Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

Fringe theories noticeboard - dealing with all sorts of pseudoscience
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Cyrus cylinder

I've finally taken the trouble to understand what's going on there. The upshot is, the Shah of Persia presented a copy of this thing to the UN in 1971, and unsuspecting U Thant found much diplomatic praise for it, to the effect of it being "the first charter of human rights". Now, in July, there was some newspaper coverage of Assyrologists saying that, with all due respect, it's just a regular Iron Age propaganda piece. The patriotic Iranian blogosphere, when it was just about done crying bloody murder over 300 (film), was pleased at the opportunity, and we are now seeing the repercussions at our Cyrus cylinder article. --dab (𒁳) 13:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I should add that the Spiegel and Daily Telegraph aren't exactly helping things by being rather less than scholarly. So the debate immediately derails into an apology of Cyrus the Great and nitpicking about various details of his reign rather than a discussion of the artefact. Yes, Cyrus is a special figure. No, this doesn't make him the inventor of "human rights". The cylinder is extremely notable as the first document recovered archaeologically that seemed to confirm a story in the Old Testament. So, Cyrus sent home the Jews, and may be bragging about this in his cylinder, among other points in which he beats his nemesis in terms of piety. The "human rights" discussion is still a fabrication of 1971 UN diplomacy and not a serious discussion of the historical events. dab (𒁳) 13:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

any takers? I don't have the nerve to deal with this before the Iranian patriots move on to the next hotspot in a couple of months. dab (𒁳) 15:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'll take a look. Moreschi (talk) 22:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I've had a look too and added material from Max Mallowan and Neil MacGregor - impeccable sources if ever there were some. Unfortunately User:CreazySuit (sic) is deleting my additions because he has POV disagreements with them. This needs to be dealt with. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a mischaracterization of what I did. As I already explained to ChrisO, just because something is sourced, it doesn't mean that it merits an inclusion in the lead of an article. Other editors on that page can also cheery-pick a source saying "Cyrus was awesome blah blah bah" and put it in the lead. The lead is suppose to be a summery of the article in a NPOV fashion, not a place to quote cherry-picked sources. Otherwise, Max Mallowan could be quoted under the relevant section. --CreazySuit (talk) 16:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest that people look at [this edit in particular, where CreazySuit deletes a citation from a piece by the Director of the British Museum - the very institution which houses the Cyrus cylinder - because he has a personal POV disagreement with what Neil MacGregor says. Somehow I don't think CreazySuit is more qualified to comment than Neil MacGregor. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

ChrisO and I have reached a compromise. --CreazySuit (talk) 18:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort, folks. It looks much better now. 3rdAlcove (talk) 20:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like we're not out of the rough yet, unfortunately: [1][2] This article looks like it will need some sustained attention. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:04, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced Hindu nationalist edits on Black Stone

I'd be grateful if editors could keep an eye on Thebuddah (talk · contribs) and his recent contributions to Black Stone. He's repeatedly pasting in an unsourced personal essay which, if I understand Dbachmann correctly, is a fringe Hindu nationalist viewpoint that asserts that the Ka'aba in Mecca was originally a Hindu temple. I've advised the editor about Wikipedia's content policies, but the message doesn't seem to have sunk in yet. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:44, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

this is just recurring vandalism and should be rolled back. --dab (𒁳) 15:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

PhilKnight appears to have semi-protected the article, so the problem seems to be contained for now. Could you explain something for me though? - is it the case, as a bit of Googling suggests, that these people are pushing some sort of claim that just about every other religion has Hindu roots? -- ChrisO (talk) 15:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

see User:Dbachmann/Wikipedia and nationalism/Hindutva and pseudoscience and User:Moreschi/The Plague/Nationalist hotspots (sub "Hindutva vs. science"). Western media has been so preoccupied with Islamism and Christian fundamentalism that it has gone all but unnoticed that the most far out completely irrational type of religious fundamentalism thrives within Hinduism. That's because it hardly affects anyone outside India, excepting sideshows such as the mind-boggling California textbook controversy over Hindu history. Btw., the fully developed article languishes in my userspace because of a spectacular admin misjudgement (on a bunch of pov-warriors forming "rough consensus") back in April 2007. I didn't have the heart to take this up again since. --dab (𒁳) 21:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Yup. Rather like Afrocentrism, Hindutva ideology is just a tedious collection of rather puerile memes (Out of India theory, Indigenous Aryans, endless Vedic antiquity frenzy, "Muslims are evil" - which in turn has led to unpleasant consequences). This stuff is all rather interesting, but really, seen it once, you've seen it all. Occasionally amusing variants arise, though, often on this very noticeboard. We'll be seeing more of it, too, in the run-up to the Indian general election, 2009. Tripping Nambiar (talk · contribs) is still going strong, as well as newcomer Kashmircloud (talk · contribs). Moreschi (talk) 22:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Very bizarre stuff. I can't say I've come across it before - just on this one particular article; is it a particularly widespread problem we have on Wikipedia or is it confined to a fairly small set of articles? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

No, this is widespread. See User:Moreschi/The Plague/Useful links#India. It's been going on for a while over many different articles. You've just stumbled upon a tiny part of it. Welcome to the club :) Moreschi (talk) 23:19, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Yup, it's all over the place. I found out about this after reading a blog which claimed that a massive Atlantis-style sunken Hindu civilization exists off the coast of Gujarat. The same guys apparently built a giant causeway from India to Sri Lanka and cunningly disguised it as a sandbar. Pretty much anywhere that adjoins the Indian Ocean seems to be fair game in this case. <eleland/talkedits> 02:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Moreschi, to be fair, in terms of violence, we shouldn't judge too lightly. The Hindu nationalists are world champions in bizarre weirdness in terms of ideology, but the "communal violence" is a depressing spiral where the Muslims give as good as they get. I strongly recommend we keep the fringy "antiquity frenzy" and the actual "communal violence" cleanly separated. I also find that Tripping Nambiar has done some useful work recently, and hasn't been focussing on "fringy" topics recently (execpting the odd revert at Mitanni, a topic of which he has no clue or interest whatsoever other than that it loosely touches upon an "ancient Indo-Aryans" theme) --dab (𒁳) 05:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

And all this reminds me that following a call by Dieter (dab) not that long ago I went to look at Kambojas and related articles. And how many related articles! And do any of them mean anything at all to a reader not already totally immersed in nationalist controversy? No. And where. on. earth. do. you. start.??? I'd like to help out more on it but right now it has me beat. A big problem on WP. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, indeed. Part of the problem, of course, is that you need to be knowledgeable enough in the first place to be able to recognise the fringey bits. Even I can spot that there's something wrong with a claim that the Ka'aba was a Hindu temple, but the more obscure ethno-religious stuff is way beyond my expertise. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The Black Stone thing is a direct consequence of the lifelong efforts of P.N. Oak, who among other things claimed Christianity was actually the worship of Krishna by people with weak spelling. There are other truly magnificent exaggerations to political and social history being conducted by this lot. Watch for (a) a tendency to call all mainstream historians "marxist" (b) history articles sourced to professional-looking papers, but written by retired professors of psychology, young Indo-American Microsoft computer scientists or the like, and hosted on sites such as infinityfoundation.com (c) an insistence that google books references to obsolete nationalistic 1970s textbooks published somewhere in the subcontinent must be acceptable as they're "scholarly" (d) massive labeling of various people as "Hindu" in violation of WP:BLP. Also be careful with citations to mainstream Indian newspapers, as conventions differ in the Indian press, with more editorialisation and opinion permitted to individual reporters than in many other countries.

For an ongoing example of how some of this can work, see Kali's Child and a current discussion on WP:ANI about edits related to the Ramakrishna Mission. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

well, the patterns get repetitive and quite easy to catch after a while. The Kambojas series is suspicious by its sheer obvious obsessiveness (the group gets about two lines in all of EB). That's enough to tag the articles with warning boxes, but of course the detailed cleanup is difficult. The Sakaldwipiya article is a good showpiece of how it can be done after all. dab (𒁳) 18:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Input requested regarding Austrian School

Please see WP:ANI#Sockpuppetry and POV-pushing on Austrian School and related topics. Thank you. — Satori Son 21:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that rejects mathematical modeling, statistical evidence and the scientific method. Their methodology emphasizes argument from axioms (ie. theorizing on what the world is like based on self-introspection). Modern 'Austrian' works consist mainly of post hoc interpretations of history and long-winded verbal arguments about the evils of government. Mainstream economists long ago recognized that verbal arguments are messy, open to too many different interpretations, and are just not rigorous. Flaws can be hidden in verbal arguments that are hard to spot and root out. Since the 'Austrians' interpret history post hoc, the school fails the test of falsifiability as regards whether they are a science.

IMO, the Austrian School is fringe, they fall somewhere between Pseudoscience and Questionable Science. They are more fringe than psychoanalysis. Austrian School writers are almost never published anywhere except in their own journals. There are few (if any) self-identified 'Austrians' who are tenured faculty in the Economics dept of an accredited university. Their theories are not taught in the undergraduate economics programs of any accredited university. They are not taken seriously by any government or major political party. Their following is extremely localized to to the US, mainly among some economic Libertarians there.

lk (talk) 04:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Includes Hayek therefore not pseudoscience. IMHO the way to resolve this is to treat related articles as falling within the history of ideas, specifically the history of economics. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

In the early 20th century, the Austrian school was part of the mainstream. Hayek was the most prominent of those, and his contributions have been incorporated into mainstream Economics. Modern day 'Austrians' are an entirely different group, they are centered around the Mises Institute which is about 25 years old. Modern 'Austrians' claim Hayek as one of their own, but reject his ideas. Hayek's ideas of what constitutes economics is compatible with mainstream economics, but are incompatible with modern Austrian economics. By their own admission, they follow the ideas of Luwig von Mises, Murry Rothbard and Carl Menger. lk (talk) 12:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide a source which says that the modern Austrians reject Hayek's ideas? -- Vision Thing -- 13:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with what Lawrencekhoo is saying above but I'll add a few things here. First of all, the critique of the use of mathematics is not fringe per se. I thoroughly disagree with that critique but it isn't fringe. Second, ideas such as free banking have been thoroughly debunked and abandonded so no, not all of Hayek's ideas are now mainstream. As I said on ANI, the Austrian school has not so much been absorbed as debunked as largely politically motivated ideas. The only thing left is the critique of the use of mathematics that has been absorbed into mathematical economics by acknowledging that no model is better than its assumptions (very roughly said but you get the idea). These critics are found outside the Austrian school as well. EconomicsGuy (talk) 13:17, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, so if I've understood it right, we accept that the Austrian School was once an important current in economics and that it has had an influence on modern economics. But that does not mean that we are going to accept POV-distortion of articles by a group of heterodox and probably fringe editors just because they claim some kind of continuity with Mises et al. Yes? Itsmejudith (talk) 16:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

That's an over-simplification, but more or less correct. lk (talk) 17:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to suggest we concentrate this discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Economics#Input_requested_regarding_Austrian_School. CRETOG8(t/c) 16:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Mind Science entry

Resolved

 – Article has been speedied and replaced with a link to Cognitive Science. User:Looie496

I'm having a bit of difficulty discussing the Mind Science article with its author, Gary Deines (User:Garydino). I am concerned that the article subject cannot be appropriately covered in Wikipedia, but can't seem to effectively communicate my points to him. He and I are the only ones who have worked on the page, and I'd appreciate some outside perspective or input, especially from those who may have experience with these sorts of issues. Dancter (talk) 04:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The article is 100% pure OR, and simply needs to be removed. None of the listed references have any relationship to the material in the article. I'm too tired right now, but if nobody beats me to it, I'll propose it for deletion tomorrow. Looie496 (talk) 05:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's the editor's company: [3] Doug Weller (talk) 06:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've left him a couple of polite messages explaining why his article should be removed. Please propose the article for deletion. I will support. lk (talk) 11:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I gave it a prod. Maybe this will draw some references out. Verbal chat 12:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The response was a strange edit that added quantum mysticism and appeals to Einstein and E=dMC^2. I think we have a problem with this article and it needs trimming back and then taking to AfD probably. Verbal chat 15:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Taken to AfD, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mind Science. Looie496 (talk) 16:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Followup: Garydino responded to the AfD by removing all content from the article and leaving a note saying that he would continue to develop it elsewhere. I have accordingly marked the article as db-author. If the speedy goes through, I guess the deletion debate should be closed. Looie496 (talk) 17:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Could you also take a look at his edits to the chemical synapse article? Dancter (talk) 18:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Ugh. Would have been easier to fix without the intervening edits, but I've fixed it, and I'll keep an eye on that article. Thanks for the pointer. Looie496 (talk) 18:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Caucasian race

Is there anyone who feels up to straightening this out? A mish-mash of out-dated stuff, minor sources used to make major claims, etc. Doug Weller (talk) 21:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Any article which is more italic than it is roman is up to no good. This one starts off OK, but then goes horribly astray. Moreschi (talk) 22:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Any article with more Roman than italic is up to no good. I do not have faith in such an article even with good citations. I am suspicious of citations without quotations, because rewording sources is often a pretense for misconstruing and fabricating information. This has been my experience with other editors who suspiciously never use quotations.----^DarkTea© 23:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

So Dark Tea (talk · contribs) is at it again. I've been trying to fix this very article a year ago, and ran into all sorts of strange racialist agendas. This may be a matter of administrative action rather than content editing. --dab (𒁳) 12:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I've gone back to an earlier version, but where do we go from here? It's still pretty bad, to put it mildly. Doug Weller (talk)

Oh, not Dark Tea again! This is getting worrying. Bizarre material in italics is a sure sign that he's at work, just as much as peculiar spellings of "Turkic" is Barefact's signature. I've gone hacking away at this one, but really, a year ago it was much better. Such deterioration since then. Moreschi (talk) 15:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Ouch. He's done the same on Mongoloid race. It's almost as bad as David Michael Jacobs nuttery. Moreschi (talk) 15:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

He is a she, I believe (as, I suspect, is SageMab). Dark Tea holds such an idiosyncratic mixture of racialist and anti-racialist povs it's terribly difficult to work out what she is intending to achieve with edits. Paul B (talk) 15:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I've taken some of the obsolete stuff out of Mongolian race, the same sort of stuff should probably7 be removed from this article. As an aside, I see Carleton Coon's son has posted on his talk page. Any mention of his name in an article flashes a red light for me. Doug Weller (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, my. Dark Tea, previously Dark Tichondrias (talk · contribs) has been doing this sort of stuff, on the same set of articles, since August 2005. Incredibly, (s)he has avoided ever getting blocked. Quite an achievement, considering the bizarre nature of some of the editing involved. Moreschi (talk) 16:04, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Dark Tea is indeed like Barefact. Quite apparently well-meaning (AGF!), but so wound up in cranky confusion as to be completely useless for our purposes. The apparent fixation on anything racialist doesn't help. The "DarkTea'd" articles probably need a deep revert throughout. --dab (𒁳) 16:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

interesting idea on SageMab being a she, btw. I thought the same thing. Quite apparently a personal acquaintance of John Michell's, up-to-date on his private affairs. --dab (𒁳) 16:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done a deep rv on Caucasian race - back to a version edited by you, Dieter, from August 2007, but I'm not sure this will be possible on Mongoloid race. For one thing, Dark Tea's been editing that one since 06, and, what's worse, that page seems to have suffered from multiple cranks. I'm unable to find a version that's even halfway adequate by current standards, so this one may need a clean rewrite. Moreschi (talk) 16:25, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

We're going to need a list. Historical definitions of races in India bears the tell-tale italics, as does Stereotypes of South Asians. Greys probably contains more of the same UFO nuttiness, just without the italics we had at the D. M. Jacobs articles. Add in there Eurasian (mixed ancestry). And Stereotypes of white people. And Afro-Asian. Possibly even Multiracial. I'm really thinking at this point a ban of Dark Tea is the first step towards cleaning all this up. Moreschi (talk) 16:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure she knows Lois Gibson is a forensic artist, not a forensice anthropologist. Misleading to say the best Doug Weller (talk) 16:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, LOL!. At this point we're almost in Geir Smith/Dr Boubouleix territory... Moreschi (talk)
  • I find it extremely cool how her contribution history shows a one-track dedication to race topics, but, make no mistake, this naturally includes Greys :o) --dab (𒁳) 17:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• Is it time for action to prevent this nonsense? Guy (Help!) 17:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• well past that time. This is one classic instance where "admin relativism" -- treating everyone as in a "content dispute" on equal footing, never mind who is the all-out crank and who is trying to preserve a semblance of adherence to the project core goals -- has harmed Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been too lenient with this sort of thing in the past. Wikipedia is now coming of age, the project is almost eight years old, that's half an eternity on the internet, and we finally need an admin population that can recognize rambling nonsense when they see it, and feel obliged to help cleaning it up rather than throwing up obstacles for those who do on grounds of a muddle-headed idea of neutrality and political correctness. --dab (𒁳) 07:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I looked at Greys, a term I hadn't even heard of, although obviously I was aware that notions of extra-terrestrials tend to coalesce around a certain kind of appearance. It needs to be rewritten as an article about popular culture. I'm going to make a start by moving the stuff on the emergence of the stereotype close to the top, and taking out anything before the 1950s as that is when UFO-fever began. I expect a link to pre-war SF notions of extra-terrestrials could be traced but a good source in the history of popular-cultural views of space would be needed. omething must be done about the in-universe headings on anatomy etc. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

ooh ,dommage... I was hoping I could convince you we should add an {{Ethnic group}} infobox to the article. --dab (𒁳) 10:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL. Have messed with article a bit, see what you think. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Some updates: I've blocked Dark Tea for 3 months as a precursor to an indef should problems persist, as his latest edits show he is clearly not getting it. I'm also trying to sort out Historical definitions of races in India: I've deleted a lot here (see workpage) not all of which was bad, so I will put some back in once I've trimmed it and cleaned it up. Moreschi (talk) 20:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Also edits to ufology topics are highly problematic: previous versions of Greys and [4] (admin only). Moreschi (talk) 21:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

This has, unfortunately, caused a bit of a mess on ANI (but it isn't the messiest thing on there by a long chalk). Verbal chat 23:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

PS: Stop teasing me with those Admin only things - you're making me want to be an admin and that would be a disaster to my life ;) Verbal chat 23:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is now coming of age". Unfortunately it seems to have skipped maturity and plunged straight into senility, judging by some of the admin responses to this nonsense on ANI. --Folantin (talk) 18:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

well, yeah, I am disturbed by that myself. Adminship has long ceased to be "no big deal", but there are many people who were given admin buttons at some point who apparently have no clear picture of what Wikipedia is trying to do in the first place, or simply cannot make a clear-cut call when it is shoved under their nose. I don't know what to do about it. I just hope that statistics will make up for it and give us a "hive-mind" that may not be smart, but perhaps at least too inert to do extremely stupid things. Perhaps we should also just make admins perform some IQ test or something. Yes, I know, I'm an elitist asshole. The day the last elitist leaves Wikipedia, we can just {{merge}} the thing into google groups. --dab (𒁳) 19:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Apparently it's much easier to prove how "nice" you are by giving a troll or crank yet another "last chance" rather than doing minimal background research into the problem. I don't think we need any more illustrations of the fallacy of middle ground on ANI, nor is Wikipedia Junior Law School. --Folantin (talk) 20:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

yes, we need to make clear to the admin population that just because they got the block button doesn't automatically improve their judgement. If somebody was made an admin on grounds of being a useful vandal fighter, they should not feel suddenly more qualified to tackle more difficult cases than before they had adminship. This should be painfully obvious, but such is human nature... There is no reason to deny the block button to dedicated RC patrollers wishing to block vandals on sight, but how are we going to deal with those who lose focus and turn into apparatchiks ("I finally moved up in the hierarchy, so my word is the law now, I don't need to know, I just need to judge")? The intelligent part of the community, those capable of collective introspection, need to recognize this problem and address it. It has long become more than clear-cut to those more perceptive of such communal dynamics, but it is surprisingly difficult to impress on the majority (I must conclude, since nothing is being done about it). The problem is that the more intelligent admins become frustrated and tend to walk away at some point after running in a particularly stupid decision by other admins or the arbcom. What Wikipedia truly needs is people with political intelligence dedicated to the project. We usually just get dedicated encyclopedists with little political intelligence, and politicians using their intelligence for their private power games, interested in the project as a community playground, not as an encyclopedia. dab (𒁳) 10:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if this might be as much to do with a lack of critical thinking skills as anything else. There's a disturbing tendency in some quarters to view "all POVs as equal" and "all sources as being of equal value" (and therefore possibly "all contributions being of equal value") - a form of relativism, I suppose. Let's not forget that the ability to assess and prioritise sources is a skill that has to be learned and practiced, and in some cases it may also require specialist knowledge of the subject matter. When that skill or knowledge is needed to deal with problems with an article, admins who don't have it are going to be at a disadvantage. The trouble is that some admins don't seem to recognise the limits of their competence and end up causing more problems through their own actions. I can't see any easy solution to this, since we seem to have a "one size fits all" approach to recruiting admins - the community assumes that any admin can deal with any issue, which simply isn't the case. Frankly, some self-awareness and humility is also required of certain members of the admin community - people need to be willing to recognise their own limitations and deal with them when that is pointed out to them. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

There are very strong strains of egalitarianism and of anarchism in the Wikipedia community. Any kind of hierarchy is seen as a 'bad thing', be it of power, access to tools, or knowledge. For all that I sympathize with your concerns, however, this is not really the right place to express them. The question is what can be done to improve this article despite the failure of the community to deal appropriately with a problem editor. (I have started watching this article, but am still trying to figure out how I can help.) -- William's scraper (talk) 14:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done a deep rv at Eurasian (mixed ancestry). Among other things, this removed utterly encyclopedic information on the dating preferences of Eurasians. The page could still do with significant fixing, though. Moreschi (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Stereotypes of white people has been redirected back to White people. There wasn't even one good revision here. Moreschi (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on Stereotypes of South Asians. Possibly I can squeeze a viable mini-article out of this one. Also, I've cut the usual confused Dark Tea quotefarm from Afro-Asian, but the remaining material is so bad and odd I just don't know what to do. Help need here, I think.

Re the discussion above: a "paralysed arbitration hivemind" would be OK (perhaps even ideal), provided they could stir themselves out of paralysis three times a year - maybe less - to deal with wheel-warring. In fact, arguably we already do have a paralysed arbitration hivemind, the hivemind mentality manifesting itself in BLP fetishization (which thankfully the community ignored) and as for the paralysed state - just take a look at the time stamps of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV (still not closed, which is just incredible).

IMO, though, a "paralysed admin hivemind" would be disastrous. Granted, it would do nothing disastrous, but it would be passively harmful. The trolls just do not block themselves (certainly they don't once they learn about 3RR and how to dodge the electric fence it represents). We need at least a sizable minority of clueful admins: a small majority can be useless, but then they must not get in the way of the clueful minority. Obviously an admin corps that consisted all of clueful people would be the most desirable, but the way Wikipedia:Requests for adminship is set up is unlikely to yield this desired result, since it's all too easy for the IRC vandal-whacking cool kids to get their fanboys to vote for them en masse. What to do about that problem, though, I really do have no idea.

Again, though, there are helpful signs. Doug's RFA is sailing through, which shows that people still know a good candidate when they see one, and soliciting "uninvolved admin" assistance to take care of Ancient Egyptian race controversy, a notorious troll magnet since at least 2005, has been surprisingly easy - though how much of this is due to my personal rep or real comprehension of the issues at hand, I couldn't possibly say. Certainly, I would like to think the latter :) Moreschi (talk) 22:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this ok? A deleted article at User:Jclemens/Acharya S

Which links to a sockpuppet I think we have on Archaeoastronomy - see my edit on the talk page at the bottom of this section. [5]. Doug Weller (talk) 17:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

In general, it's ok for users to work on articles in their userspace (I haven't looked at this specific page). What's more problematic is efforts to include Acharya S material in Jesus myth hypothesis after the Acharya S article was deleted--if she's not notable enough for her own article, why should she be included in another article?

I'll take a look at the sockpuppet allegation. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:11, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I should have noticed that Sandstein userfied it. Doug Weller (talk) 07:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, I maintain that if she's not notable enough for her own article, why should she be included in another article? is a fallacy. In fact, many biography AfDs can reasonably be addressed by redirection. For example, we used to have a bio article at Eric Goldman. It turned out that this fellow is notable just for predicting "Wikipedia will fail". Thus, while the biography article fails WP:NOTE, it is perfectly due to mention Goldman briefly in Criticism of Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 12:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The specific example you mention sounds reasonable. But in this case, editors argue that Acharya S should be covered as a notable proponent of the JMH (even "one of the most famous advocates"), but there's no evidence that she's had much impact beyond internet fora. Basically, there are no reliable sources about her or her work, the same reason her article didn't survive AfD. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

sure. I am just saying this doesn't follow automatically from her failing WP:BIO alone. --dab (𒁳) 08:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Adam's Bridge

The attempt to rename this continues. Google Books and Google Scholar make it obvious that 'Ram's Bridge' is hardly ever used in the academic literature, which uses 'Adam's Bridge'. Ram's Bridge now redirects to Adam's Bridge but several other articles have been changed - [6]. I sympathise with the editors but WP guidelines seem pretty clear on this. Doug Weller (talk) 13:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Semiprotected for three weeks. Will monitor the accounts. Moreschi (talk) 17:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Blood type diet

It had no clinical tests, there's no scientific evidence it works and it got quite a bit of criticism from the mainstream medical scientific community.

The article claims that "Some dietitians, physicians, and nutritional scientists claim the theory lacks scientific evidence.", but shouldn't it say that this is the consensus in medicine, that it's just quackery and be added to Category:Pseudoscience?

bogdan (talk) 15:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, of course you're right bogdan, but mightn't it be worth checking for notability first? The creator of this diet doesn't have an article here - is there any evidence it's actually notable beyond the extent to which the creator has promoted it? Moreschi (talk) 18:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

A quick Google search shows that it's highly notable. It gets put into lists of diets all over the place, and there are plenty of evaluations. No actual scientific evidence for effectiveness, of course. And the creator, D'Adamo, has now moved beyond it to a "new evolution", the GenoType diet. Regarding Category:Pseudoscience, I'm not sure it would be a good idea to throw in all the fad diets, since there are so many of them. Looie496 (talk) 18:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think most of those diets are notable. I just deleted Magnetic Diet, which was utterly non-notable and in Category:Pseudoscience. bogdan (talk) 20:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, the first "blood type diet" book hit the NYT bestseller list, and "blood type diet", as a phrase, gets over 30,000 Google hits. Looie496 (talk) 20:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

This is an excellent example of a notable fringe theory. One thing we need to be careful about in that article is not to rely too heavily on the primary sources which define the blood type diet. Rather we should focus on secondary sources who establish the notability and actually speak to the blood type diet. News articles about it may be helpful as they'll probably try to get a counterpoint from a medical professional. Any excessive attempts at describing exactly how the blood type diet works should be aggressively resisted as a violation of soapboxing. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Good points. There are some research papers used but not to best effect yet. The "further reading" is all to sources emanating from the theory's founder. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Agni Yoga

I am not sure what to do about this article, if anything. Agni Yoga is notable, and the article is well written and fairly accurate; but it relies almost entirely on primary sources (the series of Agni Yoga books), and the tone of the article is rather devotional and (perhaps) promotional. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 00:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

fair enough as long as it's treated as a Theosophy topic, but I have serious doubts whether random things called "Yoga" really belong in Category:Yoga styles, or {{Yoga}}. List of yoga schools should distinguish between bona fide traditional schools, and random esotericist or occultist recentisms branded "Yoga". --dab (𒁳) 08:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Ron Brown (U.S. politician)

Someone might want to take a look at Ron Brown (U.S. politician) and the text that's being added regarding conspiracy theories about his death and the Clintons. There seem to be violations of WP:RS, WP:OR, WP:BLP (libeling the Clintons), and probably others. I don't have much experience with dealing with Wikipedia disputes, and the article doesn't seem to have many people watching it. I'd appreciate any suggestions or help to avoid either an edit war or allowing a Wikipedia article to degenerate into an extension of whatreallyhappened.com. —KCinDC (talk) 18:48, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I've gone in and deleted a lot of stuff. I've given him a level 1 warning but I suspect that might not be enough. Doug Weller (talk) 19:15, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I suspect you're right, as there's already been another warning. —KCinDC (talk) 19:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

We've both made it very clear to him that he is violating policy, and I've pointed out that he is using self-published sources, another violation. He clearly feels strongly that he knows the truth and we are trying to stop him from telling it. Doug Weller (talk) 19:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Next stop: WP:ANI. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Zacharie Mayani (Origin of the Albanians)

Your classic "ethnic origins" case. Nothing very urgent. --dab (𒁳) 20:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

yeah. I've posted at Talk:Origin of the Albanians#Just asking, but slightly more urgent is the fact that almost every article in Category:Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups is tagged for various degrees of cleanup. Moreschi (talk) 20:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I created that category in order to be able to keep track of these notoriously problematic articles in the first place. Probably most if not all articles in it would belong trimmed radically and merged into the article on the respective groups themselves. --dab (𒁳) 08:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Buddhism#"Fringe theories"?

Should the theory that Buddhism is more than 1 religion be regarded as a tiny minority view? Peter jackson (talk) 09:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Counting religions is not really a question of fact, it's a question of the most useful way to organize information. So, I don't see that the concept of a "fringe theory" comes into play here. Certainly Tibetan Buddhism and Zen are so different that it would be reasonable to view them as different religions, but it really comes down to a question of whether there are strong sources that do so. Are there respected scholars who describe variants of Buddhism as different religions? Looie496 (talk) 17:03, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

agree, that's just terminology. If a WP:RS talks about "Buddhisms", that's fine. Just attribute to whomever came up with it. dab (𒁳) 19:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Another question to ask is if any Buddhist schools self-identify as being a different religion. If there are sources that can show that some Buddhist schools say so, even if published by themselves, that's probably enough to justify the claim. OTOH, is no Buddhist schools self identify as been a different religion, and if there are no reliable mainstream sources to support the claim, then the claim is unjustified, and should probably be deleted immediately as WP:OR. lk (talk) 20:03, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to WP:NPOV which says that views held by a tiny minority (of reputable experts presumably) can be ignored. I was asking for any guidance on how to tell whether the 1 standard textbook I've found this view in should be ignored under this principle. Peter jackson (talk) 10:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

As a general principle any source that can be described as a "standard textbook" is unlikely to represent a tiny minority view. As Looie says, it is a matter of judgement, not a matter of fact, whether two belief systems are variants of one religion or two separate religions. Buddhism is generally treated as a single religion and that should guide our approach in WP but from what you have said so far there is no problem with mentioning this alternative viewpoint. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think any kind of Buddhism self-identifies as a "religion" in the first place, since "religion" is a thorougly western (actually, Roman) concept. --dab (𒁳) 16:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Stargate Project

Claims - with frequent italicised emphasis that this project was great! That it proves psychics are real... and ignores all criticism. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 23:57, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have removed all the extanious italics... I will leave it to those who know the subject better to deal with the claims. Blueboar (talk) 15:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Egyptian pyramid construction techniques‎

Debate over whether Richard Noone is fringe or not. He's the guy that predicted a planetary lineup in 2000 and Antarctica under 3 miles of ice (which I said on the talk page but my edit was deleted). I thought the IP was new, but it turns out to be an editor without an account who calls himself at times Thanos5150. See the recent history of the article and also the talk page (you need to look at the history to see my deleted comment - I'm not sure what to do about that). Thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 17:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

You've got a pretty awful POV-pusher in your midst there, I see. I gave him a warning and began a discussion about removing the "alternative history" section entirely. I don't know if this person should be editing Wikipedia at all. ScienceApologist (talk) 12:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

New thought

I would like to know the thoughts of other editors concerning this edit [7]. My own view is that the paragraph of the introduction is only describing New Thought belief, and that it should not need the added health warning label as a disclaimer; and, if the paragraph is not sufficiently neutral, it should be changed to make it neutral without the health disclaimer. I understand that New Thought views on health problems are fringe ideas, but it seems best to use reliable sources to supply balance. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Also, strictly speaking, there probably is evidence that such a method can work, since the placebo effect is established fact. As with many such articles, the solution is to make it clear that the article is dealing with a topic in the history of ideas. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

You cannot use the placebo effect as a justification for evidence for the efficacy of any particular healing method. To do so is very dishonest. I'm not sure that new thought is a relevant topic in the history of ideas in any case, but there are people pedaling its wares as a form of medical treatment. Wikipedia needs to have the requisite amount of credulity that is applied by independent sources to New Thought beliefs, and if those beliefs are specifically about quack medical treatments, then those treatments should be recognized as such. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This is a pattern I've been seeing a lot in articles on fringe topics: editors interpreting wp:fringe to mean that every assertion of a fringe view must be immediately confronted with mainstream views, regardless of the damage that might do to the readability of the article. Looie496 (talk) 16:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I have added a quote to the article in which William James discusses New Thought, and which he takes seriously. I think that alone should establish it as a "serious topic in the history of ideas". Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

pedaling is recognised as healthy by all the medical establishment.  ;-) Itsmejudith (talk) 17:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

New Thought believes God, Life Force what ever you call this energy is in everything. So medical treatment is used along side Spiritual Mind Treatments. It is not one or the other as in Christian Science it is both and. Just so you know. Thanks66.108.92.43 (talk) 03:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Even highly respected philosophers frequently advocated things that would now (or even then) be considered problematic. For instance Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (about 300 BC) in his first book, the Republic advocated "the equality of the sexes, co-ed public exercise and training, and a version of “free love” wherein those wishing to have sex will simply satisfy their desires wherever they happen to be at the moment, even in public." [8]. At the time all of it was controversial, and the last part may be controversial even now. (NB: I am not equating New Thought with Stoicism.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering whether it would be useful to have a History of medicine infobox. Then we could clearly state the dates in which the theory was current and, in a separate line, the theory's status in modern medicine: 'discredited' (blood letting), 'superseded' (the four humours), 'incorporated' (anaesthesia), considered alternative 'acupuncture'. Comments? Itsmejudith (talk) 22:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It might be an interesting project, but to the best of my understanding New Thought was not primarily about curing physical illnesses. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 00:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion was a response to Looie's point that we are sticking "don't try this at home" health warnings on articles when it should be clear that the beliefs are not part of modern medical thought. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Khatri

Another "Indian caste" topic that only an Indian mind could possibly worry about: We have this extremely WP:LAME edit war atr Kshatriya about where to list the Khatri [9]. Naturally, neither side has anything resembling a quotable source to show. At the Khatri article, the best "reference" backing up the apparently (gods know why) controversial claim that "the Khatri are Kshatriyas" is some random url. I intend this just as a follow-up for the people who have been following the earlier caste stuff further up on this board. --dab (𒁳) 16:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow! '...only an Indian mind could possibly worry about...' Ignorance, prejudice, racism. All three in one short statement. Maybe these sources can backup your expertise on god knows why apparently controversial claims being fringe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.80.119.92 (talk • contribs)

I was actually anticipating trolling along those lines as I wrote the above. Remember the "shithole-gate" "scandal", do you? Saying that only Indians can get worked up over "are they Kshatriya" questions is about as racist as saying that only Greek minds care about the "Macedonia question", or only Swiss minds care about the latest rants about Samuel Schmid. The ignorance, the prejudice, and racism is all 216.80.119.92's here. But I'm used to that by now of course. --dab (𒁳) 13:12, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Harvey Milk and the Peoples Temple

Resolved

 – After an ANI report the issue went to Medcab and was resolved. -- Banjeboi 22:01, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I rewrote the Harvey Milk article in a sandbox, using the best available sources. These include Randy Shilts' comprehensive biography The Mayor of Castro Street, the Oscar-winning documentary derived from it titled The Times of Harvey Milk, five encyclopedia entries (that reference Shilts' book), two books about the Dan White trial, and Bay-area newspapers from 1973 to 1978. I had it in mind to do for several months, but Mosedschurte (talk · contribs)'s involvement in the article inspired its completion. Mosedschurte has been inserting information about Milk's involvement with the Peoples Temple in its own subsection starting in May and it had been contested ever since. The full section was trimmed down but remained problematic with Benjiboi (talk · contribs) and Mosedschurte in an edit war with Benjiboi filing an RfC to resolve the issue which disturbingly had some {{SPA}} !votes. Benjiboi then sought other eyes at ANI which resulted in a rather forkish article, Political alliances of Peoples Temple, being created to appease Mosedschurte's concerns. Despite these steps and calls for NPOV and RS the disputed content was continually re-inserted by Mosedschurte. Before I jumped in, I wanted to read as much as I could about Milk to make sure the information is actually not notable in his life. While it is true that Milk was tangentially involved with the Peoples Temple (stipulated in the expanded article under the section titled "Race for state assembly"), it is not true that his involvement is notable in his life, nor is it notable in light of the experiences of San Francisco and state politicians at the time. Most politicians in Northern California were working in some way with Jones and the Temple. None of the sources available for Milk discuss his involvement in the Peoples Temple or with Jim Jones at any length. They mention it only in passing.

Mosedschurte was using a fringe theorist's call for content for a book that was supposed to have been written about gay members of the Peoples Temple (does not appear to have been published after checking with Amazon). This amateur historian, Michael Bellefountaine, according to his obituary, was well-known to support radical causes such as AIDS denialism. This essay provided the context for the closer look at the relationship between Milk and the People Temple, stating "If Milk supported Peoples Temple, now is the pivotal time for us to unveil the truth". The essay, however, is not a reliable source, and asks more questions than it answers—none of which appear to be fact checked. Without Bellefountaine's assertion that Milk was more directly involved in the Temple than he was, there are apparently no historians who claim that Milk's involvement in the Temple was a significant part of his life. At best, this weights the article, creating an event that really had no importance taking into account what people knew about Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple; it also calls into question why a single cause of Milk's is highlighted when Milk attended hundreds of meetings in the city, and wrote hundreds of letters for his constituents. At worst, it suggests that Milk was aware of Jones' criminal activities, condoned them, and used his political office to further Jones' cause. That is unacceptable. The information, however, has again been added to Milk's article and Mosedschurte continues to argue that the Jonestown suicides were notable, making that information the reason it is in Milk's article.

Tired of arguing with Mosedschurte, I offered a compromise to place information in a footnote—far beyond what it deserves. However, Mosedschurte wanted it in the full text of the article in the section on Milk's career as a supervisor, which inherently places it on the same significance as Milk's involvement in the Briggs Initiative—where he appeared on television and public forums across California for months, and his passing ordinances that got him press coverage across the country. Quite simply, that is ridiculous. I also asked SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs) and Slp1 (talk · contribs) to chime in on the talk page. Their comments are available there.

I am not convinced Mosedschurte is familiar with Wikipedia policy regarding notability, original research, synthesizing information, and fringe theories despite links provided for him. Neither am I convinced Mosedschurte has access to research beyond what he can type into Google's search engine that connects "Harvey Milk" with "Jim Jones". He has been unable or unwilling to provide passages in books he's been claiming to use, and details of the number of times Milk spoke at rallies at the Peoples Temple, dates - particularly in light of Jones' investigation, and even the nature of the investigation's charges. Mosedschurte is reverting sound edits that reflect the best of the encyclopedia in favor of the promotion of this non-event in Milk's life. I think enough time and energy has been spent on this. --Moni3 (talk) 20:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: "Mosedschurte was using a fringe theorist's call for content for a book that was supposed to have been written about gay members of the Peoples Temple (does not appear to have been published after checking with Amazon). This amateur historian, Michael Bellefountaine, according to his obituary, was well-known to support radical causes such as AIDS denialism. This essay provided the context for the closer look at the relationship between Milk and the People Temple, stating "If Milk supported Peoples Temple, now is the pivotal time for us to unveil the truth". The essay, however, is not a reliable source, and asks more questions than it answers—none of which appear to be fact checked."

There is not a single Bellefountaine source left. The one cite to one article he wrote was deleted long ago.

Bellefountaine was an author who was interviewing former Temple members and examining documents to work on a book about the Peoples Temple and a preliminary article of his was posted parts on the San Diego State Jonestown Institute site. A cite to one such article was included before. He since died before finishing the book.

After one editor accused Bellefountaine of being a questionable source, the source was simply deleted. It is no longer cited at all. Re-raising his name is an attempt to fabricate a "fringe" theory regaring the entirely noncontroversial facts that remain.

Re: " Without Bellefountaine's assertion that Milk was more directly involved in the Temple than he was, there are apparently no historians who claim that Milk's involvement in the Temple was a significant part of his life."

No one, including even Bellefountaine probably (though I haven't read all of his work, and don't care to), has ever suggested that " Milk's involvement in the Temple was a significant part of his life."

Rather, what is very briefly stated is only that Milk attended the Temple while it was under investigation and wrote a letter to President Carter praising Jones and attacking the motives of the leader of those attempting to extricate relatives from Jonestown.

That is why there was only one sentence in the entire 77,000 byte Milk article on the subject.

Re: "Neither am I convinced Mosedschurte has access to research beyond what he can type into Google's search engine that connects "Harvey Milk" with "Jim Jones"."

This is again another ridiculous charge, and the sort of sniping I've been attempting to steer clear of during the entire time despite you're continued reliance upon it.

And it's flatly inaccurate. Not that this is relevant at all, but I have purchased several books, hundreds of newspaper articles and, as an aside, also possess many documents, audiotapes and videotapes on the subject.Mosedschurte (talk) 20:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: "Tired of arguing with Mosedschurte, I offered a compromise to place information in a footnote—far beyond what it deserves. However, Mosedschurte wanted it in the full text of the article in the section on Milk's career as a supervisor, which inherently places it on the same significance as Milk's involvement in the Briggs Initiative"

It is not even remotely the size of the of the Briggs initiative, which has an entire multiparagraph section.

Rather, the 3 Milk lines being disputed here -- what this entire "Fringe Theory" complaint is about -- consist entirely of the following buried at the bottom of the Supervisor subsection:

---

While serving on the Board of Supervisors, like some other local politicians, Milk spoke at at the controversial Peoples Temple while it was being investigated by newspapers and the San Francisco District Attorney's office for alleged criminal wrongdoing. Milk also wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter praising Temple leader Jim Jones and questioning the motives of the leader of those attempting to extricate relatives from Jonestown.

---

Mosedschurte (talk) 20:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Mosedschurte writes:

No one, including even Bellefountaine probably (though I haven't read all of his work, and don't care to), has ever suggested that " Milk's involvement in the Temple was a significant part of his life."

If it wasn't a significant part of his life, it plainly doesn't belong in an encyclopedia bio. This is the essence of WP:UNDUE. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 21:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The one sentence belongs not because it was Milk spent a significant portion of his life with the Peoples Temple, but because of the notariety and activities of the group, perpetrating the largest loss of American civilian life in U.S. history until 9-11 (not including natural disasters).

For example, if Rudy Giuliani (or a NYC City Councilman) attended and spoke at a meeting of Mohammed Atta and the 9-11 bombers in August of 2001, this would be notable even if Giuliani had no knowledge of their 9-11 plot. And it would be far more notable if Giuliani (or an NYC city councilman) had written President Bush opposing locals wishing to investigate Atta and the bombers.

And to further illustrate the point, the above example would merit a much larger part of a Wikipedia article than a one sentence mention buried deep in a subsection.

Frankly, there is zero reason to scour any mention of this from Milk's article, and there has been a rather odd ongoing effort from a few posters to do so for a while now. Mosedschurte (talk) 21:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

In addition, this topic was the subject of a Request for Comment long ago, when there was a subsection on Milk's involvement (now there is merely a tiny 3 line text in the bottom of the "Supervisor" subsection) and others stated that the material should stay.

As it is, it is a tiny 3 line mention of sourced NPOV encyclopedically phrased text in a huge 77,000 byte article on Milk. Mosedschurte (talk) 21:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not really a Fringe theories issue. I would have said that the info was relevant to the People's Temple but not relevant to the life of Milk. Of course, those who had contact at the time with Jim Jones did not know how his movement would turn out and it could be seen as weasellish to include information about such contact. On the other hand, you might wish to go with the balance of comments on the RfC. You could try the NPOV noticeboard, or a further RfC or mediation. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Though I appreciate the thorough cleansing of my arteries about this issue, Steven J. Anderson is right. I am too, by the way. You're making a connection that journalists and historians have not. No reliable source is available that says the relationship between Milk and the Peoples Temple meant anything more than political back-scratching, and you're equating it with Guliani and Muhammed Atta. I don't get to make connections in the articles I write. Neither do you. There's nothing to scour. It is not notable.

That "others noted the material should stay" is dubious. Those were anonymous IP accounts who had no or few other edits than that RfC. --Moni3 (talk) 22:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Itsmejudith: I agree generally with that, but I would add that what remains now is already a severely cut down version of the prior material in order to comport with an editor's prior complaints.

In fact, it used to be it's own multipart subsection.

The tiny part that remains is what would be of note to Milk. Much like for Giulliani if, for example, he (or a NYC City Councilman) attended and spoke at a meeting of Mohammed Atta and the 9-11 bombers in August of 2001, this would be notable even if Giuliani had no knowledge of their 9-11 plot. And it would be far more notable if Giuliani (or an NYC city councilman) had written President Bush opposing locals wishing to investigate Atta and the bombers. Such meetings and letters are notable.Mosedschurte (talk) 22:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: "You're making a connection that journalists and historians have not." (moni)

Again, this is simply false. Or worse.

I have made absolutely no "connection" other than precisely what is stated by journalists and authors. I have simply cited them.

In fact, only a tiny part of the interaction remains in the article as is. 3 lines.

The only part are the meetings post-investigation and President Carter letter. This is primarily notable because of the notariety and activities of the group. As stated, much like for Giulliani if, for example, he (or a NYC City Councilman) attended and spoke at a meeting of Mohammed Atta and the 9-11 bombers in August of 2001. And it would be far more notable if Giuliani (or an NYC city councilman) had written President Bush opposing locals wishing to investigate Atta and the bombers.

Even though they do not take up large parts of his life, such meetings and letters to the President attacking that group's opponents are very clearly notable.

As it is, it has already been cut down to just a 3 line mention in the bottom of the "Supervisor" subsection.Mosedschurte (talk) 22:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. Again Mosedschurte is again confusing quantity with quality. WP:Undue concerns not only the lines and percentage of text but the actual weight of it. Despite their insistence at filling up talkpages with voluminous posts that overwhelm other editors' views they don't offer credible sourcing repeatedly and civilly asked for. They either fail to understand or outright refuse by red herring discussions the core issues of reliable sourcing and NPOV. Leaning on fringe specialists for content doesn't bode well for Wikipedia and misrepresenting sources, edit-warring and piles of bad-faith accusations certainly don't contribute to a collaborative atmosphere. Neither do the SPA's that magically appeared, and Mosedschurte has quoted elsewhere, on the RfC. The RfC was also overwhelmed by Mosedschurte, SPA's and the only other support was from Wildhartlivie who also edits the Peoples Temple articles. I don't challenge a user's sourcing habits too quickly but in observing how the rhetoric on these issues has only been modified when called on it concerns me. This content has stuck out like a sore thumb from the rest of the article and every version re-introduced has been only marginally better with first myself and now Moni3 trying to fully vet what, if any connections there were. We each vetted and added NPOV and RS content but Mosedschurte simply had to re-insert an entire section, at this point simply duplicating content already in the article, and adding poorly sourced - and with the Raven book, still unverified - statements in order to scandalize. This is not an isolated incident as the entire Political alliances of Peoples Temple seems a hitlist of more of the same but involving more politicians. Mosedschurte overwhelmed the talk page and seemingly derailed constructive dialog. I hope they will reform but see little evidence of that as of yet. Similar content has been added by them on George Moscone, Donald Freed, Willie Brown (politician) and Angela Davis; other articles may as well. That they are heavily invested in the Peoples Temple in some way is obvious and I welcome those who have specialized knowledge and interests - where the problem arises is the ownership issues especially with POV and OR material which also suffers from misleading and misinterpretation of sources. That they would entrench and edit war doesn't sway it simply increases the disruption and shows they are determined. -- Banjeboi 22:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This is, again, a broad based -- and frankly false in so many parts -- attack on me rather than the subject.

In fact, every time I directly address the vaguely asserted NPOV and UNDUE concerns, you switch the topic to me personally. For whatever reason, the Milk article appears to generate emotional responses from some editors.

Getting back to the topic, the only WP:Undue and WP:NPOV arguments I've heard are:
(1)The post-investigation activity is not in Randy Shilts biography, which is entirely irreleavant; and
(2)That a significant part of Milk's life was not involved with the Peoples Temple, and no one has ever stated that such was the case. Rather, a 3 line mention is made of him speaking at the Temple after investigations and writing President Carter praising Jones and attacking the leader of those trying to extricate relatives from Jonestown. That is all that is stated.

These are short but rather notable events given the notariety and activities of the group. That is all they have purported to be.

These notable events are concisely summarized in an entirely NPOV fashion with proper sources in a tiny 3 line section buried at the bottom of the "Supervisor" subsection of a 77,000 byte article.Mosedschurte (talk) 23:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I really wish you would consider following the formatting of comments per the spirit of wp:talk. I'm not attacking you but the content and your behaviour in relation to it as well as your treatment of myself and others who've tried to reason with you. I've always addressed the content concerns and would prefer that you would as well. Again this seems like a red herring to dismiss policy concerns as simply some editors being emotional or personally attacking you, that's a bit insulting. There is nothing vague about presenting fringe content in our NPOV, UNDUE and OR policies - we don't do it unless it's done with reliable sources and presented NPOV. If you won't present direct quotes from the Raven book then we should remove that source. The remaining material you keep re-adding is either already covered in context or undue and unneeded. It's not that it's not covered in just the Shilts book but in any meaningful way as has been painstaking explained, several times and civilly and now in several venues. The events you want to re-add are simply already in the article or not that notable. -- Banjeboi 23:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: "There is nothing vague about presenting fringe content in our NPOV, UNDUE and OR policies - we don't do it unless it's done with reliable sources and presented NPOV."

There aren't any specific NPOV, OR or UNDUE concerns I've heard except for the above.

And, as I have explained going directly through the issues, the tiny summary is presented in a very concise NPOV fashion in the "Supervisor" subsection.

Re: "If you won't present direct quotes from the Raven book then we should remove that source."

I've stated this probably 5 times now on the Milk talk page, but the ONLY thing the Raven cite is left supporting in the small remaining text is that Milk attended a single meeting, the July 31 meeting.

Another source, VanDeCarr, which is cited, states that Milk last spoke at the Temple on October of 1978. This is what is stated:

---

Milk spoke at a service for the last time in October 1978. He had been enthusiastically received at Peoples Temple several times before, and he always sent glowing thank-yon notes to Jones afterward. After one visit, Milk wrote, "Rev. Jim, It may Lake me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something deal" today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours mad energy, placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave." (VanDeCarr)

---

Regarding the one meeting for which Raven is still cited for this particular text, this is precisely what the book states. Here is quote from pages 327-8: "Lavish expresssions of solidarity marked a July 31 rally designed to unify Temple members and their supporters." The book then goes into an extended quote of Jones speaking via telephone over speakers from Guyana, to which he had just fled. It then states "When Jones finished, State Assemblyman Art Agnos, who was visiting for the first time, turned to county supervisor Harvey Milk, 'Harvey, that guy is really wild.' Milk smiled, 'Yeah, he's different all right.'"

Re: "The events you want to re-add are simply already in the article or not that notable."

They are already in the article because I added them back after deletion. They were deleted a few days ago again, and I re-added them, this time NOT in their own section, but in a smaller 3 line piece of text in the "Supervisor" subsection.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the verbosity is obfuscating the issue here: original research, synthesis and undue weight in a biography. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've addressed "Undue Weight" at length above. Given the notariety of the group -- largest loss of U.S. civilian life pre-9-11 -- and their activities, the meetings and speeches at their meetings and letter the U.S. President praising them and attacking the leader of those attempting to extricate relatives from Jonestown were themselves notable. No one has really attempted to make an argument to contrary.

In fact, to take just one far less notable example, look at the Dennis Wilson bio article. There is an entire 23 line section devoted to just his picking up hitchhikers that belonged to Manson's family and friendly relations with the group well before any crimes were committed (in fact, Wilson turned away from Manson's group), which obviously pales in comparison in terms of notoriety to the Peoples Temple. There isn't even an instance of Wilson supporting the group to officials or attacking its opponents.

Or, as the other even better hypothetical parallel, if Rudy Giulliani (or a NYC City Councilman), for example, attended and spoke at a meeting of Mohammed Atta and the 9-11 bombers in August of 2001. And it would be far more notable if Giuliani (or an NYC city councilman) had written President Bush opposing locals wishing to investigate Atta and the bombers.

And keep in mind that this is a sourced 3-line mention in the 77,000 byte Milk article. And, yes, I know that size alone does not determine Undue Weight, and I am only pointing this out to further demonstrate that the size itself here is not an issue.

The "synthesis" concerns simply don't exist here where no conclusion is at all reached. WP:Synthesis states "an editor comes to a conclusion by putting together different sources." The 3 lines of text simply state undisputed events that occurred without conclusion.

There is no "original research" in the Milk article as far as I know.Mosedschurte (talk) 05:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The Giuliani/Atta hypothetical is not a particularly good parallel and I don't see why you keep repeating it, as it is not going to convince anyone. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Look, kids. I'm gobsmacked by this. Mosedschurte is not interested in the best sources for the subject's life. He hasn't read the best sources and he is not interested in reading them. This is an WP:SPA that edits only on articles involving Jim Jones. Anonymous IPs take his side in the only edits they make in RfCs, and he counts no consensus as victory. He responds by exhausting his opponents with verbal gymnastics and voluminous posts. The best interest of the article is clearly not his priority. What is Wikipedia here for if not integrity of content? Would it honestly be much easier to allow this POV and Synth to remain in the article? Tell me what I need to do! --Moni3 (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I share this assessment. After months of edit-warring to re-insert this content the article was completely rewritten to accurately reflect what reliable sources supported by a trusted editor known for their FA writing - Wikipedia's finest articles. This was disregarded by Mosedschurte who has continued to game the systems. Mosedschurte's entire presence on the article has been solely to scandalize the subject of the article, edit warring and otherwise disrupt progress by arguing voluminously. After months of asking for a source verification they admit that the Raven book also says little about Milk accept that he attended a rally. This coupled with a primary source, continually mischaracterized and hosted by a conspiracy theory website is an unwelcome blight on the article. NPOV and RS connections between Milk and Jones/Peoples Temple are already in the re-written article; in fact they were there before it was rewritten because I added them. Mosedschurte seems only interested in having this content be blighted onto the article and I feel way too much time and energy has been spent trying to reason with them. If they won't desist then likely some administrative action should intervene so those interested in improving the article using policies to guide them can do so without this added drama. -- Banjeboi 22:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment A sources summary:
  • "Another Day of Death." Time Magazine. 11 December 1978.
    • This source only states that Milk attended rallies, it is likely mentioned as it's below an article about the Peoples Temple mass murder/suicide.
  • Reiterman, Tim and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Reverend Jim Jones and His People
    • Summary of relevant text from above - Milk was at a July 31 rally
  • VanDeCarr, Paul "Death of dreams: in November 1978, Harvey Milk's murder and the mass suicides at Jonestown nearly broke San Francisco's spirit."
    • Summary of relevant text from above - Milk spoke at a [Peoples Temple] service in October 1978, he had spoken there prior, they liked him.
  • Coleman, Loren, "The Copycat Effect", Simon & Schuster, 2004, page 68
    • "In a letter to President Jimmy Carter, San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk defended Jones as a friend to minority communities."
  • Milk, Harvey Letter Addressed to President Jimmy Carter, Dated February 19, 1978
    • This is a primary source, and a good example of how they are misused. The document, assuming it's real, is hosted by a site specializing in conspiracy theories and scandals as part of their "San Francisco: America's Digital Age Banana Republic". I have detailed the mischaracterizing of this particular source before directly to Mosedschurte on the article's talkpage.
    • The first half of the letter describes how Jones is widely respected and has been honored by the full board of San Francisco supervisors and the California Senate for his church's work. The second half concerns Timothy and Grace Stoen, former Peoples Temple members/employees who apparently supplied Grace so Jones could father a child, John through her, Milk states, and gives references, that the Stoens are discredited by the local media and is concerned about diplomatic relations with Guyana. The source states nothing that the Stoens are "leader of those attempting to extricate relatives " only that they have been widely discredited in the case of custody over one child who the Stoens, according to this same source admit is Jones'. Instead it's been used to imply that Milk was aligned with Jones whereas it seems more like Milk, yet again, writing to the president as part of his job.

• I've detailed all these points out before but nothing has convinced Mosedschurte to desist. Milk as either a politician or a candidate to become one would speak in front of all sorts of groups. Speaking at churches is not noteworthy and is fully in keeping with a politician's work. The only thing remarkable in all this is how little to tie together the two there actually is. The internet is full of site that link famous people to conspiracies and fringe theories including that Milk's death was related to the Peoples Temple in some way. Luckily we have policies in place to keep Wikipedia free of all that. -- Banjeboi 00:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Sandy: "original research, synthesis and undue weight in a biography". Agree with Itsmejudith that it's not so much a FRINGE issue. Perhaps Wikipedia:No original research/noticeboard is our next stop? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 00:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The fringe concerns have to do with NPOV and using this content to further a fringe idea that Milk's murder was connected to the Peoples Temple thus the need to connect Milk to them. I think it's clear these sentences should be removed as that's what consensus is clearly supporting. If Mosedschurte persists in again edit warring then they will earn a block for such. This shouldn't be perpetuated simply so they can rehash in yet another forum. -- Banjeboi 01:05, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The reason to come to any noticeboard is so that the regulars can weigh in. Itsmejudith, who is as regular as they come, has said she doesn't believe it's FRINGE, so I thank her for her time. I think this is SYNTH, but I'd really kind of like to find out from the "professionals" if they agree. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:53, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

RE: "I've detailed all these points out before but nothing has convinced Mosedschurte to desist."

This is simply false and the sniping really needs to stop.

The sources as discussed above, by the way, say EXACTLY what the text in the article states (note that the new explanatory language, including the "well fuck him" quote was included by moni):

---

While serving on the Board of Supervisors, like some other politicians in Northern California, Milk spoke at at the controversial Peoples Temple, including while it was being investigated by newspapers and the San Francisco District Attorney's office for alleged criminal wrongdoing. Although Milk defended Temple leader Jim Jones in a letter to President Jimmy Carter in 1978, he and his aides deeply distrusted Jones. When Milk learned Jones was backing both him and Art Agnos in 1976, he told friend Michael Wong, "Well fuck him. I'll take his workers, but, that's the game Jim Jones plays."

---

Note that:

(1) Moni's new language is included (including the "well fuck him" quote moni added)
(2) Moni's note is included
(3) The source containing the actual image of Milk's letter is goneMosedschurte (talk) 04:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: "Is this a bad dream of mine? Or a well-known editor who's trying to get me to care about content oversight? Because this is a really awful way to go about it. Milk said fuck. I'm saying fuck a lot now. There's even an article on fuck. It was a direct quote from Milk about Jim Jones, and you removed it. Holy God. Unfreakingbelievable. Wikipedia is not censored. What a waste of effort that link is. Fuck. --Moni3 (talk) 04:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)"

I didn't remove it. In fact, I cut and pasted exactly what you wrote word-for-word in the article now.

Trust me, I have zero problem with you or Milk or me saying "fuck", or including the quote. In fact, I included the same quote in the Political_alliances_of_Peoples_Temple article long ago. I would have added it myself, along with Milk's other quote calling the Temple "dangerous", but there was already yelping of "undue weight" concerns I was fearful to add any additional text at all.

I merely pointed out that you added that quote to the Wikipedia article because it was not clear on this board.

I thought the quote was both helpful (explained Milk's motives--distrusted Jones) and interesting, and I kept it in the article. Mosedschurte (talk) 04:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, fair enough, I'm concerned that all reasonable dialog will, yet again, be drowned out by Mosedschurte ongoing red herring sidepoints, parroting back what has been written by others and verbosity which fails to address the core issues. That they do so while, again, accusing others of lying and "sniping" seems to suggest they have no interest in following the spirit and intent of policies and prefer arguing. What are the next steps so we can at least clear this mess off the Milk article? -- Banjeboi 20:11, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Help needed editing an article

Alfred de Grazia was largely written by the subject of the article. I've begun the process of culling a lot of the stuff that is either not strictly verifiable, not neutral, redundant, or simply not sourceable. I need to find some independent sources on the guy and need to figure out exactly how to cover his "quantavolution" self-published fringe theory. Can someone explain what exactly makes him notable other than his professorship?

ScienceApologist (talk) 14:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I tagged for notability among the multiple issues. The criteria are at WP:PROF. From a cursory look he doesn't meet them. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

There have been two AfDs: [10] and [11]. In the second there was a strong consensus to keep. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Itsmejudith, but many others disagree. Unfortunately, the people disagreeing have not taken an interest in the article so it is up to us to try to garner what level of notability we can for this guy. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

There are a number of sections that are filled with claims that are unsourced. The claims may be true, but I would guess that there are no published reliable sources to support them, and since "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth", the article may get reduced to a stubb. Is there any objection to removing those sections that do not cite sources? Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

So request sources. The subject, or his representative may also be able to help, per WP:Living, and may also act as a source themselves. His notability has already been discussed in the two AFDs, you don't have to assess his notability for a third time. --John294 (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Assertion of notability in an article is necessary for proper framing. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:40, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't realised there had already been AfDs. And since I took my first cursory look I've noticed that university libraries have good stocks of his books on political science. Malcolm's suggestion to reduce the text sounds helpful. What is the subject notable as? I suppose as a mainstream political scientist who subsequently started to defend fringe theories. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that this may be the best way to proceed too. However, I cannot find any acknowledgment that his fringe theory advocacy is noticed by those who comment on his political texts. Is this a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing? In such situations, how should we appropriately weight the aspects of the biography which are not noticed by outside sources? Tricky! ScienceApologist (talk) 16:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we must just take out all the resume fluff, including all the unsourced claims about military heroism and the foundations of various institutions for which there is little evidence, and leave an explanation that there have been these two sides to his career, with a bibliography. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

In addition, I think that the quantavolution stuff may be less notable than the Kalos utopia and the Naxos unity propoosals which I can at least find cursory off-handed mention in a quick google search for independent sources. Quantavolution seems to be unnoticed by anyone except the Velikovskians who are not independent. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

More Iranian historical nationalism

This time on Battle of Opis, an article related to Cyrus cylinder (discussed above). Larno Man (talk · contribs) disagrees with a widely cited translation of a Babylonian text quoted in the article and the interpretations that have arisen from it, and is demanding that it must be discarded (along with said interpretations) in favour of a very new translation. I've pointed out that we can't unilaterally declare a brand new translation to be "the truth", particularly as I've been unable to find any reputable corroborations or citations of the new translation. Although it's being pushed heavily by Iranian nationalists, it comes from a respectable source; I've tried to compromise by including it as a footnote [12]. Unfortunately this hasn't satisfied Larno Man or his colleague Ariobarza (talk · contribs), who has taken to deleting without comment material that he doesn't like, adding his own personal commentary [13] and falsifying quotations from sources [14]. Input would be appreciated... -- ChrisO (talk) 08:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I've chimed in, you are right. Lambert in the footnote is fine, commenting on it or giving it more weight is not. Doug Weller (talk) 09:26, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

my attitude towards Greek and Iranian nationalists "contributing" to topics of ancient Macedonia and Persia (respectively) - etc. - is increasingly: "not one inch". Nothing good, and certainly nothing sanely encyclopedic, comes of any other approach. --dab (𒁳) 09:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Yep. One of the most depressing aspects of Wikipedia is the Greek and Macedonian nationalist obsession with fighting over Alexander the Great and Macedon, without their realising that modern politics is absolutely irrelevant to ancient history. Feuding over Iranian history is generally confined to more recent times and tends to have an Iranic vs. Turkic flavour. The main generator of conflict here is the current argument between Iranian "Persians" and the country's large Azeri (Turkic) minority. Try editing anything related to the Safavids if you want a headache. I suppose the ancient history brawling is wrapped up with the controversy over 300 (film) and some wider "clash of the civilisations" argie-bargie between Iran and the US (or Iran and the West generally). --Folantin (talk) 10:31, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The sourced text was removed 4 times. The 4th time User:DragonflySixtyseven decided to protect the page, thereby endorsing the complete removal of a well-sourced version and leaving an illiterate stub. Obviously I'm not going to unprotect the page as I'm involved, but what do we do about Admins who do this sort of thing? ANI? Doug Weller (talk) 05:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

they will just tell you "it is always somebody's wrong version that gets protected, son". Of course without even having looked at the case. The problem with our "new model admins" is that they firmly believe that they do not need to understand the dispute: heavens, if they did, wouldn't that make them "involved"? The article will be fine, the pov-pushers always get tired sooner or later, and swarm to the latest hotspot, and the encyclopedists can then go in and clean up after them. It will take a couple of months. It is just sad to see that "admin intervention" actually delays the process instead of facilitating it. --dab (𒁳) 06:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

That's the problem. The Admin doesn't seem to have looked at all at what was happening or care about editors deleting sourced text. How does he think that protection will solve the problem, when he's left an illiterate stub? Doug Weller (talk) 07:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this is going to need an arbitration, unfortunately. Creazy Suit, Larno Man and Ariobarza have made it abundantly clear that they're pushing their own personal POVs for nationalist reasons. The fundamental problem here is a user conduct issue, specifically violations of NPOV, V and NOR, plus we know from Ariobarza that Larno Man has been canvassing off-wiki as well. I'll get a user conduct RfC started on the three of them and post the link here. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Creazy Suit wants to bring Lambert to testify to ArbCom! Doug Weller (talk) 11:01, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

"Creazy" indeed... The RfC is now at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ariobarza, CreazySuit, Larno Man‎ - it needs one more signature to certify it. Feel free to add to it if you are aware of other issues with these editors (Doug, your recent comments on my talk page suggested that you'd run into them before?). -- ChrisO (talk) 13:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Various anonymous IP addresses are now turning up at Cyrus cylinder and are blanking sections of the article (now reverted). No doubt someone has put the word out to the nationalist grapevine. Any chance someone uninvolved could semi-protect the article? -- ChrisO (talk) 15:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

See here for a couple of more examples of disruptive editing by Larno Man (for collecting them, however, I received a warning from Khoikhoi for stalking). -- Ankimai (talk) 11:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Purushottam Nagesh Oak

You know, the Kaaba-is-a-Hindu-Temple guy. Did you know that new information and analysis have come forth to constitute a compelling argument that the Taj Mahal was actually a former Hindu palace? Presently a bunch of redlink-accounts are dying to inform us of the fact. --dab (𒁳) 09:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The "theorist" quoted on the talk page apparently also believes that the mosques in Spain were built by Phoenicians aided by survivors from Atlantis [15] We learn of the "Piri Reis map" that "It lead Ivar Zapp and George Erikson in Atlantis in America (1998) to assert that an awareness of Antartica was known to an advanced civilization at the end of the Ice Age." And, yes, the published version of this book really does spell the second word of that sentence with an "a". Paul B (talk) 11:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Extraterrestrial real estate

• Extraterrestrial real estate (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have just cleaned up Extraterrestrial real estate,[16] an article that has been cleanup tagged for a long time. It was suffering from lots of fringe material, linkspam and apparent self-promotion by those selling such real estate.

I suspect that the people who created the problem with this article will attempt to restore their content. Can noticeboard participants please watch the article and help make sure that it stays clean. If any tendentious editors attempt to damage the article, please find an administrator to dispense clues as needed.

If any aspect of my cleanup removed valid content, editors are welcome to restore material supported by reliable sources. Thank you! Jehochman ^Talk 10:02, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I've put it on my watch list. Doug Weller (talk) 11:02, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Could this be the true source of the subprime mortgage crisis? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:43, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Anon questioning definition of "fringe science"

Long story short, the anon insists that the source used for the lead in fringe science is itself fringe because it appears that no one cites the article used to reference the definition("Fringe concepts are considered highly speculative or weakly confirmed by mainstream scientists"). The problem is that almost all the works I can find on google scholar take a definition of fringe for granted and do not bother defining it. I have asked the anon to source their claim that this is a fringe definition, but they evade. Anyone got a better idea than ignoring this person? Discussion here. NJGW (talk) 16:15, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd ignore him, he's basically trolling. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:14, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Input appreciated

Can someone please provide additional outsider input in Talk:Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China about a possible merger. In my opinion I feel this whole article is a fringe theory, providing no evidence of exclusivity and most sources better used in a neutral article like Organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China. Current editing base is 2 plus a very disruptive third editor, so discussions become very polarised and lead to nothing at the end, so I seek to expand the editing base so that there's a wider range of editors maintaining the article. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:59, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Might be an idea to propose merging the article into the Organ harvesting in the PRC article. After all, if it is happening, it is happening in China. Actually, I wonder whether all of this shouldn't be in Organ harvesting, so that we explain the concept first before going on to the location of the reports and controversy. See for example force feeding, which describes all aspects of the practice, even though there has been recent massive public attention paid to one particular set of allegations. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Barry Long

I just came across Barry Long, which claims that he was "was an Australian spiritual teacher and writer", but which does not seem to establish his notability, and which has only primary sources. Does anyone know if he is actually notable? There are a number of books listed, but they seem to be self published. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:29, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Although the article has been around since February 2006, I don't see anything that establishes notability. All the references are Long's self-published books, the Barry Long website, and a couple of other fringe websites. There's no coverage in reliable third-party sources. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 18:55, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, this and this should be enough to establish notability. Looie496 (talk) 21:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Looie496, in this case, I disagree with you. The books seem to have been self-published. The newspaper article establishes little. (My grandfather, who for over forty years repaired shoes, had a very nice article written about him in the most important newspaper of the large city in which he lived; but, wonderful person thought he was, I do not think that would establish notability for Wikipedia.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 11:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, I don't think an obit alone establishes notability. Anyone want to be the bad guy and start an AfD? --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It completely escapes me why people waste so much time on things like this when five minutes of Googling will tell you that an AfD would turn into an easy keep. Did you not look at the Amazon link I provided? Looie496 (talk) 18:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Looie496, That is a self published book. It does not establish notability.

Steven J. Anderson, I left a message on the article talk page[17]; and, since someone there seems serious about solving the problem, it would be fair to wait rather than starting an AfD. If you, or anyone, has suggestions to help the user to establish notability, then please do. It is an IP user who may not understand WP guidelines. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Peoples Temple and Harvey Milk again

I responded to the original enquiry on this noticeboard and have engaged with the issue a bit. I would appreciate a few more people passing by. At first I didn't think it was a fringe issue, but now I think it might be. There are reliable sources that show that the Peoples Temple canvassed links with a number of Democratic Party politicians, but the question is what weight to attach and whether it is our role to expose every single minor connection. A series of inter-related pages need checking out for POV-forking and coatracking. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I've come across a bit of information about this issue while doing research for Harvey Milk. It is inevitable that other names of politicians are mentioned, as well as that of Jones. I am, however, not enthusiastic to re-engage Mosedschurte, so I have been concentrating on the Milk article, preparing it for GA and FA. I agree that fringe and conspiracy seem to be coming to the fore with this issue. There is much value in describing how Jones was able to inflate his political persona in San Francisco, manipulate politicians (since they used him as well), and recall favors when he needed help with serious matters. These articles should be constructed based on the best available information about Jones and each politician, and should tell a cohesive story about how Jones rose to power and became more paranoid while masking his paranoia. I think it's a fallacy to write the articles retrospectively, assuming that Temple members and San Franciscans should have known the things Jones was doing all along, and listing each politician's involvement with the Temple without the greater context of the positive press it was getting. It would be completely POV to state outright, or give the impression that politicians were working with Jones, and admired or condoned what he was doing unless that information has been explicitly stated by a reliable historian or journalist. It's my impression that San Franciscans were completely and utterly astonished at how bad things had gotten in Jonestown, and very confused as to how they got that way, regardless of the blips of news coming out that described individuals' experiences. I would be concerned that a fraction of the information is being used instead of more thorough readings about each politician, and what they knew at what stage. --Moni3 (talk) 16:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Egyptian pyramid construction techniques and Great pyramid of Giza

We've got a POV pusher back trying to insert some nonsense in the construction techniques article about a fringe writer named Noone, whose material virtually only shows up on the web through our article. See my edit on Talk:Egyptian pyramid construction techniques (the guy's called me a liar also, but I don't know if it's worth taking to WP:CIVIL. He's active on both articles. I'm not around much tonight, not sure about tomorrow, so if anyone can keep an eye on them and explain to him why the Noone stuff is too insignificant for Wikipedia, I'd appreciate it. Doug Weller (talk) 18:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Binksternet's DJ Idea

User:Binksternet, has repeatedly abused his rollback privleges on the disk jockey page to enforce a fringe phenomenon and defy editor consensus. Since August, the editors have debated endlessly about the importance and prevalance of topless DJing, and therefore the nessecity of a picture about it on the article. All the editors have agreed that topless female DJs have only been found with accurate citations in ONE mainstream nightclub, which has since shut down. Therefore everyone but Binksternet has agreed the picture should be removed due to irrellavance. But Binksternet has defied this near-consensus and now on some days has been going over the three-revert rule. He claims that the picture "shows how experementation is part of DJing" which is the lamest excuse I have ever heard of. he should be blocked from editing the DJ article for his repeated attempts to give undue weight to an extremly minor phenomenon. --Ipatrol (talk) 04:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

New Thought

There are two editors who are sometimes active on this noticeboard, Orangemarlin and ScienceApologist, who I believe are edit warring on the New Thought article and trying to make unsourced changes. I would appreciate hearing the views of other editors here, who I am sure will let me know if they think I am I am mistaken. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You and SA need to have a discussion on each other's talk pages about sources for the article. The section on therapeutic ideas isn't properly sourced yet. You should regard the churches' own websites as primary sources. There are two books from academic presses already referenced. Don't either of these have anything on the views about health and healing? If not, then we must question whether it is a notable aspect of this belief system. If you could find something that explained how these views grew up in opposition to mainstream medical thinking, then that would be really interesting, and could quite easily be written up in a completely neutral way. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

AN/I discussion re Iranian nationalist editors

The recent problems with Iranian nationalists pushing fringe theories are currently being discussed at WP:AN/I#User:Ariobarza, User:CreazySuit and User:Larno Man. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Morya

Not long ago I deleted a lot of material from this Theosophical Society related article because of, what seems to me, synthesis and original research, and lack of secondary sources. All that was just reverted, and I would appreciate it if some other editors would take a look. There is no point in arguing if it turns out I am in the wrong. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Just at a glance I can see that these are huge problems on the article. There are some books listed under "Further reading" that from their titles and publishers are good secondary sources, yet the article is written up instead entirely from primary sources. I suggest stubbing it and starting it again using the university press books, and keeping it as short as you possibly can. Right at the beginning it is essential that the reader knows whether this is a supernatural being, a real human being (dates of birth and death?), or a kind of supposition that may or may not have been a real person. The lead should be comprehensible by someone who has never heard of Theosophy. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy

I know I've brought this here before, but I'm starting another drive to improve the articlce. It seems to be going quite well, but it keeps getting hung up on "quackery" appearing in the lead. Personally I'm not bothered either way, but I have a suspicion that removing quackery will lead to calls for pseudoscience to be removed, then for most of the rest of the science and criticism to be removed... Anyway, suggestions for improvement, highlighting of problem areas, and present more reasoned and knowledgeable opinions re quackery etc than I can. Many thanks. Verbal chat 18:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I have not had the time to read the entire article, but I did do a few word searches in it, and I am surprised that there is no mention of Rudolf Steiner, his movement called Anthroposophy (an outgrowth of the Theosophical Society), or the healing branch of Anthroposophy called Weleda which is based largly on homeopathy. I can not recall an occasion, when Homeopathy came up in conversation, that there was not some connection to Anthroposophy. Steiner had big ideas, and developed within his movement an approach to virtually any important subject you can think of:

Anthroposophy has spawned a number of closely related organizations and/or concepts. The Waldorf schools and system of education that Steiner created teach children based on three different seven-year long stages that they pass through. Biodynamic farming owes its origin to Steiner and, in the simplest of terms, involves knowing the relationship between plants, animals, and the soil. Eurythmy, a Steiner-created performance movement art known as the "art of visible speech and visible song," is meditative in its process. Anthroposophical medicine, which generally refers to Weleda homeopathic preparations, was also developed by Rudolph Steiner. [18]

At one time I was fascinated by Anthroposophy, but have now come to regard it as a highly problematic cult. It seems to appeal particularly to people with good intelligence and high educational level (which is perhaps the reason I lost interest in it). Malcolm Schosha (talk) 19:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure that anthroposophy is sufficiently prominent outside Germany to warrant mentioning it in the homeopathy article. I mean this literally: I am not sure. In the UK there are Steiner schools in many cities, but I think they are generally less dogmatic, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that anthroposophic medicine is very marginal here. On the other hand, the EU regulations on medicine mention anthroposophic medicine explicitly and say that the rules for homeopathy apply. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Verbal, I was in fact going to bring this up as one other thing that needs resolving or an NPOV tag (although I don't know how to tag a category inclusion). I think we all agree that in the arbcom ruling described at WP:PSCI homeopathy fits somewhere between astrology and psychoanalysis. In my opinion it's obvious that it's much closer to psychoanalysis (which is also often called quackery) than to astrology. E.g. articles by psychoanalysts and homeopaths, but not by astrologers, do get published in mainstream peer reviewed journals, occasionally. Psychoanalysis and homeopathy both are both still much closer to their protoscientific origins and a lot more plausible (I am not saying they are plausible) than astrology. Homeopathy and psychoanalysis are payed by public health systems in some countries; I don't think that's the case for astrology. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that there is an article: Anthroposophical medicine. It has an external link (Physician's Association for Anthroposophical Medicine (North America)), and claims 60 North American members [19], which is perhaps not so large a number for a continent. It seems to me that a mention might be justified because of its importance in Europe...particularly in Germany and Austria. But my main point (based only on my personal experience) is that those who practice homeopathy, and those who seek it for treatment of illnesses, almost always seem to have some connection to -- or at least interest in -- Anthroposophy. I have no experience with vendors, or manufacturers, of homeopathic cures, but my guess is that many of those also are connected to Anthroposophical Medicine. I have found this [20], which lists "Therapeutic and Medical" initiatives (not necessarily homeopathic) in America, and a lot of other stuff too. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 21:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This article has caused enough problems without expanding the scope to include related movements such as anthroposophy, which, properly, has its own article. We are not going to resolve the pseudoscience category problem. Perhaps we should eliminate the category. DGG (talk) 01:20, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I think 'quackery' is unnecessary and prejudicial, and certainly doesn't even have the limited value of the pseudoscience label. I'd go ahead and remove it - I don't see that it will led to a cascade of criticism removal, and if it does it would certainly be easy enough to combat that kind of silliness. if you prefer, I'll remove it myself, and keep an eye out for anyone who tries to capitalize on it. --Ludwigs2 05:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

DGG, Anthroposophy seems to be the main group promoting Homeopathy. It seems strange not to even mention them in the article. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 11:44, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Cryptovirus

I'd like to draw a bit of attention to this article, and to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cryptovirus. Looie496 (talk) 20:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Polytheistic reconstructionism

Outside input required here. I used to think this was a bona fide topic under Category:Neopaganism, but recent anon activity has led me to review the case, and I find that this has the typical hallmarks of pure WP:SYN.

• there is no independent third party source indicating this satisfies WP:NOTE
• the "insider" sources we cite to define the topic (essentially [21]) are online essays written by random individuals

I am not sure whether the article can stand as a topic on its own. Perhaps this will need to become a note at the Neopaganism article that "some proponents have advanced 'reconstructionism'" or similar.

These are my concerns. I haven't made up my mind and I am genuinely looking for third opinions. --dab (𒁳) 17:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I was not understanding Dbachmann's reasoning initially, and would hate to see the article Polytheistic reconstructionism deleted, but the assertion Polytheistic reconstructionism is not a bona fide topic under Category:Neopaganism is one I agree with. In fact, along the same line of thinking, the Neopaganism article would also need to be completely reworked. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 17:48, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The terms seems to have been invented by Timothy J. Alexander, in his book "A Beginner's Guide to Hellenismos", which is vanity-published by lulu.com. He seems to use it mainly to describe attempts to revive the religion of the ancient Greeks. Note that we have the related article Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism. In any case, the lengthy history of this article seems to indicate some level of notability even if it is hard to find good sources. Looie496 (talk) 17:59, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that if these are notable it is in the same sense that the Rainbow Gathering is notable. There are certainly people committed to it, and there are events; but it is impossible to define intellectual content, or even any obvious shared intent. It is a very loosely defined group that has events. That would, perhaps, put it more in the category with such things as American Civil War reenactments. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The article Polytheistic reconstructionism was started more that a year before Timothy J. Alexander's book. There is no way to link him to the original coining. Nova Roma calls what they do Roman Reconstructionism. CR means Celtic Reconstructionism. It is not an issue specific to Hellenic Reconstructionism. The real issue is if these groups fall under Neopaganism. They may conform to the common definition of neopagan, but they all seem to reject being part of the larger Neopagan movement. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 19:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The term was coined by Isaac Bonewits long before anyone actually embraced it as a self-description. The question isn't whether the term exists, but whether we need, or can justify, a standalone article about it. --dab (𒁳) 20:52, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I believe the term Isaac Bonewits coined was Eclectic Neopagan Reconstructionism, and his concept does not conform to the standards of Polytheistic reconstructionism. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 00:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

dear anon, the entire point is that there are no "standards", because we don't have any quotable sources to base them on. Where do you, personally, derive your knowledge of "Polytheistic reconstructionism"? The Web? Your own musings? Anything that may help us build an encyclopedic article? If you just stick to your opinion but won't tell us what it is based on, this isn't going anywhere. Bonewits at least is a published author. --dab (𒁳) 08:21, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Reconstructionism has been written about and discussed in works by authors such as Michael Strmiska, Christopher Penczak, Barbara Jane Davy, Michael York, Chas Clifton, Graham Harvey, Deborah Lipp, Shelley Rabinovitch, James Lewis, Douglas E. Cowan, Selene Silverwind, Janet Farrar, Gavin Bone, Lauren Manoy, Dana D. Eilers, Jennifer Hunter, and many others. Besides these, as I understand it, and maybe I'm wrong, but 1st party sources are considered "quotable sources". It is only notability that requires 3rd party sources. If that were not the case, then Catholic sources could not be used to write articles about Catholicism, Jewish sources could not be used for Jewish articles, and Wiccan sources could not be used for Wiccan articles. If that is not the case, I hope you are prepared to expand your campaign. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 12:28, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

well, great, I'll be happy to discuss the topic in terms of the publications of the authors you mention. I am not saying there are no sources, just that the article so far isn't aware of them (this has improved with the Linzie papers, too, so I am confident we are getting somewhere). --dab (𒁳) 13:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Opis redux

Nepaheshgar (talk · contribs) has jumped right back in where CreazySuit (talk · contribs) left off on Battle of Opis, making exactly the same ridiculous arguments (latest translation is the most authoritative, the author is "superior" to any other authors, the author of another translation can't have translated it herself because her personal web page doesn't say she reads ancient Akkadian). See my comments at Talk:Battle of Opis#A plea for sanity. Is anyone going to help out on this article or is it going to be abandoned to POV-pushers and original research nonsense? -- ChrisO (talk) 08:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• Well, I know Napaheshar as a reasonable and knowledgeable wikipedian and I do not think it is constructive to dismiss his opinions as "nonsense". It does not mean that he is absolutely correct but we should not dismiss his opinions. I am not an expert on the matter but after reading Talk:Battle_of_Opis#Grayson_and_Lambert it appears to me that Nepaheshgar's idea is to present all four available (or whatever are present) translations of the original ancient text giving the maximal weight to the latest (2007 Lambert's). It sounds reasonable. I have also noticed that Nepaheshgar proposed arranging a contact with some authors of earlier research to ask if they change their position after Lambert's work. I think if it can be done it might be valuable. Only the mainspace texts should follow WP:V. If we can arrange a consultation with an expert it might not go to the mainspace unless published but certainly can influence the weight we give to different translations Alex Bakharev (talk) 09:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • My expert says Lambert's opinion is "based on context, essentially a reconstruction of the entire historical situation. So let the historians decide whether there was a slaughter or not. Lambert is a leading assyriologist, NABU is a reputable journal, but neither of these factors are relevant and the argument must be decided on its own merits." And he is definitely an expert, but not the only one. But if all you want is an expert opinion, there you have one. I can see no reason in giving maximal weight to the latest, particularly when it hasn't been discussed yet by other academics (except of course for my expert).

• • I'm putting forward this expert opinion seriously as an expert opinion, but I am not at all convinced that this is the way to go. I'm sure another expert could be found who disagrees. And even though I have the email from my expert, and a similar opinion is on a mailing list, is that acceptable as a way of weighting the main article? One thing that would have helped was my request that editors acknowledge, for instance, that peer review does not guarantee that an argument is correct, only that it is worth publishing, but they didn't. So I doubt that using expert opinion (if not to their liking) would sway editors with such a lack of understanding of how scholarship works. Doug Weller (talk) 09:44, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Magic in the Greco-Roman world

I firmly believe that this article is more occult apologetics than an encyclopedic article. Comments criticizing the article go back to 2006 and include describing the article is merely a dump of a research paper, and that it overstates magic in the everyday life of the Greco-Roman world. There is at least one bastardized quote in the article, a number of citations that are misrepresented (Dodds calls Empedocles a shaman, not a "poet, magus, teacher, and scientist". In fact, the word magus is not used at all in Dodds' book The Greeks and the Irrational.), and there is an extensive Resource list (without in-line citations) used to bolster the article, much of which seems to not be panning out as being used in the article's creation. There is an inordinate amount of time spent attempting to persuade the reader in accepting why practices should be considered magic, and historical figures magicians. Additionally, the article is littered with original research. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 13:56, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why "merely a dump of a research paper" is a criticism, unless there is plagiarism, which nobody seems to be suggesting. That looks like a pretty good article in many respects, so it seems like the best approach is for people who know the topic and care about it to work on editing it. Are attempts to improve it are being resisted? Looie496 (talk) 17:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

To answer why "merely a dump of a research paper" is a criticism, I would refer you to WP:NOT. If we ignore the manipulation of quotes and misrepresentation of citations, this may be a good essay to be turned in for a twelfth-grade term-paper, and it may be a good essay to be posted on an occult website, but it is not an encyclopedic article. In my opinion, the article is occult apologetics, attempting to support and defend occult beliefs and practices, rather than an encyclopedic narrative with a NPOV. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 18:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I am at a loss how you could come to such a conclusion. Which passages, do you propose, are "defending occult beliefs and practices"? --dab (𒁳) 18:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The article makes its intent known from the very beginning with the statements such as, "an evolving definition associated with the term 'magic'", "these are teachings that support the central tenets of the magician", and "magic as an independent tradition", and by the fact more than a third of the essay is merely an attempt to persuade readers into accepting a theory why religious practices should be considered magic, and historical figures are magicians. It is modern magicians and so forth, evolved out of 16th and 17th century occultists, that promote the idea of philosophical works as the basis of "high magic", and that there was some sort of independent magical tradition. These ideas are conspicuously absent from works not targeted to those who want to believe in such things. Interpreting philosophical mysticism as magic is one POV, but it is not the dominant or popular interpretation. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 19:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

the passages you mention are poorly phrased, no doubt, but I see nothing wrong with the "intent". It is hardly "fringe" that magical thinking is an integral part of any and all religion. Furthermore, the 16th to 17th century Renaissance magic you mention was precisely that: a renaissance of the magical traditions of Late Antiquity. To state that magic was extremely important in Late Antiquity is hardly in "defense" of magic, it is simply the statement of a historical fact, you will still be free to believe magic is bogus. Mainstream education vastly downplays the role of magic in antiquity, it's always about the Classics, high literature, high mythology and high philosophy. This is a Classicist prejudice -- just as it is a common prejudice that the Renaissance was primarily about developing the critical method and studying Homer when it was to a great extent about a revived interest in magic (which had fallen out of fashion during the Christian Middle Ages). It is an important part of this article's job to set that score right. And yes, I can produce references to back up my gist here: but this would be for the article talkpage. --dab (𒁳) 19:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

If mainstream academia "vastly downplays the role of magic in antiquity" (or even what is and is not magic vs. religion) then how is it not a fringe theory? I mean, Wikipedia is not a soapbox, right? This is not the place to debate whether the dominant academic opinion is prejudiced. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 19:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

ahah - but I didn't say "mainstream academia", I said "mainstream education". Meaning, this is the impression you walk away with from college, while actual academia has long (say, since the 1970s) been aware that things lie a little different. --dab (𒁳) 08:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

That being said, you would be hard-pressed to find any work actually on ancient Greek history, culture, and religion to support the claims made in that article. It is limited only to works targeted to a consumer audience wanting to believe ancient religiosity was the practice of magic that you can find such claims, and not beyond. In fact, in works that could be considered academic, such as Luck's Arcana Mundi, they tend to spend a substantial amount of time defending assigning the label magic to such practices. ---151.201.149.209 (talk) 13:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

can we please get down to individual claims, at the article talkpage at this point? I am not summarily endorsing everything in the article, and it isn't helful to keep boo-hooing about "the claims in the ariticle" in general. I have noted that you have repeatedly misrepresented claims made in the article in an attempt to make them more outlandish that they really are. Thus, you are claiming at Talk:Greek Magical Papyri that "the article" presents Hellenistic magic as a "cohesive religion", while there is no such statement found in the article. Also, if you're going to pursue this campaign, please consider using an account as a courtesy. --dab (𒁳) 18:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

---

a "dump of a research paper" would imply WP:OR, but I don't really think it is that bad. It is a difficult and opaque subject, and could definitely do with expert attention, We could apply inline tags to mark the issues raised, but in general I suppose it is natural that the article has magic as its focus without necessarily "overstating" magic. If we saw such a focus on magic in, say, Hellenistic religion, the matter might be different, but this article is, after all, ostensibly dedicated to disucssing magic. --dab (𒁳) 18:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not an area I know much about, but reading the article, I did think the OP might have had a point. Obviously the Greeks and Romans engaged in all kinds of practices which we would today label "religion", "science", or "magic". But they didn't necessarily divide these up in the ways we would today. The article seemed to me to "protest too much" that there was a continuity between today's magical practices and elements of Graeco-Roman culture that were labelled "magic" without a great deal of discussion of whether the label fitted. I suspect that the answer is to continue developing the article. I'm sure that the references Dieter knows of will be a good addition. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:07, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

yes, the "protesting too much" is often a problem when "debunking common misconceptions", since it assumes the reader is holding such misconceptions, which may or may not be the case. This is an issue of style. dab (𒁳) 18:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Magic in the Greco-Roman world is a book report?

As I have tried to delve into the cited sources, and validate quotes and citations, it has become glaringly obvious that this article is, at the very least, a synopsis of the chapter Magic from Georg Luck's book Arcana Mundi. It makes many of the exact same statements, references the exact same sources (which became obvious the original contributor of the article did not read), and in some places seem to walk a very thin line on what could be called plagiarism. Please see my recent comments on the talk page. How does this get handled? --151.201.149.209 (talk) 15:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It gets rewritten to avoid the plagiarism. If you can figure out who contributed the text, you should consider informing them of the problem on their talk page. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It is the bulk of the article, which goes back to the original contributor Elvenearth, who does not appear to be active. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 16:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I am continuing to find almost verbatim quotes from Luck's Arcana Mundi, but attributing them to research of other sources. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 17:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

So we went from "fringe" to {{onesource}}. Since Luck (1985) is academically published, I do suppose it is permissible as a source, and it is good practice to start out an article on an academic topic by summarizing the gist of a dedicated monograph. It still remains, however, to avoid copyright violation, and to allow for the presentation of other viewpoints, especially from more recent publication since the source used is already aged more than 20 years. dab (𒁳) 18:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I would have never found it if the sections I deleted for failing source verification were not restored by someone citing Luck's Arcana Mundi. The original contributor used Luck's quotes and citations of other sources as his own, and they were failing verification. So we have both "fringe" and {{onesource}}. --151.201.149.209 (talk) 19:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

List of UFO sightings

I have begun the process of systematically cleaning up List of UFO sightings. I could use some help. We need to rely on good sources to do this clean-up. I have already removed all the website citations to youtube videos, enthusiast organizations, and conspiracy theories. That leaves a vast majority of the "sightings" without a reliable source reference. We will eventually have to go through and remove the "News of the Weird" citations as well: just because it was a slow news-day doesn't mean Wikipedia should have an article on your UFO sighting. Once we've confirmed with the best sources, we can remove the sightings that do not have mainstream, independent, third-party coverage.

Please help.

ScienceApologist (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

At the very least I'm prepared to remove all those that don't actually involve flying objects. Mangoe (talk) 21:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

VedicScience (talk · contribs)

Another round of regular "Vedic" quantum quackery for a change. This edit should make clear what is going on. It may be worth to keep on the lookout for the "reference" given,

• Vedic Physics (ISBN 0-968-41200-9) by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ph.D.

--dab (𒁳) 11:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Duly noted. Moreschi (talk) 12:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)