Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 62

"Paranormal" and WP:PROFRINGE
Moving forward with improvements to folklore-related topics on Wikipedia, I've encountered a bunch of articles and templates using the term paranormal. Outside of fringe circles, things described as paranormal are almost certainly normal, especially to academics who study these topics (such as folklorists who study ghostlore or psychologists who ponder ufology). When I see this word used without attribution, qualification, or, worse yet, in Wikivoice, it raises a bright red flag that I'm scrolling through a problem article. Worse yet, we currently have templates plastered all over pseudoscience articles about how something falls under the category of the paranormal. How is this not a distinct violation of WP:PROFRINGE? How should we go about reigning this in? &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 23:41, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I think this is an inheritance from the old paranormal wars when the big question was whether or how we should label subjects supernatural, paranormal, forteana, miracles, or parapsychology. I think "paranormal" was decided upon as an umbrella term that avoided the veneer of scientific evaluation, but maintained an approximation of where in the great grand library of human thought one might find a selection of topics explained (1) by appeal to claimed phenomena for which there is no scientific evidence and, (2) without reference to any one particular religious belief. I think "folklore" makes some amount of sense, but obviously that is too broad a category. jps (talk) 11:11, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Folklore has a fairly specific sense which doesnt apply to everything. A possessed toaster wouldnt be folklore, but it would be paranormal. (This is an example. I do not believe spirits are inhabiting my toaster. I played it Jackie Wilson for days and it never danced.) The use of 'paranormal' does exactly what its supposed to, warns the reader they are about to read something that is likely rubbish. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:23, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Judging by the two responses above, I don't appear to have made myself clear. I'm not proposing we change these templates, etc, to "folklore". Rather, I'm pointing out that the three usual subcultures that fall under the fringe category of "paranormal"—ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology—are all straightforward pseudosciences. In other words, I think it might be time to take a closer look at where we're using the word paranormal and instead ask ourselves if pseudoscience simply isn't what we're looking for. Presenting the word paranormal without caveat seems like straightforward WP:PROFRINGE to me: most readers are going to see the word "paranormal" without caveat and expect that we're promoting this idea of the supernatural, which the site has in fact done numerous times in the past (and no doubt continues to do on this or that obscure wiki page).


 * That said, your toaster example would indeed fall under the category of folklore, specifically ghostlore, and contains ATU motifs (in fact, although adherents pass them off as really real science, ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology are all expressions of the very broad world of folklore, but that's beside the point). &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 16:19, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Pseudoscience has always been somewhat fraught here at Wikipedia. To figure out how ideas that are paranormal are separated from other pseudosciences, perhaps check out List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience. In any case, it's not clear to me that 100% of paranormal claims are pseudoscientific claims. There are a huge number of articles listed at Category:Paranormal and some of them are probably not properly pseudosciences (though most are). The lede of our own article on paranormal is pretty good at explaining what makes something paranormal. I can see an argument for downplaying the categorization, but I'm not sure I think we can rid ourselves of it in quite the way you are desiring. jps (talk) 18:11, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The article on paranormal is indeed pretty good at explaining what makes something paranormal, but it's currently not especially good at explaining why has ufology and cryptozoology as two of the three subsections of Paranormal subjects. Cryptozoology lacks an explanation entirely, and while there's a subset of cryptozoology that includes supernatural entities (especially one Wikipedia where it often seems willing to appropriate almost any creature) or suggests "hidden animals" avoid detection by supernatural means ("bigfoot is magic") it's traditionally about possible physical creatures currently unsupported by evidence and it seems odd to give it such prominence of place. --tronvillain (talk) 13:46, 16 August 2018 (UTC)


 * "Paranormal" is a term that encompasses both certain types of pseudoscience (such as qi and thus acupuncture) but not others (such as cold fusion) as well as certain aspects of folklore (such as ghost stories) but not others (such as many urban legends). In addition, some things which we generally consider paranormal are not really related to fringe theories at all (such as the afterlife), except when people start pushing them as such, and others yet that are only related to fringe theories by POV pushers (such as dieties).
 * So from where I sit, there's nothing inherent in the word "paranormal" that promotes fringe theories. It's a broad classification for phenomenon both fictional and real that lacks empirical explanation as well as explanations for phenomenon both fictional and real that defy accepted science. It's not like anti-vaccine groups trying to label themselves "autism support" groups, or some other form of re-branding. It's just another type of categorization. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:33, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's also my impression; for instance I was arguing that UFO related pages do belong under "paranormal" here. — Paleo  Neonate  – 19:43, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If this isn't the case, why is it that academics aren't employing this term? It seems to me that we've slipped into a sort of emic convention here, when we should be treating this from an etic perspective. For example, cryptozoologists have long maintained a chokehold on our coverage of fabulous beasts throughout the site. Until recently they went unchallenged while promoting all sorts of outrageous stuff on thousands of pages and in every nook and cranny of the platform. Now we seem to be re-examining a related pseudoscience's own co-opting of the site, ghost hunting, which is great news.


 * Of course, veterans known that such happenings have long been an issue with pseudoscience on Wikipedia, and various parties still aggressively lobby to turn the platform into a pseudoscience mouthpiece (and sometimes succeed), but I'm getting the impression that some kind of wrong-headed compromise has led to Wikipedia's own definition of what "paranormal" as it appears in templates and categories (that said, Wikipedia's paranormal article in fact does appear to do a solid job of not promoting pseudoscience). As I mention above, this stuff called paranormal in fringe material is all quite normal for specialists in these areas, particularly academics, and labeling anything "paranormal" in Wikivoice seems to me to be straight up WP:PROFRINGE—whether the editor realizes it or not. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:26, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've seen academics use it, mostly in Skeptical Enquirer and the like, though. And I agree that things like folklore which often fall under the umbrella would certainly seem non-paranormal to legitimate experts in those topics. I can understand where you're coming from, but I still just don't see anything promotional of fringe theories in it, myself. Mainly it's a problem with the concept of categorization, itself. Not everything fits neatly into a single category. If there's a term that encompasses the same spectrum of concepts as "paranormal" which is also mildly derogatory (so as not to imply any endorsement), I'd be open to using it, but I don't think there is. Hell, "paranormal" is fairly derogatory among skeptics and the like. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  22:35, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think "paranormal" as a real-world category is intrinsically negative, but I would generally distinguish it from pseudo-science, though admittedly the line gets blurry here and there. It is something of a problem in the category tree that stuff that exists in both conventionally religious and paranormal spirituality forms tends to be characterized as the latter too far up the tree (e.g. Category:Mysticism, which sits in Category:Esotericism, which is categorized as paranormal); it seems to me that the paranormal tag needs to be diffused to more specific subjects in this case. Mangoe (talk) 20:55, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If I'm reading this correctly, Bloodofox's main issue is with articles that are labeled with Category:Paranormal, which is spoken in Wikipedia's voice and could be taken by the reader as a definitive statement, i.e. "this thing is paranormal", just like Category:Hoaxes can be read as "this thing is a hoax". Of course, we know categorization doesn't imply endorsement and is just a way of putting subjects in various buckets to make it easier to locate topics. And we know paranormal isn't anything that's been proven to exist. And it's not our fault that pop culture has co-opted the term to mean "really scary mysterious stuff that lotsa people swear is true". But could the usage and application of Category:Paranormal be refined and improved? Yes. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:30, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's possible that Wikipedia's use of "paranormal" as a blanket term has some connection to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, or originally the "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal." Or Joe Nichol's persona as a paranormal investigator. Of course, the point is probably that essentially everything labeled "paranormal" on Wikipedia is presumably a claim of the paranormal, not something that has been established as "beyond scientific explanation." I don't necessarily see its use for categorization as all that problematic, but it's definitely worth examining specific useages. --tronvillain (talk) 16:25, 15 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I see that what was happening with cryptids is happening here as well. Skeptic or not, this IS a notable category/topic like cryptids. My concern is people have lost sight of it because of ones own personal leanings. Both skeptical and advocators (if notable) are worthy enough of inclusion. If skeptical theories/opinions outweight non-skeptical ones then it should be noted as well as the other way around. Again if it's noteworty and from reliable sources then its probably worth mentioning.--Paleface Jack (talk) 20:47, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a discussion about WP:PROFRINGE, not about notability. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 20:51, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

How about renaming the category, for instance "Category: Paranormal claims"? --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:31, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Historically, use of the word "claim" in Wikipedia's voice was considered a weasel word. jps (talk) 13:04, 16 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I know that BoF. It's just that there are so many avenues that one can consider Fringe that it severely limits the amount of expansion that we can make to both Cryptozoology and Paranormal topics. A lessening of those constrictions would be beneficial to both sides. Notability ties into this because what is sometimes notable information is considered Fringe which seems to me like a balance issue. Although I do agree that making such article topics seem like they're real things is pushing it, rewriting articles so that they favor one argument is bias coverage. Instead of stating if something is legendary, it should say that something is purported to exist rather than outright say that it is or isn't. That way we address both theories in a way that meets Wikipiedia's guidelines and standards. Although there are paranormal and cryptozoological "entities" that exist in both legend and have purported claims of existence through sightings (Bigfoot, and The White Lady are examples of this). In that case we should note that they are both legendary and purported to exist. Removing categories related to both cryptozoology and the paranormal doesn't really constitute as Fringe UNLESS you add categories that outright link it to undisputed claims of existence (adding animal genus categories to cryptozoology articles is a huge example of this). I don't know what kind of categories that one can add to Paranormal articles that would be similar to the above mentioned example but I don't dispute that such things can happen. Really all I ask is to step back and decide what should constitute as paranormal (although legendary ghosts such as Bell Witch can be a part of both categories). Then we can actually get this all sorted out.--Paleface Jack (talk) 17:40, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As long as the material meets WP:FRIND and WP:ONEWAY, we can expand away. But it sounds to me like you've got a general problem with WP:FRINGE and, say, WP:UNDUE. Relevant guideline pages would be a more appropriate place to take your concerns about how Wikipedia handles fringe topics and pseudoscience. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't know if that's a good idea or not. When I hear "paranormal" I usually interpret it to refer to the usual subjects included under that domain (ghosts, ancient mystical societies, big foot, aliens etc) without conferring any judgement on whether such things actually exist. It's analogous to how "high fantasy" is used to describe a category including dwarves and elves and other things from the typical Tolkein-esque fantasy setting, with no implication that these are actually real—it's just a category of fictional settings. However, I think the important questions are whether the typical reader would see "paranormal" as an endorsement of the existence of ghosts or aliens, or how reliable sources use "paranormal". If the standard usage of the term carries no implications about the validity of these claims and just describes some category of speculation or belief, then I think using "paranormal" as a category is perfectly neutral and compliant with policies on fringe material, and "paranormal claims" would be both redundant and awkward. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 22:24, 16 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think what the reader thinks matters. More of our neutral encyclopedic "reporting" of it in accordance to Wikipiedia's standards and guidelines. So what if the articles belong to Paranormal or Cryptid categories, doesn't mean that we're advocating for one viewpoint of the subject, which would be POV Pushing. I'm a stickler when it comes to complete, and neutral coverage of an article and this is no different. Readers are not reading an essay but an article on whatever it is the article is about (an encyclopedic entry), what the reader thinks about the article is not any of my business.--Paleface Jack (talk) 21:05, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

EWG
. From the article you can barely tell that this is an organic lobby front group with a long history of publishing bullshit. Guy (Help!) 12:58, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I have tagged a bunch of primary sources, and removed some unsourced and POV stuff, but the article still needs a lot of work, it is a smallish, poorly worded article, cited mainly to EWG.org. Tornado chaser (talk) 00:38, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Mark Hyman (doctor)
I am being asked on the Talk page: "but who says "Wikipedia regards [Quackwatch] as reliable" other than you?" Could some users who say that please come over and say it? --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:27, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Race (human categorization)
The regular editors on the talk page repeatedly make the argument that there is a consensus among professionals that race is not a valid biological construct, but rather only an arbitrary social construct. Is this correct? Richard Lynn 8 (talk) 13:43, 18 August 2018 (UTC)


 * According to the talk-page history there has been socking from a user called Mikemikev / Han Jo Jo . The said user has a history of impersonation according to the SPI archive. Unlikely you are the real Richard Lynn. 80.225.32.189 (talk) 14:13, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've username blocked him. Doug Weller  talk 14:21, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok so I'm not Richard Lynn. I wasn't trying to impersonate him, just used his name. Anyway, how about the question? Doctor Nimrod (talk) 07:14, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * . — Paleo  Neonate  – 08:00, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's just one opinion though right? How about surveys of the relevant fields? Doctor Nimrod (talk) 08:11, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Not a fringe theory. The current article (Race (human categorization)) correctly represents the current scientific mainstream view, which is well-documented in reliable sources cited. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That of Larsen's (editor)? Those of the authors' work he edited like Little or Sussman?  If you check the book the claims are also sourced.  For the encyclopedia that is a tertiary non-self-published (WP:SPS) reliable source (WP:RS).  The Wikipedia article's section I added it to still needs work, but it follows with other data.  I hope this helps, — Paleo  Neonate  – 08:26, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * What is it sourced to? I suspect the source may be biased towards a United States point of view. International surveys find no consensus, and suggest race denial is high among Americans because of politics and history. Doctor Nimrod (talk) 08:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm do you understand that all extant humans are Homo sapiens sapiens in biology taxonomy? The "Recent evolution" and "Behavioral modernity" sections are also relevant.  I don't think getting distracted into the geographical origin of sources helps: that is mainstream biology.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 09:01, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Adding: I suggest asking at WP:RD/S or WP:RD/H for less formal discussions and more input. Scientific racism is a fringe topic and it is uncontroversial to consider race a human social category more than a biological one.  There of course also are haplotypes, but they have little to do with traditional races...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 09:10, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Absolutely we should consider the international view. You are saying it doesn't "help" to note that the article has a US bias which is at odds to international views? It's editors here that are cherry picking geographic sources, American ones. Isn't there a policy about this? NPOV? "Scientific racism" or the idea that taxonomy also applies to humans isn't a "fringe view" outside the US. It's basic Darwinian theory that there's no preferred level of taxonomy, through species to subspecies to individual differences. Check Origin of Species chapter 2, doubtless I don't need to remind you. Doctor Nimrod (talk) 09:24, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Even biological species is human categorization, although there are a few definitions with different criteria (that still rest on observation however). — Paleo  Neonate  – 10:04, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Adding: while Origin of Species was very influential, it was very seminal and does not represent modern biology. Even genetic evidence was missing back then...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 10:07, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The "genetic evidence" used in American race denial takes the form of strawman arguments of the form "race is invalid because {insert random fact about the genome}". E.g. variation within groups or higher diversity in one group. These criteria aren't used to invalidate taxa in other species. Doctor Nimrod (talk) 10:17, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * In ? I'll stop wasting my time here.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 10:31, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Well yeah. Where else is it coming from? The British tend to refute race denial for example, AWF Edwards, Dawkins. Even Russia seems to have escaped its Lysenkoist past. Doctor Nimrod (talk) 12:08, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Struck through Mikemikev sock, see Sockpuppet investigations/Mikemikev. Doug Weller talk 15:02, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * There is no US bias in noting that there is no scientific support for the considering race a biologically valid concept. No where in the world is there evidence to support the outdated theory, though some local scientific environments have not yet updated their views to reflect the genetic reality. We should not take an "international view" if it is contrary to the evidence and the global consensus.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:46, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Crisis actor
High traffic article especially during mass shootings and bombings. Currently devoted to the non-fringe use of the term, but includes a section on the fringe theory. Should it be split off into two articles? See Talk:Crisis actor. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:32, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Shilajit
Medical claims for the resin used in Ayurveda. Sourcing looks weak to my eyes; single paper, minor journal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Itsmejudith (talk • contribs) 05:45, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Dealt with non Medrs for health claims. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 06:48, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Sundeep Kochar
Recently prodded/deprodded, which brought it back to my attention. I left a message on the talk page about PSCI concerns. There are also sourced predictions claims A look at RSN archives about Zee News did not conclusively establish its reliability. I think that one of the links is not news but points to the person's profile at that company where he may be a host (that page seems like a hagiography, the Astro-Guru one). Input/eyes welcome, — Paleo Neonate  – 08:53, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Zee is a celebrity entertainment fluff publication, along the lines of Us or People or OK! with the added spin of being a media content producer, so it is frequently hyping people in its own productions. 144.15.255.227 (talk) 20:16, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The first Zee News "article" is just a republished press-release. See copies at 1, 2, 3, 4 and numerous other sites that are happy to publish such clickbait. The second Zee news article is copied from the profile on the subject's own webpage (which it even links to). At a quick glance at the article's cited sources, I don't see any significant, independent coverage in reliable sources. If that is the best that is available, AFD may be the way to go. Abecedare (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Also looking at the editing history of accounts listed at this and this SPIs, the article was likely created by undisclosed paid editor(s). Abecedare (talk) 20:53, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Covert conditioning
This is not horrible but is kind of bad. See related Covert hypnosis. Jytdog (talk) 18:05, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've looked a bit at this but it'd require more time. NLP and controversial hypnotherapy techniques of Milton H. Erickson are indeed fringe today; the covert hypnosis article appears to need more work than the other...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 01:53, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Vernix caseosa and the aquatic ape

 * 
 * 

Please put these on your watchlists, especially the latter. I'm not sure why people who are fans of AAH are so... vehement... but they are and I continue to see subtle rewordings which cast doubt on the stodgy sneerers while praising the valiant few who are convinced humans are uniquely swimmy apes.

There was some discussion at length about vernix caseosa some time back. Since then, Tom Brenna has been publishing more works that are more directly arguing in favor of AAH (but still mostly ignored).

jps (talk) 19:51, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh Lawks, not the AAH again ... Every few years this seems to flare up Alexbrn (talk) 19:55, 20 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I love the aquatic ape hypothesis, despite it being a fringe theory completely unsupported by the evidence. *chuckle* --tronvillain (talk) 21:00, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've been here too long. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 21:09, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Talk about FTN greatest hits. What’s next? Shakespeare authorship controversy? - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:11, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's been fairly calm lately, in general. But AAH is an oldie goldie. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:42, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

The AIDS War
Single-author article consisting exclusively of a fringe view. Needs balance from the scientific side. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:05, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm wow, I see no criticism whatsoever, but know that the views are completely discredited... — Paleo  Neonate  – 13:27, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, the same author who argues Mary Shelley didn't write Frankenstein. --tronvillain (talk) 13:35, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If I didn't know any better, I might think that the publisher was uploading obscure fringe reviews just for Wikipedia. jps (talk) 14:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, the "online articles" references of the previous version are all hosted on Lauritsen's Pagan Press Books website, which is presumably a copyright violation. Perhaps Wikipedia shouldn't be linking to Pagan Press Books? I should look up how to report that. --tronvillain (talk) 14:37, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * not a good author--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:19, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * With only two suitable references, this book has borderline notability. (Whether the author is "good" or not is irrelevant.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:30, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that the article has problems and needs to be improved. I would have welcomed a helpful response along those lines, including finding additional sources. What happened recently at the article, including the total removal of the "summary" section, which describes the book's actual contents, was completely unjustified. There is no point in having an article about a book at all if we cannot, for some reason, describe its actual contents. The article might as well be deleted. By the way, PaleoNeonate's statement that the article contained "no criticism whatsoever" of the book is mistaken. The article mentioned a critical view of the book, by Simon LeVay. I would certainly have included more negative or critical commentary on the book had I found more; I didn't. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 20:03, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I likely missed it: it was "buried". I read the reception section and didn't find due weight criticism.  If that doesn't exist, then it's possible that the issue is the book's notability, which makes it a challenge to cover properly.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 20:34, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I agree with you that the book is "a challenge to cover properly." Hence my suggestion that a more reasonable approach to the problems that I freely admit the article suffers from would have been to find more sources, as opposed to butchering the article by wiping most of its contents. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 20:43, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Looks more balanced now that it has been shortened. Treatment of HIV/AIDS has been one of the greatest successes of the last 50 years. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 01:10, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * No, the article has been ruined. There is nothing "balanced" about its current state. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:16, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Presenting only the modern, scientific POV while totally excluding everything else is not "balanced". Saying something like "It was praised by a few quacks, and disparaged or ignored by anyone who knows anything at all about medicine" would achieve balance in a way that only half of that sentence would not.  We do not actually need to hide the fact that some people approved of this nonsense twenty-five years ago.
 * OTOH, it probably is necessary to drop the source that was written by the "sophomore in the College of Engineering" who was writing for a student newspaper. For a book review, reliability isn't determined by the POV of the reviewer, but some of those anti-science sources don't seem to be proper reliable sources, either.  I also think that we should consider Axl's comment about actual notability.  This might be better merged into a sentence or two in an article on a larger subject.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Would support merging to John Lauritsen Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:50, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That would make sense. Alexbrn (talk) 06:26, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, James. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:18, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect. We have a quorum. Someone should just do it. jps (talk) 12:28, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * AFD.Slatersteven (talk) 12:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * OK. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 12:44, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Kristi Funk
Lacks proper judgment. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:55, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe he does, what do you want us to do?.Slatersteven (talk) 17:17, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I meant that the article lacks it. Also, she's a woman. The surgeon whose idea it was to remove parts of Angelina Jolie. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:23, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry maybe I am being dense, what do you mean by proper judgement?Slatersteven (talk) 17:25, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it's me, not you. I am not a native speaker. I meant that the sources given by the article all agree that Funk and her methods are great, but none of them uses the proper scientific criteria needed for such a judgment. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:38, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * But our article makes no such claims.Slatersteven (talk) 17:41, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The article quotes one-sided (positive) sources on a fringe medical practitioner. I read Orac's article about Funk and looked her up: it is a hagiography. Then I linked Orac's article on the Talk page.
 * Last time I checked, calling attention to such cases was one of the purposes of this noticeboard. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Slatersteven that the article says nothing controversial or one-sided. The article could hardly be more milquetoast.  It is a drab recitation of events that as far as I can tell are not subject to dispute.  She is a breast cancer surgeon.  She founded the organization.  She was reported by the media for having treated specified celebrities.  She posted details on her blog (without the article saying what those details were - this last I think should be removed, not because of bias, but because Wikipedia doesn't make a habit of reporting every time a notable person blogs, based solely on the blog, a self-published non-RS that is not self-imbued with noteworthiness).  Yes, the cited sources are fawning, but not the article, and Wikipedia can't control the tone taken by People Magazine.  One could certainly question her notability (which has been done, there being a running AfD), but I don't see bias in the article, unless:
 * Are there sources that we are leaving out? You fault her for inappropriate use of scientific criteria and that she is a fringe medical practitioner.  We as Wikipedia editors don't get to draw such conclusions.  Particularly with a WP:BLP, we cannot draw any conclusion not found in a cited reliable source.  If you have such sources, then go ahead and incorporate them, but your own conclusions have no place in an article, no matter how valid they may be.  Perhaps the article is currently citing positive sources because that is all that is there to be cited. Do you know of other sources? Agricolae (talk) 18:36, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Forget it. I have talked far more about this than it is worth. EOD, as far as I am concerned. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:26, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Gay conversion therapy


believes that NARTH should be included in Category:Psychology organizations based in the United States. However, as the article makes clear, the American Psychological Association does not agree. Gay conversion therapy is a religious, not a medical or scientific, practice. It's slightly difficult to discuss this as his response to an attempt at discussion was, i.e. a reply in an edit summary deleting the comment. That's... unhelpful. Anyway, seems to me that religiously motivated psychological abuse is not a legitimate inclusion in this category. Guy (Help!) 10:48, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * To the best of my knowledge, the American Psychological Association has never expressed an opinion about whether NARTH should be included in Category:Psychology organizations based in the United States. Nor for that matter has it ever expressed any opinion about Wikipedia and the content of its articles, so far as I know. That part of JzG's comment above is thus incorrect. That "Gay conversion therapy is a religious, not a medical or scientific, practice" is an opinion that JzG or anyone else is free to hold but which should not have any relevance to the content of our articles. I've read any number of sources discussing conversion therapy and they certainly do not state that it is always practiced with religious motives, let alone that it is by definition a religious practice. There are of course numerous methods used in conversion therapy that have exactly nothing to do with religion. Aversion therapy for instance has been practiced by various secular psychotherapists with no religious views. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 10:57, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "The policy manual of the American Psychological Association states that homosexuality is a normal and positive variation of human sexual orientation, and is not a mental disorder.[5] The APA's Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation affirms the tension between some religious values and other organizations, as well as the existence of a subset of individuals who are distressed about their same-sex attractions. Nevertheless, it says it has not found adequately rigorous studies that suggest sexual orientation change efforts are successful. The APA Task Force has also found that some individuals reported being harmed by change efforts.[6]" Guy (Help!) 11:03, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Your point being? How does that quotation show that conversion therapy is by definition a religious practice? It doesn't. There are plenty of sources you could read that show it isn't. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 11:08, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The predominant view among psychologists and psychological organizations in the US seems to be that proponents of conversion therapy are generally mystics or quacks. I think the inclusion of NARTH in that category should depend on the answers to the following questions: what are the inclusion criteria for Category:Psychology organizations based in the United States, and what do the majority of psychology experts think about NARTH. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 11:17, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * How do you know this? Is there a source that actually uses the term "mystics or quacks" or did you just make that up? I doubt that there is any evidence concerning what "the majority of psychology experts think about NARTH"; it is even questionable whether many of them have even heard of the organization. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 11:22, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's just my impression based on the way how psychological organizations describe conversation therapy, what psychologists say about conversion therapy, and evidence presented in hearings and lawsuits concerning conversion therapy. But putting that aside, the question whether NARTH is considered a psychological organization according to the criteria for that category. And the best way to discover would be to look at what experts in psychology think about NARTH. Do you have any sources pointing one way or another? Red Rock Canyon (talk) 12:43, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "The founders held that homosexuality is a treatable mental illness and that a person's sexual orientation can be changed through therapy". Neither of these foundational claims on which the entire edifice is built, is actually true.
 * APS is absolutely clear: gay conversion therapy is bullshit. Their view on NARTH, which only promotes gay conversion therapy, which is bullshit, does not require much thought, but is irrelevant anyway because the point is that APS does not view gay conversion therapy as psychology, and that's the point at issue. As others have said, this is like characterising the flat earth society as geologists or the Discotute as paleontologists. Guy (Help!) 17:12, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

This might help .Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That doesn't seem to address the specific issue of whether NARTH is a psychological organization, just the APA and other organizations' views of conversion therapy and homosexuality in general. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 13:17, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * True, but that seemed to be the way the conversation was headed. It is clear that the APA do not view it as valid therapy.Slatersteven (talk) 13:20, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * [], [].Slatersteven (talk) 13:23, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm very much a layperson in these matters but doesn't it stand to reason that if all organization X does is to promote something that is not considered psychology by the vast majority of scientists in the field, then organization X cannot be considered a psychology society? Similarly a organization promoting the belief that the Earth is flat would not be a geodesy organization, would it? Regards SoWhy 14:47, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Well is there a licensing system inn place, as with do doctors?Slatersteven (talk) 14:50, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * There is a licensing system in place for electricians too... doesn’t mean anyone considers them qualified to work on the plumbing. Blueboar (talk) 20:35, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Unless it was a licence as a plumber, which was my point. If they are licenced as a physiological practice they are a psychological practice. If no such licencing (or professional accreditation) exists them we are reliant on what other professionals say about them.Slatersteven (talk) 09:57, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As per WP:CAT, categorization of articles should be verifiable. Do we have reliable sources independent of the fringe theory describing it as a psychological organization or anything similar? Categorizing this as a psychological association seems a little like putting the British Homeopathic Association in "Medical associations based in the United Kingdom." --tronvillain (talk) 15:37, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Agree with Tronvillian, the burden is on the editor who adds the category to provide a source supporting inclusion in that category. –dlthewave ☎ 18:15, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Oh No. Somebody just invoked the Category Police. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 19:11, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Category police? I'm not familiar... –dlthewave ☎ 19:51, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, in principle verifiable - they don't get attached references, but if a categorization is disputed it seems worth asking if there's anything to support it. --tronvillain (talk) 21:22, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * JzG's comment above, "APS does not view gay conversion therapy as psychology", is confused. No informed person claims that conversion therapy is "psychology". Rather, it is a form of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy and psychology are related subjects but they are not the same thing; dictionaries might help here. As I tried to explain at the outset, the fact that conversion therapy has received much criticism does not alter the fact that it is a form of therapy, and it also has no relevance to whether NARTH is a "psychology organization" or not. JzG's comment that NARTH "only promotes gay conversion therapy" is incorrect. The organization does a variety of things. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:06, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * By this ridiculous logic, gaslighting, brainwashing, and torture are psychotherapies. jps (talk) 03:28, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * What "ridiculous logic"? What on Earth are you talking about? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 08:35, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You are the one and only commentator who is advocating for categorizing gay conversion therapy as a form of psychotherapy. Follow that logic and you get what I outline. jps (talk) 11:41, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "Conversion therapy" is "therapy" by definition, hence the inclusion of "therapy" as part of its name. That is only common sense and has nothing to with "gaslighting" or any of the other things you mentioned. I can point to sources that discuss forms of conversion therapy that are clearly psychotherapy. You might want to see Douglas C. Haldeman's article "Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy for Gay Men and Lesbians: A Scientific Examination"; it discusses numerous methods used to try to change people's sexual orientation, such as psychoanalysis and group therapy, and while Haldeman is critical of them, he never states that they are not forms of psychotherapy. Do you have a source that actually states that "conversion therapy" is actually not therapy? It sounds like a ridiculous claim. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:20, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Feel free to e-mail Douglas Haldeman and see if he's comfortable with you using his article to make this argument. jps (talk) 14:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I will do no such thing. What a ridiculous suggestion. As editors, we have never needed to contact the authors of academic articles in order to use them in discussion here. As I said, the discussion here has become completely tendentious. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 20:22, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

That you balk so hard at this straightforward suggestion at getting expert input implies to me that you're just staking a turf war claim. Not surprising, but not in the best interest of Wikipedia, certainly. jps (talk) 16:17, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * In case you hadn't noticed, Wikipedia is not based on "getting expert input". There is nothing in our policies or guidelines that says we have to consult authors of academic articles before using them. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:41, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

I point to the section Conversion therapy and the references therein (disclosure: I wrote it), which include numerous quotations that unambiguously declare conversion therapy as unethical and prohibited by all major medical, psychiatric, and psychological bodies in Australia. I suspect there are plenty of similar statements from reputable bodies in the US to declare that conversion therapy is not a valid or ethical medical or psychological practice. (There certainly are in the UK, I know.) As such, I can't see how NARTH can be categorised as engaging in any legitimate psychological practice. It's also worth remembering that JONAH, a conversion therapy organisation in New York, was successfully prosecuted for offering conversion therapy on the grounds of trade practices law for marketing and selling a product (conversion therapy) that doesn't exist as there is no decent evidence that sexual orientation is changeable. FKC, that makes your assertion that it is actually a form of therapy debatable as a therapy needs to have a demonstrable effect in the direction it claims. The only well-established effects of conversion therapy is the harm done to many (but not all) of those who experience it. At best, conversion therapy is an activity that is unethical if undertaken by anyone with medical or psychological training (and, in some places, illegal) that exists in religious and some extreme groups, conducted by persons untrained in proper psychological practice and doing great harm to many of those who encounter it. EdChem (talk) 00:36, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You are assuming that NARTH counts as a "psychology organization" only if it promotes an accepted, proved form of psychotherapy. That's quite baseless. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 08:35, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's not baseless, it's just verifiable. Your approach is monstrous and prima facie evidence that you are incompetent to be contributing to this subject material. jps (talk) 11:43, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I have not participated here recently because the discussion has become boorish and tendentious, as witness the comment above. The only relevant response would be to ask for evidence that "psychology organization" is indeed defined as an organization that promotes a recognized form of psychotherapy, and to remind jps of WP:NPA. You are free to disagree with me, but you don't have to ignore Wikipedia's policy against personal attacks, and the rules of common politeness, in the process. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:22, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

psychotherapy sʌɪkəʊˈθɛrəpi/Submit noun the treatment of mental disorder by psychological rather than medical means.

So if it is not psychological it is not psychotherapy.Slatersteven (talk) 09:58, 10 August 2018 (UTC) I also removed Category:Sexual orientation and medicine for the same reason. Guy (Help!) 14:22, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Isn't there a 'Fringe/pseudoscience medical' category? It's not psychology (No reputable organisation classes it as such) and it's a religious organisation pushing discredited and outright bollocks "therapy". Self-identification is not enough when the overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:42, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * They may not necessarily fit, but from memory we have: Category:Alternative diagnoses, Category:Alternative medical diagnostic methods, List of diagnoses characterized as pseudoscience, List of questionable diagnostic tests — Paleo  Neonate  – 13:49, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh and: Category:Health fraud, Category:Unnecessary health care, Category:Quacks.Face-smile.svg — Paleo  Neonate  – 13:53, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
Considering that the talk page seems dead since my request yesterday, I welcome your input at Talk:Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate  – 01:44, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Glima
Starting in 2014 the article Glima, which deals with an Icelandic form of wrestling, has been changed to fit in with a pseudo-historical view on the subject. These views aren't attested to be scholarship but seem rather derived from something called ACADEMY of VIKING MARTIAL ARTS which teaches something they call "Viking wrestling".

I came upon this article earlier this year. It had been marked as problematic since 2014 for the edits I mentioned above. I tried to fix the errors but then, after going through the edit history I saw that it was easiest to simply go back to the 2014 version and build from there. I did that but when I came back there again a few days ago I saw that my changes had been reverted. I had posted my reasons on the talk page but the person who reverted my changes had not answered me. I can't name the user since they don't have an account.

The first changes were made by 84.48.208.98 and the user who undid my revision was 2001:4643:74BE:0:783B:F54B:8DF5:7D03.

I don't really know how to proceed but I do know that the article needs some sort of protection.--Óli Gneisti (talk) 12:36, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

The Father of Nordic Reflexology?
Anybody heard of this guy, or is this Not a Notable Person? Alexbrn (talk) 11:16, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I have difficulty finding sources in English papers or in my books collection (including various RS on pseudoscience). I can't tell about national-level notability however.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 12:32, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Never heard of him. A Swede, 20:46, 25 August 2018 (UTC).
 * The founder of bullshit in a specific region? Sounds like a self-serving claim to me. Guy (Help!) 21:56, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Richard Deacon (actor)
Are university presses “fringe” publications? Are they “vanity” presses? Just checking. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:32, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * May well depends on who they are, many organisations can call themselves universities.Slatersteven (talk) 14:39, 26 August 2018 (UThere]}C)
 * Is the University Press of Mississippi associated with a university, if so which one?Slatersteven (talk) 14:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * It's "supported by the eight state universities" (see here). Mangoe (talk) 17:51, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It can get complicated depending on the university press. It can be very easy for people associated with universities to get their work published by the Uni press. Regardless of the quality (or subject) of what they are writing. I dont know enough about the presses in question. But I would be wary of declaring someone a 'closeted homosexual' because of anecdotes in books about other people/subjects. If it was a BLP we wouldnt consider it, but because they are dead its okay to anecdotally label them? I would take the individual presses, content, and post at RSN for a better analysis. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:40, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Per the above, I've done some copyediting so we attribute statements to sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:33, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * FYI: Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents resulted in a 48H block. FWiW I'm rather bothered that what comes across as unsourced gossip apparently becomes academic fact in LGBTQ studies, at least if the cited works are any indication. But apparently homo-tagging people is more important than rigor. Mangoe (talk) 16:18, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Granted, it's from Barricade Books, but unless Hadleigh was outright lying about his interview with Deacon, it doesn't appear to just be a rumour. --tronvillain (talk) 19:46, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Though looking at the author's page, perhaps that's a possibility? --tronvillain (talk) 19:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Judging from the hits, the interviewee was Paul Lynde, not Deacon. I can't tell what Lynde actually said about Deacon, though. Mangoe (talk) 23:03, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * There's a whole section with Deacon before the interview with Lynde: "Or vaguely 'straight'? Do you imagine any segment of the public guesses Richard Deacon is gay?" He shook his head. "Not even gays. Most would be surprised. Only because what you see on TV - a serious guy in a suit, unsmiling - isn't how anyone thinks of gay males." Searching "public guesses" should turn it up part of it for you. --23:10, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Living Dinosaurs, Young Earth Creationism, and quackery abound at Mokele-mbembe
Recently restored a plethora of WP:RS violations and WP:PROFRINGE material I'd removed from Mokele-mbembe. These references include a tremendous amount of unabashedly fringe, including material sourced to Young Earth creationists (William J. Gibbons) and a boatload of cryptozoology quacks, including references to Roy Mackal's notorious A Living Dinosaur?. Prior to the user's restoration of fringe material, I started two threads on the article's talk page. They received no response.

Anyway, article needs some eyes, particularly as this user has a long history of edit-warring in favor pseudoscience on the site (lately, notably where Young Earth creationism and cryptozoology intersect). Pinging editors who frequently work in these corners:, , and &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 22:55, 25 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The edit might have been a little over the top, especially since it eliminated most of the modern cryptozoologist material covered by Prothero and Loxton. I'm sure it was a work in progress, but as it was there was nothing left in the body actually explaining the modern conception of "Mokele-mbembe." --tronvillain (talk) 22:58, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was in fact stubifying the article to make way to rewrite the section, and all the references I pulled were in violation of WP:FRIND. However, under no circumstances is it OK to restore material to this guy as a reliable source. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 23:03, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Ye gads. There is no reason why we should be giving cryptozoology so much unwarranted attention here. Thirty-two sections about different expeditions to find the creature? Furthermore, I notice that neither the original version with all the expeditions nor the redacted version give any detailed information about what the actual Congo people say about the creature, presumably because their stories are not supportive of the idea that the mokele-mbembe is a "living dinosaur." Just about all we hear about their stories is in the first sentence, where the mokele-mbebe is described as "a water-dwelling entity, sometimes described as a living creature, sometimes as a spirit" and later in the first section, which quotes Hagenbeck's description of the creature from the Congo natives as "half elephant, half dragon." I assume there surely must be at least some reliable sources that have been written documenting what the Congo people themselves say about the mokele-mbebe. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:46, 25 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Knock it off Bloodofox. You removed 32k bytes of material, thus gutting the article.
 * Tronvillain too thought the purge was excessive ("little over the top").


 * Now you're trying to paint me as "in favor [of] pseudoscience". If I revert your major purge, it does not translate to my endorsing Gibbons as a source of highest reliablilty. Give me a fricking break.--Kiyoweap (talk) 21:30, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Have you considered not writing essays in talk page edit descriptions? --tronvillain (talk) 21:36, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * That would indeed be nice. On top of that, restoring Gibbons is indeed par for the course for Kiyoweap's edits here, which seem to be locked in 'pro-pseudoscience or revert-war, now' mode. Given the support for Gibbons and other quacks in the cryptozoology circle (and then the backtracking when called on it here), I think a deeper look into the user's edit history might be merited. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:42, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Arguably a revert does not necessarily imply endorsement of all content contained within that revert. --tronvillain (talk) 22:02, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Given Kiyoweap's other edits, such as aggressively pushing to employ works by cryptozoologists as reliable sources, I think an assumption of a pro-Gibbons stance fits in just fine with what we've seen so far (for example, today's best known living cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman also employs Gibbons as a reliable source and provides a glowing introduction to his work in Coleman and Jerome Clark's Cryptozoology from A to Z — quite typical of the pseudoscience/subculture). That said, if the user is in fact currently not pushing for more Gibbons and Coleman as a reliable source on Wikipedia but is instead simply not bothering to read what he is reverting, that raises another set of questions entirely (and of course still means he's reinserting pseudoscience into the article). &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 22:09, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I believe the user has been warned in the past about sanctions. If so, take it to WP:AE. jps (talk) 15:34, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, they have been alerted to discretionary sanctions in the pseuodoscience area, and I've now given them a final warning. I'm surprised at Kiyoweap's statement (and edit summary) above, and also at Tronvillain's apparent agreement with them that "a revert does not necessarily imply endorsement of all content contained within that revert." Sure it does. If an editor wishes to endorse part of the removed material, they should do a partial revert, rather than continuing for several days to edit war to reinsert content that it turns out they don't even mean to endorse. Or else they can do a full revert and then reasonably promptly remove the inappropriate part of the content they restored. Kiyoweap did the opposite; after the original full revert, they added 11 books in the form of a bibliography, which Bloodofox had removed as "fringe sources" in a separate edit. Thus Kiyoweap went on to compound rather than modify their previous restoration of fringe sourcing. (I can't parse their edit summary, but if the intention was to involve User:Sandstein, who had made a minor technical edit, in some responsibility for this version for the fringe bibliography, that would be absurd.) Bishonen &#124; talk 16:51, 27 July 2018 (UTC).


 * I'm just saying it doesn't necessarily- whether it does or not in this case is another matter. People do knee jerk reversions because they don't like change without even really looking at the content or sources, or people can think the content is good even if the sourcing is currently bad but are too lazy to look at and remove the sources themselves. That in this case they didn't then go to the talk page themselves and edit warred (after my comment I believe) makes this case more problematic. --tronvillain (talk) 18:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)


 * As for prompt action, it has only been 2-3 days, and that is not a whole lot of time for assess 32 kilobytes worth of content-gutting. I think user:Bishonen is being a bit too strict here.
 * I mean Bloodfox admitted he was stubifying the article to make way to rewrite the section. Why is it okay for a pending edit drag on for the same number of days for other editors? That's called a double-standard.


 * Right now I can only still sketch out my impending change crudely, but 1) Powell and Mackal expeditions are WP:DUE weight material 2) POV external link to a podcast by Prothero supposedly connected with the MonsterQuest show, which starts with a theme from the Flintstones followed by a mocking narrative. 3) William Gibbons's books, webpages can be replaced. Gibbon's expeditions being given no appreciable coverage is fine. 4) Clark, an non-sci trained author's book from small press is not the ideal source, but some sort of backbone content is desirable.--Kiyoweap (talk) 07:08, 28 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Strict? I don't think so, Kiyoweap. It didn't have to be done all at once. A never so tiny edit, in the space of 2-3 days, to remove, say, Gibbons and Coleman, would have looked a lot better than what you did: edit-warring with three different editors to restore the material in toto. Also, do you have any explanation for this edit? Or for your aggressive notes to jps, complaining that he, who had reverted twice, to your own three times, was edit warring? You are apparently not aware of jps's formidable presence on this board over the years. That's OK in itself, you don't have to be. But when you don't know somebody's record, you'd be safer not to condescend to them with remarks like "Do not make drive-by visits to WP:FT/N and read a couple of postings on threads and imagine yourself to be able to make a well-considered decision". Furthermore, you have not set foot on the article's talkpage. I have trouble understanding why you didn't answer this, for instance. My advice for the proposed change you outline above would be to finalize it and then post it on talk for discussion. Of course that's not an order; you're free to instead post it as incremental additions directly to the article, giving others time to react before you add more. But IMO the talkpage would be preferable in a case like this, to give a chance for consensus to form while avoiding a lot of back-and-forth on the article itself. Edit summaries are not a discussion forum; that's what the talkpage is for. Bishonen &#124; talk 10:59, 28 July 2018 (UTC).


 * Bishonen, of course 2 days is sufficient time some tiny gestural edits. But giving tiny concessions and representing this as only a partial revert hardly seems more good faith than doing an outright revert and saying so.
 * What I meant of course was 2 days was not ample time to make meaningful well-researched change. You're can't really make a time-assessment unless you've actually read the article and done the sourcing and fact-checking to see how tricky it is, viz.:


 * #1979: Thomas section stated that Rev. Eugene "Gene" Thomas had already heard stories of the 1959 Pygmy hunt and had 2 encounters himself in 1979 (prior to being engaged as the interpretor for the 1980: Mackal-Powell expedition). Which is significant information. The sources in the paragraph was a Gibbons websource and Coleman's Cryptomundo web source which are not desirable sourcing. Although I tried, I could nto find substantiation in Powell's paper and Mackal's book. So the situation where we have significant content I would like to retain, but it can apparently only be sourced using Gibbons book (communiqué to Crytpmundo /thomas-obit/). (Be warned that visiting Cryptomundo launches JSCoinminer Website)


 * Bishonen, I just botched my first revert using "undo" because that coupled the old text with the new bibliography, causing harv error messages, so I had to do a double-take. It was just a mistake. To "compound rather than modify" wasn't what was on my mind.


 * In the retake I opted to version "851951305 by Sandstein" rather than "850193355 by Bloodofox" because there was no difference in the two, and Sandstein's edit was the easier to pick out from the crowded revision history. The suggestion that this was an attempt by me to blame this user for something is bizarre.I don't think you have so far taken me entirely in bad faith, I would like to see things otherwise.--Kiyoweap (talk) 20:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Before madly mashing that revert button at any user who comes by, I might suggest that you get very familiar with WP:FRIND, because any attempts to reintroduce fringe sources without a reliable source putting them into context will be met with resistance. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 20:28, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

"cryptozoology quacks" Bloodofox, Biographies of living persons also applies to talk pages, stop writing accusations about BLPs. Quackery specifically refers to "fraudulent or ignorant medical practices", and this in not the case here. Dimadick (talk) 15:00, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I believe the standard Wikipedia term for pushers of such fringe "science" is lunatic charlatans. Black Kite (talk) 17:58, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes I wanted to bring up Dimadick's point. It is undignified to refer to Prof. Mackal in that way, and I'm disappointed admins dont caution him to tone it down. Unfortunately the professor is no longer living, so BLP does not apply. --Kiyoweap (talk) 20:20, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Like everywhere else, the very Wikipedia article you link to does not restrict the definition of quackery to a narrow medical sense ("a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to skill, knowledge, or qualifications he or she does not possess; a charlatan", which it takes form dictionary.com for whatever reason). In reality, if you're selling snake oil or anti-evolution propaganda under the guise of science, you're a quack, whether inside or outside of a medical field.


 * And the term quack certainly applies to both Gibbons and Mackal. Yes, Mackal is dead, and Prothero and Loxton write that Mackal "had no training that would qualify him to undertake competent research on exotic animals". They highlight Gibbons's lack of appropriate credentials in a similar manner. A hallmark of the pseudoscience is misrepresentation and false credential mongering, which Prothero and Loxton also highlight commonly occurs in the case of Mackal but also occurs with Young Earth creationist cryptozoologist Gibbons, who "has a degree in religious education from a seminary". While use of terms like "undignified" and "the professor" by Kiyoweap above implies a reverence for the pseudoscience works of Mackal (Prothero, for example, would also be "the professor"), his revert-warring to reinstate references to works by figures like Gibbons implies a broader pro-pseudoscience stance point of view.


 * Of course, at the end of the day, this is all very typical pseudoscience-on-Wikipedia stuff. I hadn't seen the lunatic charlatans essay before — seems this is indeed a well worn path! &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 20:25, 28 July 2018 (UTC)


 * No. Nobody in academia calls his colleagues a "quack" who happens to dabble in a field not quite within his expertise.
 * This is your own code, and it is not good enough excuse for trying to continue to use it.


 * And don't obliquely suggest Mackal peddles anti-evolution propaganda either. If you know for sure he has done it, put it on the table or just hold your tongue.


 * What exactly are the specific examples of what you accuse to be pseudoscience produced by Mackal? If he brings back the malombo fruit that the pygmies say the creature eats, and has it identified by a botanist, is that pseudoscience under your definition? If you can't get specific on these there is no sense in perpetuating the thread on this notice. --Kiyoweap (talk) 02:16, 29 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Oh, please. Mackal's A Living Dinosaur? is notorious (and unintentional hilarious) pseudoscience, and that's just the most obvious and relevant of a laundry list of deep fringe stuff Mackal produced in his free time. Fumbling around in the jungle in an attempt to find an antiquated notion of a dinosaur (while being duped by locals) makes for funny reading, yes, but it's also neocolonial dress pretending to be science.


 * Mackal's missionary guide, Eugene Thomas, himself baptized Gibbons (in the Congo, of course). Their two "expeditions" are directly connected. Anyway, Mokele-Mbembe makes for a revealing fixation among cryptozoologists, and highlights the strong undercurrents of Young Earth creationism that course through the pseudoscience, increasingly evident today. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 05:07, 29 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I realize Mackal was working with "antiquated notion" of a sauropod regarding its posture or appearnace or habitat, which Prothero points out. Which you are free to add to the article. But Mackal was not specifically 'searching for sauropods' -- that is only a shorthand or caricature description. Mackal only says he was invetigating a remote possibility of "sauropod dinosaur-like animals surviving" (p. 216)", which could be any unknown or unusual reptile or a mammal. Either only the caricature version is so deeply ingrained in Bloodofox that he cannot escape from it, or he is knowingly misleading us.


 * On the allegation of Mackal "being duped by locals". I presume this is from Prothero's reconstructed scenario that the Powell-Mackal expedition was beset by Congolese making up stories where money was to be had.(p. 279ff) I guess Bloodofox's amusement comes from thinking that Powell and Mackal were seriously recording anecdotes and all the while these greedy locals were scamming them, har har har. Sorry, I think of this rather as a chilling stereotyped accusation of African locals as to their morals and belief-systems rather than a pie-in-the-face-of-Mackal comedy entertainment.--Kiyoweap (talk) 21:44, 29 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Sauropod-hunting in the jungle = comedy gold. Also pseudoscience. Stick to reliable sources and you won't run into any problems with sourcing, thanks. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 16:21, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

"Mackal only says he was invetigating a remote possibility of "sauropod dinosaur-like animals surviving" (p. 216)", which could be any unknown or unusual reptile or a mammal." This is hardly the case. The typical description for Sauropoda consists of "long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their body), and four thick, pillar-like legs. They are notable for the enormous sizes attained by some species, and the group includes the largest animals to have ever lived on land." The description would not fit the average mammal.

And to clarify what "enormous" means here, Sauroposeidon had an estimated height of 18 metres (59 feet). Dimadick (talk) 17:28, 30 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Dimadick, if you absorb information in soundbites you might get the wrong idea. The expedition did not claim they local reports of such behemoths. Mackal does not claim they were sauropod-like as in outsizing elephants by many-fold, and can be quoted saying "This is certainly the right size for a Mokele-mbembe, but, of course, also for a smallish forest elephant" (p.180, he is referring to footprints here). Don't attribute to him mistakes he did not commit.
 * Re emela-ntouka "elephant killer", Mackal states rhinoceros is a "viable" theory (p. 238). He is not married to large dinosaur hypothesis, and Bloodofox is attempting to make it seems this is a case with tasteless jokes and zingers. --Kiyoweap (talk) 01:56, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

This discussion, starting from "The edit might have been a little over the top", is about improving the article Mokele mbembe. That means it is pretty much what Talk:Mokele mbembe is for. This page, on the other hand, is a noticeboard. The first contribution, ending with "They received no response", belongs here. Should we move all the stuff after that to the Talk page? --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:07, 1 August 2018 (UTC)


 * It should not be moved, no. Discussion about the article should continue on the article Talk page, but copy/pasting the conversation isn't necessary. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 16:45, 1 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Besides the distortions, the other leg of Bloodofox's charge of "pseudoscience" is bullcrap innuendo: "Loren Coleman also employs Gibbons as a reliable source and provides a glowing introduction" or "Mackal's connection to Young Earth creationist and missionary Eugene Thomas, .. who went on to baptize cryptozoologist Gibbons here. Scientists do not abandon their conviction in evoltionary theory when they come in contact with devout Christians. These are guilt-by-association smear tactics that may belong in mudslinging dirty political ads, not here.


 * And while Gibbons may be a "creationist", Prothero's insistence that Gibbons set out to prove young earth, is suspect because Gibbon flatly denied this in a communiqué to Coleman (/mokele09/) saying: "Finally, I should mention that any discovery of a living dinosaur will not, in my opinion, .. prove that the earth is 6,000 years old, or disprove evolution".


 * Therefore Bloodofox needs to stop and revert his sweeping propagandistic editing that tries to forcibly associate these well-known cryptozoolgist's works like Loren Coleman's Cryptozoolgy A-Z from Simon and Schuster or Mackal's book out of Brill Publishers as somehow promoting "young earth creationism". This is not a WP:DUE weight characterization of these group of people. It is blatant WP:NPOV smear. --Kiyoweap (talk) 22:02, 11 August 2018 (UTC)


 * "My child is an angel; all others are devils." I understand that people who hold dear a particular fringe proposition (say cryptozoology) may find associations with other fringe positions (say young Earth creationism) to be a smear. But the sources do not indicate that there is a hierarchy of forms with respect to these subjects. While it would be a mistake to equate creationists and cryptozoologists, it would be irresponsible not to let readers know that they do find common cause in their tilting at windmills -- even if they may disagree as to which maverick ideas are supposed to be taken seriously. jps (talk) 15:14, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Not this again....--Paleface Jack (talk) 22:29, 20 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The foregoing concerned Bloodofox's use of guilt-by-association argument, an obvious smear tactic. Opinion on jps's set of arguments I have yet to offer.


 * Attempt is made again to blur the distinction between hypothesis and claim. Why do you this? Most adults clearly recognize the difference. Mackal tapped experts on sauropods for the stance that their survival was improbable but possible. Such statement of possibility is not pseudoscience. Any more than Prothero's statement that it is "possible that aliens have visited us". And Mackal's pursuit of his improbabity isn't really any more quixotic than Prothero's guru Carl Sagan's improbable search for extraterrestrials.


 * There is a fundamental difference between young earth theory and a hypothetical living dinosaur. Young earth is a refutation of all geological dating and is incompatible with science. In contrast, a single dinosaur survival would only be an exception to the rule and would not refute the entire dinosaur fossil record.
 * So even if you are blind to it, your so-called "hierarchy" is there. --Kiyoweap (talk) 20:29, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Plausible deniability is the name of the game, and it is a rhetorical equivalence even still. Cryptozoologists claim not that it is possible that non-avian dinosaurs are running around but rather that there is evidence that they are running around. When you corner them about this, they fall back on the "all is possible which is not forbidden" defense. But YECs do exactly the same thing. Their game is to say, for example, that they have evidence that the world is young, young, young, but when you corner them about this, they fall back on the "we can never be 100% sure that these dating methods are accurate. It is possible that they are all wrong, you must admit!" jps (talk) 21:51, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what everyone's problem is. Of course dinosaurs are still around. There is one outside my window tanking up from my dinosaur feeder hummingbird feeder. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:47, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've found that, by and large, dinosaurs taste like chicken. - Nunh-huh 21:54, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Merge proposal at cryptozoology and list of cryptids
An editor has proposed that cryptozoology absorbs list of cryptids (proposal: Talk:Cryptozoology/Archive 5). For those you who have followed the notorious latter list know, previous attempts to reign in the WP:PROFRINGE that the list has historically promoted and embraced failed in part due to factors such as off-site lobbying at cryptozoology forums by cryptozoologist and, shall we say, aggressive editing by cryptozoology-sympathetic editors (at times resulting in personal attacks and even threats toward yours truly). Since then, the pseudoscience's connection to topics like Young Earth creationism and other pseudosciences like ufology have become increasingly clear, as the cryptozoology article now reflects. Anyway, there's some serious pseudoscience happening in these corners, and the process definitely needs more eyes. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:47, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Really... Again....--Paleface Jack (talk) 01:12, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Also this is far from a neutrally worded notice.Slatersteven (talk) 16:48, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This notice wasn't written to appease Wikipedia's cryptozoology proponents. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 16:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It is still meant to be neutral (see Canvassing, "Campaigning: Posting a notification of discussion that presents the topic in a non-neutral manner.").Slatersteven (talk) 16:59, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I get that you're very fond of this topic, Slater, but you're going to have a very hard time convincing others that this isn't deep WP:FRINGE territory, and that, indeed, offsite lobbying and threats toward myself haven't occurred. But good luck on your canvasing angle, I guess. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 17:01, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't get too bothered by this. Your presentation was perfectly neutral. Unfortunately, there is a subculture of Wikipedians who mix up the truth with "non-neutral" opinion. jps (talk) 17:22, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Ouch! That seems a but harsh. Equal coverage of BOTH sides is essential in both encyclopedic content and for this site. It irks me that some people don't seem to understand that we are here to create encyclopedic content. Not taking sides and reporting a single opinion.--Paleface Jack (talk) 22:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:FALSEBALANCE seems relevant here. --tronvillain (talk) 22:56, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * And WP:FRINGELEVEL — Paleo Neonate  – 04:01, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * This is exactly what I was talking about.--Paleface Jack (talk) 16:39, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

IP pushing Joseph Davidovits
See Talk:Hebrews and where he insists that an opinion of Davidovits be included although no reliable sources seem to have noticed it. He's also arguing that this material scientist is an expert on Egyptology which of course he isn't and doesn't even claim to be so far as I know. Doug Weller talk 15:57, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Drmies blocked him and then I realised the IP was a sock of a blocked editor. Blocked for a month. Doug Weller  talk 18:42, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Sock of another IP or a registered user? Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:44, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I meant to say account, but I won't say who. Doug Weller  talk 19:17, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Applied PC protection. This is obviously never going away. Guy (Help!) 22:08, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Undue promotion of 9/11 conspiracy theories
Editors here may want to add September 11 attacks, 9/11 Truth movement and Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth to their watchlist. We have an editor who seems to think that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job by the US government and has been editing (and edit-warring) these articles to give undue weight to these fringe theories. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:15, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Awww, cute... someone who still thinks 9/11 was an inside job? How retro.  Has he/she decided whether to be a MIH (“made it happen”) or a LIH (“let it happen”)? Blueboar (talk) 16:45, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Blocked per WP:NOTHERE. Guy (Help!) 22:10, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Orb (optics)
Should this article include a “paranormal” section? There is one decent source, however IMO, the old one-way-linking rule for pseudoscience should apply here, i.e. a section in ghost hunting about the pseudoscientific belief should link to Orb (optics), but not the other way around. Curious what others think. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:03, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's exactly what we should do. I have removed the paranormal cruft. jps (talk) 19:25, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I left in the See Also link to Will o' the wisp, though I'm not sure if there are reliable sources which indicate that will o' the wisps are optical orbs. jps (talk) 19:26, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Also it may be beneficial to move the article title (keeping a redirect from Orb (optics)) to a more relevant photographic term. “Orb” is not a term used in photography. It is simply a holdover from the circa 2007 ghost hunting fad that made its way into pop culture. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:35, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Maybe re-AfD? I see that User:Andy Dingley reverted me on behalf of the claimed results of the previous "merge". jps (talk) 22:13, 12 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes. Two reasons.
 * 1) They're a significant part of paranormal 'evidence'. Paranormal topics are not necessarily scientific, but they can still be encyclopedic. Especially where, as in this case, there is such an obvious and rational explanation for them, it's well within our scope to explain this and to debunk the more fanciful others. Outside of the paranormal references to orbs, it's not even clear if this very minor optical artifact would even be notable.
 * 2) There was an AfD on Orb (paranormal) which closed as a merge. Not a delete. Not a "merge for a bit until no-one's looking". If you want to overturn that, then go through an RfC.  I did revert on that basis, but you then started edit-warring to repeat the deletion anyway. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:32, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As previously mentioned, “orb” is not a term commonly used in photography or optics to describe this optical phenomena. Backscatter is. It's in seven of the seven references cited in the article, as are the common terms "lens flare", "dust particles" or "floating particles". While paranormal enthusiasts may have called these things "orbs", they are a tiny minority. I'm not sure why we have an article about an optical effect named for the term a small fringe segment of the population uses. it seems WP:UNDUE weight on that view. WP:ONEWAY linking is a good start to fixing this problem, since ghost hunting is the appropriate place for the minority term/explanation/ debunking. Renaming the article backscatter (lens flare) or similar, and perhaps eventually merging it with backscatter article would be a vast improvement. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:18, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * But it has nothing to do with lens flare. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:53, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * “Flash reflection” then? Certainly the article title should be a recognizable photographic term used by the majority of sources cited in the article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:23, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "a recognizable photographic term" - that would be "orbs" (and you don't need flash either). And the majority of discussion of this effect is from the paranormal world, because no-one else really cares much about it. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should just delete the orb (optics) and redirect orb (paranormal) to a new section of ghost hunting. Much like cold spot (paranormal). jps (talk) 03:58, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * No, we're a science-based encyclopedia. Our role is to explain, with a rational and sourced explanation.  The previous article was doing that, but you want to disconnect the two. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:27, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Guy (Help!) 13:11, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Disconnect the two what? There is only one subject here as far as I can tell: things identified by ghost hunters as "orbs". Apparently, no one but ghost hunters calls these visual artifacts "orbs", so an article on orb (optics) may be completely WP:OR. jps (talk) 14:27, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

I'll get the ball rolling. Articles for deletion/Orb (optics). jps (talk) 14:30, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Orb's sister article Rod has a similar set of problems. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 18:49, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed. What to do with this one? &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 18:59, 13 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The article on Rods does need some better development. Especially considering it's not exactly neutral.--Paleface Jack (talk) 19:42, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * What do you think needs to be added to/removed from the article? - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:13, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The article should be moved and the lead rewritten, since "rod," like "orb," is not really a term in optics or photography. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 15:32, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand this motivation to purge Wikipedia of fringe topics, or merge them into generic articles where nobody will find them. Ignoring woo-woo topics is not how Wikipedia educates the world. If I didn't know better, I'd think this was being driven by woo-woo advocates unhappy that skeptical Wikipedia articles are showing up in Google results. ApLundell (talk) 22:26, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has a long history of unintentionally (or, in the case when fringe advocates fill a missing gap or band together, quite intentionally) promoting fringe topics. As a result, the platform has developed a robust set of guidelines regarding how these topics are treated, including WP:ONEWAY and WP:PROFRINGE. A lot of these pseudoscience articles have long passed themselves off as really real science, and the attention they're getting now is definitely a good thing. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "Orbs" are "really real science". They're just misrepresented as to cause. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:01, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Which is why we’re having this discussion. I see that you’re lobbying hard to keep this article just the way it is for whatever reason, but please don’t misrepresent my comments. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 00:09, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
 * @ApLundell, I wouldn’t worry about people searching for fringe topics and not finding them because they’re buried. We have redirects that function quite nicely, e.g. try searching for “coldspot (paranormal). - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:11, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Just rewrite it instead of outright deleting it. Just because it contains "fringe" info doesn't necessarily dictate complete removal.--Paleface Jack (talk) 22:32, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Rods
After much wringing of hands and really some good collaboration had by all involved, it seems we've come to a redirected conclusion for these orbs.

Now, what should we do with Rod (optics)? I am hoping that it will not need an AfD.

jps (talk) 17:01, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
 * They're obviously not called "rods" in photography, or in the optical (or any) sciences. We have WP:FRIND sources that call them a hoax, though:, , , . Perhaps redirect to an entry at List of hoaxes? - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:11, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Motion blur is another possible target. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:46, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Etzel Cardeña
This guy Etzel Cardeña is basically a parapsychology crank and his article reads like promotion. He has written a bunch of papers claiming psychokinesis is real, yet there are no third-party reliable sources that have reviewed his work. In 2014 (with Dean Radin and others) he signed a nutty paper (in the notorious Frontiers Media) claiming paranormal research is scientific. As reliable sources are lacking I think his article should be submitted for deletion. 80.189.126.234 (talk) 09:30, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, 80.189.xx. I've prodded the article. Bishonen &#124; talk 16:56, 1 September 2018 (UTC).


 * Applying the "What links here" link at Etzel Cardeña and watchlisting some of them, I found this:
 * American Psychological Association says: "The APA has published hundreds of books.[18] Among these books are: [..] and many scholarly books on specific subjects such as Varieties of Anomalous Experience." I guess somebody can find a better example for "books on specific subjects" than a book by Cardeña and Stanley Krippner. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:07, 2 September 2018 (UTC)


 * My PROD was promptly removed, and the article is now at AfD, Articles for deletion/Etzel Cardeña. Bishonen &#124; talk 21:17, 2 September 2018 (UTC).

Atlantis nonsense at Richat Structure
First added by User:IMedscaper and after its removal two IPs on 2 different continents. See my edit summary when I removed it and also Talk:Atlantis. Doug Weller talk 18:43, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Oops, and Talk:Richat Structure. Doug Weller  talk 18:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Petrodollar warfare
Used to be a redirect to Petrodollar recycling which was recently reverted. There were previous AfDs but without consensus, I think. I'm not sure if this is the best place for it, but eyes welcome. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate  – 02:49, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Zina Bash, OK (gesture)


I'm writing this kind of in anticipation because there's not exactly an edit war here but there is concerning material relating to WP:BLP and fringe theories.

Zina Bash is being accused on the Internet by non-notable pundits of making a white supremacist gesture, one that isn't actually a white supremacist gesture but one that was invented by 4chan to make liberals look like over-reacters to banal things. See here from the ADL This is a highly harmful allegation with very little substance to it, you wouldn't mention Pizzagate on the biography of Hillary Clinton, for example.

The point is this is fringe to discuss, just like people who accuse pop stars of having Illuminati symbols in their videos. That shouldn't be mentioned on pop stars' biographies, because it's another conspiracy theory but anonymous people on the Internet. This shouldn't be within a million miles of Bash's biography (unless I am gravely mistaken), but how should it be summed up on the OK (gesture) article?

Expectedly, Anarcho-authoritarian (talk) 17:50, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * , Good removal, I don't think this incident should be mentioned in the OK (gesture) at all per WP:BLP Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:00, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Black Sun (symbol)
I'd like to draw more eyes to Black Sun (symbol). While this symbol has received little attention outside of Germany to date, it is becoming increasingly visible in alt-right and neo-Nazi circles (particularly in the Trump era U.S. political landscape and evidently even in some official context in Ukraine, see Azov Battalion). The article has historically propped the symbol up as "ancient", yet all indications are that the symbol was produced by a Nazi artist during the Third Reich with the intention to glorify the SS in some manner or another (it only occurs during the era on a floor mosaic at Wewelsburg). I'm working on a rewrite of the article, but in the mean time more eyes would be appreciated. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 01:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * While taking a look at this I noticed Black Sun (mythology), the core of which comes from an essay on D. H. Lawrence and his work of fiction The Plumed Serpent. Probably a candidate for AfD. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 18:28, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's pretty badly written too - ungrammatical sentences abound. Go ahead and put it to AfD. Girth Summit  (blether)  20:04, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC being planned
Please see WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. Jytdog (talk) 23:42, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Clearly Wikipedia isn't ready for the TRUTH about black helicopters...
See Reliable sources/Noticeboard --Guy Macon (talk) 00:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

London Conference on Intelligence
Emil Kirkegaard has been editing this article. Problem is that he attended this controversial conference and was involved heavily involved with it. There appears to be little to no criticism in the article, it is not neutrally written in relation to the sources. Mainstream news sources have described the conferences as far-right, eugenicist and racist,,. These were not conferences promoting mainstream science. The ideas were very much on the lunatic fringe. Kirkegaard has tried to counter-balance this by adding a source written by the attendees who do not like the word "eugenics". The paper is online - problem with this paper, it was co-written by Richard Lynn (a white supremacist) and a bunch of other racist kooks (Michael A. Woodley of Menie, Edward Dutton (who is associated with the Mankind Quarterly) etc.

Rationalwiki has a large run-down of the speakers at the conferences. Practically every speaker is some sort of kook associated with "race realist" community and controversial views from the far-right, alt-right, white nationalism, racism, eugenics, sexism, homophobia etc. They all seem to hold unorthodox views about "race". Toby Young attended the latest conference and ended up describing the speakers as "right-wing fruitcakes". Any ideas what should be done with this? I suggest that criticism should be added to the article, there is a false balance. Also see the talk-page for a discussion Vihaan Khatri (talk) 15:29, 1 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Anglo Pyramidologist is referring to User:Deleet who is, as it says on his userpage, Articles for deletion/Emil Kirkegaard Harassing Deleet is a hobby of AP's, he's had several socks do it. Of course he's right about this. Doug Weller  talk 10:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC)


 * It seems the conference article has become the target of a lot of sockpuppetry recently; eyes over there are definitely in order. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk  22:31, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * If this sock harassing Deleet prevents Deleet from editing articles related to intelligence or race, then this sock is improving the project. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:40, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I would tend to agree with you ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants, but the Wikipedia party line (such that it is) requires me to remind you that matters like that should be taken up by either WP:AN or by WP:AE with a requested topic ban on the subject of Race and Intelligence for Mr. Deleet. I would do it myself, but I hate the process. jps (talk) 16:42, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed, that's probably good advice. I should probably take it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:50, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

For anyone who is interested. Deleet has a sock-puppet Godotskimp who just filed a case against ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants. Kirkegaard has been advertising people to help him on twitter. He is still editing articles related to race and intelligence. Examples: International Society for Intelligence Research which he spoke at a few months ago. Richard Lynn (a white supremacist who he works for), Nathan Brody etc.

As for the Intelligence (journal), a number of notable racists are involved with it - Richard Haier, Richard Lynn, J. Philippe Rushton, Gerhard Meisenberg, Arthur R. Jensen etc. 89.163.221.47 (talk) 17:33, 7 September 2018 (UTC)


 * A topic ban on the subject of Race and Intelligence for Mr. Deleet and his sock-puppet Godotskimp would be most appropriate. 89.163.221.47 (talk) 17:42, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 * IP, my comment was, in fact inapropriate. It was an off-the-cuff remark made in passing in the absolute wrong forum. Though I stand by the sentiment, this is not the place to hold that discussion. If you want to get the ball rolling, make a case (with diffs and other evidence) at WP:ANI or WP:AN. But we should not discuss this, here. I'm striking my comment above. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  18:39, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Fringe conservative theories about social media censorship
This is something to be on the look-out for. I've noticed that a number of editors have sought to add content falsely claiming that this or that conservative figure has been "shadow-banned", "censored" or blocked by social media platforms. In most of the cases, the claims of bans and censorship turn out to be false and/or unsubstantiated. As you may be aware of, this is a new talking point among rightwing conservatives, so we can expect more bad edits along these lines. I've encountered this type of fringe content on Diamond and Silk, Ronna McDaniel, PragerU and Shadow banning. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:40, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I've been treating some of the recent editing as a political conspiracy theory, falling under American politics sanctions. --Ronz (talk) 15:46, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not been too visible an issue, because the sourcing used for these claims is non-existent or entirely unreliable. But I've seen it, myself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  17:42, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Not so fast... Sometimes the shadow ban hits an engineer who understands what is and isn't evidence, and sometimes the shadow ban is reported by a reliable source. Of course there are also a bunch of bullshit claims of shadowbanning where there is no evidence. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:58, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the Dilbert guy doesn't have any special insight into Twitter's search engine. Vice News did find that Twitter algorithmically limited the visibility of accounts that appeared to be engaged in trollish behavior, by removing them from the list of automatically suggested accounts that popped up in the search bar when entering a name. They didn't find that Twitter was systematically targeting conservatives, and they didn't find that Twitter was doing anything more than making these accounts ever-so-slightly less visible. Other tech journalists have disputed characterizing this as a "shadow-ban", and the claim of censorship is still a conspiracy theory that is not supported by any reliable source. Nblund talk 18:34, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * He's a Trump fan. His opinion may safely be ignored. Guy (Help!) 20:52, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Scott Adams in not an engineer, as much as he likes to pretend. He has a BA and MBA and worked as a mid level manager (no idea if his hair was pointy) before becoming a full-time artist in 1995. ApLundell (talk) 18:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * As the years have gone by Adams has become a bit... odd. I wouldn't use him as a reliable source for anything but his own views. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:16, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * So when he says "I don’t have confirmation that Twitter is shadowbanning me. All I know is that my followers say they don’t always see my posts unless they go to my feed directly. Hundreds of people might be wrong (it happens) but the odds are against it." do you think he imagined it, is lying, or that hundreds of people are lying to him? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:42, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Could be any of those. But it's more likely to be the issue explained in the last paragraph of Shadow banning, which wasn't actually shadow-banning at all. Black Kite (talk) 22:46, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I have a hard time understanding where you ever got the idea that Scott Adams is "an engineer who understands what is and isn't evidence" when his first foray into the topic of "evidence" came with him defending intelligent design. Oh, and he's also a climate change denier. Really, he's pretty terrible on the matter of what constitutes evidence. jps (talk) 23:05, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * In a universe where non-trivial algorithms control the visibility of everyone and everything, "shadow banning" is probably too absolute of a concept to be easily defined. There's now a continuum between "Promoted" and "Shadow Banned", and everybody's on it.
 * For instance, what those republican lawmakers linked above are complaining about is not "shadow banning" as it's traditionally understood, they're complaining that they're not far enough to the "Promoted" side of the continuum compared to allegedly analogous democratic lawmakers.
 * We're probably going to see lots of increasingly wild claims about this. From anyone who's not as famous as they think they should be. ApLundell (talk) 18:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * There are two things going on I think. One is XKCD 1357. The other is that "conservative voices" tend to be vastly over-represented in opinion and discussion but vastly under-represented in factual reporting, for the simple and obvious reason that they are wrong. Sources don't say that climate change is a hoax, that massive tax cuts for the wealthy boost the economy, that giving people affordable health insurance is communism, because the evidence very clearly shows these things not to be true. Conservatives are still banging on about Benghazi and Hillary's emails, as if she won the election (well, she did, but you know what I mean). Guy (Help!) 20:51, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, you keep making that claim as if only th right promotes pseudoscience. They certainly do, but it is the left that promotes pseudoscience when the topic is GMOs, the blank slate dogma, power lines causing cancer, or nuclear power. There is plenty of bullshit on both sides if you look. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:42, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm. According to Pew, Democrats and Republicans hold similar views on the effects of eating GM foods. Democrats are indeed less likely to favor nuclear power according to Gallup, but the difference is not huge (much smaller than e.g., the gap over climate change). As for the other two, I have an open mind but Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:13, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm yes I know people part of a conservative religious cult who are very into "organic" foods... — Paleo  Neonate  – 06:29, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * There is pseudoscience on the left, but it tends to centre on diet and medical woo, which is not so much in the news. Antivaxers complain every bit as loudly about being "censored", and indeed censured (see Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network) but they have less powerful vested interests working on their behalf. The core of the complaint under discussion, as far as I can see, is the claim that neutrality must lie somewhere between what the mainstream media say and what Fox say. That is the fallacy of the false middle. So much of what "Conservative voices" say is objectively false, it is reaosnable not to give it any kind of equivalence to objective fact. Guy (Help!) 08:44, 9 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Shadow banning is when a member's contributions are entirely hidden from other members, but their ability to log in and make contributions is not affected, and they are not notified of the change in their status. This only happens on small internet forums, and the "evidence" cited by literally every single conservative mouthpiece to support the claim that they've been shadow banned completely fails to evince this. All it would take to prove shadow banning is someone taking a video of them using two devices; one to post using their account, and another with no account or possibly a sock account to prove that the posts aren't visible to others. But none of these so-called "victims" have ever done that.
 * The problem is not that they're being shadow-banned. It's that their contributions only appeal to a niche audience, and so the sites have declined to commercially exploit them in a way that also works to the "victim's" advantage. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  21:04, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and victimization is the next step... — Paleo  Neonate  – 06:19, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Hamlet's Mill
I don't know if anyone is interested in this, but it gives too much credence to "the claim of a Megalithic era discovery of axial precession, and the encoding of this knowledge in mythology."

It also for some reason leaves out the importance of numbers to the author. Jason Colavito wrote on this recently saying "Hamlet’s Mill, published in 1969, is one of the foundational texts of the “alternative archaeology” movement because its writers mined global mythology to hunt out factors and multiples of 72 in order to claim that such numbers proved that world myths all encoded scientific data from a lost civilization about the precession of the equinoxes, in which the stars rotate backwards through the zodiac by one degree every 71.6 years, roughly 72 years to the nearest integer. Thus, numbers like 12, 36, 72, 432, 36,000, etc. all become important “precessional numbers” suggesting remnants of this lost science."

See also its use at Astrological age. Doug Weller talk 17:03, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Good catch with this. Many editors may not be aware that a fringe subculture exists around this stuff, and I've noticed a lot of archaeoastronomy pseudoscience slipping through the cracks on the site over the years. I'll take a look. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 17:07, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I really appreciate everyone's help here. Thanks. Doug Weller  talk 08:26, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

EmDrive again
RF resonant cavity thruster currently says:


 * Gravitational-magnetic-electric field interaction
 * A 2018 paper in “Results in Physics” by Y. Zhu a scientist in China have proposed a possible thrust from the gravitational field varied by strong magnetic/electric field. The gravitational redshift well showed that the energy of photon can be varied by gravity. From the law of conservation of energy, the energy of the gravitational field is accordingly varied by the photon. Therefore, the gravitational and electromagnetic field can be varied by each other. The equations for the interaction between gravitational and magnetic/electric field were obtained. The equations show that, the varied gravitational field could be manipulated in practice, including space propulsion.

Note the Results in Physics (journal) is a redlink. https://www.journals.elsevier.com/results-in-physics has more information.

[ https://retractionwatch.com/2017/12/21/elsevier-retracting-26-papers-accepted-fake-reviews/#more-53130 ] has some rather interesting information about Results in Physics as well.

And we have [ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Isaac_Dinaharan ], where a researcher says


 * "I have also received rejections from Elsevier journals with an option to transfer. The journals which they suggested were recently started open access journals such as Heliyon, Results in Physics etc. Those journals collect open access fee from authors. Hence, I declined the transfer offer."'

The relevant passage in the Yin Zhu PDF cited is:


 * Electromagnetic and gravitational field are two very important fields. It is very significant to know the interaction between them. Eqs. (14) and (17) show that, the gravitational field could be manipulated with a magnetic or electric field just as that the electromagnetic field is done with the Faraday’s law of induction. For example, gravitational communication [31] should be possible with them. And, a GemDrive [32] could be designed by varying the gravitational field with a strong magnetic/electric field in one part of a spacecraft to produce a gravitational potential difference between two parts of a spacecraft which propels this spacecraft to move. It shall lead to use the gravitational field as used the electromagnetic one. In astronomical observation, many electric and magnetic fields are very strong. Eqs. (15) and

(18) are useful for the observation.

Ref 32 in the Yin Zhu PDF is Yin Zhu citing Yin Zhu:

[ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313315115_A_Design_of_GemDrive ] (PDF version: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yin_Zhu2/publication/313315115_A_Design_of_GemDrive/links/5895a8064585158bf6ede6d0/A-Design-of-GemDrive.pdf)

Which is "A Design of GemDrive" published in "Experiment Findings" by "Yin Zhu, Agriculture Department of Hubei Province, Wuhan, China".

Odd I thought that schools had Agriculture Departments. Who knew that provinces had them as well?

[ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yin_Zhu2 ] tells us Yin Zhu's position at the Agriculture Department. "Manager".

BTW This contradicts [ https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=56172534300 ], which says that Yin Zhu is with the Fire Department of Hubei Province, Wuhan, China.

I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:13, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I removed that text for Wikipedia-policy reasons (separate from the fact that the "science" isn't). XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:28, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Not defending the source; just reiterating my comment from the reliable sources noticeboard that it's pretty common for post-graduate level academics to be CPC party members, and it's pretty common for bored CPC party members to get assigned random directorships where somebody feels having a Dr. So-and-so as the listed director will look good but where the administrative work involved in the directorship is insufficiently complicated to require specialist attention. (And I say this as someone with at least one in-law who might resemble that statement.) Simonm223 (talk) 15:03, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

An expert on the subject of conspiracy theories says...
This just in: an expert on the subject of conspiracy theories says creationism is wrong, man-made global warming is real, and the US government wasn't involved in the the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2010/feb/23/flat-earth-society

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:36, 10 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes but the Earth is still flat. That's why I live in the Arctic, as far away as possible from the edge. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 05:39, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry to break it to you Sunasuttuq... but you have it exactly backwards ... you live near the edge. Everyone knows that rock is heavier than water, and thus will be precipitated towards the edge by centrifugal force.  The so called "northern hemisphere" has more land mass, and so is obviously nearer to the edge. (see: here for a correct map). Blueboar (talk) 14:15, 11 September 2018 (UTC)


 * But according to the report above "Antarctica as a ring of mountains strung around the edge." and this map, both from the Flat Earth Society, I'm at the centre of the world. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 15:43, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I hate to break it to you, but everyone feels that way. Oh wait, the map, yes. Yes, you are at the center of the world. The Flat Earth Society is an unimpeachably reliably source, after all. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  15:53, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * "Any fool can look out his window and clearly see that the world is flat". Is not The Guardian a reliable source? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:10, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps this will clear things up: --Guy Macon (talk) 10:29, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Salem Hypothesis
Regarding the Salem Hypothesis, see Engineers and terrorists and Engineers and terrorists, part 2 and Why do so many terrorists have engineering degrees? for some interesting theories. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:56, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe they were just terrorists and engineering is just a means to an end (e.g. successful bombing). - Darwin Naz (talk) 23:17, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Categories on Elizabeth Clare Prophet
These edits added a couple of categories which I am rather dubious about. I have to doubt whether Summit University is a real "university", or whether Summit University Press is anything other than self-publishing which doesn't really merit calling her a publisher. Opinions? Mangoe (talk) 16:13, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah... Summit University doesn't appear to be a university in any real sense of the word. It "serves as the educational arm of The Summit Lighthouse, a spiritual organization based on the teachings of the ascended masters." As seen here: "Summit University® Online is a post-secondary certificate-granting institution. It confers non-degree certificates, not academic degrees" and "Our programs are organized and conducted by Summit University’s School of Theology and Spiritual Studies, and they take place almost entirely online." It seems likely that anything it publishes itself would be considered self-published. --tronvillain (talk) 21:52, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

"a spiritual organization based on the teachings of the ascended masters"

Is there a connection with "I AM" Activity, the new religious movement from the 1930s? Dimadick (talk) 10:19, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right. I have read some of her books long ago.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 11:01, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

International Society for Intelligence Research
Could use more eyes. Specifically, does the claim from and about the society not engaging in policy belong? Doug Weller talk 17:50, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Ruggero Santilli and also Pepijn van Erp
Been discussed lots here.

Due to some recent likely socking, I looked at both of these carefully and revised both extensively, trying to raise source quality. Please have a look... Jytdog (talk) 01:18, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Helene Langevin

 * is to be the new director of NCCIH . Her article says things like "She is best known for discovering cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the field of acupuncture." Are there such mechanisms? News to me. Our Acupuncture article says nothing about it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:44, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It was a sentence penned by a rather notorious acupuncture POV-pusher some time back. Her actual work is much less demonstrative of any mechanistic claims (since health outcomes of that "tingly" feeling are lacking) and, because of that, somewhat more interesting than some discovery of "how acupuncture works". It's no exaggeration, however, that this line of inquiry is the absolute best hope that acupuncture believers have going for them if their goal is to turn into something like chiropractic "mixers". But because of this it shows precisely how based in wishful thinking acupuncture really is. jps (talk) 11:32, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

 * A bit of PROFRINGE edits, a bit of edit warring, a bit of discussion. More eyes would be helpful. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:47, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This article could use a total rewrite, but the discussions on the talkpage look more like putting lipstick on a pig. jps (talk) 11:34, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Nash-Fortenberry UFO sighting
Seems not so well-cited compared to other famous incidents. Is it notable enough?

jps (talk) 19:12, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The NICAP website, which is used as the principal source for the article, looks fishy to me. They appear to have some sort of editorial team, but they're all unaccredited - a bunch of like-minded people curating a website does not a reliable source make. I'll take it to RSN to see what others make of it as a source. Girth Summit  (blether)  20:35, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * NICAP is not ideal, to be sure. My hope is that someone can find some better sources. Sometimes this does happen. jps (talk) 22:37, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Menzel and Campbell are good WP:FRIND sources. NICAP, not so much. Large footprint in fringe and sensationalist sources indicate this 50s ufo report is beloved within ufology. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:35, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * For a really bad UFO article, take a look at Height 611 UFO incident. Sources are a TV show, a UFOlogist, and Pravda. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:26, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Besides websites devoted to the UFO, there are actually books that cite this event in detail (e.g. The UFO phenomenon by Time-Life Books). Also this could be significant because the event occurred during a period where UFO sightings were unusually high in the United States and such reports came from different parts of the country. Many sources cited, for instance, that from July to August of 1952 (Nash-Fortenberry UFO sighting was dated July), there were more than 800 reports, which included official Air Force official accounts of unexplained sightings over Washington, D.C. in the same month. - Darwin Naz (talk) 23:42, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I have NO DOUBT that Time Life books focused on this particular incident. I've read that (what can most charitably be called) grey literature. The authors of that series haven't met a first-hand account they haven't loved -- these are the intellectual ancestors of the producers active on the History Channel these days. The problem is that while some UFO incidents have been the focus of serious WP:MAINSTREAM consideration for their cultural importance (think Roswell, Barney & Betty Hill, or Jimmy Carter), the vast majority of them are your fifteen-minutes-of-fame types of tales. Incidentally, the reason Project Blue Book was shut down (or, at least, shunted off from public view) was because the sensationalism of these accounts made it nearly impossible to use most of them as anything but campfire stories. Even what believers hail as their "most incredible" incidents have "evidence" of such low quality that we're just left shrugging. All this is to say, we need sources better than Time Life Books. jps (talk) 11:45, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Manuel da Silva Rosa puffery
- newest edit is just puffery, eg mentioning an IT contract he once had, suggesting he doesn't work for Duke (which he still does so far as I can tell), etc. Doug Weller  talk 13:17, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Japan Air Lines flight 1628 incident
I just noticed an IP removing an "unreliable sources" tag from this article, which has a number of UFO sites as sources as well as "From flight plot by Bruce Maccabee" whatever that is (there's an article used as a source by this author but with a different name). Doug Weller talk 08:02, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This looks to be one of the more credulous UFO articles, breathless prose cited to sources like "ufocasebook.com" and the serious-sounding but bogus "narcap.org" coupled with OR from primary sources etc. Needs WP:BLOWITUP. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:44, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Scientific foreknowledge in sacred texts
There is ongoing major editing that will require auditing. I've removed a book promotion url earlier which was reinserted and I won't be able to check it again until tomorrow. There may also be a copyright violation (a huge quote transcripted from a youtube video I think). Likely undue weight to fringe claims as well. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate  – 08:50, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Well I'm still here: thanks to Bishonen the potential copyright violation was fixed since; I have just removed again the book ad. — Paleo  Neonate  – 12:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Is this article titled correctly? It's not about scientific foreknowledge itself, but instead it's about the belief in scientific foreknowledge, surely. It's already a mouthful, so I'm not sure how to adjust it. jps (talk) 12:24, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, like "Claims of scientific foreknowledge in sacred texts", or "Scripture revisionism postdiction".Face-smile.svg — Paleo Neonate  – 13:24, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm related may be Vaticinium ex eventu and Hindsight bias — Paleo Neonate  – 13:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, per WP-speak, shouldn't that be religious texts? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Actually, on further consideration, I think it probably doesn't belong in our encyclopedia: Articles for deletion/Scientific foreknowledge in sacred texts. jps (talk) 12:34, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I am wondering if the Ayurveda or the Vedas is related to the subject. These texts had claims to scientific/medical knowledge. There is also the context that in the ancient times, the concepts of religion and science are not distinct from each other. A Wiki page states: "Most scientific and technical innovations prior to the scientific revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions." - Darwin Naz (talk) 03:21, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The article was about claims that verses in the Bible and Quran revealed impressive knowledge of the world that was not available at the time (or predictions of eventual scientific discoveries), to convince the reader that the texts are sacred, of divine origin and inerrant, etc. — Paleo  Neonate  – 11:35, 18 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Speaking of which, I've long wondered why we have (ever since 2007) an article called Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory. Bishonen &#124; talk 17:40, 25 August 2018 (UTC).
 * Ratings. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 19:06, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm maybe that this one could be merged in Religious cosmology, but I've not checked about the notability. We also have acceptance of evolution by religious groups and Level of support for evolution which are similar but about evolution...  Maybe that Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory could become Acceptance of the Big Bang by religious groups?  But I'd have to first read it when I can.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 23:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Religious interpretations of Young Sheldon coming soon! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.220.13.71 (talk) 20:16, 25 August 2018‎ (UTC)
 * I suggest Moral panic about role playing games by religious groups (oh! We have Dungeons & Dragons controversies).Face-smile.svg — Paleo  Neonate  – 23:33, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That article exists because the relevant section in Big Bang was getting absurdly unwieldy. It is definitely a topic that has both wide interest and a surprising number of sources (including not quite a few that poo poo the entire notion -- Stephen Hawking famously did so). No doubt the article could be improved. jps (talk) 00:08, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Another article of this type is creationist cosmologies. How I've tried to get that one to go away. :-/ jps (talk) 01:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The editor who added this,, has other odd edits as well. Example: . "Some mystics describe", with citations direct to the Qur'an. Really? I am guessing that 90% plus of cites to holy books are invalid WP:SYN though, it's probably not just him. Guy (Help!) 07:09, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello. I am well aware of WP:OR. I did not cite the verses directly, rather, I stated that some people cite (interpret) the verses as such. My secondary source for this was Encyclopedia.com ("Contemporary American Religion COPYRIGHT 1999 The Gale Group Inc."). The excerpt is:

"The traditional theology of the Sunni community teaches that Allah is above all one, unique, transcendent, creator, distinct from creation, eternal and permanent, and worthy of worship. Allah has, according to Sunnis, seven essential attributes: life, power, knowledge, will, hearing, sight, and speech. Of these attributes, power means absolute omnipotence, while knowledge, hearing, and sight indicate omniscience. Omnipresence is not stressed to avoid confusing Allah with His creation. Some of the more mystical trends in Islam have emphasized His nearness and presence everywhere (Qur'an 50:16; 57:4), causing others to accuse such mystics of pantheism. The traditional Sunni position explains verses referring to Allah's nearness as meaning He is everywhere near in His knowledge (6:59, etc.), not that He is immanent in His creation." .
 * A later editor modified the citation order, which I pointed out to them on the talk page of the article. I hope this clarifies my edits. – Batreeq ( Talk ) (Contribs) 21:05, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

False memory syndrome
Someone is recently adding material to related articles asserting that FMS was pseudoscience and conspiracy theory to justify sexual abuse. I've not reviewed the literature but I remember reading about it years ago and there were trials which demonstrated personnel incompetence, including using questionable therapies like suggestive hypnotherapy (pseudoscience itself), which would have caused vulnerable people to claim (or admit under possibly coercive circumstances) they were abused, causing a type of moral panic at the time. — Paleo Neonate  – 06:40, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * False memory syndrome is a very charitable name for the coaching of vulnerable people to destroy numerous innocent lives. Guy (Help!) 08:27, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think satanic ritual abuse had some of that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:54, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You are absolutely correct. In fact it was a major driver for modern study of false memories. This looks like a walled garden issue, though. Far too much emphasis given to the work of the Freyds. Guy (Help!) 10:26, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, I remember that one. Recovered memory researcher makes a bunch of dubious claims based upon a case study of "Jane Doe" whith parents who live in "Momstown" and "Dadstown". Skeptics track down what actually happened, and it wasn't even close to what the researchers described -- some of which is directly contradicted by public records. Researcher responds by accusing skeptics of a patient privacy breach.
 * Looking at the pages, one thing caught my eye. In our False memory syndrome article, is http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/dallam/6.html a WP:MEDRS-compliant source? I would assume that if I went through all the refs I would find other examples. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:47, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * More details: Also see Taus v. Loftus. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:57, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * User:WLU was highly informed about this general subject, and used to follow these articles. I don't know if anyone has reached his level since he got too busy to edit frequently.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

More suspicious articles: --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:09, 10 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Of course, there's a distinction between false memory syndrome and false memory - that false memories occur is overwhelmingly well supported, but the existence of a syndrome "in which a person's identity and interpersonal relationships center on a memory of a traumatic experience that is objectively false but that the person strongly believes occurred" is another matter. It's pointed out in this article that "But false memories aren’t a disease. We all have them. Having them is healthy and normal. We may not like our false memories, and they can have disastrous legal repercussions, but even in the worst cases they are still just the products of healthy brains." I think a lot of this content could simply be merged into other articles (where it isn't simply duplication of existing content). --tronvillain (talk) 16:43, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * agree w/ tronvillain--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:43, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Wee Care and McMartin are both core parts of the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic. Both of those were incidents where people were accused of (frankly bizarre) abuse of children, based on supposed "recovered memories" of adults, while the children were led to give answers the investigators wanted to hear. So less of a walled-garden, and more "these are examples of the panic in action." &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 21:04, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposal
This seems to be something of a walled garden. I think we could usefully start by redirecting false memory syndrome to false memory, since the two are the same. Peter J. Freyd could also be merged to False Memory Syndrome Foundation as the "biography" is basically about his founding of that group. The biography was started by a Bonaparte sock. Guy (Help!) 07:41, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * A merge to a section of false memory seems reasonable. I think the "false memory syndrome" portion of the lede in false memory could probably be folded into that as well - it currently makes up most of the lede and that isn't supported by the amount of text it has in the body. --tronvillain (talk) 15:31, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm very doubtful about this claim that false memory syndrome and false memory are actually the same thing. There's no "syndrome" behind someone mis-remembering something, or even being firmly convinced that their memory of an event is the true one, even if someone else insists that they remember it differently.  That's just an everyday thing.
 * However, it still might make sense to handle them in the same article. It might make it easier to keep the FMS content neutral.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Mantell UFO incident
Someone has added "new information" to the Mantell UFO incident article. It's a NICAP report from a ufologist named Francis Ridge, who claims to have "proven" that the object Mantell spotted couldn't have been a balloon, and essentially argues that the case is still unsolved. Someone has also removed Philip Klass's finding that weather balloons were launched in Ohio on the day of the Mantell incident. Just thought I'd mention it here in case someone wants to check and see if it looks like a credible addition. 70.145.229.162 (talk) 22:58, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * A clue as to its credibility is the PDF subtitle: "A 60 year old cover up", alleging a conspiracy to hide the Truth, plus a load of what-if conclusions by UFOlogist and "biblical archeologist" Brad Sparks. Reverting nonsense written in Wikipedia's voice is never amiss. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:45, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * If a registered/experienced editor wishes to delete the "new information" (it looked sketchy to me) then by all means please do so.70.145.229.162 (talk) 10:17, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Zachary King
So much wrong with this article about a "former satanist". Considered just nominating it for deletion, perhaps somebody here can cut it to a policy-compliant version without removing all of the references. power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 04:13, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think AfD for non-notability would work (seems to be self-promotion or non-notable ministry-promotion)... The sources are either religious magazines or blogs.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 06:12, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Wait, there's a Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Satanism? --Calton | Talk 09:50, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Haha, considering there'll be only one entry left, likely ready for "discussion" too. — Paleo  Neonate  – 11:31, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually there's one other: Bartolo Longo-- Auric   talk  12:58, 19 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Me 3, so - Articles for deletion/Zachary King. Icewhiz (talk) 10:20, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

New SPI/possible socks on Talk:Eugenics
New editors who do not edit elsewhere, one of which has been independently identified as a sock of Mikimikev (User:Doctor Nimrod, renamed account, commented at Talk:Eugenics as User:Richard Lynn 8.

The sole goal seems to promote eugenics as science, despite long-standing consensus. This is very disruptive and prohibits discussing any of the real issues, and has totally stalled any improvement of the article. Carl Fredrik talk 15:45, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I've watched the page (surprising I hadn't done so already). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:27, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Also surprised this wasn't on my watchlist before. Simonm223 (talk) 14:32, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not impossible that we've been feeding a troll once again by not enforcing notforum enough... Will see.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 18:18, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I usually try to humor people who want to argue a point rather than pull up diffs (unless that point's been argued to death already), but the editor arguing the point with me seems to lack the necessary competence to address this subject. I'm not even entirely sure they understand how eugenics differs from selective breeding. They even quoted a conspiracy theory author (writing about something the Chinese government did) to try to evince the argument that eugenics is scientific.
 * So yeah, I think it's rapidly approaching WP:NOTFORUM-o-clock. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  18:33, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Category:People_associated_with_the_MMR_vaccine_controversy
A deletion discussion of interest to this board regarding this category is now going on. --Calton | Talk 09:55, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Jeremy Corbyn
Another editor is claiming that this ref constitutes a fringe theory. I am uncertain how a British politics professor writing about British politics in the London Review of Books could possibly constitute a fringe theory; which seems patently absurd to me but I thought it best to bring it here and get some other perspectives. Simonm223 (talk) 21:06, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I reverted the edit that removed that source and the material. Note that I'm not weighing in on whether this letter is WP:DUE or not, or whether including it induces a POV shift in the article or section; I reverted because the justification given for reversion was ludicrous. I also will not say anything about the factual accuracy of the quote, though it seems to me that it could just as likely be false as true. I'm not interested in learning enough about British politics to make an educated guess about that, however. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  21:18, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's definitely an opinion, but it's at least as notable as all the other opinions on that article; I'd honestly be happy to pull most of the antisemitism section and most of the reaction section as my personal opinion is that it's far more about sour grapes within the Labour establishment, Tory smears and Israel wanting to call anyone who thinks their treatment of Palestinians in Gaza constitutes institutional racism an antisemite, rather than anything actually, you know, there. But the truth is that, at least until all this nonsense dies down there will be a section on the controversy which will be full of opinions of politicians and political scholars. And if that's the case, hers is a notable position to take, sourced to her, not in Wikipedia's voice. Simonm223 (talk) 21:25, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Sunspot solar observatory
The Truth Is out There... --Guy Macon (talk) 10:24, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Mysterious observatory evacuation stirs alien conspiracy theories
 * Closure of NM solar observatory a mystery
 * I'm Definitely Not Saying It's Aliens, But something weird is happening at a solar observatory in New Mexico
 * And it's pretty mundane. Someone made a credible terroristic threat and since it is federally owned and operated, this triggers a shutdown. But the "evacuation" is also something of an exaggeration because there is no science staff at Sunspot anymore, only a caretaker and his family as they are in the long process of decommissioning the observatory. jps (talk) 13:11, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sources, please. The story in the Albuquerque Journal appears to tell a different story.
 * And both https://www.nso.edu/about/staff/ abnd Sunspot Solar Observatory appear to contradict your claim of "only a caretaker and his family" --Guy Macon (talk) 17:25, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm just letting you know the real deal because I have astronomy community connections. Take it or leave it. It's not surprising to me that the NSO website is out of date or that Wikipedia is wrong. jps (talk) 20:49, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Who are we going to believe, jps's "astronomy community connections", or the New York Times, Newsweek, ABC News, Science magazine, Space.com, and c|net, and dozens of other sources? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:24, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Um... nothing I wrote is contradicted by any of those sources, Guy. But time will tell. Of course, I won't expect an apology because you are never wrong. You can check our history for evidence of that. :P jps (talk) 15:43, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The Sunspot Solar Observatory has been closed for more than a week. Authorities remain tightlipped Friday, saying only that an undisclosed security concern was behind the decision to abruptly vacate and lock up the remote facility on Sept 6. Yeah, the NY Times only has this to say, and none of the other sources give any more information than that, just quotes from various people who have no idea what's going on. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Aliens? Not likely. Government overreaction? Very likely.


 * There have been some attempts to sensationalize it. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:20, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * There sure have been. :-\ jps (talk) 20:44, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Groan... this was mentioned on the Today Programme (UK, BBC Radio 4) this morning. Just a short passing mention, but implying that there was some sort of mystery and jokingly referring to the proximity to Roswell. They really ought to know better... Girth Summit  (blether) 10:05, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * <abbr title="Awesome face" style="border-bottom: none;">718smiley.svg — Paleo Neonate  – 11:03, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's on Drudge, with the headline "UPDATE: FBI silent about sudden closing of solar observatory...", the New York Times, Newsweek, ABC News, Science, Space.com, and c|net.. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:13, 15 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Totally unrelated: 1967 UFO Encounter Immortalized as Trippy-Ass, Glow-in-the-Dark Coin by Canadian Mint. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:18, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Come on guys. No-one is saying it's aliens. But it's definitely aliens.
 * Regarding the status, the most recent announcement from the NSO says "There are approximately nine New Mexico State University and AURA staff employed at the observatory." which suggests to me a caretaker and a handful of NMSU folks. Also, Guy, that staff list covers all ten NSO sites, not just this one. Finally, their sites page says "As of 2017, the DST is no longer under NSO’s remit and is being operated by the New Mexico State University." So I think jps might well be right about this. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  21:25, 17 September 2018 (UTC)


 * . jps (talk) 21:18, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, that explains the blackhawk helicopter
https://www.abqjournal.com/1222935/sunspot-observatory-closure-sparked-by-child-porn-investigation.html --Guy Macon (talk) 09:33, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure... but was it alien child porn?... enquiring minds want to know! Blueboar (talk) 11:13, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * No, but our articles on Sunspot, New Mexico and Sunspot Solar Observatory seem now to be unduly burdened by this recent event. Do you think this whole thing deserves more than one sentence in each article? jps (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Two sentences, max. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  15:01, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Sudden press hysteria followed by disappearing from view = no lasting impact. -LuckyLouie (talk) 12:27, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, how about a WHOLE SUBSECTION instead?! jps (talk) 15:26, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: nuke most of the Hypotheses section at RF resonant cavity thruster (AKA EmDrive).
See RF resonant cavity thruster.

This section has become a collection of pseudoscientific theories. I propose renaming it "possible sources of errors", keeping the "Noise or experimental error" material, and nuking the sections on "Radiation pressure", "Vacuum energy", "Quantized inertia", "Photon leakage", "Mach effect", and "Warp field".

Comments? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:06, 21 September 2018 (UTC)


 * But I want that stuff to be true. Putting it on Wikipedia makes it more true, right? Can't we keep it, dad? Pweeese? Girth Summit <sub style="font-family:script;color:blue;"> (blether)  17:27, 21 September 2018 (UTC)


 * No, you can't have a pony. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:26, 22 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Suggest using a scalpel rather than a nuke in order to avoid some of the inevitable edit war over which permanently dead-linked PDFs are in fact "reliable sources" but have at it if you like. That's way into WP:DUE territory. Simonm223 (talk) 17:32, 21 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Make it so. Guy (Help!) 21:47, 21 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Done. Please monitor the article for potential edit warring. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:26, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Reverting your edit would not be edit warring. It would be legitimate part of the WP:BRD cycle. It would only become edit warring if someone reverted, and you refused to wait for consensus before restoring your WP:TRUTH. ApLundell (talk) 20:49, 24 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I think it is a good idea to delete these sections but I disagree with the style. You should have put a notice on the talk page. --mfb (talk) 21:20, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * For this article? No. Guy (Help!) 21:30, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
 * So long as he doesn't later argue that this discussion counts as a consensus that allows him to edit war to preserve his version, then it's all good.ApLundell (talk) 20:49, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:SKEPTIC article alerts
Would anyone object to the transclusion of WP:SKEPTIC article alerts (WikiProject Skepticism/Article alerts) at the top of this noticeboard? Since the WikiProject is tightly related to this noticeboard, those alerts are relevant to fringe topics. It also could be collapsed by default in a box if its size is a concern... This is unnecessary if most regulars here already transclude or watch it, of course, but I have no idea if that's the case, or if most even know about it, or find it useful. Bot updates to the alerts page would not cause spurious related-changes/watchlist entries, since it would be transcluded. — Paleo Neonate  – 00:22, 26 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Seems like a useful thing to try out. We can always remove it later if it gets annoying. --Krelnik (talk) 17:24, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * True that it can be easily removed anytime. I added it; thanks, — Paleo  Neonate  – 18:02, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Alkaline diet
Some questionable editing here recently by IPs trying to promote the diet as fact. This article has come up before on this noticeboard here and here.  Tera TIX  00:34, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's just two edits in the past couple of weeks, and they've been reverted. Semi-protection would take care of these incidents. The discussions you linked are another matter entirely, which wouldn't have been solved by semi-protection. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:12, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's been on my watchlist for years. I'd say it isn't looking too bad atm. -Roxy, in the middle . wooF 18:42, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm with Roxy here. I gave it a good eye over, but it looks fine. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  12:25, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Diff. Oh well, I should have kept my trap shut. -Roxy, in the middle . wooF 23:13, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Scientology
could use some advice on how to edit these articles and the sorts of sources that can be used, eg the journal used here. Doug Weller talk 10:38, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Hello. I've been checking the histories of Scientology-related articles, and I've noticed that several accounts, all without a user page, have been trying to tilt Scientology-related articles towards one side. is one of them: an example of a NPOV-violating edit they made is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=792456261. Granted, that was over a year ago. But his editing, in general, has been largely around softening Scientology's image.

Similar SPA accounts are:, who hasn't edited since December 2017, also made a painfully non-neutral edit here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientology_and_celebrities&diff=prev&oldid=758310837. Another account is, who made a non-NPOV edit here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Delphian_School&diff=prev&oldid=850599282.

Another example of a SPA account is:, their edits are largely around softening David Miscavige's article - adding that he got a medal from the Colombian Police in this edit, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Miscavige&diff=851193834&oldid=851068322.

I apologise if there isn't enough evidence to support my claim, but I fear that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology_editing_on_Wikipedia may be happening again - only from proxies or such. Lolifan (talk) 19:24, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that certainly looks fishy. I removed the mention of the medal - although I did take a minute to savor the rich irony of the Colombian police giving David Miscavage a "transparency medal". The CESNUR journal that is citing extensively looks like a fairly fringe publication itself. There appear to be at least 3 or 4 articles written by a member of the editorial board in every issue - this is the sort of thing that happens with fringe journals like Mankind Quarterly, where a collection of crackpots "peer-review" each others' work. It's not the sort of thing you associate with a reputable journal. The article being cited offers might be a useful primary source for contemporary Scientology practices and beliefs, but much of that doctrine is inscrutable, so it probably isn't encyclopedic to recount it. [[User:Nblund |<span style="background-color:


 * 1) CC79A7; color:white;">Nblund ]]talk 21:51, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Genetic sexual attraction
I noticed this article because someone tagged it with the WP:SKEPTIC tag. The article itself has a few issues tags. When reading it partly, I noticed that it diverged for unclear reasons including a claim about IQ inheritance. More eyes welcome, — Paleo Neonate  – 16:27, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I've removed most of the stuff from the 'Instances' section. Most of the articles did not refer to the topic of 'Genetic sexual attraction' at all - they were cases of incest, but without sources to say that Genetic sexual attraction was a factor (if it is even a thing) then they shouldn't be there. Oh, and another one was sourced entirely to the Sun and the Daily Mail... Girth Summit <sub style="font-family:script;color:blue;"> (blether) 19:03, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I forgot to get back to this thread, but I also nixed most of the IQ stuff. I left some because it was an example that was relevant to the topic, but the rest just looked like HBD POV pushing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:11, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, — Paleo Neonate  – 16:39, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Planck length
As discussed Talk:Planck length an editor has repeatedly inserted a section based on a fringe-looking paper with only nine cites in Google scholar (and all those cites are self-citations). The editor has declined to say if he has a WP:COI in the matter. Eyes needed here. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:59, 24 September 2018 (UTC).


 * Looking at the author's contributions brought me to a seemingly unrelated(?) article which also has some fringe issues: Articles for deletion/Espen Gaarder Haug (2nd nomination) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ජපස (talk • contribs) 10:31, 24 September 2018 (UTC)


 * For the record, the unsigned edit above was not made by me. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:34, 30 September 2018 (UTC).

Tim Anderson (political economist)
I have just created a section regarding conspiracy theories at the Tim Anderson (political_economist) article. He is notable for two overturned convictions in relation to terrorist bombings/bomb_plots, and later for publishing wild conspiracy theories (on kooky conspiracy theory sites) that various governments, international organisations, academic institutions, and pretty much every WP:RS on the planet were all conspiring to falsify and fabricate evidence surrounding the Syrian Civil war. And by the way, they are also all conspiring to censor him when personally when the word dismisses his claims. I also created a section on the Article_talk so any issues can be discussed there.

I invite other editors to examine my work and to expand, correct, or otherwise improve any content in that section or elsewhere in the article. I also invite other editors to watchlist the page, as I believe the article has a highly suspicious editing history for [ reasons in part relating to off-wiki info that shouldn't explain here and now ]. If other editors have concerns with the past or near-future editing of the article: I request you wait and consult with me before initiating administrative investigation or action, again for [ reasons in part relating to off-wiki info that shouldn't explain here and now ]. Alsee (talk) 14:20, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Certainly not. Roxy, in the middle . wooF 14:33, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Steven Novella
It seems to me that the topic of interests section uses blogs and in-universe/apologetic sources for a list of definitions. I'm not sure that such a section is needed anyway, or it also could simply list article/wikilinks about topics mentioned in a common source about the Novella's interests, without alternative definitions. More opinions/eyes welcome, — Paleo Neonate  – 16:38, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
 * PaleoNeonate to be honest ILIKEIT when anything debunks assorted woo, so I wouldn't be motivated to do much there. But to be fair that section might be considered a bit coatracky and I wouldn't want to see something equivalent on a fringe biography. Cutting it down to little more than a series of topic s might be reasonable. If you're more ambitious, another option might be to try build a prose section explaining his work in various areas. However it looks like several of the entries are little more than stray quotations. The more I look at it the more several of them are looking rather lame, unless there's more source-able info tying him with the topics. Alsee (talk) 16:14, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Before anyone gets too happy about pruning questionable sources, see WP:PARITY and compare Novella's bio to those of the woo crowd, like David Wolfe. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:18, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I pruned a few ID sources. It seems completely unnecessary to define intelligent design and provide three references to fringe sources there when the link is readily available. --tronvillain (talk) 16:32, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

American College of Pediatricians
Wanted to see if we could get a consensus to label the views of the American College of Pediatricians regarding conversion therapy and LGBT parenting as fringe. As their Wikipedia article makes pretty clear, their views appear to be politically and not scientifically based. Afaict, this hasn't been addressed before ( FTN archive search ). They appear to be a splinter group of about 500 members that split off from the 60,000 member American Academy of Pediatrics, for the purpose of advocating against same-sex marriage and gay parenting.

The ACP stands alone against dozens of professional medical organizations on these topics, and from what I can glean, their views on a number of topics seem clearly fringe. More on the ACP from Psychology Today the AAoP, HRC, and the APA. Mathglot (talk) 18:32, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That's not actually surprising, given that "The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a socially conservative advocacy group of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals in the United States." I don't think, as political positions, those qualify as fringe (though as medical opinions they absolutely do). Even though the group is made of of pediatricians and has a rather deceptive name, it's still a political group, and so we should treat it like one. That being said, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there are some RSes pointing out how deceptively named the group is, hint hint. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  18:40, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks; agree that it's politically less fringe, but I guess I was looking more at the scientific basis. I'm not too used to FTN; can you enlighten me on whether there's such a thing as labeling a group (or view?) as "medically fringe" vs. "politically fringe"? I'm looking at whether we can say something like, ... and the fringe advocacy group ACP says blah blah... in Wikipedia's voice. Mathglot (talk) 18:49, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It's really an undefined area. I'm of the opinion that WP:FRINGE should be expanded slightly and applied to all fringe positions, but others disagree. There are good arguments on both sides. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  18:49, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the article does a pretty good job, in almost every paragraph, of alerting the reader to the nature of the group. I don't think there's much more to do in that regard. However if someone were to try to reference this group in another article, their 'medical' views would almost certainly be considered fringe. And per Undue, fringe views are to get little or no coverage. Alsee (talk) 19:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed, with the caveat that if the mention were in a political context that WP:FRINGE might not apply (but still might: it just needs some discussion). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:48, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * ACP is akin to AAPS - a fringe group, not actually a medical association, but a political lobbying operation. Guy (Help!) 12:45, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I wholly agree. As long as they're treated like a political activist group, they're being properly covered. It's when editors want to try and implicitly include them in the ranks of legitimate medical organizations that my hackles rise. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  13:03, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it's more about referencing them in another article, albeit possibly indirectly. Background: dozens of professional medical associations all agree and have position statements about about some lgbt-related things (value of conversion therapy, effects of LGBT parenting, etc.) with the exception of ACP, which appears to stand alone against prevailing opinion. Would we be justified stating the majority opinion in Wikipedia's voice, sourcing solely the majority references without mentioning that opposing opinion exists if it is medically fringe? For example, could we say that "the idea that children are better off when raised by opposite-sex couples is scientifically refuted" (or, "unanimously opposed by professional medical associations") sourcing only PT and HRC or other majority opinion sources, while saying nothing about ACP because they are fringe? Currently, I feel we have to mention their opposition, or at least avoid the word "unanimous" or "refuted", but if there is consensus here that they are medically fringe, I'd happily go along with that and call it unanimous or state the conclusion in Wikipedia's voice.

There is an ongoing Rfc about a case of citation overkill that probably arose because of a conflict in how to address the fringe position of ACP. The disputed article content is at and the Rfc about the citation overkill situation is here, with a side discussion about the FRINGE aspects here, starting about half-way down. Mathglot (talk) 20:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Honestly, what I would do is list their position in among the other political groups, apart from medical groups. Then I would be sure to characterize them as a conservative advocacy organization or equivalent words. But I'm not going to that article, because it's getting too much into politics without a clear connection to one of my other topics of interest. You can see the silvery notice at the top of my talk page for how I feel about unambiguously political subjects. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  21:17, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The APP is the major pediatric organization in the United States. Yes this is sort of a fringe splinter group. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:39, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Or as my kids' pediatrician refers to them: "a gaggle of inbred quacks." God I love that doc. You should have seen him light into some mom who didn't want to vaccinate her kids. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  21:55, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

As was pointed out and made clear here and here, the American College of Pediatricians is not a professional association, it is a fringe advocacy group which has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its deceptive name is intended to get non-discerning readers and unwitting non-professionals to confuse it with the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is the professional association of pediatricians. Scientific researchers, including the director of the National Institutes of Health, have stated that the ACP has misused or mischaracterized their work in order to advance the ACP's political agenda. Per WP:FALSEBALANCE, which states, "While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity [...] we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it", the agenda-driven views of a fringe advocacy group should be entirely disregarded and only the science-driven positions of professional associations should be presented in this medical/scientific matter. --Justthefacts9 (talk) 22:50, 1 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Concur. A group of "over 500" compared to the main group that's 64,000 means it's a fringe opinion that any mention is WP:UNDUE weight for their view.  Yes, unpopular with those that agree with the view.  Okay, I can live with that as it would be contrary to Wikipedia's policies to mention such a minority view at all.  Ravensfire  (talk) 22:56, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * A minor quibble... The political viewpoints of this organization are not fringe (although not in the majority, thank goodness). What IS fringe is the pseudoscience they use to support the political view. That distinction is important.  Their political views can be given DUE weight (worth a brief mention in proper context)... their pseudoscientific views must not be given UNDUE weight (not worth mentioning at all). Blueboar (talk) 23:31, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Agree with Blueboar, the distinction between science and politics is important. As I understand WP:FRINGE, it applies to fringe claims of fact, including on political issues (eg. pizzagate, holocaust denial) but not to pure opinions, so "vaccines cause autism" and "the CDC is using chemicals in vaccines for (insert evil purpose here)" are covered by FRINGE, but not "vaccines should not be mandatory", as this is an opinion with no claims of fact. True, it could be motivated by belief in objective falshoods, but it could just be libertarian ideology. (of course, UNDUE still applies to everything). Tornado chaser (talk) 23:55, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * What specific change to the article are you advocating? TFD (talk) 00:49, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Some of the stated reasons the group has given for opposing adoption by same-sex couples are certainly pseudoscientific and fringe. It's more than reasonable to couch those as pseudoscientific per Wikipedia guidelines. To say that the pseudoscientific views are not worth mentioning at all is a possible interpretation, but if they have garnered outside attention from relevant experts who have identified these positions as pseudoscientific, such criticism can be mentioned in the article. Are there sources we can identify which do this? jps (talk) 12:30, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
 * As I understand it Fringe means it goes against what every other expert thinks, that that the person thinking it is not an ologiotst.Slatersteven (talk) 12:36, 2 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I think we're getting to the meat here: The ACP uses preexisting pseudoscience (and I believe even publishes some novel pseudoscience) to justify their political views. But their political views are just that. They are to medicine what Americans for Prosperity are to climate change. Any attempt to equivocate them as a medical organization needs to be cut off at the pass. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  13:06, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
 * pseudoscience is better then |Fringe, whilst both a true, one is more descriptive of what the mainstream have accused them of.Slatersteven (talk) 13:10, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

A side-issue concerning this: there’s a disagreement at the talk page whether ACP may be referred to as a “professional association [of pediatricians]”. It seems clear they’re a political advocacy ggroup, there’s no argument there. But given that they are an association whose members are pediatricians, are they not also a “professional association”? The point here is whether one can say that “all professional associations say X (about gay issue Y)”. Mathglot (talk) 16:18, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Do we have WP:Independent sources which describe them as a professional association of pediatricians without qualification? If no, then it is irresponsible to describe them as such. jps (talk) 16:31, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No. The "professional association" is disingenuous. It's not, it's a "political association of pediatricians." The latter is also well-sourced. I'm sure there are a few biased sources using the "professional" version, but any RSes with a rightward slant will be using it in passing, not stating that it's an accurate description of them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:46, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
 * As stated above, the American College of Pediatricians is not a professional association, it is a fringe advocacy group which has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The American Academy of Pediatrics is the professional association of pediatricians. As also stated above, per WP:FALSEBALANCE, the agenda-driven views of fringe groups should be entirely disregarded in medical/scientific matters and only the science-driven positions of professional associations should be taken into account. The wording of that sentence in that article is fine exactly as it is now. --Justthefacts9 (talk) 00:19, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * As a general rule, if an organization is founded with the intent to protest the issue advocacy of another organization, it does not inherit the founding principles of the organization from which it splits. I can think of a lot of organizations that formed after members of a professional organization got angry about position statements made by the organization. None of them, I would argue, should properly be defined as professional organizations because their founding is really in defiance of a professional organization rather than having been found with the goals of promoting the profession. When you look at the advocacy of ACP, I see a single-issue group that has abandoned pretense of advocating for the profession in favor of obsessing over opposing LGBT rights. jps (talk) 10:37, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Concur. Care should be taken not to effectively legitimatize pseudoscience by noting the agenda-driven views of fringe groups in the same sentence as the science-driven positions of professional associations. Per WP:PSCI and WP:FALSEBALANCE, the views of fringe groups should be entirely disregarded in medical/scientific matters and only the positions of professional associations should be noted. --Justthefacts9 (talk) 20:55, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Duane Gish
Resident creationists seem to think that as long as we attribute gushing praise of Duane Gish to Henry M. Morris, it's perfectly fine. I think it's WP:COAT. Whaddya think?



Anyway, more eyes, as usual, appreciated.

jps (talk) 17:38, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If the editor raises a stink, I'll gallop on over there (pun intended, thank you) and try to explain that gushing praise from a source inside the same walled garden that's about as true as Alex Jones' nightmares ("a working knowledge of the relevant literature and research" my ass) is so far south of WP:DUE that it's looking north at penguin butts. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  17:41, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems to be ongoing. jps (talk) 03:19, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Category:Satanic ritual abuse in the United States
Why does Category:Satanic ritual abuse in the United States even exist when only the subcat is needed? See Category talk:Satanic ritual abuse in the United States. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:44, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Robert Morey (pastor)
Needs some cleanup generally, if anyone can improve on what I just added about "The University of America" it would also be appreciated. Doug Weller talk 11:28, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Royal Rife
Smth is happening with this page again. May be the edits are fine, but I am not competent in this subject, and more eyes are welcome. In the past, it often became a garden for Rife adepts and/or conspiracy theorists.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:00, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yikes! some apologist OR and other WP:PROFRINGE stuff going on there, including this beaut:
 * I have gone back to a reasonable version before the mass edits started. More eyes probably needed - also at Thomas McPherson Brown, which is a new fringe topic, to me anyway. Alexbrn (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
 * A friend of mine asked me to take a look at the article yesterday, but i didn't realize I was stumbling into a controversial article. I tried to make some forward movement in reducing the POV and substantiated claims with the article yesterday, adding references, and moving information that didn't belong in the lead to the body of the article. Also, I just added more information from some online libraries I have a subscription to. However, the edits were reverted in the efforts to curb some of the WP:PROFRINGE violations.  Hopefully we can improve the article again.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 19:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
 * A friend of mine asked me to take a look at the article yesterday, but i didn't realize I was stumbling into a controversial article. I tried to make some forward movement in reducing the POV and substantiated claims with the article yesterday, adding references, and moving information that didn't belong in the lead to the body of the article. Also, I just added more information from some online libraries I have a subscription to. However, the edits were reverted in the efforts to curb some of the WP:PROFRINGE violations.  Hopefully we can improve the article again.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 19:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Miracle of the Sun
Persistent removal of criticism, ongoing:. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:47, 7 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Reverted for the moment, but subject to long term disruption over the past few months:, , , , - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:33, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

RfC
RfC on the intersection of WP:BLPSPS and WP:PSCI Jytdog (talk) 20:24, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
 * RfC on the intersection of WP:BLPSPS and WP:PSCI restated Jytdog (talk) 15:37, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Weeping statue
Needs eyes, some NPOV wording, dubious sourcing. Doug Weller talk 10:58, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know if I read it here, or what, but I saw that one of these weeping mary statues was explained by the broken toilet next door. It's worse than that, from what I read. -Roxy, in the middle . wooF 16:10, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * "Moisture on the wall the statue was mounted on seemed to come from an overflowing drain, which was in turn fed by a pipe that issued from a nearby toilet." Some even drank the droplets. Hoo boy. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

A conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories
A while back I ran into a conspiracy theory that claims that all of the other conspiracy theories were generated by (the government? the Illuminati? The Reptilians? I don't remember) in order to get us to dismiss conspiracy theories, thus paving the way for the real conspiracy. I just searched and couldn't find it -- clearly because Google is in on it. :) Does anyone know where I can find such a thing? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:54, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Rational Wiki specializes in this sort of thing. Of course they're not a WP:RS themselves but their articles often include references that are usable here. This seems relevant to what you're talking about. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:00, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Rudraksha
The article Rudraksha, particularly the "Uses of Rudraksha" section, appears to be full of pseudoscientific content regarding "electromagnetic power" and healing properties of these seeds. Can someone take a look? Deli nk (talk) 12:04, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that entire section was clearly fringe without any credible support. The entire article has problems. --tronvillain (talk) 14:21, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

The Mountain Astrologer
Is this notable? It seems to have won an award that I don't think we'd usually mention. Doug Weller talk 18:02, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The only Spica award I can find seems like it wouldn't apply to an astrology mag. Simonm223 (talk) 19:00, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I just deleted three unsourced claims (including about the awards) and then did a double take and PRODded it as quickly as I could. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:31, 16 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Apparently, someone things that astrology books are RSes, so... Articles for deletion/The Mountain Astrologer ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:51, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

William G. Roll
Parapsychologist with crank ideas about psychokinesis being real. Several skeptic sources were removed from the article. Have restored last good old version with the skeptic sources included and without the publication promotion (citing loads of Roll's paranormal papers is not needed on the article) but have been reverted. 82.132.231.71 (talk) 11:34, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Parapsychology yet again
Apparently a psychologist somewhere said that Psi is totally as real as other psychological phenomena; what Replication Crisis pretty much in hand as it stands but it's always good to make sure people are aware. Simonm223 (talk) 18:29, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep. It’s October, and so pop culture ‘news of the weird’ gets a bump during Halloween season and typically results in increased activity at fringe topic articles. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:33, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That "psychologist somewhere" is Etzel Cardeña, whose article has been noticeboarded here recently. He seems to be in season too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:43, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the replication crisis is far more likely to end with most pro-psi research getting thrown out than the other way around. There are a few fringe subjects that might get some vindication out of it, but those are inevitably the more respectable ones. Parapsychology is not one of those. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  16:06, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The parapsychological meta-analyses seem mostly like a case of garbage in garbage out than anything else TBH. Simonm223 (talk) 16:53, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
 * See also the discussion at NPOVN... Girth Summit <sub style="font-family:script;color:blue;"> (blether)  16:58, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Problems are spreadying to Paranormal. jps (talk) 00:30, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The disruption at parapsychology has moved from a content dispute to a behavioral issue. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:53, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, who wants to take this to WP:Arb/E? Simonm223 (talk) 14:55, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Talk page antics are now pure WP:SOUP, but the article is currently locked. If edit warring persists after unlocking, I would say AN/I is probably best. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:44, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Related: Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment --Guy Macon (talk) 04:21, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

A while back I moved parapsychology from "Basic psychology" to "See also" on Outline of psychology (next to neurolinguistic programming). It was just moved to "other areas by topic", which might be justified, but I'm not entirely convinced parapsychology is really a part of psychology these days - might be worth a look. --tronvillain (talk) 12:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

WP Cryptozoology: The Forbidden Topic...
So I've noticed for a while now that there has been a massive purge of articles from WikiProject Cryptozoology and everything related to it. Now I know that it seems around here that simply ADDING an article to the project or categories related to it seems to be a soft point for some people around here. I am not trying to start an argument but why is it that this needs to happen. Why can they not be a part of BOTH Folklore and Cryptozoology (in most cases this is correct). Adding it to the crypto category is not an avocation that the subject is real or not, it only acknowledges that it has been classified as a cryptid by some Cryptozoologists or has reports of something similar in real life. Cryptozoology is the study of animals that have yet to be verified of their existence, it may not be a legitimate science but completely ignoring reports/info on this seems very much like POV Pushing although I may be wrong. Now I'm not here to advocate for certain sides here, but it seems to me that people have forgotten/misread the guidelines of Wikipiedia around this subject. It NEVER says to ignore fringe theories all together or not show them (after all we are just an encyclopedia-type site), so completely ignoring or purging such topics seems s bit extreme an action. True, the source needs to be legitimate and I'm all for that (been an advocate for reliable sources since day 1), there should be no references from blogs on unlegitimate sites since THAT is in violation of Wikipiedia's policy. Books on the subject are very helpful and it would be a shame not to take advantage of the information they yield. I just want to know what people here think of that idea.--Paleface Jack (talk) 21:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is, and always has been, quality of sources. The vast majority of cryptid sources are basically fanfic. Guy (Help!) 22:14, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * So? We have plenty of articles on made up crap.Slatersteven (talk) 22:32, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFF. An article based on sources that think chupacabras are real is not going to be very credible, is it? Guy (Help!) 22:41, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * OSE, and sometimes we have clear policy and enforcement in place to prevent more made up crap. --Ronz (talk) 22:43, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think JzG's comment illustrates the the problem, at least, so far as there is one. People sometimes have a tendency to evaluate sources as though "reliable source" is some absolute universal quality, but of course it's not. A source written by someone who thinks chupacabra are real is very unlikely to be a reliable source for scientific facts, but may well be a very reliable source for details of the chupacabra legend and the people who believe it.
 * Sometimes people remove sources because they're fringe sources, which makes a lot of sense if they're being used to establish whether a cryptid is real or not, but is the wrong thing to do if they're being used to define a fringe belief or establish its notability. ApLundell (talk) 02:33, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Academics who discuss the subculture/pseudoscience of cryptozoology frequently comment on how common misrepresentation and deception is in the subculture. It's a hallmark of the subculture today, particularly as it grows increasingly close to, say, Young Earth creationism. Cryptozoologists are not reliable sources, even for their own claims, which require context and often involve some level of deception. There's a long history of certain users on this site aggressively pushing to inject cryptozoology sources in the project. Fortunately, this stuff is finally receiving a lot of scrutiny, and we've got guidelines like WP:PROFRINGE to keep them at bay. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 07:11, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think your response may be more indicative of the problem. It is not remotely controversial to say that a source written from the perspective that sasquatch, chupacabras or Nessie is real, is not a reliable source. Guy (Help!) 08:28, 9 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I have the impression that something worthwhile for the WikiProject would be collecting a list of sources that are considered reliable about the topic (if that doesn't already exist, of course). — Paleo  Neonate  – 06:31, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * "We have plenty of articles on made up crap." I agree. See for example most articles on category Category:Christian theology of the Bible. They are more fringe in subject matter than anything fokllorists can come up with. Dimadick (talk) 09:23, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's pretty clear from policies like WP:FRIND and WP:FRINGE that coverage of a fringe theory should be based in independent sources. Books by people who believe in Sasquatch are not independent of cryptozoology, and so generally they should be used carefully, if at all. In this encyclopedia there are some quite a few articles about "made up crap", but the good ones rely on independent sources to give an overview of the topic, and less independent sources for details or specific points of view. There's only a problem when article about made up crap are sourced mostly or entirely to people who believe in that made up crap. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 14:29, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
 * There are actually adherents who do not merely make up things but adopt methods to investigate whether a source is erroneous or inaccurate. When I searched for this subject, for instance, I came across the work of Thomas Williams, who in 1985 investigated the marine cryptid Ri and found that it was a dugong (his work: Identification of the Ri through further fieldwork in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea). - Darwin Naz (talk) 23:05, 14 September 2018 (UTC)


 * It would help if you could give some examples of articles you say have been "purged" or suppressed and which editorial policies have been violated. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:05, 9 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Give me a moment to finish my coffee and I'll get back to you.--Paleface Jack (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Just a forewarning, I might be a little bit grumpy in this message due to constantly having to deal with this issue, along with a particular user who has a habit of badmouthing edits that people do in relation to cryptozooology, regardless of whether or not the edits are legitimate. This (possibly) doesn't reflect anyone but I'll try to be as emotionless as possible. Looking at some of the comments here, it seems like some people didn't read my original post which clearly stated that I don't agree with putting "fanfic" sources into articles as they are not reliable. Secondly I NEVER stated that we should be working information to sound like something that has yet to be proven to exist to make it sound that they do. Equally bad is the rewording information on something that has no basis into biology or any pseudoscience (namely purported sightings and such that have not been proven to be misidentification, or a hoax). I can think of several such articles that were previously classified under the crypto banner that had no reason for being there. I was thinking about the "independent" sources that we are suppose to use and realized something. The amount of "independent" is minuscule at best and are not exactly done by those with a neutral standpoint (neutral standpoints are everything in science as one with preconceived notions tend to base everything on that notion, whether they advocate or detract from their opinion). I do think that if we don't at least acknowledge both arguments in the articles we are not being a true encyclopedia as this site was meant to be. If we can work together in finding neutral, independent sources that don't favor one side of the argument then we'd be in much better shape. Finally, I never saw any answer to my question on why the WikiProject Cryptozoology has been mass removed from articles. I did get BloodofFox's adamant opinion that it constituted as FRINGE but I'm not exactly sure that's the case. Not to mention that there was one reason that stated that since the sources didn't use the word cryptid (some used purported), it didn't fit with the project. I will have to take some time gathering up a few examples of this so bear with me.--Paleface Jack (talk) 16:30, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, if you can find academic sources on the topic, we can use them. Stuff like genesispark.com or whatever Loren Coleman source you dig up isn't going to fly as a reliable source for anything on this site. Additionally, WikiProject Cryptozoology has clearly been employed by editors over the years primarily as a means of promoting fringe theories (it appears to have operated in a shamelessly WP:PROFRINGE mode since its inception). This went essentially unchecked for at least several years.


 * If the WikiProject is going to stick around in some form, it needs to dedicate itself to improving articles on the subculture of cryptozoology using reliable sources, not as a venue for promoting pseudoscience and fringe theories on the site. That said, the WikiProject Cryptozoology appears to be quite dead, so this discussion is evidently pointless. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 16:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Wording things a bit nicer when talking to people will go a long way BloodofFox. Although I do agree (partially) on your point. There has been kind of a tenancy to add every single source one finds, which is not helpful in establishing the legitimacy of the WikiProject. I tend to find that the "academic" sources really don't have an extensive research on the subject since they usually don't feel it's in line with what they feel is a real science (technically its not) and any info to come from it they discount. I'm still wondering if Dr. Greg Meldrum (an anthropologist) would be a good enough source for Sasquatch info...--Paleface Jack (talk) 22:16, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course, as academics highlight, anti-academic sentiment also happens to be a major element of the subculture. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 22:49, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

And everywhere else...--Paleface Jack (talk) 23:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I suspect that the issue may be that the pro-fringe types search for biologists, botanists, etc. to support the notability of cryptids and find nothing. And they never think to look at folklorists or anthropologists or mythographers. Whereas, the denizens of this grumpy corner of Wikipedia are disinclined to find folklorists who write about the myth of the Jersey Devil because they'd rather less of that nonsense on the encyclopedia anyway. As this is a voluntary project, whether you think it's neighbourly or not, that's entirely their right.Simonm223 (talk) 16:02, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't want this to turn into a big long argument with people insulting differences in opinions. I've had enough of that dealing with with BoF. I just want to clarify the parameters of sources since it's been severely limited by the Fringe and Profringe people. All of that aside, I find that it IS an issue finding only academic sources for Cryptozoology articles since there are so few and some that are get classified as Fringe (something that happens quite a bit). It just makes the expansion of such articles extremely frustrating when you have such a limited amount of what the Fringe and Profringe people accept as good enough sources.--Paleface Jack (talk) 18:30, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This is comedy gold. _Roxy, the dog. wooF 19:24, 11 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Perhaps consider a Wikia option? This reminds me a little of Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_145 as in there seems to be a non-WP scope here. Of course, I don't think I have ever edited in this area. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:52, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm only trying to reach an agreement since I was told by someone experienced with these kind of antics that it was more POV pushing than anything else. Can't say I din't try though (sighs).--Paleface Jack (talk) 16:37, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

"Perhaps consider a Wikia option?" Another one? Wikia already includes Cryptid Wiki, CryptoWiki, and New Cryptozoology Tarmola Wiki. Dimadick (talk) 09:46, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Those alternates have a tendency to not cite sources and are poorly structured. I just feel that, by saying ONLY academic sources are allowed, it severely restricts the amount of expansion we can give to those articles since there is just not a lot of academic sources out there on the individuals. There's more on cryptozoology as a whole, mostly detractors, but that's pretty much it. Not at all ideal when one wants to expand those articles to their fullest extent. I still haven't received any satisfactory explanation for the mass removal of the crypto wikiproject banner and categories from articles. All I've gotten is that, since sources doesn't mention the specific word "Cryptid" it doesn't count. Looking at these sources, some say "purported" or "mysterious", and since cryptozoology is the study of the purported and mysterious I think it fits. All I ask is why does it have to be that specific in terms of wording?--Paleface Jack (talk) 18:30, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Fringe should not be used as a bludgeon to disallow anything that is not "accepted knowledge".Slatersteven (talk) 18:33, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Slatersteven What is Wikipedia for if it is not a repository of "accepted knowledge". Surely that's our raison d'etre - don't we strive to get rid of anything that isn't accepted knowledge? I'm genuinely not meaning to be snarky/rhetorical/sarcastic, I'd be interested to hear your views on this. Girth Summit <sub style="font-family:script;color:blue;"> (blether)  18:51, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed it is the absolute essence of this encylopedic project per WP:NOTEVERYTHING - not just that we have "accepted knowledge" but that we summarize it. Alexbrn (talk) 19:00, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You will note I wrote "accepted knowledge" not accepted knowledge, the idea that only knowledge that certain eds consider real knowledge can be accepted konwledge. There is nothing that says that something that is a Fringe (but widely held or written about) subject can only have an article (or entry in an article) if academic writers have written about it. Fringe does not say we cannot have articles (or content on other articles) that a Fringe. Only that we cannot give an impression that such views are mainstream. Articles on Crypto subejcts must be written with care to ensure it is clear that they are not scientifically accurate or academically accepted. That does not mean that if we cannot find academic sources that discus them we should exclude them (for example).Slatersteven (talk) 19:26, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:VALID is policy. The bit about omitting stuff is pertintent when it isn't (or cannot be contextualized by) accepted academic scholarship. Otherwise we'd risk become an uncritical compendium of UFO abductions, quack cancer cures, conspiracy theories and so forth. Wikipedia is not a compendium of arcana but a summary of accepted knowledge, as every WP:CLUEful editor knows. Alexbrn (talk) 19:35, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * And as I said as long as we do not claim it is real or equally valid we are obeying this. This is about writing about it to make it clear it is pseudoscience, not legitimization of it by giving it spurious mock academic credibility. This is not an issue of inclusion, but of style.Slatersteven (talk) 08:01, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

I do agree. The scarce academic sources on individual cryptids in general is VERY few, and those that exist almost seem evasive or discounting. As an encyclopedia we must strive to create the very best articles on those subject that his humanly possible. If not enough academic sources are available we should not discount other possible sources. With that in mind I've seen it all too often that pieces of information that come from a good source that gives both pieces of information on both sides (often analysis, but also purported sightings from news outlets). A very good example of this being the research by primatologist Dr. Jeff Meldrum on Bigfoot using his background on Primates and hence an academic source. Now I'm not pushing for outright legitimization as some people claim that I am, nor am I wanting to make it as one person termed "a compendium of arcana", I am merely pointing out that in order to be an encyclopedia we must establish that animals such as the Giant Panda, Komodo Dragon, and Mountain Gorilla were once classified as Cryptids, as is any animal that is claimed to exist but so far hasn't been proven. We should outright say "oh, this is real" but state that it's purported to exist, that way we are keeping to Wikipiedia's guidelines and standards by not legitimizing the pseudoscience. I would like to see the academic theories on the various cryptids as well as the disagreements on those theories if they are from legitimate sources but that might be pushing it. Although I'm not entirely sure considering we have FA class articles on the theories behind the mysterious deaths of well known people. that seems to be more like a conspiracy theory to me. As for Extraterrestials/UFOs, I've never been a believer in that stuff and there are even fewer academic sources on THAT than there are on Cryptozoology. I would consider those topics THEORIES and little else.--Paleface Jack (talk) 21:30, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Using sources like https://www.genesispark.com/ ain't happening. Wikipedia's standards on fringe topics and pseudoscience are there for good reason. If you want policy and guidelines changed, I recommend lobbying at the relevant talk pages. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 21:52, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The giant panda, the komodo dragon, and the mountain gorilla weren't "classified as Cryptids", their discoveries were retroactively appropriated by cryptozoologists. --tronvillain (talk) 22:51, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Never heard that source existed so I wouldn't have used it anyways. The giant panda, the komodo dragon, and the mountain gorilla weren't specifically called "cryptid" but that doesn't mean that the word needs to be explicitly stated. Seems to me that's a common error some make.--Paleface Jack (talk) 22:46, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * If we want to call them cryptids in a WP page, then yes, it needs to be explicitly stated in a source. You will find that the rules page WP:SYNTH makes the "common error" of saying so. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:28, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

That's all I need to know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paleface Jack (talk • contribs) 00:43, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Although I don't appreciate the sas though...--Paleface Jack (talk) 00:26, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Just realized something. Since Wikipiedia is a Reference/Encyclopedia site, shouldn't we be including both sides of the "Cryptid debate"? I was just wondering because, even though it's classified under "Fringe Theories" this site is more reference-based rather than conspiracy theory based. What I'm meaning by this is that, in terms of literary sources to include as references for this topic, we should consider adding as much literary sources a possible (with some regulation on that of course). Just a thought but I thought that it would be worth mentioning here. In terms of websites, I'm very hesitant with using non-acedemic/news references for this topic since they are not verifiably truthful.--Paleface Jack (talk) 18:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by the "cryptid debate"? I don't think we have any evidence that there are equally valid sides with regards to the discussion of cryptids. jps (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Ferkijel (talk) 14:29, 24 October 2018 (UTC) I believe the blanket answer to this question is that these arguments (including this so called "cryptid debate") all fall under logical fallacies/arguments from ignorance. The very first sentence in this talk says that "Cryptozoology is the study of animals that have yet to be verified of their existence", and that by itself characterises the topic as a fringe theory. As per Wikipedia principles (in particular the principle of neutral point of view), the community shouldn't give fringe theories undue weight.

Theosophy
Some may remember User creating articles on countless Theosophy books and Theosophy_and_science. The user's articles (essays) could probably still use some more eyes - I've put a couple up for deletion and have one up now, but there are probably more that should be nominated or significantly altered. --14:38, 24 October 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tronvillain (talk • contribs)

Journal of Ginseng Research
While researching something unrelated (methods for quantifying collagen production in vitro) I came across a useful-looking article published in Elsevier's Journal of Ginseng Research, which sounds sketchy, so I wanted to look into its reliability. Surprisingly, it's not only given an impact factor by JCR (the usual up-or-down criterion for notability per WP:NJOURNAL 1c), but is included in NCBI's PMC database. A recent review of biomedical ginseng research in Molecules found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the JGR had published more articles on ginseng research than any other journal.

Is that good enough for me to write an article for it, or is the fact that it's organized around research on a traditional medicinal enough that people here would presume it falls under FRINGE? FourViolas (talk) 14:15, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * An open access journal with an impact factor of 4.054 in 2017 with 1,364 total cites, eh? I don't think that it publishes research on something associated with traditional medicine makes it obviously fringe, though results in that area often seem questionable. And meeting notability for an article and being in PMC doesn't necessarily establish it as reliable, but that's more of an issue for the reliable sources noticeboard. --tronvillain (talk) 15:17, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Should have clarified, I meant that I'm considering digging deeper for evidence on its reliability to put together an article, but don't want to waste my time if it's presumptively unsuitable for WP. FourViolas (talk) 15:33, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I mean, Homeopathy (journal) exists, so fringe isn't necessarily an obstacle. This is at least about molecules that actually exist and might have some effect. --tronvillain (talk) 16:12, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If Elsevier can make a buck by publishing a journal, they will publish that journal. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:35, 25 October 2018 (UTC)


 * You forgot to facepalm and laugh at the fact that this journal even exists. Those are absolutely necessary first steps, here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  15:27, 24 October 2018 (UTC)