Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 97

Muscovy duck
Does a homeopathic preparation of 200C contain any Muscovy duck? An editor claims it is possible it might. I say that there are many instances of the universe that would be required which means that to the extent that anything is true, it is true there are no molecules of this duck in that preparation. What say ye? jps (talk) 02:34, 19 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I gotta say, I saw this pop up on my watchlist and was psyched for what it could be. I'm kinda disappointed that it's something as mundane as very watered down duck soup to treat a flu. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:40, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It's made by a company that makes something like half a billion euro each year... much of it on the reputation of this "cure" for the flu (best-selling in France!). jps (talk) 02:45, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * If i understand Oscillococcinum correctly then you are being completely irrational as you have neglected the final step. The active ingredient is 10-400g of the 200CK solution in a one gram sugar tablet. Doesn't that mean they need to mix one water molecule with 2.99x10377g of sugar? They obviously have access to multiple universes to begin with as there ain't that much sugar in ours. fiveby(zero) 05:37, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The absolute absurdity of this homeopathic preparation is very difficult to state in terms that are not under exaggerations. Paul Offit said it was unlikely to find one molecule of duck in a universe full of Oscillococcinum. I don't know what a universe "full" looks like, but if he is referring to one that doesn't Big Crunch immediately with our rate of expansion, there are something like 1080 molecules one could fit in the observable universe. So you would need 10320 universes. This is an absurd under-exaggeration. jps (talk) 11:26, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Ow, my head. The dumb. Silver  seren C 02:41, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Not sure of the drift of these mixed flippant/irrelevant comments, but this is not a "fringe theory" question, but one of strictly correct framing of a stochastic outcome. If 100 molecules of a substance are dispersed into a water volume the size of the Pacific, then it is still incorrect to say "the Pacific contains none of that substance". These molecules do not magically disappear into the aether. It is merely extremely improbable that any given sample from that volume will contain a single moclecule. ජපස et al, please stop waving "homeopathical claims are bunk" like a flag of merit - I think we are all in the same boat here - and resist the temptation to state false absolutes in articles because they sound nice. If the term "astronomically improbable" is not snappy enough for your liking, desist of inserting the relevant statement entirely; the article in question does not need to hit readers over the head with comments on homeopathy. We deal with that elsewhere in great detail. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * You used the Pacific as an example, but that is a way under-exaggeration. In physics we deal with practical impossibilities all the time. It's a game of statistics. There are 1046 water molecules in the pacific ocean. We would need 10354 Pacific oceans worth of water to actually approach the dilution level we are talking about here. This is zero molecules by any possible measurement standard you could ever invent using human technology. And if you're interested in non-human technology, who exactly are you writing the encyclopedia for? jps (talk) 11:07, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * You honestly don't get that "one molecule within the galactic volume" would not still not allow you to say "that volume does not contain any of the substance"? Honestly? You managed to make any headway in a scientific discipline with this kind of mulish insistence that sloppy phrasing becomes correct just because the numbers get large? I keep assuming that you are just posturing, but if that is really a fundamental lack of understanding, I'm giving up - not my circus, not my clown car. Things seem to have been sorted (one way or another) at the article, so that's me out of this sideshow. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:43, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The point is that there is no gigantic volume large enough (even a "galactic" volume is an absurd underexaggeration). A volume of that size doesn't exist. It cannot physically exist. So we can only talk about the sample and the sample has zero molecules in it. That's as plain a fact as something like, "the Earth goes around the Sun". jps (talk) 13:05, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * By the way, the same nonsense is being promoted in Domestic Muscovy duck as well. "Minute" is not the right word for the amount of duck stuff in these preparations:
 * jps (talk) 11:07, 19 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Might be a (rare) case where an explanatory footnote is merited. Say the preparation contains no molecules of liver, and then footnote the "no" with something about the multiple universes stuff. Bon courage (talk) 11:59, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Likely that would be considered WP:OR even though the calculation is something that anyone who has a passing familiarity with order of magnitude could do. It's just not worth it. jps (talk) 13:03, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * This could be used as a source for the duck goo vs. molecules count stuff. Bon courage (talk) 13:08, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, unfortunately I think they messed up the math. It should be 10400 not 102000. Not that there is any practical difference as there are zero molecules in preparation of either concentration (which just follows my main point). jps (talk) 13:15, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Note that per WP:ONEWAY among other principles, all mention of oscillococcium has been excised from Muscovy duck. We now move venues to Talk:Domestic_Muscovy_duck. Should we mention this lunacy there? jps (talk) 13:03, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * As long as editors are reasoning based on these absurdities, then you might say that it is made from the heart and liver of wild duck. Maybe they should have to prove the one duck that needed to be killed to create our multiple universes of tablets was in fact a domestic one and not wild. fiveby(zero) 14:52, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the statement above, that this is simply a matter of stochastics, but not a fringe theory one. One might even say that all of this is a matter of quackery. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:45, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey, i was going to do some real work and remove links to sites like GlobinMed from articles such as Melochia corchorifolia to make amends. But, did you ever come up with any ideas for a threshold for inclusion of ethnopharmacology in species articles? fiveby(zero) 18:16, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... Rhinoceros and Pangolin are put in (even further) danger of extinction because of Chinese Traditional Quackery. In those cases, it is relevant. Homeopaths do not need much material though. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:05, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 * So the one above is a roadside weed. It undoubtedly has been used, as probably most common plants at some time or place, Isaac Henry Burkill cataloged a few usages. That's probably marginally useful information for somebody, i like to know how the plants in my neighborhood were traditionally used. But the good sources are hard to find, and quality devolves as alt med websites and WP content gets copied word for word from a junk journal and we end up with these being "benefits" of the plant. Could just delete all the content as poorly referenced and copyvio, but there is some maybe useful info and a little work might turn up more. I guess my question is if a well-referenced article would only catalogue a few usages without being able to say more about how it was used, is it worthwhile to include? fiveby(zero) 15:00, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that WP:ONEWAY may be a good basis for inclusion. When a source that is about the plant mentions an ethnopharmacology use, inclusion in the article on the plant seems justified. However, in a source about particualr ethnopharmacological practices that is not about the plant, per se, we are likely best to mention plant use at an article about the practices (assuming such articles exist) and only link out to the plant article. Just spitballing here. jps (talk) 20:23, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Someone privately e-mailed me to point out that the concentration is given in terms of grams rather than molecules so all of my numbers are are off by twenty-two orders of magnitude (roughly). Doesn't change anything practically, however. There are no duck soup molecules in any oscillococcinum. For posterity, however, I thought I would document the back of the envelope absurdity. The molecular concentration of oscillococcinum is roughly one part in 10378 which means that in a critical-density universe full of oscillococcinum, we're looking at something like a one in 10298 chance that any molecule of duck soup would be in the universe. I'll compare that to a woman who won at craps 154 times in Atlantic City which is equivalent to beating the odds of one in 1012. If you want to consider the entire inflationary landscape, maybe you can get another 60 orders of magnitude (it's outside our observable universe, but... whatever). Okay, so if you were that lucky, you'd only have to deal with 10226 inflationary-landscape-sized volumes to get to break-even likelihood. But don't you call it zero! Also, I should be clear that the likelihood of discovering a molecule from the duck soup is far greater than the likelihood of observing a violation of the second law of thermodynamics for something like an ideal gas which is in the realm of a whopping one part in 1010 24 or so. Time goes forward because returning to unlikely microstates is so uncommon. More uncommon than finding the needle in a haystuck duck soup in the oscillococcinum.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

jps (talk) 15:37, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Wait, while your at it would you mind calculating the chances of a duck offal molecule spontaneously assembling? fiveby(zero) 15:59, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Lol. How does one decide whether the molecule has duck offal provenance if it spontaneously assembled? Ducks, like most life on Earth, are mostly water, after all. jps (talk) 16:28, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
 * TL;DR the amount of duck in these homeopathic preparations is: duck all. Bon courage (talk) 16:30, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

This is a really bizarre thread. Just so I have things straight: the idea is that we should deliberately say things that are factually untrue because that will make people less likely to believe homeopathy is true? I really don't think it makes sense to say that any number of dilutions ensures that literally zero molecules of something is left. As has been said: they don't disappear. I also don't think that a stupid claim becomes reasonable by virtue of smugly insinuating that anyone who disagrees with it is a dumb crackpot who loves homeopathy. If you dropped a teaspoon of coffee into the mists of Jupiter, Jupiter would contain a teaspoon of coffee, not "no coffee". Saying that Jupiter "contained no coffee" would just be incorrect. It does not matter if there is some dumbass somewhere who says that Jupiter is made of coffee. jp×g🗯️ 04:38, 25 November 2023 (UTC)


 * jpxg, your analysis here is just wrong. The Jupiter thought experiment misses a series of crucial steps in which a teaspoon of the resulting Jupiter/coffee mixture is mixed into a new Jupiter. This would then be repeated a handful of times. At the end, we'd have a pure Jupiter mix again, with the likelihood of any other outcome lower than negligible. No molecules that were in the coffee have disappeared; they were just left behind on the first Jupiter. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:53, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, if it's negligible, then it's negligible, or there's a probability of one in 1099999239804172354890174592380453, or whatever. I do not think saying this indicates any sort of mental disturbance. jp×g🗯️ 05:39, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * No mental disturbance at all! I think the result of this discussion—not mentioning the undue pseudoscience in the articles mentioned—is a great improvement. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 05:43, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * There is a problem with the word "negligible" in that it is used for material solutions that are far less pure than oscillococcinum. If we are going to be using descriptive terminology "zero solute left" is as accurate as we can get. If we are going to quibble, then I insist you get the math right in comparison. The number you quoted, for example, is close to what one might need to calculate the probability of perfume whizzing back into a bottle in a stadium. jps (talk) 12:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * If you are asking for calculations of how close to zero a number is, one can provide that if the article context demands it, sure. But we're talking about mentioning this stuff (thankfully now excised) in articles about the thing that is serially diluted. To say that there are zero molecules in the preparation is about as close to true as any statement you might make in these realms. But maybe there are better ways to put it. You are about as likely to find an atom of solute in a 200C preparation as you are to flip heads 1329 in a row on a fair coin. Is that more or less browbeating for you? I'd rather just say "zero" or "impossible" (because statistically impossible in the practical world is impossible -- that's one of the ways that thermodynamics works, for example). The problem is when people try to make analogies that are underexaggerations like you did. If you want to make quantitative comparisons to make your point, choose the right comparisons. jps (talk) 12:16, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * , if the company that creates this product even bothers to gut any ducks and begin with a solution, the second step would be to discard that solution and refill the container with water. After that happens there is nothing really rational to say about this as a "solution", but the absurdities continue. It makes no sense to speak of "concentrations" or "solutions" when the proportion of solute is less than a single molecule. There is not enough sugar or even matter in our universe to build their tablets with a 10-400 active ingredient. It is absurd and they are lying, the thread (while fun) was to demonstrate the scale of the absurdity and lies. So if for some strange reason a reader really wants to know about Muscovy duck, why does the article content contain absurdities and lies? fiveby(zero) 05:12, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, there's nothing about it on the duck article, but here is what it says on Oscillococcinum, now that I have done some half an hour of scrounging around to find shockingly elusive sources for the Eddington number(?)
 * This series of dilutions would result in one molecule of the original substance being present in 10400 molecules of solute; for comparison, the atmosphere of the entire planet Earth is estimated to constitute around 1.04×1044 molecules (i.e. one molecule of duck offal per 10356 Earth atmospheres).
 * Is this really so bad? Are people going to read this and think "wow, those guys must be right"? jp×g</b>🗯️</b> 05:43, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * By the way, if anyone can come up with a decent source for the 1080 particles in the observable universe, that would go much better in here, but I honest-to-God could not find a citation for that figure that wasn't trash. <b style="font-family: monospace; color:#E35BD8"><b style="color:#029D74">jp</b>×<b style="color: #029D74">g</b>🗯️</b> 05:46, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It's an order of magnitude estimate based off the baryon fraction of the critical density and the size of the observable universe. Most intro astronomy textbooks include a calculation of it as a homework problem. You could do worse than Universe Today: which includes generous enough error bars to allow for quibbles in all directions. jps (talk) 12:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * That's probably wrong, someone just reading the active ingredient of the label and seeing the 400 exponent. The recipe is to dump the container and refill with water 200 times, then it's 1 part of that "solution" to 10400 parts sugar. By the way if i recall there is a surprising amount of "other" matter allowed in consumable products, mostly i think insect parts and frass. Whole lot more shit in this sugar than duck. fiveby(zero) 06:07, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't object to the descriptions provided on the oscillococcinum page as such. The analysis is carefully considered in context. The problem is when descriptions of this get out in the wild. There was a time that I was nearly banned from Wikipedia for suggesting that plants and animal pages should never mention the supposed "use" of those in homeopathy because the preparations did not contain the plants and animals. Thankfully, it seems that this kind of argument is no longer forbidden necessarily, but, as others have pointed out, a minimal standard of decency for Wikipedia might require something like a source available that speaks to the WP:PROMINENCE of the homeopathic preparation in reference to the substance prior to making mention of such a thing. I might imagine some weird scenario where obsession over a particular preparation might cause a conservation movement to protect some herb or something (never seen a source to that effect, but this would be the level of seriousness I think we should be looking for in order to think about following WP:ONEWAY). jps (talk) 12:27, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * If we are going to play these games, I might point out that 1050 is the approximate number of atoms in the world while 1020 is the approximate number of atoms in one gram of Duck Soup (I may be off by a thousand in either direction. Forgive me. These are Fermi problems.) As with the famous question of "how many atoms in each breath that you take were also in Julius Caesar's last breath?" one might ask, "How many water molecules have ever been inside a Muscovy duck in Oscillococcinum?" That's a somewhat different question! There are on order of 106 Muscovy ducks in the world today... let's say there have been no more than 108 that have been alive for all time. That's something along the lines of 1030 total atom possibilities within Muscovy ducks (note that many of these atoms are repeats). (1020)(1030) = 1050 so I judge it far more likely that there is by chance alone a molecule of Muscovy Duck offal in the final product of oscillococcinum. But it was likely introduced from the water used during the last of the serial dilutions. jps (talk) 16:37, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I have been reading this discussion for 45 minutes and I have got absolutely no idea what the hell anybody is talking about. Jondvdsn1 (talk) 12:26, 13 December 2023 (UTC)


 * The original point has got diluted rather. Bon courage (talk) 12:35, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Social cost of carbon
For months, a single user has been citing himself in-line as an authority on the subject, claiming that whatever he feels is the true cost should be taken as seriously as published scientific literature. Moreover, there are now lines about Thomas Hobbes and "State of Nature" (yes, literal 17th century philosophy) interspersed through the entire article. The worst thing has been the surprising inaction from other editors, who apparently haven't noticed anything off. I reverted the worst of it once, but then I didn't have time to edit war and hoped an informal complaint to an administrator would settle the matter. It hasn't. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:37, 13 December 2023 (UTC)


 * The entire article probably needs reverting to the state it was in prior to User:AidanParkinson's edits. It is WP:OR, and vacuous OR at that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:55, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd agree, I was just having a look at if any of the intervening edits from other users are worth keeping but the article is in such a poor state now it'd be better reverting the lot and then just re-adding anything of value. JaggedHamster (talk) 14:04, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Monoamine oxidase A
The literature on a possible association between this enzyme and antisocial behavior appears to be all over the map, with some studies showing a large correlation and others failing to replicate. The gene that encodes it, MAOA, is sometimes called in the popular press the "warrior gene", and this usage has been criticized as a wild misrepresentation.

My sense is that meta-analyses –– which are of course our preferred source type per WP:MEDRS –– are pretty circumspect about the level of evidence here, e.g. and

Complicating the matter, we've seen in the past some rather committed POV-pushing on this and related "biosocial criminology" topics by LTAs, leaving aside the well-meaning efforts of editors who have possibly been misled by news stories presenting this as settled science.

You can see the rather schizophrenic result in this section of the article: Monoamine oxidase A.

Input from experienced editors familiar with molecular biology is requested. Generalrelative (talk) 17:15, 12 December 2023 (UTC)


 * It looks like the article does mention the critiques of the "warrior gene" claims. However, it might be good to find a source (explicitly mentioning MAOA) which clarifies that genetic influence on traits (if it actually is occurring) is likely polygenic, involving many thousands of genes of small effect. Reducing propensity to violence down to a single gene is pretty silly. Zenomonoz (talk) 20:52, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, I did not see the 'antisocial behavior' subsection. Perhaps it is best to clarify at the top of that section that many of these studies did not replicate, because at the bottom it mentions the most recent research However, a large genome-wide association study has failed to find any large or statistically significant effects of the MAOA gene on aggression. The "antisocial behavior" and "warrior gene" section practically cover the same thing as well. Zenomonoz (talk) 20:55, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, to clarify: the issue I see with the "Antisocial behavior" section is that it contains some pretty strong Wikivoice statements like A connection between the MAO-A gene 3R version and several types of anti-social behaviour has been found (citing apparently solid studies, e.g. ), but then farther down one finds that According to a large meta-analysis in 2014, the 3R allele had a small, nonsignificant effect on aggression and antisocial behavior, and even further down another meta-analysis failed to find any large or statistically significant effects of the MAOA gene on aggression . We then read that there are replication and methodological issues with earlier studies. So yeah, I think a rewrite of the section is probably in order, focused on properly attributing statements cited to earlier, individual studies. At a later stage, this could then impact what information is conveyed in the lead. Generalrelative (talk) 21:19, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Practically all genome studies from the 2000s failed to replicate and this could be clarified. Those definitely don't belong in WP:VOICE. Zenomonoz (talk) 22:18, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I did some cleanup on this article a couple of months ago, and toned down some statements in the first few sections, but intentionally didn't touch the "Antisocial behavior" part. But I agree it's a mess that needs trimming.  I see that the other day someone tried to put in a source making an extraordinary claim backed up by not-even-ordinary evidence, so as it stands the section seems to be a magnet for fringe content.  I'm distracted by another, even worse article at the moment, but will see what I can do for MAO-A in the next few weeks. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 16:02, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Conversion therapy – disclaimers?
Not sure about this one. @ has removed this MED RS disclaimer about conversion therapy from the lead of Joseph Nicolosi. and then added this disclaimer suggesting "reparative therapy" is different from conversion therapy. FMSky asked "why is this disclaimer in the lead of a biography of a person"? I have reverted.

Just to clarify: I am guessing WP:FRINGELEVEL applies: "Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community", right? Academic reviews which discuss conversion therapy very often refer to Nicolosi specifically anyway e.g. here. I think the revert was correct but some clarification would be appreciated. I guess FMSky would also appreciate the information. Zenomonoz (talk) 07:18, 8 December 2023 (UTC)


 * More fundamentally NPOV (WP:FRINGESUBJECTS) means when fringe views are mentioned they should be "clearly described as such", although how much that's done is subject to reasonable disagreement. Bon courage (talk) 07:28, 8 December 2023 (UTC)


 * and then added this disclaimer suggesting "reparative therapy" is different from conversion therapy. I actually didnt add anything at all just removed a line break --FMSky (talk) 14:10, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, misread the edit; so I’ve struck that. The main question is the first part anyway. Zenomonoz (talk) 19:06, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Wait, hold up. Isn't topic banned from trans-related topics? Nicolosi appears to be known for gay conversion therapy rather than trans conversion therapy, buuuuut as is often the case the line is not very clear: Nicolosi described his ideas in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach (1991) and three other books. Nicolosi proposed that homosexuality is often the product of a condition he described as gender-identity deficit caused by an alienation from, and perceived rejection by, formative individuals of the subject's gender which interrupts normal masculine or feminine identification process. Loki (talk) 06:06, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Good spotting. Hopefully an admin can check. Zenomonoz (talk) 08:29, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It said nothing about trans anywhere in that article, and that paragraph you cited i didnt even edit --FMSky (talk) 09:05, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Conversion therapy is absolutely a trans-related topic. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 18:09, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * This is a conversion about turning gay people straight, not related to trans --FMSky (talk) 18:23, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The term "transgenderism" is considered derogatory/offensive.
 * Anyway, topic bans are "broadly defined". Conversion therapy is a trans-related topic. DFlhb (talk) 19:15, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Well in this case it just talked about gay conversion. Ive changed the term, how is anybody supposed to know all of this... anyway maybe an admin could make a decision now --FMSky (talk) 19:27, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @Firefangledfeathers is an admin who has interacted with you before, so may be able to weigh in re: the topic ban. Zenomonoz (talk) 09:03, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * IMO, perhaps we can accept that FMSky did not know Joseph Nicolosi also had some involvement in trans issues and just leave this violation be even if it's their responsibility to check. But since it seems clear Nicolosi did have involvement in trans issues, indeed pseudo-science about gender identity seems to have been part of the foundations of his work which is visible even in the article FMSky was editing [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Nicolosi&diff=prev&oldid=1188548749], both the line above and the book Gender Confusion in Childhood, FMSky should refrain from editing further. I'd note that now they've been warned, in the absence of confirmation that further editing wouldn't be a violation, any further editing should be taken as a wilful violation which is far more serious. Edit: Just wanted to clarify that I'm not an admin. Nil Einne (talk) 12:53, 15 December 2023 (UTC) 12:57, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm too involved here to weigh in as an admin. I was already aware of this discussion prior to the ping, and I might have something to add later (as a regular editor). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:54, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Antisemitism in contemporary Hungary: Soros
A few months back I added a section to Antisemitism in Contemporary Hungary dealing with the Orban government's use of antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories regarding George Soros. I recently re-read it, and I wondered if anyone here could check it to see if I am using neutral enough language. I don't edit much on conspiracy stuff, and this is a really delicate area where conspiracy-theories are right in the mainstream of a country's political culture.

Basically I want to know if it has the right balance between specifying that this is a racist conspiracy theory and WP:NPOV.

Any help gratefully received. Boynamedsue (talk) 12:57, 15 December 2023 (UTC)


 * George Soros conspiracy theories, this is the main article you are looking for. This does not deserve that extensive coverage in this article for now because while it has obvious antisemitic grounds, there is little indication that the Hungarians in general have become more antisemitic because of Orban's anti-Soros propaganda. Of course, if you can find sources saying that this has had a direct effect on Hungarians, and this can be traced to Orban's obsession with Soros, then you could probably be OK but still shorten it a bit. At the very least you could update the table with newer data, since the time Orban came to office.
 * There is a separate question of suggesting that Orban is antisemitic throughout based on his obsession with Soros. Soros is Jewish, but AFAIK a lot of the animosity comes from the fact that Soros supports liberal and left-leaning causes through NGOs the govt cannot control, which is at odds with the socially conservative and illiberal regime that Orban represents. The section actually says as much, and also there is evidence that he is perfectly fine with Israeli politicians so long as they are conservative, such as here and here (Netanyahu). To be clear, there is evidence that Hungarian rabbis do not like his "mixed races" speech for obvious reasons, but actually if anything, his rhetoric is more Islamophobic (as in "anti-migrant") rather than antisemitic. But I also see a source saying it's both.
 * Whatever the case, usage of antisemitic tropes is notable but their mere usage does not IMHO justify a section this long.
 * It is totally a valid thing to write, and you've tried, but I think you should condense it. Also, I'd rather you found something more than three books. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:32, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok thanks. In terms of sourcing, there is lots of stuff from newspapers, but I wanted to base it on academic articles. Would you suggest using articles from less academic sources? Boynamedsue (talk) 14:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, you are right to do just that, and if you can write a good section using academic insights only, it's great. This source is also pretty good IMHO for an overview. By all means do that, go through Google Scholar or other database you are using.
 * What I'm saying is that three books probably isn't enough, particularly since the section focuses more on crackdown on anything related to Soros rather than anti-Semitic rhetoric or Orban's anti-semitism. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:20, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. I see that the length of the section is a problem given the overall length of the article. I will possibly try and extend the other section while trimming the Soros bit. There may also be scope for an article on the Stop Soros campaign, I think it gets sigcov. Thanks again, plenty to think about. All the best to you. Boynamedsue (talk) 18:13, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. Also, the George Soros conspiracy theories needs some work too. Feel free to ask for help or advice Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:12, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Bangladesh genocide has an RfC
Bangladesh genocide has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Malerisch (talk) 05:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Climate apocalypse has an RfCl
Climate apocalypse has an RfCl regarding a proposed merge discussion. If you would like to participate, the RfCl is here, which also links to the original, unresolved discussion. Thank you. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 12:31, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Kremlin Plot


New article, prequel of Great Purge. It depicts the plot as a real thing, although Great Purge says The validity of these claims is still debated by historians. So, historians, please debate how to improve the articles. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:45, 17 December 2023 (UTC)


 * The Great Purge is talking about the Kirov Stream and the validity of the Leningrad Center in connection with the assassination of Sergey Kirov. The historians are likely talking about the more historically significant Moscow trials and the guilt of those accused. The Kremlin Affair is related to the Great Purge as Kamenev was tried and convicted in connection with it, but it's only relevant to the Kirov Stream in that subsequent investigations into the security measures of the Kremlin were conducted and a plot was revealed. It's the counterpart to the Leningrad center, the "Moscow Center." Whether any 'real' plot existed or not, I don't know, but I'm planning on improving the article soon and I've been spending time gathering sources and translating the interrogations of those implicated. The Great Purge should probably receive a clarification, or a mention of the Kremlin Affair when its improved. Padlocks (talk) 04:31, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It would be nice to find someone other than Christopher Andrew or Svetlana Lokhova to comment on this. "Impulsive General Misha shoots himself in the foot" Should probably be deleted if nothing else can be found. fiveby(zero) 06:34, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think it should be deleted, its been studied and mentioned by more recognized scholars like Getty, Fitzpatrick, and Conquest. It's not especially prevalent in the English language but there are books dedicated to this topic in Russian. Padlocks (talk) 08:50, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I see Getty was recently cited, but i don't really see what is relevant on p. 80 of The Road to Terror? A magazine article from Russian7 which i'm unsure about was added, but it does mention Oleg Khlevniuk so looking for this in his Stalin. Do you know where i can find this in Fitzpatick? fiveby(zero) 16:40, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It's pp.147-8 in Khlevniuk, the best source i'm seeing so far is Can't find it online but you can request at WP:RX or shoot me an email and i'll send the pages. Think you should probably lead with the characterization in other sources and maybe supplement with Andrew? I don't see anyone else citing Lokhova. fiveby(zero) 17:32, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Any mineralogists here?
Is apparently a type of rock found in Russia. It has gained some attention for its use making geegaws that are meant to have healing properties and/or absorb the evil energy from mobile phones. More generally though there seems to be some confusion about what this stuff actually is. Bon courage (talk) 07:35, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * is a publication that mentions that there are somewhat disparate definitions of this thing. It's apparently a form of biogenic carbon with high hydrogen content. It's a legit thing to have a page about, cranks notwithstanding. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:19, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I can say about how it looks in Russian: this article is pretty legitimate and describes chemical and physical properties of the material. These two articles also appear fine. You will find a lot of that in English-language sources too though. So shungite is a valid topic to write an article about.
 * On the other hand, this book is likely crankery and is written by (apparently) a PhD in sociological studies who regularly publishes stuff like that. I'm not sure of this one (in English), but the foreword is sus and the author appears to be profiting from sales of shungite. This webpage is simply a description of the product (available for an equivalent of $15, but interesting how they get it to Ukraine from Russia?), but it demonstrates the kind of crankery that could be seen. The description claims, for example, that with shungite "water gains healing properties [by] structuring it, enabling an energetic and informational matrix" (whatever that is), and that is has anti-bacterial and durable anti-histamine effects, is used for high stomach acid, colds, kidney stones, diabetes and arthritis and somehow makes sure you no longer have a hangover. So many cures it is kinda suspect. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:20, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @Bon courage well that’s a very specific request, but I’m mineralogist! I’ll take a look over it in a little bit. Please poke me if I forget to! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 02:03, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Super! Wikipedia wins again. BTW, the editor pushing the odd health claims has just been indef'd, so that might make editing the article easier. Bon courage (talk) 02:08, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @Bon courage Done! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:15, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

A user keeps reverting me when I attempted to add pseudoscience-related categories to the article ( and ), despite reliably sourced claims that it appears in alternative medicine and 5G misinformation. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 22:21, 17 December 2023 (UTC)


 * @LaundryPizza03 Please take this to the article talk page where that user can see it, since it's a content dispute relating to the article and not a fringe issue per se. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 23:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * We have failed to reach an agreement, and now need a third opinion. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 00:01, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, WP:FTN isn't the place to canvas for a content dispute, which is sooooort of what this looks like. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 02:06, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * But it is the place to look for a third opinion. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:03, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Since the context related to categorization of potentially fringe topics, this is a pretty non-neutral place to request a third opinion. To me, at least. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:02, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Only in the eyes of people who have a non-neutral opinion about this noticeboard. Can we stop this? The notice has been posted here, and notices will continue to be posted here as long as the noticeboard exists. If you want the noticeboard deleted, you probably know where to ask. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:38, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Grover Furr
At Grover Furr, this revert was challenged on MOS:LABEL and BLP grounds. The dispute is between the first sentence saying Furr:
 * ...is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University who is best known for his revisionist views regarding the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin.
 * ...is an American professor of Medieval English literature at Montclair State University who is best known for his revisionist fringe views regarding the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin.

The other point of contention is whether the 'see also' link in the Holodomor section should go to Holodomor denial or Holodomor genocide question.

This is outside my area, but my impression is that Furr is fringe enough that relatively few reputable academics even bother talking about him enough to debunk his claims. It doesn't help that he seems to like to attack other historians over these issues. I think this is why the article mostly cites Furr's own work, to its detriment. Furr's claims are, however, convenient for right-wing pundits who present his fringe views as an example of campus culture gone amuck and similar. This makes sourcing the 'fringe' bit slightly more difficult. Source disputing his claims are trivially easy to find, but sources which link those claims to Furr by name are harder to come by due to this noise. (Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places).

Since Furr has come up here a few times in the past, and to avoid local consensus issues, I would appreciate input from editors who are more knowledgeable about fringe issues, specifically Holodomor denial and Stalinism.

Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 22:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * On this did you take a look at Holmstrom's "article"? This is the Igor Pykhalov that has "cast doubt upon our “knowledge” of World War II". Iurii N. Zhukov? Pierre Broué? But of course the article informs me that Socialism and Democracy is an "academic peer-reviewed journal" to let me know it is ok. fiveby(zero) 02:20, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Furr attracts a good bit of attention with regard to labels. There have been other semi-recent efforts to add labels to the lead from various perspectives, including "negationist" and "counter-hegemonic". Ultimately, how an article's subject is characterized in the lead has to follow the body of the article and this means it has to be supported by RS. Just as we previously had no sources for "negationist" or "counter-hegemonic" we also have no sources for "fringe." All sorts of characterizations might be arguable, but without a source it's just synth.
 * Additionally, the BLP policies mean we should be cautious in adding language like "fringe" to the lead.
 * On the second question, Holodomor genocide question is preferable. Holodomor denial as a whole has been templated for its original research problems, and I think it is best not to exacerbate them. Holodomor genocide question is a more thoughtful analysis. Additionally, Furr's description of his position in one of the cited sources is "There was a very serious famine in the USSR, including (but not limited to) the Ukrainian SSR, in 1932-33. But there has never been any evidence of a "Holodomor" or “deliberate famine,” and there is none today." This seems to fit better for the genocide question article.
 * Might the BLP notice board have been a better place for this discussion? JArthur1984 (talk) 02:22, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The Talk page of the article is the place for the discussion you started. This is a notice board, it is for notices, such as the one Grayfell posted, not for discussions. And, believe it or not, it is possible that an article is relevant to more than one notice board. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * There’s no reason for sarcasm - please refrain. My question about BLP notice board was not rhetorical. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Neither was my response. This is really a notice board, and the discussion should really happen at the Talk page, and it is really possible that an article is relevant to more than one notice board. And it was really you who started the discussion here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:31, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * HG, your answer to JArthur1984 didn't cross the CIVIL line but comments like "And, believe it or not," are not helpful. They do not make your point any stronger but do antagonize good faith editors. Springee (talk) 15:36, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I have the impression that this board is under attack from several users, so I got a bit testy. What is really not helpful is a constant flow of "this should have been posted at a different notice board". I seem to remember that you have done that too in the past, and probably intend to do it again, so I can see why you would be sympathetic to that sort of thing. But if there is a fringe element, there is nothing wrong with posting a notice here. That is what the board is for. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:50, 19 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Revisionist ain't right in this context, it is associating him with a pretty respectable group. What's wrong with just plain description with defending Stalin, justifying purges, cited for Russian propaganda? Still needs work on the sources: misrepresenting Haynes and Klehr, citing Gerald Meyer whose real argument is that the Stalin defenders need to pull together and get on the same page. He's really ignored by everyone but Marxists and your "campus culture" crowd, or just a brief mentions like a sarcastic footnote "...such distinguished historians as the pristine American Stalinist, Grover Furr." fiveby(zero) 20:23, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Can we ever really know what crashed at Roswell?
After many years of stability, there is currently a move to walk Wikipedia back from stating as fact that it was an airforce balloon which crashed near Roswell in 1947. More eyes could help. Bon courage (talk) 13:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Per WP:SPADE, this is a bad-faith submission. No one at Talk:Roswell incident is pro-FRINGE.  Bon invoked FT/N in a clear "brigand threat", and then made good on the threat along with making personal attacks.   Feoffer (talk) 14:03, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The Roswell incident is likely to be of interest to volunteers at this noticeboard. It's important to get the article right with respect to the fringe guideline. It's possible for a dispute to move the article away from that goal even if none of the participants are pro-fringe. No personal attacks are apparent here, and here is not the place to discuss conduct issues. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I appreciate that, FFT. If you look back at the precise wording Bon uses, it was very "I'm gonna tell my big brothers on you", as if he sorta 'had a posse', pardon my saying so.  It's a huge escalation that really poisons and otherwise positive editing process that was ongoing.    The real "fly in the ointmemt" is posting here in a way that suggests its a dispute between flying saucer nuts and historians -- that's "fookin offsides, Bon".   It's not, and Bon's FT/N meatpuppets will be accorded their appropriate weight in discussion.  Feoffer (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Pardon me, but there is a dispute. You are arguing that Wikipedia can no longer assert as fact that a US military balloon crashed near Roswell in 1947, despite the fact that quality RS asserts that it did without contradiction (it was a MOGUL ballon of flight 4, launched June 4, 1947, from Alamogordo Army Air Field, to be precise). In resolving disputes, posting to an appropriate noticeboard is good practice. Yes, it is regrettable this extra process is necessary given that this seems, to me anyway, a fairly straightforward matter of WP:YESPOV from the WP:BESTSOURCES. But we are where we are. Bon courage (talk) 14:45, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You falsely claim claim that article's language has recently been changed after years of stability.  Attribution of the conclusion to scholars has been the stable version for many years.  Bon, let's never forget you  are the reason the articles language has recently been changed, because we're trying to incorporate your feedback in good faith.  It's exceptionally disruptive when you falsely imply we're pro-FRINGE or anti-statusquo when in fact neither is factual  Feoffer (talk) 15:01, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The change to assert balloon crash as fact happened in 2014 when Olmsted was first introduced as a source, I believe in this discussion. It had been stable for many years, yes (save for the occasional drive-by attempt to undo it). Bon courage (talk) 15:13, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:CCC -- no one's on a pro-FRINGE crusade just because we're attributing conclusions to RSes. Feoffer (talk) 15:17, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is helpful to invoke "pro-FRINGE"; the matter at hand is a quite specific wording question and the applicable WP:PAGs. Bon courage (talk) 15:19, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I didn't think it was helpful to invoke FRINGE until you threatened, and the proceeded, to make a misleading post on FT/N -- now my comments have to rebut meatpuppets who have been misled to thinking someone is promoting aliens rather than insisting on sourcing. Feoffer (talk) 15:22, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * OK to state as fact. Pop culture sources may stir up clicks by hinting that this is ambiguous but the conclusions of our best academic expert sources are very clear. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi Louie! Knew I'd see you as soon as Bon made good on his promise to recruit from FT/N.   The actual content dispute isn't as you've been led to believe by the misleading summary.   We're looking to establish whether a single unsourced sentence in a scholar narrative is sufficient for Wikipedia to assert it, rather that an attribute it to scholars.  I'd love to assert it as fact -- only problem:  it ain't quite fact according to the RS. Almost certain conclusion, yes.  But oversell it beyond WP:V, we lose. Feoffer (talk) 15:10, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You are assuming bad faith. The header here says, We can help determine whether the topic is fringe and if so, whether it is treated accurately and impartially.. It does not say "Post here only if you have a problem with profringe editors". It is your personal conclusion that, if someone posts here after discussing you, they must regard you as a profringe user. Also, someone is not a "meatpuppet" of someone else just because they disagree with you and the someone else also disagrees with you. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:37, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I have spent years fighting fringe here.  If a editor accuses me of being "pro-fringe" for insisting on sourcing to meet WP:V,  much less makes posts that misrepresent a WP:V compliance issues as "pro-FRINGE", I know they are no longer acting in good faith.  Simple as that. Feoffer (talk) 15:41, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Your latest text is Yet there is no source in the known universe which WP:Verifies this. Bon courage (talk) 15:46, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * No one has accused you of being "pro-fringe". That is the point. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:09, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Stop talking about users. Slatersteven (talk) 15:47, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Of course it is fact that it was a Project Mogul balloon. I don't see any reliable source which disputes the fact. Do you? jps (talk) 15:28, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Russian bioweaponry
A startling section in our Marburg virus article describes how the Soviet Union had weaponized it. Similarly, at Soviet biological weapons program we have stated as fact that "A production line to manufacture smallpox on an industrial scale was launched in the Vector Institute in 1990". The common theme to these assertions (and many others throughout Wikipedia) is that they are sourced to books by a fêted Soviet defector who, our Wikipedia article tells us, also offers telemedicine service to treat autism and sells "Dr. Ken Alibek's Immune System Support Formula".Other RS is a bit less accepting. The LA Times says How should Wikipedia be using Alibek as a source for these claims? Should the source be used at all? Bon courage (talk) 08:52, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks like careful use? The preface and introduction in the first source have some help: ...portions of his testimony and narrative regarding Soviet BW activities carried out by the MOD are considered less authoritative. Should probably find each allegation in a better source and see what is "according to Alibek" or stated with more confidence. For instance the industrial scale production of smallpox is p. 224, chapter 8's discussion of Vector and weaponization of Marburg seems much more assertive. fiveby(zero) 14:46, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a WP policy answer tho, with it's overly permissive idea of reliable, "How should Wikipedia be using Alibek as a source" is never, but maybe occasional cited as warranted. fiveby(zero) 16:25, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks like careful use? The preface and introduction in the first source have some help: ...portions of his testimony and narrative regarding Soviet BW activities carried out by the MOD are considered less authoritative. Should probably find each allegation in a better source and see what is "according to Alibek" or stated with more confidence. For instance the industrial scale production of smallpox is p. 224, chapter 8's discussion of Vector and weaponization of Marburg seems much more assertive. fiveby(zero) 14:46, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a WP policy answer tho, with it's overly permissive idea of reliable, "How should Wikipedia be using Alibek as a source" is never, but maybe occasional cited as warranted. fiveby(zero) 16:25, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Cow urine
"Diesel-cow urine emulsion" seems dubious to me. Anybody familiar with the science of fuels? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:48, 21 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I didn't think that an experiment that replaced water for cow urine in standard diesel emulsions was more than trivia, but I was reverted. :shrug:. I don't feel like I know more about cow urine with that added. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 01:18, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

COVID origin again
has just warped in, entire. Apart from being a synthetic topic (does any source talk about such 'theories'?), from a quick look, it somehow manages to avoid saying that zoonosis is the hypothesis most supported by scientists. Might need eyes from fringe-savvy editors. Bon courage (talk) 18:57, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It says that in the second sentence of the lede, right after defining the topic. A zoonotic spillover event is the possible origin of COVID-19 that is considered most plausible by the scientific community. Sennalen (talk) 19:00, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I am glad you posted something here, though. As I said on the talk page, this article should be useful as a positive example for good practices in applying FRINGE and MEDRS. Sennalen (talk) 19:02, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * If it's the most accepted theory about the Origin of COVID-19, shouldn't it be treated as a spin-off of that article, specifically Origin of COVID-19? Otherwise, it risks being a POVFORK. TFD (talk) 22:48, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I consider it a WP:DETAIL companion to Origin of COVID-19. I didn't want to be hasty in creating links myself. Sennalen (talk) 23:12, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The first declaration is manifestly incorrect. COVID-19 zoonosis theories are scientific hypotheses proposing that SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis.... I can find no source which matches the term "COVID-19 zoonosis theories" with such a definition. jps (talk) 14:47, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The entire concept of zoonosis "theories" (whatever that is supposed to mean) seems like editorial innovation. Then saying that "theories" == "hypotheses" seems ... huh? Bon courage (talk) 15:14, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The topic of an article is an idea rather than a phrase. I followed the MOS in making the first sentence a definition, with the subject of the sentence matching the article title. Suggestions for a better title are welcome. Sennalen (talk) 15:21, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * What source does this "definition" come from? Bon courage (talk) 15:23, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * "Origin of COVID-19" is a better title. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:29, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Like Origin of COVID-19? The current article's curious contortions about "theories" has the unfortunate effect of making it seem like "the other side" to COVID-19 lab leak theory, which is not a great way to frame things - a kind of macro-level WP:GEVAL. The Zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2 is is a fact and shouldn't really be presented like this. Bon courage (talk) 15:35, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * A zoonotic origin is a likely but unproven theory, and the many proposals about how, when, where, why, and involving which animals are all unproven theories. This is exactly the right way to present it. Sennalen (talk) 18:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Zoonosis is fact as asserted by RS (even if details are as-yet to be determined). Even the lab-leakers are into some kind of 'zoonosis in the lab' scenario, with the bio-engineering notion being firmly in the conspiracy theory camp. Bon courage (talk) 19:01, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * CRINGE*... yeah, this is not a good start. The idea that "theories" can be "proven" is not the approach that is taken with articles about medicine and science. There are the facts of the matter and the explanations that comport with the facts. To the extent that there are no alternative explanations that align with the evidence, we say that an explanation is true. To the extent that there are multiple possible explanations, we say they are and offer the relative weight for each. There is no "proof". This is the right way to present it. jps (talk) 19:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Zoonosis is the default hypothesis by strong inference, because it's also the case for all known coronaviruses in the wild as well as previous epidemics and pandemics, even if all mutation details for a particular strand may be never be known. Anything else is an extraordinary claim needing strong evidence.  It's not for no reason that early promoters are political disinformation sources, that there was misrepresentation, fear mongering based on standard virus features relying on public ignorance, misleading arguments collection to see what sticks, advocacy groups promoting it, etc.  The propaganda method, not the scientific method.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 04:27, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Like Origin of COVID-19? Yes, that is what I meant. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:51, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Bon courage "The Zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2 is is a fact". Please, do share reliable sources after 2021 that back this statement. Better if it is a meta-analysis. Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 04:03, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You could do worse than refer to Wikipedia's own article on SARS-CoV-2, where in the lede it is stated sourced to 33116300, which is impeccable WP:MEDRS. Alternatively, Zoonotic origins of COVID-19 (although a litle rough still) explains all about it. Bon courage (talk) 05:08, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * That source (PMID:33116300) is from March 2021. According to a letter published in the Lancet on September 2021,
 * As of October 2023, according to researchers there is
 * but the exact origins of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
 * Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 07:08, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You were insisting on quality sourcing yet now you offer what? a letter and something in a dodgy journal? Bon courage (talk) 07:13, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I read the lead of the Cureus article and thought it was ok. Also, the date of the publication. Regarding the letter:
 * Per WP:RS,
 * Per WP:REPUTABLE,
 * Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 04:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, what information do you object about the text I quoted from Cureus? Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 04:03, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thinker78 (talk) 05:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Per WP:REPUTABLE,
 * Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 04:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, what information do you object about the text I quoted from Cureus? Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 04:03, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thinker78 (talk) 05:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thinker78 (talk) 05:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thinker78 (talk) 05:01, 20 December 2023 (UTC)


 * We simply don't use junk sources like Cureus on Wikipedia, and for this area in particular there is a large amount of high-quality sourcing from quality/respectable sources. See WP:CITEWATCH for a fuller list of dodgy journals. Bon courage (talk) 05:24, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmmmm it looks like Cureus uses crowdsourcing, a strategy used by Wikipedia. Interesting. Also, Wikipedia faced a lot of harsh criticism in its inception. Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 05:38, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Of course: Wikipedia is not a reliable source, nor is it a place you can find any novel knowledge. All Wikipedia is meant to be is a handy summary of the knowledge found in (external) reliable sources. It has quite a good reputation on that, particularly in some areas (e.g. COVID-related misinformation). Most people outside the Wikipedia editing corps (and quite a few within) don't understand what Wikipedia is. Bon courage (talk) 05:44, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * "Reliable" is really a subjective concept and an epistemologic dilemma. But I guess that's a discussion to have at RS. Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 03:18, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia, we have rules about what is considered reliable. Essentially, it means you rely on it. Details are discussed in borderline cases, but the stuff you linked above is clearly not in the running. You cannot rely on some letter somebody wrote, and neither on crowdsourced sites. In this situation, there is even less reason for relativism than usual, which is little enough. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:48, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Cureus you have a point but the letter seems to be a reliable source per the WP:RS guidance I shared. Sincerely, Thinker78  (talk) 20:42, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I do not understand what you mean by the WP:RS guidance I shared. If you mean the opinions of reliable authors above, you are missing the based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy part. Letters to the editor are not fact-checked by the editor - when you write one, you obviously want them to be published as they are - so they can be as inaccurate as the writer wants them to be, and the reputation of the editor is irrelevant. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:36, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Reliability on Wikipedia isn't really that subjective. It's a fairly precise term. Please see WP:RSPSOURCES and User:Novem Linguae/Essays/MEDRS simple explanation for more info. Please note that "letters" fall under the fail section, bullet point number four. – Novem Linguae (talk) 13:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand your interpretation regarding researchers letters but unless you back it up with a quote from a guideline or policy, I don't necessarily share your opinion in your essay, per WP:REPUTABLE. Regards, Thinker78  (talk) 20:44, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You have a point regarding the expert opinion letter, per WP:MEDASSESS,
 * Thinker78 (talk) 20:58, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * If you want to spend all your time talking about the zoonotic origin of COVID-19, you could write an article called Zoonotic origin of COVID-19. No need to invoke "theories" or "hypothesis" or other vaguewaves to manifest uncertainty where that just muddies the waters into WP:FALSEBALANCE territory. jps (talk) 15:53, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a MOS:AVOIDBOLD problem, not a verifiability problem, though questions about WP:COMMONNAME or false balance are fair.
 * It bothers me that Origin of COVID-19 is almost entirely about investigations, and not about the titular topic. DFlhb (talk) 16:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. An article on Studies of COVID-19 origins would be a closer match to the content of that page. An entire reorganization of this stuff may be in order. jps (talk) 16:17, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Usurping the former article with my own would be too forward of me, but I don't think it would necessarily be a bad idea to do just that - focusing the old article on the political processes of investigation it already spends much of its time on. Sennalen (talk) 19:02, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * "It bothers me that Origin of COVID-19 is almost entirely about investigations" &larr; I think jps's proposed merge could actualy help with that. Bon courage (talk) 16:18, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * "It bothers me that Origin of COVID-19 is almost entirely about investigations" &larr; I think jps's proposed merge could actualy help with that. Bon courage (talk) 16:18, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

In an attempt to remove some of the problems of the page, I began an early round of edits and changed the title of the page to Zoonotic origins of COVID-19 (allowing for the plural since more than one sense of "origin" is discussed in the sources and the current editorial approach). I'm still not convinced that this page is worth keeping as-is rather than just having the relevant content shunted back to Origin of COVID-19, but my hope is that savvy editors can come together to make the choice more obvious. I do believe the article as written is suffering a bit from bloat and is WP:UNDUE. There is little in the way of organizing the best sources with the most attention paid while marginalizing less important sources. I see some papers that have hundreds of citations with the same amount of attention as papers with fewer than ten citations. Not a good look. jps (talk) 12:12, 28 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Now at WP:AE. jps (talk) 22:39, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Eyes needed RE: Piers Corbyn on this page
There's a dispute regarding use of a Piers Corbyn view regarding the Hamas October 7 attack, in which - inter alia - he calls it a false flag Israeli operation. The discussion is here.<b style="color: #0011FF;"> SPECIFICO</b> talk 18:53, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

George Knapp (television journalist)


Bio of a writer-reporter specializing in UFO fringe conspiracy theories rewritten by an WP:SPA seems to blur the line between fringe and mainstream. Cites text to WP:PRIMARY and WP:SELFPUB sources, infers old awards for non-UFO journalism apply to UFO-related work, and introduces a number of WP:TONE problems. Could use a copyedit and WP:FRIND sourcing, but may take a WP:BLOWITUP to sort out which sources actually support a jumble of claims. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:49, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine


There is a new thread on WP:NPOVN about this, and it is relevant to this board too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:09, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

If the Moorish Science Temple of America is fringe
it's just been heavily edited by a member with major unsourced changes, some contradicting sources I believe. If it isn't fringe, please ignore this. I've given the editor several warnings. Thanks. Note that the changes have been reverted, so I'm only asking for eyes. Doug Weller talk 10:08, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Sanat Kumara


See recent Talk section. Last summer, the article had a short section "Skeptical view" which seemed to contain a skeptical view. Now the whole article looks like a homogenous pap, including the "Skeptical view" part. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:56, 16 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I tried restoring to an at least semi-encyclopedic version, but it was reverted without explanation. (The articles on Theosophy seem pretty bad, overall.) XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:36, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not just this article. Multiple articles relating to Theosophy have been expanded over the last year (mostly by the same user who reverted the edit above), a lot of which tagged for sourcing, neutrality, etc. Sgubaldo (talk) 17:25, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * An initial search for better sources for Sanat Kumara has turned up ... not very much. It's possible that there isn't enough in (for want of a better word) secular scholarship to have a whole article on the topic. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:35, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The rewrites by that user are clearly detrimental. For example, they added In the Bible, Sanat Kumara is called as the ageless, "the Ancient of Days" cited to a theosophist. This is clearly an "in-universe" view that shouldn't be stated in wikivoice. Then again, I don't think the original version before they started editing is much better honestly. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe Sanat Kumara should go to AfD. It sounds like there's a WP:TNT argument, on top of the case for meriting a stand-alone article being rather weak. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Done, see Articles for deletion/Sanat Kumara Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:35, 28 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I've now escalated this to ANI, as this is a fundamental problem with this users editing: Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:34, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Ancel Keys
A user is trying to add Aseem Malhotra and many other unreliable sources into the lead. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:54, 30 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Will take a look. Bon courage (talk) 16:19, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Kombucha again
A user has declared on the talk page that "Kombucha is fermented tea. Nothing more, nothing less" and is tagging content around its potential benefits and harms in a way I am finding it difficult to comprehend/deal with on Talk. More eyes could help. Bon courage (talk) 17:52, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
 * – previous discussions


 * I would love some oversight on this. This feels crazy to me. TlonicChronic (talk) 18:02, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Giorgio Antonucci


Follower of Thomas Szasz. Article has hagiographic elements. -Hob Gadling (talk) 19:24, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Medical articles last year
If you spent a lot of time in COVID-related or other articles tagged by WPMED during 2023, please consider signing up at https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Wikipedia/WikiProject_Medicine_reference_campaign_2023?enroll=qyoufwds We're tracking both most (net) sources added and most (bad) sources removed, and I'm hoping that some of you can give @Bon courage some proper competition in that latter category. (If you can't figure out the interface, then ping me, and I can add you directly.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I see "The course has ended." prominently displayed when I click on that link. Is that correct? jps (talk) 20:41, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's "over", in the sense that it tracks only edits made during the last calendar year. But you might still be able to join, and I can still add editors.  (I just added you – check back tomorrow to see what your numbers are.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! jps (talk) 02:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Conversion Therapy and "Gender Exploratory Therapy"
There is currently a discussion at Conversion therapy about whether it should include "gender exploratory therapy" and if so, whether it should be defined as conversion therapy. The relevant text being debated is the last two paragraphs of Conversion therapy and the relevant discussion is Talk:Conversion therapy. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:32, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I see that one of the big debates is over whether/how to include a statement by the UK Council on Psychotherapy which states conclusively that exploratory therapy isn't conversion therapy. I'm not in the UK and not particularly familiar with the UK Council on Psychotherapy, but a quick google finds its led by this guy, whose entire Twitter presence seems to be criticizing vaccines and covid public health measures, retweeting the likes of Peter Hitchens, etc. That's... not what I would expect to see coming from the person leading a reputable medical organization. Anyone know more? (figured I'd put the question here rather than the talk page since I'm primarily curious about the org, not its position). &mdash; Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk \\ 23:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * UKCP is a registered charity, with a board, trustees, an elected chair, published accounts, minutes of its board meetings, maintains a respected national register of psychotherapists in the UK, and is accredited by the UK Professional Standards Authority. This is not a WP:FRINGE organisation by any stretch of the imagination. Void if removed (talk) 12:33, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Being a registered charity doesn't make you not WP:FRINGE. You can register a charity for anything. Similarly, being well-organized doesn't make it not WP:FRINGE either. Loki (talk) 15:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * No, Loki, you can’t register a charity for anything. See .Sweet6970 (talk) 21:57, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you know what the UK Professional Standards Authority is? Void if removed (talk) 15:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * UKCP and BPC are both prominent signatories to the BACP MOU on conversion therapy, and both have released statements explicitly saying exploratory therapy is not conversion therapy. So is NHS England, which is in the process of enacting the interim Cass Review and placing less emphasis on affirmative approaches. MIND released a statement that it is possible to achieve a ban on conversion practices that protects the trans, non-binary and intersex communities, without limiting exploratory therapy.
 * None of this is WP:FRINGE. Void if removed (talk) 16:12, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The Cass Review interim report is a top tier independent multidisciplinary assessment of the available evidence which considers affirmation and exploration approaches to be part of a spectrum of therapeutic options with no consensus on best practice, in what sense is that a fringe point of view? Void if removed (talk) 00:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Let me correct that for you. The Cass Review interim report is a progress update on an incomplete top tier independent multidisciplinary assessment of the available evidence. It explicitly says It is important to note that the references cited in this report do not constitute a comprehensive literature review. It defines GET once, in a glossary which says it is important to emphasise that the language used is not an indication of a position being taken by the Review, and doesn't comment on it at all anywhere else except to say GIDS doesn't use it, and some people quit over that. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 01:24, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Given that in the thread you incorrectly referred to The Cass Review as "1 person's review", incorrectly stated it is of "1 clinic", incorrectly called it outdated and incorrectly interpreted a line that GIDS clinicians "predominantly" took an affirmative approach as meaning "GIDS doesn't use" exploratory approaches (and even that exploratory therapy is "fringe") - now again here for the fourth time - I consider your assessment of the review here to be equally inaccurate.
 * The 2019 paper laying out the difference between the exploratory model, affirmation model and conversion therapy was authored by a practicing GIDS clinician explaining their clinical approach as an undirected one with no fixed or preferred outcome. In a panel review conducted in 2021, the Cass Review made clear there is a spectrum of opinion and that there is no consensus on best practice (although I note from the actual engagement report, the majority were in favour of exploratory approaches and establishing a differential diagnosis to prevent diagnostic overshadowing, making this far from a "fringe" position). Given that the exploratory model is bog-standard undirected psychotherapy with no fixed outcome in mind, the Cass Review also notes that clinicians outside the service felt under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach and that this is at odds with the standard process of clinical assessment and diagnosis that they have been trained to undertake in all other clinical encounters to the extent that they would simply refer cases direct to GIDS. These problems have all been well-documented in Time To Think.
 * The scope of the review covers these services also - the whole pathway into what was then GIDS and what will become its replacement. The review is wide ranging, extensive, and ongoing, but the interim report represents initial findings, service recommendations that led to immediate changes, and an explanation of further avenues of investigation, not some incomplete and meaningless draft. It is a milestone in a massive undertaking. The current assessment is that evidence on the appropriate management of children and young people with gender incongruence and dysphoria is inconclusive both nationally and internationally., and this is something I believe we should cautious of deviating from in wikivoice.
 * The Cass Interim report came out in March 2022, and in April 2022, when proposed bans on gender identity conversion therapy were a hot political topic in the UK, BPC released a statement saying that there was no risk of exploratory therapy being confused with conversion therapy. In October 2022, the Association of Clinical Psychologists released a statement accepting the interim findings of the Cass Review and the issues at GIDS. As recently as November 2023, UKCP released a statement - citing the Cass Review - specifically stating exploratory therapy should never be conflated with conversion therapy.
 * In October 2023, The Observer noted that while NHS England was moving away from affirmation to exploratory approaches, it warned that campaigners are seeking to make the provision of exploratory therapy effectively impossible by ensnaring it in an ill-defined criminal ban on trans “conversion therapy”. This is the nature of this controversy: a political battle over what does or does not count as "conversion therapy", with experts outside the US insisting that exploratory therapy is not conversion, and the NHS moving more in that direction, guided by the interim findings of The Cass Review.
 * None of this is WP:FRINGE. There's no need whatsoever to have brought this here.
 * While there is a divergence between the US and Europe over the preferred model (with some European countries favouring more cautious psychotherapeutic interventions and AAP endorsing the affirmative model, while committing to an actual systematic review) it is only really in the last 18 months or so that these sources have appeared which outright call exploratory therapy "conversion therapy". This is an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim and I think needs better evidence for wikivoice than an article in slate or xtra. I think the strongest independent WP:RSOPINION source is this November 2022 statement from WPATH attacking the Cass Review, which still only goes so far as to call it "tantamount" to conversion therapy.
 * And I repeat that all I've stated is that this be portrayed as the ongoing political controversy it is, with attributed statements, not making any of this a definitive claim in wikivoice. What's there right now is overtly WP:POV in a highly contentious area, and this attempt to make out that a standard psychotherapeutic approach is WP:FRINGE with non-independent, non-WP:MEDRS, WP:PARTISAN sources - while excluding contrary statements from respected psychotherapeutic bodies and even the Cass Review - is unsupportable. Void if removed (talk) 12:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This wall of text says very little and your continued insistence it's "controversial" is getting to WP:RGW territory
 * It's not a review. It explicitly says "this is not a review", so you insisting it has the weight of one is silly
 * That 2019 paper is from Spiliadis, who says on his website he created the term in 2018. Spiliadis is a member of the IATDD, which is known for spreading pseudoscience and who's membership overlaps about 90% with WP:FRINGE pro-conversion therapy groups SEGM and Genspect.
 * The BPC statement says the government is dropping protection against trans conversion therapy because some people claim it will impact their ability to practice GET. The BPC says it shouldn't drop protections since ethical exploratory therapy would never be covered by a ban. As is already noted in Gender exploratory therapy, supporters of GET oppose trans conversion therapy bans.
 * The UKCP is not the best source, as Rhododentrites alluded to above
 * An editorial in the observer is not a RS. FFS it says The ban has been linked to parallel proposals to ban gay conversion therapy; yet the fluidity of gender dysphoria makes it a completely different phenomenon to sexual orientation in young people. Our article on Conversion therapy is clear: conversion therapy includes T, not just LGB.
 * WPATH is not WP:RSOPINION by any stretch of the imagination, it is a statement from the world's leading body on transgender healthcare (and the strongest WP:MEDRS sourcing we have) that the denial of gender-affirming treatment under the guise of “exploratory therapy” has caused enormous harm to the transgender and gender diverse community and is tantamount to “conversion” or “reparative” therapy under another name.
 * The main thing you seem to misunderstand is this, absolutely nobody is saying "all exploration is bad". Gender-affirming care includes exploration, It's a few fringe groups who argue trans kids shouldn't transition or be affirmed and must go through "gender exploratory therapy" instead. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Frankly it is still not clear why you've brought this to the fringe board, or what it is you actually think is fringe. I'm operating on the understanding that you think that the statement "exploratory therapy must not be conflated with conversion therapy" is WP:FRINGE, seeing as that is what you took issue with, and to exclude that balancing statement you've made (and continue to make) multiple incorrect statements about both UKCP and The Cass Review.
 * I noted Spiliadis in passing in this discussion, to point out that the distinction between exploration and conversion was noted by a practicing GIDS clinician, and what that distinction actually was (ie, undirected exploration vs directed with a specific outcome in mind). Why you felt it necessary to launch into a reputational attack I don't know, but Health Liberation Now, as you know from past discussions, are a tiny group of WP:PARTISAN activists and not a reliable source. Using Health Liberation Now and the recent SPLC report they co-authored to personally disparage individuals they differ with in this way is both circular, inappropriate and unnecessary.
 * UKCP is not the best source I'm sorry, but you don't establish whether an uncontroversial, commonplace therapeutic viewpoint advanced by a regulated charity with a board, trustees, and a well-respected CEO who is the former CEO of the Ethics Committee, is WP:FRINGE by trawling the social media of the chair to see if he's retweeted Peter Hitchens.
 * absolutely nobody is saying "all exploration is bad" The WPATH statement is criticising the Cass Review for favouring exploratory interventions, criticising the “psychotherapeutic” approach, and calling "exploratory therapy" tantamount to conversion. Are WPATH a strong source or not? You can't apply this selectively. Either what both WPATH and Cass describe as "exploratory therapy" is conversion therapy (as your sources argue) or it isn't.
 * The sources you are providing state that exploration that considers other possible causes of gender distress in youth in particular - even if there is no fixed outcome in mind - is pathologising, gatekeeping and "tantamount" or "similar" to conversion therapy. This is the view of Ashley (2022). This is WPATH's revised view in SOC8, which is less than 18 months old, and which has been received with some scepticism. This is why WPATH were critical of the Cass Review (with its concerns about diagnostic overshadowing), of NHS England's new service specification, and why you have brought this whole issue here, to argue that The Cass Review and NHS England's resulting service specification (which is all completely in line with SOC7) don't just hold a legitimately different viewpoint but are actually WP:FRINGE!
 * All I have ever said is there is a disagreement here (because there plainly is), with evolving professional viewpoints and no definitive consensus, and it should be presented as such.
 * Yet you have made the WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim that the widespread and previously uncontroversial views of mainstream psychotherapeutic bodies are now actually WP:FRINGE and rather than discuss the genuine disagreement between respectable sources reasonably on the article itself you have wrongly and needlessly brought this controversy to this board. Given this, I'd prefer you didn't accuse me of WP:RGW. Void if removed (talk) 11:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Effective accelerationism


Effective accelerationism is up for DYK, so I took a quick look at it. The only problem that I can see is in terms of framing. This is very much a fringe theory that is being deliberately framed as mainstream, but only because it has received a lot of attention, not because mainstream researchers and academics support it. This is a problem for me. We only see minor criticism, which is corralled in a "Reception" section, giving it the appearance that the concept is not fringe at all but just has some detractors. To me, this is a form of bias. If we had similar articles about related ideas calling for the removal and bypassing of regulation in other sectors, whether it was in building codes, medical testing and drug analysis, air and water quality, or just food inspection, we would automatically recognize it as a fringe theory. Yet somehow, this kind of free market fundamentalism gets a free pass because it is talking about AI. Please, can someone take a look at this. What's disturbing to me the most, is that the source they are using to say it is no longer fringe, says the opposite ("the idea is still fairly fringe"). Viriditas (talk) 23:46, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank you for taking the time to look at the article. As I nominated it for DYK I think I should answer (but I am only a contributor to it and not the article's creator).
 * The idea that e/acc falls in the WP:FRINGE category is probably true. It is, however, a bit of an unusual case because e/acc does not describe a science at all but a philosophical (or ideological) stance or movement. Therefore questions concerning its "truth" cannot really arise.
 * I take issue with the statement that the article is "'deliberately' framed as mainstream. This is a charge which is not WP:AGF and (at least in my case) not true. Describing a philosophical stance like e/acc, even one which many people find objectionable, does not absolve one of taking a close look at the many reliable (but not academic) sources which describe it and distill its ideas from it. I think the article mostly does quite a good job on this difficult task. Describing the ideas of (and behind) e/acc makes it necessary to engage with the view and lay out its content. Describing the content of a (very) new view or movement according to its treatment in reliable sources does not constitute bias.
 * A bit baffling for me is the statement that the criticism is "corralled in a 'Reception' section". The article has one supportive and four critical views in its reception area. How does this constitute bias for e/acc? If you can find more views on it I would be very happy if you add them to the article. That the article contains a criticism section at all is (in my view) in line with policy because WP:NOCRIT advises us that "politics, religion and philosophy topics" can contain such a section. Your view that e/acc "gets a free pass because it is talking about AI" is in my opinion also not reflected in the content of the article because exactly the points on its radical deregulatory content are made in the first two paragraphs of the criticism subsection.
 * I take your point concerning the sentence "What's disturbing to me the most, is that the source they are using to say it is no longer fringe, says the opposite". The sourcing here was quite unfortunate and it slipped my review before I nominated the article for DYK. Still, the article never said that e/acc was not fringe or went mainstream. It said (and says) that it gained "mainstream visibility" - this holds true because it was discussed in stand-alone articles in the NYT, the Economist, the Süddeutsche Zeitung (a very well known German newspaper), Bloomberg News, The Sydney Morning Herald etc. So I think the only issue here is this one sentence which should be better sourced and formulated which you begun. WatkynBassett (talk) 06:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The most glaring problem at the moment is the statement "Originally considered a fringe movement". As you said above, this was intended to refer to mainstream visibility, but it confuses this usage with a tertiary one: "a group with marginal or extremist views".  If you simply remove this sentence entirely, that would be a good start.  The problem is that "effective accelerationism" is very much still a fringe view, yet that sentence strangely contradicts that view by using a primary or secondary usage that conflicts with the tertiary one.  This is the reason I originally said it was "deliberately framed as mainstream", when I should have said it was unintentional instead.  Apologies. Viriditas (talk) 07:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Calling e/acc a "philosophical movement" is highly suspect. That is typically reserved for movements within academic philosophy, not social media, parochially funded startup companies, or various weblogs. It looks to me more like an internet fad. We have sources in the article to that effect as well! This isn't so much a WP:FRINGE issue as it is WP:NPOV. jps (talk) 15:21, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, the first thing that has to be said is that artificial intelligence is fringe. A program that can run on a normal desktop computer answer questions and solve complex problems in natural language is a bizarre artifact that I don't think there is a "normal" way of philosophically approaching. Most people tend to make bizarre overly-confident (and sometimes objectively false) statements about artificial intelligence on a regular basis. If saying goofy untrue stuff about AI made you fringe, more or less every pundit would be in the stocks for saying many provably false things over the course of the last couple years. But cringe is not fringe.
 * This article is not stunningly great. There are a couple things that are rather bold and need citations ("Central to effective accelerationism is the belief that propelling technological progress at any cost is the only ethically justifiable course of action", for example). I don't think Yann LeCun believes that lol. Like, he doesn't really say that, and he doesn't really agree when other people say it. The article could certainly benefit from some rewriting and some closer attention to sourcing, as well as some closer attention to what actually makes sense (arbitrary sentences can be assembled from reliable sources to say just about anything, writing an article requires having at least some idea in your head about what is true and what is false, and writing a good one requires this idea to be somewhat accurate).
 * As for the rest of your post, I don't really know what it's got to do with fringe theories. Political views that favor free markets are not a fringe view, any more than political views that favor regulated markets, or socialism, or anarchism, or for that matter Juche-feudalist Evolaism with Posadist characteristics. If people make concrete claims about reality that are false (i.e. "true feudalism has never been tried and the history books are lying about it"), those can be fringe theories, but political opinions themselves are not really fringe. Cringe is not fringe. <b style="font-family: monospace; color:#E35BD8"><b style="color:#029D74">jp</b>×<b style="color: #029D74">g</b>🗯️</b> 21:49, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I strongly disagree. Free-market fundamentalism is not a political view that favors free markets.  It's a fringe view that favors little to no regulation, a position that the majority of experts in their respective fields do not support and are in solid agreement noting that it has a negative value upon society.  It is not the mainstream view, it is fringe.  I realize that we've had forty years of Powell memo-inspired, Koch-financed, industry-promoted "think tanks" and fake academic literature saying otherwise, but I'm afraid all of those are just as much fringe as well.  I don't want to get into the specifics of the claimants, but there is a known, notable pattern of those who promote "effective accelerationism" and their belief in other fringe ideas, which they have also expressed.  You're not the first person to deny these ideas are fringe merely because they have acceptance in corporate media and institutions. These fringe ideas have saturated American society making people erroneously think they are mainstream when they are not, a phenomenon Oreskes addressed in The New Republic back in March 2023: "If you say something enough times, and you say it in enough different ways, and you recruit spokespeople who seem credible or likable, you can get people to believe things, even when they're not true...people are susceptible to the power of suggestion, and propaganda takes advantage of that".  And that's what's going on here. There is no consensus by recognized experts in their fields that "effective accelerationism" is a mainstream view.  It is a fringe theory.  Anyone who reads the statement "technological progress at any cost is the only ethically justifiable course of action" knows that this is a fringe theory.  Contrast this with the mainstream reality: "AI experts agree that it needs regulation".  What Oreskes said above is happening right here. Spokespeople who seem credible or likable, repeat false ideas over and over again, leading some people to believe it. Viriditas (talk) 21:28, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay, I do not really want to have a long discussion about the Koch brothers or whatever on the fringe theory noticeboard, so excuse me if I disregard most of this comment.
 * If I understand correctly, your argument is that this article needs to describe these people as crackpots, because they say all this crazy stuff about how "technological progress at any cost is the only ethically justifiable course of action" [sic], a phrase you have put in quotes.
 * Where is this a quotation from? There's literally zero Google results for that phrase, in quotes, except for our own article on effective accelerationism... where it is completely unsourced, and has a citation needed tag on it. Yes, I agree that if some hypothetical person were to say this, it would be stupid. Do you have a source for Yann LeCun saying this? Do you have a source for anyone saying this, ever? <b style="font-family: monospace; color:#E35BD8"><b style="color:#029D74">jp</b>×<b style="color: #029D74">g</b>🗯️</b> 07:35, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The "Notes on e/acc principles and tenets" post offered as an external link is a goulash of speculation, misunderstood basic concepts, and wishful thinking. If no one has called it fringe physics yet, that can only be because nobody who actually knows physics has bothered to comment upon it. It's like Ray Kurzweil and Ayn Rand had a baby who graduated from microdosing acid to doing lines of coke off the bones of Nikolai Fyodorov. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If I understand correctly, your argument is that this article needs to describe these people as crackpots, because they say all this crazy stuff about how "technological progress at any cost is the only ethically justifiable course of action" [sic], a phrase you have put in quotes.
 * Where is this a quotation from? There's literally zero Google results for that phrase, in quotes, except for our own article on effective accelerationism... where it is completely unsourced, and has a citation needed tag on it. Yes, I agree that if some hypothetical person were to say this, it would be stupid. Do you have a source for Yann LeCun saying this? Do you have a source for anyone saying this, ever? <b style="font-family: monospace; color:#E35BD8"><b style="color:#029D74">jp</b>×<b style="color: #029D74">g</b>🗯️</b> 07:35, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The "Notes on e/acc principles and tenets" post offered as an external link is a goulash of speculation, misunderstood basic concepts, and wishful thinking. If no one has called it fringe physics yet, that can only be because nobody who actually knows physics has bothered to comment upon it. It's like Ray Kurzweil and Ayn Rand had a baby who graduated from microdosing acid to doing lines of coke off the bones of Nikolai Fyodorov. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The "Notes on e/acc principles and tenets" post offered as an external link is a goulash of speculation, misunderstood basic concepts, and wishful thinking. If no one has called it fringe physics yet, that can only be because nobody who actually knows physics has bothered to comment upon it. It's like Ray Kurzweil and Ayn Rand had a baby who graduated from microdosing acid to doing lines of coke off the bones of Nikolai Fyodorov. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Various NPOV/balance issues in LDS-related pages
There is ongoing discussion at Talk:Coriantumr_(son_of_Omer) regarding independence of LDS-adherent publications on LDS topics and how this integrates with N, NPOV, and FRINGE. Namely, can we have a page on a narrow religious topic sourced exclusively to adherents who treat the topic as if it is historically plausible (or is at least derived from ancient testimony rather than recent invention) when the consensus among scientists and historians is that no part of the broader topic is accurate? JoelleJay (talk) 20:29, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Realistically, the Book of Mormon needs to be treated in the exact same way as the Old Testament/Tanakh, as a mythological account largely without historical basis. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * As a primary source more importantly. And that's not quite how we treat the Tanakh or the other Biblical and apocryphal works, per se, to my understanding, but it's nitpicking perhaps. I think the standard line in scholarship is that parts, presumably the more recent bits, do have at least a historical basis but obviously should not be relied on or treated as a work of history, since they contain mythologizations and other material that is religious, and not historical in nature. The Book of Mormon is obviously a lot more recent though, but again more importantly a primary source, and should only be used when interpreted by secondary sources. Andre<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">🚐 01:49, 26 December 2023 (UTC)


 * There are similar issues at Cunning folk traditions and the Latter Day Saint movement, where "Cunning folk traditions" is just a BYU-supported euphemism for folk magic. We need to bear in mind that BYU historians aren't RSes in the same sense as, say, Georgetown or Brandeis historians -- It's  violation of their their honor code to contradict Church teachings. Feoffer (talk) 03:30, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * This is an interesting case that might be suitable for WP:RSN. I see it's citing a bunch of BYU folks. I know that BYU is affiliated with the LDS church, but I did not realize that they are in a Liberty University type category. I assumed they were otherwise a pretty reputable academic institution. Andre<span style="border:2px solid #073642;background:rgb(255,156,0);background:linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(255,156,0,1) 0%, rgba(147,0,255,1) 45%, rgba(4,123,134,1) 87%);">🚐 03:36, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's tricky -- in basically every field EXCEPT church history, they're RS. But on that one topic, they're Liberty.     Feoffer (talk) 03:56, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * FYI, there's the potential for a more targeted appraisal of LDS scholarship DUEness and how it relates to NPOV, FRINGE, and notability in a new section. I've outlined some of my concerns there. JoelleJay (talk) 21:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Western Message Petroglyphs
I don't think this can be saved. I can find American Indian Rock Art. Monograph series of the American Rock Art Research Association (ARARA). Edited by DAVID A. KAISER and JAMES D. KEYSER. The most recent issue features these papers: Volume 44 (2018):. HILBISH, J. F.: Dating western message petroglyphs with Aztec and Maya glyphs. This is by the author of the self-published book. And of course a paper at a conference isn't enough either. But maybe there's a place for some of it? Doug Weller talk 12:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Initiation (Theosophy)
This article is becoming a wikibook of original research with no secondary sources to be found. I suggested a TNT, but the article author added more of their research. Additional eyes would be appreciated Big Money Threepwood (talk) 17:42, 30 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Is this even Wikipedia-notable? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:12, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I believe this article should be deleted, no independent reliable sources. Psychologist Guy (talk) 03:03, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Also see Round (Theosophy), Manu (Theosophy), Sanat Kumara (now at afd), Maitreya (Theosophy). All should be put to afd. Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:38, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I've removed about 25kb of wp:or from Ascended master of similar quality and substance Big Money Threepwood (talk) 17:57, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Disregard, someone else reverted my removal of Rays original research at that article. Further eyes may be needed their Big Money Threepwood (talk) 04:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Given the evidence-free claim that there was consensus for Ray's OR, I've started a new thread on the article talk page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

@Big Money Threepwood

I have submitted multiple unreliable Theosophy articles to afd:


 * Manu (Theosophy)
 * Round (Theosophy)
 * Serapis Bey
 * Devachan
 * Art as a factor in the soul's evolution
 * Coulomb Affair
 * Masters of the Ancient Wisdom
 * Theosophy in Scandinavia

This is an on-going issue that I have noticed has plagued Wikipedia for a long time. A lot of throwaway accounts have been editing these articles over the years adding unreliable Theosophical sources. These articles are doing a great disservice to Wikipedia, they are poorly sourced violate WP:Fringe and WP:RS and contain no academic historical coverage. We shouldn't be creating articles that are not neutral or have no reliable secondary sources independent of the subject. Psychologist Guy (talk) 15:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I looked through these and did some searching, and I agree that all seem to suffer from a lack of independent sources. Maybe one day someone will write a book about these topics, but I've added my delete vote until then Big Money Threepwood (talk) 00:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * PG, BMT -- I appreciate your zeal in removing inadequately sourced material, but I think these deletion nominations risk throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Several of these articles cover topics which clearly have received the attention of scholars, particularly historians of religion. BMT, based on your comment at Articles for deletion/Devachan (2nd nomination), it appears you went through the nominations and added your !votes without even a cursory check on the article contents, because you referred to devachan -- a Theosophical concept roughly akin to heaven -- as a "character". Please slow down, both of you, and take note of WP:BEFORE and WP:ATD. Jfire (talk) 00:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Jfire the sources you have found are indeed reliable for example on the Coulomb Affair however 1 or 2 sources is not enough to establish notability for an entire article about the topic. You may be correct about that article but the rest are beyond saving as no decent sourcing exists. These articles have been in a bad way for nearly 20 years, this is a very serious matter hence why I put them up for afd. It seems every event no matter how small in Theosophy somehow has found its own Wikipedia article and when you look into the matter the same old accounts were involved in editing them, this is abuse of article process because they are not neutral articles. We have ended up with some very biased pro Theosophical articles that are poorly sourced. Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The problem here is we are asked to trust various editor's interpretation of primary sources. People frequently disagree about what a "Prophet" means to say. So which editor's interpretation of these "mystical revelations" should we trust? I'd vote against trusting any editor to find the "true" meaning of these "revelations". We need good secondary sources that we can summarize. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 02:57, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Also related, Mental body and Astral body seem to be very fringe and not NPOV, with the normal set of Theosophical only sources. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 00:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Last year about 5 of those body and metaphysical planes articles were deleted, I noticed there are some others that were missed as well Causal body, Causal plane. It's worth taking these to afd at some point. Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Salim Yusuf
New user adding 29,154 bytes of text, most of which do not mention Yusuf (WP:OR) or are unreliable, claiming the consensus on saturated fat has been overturned. The usual sources being cited including Gary Taubes and paleo diet advocate Steven Hamley. We had similar issues to this recently at the Ancel Keys talk-page where scientific consensus is being ignored. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Men Going Their Own Way
MGTOW folks have their knickers in a twist about the article, posting things like "What are the implications about the prevailing conditions if Wikipedia's MGTOW entry is more dramatic than Encyclopedia Dramatica's MGTOW entry?" on the Quora Q&A forum. Apparently we are biased by relying on mainstream journalism and other reliable sources instead of accepting their self-descriptions. The complaints on the talk page have already begun. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  04:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note that one user has been page-banned from the article for a week for edit warring, and further sanctions are being discussed at WP:AE. Bishonen &#124; tålk 22:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC).

David Grusch UFO whistleblower claims
On the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Grusch revealed himself to be a full fledged UFO mythicist, from referring to "the phenomenon" to "experiencers" having psychic contact with non human entities to the phenomenon being a "bipedal hominid" and higher dimensional beings to Operation Stargate being a successful remote viewing program which turns a part of the brain into a transceiver. He's a fan of Jacques Vallée and he's forming a company with Garry Nolan (though oddly he calls himself a founder while not appearing anywhere on the company's webpage.)

Anyhoo, the mainstream media, as well as the politicians who threw their lot in with him, are all avoiding the embarrassment of admitting that they believed someone who is so obviously a cook. Consequently there is minimal coverage of his headlong dive down the rabbit hole. But having taken his mask off on the most popular podcast in the world, Grusch does not have a right of privacy about his WP:ABOUTSELF statements. The guiding principle here is WP:PARITY. But as usual, those who want to pretend they are protecting WP:PRIMARY refuse to recognize to keep embarrassing things off the page. The exact same tactic was used to keep D. Gary Young's worst medical malpractices off his page. It's a frustratingly cynical ploy that smacks of bad faith. DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Gets into WP:RGW territory. If decent sources don't pay attention to his nonsenses, neither can Wikipedia. That principle protects Wikipedia from fringe POV so it would be unwise to relax it even if it seemed expedient. Bon courage (talk) 18:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't know what principle you are referencing. Have you read WP:PARITY? What the "we don't pay attention to nonsense" policy you seem to think exists actually does is create a loophole that protects fringe points of view. DolyaIskrina (talk) 19:41, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm familiar with all of WP:FRINGE, and note that WP:FRIND is part of it (particularly "Points that are not discussed in independent sources should not be given any space in articles"). WP:PARITY would only be relevant if counter-sources were needed for fringe content admitted to Wikipedia in the normal way. Bon courage (talk) 19:51, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Agree with Bon courage. As discussed exhaustively here. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Podcasts are a weird format -- people can go into all sort of personal beliefs, from the God of Abraham to the Book of Mormon to the beliefs in Astrology or Telepathy. If mainstream RSes aren't connecting his "mega-fringe" faith-based beliefs to his "debunkable" claims, neither should we. Feoffer (talk) 01:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It would be like quoting a trashy New Age book with a title like "The Prophecies of Nostradamus" or "The Healing Power of Breathing", or like quoting stupid anti-evolutionist crap from a creationist website, or like quoting a backbencher's QAnon rant, instead of waiting until there are critical secondary sources. To do that would be to turn Wikipedia into the crackpots' megaphone. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:47, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If someone who was notable wrote the book "The Prophecies of Nastrodamus" or if the book itself were notable, once it is in wikipedia we actually have a responsibility, according to FRINGE, to explain what the book contains and that the book is considered fringe. Similarly, the page about Grusch's claims automatically encompasses all of his claims, not just the ones we like. We include under ABOUTSELF, all sorts of information about people that isn't covered in secondary sources, like the high school they went to or hobbies they have. So to suddenly decide just because some thing is fringy it should be excluded is to make up a policy that does not exist. DolyaIskrina (talk) 21:55, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Points that are not discussed in independent sources should not be given any space in articles. Bon courage (talk) 05:28, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If the book is notable, then there are reliable sources that cite and refute statements in the book, and we can quote those instead. If there are no such sources, then we should not mention more than the book's existence, for the reasons given. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:00, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine
Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine

There is currently an editing war claiming that osteopathic manipulative medicine practiced by physicians in the United States is pseudoscience. This is a fringe theory that some editors refuse to remove from the article and have failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the claim that it is indeed pseudoscience.

Here are some sources that outline the benefits of osteopathic manipulative medicine

The Lymphatic System: An Osteopathic Review

Osteopathic Manipulation Treatment

Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine: A Brief Review of the Hands-On Treatment Approaches and Their Therapeutic Uses

The Elephant in the Room: Does OMT Have Proved Benefit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eko321 (talk • contribs) 05:55, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * To be clear, the point at issue in the articld is not "osteopathic manipulative medicine practiced", but what is taught. In my understanding, most DOs dump the OMM stuff at the first opportunity. Ironically, this is actually set out in detail in the last source you cite above, where a DO complains: Bon courage (talk) 06:11, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Eko321, given the abundance of legitimate medical sources describing osteopathy as pseudoscience, the claim that describing it as such is itself a 'fringe theory' is simply absurd. And I'd strongly advise in engaging in engaging in an edit war against what appears to be well -established consensus. You have made edits, they have been reverted. The next stage is to discuss on the talk page, after reviewing the relevant policies (not least, WP:MEDRS and WP:FRINGE). I doubt that you will gain consensus to make the changes you wish for, but you will stand absolutely no chance of doing so by edit-warring. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:43, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I did a deep dive into this topic, because it's true we aren't used to DOs being described as associating with pseudoscience.  But all accounts are that they're still teaching woo in at least some of the accredited DO schools.   The closest we get is a Skeptical Inquirer piece about how spinal manipulation therapy for musculoskeletal issues is evidence-based when done by science-based provider like a Physical Therapist or a DO.   Unfortunately, OMM is a much wider category, and seems to still include claims of general health improvement. Feoffer (talk) 07:00, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's really just a weird artefact in the US whereby ditching the woo-woo from DO accreditation would destroy the raison d'être of having DOs at all (everybody could be a MD!) and the whole DO infrastructure does not want to destroy itself. Bon courage (talk) 07:11, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Westall UFO
Sensational cruft cited to search engine results, blogs, Facebook groups, and Youtube videos being justified because "Wikipedia has no firm rules". - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:25, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Ohhh are you trying to coax me into another Wikipedia page on UFO's Lucky! I'm busy with the magic world right now, don't tempt me! Sgerbic (talk) 20:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Yep, you caught me! I am also busy IRL at the moment so Wikipedia will just have to get along without us. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:33, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * That reminds me of the time my sister told me I was the best in the house at peeling potatoes, no one did it better. And it worked, I shined with pride for a few weeks till I caught on. Sgerbic (talk) 14:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

This is now at Wikipedia Third Opinion when it is very clear from the Talk page that WP:FRINGE is at issue. An editor with about two months experience is tendentiously edit warring to remove skeptical sources from the article and add credulous interpretations from primary sources, justified by massive WP:WALLSOFTEXT on the Talk page. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:11, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not "walls of text" as a strategy of war or subversion, I thought you could read the text as it is my response. Simpul skitsofreeneea (talk) 00:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC) In neither reversion I returned the same content I tried to adapt to the expectations of Rjjiii (ii) Talk:Westall_UFO "Thank you for taking my concerns seriously and using inline citations" 00:07, 7 January 2024. With LuckyLouie reversion I haven't added any more disagreeable information and limited my response to only that which is proven obviously, also removing those parts which the sources don't show which suprising is quite a few informations as shown at Talk:Westall_UFO "23:49, 7 January 2024", to stabilize the content to the expected standard of reference to content being a true representation. I didn't provide a sceptical position because the sources don't provide that position. I'm not an advocate I just obeyed the sources. Simpul skitsofreeneea (talk) 01:07, 8 January 2024 (UTC) The article as it is now is stable as far as I am concerned; the sources to content have representation so this allows all involved editors to discuss the reality of the article instead of being deceived and proceeding from a false position. I don't intend to make any more changes unless with discussion, I thought this could proceed as to how LuckyLouie thinks the sources can't be used to represent the statements of the involved individuals. Whether or not someone should believe their statements it is interesting to see what they stated, and to allow people to decide for themselves the reality, instead of judging that they are wrong as FRINGE would indicate. Obviously no proof is available but by stating isn't proven is fringe or extrordinary does not prove it is not the reality. Simpul skitsofreeneea (talk) 01:19, 8 January 2024 (UTC) WP:FRNG "a Wikipedia article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is.". Obviously the sources of the supposed incidents don't have a sceptical view so ignoring their views is simply to discount the evidence from the sources as if the "Explanations" argue away the possibility of the things they state being true. The explanations part of the artilce is not satisfactory as a explanation against the details of the statements. It is a false representation to provide the sceptical position if the statements of the sources of the incidents aren't obviously currently disproven. Simpul skitsofreeneea (talk) 01:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It is a false representation to provide the sceptical position if the statements of the sources of the incidents aren't obviously currently disproven. Ignoring its problematic logic, this statement indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the policies and guidelines that underlie what content is, and is not, included in Wikipedia articles. I strongly suggest that you read about Wikipedia's policy of sourcing requirements here, and also the guideline here that describes how fringe material is handled. Wikipedia articles do not necessarily include The Truth, only material that is verifiable in reliable, secondary, independent sources. The Wikipedia policy of WP:CONSENSUS, which I note is not in your favor at the article Talk page, should also be read because it describes the basic model of how editors, through collaborative discussion, determine article content. Lastly, regarding such discussions, please read the Wikipedia policy here about how to engage with other editors. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 09:21, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The article is kind of a daunting mess. Given the nature of the WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims, the lack of analysis and critique published by independent secondary expert sources is surprising. Most newspaper coverage seems to be WP:SENSATIONAL mystery-monging and jumping on the "Australia's Roswell" bandwagon. The "Further information" section at the bottom is loaded with conspiracy junk, non-notable YouTube videos, and other WP:ELNO - all formatted as citations. This could take some work. ( @User:SGerbic, yup, still trying! ) - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:29, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

"Consipiracy junk" is nonsense you haven't looked at the sources to state that. "non-notable YouTube videos" isn't very probable as it is possible to corroborate the contents of the Kible video as I showed at 03:12, 6 January 2024 Princeton corroborates source 4 "brother-in-law" which is to state that although kirk (which is the Princton source) merely copied from Basterfiald and Clarke he didn't determine that Basterfiald and Clarke were a worthless source as you seem to be implying, which matters since "kirk" is Professor Emeritus Experimental High-Energy Physics Department of Physics Princeton University as I indicated at Talk:Westall UFO#7 January 2024 14:07, 8 January 2024. And why would you state non-notable, since obviously the Youtube video of JE McDonald in which he is interviewed stating "I've investigated about 50 or 60 cases since I came down to New Zealand and Australia extremely interesting UFO sightings", as shown here ref.16 plus the absolutely certain same voice of the interviewer in the Youtube video at 16 couldn't be classed as the apparent non-notable evidently by "James E. McDonald". You comments have a perplexing lack of observation of the actual reality of the sources, your dispariging comments are a presumed reality.

Correct my mis-apprehension of your meaning: "mystery-monging", so you have the proof that the entire accounts of the sources are absolutely and covincingly discredited: where are the sources for me and other editors to be similarly convinced: if you would like to show the counter argument to how their extrordinary claims are so obviously extraordinarily false then show how this is proven, beause I didn't find such a proof just your suspicion and persuasve use of language to attempt to discredit the sources, unless you have a contrary proof.

I requested someone review the edits I made 23:49, 7 January 2024 & 14:35, 8 January 2024, for the purposes of peer-review, which no-one has so far done. I tried to begin a discussion of the sources, you seem to think policy discounts my using the sources so state where in policy it is the sources shouldn't be used.

"Dunn, Matthew (6 January 2016). "The Westall 'UFO' incident still remains a mystery 50 years after it occurred""

"Lucadou-Wells, Cam (7 April 2016). "Westall sighting remains a mystery"" "Sharpe, Matthew (3 April 2016). "Westall '66: 50 years on, still stranger than fiction"" "Natarsha Belling, Terry Peck (21 January 2016). Melbourne UFO Mystery: 50 Years On, Shane Ryan (investigator)"

"Paul Smith (22 March 2022). Phenom Westall '66 - A Suburban UFO Mystery"

are the sources: please share with me and any other interested editors how the accounts are so obviously disproven, since you obviously know how they are by mentioning "The Roswell incident is a collection of events and myths surrounding the 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon, near Roswell, New Mexico.". I didn't use the sources to confirm anything extraterrestrial or secret military simply to restate the claims of the sources as rerepresentation of their realities since I didn't find obvious indications of deluded, conspiracy theory or any other charge or claim against the sources. Unless I see the evidence that these sources shouldn't think mystery then your claims are just slander against the reputation of legitaimately employed journalists and an investigator currently employed by Australian parliament Canberra. Simpul skitsofreeneea (talk) 18:02, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

You didn't indicate the exact relevant part of WP:ELNO so I had to presume that "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting." is the expeccted reference (although I don't know); which isn't applicable as I didn't use the sources to state or imply anything more than the sources themselves state, which is the subject of the article not: if the sources of the article Westall state something which is extraordinarily improbable in known reality, the laws of physics, the current ctate of physics. The subject matter is ufology not physics. ‎The videos which show interviews with the soures look authentic to me: so they can't be "factually inaccurate material" as they are the facts of the acounts of the sources. If ELNO applied I would be: seeing a different version of the sources which distorted their accounts, but I didn't find that, obviously, as the sources give videos which are convincing. As to whether the sources are "unverifiable research", the sources give accounts of what happened either in typeface or video and names of individuals are given in video interviews.

Your argument excludes WP:ELNO: "except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting" even if your position with regards were true, the position of the article is to represent the information, whatever is available in sources, on the supposed events of the day which is Westall. Your criticisms amount to Original research here that you make a variety of claims as to the no-value state of the sources but that is all you do, make claims without showing exactly how those claims could be easily supported by the evidence. Please show exactly how your position is agreeable then this argument could be ended immediately by the obvious reality which I so obviously have no evidence to prove to myself of (unless I should be convinced by your "loaded" and offensive response which you so obviously execute on this page to the expected conclusion of ceasing any further inclusion to the article), regards Simpul skitsofreeneea (talk) 18:29, 8 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I will try this one more time, Simpul skitsofreeneea: you really need to read WP:RS and WP:NPA. Your comments immediately above ("Consipiracy junk" is nonsense you haven't looked at the sources and You comments have a perplexing lack of observation of the actual reality and your claims are just slander and your "loaded" and offensive response) are not only unhelpful, they could lead to you being blocked. You are also displaying WP:IDHT and WP:BLUDGEON behavior, which could also get you blocked. As has already been explained to you, Wikipedia policies determine what is and isn't included in Wikipedia articles. There are no Wikipedia policies that obligate editors to provide "proof," to you or anyone else, that something WP:SENSATIONAL didn't happen. Our chosen avocation here - and by "our" I mean you, me, and all editors - starts with populating articles with reliably sourced content. Experienced editors in good standing are balking at your desired content because it is apparently not reliably sourced. You should be trying to better understand their positions, rather than engaging in personal attacks. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 19:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You, Rjjiii and I have done the best we could. But I think we have reached editor exhaustion in trying to deal with WP:IDHT, WP:EDITWAR disruption and WP:COMPETENCE problems, e.g. lack of English language skills, not knowing how to use diffs, not understanding editorial policies, etc. Resolving this will likely require admin assistance. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Maybe so. I've posted what sources I can find on the talk page and will likely step away from the article for now. How does the article Timeline of schizophrenia look? This was their main project after migrating here. If the schizophrenia article (written mainly by them) is looking good (and I haven't checked it out at all), it may be best to block them from the Westall article or UFOs/Conspiracies in general, let them edit within their wheelhouse while they learn. Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 01:54, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The Timeline of schizophrenia article looks like editorialising WP:OR to me. Along with a whole swathe of weirdness: e.g. 1894: Dr Freud is inhaling ignited tobacco smoke containing the psychoactive nicotine from about 20 cigars every day. Possibly true, but what exactly has that got to do with the supposed subject of the article? Bizarre... AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:25, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Having looked at the 'Timeline...' again, I've started an AfD. AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:52, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * ^ This. Is there an administrator in the house? Starting with the "3 January 2024" section, Talk:Westall UFO provides ample evidence of the editor's ongoing WP:IDHT and WP:CIR issues in this topic area. Unfortunately, Timeline of schizophrenia requires a major overhaul deletion. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 07:32, 10 January 2024 (UTC) Edited to reflect further consideration. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 09:23, 10 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I have page-blocked Simpul skitsofreeneea from Westall UFO and its talkpage. Bishonen &#124; tålk 12:24, 10 January 2024 (UTC).
 * I've posted what sources I can find on the talk page Thanks Rjjiii, can you repost these at the bottom of the article Talk page? I lost them in the mess of WP:SOUP. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:14, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

NESARA
Should this article be split into the actual proposal and the conspiracy theory? Lumping them both in together seems bizarre and WP:COATRACKy to me. --GnocchiFan (talk) 20:53, 15 January 2024 (UTC)


 * From a brief look, the conspiracy theory may meet Wikipedia notability requirements, but the article presents relatively little evidence that Barnard's original proposal does. On that basis, since it clearly isn't possible to describe the conspiracy theory without discussing the proposal, a split doesn't look viable. Having said that, the article could do with substantial work - there are a number of highly-questionable sources being cited, and there is more than a hint of WP:OR. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:41, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Burzynski (cancer quackery)
There has been an renewed uptick of interest in this recently, with the suggestion that Japanese primary research in some way validates the clinic's products. Relatedly, I notice a supposed Burynski 'success story' being added to Brainstem_glioma. More eyes helpful. Bon courage (talk) 09:31, 17 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Oh I think this page fell off my watchlist. Thanks for the reminder. Sgerbic (talk) 18:18, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Zhou Yusen
Zhou Yusen could do with attention, it's a new article and the sources are a primary source, the National Review and NY Post, a PerthNow page which is syndicated DailyMail content, and an article by Sharri Markson who is a lab leak conspiracy theorist. The current wording of the article seems heavily skewed towards promoting lab leak conspiracy theories. The external links section links to multiple unreliable sources. (I'm also not sure if Zhou Yusen is notable enough to need a page, from a quick search most of the coverage seems to come from conspiracy theorists and unreliable sources, but a deeper dive might turn up some better ones). JaggedHamster (talk) 08:47, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Now at Articles_for_deletion/Zhou_Yusen fiveby(zero) 22:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World changed from a redirect to Barry Fell to a new article.
{https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=America_B.C.%3A_Ancient_Settlers_in_the_New_World&diff=1196827934&oldid=1147349167]. This was done by User:BOZ. Doug Weller talk 17:08, 18 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Happy to discuss or implement any changes which may need to be made. BOZ (talk) 17:20, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
 * A "reference work"? And we have the read about the reviews in The Manhattan Mercury and The Ellsworth American first before we are informed somewhere buried at the end that most of the scientific world rejected Fell's work as pseudoscience? –Austronesier (talk) 22:10, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Jilly Juice
Articles for deletion/Jilly Juice.

Please comment.

jps (talk) 23:32, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
Can anyone explain why this article is allowed to exist in its present form, and apparently has been for over a decade? This is the kind of gibberish that gets Wikipedia a reputation for being a hypertrophied blog that self-identifies as an encyclopedia without actually being one in any meaningful sense.

Not that I'm suggesting you should't have a list of the major pseudosciences. Of course you should. Pseudoscience matters. If you're seriously ill, being treated with remedies based on pseudoscience rather than seeing a proper doctor may kill you. And if pseudoscientific ideas about climate change influence the policies of enough major governments, it may even kill the planet! So yes, by all means let's have a list of significant pseudoscientific topics!

The trouble is, you don't have one. What you've got instead is - well, look at the title, and then think about what it actually means. And then read the introduction to the article itself:

"This is a list of topics that have, either currently or in the past, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers. ... These characterizations were made in the context of educating the public about questionable or potentially fraudulent or dangerous claims and practices—efforts to define the nature of science, or humorous parodies of poor scientific reasoning."

If we untangle that hairball of weasel words, what it's basically saying is that this a list of things which have at any time in recorded history been described using the word "pseudoscience" by any person who either had academic qualifications, possibly in a relevant field, or didn't have any qualifications at all, and was either making a serious point or just having a laugh. By the way, is "practices-efforts" a real word?

And then it gets worse!

"Other ideas presented here are entirely non-scientific, but have in one way or another impinged on scientific domains or practices."

Now, the definition of pseudoscience, and I'm quoting Wikipedia itself here, is "unscientific claims wrongly presented as science", and it's hard to see how something which is entirely non-scientific can be presented, however wrongly, as science. But remember, this is not a list of things which are pseudoscience; it's a list of things which have been characterized as pseudoscience by anyone at any time for any reason. Which would seem to me to include an impossibly vast number of topics, but fortunately the persons responsible for this brain-dead drivel didn't do very much research before getting bored and going off to play with their Batman Lego.

Talking of research, if you can call it that, it's pretty obvious how this article was "researched". The authors gathered a few likely-looking texts, mostly published by Prometheus Books and/or written by Michael Shermer, ran a wordsearch for "pseudoscience", and listed every single thing described in those books using that word. Then they wrote that idiotic intro to justify the inclusion of things even they could dimly grasp weren't altogether relevant, and retitled the article to be on the safe side. Perhaps it should be retitled again, to something like "List of stuff described as woo-woo by CSICOP"? Because it would be near as dammit the same article, and it would be much clearer what it was about and how useful it was.

Seriously, look at this list! Cold Fusion isn't listed as a pseudoscience even though it's inarguably a very significant example thereof because none of the books these children let a machine read for them specifically "characterized" that topic as such, but one specific alleged cold fusion device called an E-Cat does merit inclusion. Are we to therefore assume that Cold Fusion in general is perfectly valid science, apart from one obscure scam by some fellow who built a contraption called an E-Cat? Are we likewise to assume that Scientology as such isn't pseudoscientific at all, apart from two specific practices (or perhaps they're practices-efforts?), Dianetics, which is basically just pop psychotherapy, and the Purification Rundown, which advances the only mildly cranky idea that vitamins and saunas can cure drug addiction? And everything else that lot get up to is less scientifically unorthodox than those two mildly odd activities?

It's true that almost every entry has a link to a page describing it in more detail, so you can click the link and read a page hopefully written by an adult which will probably tell you whether or not the topic is relevant and/or important, but if you have to look up every entry on the list to find out whether it ought to be on the list, what use is the list? And how do you follow the non-existent link to something like Cold Fusion which isn't listed at all, unless you happen to notice that an E-Cat, whatever that is, has some connection with it?

Do you have access to a reasonably advanced AI? You might try asking it to rewrite this article, because although it has no mind at all, it'll do a far better job than some little boys who are too lazy to do any proper research and too stupid to see why they should. Because it'll be using exactly the same method as they did but far more efficiently, since its database will be many orders of magnitude larger. So instead of mindlessly listing every trivial use of a certain word in a few books, it'd be able to determine whether a scientific consensus exists that a thing is pseudoscientific, and will thus include only the topics that matter, such as Cold Fusion, while omitting nonsense like Rumpology, which is included here not because it was ever in any way important or has even the remotest connection with science, but because it gets a passing mention in The Skeptic's Dictionary so onto the list it jolly well goes!

Also, a reasonably efficient piece of software would be able to break up inconvenietly long lists using subheadings somewhat better than these kiddiwinks could. It looks very much as though they once got a brief glimpse of a real encyclopedia and understood that very long lists should be subdivided in this way, but didn't have the slightest idea how to do it, never mind why. It would also probably know that "practices-efforts" isn't really a word.

Or even better, you could dispense with both the quasi-smart machine and the authentically dumb humans and scrap the whole sorry mess, then start again with a title such as "List of major pseudoscientific ideas" and write an article that fits the title instead of the other way round. That way you might end up with something that would be much more useful to your readers, and much less embarrassing to you. 86.130.233.248 (talk) 15:30, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * We go by what RS say. Slatersteven (talk) 15:48, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I haven't read all of the above, but I got curious on the cold fusion thing, and not surprisingly it's been discussed on the article talkpage a few times: Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:18, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * For the interested, Talk:Cold_fusion/Archive_47. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:24, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What a rant. Whining about alleged kids and their toys on a volunteer project with name calling, where nobody needs to feel responsible for an article, isn't constructive.  I agree that "characterized as" is suboptimal and similar to "have been accused", "claimed to be", where "List of pseudoscience/pseudoscientific topics" would be better.  There's a process for suggesting a name change.  List articles are often problematic and their inclusion criteria must be established.  In an encyclopedia needing citations and avoiding editorials, a mention in a source that can be cited for inclusion is common practice.  It's also common to exclude when there is no existing article on the topic to link.  If the inclusion of Cold Fusion is important to you, why not make your case at the article's talk page with a list of sources?  — Paleo  Neonate  – 18:29, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed. 'List of topics characterized as X' is a poor topic to construct an article around, regardless of the value of X. And beyond that, the list in question very likely contains things that probably don't belong, and omits things that probably do - with the proviso that 'probably' is shorthand for personal opinion pretending to be something else. That's the nature of Wikipedia, where anyone can add whatever takes their fancy, provided they can make it look convincing, or argue long enough to make it stick. As for AI doing the job better, I'll believe that when I see the evidence. As of right now, it seems to be a toss-up as to whether the bullshit generated by AI is greater than the bullshit generated about it, or vice versa. Either way, the volume is impressive, but its still bullshit. At least, that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it until I see proof to the contrary. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:43, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Once upon a time, I suggested that List of pseudosciences was a better title. I was overruled. C'est la vie. But maybe now the time is ripe to revisit that question. I've grown past caring. Be WP:BOLD, 86, and start an account and an AfD! jps (talk) 23:35, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, after 14 years (the redirect is from 2010), it is time to change that weasely title into the correct one. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:19, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Yoga Journal
There is a discussion at WP:RS/N which may be of interest to participants here. Bon courage (talk) 10:33, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Thomson Jay Hudson


Guy invented laws for ghosts. Article may profit from more eyes. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:03, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I notice a lot of the article depends on citations to sources from the 1890s, which were much more credulous about ghosts, psychic powers, etc. than RS are today. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:15, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * See Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_96. That you say he "invented laws for ghosts" probably goes to show how poor the article is, he put forth these mind theories to show that spiritualists of the time were not communicating with ghosts. The result of the prior discussion was addition of a bunch of old newspaper sources to show notability. Biographies of minor 19th and early 20th figures are often lacking good sources, and the WP:FRIND ones called for might simply be unavailable. Who would care enough to write other than basic biography and a simple description of Hudson's "objective" and "subjective" minds? fiveby(zero) 14:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Michael Shellenberger


WSJ confirms lab leak. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:40, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Fixing. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:32, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I tried to fix it as follows:
 * It more accurately describes what the WSJ credited Public with doing, and omits mention of lab leak theories etc.
 * -- M.boli (talk) 18:37, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Sure, except the WSJ mentions Publics influence on lab leak theory proponents in both the headline and body copy. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:43, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * My interpretation of @Hob Gadling's note is: by Wikipedia mentioning the lab leak theory we were indirectly giving it credence.
 * The WSJ article credits Public with publicizing the names of the 3 scientists, and the WSJ reprters confirmed that information.
 * The WSJ article also credits Public with juicing the lab leak theory. But that is a more amorphous claim with no mention of confirmation or independent checking.
 * This reference is about Public. The point of the reference is to show that Public is a thing, it can publish actual information. Thus it was easy to mention credit for the 3 names and omit lab-leak from Wikipedia. Which to my mind fixed the problem. If we put lab-leak back, I guess we probably wiki-link it to COVID-19 lab leak theory and add a disclaimer? -- M.boli (talk) 21:13, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I rather thought we were not indirectly but directly giving it credence, by saying in Wikivoice that someone confirmed one of the lab leak tropes. I thought I should leave it to those who are deeper in the subject matter. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:30, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I rather thought we were not indirectly but directly giving it credence, by saying in Wikivoice that someone confirmed one of the lab leak tropes. I thought I should leave it to those who are deeper in the subject matter. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:30, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Diana Walsh Pasulka
Article uncritically parrots some pretty WP:ECREE claims about "base reality" to alien abductions. Pasulka is one of those academics who seems to be teetering off the edge of the limb they climbed out on. Are there sources we can use to show the WP:MAINSTREAM does not accept her fantastical beliefs as being, y'know, based in "base reality"?

jps (talk) 16:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)


 * People often misinterpret WP:ECREE. The "claim" being presented is that this person believes whatever thing thing they believe, not that that thing is true. "Genesis says that God created the Earth in seven days" is not an exceptional claim. "God created the Earth in seven days" IS an exceptional claim. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 16:26, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You are missing the point that this page is functionally a WP:COATrack for Pasulka's beliefs without any indication that these beliefs have been noticed (contrary to your Genesis example). If no independent sources have documented those beliefs, they do not deserve articlespace attention. jps (talk) 16:41, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * WP:FRIND yeah. No independent sources? then trim the fringe. Bon courage (talk) 16:45, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The article is short bio about a person that wrote some books. The sources are briefly describing what the author lays out in the books. Other sources are snippets of reviews of the books. So, where is the issue? Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 16:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The issue is with the lies being told in the sources and being parroted uncritically in the text. For example, Pasulka's beliefs that there have been advances in physics which were being led by investigations into UFOs is laughable on the face, and yet a podcast where this is allowed to be uncritically declaimed is included as a source. The Kirkus Reviews quote chosen was not written by an expert who can evaluate the actual claims Pasulka makes. The article is functioning as a promotional trumpet for a bunch of fringe claims to which this obscure academic seems quite partial. That is not what Wikipedia should be showing in articlespace. jps (talk) 16:58, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * warned for POV pushing pseudoscience. jps (talk) 17:03, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Pushing pseudoscience? Let's stay WP:CALM here. If the author is notable for writing a book, the article should explain why they're notable and what they're notable for, should it not? Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 17:10, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * you have been warned by multiple editors over years over your uncritical and careless promotion of pseudoscience. I see you were lately involved in arguing that acupuncture is not quackery in spite of the best sources stating that it is exactly that. I think you should be topic banned from pseudoscience broadly construed as I do not see you adding anything positive to our work at making sure such topics are well-considered. jps (talk) 17:12, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * So, where is the issue? I suggest that the answer can be found by reading WP:NOT and WP:FRINGE. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 20:49, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Is this a notability issue? If so, that's a different path to go down. But if she's notable enough for an article, than the article should summarize what she is notable for, according to the sources, no? Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 21:02, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I will repeat here what jps wrote in the first sentence of the first post in this thread: Article uncritically parrots some pretty WP:ECREE claims about "base reality" to alien abductions. That is the issue. I once again suggest reading WP:NOT and WP:FRINGE. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 21:12, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Again, the "claim" being presented is that this person believes whatever thing they believe, not that that thing is true. It sounds like you're mixing up a subject's claim with a claim made in Wikivoice. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 21:21, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * WP:NOT and WP:FRINGE. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 21:31, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * good gracious... Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 21:43, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I am done here. Good luck, folks. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 21:55, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Text was being cited to a transcript hosted at thedaughtersgrimoire.com, which seems to specialize in credulous UFO narratives. Not a WP:FRIND source in any case. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:07, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Tell it to the interlocutors: jps (talk) 23:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19
I attempted to write the synopsis for the book Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19. User:Bon courage deleted the book synopsis per WP:FRINGE, then gave me a less than useful explanation. It's longstanding precedent that book synopses are cited by the book itself, why wouldn't this book qualify? 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 21:07, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * In cases where synopses are challenged, the best thing to do is workshop them carefully. It's very easy for synopses to turn into WP:COATRACKs. I think the best approach is to actually look for what third-party sources have written about the book and focus on those rather than trying to write an entire synopsis. This is no easy task. jps (talk) 23:18, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's the same problem as with articles like Plandemic or Unplanned. A good book review my be a helpful source. Bon courage (talk) 03:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Is it actually the case that normally we use a book's own synopses for the book? I know we don't always use the subject of a BLP's description of themself to be stated as fact. Doug Weller  talk 12:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There is a 'convention' about synopses (often some of the worst writing in Wikipedia), but for fringe books/films/etc it runs up against policy, and in particular NPOV which is not negotiable.
 * The trouble with Alina Chan and Matt "AIDS came from a lab" Ridley's book is that pretty much everything in it is fringe, to the point that even talking about "evidence for the lab leak" takes us into cranksville. Bon courage (talk) 12:20, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The problem with using sources other than the book/film for the synopsis of the book/film is that they are often wrong and/or insert their own analysis. For FRINGE purposes I guess another issue is that sometimes synopses are overlong or written from an in-story perspective, or at least in a way that suggests they are about the real world rather than the work of fiction synopsed. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:47, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It's clearly NOR policy that we accept analyses in reliable sources and are not able to substitute our own. Also, it's pretty easy to correct errors in reliable sources that report primary sources without reinventing the wheel. TFD (talk) 02:52, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I think we just apply RS: if a book is not reliably published we don't use it as a source. If sources aren't, we don't use them. I am only talking about non-fiction here. As for fiction, agh. Synopses for those  are too often terrible. Cherry picked from the book, etc.  Doug Weller  talk 15:34, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It's a weird grey area. It took months to get a synopsis of The Game Changers written and we only achieved what is present there now after the main proponent of the film's main conceit was banned from the page by a third-party admin. jps (talk) 23:52, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The book was published by a reliable publisher, HarperCollins, but is clearly a WP:FRINGE topic. The problem with this book is that it pushes a non-fiction label into fictional territory, cherry picking evidence as it goes. I guess this is mostly an indictment on HarperCollins for publishing this and invocation of WP:CONTEXTMATTERS might be the only way to get around this grey area. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 04:21, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Well HarperCollins is a trade publisher and I'm sure the book has sold well (so well done them!) but they're not a guarantee of reliability in sci/med (is any publisher these days so reliable?) Bon courage (talk) 04:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Books published by the big 5 aren't even typically factchecked by the publisher as far as I am aware. Being published by a major commercial publisher has never been a indicator of reliability, and that's been true at least since the publication of Worlds in Collision back in 1950. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:47, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, publisher hardly matters. What matters is the notice by the relevant experts (in the case of nonfiction). In this case, it looks like there was a lot more attention paid by the social media sphere than there was by serious publications and reliable sources. I notice that the talkpage has now attracted a dormant account to argue, somewhat irrelevantly, "Lab Leak Isn't Fringe!" Sigh. jps (talk) 15:42, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Workshopping of a possible addition of a synopsis continues. I am all but spent. If others who have sanguine heads about themselves would see it fit to make some judgement calls about this, I would be most appreciative. jps (talk) 16:15, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Armenia
I have found reasonable evidence of falsification of history in Azeri Wikipedia pages about Armenia.Which include fake claims of Armenians committing a genocide against Turks and Azeris, other fake claims include a claim that the territory of Armenia was historical Azeri land. These false claims are supported by the Azeri government. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Farrafiq (talk • contribs) 12:25, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Nothing can be done on the English Wikipedia about content in the Azeri Wikipedia.  Acroterion   (talk)   13:52, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Anthroposophy
This is about making stuff up. See. Seen Talk:Anthroposophy, wherein others made the same point (look for posts of 1 November 2023), I came to believe that most citations by are phony. Meaning the WP:RS fail to WP:V the claims they're WP:CITED for. SamwiseGSix cited a bunch of sources, putting his own opinions in their mouth. He might not understand what we mean by WP:V, but that's not a reason for allowing his citations to stay in the article.

is an 80-pages booklet. It is not a 16-volumes encyclopedia. So, it does not have a volume 13, nor a volume 14. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:56, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * ? Charles George Herbermann and Catholic Encyclopedia. Arkose Press looks like some kind of on demand publisher of public domain works, but i have no idea what he was intending to cite there, some quick text searches of volume 13 don't turn up anything likely. fiveby(zero) 14:13, 10 January 2024 (UTC)


 * There is, but that:


 * is not written by Herbermann;
 * does not WP:V SamwiseGSix's claim either;
 * what it does say is that Steiner left Catholicism. Verbatim: "His bent for occultism led him from Catholicism into THEOSOPHY." It does not claim that Steiner ever returned as a member of the Catholic Church.


 * what it does say is that Steiner left Catholicism. Verbatim: "His bent for occultism led him from Catholicism into THEOSOPHY." tgeorgescu (talk) 15:39, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If you Google cathen13.pdf and cathen14.pdf you will find Herbermann's encyclopedia. Nothing about Steiner therein (AFAIK). tgeorgescu (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Herbermann couldn't write or edit anything about The Christian Community as he was dead before its founding, so don't know if this is CIR or misrepresenting sources. I'm not familiar with the topic, but The Christian Community cites with In Germany, the group's country of origin, the Roman Catholic Church totally rejects the Christian Community. Why can't we just remove the offending text and if  returns and objects take it from there? fiveby(zero) 16:25, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * SamwiseGSix claims that calling Anthroposophy a heresy was engineered by Mussolini. But fact is that the Mussolini Cabinet had two ministers who were labeled heretics by the Vatican. I have commented out his edits. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:56, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Started sampling major mainspace edits and making stuff up and putting his own opinions in their mouth seem like appropriate descriptions. Need to check all the Steiner related edits and revert probably, don't know what is the most economical way to deal with the user. fiveby(zero) 17:11, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * A simpler point is that Anthroposophic theology is wholly incompatible with Catholic theology (e.g. two Jesus children; Jesus and Christ were two different beings who got fused at a certain point, AKA adoptionism; and so on). tgeorgescu (talk) 18:09, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Don't want to step on your edits as i was going thru contribs, but why only comment out and not just remove? I'd say this should just be removed and earn the editor at least a topic ban. i might be overly angry about having to find and wade through Eco-Alchemy to make sure the text was contradicted in all three sources tho. fiveby(zero) 18:28, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello everyone - fiveby and tg do you deny the extensive body of anti-racist statements Steiner made in his time, in contrast with then US President Woodrow Wilson who was actively segregating the US Federal Government, and prominent thinkers like F. Engels who actively called for wholesale genocide, using the Polish people as an example? The advent of the heresy label in 1922 could potentially be an interesting issue to consider - tg appears correct in pointing out that a very small number of ministers from Mussolini's early government also received this classification, and that while in Germany the Nazi's actively and aggressively persecuted Steiner (driving him out of Germany) that Mussolini's early cabinet contained a small number of apparently Anthroposophically curious individuals with fringe ideas in relation to the majority of members of the society, which contained so many deep anti-fascist and liberal/democratic actors (Steiner called for 'equality' in politics, eg one person one vote, and solidarity/brotherhood in the economy) that it appears most of these cabinet members either had to quite quickly leave the cabinet or cease all contact with Anthroposophists during the 1920's - please do feel free to demonstrate literature that shows otherwise. SamwiseGSix (talk) 15:45, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Your recent edit to Steiner's article cherry pick info from sources.  Segall's says His comments scattered through various lecture transcripts concerning historical racial hierarchies must be condemned even while they should also be read in the context of his resolutely anti-racist and anti-sexist view of the human present and future. not just the second part as your ref suggests. Similarly, Staudenmaier's thesis talks about how depending on what you read of his he is both racist and not (p28-29).  He does not just say that Steiner is antiracist.  (On a side not citing a 800 page paper without page numbers is counterproductive.)—blindlynx 17:34, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Steiner did not advocate for liberal democracy, nor for capitalism (I can provide RS for these claims). In respect to racism, he wrote/spoke a mixed bag. The Christian Community aren't Nicene Trinitarians, so no wonder that most Christians churches do not consider them Christians. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 16:16, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi SamwiseGSix, when you add text to an article and provide citations in this manner the expectation is that others can find support for your claims within the given sources. Other editors, and most importantly readers, extend you some trust and good faith that you are meeting this expectation and following WP's verifiability policy. What i see is that you are violating this trust and good faith, i don't find such support for the text you have added in the given citations. Arguments such as you are making above are irrelevant, what matters is whether or not you are making reasonable use of sources to support the article text. In my opinion you are not, and ask that you clarify for example your use of Catholic Encyclopedia and the three sources cited in the edit i linked above. fiveby(zero) 16:24, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, Rudolf Hess was 100% Anthroposophist, while Heinrich Himmler was 50%. So, why would the Nazis chase down Steiner? It makes little sense. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello Fiveby - while I had found a source online several months ago referencing the Christian Community being mentioned in the Catholic Encyclopedia, I should have bought or further sought an original Encyclopedia copy to fully verify this specific edit, and I do apologize if I incorrectly cited this specific reference. I am not seeking to revert changes in this specific regard in the 'Religious Nature' section of the article in question, although some important information later in the article (for example the ordination of female priests et al even in the 1920's) does seem potentially important to keep in mind hm
 * As for your assertions TGeorgescu - while Hess and Himmler may have sought quietly behind the scenes to leverage some anthroposophical ideas long after Steiner's death, and long after the effective crushing and bringing to heel / under full control of small remnants of the German Anthroposophical society by the Nazi dictatorship (to great protest from the French Anthroposophical Society, the British Anthroposophical Society the American and Swiss societies etc) Hitler and his Nazi followers stood in great opposition to Steiner and his teachings, Hitler personally ordering his fascist nazi followers to "wage war on Steiner" as the WP:V Independant.co.uk article demonstrates: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/the-big-question-who-was-rudolf-steiner-and-what-were-his-revolutionary-teaching-ideas-433407.html SamwiseGSix (talk) 17:23, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * That's not the only WP:RS to be ever written. Another RS says:
 * "Heise holds the Jews responsible for the World War (Entente-Freimaurerei und Weltkrieg 32-33, 84, 262, 295, etc.), warns repeatedly against “Jewish capitalists” (e.g. 286), claims that the Roosevelts are Jewish and that their real name is Rosenfeld (285), that Woodrow Wilson's wife is Jewish (296), that the news agencies are controlled by Jews (306), that the Jews control Britain and the Empire is a plaything of the Zionists (122-127), and that Bolshevism is an Anglo-Jewish invention (253). Heise invokes Steiner and anthroposophy throughout the book, at one point praising Steiner as the alternative to “Jewish thinking” (297). The book draws heavily on ariosophist sources as well. Heise’s work continues to find anthroposophist admirers; Ursula Marcum, for example, writes: “What makes Heise’s book special is his treatment of Jewish influence in world affairs.” Marcum, “Rudolf Steiner: An Intellectual Biography,” 408. See also the extremely positive reviews of Heise’s book in Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus no. 47 (1920) and Das Reich January 1919, 474."
 * Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 17:30, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There have at times been some odd Anthroposophists on the fringe espousing contradictory ideas to Rudolf Steiner and his movement overall - Steiner during his lifetime was however a leading critic of the popular anti-Semitism of his time, and also opposed the rise of the fascist Nazi dictators, who quickly drove him out of Germany hm SamwiseGSix (talk) 17:46, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Except that Steiner himself sponsored the publication of Heise's book and wrote its foreword. But I digress: we're discussing about your indulgence in original research. What Steiner did or didn't is not germane to our discussion. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:13, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * the citations you provided don't support this claim—blindlynx 18:55, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

And the article about its founder
Someone (a newbie) erasing WP:PSCI-compliant statements from Rudolf Steiner. More eyes needed. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:55, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * How's your German? The Hitler "war against Steiner" quote looks suspicious, possible wikigenisis but maybe found in Anthroposophen in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus p. 7 (reviewed here)? And the ...and he immediately had to flee to Switzerland looks like invention. fiveby(zero) 15:17, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I can parse German through my knowledge of Dutch and the help of Google Translate, but I'm not a proficient reader in German.
 * Anyway, the review confirms what I already thought (since it's not that hard to figure it out), namely that Werner's work is mainly apologetics. If an older Anthroposophist told him that the Nazis fought a war against Steiner, he would take it at face value, wouldn't he? WP:MANDY.
 * Another issue: the number of newbies and WP:SPAs editing Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner is quite significant for the past three or four months. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * When my WP:PSCI-compliant and WP:MEDRS-compliant edits get reverted by WP:SPAs called and  of course I get suspicious. There are organizations around the world whose purpose is to peddle pseudoscience and quackery. Such as the Xi Jinping Administration acting based upon Article 21 of the Chinese Constitution, the Second Modi ministry acting through the Ministry of Ayush, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the Anthroposophical Society, thousands of quackademics, and so on. They all have an axe to grind against Wikipedia snitching upon their pseudoscience/quackery. Quackery is a multi-billion dollars industry, so its adepts with always grumble against Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is humiliating them 24/24 and 7/7. I mean it's not so much me humiliating them daily, as Wikipedia as a whole humiliating them daily. Even if I could be considered one of the main cheerleaders, I'm not the brain of this operation. tgeorgescu (talk)  21:08, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

And now I have evidence
See Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:29, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Problem at List of reported UFO sightings
Not sure what what a "condom report' is, also see User talk:Mcorrlo Doug Weller  talk 17:35, 14 January 2024 (UTC)


 * See Condon Committee. And I don't think there's actually a problem any more, since the user concerned hasn't tried to restore the disputed edit. At least, not anything specific to that one edit, rather than credulous flying-saucer-woo-promoters in general doing the usual... AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:43, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @AndyTheGrump thanks. I’d forgotten about that. Just a typo.  As you suggest, at the moment we just wait and see.  Doug Weller  talk 21:38, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

I've interacted with that user over on pt.wiki and can confirm he has pushed the ALIENS ARE HERE agenda over there (and maybe other strange beliefs, perhaps ghost stuff? Not sure ATM). Also, IIRC, he was immune to arguments, and just got his way as I gave up trying to reason with him. pt.wiki is pretty bad. <b style="color:#070">VdSV9</b>• ♫ 02:51, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

NYMag: Intelligencer takedown of UFO credulity
Source here. Probably worth updating a few articles.

Heh.

jps (talk) 17:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Including Loeb’s claims of finding evidence. Doug Weller  talk 20:28, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Entertaining excerpts: "The country was, and is, suffering from a paranormalization of the plastic bag." [...] "Watters was fined $40 for 'placing a carcass on the highway.'" ... — Paleo  Neonate  – 23:37, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Noah’s Ark discovered by archaeologists?
Doug Weller talk 20:15, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Suboptimal sources, but that still admit that it's outlandish to jump to the conclusion that a myth was historical, from a natural formation and possible evidence of human activity in the region (the latter is not extraordinary, of course, and we can still expect better sources)... — Paleo  Neonate  – 00:01, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Weird to see this has resurfaced, as it is very much old news to me. See David Fasold and Durupınar site. Slp1 (talk) 00:33, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Slp1 These are new people reviving it, a bit of a surprise. I assume there's an agenda. I was in contact with David Fasold not long before he died. Doug Weller  talk 17:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yep. Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University. An unsourced statement says that "ICUA is the main host of scholarly international conferences related to Noah’s Ark in Eastern Anatolia. There were international symposia on Noah’s Ark and Mount Agri I and II, in 2010 and 2011."  Doug Weller  talk 17:23, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Wellness influencers and climate change conspiracy.
This might be useful somewhere. Doug Weller  talk 14:10, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Wellness influencers promoting climate change conspiracy theories. Here is a related article from Institute for Strategic Dialogue (Simmons is quoted in the CNN article). I've added a mention to Joseph Mercola. -- M.boli (talk) 15:33, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Another source. — Paleo  Neonate  – 08:31, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Am I imagining things or does Nahom give undue weight to a fringe view?
Although this is an article about a religious belief, it is using archaeology for proof. Doug Weller talk 20:02, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

but don't think i can because of that sucky OR policy. There's some that can be cut based on misuse of sources, and i think critics Vogel and the Tanners are really not much help at all and probably doing more harm than good. fiveby(zero) 07:15, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think this can be partly resolved with a bit of respectful rewording… to make it clearer that LDS scholars interpret these archaeological findings in a way that supports their beliefs (distinct from the interpretation of mainstream archaeology). We don’t need to say they are “wrong”, but it should be noted that they are “different”. Also, looking at the article, I think I agree that the section is probably overly long, and could be summarized better. That would help with the UNDUEness of it all. Blueboar (talk) 20:25, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
 * A lot of LDS articles are weighte3d towards the LDS narrative, unfortunately. 208.87.236.202 (talk) 19:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Trying to figure out how to prominently state that Nehem or Nehhm is an Arabic place name and as S. Kent Brown puts it "One has to assume, it seems to me, that when the members of Lehi’s party heard the local name for "the place that was called Nahom" they associated the sound of that local name with the term Nahom, a Hebrew word that was familiar to and had meaning for them."

To the Stars (company)
Fringe but you'd never guess it from the short lead if you didn't know the people involved. Doug Weller talk 14:38, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

FALSEBALANCE concern re. Covid on Gunnar Kaiser
I stumbled onto this article on a German Covid skeptic I'd never heard of. Looks like it suffers from some rather extreme WP:FALSEBALANCE. The poor quality of the English (and 13,068 byte initial edit) suggests it was a Google Translate copy/paste from a German-language article. Interestingly, Kaiser's article on German-language Wikipedia has long since been deleted. No longer a BLP since the subject passed away last year. 3700 views in the past month. Thoughts on what to do with this? Generalrelative (talk) 14:57, 6 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Looks like he meets the general notability guidelines but I cannot read German all that well so this is an assumption. I don't know if it is false balance if he potentially became well known due to his COVID skepticism. LegalSmeagolian (talk) 19:32, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * If I'm not mistaken, it's copyvio anyway. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.8% of all FPs. 20:57, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The german one? I don't think translating from one language wikipedia to another to another is an issue. LegalSmeagolian (talk) 21:02, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * If the other Wikipedia subsequently deletes the article, it becomes a problem for us because we're no longer attributing the original authors as required by the license. MrOllie (talk) 21:35, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * https://www.charismata-shop.de/shop/buecher-and-medien/der-kult-ueber-die-viralitaet-des-boesen/ - seems to be the paragraphs of this in a different order. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.8% of all FPs. 22:19, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * There is no mention on the talk page or the edit summary when the article was created that it was copied. It's an issue and we can wait until someone sorts that out as at the moment all you can see is the copyright violation template. Doug Weller  talk 14:41, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The reason for deletion was irrelevance, not copyvio. See . Kaiser had only one publication.
 * BTW, you can easily translate foreign texts with . --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:49, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * To be fair, I had a massive headache at the time, but I found a lot of stuff that was pretty close. Maybe there was less than I thought. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.8% of all FPs. 15:18, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I only said that copyvio was not given as a reason for the deletion of the German article. THat does not mean there was no copyvio in it, or that there was no copyvio in the English article. We do not evene know if the English article was a translated version of the German one. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Infobox at Water memory
One IP and the user are removing the infobox calling Template:Infobox pseudoscience use as "disinfobox". I think that this is wrong and asking here for more eyes to resolve the dispute. Cheers! Ixocactus (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Your dispute seems to be about infobox inclusion, not fringe theories. The other editors probably agree with you that water memory is pseudoscience, and you should make sure you assume good faith anyway. I suggest you let it go for now, you can put the article on your watchlist if you want to make sure nobody adds fringe content to it. HansVonStuttgart (talk) 14:15, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for advice @HansVonStuttgart. I let it go since this is time consuming and I didn't see good faith in reasons for the removal. The infobox was in article since 2008. Thanks to @Hob Gadling and @Slatersteven for inputs too. Ixocactus (talk) 18:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Nazi Deism
Might be in the wrong here, but need a second set of eyes/opinions. 10k section in Deism on “Deism in Nazi Germany” feels to me entirely disproportionate to the page, but two editors are insisting on its inclusion and size therein. Hyperbolick (talk) 02:50, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Positronium
There is a discussion about fringe publications that could use more people to have a look. Page history, Discussion. --mfb (talk) 05:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

2024-02 deletion proposals
FYI Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 13:07, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/Oppressors–oppressed distinction
 * Articles for deletion/List of cities in the European Union by Muslim population

Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
I don't know how closely the average FTN editor follows climate change news. Nevertheless, I would assume there's a better-than-average chance that last summer, you would have seen headlines such as Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025, study suggests

That was based on a paper in Nature Communications - normally a reliable, mainstream source. Yet, in this case, the conclusion was very far outside of the scientific consensus - you can see a summary of just how far in these commentaries from scientists here and here. At times, cutting-edge research can overturn consensus - but in this case, the opposite happened, as the paper applied its modelling to what has long been outdated data. Science Media Center had requested comment from scientists on this matter (including lead authors of the other AMOC papers, like Levke Caesar or Niklas Boers): I have been following SMC for a while, and I have never seen a climate change paper prompt over a dozen responses there - let alone for several to criticize it in really stark terms.

You might also find it interesting that this paper had just two authors (in climate science, papers on major topics typically have 5-10, even when it's other modelling studies - i.e. here and some can have several dozen, like here), and that they are apparently siblings, according to The Conversation article. Now, the brother, Peter Ditlevsen, has apparently chosen to directly edit the way their paper is covered in our article. As you can see from history, the edits were first done through an IP address (curiously, from Bayonne, France, even though the authors are based at the University of Copenhagen), then, after I removed their whitewashing, the exact same thing was done through a newly created account, "Pditlev", which even uses "we" in the edit summary.

The way I understand policy, this is WP:COI at the very least. I am still not particularly experienced on the administrative side of things, so I would appreciate involvement of more experienced editors. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 18:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * So is blocked from editing that particular page. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 00:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Here's a list of all the papers that cite this one. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:53, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Is this the same paper?. Doug Weller  talk 11:05, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

PROFRINGE source in header?
Does a PROFRINGE source belong in the press header at Talk:Race and intelligence? How about when we're pretty sure it's written by someone we've banned from editing Wikipedia for disrupting the topic area? The question has turned into something of a battleground, unfortunately. Cool heads are invited to help bring down the temperature at Talk:Race and intelligence. Generalrelative (talk) 16:58, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

For the interested, Talk:Race_and_intelligence now closed. We'll see if there's a WP:CLOSECHALLENGE or something. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:47, 11 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Given the concerns that have been raised on the closer's talk page, I expect we'll see either a self-revert or a formal close review. In addition to the concerns I raised about violations of procedure, an uninvolved editor has pointed out that a key piece of the factual basis for the close –– that Talk pages are unindexed –– appears to be incorrect. Generalrelative (talk) 14:45, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh well, perhaps it will give @Stephenbharrison inspiration for another article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:38, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Harold E. Puthoff


His zero-point energy stuff needs physicist eyes. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:16, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Now an edit war. acting WP:PROFRINGE. Also at WP:BLPN. jps (talk) 21:48, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
 * current references are to thegodtheory.com and ufoevidence.org, will look later when i get a chance, but don't worry it's just "phenomena outside the traditional scope of science". fiveby(zero) 23:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Fun fact: fellow almost become EiC of Citizendium after being upset with the treatment at this website. I'm not quite sure why and how he had a falling out with Larry Sanger, but he did. Amazing how these stories always continue. jps (talk) 23:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Was skimming David Kaiser's How the Hippies Saved Physics when you commented and the stories seem to sometimes go back aways and are awfully tangled also. Still cleaning up Haisch but if anyone want's to take a crack at "Inertia as a zero-point-field Lorentz force" there's Science, SciAm and PRA. Also i have no idea if the "Zero point energy" section is appropriate or not in Stochastic electrodynamics. fiveby(zero) 20:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That page has always made me very uncomfortable. I think it is suffering from WP:NFRINGE problems in the sense that there is very little notice in the mainstream of this side quest. A buncha articles written on trying to get around quantum mechanics which, I guess, for a pedagogical purpose might be interesting but this kind of game is really a throwback to what people were willing to publish in the 80s and 90s and would never see the light of day today. The claim is that this is WP:MAINSTREAM, but although I see people amused by the idea that you can get certain features of QM without QM, I don't see any implications beyond this. jps (talk) 21:13, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Was skimming David Kaiser's How the Hippies Saved Physics when you commented and the stories seem to sometimes go back aways and are awfully tangled also. Still cleaning up Haisch but if anyone want's to take a crack at "Inertia as a zero-point-field Lorentz force" there's Science, SciAm and PRA. Also i have no idea if the "Zero point energy" section is appropriate or not in Stochastic electrodynamics. fiveby(zero) 20:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That page has always made me very uncomfortable. I think it is suffering from WP:NFRINGE problems in the sense that there is very little notice in the mainstream of this side quest. A buncha articles written on trying to get around quantum mechanics which, I guess, for a pedagogical purpose might be interesting but this kind of game is really a throwback to what people were willing to publish in the 80s and 90s and would never see the light of day today. The claim is that this is WP:MAINSTREAM, but although I see people amused by the idea that you can get certain features of QM without QM, I don't see any implications beyond this. jps (talk) 21:13, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Ashley Black's FasciaBlaster
I have been working on this article for a bit, and some review of the article generally and assistance with developing the lead in particular would be appreciated. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 03:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually I think it looks pretty good. There's a paragraph in the "overview" section that might fit better in "clinical reviews" if the Clinical Reviews section heading was changed. Perhaps "Medical reviews"? The paragraph seems out of place in the Overview section.
 * One thing unclear to me is the disambiguator in the title. Why "Ashley Black's" FasciaBlaster? Are there other FasciaBlasters? I think the title should be renamed to "FasciaBlaster". ~Anachronist (talk) 04:19, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you, and I think I see what you mean - if the paragraph beginning "In 2017" with comments from the doctor, professor, and physiotherapist is moved, the overview would be more focused on 'this is a stick with plastic claws that causes bruising' aspect. I have been considering WP:PROFRINGE and how to effectively include content from RS in the overview to abide by WP:PSCI (e.g. "The fringe or pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such.") This also relates to how to develop the lead, including whether and how to label this device as pseudoscientific or based on pseudoscience, and how to describe the expected/marketed bruising.
 * And changing the section headings could help - perhaps "Medical evidence" or more specifically, "Lack of medical evidence" to reflect the section contents.
 * The article title may be related to how strongly the product is associated and promoted by Ashley Black, but there also may have been some COI activity at Ashley Black (entrepreneur) (currently at AfD). I have no objection to a rename, particularly as my research indicates it seems more commonly known as a FasciaBlaster outside of promotional content, but the current title is proposed as a redirect target. Beccaynr (talk) 04:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Agree to rename the article as it's only a matter of time before someone else comes out with something similar. Some things that maybe to consider, removing the "and had not completed a college degree" part as it just seems like it's added as a jab at her not having a degree, and we know people can invent things and not have a degree. But for sure leave in that she is not a physical therapist as that is relevant. You can say "similar to the pseudoscientific practice known as cupping" as that is how cupping is described. As far as the lead, you can clearly state that ... This product has not been shown to work and has been called Pseudoscience. or something with that wording, add it right after the second sentence. You can also slap on a pseudoscience template to make it even clearer. Good Job! Sgerbic (talk) 06:13, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you, and indeed as to the college degree part - that was my attempt to emphasize a lack of medical credentials based on the Buzzfeed News source, but I agree with your feedback on how it reads. And I was considering adding 'pseudoscientific' to cupping and will do so, and I very much appreciate the feedback about the lead and adding the template. I look forward to incorporating the ideas and guidance after some sleep. Thanks again, Beccaynr (talk) 06:54, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Canneto di Caronia fires


The lead seems to argue in favor of fringe explanations. Although maybe I'm reading it wrong (many of the sources are in Italian) which is why I'm listing it here at FTN. &#45; LuckyLouie (talk) 20:19, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * There is "Satin in a Sicilian Fridge" from Skeptical Inquirer, but that only covers the 2004 exorcisms and not the 2007 alien attack; and unsatisfying as The Times is still reporting a "village of fire" in 2014. Plenty of crappy journalism in English also. fiveby(zero) 21:07, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The piece in Atavist Magazine "When The Devil Enters" is cited and should be sufficient, put all the crappy journalism in past tense. fiveby(zero) 21:33, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah OK. As is not uncommon, one edit by an IP skewed the lead away from cited sources. I've repaired that damage, although the article may be better clarified with further material from Atavist source. &#45; LuckyLouie (talk) 21:41, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

New Chronology (Rohl)


May need more egyptologists. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:16, 8 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Yuck. It’s worse than I remember. I took it off my watchlist some time ago. Needs a lot of trimming for a start. Ask at the appropriate Wikiprojects. Doug Weller  talk 21:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm discussing this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ancient Egypt where I've said, after mentioning I couldn't find citations 7 and 8, ":Shock horror! Rohl added those citations. In fact, Rohl wrote 22:5% of the page.Eg . Including, for example, "Thus, Rohl is of the opinion that none of these three foundations of the conventional Egyptian chronology are secure, and that the sacking of Thebes by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 664 BC is the earliest fixed date in Egyptian history." WP:Who Wrote That is amazingly useful." Doug Weller  talk 13:05, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm busy with other things and not that knowledgeable about chronological issues, but pinging, who has recently had a spate of activity cleaning up other contentious chronological claims. A. Parrot (talk) 17:37, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @A. Parrot Thanks. I'm glad he's been active recently.  Doug Weller  talk 17:44, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @A. Parrot the list of identifications is huge. Should we use any of them without secondary sources in any case? Most aren't sourced at all IIRC. Doug Weller  talk 11:51, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Seems like an easy thing to cut to me. A. Parrot (talk) 14:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Ivan Katchanovski


IP says it is him, complains a lot on the Talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:16, 8 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Katchanovski's false flag theory of the Maidan massacre certainly qualifies as a conspiracy theory, and its promotion by is part of a continuing pattern of Russian disinformation, according to the EU (https://euvsdisinfo.eu/ukraine-the-perennial-disinformation-target/). Nangaf (talk) 01:42, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * This is a well known false flag conspiracy theory. According to NYT, The claims of grief-stricken activists, who blamed the Ukrainian paramilitary for shooting the protesters, collided with denials from Yanukovych, who would later testify that the killings were part of a “planned provocation” and “pseudo-operation” carried out by the protesters themselves, a U.S.-backed plot to remove him from power. Pro-Russia sources went even further, pushing the notion that the Feb. 20 killings were a “false flag” operation carried out by snipers associated with the protesters, or mercenaries from the country of Georgia, who were said to have shot down from nearby buildings. To this day, the story continues to circulate on Kremlin-funded media like Sputnik and RT.
 * Hence, it was not Katchanovski who proposed this theory, but he is definitely a proponent, and continue to insist this is "the truth" despite to results of official investigations and court decisions . But I believe main problem here is actually WP:COI, i.e. someone comes to an article talk page and strenuously insists: "please cite my original research papers on this subject!", i.e. papers where he is the only author. My very best wishes (talk) 14:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I do not know who first came up with the false flag theory, but as far as I know Katchanovski is the only person to try to make a career out of it. Since he is not a notable writer or academic, I have proposed that the false flag theory be incorporated into the main page on Maidan casualties and that K's bio should be deleted. But I suspect that consensus will be elusive. Nangaf (talk) 19:25, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That would not align with WP:ONEWAY: in articles about crazy, explain standard, but not the other way around. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:40, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I would rather not place this WP:FRINGE theory to page Maidan casualties. Russian information war against Ukraine? Maybe, I am not sure, but without focus on K. (i.e. as framed by NYT above). My very best wishes (talk) 16:31, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Havana syndrome
Does Havana Syndrome even exist? It is not clearly a "syndrome", as opposed to a delusion. Nangaf (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 22:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Whether medical conditions "exist" or not is a fraught concept. A delusion, after all, can be a medical condition. The better question might be, "Is there strong evidence for any particular etiology for Havana Syndrome?" I think the answer there is that there is strong evidence that the phenomenon was a kind of mass psychogenic illness -- perhaps the strongest evidence for any explanation is for that. jps (talk) 22:30, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * We don't make or change article titles at the whim of a few Wikipedians. We are not slaves to pedantry. Whatever it is, if the majority reliable sources call it 'Havana syndrome', then that's what the article title should be called per WP:COMMONNAME. &#45;-Animalparty! (talk) 03:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Some fake conditions are still called "syndromes": Irlen syndrome, Leaky gut syndrome ... Bon courage (talk) 03:26, 12 February 2024 (UTC)


 * It's clearly the WP:COMMONNAME, but more importantly, as others have said, you're implying a distinction between a "syndrome" and something psychosomatic which doesn't necessarily exist. A "syndrome" just refers to a set of symptoms, which are clearly reported here - the fact that those symptoms are probably psychosomatic in origin doesn't change that. Even then, the sourcing, article, and current coverage don't indicate that it was indisputably psychosomatic; while the idea of it being some sort of sinister foreign weapon could reasonably be considered WP:FRINGE at this point, there's other possibilities mentioned in the sources as credible, such as undiagnosed medical conditions or stress-related afflictions being mistakenly lumped together into a pattern by confirmation bias. --Aquillion (talk) 21:33, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Bicameral mentality
There's a big dispute at WP:NORN about this concept and the book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Bringing it hear because the person who is probably using OR is also arguing that the articles support the concept unduly. For those unfamiliar with this concept, the lead for the first article says "Bicameral mentality is a hypothesis introduced by Julian Jaynes who argued human ancestors as late as the ancient Greeks did not consider emotions and desires as stemming from their own minds but as the consequences of actions of gods external to themselves. The theory posits that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind, and that the breakdown of this division gave rise to consciousness in human". Doug Weller talk 07:43, 5 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I see we have a WP:SPA, User:B.Sirota, promoting Jaynes.. See also - I'm not saying the editor edited all of these. Also see their post at Talk:The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind‎.  Doug Weller  talk 16:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I also contend that both Wiki pages unduly present the theory as a serious one despite the fact that it is not advanced nor defended by the vast majority of neuroscientists, psychologists, or historians, nor does it appear anywhere in mainstream publications as a valid theory about the origins of consciousness, in these fields. Nowhere is it referenced in these articles, probably partly due to the fact that it is a rather obscure theory, not much discussed at all, and so finding sources is arduous, but also partly the result it seems of edits from some editors who pushed a favorable view of it in these articles. Snarcky1996 (talk) 23:38, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * To improve these articles, sources that state the view(s) of the scientific community as a whole about this theory should be sought, instead of just citing some individual philosophers or psychologists who happen to support the theory. Snarcky1996 (talk) 23:55, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Jaynes is fringe alright. He has not been the target of skeptical scrutiny much, probably because his heyday was over when CSICOP was founded. I know only one skeptical book that mentions him, but I forgot which one it was. Maybe I can find out later. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:22, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Feng shui


RedHuron is a student editor who changed Feng shui significantly through two huge edits.

I've reverted the changes to the lede prior to those edits.

The other changes need a careful review. --Hipal (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I will keep my eye on it. Did some remediation on the the definition and classification section. Looks like a good amount was cited to the second edition of the Ole Brunn book that was used in a few places in previous revisions, and some short paragraphs were oversimplifying/obfuscating the concept by pointing to things that didn't belong in that particular section. It could probably be trimmed more to be less generous than what I did but I am not a frequent editor in these areas. Recon  rabbit  20:56, 15 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the issues/clumsy additions. I did not mean to derail the article. I got excited about my findings on feng shui. Still, I think there is some room to discuss feng shui's anthropological and instrumentalist classifications as a social tool outside of its superstitious qualities. Either way, I trust your judgements as more experienced editors. I'm more than happy to share my findings and help reach a more nuanced definition of feng shui. RedHuron (talk) 16:54, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

J. Sai Deepak
This Hindutva activist believes that caste system was created by the western world and firecracker as an Indian invention. Need attention of more editors here given the current dispute where I am involved. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 07:56, 18 February 2024 (UTC)


 * … and where is that? 100.36.106.199 (talk) 12:56, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:04, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The OP's behavior there is not impressive. Maybe they are right on the underlying merits, but there has been no attempt to support that with reliable sources or sensible references to policy, instead just vehemence and edit-warring. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 16:56, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Michael Shellenberger
Unreliable sources being edit-warred in, it seems. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:29, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Proposed content restoration at Karen Black, Gail Brown, Hunter Carson, Theodore McKeldin
I suggest restoring the content that can be found in these diff's at Karen Black, Gail Brown, Hunter Carson and Theodore McKeldin. Very basic, standard content that you would naturally expect to be included. But it seems that a certain somebody is recklessly determined to suppress it, which is so bizarre to me.

My stance is that the content never had any reason to be removed in the first place. On February 10, I tried to start a discussion at Black's talk page, but couldn't get any editors to participate. I also brought it up at the Administrators' Noticeboard, again getting absolutely nowhere. Attempts to get the conversation going were shut down before any kind of resolution could be reached.

Your guess is as good as mine why 2003:D3:FF12:1D52:B55E:EBB9:DBF7:EF2B / 2003:D3:FF12:1D52:B8A2:D7CA:55DA:3AEE / 80.136.196.48 repeatedly blanks basic content and keeps putting a COI (conflict of interest) tag on the pages. Talk about chaos. There is no conflict of interest (the IP-switching editor seems to be suggesting this family is so irrelevant, that anyone who makes a substantial contribution to their pages must have a "close connection"). As a result of the inexplicable content wipeouts and meritless COI tags, each page is now incomprehensible and dishonors its subject. The pages were fine until the multi-IP editor came along and started making trouble.

This is an open-and-shut matter. Please remove the unwarranted COI tags and restore the content; then add protection and assign watchdogs to the four pages to prevent this madness from reoccurring. Deep Purple 2013 (talk) 01:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)


 * My guess may be good, at least: it probably has to do with the reasons in the edit summaries they're providing, specifically the inclusion of the names of non-notable living persons in articles, which is not generally allowed—part of your larger pattern of behavior that does seem reflective of a conflict of interest. I recommend you read the linked policy pages. Remsense  诉  01:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)