User talk:Sgerbic/Archives/2013/03

Rosemary Brown

Need some help on this article which I recently found Rosemary Brown, it is filled with original research and unsourced claims. I found one skeptical report, but the rest seems to be Spiritualist books endorsing unverifiable dubious claims. Fodor Fan (talk) 04:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

That is some article, and some claims they are making about her. I don't see many citations? What kind of help would you like Fodor Fan?Sgerbic (talk) 04:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Its a tough one. I can fix up the first half the article. She is notable (a couple of newspaper reports, obituary etc) so that is no problem. The article claims she was investigated I will try and research this. An interesting fact "Ms Brown was able to converse with Beethoven despite it being well documented that he was deaf!" [1] that website also lists "Winckle, John. 1986. The Evolution of Rosemary Brown. the Skeptic, (L) 6(2):16." - The problem is I can't seem to locate that reference. The problem is finding references for some of these mediums outside of Spiritualist literature. The Estelle Roberts article before I edited it was concluding Roberts was genuine etc with no sources. In general I think some of these older spiritualist articles (mediums from the 1940s) are very poor and contain original research. There seems to be no editors on wikipedia attempting to fix them. Fodor Fan (talk) 04:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I was looking at a few of your edits Fodor, and I'm intrigued. What is your interest in this, and how did you locate me? "The Skeptic" could be the Australian magazine? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeptic The Beethoven being deaf thing is easily explained, he got better after he died, duh. Usually when there is no evidence to support these claims, I just remove the claim. It is not the responsibility of WP editors to try and prove what is being said, it the the responsibility of the person making the claim to do so. Otherwise you will just go nuts Fodor. I love working on psychic's pages, they often time look like they were edited by themselves, I just chop chop chop. Then keep a close eye on the page, if someone wants to add it back in, then they have to tow the line and prove it.Sgerbic (talk) 05:10, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I found you from a comment Daniel Loxton did on his blog [2]. As he says there is an entire history forgotten about early skeptics who had debunked fraudulent mediums and most of this data is not on wikipedia. He suggested that some of it should be ported to wiki. I believe that some of this knowledge should be put on wikipedia, as the sources are certainly reliable. I created some pages for some early skeptics who debunked mediums such as Trevor H. Hall and Gordon Stein and improved the Joseph McCabe article but there are many other forgotten ones. There seems to be an entire history forgotten about early skeptics. I have spent countless hours editing some articles and basically it would be nice to see someone else look into some of the mediumship articles like the Brown article etc. There are dubious unsourced claims or fringe views supported still left on some of them. It is a big project to overview some of these articles. I was going to perm retire from wiki last week but I decided to stay on here another week. I am too busy in real life you see. I decided to give you a heads up, if you and your team are interested I believe that some of the older mediums articles should be checked through etc. The best way to do it is too look at the Spiritual mediums by nationality category. I will try and fix all those articles in the British medium section (Rosemary Brown is one of them). Fodor Fan (talk) 13:25, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear your leaving us. We badly need the help of someone like you. Thanks for the heads up. If you decide to change your mind, I know this team of other editors who learn and support each other to improve skeptical content on WP.Sgerbic (talk) 14:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Paranormalia

You were mentioned on this blog recently Paranormalia. The author is a full time kook, he believes debunked mediums like Eusapia Palladino and Helen Duncan actually had paranormal powers. He is also the author of the book Randis Prize which is supposed to be a debunking of the skeptics (a very dishonest book, I have read it). It sounds from his post that he and his team of paranormal believers are probably going to try and revert edits on some of the paranormal articles in an attempt "to make them neutral" (in other words paste in fringe sources) he obviously does not understand wikipedia. He writes "I did briefly consider making contributions of my own, but where does one start? This is clearly a job for a specialist. We need our own Gerbic to help create a co-ordinated effort. For all I know, some-such project is being planned, in which case I look forward to hearing about it, and good luck!" Best to watch out for this guy. Fodor Fan (talk) 19:42, 27 March 2013 (UTC) Interesting, thanks for the heads up! I think you should hang onto my email as your going off WP and this is very public. It is susangerbic@yahoo.com. Sgerbic (talk) 19:53, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! And a question

Hey there. Thanks for your note - I'm adding to the Joan Feynman article as we speak to try to bring it up to speed for the DYK nomination :) Quick question for you: I'm not sure how to determine the "readable prose" character length for an article, so that I can figure out how much more I have to write. Do you know of an easy way to find this out? Girona7 (talk) 03:30, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean this...? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shubinator/DYKcheck Sgerbic (talk) 03:34, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Possibly ;) I'm not very fluent with a lot of the back-end gadgets, so it would take me a while to figure out how that one worked (I just did the 3-minute scan, and I'm not sure I get it)... In any case, I just used some math from the first reviewer's estimates of my article length and I *think* I've now written past the 5x threshold. Either way, thanks again for your help - I really appreciate it! Girona7 (talk) 05:43, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm for sure not comfortable with these gadgets either. I know people who understand these things and I just ask them. Last night when one of the editors brought your attempt to get a DYK for this subject to our attention, she said that you were almost at the 5K. Write back if you need more support. BTW Are you aware of the guerrillaskepticismonwikipedia.blogspot.com project? Sgerbic (talk) 15:44, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Good to know I'm not the only one who could use some help :) I added even a bit more today on Feynman, so I gotta think it's ready to rock at this point. And thanks for pointing me to your Guerrilla Skeptics project. I have been less active in this area, but I've done a bunch of edits on the article for noted atheist and planetary scientist Carolyn Porco over the years. I like your suggestion of backwards editing. I will try to do that when I can! Girona7 (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2013 (UTC)