Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

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

Regulation_and_prevalence_of_homeopathy#United_Kingdom

Think I've got this in line with reality - it contained several counterfactual statements, like implying that the Faculty of Homeopaths was a branch of the NHS (!!!) and stating that the government rejected the Evidence check on homeopathy, when in fact it put the decision to the Primary Care Trusts, many of which do not fund homeopathy anymore. It also tried to use figures from 2006 to paint a rosy picture of funding in the UK, when the latest reports show a very, very significant decline.

Examples of appalling material removed:

“ ...the National Health Service (NHS) currently operates two homeopathic hospitals, and the Luton-based Faculty of Homeopathy... ”

No, it does NOT operate the Faculty of Homeopathy.

“ ]]. Homeopathy in Britain quickly became the preferred medical treatment of the upper classes as well as the aristocracy; it retained an elite clientele, including members of the British royal family. At its peak in the 1870s, Britain had numerous homeopathic dispensaries and small hospitals as well as large busy hospitals in Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, London and Bristol. ”

You may not think that's particularly bad - until you realise the article's about present day regulation and prevalence, and no other country - not even Germany, which created it - has Homeopathy's glorious past triumphs described.

The article also lied by ommission:

“ A study commissioned by West Kent Primary Care Trust in 2007 found similar figures for referrals for homeopathic treatment, but that referrals were almost always at the patient's request rather than as a result of a clincal decision. ”

Not mentioned: West Kent PCT closed Tunbridge Wells Homeopathic Hospital two years later, which tends to change figures. Also, the article, until today, failed to mention any figures from after 2006. Given the last three years have seen major campaigns against homeopathy, it tends to change things.

Remaining problems

I find the other sections of this article dubious, given how the U.K. section attempted to misrepresent the situation. In particular, it has a tendency to a rather pro-homeopathic tone:

“ According to the European Committee for Homeopathy, homeopathic industrial manufacturers register only those products that are economically feasible, e.g. in the case of the Netherlands 600 out of a total of 3,000. The strict safety requirements even for very high dilutions of biological substances also impede registration for certain homeopathic products such as nosodes. As a result, several homeopathic products have disappeared from the market. ”

That's right: The article presents the loss of nosodes - fake vaccines, which Britain's NHS has had to do an entire campaign warning people not to take - as a bad thing, and much of the article's language is in this "Isn't it horrible when Homeopathy is restrained, but isn't it great when it isn't?" sort of tone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.179.223.49 (talk) 15:54, 30 August 2011

Robert O. Becker and The Body Electric

Looks like these need some attention, I don't even know where to start on The Body Electric or even if it needs its own article. I'm not sure about the author either, he seems to be a somewhat prolific researcher but I don't know if he's notable enough for an article. Some googling made me think he has some definitely fringe ideas.

I made the article into a stub as a starting point for future work. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The article The Body Electric should probably just be merged into the Becker article. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Can anyone familar with merging merge these two articles? IRWolfie- (talk) 20:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and merged them. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:54, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Scorpio (astrology)

Articles like this are just embarassing. Maybe we need a working group to clean them up. Sadly I've decided to take a Wikibreak now. Dougweller (talk) 21:28, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

What? You don't think that scorpios are strong-willed, sensitive, passionate, and can achieve anything in life? You must be a Sagittarius. :) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I took the scissors to it, see what you think. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:12, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Leo (astrology), Gemini (astrology) and most of the other zodiac signs have similar issues. Yobol (talk) 19:14, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

@Itsmejudith: I'm not sure that was the right approach.[1] I think a lot of this content should have remained, but rewritten so it's not in Wikipedia's voice. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:59, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

But no good source, not even a source that would tell us about Scorpio in traditional astrology. Even for magazine astrology the sourcing was poor. Add more if you can find anything to go on. Scorpio in medieval thought, that would be really interesting. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:26, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with Itsmejudith here. I've been trying to find reliable sources on astrology for two months now, and, surprisingly, there is precious little out there. The topic is almost completely ignored by mainstream scholars, and there are only a handfull of fringe scholars that have published anything reliable, and they have published very little indeed. That leaves a vast mess of in-universe sourcing, most of which is self-contradictory. Publications by the largest astrological societies can't be considered representative because they emphatically state that they don't want to have anything to do with the most commonly practiced forms of astrology. I'm loathe to accept them as sources anyway because they are published in sham "academic journals". If the source has deliberately misrepresented itself, how can it be trusted for any information? They also seem to want to create a "new form" of astrology that doesn't yet exist except in their dreams, so what they write about bears no resemblance to reality.

I'm loathe to leave unsourced material in the articles with just a citation tag. At this point, I've come to the conclusion that it is unlikely that acceptable sourcing will ever be found. So I endorse Ismejudith's approach. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 21:19, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

By the way, a few months ago Dieter Bachmann and I agreed that astrology magazines were acceptable sources for the article on astrology software. That was on the basis that those magazines were where you would expect to see reviews of the software; for comparison you would expect to see reviews of manga in manga magazines. Just thought I would get that off my chest. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:25, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I probably would agree with you on the software, PROVIDED that extreme care was taken to avoid any promotional slant. I wouldn't rely on Manga fanzines for encyclopedic-grade information on the philosophy or history of Manga without further verification, though, unless the author were a clearly recognized expert, as confirmed by reliable independent sources.

However, I can't agree that any of the in-universe astrology sources can be used to provide encyclopedic-grade information on astrology in general, only on the kind of astrology that each clique or each author believes in. And that's where we run into the relevance problem. There are plenty of people who claim to be "experts" in "astrology" (implying astrology sensu lato), but are only "experts" in their own "brand" of astrology. It's really difficult or impossible to determine how many other astrologists they speak for, if any. Self-promotion and misrepresentation are rife as well, reducing the credibility of many sources.

Like I said, the largest organizations are very "elitist" and exclusive, and they state themselves that they are not representative. For example, the chairman of the largest astrological club in the UK, the Astrological Association, posted on the talk page a couple of months back that here organization wanted nothing to do with sun sign astrology, the most common form, and that the wikipedia article be rewritten to reflect "real" astrology, namely her own brand. The academics at the Sophia centre are even more elitest, and don't even speak for each other; there are major differences in astrology as imagined by Nicholas Campion, and that imagined by Patrick Curry, for instance. If their centre weren't so small and endangered that they had to cling to each other for dear life, they would be at each others throats.

Another thing is that the various personalities at these larger societies and the Sophia center describe astrology as they think it ought to be (sometime in the distant future, perhaps), rather than how it is generally practiced today. Their visions are likewise inconsistent and conflicting.

So which sources should we pick from the myriad swarm of self-published popular books and fanzines? How do we tell what is representative, reliable, credible, disinterested, scholarly and trustworthy, and what not? The problem that always will return is the dearth of reliable independent sources with which we can assess in-universe claims. Without that, I'm afraid we're stuck.

Last, but not least, is the problem that no reliable sources I've seen discuss astrolgy in the widest sense of the word, inclusive of Western, Vedic and Chinese astrology and the other variants. Maybe they are so different that they cannot be treated together. Which brings us to the question of whether the Astrology article should really exist, and how much material from it should be moved to the daughter articles. I share your concern that the article is still too Western-centric. I myself have problems remembering that it is not an article on Western astrology alone.

By the way, did you see the external link to CURA that Zac added? It might be helpful locating sources. Unfortunately, what would be the best source for Chinese astrology is designated as having "just a few unhelpful pages on astrology". Yes, it's frustrating. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:13, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I have also to admit to accepting in relation to History of astrology the reliability of Campion. He has an academic affiliation, but I would rethink that now. I would like to see us continue to keep all the astrology together. It remains to be seen when and how the divergences between traditions occured. I was just looking at zodiac, and will try and add the Chinese 12 stems, which are often called "zodiac"; whether there is any connection with the Western zodiac is a fascinating question for the history of ideas that may be addressed one day. I am coming to think that we are seeing one group of people trying to impose their own quite limited view as the sole kind of "astrology". That is the new "computational" group, with their pseudo-academic publications. Naturally they loathe the sun-sign magazine astrology that is actually dominant. And they go loopy when presented with the sheer scale of practice of Indian and Chinese astrology. They present themselves as the natural inheritors of medieval and early modern Western astrology, but actually it is a reinvention, just as modern Wicca lays claim to continuity with medieval and early modern witchcraft. We will unpick it all, but it takes time. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:29, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

@Itsmejudith: Yes, but we don't delete material simply because it's unsourced unless it's a quotation or it's something that is challenged or likely to be challenged. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

@Dominus Vobisdu: We have to go with the best sources we can find. If scholarly sources don't exist on this topic, then we should try looking at journalistic and popular press. It's difficult to Google newspaper sites because they all have damn horoscope sections, but perhaps one of these books would be acceptable?[2] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:09, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

@Itsmejudith: Campion's history is the main problem I'm thinking about right now, too. Yes, he's a genuine academic, but he's teetering on the very edge. He's patently very partisan, and I'm reluctant to trust him for the history without a reliable backup. Another problem is that he's not only fringe within the academic community, he's also fringe within the astrological community. You're right about the article being to highly influenced by the "computational group" from AAGB and Sophia. That's because there were a lot of SPA shills from there before you and I arrived. They were eventually blocked en masse, but a lot of the problems remain. The pro-astrology editors seem to rely exclusively on their material, too. Gauquelin, Eysenck, Ertel, Campion and Curry are all part of this movement. The Journal of Astrology, Correlations, Culture and Cosmos, and Astropsychological Problems are all associated with this group. It does seem like a small, unrepresentative and very incestuous group of Western "neo-astrologers" is being over-emphasized out of all proportion here, and their disdain for other types of astrology is palpable in the fact that the other types are de-emphasized or ignored. Yes, like Wicca, modern astrology is also a reinvention going back to about 1900. Medieval astrology was moribund in the 1700s, and after a brief revival during the Romantic era, died out for good. Medieval astrology was also a reinvention from the late tenth/early eleventh century based on Arabic and Greek scholarship brought back to the West by Western scholars who had studied in Islamic or Byzantine centers like Cordoba or Constantinople. The "unbroken chain" myth was a problem we had to deal with in the articles related to creationism, too. Modern creationism was invented only in the 1920s. I guess it's just part of the human tendency to trace one's ancestry back to Alexander the Great, Julius Ceasar, William the Conquerer, etc. Good luck with finding better sources! You have a tough row to hoe! Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:40, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

@Quest: I'm afraid that you will find that the popular books you linked to will rarely agree with each other about anything at all, and it's impossible to determine whether anything is "authoratative" or "widely held", as there are no widely recognized experts in astrology. This isn't like creationism where we have clearly identifiable leaders and spokesmen. Astrology really is a free-for-all. Books like that are written and published for entertainment purposes only, and have precious little scholarly value for things like history or philosophy. There is zero fact-checking, and edotorial policies are geared exclusively to maximizing sales. I'd have to say the same for newpaper articles and the mass media. They rarely, if ever, treat the subject seriously enough to serve as reliable sources for WP. They usually write to entertain, as well. In short, there isn't very much there that's any more reliable than the in-universe fanzines. As for deletion, it seems to be the only way to eliminate extremely dubious material sourced with completely unreliable sources. Deletion is the best option when it is reasonable to expect that adequate sourcing will never be found. For example, the "Core Principles" section [[3]] of the astrology article is OR or SYNTH based on primary or extremely unreliable sources, or misused sources. There is no reasonable expectation that any adequate sourcing will be found to support any of it, or that it could ever be improved. There just ain't no baby in the bathwater. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:12, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

This thread is full of ignorance and inaccuracies, unfounded speculation, distortion of facts and groundless slanderous remarks. I don't want to take it anymore seriously than it deserves, so please bring it to an end, and stop using this discussion page as a soapbox for predjudical remarks about the subject, other editors and a named person who is a subject of a WP:BLP. This is contentious material that is not sourced because it is not true, so it doesn't have a place here.

@Dougweller. I think you had a point, but I have taken most of the unsourced info off the page, and added a number of references to well respected works. I'll try to contribute more later as I believe the pages have a good potential for development.-- Zac Δ ^talk! 00:40, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

@Dominus Vobisdu: Well, we can't delete these articles because astrology is clearly a notable topic. Nor can have empty articles. Can you please take another look at this list of sources[4] to see if any are acceptable? At the very least, this book[5] would meet Wikipedia's minimum requirements of reliability. Obviously, these aren't scholarly books, but the publisher does produce many excellent - if beginner - books on many different topics. Keep in mind that astrology is much like religion. For example, we don't need to have fact-checking on whether Jesus was the son of god. We only need fact-checking that Christians believe that Jesus is the son of god. This isn't as hard as you're making it out to be. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:46, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I removed most of the mythology section, it had no connection to Scorpio and seemed to be general mythology about scorpions in general. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

There was a sort of connection, just not well explained - the Babylonian constellations and astrology were partial predecessors to te Greek. 86.** IP (talk) 21:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Current issue whether Manilius and William Lilly are RS for the article. I've said they are primary but this is disputed. An interesting fact emerging is that a 20th century astrologer, Olivia Barclay, discovered and promoted Lilly's work. Astrology for Dummies is one thing. Ideology in the English Revolution for Dummies is quite another... Itsmejudith (talk) 12:47, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Template:Zodsign1 seems highly problematic. It is the use of this template that ensures that each article on a star sign repeats off-topic material on tropical zodiac and sidereal zodiac in general. I am all for an infobox that tells us the characteristics of the sign in astrology. The dates in the tropical and sidereal zodiacs should definitely be in each article. But definitely not in this way. My removal of similar off-topic information has been reverted. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:49, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I suggested that the template should be discussed at WikiProject Astrology, and this is happening. Currently some editors have weighed in in favour of keeping the template on the star sign articles. Not sure if a WikiProject can make such decisions that are against normal practice. Some more eyes would be very useful. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:40, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Is there really enough reliably-sourced material specifically on the signs to justify spin-off articles? Couldn't they all just be merged to Astrology? 86.** IP (talk) 08:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Now that is an idea. Maybe not with Astrology but with Zodiac. Yes. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:44, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Zodiac is actually a fairly decent article, balancing a lot of history, and straddling the astronomy/astrology divide. We shouldn't overload it with too much woolly astrology, particularly as the astrological star sign ones are pretty crap. How about Astrological sign? 86.** IP (talk) 09:07, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec)To Astrological sign, I think. I will post on WikiProject Astronomy to see what they want to do about Zodiac, e.g. take it over completely and remove all the astrological content, split the astrology off into Zodiac (astrology) or take out the astronomy so it is all astrology. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:17, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Not that I'm surprised, but there is a discussion on the Reliable sources noticeboard where my suggestion that the claim that Scorpios are dark and sexy should be supported by evidence that Scorpios are darker and sexier than the other 11/12 of humanity, rather than just that astrologers claim them to be, was met with the accusation of scientistic bias[6] and the suggestion that such a claim need not actually be true, since it isn't on a science page. Agricolae (talk) 02:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

ROFL. Yup, the same old 'ownership' arguments. I'm thinking of applying this to the Trepanning article, and insisting that nobody can edit it until they have a hole drilled in their head. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:04, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The more I write articles for Wikipedia, the more I am convinced that the vast majority of statements should be presented in the form "According to X, A is so", rather than "A is so"<add link here indicating X is the source>. Even in the relatively mainstream world of history, there is a surprising amount of disagreement between the experts: while not all of it approaches the level of "Was there a historic King Arthur?" -- or the real date St. Patrick lived -- when one starts writing articles at the fine granularity that our history articles are at on an increasing basis, expert disagreements become more & more obvious. (And then there are the POV issues wriggling out of each newly opened can.) Speaking for myself, I'd have no problem if the assigned values of astrological signs were explained as Agricolae suggests they should be above viz., "this astrologer claims that Scorpios have these qualities, while that astrologer claims they have that one". -- llywrch (talk) 21:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, what I was actually asking about was what sources would be considered adequate to show that Western astrology held that belief as an 'astrological commonplace'. For, in fact, this is what the majority tradition of Western sun sign astrology claims. The idea that it cannot be added to an article on the astrological meaning of Scorpio unless it has been scientifically proven continues to strike me as unhelpful. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 04:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

In-universe sources, of course, are flat out, unless the source and and material it is used to support are discussed in high-quality real-world reliable sources. If an author, a source or a topic has not received significant serious coverage outside of the "astrological community", they don't exist at all as far as WP is concerned. Mention in book reviews, opinion pieces, blog entries, astrological websites, and less serious "for-entertainment-purposes-only" parts of news sorces like "variety", "life", "people" or "society" sections of otherwise serious newspapers do very little to bolster claims of notability or noteworthness for inclusion in WP.

The basic problem we're facing is that the real world seldom takes serious notice of astrology. This is especially true for the scholarly community, which almost entirely ignores modern astrology. This isn't simply because they consider astrology of little use, but because they consider knowledge about astrology of little use. The distinction is important. The scholarly community also considers creationism of little use, but nevertheless considers knowledge about creationism as very useful in understanding the political aspects of the topic. The debate about astrology is essentially resolved and not all that interesting from a scholarly point of view, and hardly so from a serious journalistic point of view. That is why there are abundant scholarly sources for what creationists believe, and very few for what astrologers believe.

Read my answers above for more reasons why in-universe sources are unacceptable, including their self-promotional character and propensity for authors to misrepresent themselves and their beliefs, as well as it being nigh impossible to determine how widespread any belief or practice is within the astrolgical community. There are no widely acknowledged authority figures or "canonical" books, and the few scholars in that community, like Campion and Curry, adamantly state that they are not representative of the astrological community at large. In fact, they describe astrology as they think it should be in the future, rather than as it actually is.

What astrology actually is is therefore extremely difficult to do because of the lack of serious reliable sources on the modern astrological community. Forming a picture based on in-universe sources would be OR and SYNTH, and in violation of WP policies. If material can be supported relying solely on in-universe sources, that's a good sign that the material does not belong in WP at all. In short, a lot of the material in the astrology-related articles is simply WP:CRUFT of little or no encyclopedic value. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 10:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

For info, Tetrabiblos has been put up for FA. I and some others have commented. And the template Zodsign1 is at templates for discussion, likely to be deleted. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

@Dominus Vobisdu - The notion that astrological texts are "in universe" and therefore unusable as references does not seem to be supported by the actual WP:FRINGE#Reliable sources content guideline, which says:

Reliable sources are needed for any article in Wikipedia. They are needed in order to demonstrate that an idea is sufficiently notable to merit a dedicated article about it; and for a fringe theory to be discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, reliable sources must discuss the relationship of the two as a serious matter.

Reliable sources on Wikipedia include peer-reviewed journals; books published by university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, but material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas.

Astrology texts have been published by reputable mainstream publishers. Academic sources are not required. The guideline also suggests that the level of detail in coverage should be guided by the amount of available material. This too supports the idea that detailed coverage of the substance of astrological belief about signs, houses, and planets is appropriate and desirable: there is quite simply a lot of material available.

The notion that astrological ideas are somehow random, idiosyncratic to every astrologer, or made up on the spot for commercial gain is simply not true. Our article on pseudoscience helpfully points out that "Terence Hines has identified astrology as a subject that has changed very little in the past two millennia." Western astrology has a traditional core in which some elements are remarkably consistent over time. It is in fact possible to speak of a mainstream astrology as well as a fringe astrology.

I know @itsmejudith was talking about opening some kind of RfC on the subject. I suspect the way forward here might be to move for clarification of the several ArbCom rulings on fringe theories and pseudoscience. (Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Arbitration cases). I really don't see anything in the text of the prior rulings that goes as far as some have gone: specifically the claim that all texts made by astrologers for astrologers are inherently unreliable, or that we should minimize our coverage of this fairly extensive subject as "cruft". - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 15:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Your reading of the policies is in gross error. Read them again, this time paying very careful attention to the word "independent", which excludes in-universe sources. There is nothing to discuss in an RfC or at ArbCom. The policies are very clear. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Should we start removing material on physics that's written by physicists for physicists on the same ground of lack of independence? After all, C. S. Lewis, a non-physicist but a respected academic, summarized everything worth knowing about physics in The Discarded Image. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 16:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec)The RfC would have been on the template question, and that is on its way to resolution through Templates for discussion. Personally, I think we have to keep two issues of sourcing separate. One is history of astrology, when sources should meet WP:HISTRS (as it evolves, in any case, should be of academic quality). I think we all agree on that. The other is what astrologers today say. That's where there's still disagreement, and I find myself swayed by arguments on both sides. However fringe we think astrology is, it is notable fringe belief and should be described using those writers who describe it best. There is an academic field to which that question belongs, which is sociology of science (of ideology, of religion even). Texts from that academic field should be prioritised as sources, if they are available. Surveys of opinion are also relevant and reliability can be judged according to usual criteria for surveys. "Cruft" applies to detail that isn't even notable belief. We don't cover every single urban myth, for example, only the ones that have received lots of attention. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:25, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems a fair statement to me. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 20:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

But an incorrect one. We as WP editors are not allowed to evaluate in-universe sources and the material they contain, to decide what is representative and widely held, and what is not. To do so would violate WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. All of our information about astrology must come from reliable INDEPENDENT sources. In-universe sources can only be used to illustrate what the independent sources have to say, and only then if the in-universe source and the material it contains is specifically mentioned in reliable independent sources. I'm puzzled why Judith draws a distinction between history and sociology, if that is in fact what she meant to do. There is no reason to set the bar lower for sociological material than for historical material. Yes, that means that vast tracts of astrology cannot be covered in WP because no reliable independent sources exist. The omission, however, does WP readers no diservice. Quite the opposite, in fact. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 21:26, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's an idea though I don't know how helpful it will be: my reading of the situation (between studying for finals) is that there are few, if any, reliable sources that talk about modern astrology. However, I'm guessing that there are plenty of sources on historical astrology, yes? Well, if this is the case, then why not focus our astrological articles mostly on the historical aspects and then focus very narrowly on modern astrology. Pretty much stating that astrology has been taken increasingly less seriously since the split of astronomy and astrology, and that it is no longer dealt with in academia but has a large number of people who engage in it casually (via horoscopes and the like). I don't think we'll ever be able to find RSs for modern astrology because there is nothing to study; if there was something to study then it would have been studied, published and would stand on its merits if there was good evidence that it accurately reflected reality. Since it doesn't, there isn't much we can talk about as far as modern astrology goes except for the casual aspects of it. The people that actually take it seriously aren't especially qualified to do so (one cannot attain a doctorate in research of astrology, for instance) so what possible source could we find? N^oformation ^Talk 22:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

@Noformation: Why do you say that there are few, if any, reliable sources about modern astrology? Did no one follow through with my suggestion here?[7] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:24, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Can I clarify my argument. I am just trying to cut the problem down to size. 1) On historical issues, there seems to be no argument. "Kepler's writing on astrology" isn't a fringe topic. It's a mainstream topic that historians of science and other historians have written on, perhaps not as much as we might wish. We use history sources to explain this topic. 2) What astrologers argue today is a fringe topic. The main criterion is notability. We cover what people believe about astrology, whether their beliefs are true or not, but only to the extent that their beliefs are notable. In our coverage of those, we use the best sources available, prioritising academic sources but not necessarily ruling out non-academic sources so long as we attribute carefully and never report fringe ideas in Wikipedia's voice. We don't cover non-notable fringe beliefs at all. We make sure we aren't an astrological compendium (WP:NOT). Itsmejudith (talk) 22:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I checked those sources, and they are all pretty much in-universe. The Astrology for Dummies book had caught my attention before. Yes, it's true that the publisher does publish reliable books in technical and academic subjects. However, it would be a stretch to say that they conducted any serious review or fact checking for a non-academic woo hobby like astrology. It's difficult for me to see this as anything but yet another "for entertainment purposes only" pop-lit book rather than a serious attempt at reliable reporting or scholarship, based on the marketing material [[8]]. But of the lot, this is probably the best we have. For now, though, I'd treat it as in-universe fluff. The author has no qualifications to write authoratively on the subject except for entertainment purposes. There is no indication that her treatment of the subject is representative, or even intended to be so. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:23, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

This is what I was trying to get at in my post: who could speak with authority? Any random person can write a pop book and get it published so long as a publisher thinks it will sell, but those books can only be notable for their sales figures. Anyone with enough skill in cold reading can pretend to predict the future or ascribe personality profiles to consumers, but that's not a reliable source either. Astrology is conjecture, non-scientific and thus has nothing to study. There is no "bible" of which to speak, just a vague idea with a lot of people who have their own ideas about it. If there was, perhaps, an organized body of some sort then we could use them, but as it stands all we have are opinions from multiple people, none of whom are notable "out"-universe.

Further, we have two types of people interested in astrology today: those who read horoscopes, and those in the fringe. What's interesting in the case of astrology is that while it is hugely popular casually, the fringe aspect of it is probably even more fringe than something like creationism (in the sense that those who read horoscopes aren't interested in the merit of astrology, they're just uneducated about physics, et al). We've been debating how to include fringe views of modern astrology, but perhaps the answer is actually that modern astrology (not popular, but the serious folk) is so fringe that it doesn't even warrant mention. Perhaps the popular aspect is the only thing that should be talked about in the modern sense, with maybe an ancillary mention that a very small, unconnected fringe still takes it seriously, in which case we can use substandard sources to substantiate the claim that "there are a few people who take astrology very seriously." A claim like that doesn't need anything close to academic as the simple existence of, say, Robert Curry's website is enough to just state the fact that some people actually do take this seriously. Thoughts? N^oformation ^Talk 23:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

You can't get blood from a turnip. If there are no scholarly sources, then there are no scholarly sources. A "for entertainment purposes only" pop-lit book was pretty much all I was expecting. All we can hope for is that the publisher at least selected someone who knows about astrology and who's take on astrology is somewhat representative or somewhat popular amoung people who follow astrology. According to the back of the book, Rae Orion has been a professional astrologer since 1973 and has been writing the astrology column for New Woman magazine since 1996. So, it looks like they did their homework and didn't select someone at random. The other way to find sources is to find out who writes the astrology column for the New York Times or the Washington Post (or whatever major newspapers you want) and see if they've ever published a book. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:56, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The ONLY reason there are astrology columns in newspapers or magazines is to entertain. It's on the same level as the funnies section or the crossword puzzle. To give the reader something to do when taking a break from serious reading so they don't put the newspaper down. The ONLY reason they take into consideration when employing an astrologer is their qualifications as an entertainer. That's the same reason why the editors of the For Idiots series chose Rae Orion, and why they decided to publish the book as well. For shits and giggles. WP strives to be a serious encyclopedia, and there's no room in it for shits and giggles. Last of all, being a self-described or in-universe expert does not translate into being a real world expert. Astrologers do not have any special insight into the topic simply because they are astrolgers, even professional astrologers. Their expertise means little here on WP, or anywhere else except perhaps in-universe. Unless published in a serious outlet, their books are worthless as sources here on WP. Even a real academic expert on astrology like Nicholas Campion turns into a blithering idiot when not subject to the scrutiny of peer-review. Like Judith said, we are looking for experts that can furnish reliable knowledge about the topic, like real sociologists and historians, and serious journalists, publishing in serious outlets. Pop lit, self-published books and pseudoacademic "journals" need not apply. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:38, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

This "in universe" business only has meaning here in the context of writing about fiction. Like it or not, you share the planet with people who believe in astrology. "In universe" doesn't even mean anything in this context. It's only purpose is to make it practically impossible to develop content describing the tenets of astrology. Ultimately, if you accept this line, it doesn't matter how many degrees the author of a source has: if he's writing about astrology for astrologers in a way that takes the notional content of astrology seriously, that's always going to be "in universe". That's just bias talking. Removing astrology content, you've already told us, is doing the encyclopedia a service. If we allow people to read content that says, "hey, I'm a Scorpio, and that's me," they might be tempted to believe in astrology, and that's unacceptable. They might even be tempted to move on to harder stuff like.... say, believing in God. St. Richard Dawkins, defend us!

The whole point of this exercise is to lawyer up some rules that make it impossible to say anything about astrology other than "Science has discarded astrology. This is all you need to know about it." And obviously, there is a lot more to be said about the subject than that. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 01:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Dominus Vobisdu: I think you give newspapers too much credit. They publish horoscopes to make money. No more; no less. And they do so knowing full-well that some segment of the people who read them do so because they actually believe they are (or might be) true.

Please, please, please, please, for the love of god(s), stop asking for experts when by your own admission, there don't seem to be any.

Sure, Wikipedia strives to be a serious encyclopedia, but we cover lots of topics where there is no scholarly research. Tell me, what peer-reviewed, academic journals exist for South Park (season 13) or Fuck the Millennium? The fact is that Wikipedia covers lots of topics where there is no scholarly research. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely they're in it for the money. It's a business, after all. WP does take articles on non-academic subjects quite seriously, and the sourcing policy for them is a lot more rigorous than you might think. Everything in an article on, say, South Park, is, or at least should be, supported with reliable and authoratative sources. In-universe fancruft is not allowed, nor is OR or SYNTH. Arguments over sourcing on those articles can get quite heated at times. Bottom line: if it hasn't been seriously discussed in reliable independent sources, it doesn't exist at all as far as WP is concerned. Spend some time at AfD, and you'll learn a lot about sourcing. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Dominus Vobisdu: So, nominate Astrology and every other astrology-related article for deletion. According to you, "Bottom line: if it hasn't been seriously discussed in reliable independent sources, it doesn't exist at all as far as WP is concerned." Let's see how far it gets. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

There is enough material on astrology in reliable sources to justify an article. Even so, huge parts of the Astrology article were removed about two months ago because of bad sourcing. As for the sign of the zodiac articles, that is being seriously debated. It has already been suggested by other editors to delete them and merge what little reliable information we have on them into a higher order article like Zodiac. I'm on the line on that one, basically because the mythology sections are big enough to justify a seperate article for each sign. But a lot of the cruft and OR still has to be cut out. Some other astrology-related articles are eventually going to be nominated for deletion, namely those based solely on poor-quality, in-universe sources. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Quest, re: south park. Two things: The South Park article doesn't make ridiculous claims about biology, astronomy or physics so it's not covered by WP:FRINGE. Secondly, if we had the kind of non-academic sources for astrology that we do for south park then we could use them. The problem is, as I wrote above, that no one aside from a very small fringe takes astrology seriously. Most people "into" astrology don't know two shits about it or physics, they just like to read horoscopes. So no one writes about it, not in academia, not in popular print, not in notable books, just nothing but in-universe, not notable, never talked about, laughed at fringe "journals." This ties our hands. It's not an anti-astrology thing, believe me, I think there are dumber beliefs than astrology, like creationism for instance, but creationism has plenty of RSes so things like this just don't come up (except when the brigade wants to use creationism sources to debunk science, but that's a totally differnt beast). N^oformation ^Talk 04:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Dominus Vobisdu: If we're citing a source, then it's not WP:OR. This doesn't have to be as difficult as you make it out to be. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:49, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Evaluating non-independent sources to decide whether they are reliable/representative or not is indeed OR. It really is a lot more complicated than you think. Unless a non-independent source and the material it is used to support are discussed in serious reliable sources, we have no way of judging the value of the non-independent source. We can't make that judgement for ourselves, and we can't use other non-independent sources to do so, either. It has to come from reliable independent experts.

Note that this thread is primarily about the interpretation of the signs, specifically the material in the "Characteristics" and "Compatabilities" sections of the article: WP:Scorpio (astrology. These sections are sourced with non-independent or primary sources that are not recognized as reliable or authoratative or serious by anyone outside of the astrological community. A lot of these sections is OR and Synth, including the choice of sources. This is what I mean by cruft. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:23, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Dominus Vobisdu: If by OR, you mean our policy on WP:OR, it's only a violation if we say something that's not supported by a source. As long as it's supported by a source, we're fine. Unless you're claiming that John Wiley & Sons[9] is somehow affiliated with astrology, please stop saying that there are no independent sources. All you have to do is summarize what the source is saying and use in-text attribution. Period. Why are we still discussing this? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:59, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Quest, I do not think that is so. The issue here is synthesis, which is right smack in the middle of WP:NOR. The issue that has been raised here, as I understand it, is that there isn't one set of meanings to the astrological signs that can be picked up from a single, mostly consistent set of reliable sources; instead, we are determining what the signs mean in our attempts to assemble the various sources into a coherent whole. Mangoe (talk) 15:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Mangoe: It's only WP:SYNTH if you state a conclusion not stated by two (or more) sources. Aggregating multiple sources in determining WP:WEIGHT is, unfortunately, a normal part of Wikipedia editing. Yes, it sucks, and it's the source of a lot of POV disputes, but it happens all the time on Wikipedia. It's an imperfect system. I'm not sure what more I can say. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Noformation: I don't think that most horoscopes make ridiculous claims about biology, astronomy or physics. IIRC, most just give benign advice. I haven't read my horoscope in probably 10-15 years, but I will make an exception for this discussion. According to this,[10] "Don’t retaliate. Instead, do your best and let your actions be your voice." That's good advice regardless of which day someone was born on. The fact is that we're trying to write an article about what astrology claims about scorpios. Just find some sources and write what they claim with in-text attribution. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:03, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

BTW, your claim that "So no one writes about it, not in academia, not in popular print, not in notable books, just nothing but in-universe, not notable, never talked about, laughed at fringe "journals." " (emphasis mine) is blatently false as I already proved a couple weeks ago.[11] Please don't insult my intelligence. I am not an idiot. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:15, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Template troubles

There seems to have been quite a large volume of text in Template:Zodsign1 which is consequently included in the articles on individual signs.

• This is silly, as the text is about the Zodiac in general and rightly belongs in that article, not replicated across a dozen others.
• Also, the text had a whiff of synthesis and cherrypicking of sources; it gives some historical background but it's definitely not neutral.

So, I trimmed most of the text and left the initial paragraph, although tbh I think the whole template should be removed from articles on individual zodiac signs. All comments / criticisms welcome... bobrayner (talk) 17:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

...and it was reverted. I firmly feel that this stuff doesn't belong in such a template and have removed it again, but have no doubt that this will be temporary as another astrology editor will come along sooner or later. bobrayner (talk) 18:32, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup reverted Attempts to prune {{zodsign1}} (which is absurdly duplicated in multiple articles) have been reverted, and removal of the template from articles like Scorpio (astrology) has also been reverted. An Astrology WikiProject discussion is the justification, and there are more astrological enthusiasts than editors with wider experience who are prepared to engage. Many enthusiasts are accustomed to using Wikipedia to elevate their chosen topic, and are padding numerous articles with in-universe devotion. It's going to take quite an effort to shift them. Johnuniq (talk) 07:53, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The discussion on WikiProject Astrology has been blatantly vote-stacked by canvassing. I am posting on WP:ANI about this. In fact, it was I who suggested discussing the template on the WikiProject, in the expectation that some normal discussion would ensue. The result is extremely disappointing. It reminds me of the way WikiProject World's Oldest People was used by a group of editors, most of whom were eventually banned after a protracted ArbCom hearing. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:38, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Compatibility

Astrological compatibility looks pretty bad too. Any others? bobrayner (talk) 17:30, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Reboot

What is the point of this discussion? Are we trying to find a way forward, or just complain about how astrology is stupid and that there are no expert sources to cite? If the former, I and I'm sure many other editors are willing to help, but if the latter, this thread is a waste of this board's time and resources and should be closed. Maybe try informal mediation or formal mediation. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Quest: We're having this discussion because you still don't understand the policy. It very clearly says that RELIABLE and INDEPENDENT sources are to be used, not just any old sources, as you seem to believe.

The source for the Dummies book is not Wiley and Sons, but the author, Rae Orion, who is an astrologer, and thus not independent. There is no evidence, either, that she is RELIABLE. She has no demonstrated qualifications or expertise to deliver information that we as WP editors can use.

Yes, Wiley and Sons does publish books that are meant to be used as serious sources of factual information. However, there is no evidence that the book in question belongs to this class. Quite the opposite, their own marketing material indicates that it was published for entertainment purposes only, and is not to be taken seriously. There is no reason to believe that they conducted any in-house fact checking or external review in any meaningful sense of the word. They certainly do not assume any editorial responsibility for any of the information in the book as they would, for example, in the case of "Biology for Dummies" or "The French Revolution for Dummies", "Freud for Dummies" or "Stamp Collecting for Dummies", or even "Stage Magic for Dummies" or "Manga for Dummies".

In short, the purpose of the book is to entertain, and not to provide reliable information. It cannot be used for any other purposes, including as a source for factual information on WP.

Second of all, attribution is not a viable solution to this problem. Regardless of whether what Rae writes is attributed or not, it still cannot be used, even as an example, unless the material cited has been specifically discussed in RELIABLE and INDEPENDENT sources.

Lastly, Noformation clearly had RELIABLE and INDEPENDENT sources in mind when he wrote what he did. He clearly excluded books written by the "very small fringe takes astrology seriously". None of the sources you've linked to are RELIABLE and INDEPENDENT, having been written by the very small fringe that Noformation mentioned. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Dominus Vobisdu: Clearly, the latter. I'm done helping. Goodbye. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I was going to suggest a request for clarification on the Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Arbitration cases, myself; that process exists already, was recently reopened once this year, and the dispute probably already belongs on that level. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 18:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Request for clarification

I have gone ahead and filed a request for clarification of the fringe material guidelines with respect to astrology at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification. At some point, the committee and its clerks will decide to take it up or not. You are invited to comment. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 21:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

To Dominus Vobisdu; You have misquoted me in this discussion and I ask that you retract your malicious statement immediately. I understand of course if it were true it could serve your argument in arbitration. I would also ask those who are arbitrating this page to view this misrepresentation as not only manipulative and slanderous but an example of endless discussions with someone who has now exposed himself as highly prejudiced to this dialogue and in breach of WP editorial policy. Wendy Stacey (talk) 01:35, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Or you could WP:AGF and assume it was oversight as opposed to malice. N^oformation ^Talk 01:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I will assume good faith when the slanderous comments made by DV have been removed. The comments made against named persons are maliciously misrepresented and comments made against organisations cannot be verified by anything that has been posted on WP or anywhere else. Unless these untrue comments are removed immediately DV should be topic banned from editing on this subject as he clearly has a personal prejudice against it and this level of discrimination is detrimental in moving this discussion forward. Wendy Stacey (talk) 11:27, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Please be precise when using noticeboards: quote a few words of the post with which you disagree (its time/date is often helpful), and note the page on which the post is made. Briefly say what the problem is (what statement is untrue? how do we know it is untrue?). Johnuniq (talk) 00:35, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I second this. You're really not being clear or going about this in the best way at all, Ms. Stacey. I spent some time looking at this thread and can't see where Dominus has quoted you at all, let alone possibly misquoted you. I also can't see any statements of his that seem possibly libelous. I'd advise you to clarify what it is you're talking about, but I think better advice would be to spend a little time learning what Wikipedia is and how it works. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 03:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

It is she to whom Dominus referred as "the chairman of the largest astrological club in the UK, the Astrological Association," (diff [12]) and went on to say the material she finds so offensive. As to whether it is "malicious", "manipulative" and/or "slanderous", that is a matter for an ethicist, a psychologist, and a lawyer, respectively. Agricolae (talk) 05:27, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd say that the diff linked above illustrates precisely why this article is so problematic, and that DV is entirely correct. The simple fact is that several contributors to this article have both a conflict of interest (being professionally involved with astrology), and a complete disregard for any concerns over maintaining a neutral POV regarding how astrology is described. Not only do they attempt to portray the 'western' form as the only authentic one, but then go out of their way to exclude the most popular form of this (Sun sign astrology, as represented in the mainstream media) in spite of the fact that it is by far the most economically and culturally significant. I think that what is actually needed is a fundamentally new approach to how we describe the topic: as a varying system of beliefs within its core practitioners, with little in the way of an agreed common core even within the single 'western' tradition, overlain on a more diffuse and general cultural acceptance by a subset of the population that 'there is something to it', and by a somewhat cynical mass-media 'marketing' effort that is much more 'real' to the vast majority of people than the esoteric forms advocated by some regarding this article. Any balanced article on the subject of western astrology would devote the majority of its coverage to the mass-market form that most people are familiar with, and treat the esoteric fringe as what it is: a fringe. Wikipedia isn't here to portray one form of astrology as more 'authentic' than any other, and must instead describe all its forms in a proportional manner. To do otherwise is to do a gross disservice to our readership. AndyTheGrump (talk)

@ Andy: The insurmountable problem of reliable sourcing remains, though. Modern astrology has received next to no attention from the modern mainstream scholarly or journalistic communities, and few reliable sources exist, none of which enables us to get a comprehensive overview of modern astrology. All we have to base our assessment on is a vast assortment of extremely low quality in-universe sources, few of which are known outside of the "astrolgical communty". Agree with your points on POV pushing and COI. There are also major problems with ownership. This has gotten completely out of hand. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The only thing that diff illustrates precisely, is why discussions like this are so twisted with bias, full of false criticisms presented in alarmist terms, without even any expectation that nasty gossipy-type speculative accusations made against professionals with good reputations should be reliable and well founded. Because what I can tell you, is that nearly everything he claims in that post is false. This is why the complainer is aggrieved, because what he said was this:

"the chairman of the largest astrological club in the UK, the Astrological Association, posted on the talk page a couple of months back that here organization wanted nothing to do with sun sign astrology, the most common form, and that the wikipedia article be rewritten to reflect "real" astrology, namely her own brand."

But what she actually said was this, and this:

"Perhaps it would be best stated that 'the practice of sun sign astrology is a very small part and recent phenomenon of the history and full body of knowledge on western astrology' and have a link through to the sun sign astrology page? Thank you for guiding me to the COI page. As you have read, I am the Chair of the Astrological Association of Great Britain but the views expressed here are my own and not representative of the organisation’s members."

Andy – you should remember since she was actually corresponding with you at the time.

But I agree with you that what is needed is a fundamentally different approach. One that stops trying to prevent objective reports for whatever a subject is in its own terms, and stops assuming that WP has a policy whereby alternative topics must be presented with an underlying tone of ridicule or disapproval. Every edit page reminds editors "Please maintain a neutral, unbiased point of view". That means treating a subject with a sense of emotional detachment. Advocates are not the only ones who have to stand back from their personal convictions to get the tone of encyclopaedic coverage right. Some editors are claiming to serve the interests of WP but not realising what a disservice they are doing by not only discrediting the subject they hate, but the reputation that WP aims to establish in being open to all subjects and presenting balanced reports of them.

How about we balance the use of buzz-words like CRUFT with new ones like FAFF - the abuse of WP to serve the interests of fundamentalist anti-fringe fanaticism. It's a real problem and the reason why threads like this go on and on and on. It polarises editors, and creates an unnecessary tension which generates mistrust, even between quite rational editors, who otherwise would be able to work collaboratively and effectively.

Extremism on both sides needs tempering, and DV should be pulled to account for making outrageous unsubstantiated reports like he did, and showing no willingness to correct himself when asked. He didn't just misquote Wendy Stacey here - he has quoted her comments falsely in the RS noticeboard and an Arbcom request for clarification. He does this to justify his argument that the Astrological Association of Great Britain "ardently assert that they don't endorse the most popular varieties of astrology... Furthermore, their writing are more concerned about astrology as they think it should be rather than about astrology as it really is at the present time". Utter drivel -and the real hypocrisy is that he makes invented arguments like this, in order to fuel a belief that editors working on astrology-related content are not capable of making accurate summaries of what their sources say. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 16:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

When attempting to bring NPOV to an article on a fringe topic, we need to note the difference between our neutrality as editors, and the neutrality (or lack thereof) of the rest of the world (ie the sources). We need to approach the subject with neutrally... however, the rest of the world does not. Our job is to neutrally present what the rest of the world says. Neutrality includes presenting all significant viewpoints, but not every viewpoint is significant. This is especially true when dealing with fringe topics. Adherents of a fringe viewpoint will, of course, insist that their viewpoint is highly significant. Toss in the fact that we often find adherents sub-divided into sub-fringe (fringe of fringe) viewpoints... each crying "heresy" at the other, and it often becomes hard for the rest of us to determine whether a specific viewpoint is significant or not. What is needed is some evidence that the viewpoint is, in fact, considered significant by those who are not adherents to the theory. Blueboar (talk) 17:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I accept what you say Blueboar, with the proviso that the sub-divisions are far less than has been suggested by the false reports in this thread. It is not a case of screaming 'heresey' at each other - astrologers have always, throughout the whole history of the subject, enagaged in internal debate about approaches and the details of techniques. This is not a modern phenomenon or any reason to suggest that the basic principles of astrology are not well established.

The problems occur here when the applicable policies are not applied with common sense and consistency. So we get editors who argue against a well substantiated report on a notable astrologer, but then see that some individial who is unknown, who has self-published a book that no one has reviewed or commented on, is given wikipedia coverage for the fact that he thinks traditional astrology is all wrong and has a new astrological theory to prove it. We get insistence that well known books, written by notable astrologers and published by credible publishers cannot be used in reference to support content that was previously referenced to an insignificant anonymous skeptic blog, which has no references, details of authorship, or qualification for its content (and it's usually a pretty dire website too). The same attitude has been seen in this thread - of not requiring due verification so long as the text says what some editors want to read.

Why should the subjects sub-divisions be a problem anyway? If we keep a sensible attitude, and don't slip into either CRUFT or FAFF, then there should be no difficulty reporting who the notable practitioners are, and how they have influenced alternative views in the subject. Liz Greene comes to mind as someone who can be identified by the fact that her work is not just approved by her adherents, but used as a focus for criticism by astrologers who feel her approach is too psychological. If there are divisions within the modern applications of astrology, then the only time I want to spend discussing this is to establish whether a division is notable enough to merit report in our articles, and if so, how to do that intelligently. For this we need to focus on identifiation of the reliable astrological sources, not the academic sources which are not involved in this level of debate. And editors need to act with the mindset of editors. This place has no entry standards, so there are always going to be juveniles blowing raspberries across the room. When the whole debate becomes nothing more than a raspberry blowing exercise, we've all got to wonder what we're doing here-- Zac Δ ^talk! 17:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Climate change alarmism

It seems the article Climate change alarmism was closed with merge but it seems some editors have decided to remove all mention of this rather than bring it to a deletion review. I reverted the deletion of the merge tags. What is the correct response now? Some diffs: [13] [14]. Talk page section: Talk:Climate_change_alarmism#Inappropriate_merge_tag_removed. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

What exactly is the relevance of raising this here? I hope you are not canvassing for support, instead of discussing? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:59, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Please do not implicitly accuse me of canvassing. I am asking what to do in a situation where the closure of the AfD for a article was overruled without going through any of the appropriate channels. Since the article is fringe and has been mentioned here previously it is of issue here. No deletion review discussion has been brought forward in the four days since closure either. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

This is not the appropriate channel... Since i really really doubt if the concept in any way or form can be construed as fringe. (Hint: It is a sociological/political concept/claim - not a scientific one). So my question is very much relevant (as is the question about canvassing): Why are you bringing it here? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

If an AfD results in merge, merge away. It's appropriate to raise it here since it has been discussed here before. Thank you for updating us. In sociology and politics it is a neologism that hasn't caught on, therefore merge sounds like a good solution. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

That it has been raised here before, doesn't make a precedence (or make canvassing Ok). As for being a neologism - that is incorrect (and as mentioned in the AfD: A strawman). The subject is alarmism (and alarmism claims) within the topic of climate change, which most certainly is a rather large concept... in fact a topic/claim that you can find mentions of each and every day in your google news updates.

What are google news updates? Are they a reliable source for sociology of science? Should I include them in the search of the scholarly literature on climate change denial that I am doing? Itsmejudith (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Google news update is a subscription service where you subscribe to news that matches search criteria, and get a mail once in a while with the news items that match. It has nothing what so ever to do with science - but it usually contains quite a lot of very reliable sources (since news usually is). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

My original take on this, was to let the editors on both articles figure out what to do (as the closing admin suggested[15]). But it seems that this is not an option. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

If the AfD result was merge, the article should be merged. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Had global warming controversy been a small article, and not an article that already has had to be split into several subarticles, and probable still needs to do so (it is at the very limit)... then that merge would probably have been uncontroversial and gone through without any problems. But it is already bloated, it is already turning into a summary article - so it is a problem to merge. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:23, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

...Yet the result of the discussion was to merge. The fact that merging seems to be a problem is not a reason to avoid the task. Binksternet (talk) 16:37, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy

Can someone check the recent edits? I question whether homeopathy-promoting organisations are reliable sources for prevalence. 86.** IP (talk) 16:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust it for the 400 GPs statement. It would not be suprising if a group designed to promote anything exaggerates. I changed it to a claim that they make. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:57, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Emotional Freedom Technique‎

There is currently a user who has brought up an old discussion regarding a self published source by the founder of EMT (See "Open letter," first discussion on talk). I've engaged in the discussion but it's finals week and I will not have time to continue until at least next week. So if anyone wants to head over there and help determine the reliability of the source it would be helpful. N^oformation ^Talk 20:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

This is the World's Oldest Story - Mindjuicer (talk · contribs), an agenda account, has been on a mission to promote Emotional Freedom Technique and remove appropriately sourced criticism of it. He's picked up a block for edit-warring along the way but is still at it. Currently the issue is the classic fringe re-definition of "expert" to include only those people with a direct stake in the fringe topic. I've contributed off and on to this article, which I think has overall been a poor use of my time, but other eyes are welcome. MastCell ^Talk 20:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I notice you didn't answer the question, posed by Noformation (talk · contribs) in good faith. Could it be your sole reason for posting it is to bias anyone responding against me?

For my own part, dealing with Mastcell (talk · contribs) and most of the editors has been a remarkably frustrating experience causing me to give up on Wikipedia twice. All of them have displayed a clear POV against EFT. Not knowing the obscure rule structure of WP, you will see time and time again that many attempts have been made to improve the article which have been instantly reverted, with no explanation and no attempt to help the newbies (why would they? they like the article in its shambolic POV state). Mastcell (talk · contribs) and Bobrayner (talk · contribs) have been the worst culprits, consistently writing hostile things to newbies like his comment here. Furthermore, they frequently misinterpret rules for their own benefit and a new user doesn't know any better. The article history and talk page will validate what I'm saying.

The article is full of unreliable sources (2 & 3 in the intro) - the bias against this one is purely because it's a valid and powerful criticism of a primary source which they've interpreted to match their agenda. Indeed, one of those POV statements (that EFT is a pseudoscience) is based on something Craig said in the source in question.

There is only one other primary source and no secondary or tertiary sources.

I too welcome new eyes, preferably NPOV ones. Mindjuicer (talk) 22:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI Mindjuicer: A sure-sign of a POV-pusher is someone who contends that there is such a thing as a NPOV-editor (and normally that they themselves are it). Everybody has a POV and everybody is going to be biased in some way or another. It is a common misconception that WP:NPOV means "all sides get a fair hearing" when this is manifestly not the case. If the mainstream, third-party, independent sources do not give a particular idea a "fair hearing", Wikipedia will end up, by virtue of its goal to spend the most time focusing on such sources, focusing on these critiques. Editors are not supposed to have Wikipedia's text adopt any POV, but simply by spending the most space discussing the mainstream evaluations of a topic, we are going to be necessarily pushed away from "equality" or "balance" with fringe ideas. What's worse, if there are no sources that independently consider an idea, the idea is supposed to be excluded from Wikipedia entirely, which can just about feel like the worst sort of treatment to someone convinced that they are right and everyone else is wrong. That's where cries of "CENSORSHIP!" begin. If you truly believe that your idea deserves a balanced mention in Wikipedia, you're going to find yourself frustrated. It's better to realize that the text which describes your novel idea is going to necessarily be skewed towards focusing on the mainstream critiques to the exclusion of primary sourced claims. 128.59.171.194 (talk) 18:44, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

This seems somewhat unrelated to noformation's request but rather an attempt at psychic mind-reading?

It seems a straightforward consequence of the fact WP considers some pages to be NPOV that some editors can be NPOV too. Or perhaps I should have asked for pro-EFT eyes - would that have been better?

I have made many edits to many articles over the last 7+ years (no, WP doesn't show them in my history - it has a habit of logging me out more than I deemed it worth logging in). The only ones that have ever been reverted are on fringe sciences and protosciences in my field of expertise, EFT included. All of these articles are in such poor shape that it might lead one to believe WP is broken for such articles. I have a different theory - that there is far more zealotry on the side of 'protecting the poor unenlightened mites from pseudoscience' than there is on the side of the fringe theories and newbies are given hostile signals that drive them away such that a balancing consensus is never formed. WP doesn't stand a chance unless people like myself stand up to them.

As I said, you can see for yourself how newbie edits to make the article more NPOV are instantly reverted on the article. You can see some of the abuse from Mastcell without even changing page.

Anyway, this page isn't for waffling so let's get back to noformation's request OK? Mindjuicer (talk) 03:43, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I've done a substantial gut. There's no review articles I'm aware of, and it's based on hypothetical wishful thinking (TCM). The page shouldn't promote the theory, I think we at the FTN realize it's pseudoscience and nonsense giving undue weight to an idea that is at best speculative and not published in a whole lot of reliable journals. This theory has zero credibility in mainstream journals and shouldn't get a lot of length. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:25, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Rather incredible that people at the FT/N don't understand the difference between pseudoscience, fringe science and protoscience. Mindjuicer (talk) 20:28, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Falsifiability. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:30, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you want to point out where it factually states that unfalsifiability is sufficient for claiming something is a pseudoscience? Or do you want me to point out where I explained how EFT is falsifiable, that this claim is your WP:OR because it misinterprets a magazine source that shoudn't be in your version anyway and you didn't counter?

This article desperately needs NPOV eyes. WLU and noformation are relying on consensus to push through POV edits on an article already tagged POV. Mindjuicer (talk) 01:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Where are the high-quality, mainstream, high-impact, respected peer-reviewed journals or statements from the APA, APA or AMA saying EFT is a quality approach that is recommended for treatment? That's what you need to demonstrate that the page isn't getting the respect it deserves. Low-impact, non-pubmed-indexed, shoddy and defunct journals publishing poorly-designed studies are not enough to demonstrate EFT "works". Essentially there is not enough mainstream attention to outweigh the Skeptical Inquirer article; as a publication specializing in the skeptical and debunking nonsense, it is an appropriate parity source to make claims like that - particularly in the absence of any real and credible research. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

"Where are the high-quality, mainstream, high-impact, respected peer-reviewed journals or statements from the APA, APA or AMA saying EFT is a quality approach that is recommended for treatment? That's what you need to demonstrate that the page isn't getting the respect it deserves." No, this is just your POV. Thanks for showing everyone how unsuitable you are for editing fring science articles.

Low-impact, non-pubmed-indexed, shoddy and defunct journals publishing poorly-designed studies are not enough to demonstrate EFT "works". The two Pubmed sources say that it does. I'd just like to be clear that you're equating the reliableness of these with a magazine which relies on being as skeptical as possible for survival and has no forum for criticism of itself. Mindjuicer (talk) 12:11, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Transhumanism?

Transhumanism. Article defines the topic as an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. Appears to be based partly on science fiction writings, especially "cyberpunk" and various brain/computer interface ideas, and partly on notions of reviving eugenics. If this is a fringe idea it's a huge rat's nest of one, with long, detailed articles on postgenderism, the voluntary elimination of gender in the human species through the application of advanced biotechnology and assistive reproductive technologies (for some, all you'd need is a small loop of piano wire) and extropianism, apparently a way to re-brand eugenics by the time tested strategy of calling it something else. There's even an outline of transhumanism.

I checked the archive; this thing has apparently only been mentioned once on this noticeboard, in the context of singularitarianism, something about the creation of a technological singularity, apparently an electronic intelligence that takes over the world, envisioned for once as a good thing. That's an original take on that bit of fiction, at any rate. This seems to be a whole nest of fringe theories, at least in my understanding of the word; and the coverage seems deep enough to invoke WP:UNDUE as well. It seems to me to be deep, deep coverage of an elaborate fantasy. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 04:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

That's the impression that I have always had. Hans Adler 10:56, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

There's a kernel of respectable social science there, that is an extension of futurology. Of course it is necessary for social scientists to predict likely future developments, and even to advocate for one kind of future rather than another. Cyberpunk is a well known literary genre that has to be discussed in literary criticism and cultural studies. Eugenics is discredited science, but there are attempts to continue or revive it, not just from this quarter, and they need to be covered without either advocacy or debunking. Beyond that, all is fringe. And I think also, each of the kinds of fringe in the Arbcom definitions is represented, from minority scientific interpretations to away with the fairies. The Outline article is dreadful. I don't think the template is called for. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

This is one of the most entrenched walled gardens that Wikipedia has (along with the Austrian School of Economics). It's so entrenched that I predict anyone who goes weeding there will end up in arbitration. Oddly enough, the same people who advocate for outlines are the ones advocating for transhumanism. I'm not sure what the connection is. 128.59.171.194 (talk) 17:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

If it is anything like editing singularitarianism expect that any changes you make to be viewed as being contentious. :< outline of transhumanism appears to be a category page in disguise. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:24, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, the whole outline thing is separate from fringe, even if the same people who support transhumanism support outlines. It would have to go to Village Pump, I suppose. Now, how to approach cleaning up this series of article. A good start might be to list the journals that are used as sources in the articles and sort them into a) obviously non-fringe, and b) perhaps fringe. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:04, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The journal "Journal of Evolution and Technology" is definitely fringe. The Journal of Human Security I'm less sure on. It seems to be published by a small publishing firm just australia and new zealand; so it may just be a small journal. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:35, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Saw the phrase "deep, deep coverage of an elaborate fantasy" and I thought for a moment you were describing a different article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I went through the journals used in the series of articles. That is, the series in the navbox. There is also CATEGORY:Transhumanism with lots of sub-categories; there's a portal; there's the outline article. These are the journals cited somewhere in the series, with my own suggestions as to how they can be regarded:

Very good

• Nature Neuroscience
• Physiological and Biochemical Zoology
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA
• Cancer Research
• Experimental Gerontology (Elsevier)
• Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (Elsevier)

Good enough

• American Journal of Law and Medicine “the country’s leading health law journal”. Published by Boston University School of Law
• Cultural Critique. University of Minnesota Press
• Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics

Discussion needed

• Journal of American Chemical Society (citation is to a 1918 article)
• Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy. “A legal periodical run by students at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington”.
  • Law reviews, which are the major venues of legal scholarship in the English-speaking world, are "scholarly journal[s] focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association." StN (talk) 03:31, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. This sounds to me like SOP for a law journal. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 13:00, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

SOP? (This one is low priority for checking, anyway.) Itsmejudith (talk) 13:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Standard operating procedure. (Teach me not to use a TLA!) - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• Journal of Evolution and Technology. Published by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Nick Bostrom and Aubrey de Grey are on the editorial board. No institutional affiliations in the editorial board listing.
• The Immortalist (Cryonics Institute)
• Cryonics (Alcor. Listing of articles rather than a journal?)
• Cryobiology (Elsevier)
• Alcor Indiana newsletter (Alcor Indiana)
• Alcor News (Alcor Life Extension Foundation)

There were also numerous references to top-quality magazines and newspapers: The Age, New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Wired, Slate, etc. References to the Daily Mail and Fox News. To obscure art journals/magazines/websites. To advocacy organisations. To pdfs with little identification. And last but not least, to blogs. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

It might be easier to start with one article; Transhumanism appears to be the main article. It seems easier to bring up one article at a time to quality. Much of that article appears to go off-topic and also includes criticisms from other fringe groups such as anarcho-primitivists and neo-luddites. The section talking about Martin Rees in the controversies section for example doesn't appear to have any direct connection to transhumanism.

Journal of Evolution and Technology and The Immortalist sound in-universe. The use of fringe journals can sometimes be justified if you wish to show what this fringe believes; I assume it can't be used as a rebuttal to mainstream peer-reviewed criticisms much like it would be for science articles. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

OK to start with the Transhumanism article. I will post on the talk page about what I see as some of the problems, and point to the discussion here. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Cryobiology [16] looks to be a valid scientific journal. Looking at the articles they publish, I would be more concerned that someone is synthesizing from papers not addressing what they are being cited to support, but I would have to see the specific citations to tell for sure. Agricolae (talk) 23:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

As a philosophy, Transhumanism is notable and has academically established proponents. It also contains a large share of fringe theory and pseudoscience. This was recognized by three early editors (including myself) who, while not always agreeing on what was sound and what was fringe, added the Controversies section to interrogate POV elements and qualify ambiguous ones. This laid the basis for the long process leading to Featured Article status. StN (talk) 03:48, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for coming over. Your evaluation is exactly what I said in my first post in this thread. The many hours of labour that editors have put into this article is a tribute to Wikipedia collaborative editing. But Wikipedia moves on, and we need to apply a new round of collaborative editing. The Criticisms section of the article became Controversies, which is better, but it would be better still to integrate the controversial topics throughout the article. The referencing needs attention, as it doesn't meet the current criteria for FA. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:43, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Media_coverage_of_climate_change

Merged some content here; the bit about global cooling needs some better citations for global cooling, but it's one of those situations where, without grabbing some stuff from global cooling to explain the mainstream position, we'd lose a whole section of useful documentation of fringe ideas.

I don't feel too bad, though: Media coverage of climate change was poorly-cited before the merge, so the merge, as a whole, probably improved matters. 86.** IP (talk) 03:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Global_warming_conspiracy_theory

An article on a conspiracy theory... which spends most of its time promoting the theory. This needs torn to pieces. 86.** IP (talk) 03:18, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yup. A crock o' shite, as my Irish friends would put it. I'm not sure about tearing it to pieces though. AfD it, as a POV fork, and be done with it - there is no separate 'conspiracy theory' argument when it comes to criticism of the scientific consensus, as far as I'm aware - this should be covered under Global warming controversy, rather than forked in such a way that wild and unfalsifiable drivel can be given more weight than it deserves. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:32, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Erg, think you could get this one? Having just gone through one, I really don't want to have to deal with that crowd again. 86.** IP (talk) 04:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I dunno - I may be involved with other things (like a life off-Wikipedia: I seem to remember having one ;-) ), and I'm not sure I can face another 'debate' with people who assume that anyone who disagrees with them is a paid agent of something-or-another. Though come to think of it, the people who claim I'm trying to suppress 'the truth' about cold fusion because I'm in the pay of the oil-barons will have problems with me supporting the anti-oil-baron line here... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you think you crowd could stick to describing these fringe theories if notable rather than thinking you have a mission to expound the truth to the world? And Global warming controversy is simply the wrong place to put crank stuff, it is a top level article and it is mainly about the arguments about the science and its implication rather than crankery and paid for denial which is referred to but left to other articles. The wild and unfalsifiable drivel is notable and if you have concerns about weight they should be dealt with as such. We don't go trying to shove Jesus Christ under charlatans with his unverifiable and unbelievable miracles because the topic is notable. This is an encyclopaedia, not an organ of a version of correct thought like conservapedia. Dmcq (talk) 12:06, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that describing the topic as a 'Global warming conspiracy theory' is that there actually isn't a single core theory here at all - instead it is a random collection of more general conspiracy theories, linked only in referring to climate change in some way or another. At minimum, the article needs renaming - to 'theories', and a fundamental rewrite to make it clear that the topic is 'conspiracy theories' and not 'global warming' - frankly though, I'm not entirely convinced we need articles on every subject that conspiracy-theorists concoct their nonsense over. They inevitably attract partisan editors, and rarely come up to encyclopaedic standards. Still, this probably needs more thought, as we can't just pretend that such theories don't exist. I think what is needed most is secondary sources which actually analyse the theories, and put them into context. Without such sources, all we have is a collection of claims and counter-claims... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

86, that's a malformed AfD you created. There's an AfD template on the page, but you didn't create the talk page. Do you think you can fix that? --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 12:19, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Very poor article. We need solutions to the whole series of articles on the debate, or politics around climate change. These topics now have an academic social science literature and appropriate sources should be used. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:13, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

My apologies; Firefox crashed, and I didn't have time to finish. The AfD is now completed. 86.** IP (talk) 18:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, man. By the way, you realize it's just a matter of time before someone starts calling you Agent 86, right? --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 18:55, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Heh. 86.** IP (talk) 19:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Spurred by this discussion, and by suggestions that mergers are inappropriate because some articles are already too long, I had a look through all the articles in [[Category: Climate change assessment and attribution]]. These are my impressions of the articles, and some suggestions for improvement:

• Climate Capitalism. 2011 book. No reason given for notability.
• Climate change denial. This article is about campaigns to undermine public confidence in scientific opinion on climate change. Possibly of the nature of a POV fork, although I hesitate to say that, because an editor regards identification of POV-forking as a slur on the good faith of editors on an article, and invalid unless one can show which article another was “rewritten from”. To formulate it differently: probably not a good idea to have an article on one extreme position in a debate.
• Climatic Research Unit documents. Was created to take detail out of Climatic Research Unit email controversy. This need to be revisited with the benefit of hindsight, and consider merging back. Shorter is likely to be better.
• Climatic Research Unit email controversy. Needs some rewriting to take out the WP:RECENT reliance on news sources.
• Description of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in IPCC reports. No indication that this is a notable topic.
• Garnaut Climate Change Review. Material in lead that should be in main body.
• Ross Garnaut. Should carry the biography, no need for detail that should be in Garnaut Climate Change Review.
• Global warming controversy. Carries the explanation of where scientific objections differ from the mainstream, which doesn’t sit well with the discussions of the roles of IPCC, Kyoto, etc. Move the sections that explain the scientific topics to Scientific opinion on climate change and start to turn that into an article rather than a misnamed list. This article then becomes the head article for all articles relating to the controversy.
• Global Warming: Opposing Viewpoints (2002). Book. 2002 is one edition; there are redlinks to other editions. No indication of notability. Article title not in accordance with guidelines.
• Greenhouse debt. Concept introduced by Friends of the Earth. May be a non-notable neologism. Article veers from denial of its validity to promotion. Closely related conceptually to ecological footprint, therefore merge.
• IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Table of contents and other material not written in an encyclopedic manner.
• IPCC First Assessment Report. Dump of the executive summary.
• IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. This is a long article. Lots of listing of report content. Bullet points overused. Does have section on reception.
• IPCC Second Assessment Report. Short descriptive summary. Nothing on importance or reception.
• IPCC Summary for Policymakers. Quotefarm.
• IPCC supplementary report, 1992. Short article, could be merged with IPCC First Assessment Report.
• IPCC Third Assessment Report. Summary of contents.
• List of authors from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. What is this article for? Mostly red links.
• The London Accord. Sourced from the organisation itself. Not clear if the programme is still active.
• National Assessment on Climate Change. Needs attention. Embedded ELs, lack of clarity about which programme ran when. Precursor of Climate Change Science Program, so merge with that article.
• Representative Concentration Pathways. Stub on predictions in the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Merge with the article on that report.
• Scientific opinion on climate change. Despite its title, this is a series of lists, full of bullet points and quotes.
• Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. Does explain what these reports are, but an obscure topic that probably needs to be merged.
• Stern Review. Embedded ELs, long quotes and too much to-and-fro of the argument.

All this looks like a job for the Climate Change Taskforce, and I will post there, but wanted to keep this board informed since the whole category relates to a debate in which one side is mainstream and the other fringe in one way or another. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:42, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Well I have no problem with some merging of articles, I think that would be good. But I would like to point out a problem which a number of editors coming to this seem to have by just dealing with the second on the list 'climate change denial'. There is a comment here: Possibly of the nature of a POV fork, although I hesitate to say that, because an editor regards identification of POV-forking as a slur on the good faith of editors on an article, and invalid unless one can show which article another was “rewritten from”. I don't know which editor is being referred to about the slur, but can I emphasise the bit about identifying what it is a POV of. In a recent deletion debate POV fork was bandied about at the debate by some people from this project without figuring out that point. They just put in 'Climate change controversy' as a general catch all without as far as I can see actually even looking at the 'Climate change controversy' article to see where it would go never mind what it was a fork of. Talk about accusing me of being part of a cabal! Anyway just so you are at least informed even if not comprehending and confusing lack of understanding with lack of substance I will try and explain why climate change controversy would be a bad place to put climate change denial.

If you will look at global warming controversy you will find that it is a well based on scholarly sources about global warming and its possible effects and mitigation and contains a lot about alternatives proposed and the scholarly assessment of them. All very good and correct and according to weight by this projects standards I would guess. It is a very reasonable target for climate change skeptic which redirects to it assuming in the first instance that skeptic means what it is supposed to mean rather than what it is increasing becoming to mean. Basically it is correct when weight means the scholarly sources about global warming. In fact it is practically a fork of Global warming except it deals with the objections from scientists and has a bit about the political side. In there it refers to global warming denial under funding for partisans and has a list of some instances with no analysis.

Now why isn't the section there expanded? Well it would be inappropriate to do so. It really isn't about the controversy. It has no scholarly weight in the context of the controversy because there is nothing scientific about paying a lot of people to try and obstruct and befuddle. It has nothing to do with the science behind global warming. And the main part of the article is about the scientific controversy. It is a reasonable target for climate change skeptic. We do not say that skeptics in general are paid for deniers who couldn't care less about the topic in itself. That is a different topic. It is related as something that should be mentioned in that context but it is not part of the same topic.

So what happens when there is an article about climate change denial? Well it has had four nominations for deletion and an attempt to just redirect it to global warming controversy. The talk page has 29 archives with continuing charges that it is a conspiracy theory or that it is insulting to skeptics, and on the other hand editors like the crowd here wanting to stick the scientific consensus about climate change into every second sentence because of their desire to promote the scientific truth. It has nothing to do with scientific truth. It doesn't describe the run of the mill 'skeptic'. And on that note could I also mention that Environmental skepticism has had prod stuck on it recently which has just been declined saying "Redundant to either Climate change denial or The Skeptical Environmentalist; we rather need a bit of a trim down of this over-bloated set of articles." Well it isn't a fork of denial either, it describes the run of the mill skeptic, there isn't much about them even though they are huge in number as they are mainly Jo public. There have also been attempts to direct climate change skeptic to climate change denial rather than global warming controversy because since the scientific evidence is so convincing they must all be deniers so they say.

Now the point about all this is that it is a notable topic like lots of others, and just because it says climate change in the title does not mean it is about the scientific evidence. Saying there is lots of articles and one would like to cut them down does not mean automatically that they are suitable for cutting down. One needs to check that the topics really are compatible and really do fit together as a single topic. Stuff from the article global warming alarmism has been just plonked into media coverage of climate change with no consideration of suitability except that in part of it some newspapers have used the term and reported people using it.

So overall I would ask editors here to stop looking at articles from just the perspective of whether they promote scientific truth or not. That blinds to a lot of other things. Just looking at 'climate change denial', oh that's about a POV in a debate. It isn't even part of the debate.

Oh and I notice a complete misunderstanding of Scientific opinion of climate change too above looking at it as if it was about the science. It is not about the science. It is about scientific opinion. That is not scientific except in so far as surveys are done of it and I suppose a survey could be called scientific. It is an article on the same sort basis as Public opinion on climate change. The top level science article is global warming. And no before you start we don't need to merge scientific opinion of climate change and public opinion of climate change and remove everything about the public perception because of the greater weigh of the scientific opinion. Dmcq (talk) 20:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your considered post. I will have to read it all carefully. It is taking me a long time to get my head around who thinks what belongs where. And I think that indicates that we have too many articles, because the structure ought to be clear to someone like me who follows the debates and cares about the science and its communication. I am relying on the scientists here to ensure that Global warming and the more detailed daughter articles are based on reliable sources and properly reflect what is agreed and what is up for debate. When it comes to the politics, sociology, even the philosophy of science, I am more qualified to comment. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:33, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Lee Carroll

Fringe article up for AfD with attempts to add presentations to a UN club for UN members and staff = presentations to a club are clearly trivial, yet when you add 'UN-Chartered' it sounds important. Dougweller (talk) 07:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Paraphilic infantilism (shorter)

Might I request some eyes and editors at paraphilic infantilism? Citing two sources by Blanchard et al, an editor warred to include the fringe theory "infantilism is an autoerotic form of paedophilia."[54][55][56][57][58][59] from August to Dec 6th. The first source chose to use terms other than infantilism. The second included the text "They [Fruend and Blanchard] interpreted ... infantilism as an autoerotic form of pedophilia." This contradicts the mainstream position, that infantilism is a form of masochism (DSM 4TR pg 572) or separate, not pedophilia. When criticized at RS/N[60], he did a 180. He is now using the same sources to make nearly the opposite point, and still fighting to do so[61][62][63]. The text dedicated to Blanchard's theory or theories takes up 10% of the article and appears in three sections.

Should Blanchard's theories on autoerotic pedophiles/masochistic gynephiles/whatever be included? If so, which interpretation? Or should it be removed at least until the one who wants to cite Blanchard finds a source that wasn't written by Blanchard or Blanchard's colleagues? BitterGrey (talk) 14:47, 13 December 2011 (UTC)