Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

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Fringe theories noticeboard - dealing with all sorts of pseudoscience
Before posting, make sure you understand this short summary of relevant policies and advice and particularly the guideline on treating fringe theories. Also, check the archives for similar discussions. We can help determine whether the topic is fringe and if so, whether it is treated accurately and impartially. Our purpose is not to remove any mention of fringe theories, but to describe them properly. Never present fringe theories as fact. If you mention specific editors, you should notify them. You may use {{subst:ftn-notice}} to do so.
Search this noticeboard & archives Lowercase sigmabot III will archive sections older than 20 days Additional notes: Discussion of fringe theories will only depend on coverage in reliable sources. Medicine-related claims must comply with more stringent sourcing requirements, but we also generally prefer academic sources. We are not a forum to discuss fringe theories as such. Our goal is to improve articles about them, or create new ones if needed. For concerns about neutrality in articles not about fringe theories, use the neutral point of view noticeboard. Report article content that appears to violate the no original research rule at this noticeboard. Paste {{Resolved|Your reason here ~~~~}} at the top of the section when your concern was addressed. Deploy {{talk fringe|the fringe theory name}} to articles' talkpages under discussion.
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Seemingly reliable Wiley publication promoting archaeological nonsense concerning Gunung Padang

This is what I just posted to RSN:

Gunung Padang is a fairly recent megalithic site. However, geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja author of "Plato Never Lied: Atlantis Is In Indonesia" has claimed it to be much older and to be a buried pyramid. This is nonsense but he along with a number of other authors have had recent work published in a Wiley peer reviewed journal an article backing that claim.Geo-archaeological prospecting of Gunung Padang buried prehistoric pyramid in West Java, Indonesia concluding that "The oldest construction, Unit 4, likely originated as a natural lava hill before being sculpted and then architecturally enveloped during the last glacial period between 25 000 and 14 000 BCE" and buried 9,000 years ago. See also [1] which is not an RS itself but has good background material and sources. I expect attempts to add this to the article. We need to look at the author's BLP as well. Doug Weller talk 10:04, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, no, we aren't going to base article content on such wild primary-source claims from someone writing outside their field of specialist knowledge. As for Natawidjaja's biography, it currently says nothing about pyramids or Atlantis etc, and probably shouldn't until such claims are reported on by sources capable of reflecting how off-the-wall they are. Watchlisted. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:12, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrumpl We list his "Plato Never Lied: Atlantis Is In Indonesia", perhaps that could be in the body of the article instead of just tucked away. Colavito is considered an RS and mentions him here.[2] Doug Weller talk 12:01, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Archaeologist Víctor Pérez described Natawidjaja's conclusions as pseudoarchaeology.

That's in the main Gunung Padang article. Which also says:

research.

Natawidjaja's analysis was questioned by other scientists. Vulcanologist Sutikno Bronto suggested that the carbon dating result was influenced by weathering and concluded that the elevation is the neck of an ancient volcano and not a man-made pyramid. Thirty-four Indonesian scientists signed a petition questioning the motives and methods of the Hilman-Arif team. Archaeologist Víctor Pérez described Natawidjaja's conclusions as pseudoarchaeology.

Natawidjaja's conclusions gained the attention of Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who set up a task force. An archaeologist who did not wish to be named due to the involvement of the country's president, stated:

In archaeology we usually find the 'culture' first … Then, after we find out the artefact's age we'll seek out historical references to any civilisation which existed around that period. Only then will we be able to explain the artefact historically. In this case, they 'found' something, carbon-dated it, then it looks like they created a civilisation around the period to explain their finding.

Plenty there about him. Doug Weller talk 12:37, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

As we mention his work on Gunung Padang, I think it's necessary to mention the criticism. Doug Weller talk 13:27, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

He did an episode of Graham Hancock's Netflix show about Atlantis, Ancient Apocalypse. There was a lot of response content that pushed back against the show, so that may aid in finding WP:FRIND sources. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:54, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

References

Richat Structure and Atlantis (again)

A student editor, who ironically appears to be part of a class of well known pseudoarchaeology critic John Hoopes, is insisting on adding a really undue 12,000 byte addition regarding the claim that the Richat Structure is Atlantis, which includes no reliable sources specifically about the claim itself, mostly cited to YouTube videos and the conspiracy streaming service Gaia. Other eyes on the page would be appreciated. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:40, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I've added back a small section to the article mentioning the claims. I don't think 12,000 bytes of prose is due, but a single three sentence paragraph probably suffices. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:56, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I’ll tell John. Doug Weller talk 19:16, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Steve Fuller (sociologist)

• Steve Fuller (sociologist) (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Could use more NPOV and less FRINGE. But a WP:SPA thinks it needs less NPOV and more FRINGE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:19, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

That's a bizarre way to read my corrections to Fuller's entry. In fact, the entry in general suffers from a surfeit of criticism from variously (in)competent sources and a dearth of statements of Fuller's views. (Indeed, the entry is skewed very much towards the creationism debate, which is only part of what Fuller does -- though I realize that this seems to preoccupy Wikipedia editors.) I operate from the spirit of NPOV. If you're going to criticize the guy, at least allow him to state his position. It's as simple as that. Morgan Dorrell (talk) 10:57, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

at least allow him - WP:FRINGE says, Quotes that are controversial or potentially misleading need to be properly contextualized to avoid unintentional endorsement or deprecation.

Yes, Fuller seems to be an all-round anti-science activist but the sources concentrate on the creationism aspect. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:27, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

"There's a cabal"

Entertaining thread: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project (GSoW) --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:37, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

It's a contentious topic, and some admin inteverion (eg a block) is needed there. There are ongoing aspersions cast against good-faith WIkipedians, edit wars involving several IPs, NOTHERE ADVOCACY behaviors, and possibly MEAT happening as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

"The most ancient settlements in Epirus date to the Middle Paleolithic"

A claim that The most ancient traces of human settlements in Epirus can be found in the late period of the Middle Paleolithic era (40,000-30,000 years ago) on the villages of Xarrë, Konispol (Kreçmoi Cave) and Shën Mari., sourced to [3] and [4] has been added tot he article on Epirus. Not only do I find the sources inadequate for such a claim, but it seems to be WP:FRINGE, as there were no human settlements in the Middle Paleolithic, the earliest human settlements dating to the much later Neolithic. This seems to be a typical Balkan nationalist protochronist fringe claim, all too common in Balkan articles. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Khirurg (talk) 05:46, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I do not think human settlement in this context would refer to permanent settlements. I’m pretty certain they mean evidence of human settlement in the area, not necessarily towns or fortifications, but just evidence of human habitation in the region, such as artefacts from caves and the like. That’s perfectly plausible. Although admittedly, quotes would be useful here because I don’t think it’s been translated properly. Botushali (talk) 09:13, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Biomesotherapy

• Biomesotherapy (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Does not seem to conform to MEDRS or FRINGE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:35, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Mantell UFO incident

• Mantell UFO incident (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

An old article obviously written by UFO believers. Gives primary weight to fringe explanations. Fixed the lead a bit, but article needs major overhaul. See Talk:Mantell_UFO_incident#NPOV_and_FRINGE_issues. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:38, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

 Done Article overhauled, thanks Rjjiii. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:16, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I added a citation (ref no. 15) for the burial place and the location of marker. The source is NICAP. I also added the NICAP collection on Mantell under External Links. Understand it is an ufology source. Feel free to revert or let me know if the addition is inappropriate. Thank you. Path2space (talk) 06:14, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks to you as well!

@Path2space: The publisher is the significant thing. In this case,[5] that was the official website of the Kentucky state government. I reformatted the citation,[6] and it could likely be pointed to a more neutral archive site. I would view this as a primary source for this article (Kentucky on Kentucky). The policy for that is at: WP:PRIMARY. If it was published by NICAP, it would not meet Wikipedia's standards. A discussion explaining why is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_358#NICAP_And_other_non-government_UFO_research_organizations Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 07:18, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion on merging content boards

There is a discussion about possibly merging this notice board on Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Etzel Cardeña

Etzel Cardeña (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article is almost completely credulous and quotes a lot of argumentative claims that are fairly reproachable. Not sure what to do. jps (talk) 23:19, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

A WP:FRINGEBLP that requires criticism of his "expressed views", such as [7] and [8]. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:56, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Right. Can I page someone for cleanup on aisle ten, then? jps (talk) 01:24, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Tried to clean up, but there is resistance [9]. Same editor deletes context in another article [10]. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:24, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Started a section on the Talk page so any upcoming consensus edits won't be a surprise. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:35, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I saw your work, Hob. Thing is, I think that Cardeña is actually right about this particular point. Much the same argument is made by no less a bigshot than Richard Wiseman, but Wiseman's conclusion from this observation is rather different than Cardeña's. Namely, Wiseman contends that the comparable level of evidence for certain parapyschology claims in contrast to more prosaic mainstream psychological claims demonstrates that critics should be worried that the evidence in favor of many standard claims of psychological phenomena is rather weak. See also replication crisis. It is actually true that parapsychologists have through tests of fire been forced to deal with their shoddy statistics to a greater degree than psychologists who have made claims that aren't as "out there". Wiseman points out that we shouldn't accept a psychologist's claim that, I don't know, people are motivated by some psychological mechanism on the basis of supposed effect seen in a small sample under dubious controls and with many confounding variables just because the mainstream psychologist is testing a prosaic claim and the parapsychologist ic testing a wild claim. If anything, the legit criticisms of parapsychology act as an object lesson for why many arguments in mainstream psychology are corrupt! jps (talk) 17:37, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Good point. On the other hand, he may be technically correct but he phrased it in a misleading way. Parapsychology is not "as good as parts of normal psychology", parts of normal psychology are as bad as parapsychology.

Even the word "psi" itself is misleading. It pretends to be a thing but actually it is a junk room. Parapsychologists cannot explain something? Then it's psi! The word should be replaced by "something parapsychologists cannot explain". That would diminish conflict a lot. Skeptics would agree with parapsychologists all the time:

• "Parapsychologists have proven the existence of psi" turns into "Parapsychologists have proven that there are things the cannot explain". Skeptic: "True dat."
• "During the course of an extensive experiment, psi tends to decrease over time" turns into "During the course of an extensive experiment, we are able to explain more and more of what happens." Skeptic: "Yeah. I knew that."
• "The presence of skeptics inhibits the presence of psi" turns into "The presence of skeptics helps parapsychologists explain stuff." Skeptic: "Thank you for noticing."

I maintain that the technically true sentence is still misleading and FRINGE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:43, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Disputes at Falun Gong

As usual, we've got a group of adherents over at Falun Gong attempting to whitewash the page to fit the group's preferred narrative and hide that the group is entirely centered around the words and whims of one ultra-conversative guy who now and then claims to levitate, Li Hongzhi, over at a big compound in Deer Park, New York. There's a whole propaganda media empire behind this guy, like the Epoch Times and Shen Yun, and his group here in the US and here in Germany. See this October 2023 article from NBC for example. They openly attempt to influence elections and law, and had a lot of success under the Trump administration.

The attempts by the Falun Gong to turn this article into a propaganda leaflet has also been the subject of academic discussion. Falun Gong adherents regularly attempt to rally and push through this or that.

Realizing they can't excise almost every non-Falun Gong-aligned (and by that, usually meaning coming directly from the Falun Gong) source on the topic from the past several years, the latest strategy seems to be to try to bury what they don't like in the article by cherry picking old sources, plastering huge sections of old material about the group as victims of China to bury everything else, and endlessly—and I mean endlessly—attempting to decry most WP:RS-complaint sources from the past several years, especially media reports.

Since these editors come out of the woodwork especially when they think they can move the needle, I highly recommend more eyes and ears on this article. The Falun Gong treats it as a straight up battleground—it is after all another potential propaganda arm from which the group could benefit—and closely monitors it with any number of single purpose accounts. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:28, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I would like to speak to what happened, as I have recently been extensively involved in the talk page discussions relating to Bloodofox's recent edits on the Falun Gong article. I have been less involved with editing the article itself (probably edited less than five times over the past 3 years), due to my relative unfamiliarity with this topic, compared to other regulars at this page.

• For those unacquainted with this topic, Falun Gong has attracted sustained, intense interest from certain parts of our community for almost two decades, in part due to its importance, and its various dimensions that spans human rights, religion and politics, which is what attracted me to this page in the first place.
• On November 8 22:44 (restored after reversion on Nov 10) Bloodofox deleted 5066 characters, essentially 3 entire paragraphs out of 5 paragraphs of the lede of this article. Most of the content deleted by Bloodofox has been stable on this page for months if not years, representing the consensus of many editors from both sides, over the course of a decade, debating almost every line and sometimes word.
• The content deleted by Bloodofox includes the following:
  • How Falun Gong emerged - Source: Freedom House 2017 report.
  • What Falun Gong is - “a meditation, slow moving exercises. Self-identifies as a practise of the Buddhist school. With moral psychologies/philosophies.” Source: Freedom House 2017 report.
  • What happened to Falun Gong - “Initially supported by the Chinese government. Later alleged to be a heretical organization by the Chinese government. Finally subject to "a nationwide crackdown", "a wide range of human rights abuse", with estimated "hundreds of thousands" to be "imprisoned extrajudicially", "torture". "As of 2009, human rights groups estimated that at least 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners had died within China as a result of abuse in custody."” Sources include: Amnesty International 2000, Freedom House 2014, New York Times 2009, China Quarterly 2015.
  • Subsequent developments in Falun Gong movement - “"Millions continued to practise Falun Gong there [in china] in spite of the persecution", and "practised in over 70 countries" with "40,000 to several hundreds of thousands" of adherents.” Source: Telegraph 2009, China Quarterly 2015,
• Bloodofox replaced all of the above content with essentially one statement (which is revised and "supplemented" from an existing sentence in the next paragraph):
  • Led by Li Hongzhi, who is viewed by adherents as a deity like figure, Falun Gong practitioners operated a variety of organizations in the US and elsewhere, known for opposing the CCP, feminism, modern medicine ,and being "ultra-conversative".
  • The last assertion is almost exclusively sourced from a single NBC piece, on Epoch Times, a competing media. The first description about "led by Li Hongzhi' and "viewed by adherents as a deity like figure" appears to be sourced from none other than Bloodofox himself.
• No one can reasonably argue that the sources deleted by Bloodofox are unreliable per WP:RS, no such arguments have been made. No one to date (except presumably the Chinese government) has suggested that all the content deleted by Bloodofox is not true, especially the part concerning the persecution of Falun Gong in China.
• A WP:Lede is intended to introduce the article, and summarize its most important content, including any prominent controversies. What was previously a summary of two decades of stable scholarship and journalism of this multidimensional topic has now become a summary of one or two online articles, cherry-picked amongst the sea of sources and information on this topic.
• Is there controversies to Falun Gong? There appears to be. But Falun Gong is not just a controversy. It's also a serious religious and human rights phenomenon.
• To delete all of the above context, background and history, distilled from two decades of journalism and scholarship on this serious topic, and confer exclusive limelight to a passage from a select media article, which is not even mainly about the beliefs of Falun Gong, strikes me as POV-pushing, in serious infringement of WP:Weight, WP:Lede, WP:DUE, WP:NPOV, WP:RECENTISM and WP:SOURCETYPE.
• After being challenged See here, here, and here, on the merits of his edits, Bloodofox engaged in further edits of the same pattern. His justifications for his edits is essentially that all those who challenged his edits are "Falun Gong adherents", and that he is preventing alleged adherents a platform for their views see here, here and [11]. He declares his belief of Falun Gong as an alleged totalitarian movement, out to essentially corrupt the world, his disdain for Falun Gong's alleged influence on conservative parties in different countries (example) and declares his motive as, I quote,
  • "And that's why we're not sweeping everything aside to smokescreen Falun Gong operations by emphasizing at every corner how evil the Chinese government is and how very persecuted Falun Gong is."
• Some editors and my attempt to restore the article to its stable version were quickly reverted by Mr. Ollie, who is also a regular on this page.

In light of all of the above. I believe that Bloodofox's edits are plainly indefensible and needs to be undone. The last version of this article that stood before Nov 8, should be restored, and I seek fellow editor's input on this discussion. Thank you all for reading this lengthy post. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 03:52, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

First, this user appears to have issued a vague threat of violence aimed at me recently ("external assistance will be inevitable") and did not deny that it was a threat when asked to clarify, preferring to again issue another vague statement. Note that I've experienced threats of violence stemming from editing this page before, and academics have also noted vague threats when studying the Falun Gong.

I believe this account gave its angle away by referring to NBC News as a "competing media" of Epoch Times in an attempt to dismiss the October 2023 report, lol. (Now what account have I heard that from before on the talk page?) Anyway, there's a mountain of this material from WP:RS from the past several years and a lot of the Freedom House stuff you're pushing often seems to just be Freedom House citing the Falun Gong. This is the equivalent of laundering a source. Such an approach ist unfortunately typical of the Falun Gong-aligned embedded accounts over at Falun Gong.

And none of this is coming from me, it's coming from a mountain of reporting from the past several years that the group has pushed to get off the article. For example, here's a quote from the NBC News report (bold added). Here's the quote I supposedly invented from the above:

"To his followers, Li is a God-like figure who can levitate, walk through walls and see into the future. His ultra-conservative and controversial teachings include a rejection of modern science, art and medicine, and a denunciation of homosexuality, feminism and general worldliness."

It is also quite well documented at this point that the Falun Gong propaganda arms include the now notorious Epoch Times, a major source for disinformation and backer of far-right politicians in both the US and here in Germany, and organizations like Shen Yun (whose false claims about folk tradition are what introduced me to the Falun Gong in the first place). The fact that this user is attempting to dance around these well-documented facts tells you a lot about what we're dealing with over at Falun Gong. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:45, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I've been editing Wikipedia for about 13 years off and on, and the topic of Falun Gong has always interested me from a human rights perspective as well from a contemporary religious perspective. I've stressed repeatedly to the editors involved in this current dispute that Falun Gong is a religious minority undergoing well-documented persecution in China. Within the western diaspora communities in the United States, Europe, and other countries, the group is largely an ethnic and religious minority group with a significant portion being refugees who had to leave China because of their beliefs.

The efforts of @bloodofox and @binksternet in recent days/weeks/months is an alarming attempt to take away the narrative sovereignty of this group. It is not correct at all to dismiss decades of ethnographic and religious scholarship on Falun Gong in favour of a recent article on NBC news, which takes an entirely American-centric view of the issue and focuses on the media outlets run by Falun Gong adherents rather than the religious practices. The viewpoints being pushed on the page right now come from a western hegemonic mindset that disregards the beliefs of indigenous groups (Falun Gong being an indigenous Chinese practice) in favour of arguments that align with a very specific mindset of specific westerners who don't like the way they think and act. That's called bigotry. And refusing to engage in dialogue while attacking editors as SPAs and promoting Fringe theories is disruptive to the entire encyclopedia.

Falun Gong is a sensitive and contentious subject, but we have to remember that this subject is about human beings who have human rights. It is inappropriate for a handful of WK editors who do not share their heritage and are generally unfamiliar with their beliefs to determine how the world should view them. —Zujine|talk 13:15, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

In reality, the Falun Gong is a US-based new religious movement centered around the words and whims of one guy, Li Hongzhi.

He lives at the Falun Gong compound in Dragon Springs in New York. As you know, the group intensely supported the Trump Administration and its media arm, The Epoch Times, gained special access to the Trump administration in particular. Let's not play games here: this is and has been a US-based topic since the Falun Gong leadership left China.

The NBC News article is just one of hundreds covering this topic, especially since the connection between Falun Gong, Shen Yun, and the notorious The Epoch Times became clear around 2016.:bloodofox: (talk) 13:45, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

If you have produced even a fraction of the alleged "hundreds" of articles covering this topic allegedly supporting your edit, I might have been inclined to agree with your edit. You did not. You cobbled your statement from two passing and casual descriptions of Falun Gong from two media articles, that are not even focused on this topic (they were mainly talking about EpochTimes, a media and a performing arts troupe). In so doing, you deleted perfectly credible and serious scholarship books and articles, and reports by well established human rights NGOs, some of which were published as recently as 2018 and 2019, on this topic. And in your defence of your edit, half the time you were WP:SOAPBOXing, and the other half, you were launching blatant WP:PA against other editors, discrediting their edits because of their perceived religious faith. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 14:10, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

"Epoch Times" + "Falun Gong" + any search engine = yes, hundreds of articles. No need to play games. They're indeed all over the Falun Gong talk page. We even have sources discussing Falun Gong's attempt to influence Wikipedia coverage. :bloodofox: (talk) 14:21, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Is "alarming attempt to take away the narrative sovereignty of this group" something like "not giving them the right to WP:OWN"? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:28, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Editors are arguing that Freedom House isn't a reliable source because they interviewed Falun Gong adherents about their experiences. That's what I mean about narrative sovereignty. The view of some editors is that the beliefs of Falun Gong should only be represented by people who disagree with them. I don't think that Falun Gong adherents should own this page, and I don't think that is the issue at question here. @Bloodofox took action on this noticeboard after going on a long string of nonconstructive edits that represent his/her/their own POV. That POV is one of aggression towards a minority group. That's my point. All of the attacks on other editors have been about their POV and trying to "out" editors as Falun Gong sympathizers. It's perfectly fine for Christians to edit pages about Christianity and for Muslims to edits pages on Islam. It would be strange to prevent people from editing on topics related to their own religious beliefs. I am not a religious person, but I try to extend respect to religious groups, and I think that an article about a religious group should be approached as a tool to understand that group. I live in Belgium. I don't know anything about NBC News, but if you're telling me that it trumps the works of scholars and human rights organizations who have spent decades researching and reporting on the subject, I have to disagree. And if a handful of editors think they have the right to define a minority group themselves by excluding the participation of people on the basis of having a potentially positive relationship with that group, I have to disagree as well. It's a regressive Euro- (or in this case American-)centric interpretations of a culturally distinct group. —Zujine|talk 17:59, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

"to take away the narrative sovereignty of this group" no group on wikipedia should have narrative sovereignty, if one does then yes it should be taken away. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:26, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

"Editors are arguing that Freedom House isn't a reliable source because they interviewed Falun Gong adherents about their experiences" is false. Freedom House cites things like official Falun Gong websites for basic information like demographics and claims of crackdowns. We don't consider any website from the Falun Gong to be an WP:RS. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:57, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

To construe my phrase "external assistance will be inevitable", when I was plainly referring to administrator or arbitrator or other forms of external intervention, as a threat of physical violence, is an astounding distortion of the meaning of my words.

But it does show how Bloodofox tilts at windmills, in his unconcealed activism on this topic. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 13:36, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I invite anyone to take a look at this account's edit history, especially on the Falun Gong, and drawn their own conclusions. As for "unconcealed activism": one could say that I happen to be in the pocket of Big WP:RS, where I don't dance around this project's source requirements. And it's obvious that this topic, which I unfortunately fell into from the bread crumb trail around Shen Yun's manufactured "folk traditions", needs a big dose of Big WP:RS from contemporary WP:RS. And that'd be all that media coverage of the US-based empire around Li Hongzhi and crew you and a crew of 'new' editors here are keen on keeping off the article and/or burying. :bloodofox: (talk) 13:45, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

If you don't wish to "fance around wikipedia's source requirements", if you think you are above complying with Wikipedia's rules and policies on source, then frankly and respectfully, I think you should take a break from editing this topic. I appreciate your intense interest on this topic, but I think you are letting your activism get in the way of your editing. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 14:20, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

"Dancing around Wikipedia's source requirements" means "trying to circumvent Wikipedia's source requirements". Bloodofox does not do that. So, you think you are above complying with Wikipedia's rules and policies is wrong. Good luck for your next attempt at reading what people write. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:47, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I did not misread. Bloodofox changed his edit shortly after I made the above comment. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 18:23, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

You do understand that by filling up this thread with personal attacks on Bloodofox you're just proving the point, right? Somebody needs to move this mess to ANI or AE, we're going to need a few topic bans to be handed out I think. MrOllie (talk) 18:29, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Pointing out how Bloodofox's assertion, that whoever disagrees with his edits are Falun Gong adherents, are not arguments to support his deletion of two decades of journalism and scholarship on this topic is not a personal attack. And I think you should explain why you reverted other editors' attempts to restore these deleted sources on this article that has been stable for months, if not years. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 19:12, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

That is not what you are doing, both here and elsewhere. I note your attempt to change the subject, but I decline to help you with that. MrOllie (talk) 19:25, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

• I've added the article to my watchlist and I agree that more input is needed. Further lengthy discussion from the main dispute participants here is not helpful. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:59, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

From the getgo I'm deeply uncomfortable with how this is being raised here. First and foremost: I don't want to wade into this topic for a multitude of reasons; while I have a strong interest in minority religions this topic is, uh, contentious, to say the least, and requires a lot of expertise.

That said, I don't think using the language you are here is appropriate. People of a religion are allowed to edit their own wikipedia article as long as they follow WP:RS, and referring to Falun Gong in the same way as one might refer to people who ardently believe in water memory ignores the fact that one is an outright religion, and the other has only has adherents in the way a religion does.

@Zujine was right to raise narrative sovereignty, though I think the word choices were poor. People belonging to a religion are typically the most educated on the topic of that religion. That doesn't mean an encyclopedia is the place for presenting ones theology as true, but this language which paints Falun Gong's members themselves as the problem, rather than a certain subset. You can't use as broad a brush as is being used here just because their religious beliefs themselves are controversial.

Religions are not fringe theories. I do not think that Falun Gong is an appropriate topic for FTN, but I may be alone in that. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 23:39, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

The Falun Gong is a new religious movement focused on Li Hongzhi, who promotes all sorts of fringe theories about, for example, modern medicine. This is echoed by the group's media arms, like Epoch Times, one of the biggest spreaders of fringe theories in the United States, ranging from vaccines to climate change. It would be difficult to find a more suitable candidate for discussion here than the Falun Gong. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:53, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I didn't say I'm not familiar with it; I wouldn't be as opposed to wading into this situation if I was. :)

"Li Hongzhi, who promotes all sorts of fringe theories about, for example, modern medicine"

Address those on a case by case basis.

"This is echoed by the group's media arms, like Epoch Times"

Absolutely worth mentioning in both the main article and the article on the Epoch Times. The article on Falun Gong itself still needs to maintain an NPOV and just making the article a laundry list of their fringe sins won't fly.

"It would be difficult to find a more suitable candidate for discussion here than the Falun Gong."

Then I think you need to take a biiiiiig step back on this topic. A religion is not a fringe theory, even if it contains or supports fringe theory elements. You're may have a hard time sidestepping just naked prejudice in this process otherwise, it seems? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:13, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

A reminder: Wikipedia isn't censored. We have no shortage of WP:RS on this. New religious movements don't get special treatment on Wikipedia. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:35, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

See: WP:RNPOV

"In the case of beliefs and practices, Wikipedia content should not only encompass what motivates individuals who hold these beliefs and practices but also account for how such beliefs and practices developed. Wikipedia articles on history and religion draw from religion's sacred texts as primary sources and modern archaeological, historical, and scientific works as secondary and tertiary sources.

Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:43, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

That only works if practitioners haven't been instructed to mislead the public, as strong secondary sources tell us is the case here. MrOllie (talk) 00:50, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Falun Gong is absolutely a fringe topic that needs to be monitored for fringe promotion. The religious group has actively promoted pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, along with helping push such nonsense as Qanon, among many others. If it hadn't been for the decades of all of that, I would be more sympathetic to the claims regarding it as a religion above. But when the religious movement chose to be a mouthpiece for fringe quackery, it became a topic of concern for this noticeboard. Silverseren^C 23:50, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't disagree that topics relating to Falun Gong need to be approached as fringe topics. Any beliefs which they harbour which are inherently fringe theories, which admittedly are abundant, should be handled on a case-by-case basis. We don't treat the obvious pseudolinguistics of speaking in tongues to be an excuse to bring Pentecostalism under the purview of FTN. Falun Gong itself is a religion, and we need to be careful not to just stomp on WP:NPOV and likely WP:SOAPBOX in addressing what does seem to be some NPOV edits on the other side of the spectrum. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:08, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Where have I heard this argument before? Scientologists?

Here we discuss fringe topics. The Falun Gong's Epoch Times and its many other propaganda arms (there's really no more neutral way to put it) are a major source for misinformation and promotion of fringe theories in the US. Wikipedia isn't censored. This topic is about as appropriate as it gets for this board. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:30, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

It is a religion that is much more on the level of a cult of personality around one person and it is that person who has purposefully used the religion they created to push the fringe nonsense. So, no, you can't deal with the religious part separate from the fringe part, as they are purposefully intertwined by the creator and adherents. It is an inherent aspect of the group as a whole. Silverseren^C 00:11, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

"It is a religion that is much more on the level of a cult of personality around one person and it is that person who has purposefully used the religion they created to push the fringe nonsense."

Well that's certainly one un-nuanced take. Not exactly certain why it belongs in an article on wikipedia since it's blatantly ignoring any pretence of an NPOV approach. A religion is more than its leadership, its also the lived experiences of its adherents. Plenty of religions have very strong central figureheads who abuse their position, that's not unique to Falun Gong.

Also, to re-quote this:

It is a religion that is much more on the level of a cult of personality

I'm beyond uncomfortable with a random member of FTN (or any part of wikipedia) attempting to arbitrate what is and isn't a legitimate religion for the purposes of whether or not it falls under FTN's watchful eye. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:15, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

This statement: I'm beyond uncomfortable with a random member of FTN (or any part of wikipedia) attempting to arbitrate what is and isn't a legitimate religion for the purposes of whether or not it falls under FTN's watchful eye. and this one: I do not think that Falun Gong is an appropriate topic for FTN do not appear to be compatible. MrOllie (talk) 00:22, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Of course it's compatible. "Religions are not fringe theories" is a perfectly coherent stance, one which actually made it to the serious level of policy suggestion (albeit a failed one) at Wikipedia. We shouldn't be trying to come up with criteria for what counts as a "real religion" here when even scholars of religious studies have generally done away with that value judgement and even the term "cult" in general. Religions just are what they are; both internally and externally diverse.

The point is we shouldn't be trying to ascribe degrees of legitimacy to religious topics to determine whether they're sociological/anthropological topics or fringe theores. We can absolutely tackle individual beliefs which are fringe theories, but we cannot extrapolate that back to calling a religion itself a fringe theory. Raelism is obviously inherently based on a fringe theory (UFOs!) but that doesn't mean it's not a serious religion. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:28, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I see. No one can arbitrate what is and isn't a legitimate religion except for you. You will find that any number of religious topics are fringe theories. For example, some people believe that Jesus traveled to India and incorporated portions of that region's religions into Christianity. That some people fervently believe this does not mean it would be inappropriate to discuss it on this board. MrOllie (talk) 00:29, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Maybe this is worth a read? I am making zero attempts to arbitrate what is and isn't a legitimate religion. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:33, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

And yet you're trying to police what people can say on this noticeboard. Please don't do that. MrOllie (talk) 00:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Is... this a Poe? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:38, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I've been wondering the same thing myself. MrOllie (talk) 00:41, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Cults of personality are still religions, just based around singular people. A lot of the new religious movement groups are organized as such. You seem to have a really strong POV trying to support Falun Gong for some reason. I'm just stating general well-known, and well cited in the article even, information about the group. Wikipedia is not meant to be a representation of what adherents of a religion think their group is or what it's about, Wikipedia is about what reliable sources and especially academic sources say about the subject, purposefully independent of anything connected to the religion in question. Silverseren^C 00:23, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

"Cults of personality are still religions, just based around singular people."

Not necessarily, they can be religions but not all cults of personality are, well, literal NRMs. I don't actually think we disagree here, though.

"You seem to have a really strong POV trying to support Falun Gong for some reason."

Mainly because I don't think it's appropriate for FTN to be treating an NRM as a fringe theory, and I think some of the discussion here is showing naked prejudice. This is extra problematic when this discussion is happening a) somewhere inappropriate and b) away from the article's talk page.

"Wikipedia is about what reliable sources and especially academic sources say about the subject, purposefully independent of anything connected to the religion in question."

I wholeheartedly agree, to the extent that I've also said the same here in one of the posts you replied to! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, are you suggesting we not be allowed to discuss the Falun Gong and it's fringe superspreader arms like the Epoch Times on this board? :bloodofox: (talk) 00:42, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I do not think putting a religion on FTN's watchlist should be a thing that happens, no. It feels like a very high risk example of mission creep which has the potential to do some damage to the careful NPOV needed to tackle handling a religion who has been... very active in how they present their preferred image to the world.

I actually think the Epoch Times probably just needs to have a feed of recent changes piped to FTN regulars' inboxes, given its history.

I'm getting the impression from some of what you and what @Silver seren are saying that you think I'm one of the Falun Gong members/adjacents who is active on Wikipedia ("You seem to have a really strong POV trying to support Falun Gong for some reason."), which, y'know, either is all in my head in which case apologies, or it isn't and, y'know, knock it off. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:51, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure the Falun Gong and its many misinformation arms like the Epoch Times would be more than happy to hear that you think discussing them should be forbidden. And why not let this poor multi-billion dollar org spread anti-vaccine, anti-evolution, anti-climate change, and so on in peace to millions in the US, Canada, and Europe without troubling them with reporting on it?

Unfortunately, I think you're going to have a hard time convincing editors here that they shouldn't be allowed to discuss the group's role as a major superspreader of major misinformation in the US.

But maybe you should contact all the major media outlets in the US and tell them to stop bullying the Falun Gong with all their nasty coverage that doesn't parrot Li Hongzhi's talking points as well. Don't ya just hate it that they keep reporting on stuff like Falun Gong's connections to the GOP and US government policy?

Again, Wikipedia isn't censored, and we have no shortage of WP:RS covering it. So we cover it.:bloodofox: (talk) 01:00, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

"I'm sure the Falun Gong and its many misinformation arms like the Epoch Times would be more than happy to hear that you think discussing them should be forbidden."

You really need to read both WP:AGF and what you're replying to. I am very explicitly calling the Epoch Times an utter font of fringe that needs careful monitoring. Further, you really should consider knocking off casting aspersions at anyone who disagrees with how this is being handled here. For real, oblique and increasingly explicit implications that I'm a Falun Gong member for disagreeing here is not okay. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I have yet to see anyone here accuse you of being a Falun Gong member. However, I am sure our many embedded Falun Gong adherent editors are no doubt over the moon for your support in attempting to censor any discussion of the group here.

After all, it is much easier to promote misinformation when you can forbid discussion of its source. Even muddying the waters by having an editor fill this talk page with pleas to censor any discussion of the many media sources discussing the Falun Gong helps keep discussion off of Falun Gong misinformation activities, if just for a little bit. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:44, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

"I have yet to see anyone here accuse you of being a Falun Gong member."

Oh please:

"But maybe you should contact all the major media outlets in the US and tell them to stop bullying the Falun Gong with all their nasty coverage that doesn't parrot Li Hongzhi's talking points as well."

Yeah the rules around civility don't allow you plausible deniability here just by dint of not being extremely specific. I'd appreciate a strikethrough on those and an apology, it was beyond out of line. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 02:00, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Trust me, if I suspected you of being an adherent, I'd have no bones about telling you. I've called them out plenty of times before. And I was right.

But there's no denying that you're actively and aggressively lobbying here to attempt to censor and forbid any mention of Falun Gong on this page. You've said it over and over it. Now you can deal with the inevitable rejection. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:14, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Religion isn't a Fringe "get out of jail free card." If a religion gets involved with fringe stuff like election denial and January 6th (which FG did) that doesn't fall under any religious exemption... Even if its a religious belief (for example flat earth, ghosts, or immaculate conception). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:32, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Religions don't get special protection from WP:FRINGE due to WP:RNPOV. When a religious claim is made which is contradicted by basic facts and reliable sources from the relevant epistemic community, it is described as such. Marian apparitions do not get a pass just because they are Catholic beliefs. Likewise, Falun Gong/Falun Dafa's main claims and political messaging doesn't avoid the WP:FRINGE lens just because it is a religion. So let's stop with that argumentation.

Finally, it would be good for those who are here and at those pages defending Falun Gong to identify whether they are adherents. This is mainly because of bad taste we've had in the past with this sort of thing. Prem Rawat, scientology, transcendental meditation, Unification church, etc. have all gotten their hands dirty with Wikipedia content-skewing, so we are twice shy having been more than thrice bitten.

jps (talk) 01:09, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

"When a religious claim is made which is contradicted by basic facts and reliable sources from the relevant epistemic community, it is described as such."

Since I was the one raising the handling of a religion as a fringe theory and RNPOV, I'm just going to assume this is directed at me. I want to be clear I emphatically agree, and I even brought up speaking in tongues as an example of a fringe belief of a mainstream religion which should be treated as fringe while not making the religion fall under the purview of FTN. That's also just my perspective, I simply may be wrong.

"Likewise, Falun Gong/Falun Dafa's main claims and political messaging doesn't avoid the WP:FRINGE lens just because it is a religion. So let's stop with that argumentation."

I may be mistaken but I don't think anyone has made that claim here.

"Finally, it would be good for those who are here and at those pages defending Falun Gong to identify whether they are adherents"

WP:AGF. If there are problematic edits from an editor then handle that on a case-by-case basis. Asking members of a religion to out themselves gets sticky, though it does factor in to WP:EXTERNALREL without much clarification. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad we are in agreement on so much, and if no one disagrees with my points, then I'm happy that they can be left to stand. Sometimes providing a clear statement about norms is a way to make sure we are on the same page, and maybe we are. But I protest that it is not an assumption of bad faith to point out that people who are adherents ought to make their adherence known given the history of this sort of thing at Wikipedia. I'm not even saying that they have to stop editing, only that it would help provide context and would be a good faith practice on their part. jps (talk) 01:45, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't actually have too strong an opinion on people outing themselves, it clearly is mentioned in WP:EXTERNALREL but I think an equal point in favour of people not doing that is there are real, serious reasons for certain people to fear persecution/blowback. That's particularly pronounced for Falun Gong, though it's definitely a bit tricky to differentiate propaganda from the reality. I think the flipside here is that those most likely to out themselves are also those least likely to have issues with WP:RS and WP:NPOV.

There's absolutely been an issue in this very thread with people accusing others of being crypto-Falun Gong, so I think perhaps WP:AGF still is something that needs to be generally mentioned again. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:53, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Can everyone who's posted more than three times in this section please take 24 hours off from it? There's essentially no chance of additional input if this keeps ballooning, and is probably already at that point anyway. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:03, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I can do that. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:16, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

There is nothing we can do to force people into self-identifying. Allowing them the excuse of "safety" is one that is a bit too convenient considering the context. Identifying discussions are buried on non-indexed pages that discuss the content of the indexed pages. As a general principle, adherents to a religious faith should be willing to share that information lest we run into problems that arose in the instances I outlined above. I also think that one person's "crypto-Falun Gong" is another person's useful idiot. Generally, we try to identify the outcomes of a particular advocacy and do not distinguish between motives for that reason. If a position results in WP:PROFRINGE, then that's what's happening whether the person who is pushing such a position is a true believer or whether they are just a concern troll/devil's advocate/accept-all-comers-mr-niceguy. jps (talk) 02:10, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

WP:TPG is clear, Do not ask for another's personal details. It is inappropriate for a number of reasons, and adherents of a faith should in no way be expected to share that while editing. As you say, it is on the outcome of their editing where the focus should be. All of the personal commentary from many of those involved needs to stop. This includes both referring to normal editing as disruptive, and calling people adherents. This is a WP:CTOP, and that behavior is unnecessary and unacceptable. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:52, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish I genuinely think there needs to be a wider discussion about the role of FTN on articles pertaining to religion (note: since I’ve been accused multiple times of trying to suppress all discussion of Falun Gong here: specific fringe-theory-overlap beliefs of those faiths are all fine fodder for FTN. Raelians having a thing for UFOs doesn’t make UFOs not fringe.) stemming from this. Or, perhaps, a revival of some previous protracted ANI discussions about the insularity and acceptance of deviation from behavioural norms at FTN, because some of this discussion was pretty gross, difference of opinions on the nuances aside. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:14, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

That's a discussion for the village pump. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:16, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan, I guess. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:32, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Y'all need to think about how to square your pollyanna circle of pretending that we can't ask for personal details as is argued on WP:TPG with the basic functioning of this website when it comes to things like WP:COI. The history of this site is that we have uncovered individuals and groups who were editing Wikipedia on behalf of their religious organization and sometimes were directed to do so. If you think we shouldn't be allowed to ask whether this is the case on talkpages, I think you are arguing in favor of a policy that is proscriptive rather than descriptive. As I said, there is no way to force people to disclose things, but the eye-rolling implications of saying that people aren't even allowed to ask is something I think does not align with what actually happens here and it is also in opposition to what best practices are, in my opinion. jps (talk) 16:24, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I do not think it is reasonable to highlight all members of a specific faith as having so significant a COI that they should be expected to out themselves on edits pertaining to their faith. I think it’s reasonable to expect people with a strong COI to highlight that themselves, but I don’t see how you can expect people who are making problematic COI edits to out themselves and expect a successful outcome. If they’re making bad COI edits they’re not exactly going to be committed to making their biases known.

And yes, I absolutely am proposing something a bit more proscriptive. As a FTN semi-regular this place has far too heavy a systematic issue with incivility to lead me to think that this is an appropriate venue for tackling a religion itself without further behavioural oversight. FTN routinely throws nuance to the wind, and a complex intermingling of faith, human rights, and, to be fair, a mountain of fringe theories requires more delicacy than I’ve seen here at practically any point.

Just look at how this thread has played out, at the pre-Admin-edit title that was used and the language used here to describe practitioners of a specific faith. It’s… not good. It reflects badly on Wikipedia, looks nakedly prejudiced, and any attempts at moderating the discussion around the entire faith specifically were met with aspersions and hostility. None of that is saying that FTN isn’t the appropriate place to handle specific fringe beliefs or topics like the Epoch Times, which is, of course, a great source of fringe. My attempt at conveying this were met with some fairly insultingly phrased accusations of trying to suppress any mention of Falun Gong at FTN. I’m not sure how you get from “we should closely monitor the Epoch Times and fringe topics which pertain to a faith, such as Speaking in Tongues” to “But there's no denying that you're actively and aggressively lobbying here to attempt to censor and forbid any mention of Falun Gong on this page.” without a profound assumption of bad faith.

We should be handling fringe topics as they arise, and PROFRINGE posters as they come. We should not presupposes the entire congregation of a minority faith is WP:NOTHERE just because it makes our jobs easier. I think the mission creep, implicit belief that WP:AGF doesn’t apply here, and what’s sort of looking a little like attempting to systematize religious discrimination in the name of fighting fringe content calls for a wider overview of the scope, behaviour, and membership (from the perspective of getting more eyes on FTN, not reviewing the members here, to be clear) of FTN to prevent this from metastasizing into something ugly.

Look, I’m not saying my perspective here is flawless or correct. But I equally don’t think the pool of FTN regulars, which isn’t exactly a huge number of us, are qualified to evaluate their own behaviour fully anymore. There’ve been admin discussions about issues caused by FTN and how it’s insularity has lead to it overvaluing the importance of specific fringe theories (an old discussion of Panspermia here come to mind).

If this perspective is simply mine, then I can accept that. I’m not going to accept that this is just my perspective because a small subset of hostile posters elect to be loud and I’m not just going to accept assumptions of bad faith, or being a useful idiot, as actually substantive. I want outside voices on this rather than than an internal debate among those of us whose overton window has potentially been skewed by burnout dealing with this topic. That’s not me saying “I want outside voices because I’m right”, but rather “I want outside voices because this situation has become so insular and cliquey and people so convinced of their correctness that meaningful meta-discussion has become impossible.” Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:40, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Concur. Sennalen (talk) 18:51, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

As below, disclosing a religious COI is not "outing". Outing is identifying a person (name, address, etc.). Eliding these two things is unhelpful. FTN is a Wikipedia noticeboard with over 1000 watchers. Religions with pretensions to reality (e.g. Falung Gong, anthroposophy, Sahaja Yoga, scientology, Christian Science) all fall under WP:FRINGE and are appropriately dealt with here. Bon courage (talk) 18:53, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

An admin has already weighed in on the topic of asking people to provide their religious affiliation as inappropriate. And "Outing themselves" ≠ WP:OUT but I could have used much more careful language than that.

"WP:TPG is clear, Do not ask for another's personal details. It is inappropriate for a number of reasons, and adherents of a faith should in no way be expected to share that while editing."

Further:

"Religions (e.g. Falung Gong, anthroposophy, Sahaja Yoga, scientology, Christian Science) all fall under WP:FRINGE and are appropriately dealt with here"

I think this is certainly one perspective, but I don't think it's a given that the religions themselves fall under the purview of FTN, rather than some of their specific beliefs and practices which should be handled as fringe topics. I would be sincerely curious if you can back up the idea that religions themselves are inherently WP:FRINGE from a policy perspective. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 19:06, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Here is the actual guidance from WP:COI: "Any external relationship—personal, religious, political, academic, legal, or financial (including holding a cryptocurrency)—can trigger a COI." However, to repeat, this is moot because problem editors won't do the decent thing and declare their religious COI. Hence the community can only look out for problem edits. WP:FT/N regulars have a wealth of specific experience in such problem areas. This is how the Project functions and standards are maintained in fringe areas. It is a feature, not a bug. Bon courage (talk) 19:15, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

(Add) More generally, religions in theselves are not WP:FRINGE except insofar as their statements obtrude into reality (so no, the earth is not 6000 years old, burying quartz crystals does not increase crop yield, and E-meters do not measure anyting usefully). There are also fringe theories within religious discourse (e.g. Christ myth stuff). But religions in general are not relevant here. Bon courage (talk) 07:38, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Nobody appears to be arguing that religions themselves are inherently fringe. Why would you ask them to back up an argument which nobody has made? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:32, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I have a feeling this straw man has been paraded here before. Bon courage (talk) 17:47, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The only argument I see being made is that certain religious beliefs are inherently fringe, but it would seemingly take willful ignorance to transform an argument about specific religious beliefs into an argument about religion writ large. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:50, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you don't see religious belief in general being discussed here. OTOH certain specific beliefs (like that Christian Science prayer can influence disease) are very relevant here. Bon courage (talk) 10:52, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

You should link Christian_Science because what an impressive and exemplary bit of work that was. fiveby(zero) 17:03, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, largely the work of much-missed SlimVirgin. It's also an interesting case from the religion/COI perspective: as the Talk archives show, during the article's genesis she had her hands full with church members concertedly trying to spin the text in certain directions. Bon courage (talk) 17:13, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• There a big difference between 'outing' and the kind of specific disclosures Wikipedia recommends/requires for COI editing. I think it is reasonable to expect Falun Gong members to disclose an affiliation if they get involved in that topic area. However, as with other difficult COI-tainted topic areas, ultimately it's futile to pursue suspected hidden COIs as a means to getting anything done on Wikipedia. It is by their edits ye shall know them. Bon courage (talk) 04:28, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
• I don't care whether a person offering an opinion about what is or is not appropriate has a mop and a bucket. My opinion is just as valid even though I don't have a mop and a bucket. jps (talk) 03:05, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

  I just saw this discussion. I have long been interested in human rights in China. The main body of FG adherents is still in China. Most of their activism outside China also aimed at ending the persecution in China. Based on some media articles I read, Epoch Times pivoted to Trump after 2016 because they thought Trump could have destroyed the CCP–which didn't happen. The recent NBC article mentioned above noted, "The Epoch Times has yet to throw its weight behind a candidate for 2024."

  FG's activities in the U.S. could be featured more on the page "Falun Gong outside mainland China" but shouldn't carry undue weight on the main FG page, because China is where the movement originated and developed, the main body of adherents are, and the major conflict that the movement has been having for over two decades. Thank you. Path2space (talk) 03:45, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Falun Gong is headquarted in Dee Park, New York. The religion is centered around one man, Li Hongzhi. He lives in Deer Park, where he commands and leads the new religious movement. The Falun Gong's most visible arm, the Epoch Times, has not changed a bit since Falun Gong went all in with the Trump administration. In fact, they are now much bigger than they were then and are still pushing exactly the same conspiracy theories.

Persononally, I have yet to see any reliable numbers on the amount of adherents that exist in China. The Falun Gong's own numbers are obviously not reliable and they're frequently repeated with little scrutiny by NGOs. :bloodofox: (talk) 10:35, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Two things can be true simultaneously. The Chinese government soured on Li Hongzhi's movement and pivoted from supporting or, at least, toleration to banning at about the time he started commanding a bit too large a following and began flexing his own opinions about who should control whom. The crackdowns were real, but the claims of forced organ harvesting, systematic killing and imprisonment, etc. are a bit bewildering when it comes from a group as insular and immune to evidence as Falun Gong adherents. And their beliefs are pretty wild. They really hate biological evolution, for example. I never really understood exactly why that was except that it aligns with the bizarre predilections of Li Hongxi. jps (talk) 17:22, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

"The main body of FG adherents is still in China" do you have a source for that? Note that the sources we do have say that almost all of their current activities happen *outside* of China and we go by what gets coverage, not where they have adherents or history (that would be a NPOV violation). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:35, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The 2022 State Dept IRF report says: "Prior to the government’s 1999 ban on Falun Gong, the government estimated there were 70 million adherents.  Falun Gong sources estimate that tens of millions continue to practice privately, and Freedom House estimates there are seven to 20 million practitioners." WP:RECENT is something to be considered too. Thanks. Path2space (talk) 05:14, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

When citing figures from NGOs like Freedom House and Amnesty International, it's worth noting that these groups may be uncritically using Falun Gong as a source. The close NGO-Falun Gong relationships comes up a lot in scholarship around this topic and one can even find Freedom House citing Falun Gong websites for facts, figures, and claims. Yes, the very same group behind The Epoch Times. :bloodofox: (talk) 09:52, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Previously Uninvolved Comment

A case request was just filed at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard by one of the editors involved in this discussion. I declined it because this discussion is in progress here, and DRN does not handle a dispute that is also pending in any other content forum, such as FTN, or any conduct forum. If I were conducting moderated discussion at DRN, I would probably start by asking a content question. The purpose of content dispute resolution is to improve an article in the encyclopedia. So I am asking each editor here: What do you want to change in the article, or, what do you want to leave the same that another editor wants to change? Focusing on what an article or articles should say may make the discussion more productive. That might make a Request for Comments about one or more changes in an article be a feasible way to resolve the disagreements here. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:05, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

This appears to have been closed. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:46, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

User:Bloodofox - Are you saying that the discussion of Falun Gong here at FTN has been closed, or that the discussion of Falun Gong at DRN was closed? If you are saying the latter, maybe I wasn't clear enough. Yes. I closed the discussion of Falun Gong at DRN because it is being discussed here at FTN. I am still asking the editors here to explain what they want to change or leave the same in the article. If there is a content dispute, the editors should be clear what they want the articles in the encyclopedia to say. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:02, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

AE

Note an arbitration enforcement request has been put in related to this:

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Bloodofox

Bon courage (talk) 06:00, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Study: Why Wikipedia is the Last Good Website

Rebecca Watson writes about Sverrir Steinsson writing about Wikipedia's handling of fringe subjects: [12] --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:10, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

What a joke! Her feel-good everything is okay no need to worry attitude is ill-informed. The rules are only in place until they are changed. Yes, Wikipedia may be the Last Good Website, and the reasons she mentions might be good ones, but it's people we need. Well-trained pro-science dedicated and fair people. Admins are overworked and at a low-time number, so acting as if they are plentiful and sitting around waiting for something to do is nonsense. She would do better to use her audience to actually ask for more people to train-up and help. This kind of nonsense hits a nerve with me. Sgerbic (talk) 21:14, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh and thank you Hob for posting the article, I don't follow her content normally. Sgerbic (talk) 21:27, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I tried to post a comment and the spam filter blocked me. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:08, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I was looking for comments on her blog, but still nothing. I assume she has to approve them. I am stunned with all the ads that are all over that blog. Says a lot about the blogger. Sgerbic (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I suspect that the spam filters are set to maximum since the Skepchick network is no more. jps (talk) 01:18, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

The video in the article already has 15K views and 300+ comments. Everyone says they love Wikipedia and throws them donations. Nothing mentioned about needing more volunteers to help. Just feel-good everything is fine thanks for letting us know. Sgerbic (talk) 23:03, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

To be a bit overly fair, it is not really incumbent upon either Ms. Watson or the author of the paper to advocate for Wikipedia. It's possible to say "it's interesting how this thing works" while not supporting said thing in the optimal manner. Just another county heard from! Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:13, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Is there a reason for your extremely toxic response to a general video about Wikipedia? You seem to have a personal issue with Watson. Silverseren^C 00:18, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

+1 This "Wikipedia is under attack" mentality of "us vs. them" can lead to problems in my view. Wikipedia's policies have stood the test of time and have generally resulted in accurate articles (more often than not). Those pillar policies will unlikely ever change at this point (at most they will get stronger such as WP:MEDRS). If "it is people we need" (I generally agree) we should work to make editing the encyclopaedia a less toxic experience for newcomers that maybe don't know all of the "rules". We need to Wikipedia:Encourage the newcomers, not "fight" contributors with "well-trained" people {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 01:16, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

The trick is to encourage the right newcomers. After decades of work, many of us have finely tuned baloney detection kits that can identify problematic newcomers out the gate. Still, Wikipedia does have a culture of second chances and bending over backwards even as we've been burned over and over again. Good luck! jps (talk) 01:21, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

You mean you can predict future crimes a la minority report? That seems fringe to me! Jokes aside: I know that keeping content in check is not easy, but Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers is crucial or there won't be any editors to maintain Wikipedia one day. It's not like one day our work will be done. Someone must replace us all one day. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 01:40, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

There is a difference between biting newcomers and showing the WP:DOOR to problematic people. Heh, problematic kinda like the person who made those points in the first place. *smirk* jps (talk) 01:48, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

The point is: most new editors are problematic in some way as editing Wikipedia becomes more sophisticated every day. (And even experienced users make mistakes!) {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 09:42, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that's true in a WP:FT/N context. A WP:PROFRINGE editor coming good is very rare (I can think of two or three), and in general WP:CGTW#3 applies. Bon courage (talk) 10:49, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

This is a hot take in here but FTN is so fundamentally terrible at Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers and WP:AGF that I genuinely think it needs either more constant admin oversight or needs to be merged with another noticeboard with less, shall we say entrenched, power users.

Yes, we need to come down on fringe content like a ton of bricks, but I’ve had luck getting people to actually discuss their fringe edits and working on improving them by engaging them civically on talk pages and it really feels like a huge amount of the regulars around here have an explicit goal of driving away newcomers who make bad edits. I know there’ve been admin discussions in ANI about FTN becoming a problem on this front but the longer I’m here the more it feels like this place has a huge WP:CABAL issue, despite its necessity to keep fringe content off of Wikipedia. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Did mention CABAL, that is me! ;-) IMHO every senior editor is trying to do their best. Sometimes people snap at repeated acts of edits that are not done correctly, people not listening, people trying to force in an edit and so on. The problem with editing Wikipedia is that it is not straight forward, the instructions are over complicated and there is very little mentoring and zero human training, no wonder new people are confused. We are volunteers and we are here because we believe in Wikipedia, what it is and what it can be. Please no more policies or watch groups trying to police well-meaning people who are only trying to do what they can with the limited time and resources we have. Deal with this one-on-one when you see the problem. Most interactions are good healthy ones, don't cherry pick out a few bad ones and call the whole a problem. Sgerbic (talk) 19:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

"Deal with this one-on-one when you see the problem"

I have attempted to, I get piled on for not being too burned out to be civil, pretty much explicitly in those terms. Like, the situation I'm referring to involves a multitude of editors *explicitly stating* that they don't intend to assume good faith on fringe edits due to burnout, which is a call for a wikibreak, not a WP:AGF-free zone at FTN.

Note that my main suggestion is simply to get more eyes on FTN to dilute the presence of power users, not policy the utility of it away. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 20:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I hear ya - more well-trained people not more policy. Sgerbic (talk) 23:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

It would also help to WP:AAGF. Some "power users" have experience with past conflicts that we would do well to pay attention to. I have seen some people assume that people are just being mean when, in fact, they are providing "Danger, Will Robinson!" indicators. jps (talk) 15:53, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with @Warrenmck. 100% right. I've seen trained doctors just trying to contribute on Wikipedia being laughed off the platform for not knowing the intricacies of WP:MEDRS. The culture of toxicity has taken hold on many editing areas on Wikipedia and some editors even think it is a good thing. FTN often doesn't help and even generates some of those problems by creating a "group think echo chamber" and incentivising piling on, with incivility being often tolerated "for the greater good". WP:CIVIL should apply to all. Even, and especially, the "well trained" editors. No exceptions. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 20:56, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Gtoffoletto Yeah, a few months back I got into it with some of the other regulars here that the delineation used between panspermia and Pseudo-panspermia is mostly an artifice of Wikipedia, rather than one reflected in the scientific literature (it's occasionally used, but certainly not extremely consistent) and provided an ocean of literature referring to what Wikipedia calls pseudo-panspermia as simply “panspermia” and I’m a literal meteoriticist with zero overlap with the fringe theory side and got shouted down pretty heavily, evidence be damned. I’m not saying I should have gotten my way automatically by any stretch but there should never be a “well I see your plethora of peer-reviewed sources and that disagrees with my personal exposure to the term so you’re wrong” and that ended the discussion on improving the article. It’s still straight-up incorrect in the lede but I’m not brave enough to try to change it at this point, because a few people have got it into their heads that the term means one specific thing and one thing only and that cannot change.

FTN is too attuned to the fringe theories in some places to notice when something else is going on, which is exactly what I think is happening with trying to roll an entire religion under the watchful eye of FTN just because it’s believers harbour (or theologically necessitate) fringe and fringe adjacent beliefs (see the above Falun Gong discussion). I think it’s gotten to the point of being destructive. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 22:30, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

a few months back I got into it with some of the other regulars here I cannot find your user name in the histories of either Talk:Panspermia or Talk:Pseudo-panspermia, so I do not know what you are talking about... ah, one moment. Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 94#Panspermia (again) You only discussed here. You seem to misunderstand the purpose of this page. This is a noticeboard - look it up. People keep using it for discussions, and a bit of that is OK, but sometimes it gets out of hand.

trying to roll an entire religion under the watchful eye of FTN You seem to misunderstand the purpose of this page in this aspect too. When I see an article that has fringe aspects that could be improved, I put a link to it on this page. Then people can check that article and improve the fringe aspects. If that article happens to be about a religion, what am I supposed to do? Do I only have the choice between ignoring the problem and trying to improve it myself although it is outside my expertise? That is not a helpful limitation. A posting to FTN does not mean "That whole article is fringe! Diss it on this Noticeboard! And go destroy it!"

Your vague "oy vey! oy vey! this is such a cesspool of people behaving in another way than I would like them to!" does not improve anything. Looking at the Panspermia thread I linked to above, you are partly whining about 1. me telling you about a few mistakes you made, 2. me disagreeing with you. 1. Usually, when I tell people about their mistakes, or people tell me about my mistakes, the response is more positive. I am used to people who want to learn and improve. Telling somebody about a mistake they made is not an attack. It is one of the tools that improve fruitful discussions. And 2. disagreement is not an uncivility but you seem to view it as such. All that makes discussions with you unpleasant, and that - and you completely ignoring my suggestion about Panspermia (pseudoscience) and Panspermia (astrobiology) and instead focussing on how mean people are - is why I quit that Panspermia one.

I expect you to complain about this post too: I disagreed with you, pointed out misunderstandings, and criticized what you said. All of those seem to be no-nos for you. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:30, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't actually intend on rehashing this or any particular topic with you. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 23:01, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I've seen trained doctors just trying to contribute on Wikipedia being laughed off the platform for not knowing the intricacies of WP:MEDRS ← that sound pretty serious, Gtoffoletto (even it it's unclear how FTN is relevant). Please provide a link. Bon courage (talk) 07:15, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The typical issue is that a content expert rolls in, tries to push their personal/professional knowledge into the article, and gets rebuffed with "please provide citations."

This usually breaks into one of three responses:

1. Some variant of "do you know who I am!?!?" and appeal to authority.

2. "I don't have time to find citations, do it yourself" followed by never editing again.

3. The rare individual who stops, learns our policies, and actually contributes meaningful help.

We aren't always the best at coaxing experts into being meaningful contributors... but in my nearly two decades of gnoming on Wikipedia, I've seen a lot of experts try the "bull in a china shop" method of forcing content into articles, and then storming off in a huff when we won't just take them at their word. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:50, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

I definitely disagree, I have seen FTN reject sources because of preconceived conceptions more than once. There's a link to a thread I was involved in as a somewhat subject matter expert above, and at no level do I believe appeals to authority on Wikipedia are appropriate. FTN has issues where some people think they understand the nature of a topic as fringe, when the reality is they're more exposed to the fringe side of a topic than the mainstream perspective because the only thing. It's sort of like thinking that Young Earth Creationism is a mainstream Christian perspective because you dedicate a lot of time to countering YEC arguments.

This obviously isn't universal, but I think FTN is very, very slow to recognize any possibility that they may have misunderstood the nature of how mainstream a fringe perspective is on a given idea, and this was acknowledged by admins as an issue in the past. This is why I think FTN needs a wider pool of contributing users in general in addition to more consistent administrator oversight for behavioural issues from users with regards to WP:BITE and WP:AGF. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:05, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Some topics get bounced off this noticeboard because they're not subject to WP:FRINGE. OTOH, pretty much every proponent of something fringey argues that their particular topic is not WP:FRINGE. When was any problem of FTN slowness "acknowledged by admins as an issue in the past"? Link please! Bon courage (talk) 21:19, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

"OTOH, pretty much every proponent of something fringey argues that their particular topic is not WP:FRINGE."

Good thing I brought receipts. I harbour no fringe beliefs on this topic, I merely was stating that what wikipedia is calling "pseudo-panspermia" is frequently referred to as "panspermia" in the scientific literature and while "pseudo-panspermia" is occasionally used, it's far from consistent, therefore the introductory statement in the article

"Panspermia is a fringe theory with little support amongst mainstream scientists."

is fundementally incorrect. This isn't because the fringe theory has merit, but because "panspermia" does not exclusively refer to the fringe theory. The idea that the panspermia article should be about the fringe theory exclusively misses that the term is also used to refer to what is decidedly not a fringe theory and the delineation being as strong as it is is an artifice of wikipedia. But this discussion is starting to digress into a need for its own thread, though I'm not sure if there's much to gain from that happening here in particular again.

"When was any problem of FTN slowness "acknowledged by admins as an issue in the past"?"

Not slowness, but overweighting of a fringe theory next to a non-fringe version of that theory. Here's the old ANI post where there's an admin discussion on this topic. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 22:30, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The usual approach to words with several meanings would be disambiguation pages, like Panspermia (pseudoscience) and Panspermia (astrobiology). But that was suggested by one of the toxic FTN regulars that need to be avoided, who also said something you disagreed with (the much better known Hoyle/Wickramasinghe meaning), so you dismissed it with a handwave, a non-sequitur (The fringe theorists and the astrobiologists don't have a huge amount of overlap - that is obviously no requirement for disambiguation), and a lot of talk about how bad FTN is. You were adamant in your desire to eliminate the fringe meaning rom Wikipedia.

You cannot honestly use that case as a point in favor of your claim that FTN is toxic, and at the same time refuse to discuss the reasoning there. Your case is based on the assumption that you were right in every point back then, and that is just your opinion. --Hob Gadling (talk) 01:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, as an uninvolved editor I'm really not seeing what you're seeing. In that discussion Warrenmck suggests disambiguating between Panspermia and Panspermia (fringe theory), but then openly says I have zero issue at all with your suggestion, to be clear to the person who suggested disambiguating between Panspermia (astrobiology) and Panspermia (fringe theory). At no point do they even suggest we should eliminate the fringe meaning from Wikipedia. Loki (talk) 01:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

This is the second time in a week(-ish) someone has accused me of trying to remove all mention of a given fringe topic here for trying to inject a bit of nuance (see the Falun Gong discussion above where I’m objecting to a religion falling under FTNs purview, but not to practices and beliefs associated with a religion getting the FTN treatment). As a moderately regular contributor at FTN is definitely informing my concerns about FTNs insularity.

It’s not that I think I’m inherently correct and anything against my perspective is a WP:CABAL problem, but rather that any disagreement at all in here can get the worst faith possible interpretation on your argument treated as the only possible read and then get you treated as a WP:PROFRINGE editor or, as one editor put it, a useful idiot for fringe editors. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 02:24, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

@Warrenmck: Do you want to improve those two articles? Ping me if so, and I'll help out with the non-expert stuff (refs, page moves, disambiguation, prose, templates, etc.) Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 03:16, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I’d definitely like to stay out of any and all issues relating to the main Falun Gong articles for a small mountain of reasons, but I genuinely do want to work on the Panspermia article more! I’ll probably try to start a discussion on both relevant articles about the suggestions which have been brought up for naming conventions, and I’ll reach out on your talk page. Thanks! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 03:21, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, that ANI 'discussion' had just one admin with a perception (FWIW). Religions have never fallen under the "purview" of FTN as editors have said. It is difficult to have constructive exchanges if the matters being discussed are not stated accurately, and this can lead to discussion becoming contaminated by the straw man fallacy.

I don't know about panspermia but it is not uncommon for Wikipedia to have to manage its terminology in spaces where the real-world usage is messy, particularly where fringe elements are involved. Some fringe theories are parasitic on legitimate terminology to the extent the concepts become very confused. One case is Ketogenic diet (epilepsy treatment) vs Low-carbohydrate diet#Ketogenic diet (fad weight-loss diet). Another is Leaky gut vs Leaky gut syndrome. In Wikipedia the first topic is legitimate while the second is FRINGE, although sourcing on this is more confused than Wikipedia is. In such cases hat notes can help. (Add a look at the Science Direct overview page[13] seems to give a good overview of what 'panspermia' and 'soft panspermia' are understood to mean in a cross-section of recent scholarly publications.) Bon courage (talk) 06:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Religions have never fallen under the "purview" of FTN as editors have said.

I'm not trying to strawman anyone, but I do think it's a bit difficult to argue that's not somewhat what was going on above, because it did get quite explicit. I actually don't think we should continue this here, since it involves editors above and unless we ping them it's best to take it back up to that thread, but I'd encourage you to read the conversation again. You've definitely been one of the more moderate voices, so perhaps you're just doing better at WP:AGF here.

"In Wikipedia the first topic is legitimate while the second is FRINGE"

And in the case of Panspermia, it's flipped. Panspermia and Pseudo-panspermia are split using terminology that is not consistently used in the field with the baseline term being flagged as a fringe theory. This probably warrants a continuation on the talk page. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 07:23, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

"terminology that is not consistently used in the field " ← On the evidence of the ScienceDirect page, this is 180° incorrect. Bon courage (talk) 07:27, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I provided plenty of citations in the prior thread of “panspermia” being used in the scientific literature to refer to what Wikipedia is calling pseudo-panspermia. Pseudo-panspermia is also used and there are certainly some authors and likely journals with a preference, but to make the case it’s consistently a thing would be to ignore quite a lot of peer reviewed work coming out in meteoritics and astrobiology which have nothing to do with the fringe theory. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 07:59, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Right, so you've selected certain sources to advance a case. I have produced a non-partisan link giving a disinterested survey. At the very least, your assertion that Wikipedia has "flipped" the established real world use, seems wildly overstated, since your position now seems to be shifted to "it's complicated". (Add: I have added a hat note at panspermia which hopefully puts this question to bed,) Bon courage (talk) 08:10, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, to be clear the "flipped" statement is that we're giving the fringe theory the primary term and denoting the scientific theory with a term which is not exclusively used to represent it in the scientific literature. The Science Direct link you provided is certainly evidence that both terms are used, but it doesn't negate that there are plenty of publications using "panspermia" to refer to what wikipedia is saying is exclusively referred to as pseudo-panspermia. I think you've got a very strong case that pseudo-panspermia is used, but you're not providing any definitive evidence of the strong bifurcation of terminology Wikipedia uses, and I think that presents a WP:VERIFY problem.

"Right, so you've selected certain sources to advance a case."

I'm not trying to advance a case with those sources that panspermia = pseudo-panspermia, I'm trying to argue that the usage is inconsistent and Wikipedia should not pretend that it is. Neither of us will be able to produce evidence on the exclusivity of the term, and given that some people will encounter pseudo-panspermia through credible peer reviewed literature which simply calls it panspermia having a statement in the lede that "this is a fringe theory" misrepresents the nature of the term.

But I think this'll be my last post here on this, I'm happy to continue this either in its own thread or on the article's talk page. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 20:30, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I have zero issue at all with your suggestion, to be clear I just found that quote on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1136, in the later tail of a discussion in which I ad been active earlier. I don't think I ever saw it before. So I retract and strike the "adamant" statement. I still maintain that the basic fact is: someone tried to convince others, failed, and concluded that it was because of a toxic atmosphere, but had no actual evidence for that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:28, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I mostly stay away from FTN because I get the impression that this board is mostly used as a rallying point, to request reinforcements, et cetera, rather than a space for discussing improvements to the encyclopedia. While it's true that there are homeopathy guys, and they suck, and we shouldn't let them write all their own articles, it's not clear to me that the average article is really improved by being treated as a battlefield, or having "debunked,^[1] untrue,^[2] false,^[3] pseudoscientific,^{[4][5][6][7][8]} wrong,^[7] baseless,^[4][5][6] disproven,^[4][5][6] bad,^[6][7]" added to the first sentence, et cetera. jp×g🗯️ 03:05, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I think this mostly speaks to the badness of the rest of the internet rather than Wikipedia being "good". Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:26, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

+1. Also, I think the main conclusions are right. The state of Wikipedia right now is downstream effects from some pretty yucky stuff that happened nearly 20 years ago. Y'all shoulda seen what it was like to fight Reddi. jps (talk) 01:01, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

And here I was thinking Conservapedia was the last good site. Hyperbolick (talk) 11:42, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

It's all thanks to a few smart, vigilant, persistent editors. Huge props to them. Time for a mea culpa, hopefully of interest to others: until recently, I thought we had to phrase debunkings in a subtle way, to avoid a counterproductive "backfire effect". Turns out that's wrong, the effect is either not real or highly overstated. So, we're doing great, and maybe not doing enough. DFlhb (talk) 15:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for posting Hob. I also like what you said DFlhb. I suspect that two things have kept Wikipedia better off than other sites (in addition to the quality of the folks involved): 1)thus far there has been a thumb on the scale helping anti-fringe edits. That is policy -- WP:PARITY and WP:FRINGE and WP:MEDRS are the fence that keeps the wolves out. Because in a truly even evidentiary playing field, the scientific consensus loses. 2) It takes a certain amount of effort and knowledge to make an edit. There is an "entrance fee". Unlike Twitter or Reddit, where you can just pop off with your opinion. I worry that AI will lower this entrance fee. DolyaIskrina (talk) 16:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

This comment on the video was interesting

"The only reason it reached level 5 and stayed there is because of Wikipedia's Arbcom ruling that all articles that are widely considered pseudoscience may be identified as such. That meant the article lead could be changed to specify it. Ironically, Larry Sanger who wrote the original core policies, and did a really very good job, was absolutely FURIOUS about this, and thought that the article should allow the readers to make their own mind up, which in theory is a good idea, but ever so greatly overestimates the capabilities of the median reader." DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:12, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Completely disagree, on a truly even evidentiary playing field the scientific consensus will in fact win every single time. Reality has an anti-fringe bias, if it did not then the entire concept of scientific consensus and fringe would be moot (consensus wouldn't be consensus and fringe wouldn't be fringe). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:47, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Our commitment should be to the truth (or, if you prefer, fealty to the most reliable sources) rather than to persuasion. While I am somewhat sympathetic to the point that we can write prose in a way that isn't clunky, often times clear declarations of what is actually going on is the best we can do given the sources on a subject. "Homeopathy is pseudoscience" is a clear statement, but it is also devoid of explanatory power until we explain demonstrate exactly why the most reliable sources declare it to be so. I remember trying to force statements like "There is a complete lack of solute in all common 30C homeopathic preparations. Thus, if their labels are to be believed, homeopathic preparations that claim to be of a certain substance contain none of the substance." in to the homeopathy article during the pseudoscience wars of the past and having good faith editors revert me and get super mad about how I was hitting people over the head. I also used to go around to articles on plants and remove all homeopathy information because there wasn't actually any bit of plants used in the products being discussed, and there was quite a bit of push back. Things are much better today. Reminds me that I haven't done a "what links here" --> Homeopathy check through botanicals for some time. jps (talk) 17:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

C.f. [14], [15]. Anyone know why the "Hide Transclusions" option doesn't seem to be working on the What Links Here search? I don't really need to check situations where homeopathy is linked due to transclusions of a template, but I would like to look for where it is used in the text of the article directly. jps (talk) 16:15, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd also like to know how to do that, because links in transcluded templates being shown in "What links here" has been stumping me for a while DFlhb (talk) 16:33, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Maybe we should ask at WP:VP. I couldn't figure it out, but I did go through the rest of the backlinks and found a bunch of instances that needed help including a few that confused homeopathy with traditional medicine. jps (talk) 17:15, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Another scholar has commented on Sverrir Steinsson's research, and I wish the findings could become part of our guidelines. Syeda ShahBano Ijaz, an Assistant Professor of Global Political Economy in the department of Diplomacy & World Affairs at Occidental College, points out how the research teaches us that we can increase English Wikipedia's credibility very quickly by showing fringe editors the door.

• How Conflicts and Population Loss Led to the Rise of English Wikipedia’s Credibility

Steinsson traces the change in the content of English Wikipedia over time to suggest that the combination of ambiguous institutional rules and certain editors leaving the site helped Wikipedia transition from being a source that hosted pro-fringe discourse to one that gained credibility as an active fact-checker and anti-fringe. A close examination of the content of selected Wikipedia articles, their publicly available editing history, as well as the comments made by the editors, allows Steinsson to show that a change in the interpretation of Wikipedia’s Neutral Point of View (NPOV) guideline affected the nature of content in its articles. As the interpretation favored by anti-fringe editors became popular, pro-fringe editors faced increasing challenges and began to leave Wikipedia. This shift in the balance between pro-fringe and anti-fringe editors, which was a result both of the way editorial disputes were resolved and the exit of pro-fringe editors, made Wikipedia gain credibility as a source that debunked myths and controversies and did not promote pseudoscience.[16]

There is nothing to gain by keeping them around. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:59, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Key takeaway: From an early understanding of the NPOV rule as entailing diverse points of views and staying away from pejorative labels, the later understanding moved towards only documenting facts (as opposed to points of view) and the acceptance to apply pejorative labels as needed. This reinforces the importance of WP:FALSEBALANCE, and suggests that we might want to be cautious about MOS:LABEL, and perhaps tone down its language or make it more clear that it's ultimately sourcing that decides what language we use - though as the source says, this is already true; policy, like WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE, trumps manual-of-style guidelines like MOS:LABEL, requiring that we describe fringe viewpoints and the like the same way the consensus of the best available sources does, even if some editors might strongly disagree with the language they use or the conclusions they reach. --Aquillion (talk) 08:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with much of what Warrenmck wrote above, with the exception of “com[ing] down on fringe content like a ton of bricks”--This runs a high risk of righting great wrongs. Wielding a ton of bricks is usually only reserved for vandals in my experience. Recently an admin had to assess and remove a bunch of content from the COVID-19 lab leak theory article as it was inadequately sourced. Even Rebecca Watson's BLP citations are 24% primary—I doubt this would be tolerated elsewhere—the Andrew Huberman article has a hard time even getting his academic contributions mentioned. A timely discussion paper [17] from Cory Clark and thirty seven of her colleagues including Steven Pinker observes that

”Popular narratives suggest that scientific censorship is driven by authoritarian officials with dark motives, such as dogmatism and intolerance. Our analysis suggests that scientific censorship is often driven by scientists, who are primarily motivated by self-protection, benevolence toward peer scholars, and prosocial concerns for the well-being of human social groups.”

And goes on to say that

“many criteria that influence scientific decision-making, including novelty, interest, “fit”, and even quality are often ambiguous and subjective, which enables scholars to exaggerate flaws or make unreasonable demands to justify rejection of unpalatable findings (42, 50, 51). Calls for censorship may include claims that the research is inept, false, fringe, or “pseudoscience.” Such claims are sometimes supported with counterevidence, but many scientific conclusions coexist with some counterevidence (52).”

Patting ourselves on the back is not a great look. Much of this is secondary disease from weakness emerging in our reliable sources, but what is and is not fringe is not nearly as binary as this board tends to suggest, and it's often 'nonjudgemental language' that can help demonstrate where NPOV is being followed. SmolBrane (talk) 17:46, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I've seen this argument before and it still reads to me like you're asking us to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS yourself. There are definitely a few scholars like Pinker who have strong opinions and who have loudly declared that they're being silenced by the scientific community when those opinions aren't reflected in its larger consensus; but that paper is, as you said, just a perspective one - an opinion piece. It's also in a psychology journal, which seems a bit odd for the topic matter. I assume that if I asked the authors they would say that they were unable to get something more authoritative published because they were censored by the establishment, but whether that's true or false, our mission as an encyclopedia is nonetheless to reflect what that scientific establishment says, not to put our thumb on the scale and try to adjust the balance because some editor thinks a particular fringe theory deserves to be treated with more credence than scientific establishment does, or believes that there is some implicit conspiracy or bias to all of science that needs correcting. We demonstrate that NPOV is being followed by hewing as closely to the sources as possible and summarizing them in a dispassionate tone; but dispassionate does not mean equivocal - it can sometimes, in fact, mean being completely unequivocal, including using decisive words, language, and descriptors that some editors might take objection to. Editors cannot simply decide on their own that a clear conclusion reflected in the sources is actually a bias that we must set right. If you think an article fails to summarize the sources in an NPOV way, you need to demonstrate that it's out of line with those sources or produce new ones; you can't just say "yes but are we being fair to this idea?" NPOV is not about some abstract sense of fairness; it is about accurately reflecting the best available coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 20:07, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not asking for anything; I do believe that wikipedia's collaborative dencentralized nature needs to be weighed against the severity of policy enforcements—especially in areas like this(as per Gtoffoletto). PNAS and psychology are apt for discussion here, certainly when compared to the skeptic's blog and the poli-sci paper. But the irony of Rebecca Watson's perceived reliability coupled with the three-year-old BLP primary source template is not lost on me! SmolBrane (talk) 21:08, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

"Places of knowledge production, like Wikipedia and Cofacts, have proved so far to be the most robust to misinformation campaigns." - Cornell Chronicle -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:40, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Though of course WP isn't a knowledge 'producer', more a knowledge collector. Bon courage (talk) 17:43, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Of course. I do find it encouraging that our PAG and dependence on proper sourcing have an effect and that it's noticed and measurable. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:46, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Rick Alan Ross

• Rick Alan Ross (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Past discussion: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_51#Rick_Alan_Ross_-_deprogrammer

The subject of the article is once again requesting changes to the article. Given the fringe nature around Deprogramming#Controversy_and_related_issues and Cult#Usage_of_the_term_'cult', it would be helpful to get more editors to look at the FRINGE issues that may be involved in the current state of the article and the edit requests being made. --Hipal (talk) 19:53, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposed changes. The article seems good as is. I think that this guy lost a lawsuit for false imprisonment is leadworthy information. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:52, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Kurds are ethnic Iranians

Kurds (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The article is "Kurds" and the introduction says that the Kurds are an "Iranian ethnic group". Considering that I have not come across any source which says that the Kurds are an "Iranian ethnic group", I wonder if this is a fringe theory. Thank you. Mikola22 (talk) 18:15, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

In the first place, this is a Wikipedia thing (not sure if we can call it fringe). In the POV of some WP editors, ethnic groups are by default classifiable based on the linguistic affiliation of the languages that they speak. As a result, the linguistic labelling of the language of a given ethnic group (based on comparative linguistic subgrouping criteria) is applied as a classifier for this ethnic group. This default assumption was popular in the 19th century, but is insular in the modern context and not found in reliable sources. An even more insular corrollary of this erroneous labelling convention is the claim that the collective of ethnic groups speaking languages belonging to one language family or subgroup make up "ethnolinguistic groups". This insular in-house usage is a misapplication of the term, which in real life refers to a single ethnic group thas is primarily defined by a shared language as the most significant token for ethnic self-idenitification. It becomes most horrid when we have spurious articles about "X peoples" (Cushitic peoples, Romance peoples etc.), that are just OR-concoctions derived from linguistic classifications.

Note that I'm talking about an erroneous default assumption. This does not preclude that we can label an ethnic group with the same term that also denotes its linguistic affiliation, but only when reliable sources commonly do so. Emphasis lies on commonly; you will always find one or two books that e.g. call Catalans a "Romance ethnic group", but more often, you will find in RS about Catalans that the label "Romance" only is applied to the Catalan language.

I'm too lazy atm to join the discussion in Talk:Kurds, but it all boils down to the question of how many reliable sources actually label Kurds as an Iranian ethnic group (and not just an Iranian-speaking ethnic group). –Austronesier (talk) 18:59, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I mostly agree with this perspective. That said, I do think the Iranian peoples article does have some merit discussing the cultural similarities between Iranian-speaking peoples as separate from the linguistics. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:03, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Iranian peoples are certainly a special case, and it's good to see that editors take up the challenge very seriously and produce exactly the kind of sources that are needed. –Austronesier (talk) 19:22, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think there is a single source that refers the Kurds as ethnic Iranians. That's why I put this information up for discussion because fringe theories shouldn't be part of articles. Mikola22 (talk) 19:39, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The RfC is not about Kurds being "ethnic Iranians". Kurds are ethnic Kurds, just like Persians are ethnic Persians and Bachlochis are ethnic Bachlochis (grossly oversimplified, I know). But multiple RS label these ethnic groups as "Iranian" based on criteria that go beyond linguistic classification, hence "Iranian ethnic group". Whether there are sufficient reliable sources (and sufficiently modern ones) to jusitfy having this label in the opening sentence of the lede is a question of due weight, but not FTN matter. –Austronesier (talk) 14:55, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

I did not ask the question in the context of the RfC, but in the context of the information from the article in which is mentioned ethnic in the context of Iranians(The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages). "Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group", this context, as well as information does not exist in the sources. Is such information fringe in that context? As if we would say that some Slavic people are ethnic Slavs. Mikola22 (talk) 16:16, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Again, nobody says that Kurds are ethnic Iranians. Why you do parse "Iranian ethnic group" as "[[Iranian ethnic] group]", when it obivously is "[Iranian [ethnic group]", with "Iranian" modifiying the term "ethnic group"? The phrase "Iranian ethnic group" entails no "Iranian ethnicity", it just qualifies the ethnic group of the Kurds as "Iranian" in whatever sense (linguistic, cultural, whatnot). –Austronesier (talk) 16:31, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Austronesier You're right. I looked at the Wiki articles and there are informations for example the "South Slavic ethnic group" etc. But I don't know why there is not a single source in this sense? Mikola22 (talk) 16:40, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

You're last question brings us back to my first comment in this thread. You can't imagine how vehemently some editors contest the removal of contentious or spurious (usually language-related) labels for ethnic groups even when sources are lacking. Sometimes, it's just defending the walled-garden of inhouse conventions made up by Wikipedians (as you can spot in some comments in the RfC), but in the case of "Turkic" and "Slavic", you also run against 19th/20th century "Pan-" ideologies that are still deeply engrained with many. The RfC in Kurds at least helps not to take things for granted just because so many articles have this flaw. –Austronesier (talk) 16:50, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Lyndon Larouche publications used as references

See here. Unless the article is about Larouche, probably none of these are appropriate. If anyone is looking for something to do. Prezbo (talk) 19:28, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I removed it from Rationale for the Iraq War. I looked at several more pages, but they appeared to be just English translations of other cited sources in foreign languages, which is... kind of helpful I guess? Sennalen (talk) 19:58, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Muscovy duck

Muscovy duck (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Does a homeopathic preparation of 200C contain any Muscovy duck? An editor claims it is possible it might. I say that there are many instances of the universe that would be required which means that to the extent that anything is true, it is true there are no molecules of this duck in that preparation. What say ye? [18] jps (talk) 02:34, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

I gotta say, I saw this pop up on my watchlist and was psyched for what it could be. I'm kinda disappointed that it's something as mundane as very watered down duck soup to treat a flu. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:40, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

It's made by a company that makes something like half a billion euro each year... much of it on the reputation of this "cure" for the flu (best-selling in France!). jps (talk) 02:45, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

If i understand Oscillococcinum#Preparation correctly then you are being completely irrational as you have neglected the final step. The active ingredient is 10^-400g of the 200CK solution in a one gram sugar tablet. Doesn't that mean they need to mix one water molecule with 2.99x10³⁷⁷g of sugar? They obviously have access to multiple universes to begin with as there ain't that much sugar in ours. fiveby(zero) 05:37, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

The absolute absurdity of this homeopathic preparation is very difficult to state in terms that are not under exaggerations. Paul Offit said it was unlikely to find one molecule of duck in a universe full of Oscillococcinum. I don't know what a universe "full" looks like, but if he is referring to one that doesn't Big Crunch immediately with our rate of expansion, there are something like 10⁸⁰ molecules one could fit in the observable universe. So you would need 10³²⁰ universes. This is an absurd under-exaggeration. jps (talk) 11:26, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Ow, my head. The dumb. Silverseren^C 02:41, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Not sure of the drift of these mixed flippant/irrelevant comments, but this is not a "fringe theory" question, but one of strictly correct framing of a stochastic outcome. If 100 molecules of a substance are dispersed into a water volume the size of the Pacific, then it is still incorrect to say "the Pacific contains none of that substance". These molecules do not magically disappear into the aether. It is merely extremely improbable that any given sample from that volume will contain a single moclecule. ජපස et al, please stop waving "homeopathical claims are bunk" like a flag of merit - I think we are all in the same boat here - and resist the temptation to state false absolutes in articles because they sound nice. If the term "astronomically improbable" is not snappy enough for your liking, desist of inserting the relevant statement entirely; the article in question does not need to hit readers over the head with comments on homeopathy. We deal with that elsewhere in great detail. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

You used the Pacific as an example, but that is a way under-exaggeration. In physics we deal with practical impossibilities all the time. It's a game of statistics. There are 10⁴⁶ water molecules in the pacific ocean. We would need 10³⁵⁴ Pacific oceans worth of water to actually approach the dilution level we are talking about here. This is zero molecules by any possible measurement standard you could ever invent using human technology. And if you're interested in non-human technology, who exactly are you writing the encyclopedia for? jps (talk) 11:07, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

You honestly don't get that "one molecule within the galactic volume" would not still not allow you to say "that volume does not contain any of the substance"? Honestly? You managed to make any headway in a scientific discipline with this kind of mulish insistence that sloppy phrasing becomes correct just because the numbers get large? I keep assuming that you are just posturing, but if that is really a fundamental lack of understanding, I'm giving up - not my circus, not my clown car. Things seem to have been sorted (one way or another) at the article, so that's me out of this sideshow. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:43, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

The point is that there is no gigantic volume large enough (even a "galactic" volume is an absurd underexaggeration). A volume of that size doesn't exist. It cannot physically exist. So we can only talk about the sample and the sample has zero molecules in it. That's as plain a fact as something like, "the Earth goes around the Sun". jps (talk) 13:05, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

By the way, the same nonsense is being promoted in Domestic Muscovy duck as well. "Minute" is not the right word for the amount of duck stuff in these preparations: [19]

jps (talk) 11:07, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

• Might be a (rare) case where an explanatory footnote is merited. Say the preparation contains no molecules of liver, and then footnote the "no" with something about the multiple universes stuff. Bon courage (talk) 11:59, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Likely that would be considered WP:OR even though the calculation is something that anyone who has a passing familiarity with order of magnitude could do. It's just not worth it. jps (talk) 13:03, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

This[20] could be used as a source for the duck goo vs. molecules count stuff. Bon courage (talk) 13:08, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately I think they messed up the math. It should be 10⁴⁰⁰ not 10²⁰⁰⁰. Not that there is any practical difference as there are zero molecules in preparation of either concentration (which just follows my main point). jps (talk) 13:15, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Note that per WP:ONEWAY among other principles, all mention of oscillococcium has been excised from Muscovy duck. We now move venues to Talk:Domestic_Muscovy_duck#Oscillococcinum. Should we mention this lunacy there? jps (talk) 13:03, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

As long as editors are reasoning based on these absurdities, then you might say that it is made from the heart and liver of wild duck. Maybe they should have to prove the one duck that needed to be killed to create our multiple universes of tablets was in fact a domestic one and not wild. fiveby(zero) 14:52, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement above, that this is simply a matter of stochastics, but not a fringe theory one. One might even say that all of this is a matter of quackery. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:45, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Hey, i was going to do some real work and remove links to sites like GlobinMed from articles such as Melochia corchorifolia to make amends. But ජපස, did you ever come up with any ideas for a threshold for inclusion of ethnopharmacology in species articles? fiveby(zero) 18:16, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm... Rhinoceros and Pangolin are put in (even further) danger of extinction because of Chinese Traditional Quackery. In those cases, it is relevant. Homeopaths do not need much material though. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:05, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

So the one above is a roadside weed. It undoubtedly has been used, as probably most common plants at some time or place, Isaac Henry Burkill cataloged a few usages. That's probably marginally useful information for somebody, i like to know how the plants in my neighborhood were traditionally used. But the good sources are hard to find, and quality devolves as alt med websites and WP content gets copied word for word from a junk journal and we end up with these being "benefits" of the plant. Could just delete all the content as poorly referenced and copyvio, but there is some maybe useful info and a little work might turn up more. I guess my question is if a well-referenced article would only catalogue a few usages without being able to say more about how it was used, is it worthwhile to include? fiveby(zero) 15:00, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

I think that WP:ONEWAY may be a good basis for inclusion. When a source that is about the plant mentions an ethnopharmacology use, inclusion in the article on the plant seems justified. However, in a source about particualr ethnopharmacological practices that is not about the plant, per se, we are likely best to mention plant use at an article about the practices (assuming such articles exist) and only link out to the plant article. Just spitballing here. jps (talk) 20:23, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Someone privately e-mailed me to point out that the concentration is given in terms of grams rather than molecules so all of my numbers are are off by twenty-two orders of magnitude (roughly). Doesn't change anything practically, however. There are no duck soup molecules in any oscillococcinum. For posterity, however, I thought I would document the back of the envelope absurdity. The molecular concentration of oscillococcinum is roughly one part in 10³⁷⁸ which means that in a critical-density universe full of oscillococcinum, we're looking at something like a one in 10²⁹⁸ chance that any molecule of duck soup would be in the universe. I'll compare that to a woman who won at craps 154 times in Atlantic City which is equivalent to beating the odds of one in 10¹². If you want to consider the entire inflationary landscape, maybe you can get another 60 orders of magnitude (it's outside our observable universe, but... whatever). Okay, so if you were that lucky, you'd only have to deal with 10²²⁶ inflationary-landscape-sized volumes to get to break-even likelihood. But don't you call it zero! Also, I should be clear that the likelihood of discovering a molecule from the duck soup is far greater than the likelihood of observing a violation of the second law of thermodynamics for something like an ideal gas which is in the realm of a whopping one part in 10¹⁰²⁴ or so. Time goes forward because returning to unlikely microstates is so uncommon. More uncommon than finding the needle in a haystuck duck soup in the oscillococcinum.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

jps (talk) 15:37, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Wait, while your at it would you mind calculating the chances of a duck offal molecule spontaneously assembling? fiveby(zero) 15:59, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Lol. How does one decide whether the molecule has duck offal provenance if it spontaneously assembled? Ducks, like most life on Earth, are mostly water, after all. jps (talk) 16:28, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

TL;DR the amount of duck in these homeopathic preparations is: duck all. Bon courage (talk) 16:30, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

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

jpxg, your analysis here is just wrong. The Jupiter thought experiment misses a series of crucial steps in which a teaspoon of the resulting Jupiter/coffee mixture is mixed into a new Jupiter. This would then be repeated a handful of times. At the end, we'd have a pure Jupiter mix again, with the likelihood of any other outcome lower than negligible. No molecules that were in the coffee have disappeared; they were just left behind on the first Jupiter. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:53, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, if it's negligible, then it's negligible, or there's a probability of one in 10^{99999239804172354890174592380453}, or whatever. I do not think saying this indicates any sort of mental disturbance. jp×g🗯️ 05:39, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

No mental disturbance at all! I think the result of this discussion—not mentioning the undue pseudoscience in the articles mentioned—is a great improvement. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 05:43, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

There is a problem with the word "negligible" in that it is used for material solutions that are far less pure than oscillococcinum. If we are going to be using descriptive terminology "zero solute left" is as accurate as we can get. If we are going to quibble, then I insist you get the math right in comparison. The number you quoted, for example, is close to what one might need to calculate the probability of perfume whizzing back into a bottle in a stadium. jps (talk) 12:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

If you are asking for calculations of how close to zero a number is, one can provide that if the article context demands it, sure. But we're talking about mentioning this stuff (thankfully now excised) in articles about the thing that is serially diluted. To say that there are zero molecules in the preparation is about as close to true as any statement you might make in these realms. But maybe there are better ways to put it. You are about as likely to find an atom of solute in a 200C preparation as you are to flip heads 1329 in a row on a fair coin. Is that more or less browbeating for you? I'd rather just say "zero" or "impossible" (because statistically impossible in the practical world is impossible -- that's one of the ways that thermodynamics works, for example). The problem is when people try to make analogies that are underexaggerations like you did. If you want to make quantitative comparisons to make your point, choose the right comparisons. jps (talk) 12:16, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

JPxG, if the company that creates this product even bothers to gut any ducks and begin with a solution, the second step would be to discard that solution and refill the container with water. After that happens there is nothing really rational to say about this as a "solution", but the absurdities continue. It makes no sense to speak of "concentrations" or "solutions" when the proportion of solute is less than a single molecule. There is not enough sugar or even matter in our universe to build their tablets with a 10^-400 active ingredient. It is absurd and they are lying, the thread (while fun) was to demonstrate the scale of the absurdity and lies. So if for some strange reason a reader really wants to know about Muscovy duck, why does the article content contain absurdities and lies? fiveby(zero) 05:12, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, there's nothing about it on the duck article, but here is what it says on Oscillococcinum, now that I have done some half an hour of scrounging around to find shockingly elusive sources for the Eddington number(?)

This series of dilutions would result in one molecule of the original substance being present in 10⁴⁰⁰ molecules of solute; for comparison, the atmosphere of the entire planet Earth is estimated to constitute around 1.04×10⁴⁴ molecules (i.e. one molecule of duck offal per 10³⁵⁶ Earth atmospheres).

Is this really so bad? Are people going to read this and think "wow, those guys must be right"? jp×g🗯️ 05:43, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

By the way, if anyone can come up with a decent source for the 10⁸⁰ particles in the observable universe, that would go much better in here, but I honest-to-God could not find a citation for that figure that wasn't trash. jp×g🗯️ 05:46, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

It's an order of magnitude estimate based off the baryon fraction of the critical density and the size of the observable universe. Most intro astronomy textbooks include a calculation of it as a homework problem. You could do worse than Universe Today: [21] which includes generous enough error bars to allow for quibbles in all directions. jps (talk) 12:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

That's probably wrong, someone just reading the active ingredient of the label and seeing the 400 exponent. The recipe is to dump the container and refill with water 200 times, then it's 1 part of that "solution" to 10⁴⁰⁰ parts sugar. By the way if i recall there is a surprising amount of "other" matter allowed in consumable products, mostly i think insect parts and frass. Whole lot more shit in this sugar than duck. fiveby(zero) 06:07, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't object to the descriptions provided on the oscillococcinum page as such. The analysis is carefully considered in context. The problem is when descriptions of this get out in the wild. There was a time that I was nearly banned from Wikipedia for suggesting that plants and animal pages should never mention the supposed "use" of those in homeopathy because the preparations did not contain the plants and animals. Thankfully, it seems that this kind of argument is no longer forbidden necessarily, but, as others have pointed out, a minimal standard of decency for Wikipedia might require something like a source available that speaks to the WP:PROMINENCE of the homeopathic preparation in reference to the substance prior to making mention of such a thing. I might imagine some weird scenario where obsession over a particular preparation might cause a conservation movement to protect some herb or something (never seen a source to that effect, but this would be the level of seriousness I think we should be looking for in order to think about following WP:ONEWAY). jps (talk) 12:27, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

If we are going to play these games, I might point out that 10⁵⁰ is the approximate number of atoms in the world while 10²⁰ is the approximate number of atoms in one gram of Duck Soup (I may be off by a thousand in either direction. Forgive me. These are Fermi problems.) As with the famous question of "how many atoms in each breath that you take were also in Julius Caesar's last breath?" one might ask, "How many water molecules have ever been inside a Muscovy duck in Oscillococcinum?" That's a somewhat different question! There are on order of 10⁶ Muscovy ducks in the world today... let's say there have been no more than 10⁸ that have been alive for all time. That's something along the lines of 10³⁰ total atom possibilities within Muscovy ducks (note that many of these atoms are repeats). (10²⁰)(10³⁰) = 10⁵⁰ so I judge it far more likely that there is by chance alone a molecule of Muscovy Duck offal in the final product of oscillococcinum. But it was likely introduced from the water used during the last of the serial dilutions. jps (talk) 16:37, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

References

Gülen movement

The Gülen movement is accused of the Turkish government of being a terrorist organization. However, the Turkish government consistently fails to substantiate its claims and has rule of law issues that make its claims even more dubious.

Gülen movement#Criticism contains multiple subsections which uncritically lists the accusations of terrorist activity, giving undue weight to the government narrative. There are four specific incidents with their own pages mentioned, some of which have their own issues. Assassination of Andrei Karlov has a source reporting Russia pushing back against the Turkish government's accusation, but the infobox claims that a "Russian delegation" supported the government's accusation. The pushback is not mentioned in the subsection of the Gülen movement article. Assassination of Hrant Dink, in the same manner as its associated subsection, unequivocally describes the Gülen movement's involvement being "brought to public attention."

Despite qualifying most of the accusations as such, the deceptively loose threads tying shadowy actors to these events are framed in such a credulous manner that an unquestioning reader could mistake them as credible. For example, "Redesigning of Turkish political landscape" describes the movement's political machinations involving coercing multiple lawmakers with licentious tape recordings while assassinating clean ones and disguising their deaths as accidents.

Previous attempts to remove the offending subsections of Gülen movement have been reverted without substantial debate, and a previous suggestion to clean-up the article has gone nowhere after ten months. Meatius Pizzus (talk) 23:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The Gülen movement is a tricky one. While we can't take the Turkish government narrative about them being terrorists at face value, at the same time there are legitimate criticisms of the organisation that need to be included otherwise the article would be a hagiography of the movement. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:10, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

That's true. The rest of the section includes mentions of the movement's secrecy and censoriousness, which seem to be non-fringe criticisms of the movement. I'm specifically addressing the corruption and terrorist accusations, which at best include too much detail and not enough skepticism and at worst launder unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Meatius Pizzus (talk) 23:54, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories (Again)

See this discussion on the talk page. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:08, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

A television documentary is released on one of the streaming services claiming to provide important new revelations - which provokes people who feel Wikipedia should showcase such important new revelations. It's a scenario that is happening more frequently as streaming services compete to generate more content. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:53, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, if we are going to start treating these things as RS, there is also this. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:22, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Maharishi Vastu Architecture

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maharishi Vastu Architecture

I am thinking of going through and beginning the difficult process of weeding the WP:Walled garden that is the Maharishi cult articles. Let's see what y'all think of this first start.

jps (talk) 16:16, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Alex Epstein climate change denial?

A new user has been editing to remove the label ‘climate change denier’ from the lead. Page edit history

This was discussed on the talk page 1 year ago.

I don’t think the source used (Slate) to qualify the ‘denier’ label is strong enough, but he is also described as a form of denier by other sources. Extra help on the article and talk page might be appreciated. At least, there could probably be some mention of the critique he has received in the lead. Zenomonoz (talk) 22:47, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be a WP:SPA at work. Outsellers (talk · contribs) has now been warned of CTOP. I think that Epstein's identity as someone who opposes the scientific consensus on climate change is fairly obvious from the sources. This is properly called "climate change denial". It seems Epstein objects to this label because he thinks that there is climate change, but the term actually refers to those who reject to scientific consensus on climate change and not climate change sui generis. As such, his opinion that this is not an appropriate label is not an adequate justification for not including the demarcator. Is there any other argument for why he shouldn't be identified as such? jps (talk) 23:10, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Good points. Yes, Outsellers looks like a single purpose account. Zenomonoz (talk) 01:13, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

==Neutrality and Verifiability (WP:NPOV & WP:VERIFY)==

• Wikipedia’s cornerstone is to provide a neutral point of view. The term “climate denier” is often perceived as pejorative and could violate the neutral standpoint required by Wikipedia.
• The primary source for labeling Epstein as a “climate denier” is an opinion piece, which may not meet the rigorous standards of verifiability and reliability required for a biographical article about a living person.
• The use of an opinion piece as the basis for such a label could be seen as synthesizing a point of view, which is against Wikipedia's policy.

==Due Weight (WP:DUE)==

• Wikipedia’s guidelines stipulate that content should reflect the balance of perspectives as they appear in reliable, published sources. If the majority of reliable sources do not prominently label Epstein as a “climate denier,” then it should not be given undue weight in the article, especially in the lead section.
• The lead of a Wikipedia article should summarize the most important aspects of the subject's notability. If Epstein’s primary notability is not centered around being a “climate denier,” but rather his work on fossil fuels, then emphasizing the “climate denier” aspect in the lead may not accurately represent the balance of his public persona.

==Representation of Controversy (WP:CONTROVERSY)==

• While it’s important to represent significant views, it’s equally important to avoid giving minority views more prominence than they deserve. If the view of Epstein as a “climate denier” is not a majority view among reliable sources, it should be contextualized appropriately.
• If Epstein has publicly rejected the “climate denier” label and provided counter-arguments, these should be included for balance, reflecting Wikipedia's commitment to neutral representation of disputed topics.

==Biographies of Living Persons (WP:BLP)==

• Wikipedia’s policy on biographies of living persons is particularly strict. It requires high-quality sources, especially for contentious or potentially defamatory content. Given that the label “climate denier” could be considered contentious, extra caution is warranted.

In summary, while acknowledging the controversy surrounding Epstein's views on climate change, the emphasis should be on adhering to Wikipedia's core content policies, especially regarding neutrality, verifiability, and due weight, particularly in the context of a living person's biography. Outsellers (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

You have misunderstood the policies you are referencing. WP:NPOV does not mean WP:FALSEBALANCE. The sourcing is there and high enough quality to meet the bar set by WP:BLP. MrOllie (talk) 17:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Reading WP:MANDY might be worthwhile as well. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:10, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

There is no relevant scientific controversy, contrary to what uncertainty propagandists would like you to believe. Actually relevant here are WP:BLP, WP:GEVAL, WP:FRINGE, WP:PSCI, WP:MNA... It's also because practical environmental scientific assessments work that there's a desperate "wedge strategy" to block scientific practice, via corruption and authoritarian policy. —PaleoNeonate – 13:03, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that Alex Epstein is a climate change denier. However we still need the sources if we're going to say he is. Perhaps we do, but if we do, I don't quite understand why we're using sources like the Rolling Stone which per WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS, shouldn't scientific claims, nor for politics. Yes it can be used for culture, but it seems clear to me this fits much more in the wheelhouse of where we're not supposed to be using it rather than the areas we can. There is obviously the infamous A Rape on Campus article but that's maybe somewhat separate from what we have here. However if we can't trust a source not to spread COVID-19 misinformation, why on earth are we trusting them to assess whether Alex Epstein climate changer denier? We should never use a source we cannot trust to get the basics right, just because we happen to think they're right in this one instance. If they're really right and it's important, other sources we can trust surely have covered it. If we can't find other sources, than for whatever reason it isn't as important as it seems to us. Nil Einne (talk) 11:01, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Agree. The typical situation with conservatives who buy into the denialist disinformation is that they repeat some of the denialist tropes, agree with one of the denialist positions (no climate change, not human-caused, or not that bad) and that no reliable person calls them on it. And the best way to handle it is saying that they disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change without quoting the specific tropes (because that would be spreading misinformation without providing context) and without adding the refutations of the specific tropes (because the refutation does not mention the conservative person). --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:22, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

I am agnostic to how the information is presented, but it is undeniable (ha!) that Alex Epstein is a member of the denialist caucus. Whether we want to call it the "denialist caucus" or not is a style argument, but I think a link out to climate change denial is essential -- even if it ends up piped. Here's a little quote: "Epstein’s argument that burning fossil fuels will not cause serious harm — he said last month that “there are huge positives” to rising temperatures — runs counter to conclusions of leading scientists, who say the world must rapidly phase out fossil fuels and slash greenhouse gas emissions to stave off worsening floods, heat waves and other climate disasters." It's straightforwardly oppositional to scientific consensus. There really is no arguing against that. [22] jps (talk) 16:32, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps we could remove "climate change denier" from the first sentence, and instead shift this sentence: He rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, which is that climate changeis dangerous, progressing, and human caused, although he objects to being labeled as a climate change denier from the second paragraph, and make it the third sentence of the first paragraph. Then move his books to the second paragraph. Zenomonoz (talk) 00:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure his rejection of the denier label is lede-worthy. WP:MANDY, for one, but, for two, it doesn't really help the reader understand the contours of what is going on. Epstein is attempting to act as a spokesperson in the long line of "Greening of the world" camp of spokespeople for the fossil fuel industry who, rather than going full-bore into antiscience denial, just try to spin doctor their way to positive outcomes for dumping all that carbon dioxide into th atmosphere without any plans to bring the levels back down. His rejection of the "denialist" label is only the first step to his adoption of his political persona. That's the sense we need to get to in the lede so that the reader understands who this character is. jps (talk) 14:54, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah looks like other editors have put in similar opinions on the talk page and adjusted the article in this manner. I haven't made any edits myself. Cheers. Zenomonoz (talk) 20:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

References

COVID origin again

• COVID-19 zoonosis theories (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

has just warped in, entire. Apart from being a synthetic topic (does any source talk about such 'theories'?), from a quick look, it somehow manages to avoid saying that zoonosis is the hypothesis most supported by scientists. Might need eyes from fringe-savvy editors. Bon courage (talk) 18:57, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

It says that in the second sentence of the lede, right after defining the topic. A zoonotic spillover event is the possible origin of COVID-19 that is considered most plausible by the scientific community. Sennalen (talk) 19:00, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

I am glad you posted something here, though. As I said on the talk page, this article should be useful as a positive example for good practices in applying FRINGE and MEDRS. Sennalen (talk) 19:02, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

If it's the most accepted theory about the Origin of COVID-19, shouldn't it be treated as a spin-off of that article, specifically Origin of COVID-19#Direct zoonotic transmission in a natural setting? Otherwise, it risks being a POVFORK. TFD (talk) 22:48, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I consider it a WP:DETAIL companion to Origin of COVID-19. I didn't want to be hasty in creating links myself. Sennalen (talk) 23:12, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

The first declaration is manifestly incorrect. COVID-19 zoonosis theories are scientific hypotheses proposing that SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, was first introduced to humans through zoonosis.... I can find no source which matches the term "COVID-19 zoonosis theories" with such a definition. jps (talk) 14:47, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The entire concept of zoonosis "theories" (whatever that is supposed to mean) seems like editorial innovation. Then saying that "theories" == "hypotheses" seems ... huh? Bon courage (talk) 15:14, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The topic of an article is an idea rather than a phrase. I followed the MOS in making the first sentence a definition, with the subject of the sentence matching the article title. Suggestions for a better title are welcome. Sennalen (talk) 15:21, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

What source does this "definition" come from? Bon courage (talk) 15:23, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

"Origin of COVID-19" is a better title. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:29, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Like Origin of COVID-19? The current article's curious contortions about "theories" has the unfortunate effect of making it seem like "the other side" to COVID-19 lab leak theory, which is not a great way to frame things - a kind of macro-level WP:GEVAL. The Zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2 is is a fact and shouldn't really be presented like this. Bon courage (talk) 15:35, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

A zoonotic origin is a likely but unproven theory, and the many proposals about how, when, where, why, and involving which animals are all unproven theories. This is exactly the right way to present it. Sennalen (talk) 18:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Zoonosis is fact as asserted by RS (even if details are as-yet to be determined). Even the lab-leakers are into some kind of 'zoonosis in the lab' scenario, with the bio-engineering notion being firmly in the conspiracy theory camp. Bon courage (talk) 19:01, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

CRINGE*... yeah, this is not a good start. The idea that "theories" can be "proven" is not the approach that is taken with articles about medicine and science. There are the facts of the matter and the explanations that comport with the facts. To the extent that there are no alternative explanations that align with the evidence, we say that an explanation is true. To the extent that there are multiple possible explanations, we say they are and offer the relative weight for each. There is no "proof". This is the right way to present it. jps (talk) 19:22, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Zoonosis is the default hypothesis by strong inference, because it's also the case for all known coronaviruses in the wild as well as previous epidemics and pandemics, even if all mutation details for a particular strand may be never be known. Anything else is an extraordinary claim needing strong evidence. It's not for no reason that early promoters are political disinformation sources, that there was misrepresentation, fear mongering based on standard virus features relying on public ignorance, misleading arguments collection to see what sticks, advocacy groups promoting it, etc. The propaganda method, not the scientific method. —PaleoNeonate – 04:27, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

If you want to spend all your time talking about the zoonotic origin of COVID-19, you could write an article called Zoonotic origin of COVID-19. No need to invoke "theories" or "hypothesis" or other vaguewaves to manifest uncertainty where that just muddies the waters into WP:FALSEBALANCE territory. jps (talk) 15:53, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

It's a MOS:AVOIDBOLD problem, not a verifiability problem, though questions about WP:COMMONNAME or false balance are fair.

It bothers me that Origin of COVID-19 is almost entirely about investigations, and not about the titular topic. DFlhb (talk) 16:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. An article on Studies of COVID-19 origins would be a closer match to the content of that page. An entire reorganization of this stuff may be in order. jps (talk) 16:17, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Usurping the former article with my own would be too forward of me, but I don't think it would necessarily be a bad idea to do just that - focusing the old article on the political processes of investigation it already spends much of its time on. Sennalen (talk) 19:02, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

"It bothers me that Origin of COVID-19 is almost entirely about investigations" ← I think jps's proposed merge could actualy help with that. Bon courage (talk) 16:18, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

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

Nina Kulagina

Weird suggestions on the talk-page of this article. User is claiming the article is "one of the longest-running, most biased, defamatory biographies of a deceased person on Wikipedia" and Wikipedia is "unethical". This seems to stem from a reversion I made on the article when this user claimed (incorrectly) that Nina Kulagina won a paranormal side of a lawsuit. The lawsuit was actually about defamation, it did not rule about paranormal abilities. See talk-page. Psychologist Guy (talk) 16:04, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I have notified the editor in question, 5Q5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), of this discussion. The talkpage diff Psychologist Guy is referencing is this one: [23]. jps (talk) 16:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I responded to the relevant above inaccuracies on the Nina [sic] Kulagina talk page. 5Q5|^✉ 13:46, 28 November 2023 (UTC)