Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

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    Fringe theories noticeboard - dealing with all sorts of pseudoscience
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    Arsenicum album‎

    Have a look at the ridiculous "Scientific evidence" secrtion Dana Ullman added, and which homeopaths are fighting at all costs to keep in the article. Adam Cuerden talk 00:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Adam, I respect what you're doing a lot. You should already know that. However, to avoid clutter, can we make a main Homeopathy section on this noticeboard and when you find multiple articles, then create sub-sections? There's the same kind of clutter at WP:RSN on Islam and it makes using the noticeboards difficult. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 12:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    It might work, but this one is particularly bad, so I'd suggest a look. Adam Cuerden talk 21:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I see one of the sources is [eCam] which is obviously not self published and is a peer reviewed scientific journal. This seems to me to be a reliable source. --Blue Tie (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I see another source is something like Science of the Environment. It is not clearly stated that this is a peer reviewed journal, but I note that there are guidelines for reviewers. I looked at those guidelines and the way the reviews are scored, and it appears to be a scientific peer reviewed journal also. --Blue Tie (talk) 21:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is cherry picking. VEry small studies being presented as the end word on the subject. Adam Cuerden talk 22:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, you are saying above that the sources are ridiculous. They do not appear to be ridiculous but you appear to be overtly biased and not assuming good faith. More importantly though, if you believe that there is an alternative view, then find other studies and present them. Then both sides of the issue should be presented according to the guidance of NPOV. But I note that where there are peer-reviewed journals that specifically have studied this issue, these should not be called "ridiculous" and "particularly bad". --Blue Tie (talk) 23:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Adam, I don't mean to sound like Jimbo here, but if they're cherry-picked studies, then dig out references to dispute them. Yes, I know it's tedious but it's policy, so w\e. You can't claim, "Such and such is not reliable," on your own basis, because all claims about sources have to be cited in sources, themselves, in accordance with WP:NPOV. If you think something is disputable, you can get rid of it while you try to find stuff to verify it, but you can't just remove it if it looks like a reliable source without having an additional source to back up your claim.

    The only exception is the really wild fringe theories where there won't even be any papers on mainstream journals ridiculing it. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 23:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    These are fringe theories, and I've added plenty of studies generally refuting homeopathy in the lead. However, these are tiny studies published in very low impact journals or CAM journals, and as such, there does not seem to be specific comment on most of them outside of this Wikipedia article, and even the New Scientist reference seems never to have been picked up again. Adam Cuerden talk 02:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    The relevant standard here would appear to be WP:V#Exceptional claims require exceptional sources -- claiming experimental scientific validity for a concept that gives every appearance of violating all known theoretical science would appear to be sufficiently "exceptional" to require absolutely bulletproof substantiation. HrafnTalkStalk 02:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I do not agree that this is so. As wikipedia's goal is to disseminate information, part of the information includes studies -- one way or the other. Both sides can get some review and peer reviewed journals are good sources. Moreover, before you can declare that research to be "contrary", you must show research that is contrary to it. --Blue Tie (talk) 04:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with hrafn, generally. If these are real studies, but small...we need to say that. If they indicate that it works, say that. In health, especially, very little is super rock solid under any circumstance....so....Say what's what. "some small studies indicate success, most larger one's don't and the theoretical basis doens't fit with most science." --Rocksanddirt (talk) 04:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I do agree with Rocksanddirt's approach, however the "most larger ones" need to be cited. --Blue Tie (talk) 04:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Then it becomes a WP:DUE weight question, and the majority of weight would need to be placed on the larger, more reliable, studies. Where the size/reliability disparity is sufficiently large, the smaller studies should be ignored altogether. HrafnTalkStalk 04:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    First you must find the larger, "more reliable" studies that studied this matter specifically. So far, I have not seen ANY other studies but those that are cited here. You cannot claim that the studies identified here should be done away when you offer nothing in response. --Blue Tie (talk) 05:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    well....if the smaller ones have an intersting result (like efficacy waaaay over expectations), we might want to keep them anyway. but yes, REFS FOR ALL! --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    But these "interesting" results are generally because the experiments were "waaaay" unreliable, so should be excluded -- as I pointed out above, exceptional claims require exceptional sources. HrafnTalkStalk 01:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I think this is exactly the point being made, and tend to agree with it. The statement "homeopathy has medical merit beyond a placebo" is an extraordinary statement, and in the absence of absolutely bulletproof evidence for it, we should not make it — even in the qualified form that "Study X said that homeopathy has medical merit", since that gives the false impression that there is a body of literature out there which provides substantial scientific evidence to support the extraordinary claim. --Haemo (talk) 02:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Where is there a study that has reviewed this Arsenic Album and found it to be ineffective? If the only study you can cite is one that generically lambastes homeopathic remedies but is not focused on Arsenic Album, then it would be undue weight to give that study too much sway above studies that are specific to the subject (Arsenic Album) in an article about Arsenic Album. At the same time, wikipedia does not have to advocate homeopathic remedies. Just report the facts. --Blue Tie (talk) 05:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    There is a huge difference between a claim a particular treatment had particular effects under particular conditions, and broad general claims such as "homeopathy has medical merit." Whether a particular treatment works empirically or not is not necessarily correlated with the validity of any claimed theoretical basis behind it. Small doses of Arsenic Album may or may not have any legitimate medical benefit, I wouldn't know, and if it does the reasons why would not necessarily have anything to do with the validity of homeopathic medicine. We can point out information included in studies, such as if numbers of patients are very small compared to other studies, whether or not there was some sort of control, randomization, consistency of instruments, etc. We can print this factual information if described in the articles. What we can't do is print our own conclusions about whether or not studies are reliable. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 01:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Satanic ritual abuse

    Further information: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_2 § Recent_systematic_push_of_fringe_theories_at_Satanic_ritual_abuse

    Satanic ritual abuse (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is currently in horrible shape. It presents the clear majority view the Satanic ritual abuse does not exist as an actual conspiracy as a minority view. It busies itself with presenting apologetics in favor of the fringe conspiracy theory, much of it in an "absence of evidence does not indicate evidence of absence" fashion that likely violates WP:SYN and WP:UNDUE. Some feedback and extra eyes would be appreciated. Vassyana (talk) 20:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd advise a few people to check out the contributions of Abuse truth (talk · contribs). I agree the SRA article is a joke at present - we've already had complaints about it on this noticeboard at least once before - but with the current crop of users editing it I'm not sure much can be done. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 10:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The article used to be of good quality, until a handful of conspiracy POV-pushers came along and screwed it up, and ever since then they have staunchly insisted upon keeping conspiracy theories in. There are a number of underlying problems. First of all, many of the journals being cited are not available for free on the Internet, so people pretty much have to take the word of the poster that the source is not being misrepresented. I no longer trust the conspiracy theorists to cite sources fairly. Secondly, we have an issue of people outside the field being used as expert opinions. Allegations of SRA are primarily a criminological and sociological issue. Virtually all criminologists and sociologists agree that the SRA scare was a moral panic (though there may have been isolated cases where abuse took place with ritualistic overtones). Most of the gullible conspiracy theorization comes from psychiatrists and people in a handful of radical fringe fields. But I see no reason why psychiatrists should be considered expert on this subject, any more than they would be on (say) evolution or American history. *** Crotalus *** 21:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    One of the chief POV-pushers (I posted a detailed critique of the edits here, it's now in the archive) seems to be AWOL since mid-December. No doubt THEY got to him. A conspiratorial mind might note that the disappearance occurred exactly as we were beginning to move towards mediation. <eleland/talkedits> 11:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    not again. Enough time has been wasted in futile debates with conspiracy mongers who are obviously not interested in a neutral report on mainstream opinions. Good faith has been stretched to ridiculous lengths. This article needs to be put on Wikipedia:Article probation, and probably also needs to be semi-protected. Before we go any further here, it needs to be reverted to the last sane version. After this, uninvolved admins should clamp down on any editor trying to push an agenda or spin the article into suggesting conspiracy mongery. dab (𒁳) 13:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I see the real problem as being that certain editors only want one POV on the page. One that is skeptical of SRA. Any sources that may even suggest the existence of SRA are attacked, no matter how reliable and editors that promote these sources are threatened and called names. IMO, this is the real problem here. To have a NPOV page that is edited via the consensus process, the threats, name calling and reversions without consensus by those skeptical of the concept of SRA would need to stop. Abuse truth (talk) 22:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    AT's claims aside, there are problems with the assertions of the existence of SRA. These are discussed in detail and generally dismissed. AT has never managed a reply, rebuttal or follow-up that was convincing. I have read every post AT has left on the talk pages we are involved in, and always reply. If AT has a point, I edit accordingly. If not, I reply why I don't think there is merit. WLU (talk) 13:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I've not only read his posts, but printed and re-read the entire SRA archived talk pages. It took me several days to go through and digest all of the "Satanic" child abuse debate.
    We have pointed out to AT what a good RS is, the peer-reviewed journal. He ignores it and continues to call self-published texts "RSs".
    It's not that skeptical editors are allowed in the wiki and the believers not. It's a matter of the reliability of sources: something that AT has not understood yet.
    User:Cesar Tort —189.145.190.2 (talk) 18:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Infobox deletion

    Resolved
     – TfD closed as no consensus. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    FYI: Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Infobox_Pseudoscience. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Criticism of fractional-reserve banking

    Is economic support for the theoretical advantages of "full-reserve banking" considered to be non-mainstream? (Disregarding the practicalities, I suppose.)

    The criticisms of fractional-reserve banking seem to have wide support, including:


    Fisher, Knight, Friedman and Simons are all acceptable sources. I'd have to look and see whether there's unacceptable synthesis happening, however. Relata refero (talk) 13:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The Criticism of fractional-reserve banking article would appear to be a POV-fork. I would much rather see all the relevant criticisms, including the ecological one if it is well sourced, added to the Fractional-reserve banking article. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:11, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Ziusudra

    there are allegations of pushing of fringe theories I find difficult to evaluate. Sumerophile (talk · contribs) appears to take any comparison of Sumerian and Biblical flood stories as implying the claim that they refer to some "real" historical flood. That is, it appears this user is reading fringe claims that nobody ever intended to submit. But maybe I am missing something. See here, and Talk:Ziusudra. dab (𒁳) 12:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    looking into this, the picture becomes rather clear. While "Sumerophile" in his mission to "remove fringe theories" doesn't shirk from removing without comment references to University of Pennsylvania Press or Cambridge University Press published sources (apparently because they were being used to reference view he opts should be deprecated), his nemesis Greensburger (talk · contribs) who is allegedly a subtle pusher of fringe views shows a perfectly sane editing pattern, removing fringe claims or reverting blanking (and shows a refreshing failure to qualify as a single-purpose account [1]). dab (𒁳) 13:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories

    another loopy theory that escaped notice. I have done some preliminary cleanup, but this article clearly needs to be surveyed (if not deleted or merged as unnotable kookery). dab (𒁳) 13:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Some of the theories mentioned are notable. I have a scholarly book that mentions one or two and hope to add refs when I have a minute. There was also a documentary about the issue shown on UK television a few years back. We should bear in mind that there is also much speculation and uncertainty in the mainstream views of how the Americas were peopled. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Notable in the sense of? None of the uncertainty in mainstream views is about African contact. The basic arguments about how and when Native Americans arrived from Asia. There is one hypothesis (put forward for testing that is) which is very minority that some may have come from Iberia (the Solutrean suggestion). I have no idea what TV programme you have in mind and I'd be very interested in what scholarly book you have, even just the name would be useful. Thanks.--Dougweller (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    A distinction needs to be made here between origin and contact. Dougweller seems to be discussing the various theories about the origin of humans in the Americas... and I would agree with him on that issue. But I think the topic here is contact... the various theories that once humans had settled in the Americas, there was occasional contact between them and humans in Africa. These theories are certainly Fringe, they are not accepted by most scholars of pre-columbian history. However, I think they do pass the basic test for inclusion outlined in this guideline. I too have seem programs on TV (Discovery Channel, History Channel etc) that have discussed such theories. Thus, the topic has achievied the level of mainstream recognition that this guideline requires. It is appropriate to have an article on the topic. Determining what is stated in that article, and how it is stated is a different matter. Blueboar (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    note that I am not opposed to keeping this article around (or I would just have AfDd it): Wikipedia articles are justified by notability, not by sanity of their subjects. The point is that the article needs to make clear that although notable, these theories have no merit. dab (𒁳) 16:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    In other words, we have to make clear that we here at WP:HERESY have unanimously declared this idea 'heretical', and thus we must 'educate' all those poor fools who do subscribe to it, that their POV is simply wrong, because their books are wrong - while our 'approved' books are right. Wouldn't be 'neutral' any other way, would it. ;) 141.152.54.105 (talk) 17:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I can agree with that. I am sure that there are good sources that have debunked all of these theories. They should definitely be discussed. Blueboar (talk) 16:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Book is Timewalkers by Clive Gamble. By a scholar for general readership. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks. I've just ordered it from Amazon. --Dougweller (talk) 17:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Note it is about origins rather than contact. It describes the way that humans spread throughout the world. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:51, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Consciousness causes collapse

    Resolved
     – Page now redirects to quantum mysticism. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Minor tussle. A number of the editors asserting ownership of this article are obvious fans of quantum mysticism and don't like having the science rug wisked out from under them. A few voices of reason could be helpful here even while the article is protected. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Walled garden discovery

    Check out the various articles related to Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. In particular there is Social cycle theory of Sarkar. Progressive utilization theory, Microvitum, Neo-humanism, Ananda Marga, Ananda Marga Tantra, and AMGK. Do we really need all these articles? ScienceApologist (talk) 23:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I am very familiar with philosophical and religious topics. I will take a better look over that set, but on first impression it's at the least a promotional set of articles. In terms of fringe concerns, "neo-humanism" is the most obvious problem. "Neo-humanism" bears no apparent relation to the philosophy of humanism and seems preoccupied with "New Age"-style concerns such as "universal love" and "holism". Additionally, there is a promotional tone used throughout the articles. For example, from the subject's main article:
    After I take a better look over the articles, I will tackle maintenance task such as merges, PROD/AfD, cleanup tagging, clearing up the promotional tone, etc. Any assistance would be vastly appreciated. Vassyana (talk) 06:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    good catch, ScienceApologist :) dab (𒁳) 15:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • I've made a first go at merging and redirecting, as appropriate. However, the remaining articles (Ananda Marga and Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar) still need a lot of work and attention. Any assistance in cleaning up the language, condensing the material, removing promotional and instructional text, finding additional references, etc would be greatly appreciated. Vassyana (talk) 07:40, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    and another

    Category:Uhuru Movement, surrounding Omali Yeshitela. An entire category of articles without a single citation that would establish notability. Omali Yeshitela himself may be notable (some 10,000 google hits), but the remaining articles accreting around him clearly are not. dab (𒁳) 15:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    African nationalism uses "Uhuru Movement" in quite a different way since "uhuru" means "independence" in Swahili. I imagine that many Africans would be quite upset to see this general principle taken over and by a relatively small group of Americans. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    there is Uhuru (independence) (a redirect). Uhuru is just the Swahili for "freedom". As such, it would belong on wiktionary, not Wikipedia. The "Uhuru Movement" appears to be of rather limited notability within US Afrocentrism, but its notability could be sufficient for inclusion. It's just that somebody will have to establish notability (as in, cite third party sources). dab (𒁳) 16:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Much of that is non-notable. The African Socialist International probably is for the history of third-world fellow-traveling. There seem to be a couple of discussions of its founding in 1981 in the appropriate commie-watching journals, and it merits an entry in the Historical Dictionary of Socialism. Also known as the Socialist Inter-african and the League of Something or other. Relata refero (talk) 20:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I changed the link in the African nationalism article. African Socialist International is surely not notable if they are still talking about holding a founding congress in the near future. If they eventually do found the organisation properly then perhaps it will be worth including. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    No, that's an error. I fancy this chap is piggybacking on an actually notable organisation. Founded apparently by Leopold Senghor of Senegal. Relata refero (talk) 16:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I've done some merging/redirecting. The remaining problem articles are African Socialist International, Omali Yeshitela and Chernoh Bah. dab (𒁳) 18:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I'll rewrite ASI. Relata refero (talk) 19:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. It was great! If there's anything more absurd than Soviet propaganda in full flight... "Dangerous and opportunistic". "Betraying the worker's revolution". "Petty-bourgeous conspiracy." Relata refero (talk) 19:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Albanian origins fringe theories

    New user Pelasgicmoon and not new Dodona have been reposting material on Fringe theories and have been rejected about 50 times(Dodona mostly since Pelasgic is new) on various pages by Admins,Users and Dodona even by his mentor.[2] They dont get the rules and have a dogma about it and just keep posting reposting ignoring and going on reposting..........Megistias (talk) 16:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    that would be blockable as disruption. dab (𒁳) 15:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Then please do so.Megistias (talk) 20:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    ok, we have some minor problems with Albanian nationalists at Talk:Pelasgians, Talk:Chaonians in case anyone is interested. See also Origin of the Albanians, Albanian nationalism, Dodona (talk · contribs), PelasgicMoon (talk · contribs). Things are generally under control, but more eyes are welcome. dab (𒁳) 15:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Hmm, how did I not have Pelasgians on my watchlist already? Admins should be aware of WP:ARBMAC if things get hyper. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 11:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Bates method

    Bates method (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) The article is suffering from severe NPOV as well as some OR problems, and has for a long time. Article needs a sentence-by-sentence, section-by-section, review to identify everything that is original research, promotional, or otherwise unsupported by independent sources. I recommend identifying problematic sections and sentences first, rather than just gutting the article, to give the regular editors there some realization what it means to follow NPOV. --Ronz (talk) 03:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I've written a section-by-section summary of what I think needs being done: Talk:Bates_method#Suggested_cleanup_per_WP:NPOV.2C_WP:FRINGE.2C_and_WP:OR. We really could use some help here. --Ronz (talk) 03:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Tamil roots of Carnatic Music

    This discussion on WP:RS/N is trying to obfuscate some fringe-y POV-pushing regarding the origins of Carnatic music, pitting a bunch of Tamil chauvinists against an equally fractious lot of Kannadigas (who usually are the most sensitive to their neighbors' antics) over the WP:RS status of a website. This could get bloody. rudra (talk) 04:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Hmm. Heating up already. rudra (talk) 05:37, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Page now protected until March 1. Surely they can settle their differences before then...or hang on a sec, maybe not. We'll see. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 12:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    David Barton

    Where a controversial 'historian' (who has no formal education in history and makes claims that have gained no acceptance in the academic historical community) is widely described as a "pseudohistorian" and has had his work widely criticised by legitimate historians, is it reasonable to note these facts in the article lead? This seems to be authorised by WP:LEAD when it states: "It should establish context, summarize the most important points, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describe its notable controversies, if there are any." [My emphasis] There is another editor who is trying to move all mention of this characterisation and criticism out of the lead to the end of the article. HrafnTalkStalk 14:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Have a look at how this is handled in the case of Bat Ye'or where a compromise has been quite painfully hammered out between opposing groups of editors. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Does the Scientology Galactic Confederacy qualify as "fiction"?

    There is currently a proposal to merge the Galactic Confederacy article into the main Scientology article on the basis that the Galactic Confederacy qualifies as "fictional" at Talk:Scientology#Merge proposal.. Any input as to whether this apparently acknowledged belief of Scientologists qualifies as "fiction" would be more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 16:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Umm, what is the basis for differentiating this topic from any other religious belief/scripture? Is there any argument for this being "fictional" that couldn't as easily apply to them as well? But in any case, even if it isn't "fictional", I don't see it having any notability at all that isn't heavily dependent on, and derivative of Scientology's notability -- so it should probably be merged somewhere (though I tend to agree that Xenu or Space opera in Scientology scripture would be more appropriate targets). HrafnTalkStalk 17:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know. All we have is one editor, comparatively new, who is insisting that it qualifies as "fiction". I have left a note for him on his talk page to the effect that he has to prove that this matter of religious belief qualifies as fiction. He has also accused an experienced editor of "vandalism" for having removed a merger tag. And, it has at least three cited references, which I think qualifies it as notable enough. I agree that there isn't much content, and that might be reason to perhaps merge it to Scientology beliefs and practices. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a guideline or policy which specifically differentiates between matters of religious belief and fiction. Does anyone know of such a policy, guideline, or whatever? John Carter (talk) 17:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    If the merge goes through, then I'm going to do something I always wanted to do: go through some of the worst written articles on Bible chapters and the like, dropping Template:In-universe on all of them that treat religious dogma as historical fact. Relata refero (talk) 17:37, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    They should all be written from a scholarly (Biblical criticism, Biblical archaeology, etc), rather than theological, perspective. However dropping a tag that explicitly calls them "fiction" on them would be highly incendiary -- I hope you have your asbestos underpants on. ;) HrafnTalkStalk 06:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    After a little escapade at Book of Esther round Purim time one year, I always keep the asbestos handy with those articles... No, the reason I said it is because it sometimes seems the only way to wake the main contributors up. Otherwise it usually is just the "in-universe" people who edit those. Relata refero (talk) 10:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    And my objection isn't that they're written from a theological perspective.. that's not that bad. Its when they're written as history that I get irritated. ("..and then in the next decades the Medes conquered XYZ..." and the like, sourced to specific Bible verses.) A related problem is in all ancient Near East articles, where "in-universe" Bible commentary and the Catholic Encycl. is treated like a reliable secondary source. See Nebuchadnezzar, though at least there someone managed to persuade them to use the word "portrayal". Relata refero (talk) 10:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Royal Rife

    Resolved

    Royal Rife, particularly the talk page: there are no active content issues, but the talk page is an absolute mess of conspiracy theories and the like, and has drifted quite a ways from anything relevant to improving the associated Wikipedia article. I'd just like some outside review of the talk page with an eye toward the talk page guidelines and moving it away from Conspiracypedia and back toward discussion of concrete improvements to the actual article. MastCell Talk 20:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • I archived it and semi-protected for a while. Looking at it from afar, I'm afraid that "David" had no interest in policy, neutrality or anything else, he just wanted to use Wikipedia to correct the fact that the world regards Rife as charlatan. Guy (Help!) 22:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Thoughtform

    My BS-meter just keeled over and died. I don't know where to even begin describing this mass of free-flowing random-association mega-verbiage. Check this out:


    And this is only a typical example of what this fellow has been producing with gay abandon. Woo has nothing on this stuff. rudra (talk) 09:11, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Mostly joking, but is there an appropriate template analogous to the {{in-universe}} tag for fiction? This article appears to contain a vast amount of straight up WP:OR, Synthesis, and gross abuse of block quotes. I am kinda leaning towards aggressive razing, but the sources and ideas need to be checked first. Amusingly, there apparently at some point were separate articles for Thoughtform, Thought-form, and Tulpa (all now redirect to first). -Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 11:18, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Dollars to donuts, it's all WP:SYNTH and WP:OR, typical pop-Buddhist New Age blather. The "style" is interesting, though. A casual look could easily fool you into thinking that the article is "well-sourced" -- all those footnotes and references, oh my! -- but the tricks there are to "reference" isolated words or phrases (where the reference will have the word or phrase, but not the gist of the sentence or passage in the article), or to "reference" propositions to entire books (conveniently leaving out things like page numbers). For example, here's an old version of a page by another contributor of the same ilk, and here is what you can expect if you um, mess, with the article. rudra (talk) 19:48, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I haven't checked who the main contributor is yet, but I can make a very good guess. And if it is who I think it is, we haven't a chance of having a comprehensible discussion with him. Relata refero (talk) 21:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    As I thought. Relata refero (talk) 21:02, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a pity that the graffiti aspect of vandalism isn't extended to include things like truckloads of pseudo-esoteric bullshit. rudra (talk) 21:18, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Just revert it all, IMO; it's basically incoherent. --Haemo (talk) 00:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thoughtform is key to Dzogchen, a spiritual and religous tradition. Ignorance IS palpable.
    B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 02:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    So IS bullshit. rudra (talk) 04:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I get the distinct impression that this is a much more serious issue, or we are being played here. Check out this reply to my complaint that it is incoherent:
      • The key to your opinion is "suspect". It is commendable that ignorance is owned, rather than projected. Wisdom is hard won, gnosis is the fruit of grace. If you require clarification read through the entire article a few times, read all the wikilinks, contemplate the contents, then read the article a few more times. Informed, then your opinion would or may be of value and useful in iterating this article. This article is incomprehensible to a shallow grazer. It is 'covering' the principal interior mystery of a mystery tradition, the content of which has yet to enter onto the catwalk of the Ivory Tower of the World Stage in the mode of protracted scholarship. If you do not have the karmic vision and proclivity condusive to cognition, it is impenetrable. Mysteries and secrets, as thoughtform, have a way of keeping themselves. Though primordially clear, pure and luminous as the 'resonant crystal matrix' of Indra's Net, Dzogchen is a vast indeterminate field.
    Ah
    B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) —Preceding comment was added at 01:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    What Relata said. rudra (talk) 03:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    What do we do? I can't tell what's going on at all. It's like I fell and woke up in a world where everyone speaks Japanese and is constantly on peyote. --Haemo (talk) 03:22, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    My first instinct was to WP:CSD#G1 it. But maybe a proper AfD is in order. Eldereft thinks that there may be a legit kernel -- on tulpa -- but digging that out from under the mountain of crap won't be easy. rudra (talk) 03:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    This is the kind of article that makes me want to abuse my admin powers, and unilaterally delete. I guess I just don't have the right karmic vision... --Akhilleus (talk) 03:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Here be dragons *hehehehe*.B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 03:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Rather than cackling, could you help us rewrite this so I don't require an advanced degree in Shambalan mysticism to figure out what it's saying? --Haemo (talk) 03:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    That's the point. It isn't saying anything. Meaningful, that is. No degrees required. rudra (talk) 03:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Conze (1980: p.12) states:

    For the last two thousand years Buddhism has mainly flourished in rice-growing countries and little elsewhere. In addition, and that is much harder to explain, it has spread only in those countries which had previously had a cult of Serpents or Dragons, and never made headway in those parts of the world which view the killing of dragons as a meritorious deed or blame serpents for mankind's ills.[1]

    Oh, and BTW, "the mind boggles" was purely artful! B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 04:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    What does this have to do with making it coherent? --Haemo (talk) 04:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Apparently, that dragons prefer incoherence. rudra (talk) 04:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    The article seems unlikely to improve, so I've proposed its deletion through the {{prod}} template. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, you state "It reads more like a personal, mystical essay than an encyclopedia article.", and the author states "I wrote this article from my own realization. Now I am finding scholarship and citation to authenticate", soooo... --Haemo (talk) 05:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    That really should be a valid reason to speedy delete, don't you think? --Akhilleus (talk) 05:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Add:
    Others, that may have been snatched from innocent stub-hood:
    He's prolific, if anything. rudra (talk) 07:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    You know more about this stuff. All I have is a BS detector, and the ability to parse English. I'm trying to see if we saved something from this by rewriting it and asking for refs. --Haemo (talk) 07:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    That should be enough: if it looks dodgy, it most probably is. The generic problem is that Tibetan Buddhism (the common denominator here) is obscure. There isn't much in the way of truly legitimate material in English on it, certainly minuscule compared to the reams of twaddle you'll find even outside WP (e.g. go to Barnes and Noble and you'll find shelves of stuff selling you "Instant Karma, the Shambala way" or whatever), the result of TB having been swallowed whole by the New Age movement, with "native" charlatans piling in for good measure. My rule of thumb would be to apply WP:RS very strictly: everything needs to go back to peer-reviewed stuff in reputed academic journals or tertiary sources. rudra (talk) 08:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    So what happens now? This is clearly all original research and so banned by Wikipedia, right? Can the bit about it being part of a series on Tibetan Buddhism be removed now (the series list doesn't include it or rather them? Should all of these be proposed for deletion?--Dougweller (talk) 07:46, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • Okay, last night, I tried a test wherein I would rewrite the first paragraph in more understandable terms, and asked them politely to work with other editors to fix the article. Instead, the user continued adding OR to the article [3] (don't be fooled by the citation; it doesn't come close to supporting the contention) and was summarily reverted with the comment "restoring technical terminology and tags". I don't know what to do; this editor does not want to work with other people, is unresponsive to requests for citation, and appears to have made a vast walled garden of woo-woo on Wikipedia. I'm reverting back to the version which requests citations, but this is untenable. --Haemo (talk) 19:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    An alternative approach might be to undo the redirect at Tulpa and use that as the core of a proper article, and the target of an eventual merge from Thoughtform (more accurately, with what can be salvaged from it). Whether the result should be titled "Tulpa" or "Thoughtform" can be discussed separately. Here is Tulpa before B9HH's efforts. This is the combo diff of subsequent changes up to the redirect: the changes seem mostly in the popular culture sections. Such sections are trivia magnets and will have to be overhauled, of course. Meanwhile, there isn't much on tulpa per se. rudra (talk) 20:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    That must be the best approach. If it is a concept in Tibetan Buddhism then there must be some sources that mention it. I have left a message on the Buddhism Wikiproject talk page. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. Meanwhile, I've undone the redirect and removed the duplicate material in Thoughtform. Unfortunately, it really looks like "Thoughtform" would be the better title. "Tulpa" itself doesn't seem to be a Tibetan word; rather it seems to have been coined by Alexandra David-Neel, possibly as her rendering of a similar Tibetan word or phrase. The word then took on a life of its own in woo-woo and New Age circles, where David-Neel not surprisingly is big cheese. So the "literature" on tulpa itself is undoubtedly quite dodgy and WP:OR-ish. The real question is to what extent it actually is associated with something in Tibetan Buddhism. rudra (talk) 01:35, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Okay, I've moved the (scrutable) material on tulpa to Tulpa, and resurrected what used to be an article on a book, Thought Forms (whose material had been copied over). What's left at Thoughtform is, as far as I can tell, blogorrhic blather from beginning to end. Maybe there's usable stuff in there on "thoughtform", but it might be better to write such an article from scratch. rudra (talk) 02:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I've made an appeal for assistance on the WikiProject Buddhism talk page. I've had an eye on some of these articles for a while. I think that some of these are depicting non-standard translations of actual Sanskrit or Tibetan Buddhist terminology as the norm, and then elaborating on them with a combination of personal research and new-age content; there are pages that says something is "Buddhist", and then turns around later and says that it was first articulated by theosophists. I'm not familiar enough with Tibetan terminology to be terribly helpful here, but additional input from someone who knows a bit more about scholarship of Tibetan Buddhism would be very helpful. --Clay Collier (talk) 02:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Missed that Itsmejudith already posted this to the WikiProject page- that's actually how I got here. I added a request for some investigation to the Talk:Buddhism page- it gets used for this sort of thing quite a bit, and is more frequently checked than the project page. --Clay Collier (talk) 02:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Criticism of atheism

    In the "Criticism of atheism" article (which btw has a pretty pro-atheist slant but thats not the point of my discussion) there is a section detailing a Christian writer noting that "Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic". There's a 'rebuttal' by Sam Harris that goes "The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions." That kind've avoids the point, but again, this my POV so I'm not going to add it into the article. So far it contains two cited arguments.

    Now this was followed up by "Further, this criticism is simply a poisoning the well fallacy variant, as well as a strawman of atheism. It is clear that not all communists are atheists (see Christian Communism), not all atheists are communists (see Ayn Rand), and attacking atheism via communism attempts to paint atheists in a negative light initially so as to discredit anything they may say." which I removed as uncited POV. The user who added it, Knight of BAAWA, reverted it back saying it was a fallacy and thus did not need a source. The wikilink to "straw man" was enough. At the very least, they needed a quote from someone stating that argument.

    Now a second user, Deus Ex Machina, has added it back saying "The source is already there" without adding any. I reverted, it saying that I didn't see a source.

    Now this paragraph doesn't seem to be in align with any of WP's policies, but if someone with more experience could run in that would be great.--CyberGhostface (talk) 15:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    AIDS denialism

    There has been a recent upsurge in AIDS-denialist agenda-account activity. Specific pages involved include:

    Since AIDS-denialist groups have in the past coordinated "attacks" on Wikipedia, I'd just ask for eyes on these articles and any others which turn up (I could list a bunch of other former POV forks and walled gardens of AIDS denialism, but that would violate WP:BEANS). MastCell Talk 22:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Ah. Add Incarnation Children's Center (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to the list. This facility, which provides care for children with HIV, was the subject of a report by a journalist named Liam Scheff alleging that they were force-feeding the kids poisonous medications (N.B. that Liam Scheff denies that HIV causes AIDS). These charges were amplified in a BBC documentary, but subsequently the BBC backtracked in response to complaints about their accuracy ([4]). In any case, Liam Scheff (talk · contribs) has now edited the article introducing his (unsourced) take on this dispute. I've left a WP:COI warning, but again, more eyes are necessary on these articles at present. MastCell Talk 06:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    On it. Relata refero (talk) 19:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Add Paul Gann to the list; an account is continually replacing his cause of death (AIDS, as described by the New York Times) with AIDS-denialist claims from Peter Duesberg's book. MastCell Talk 18:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    John Zizioulas

    Request assistance on BLP-article on John Zizioulas, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamon. The page has been protected due to an edit war (see Talk:John_Zizioulas) over the inclusion of fringe-group material and references accusing Zizioulas of being 'deceitful', 'heterodox' and at odds with 'traditional Orthodoxy', which had been occupying half the article.Seminarist (talk) 00:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Bulgars

    Bulgars#Iranian_theory: Comparable to the Albanian frolicking above, here we have expounded an apparent fringe theory popular in 1990s Bulgarian nationalism. Wikipedia is very vulnerable to this sort of thing. I tend to file these cases under Category:Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups: reviewing that category will raise your hair, and give you an inexhaustible field of fringe cleanup work. dab (𒁳) 14:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Origin of the Azerbaijanis is another all-time favourite, if you can be bothered. dab (𒁳) 14:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I am reminded of the time a friend's half-senile mother was reading an account of the Wolfenden report and declared that "they can't spell burglary". Guy (Help!) 15:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    these articles are apparently written by people who are not quite senile enough to be prevented to use a web browser... dab (𒁳) 18:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    And yet again, Armenians trying to claim Mitanni. rudra (talk) 03:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    these kids are not really a credit to their nation, are they... I guess I'll just semiprotect the article to buy it some peace. dab (𒁳) 10:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I think what we've got to start doing with fringe theories like this is to give the reasons why they arise and why they become so popular. For instance, it's not really going out on a limb to speculate that the "Iranian origin of the Bulgars" theory caught on because of the anti-Turkish campaigns in Bulgaria in the 1980s and 90s when it became politically undesirable for the Bulgars to have been Turkic. If we can find a scholarly source explaining this we should add it. --Folantin (talk) 10:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    sure, we have dedicated articles for this sort of stuff. Macedonism. Illyrian Movement. Albanian nationalism. Armenian nationalism. National awakening of Bulgaria. Rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire. Indigenous Aryans. National myth. Nationalism and ancient history. Strangely enough, the nationalist zealots never seem interested in adding material to these. dab (𒁳) 11:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    speaking of "Indigenous Aryans", could somebody be bothered to speedy Aryan invasion theory (Europe) and have a chat with its creator? dab (𒁳) 12:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. PROD is rather too kind for stuff like that. Such patent nonsense really is CSDable. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 14:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Postscript: in fact, I've just blocked the author of Aryan invasion theory (Europe) indefinitely as a result of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Goldenhawk 0. Hats off to Dieter for spotting the socks here. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 09:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Ayurveda

    for everyone battle-hardened on the homeopathy front, you may be interested in looking at Research and innovations in Ayurveda and similar articles.

    Further information: Ama (ayurveda), Triphala, Rasayana, Chyawanprash, and Todd Caldecott

    dab (𒁳) 18:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Interesting. I'll have a look round and see what I can fix. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 10:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Questionable sources

    Hi everybody, a proposal is being made to ease the current restrictions on questionable sources in the verifiability policy. I think editors with experience of dealing with such issues on this noticeboard might have a useful viewpoint on this proposal. See Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Hare Krishna/ISKON Bias and Control on the Vaishnava section

    For the last several months; on the Vaishnava section. There is a Hare Krishna/ISKON person maintaining a very strong Hare Krishna/ISKON slant and bias to that section. Others and myself, have been contending and arguing with this person to put our vaishnava groups information section. We have all editted, and he would come and re-edit what we have done. I have emailed Wikipedia about the situation three times already and they have not been helpful. This person has written the whole section with a definite ISKON/Hare Krishna slant. He has a strangle hold on the whole section. I will be taking this to wikipedia one more time. If they have done nothing to resolve the problem...I will be taking this to the ACLU in Los Angeles.((Govinda Ramanuja dasaUSA

    Some of the problems at Vaishnavism appear related to the recent issues at Thoughtform (which is improving - good work). - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 07:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Though not primarily. I believe that diff1 and diff2 are instances in the issue at hand. It looks like WP:PROVEIT needs to be invoked, though I fear I cannot discriminate the good information from the bad and will be sitting this one out. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 07:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    this is difficult because it isn't about "fringe theories" as such, but about the relative weight a valid sub-sect (Gaudiya Vaishnavism) should be given in the treatment of a larger movement (Vaishnavism). It's a case of WP:UNDUE, but there will be room for bona fide disagreement. dab (𒁳) 09:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Satanic ritual abuse still a problem

    Maybe not the best place to post this, but an editor has expressed concerns elsewhere that the above mentioned article is becoming overly reliant upon and probably giving undue weight to the belief that many of the claims of satanic ritual abuse are valid. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject, particularly if they can contributed sourced information regarding the consensus who tend to discount the majority of these claims, is more than welcome to do so. John Carter (talk) 13:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Actually, y'know something? This article has improved since the previous two times it's been up on this noticeboard. That awful list of "allegations" has gone from the main article, split off to elsewhere - have to monitor that, though, and NPOVfy - and the proposed split looks reasonably sensible, though one must be careful to avoid POV forks. Someone's been doing good work. If we are going to split the material up, though, care has to be taken that Ritualized child abuse doesn't become filled with all the crap that previously clogged up the SRA article. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 14:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    A comment - the spin-out of specific cases was contested. There is an extant discussion as part of this section, and a much longer discussion focusing on the spin-out here. The rational was WP:UNDUE given to allegations, and my more recent thinking is that many of the allegations had satanism as an afterthought or allusion rather than a central aspect of the case. If I'm missing any policy or guideline based reasons for the split I would appreciate them pointed out, as the spin-out has been reverted once already. Thanks for the attention on this matter, it has been a labour of hate since no-one can love such a long, drawn out contested work towards the current version. WLU (talk) 14:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I very much doubt that Ritualized child abuse become filled with all the crap. I started it (I am a skeptic of the "Satanic" claims of SRA) and, curiously, the SRA believers immediately nominated it for deletion! My educated guess is that they want the hard facts of child abuse mixed together with the highly dubious claims, the "Satanic" ones.
    Thanks again for the attention on this matter.
    —Cesar Tort 15:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Speculation on the motives of other editors doesn't really help the page, which should be based on reliable sources. You knew I was going to post this Cesar, I will beat you with this wiffle bat until you repent : ) WLU (talk) 15:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Drug addict fringe needs dealt with.

    From Mescaline:

    Users typically experience visual hallucinations and radically altered states of consciousness, often experienced as pleasurable and illuminating but occasionally is accompanied by feelings of anxiety or revulsion. Like most psychedelic hallucinogens, mescaline is not physically addictive. Mescaline-containing cacti can induce severe vomiting and nausea, which adds an important part to traditional Native-American or Shaman ceremonies as it is considered cleansing.

    From Psychedelic psychotherapy:

    Psychedelic psychotherapy in the broadest possible sense of the term is likely as old as humanity's ancient knowledge of hallucinogenic plants itself. Though usually viewed as predominantly spiritual in nature, elements of psychotherapeutic practice can be recognized in the entheogenic rituals of many cultures.

    Then there's also the nonsense I dealt with a while back on Cannabis. Cannabis-related articles, including the various "strains" on Template:Cannabis resources need to be cleaned up (some strains may need to be deleted) and Portal:Cannabis needs to be made encyclopedic.

    On Portal:Cannabis:

    Did you know that cannabis is considered a soft drug, and it can not cause physical addiction, as opposed to ethanol ('alcohol') and nicotine.

    Also:

    Hard and soft drugs

    I agree with that assessment of cannabis as a soft drug, but it's still OR, because governments and scientists of the world (despite their distorted view of cannabis) do not share that view. Because Wikipedia's standard is verifiability, not truth, it doesn't matter that the mainstream view of cannabis is wrong. The fringe view should not be given undue weight, regardless.

    Regarding other psychadelics, like mescaline -- just imagine if some kid reads this material on Wikipedia, then goes out and OD's on some psychadelic drug, like MDMA, because he read on Wikipedia that it was harmless.

    So, yeah, a broad variety of articles related to psychedelic drugs needs to be given a closer look. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Isn't this mainly an issue of improving sourcing? The BBC website currently carries a feature on whether MDMA is less harmful than alcohol. There has been a great deal of discussion recently in the UK about the classification of cannabis, with various doctors and scientists weighing in on one side or the other. All that can be cited. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    more Armenian fun

    I don't have the time to deal with this. These may be any of: returning banned user, socks, or independent pov-pushers. Someone should deal with this or we'll once again have our entire coverage of "Armenian antiquity" in an unrecognizable mess within no time. dab (𒁳) 19:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Judging by his very first edits, Aoseksd3uu is a reincarnation of User:Angine, a sock puppet of our old friend Ararat arev. --Folantin (talk) 19:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    You are right. Both names also appear virtually simultaneously, and immediately dump innocently looking userboxes on their user pages. Also both names appear randomly generated. I say block them as Ararat arev socks now. dab (𒁳) 19:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Today's been busy. Both blocked. Torahjerus14's first edits also show a connection to Ararat arev, if you look. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 19:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    How about this one? First and second edits, within minutes of account creation; user boxes; a bogus correction(see [5]); another one; some wikilinking; more userboxes; and then, to business. (And still nothing from any of these warriors on Talk:Mitanni). rudra (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I am amazed. So much effort wasted for spite and insulting our intelligence, time the kid could have invested in actually learning something about the topic :( dab (𒁳) 21:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Hosnnan38 is indef blocked as a sock of Ararat arev. Any other ducks out there? --Akhilleus (talk) 22:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks like it's back to warring with anon-IPs. 68.122.154.100, for example. rudra (talk) 21:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    And again as 68.122.159.170 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Still not giving up, I see. Moreschi (talk) 16:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    This guy just doesn't stop. Would it be helpful to semi-protect his favorite articles, or should we just keep playing whack-a-mole? --Akhilleus (talk) 17:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Shrug. We're going to have to do both: Hurrians (just done now by self) and Mitanni are both semi-protected but this won't stop him using accounts. He's also probably got too many target articles for us to protect them all. Current IP range seems to be 68.122.15...so it's eyes open as usual. Moreschi (talk) 17:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok. There's probably too great a possibility of collateral damage for a rangeblock, right? What other articles should we be watching? --Akhilleus (talk) 17:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Aye, I don't think a rangeblock will work here. As regards articles, judging from the contributions of the main account and socks...probably Urartu, Armenian Highlands and related articles, Hayk, Proto-Armenian language...and mostly everything related to Armenian antiquity. As I say, there's a quite a lot :) Constant vigilance is pretty much the only solution. Moreschi (talk) 17:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    we can well leave most of the articles affected semi-protected: the possibility of their being improved by a passing anon is practically zero. Since the vandal is using AT&T Texas, a wide rangeblock isn't an option. I realize that it could make sense to make IP blocks article-specific. There would be next to no collateral damage in blocking everyone using AT&T from Richardson TX from editing Mitanni and Armenia (name) specifically. Here is a list of articles affected by this particular troll (probably incomplete):

    The tenacity of this one long after he must have realized he has no chance is a striking illustration that nationalism to nationalists is a surrogate of religion. dab (𒁳) 17:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Just one more: Military history of Armenia. Moreschi (talk) 17:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    If you think any Armenian history article is going to be safe from this clown, think again: [6]. --Folantin (talk) 17:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a case for Wikipedia:Long term abuse. This doesn't require any "fringe recognition" skills, and Wikipedia's RCP is a force to be reckoned with. We should take this off our shoulders and hand it to the dedicated vandal fighters. dab (𒁳) 18:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Ok, I'll write up a subpage at LTA. Usually I'm reluctant to do so, but WP:DENY is really not relevant to Ararat arev. Moreschi (talk) 18:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Ararat arev is a start, at least. Moreschi (talk) 16:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Universe reality and other The Urantia Book related articles

    I think we need to take a look at these articles, especially the one on Universe reality, which has been tagged for lack of notability since last July. What concerns me is that the articles are primarily self-sourced to the book in question, or sourced to adhearants of this particular spiritual sect. There is very little in the way of independant secondary sources. I am not convinced that these are deletion candidates ... but they do have problems with meeting the inclusion criteria expressed in WP:Fringe. Blueboar (talk) 14:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Shrug. If there are reliable secondary sources for this, they need to be cited. If not it's another redirection + prod job. Otherwise this is no better than all the Trekkie-cruft we get that's referenced purely in terms of other Trekkie-cruft. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 16:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Ahem. Trekkie? Are you aiming to spark a religious war here? Trekker, please! :o) Guy (Help!) 18:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The down side for this is I personally only know of one independent book on the subject, by Martin Gardner, and the local library lost that a few years ago. IF anyone else has access to the book, that'd help a lot. Otherwise, I guess I can eventually try to find sourcing elsewhere. John Carter (talk) 17:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Greek nationalist whackiness

    ok, I've just come across a miniature walled garden centering around Epsilonism (conspiracy theory). Crazy stuff, this: all Jews are evil and Greeks are superior types possessed of better DNA due to their descent from aliens who visited Earth a way back on a flying visit from Sirius. The problem with most of this is that the people involved simply don't look to be notable except in Epsilonism terms. Result: Ioannis Fourakis, Anestis Keramidas and Angelos Sakketos have all been prodded, though you may think that redirection is more appropriate, as all these chaps essentially appear to be acolytes of Dimosthenis Liakopoulos, who definitely is notable. At the moment this looks to be under control but it would be nice if some people put Category:Epsilonism on their watchlists, as this issue will probably come back at periodic intervals. Other articles of potentially dubious notability that are tangentially related to this are Texe Marrs (not a Greek nationalist, just a crackpot), Nikos Konstantinidis (Greek nationalist, conspiracy theorist), Leonidas Georgiades (Greek nationalist) and also possibly Anastasis Theodoridis. Curiously, most of this lot are from Thessaloniki. Thoughts as to what to do with these? Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 16:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I've come across these before. They are so cranky as to be actually harmless (for our purposes). Some merging/redirecting may be in order. dab (𒁳) 10:59, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    T&A and blood

    Arrive in Japan, get into an earnest conversation with somebody, and it's not unlikely that you'll soon be asked about your blood type. Momentary scare: Does this person have premonitions involving a bulldozer or chainsaw? Or are you conversing with a vampire? But no: a huge percentage of right-thinking Japanese folk subscribe to this variety of horseshit. The percentage seems particularly high among admirers of cheesecake models (guradoru), about most of whom, let's face it, there really isn't much to say. In the same spirit, hundreds if not thousands of earnest en:Wikipedia articles about these people announce their blood type (example).

    I don't usually hang around the cheesecake/porn articles much, but on occasion I've encountered the credulous retailing of blood "information" and have remarked on it. It's only today that I noticed this old discussion among porn connoisseurs, the reliability of factoids about blood is the main issue, and it seems to be taken for granted that blood type is noteworthy "information". A related conversation continues at the foot of that page and is still in progress; again, it's mostly about "reliability". While I have my own, strong opinions on the reliability of the "facts" making up starlets' PR bios, these opinions are pretty irrelevant to fringe theories, so I'll spare you them. What concerns me, and might concern you, is that those editors concerned with this stuff seem to be coalescing around a position that if more than a tiny number of people are demonstrably interested in a given piece of "reliably sourced information", it's encyclopedic. Now, I'll grant that many people are demonstrably interested (and that blood type isn't sourced any less reliably than date and place of birth, etc etc). However, I see any decision that infoboxes should cater for blood type as pandering to and reinforcing pseudoscience. Cheesecake/porn starlets articles aren't of concern to most people (and as far as I can recall I've only ever tinkered with one), but it's a simple step from these to articles on singers and so forth, non-Japanese starlets, etc.

    Does this square with your notion of "encyclopedia"? -- Hoary (talk) 07:11, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, looking at the sources, while the theory may be a load of horseshit (as you put it) and pseudoscience, it is widely held in Japan... and the theory is discussed in reliable mainstream sources (some supportive, others dismissive). In other words the theory meets the criteria for inclusion in wikipedia that is stated in WP:Fringe. As to the issue of including blood type in an infobox on articles on porn stars... I don't think it really matters, so long as the information can be reliably sourced. Blueboar (talk) 16:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, weirdly enough, it's pretty much standard in Japanese-language sources. (Not that I watch a lot of Japanese porn, it's terrible, but anime and manga tend to give their characters's blood types, too.) <eleland/talkedits> 21:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    why porn? The article as far as I can see doesn't mention porn, just women's magazines, media celebrities and manga characters. dab (𒁳) 15:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    First off, I'm not objecting to the article about the pseudoscience. I also wouldn't object to mention of it in articles on people who have made a big deal on it. ("She has caused surprise [cite][cite][cite] by her declaration [cite] that she has type B blood") The objection is to the inclusion of blood type as a field in a template, and the implication that blood type is somehow significant.
    No, there's nothing specific to cheesecake or porn about this stuff. Even fully clothed Japan is indeed suffused with this batty idea. The phonebook software in my Casio cellphone (incidentally, a macho-looking waterproof model marketed for guys) has a field for blood type for everybody: my boss, my sister, the shop that develops my film. (Also, when I type in a date for a birthday, it helpfully adds the person's [western style] star sign.) Large numbers of people of course ignore all of this. However, yes, it is indeed a frequently occurring feature in the potted bios of celebs and others in "popular culture". Whether this is because the consumers of "popular culture" are gullible, because its producers are gullible, or just because there's not much else to say about these people, I don't claim to know. I've no reason to think that the claims are true, I've got no reason to think that it matters if they're true or untrue, I haven't seen that any intelligent person is interested ("She really turns me on, she's got Type O"), I wonder why en:WP is implying significance to this. If it does write it up for Japanese porn stars I see no reason why it shouldn't do so for Japanese singers. If some dimwit Japanese TV reporters then ask visiting foreign celebs about their blood and they manage to answer with a straight face, then perhaps this "sourced information" too will be solemnly added to this Cosmo-pedia. Not my idea of encyclopedic, but perhaps I'm "elitist". -- Hoary (talk) 16:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Honestly, I don't have a problem with it. Yes, it's silly, but the very idea of having thousands of articles on Japanese pop tarts and AV idols is equally silly. These figures are notable almost solely in Japanese culture, and in Japanese culture blood type is apparently important.
    However, as part of our ongoing crypto-POV-pushing campaign (/sarcasm,) I suggest that we change all the wikilinks on these articles from blood type or blood to Blood types in Japanese popular culture. We might save a few souls enlighten a few intellects, no? <eleland/talkedits> 03:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds good to me! -- Hoary (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Blood type is factual information. A person behaving in a particular way because of their blood type is horse shit. I'm not keen on blood type being included. IT'S THE THIN END OF A SLIPPERY WEDGE . . . people could well start adding western astrology signs to info boxes. Dan Beale-Cocks 13:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Blood type is indeed factual information. But I think that here it's only factual in a slightly odd, Wikipedia way. Obviously cheesecake/porn bios have to have the age right to the nearest decade, the height right to the nearest ten centimetres, or so, etc.; but I've no reason to think that most of the "facts" are, well, factual. In particular, those about blood, which (I hope!) we don't see and which anyway all looks the same. Which scenario seems more likely to you? (A) Q: "What's your blood type?" A: "X." Q: "Ah yes, X. I'll write that down." (B) Q: "You kind of look type-Y-ish. Shall we put you down as 'Y'?" A: "Yeah, sure." -- Hoary (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Durupınar site

    I'm sure this has come up before; it's one of the most ridiculous, embarrasing young-earth-Creationist fantasies ever promulgated. To the point where Answers in Genesis rails against it. But not Wikipedia! :-)

    The ground penetration radar yielded a regular internal structure as documented in a report to the Turkish government. Fasold and the team measured the length of the formation 538 ft (164 m), close to the 300 cubits (157 m, 515 ft) of the Noah's Ark [...] so-called drogue (anchor) stones that they believed were once attached to the ark were investigated. These very large stones have in common a hole cut on a radius at one end (so as not to chafe an attached rope). Such stones are alluded to in Babylonian accounts of the ark.[10]

    <eleland/talkedits> 07:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    "Babylonian accounts of the ark"?? dab (𒁳) 10:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep. See Sumerian creation myth and Ziusudra. Fasold was an atheist and thought the ark found was that one, not Noah's.--Dougweller (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    ok, I have redirected David Fasold as a coatrack fork on the same topic, but I found myself reverted by Tuckerresearch (talk · contribs). dab (𒁳) 19:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Battle of Baghdad (1258)

    Resolved

    For nearly a month, a single editor Geir Smith has been grafting a large amount of original research and probably fringe theory into the article Battle of Baghdad (1258). The editor has inserted a considerable volume of material connecting the the Mongol sack of the city to some barely comprehensible concept from Tibetan Buddhist cosmology. At least I think that is what he is writing about: his prose is rambling, discursive, and misspelled. This editor has produced similar work in the past which has been deleted (examples: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gyalpo, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jalpo, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Kalachakra, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kalachakra King, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Buddha Online Library). The task of removing this material would be fairly easy if not for some recent post to the talkpage (here). These comments by editor Dominique Boubouleix or Dr Boubouleix, particularly the personal attacks on Elonka, squarely connect the tendentious editing in Battle of Baghdad (1258) to an open Arbcom case in which I have submitted evidence. In short, I would appreciate help removing the nonsense to avoid accusations of partisan behavior. Thank you. Aramgar (talk) 17:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Woah! Absolutely crazy. A (highly) personal essay has been welded on to the original,, historical article. It contains gems like: "Revealing it, is a spiritual Occultation's goal, not for it to remain murkily shadowy and hidden. Kalachakra is a code-name and hidden, as Helmut Hofmann says above i.e. "It's lineage... is a mass of contradictions". The Highlander game above is also an imagination's creation. The Prester John myth changes following the alliances that the Church made with Muslim and Buddhist Mongols through time, and thus has no direction. All faiths have occulted the part of truth that they held. The names have been changed and the events redirected to gain acceptance by their own people. Betrayal of the truth is rife in this. Things need to be CLEAR". I couldn't even count the number of Wikipedia policies this stuff violates. --Folantin (talk) 18:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Except for some stray references, there doesn't seem to be anything salvageable. rudra (talk) 18:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    If this fellow wants to write a Buddhist influences on Hulagu Khan article, he's welcome to, except that at the rate he's going, it might be {{prod}}-ed in short order. rudra (talk) 18:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter. :) Aramgar (talk) 18:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I thought that other editors ought to be aware that per Geir Smith's website, the posting of a comment on the talkpage of the Battle of Baghdad (1258) is part of how one becomes a "Warrior of Shambhala." Does this violate some Wikipedia policy? Aramgar (talk) 21:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Wow. This gets stranger and stranger. Such solicitation is definitely not on. The policy that immediately springs to mind is this one. WP:TALK should also be used to delete off-topic nonsense on the talk page. --Folantin (talk) 22:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, he is free to say what he wants on his own webpage. Wikipedia has no controle over that. But it certainly does make his edits seem less like a mistaken (but essentially well meaning) attempt at including his own original research in wikipedia, and more like POV vandalism. We will keep an eye on the situation. Blueboar (talk) 22:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks like the new address is to be New Mongol Buddhist history (1258-1350). Watchlist accordingly. I'd say the material so far is hardly written in an encylopaedic style. --Folantin (talk) 16:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I've speedied that. Off-site canvassing is in fact a block reason, but I am unsure whether the claim that you are a Warrior if you edit a specific article qualifies as "canvassing". dab (𒁳) 20:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    See my link below to a forum where he is explicitly canvassing.--Dougweller (talk) 12:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I haven't made heads or tails of this yet, but it looks like a great candidate for WP:BJAODN if anyone is still updating that :) dab (𒁳) 18:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Can the revelations at User:Geir Smith/Sandbox be deleted through Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion? This policy [7] seems to suggest that it can. Aramgar (talk) 21:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, he's trying to reinsert material into the original Battle of Baghdad page and he's reinstated the talk page abuse by his friend Dominique Boubouleix (AKA Dr Boubouleix - check Dr. B's French Wikipedia bio to see who began the page not so many days ago [8]). An eloquent new user Edward lonesome Wolf has also just emerged there too. So, predictably, we have sock/meat puppetry going on. I don't think this is going to end without some more decisive action.--Folantin (talk) 10:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Not a sock puppet I think but a recruit: see Violent War of words erupts on faiths, Kalachakra, between Christians and Buddhists online - also look at page one of the thread, where he writes "I'd really need help from people who could come along to the page with me and we do this as a group of people" --Dougweller (talk) 11:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I've posted a clear warning on his talkpage. This case is so far out that I will take it upon myself to implement an indef block without further prancing around if this continues. This is simply too silly even for us fringecruft-addicts to waste more time on. dab (𒁳) 11:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Ok, fine. I've blocked Edward lonesome Wolf (talk · contribs) indefinitely as a disruptive meatpuppet account. Dab's made it quite clear to Geir Smith he's on his last chance. If the same nonsense is being pushed at fr.wiki, someone should probably contact the admins there. A review of Geir Smith (talk · contribs)'s contributions may be in order, as he'd been doing this sort of thing for a while on some fairly obscure articles and not all of his material may have been reverted at the time.

    I suppose congratulations to Geir Smith are in order. Such egregious folly as this smacks of sheer genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it :) Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 14:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I wouldn't worry too much about the French WP yet. All Mr Smith's contributions so far have been to the Dominique Boubouleix article. But if you look at the latest entries there by one Lord Hearntown then check his edit history you find him posting this rant to another page (in English) [9]. The one thing linking all these people (apart from the obvious) is they seem to be part of a vendetta against User:Elonka. I suspect this is somehow related to the Franco-Mongol alliance dispute. --Folantin (talk) 14:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm beginning to wonder whether Dr Dominique Boubouleix is real. Seriously, a supposed Sorbonne professor goofing around on Wikipedia? Is there some way to find out if he was ever associated with the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes? rudra (talk) 15:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Lord Hearntown?? Check this out. rudra (talk) 15:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Funnily enough, Calamus International University features on our List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning. --Folantin (talk) 15:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Google Scholar has no hits for "Dominique Boubouleix" and only one for "D Boubouleix". There's also this with a link to the opening paragraph. (There is a Kālajñāna-Nirnaya by Matsyendranātha, but that doesn't mean anything if the French version of the article wasn't peer-reviewed.) Boubouleix sounds like a very obscure scholar... rudra (talk) 15:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Unsurprisingly. How about finding out if all his alleged degrees and qualifications are a) real and b) meaningful? And what exactly is the link to the Franco-Mongol alliance ArbCom case? All this lot seem to be very keen on the contributions of PHG (talk · contribs), but why? Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 15:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't find out much about the London Diplomatic Academy - it's website [10] makes it sound more like a club. Beware, one Google link was a very persistent attempt to download a virus.

    The Albert Schweitzer International University works with the World International Distributed University, which looks like a diploma mill: [11] [12] [13] but some of the people associated with the ASIU seem quite legitimate academics. There seems to be a whole network here, all linked together. Lord Hearntown sounds like some sort of joke, I can't find anything about 'Hearntown'.--Dougweller (talk) 16:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Of course, checking only Wikipedia and not Google I thought at first the London Diplomatic Academy was the entirely bona fide Diplomatic Academy of London - which is exactly what I was supposed to think. Phoning up the DAOP, they could of course tell me nothing about Dr Boubouleix: I then asked if the London Diplomatic Academy was a separate institution. The response was brilliant. "Oh yes". Then a pause. "We're a bit more academic". LOL! Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 22:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    ah, my dear people, Wikithanks to everyone involved, I am really enjoying this greatly. This is just excellent. The link to a BUY A DEGREE AND GET THE WAGES YOU DESERVE joint adds flavour. The Franco-Mongol arbitration case has been opened three weeks ago. PHG is an involved party, and it transpires that he is embraced as a brother in arms by the Warriors of Shambhala because he is in dispute with Elonka. I am sure he will be nonplussed to learn of his popularity among the Immortals. dab (𒁳) 16:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    ahah, and here we find ties to Sze cavalry01 (talk · contribs), an early incarnation of the Kambojas kook if I remember correctly: at least his "Origins of Pallava" (May 2006) cites Dr Dominique Boubouleix among a flurry of other academic worthies. Origins of Pallava should probably just be redirected into Pallava at this point. Our current expert on ramblings on the Kambojas is Satbir Singh (talk · contribs) (and related IPs such as {{user{76.105.50.27}}). --dab (𒁳) 16:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    And here is a web page on the World International Distributed University website complaining about being called a diploma mill. After all, it says, "To award the all degrees to scientists of European Countries the AEI and WIDU use the Accreditation and the licensing, given those by the AIS which are registered in San Marino" [14]. So, what is the AIS? It has its own Wikipedia article, Akademio Internacia de la Sciencoj San Marino which needs to be either deleted or better yet made NPOV and written in something more resembling English than it does now. I can't find any other comments but I did find its website - the English version is at [15]--Dougweller (talk) 16:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Amazingly, Dr. Dominique Albert André Boubouleix was featured in the minor but apparently legit "International Journal of Tantric Studies" in 1998.[16] Geir Smith announces that he will, "when confirmed to full Warrior", Dominique Boubouleix Lord of Hearntown "will be given the rank of General of the Army". Besides being Lord of Hearntown, Dr Bobouleix is apparently decorated with four knighthoods: of the "International World Order of SCIENCE, EDUCATION, CULTURE" [17], of "the British BVA", of "St Constantine the Great" and of St Isidore Membre Spirituel -- plus, apparently, member of the Brotherhood of the Blessed Gérard[18]. dab (𒁳) 17:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Are you sure he's not really the learned Docteur Faustroll, inventor of the science of ’Pataphysics, whose gestes et opinions were relayed to us by Alfred Jarry. According to Faustroll's French Wiki bio [19], he was born in Circassia in 1898 at the age of 63 and died the same year but is still communicating with scientists telepathically from his home in "ethernity". Maybe he's got a Wiki account now too. --Folantin (talk) 17:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    hmm, According to IJTS, M. Boubouleix is "Professor at the Ecole of Anthropologie". His "Calamus" profile confirms this. Interestinly, this institution was founded by Paul Broca in the 1870s, but appears not to have been in existence since WW II.[20] Could M. Boubouleix be an imaginary friend of Mr. Smith's? If M. Boubouleix-Hearntown is the learned Docteur Faustroll, and a member of the école d'Anthropologie, his 1998 article must really have been communicated by paranormal means. dab (𒁳) 17:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    That would have been an amazing feat. Apparently this is an online French-language essay of his about Indo-China (warning: pop-up hell) [21]. --Folantin (talk) 17:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sure he's real, but? [22] "D. Sc. in Archaeology, England; Hon. Ph.D. in Anthropology, USA. Professor of General Anthropology, School of Anthropology, Paris; Director, Centre for Advanced International Studies in Anthropology, Archaeology and Ethnology (CAISAAE), Florida; Director, International Centre for Anthropological Research in India and South East Asia (CIRAIASE), an autonomous department of the International Institute of Anthropology (IIA, Paris); Professor of Philosophy in Anthropology, England." I don't believe it. There's no CAISAAE. no CIRAIASE, except on the Bridgeworld web site. You never list degrees with the institution granting them, so his D.Sc. from England and honorary degree from the USA sound fake. I'm going to challenge him.--Dougweller (talk) 17:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Lol, I've found the "Ecole d'Anthropology" [23] [24] (published since 1974??). It appears to be run by S.A. Locch Chancchai Apaiwongs de Battambang, and the Vénérable Phra Eric Xayabandith besides Boubouleix. It was apparently cobbled together around 1998, just in time for Dr. Boubouleix' only known academic paper (the ITJS one). The impressive bit is that all these unlikely sounding names do in fact exist. Mr. Smith must been having a lot of fun with his internet connection :) dab (𒁳) 17:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    He isn't a member of the British Society for the History of Philosophy now.

    The Human Bioethics Treaty Organisation is another one of these weird organisations. Look here: Euclid University Consortium. This seems to have taken over the Human Bioethics Treaty Organisation in some way as the linke I had to the HBTO was to www.hbto.org/hbto/ which is now Euclid. Then there is this guy Laurent Cleenewerck who I suspect has created his own web page -- which is just a PR piece, can we do anything about that? --Dougweller (talk) 19:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]


    I'm checking out the reliability of the refs provided on the French Wiki bio. The "International Who's Who of Intellectuals" is published by these guys. "THE ROYAL BOOK OF DIPLOMACY AND SCIENCE" gets 11 Google hits. And read our own article on the American Biographical Institute. I think it's fair to say they don't qualify as reliable sources. --Folantin (talk) 18:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    "Lord Hearntown" isn't very happy Doctor Boubouleix's credentials have been called into question on French Wikipedia and has launched into a tirade [25] against the "uncultured donkeys without a university background" who edit WP and can't write French proper. Once again, it's all Elonka's fault. --Folantin (talk) 18:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    It does not matter what credentials these people claim (whether real or fake)... Wikipedia considers edits on their merit, not on the credentials of those who post them. Blueboar (talk) 19:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    We certainly consider such things when people have their own biographies on Wikipedia. --Folantin (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    and as to the merit of the Geir Smith version of Battle of Baghdad (1258), well, judge for yourself...

    bruaha, Wikipedia est vraiment une encyclopédie rédigée par des ânes incultes, sans background universitaire -- it's a fair cop. This very page is living testimony of the fact. My theory at the moment is that Dr Boubouleix and Geir Smith are two real, bona fide cranks, one collecting bogus academic titles and knighthoods, the other building the kingdom of Shambhala, who have managed to impress one another. Dr Boubouleix wanted to collect another fancy title, and Geir Smith was overjoyed to have such a distinguished gentleman apply for his outfit. dab (𒁳) 19:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    He's got cold feet about having a Wiki bio even when written by experts (i.e. himself, himself and Geir Smith) [26]. He's also kind of threatening to take legal action on the talk page of this very noticeboard. --Folantin (talk) 19:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    We're having a little dialogue right now on his discussion page. He doesn't like Americans. :-) Which allows him to duck answers to my questions.

    And yes, I think they are two real people, there's too much evidence that they are not the same person.--Dougweller (talk) 21:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    May I suggest that we not feed the trolls any longer. We can watch what these folks do, remove OR and other stuff that may violate policy... and if needed send them to ANI for blocking. 'Nuff said. Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Aw, don't say that, we're all having far too much fun to stop. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 22:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    (outdent) Sakya, Sakya Trizin and Sakya Pandita also contain information "generally occulted or omitted in history books," some of which was added by Mr. Smith and some from 88.141.184.146, whose additions in general are curiously similar to Mr. Smith's. Kafka Liz (talk) 02:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    More background. (Note "Geir Smith is the lineal successor of Taranatha, that is banned in Tibet, and forbidden to study by Tibetans. Geir Smith is the only person in the world, to thus have studied Taranatha in depth"). rudra (talk) 04:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    And 88.141.184.146 is Geir Smith. rudra (talk) 06:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Over at the forum Violent War of words erupts on faiths, Kalachakra, between Christians and Buddhists online there are complaints that we, and specifically Elonka, are hacking people's computers!--Dougweller (talk) 06:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    geir wrote: I think the wry humour will be lost on them. It is not. this is the wriestly humourous section on this board I have seen yet :) dab (𒁳) 09:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    you want to be full Warrior ? Then, in that case, you write this... cut and paste : "I want to meet Asian girls" and you'll be automaticallly full warrior. -- wth?? dab (𒁳) 09:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, I think the idea they're going to get some "chicks" out of this is the bizarrest of the lot. Looks like attention is turning to Sakya. So, my fellow members of the Catholic-Hindu KGB, you know what to do! --Folantin (talk) 09:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Inciting vandalism? (Maybe the idea is to radicalize the meatpuppets by giving them an early taste of being "unjustly" blocked). rudra (talk) 09:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    The good doctor now intends to take legal action against me....he is so funny! [27]--Dougweller (talk) 13:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Vigilance is necessary, but this issue is resolved. Thank you for all the help. Aramgar (talk) 18:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    how is it "resolved" with Geir Smith still on the loose?[28] It's not acute at present, I grant you, but no action has been taken. dab (𒁳) 06:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Plus we still have the bizarre saga of Dr. Boubouleix threatening to sue us over a Wikipedia article he wrote himself with the aid of his friend Geir Smith. Must be the first time in history that an autobiography has been accused of being libellous. --Folantin (talk) 09:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    ok, now it is resolved. With a view to his latest postings to phayul.com, I have indefblocked Geir Smith for disruption and off-site calls for vandalism. Unless a reviewing admin undoes my block, this should conclude the episode. dab (𒁳) 09:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Good - and I predict the Boubouleix episode will end with his French wiki article being deleted for failing notability and lacking reliable sources. So that's the end of that. --Folantin (talk) 09:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    not bad... fr-wiki admins have locked down the talkpage now. I don't think I've ever seen this on en-wiki. The Boubouliex article has just been deleted. On phayul.com, geir is vowing revenge. dab (𒁳) 21:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    And Boubouliex actually left me a polite message suggesting I email him, quite a reversal.--Dougweller (talk) 22:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Reading the forum, he's threatening to get the Dalai Lama involved in this. Amazing. Whereas most banned users try appealing to Jimbo, this one goes for the Dalai Lama. Just...awesome. Moreschi (talk) 21:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I seldom laugh out loud in front of my screen, but here I couldn't help myself. dab (𒁳) 22:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Poor Geir Smith. Little does he know. The Dalai Lama doesn't have our ICBM coordinates. rudra (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I've just read this section for the first time. I think I may have broken a rib laughing. Relata refero (talk) 00:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Hahaha! You guys is carzy! Best WTN thread ever. Hahaha! --Folantin (talk) 09:21, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Dr Boubouleix and I have had a very friendly email exchange initiated at his request. I don't want to quote his email of course, but I am now happy about his credentials and don't think he has personally overstated them although errors have crept in to the online sources. I don't think he is going to end up a Warrior of Shambala, Geir Smith does not seem a favorite person of his. :-) I've retracted my negative comments about him on the Battle of Baghdad talk page (my initiative, he didn't even mention it) and do so here also (again, he didn't mention it).--Doug Weller (talk) 20:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I can imagine that if someone like Geir Smith becomes enthusiastic about you, things are bound to be distorted. This is why we have WP:BLP: M. Boubouleix is surely best served by his various titles of knighthood not being detailed on Wikipedia. dab (𒁳) 00:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Did he explain the anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic personal attacks? Kafka Liz (talk) 03:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I'd like to know about those too, especially since French WP checkuser confirms that D A A Boubouleix and Lord Hearntown are one and the same [29]. --Folantin (talk) 09:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    No, I didn't raise those issues or his anti-American comments. But - D A A Boubouleix? That page exists, but doesn't in the history the posts in question, or mine. I'm confused.--Doug Weller (talk) 13:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    D A A Boubouleix was one of his many sock puppet accounts. Under that name he contributed to the French WP bio and related talk pages. Most of that stuff has now been deleted, as well as "Lord Hearntown"'s anti-Semitic conspiracy theorising against Elonka --Folantin (talk) 13:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    At one point I could find it in the history.--Doug Weller (talk) 15:02, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Geir is back [30]. Aramgar (talk) 18:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    He's a banned user so his contributions can be reverted and his socks blocked by an admin. It's become pretty obvious his primary aim is trolling for hits for his website(s). --Folantin (talk) 18:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    See http://forums.phayul.com/index.php?showtopic=1895&st=120&start=120 for what he hopes will happen. He claims to be erudite, but he can't even write English properly!--Doug Weller (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    yeah, I begin to feel uncomfortable with making fun of him, it feels like taunting a disabled person. I think the fun is over and we're in the WP:DFTT stage. Just block his socks and IPs as they come in and let's avoid making further ado over it. dab (𒁳) 19:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    When "Reliable Sources" are unreliable

    This relates to the issues of WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE. What happens if a paper is cited that can unequivocally be demonstrated to contain unreliable information, albeit that it is from a peer-reviewed journal which is regarded at Wikipedia as WP:RS by definition? [31] This resembles a converse of the "oneway linking principle"- The mainstream will ignore many fringe ideas especially when we get into the minute details of that fringe idea so the mainstream does not bother to create a WP:RS refutation of that fringe WP:RS. One might hope that when discussion on a Talk page has revealed that the cited sources are unreliable a well-intentioned editor acting in good faith would accept the need to withdraw them. But, I cannot see an route by which to insist that such Fringe information should be held away from a main Article page especially when the Article is already in a Fringe area and the effect of WP:WEIGHT is less strong. In the current instance, there is no way that the Mainstream would have created a detailed refutation of a 20-year old research paper in an obscure journal and a 14-yr old meta-analysis in a similarly low-quality journal. How can their inclusion in an Article be challenged, or at least balanced especially when another editor refuses to accept the refutation of his sources' ideas?OffTheFence (talk) 13:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Clearly this section is a continuation of what was discussed above, but things have moved on at the Talk page itself. [32]OffTheFence (talk) 13:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, you have already tried arguing from logic and from editorial license to choose a fair representation of the field as a whole rather than just cherry-picking examples. Your best bet now may be to track down one of the more recent metareviews (described here and here, abstract or more online [33], [34], [35], [36], and [37]) of homeopathy as a whole (I have not seen anything else for arsenicum album itself) and find these studies (I assume - I have not checked) listed as methodologically lacking. A second option would be to use GoogleScholar or CrossRef (or whatever equivalent for biomedical) to see how papers in quality journals treat the Linde et al. (1994) and Cazin et al. (1987). One equivalently reliable source expressing concerns or dismissing the results or analysis would require a caveat in the article, and several might require that the papers be treated as solely of historical interest. They probably should not be eliminated from the article both for encyclopedic reasons of detailing the intermittent interest actual researchers show this stuff, and for the practical reason that such removal would not be stable - some editor will wander along later to "correct" the "oversight" of omitting them. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 18:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a real problem - without commenting on the particular aspects of this dispute, more sophisticated editors wishing to advance a fringe or minoritarian POV often track down individual peer-reviewed studies supporting their view and insist on their inclusion as reliable sources. I can produce maybe a dozen peer-reviewed papers arguing that HIV is not the cause of AIDS - but that doesn't mean that these should be cited and expounded upon in our article on AIDS. Similarly, there are a number of peer-reviewed studies claiming that secondhand smoke is harmless, but to cite them all and discuss each at length would produce an inaccurate representation of the actual state of human knowledge on the subject. It's a question of WP:WEIGHT. Individual studies should be viewed in the context of WP:WEIGHT provided by expert reviews, scientific consensus statements, and other secondary-source representations of expert opinion in a field. It is way too easy to cherry-pick the primary peer-reviewed literature to produce an inaccurate, biased, or inappropriately weighted overview of a subject, and this is exactly the sort of abuse that WP:SYN and WP:WEIGHT are intended to prevent. MastCell Talk 18:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm comparatively new here. Is there a specific rule that prohibits the consideration of anything that isn't from a RS in discussions on a talk page (I can see the need to keep these off the actual articles)? In the course of recent discussions of a particular paper that is claimed to provide positive evidence for homoeopathy, and whether it should be included in an article, some perfectly valid (and as far as I'm aware unrefuted) criticisms of the article were cited, but two editors who are supporting the inclusion of the article simply stated that we can't consider them because they had been published on a blog. Brunton (talk) 19:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    A useful policy in this regard is WP:REDFLAG. It should be used more forcefully throughout talkpage discussions. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't know what SA means here. It is very common on talk pages to bring attention to texts that you are not proposing to use as a source in the article. So long as you keep within the rules of discussion (be civil, work towards consensus, stick to discussing improvements to the article) then you can mention any text you want to. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is that some people refer too often to texts that are making extraordinary claims to bolster their tenuous and decidedly "fringey" position. This can have the effect of overwhelming talkpage discussions to the point of making it appear that the sources are good enough to pass WP:REDFLAG when in fact they are not. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    But the problem here is different. It is that a WP:RS is being demanded on a Talk page merely to support criticism of papers that have been added to the main Article, when an analysis of these papers makes it self-evident that the studies are defective but no one else has ever bothered to do that analysis. So, in Wikipedia terms the analysis is WP:OR but it is also uncontestably correct. I would not want to include this WP:OR in the main Article, the appropriate remedy is to remove the defective studies from the main Article, but their fans do not accept this. My problem therefore is that Wikipedia's rules are effectively being exploited to ensure that bad studies can't be deleted from an Article by consensus. OffTheFence (talk) 21:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    If the paper is dubious (has internal inconsistencies, for example) it may be judged to be an unreliable source in spite of the journal in which it was published. One need not necessarily have to provide a paper refuting it if it is a poorly done paper. Peer review does not equal imprimatur. WP:REDFLAG is important because a reliable source for an extraordinary claim (e.g. "homeopathy works!") needs to be exquisite above and beyond normal sourcing requirements. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Any confusion here may be my fault: AS wasn't replying to me; I had indented my comment under MastCell's (as it seemed more relevant to the issue of peer-reviewed sources without peer-reviewed criticism) and above SA's comment. Brunton (talk) 21:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I think I see. The only thing that concerns me now is that it should be remembered that we are working to verifiability rather than truth. It isn't our job to correct the scientific consensus. When there are different views in peer-reviewed papers then we need to establish weight by referring to overviews (e.g. reviews of the literature) or by looking at the standing of the journals in which the different views are published. While it is up to those who want the material included to show that it is notable and well-sourced, I'm not sure how far you will get by arguing that a peer-reviewed study is defective unless you can show a very good reason. A source that contradicts it would definitely help your position, but it is not appropriate to demand on a talk page that someone produce a source for their argument. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Scratch that idea - those articles seem to have (deservedly) foundered in unciteability as far as mainstream WP:RS are concerned. Mentioning when the studies were published and the lack of high quality confirmation is relevant. Commonly accepted methodological problems, such as lack of blinding or randomization, should be noted, and there are a couple of metrics for comparing the quality of studies that should be allowable to compute under the obvious deductions section of the not-OR essay. In any case, utter lack of scientific plausibility and the scientific consensus against homeopathy are perfectly relevant. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 00:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    My understanding is that reliability of a journal refers to its current reputation for accuracy in a community -- the reputation of the journal as a whole. An editor's opinion about an individual article wouldn't seem to be relevant to the reputation of the journal publishing it in the community, so I don't understand why such things are thought to have any bearing on the question of a journal's reliability. It is the journal, not the study, that is the source. The journal is our evidence that a study existed. The journal's (or possibly the author's) reputation -- not anything that can be said about an individual article's content -- is the basis for reliability. I completely agree that editors' personal personal beliefs about and critiques of study methodology etc. are entirely original research and canot have any weight. A claim that a study in a reliable journal does not reflect consensus or has so little weight as to be fringe has to cited to some other reliable source. What editors personally believe is correct has nothing to do with it. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 01:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Not really - journals themselves generally say nothing other than to validate that a certain article passed a bar of peer review, which varies by the importance of the journal to the field. Being published in Science or Nature carries more stringent requirements than something with more adjectives (or Medical Hypotheses, which is not a reliable source at all). This high regard by the scientific community is why such articles are generally RS. It would, however, be entirely incorrect to cite any information from Schön's withdrawn papers regardless of publishing journal, or to cite "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" other than in the context of the Sokal Affair.
    The case at hand, I will admit, is somewhat less clear-cut than these examples. It remains, however, appropriate to exercise editorial oversight to ensure that our articles fairly represent the whole of the relevant corpus. By all means any quality studies which have not been superseded should be cited, but they should also be provided with context. Ideally, an unbiased reader who happens across Arsenicum album should leave knowing what it is, how it is produced, why it is prescribed (history and symptoms), and that there is some small evidence of efficacy but no sound theory of action. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 02:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    There seems to be a consensus that bad studies can either be removed or have their deficiencies shown in a main article- sacrificing WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in favour of WP:UNDUE and WP:REDFLAG, and probably WP:IAR, amongst others. But with the whole of homeopathy under "probation", if I edit the main Article don't I still find myself subject to being complained against, because no consensus has been reached? None of this should be necessary if editors acted in good faith and withdrew source material that has been shown to be unreliable or appeared open to qualifying any account given of it in the main Article, but that is where we are. I feel that the principle is important enough to take it up the decision chain to establish a proper precedent. Where does it go next?OffTheFence (talk) 08:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    A request was posted at WP:RSN#Arsenicum album. I should not need to point out that we are not going to sacrifice WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in favor of your POV. —Whig (talk) 08:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    No, I phrased that badly. The aim is to achieve NPOV. What needs to be sacrificed/compromised is the idea that NPOV falls out immediately simply by following a rigid and narrow interpretation of WP:RS and WP:NOR. NPOV is not negotiable, it is the means to achieve it (and, I suppose, the definition of NPOV) that are. NPOV has not been achieved by going down the path you and DanaUllman have taken us. That is why we have a problem. OffTheFence (talk) 12:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    It is important to AGF, but it is hard to do so when many of the above editors give you only half of the picture. Still, I will AGF. Although these editors insist upon the "unreliability" of the Cazin study and the Linde (1994) meta-analysis that verifies the study as valid, these editors have accidentally (?) not mentioned the numerous double-blind placebo controlled studies (on animals and on humans) published in RS journals showing benefits from homeopathic Arsenicum album. Recently, yet another human trial was referenced to an even more prestigious journal ("Science of the Total Environment"), and yet, editors have stonewalled its inclusion. I also referred to an article in Annals in Internal Medicine in which the Linde paper is also described as a review of "rigorous laboratory trials." Please note that one editor above expressed concern that randomization of rats was not done (I personally thought that this was humorous and asked if he wanted blue-eyed rats to be separated from those brown-eyed rats). That said, I have asserted that blinding is not used in certain scientific arenas, such as surgery (and I should also add that many physics experiments also are not blinded). I believe that it is not our duty as editors here to judge whether a study is or isn't worthy just because it wasn't randomized or blinded. Instead, we must rely upon their source of publication. Is the source a RS? Also, once one sees a pattern (as I have described above and as is in the Arsenicum album article), editors must avoid stonewalling the body of evidence. DanaUllmanTalk 14:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, it's looking like your confusion over randomisation was genuine not arch leg-pulling (and, no, I am not being sarcastic, I think the confusion IS honest). The rats weighed 70g, therefore they were far from adult. We don't know and cannot tell over what period these trials were run, but rats of that age would be undergoing a rapid maturation of their physiology. I hadn't expected to find something quite so neat, but look at this [38] and you will gain some appreciation of the problem. A 70g rat would be on the extreme left hand side of those growth curves where the slope is nearly vertical. Unless the treatments were randomised, all the authors have done is document alterations in Arsenic elimination with increasing maturity. Like I said, I cannot tell what was really going on, but the quote I gave on the Ars Alb Talk page says all that needs to be said- randomisation serves "to guarantee inferential validity in the face of unspecified disturbances". I really, honestly and truly thought this was obvious. It seems it was not. OffTheFence (talk) 17:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    However, this is less acceptable- "I also referred to an article in Annals in Internal Medicine in which the Linde paper is also described as a review of "rigorous laboratory trials."". Maybe so, but who said it? "Jonas, Kaptchuck, and Linde" two of the three authors also published Linde (1994) that is the source of all the problems. The Belon, Bannerjee et al paper is just shockingly awful. 14 of 39 subjects dropped out! I'm not even to engage further with that one. Life's too short. OffTheFence (talk) 18:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not who said it, but where, that makes this a reliable source. Annals of Internal Medicine isn't a RS? Please also note that NOR is just as much a fundamental policy of Wikipedia as NPOV and V. —Whig (talk) 18:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I would be more inclined to believe you if there wasn't so obvious a conflict of interest soapbox for you to promote homeopathy. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I would ask ScienceApologist to strike this comment and AGF. —Whig (talk) 18:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Get someone other than you to ask this. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Excuse me? Why is my request not worthy of consideration? —Whig (talk) 19:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The 3 RfCs you ignored about yourself are the reason that we shouldn't really take you seriously since you don't take the Wikipedia community seriously. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    This is completely inappropriate and coming from someone who has been subjected to ArbCom warnings, you should stop now. —Whig (talk) 20:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Furthermore, you are restricted and your edits above are uncivil personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith. —Whig (talk) 20:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Yeah, AGF...and thanx OffTheFence for that explanation...but the point here is that Jonas and Linde are highly regarded physicians/scientists/evaluators of research, and they are known to critique their own work. In THIS case, however, they have not done so. They published in a RS; they made comments about their research in a very high impact journal. The information stands on this. Your information, while interesting (and not as humorous as I once had thought), is good OR for the talk page. DanaUllmanTalk 19:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I think this has now moved a million miles from the topic of this section. Probably best to return the Talk:ArsAlb page if you want to take that further and hear how happy I'd be to insert a line like "In a 2003 review 2 of the authors of Linde 1997 congratulated themselves for the rigour of their research". Just kidding, but it would be pretty funny. OffTheFence (talk) 23:47, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    ← I'm sorry; it's no longer clear to me what's being discussed here. MastCell Talk 19:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Since we are discussing reliable sources, follow-up should be to WP:RSN#Arsenicum album. —Whig (talk) 19:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Golden plates

    This is an alledged sacred book in the Mormon religion. About a month ago I initiated the process of trying to make clear on the article that there is practically no evidence of these books and that many claims about them and in them are disputed.

    The page has moved an inch in the right direction, however, the page spends paragraph after paragrah about how they were found, a physical description of them!, etc., and one sentence which mentions that they may not even exist.

    Any help would be appreciated... and there has been A LOT of talking about his for 2 weeks.... so maybe skim a bit and jump in.

    btw, not sure if this is the right place for this concern. Sethie (talk) 22:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Just a word: if this article passed FA-review, I'm sure that its unlikely to be overtly fringe-y. There does seem to be a shortage of "out-universe" sources on that page, but I think what you really want is WP:RfC. Relata refero (talk) 09:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    of course these plates didn't physically exist, this is a topic of religious belief. We don't go and label Golden Fleece as fringecruft because that never existed? It's mythology. At worst, slap it with {{in-universe}}. dab (𒁳) 15:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think an in-universe tag would be NPOV, given that there is debate about whether the plates are fictional or not.... and that sums up the entire problem with the page.
    I personally don't know how it passed FA review without addressing this issue. Sethie (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Presently, nobody believes in Greek mythology, thus I'm not sure if comparision with the Golden Fleece is right. Unlike belief in Zeus, millions still believe in the Golden Plates. There's definitively a double standard if compared to the excellent skeptical articles about Scientology in Wikipedia. Why this is so? Both are religions born on American soil. One religion is basically debunked in the wiki while the other one is respected. Can anyone of you explain this to me? —Cesar Tort 17:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    that depends on what you mean by "belief". This is all about religious belief and has nothing to do with "belief" as in plausibility. 100s of millions of people religiously believe Jesus was raised from the dead, but only a few crackpots attempt to reconstruct the physical process of resurrection as some sort of nuclear reaction emitting X-Ray or what have you. Religion is about faith, not facts. It is pointless to say that a {{in-universe}} tag would be "pov": amboxes are not part of an article's content (subject to content policy), they point out issues with an article's content. dab (𒁳) 17:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I think the proper annalogy is to look at the article on the Ten Commandments... even though the only evidence that these actually exited in physical form comes from a religious source, we can talk about them in terms of religious belief... without resorting to "in-universe" tags. The key is to phrase any discussion of the Mormon Golden Plates in terms of religious belief and not in terms of "fact". The simple addition of "It is believed that..." or "According to Mormon tradition..." should solve any issues here. Blueboar (talk) 18:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Aye. Reading the article, I think it conveys reasonably well that while Mormons may well believe in these plates, nobody else does because there's no evidence they existed. I don't see much of a problem here, sorry. Moreschi (talk) 21:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks all for your feedback. By the grace of God :) the article made a huge leap towards covering the issues I had.... I have also begun to edit stylistically to move it away from fact and towards "Mormon tradition believes that." The challenge will be, of course to not say this in EVERY SINGLE sentence! Sethie (talk) 16:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I've created the {{in-religion-universe}} template, to allow the same issue to be stated, while avoiding calling the subject matter of articles "fiction". Clinkophonist (talk) 14:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Louis XIV

    There is an ongoing dispute at this page regrading an editor's inclusion of certain non-standard interpretations of historical events, shown in the second paragraph here. I'm not certain this is the correct noticeboard, but posting elsewhere has been ineffective in resolving the dispute. I would aprreciate any suggestions other editors may have on the proper course of action. Thank you. Coemgenus 13:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    It definitely seems like undue weight to have this in a general encyclopaedia article about Louis. Maybe worth a paragraph in a full-length biography but not here. Some of the sources look a little dubious too. --Folantin (talk) 14:16, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Not a WP:FRINGE issue... but irrelevant in an article on Louis XIV. Delete the offending paragraph. Blueboar (talk) 15:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Zapped. Out of place in an article supposedly written as a summary. Moreschi (talk) 15:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, it was moved to another paragraph and re-written. It seems this is really all about mentioning that Louis's birth was caused by the Virgin Mary. The debate continues... Blueboar (talk) 16:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    9/11 conspiracy theories

    Unfortunately, I have to be away for most of the next two weeks — but I'm worried that a number of proposals on the 9/11 and 9/11 conspiracy theories articles will compromise their neutrality and insert fringe material or wording. I'm requesting some more eyes on the articles while I'm away, since this might be a problem for this board. Take a look at the talk pages, and you'll see what I mean. Good luck! --Haemo (talk) 22:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Talk:Robert Gallo

    Something truly odd is going on at Talk:Robert Gallo, and more eyes would be useful. 70.4.91.99 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) made some... interesting edits which necessitated administrative deletion due to personal attacks, attempted "outing", etc (deleted contribs here for viewers with the sysop bit). The article was semi-protected as a result; this user registered an account, RspnsblMn (talk · contribs), and while waiting for the autoconfirmed threshold to expire has been engaging in a bit of curious discussion on the talk page. More eyes requested. MastCell Talk 04:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Guy's a budding wikilawywer in the making, I see. Talkpage tendentiousness is at least fairly harmless but I'll keep my eye on it. Moreschi (talk) 21:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Skinwalker is wondering what lower-tier law school taught RspnsblMn to write like that. I've got most AIDS-related pages watchlisted, so I'll observe too, but this is likely to be addressed best by WP:RBI. Skinwalker (talk) 02:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Location hypotheses of Atlantis

    The article's a mess and I'm trying to add references and remove some of the soapboxing. I'm in the middle of a discussion about someone named Nikas. Now, before this happened, Nikas himself seems to have started his own article with the username SuperAtlantis (the name of his old website it seems as that's the name on the pdf recently uploaded here, now deleted). See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Superatlantis. Which probably explains why his new website lists Wikipedia as one of the places his work has been published. See his new website Atlantis in Malta. Now, ignoring what has happened before, my question is whether Nikas should be included in the Location Hypotheses article. He is a New Yorker who has gotten an Albanian newspaper to write about this ideas. His web page says he has been published in Mysteries Magazine number 15 and links to the magazine's website, but the website doesn't mention his article and has its own internal search feature which didn't turn up a Nikas or an article on Malta. A web search turns up his participation on a couple of web forums and that's about all, except for a web page by another Atlantis researcher, Georgeos Díaz-Montexano. I don't think this is enough but the person who added a section on him, Italianboy101, disagrees. He isn't going to push it but to be fair and clear in my own mind I thought I'd bring it here. Notable enough or not? Thanks.--Doug Weller (talk) 16:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I tend not to think of Location hypotheses of Atlantis as a real article, but more as a honeypot to keep Atlantis from getting bloated with news of the "latest discovery". If you want to restrict the article to notable theories, Nikas should go, along with anything that hasn't been reported in third-party sources. Anyone want to guess how many theories about Atlantis are self-published? --Akhilleus (talk) 16:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds reasonable. If there isn't the requisite third-party source, it ain't notable. And the range for guessing is how many million? John Carter (talk) 17:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Completely agree... and I think it is in line with WP:FRINGE, which requires that any particular theory be discussed in a serious manner by mainstream sources (even if it is simply to disparage it). Many of the theories mentioned in this article have not recieved that required level of notice by the mainstream (or, if they have, the article makes no mention of it.) Blueboar (talk) 17:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Hexapus

    Somebody keep an eye on this article, please. I just fixed it up - someone was trying to push his personal theory that this malformed octopus is really a new species called "Hexapus," using a cheeky column in the Daily Telegraph as his source. There was a taxobox and everything - ugh. <eleland/talkedits> 21:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    okidoki Sheffield Steeltalkstalk 22:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Adaptogen

    From Adaptogen:

    The word adaptogen is used by herbalists...

    ...

    Very simply, adaptogens are nontoxic in normal doses, produce a nonspecific defensive response to stress, and have a normalizing influence on the body. They normalize the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). As defined, adaptogens constitute a new class of natural, homeostatic metabolic regulators.

    This same term is used on other articles, as an actual medical or scientific term:

    i.e. Indian gooseberry

    From a Western perspective, the fruit is considered to be an adaptogen, helping the body cope and adapt to various physiological stressors, helping to balance the neuroendocrine system and enhance immunity.

    Woo? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Not sure if it can be said to be a "medical" term... but it is definitely being talked about... it gets tons of hits on Google. Seems to be an accepted term on the alternative medicine circuit. Is this a "cureallozine"!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs)
    The article should make clear that it's a term used largely in alternative medicine; the 81 PubMed hits for "adaptogen" focus nearly entirely on herbal products and are published in the less... conventional side of the medical literature. The claim in the article that they "constitute a new class of natural, homeostatic metabolic regulators" is sourced to a book published by Healing Arts Press, a smallish alternative-medicine publishing firm, and should certainly be a bit more qualified. MastCell Talk 19:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    That's kind of what I figured. It seems to be a scientific term, but not with a lot of research to support it. However, lots of quacks and non-scientists have taken the term up apparently, as a banner to push silly "herbal remedies". One company actually uses the term, adaptogenol for one of their silly potions, yes, like a cureallozine. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Pallywood

    A new (?) editor has recently been attempting to add a chunk of original research and material sourced from blogs (or just unsourced material) to this article about a fairly fringey Middle Eastern conspiracy theory ([39]). I've attempted to explain the policy requirements at Talk:Pallywood#Relevant Updates,Slanted Interpretations, Lack of Neutrality. Grateful if somone could review my comments and let me know if there's anything I've missed. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    The Martinphi-ScienceApologist Interview

    What is the role of science in producing authoritative knowledge? How should Wikipedia report on pseudoscience? Veterans of numerous edit wars and talk page battles spanning dozens of articles across Wikipedia, User:Martinphi and User:ScienceApologist will go head to head on the subject of Wikipedia, Science, and Pseudoscience in a groundbreaking interview to be published in an upcoming issue of Signpost. User:Zvika will moderate the discussion. Post suggested topics and questions at The Martinphi-ScienceApologist Interview page. 66.30.77.62 (talk) 18:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    1. ^ Conze, Edward (1980). A Short History of Buddhism. Museum Street, London, U.K.: George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd. ISBN 0 04 294109 1
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