is undue. Also, there is a section on notable EQ predictions in which the VAN section is seriously out of proportion. As to the idea that the majority regards all this mo better than crystall ball, the entire article certainly is written to give that impression, but I'm not sure it's true. I can't say what a majority think, and I can't even claim to have read a wide cross-section of the literature. But what I see is a more nuanced position, that the various precursors may be correlated with earthquakes to some extent, but that nothing is so solid that it's useful for civil protection. There are definitely some arguing that the precursors are not correlated at all, and that EQ are inherently unpredictable. But my sense is that position is just as fringe-ish minority as the idea that EQ predictions are good enough to publish warnings in newspapers.


 * At EQ prediction, we have one editor (JJ) who pushes the position that EQ are inherently unpredictable (a position I suspect is actually fringe minority, though JJ claims it's consensus), while we have another editor (IP202) who is advocating for VAN, and believes that JJ is the extremist. I feel caught in the middle. Often it seems to be my vote that determines the article content, but I can't get any agreement to shorten the EM sections.


 * As to the article Seismo-electromagnetics, I had been thinking the other day that Wiki should have such an article, and discovered to my surprise that it already existed. None of us editing the page knew about it until day before yesterday, when I linked it in. JerryRussell (talk) 17:38, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm still not sure whether it's fringe or not. Staszek Lem says 'not fringe' because there is some scientific support. Jytdog says 'not quite fringe but almost'. Is that like being almost pregnant? The fringe guideline does clearly state that there is a spectrum of 'fringe' and I would call it 'questionable science' rather than 'pseudoscience', but how does that effect the application of the various guidelines such as WP:FRIND? All fringe ideas treated the same, regardless of where in the spectrum they fall? JerryRussell (talk) 20:50, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Bold suggestion: Rename/overhaul
I trired to re-read the discussion above and the policy itself, it comes to my mind that a good deal of confusion is the disparity of the policy title and its main point/nutshell: " To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea. "

It other words, it does not matter how we graded the views that differ from mainstream: what matters is that they are non-mainstream. Clearly, there is a continuous spectrum and some ideas may float within this range. (For example a bold mainstream hypothesis may become dubious in view of new data, but the proponent will jealously defend it. While he does decent science, it may be called "minority view", when he slips into adding unjustified assumptions, mainstream starts dismissing him altogether, thus shifting into "fringe" area; and at the extreme the proponent may even go full crackpot.)

Therefore I will suggest to rename the policy into Non-mainstream views (NB: not "theories") and focus more on the WP:DUE aspect, rather than on splitting hairs about the term, which is mostly pejorative indeed: I quickly browsed Google Books and most of them who refer to "fringe" actually focus on pseudo-science. In other words, we must focus on a reasonable classification/recognition of the degree of acceptance, rather on the degree of fringeness of a claim/view/theory, i.e., avoid sticking to label-sticking. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:19, 16 October 2016 (UTC)


 * From the perspective of a relatively new editor, I certainly agree that this policy / guideline area needs an overhaul. But, there really are topics that are pseudoscience / fringe. Like, for example, flat earth, creation science, and Time Cube. We need a policy to deal with those sorts of things, narrowly construed. JerryRussell (talk) 20:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The term "Pseudoscience" is rather well-defined and easy to deal with. We can have articles on notable pseudoscience, but no regular articles on, say, Earth or bird control can include anything pseudoscientific. We don't cite Time Cube in Greenwich Time article. And this is rather adequately covered already. If you think something is missing, please make specific suggestions. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:59, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I think we're both saying that the problem is, all sorts of minority theories are categorized as "Fringe", which is a pejorative, and then treated the same as pseudoscience. We have some policies like PARITY and ONEWAY that seem like they should be used only for pseudoscience, while WP:DUE is much more widely applicable. FALSEBALANCE is part of the NPOV policy, and seems pretty general and flexible; I think I classed it unfairly with PARITY and ONEWAY above. I think the proposal is to do away with the Fringe label, and use "non-mainstream" except when "pseudoscience" is clearly applicable. JerryRussell (talk) 22:11, 16 October 2016 (UTC)


 * What about simply renaming the board to "Fringe theories and pseudoscience"? &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:15, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * My suggestion was to avoid specific labels altogether, thus allowing the inclusion of not exactly fringe, but really minority/nonnotable views. In particular, quite often we see pieces of text like that " Profs A and B in a study of psychodermic response based on a sample of 68 volunteers concluded that psychos respond to skin stimuli slower than mainstream theories predicted." Of course we have WP:EXTRAORDINARY/WP:PRIMARY/WP:UNDUE, but why not cover it all neatly here, as applied to the specific case of something which is not mainstream (whether yet or already). Staszek Lem (talk) 21:29, 16 October 2016 (UTC)


 * if you start with the NPOV policy, and the discussion oF WEIGHT and of PSCI there, and the clear discussion of how you determine WEIGHT and what is UNDUE based on what (actually) reliable sources say together, you can see that the FRINGE guideline just complements the NPOV, and does so in a way that is pretty clear.   If you start with FRINGE and work backwards, it is much harder.  And we cannot legislate WP:CLUE; it does take an understanding to deploy FRINGE. Jytdog (talk) 00:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:CLUE redirect to a bot. I guess it was not your intention? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:11, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I see your point. However I don't want to "start" with FRINGE. Please re-read my suggestion. I said that the text of the guideline does not match its title. My suggestion is to rename the policy and make the explanatory part more general. Another option, which is possibly less drastic, is to start the guideline with the phrase which clarifies our language, something like, "In wikipedia parlance, a fringe theory/view/claim is broadly understood to be a theory/view/claim which gained very little or no support in mainstream science. These minority views may range from outright pseudoscience to novel bold ideas or new experimental results which did not enjoy a general acceptance or confirmation yet. While typically the term 'fringe' is used pejoratively, in Wikipedia we understand it literally: 'on the fringe of the mainstream knowledge' and therefore fringe views have little or no weight in general Wikipedia articles. " Staszek Lem (talk) 19:11, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oops, my bad. We already have something like this. "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field." However IMO it is misplaced into the section "Identifying fringe theories". IMO the definition must be at the very top of the lede. This will remove misunderstandings due to tl;dr right away. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:21, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Overhaul
I am still having an itch for an overhaul. This time I suggest to reshuffle the sections into a logical order. Right now the sections look like a random pile. For starters, I would like to rehash them all into three major supersections: Identifying, Sourcing, and Coverage :


 * Identifying fringe theories
 * Spectrum of fringe theories
 * Coverage in wikipedia
 * Notability
 * Notability versus acceptance
 * Evaluating and describing claims
 * Unwarranted promotion
 * Mentions in other articles
 * Treatment of living persons
 * Sourcing
 * Reliable sources
 * Sourcing and attribution (with its subsections)

To me this is a more logical sequence than the current TOC:

1		Identifying fringe theories 1.1	Spectrum of fringe theories 2	Reliable sources 3	Unwarranted promotion of fringe theories 4	Notability 5	Evaluating and describing claims 6	Notability versus acceptance 7	Sourcing and attribution (with subsections) 8	Treatment of living persons 9	Mentions in other articles

Opinions? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:44, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Initial response - Somebody very recently changed the redirect at WP:CLUE to the bot; it formerly went to Cluocracy and I just restored it. Thanks for pointing that out. Jytdog (talk) 20:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * More developed response... this is getting very concrete and doesn't belong here, but rather at WT:FRINGE (which is a guideline that fleshes out parts of NPOV, not a policy itself... just like WP:RS and WP:MEDRS flesh out parts of WP:V and help people actually implement policies including WP:OR, NPOV, and WP:N) Very happy to participate there - some of these suggestions are good in my view. Jytdog (talk) 20:21, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That the whole section does not belong here has already been mentioned by some of us form the very beginning. But it just drags on and on. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:08, 17 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Jytdog, Staszek Lem: I've copied this entire thread, from the beginning, to the WT:FRINGE page. I hope this was done appropriately? If not, somebody please revert me. JerryRussell (talk) 21:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Chemophobia
This article presents "chemophobia" as if it's a psychological phenomenon or diagnosable condition, whereas it is certainly not at all supported by any relevant psychology literature. Therefore it's pseudoscience promoted by a small group, sort of the very definition of "fringe", isn't it? This is not a thing described by "mainstream" psychology to my knowledge, only by very "fringy" sources. SageRad (talk) 12:19, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That misrepresents what the article actually says. Alexbrn (talk) 13:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Eh? The article pretty blatantly says it is *not* a psychological issue (per other phobia's like arachnaphobia, agoraphobia etc) but in general is used as a term for people who dont like/dont want to use chemicals. Not those who are psychologically unable to. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you saying there are no people who don't want to use chemicals because of scare stories and the article is bunk? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:37, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * There's really no problem. The article is crystal clear.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:19, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The article directly says it is a non-clinical condition, isn't it what you are trying to say with "This is not a thing ..."? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:37, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

More Problems at List of cryptids
Hey folks. I'd like to draw your attention to the ever problematic list of cryptids, specifically here on the talk page. There's a user there pushing that cryptid has entered general usage beyond the domain of cryptozoology. I see this as blatant WP:SYNTH and WP:OR as none of the "sources" provided are secondary and some may have been influenced by Wikipedia. On top of that, none of the provided "sources" make the claim that they're supposed to back—none are secondary. Given how such a problem this and related articles have been, I'd appreciate some extra eyes on this from users used to dealing with fringe and pseudoscience. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 00:00, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Jack Chick is dead
The (in)famous anti-Catholic bigot and purveyor of fringe conspiracy theories has passed over. His article is dreadfully unbalanced and supported almost exclusively by Chick affiliated sources. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:09, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that needs major cleanup, potentially a complete rewrite. I'll clean some of it up later. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:05, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This article is overwhelmingly coming from FRINGE sources and there are some editors on the talk page who do not see this as a problem. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No it is not "overwhelmingly coming" from FRINGE sources. And no I don't see the problem in saying e.g., that Chuck believes that Catholic Church created Islam (other than that this and other similar claims were written without proper referencing.) We have articles about crazier weirdos than that. If there are problems, why are not handling them yourself? In the talk page I asked you to indicate specific problems. As a reply I got a panic rant how bad the article and Chuck are.  Staszek Lem (talk) 23:43, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * At the time of my above post most of the article was sourced to Chick Publications which as I noted on the talk page cannot be seen as an RS source. That said, the article looks much improved. Referencing still leaves something to be desired but it is not as bad as it was and the FRINGE content has been removed. What articles we have on other "weirdos" is not my immediate concern, though I would hope we aren't relying too heavily on their own stuff for referencing.


 * Speaking of FRINGE theories, the Cubs seem to be living up to their curse :-( -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:20, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Chick Publications are a reliable source, for Jack Chick's views and biographical information (absent anything contradictory). Jack Chick's views on various religions have been self-expressed many many times. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:06, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The article appears balanced as of right now. I've read almost all the tracts; they are supposed to be funny. They're comics, according to a literal interpretation of what comics are. They're meant to be fictional stories that convey some message, in a way that Chick found humorous.
 * Not all of Chick's views are FRINGE; many are pure opinion, and a claim of material, factual accuracy is necessary for a view to be FRINGE. Religious concepts are neither testable nor falsifiable. Some situations where FRINGE does apply include Chick's opposition to evolution and his theories about Catholicism and Islam. The article does not presently make FRINGE claims. It only states what Chick's views were, without specifying any arguments Chick used to advance those views.
 * This would be a FRINGE claim: "Chick stated that the letters IHS on Catholic communion wafers stood for Isis, Horus and Seth." It would require "according to, the Christogram IHS is derived from IHΣΟΥΣ, the Greek spelling of Jesus ." The way the anti-Catholic views are handled in the article — balancing opinion with opinion — is, I think, the correct approach. Roches (talk) 00:39, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/7th Floor Group
Please weigh in at the AFD I just posted for 7th Floor Group. Thanks! —PermStrump ( talk )  02:24, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Are their any high-quality FRINGE biographies?
I'm looking for examples of best practice for BLP articles about a FRINGE promoter/practitioner. I don't think there are any WP:GA (I've looked many times), but I'd expect there are B-class ones. Anyone know of any or have suggestions on how to search for them? --Ronz (talk) 16:58, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Rupert Sheldrake, John Edward and Joseph Mercola are class B. Vani Hari, Alex Jones (radio host) and Deepak Chopra are class C. --Krelnik (talk) 17:24, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Aleister Crowley and Wilhelm Reich are GAs; the rest of the first dozen or so names that came to my mind were Bs and Cs.—Odysseus 1 4 7  9  01:18, 29 October 2016 (UTC) P.S. Jack Parsons is a FA.—01:25, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * To nitpick a bit, Ronz asked about BLPs - the L stands for Living. Crowley, Reich and Parsons are all dead. -- Krelnik (talk) 12:36, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should have read more carefully.—Odysseus 1 4 7  9  05:22, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * David Icke is living and listed as a GA. —PermStrump  ( talk )  12:43, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I resent the implication that the FACT we are ruled by a race of lizardpeople in human disguises is a FRINGE issue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:21, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * # Censorship. The most recent edit is funny. Someone had to remove an unsourced IP claim: "...though his theory that 'Jesus was made of ham' theory was most credible". —PermStrump  ( talk )  13:46, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You'll struggle to find this in the usual Wikipedia article rating scheme, as fans tend to splatter tags all over articles that are neutral, for obvious reasons. Guy (Help!) 14:19, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

2006 O'Hare International Airport UFO sighting
This was probably a case of mass hysteria and mistaking a low-lying lenticular cloud for a metal disk. There is no evidence beyond anecdote, but our article dutifully documents a number of breathless and baseless arguments about the dereliction of duty on the part of the FAA to investigate. Sources are woefully difficult to locate.

Thoughts?

jps (talk) 12:46, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't know how it's possible not to have photos of such a thing. I say redirect it to UFO Hunters or List of reported UFO sightings.- MrX 13:35, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Support the move/redirect proposal. Roches (talk) 21:55, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Hydrogen water stick
Hydrogen water stick just appeared on our doorstep. Apparently hydrogen water has medical benefits, much like the highly touted Magnetic water treatment. Is this something that is accepted by the medical science?- MrX 13:04, 2 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Check Molecular Hydrogen Foundation (probable fringe source) for an actually-valid discussion of the amount of hydrogen in natural water versus the amount of hydrogen in water at the saturation point with respect to hydrogen. It is possible for water to contain high amounts of hydrogen. The reaction of magnesium metal with water, on the other hand, is slow. I don't know how slow, but see this video: reaction of magnesium and water. The demonstrator heats a piece of magnesium in water with phenolphthalein indicator. Note how long it takes for hot water to turn pink, which happens at about pH 8.2. Therefore, the reaction claimed on the page would not take place to an appreciable extent at room temperature in the time required for water to pass through a filter, at least not enough to make the water alkaline.


 * The saturation point for hydrogen in water at 25 degrees Celsius is 0.78 mmol/L. This corresponds to about 19 mg of magnesium per litre of water, which is typical for the range found in tap water. So this contrivance won't hurt anyone. But I suspect it does not produce water with enough hydrogen to be beneficial even if it is true that hydrogen is beneficial.


 * Conclusion/tl;dr: Magnesium can be used to add hydrogen to water, but my opinion is that whoever developed this device did not critically evaluate their proposal with scientific rigor. The article provides no sources to support the notion the product actually does what it claims to do. So I would support an AfD nomination. Roches (talk) 21:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * All the sources failed WP:MEDRS, so I've boldly turned the article into a redirect to Magnetic water treatment. Alexbrn (talk) 21:56, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the detailed explanation and  for the bold edit. I'm not sure the article should be redirected to  Magnetic water treatment though. I only mentioned it as related because they both have water and pseudoscience in common. Maybe the article should be sent to AfD since it doesn't seem to be a notable subject, in addition to making claims that apparently violate WP:MEDRS.- MrX 22:08, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Wrong redirect: nothing magnetic. No need to keep nonsense here: even a redirect is undue promotion of snake oil. Perfect for db-G11, what I did. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Archaeology and the Book of Mormon
There's a discussion at Talk:Archaeology and the Book of Mormon which seems very relevant to fringe issues, as it is about the types of sources that can be used for a fringe article (or rather this specific article which of course is fringe). Doug Weller talk 14:10, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Before I go and look at this, does this in any fashion involve Silverberg? Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:24, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Template:Alternative medical systems
This template is being applied to a number of articles that deal with medical quackery. (Two examples... ) I don't want to cry foul over this but I also noticed (and reverted) the removal  of some see also links that might be seen by some as critical of medical quackery. Maybe I am just getting paranoid and looking for PROFRINGE under my bed, but I am not sure I am real comfortable with some of this. Other eyes and opinions would be welcome. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:40, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Update After looking at the See Also list for Quackery I found and removed a number of links that were already in the article or template above. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Discussion of Pseudoscience and Chiropracty at ANI
There is currently a discussion at ANI that may be relevant to the subject of this noticeboard. Interested editors can find that discussion here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That thread needs to be shut down for being a content dispute. But the (logically, if not realistically) final word has already been said there: Numerous RS's call it a pseudoscience. Therefore, we call it a pseudoscience. Where do we call it a pseudoscience? Well, right where we define it, which is the first sentence. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  23:55, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Question
I just tweaked the Template:Alternative medicine sidebar to clearly identify one of the sections as Fringe Medicine and Science. Do I have to go back and reload the template on every page it has been attached to? -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:50, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It will automatically update in a few hours. If you want to make it go faster you can WP:purge the pages, though that is mostly a waste of time. Carl Fredrik   💌 📧 16:55, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Excellent and thank you. I deifnitely have better things to do with my time. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:19, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Hypnosis is horrible
The article on hyponosis is a disgrace. Not once is the term alternative medicine mentioned, and barely at all is it mentioned that hypnosis is generally disproven. I don't even know where to start, but this needs to be purged, badly. Carl Fredrik  💌 📧 16:57, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * You probably want to take a stab at Hypnotherapy which is the medical application of 'Hypnosis'. Hypnosis is not 'alternative medicine'. It may be used as alternative medicine as part of Hypnotherapy, but be warned, hypnosis is far from being a cut and dried alternative medicine/fringe subject. There have been many many scientific studies into it over the years with varying results. It is very far from being 'generally disproven' (unlike the related neuro-linguistic programming). Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:16, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well parts of it are definitely disproven, the article doesn't explain this very well. Carl Fredrik   💌 📧 17:31, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

GAPS is back
In 2009 an article of the same name was deleted and in 2013 and article on GAPS Diet was merged to Specific carbohydrate diet on the basis this was non-notable quackery. Does anybody know if this has yet made the transition to being notable quackery? Alexbrn (talk) 13:21, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * And discussing it here User_talk:Doc_James Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I've sent it to AfD. Articles for deletion/Gut and psychology syndrome. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * In the longish comment on the AfD page I discussed how I was initially not convinced that deletion was the right way to go. What convinced me to vote for deletion was the message on 's talk page where it is clear that a draft article was moved into mainspace despite being declined. This does not respect the way the draft process works, and so the article should be deleted as there is already a consensus in draft space that the article is not ready for mainspace. Roches (talk) 21:11, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Also note Draft:Natasha Campbell-McBride. Alexbrn (talk) 03:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

David Melgueiro
Very poor article about a possible Arctic explorer who sailed from Japan to Portugal through the Arctic Ocean. Doug Weller talk 06:40, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The newspaper sources seem like the only good ones (and one of them didn't work), so it looks like it needs to be trimmed down to a stub. I'm not sure this is "fringe" per se, but it's certainly not a part of mainstream history. I couldn't turn up any English language web sources on him other than the WP article. But I've watched the page, and when I get home tonight, I'll do some work on it. The writing on the article is simply atrocious. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  18:14, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks like fringe. The Portuguese were expelled in 1639, no ships allowed to enter, so in 1660 he couldn't have been in Japan. I've added that and User:Staszek Lem did some trimming, etc. Doug Weller  talk 19:32, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Good point. I'm looking to see if there's anything more for me to do there, now. Probably not, but it can't hurt. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  00:29, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

João de Deus (medium)
Could use eyeballs. Jytdog (talk) 18:40, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Fulvic acid
The Fulvic Acid article promotes fulvic acid as a natural chelation therapy. Pure quackery, as far as I can tell.
 * Thanks for the heads up. A quick internet search confirms your suspicions. I have sent it to AfD. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:40, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile I pruned 90% of the article as irrelevant, unreferenced and not confirmed by sources cited, to make afd decisions easier. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:47, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:13, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories
There is currently an open RfC at Talk:Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories regarding whether certain claims made in the article regarding fringe theories can be neutrally described as false. All comments are appreciated.  Ergo Sum  03:40, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Why is that even an article? I don't see articles about other false rumors, like McCain's illegitimate black child, Bush paying for an underage girl's abortion, Trump running for president to increase Hillary's chances, witnesses against Bill Clinton dying mysteriously...  Prevalence  09:32, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Related discussion at RSN
Since the discussion involves what I would consider fringe sources, I believe it's appropriate to leave a note here:


 * Reliable_sources/Noticeboard

Thank you. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:47, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Frank Gaffney
Is it appropriate to describe Frank Gaffney as a "conspiracy theorist" or should we maintain the current consensus of describing him as a "proponent of conspiracy theories"? A discussion is active here. LavaBaron (talk) 02:29, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Cold Winters Theory
I'm fairly certain this is not a well respected theory of human evolution. Scaldwell17 (talk) 22:24, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * redirected it to race and intelligence. The latter article does not even have word "cold". I agree that the theory is fringe. It may be just as well that it does not belong to the R&I article at all per WP:UNDUE/WP:FRINGE. Therefore IMO it is better to AfD it. What do you think? Staszek Lem (talk) 23:05, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The theory is a creation of J. Philippe Rushton and it could be redirected to his biography as well. Rushton's work, and implicitly the "cold winter theory" of intelligence, is described both in his article and in the R&I article and either could be the target of redirection.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:37, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Not well respected among the media or scientists in general, no. No hereditarian model is. However, the point of Wikipedia is not to cover things that are generally well respected, but things that are notable. Wikipedia covers quite a lot of fringe science already that is almost unanimously rejected by the scientific community. As an example think of the recent claims by Bem et al., which are covered in the precognition article. As this article's creator, I thought it suitable that Wikipedia should cover a well known theory in this area. Note, this area concerns differences in cognitive ability between human populations, not human evolution in general for which this theory is not very well known (as noted above). As an example of the notability, consider the discussion (p. 443ff) of this model in Earl Hunt's 2010 textbook, the latest comprehensive textbook in this field (532 pp.). Earl Hunt is quite critical of this model and instead prefers Diamond's model. He refers to them both as just so stories given their speculativeness. Hunt himself published a paper back in 2006 criticizing the results put forward by Templer and Arikawa. As an alternative, I did consider putting this model under a person. The problem is that the model has been supported or positively discussed by a number of different authors over the years, making it difficult to place it under a single author. Rushton, Lynn, Arikawa, Templer, Hart, Jensen, Kanazawa and probably others. Thus, it seemed a bit difficult to place it under any of them. As Hunt remarks in his discussion, neither of these authors were the first to propose such a model, Herodotus was (p. 444). Should it be placed under him? That seems seriously misfitting. Thus, it seems to me that this model is notable enough to be included, and it is difficult to place under one particular person. I can think of two remaining options: 1) leave it where it is as a stand-alone article, and 2) add the content to the Race and Intelligence article. One could also consider the nations and intelligence article, but the model isn't really about nations, but about populations. Some nations happen to map fairly well to the populations that have been living there for some time, while in other cases (North America, Australia/New Zealand, South Africa), this isn't so. --Deleet (talk) 23:37, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Isolation Techniques (Individual)
A relatively new article, the current and previous contents of the talk page make it sound like a great deal of original research without regard to WP:FRINGE. I'm not sure what to do with it. Maybe AfD? --Ronz (talk) 01:12, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Definitely original research, but not WP:FRINGE. However the subject is valid. I am tagging it. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:27, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * By the way, there is a horrible Social isolation, which requires major cleanup and is actually a merge target. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:31, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Looking at author's contribs I have found an even worse article: Face (sociological concept) - a valid subject, but terribly neglected article. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:27, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I put it up for AFD yesterday: Articles_for_deletion/Isolation_Techniques_(Individual). I today explored the idea of a merge to Social isolation but it is not credible. I have drafted new User:Penbat/Isolation to facilitate abuse which is actually an important topic, salvaging some material from Isolation Techniques (Individual) and adding new material. Isolation Techniques (Individual) now just needs binning.--Penbat (talk) 20:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Myron Ebell
We need a lot more eyes on this article, both BLP-savvy and FRINGE-savvy. The subject is the President-elect's choice to handle transition at EPA, and is an activist opposing efforts to combat man-caused climate change. He denies that it's a real problem. Conversation on the talk page wasn't exemplary to start with, but it's degenerating further. I've just reverted one partisan's significant changes to the article and I expect that to heat things up further, although I explained my reasons, which I believe to be policy-compliant, in my edit summary and on the talk page. Your assistance would be most welcome. David in DC (talk) 22:33, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It's covered by 3 sets of discretionary sanctions - American politics, climate change and BLP. It is now subject to 1RR and consensus required to reinstate material, and I've added an edit notice to the article that is visible when it is edited, and a notice at the top of the talk page. This of course applies to everyone. Doug Weller  talk 11:04, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. David in DC (talk) 15:45, 18 November 2016 (UTC)


 * No thanks for keeping that hit piece in the line. The words "moron" and "jackass" are still on the talkpage, in the meanwhile we got as well the likes of killer, crazy, lunatic fringe criminal and of cause various versions of denialist. Charles Manson has a less biased article. Technically, will say climate sensitivity range wise, even Ebell is most probably within the IPCC range. That said, fringe is - again - part of a political smear campaign. Polentarion Talk 18:04, 18 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear, the "moron" and "jackass" comments were over a decade old. They are now archived. I didn't see any similar comments that were made recently. Manul ~ talk 11:11, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, while on the specific point of climate sensitivity Ebell might be within the IPCC range, numerous sources show he claims that global warming isn't a problem, is a Good Thing, or more fossil fuel consumption is the best answer. As a layman repeatedly quoted or interviewed as an "alternative view" to science, he is clearly fringe, a leading figure in a political smear campaign against scientists. . . dave souza, talk 12:17, 20 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I doubt you have a genuine scientific base for your point, but use said press clippings for the assessement of fringe. The IPCC CS range itself well includes positions as Ebells, the very term of climate sensitivity was invented to do so and the actual range never changed for decades. (see e.g. doi: 10.1177/030631298028002004). A CS of about 1,5 is quite sufficient to be much more at ease. For the GWPF sceptical assessement, see Judith Curry on Lewis and Croke. I would therefore assume that range as well for Ebell. Polentarion Talk 00:07, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Polentarion, an April 1998 Social Studies of Science paper isn't a good basis for defining the current consensus, Judith Curry's blog isn't a reliable source for anything, and the Global Warming Policy Foundation is just another climate change denial think tank. Neither mention Ebell, so your synthesis doesn't even have that foundation. Multiple good sources cited in the article show that Ebell promotes climate change denial, by definition a fringe position. . dave souza, talk 17:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * My rather generic point is that any serious skeptic, (Ebell of cause included) is within the IPCC CS range and of cause as well within the famous 97 percent of science consensus. And the Social science paper of 1998 conclusions are still valid, the range of CS hasn't changed (the recent values point to the lower edge, Curry has a say there in the real world). That said, the consensus is useless: No climate scientist is able or qualified to adress the prevailing political questions and priority issues. Ebell has been working on with those in the states, and now in a leading position. I am not at all in line with all of his standpoints, but I have read them and I take them serious. If just dismiss them as unscientific or fringe and try to ignore them in WP, you fail to cover aspects of the real world. WP deserves better. Polentarion Talk 17:58, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * "No climate scientist is able or qualified to adress [sic] the prevailing political questions and priority issues." What?  Are you saying that politicians, who are addressing the concerns of their constituents (mostly the coal and oil companies), and couldn't care less about the environment, are more qualified on these issues than climate scientists?  If you think that nothing has changed in climate science since 1998, you are as delusional as the climate denier politicians.  WP should certainly include their position, as long as it explains why it has nothing to do with science and everything to do with money.  DoctorJoeE  review transgressions/ talk to me!  22:00, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * A certain Mr. Lincoln once said that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth". Still valid, and has not been changed to neither "government of science, by scientists" nor "government of money, by money." Thank God. My point was about priority issues - no climate scientist has a clue or is to decide wether certain policies are more effective or which country should skip its fossil fuels first or wether other (regional) issues are more important than climate change. That is to be done by governments, an I, as a German, highly prefer elected ones. The 1998 paper is about the role of climate sensitivity both for the academic and the policy realm. The focal point is about the Climate sensitivity range never be changing for decades. It had not changed till then - and never did ever since, the main conclusions about the socio-political role of CS are in so far still valid. That is less about an Exxon cabal but about actual policy problems. The article is currently a sort of biased hit piece against Mr. Ebell. The way an actual political controversy is being reduced here to "its either us, the science, or the paid shills" reminds me of Bush junior of axis of evil fame. You won't be able to solve the actual controversy by downgrading an BLP article to a propaganda outlet. Wikipedia won't win on credibility either. Polentarion Talk 21:11, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Gunnar Heinsohn
IP, in the name of fixing a POV problem, has inserted claims that the criticisms of mainstream scholars have been refuted by the subject himself and other Velikovskians. See the IPs comments on the talk page. 'Refuted' of course means disproved, and that's nonsense. Doug Weller talk 10:56, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I've reverted them and replied on talk. Bishonen &#124; talk 13:03, 13 November 2016 (UTC).

"Nonsense"? No, the material was cited on the talk page, before Dougweller blanked it. Both Dougweller Bishoned have blanked material from the article, material from the discussion page and/or "citation needed" tags, referring to how they ar e"not needed", and repeatedly making disparaging remarks about Heinsohn. Clearly Dougweller and Bishonen are NOT going for a "neutral point of view", as they have blanked relevant material, and stated that the article "doesn't need" to be improved, while simultaneously blanking material placed on the discussion page that can be used to improve article, and give it more of a neutral point of view.
 * No, it's nonsense, whoever you are, since you didn't sign your post. Read WP:POV. DoctorJoeE  review transgressions/ talk to me!  15:20, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Almost 800 words of copyright material even on a talk page isn't acceptable. I've cut it to about 240, which is. Neither User:Bishonen or I have said it didn't need improving, although I did say that the IP had slightly improved it. I've also removed some unsourced material which the IP fact tagged because I'm pretty convinced you can't say that most mainstream historians were critical of Heinsohn as virtually all of them have simply ignored him. Love the bit where the IP wrote that the article is "something one would expect from some sort of fascist dictatorship". Doug Weller  talk 15:31, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, considering both you and Bishonen blank material, and push "pov", one would think so. Likewise, DoctorJoeE simply dismissing something as "No, it's nonsense", without anything more speaks volumes. How is "No, it's nonsense" NOT "pov"? And even if it WAS simply "nonsense", shouldn't Wikipedia STILL portray a neutral, balanced viewpoint where both sides are presented fairly, rather than multiple criticisms, blanket comments about "Heinsohn's problems" and "almost all professional historians", and constant blanking of anything to the contrary?
 * Bizarre. I removed "but is generally being rejected by mainstream historians." and "These critiques have been ignored by Heinsohn. Because of the problems with his methodology almost all professional ancient historians, Egyptologists, Assyriologists, archaeologists, and specialists in scientific dating methods reject Heinsohn's claims." but the IP restored both claims, sourcing the first one for some odd reason to works by Heinsohn, which I'd also removed. Even more oddly, the IP's rationale was "reinstated citation needed tags. If they can't be verified, then these comments should be deleted." I'm not keen to revert again right now. It is possible that the 6 sources, mainly Heinsohn pdfs and not properly referenced (take a look at the mess) were meant to source Heinsohn and not the statement that they now source, but even so they're OTT. And "neutral, balanced viewpoint" probably means something different to the IP than it does here. Doug Weller  talk 19:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Rather bizarre, I agree. A biography article would deal with his life and activities. The article is a pretext to present Heinsssons publications, starting with the chronology (which is achronological, since he started relatively late in the Volokovsky / Illig realm). While I (see Ebell) fully agree with a quick walkthrough presenting the positions of a person, this is way too much at Heinsson's entry, not in line with his actual biography and scholarly career. Btw, Heinsson is an emeritus now, and his institute ceased to exist. That said, another case for WP:BLP and a complete rework of the article. Polentarion Talk 06:39, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

User:Markshaw
a prolific author whose subjects include various fringe conspiracy theories recently added some overtly self promotional and PROFRINGE material to Dorothy Kilgallen which I reverted. After which I took a look at their contrib history and discovered that every single edit made by this account was also self promotional and/or PROFRINGE. Many had already been removed and I took care of the other ones I found. Additionally I stubbed the author's Wikipedia article which was almost completely unsourced and promotional. As of right now I don't think any additional action is required but it might be helpful if other eyes occasionally took a glance at this one's editing. I left a caution on their talk page about using Wikipedia for self promotion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:59, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think you might want to take this to ANI. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  00:25, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
 * If there is any more trouble that will be my next stop. I am one of those people who believes that ANI should not be the first stop with a problem editor unless there is something that just requires immediate attention. But yeah, I won't put up with any more of this. He has been warned twice on his talk page, once here and once on an admin's talk page. That's enough. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:27, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I am one of those people who believes that ANI should not be the first stop with a problem editor unless there is something that just requires immediate attention. I suppose I have to agree with that, given the de facto use of ANI as a "request for sanctions" forum. I wish it were more of an "incidents requiring admin assistance with" forum, which is how I've tried to use it a few times, to no avail. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  01:00, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I saw that latest attempt, and was a little disappointed with the response; I do think worth trying again, should circumstances arise, fwiw. -Roxy the dog. bark 01:34, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It's a shame, to be sure. But to be fair, admins have talk pages that can be used for that. I wasn't locked out of getting an admin's assistance so much as locked out of using that particular venue for it. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  02:28, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Jovan Hutton Pulitzer
I'm not surprised to see this has arrived. It's extremely promotional, badly written, possibly needs stubbing and starting again. There's an archaeology Facebook page that has discussed his work quite a bit as well as other sites, etg [ - Andy White's probably the expert on the sword. [[User:Doug Weller| Doug Weller ]] talk 19:49, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Article assessed and tagged. John Carter (talk) 20:31, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * and stubbed. I don't see any way to salvage what was there. Mangoe (talk) 21:22, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * and now deleted. John Carter (talk) 22:44, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

and back at Oak Island
This has become something of a run-on and jumbled mess and needs to be made to look like it wasn't hacked at by several dozen random editors. Mangoe (talk) 21:43, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * "Jumbled mess" strikes me as being waaay too kind of a description of this. If given a few days, I can try to find a good travel guide or other reference work to Nova Scotia which covers the topic, and maybe use that as an indicator of what our content should have and how much weight to give it. Or, alternately, if anyone else wanted to do that first, they are of course free to do so. John Carter (talk) 21:51, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow, this is real WP:RANDY stuff. I removed it. Guy (Help!) 00:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Questions regarding Deism
Anyone interested is more than welcome to take part in the discussion at Talk:Deism regarding the amount of weight given to contemporary deism in our main deism article. John Carter (talk) 20:58, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Blacorum
The article, during the process for deletion, was edited and changed (but still not renamed to Bulaqs) topic from a refuted theory to extinct Turkic tribe Bulaqs. The information about the theory was reduced because it is not the main topic and had undue weight. In the current revision the section "Confusion with Vlachs" still uses the most text space. The theory, supported by few Hungarian scholars (6 of them, of which 5 died between 1915-2000), was never endorsed and accepted by the scholarship, not even in Hungary (according to editor Borsoka in the [https://books.google.hr/books/about/Korai_magyar_történeti_lexikon.html?id=W9dnAAAAMAAJ Korai magyar történeti lexicon (9-14. század)] [Enncyclopedia of the Early History of the Hungarians (9th-14h Centuries)], ISBN 963-05-6722-9, 1994, is concluded that further evidence is needed to substantiate the theory). According to modern scholars and sources (2000-2009) by Alexandru Madgearu, István Vásáry and Victor Spinei, there's no etymological, historical or archaeological indication and evidence (even explanation for further issues it rise) by which is supported, every argument speaks againts it, being an "abortive attempt that cannot be proved". However, even after tiresome discussions in the talk page, some editors still can't accept and understand the reality of both WP:NPOV (and WP:WEIGHT) as well the theory. Thus it resulted with somekind of edit-war by which very related and important information is constantly removed, while added redundant information about the theory, or even etymology of the Vlachs name which is totally out of scope.

Is the current revision neutral enough? Should more information about the refuted and minor theory be re-added to the article? Whether more information should be summarized?--Crovata (talk) 17:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Jacob Barnett
More eyes on fringe physicist Jacob Barnett would be appreciated. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:31, 1 December 2016 (UTC)


 * There is a confusion about the proper application of WP:PSCI and WP:FRINGE/PS that could use some clarifying at the discussion page. Is claiming to have disproven relativity theory in a YouTube video (the primary reason the subject is notable) appropriately characterized as pseudoscience?  Please opine at Talk:Jacob Barnet.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 15:36, 1 December 2016 (UTC)


 * It's borderline. I remember watching the kid and having a similar reaction that Scott had. Smart kid, should be encouraged. The over-the-top-i-tude is more-or-less the media's fault. I don't even really blame his mother as she, admittedly, was not able to evaluate what he was saying. jps (talk) 17:52, 2 December 2016 (UTC)


 * For reference, this version is the one that mentions the pseudoscientific view, and in this version, the views are just labelled as "false". Both were reverted by editor User:Viewfinder.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 16:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm inclined to think that we shouldn't go out of our way to label here as we are talking about a BLP. Much of Barnett's actual exposition is perfectly fine. Some of his speculations and calculations are incorrect, but that's hardly encyclopedic. Lots of people have ideas that don't turn out correct and it would be unfortunate to trumpet someone as a pseudoscientist on the basis of their fanciful exploration of mathematics at the young age of 12. jps (talk) 17:52, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:Articles_for_deletion/Erika_Schwartz_(2nd_nomination)
AfD on a doctor who specializes in Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and seems to have enjoyed media coverage based on promotional activity associated with the release of her books, rather than coverage of her as a person. Further input required. Delta13C (talk) 08:03, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Barry Sears and the Zone diet
I noticed there was some coatracking about the Zone diet (a.n.other fad diet) at Barry Sears, but wonder - if the unsourced and self-sourced content is stripped away - whether Sears in fact merits a standalone article? May need eyes in any case. Alexbrn (talk) 08:41, 1 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Starts by saying it doesn't work, as it should. Overall I think having a separate article about the person behind this does more good than harm. I think it should stay. Roches (talk) 05:48, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Lövheim cube of emotion
This looks fringe-y to me, not least because most of the substantive content is source to papers authored by Lövheim. What do people think? Guy (Help!) 00:14, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit out of my depth here and can't really help. However I have taken the liberty of dropping a note on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science. Maybe someone who passes CIR can chime in. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:30, 4 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Can not talk about the article subject, but the editing pattern is somewhat suspicious, with a article about a proposed theory from 2012 created in 2012 by a editor that made few more edits. That looks like someone found a theory they liked (or created) and got to advertising it. On the other hand, there are later references from 2015 and 2016 (which I did NOT checked) of this being used. Still looks pretty thin to me. - Nabla (talk) 10:04, 4 December 2016 (UTC) PS: I passed on your request to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cognitive science.

According to Web of Science, the Lovheim 2012 article has been cited just 19 times. (For comparison, Plutchik 1980, which the WP article suggests is comparable, as been cited 163 times.) The journal Medical Hypotheses is reputable but not very influential; WoS puts its impact in the 4th quartile. I would conclude that this is not a crackpot theory, but neither is it influential or especially notable. Cnilep (talk) 01:24, 5 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree, it is not fringe (or at least, not any more fringe than most of cognitive so-called "science", but that's a different kettle of fish).  Sławomir Biały  (talk) 15:24, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Biocentric universe
This has been discussed here twice before:
 * Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_39 in Dec 2013
 * Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_51 just this August

Is almost entirely sourced to a book and articles by the originators and the reception is WP:GEVAL, citing praise from Chopra cited to a press release, etc. Jytdog (talk) 00:31, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * This looks to me like one of the better instances we have out there of what might be called purely conjectural "theoretical physics." A similar case, I suppose, might be the subject of religious views of specific and general evolution. Basically, what do we call an idea which at this point has no evidence one way or another to support or oppose it, and how to we make that clear? Might there be some way to group together all these topics, which propose ideas which are not yet examinable, in some sort of specific grouping? At least some of them might, I suppose, maybe be found to have some sort of basis if and when we ever get to the point of developing ways to examine them, but, in a lot of cases, on many sides, I tend to think that a lot of these arguments are, basically, just examples of changing one discredited point with one which can't yet be examined, and thus basically keeping a possibly discredited idea alive by obfuscation. John Carter (talk) 17:15, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Might this basically be considered something along the lines of a thought experiment, and, if so, might describing it as such be useful? John Carter (talk) 17:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

It's overhyped speculation, basically. I don't understand what it's doing in Wikipedia. It doesn't seem to have received independent evaluation notwithstanding the peculiar media attention it has garnered. I think the media's obsession with novelty often means they end up promoting WP:FRINGE way beyond their actual notability within the scholarly community that matters. This is such an example. jps (talk)

I think it's time we had this discussion in the context of our current hardline with regards to identifying notable ideas in articlespace: Articles for deletion/Biocentric universe (2nd nomination). I expect a lively discussion. jps (talk) 19:54, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * the folks who love chopra love this stuff - the whole wooly headed What the Bleep Do We Know!? crowd that wants to gussy up their spirituality with scienciness. Jytdog (talk) 21:39, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * This does seem to me to maybe be a case of "shifting goalposts" in a sense for some variation on the anthropic principle. As a matter of philosophy, maybe, that position might well merit more than one article, but I think it might be best to if possible have someone review the state of academic opinion on that topic area before spinning out too many articles on variations on that theme. John Carter (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Linda and Terry Jamison
Bloated and really awful. Much WP:OR used to support the twins predictions. And tons of puffery sourced to Youtube videos and fringe websites. Needs chopping. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The "Biography" section, which seems to me to be unduly late in the article, doesn't look too bad to me. Maybe move that up to the top, add a short section on some of their predictions, if there are sources for them, and short sections on books and/or media appearances thereafter? John Carter (talk) 22:13, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I've tried to remove some of the worst crap, some of which reeks of cut-and-paste from press releases or TV listings. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  00:02, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I tried to clean it up, but so much of it was sourced to YouTube vids, their own book and other unreliabel sources, and so much of it was folksy "they moved to X without a penny to their name" guff that I concluded this is a WP:TNT job and sent it to WP:CSD. Guy (Help!) 00:16, 29 November 2016 (UTC)


 * That CSD was sorta overblown, deleting the pic as well. Point is, they actually work as psychics, so do not claim the job doesnt exist. The WP:category exists and is applicable ;) Someone may design as well horoscopes or do Tarot readings, and make a living out of it, even if you assume foretelling is not possible. I like John Carter's approach. Polentarion Talk 05:09, 29 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I want their Book and Filmography section back. They have appeared on all the listed programs. I don't believe it's all crap either! They make a living out of acting, appearances and their predictions. I will take suggestions on how to add back. Maybe add the a section 'Appearances in the media'. If I don't hear anything it's going back the way it was. Thisandthem (talk) 09:38, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * They may have appeared on all the listed programs but WP is not a resume, nor a vehicle for promotion and puffery. And we cannot accept TV guide listings and WP:SENSATIONal tabloid coverage as citations. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:28, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * In general, to include material about media appearances, some sort of source indpendent of the production itself and the individuals who appear in it discussing those appearances is generally wanted for their inclusion. And if the apparent threat made by is acted upon, and the removed material is restored without any consensus from others as per WP:CONSENSUS, that restoration would probably be counted as a violation of WP:TE or WP:DE and potentially make the individual restoring that material subject to sanctions. John Carter (talk) 16:35, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I added some material to the lede regarding the accuracy of their predictions, which has since been removed from the lede. I note that the template I added regarding expanding the lede has also been removed, with the lede currently only two sentences long. I think both of those changes could be seen as problematic, but would prefer if someone else looked into it. John Carter (talk) 21:13, 5 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't think a short lead is a problem if the entire article itself is less than four paragraphs long. In the case of a big article, sure, you'd want the lead to cover the important points made in the body of the article. But given the shortness of this article, asking people to expand the lead so it summarizes the main points of the article would result in needless redundancy. As for mentioning the accuracy of their predictions in the lead, I see no problem with that. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Universal intelligence
I... don't know what to do with this article. It is a true mess of fringe nonsense.

jps (talk) 17:40, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * This styles itself as a spinoff from the article on Chiropractic, which is is not particularly long. I'd suggest a merge across - and drastic trimming along the way. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:16, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Articles for deletion/Universal intelligence. jps (talk) 11:56, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

OTRS again?
at Electromagnetic hypersensitivity Talk:Electromagnetic hypersensitivity,  is re-inserting WP:PROFRINGE content and invoking an OTRS ticket as a basis for it. May need eyes. Alexbrn (talk) 18:00, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * All I said is that, based on discussions with the editor via OTRS, that I believe their post on the talk page is a good faith attempt to discuss material. It was initially removed as "obvious sock puppet" without any link to a master or SPI. The editors there are free to engage with this editor or not. Open an SPI or not. My opinion begins and ends with the fact that I believe they made a good faith edit to the talk page. J bh  Talk  18:05, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The concern is the invocation of OTRS. How is that meant to bear usefully on the discussion given then non-OTRS folk have no access to it? Alexbrn (talk) 18:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The "invocation of OTRS" as you put it is simply a link to the "why" I think it was a good faith edit and not a sock as mentioned in the removal of the talk page section. I am not allowed to say anything about my discussions with people at OTRS unless they give me permission. I do not see why this is even a question for FTN - there were no edits to the article. I explained to the editor that did the initial removal, why I rv'd and, by looking at the ticket and OTRS agent can review the ticket and judge if my opinion and action was reasonable or not. If you do not want to discuss the material with the editor then ignore it and let it archive off of the page.  J bh  Talk  18:39, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The invocation of OTRS equates to saying "I have a secret reason why this is okay" - which is distinctly unhelpful and smells of trying to pull rank. With the history of OTRS volunteer over-reach we have seen here, this is troubling. Alexbrn (talk) 19:16, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, yes. That is precicely what it is. I had confidential information, provided via email to OTRS, that gave me reasonable cause to believe that it was a good faith talk page edit. That is how the system works. I made no representation about the content nor anything about the editor beyond my belief that there were not a sock of an unnamed and unidentified master. You are more than welcome to ask someone with access to the OTRS queue to review or to go over to meta, ask for OTRS access, sign the confidentiality agreement and read it yourself.  J bh  Talk  19:26, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I tend to think that we should let things go on talkpages. If the concern is that someone is going to mistake the comment for consensus, just put in a note indicating that the discussion has been had and the conclusions that came from that discussion aren't changed by that comment. jps (talk) 18:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That said, the loooong comment was pretty disruptive and arguably a violation of something like WP:FAKEARTICLE. I collapsed it with a note. jps (talk) 18:47, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. J bh  Talk  19:15, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Forgive me for not knowing what OTRS means. After a long period of quiescence, a fringe editor pops up, they are rejected and two brand new SPIs suddenly take up the challenge . So we have apparent sockpuppetry by a fringe editor. Forgive me for describing this as the bleedin' obvious, but can we deal with the actual editing issue here? has it right. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:01, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * OTRS is, essentially, Wikipedia's confidential public facing email based help system (it does other stuff too) . People who handle OTRS tickets are Wikipedia editors and volunteers. Even when people give us permission to acknowledge on-wiki that they have opened a ticket we are not permitted to discuss anything further about that ticket without their express permission. We provide the ticket number so other OTRS volunteers, who also have signed the confidentiality agreement, can review the matter if needed ex. an admin with OTRS access at SPI. J bh  Talk  19:15, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * >speechless< Have a nice day. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:34, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd have given him a polite dismissive reply. I know it's hard to get rid of cranks from OTRS tickets, but his attempt to change content is doomed and it's best to patiently explain that. I can't remember the canned reply, but I usually used to custom reply anyway. Guy (Help!) 14:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Eight-circuit model of consciousness
- I added a note that it was not advanced with scientific evidence, another editor keeps removing this and calling it a "hypothesis model". More eyes would probably be good - David Gerard (talk) 10:20, 7 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Leary proposed this exactly because he thought it was digressive and humorous. The whole point was for it not to be a "hypothesis". jps (talk) 11:45, 7 December 2016 (UTC)


 * If you can cite that, that would be excellent. I linked the archive.org copy of the book on the talk page - David Gerard (talk) 14:11, 7 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I tried to locate the talk where he made this point and failed. I'll keep trying though. jps (talk) 02:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

RS/N discussion of interest
Reliable_sources/Noticeboard

Please do not confuse the site with globalresearch.ca That said, I still contend that the website has problems that people who monitor this board might be able to comment upon.

jps (talk) 10:55, 30 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that this source is routinely used by the New York Times and other purveyors of "conspiracy theories".  And note that non-neutral notifications may be violations of WP:CANVASS. Collect (talk) 15:51, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Collect, you're being rude. If you think that this is non-neutral, explain how. I was clear what was my opinion and as it involves issues related to conspiracy theories, there are people who watch this noticeboard who might have expertise in how to address this question. jps (talk)
 * Your language is right above my comment. It appears to maybe, possibly, imply that the website "has problems" and I humbly suggest that the CANVASS rules imply that you should in no way present your own opinions in any notifications.  Your mileage appears to vary a great deal from mine. Collect (talk) 13:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The language in question doesn't imply anything; it clearly states that jps contends that it has problems. Also, nowhere in WP:CANVASS is it suggested that presenting one's own opinion when asking for outside opinions is to be avoided. Indeed, it's a pretty ridiculous suggestion, as anyone who is liable to be swayed can be just as easily swayed by the opinions at the original discussion. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  21:01, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing
An anonymous woo-monger and one proper editor want to change to describe it as a peer-reviewed medical journal. Given that one of the editors is Dean Radin, and the current issue pimps Chopralalia, Emotional Freedom Techniques and some utter wibble, I think this is a contentious description. Guy (Help!) 01:10, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * It's peer-reviewed in the sense that Elsevier requires it to follow the peer-review process, but the issue is that the editorial board only contains believers in alternative medicine (I just went through the entire list), and so they are using editorial discretion as a means to bypass the typical process that would accompany a normal journal. Obscure trade journals such as this are a dime-a-dozen and I think that the sole mention by Gorski doesn't qualify this journal as being at all notable. Delete perhaps?


 * I also will be calling Elsevier about this on Monday. It's an interesting case, indeed. jps (talk) 16:12, 10 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Also, let's have a more reasonable discussion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing (2nd nomination). The last one had a lot of people claiming the journal passed WP:NJournal simply because it was indexed(!) and published by Elsevier(!). That's not what the criteria actually are for notable journals! jps (talk) 16:19, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

RF resonant cavity thruster
We've have edit-warring for a while on the RF resonant cavity thruster (aka emdrive), the perpetual-motion machine machine that can ostensibly produce reactionless thrust in a vacuum, recently tested by the NASA Eagleworks lab; it would be good to have additional eyes on it. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 00:18, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The major problem is that proponents are seizing on every positive finding and crowbarring it into the article. Wikipedia has never been good with breaking stories, it will be years before this is finally settled one way or the other (if it ever is, there are still people who swear blind that cold fusion is a thing). Guy (Help!) 09:38, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

David Seaman (journalist)
IP editors have been adding or re-adding a substantial amount of unreliable or promotional commentatory, including fringe-promotional content, to this article (which is currently at AfD, see Articles for deletion/David Seaman (journalist)). The article subject, an Internet blogger who apparently promotes various political conspiracy theories, apparently made a three-minute "call to arms" style about his article and its proposed deletion, broadcasting it to his followers.

The latest IP addition is text describing Seaman as "investigating" Pizzagate (conspiracy theory). IP editors also keep adding/re-adding unreliable sources ("Zero Hedge," "Morning News USA," an op-ed in a campus newspaper, etc.).

More eyeballs and hands are needed. Neutralitytalk 01:44, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Geez this Pizzagate thing is a headache. Add this article and the Pizzagate article to your watchlist and grab some popcorn. Sigh. --Krelnik (talk) 17:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
 * An update: this article was deleted today, read the finalized discussion here. I should expect his followers to try to recreate it. --Krelnik (talk) 12:31, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Whitewashing in film
Article uses American tabloid/clickbait websites as "reliable sources" to call Cleopatra a non-white (an anachronistic tag anyway). This is against general academic consensus that Cleopatra was from a heavily inbred Greek family, and also plays into the fringe Afrocentric theories of Egypt and the Jews, per the sources.

The sources to include Cleopatra are not academic, they are four American tabloids making clickbait lists.

First: Huffington Post using evidence cited from the Daily Mail, a notorious British tabloid http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1095043/Sorry-Liz-THIS-real-face-Cleopatra.html

Second: Complex calls Cleopatra a "woman of color", a phrase which didn't exist 100 years ago never mind 2,000 years ago. Probable echoing of Afrocentric meme http://uk.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/04/25-minority-characters-that-hollywood-whitewashed/cleopatra

Third: US News: "The British-American actress (she had dual citizenship) doesn't look even remotely Egyptian or North African. " Not an argument, Cleopatra was Greek. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/06/12/white-actors-portraying-people-of-color-in-hollywood

Fourth: Madame Noire. An ethnocentric website claiming that both the Egyptians and Hebrews were black, both of which are discredited fringe theories. http://madamenoire.com/496138/cast-non-blacks-in-black-roles/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.18.9.247
 * Not sure what is wrong... but this thread is interfering with the Mobile view of the page... the other discussions (below) are not showing up when this page is viewed in Mobile view. Blueboar (talk) 20:18, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * OK... I removed the hat that was applied to the thread, and that seems to have resolved the issue. Mobile view is working again. Blueboar (talk) 20:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I think we have been through this before a few times - there are some conflicting issues.
 * Cleopatra has been criticised/discussed often as an example of 'whitewashing' in film, due to the casting of Taylor (a white woman) in a role that many felt should have been a North African/Black role role.
 * The basis for this criticism/discussion is completely wrong as any half-decent Eqyptian scholar (as well as the Egyptians themselves) know that Cleopatra was of significantly pure/inbred/limited Greek racial stock and in no way resembled the 'black' African race that the fringe want to claim Cleopatra should have been.
 * There are few sources that address both issues due to scholars not wasting time refuting rubbish.
 * So we end up with 'yes there are sources that Cleopatra is an example of Whitewashing', 'yes there are sources that state unequivacably that Cleopatra not black/african' and nothing to link the two. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:56, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * "Cleopatra was black", if that's what the article is saying, is the least of its problems. It's come up before, but I think the article is terminally broken. There are probably a lot more "reliable sources" claiming that Iron Man 3 was white-washed, but that missed the point that casting an Asian actor to play a "traditional" Mandarin character would have been much worse. The simple fact is that any source that calls the either of these films white-washed is, even if it generally meets the criteria laid out in WP:RS, unreliable for the specific claim that the films are white-washed because it gets the relevant facts wrong and ignores context. It's quite common in modern American popular culture to claim that "the pharaohs were black, and have historically been whitewashed", but that misses the point that "the pharaohs" were not a single homogeneous dynasty reigning unbroken for thousands of years. Cleopatra was descended from Greek or Macedonian immigrants, so anyone claiming that a film is an example of "white-washing" because she is portrayed by a white actress is almost certainly doing so because of ignorance of the specific historical context in which she lived. (Living in Ireland at the time, I remember people ridiculing Oliver Stone's Alexander because the lead and several of those around him sounded like they were from north Dublin, but it never would have occurred to me that the main problem with the film was that Alexander and his generals were actually supposed to be black.)
 * "Cleopatra was black" doesn't even really qualify as a fringe theory. It's just an inaccurate claim found in some sources written by people who aren't really interested in the historical Cleopatra so much as modern American films, so this thread more properly belongs on RSN than here.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 04:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * There is an enormous history debating Cleopatra being portrayed as white. Google Books shows even more pertinent results when one searches for Cleopatra and whitewashing. Instead of pretending that there has never been a debate about the film, the listing should be expanded with the proper in-text attributions. These are films that have been criticized for whitewashing. The criticism should be included, and the counter-criticism should also be included. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 13:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

NJournal
I made a change to the descriptions of how to evaluate criteria for academic journal notability. Previously, the guideline stated that simply being indexed by certain selective indexing services as well as merely having an impact factor was enough to establish notability. Wow! That's simply ridiculous. However, I expect some pushback from those who would like to see their pet journals written about at Wikipedia. So if you have some ideas about this opinion of mine, please offer them.
 * WP:NJournal
 * Wikipedia talk:Notability (academic journals)

Here is the diff.

jps (talk) 16:46, 10 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Things are going poorly. I think that the essay is unsalvageable because the gatekeepers don't seem to understand why it's a problem to simply declare that the existence of an impact factor is what makes a journal notable. As such Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Notability_(academic_journals). jps (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Things are going poorly indeed. There's a little bit more to this discussion than WoKrKmFK3lwz8BKvaB94 indicates here (I mean, this post on my talk page, this AfD for an article that was kept just a month ago, and this attempt to modify NJournals to obtain their desired outcome in said AfD. As for the IF thing: about 10,000 journals have been selected for inclusion in the Journal Citation Reports, out of an estimated 80,000 to 200,000 existing academic journals. Seems rather selective to me. --Randykitty (talk) 08:48, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * what are the criteria for inclusion in JCR? Might the mere fact that Elsevier publish it have an influence on that inclusion? &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:00, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Inclusion in JCR is automatic for journals included in one of the three main citation indexes of Thomson Reuters (Science Citation Index, Social SCI, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index), so the question becomes what the criteria for those three indexes are. Those criteria are multiple (is the journal cited regularly by reputable other journals, is the editorial board diverse geographically and composed of specialists in the area, are those specialists themselves well cited, etc). The criteria are more explicitly listed on the TR website (see here). Being published by Elsevier is certainly not an immediate pass. For example, I recently was at a conference and was informed that Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences had been rejected by Thomson Reuters for inclusion in their citation indexes. --Randykitty (talk) 11:44, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I just looked through TR and I can find no Elsevier Journal that is more than five years old that is not indexed. This in spite of the fact that many of these journals are not close to what we would consider reliable sources. Longevity is enough for TR, seriously. There is no evidence that they actually try to evaluate whether the editorial board is broad enough to promote proper peer review. In the case of Explore, we know that this is plainly not the case. jps (talk) 12:17, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Of course it is because it's published by Elsevier. But we have WP:Randy in Boise here to explain to us how he knows best. Hooray! jps (talk) 11:37, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the disagreement boils down to how one sees WP, as a summary of accepted knowledge or as a repository of information. I favour the former view, and find it hard to see how it is possible to summarize accepted knowledge about this journal, because none exists AFAICS in the kinds of source WP needs. Alexbrn (talk) 11:41, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * We are not DMOZ. I think that WP:RS has to be respected. Being indexed and having an impact factor is enough to have an article on Wikipedia according to people using this essay to argue about the notability of journals. This is a wide open door for fringe journals to be advertised. If I didn't know any better, I would think that this was the work of people hoping to promote their obscure, fringe journals here in Wikipedia. I couldn't design a better campaign to do this, myself. jps (talk) 12:13, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I find it really unfortunate that many AfD discussions hinge on counting things like ghits and indices, rather than addressing the question of whether the subject warrants an encyclopedia article. This is not just a problem with journals.  I've also seen it in biographical articles of academics.  Researchers in fringe areas are able to game the system, and inflate their own google citation numbers.  Here is a particularly over the top example.  Commentators in AfD discussions can then unthinkingly present evidence like "Keep. h-index of 30."  While indices are certainly a useful indicator of notability, I strongly object to their use as prima facie evidence of notability.  I'm guessing the same is true for fringe journals, whose indices are buoyed mostly by self-citations.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 14:43, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think we have to bear in mind that 99% of academic journals are perfectly worthy, ultra-cautious and boring. We should not skew discussion of notability or reliability just because of a handful of what I would call pseudo-journals. I don't normally see citation index as the main way of distinguishing real journals from pseudo ones. The first thing I look at is whether it is published by one of the mainstream publishers like Taylor & Francis or Sage. If not, that's a red light. Then the institutional affiliations of the editors. Usually you see a whole lot of people who are obviously distinguished experts, even if it's a really obscure field. Most normal journals are minor ones, but that is only a problem when an article is used to make claims beyond what it can support. For example if a journal of nursing education reported from a small survey of student nurses their opinions of obesity. That could be perfectly fine to cite as research on opinions of obesity but is obviously no use at all on the causes of obesity. We see that kind of misuse a lot. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:25, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I very much doubt that 99% of academic journals are perfectly worthy (in their field), if we count by number. If we count by readers or "copies sold" (electronically) or something similar, then probably. Either way, we have no way of knowing, which is the big problem. Tigraan Click here to contact me 19:20, 15 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, I have been against the current criteria and their application; in particular, I think Scopus should not be considered selective enough to keep a journal.
 * This being said, Itsmejudith is spot on. As I see it, our Sacred Mission as Repository of the Sum of Human Knowledge (sound the trumpets) means our criteria for inclusion should be much less stringent for hard science than for (e.g.) celebrity scandals. The point of WP:GNG is to have an objective criterion to use to decide whether something is part of the Sum of Human Knowledge; it makes sense to decide that arid technical work that 99.999% of the world population has never heard of is still something the collective mind of humans knows and values, because "well-known" is not the same as "widely-known". There are already convoluted additions to GNG (e.g. WP:PERSISTENCE) for the other end of the spectrum, so it is not shocking in itself to have a separate evaluation of notability for technical topics, as long as it is objective and reliable.
 * While indexes and other metrics are only a presumption of notability, can be manipulated etc. etc. 99% of the time they will be the only data available online when the article reaches AfD. The current state of things, where NJOURNAL is an essay but with tremendous weight, looks good to me - being an essay avoids the "sacred cow" status guidelines tend to reach where not a single comma will ever be changed even in the face of problems, while it has objective criteria that are enforced consistently and are the least worse objective criteria available.
 * For the record, while I tend to think the JCR is enough, I strongly disagree with Randykitty's reasoning above (about 10,000 journals have been selected (...) out of an estimated 80,000 to 200,000 existing academic journals. Seems rather selective to me.) - selectivity is not about trimming down by a certain percentage, it is about having criteria that guarantee some threshold of noteworthiness/quality, no matter whether 99.99%, 50% or 0.01% of examined subjects eventually pass. If 99% of journals are demonstrably publishing whatever unreviewed crap authors pay them to, then the JCR is not selective enough to use it as a notability indicator. If 99% of journals are about niche topics but well-reviewed, then the JCR is more than selective enough. Tigraan Click here to contact me 13:11, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Template:Alternative medicine sidebar edit war
There is an edit war going over what appears to be an effort to water down some of the language in the template. Extra eyes are requested. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I have opened a discussion on the talk page. Input from other interested editors would be much appreciated. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:15, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Nicolae Ceaușescu and the word "regime"
An editor believes that the use of the term "regime" in this article is a problem. So this editor has, by their own admission, removed 19 of 20 instances of this term being used in the article. I would appreciate some feedback and direction on this issue. Below are both the user's edit and explanation left on my talk page, which I subsequently moved to the user's talk page.

Edit: 

Explanation: 

Discussion moved here: 

I will alert the editor of this discussion. Thanks. X4n6 (talk) 10:06, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for notification. I am strapped up for time at the moment but I am watching this and I will endeavour to provide a response as quickly as possible (hopefully next 48 hours). I appreciate everyone's patience. In the meantime, please all feel free to remark. --OJ (talk) 10:28, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
 * P.S. If I can provide a link to some former discussions (that may save me from repeating monologues): Talk:Apostrof, mentioned once, One discussion I hoped to launch but didn't attract much interest. As I stated, I will be back but now I need to go SHOPPING with my wife to buy presents for all the children....as will thousands of others! --OJ (talk) 10:51, 17 December 2016 (UTC)


 * May I suggest that the first place to initiate a discussion should be Talk:Nicolae Ceausescu rather than the fringe theories noticeboard? Since discussion has begun here, I will also opine here, but do not object if someone decides to move this thread to the article talk page.  A Google scholar search [for "Ceausescu regime" returns over 2000 hits, compared to fewer than 200 for "Ceausescu government" (which includes the possessive form "Ceausescu's government").  Google books shows a similar 10 to 1 prevalence of "regime" over "government".  It seems that regime is the most widely used term for the government apparatus under Ceausescu.  Therefore, I think it is appropriate for Wikipedia to use this term as well.  Maintaining a neutral point of view, particularly in cases like this, means using similar language to reliable sources, rather than injecting our own editorial preference for or against the word "regime".  Concerns about specific uses of the word in context can be discussed at the article discussion page.  [[User:Sławomir Biały| Sławomir Biały ]] (talk) 12:07, 17 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I placed the discussion here, because, as you may have read in the links I provided, the editor had remarked that his prior attempts to "raise this subject in the past" had "attracted very little feedback." So I placed it here to try to increase that feedback. X4n6 (talk) 12:47, 17 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi . This looks like a content dispute which is outside the scope of this board. Also I am not seeing any discussion of this on the talk page which is where it should be addressed and should also have been the first stop in trying to resolve the disagreement. I would suggest opening a discussion there and then posting a neutral request for input from experienced editors on the following Wikipedia projects... WP:POLITICS, WP:SOCIALISM, WP:ROMANIA, and WP:HISTORY. In the meantime I am going to close this discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:35, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi . Thanks for your well-intentioned input, but the closure, within less than 12 hours, was premature. This is not a content dispute, it's a content inquiry, regarding an editor's fringe theory. If you noticed above, you'll see I also addressed the editor's previous attempts to address his concerns on the article's talk page. So let's give the editor and any others, a fair opportunity to respond here, then I'll close it myself in a day or two, or you can non-admin close again. But I want to give the editor every opportunity to feel that his concerns were being given the broadest possible hearing, so any consensus will be clear. Thanks. X4n6 (talk) 03:28, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Off-topic here; close was good. Alexbrn (talk) 03:34, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I respectfully disagree and believe that your understanding of the term "fringe theory" is not consistent with that used at WP:FRINGE. Specifically see WP:FRINGE/PS which lists the sort of things we tend to deal with. Political stuff is not normally addressed on this board. That said, you are certainly entitled to ask for a second opinion on my close rational, and while I remain convinced it is outside the remit of this forum no harm is being caused by keeping it open until someone else chimes in. Best regards... -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:36, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * , I had advised the editor that I felt his edits violated WP:PROFRINGE. He disagreed. So I brought the matter here. But as you and others have said this is the wrong board, I'm happy to defer. Please feel free to close here again and I won't object. I'll just leave it to others to find a way to impress upon the editor that his defense of the Ceaușescu years - and his anti-Western bias in general - is not advanced by trying to excise the term "regime" virtually anywhere within the article that it appears. Please excuse the disruption. Cheers. X4n6 (talk) 03:47, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * On the face of it, it's a terminology dispute, rather than one about "fringe theories". Maybe NPOVN could deal with it? There are some sensitivities in the community about misapplication of the FRINGE guidelines, so it is probably sensible to be quite strict about how it is applied. Alexbrn (talk) 04:07, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * (Alexbrn you keep beating me to it!) If you believe that there is some kind of WP:BIAS or WP:AGENDA involved you can always take the issue to the NPOV Noticeboard for their consideration. But please try to assume good faith even, and perhaps especially when your disagreement runs deep. Thank you for your very friendly response to this and I appreciate your contributions to the project. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:12, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh
One of the worst of the "List of reportedly haunted locations in..." articles. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:52, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That is really bad. I was going to pull one example from it but the entire thing is written like a paranormal travel guide. —DIY Editor (talk) 02:35, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
 * We might need to completely rewrite it. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:07, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Regarding "paranormal travel guide"s, I wonder if maybe we might contact wikivoyage and see if they think at least some of the material might be more appropriate there. John Carter (talk) 17:10, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The user who created this article is making a version which is just a bigger WP:FRINGE violation, see here. I left a message on his talk page. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:21, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Regarding this article, I just only copied the contents from its source article List of reportedly haunted locations, because I want to make that article shorter. But if it appears to violate Wikipedia's policy of Fringe Theories (and even Reliable Sources), I may suggest the following options: complete rewriting, removing source citations that are blogs etc, or a complete deletion of this article. if deletion is the consensus, I would agree. Regarding my sandbox, I created it because I want to sort all entries of this article via provinces. During the creation of this sandbox, I came up across a website that lists numerous places in PH reportedly haunted. I included them all in the sandbox. However, I did not realize that what I did to the sandbox would might make matters even more worse. I would need much help, because I don't know how to summarize it. But I'm considering the possibility of deleting this sandbox by myself, and suggesting the feasibility of province-sorted format on the article's talk page instead. If deleting this sandbox is the consensus, I would agree, but I would need help on how to delete it (or if I would make a request to administrators for a speedy deletion of the sandbox). JWilz12345 (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm leaning towards deletion here. I don't think any of the listed "hauntings" are independently notable and the list appears to violate PROFRINGE. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:09, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I might need the result of the discussion to determine if my sandbox constitutes a serious violation of Wikipedia's policies, and if so, I would consider a request for an urgent and irreversible speedy deletion.JWilz12345 (talk) 04:16, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It needs to be phrased as to reflect that the reports are not verified facts. This article and your sandbox aren't the only examples of haunted locations lists. —DIY Editor (talk) 04:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is anything especially urgent here. Let's get some more input and if there is a consensus we can either send the list to AfD or just treat it as an uncontroversial deletion via PROD. I doubt your sandbox poses an urgent threat. If you wanted to, you can always just blank it. It is your sandbox. Also it is not in the mainspace so I really don't see the need to get too worked up. As for the other lists we can look at those on a case by case basis. Not everything that's fringey is non-notable. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should've made it clear that I didn't think the content topic itself was inappropriate for an article. It just needs careful rewrites to have the proper tone. —DIY Editor (talk) 06:18, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I created the article List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh (which was taken from the article List of reportedly haunted locations, without adept knowledge of Wikipedia's Fringe Theories policy), because I thought it was appropriate and would not cause some trouble. It was because another article, Ghosts in Bengali culture (which I once visited and browsed), also lists those essentially same locations, on same tone and style, and same reference sources, that was why I though my new article "List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh" would comply WP's standards.JWilz12345 (talk) 12:04, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I've cleaned the "mother article" Ghosts in Bengali culture of unsourced material and everything cited to blogspot blogs, YouTube videos, fringe sites, etc. as well as dramatic and credulous descriptions...and have been reverted by an IP - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I reverted the IP. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 13:56, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that is an account devoted entirely to introducing credulous descriptions of the supernatural in similar articles. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I have finally made up my mind: I'll accept deletion of this article List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh or it be merged into the article Ghosts in Bengali culture. As for my sandbox, I'll rewrite it meticulously - to the extent of my ability and capacity.JWilz12345 (talk) 04:30, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I've finally decided. I've replaced "Template:Notability" at the article List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh with "Template:Merge", to be merged to Ghosts in Bengali culture. i've provided the discussion space at Talk:List of reportedly haunted locations in Bangladesh. Everyone, including those users involved in this discussion, is welcome at the talk page.JWilz12345 (talk) 11:20, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Neal D. Barnard
Got a fresh account removing critical material etc. Could use more eyes. Alexbrn (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Definitely could use more eyes. Attempting to remove low-quality sources. This biography is currently not balanced or in agreement with Wikipedia's Biographies of Living Persons Policies, which states that "the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all." Eventualism does not apply to biographies.ReinaPohl (talk) 17:52, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Radio Frequency skin tightening
... looks wooish to me, but what do I know? Roxy the dog. bark 18:10, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * What makes you think so? TylerDurden8823 (talk) 19:04, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I suspect the process induces a mild microwave burn and "microwave skin tightening" is not something people would flock to a clinic for. Note how the article doesn't say what frequency or power is used, just "radio frequency." As a start, I removed the irrelevant radio spectrum template and stated on the talk page that the article must include the frequencies used, and it requires reliable sources for the "side effects" section. Roches (talk) 01:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Those seem like very reasonable changes and suggestions. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 02:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Microwaves would penetrate too deep imo. I think it uses high frequency alternating current, also used in electrosurgery (100 kHz to 5 MHz). The (appropriately named) skin effect would limit the penetration depth. Prevalence  06:47, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Near-death experience
Am working on cleaning this up and unsurprisingly being met with advocates. More eyes would be useful. Jytdog (talk) 03:05, 14 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Always feels good to be told via edit comment that an edit which removes a false equivalence between science and tabloid journalism is "not neutral": . jps (talk) 09:48, 15 December 2016 (UTC)


 * More eyes for what? Youre being met with advocates for near death experience?  I didnt see anything on the talk page. - 55378008a (talk) 09:33, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Dental amalgam controversy | false balance?
Looking at this I'm surprised to see the whole article lede couched in a on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand manner. Is there really a serious dispute about the safety of dental amalgam, or is this a big WP:GEVAL problem? Alexbrn (talk) 15:35, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Short answer, there isn't a serious dispute regarding the science, but it is commonplace on Teh Internetz. Quack dentists offer treatments, at great profit to themselves I assume. a certain 'Health Danger' and many like him, re-inforce what appears to me to be a meme repeated over and again, and traction has been gained for it. Aargh. In my experience in the backwoods of illness specific forums, you will always find somebody who cured themselves of the incurable by having the amalgam replaced, and they get believed by people who are desperate, ffs. Do I need to mention Thimersol? Tis the same thing. As regards our article, I started to get angry when I read some of the history there, so I've taken a break. Roxy the dog. bark 16:13, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Some of the lede seems to me truly strange, like the material from the WHO. That, in particular, doesn't seem to be about dental amalgams per se, but the processing of them, which is a different matter entirely. Agree with Roxy that this seems to be another of the rather run of the mill "lets bilk the bozos for some big, or mid-size, bucks by trying to scare them into doing something unnecessarily, but profitable, for us." Also think that at the very least the material about the WHO should probably be stricken from the lede as it seems to me to be not a controversy about dental amalgam per se, but rather hazardous waste processing. That material might be more directly relevant to some article on hazardous waste processing or mercury poisoning. John Carter (talk) 20:41, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep, I would vote for removing most or all of that paragraph. DoctorJoeE  review transgressions/ talk to me!  21:26, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with removing the WHO data. It should also be noted that the dental amalgam issue is a First World issue, but the WHO's observations are global. It is likely that much of the mercury from dental offices is in developing countries where the cheapest filling (amalgam) is more likely the filling of choice. Also, dental offices in developing countries would be less likely to use amalgam separators; the sentence about separators makes the allusion that dental offices use much more of the world's mercury supply than they appear to, and this may not be true.
 * Strictly speaking, while the controversy is exactly analogous to thimerosal, they are chemically different. Thimerosal is an organomercury compound given in trivial doses, while amalgam is a type of alloy, a mixture of two metals. Elemental mercury as found in amalgam is less toxic (see mercury poisoning) than organic or positively charged mercury. Roches (talk) 10:01, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It is well you should point out the indisputable truth that one sort of mercury should be more or less 'toxic' than another. Heres another: no one has an 80 billion dollar specfrometer, much less do they make one small enough to stick in your mouth, to check what sort has been used, or more commonly nowadays Im sure, the insurance has been billed for.  I'm also pretty sure no one is going to coat an unidentified substance with gold just to see if it has mercury.  Doesnt most gold have mercury anyway, because, well, mining? Admittedly, if the fillings dont get you, the older girl with the oreo will. Incidentally, being shamed for 'not drying between your fingers' is not going to help, or solve the problem. - 55378008a (talk) 09:39, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Climate change denial
A new user,, seems to want to change denier to skeptic in articles, without discussion. left a warning but can others look at this too please? Guy (Help!) 09:37, 14 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Seems to be a (in some cases, relatively, admittedly) new trend of users with no user page so they appear redlinked, maybe to make you think they dont exist anymore but then theyre talk and contrib pages are still active. Heres another one: Chuntuk (talk).  Me, I went the other route and went ahead and blew off the 'thou shalt not put a giant picture of a spider in a web on your user page' commandment that you have to scroll around forever before you find the spider.  Just want to say thanks, whoever took that picture.  I presume you made sure the lizard was ok?  Well done.  I'm sure in Australia you just ring round 002 for lizard rescue or something? I notice another, and this is creeping in at the BBC too, and thats putting the punctuation outside the quotes.  Anyone know if this is some more chicago style but, like with the starting sentences with conjunctions?  I see also goigle is insisting perniciously its pleaded and not pled, even though no ones ever pleaded out. Incidentally (not sure this is enough to start a new section) looks like what we got us here is a denier that children (or even us humans generally, less peripherally, cats) want to do what they see on television. I'll check out Mr. Danger for you, hope hes not the type that believes global warming is caused by democrats. Sheesh, then where would we be. - 55378008a (talk) 09:22, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Nothing sinister about not having a user page, I just didn't have anything I wanted to put on one. I still don't, but my username should now be blue. Chuntuk (talk) 11:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Sure enough. Turns out we have a guideline in MOS:LQ: "If the quotation is a single word or fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside." I always thought the user page was created automagically, so I must have just subconsciously assumed anyone that didn't have one had a direct line to the dark arts, at the very least.  How wrong I was. - 55378008a (talk) 12:11, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents. Sigh. jps (talk) 12:38, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Indridi Indridason
The icelandic medium Indridi Indridason is very pro sympathetic in favour of the medium. I have seen the wikipedia article favourably cited on paranormal websites to argue the medium was genuine and never caught in fraud. Most of the articles source is a favourable biography co-written in 1997 by a parapsychologist Loftur Reimer Gissurarson who has defended the medium in several other publications. The article seems to have fringe issues. Let me know what should be done with it?

A concerned user (talk) 22:42, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the article points in the direction of reporting (both pro and con) the existence of an historical person and surrounding facts and controversies. I don't read it in the manner stated, but I can understand how readers might make the inference.  We can't control the minds of our readers.  7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 17:56, 20 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The article treats reports of supposed levitation, dematerialization, contact with the dead, etc. credulously. The majority of the article is cited to the text of Icelandic Spiritualism: Mediumship and Modernity in Iceland, which a reviewer notes "is an important addition to both Icelandic studies and religious scholarship – as long as it is read with a skeptical eye and a critical mind". Clearly this advice has been ignored. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:26, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I've made initial edits to the article in order to bring it into line with WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:10, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Dorothy Kilgallen (again)
There is currently a discussion on the talk page concerning whether or not to add the recent book by Mark Shaw to the bibliography and whether or not it is PROFRINGE. Input from interested editors is kindly requested. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:37, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Christ myth theory may heat up
The ''Wash. Post'' has pulled a Newsweek and published this article by Raphael Lataster on the 18th: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/18/did-historical-jesus-exist-the-traditional-evidence-doesnt-hold-up/?tid=sm_fb Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up.] Keep an eye out. Mangoe (talk) 13:42, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Red Square Nebula Explanation
Could someone who's better than me at talking down well-intentioned but persistent pushers of fringe theories take a look at Articles for deletion/Red Square Nebula Explanation and try to talk the editor in question down? I really don't want to even consider blocking him—this is clearly someone well-intentioned who thinks they have a duty to spread The Truth that the sun is actually powered by electricity and this fact is being covered up by people who have vested interests in perpetuating a misguided belief in fusion reactions—but I can tell he's going to be persistent, and I can feel myself beginning to lose my temper so had probably better withdraw. ‑ Iridescent 21:53, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Motherboard has an article on this theory. Might be worth a read for anyone else who's never heard of this before. Definitely fits the definition of fringe. clpo13(talk) 22:38, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Fifty bucks says this ends up at ANI before all is said and done. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  22:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I watchlist a lot of stuff that appears on this noticeboard, but this is out of my league and insane. Sorry. Roxy the dog. bark 00:38, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I immediately thought of this when I read your comment. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  01:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Laughter at bedtime. Cant go wrong. Roxy the dog. bark 01:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That editor is not long for this world, I should think - they've already drawn a temporary block this week, and they keep edit warring and threatening people. They're clearly here to right great wrongs, never a good idea. --Krelnik (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, this editor will probably get to ANI eventually, as MjolnirPants said. After the article inevitably gets deleted, he'll probably keep ranting about The Truth, and get blocked. ThePlatypusofDoom    (talk)  Happy Holidays 16:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I left him a message. It's probably pointless, but I'd rather see him willingly stop editing, instead of being forced to block him. ThePlatypusofDoom    (talk)  Happy Holidays 16:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * And he's edit-warring on the Red Square Nebula page. ThePlatypusofDoom    (talk)  Happy Holidays 14:50, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Alex Jones (radio host)
Maybe it's some sort of reaction against increased scrutiny on fake news sites have been getting in the public eye recently, but I've been noticing more editors (and some of them not just drive-by IPs but editors who have been here for years but avoided these kinds of topics) trying to argue that Alex Jones isn't a conspiracy theorist and that InfoWars isn't a fake news site because... it's only mainstream sources that say so, he disagrees; or it's "only" the cited sources. Some have also tried saying "oh, we just need to attribute it," when we have US News and World Report and a different news article citing a communications professor supporting the description of the site as a fake news site.

Has WP:RS recently changed so that US News and World Report is unreliable, but InfoWars is? Ian.thomson (talk) 11:44, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think some of these are probably good faith editors who have noticed all the attention that "fake news" sites have gotten lately. Perhaps they feel that some readers would easily brush off the label "conspiracy theory" site but find "fake news" more malicious in nature? If so then they probably believe they are helping warn folks off of Jones. Just a thought. --Krelnik (talk) 12:28, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not that. There are users who are trying to get rid of the conspiracy theorist label, and there are users who are trying to get rid of the fake news label. Sources support both labels.  Meant to say or it's "only" the cited sources' opinions, sorry. Ian.thomson (talk) 12:31, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah ok, I didn't dig deep into the history. Added Jones to my watchlist though. --Krelnik (talk) 12:34, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that failed attempts to whitewash topics labeled as conspiracy theories are often followed by attempts to change the conspiracy theory article to be more favorable to conspiracy theories. Which is why Conspiracy theory should be on everyone's watchlist. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:34, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I added conspiracy theory to my list. We could also use extras eyes on Snopes.com.-- Jim in Georgia  Contribs  Talk  02:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Somatic experiencing
Needs cleanup per PSCI. oy Jytdog (talk) 00:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

RfC at Template talk:Alternative medicine sidebar
There is an RfC at Template talk:Alternative medicine sidebar concerning the use of the term pseudomedicine. Interested editors are encouraged to join the discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting. One editor has been trying for nearly two months to remove this term. Guy (Help!) 01:44, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Is "psuedomedicine" as a term used enough to be featured like this? I thought quackery was a more common term of art. jps (talk) 12:35, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think quackery refers to the practice of it, rather than the thing-in-itself. It's a tricky area partly because the proponents seem to want to keep the terminology in flux ("integrative" is currently popular). Finding a neutral wording is quite hard. There was lots of argument at (e.g.) List of ineffective cancer treatments until it settled on being List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments. So maybe we should be calling this "Unproven and disproven medicine". Personally I quite like "Bogus medicine" but I can't see that flying. Alexbrn (talk) 12:46, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * My personal preference of 'List of things to waste your last money and time on' is sadly not going to gain acceptance. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:08, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * . Guy (Help!) 16:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, it seems that user:Clean Copy is formerly user:Hgilbert, a Waldorf teacher and proponent of homeopathy. That explains the visceral hatred of the scientific consensus on alternative medicine, I guess. Guy (Help!) 01:26, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

psych-woo-cology: Limbic resonance
please see above; needs cleanup. Jytdog (talk) 03:53, 19 December 2016 (UTC)


 * See above where? All the stuff I thought was here is gone, so I'll put this here:  I would say it seems like the concept of banning wikilurkers who revert legitimate material without a notice of objection and some time to comply from editing this particular article should be given some serious attention.  That is to say editors monopolizing this particular article to the exclusion of all other contributions seems to be a much larger concern than I had considered possible.  Specifically, I made the mistake of adding a link to semaphore because I thought readers might like to consider it as an alternative to the borderline illegal 'mother-child bonding-communication' referenced heavily in the article and boy did they ever come unglued. Apparently suddenly everything I've ever done in my life is a travesty and no they're not going to have the decency to tell me why they waited until now to tell me. 55378008a (talk) 16:22, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Abraham Bolden
Looks like a coatrack for Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories. Thoughts? -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:37, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Going through the page history it looks like made a mighty effort to weed out some of the worst stuff. Perhaps this is as good as we are likely to get it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:53, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Brain fingerprinting


Brain fingerprinting is a technique invented by Lawrence Farwell. It is not accepted for use in court, as far as I can tell. The article has substantial input fomr a number of WP:SPAs notably those listed above, all of which suggest that they are, or are associated with, the inventor.

The article cites 33 references. Of these, over half are primary sources written by Farwell, or are hosted on his website.

Bluntly, this article reads as blatant advertising. I am fairly sure it is an unrecognised and questionable technique. You could not tell that from the article. Guy (Help!) 18:37, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * You say bluntly, I say kindly. This is just another example of the rank pseudoscience of polygraphy, but it is only promoted by a single snake oil salesperson so seems to have flown under our radar. Unfortunately, law enforcement has a history of being duped by polygraphy schemes, and it appears that there are instances where this has happened (even making its way into being admitted in courtroom evidence). This is actually a really difficult case for WP:FRINGE to handle. I see some noise on the talkpage of people who have argued that they can help, but it looks like not much has been done. SMH jps (talk) 19:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree. I have stubbed it and redirected Lawrence Farwell to this article, as there is only one subject and both articles had the same problems. Guy (Help!) 19:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Guy said: "Everything I do or say could be wrong. I try always to be open to that possibility. If you think I am wrong, please just talk to me nicely, and it can all be sorted out like grown-ups."

I'll take you up on that. I am. I appreciate your commitment to valid, proven science and to accurate information. I hope that after checking the facts more thoroughly you will realize that I have the same commitment, as do the other major authors of scientific articles on brain fingerprinting.

You said: "Bluntly, this article reads as blatant advertising. I am fairly sure it is an unrecognised and questionable technique." These are two separate and independent statements. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the first statement is true, or as true as a subjective opinion can be. That does not mean that the conclusion you are "fairly sure" of in the second statement is true. I think that when you look more closely and comprehensively at the demonstrable facts, you will reach a different conclusion, or at least be open to equal representation for a different point of view.

Please consider the following facts. The most definitive and comprehensive peer-reviewed scientific articles on brain fingerprinting are on five studies conducted at the FBI, the CIA, the US Navy, and elsewhere. These are reported in 2013 and 2014 in two excellent and well-respected peer-reviewed journals.

Brain fingerprinting is also described in the Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences.

The editors of these scientific journals and the encyclopedia found the brain fingerprinting science worthy of publication. The whole purpose of the peer-review process is to distinguish between valid science and an "unproven" or "unrecognised and questionable technique." The editors of these journals and encyclopedia reached the opposite conclusion from the one you are "pretty sure" of. I respectfully submit that they are more qualified than you are to make that decision. They are also more qualified than the reporter you quoted. (Incidentally, of the hundreds of lay articles published on brain fingerprinting, only a handful are negative. You chose one of these to quote.)

If somehow the editors of these three prestigious and authoritative publications had been mistaken, scientists would have undoubtedly pointed it out by now. No scientist in any peer-reviewed publication has found any fault with the science of brain fingerprinting published in these articles.

I respectfully submit that your conclusion that brain fingerprinting science is "unproven" and "unrecognised and questionable" is incorrect. At best, it is one opinion, which is the opposite of what many others think, including the experts who have published the major peer-reviewed papers in the field and the editors of those journals.

Regarding your ad hominem comments, and jps's statement that "This is just another example of the rank pseudoscience of polygraphy, but it is only promoted by a single snake oil salesperson," I think that both of you have missed the mark, albeit in good faith. The authors of the above cited articles are Lawrence Farwell, Drew Richardson, John Furedy, and Graham Richardson. (Drew Richardson and Furedy died in 2016.) Drew Richardson was an extremely well respected FBI forensic scientist and former chief of the FBI's chem-bio-nuclear counterterrorism response force. Furedy was one of the most well published and well respected scientists in the field of psychophysiology. Both of them were major forces in the fight against pseudoscience of all kinds, but particularly with reference to polygraphy. Richardson was co-founder of antipolygraph.org, the flagship of the forces exposing pseudoscience in the form of polygraphy. Richardson and Furedy wrote one of the most definitive peer-reviewed scientific articles against polygraphy, entitled "The Polygrapher's Dilemma."

Another scientist who has conducted some of the leading peer-reviewed research on brain fingerprinting is William Iacono, a scientist unaffiliated with Farwell who testified as an expert witness along with Farwell in the Harrington case in which brain fingerprinting was ruled admissible in court. (Yes, brain fingerprinting was ruled admissible in court, as noted in the court decision and in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. ) In addition to peer-reviewed publications on his research results, he wrote a review article entitled "The Forensic Application of Brain Fingerprinting: Why Scientists Should Encourage the Use of P300 Memory Detection Methods." Iacono is also a leading critic of the polygraph, and has written peer-reviewed articles exposing and opposing pseudoscience in polygraphy. He has also testified as an expert witness against the polygraph in court. (Since this is a talk page and not an article, I'll forego citing absolutely everything I mention. If you are interested, I can provide citations for anything I say.)  Iacono is one of the most respected and decorated scientists in the entire field of psychophysiology.

In short, brain fingerprinting has more than one scientific contributor, and they are not snake-oil salesmen.

Regarding Farwell, in the collective opinion of his fellow scientists who have published peer-reviewed papers in the field, brain fingerprinting is not actually Farwell's most substantial scientific contribution. He also invented the first brain-computer interface (BCI) and published it in a leading peer-reviewed journal. Farwell and Donchin's original publication on the BCI has been cited over a thousand of times in subsequent peer-reviewed publications since 1988 (2,339 citations [not all peer-reviewed] according to Google Scholar, as compared with 484 for his original brain fingerprinting paper, Farwell and Donchin 1991, and 274 for a technical mathematics paper published in a leading physics journal). To my knowledge, not a single one of those 2,339 BCI-related articles has found fault with, or even questioned, Farwell's science. Time magazine selected Farwell to the Time 100: The Next Wave, who they  concluded were the  world's top innovators who may be "the Picassos or Einsteins of the 21st Century." Farwell also invented and patented a novel brainwave-based method for early detection of Alzheimer's disease, and published multiple peer-reviewed articles in the psychophysiology, neuroscience, forensic science, and physics scientific literature on EEG in aging, EEG analysis techniques such as digital filtering and statistical bootstrapping, and mathematical techniques such as chaotic attractors. You are entitled to your opinion about Farwell, but others who frankly know much more about his science than you do have opposite opinions. Presenting your opinion as fact in Wikipedia without equal representation for the opinions of those who have reached an opposite conclusion about him and his inventions (plural) would be a gross violation of Wikipedia's POV guidelines (as I understand them). Brain fingerprinting is not Farwell's most major scientific contribution (albeit it is the one that has gotten the most popular press). With all due respect, redirecting Farwell's page to brain fingerprinting is inappropriate, particularly when you have eliminated the entire brain fingerprinting page and substituted a short paragraph containing only your own opinions and a few cherry-picked non-authoritative lay publications that support them.

While we're in the ad hominem space, regarding who Farwell is and what he stands for, you might find it interesting to know that Farwell testified against the polygraph before the Senate Intelligence Committee in reference to the Aldrich Ames CIA-double-agent case. No one before, least of all the polygraph people, has ever accused Farwell of being an advocate of "the rank pseudoscience of polygraphy." Whether you like Farwell or not, that shoe does not fit.

Regarding and, I have no idea who they are or whom they are affiliated with. Judging by their writings, however, I think it is extremely unlikely that they are scientists with any knowledge of the field.

There is also some confusion regarding the term "brain fingerprinting" in the article as it now stands. The article quotes findings by the government in India that "brain fingerprinting" is unscientific, unproven, and invalid. The situation is that an Indian named C. R. Mukundan developed a system (usually referred to as BEOS) that he falsely claimed was similar to and/or based on Farwell's brain fingerprinting invention. Farwell was one of the experts who went to India and helped the government to debunk Mukundan's system (as well as other pseudoscience including "narcoanalysis" or using purported truth serums). The quoted decisions were against Mukundan's system, not against Farwell's brain fingerprinting, but unfortunately Mukundan's use of the term "brain fingerprinting" also crept into some of the language used by the Indian government in rejecting his system. The details of the various written statements from the Indian government, however, make it clear that what is being debunked and rejected is Mukundan's system, and not Farwell's brain fingerprinting. The statements about India and brain fingerprinting belong not in the brain fingerprinting page but on a disambiguation page, if they are to appear at all. Or at least there should be an explanation that in that context the term "brain fingerprinting" was erroneously used to describe Mukundan's technique rather than Farwell's brain fingerprinting as described in the Wikipedia brain fingerprinting article.

The brain fingerprinting article now contains exclusively highly negative content, with no representation of the other point of view. You have deleted all of the peer-reviewed scientific research and the information and citations from other encyclopedias, with the sole exception of one highly negative article that was published over 10 years ago and has no bearing on any of the scientific articles I mentioned above. Moreover, you fail to cite a reply and corrections to that article by Farwell and Richardson that were published in the same journal. You cite only a few of the many lay articles on brain fingerprinting, cherry picking those few that are negative, and ignoring hundreds of positive articles. This, in my humble and admittedly not expert opinion, is not in accord with Wikipedia's POV guidelines. It certainly is not in accord with the practice of accurately and comprehensively representing science.

I'm all for going after the bad guys -- pseudoscientists, criminals, and baddies of all stripes -- and blowing them out of the water, but before doing that I have learned that one must be much more than "pretty sure" that the targets actually are the bad guys. Having had the experience of being simultaneously sure and wrong, I have learned to keep an open mind. I hope you will do the same.

On initially reading your edits, I thought that you must be someone with an axe to grind -- maybe a representative of the polygraph industry, or a failed academic competitor whose scientific or mathematical errors have been exposed by Farwell. I was mistaken, and frankly I underestimated you. Upon looking into who you are more carefully, I realize that you are as committed to the truth as I am. I respectfully suggest, however, that you have not yet done enough research to know that the truth is in this situation. Just as I did initially with respect to you, I think you leaped to a conclusion that was incorrect, without first thoroughly examining the evidence. In reality we are on the same side here. Our mutual duty is to present the readers of Wikipedia with accurate, balanced information about the science involved. I, too, have a sense of humor (not to be confused with a sense of humour -- quite different actually). I only went to a 380-year-old (American) university. Nevertheless I, too, am a middle-aged parent who has shared your experience of "oh no, not this shit again," with respect to both parenting and science. So, as you suggest, let's talk nicely and sort this whole thing out like grown-ups.

-- Neuroscientist1 (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2016 (UTC)


 * You "forgot" to mention what connection you have with Farwell. I have no dog in this fight, you very obviously have one, the only remaining question is whether you *are* the dog. Guy (Help!) 01:20, 31 December 2016 (UTC)


 * So, user:Neuroscientist1 is user:Lawrence Farwell, the originator of the theory and the principal author of all the text about it anywhere on Wikipedia. Colour me unsurprised. Guy (Help!) 09:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Jack Sarfatti
Super bloated turning into a press release. I don't have the patience to try to trim it down.

jps (talk) 19:07, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Perennial problem with that one. Guy (Help!) 20:28, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

P. N. Oak
The chap was a notorious fringe theorist and our article seems to present that fact, in a more nuanced form. Of late I've seen some of his dubious claims getting removed from the article as they are fringey and not based in fact. The claims are just attributed to him. Not sure how this kind of stuff is usually handled, clearly most of his theories are pure unadulterated nonsense but at the same time, he is known for the nonsense so should that be documented (as nonsense)? I have no particular interest in the article, it just happens to be on my watchlist and I've often wondered whether protection might be necessary. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  00:35, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Generally that is the case. Where fringe person has numerous fringey/crank ideas, the more notable/insane ones tend to get covered. There is no requirement to cover all their beliefs in detail. Usually the ones that have actually gathered notice/comment by other parties get covered. Using what is there as an example: his views on Christianity and the Taj Mahal have got coverage elsewhere due to the quite visible and controversial nature in India (one involved a court case). On the other hand his views on the Kaaba have not. The first two you would expect to be covered, albeit briefly, in his biography, the last is entirely unneccessary. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:06, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Cathy O'Brien (conspiracy theorist)
An editor has removed any suggestion that she was a conspiracy theorist stating that there are no sources. I see a number on Google books and have linked them at Talk:Cathy O'Brien (conspiracy theorist). Doug Weller talk 06:27, 3 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I do not see any discussion on the talk page. I notice the Criticism section was removed, but criticism is better incorporated into the relevant sections of the article.  Instead of saying in "Assertions," "she alleges to have suffered as part of Project Monarch," then saying in "Criticism" that there is no record of such a project, combine the two statements in the same section.  TFD (talk) 07:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It was user:Petrarchan47. Did O'Brien make reference to GMOs? That's his most frequent (though by no means only) target. Guy (Help!) 10:48, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Can't find one. Doug Weller  talk 14:25, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Owlman
What's to be done with Owlman? I went through the article today to root out the usual cryptozoology pseudoscience and find the core of the matter (usually articles of this sort are hijacked topics from folklore with some commentary out there from folklorists) but I'm not finding anything beyond the chatter of a bunch of fringe figures. I'm just finding pseudoscience on top of pseudoscience, layers of Jonathan Downes and Karl Shuker. Any suggestions here? Should this just go to articles for deletion? &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 19:44, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Lionel Fanthorpe has covered it for Countryfile, which suggests notability: . Guy (Help!) 23:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Good catch. if we can get some decent sources on it like that, then it'd be a fun article. I see you've already started gutting some of the worst of it out. Note that the Countryfile article doesn't mention cryptozoology at all, so maybe there is in fact a folk tradition to build an article around. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 01:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Sheela na gig
We're getting an unusual number of SPAs at Talk:Sheela_na_gig, most of them just dropping in to add one or two line advertising blurbs for a book that appears to fail WP:RS. I'm starting to suspect WP:MEAT or off-site canvassing to promote the book. Ian.thomson (talk) 06:49, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Anatole Klyosov
Could use more input, especially from anyone familiar with Russian sources. Doug Weller talk 17:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Q Valda is a knowledgeable professional, a member or an employee of the Committee on Pseudoscience of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He sometimes pushes too much, but he definitely knows what he is talking about.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * However, if it is true, then his biased and unneutral POV in the talk page, as well editing of the article, which not one editor noticed, is more than explained. Due to editor's activity I must ask - is it related to WP:CONFLICT, WP:PSCOI, Wikipedian in residence? --JoyceWood (talk) 05:07, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * User:JoyceWood, everyone has a pov. Wikipedia itself is biased towards mainstream science and against fringe science. And I don't think it's related to any of those acronyms, but I think someone else should comment on that. Doug Weller  talk 08:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * This article is on my radar too, citations to predatory open access journals keep appearing in it. Guy (Help!) 09:58, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * In the article there is none nor appear any cite to the predatory open access journals.--JoyceWood (talk) 12:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Happy New Year
With a New Year comes those resolutions to lose weight, our fringe diet articles seem to get particular attention from advocates. I've requested page protection for this article which in particular has been mauled. More eyes on it would be good. Alexbrn (talk) 18:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Augmentative and alternative communication
Is Augmentative and alternative communication a euphemism for Facilitated communication? —PermStrump ( talk )  04:32, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As framed, it includes legit techniques such as Hawking's voice synthesiser. However, the article reads as distinctly WP:SYN and relies on a lot of cites from a small number of authors. Guy (Help!) 10:16, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Ugh. This is complicated to clean up. It seems like respected organizations like the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association do use the term AAC as an umbrella term for literally anything other than oral communication that helps people communicate, but they're also opposed to the use of facilitated communication, so I can't tell whether or not AAC technically applies to FC. The caption in the lead image says, "An AAC user indicates a series of numbers on an eye gaze communication board in order to convey a word", which sounds like code for FC. I came across AAC via these two BLPs (Sue Rubin and Amy Sequenzia) that glorify FC and I'm not even sure what to do that those BLPs, or now AAC. —PermStrump  ( talk )  22:05, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

RfC at Earthquake prediction
Looking for feedback on appropriate treatment of fringe earthquake prediction theories at this article.

Talk:Earthquake_prediction JerryRussell (talk) 23:53, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Rolfing, yet again
There has been a recent influx of WP:SPAs at this article (recruitment somewhere?) and a concerted effort to water down critical content. Could use more eyes. Alexbrn (talk) 18:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC) (add) And if this is right, suddenly the article got 180,000 page views yesterday? Alexbrn (talk) 07:40, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That was me !! Roxy the dog. bark 07:49, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Place of power
FYI Jytdog (talk) 06:19, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Wawel Chakra
Linked in the above: it could use some clean-up. Mangoe (talk) 14:27, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Acupuncture
Just a quick heads-up, the trypanophiles have been talking to one or both of the recently topic banned users and have set their sights yet again on the acupuncture article, with a change.org petiton and an op-ed in the BMJ. The bone of contention is, as usual, the statement that acupuncture is pseudoscientific. I have a certain amount of sympathy with that: I think it's a pseudo-religious cult, and that study of acupuncture is mostly pseudoscientfic. But unlike the trypanophiles, I recognise that my view takes second place to the reliable sources. I think acupuncture may be the second most widely discussed example of pseudoscience after homeopathy. Guy (Help!) 00:16, 31 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Petitions? Seriously? Okay, WP:Lunatic charlatans (which JzG wrote) applies here. It looks like this is going to get a lot of disruptive editing in the future, but thankfully it's semi-protected. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:35, 31 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Linky. I don't know whether to be confused or amused that comments and pings are closed on that blogpost. In any case, I am rather surprised as to how much of an improvement the acupuncture article is over the last time I looked at it. It took us 10 years to get to the point where we could distinguish between the efficacy claims from Cochrane reviews as being the only metric to an acknowledgment that there is a steady reliance on qigong speculation in deciding where and how to needle (much like reflexology). The particular "Western acupuncture" argument which is that there is no mechanism beyond somatic stimulation and the meridians are all just empirically developed correlates from ancient times was well-debunked, I think, by recent popular press articles which illustrated that much of what is considered acupuncture today was invented in the mid-20th century by pseudoacademics and outright charlatans. jps (talk) 15:51, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It's pretty rum the acupuncturists are complaining about "anonymous" editors (in fact several FTN regulars aren't), when it's clear now that the anonymous activity recently giving rise to problems was from people with an undeclared involvement with the Acupuncture Now Foundation. With the recent NICE un-recommendation of acupuncture I think the tide is turning and acupuncture is now where homeopathy already has been for some years: on the skids. Over the next years I think the discomfort from the profession is likely to increase and we can expect a torrid time as the money starts drying up. Alexbrn (talk) 16:26, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Sees blog by person with vested interest in pseudosciene - looks at comments - comments closed. Generally I give zero weight to someone who has a monetary interest in a thing that is unwilling to be at least open to comments/feedback on their money-informed opinions. Given the quality of that, how does the BMJ justify associating with it? Its basically an opinion piece by someone associated with Quackery. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * They justify it through appeal to the bottom line. Acupuncture in Medicine is a mediocre journal published under the auspices of BMJ whose editorial board is populated entirely by acupuncturists. The former editor-in-chief (who still sites on the editorial board) is the author of the post. jps (talk) 14:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Speaking of which: . jps (talk) 09:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * There are multiple reference works on the topic of pseudoscience, and I think chiropractic is included in almost if not in fact all the ones I've checked. That being the case, the argument that chiropractic might not qualify in the broad field of pseudoscience would seem to be a very uphill one, if it is in fact one of the best known and most widely discussed examples of pseudoscience. John Carter (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Fringe journals
I was doing some cleanup work on acupuncture-related journals this morning (there are a huge number of terrible ones listed at Wikipedia with ZERO sources) when I cam across this list:

Category:Alternative and traditional medicine journals.

I am not amused. How many of these do you all think should be included here? I note that most of them are stubs curated by and not likely to go anywhere. Is it time to write about publications in WP:FRINGE? It looks like backdoor coatracks by having stub articles about fringe subjects is the new thing. "Look, ma! The journal has a Wikipedia article. It MUST be legitimate!" Never mind that no one has ever heard of the publishing group that is run out of the back of a trailer in upstate New York. SMH.

jps (talk) 10:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Where on Earth did you get the idea that most of them are stubs created by Randykitty"?? I went through the first 10 articles in that cat and found exactly 1 that I have created. --Randykitty (talk) 11:46, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I meant to say "curated". My apologies. It looks like you culled all the ones that didn't have impact factors but kept the ones that did. jps (talk) 13:37, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That's correct. If something doesn't meet WP:NJournals or WP:GNG, I PROD it or take it to AfD (and not just in this rather small category, either). And I know you think NJournals is too permissive, but if you follow WikiProject Academic Journals/Article alerts (or browse through its archives), you'd be surprised how much effort I usually have to make to get a journal deleted that doesn't meet NJournals (let alone GNG). If journals in this category are unreliable/fringe/whatever, then find good sources for that and add those to the articles. --Randykitty (talk) 14:27, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * But for the vast majority of these journals, there are basically NO INDEPENDENT SOURCES that I can find besides the impact factor/citation reports. Instead, I find myself hamstrung in reporting that, in fact, the editorial board is populated by [known pseudoscientists] which is borderline WP:OR. Occasionally, there are off-hand mentions of journals, but who writes extensive source material about journals anyway? Maybe there are trade publications that discuss them, but if we go by the promotional material fed to us by the publisher, we're sunk in WP:FRIND-land. It's not that I think WP:NJOURNALS is too permissive: it's that I think it is too categorical in what it says is notable. It feels to me to be much the same as if we had a rule at WP:BK that a book was notable simply because it made it into the Library of Congress. jps (talk) 14:39, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

BTW, since when is having a WP article a seal of approval? ("Look, ma! The journal has a Wikipedia article. It MUST be legitimate!") Ted Bundy has an article, that doesn't mean canibalism is OK. And, yes, stating that "its editors are selected only from people who are practitioners of acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and other forms of related alternative medicine", with as only reference their editorial board listing is indeed OR, so I have removed that. --Randykitty (talk) 15:19, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I think one issue with fringe journals is that if we don't have independent sources, chances are we only have sources affiliated with the journal i.e partisan and probably promotional/profringe sources. And promotional/profringe sources lead to promotional/profringe articles. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:51, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that, and obscurity is part of the features of the fringe by definition. Ted Bundy is (in)famous and so finding adequate sourcing to describe is (in)fam[e|y] is straightforward. An article on an obscure fringe journal which merely says, "The Journal of Blah is a peer-reviewed, quarterly journal published by the Society for the Promulgation of Blah. It is indexed by Scholarly Index 34 and Journal Citation Reports gives it an impact factor of 1.0" lends to the Journal of Blah a cache that many fringe proponents desperately seek. The reason that WP:FRINGE was invented was because extremely early on Wikipedia attracted fringe promoters who rightly viewed this open platform as an opportunity to improve their visibility. Having a Wikipedia page is a measure of success (rightly or wrongly) for those struggling with obscurity. There is no easy remedy for this. One approach is to include absolutely everything. The other approach is to include subjects at an article-level when it is possible to write a decent article on the subject beyond the stub. Otherwise, you know, merge and redirect, as they say. I see that the journals area has adopted more of a kitchen sink approach which clashes with much of the rest of the academic content on Wikipedia and thus serves as a "seal of approval" in spite of the intentions of those who argue for such a standard being something quite different. jps (talk) 17:06, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Crazy idea: Consider inclusion in the Jeffrey Beall questionable journal list as a criterium for notability for fringe journals. Of course, such needs to be mentioned in the article. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:10, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That's not a crazy idea at all, but actually current practice. Beall's blog, despite recurrent challenges from people like OMICS, is generally considered a RS here on WP. If a predatory journal or publisher screws up enough to become notable that way and have an article, we invariable include listing on Beall's list. Note that journals on Beall's list rarely (if ever) make it in one of Thomson Reuters major citation indexes (but their Emerging Sources Citation Index contains quite a few and is generally not considered to be selective enough to confer any notability. We don't have many articles on predatory publishers/journals, because generally they don't meet either GNG or NJournals. The journals in the category mentioned here often are not only included in things like Scopus, but also in MEDLINE. The article that I mentioned above for which I created a stub (Acupuncture & Electro-Therapeutics Research) is even included in the highly selective Index Medicus, a database curated by specialist librarians at the United States National Library of Medicine and supposed to include the most important medical journals. If they think something is notable enough to be included in their database, I'm not going to second-guess them... --Randykitty (talk) 17:45, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Welcome tot he world of quackademic medicine... Guy (Help!) 18:28, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That's not a crazy idea at all, but actually current practice. - well, I don't see it on WP:NJOURNALS... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:31, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Why should it be in NJournals? There are many possible reliable sources, can't list them all. And BEall's list is not that often important for writing articles on journals, because, as I said, most predatory journals gloriously fail both GNG and NJournals. It's only the really bad ones that cause waves because of being bad that become notable. Anyway, I'd have no problem with including Beall's list in a note there, either. --Randykitty (talk) 18:36, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I would settle for NJournals being less strident in its wording. The problem I have is that not everything inclined in highly selective indices is necessarily worthy of an article on Wikipedia because, crucially, a lot of fringe journals are promulgating closed-door conversations about ideas outside the WP:MAINSTREAM. Librarians, journal publishers, and even well-meaning epistemologists allow for an epistemic closure to take place on a grand scale. We've seen it with parapsychology, alternative medicine, and even fringe physics. Conversations about the horrible-ness of this or that journal take place at an informal level because, who wants to bother being rigorous in identifying bullshit? No one. So it survives and gets stamps of approval but not much more. This is the problem. The predatory journals are just the bottom of the barrel of the worst of the worst. What I'm talking about is basically the publication industry's equivalent of a WP:Walled garden. jps (talk) 20:01, 3 January 2017 (UTC)


 * NJournals is an essay and has zero weight given the standard rationale for keeping essays at MFD is 'Its an essay, no one cares'. Seriously, try and get a well-written but basically flawed essay deleted, its impossible unless its actively harmful. Essay's have absolutely no standing in a consensus discussion due to not demonstrating any wider community agreement. So ignore it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:05, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that "standard rationales" do not apply at AfDs about journals. There, this essay rules the day as though it were policy. This is because there are ~3 to 4 editors who faithfully will opine that any journal with an impact factor in Journal Citation Reports is notable due to the categorical claim in WP:NJOURNALS (which I note that as of today no longer is categorical but instead is simply, "usually" -- interesting). Pretty much the definition of a "racket". jps (talk) 21:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I skip these AfDs because it's too difficult to get a grasp what the expected standards are. My suggestion to list the Jeffrey Beall blacklist as a notability criterium was meant for a proper guideline. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:56, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment. WP:NJOURNALS is not gospel, and it seems to me that WP:NPOV trumps that essay in any case.  If a fringe journal doesn't meet GNG, then we shouldn't have an article about it.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: And how do we decide whether something is a fringe journal? By polling the opinions of WP editors? No, of course not. We determine that by looking for reliable sources that state that a journal is a fringe one. And then we have reliable sources, so it meets GNG. Just as we cannot say in a biography that somebody is a quack unless we have good sources for that. --Randykitty (talk) 08:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: How about we just stop having individual articles for journals where the sole reliable source is Journal Citation Reports and the mean fact that it is indexed? If you prefer blue links, why not redirect to the publisher or the index for a list of journals? jps (talk) 11:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * For the simple reason that a redirect to the publisher doesn't tell anything about the journal, and because neutral information (who's the editor, what's the ISSN, what's the scope, etc) can easily be provided. And if it's in JCR, it's almost always in other databases, too, meaning that rarely will the JCR be the sole reason that something is notable. Has nothing to do with not liking red links and everything to do with presenting information. --Randykitty (talk) 11:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * If NPOV is in conflict with an essay like NJOURNALS, then NPOV wins. If it's really so hard to tell whether a journal is fringe, then we shouldn't have articles on journals if the sole source is journal citation reports.  However, chances are that it actually is usually pretty evident when a journal is on a fringe subject, and when it is in a mainstream scholarly area.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 12:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

This is a card catalogue entry, then. The problem is that perma-stubs such as this are not supposed to be in Wikipedia. There is no particular reason why you cannot make a table with Name, Publisher, Editor, Scope, ISSN, Impact Factor. Why not subsume into lists? jps (talk) 12:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * If all info can be included in lists, what's the difference with splitting it out in more handy stubs? And lists are very difficult to maintain, this procedure would make it exceedingly easy to insert information on non-notable journals (or even seedy, predatory ones). And the longer a journal exists, the likelier it will be that sources can be found and added to that stub. --Randykitty (talk) 12:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * How are articles "more handy" than lists? The advantage of lists is that we are up front with the inclusion criteria. Right now, a reader has no information as to what makes a journal notable. Oh, "impact factor of 0.5? MUST BE NOTABLE!" jps (talk) 17:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

More fun-and-games with pseudoscience journals in perma-stub states: Articles for deletion/Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. jps (talk) 19:24, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * On the broad question of whether the category should exist, I seem to remember seeing the description (or something very like it) included in the descriptions of journals in one of the reference works on periodicals, so I guess I can see that the term might be used legitimately, and possibly even with sourcing. Establishing the notability of such journals could, not unreasonably, be seen as being difficult but perhaps still possible, particularly given the staggering number of all sorts of other journals and periodicals and sources out there which might discuss them. John Carter (talk) 16:18, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Western astrology
Can someone please take a look at this? The article has been warned that it will be blocked if vandalism continues. The issue is about the section Twelve Major Planets. See my comments on the talk page and at User talk:Lhyx. Pinging who also commented there. Doug Weller talk 07:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Also the characteristic astrological symbols have been replaced with Chinese characters. Rather unusual for "Western astrology". I deleted the section as it wasn't sourced. Now it is sourced apparently from astrological books. Jim1138 (talk) 08:38, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I've reverted. Even though astrology is wrong, there's still a right way to be that kind of wrong. Ian.thomson (talk) 08:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I suspect copyvio or just copying a source mindlessly, as "Hone (1978), p. 144" with no clue as to what this is suggests the reference was simply found elsewhere and copied. Doug Weller  talk 09:44, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * First, I am less than certain the lede is accurate in stating that it is just a single system of astrology. Beyond that, I have to say that I agree with Ian. There are a lot of reference works dealing with this topic, and it might be that one or more of them can help establish what the scope or title of this article should be. Give me a few days to check. John Carter (talk) 16:22, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Steven Krivit
A journalist of cold fusion "fame"(?): Articles for deletion/Steven Krivit.

jps (talk) 11:22, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I thought you all might benefit from learning that Steven Krivit e-mailed the dean of a major university to claim that this action of nominating his article page for deletion was "online vandalism" on my part. The complaint didn't go very far, but just be aware that there is potential nastiness in this topic area. jps (talk) 18:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Linda and Terry Jamison
Posting here because this particular article has been discussed here before, and it is in fact one of those prior discussions which got me to watchlist the page. Anyone want to comment, preferably on the article's talk page, about the recent restoration of media appearances by the subjects in the article, and the ongoing failure to discuss the questionable accuracy of their predictions in the lede? John Carter (talk) 18:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * There was some discussion on my Talk page, which I have moved to Talk:Linda and Terry Jamison. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:38, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources? What counts as GNG?
I had a cordial exchange with another editor at an AfD I nominated for Forefront.TV. I am under the impression that this article is based on sources that do not establish notability, possibly due to reliability issues. The best one is a 395-word article in Variety, and the others are in NewMediaRockStars. More opinions are needed to help determine if these sources added up to meet GNG. Thanks! Delta13C (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * There is nothing particularly FRINGE about that topic - no pseudoscience or pseudohistory or whatever. Just typical badly sourced spammy content.  Jytdog (talk) 21:55, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

WP:ONEWAY problem at Masturbation
There is an WP:ONEWAY problem at : mentioning the WP:FRINGE NoFap movement in a mainstream medical subject. Also, the Chinese medical source fails WP:MEDRS. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:09, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I'll note that the same article mentions Rites of passage of New Guinean and Philippine tribes, which presumably have fewer members than the contemporary NoFap movement. So, while it is a "fringe" movement, it is of considerable current cultural relevance (about .75m hits on Google), and has passed the test of notability.  I don't see how WP:ONEWAY applies, since the fringe theory "may be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way."  There are many such sources among the .75m hits (around .25m hits for the query string "nofap masturbation").  My efforts to add links that give further evidence of this connection are defeated by Tgeorgescu's deletions.  It's odd that he refers to masturbation as a medical subject, when I have made the changes in the "Cultural views and practices" subsection (where we also find the tribal practices mentioned). Arided (talk) 02:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * It's NoFap itself which frames masturbation as a medical subject, also confirmed by the medical claim of increased testosterone due to abstinence. NoFap frames abstinence as healing (medically and psychologically) and also as a source of "superpowers" (see the sources cited in the NoFap article). Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Tgeorgescu, I'm not entirely sure where the goal-posts are in this discussion currently. Yes, I think you are correct that NoFap frames masturbation as a medical subject.  Its users certainly spend a lot of time sharing their anecdotal (basically, phenomenological) experiences about energy levels, feelings, habits and so forth.  In this sense the community's practices are very data-driven.  I've attempted to give fair play to their critics in the text I that introduced, and I'm sure there's more to be said on that topic.  As I see it the best way to proceed would be for you to add text that rounds out the NPOV, rather than deleting what I've added.  Not only have my edits been made in good faith, I have spent quite a bit of time incorporating your suggestions.  How about you do some of the heavy lifting and try to improve the section into something you would find acceptable? Arided (talk) 02:59, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * My revert was about turning an article upon a mainstream subject into a WP:COATRACK for a fringe subject. I don't know if NoFap is notable enough for having a Wikipedia article, anyway mentioning a marginal cultural-medical movement in an article about a habit that 97% of men and 80% of women have practiced (data from the Merck Manual) seems like an attempt at WP:SOAP. Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:06, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * See comments above about "rites of passage". One tribe happens to have the view that "Semen is considered in the same line as mothers' milk."  That's interesting, if a bit odd.  I don't see how including some discussion about abstaining from masturbation is any more of a "fringe subject" than the beliefs of some random tribe of people from PNG.  The NoFap folks have lots of anecdotal discussion about their experiences abstaining from masturbation (or trying) and lots of opinions on what it means in contemporary society.  Again, this is interesting, if somewhat different-from-mainstream.  Perhaps it would be better to frame it with a section "Abstaining from masturbation", and include other documentation of other groups (e.g., clerics, maybe?) who have advocated that point of view.  At the moment, the word "abstinence" is mentioned only once on the article.  "Religious views" are mentioned briefly, and Kant is given some play with a pretty limited philosophical argument.  Why not include the topic of NoFap, which at least has some empirical basis? Arided (talk) 03:58, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * According to WP:NOTNEUTRAL Wikipedia takes a mainstream view on anything. So, the reply would be: anthropology is mainstream (meaning not that tribe but its scholarly study), but NoFap isn't mainstream. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:23, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * For the record, regarding Anthropology: "Sociocultural anthropology has been heavily influenced by structuralist and postmodern theories, as well as a shift toward the analysis of modern societies." Here I hasten to add that I'm not claiming that the Masturbation article is a work of anthropological research, only that discussing obscure tribes in preference to modern online communities is bog standard Orientalism.  There is actually a bit of research about NoFap. I don't know if any of it would pass the  criterion, it may well pass criteria for inclusion as cultural research.


 * Eliminate Chronic Internet Pornography Use to Reveal Its Effects, Gary Wilson, Addicta: The Turkish Journal On Addictions, 2016.
 * Nudge, Don't Thrust: The Application of Behavioral Law and Economics to America's Porn Addiction, A Harrison, Tex. Rev. L. & Pol. 19(337) (2014-2015)
 * A New Classification Model for Sex Addiction, Paula Hall, Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention 20(4), 2013
 * The Click Trap, Gilad Visotsky, Royal College of Art (MA Dissertation), 2015


 * Anyway, given that the NoFap page exists already, I'm not sure why there should be so much debate about summarising it and linking to it from another related page. If it's mainstream enough for inclusion in Wikipedia, why shouldn't it be mainstream enough for cross-referencing? Arided (talk) 15:01, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh, one other reply here: I just did the math, and if I got it right, your Merck stats say that 88.364% of the population has practised masturbation. In terms of "non-mainstream": some 11.636% of people would fall into the non-masturbator category.  On this basis let's say that approximately 11% of the masturbation article should be devoted to abstinence, for whatever reason.  So I'll repeat the suggestion above: Perhaps it would be better to frame it with a section "Abstaining from masturbation".  This is a suggestion towards a possible consensus, namely that NoFap on its own is "fringe" but still worth mentioning in the article if it is suitably contextualised.  Arided (talk) 15:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * It is a ONEWAY issue and an article about a core encyclopedic topic (masturbation) should not be used to highlight some ephemeral internet interest (NoFap). Johnuniq (talk) 04:31, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why you describe NoFap as "ephemeral" -- given that it's been around since 2011 and has over 200,000 subscribers, as far as internet interests go it seems to have some staying power. It's been around as long as Snapchat for example, and the English Wikipedia has only 119,000 active editors.  Even if NoFap was to disappear tomorrow, I think it would still be of historical interest. Arided (talk) 15:31, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Rank pseudoscience has no place in the article. I said rank. Oh, and srsly? the photos can go. There are serious artistic depictions, nobody needs a photo to know what wanking looks like. Guy (Help!) 09:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Guy, I've copied in the text under discussion to the talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Masturbation#The_text_we.27re_debating -- as far as I can see it doesn't make scientific or pseudoscientific aims, but attempts to describe an existing and reasonably large online community. Arided (talk) 15:01, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Except that it isn't. It's a fringe group of no evident significance. In fact I thought it was a hoax, the "fappy the anti-masturbation dolphin" meme. Guy (Help!) 16:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * These people know it doesn't count if they do it in the arse, don't they?. Roxy the dog. bark 16:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It's mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction#Support_groups and is included in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Addiction - so it seems that some Wikipedians have found it significant. It seems to be in some way significant for the 200000 subscribers on Reddit.  Granted, it is less popular than /r/cats and /r/The_Donald, but that doesn't mean it's insignificant.  It's more popular than /r/woodworking, /r/writing, /r/gardening, and /r/lego.  For another comparison, the Masturbation article currently talks about the Sambia tribe which is presumably also a fringe group, given that their culture revolves around ritual homosexual pedophilia and that in 1989 the tribe had some 2700 members .  The Masturbation article also mentions the contemporary Masturbate-a-thon, though according to the main page on that topic Masturbate-a-thon 3 in 2014 was cancelled due to lack of registrations.  All things considered, your dismissive and off-topic comments about a legitimate attempt to improve the article would seem to say a bit more about you than it says about the topic.  Arided (talk) 20:31, 7 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I've opened an RfC on this on the article talk page. FYI I came to this from a post at RFPP asking for help in stopping an edit war. So I'm wearing my admin hat and remaining strictly neutral/unINVOLVED. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:01, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

James H. Fetzer
IP edit warring removal of lead text from bio of high profile conspiracy theorist. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:37, 10 January 2017 (UTC)