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Bates method

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

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

Thoughtform

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

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

Mostly joking, but is there an appropriate template analogous to the {{in-universe}} tag for fiction? This article appears to contain a vast amount of straight up WP:OR, Synthesis, and gross abuse of block quotes. I am kinda leaning towards aggressive razing, but the sources and ideas need to be checked first. Amusingly, there apparently at some point were separate articles for Thoughtform, Thought-form, and Tulpa (all now redirect to first). -Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 11:18, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Dollars to donuts, it's all WP:SYNTH and WP:OR, typical pop-Buddhist New Age blather. The "style" is interesting, though. A casual look could easily fool you into thinking that the article is "well-sourced" -- all those footnotes and references, oh my! -- but the tricks there are to "reference" isolated words or phrases (where the reference will have the word or phrase, but not the gist of the sentence or passage in the article), or to "reference" propositions to entire books (conveniently leaving out things like page numbers). For example, here's an old version of a page by another contributor of the same ilk, and here is what you can expect if you um, mess, with the article. rudra (talk) 19:48, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I haven't checked who the main contributor is yet, but I can make a very good guess. And if it is who I think it is, we haven't a chance of having a comprehensible discussion with him. Relata refero (talk) 21:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

As I thought. Relata refero (talk) 21:02, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

It's a pity that the graffiti aspect of vandalism isn't extended to include things like truckloads of pseudo-esoteric bullshit. rudra (talk) 21:18, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Just revert it all, IMO; it's basically incoherent. --Haemo (talk) 00:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Thoughtform is key to Dzogchen, a spiritual and religous tradition. Ignorance IS palpable.

B9 hummingbird hovering 02:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

So IS bullshit. rudra (talk) 04:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• I get the distinct impression that this is a much more serious issue, or we are being played here. Check out this reply to my complaint that it is incoherent:

  • The key to your opinion is "suspect". It is commendable that ignorance is owned, rather than projected. Wisdom is hard won, gnosis is the fruit of grace. If you require clarification read through the entire article a few times, read all the wikilinks, contemplate the contents, then read the article a few more times. Informed, then your opinion would or may be of value and useful in iterating this article. This article is incomprehensible to a shallow grazer. It is 'covering' the principal interior mystery of a mystery tradition, the content of which has yet to enter onto the catwalk of the Ivory Tower of the World Stage in the mode of protracted scholarship. If you do not have the karmic vision and proclivity condusive to cognition, it is impenetrable. Mysteries and secrets, as thoughtform, have a way of keeping themselves. Though primordially clear, pure and luminous as the 'resonant crystal matrix' of Indra's Net, Dzogchen is a vast indeterminate field.

Ah

B9 hummingbird hovering —Preceding comment was added at 01:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• The mind boggles. --Haemo (talk) 03:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

What Relata said. rudra (talk) 03:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

What do we do? I can't tell what's going on at all. It's like I fell and woke up in a world where everyone speaks Japanese and is constantly on peyote. --Haemo (talk) 03:22, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

My first instinct was to WP:CSD#G1 it. But maybe a proper AfD is in order. Eldereft thinks that there may be a legit kernel -- on tulpa -- but digging that out from under the mountain of crap won't be easy. rudra (talk) 03:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

This is the kind of article that makes me want to abuse my admin powers, and unilaterally delete. I guess I just don't have the right karmic vision... --Akhilleus (talk) 03:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Here be dragons *hehehehe*.B9 hummingbird hovering 03:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Rather than cackling, could you help us rewrite this so I don't require an advanced degree in Shambalan mysticism to figure out what it's saying? --Haemo (talk) 03:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That's the point. It isn't saying anything. Meaningful, that is. No degrees required. rudra (talk) 03:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Conze (1980: p.12) states:

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

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

What does this have to do with making it coherent? --Haemo (talk) 04:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, that dragons prefer incoherence. rudra (talk) 04:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

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

Well, you state "It reads more like a personal, mystical essay than an encyclopedia article.", and the author states "I wrote this article from my own realization. Now I am finding scholarship and citation to authenticate", soooo... --Haemo (talk) 05:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That really should be a valid reason to speedy delete, don't you think? --Akhilleus (talk) 05:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• Oh my. Mindstream is just as bad, and by the same author. --Haemo (talk) 06:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Add:

• Dream yoga
• Gankyil

Others, that may have been snatched from innocent stub-hood:

• Phurba
• Chöd
• Ganachakra
• Yogacara

He's prolific, if anything. rudra (talk) 07:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

You know more about this stuff. All I have is a BS detector, and the ability to parse English. I'm trying to see if we saved something from this by rewriting it and asking for refs. --Haemo (talk) 07:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That should be enough: if it looks dodgy, it most probably is. The generic problem is that Tibetan Buddhism (the common denominator here) is obscure. There isn't much in the way of truly legitimate material in English on it, certainly minuscule compared to the reams of twaddle you'll find even outside WP (e.g. go to Barnes and Noble and you'll find shelves of stuff selling you "Instant Karma, the Shambala way" or whatever), the result of TB having been swallowed whole by the New Age movement, with "native" charlatans piling in for good measure. My rule of thumb would be to apply WP:RS very strictly: everything needs to go back to peer-reviewed stuff in reputed academic journals or tertiary sources. rudra (talk) 08:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

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

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

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

That must be the best approach. If it is a concept in Tibetan Buddhism then there must be some sources that mention it. I have left a message on the Buddhism Wikiproject talk page. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

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

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

I've made an appeal for assistance on the WikiProject Buddhism talk page. I've had an eye on some of these articles for a while. I think that some of these are depicting non-standard translations of actual Sanskrit or Tibetan Buddhist terminology as the norm, and then elaborating on them with a combination of personal research and new-age content; there are pages that says something is "Buddhist", and then turns around later and says that it was first articulated by theosophists. I'm not familiar enough with Tibetan terminology to be terribly helpful here, but additional input from someone who knows a bit more about scholarship of Tibetan Buddhism would be very helpful. --Clay Collier (talk) 02:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Missed that Itsmejudith already posted this to the WikiProject page- that's actually how I got here. I added a request for some investigation to the Talk:Buddhism page- it gets used for this sort of thing quite a bit, and is more frequently checked than the project page. --Clay Collier (talk) 02:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

more Armenian fun

• Aoseksd3uu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Torahjerus14 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

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

Judging by his very first edits, Aoseksd3uu is a reincarnation of User:Angine, a sock puppet of our old friend Ararat arev. --Folantin (talk) 19:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You are right. Both names also appear virtually simultaneously, and immediately dump innocently looking userboxes on their user pages. Also both names appear randomly generated. I say block them as Ararat arev socks now. dab (𒁳) 19:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Today's been busy. Both blocked. Torahjerus14's first edits also show a connection to Ararat arev, if you look. Moreschi 19:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• Hosnnan38 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

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

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

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

Looks like it's back to warring with anon-IPs. 68.122.154.100, for example. rudra (talk) 21:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

And again as 68.122.159.170 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Still not giving up, I see. Moreschi (talk) 16:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

This guy just doesn't stop. Would it be helpful to semi-protect his favorite articles, or should we just keep playing whack-a-mole? --Akhilleus (talk) 17:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Shrug. We're going to have to do both: Hurrians (just done now by self) and Mitanni are both semi-protected but this won't stop him using accounts. He's also probably got too many target articles for us to protect them all. Current IP range seems to be 68.122.15...so it's eyes open as usual. Moreschi (talk) 17:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok. There's probably too great a possibility of collateral damage for a rangeblock, right? What other articles should we be watching? --Akhilleus (talk) 17:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Aye, I don't think a rangeblock will work here. As regards articles, judging from the contributions of the main account and socks...probably Urartu, Armenian Highlands and related articles, Hayk, Proto-Armenian language...and mostly everything related to Armenian antiquity. As I say, there's a quite a lot :) Constant vigilance is pretty much the only solution. Moreschi (talk) 17:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

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

• Armenians, History of Armenia, Prehistoric Armenia, Armenian nationalism, Hayasa-Azzi, Urartu, Mitanni, Armenia (name).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Universe reality and other The Urantia Book related articles

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

Shrug. If there are reliable secondary sources for this, they need to be cited. If not it's another redirection + prod job. Otherwise this is no better than all the Trekkie-cruft we get that's referenced purely in terms of other Trekkie-cruft. Moreschi 16:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Ahem. Trekkie? Are you aiming to spark a religious war here? Trekker, please! :o) Guy (Help!) 18:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The down side for this is I personally only know of one independent book on the subject, by Martin Gardner, and the local library lost that a few years ago. IF anyone else has access to the book, that'd help a lot. Otherwise, I guess I can eventually try to find sourcing elsewhere. John Carter (talk) 17:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I found the Gardner book in my library maybe a year or two ago and used it to build up significant parts of the main article about the topic (The Urantia Book), it really is a helpful one. There was also Godtalk by Brad Gooch, who wrote about the Urantia movement from a journalistic/fact finding perspective, and which is also used as a significant source in the article. If you're curious about sources, there are actually a number of them there at the bottom of the article in the reference section. Wazronk (talk) 02:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I got rid of all the POV-forks that were slowly building a walled-garden of woo. Included were Universe reality, Thought Adjuster, Revelation (The Urantia Book)‎, and History and future of the world (The Urantia Book). They all now redirect to The Urantia Book. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I started a new article Urantia Foundation. Also, I removed a lot of spam links to this book. There are two Urantia-fans that are none-too-happy with me. People popping these things on their watchlists would be helpful. These "topics" should be covered in the article on the book: not in walled garden/POV-forks. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Instead of straying into ad hominems in side discussions here about supposed "fans" that are "none-to-happy", how about actually sharing the NPOV issues you believe you're seeing so that articles can be improved, instead of blanking WP:V'd content at your whim the way you have been?

The issue for my part is that applying your personal interpretation of a wikipedia essay of all things as a reason for summary deletion of articles is contrary to wikipedia policy of WP:DELETE: "Disputes over page content are not dealt with by deleting the page". And: "The content issues should be discussed at the relevant talk page, and other methods of dispute resolution should be used first, such as listing on Misplaced Pages:Requests for comments for further input". Again, as I've mentioned in my edit summaries for the Thought Adjuster and other articles I've restored that you've wished to blank out without discussion for unelaborated POV concerns, air and address those concerns on the talk pages and work with editors on a WP:GOODFAITH basis. I will be happy to do so with you. If you believe the material is somehow against WP policy and needs to be reviewed in terms of possible deletion, that needs to be done using the full and typical deletion process. Blanking pages is for vandals. Wazronk (talk) 01:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I concur that blanking them isn't the solution. I suggest putting them all up for afd. None of them pass WP:N. Hohohahaha (talk) 03:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the "universe reality" article had an AfD closed barely more than two weeks ago after being tagged since last year as possibly not meeting WP:N (since the AfD has been renamed to "Cosmology (The Urantia Book)"). "Thought Adjuster" went through an AfD. The "History and future" article came about from WP:SS spin off from the main article about the book, no AfD on that yet. "Revelation" hasn't had an AfD either. The topic itself actually is WP:N -- the entirety of Gardner's book was his investigation into the "revelation" claim, and virtually everybody who has ever reviewed or evaluated the book inevitably has to discuss the situation that it purports to be a "revelation". The current form of the article is NPOV deficient though (to put it mildly) and is mainly an explication of the book's descriptions about what it means by "revelation". Wazronk (talk) 04:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

And to point out what WP:N actually says should be done if there are notability concerns:

"If an article fails to cite sufficient sources to demonstrate the notability of its subject, look for sources yourself, or:

• Ask the article's creator for advice on where to look for sources.
• Put the {{notability}} tag on the article to alert other editors. To place a dated tag, put a {{subst:dated|notability}} tag.
• If the article is about a specialized field, use the {{expert-subject}} tag with a specific WikiProject to attract editors knowledgeable about that field, who may have access to reliable sources not available online.
• If appropriate sources cannot be found, consider merging the article's content into a broader article providing context.
• If the article meets our criteria for speedy deletion, one can use a criterion-specific deletion tag listed on that page.
• Use the {{prod}} tag, for articles which do not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, but are uncontroversial deletion candidates. This allows the article to be deleted after five days if nobody objects. For more information, see Misplaced Pages:Proposed deletion.
• For cases where you are unsure about deletion or believe others might object, nominate the article for the articles for deletion process, where the merits will be debated and deliberated for 5 days."

AfD is the last step not the first. Wazronk (talk) 05:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a perfectly good article that could use your expertise for improvement: The Urantia Book which right now reads, well, like The Urantia Book in comprehensibility, and lacks the scope needed to justify these articles as content forks. Trying to incorporate in a summary style the basic ideas of each of the articles that now redirect to the book would help your case. As it is, there seems to me to be no rationale for allowing the filling of the vomitorium when the main course is so meager. ScienceApologist (talk) 12:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh what fun! WP:ANI#Repeated article blanking at Thought Adjuster and other articles. We need to have a seminar for administrators on WP:FRINGE policy. Few of them seem to get it. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest that the fork articles and sub-topics be sent to AfD for discussion. The options include deletion, redirection to The Urantia Book, or retention. Any decision arrived at here will not be effectively implemented over dissent on the article talk pages or at WP:AN/I. AfD is the best forum to get more outside input on this. MastCell  18:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so AfDed: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The Urantia Book related articles. What a pain in the ass Misplaced Pages politicking is! ScienceApologist (talk) 18:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Update -- The remaining articles are now The Urantia Book, Urantia Foundation, William S. Sadler, and Lena Sadler. Thought Adjuster is now redirected to the main article with a possibility of recreating it in the future while all other related articles are protected redirects to the main article. This resolves the issue outlined here, but please help in improving the remaining articles. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:52, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Epsilonism

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

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

No one takes the so called "Epsilonists" seriously since they are either (1) obviously insane (Fourakis, Konstandinis, Keramidas) or booksellers out for a quick buck (Liakopoulos, Adonis). Actually Adonis is the exception since he (a) avoids obviously nutty stuff like aliens and the Epsilon bullcrap and (b) he has unfortunately been elected to parliament with the far right party. Apart from him allmost all google references to these people are from WP so I don't really see what purpose they serve in the English language WP. Epsilonism too is only featured in English language WP, all the other hits refer to a fictional creed from (of all things) GTA San Andreas. That is another fictional creed from that admits to be sci-fi. Bang to rights on Thessalonica btwXenovatis (talk) 05:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

T&A and blood

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

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

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

Well, looking at the sources, while the theory may be a load of horseshit (as you put it) and pseudoscience, it is widely held in Japan... and the theory is discussed in reliable mainstream sources (some supportive, others dismissive). In other words the theory meets the criteria for inclusion in wikipedia that is stated in WP:Fringe. As to the issue of including blood type in an infobox on articles on porn stars... I don't think it really matters, so long as the information can be reliably sourced. Blueboar (talk) 16:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, weirdly enough, it's pretty much standard in Japanese-language sources. (Not that I watch a lot of Japanese porn, it's terrible, but anime and manga tend to give their characters's blood types, too.) <eleland/talkedits> 21:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

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

First off, I'm not objecting to the article about the pseudoscience. I also wouldn't object to mention of it in articles on people who have made a big deal on it. ("She has caused surprise by her declaration that she has type B blood") The objection is to the inclusion of blood type as a field in a template, and the implication that blood type is somehow significant.

No, there's nothing specific to cheesecake or porn about this stuff. Even fully clothed Japan is indeed suffused with this batty idea. The phonebook software in my Casio cellphone (incidentally, a macho-looking waterproof model marketed for guys) has a field for blood type for everybody: my boss, my sister, the shop that develops my film. (Also, when I type in a date for a birthday, it helpfully adds the person's star sign.) Large numbers of people of course ignore all of this. However, yes, it is indeed a frequently occurring feature in the potted bios of celebs and others in "popular culture". Whether this is because the consumers of "popular culture" are gullible, because its producers are gullible, or just because there's not much else to say about these people, I don't claim to know. I've no reason to think that the claims are true, I've got no reason to think that it matters if they're true or untrue, I haven't seen that any intelligent person is interested ("She really turns me on, she's got Type O"), I wonder why en:WP is implying significance to this. If it does write it up for Japanese porn stars I see no reason why it shouldn't do so for Japanese singers. If some dimwit Japanese TV reporters then ask visiting foreign celebs about their blood and they manage to answer with a straight face, then perhaps this "sourced information" too will be solemnly added to this Cosmo-pedia. Not my idea of encyclopedic, but perhaps I'm "elitist". -- Hoary (talk) 16:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't have a problem with it. Yes, it's silly, but the very idea of having thousands of articles on Japanese pop tarts and AV idols is equally silly. These figures are notable almost solely in Japanese culture, and in Japanese culture blood type is apparently important.

However, as part of our ongoing crypto-POV-pushing campaign (/sarcasm,) I suggest that we change all the wikilinks on these articles from blood type or blood to Blood types in Japanese popular culture. We might save a few souls enlighten a few intellects, no? <eleland/talkedits> 03:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! -- Hoary (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Blood type is factual information. A person behaving in a particular way because of their blood type is horse shit. I'm not keen on blood type being included. IT'S THE THIN END OF A SLIPPERY WEDGE . . . people could well start adding western astrology signs to info boxes. Dan Beale-Cocks 13:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Blood type is indeed factual information. But I think that here it's only factual in a slightly odd, Misplaced Pages way. Obviously cheesecake/porn bios have to have the age right to the nearest decade, the height right to the nearest ten centimetres, or so, etc.; but I've no reason to think that most of the "facts" are, well, factual. In particular, those about blood, which (I hope!) we don't see and which anyway all looks the same. Which scenario seems more likely to you? (A) Q: "What's your blood type?" A: "X." Q: "Ah yes, X. I'll write that down." (B) Q: "You kind of look type-Y-ish. Shall we put you down as 'Y'?" A: "Yeah, sure." -- Hoary (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Baghdad (1258)

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

Woah! Absolutely crazy. A (highly) personal essay has been welded on to the original,, historical article. It contains gems like: "Revealing it, is a spiritual Occultation's goal, not for it to remain murkily shadowy and hidden. Kalachakra is a code-name and hidden, as Helmut Hofmann says above i.e. "It's lineage... is a mass of contradictions". The Highlander game above is also an imagination's creation. The Prester John myth changes following the alliances that the Church made with Muslim and Buddhist Mongols through time, and thus has no direction. All faiths have occulted the part of truth that they held. The names have been changed and the events redirected to gain acceptance by their own people. Betrayal of the truth is rife in this. Things need to be CLEAR". I couldn't even count the number of Misplaced Pages policies this stuff violates. --Folantin (talk) 18:14, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Except for some stray references, there doesn't seem to be anything salvageable. rudra (talk) 18:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

If this fellow wants to write a Buddhist influences on Hulagu Khan article, he's welcome to, except that at the rate he's going, it might be {{prod}}-ed in short order. rudra (talk) 18:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter. :) Aramgar (talk) 18:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

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

Wow. This gets stranger and stranger. Such solicitation is definitely not on. The policy that immediately springs to mind is this one. WP:TALK should also be used to delete off-topic nonsense on the talk page. --Folantin (talk) 22:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, he is free to say what he wants on his own webpage. Misplaced Pages has no controle over that. But it certainly does make his edits seem less like a mistaken (but essentially well meaning) attempt at including his own original research in wikipedia, and more like POV vandalism. We will keep an eye on the situation. Blueboar (talk) 22:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the new address is to be New Mongol Buddhist history (1258-1350). Watchlist accordingly. I'd say the material so far is hardly written in an encylopaedic style. --Folantin (talk) 16:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I've speedied that. Off-site canvassing is in fact a block reason, but I am unsure whether the claim that you are a Warrior if you edit a specific article qualifies as "canvassing". dab (𒁳) 20:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

See my link below to a forum where he is explicitly canvassing.--Dougweller (talk) 12:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

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

Can the revelations at User:Geir Smith/Sandbox be deleted through Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion? This policy seems to suggest that it can. Aramgar (talk) 21:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, he's trying to reinsert material into the original Battle of Baghdad page and he's reinstated the talk page abuse by his friend Dominique Boubouleix (AKA Dr Boubouleix - check Dr. B's French Misplaced Pages bio to see who began the page not so many days ago ). An eloquent new user Edward lonesome Wolf has also just emerged there too. So, predictably, we have sock/meat puppetry going on. I don't think this is going to end without some more decisive action.--Folantin (talk) 10:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Not a sock puppet I think but a recruit: see Violent War of words erupts on faiths, Kalachakra, between Christians and Buddhists online - also look at page one of the thread, where he writes "I'd really need help from people who could come along to the page with me and we do this as a group of people" --Dougweller (talk) 11:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

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

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

I suppose congratulations to Geir Smith are in order. Such egregious folly as this smacks of sheer genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it :) Moreschi 14:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry too much about the French WP yet. All Mr Smith's contributions so far have been to the Dominique Boubouleix article. But if you look at the latest entries there by one Lord Hearntown then check his edit history you find him posting this rant to another page (in English) . The one thing linking all these people (apart from the obvious) is they seem to be part of a vendetta against User:Elonka. I suspect this is somehow related to the Franco-Mongol alliance dispute. --Folantin (talk) 14:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm beginning to wonder whether Dr Dominique Boubouleix is real. Seriously, a supposed Sorbonne professor goofing around on Misplaced Pages? Is there some way to find out if he was ever associated with the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes? rudra (talk) 15:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Lord Hearntown?? Check this out. rudra (talk) 15:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Funnily enough, Calamus International University features on our List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning. --Folantin (talk) 15:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Google Scholar has no hits for "Dominique Boubouleix" and only one for "D Boubouleix". There's also this with a link to the opening paragraph. (There is a Kālajñāna-Nirnaya by Matsyendranātha, but that doesn't mean anything if the French version of the article wasn't peer-reviewed.) Boubouleix sounds like a very obscure scholar... rudra (talk) 15:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly. How about finding out if all his alleged degrees and qualifications are a) real and b) meaningful? And what exactly is the link to the Franco-Mongol alliance ArbCom case? All this lot seem to be very keen on the contributions of PHG (talk · contribs), but why? Moreschi 15:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't find out much about the London Diplomatic Academy - it's website makes it sound more like a club. Beware, one Google link was a very persistent attempt to download a virus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you sure he's not really the learned Docteur Faustroll, inventor of the science of ’Pataphysics, whose gestes et opinions were relayed to us by Alfred Jarry. According to Faustroll's French Wiki bio , he was born in Circassia in 1898 at the age of 63 and died the same year but is still communicating with scientists telepathically from his home in "ethernity". Maybe he's got a Wiki account now too. --Folantin (talk) 17:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

hmm, According to IJTS, M. Boubouleix is "Professor at the Ecole of Anthropologie". His "Calamus" profile confirms this. Interestinly, this institution was founded by Paul Broca in the 1870s, but appears not to have been in existence since WW II. Could M. Boubouleix be an imaginary friend of Mr. Smith's? If M. Boubouleix-Hearntown is the learned Docteur Faustroll, and a member of the école d'Anthropologie, his 1998 article must really have been communicated by paranormal means. dab (𒁳) 17:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

That would have been an amazing feat. Apparently this is an online French-language essay of his about Indo-China (warning: pop-up hell) . --Folantin (talk) 17:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure he's real, but? "D. Sc. in Archaeology, England; Hon. Ph.D. in Anthropology, USA. Professor of General Anthropology, School of Anthropology, Paris; Director, Centre for Advanced International Studies in Anthropology, Archaeology and Ethnology (CAISAAE), Florida; Director, International Centre for Anthropological Research in India and South East Asia (CIRAIASE), an autonomous department of the International Institute of Anthropology (IIA, Paris); Professor of Philosophy in Anthropology, England." I don't believe it. There's no CAISAAE. no CIRAIASE, except on the Bridgeworld web site. You never list degrees with the institution granting them, so his D.Sc. from England and honorary degree from the USA sound fake. I'm going to challenge him.--Dougweller (talk) 17:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

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

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

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

I'm checking out the reliability of the refs provided on the French Wiki bio. The "International Who's Who of Intellectuals" is published by these guys. "THE ROYAL BOOK OF DIPLOMACY AND SCIENCE" gets 11 Google hits. And read our own article on the American Biographical Institute. I think it's fair to say they don't qualify as reliable sources. --Folantin (talk) 18:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

"Lord Hearntown" isn't very happy Doctor Boubouleix's credentials have been called into question on French Misplaced Pages and has launched into a tirade against the "uncultured donkeys without a university background" who edit WP and can't write French proper. Once again, it's all Elonka's fault. --Folantin (talk) 18:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It does not matter what credentials these people claim (whether real or fake)... Misplaced Pages considers edits on their merit, not on the credentials of those who post them. Blueboar (talk) 19:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

We certainly consider such things when people have their own biographies on Misplaced Pages. --Folantin (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

and as to the merit of the Geir Smith version of Battle of Baghdad (1258), well, judge for yourself...

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

He's got cold feet about having a Wiki bio even when written by experts (i.e. himself, himself and Geir Smith) . He's also kind of threatening to take legal action on the talk page of this very noticeboard. --Folantin (talk) 19:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

We're having a little dialogue right now on his discussion page. He doesn't like Americans. :-) Which allows him to duck answers to my questions.

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

May I suggest that we not feed the trolls any longer. We can watch what these folks do, remove OR and other stuff that may violate policy... and if needed send them to ANI for blocking. 'Nuff said. Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Aw, don't say that, we're all having far too much fun to stop. Moreschi 22:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

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

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

And 88.141.184.146 is Geir Smith. rudra (talk) 06:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

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

geir wrote: I think the wry humour will be lost on them. It is not. this is the wriestly humourous section on this board I have seen yet :) dab (𒁳) 09:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

you want to be full Warrior ? Then, in that case, you write this... cut and paste : "I want to meet Asian girls" and you'll be automaticallly full warrior. -- wth?? dab (𒁳) 09:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I think the idea they're going to get some "chicks" out of this is the bizarrest of the lot. Looks like attention is turning to Sakya. So, my fellow members of the Catholic-Hindu KGB, you know what to do! --Folantin (talk) 09:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Inciting vandalism? (Maybe the idea is to radicalize the meatpuppets by giving them an early taste of being "unjustly" blocked). rudra (talk) 09:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

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

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

how is it "resolved" with Geir Smith still on the loose? It's not acute at present, I grant you, but no action has been taken. dab (𒁳) 06:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Plus we still have the bizarre saga of Dr. Boubouleix threatening to sue us over a Misplaced Pages article he wrote himself with the aid of his friend Geir Smith. Must be the first time in history that an autobiography has been accused of being libellous. --Folantin (talk) 09:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

Reading the forum, he's threatening to get the Dalai Lama involved in this. Amazing. Whereas most banned users try appealing to Jimbo, this one goes for the Dalai Lama. Just...awesome. Moreschi (talk) 21:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I seldom laugh out loud in front of my screen, but here I couldn't help myself. dab (𒁳) 22:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Poor Geir Smith. Little does he know. The Dalai Lama doesn't have our ICBM coordinates. rudra (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

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

Hahaha! You guys is carzy! Best WTN thread ever. Hahaha! --Folantin (talk) 09:21, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Dr Boubouleix and I have had a very friendly email exchange initiated at his request. I don't want to quote his email of course, but I am now happy about his credentials and don't think he has personally overstated them although errors have crept in to the online sources. I don't think he is going to end up a Warrior of Shambala, Geir Smith does not seem a favorite person of his. :-) I've retracted my negative comments about him on the Battle of Baghdad talk page (my initiative, he didn't even mention it) and do so here also (again, he didn't mention it).--Doug Weller (talk) 20:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I can imagine that if someone like Geir Smith becomes enthusiastic about you, things are bound to be distorted. This is why we have WP:BLP: M. Boubouleix is surely best served by his various titles of knighthood not being detailed on Misplaced Pages. dab (𒁳) 00:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Did he explain the anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic personal attacks? Kafka Liz (talk) 03:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'd like to know about those too, especially since French WP checkuser confirms that D A A Boubouleix and Lord Hearntown are one and the same . --Folantin (talk) 09:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I didn't raise those issues or his anti-American comments. But - D A A Boubouleix? That page exists, but doesn't in the history the posts in question, or mine. I'm confused.--Doug Weller (talk) 13:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

D A A Boubouleix was one of his many sock puppet accounts. Under that name he contributed to the French WP bio and related talk pages. Most of that stuff has now been deleted, as well as "Lord Hearntown"'s anti-Semitic conspiracy theorising against Elonka --Folantin (talk) 13:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

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

Geir is back . Aramgar (talk) 18:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

He's a banned user so his contributions can be reverted and his socks blocked by an admin. It's become pretty obvious his primary aim is trolling for hits for his website(s). --Folantin (talk) 18:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

See http://forums.phayul.com/index.php?showtopic=1895&st=120&start=120 for what he hopes will happen. He claims to be erudite, but he can't even write English properly!--Doug Weller (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

yeah, I begin to feel uncomfortable with making fun of him, it feels like taunting a disabled person. I think the fun is over and we're in the WP:DFTT stage. Just block his socks and IPs as they come in and let's avoid making further ado over it. dab (𒁳) 19:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Golden plates

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

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

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

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

Just a word: if this article passed FA-review, I'm sure that its unlikely to be overtly fringe-y. There does seem to be a shortage of "out-universe" sources on that page, but I think what you really want is WP:RfC. Relata refero (talk) 09:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

of course these plates didn't physically exist, this is a topic of religious belief. We don't go and label Golden Fleece as fringecruft because that never existed? It's mythology. At worst, slap it with {{in-universe}}. dab (𒁳) 15:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think an in-universe tag would be NPOV, given that there is debate about whether the plates are fictional or not.... and that sums up the entire problem with the page.

I personally don't know how it passed FA review without addressing this issue. Sethie (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Presently, nobody believes in Greek mythology, thus I'm not sure if comparision with the Golden Fleece is right. Unlike belief in Zeus, millions still believe in the Golden Plates. There's definitively a double standard if compared to the excellent skeptical articles about Scientology in Misplaced Pages. Why this is so? Both are religions born on American soil. One religion is basically debunked in the wiki while the other one is respected. Can anyone of you explain this to me? —Cesar Tort 17:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

that depends on what you mean by "belief". This is all about religious belief and has nothing to do with "belief" as in plausibility. 100s of millions of people religiously believe Jesus was raised from the dead, but only a few crackpots attempt to reconstruct the physical process of resurrection as some sort of nuclear reaction emitting X-Ray or what have you. Religion is about faith, not facts. It is pointless to say that a {{in-universe}} tag would be "pov": amboxes are not part of an article's content (subject to content policy), they point out issues with an article's content. dab (𒁳) 17:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

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

Aye. Reading the article, I think it conveys reasonably well that while Mormons may well believe in these plates, nobody else does because there's no evidence they existed. I don't see much of a problem here, sorry. Moreschi (talk) 21:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all for your feedback. By the grace of God :) the article made a huge leap towards covering the issues I had.... I have also begun to edit stylistically to move it away from fact and towards "Mormon tradition believes that." The challenge will be, of course to not say this in EVERY SINGLE sentence! Sethie (talk) 16:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

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

9/11 conspiracy theories

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

Talk:Robert Gallo

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

Guy's a budding wikilawywer in the making, I see. Talkpage tendentiousness is at least fairly harmless but I'll keep my eye on it. Moreschi (talk) 21:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Skinwalker is wondering what lower-tier law school taught RspnsblMn to write like that. I've got most AIDS-related pages watchlisted, so I'll observe too, but this is likely to be addressed best by WP:RBI. Skinwalker (talk) 02:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Location hypotheses of Atlantis

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

I tend not to think of Location hypotheses of Atlantis as a real article, but more as a honeypot to keep Atlantis from getting bloated with news of the "latest discovery". If you want to restrict the article to notable theories, Nikas should go, along with anything that hasn't been reported in third-party sources. Anyone want to guess how many theories about Atlantis are self-published? --Akhilleus (talk) 16:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. If there isn't the requisite third-party source, it ain't notable. And the range for guessing is how many million? John Carter (talk) 17:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Completely agree... and I think it is in line with WP:FRINGE, which requires that any particular theory be discussed in a serious manner by mainstream sources (even if it is simply to disparage it). Many of the theories mentioned in this article have not recieved that required level of notice by the mainstream (or, if they have, the article makes no mention of it.) Blueboar (talk) 17:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hexapus

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

okidoki Sheffield Steel_stalk 22:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Adaptogen

From Adaptogen:

The word adaptogen is used by herbalists...

...

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

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

i.e. Indian gooseberry

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

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

Not sure if it can be said to be a "medical" term... but it is definitely being talked about... it gets tons of hits on Google. Seems to be an accepted term on the alternative medicine circuit. Is this a "cureallozine"!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs)

The article should make clear that it's a term used largely in alternative medicine; the 81 PubMed hits for "adaptogen" focus nearly entirely on herbal products and are published in the less... conventional side of the medical literature. The claim in the article that they "constitute a new class of natural, homeostatic metabolic regulators" is sourced to a book published by Healing Arts Press, a smallish alternative-medicine publishing firm, and should certainly be a bit more qualified. MastCell  19:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

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

Pallywood

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

The Martinphi-ScienceApologist Interview

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

ONE: The Movie

ONE: The Movie needs a cleanup and may well-deserve a close eye as its popularity increases. Vassyana (talk) 12:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

it reads like an ad, and lacks third party sources.

looking into it, this does seem like an interesting, bona fide "grass-roots" production, although clearly somehow resonating with the topic of "Integral theory" (which has come up on this board before). dab (𒁳) 18:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It's viral spreading (non-pejorative) in much the same way BLEEP did and in some circles is being heralded as the Next Big BLEEP. Vassyana (talk) 19:01, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

but "BLEEP" was so much crackpottery by belated quantum mystics. This does feature Deepak Chopra, which doesn't bode well I grant you, but it also has bona fide spiritualists, and is ostensibly about spirituality, not thinly veiled New Agey pseudoscientific blather. Be that as it may, the movie does appear notable, but the current article is unacceptable, reading like a press release. dab (𒁳) 07:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I have looked it over and the version I am looking at looks fine to me. If anyone has specific problems, I would be open to hear them.

It does lack sources.... and.... well it doesn't make any extraordinary claims, so I am fine to leave it be. Hohohahaha (talk) 00:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Syriacs-Assyrians-Aramaeans-younameit

This is gradually straying into fringe territory. It is a bit difficult to grasp, bear with me: There is an Aramaic-speaking Christian ethnic group in the Middle East who cannot agree on how they want to call themselves. We discuss this at Names of Syriac Christians. For some reason, the name is really important, don't ask me. Predictably, this results in rows over which title the article on Misplaced Pages should have. Currently it is at Assyrian people, which isn't a bad choice, but neither is it uncontroversial. There are at present 47 redirects(!) to this page. I have tried to outline the problem at Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Syriac). Now, instead of finding some acceptable consensus for the article title, people start creating fork articles under their preferred title all over the place. Presently, Syriac-Aramean people. The article is defended hook and crook based on simple obstinacy and revert-warring, in spite of the fact that this particular name does not generate one single google hit. See Talk:Syriac-Aramean_people#Sources.The fringy part, apart from blatant disregard for WP:RS comes with the constant recourse to identification of the group with either the Aramaeans (14th to 10th century BC petty kingdoms of the Levant) or the Neo-Assyrian Empire (10th to 7th century BC Mesopotamia). We even have an article on the latter, Assyrianism. That is, the naming dispute is constantly wrapped up in childish national mysticism that makes addressing the actual issues near impossible (identification literally means they keep saying they "are" the ancient (a) Aramaeans, not Assyrians / (b) Assyrians, not Aramaeans. It is beyond me how you can claim to "be" a sketchily know group from remote antiquity). I am tired of trying to deal with this alone. Some more eyes and brains would be appreciated. dab (𒁳) 07:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

PS, the largest groups of the Assyrian diaspora are found in the US, Sweden and Germany. This means that this problem is found mostly on en-, sv- and de-wiki. sv-wiki has opted for a "slashed" title (as has the US census): sv:Assyrier/syrianer. de-wiki has opted for a transliteration of the Aramaic term for "Syrian", de:Suryoye (as it happens, "Syrian" is the one uncontroversial name, but of course ambiguous wrt the Syrian Arab Republic). Enforcing NPOV will probably result in a similar solution on en-wiki. dab (𒁳) 08:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I love this redirect: Jewish Muslim Christians ! Abecedare (talk) 08:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

oh dear, this is a leftover of pagemove vandalism it seems. I'm speedying that :) dab (𒁳) 08:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

de-wiki has opted for a transliteration of the Aramaic term for "Syrian", de:Suryoye - no dab they have created a page for both groups (see at the bottum of the page.) Anyways, I have made my case repeadly on dab's talk page and the Assyrian people's talk page. The group is unamisously known as Assyrian in the English Language, per book search, per scholar search, per and most recent, European Union ] Chaldean (talk) 13:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

at de-wiki, the article corresponding to our Assyrian people is at de:Suryoye. Their de:Assyrer (Gegenwart) and de:Aramäer (Gegenwart) taken together correspond to our Names of Syriac Christians, although de:Assyrer (Gegenwart) is de-facto a pov fork of de:Suryoye. de-wiki finds it no easier to combat irrational nationalist editors than we do. dab (𒁳) 13:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

this is madness. Chaldean (talk · contribs) is revert warring like there was no tomorrow, with no sign of even an inkling of WP:CITE basic common sense. Any help please? I would prefer to have intelligent people handle this. The alternative will be some passing apparatchik admin locking everything down for a week, after which the circus will start over. dab (𒁳) 14:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

See this is why ] I cant work with you.

This is the version I am aiming for - he really thinks he owns the page.

I simply ask for sources for his edits, but he counters me with accusing me breaking randum wiki rules and using strong language from letting anyone participating. His edits are simply wrong. I dont know how else to say it. If you cant source something, what right does it give you to add such contreversial statement?

Once again, when I ask sources from him, he responds with this ]. Not the first time. You should see how he has embarrased me before with his strong language. Its like he doesnt want to work together. He has to have it his way. Chaldean (talk) 14:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

And he goes on ]. When will he cite his edits? I am waiting. Chaldean (talk) 14:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I have asked for sources on dab's talk page as well and he continues to ignore me. When can I revert dab's first sentence edit. Chaldean (talk) 15:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, WestAssyrian (talk · contribs) has jumped in. This account appears to be a revert-Dbachmann-only SPA, and I've got a feeling I've seen him before, too. This wouldn't be Nochi (talk · contribs) returning, would it? Moreschi (talk) 21:21, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

No, user Nochi is the exact opposite of WestAssyrian. User Nochi promoted Aramean identity, where as WestAssyrian promoted what his user name says. Chaldean (talk) 16:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Energy therapies spamming

I just got through vetting Quantum-Touch. What a trip! I may not have done the best job, but there is a ton of other energy therapies that need to be run through the NPOV/anti-advert ringer. Things to keep in mind: all claims of benefits must be removed since the claims cannot be reliably sourced, all claims of mechanism must be framed as opposed to reality.

ScienceApologist (talk) 15:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Energy therapies - ok, that's fairly extensive. Worth going through to see how much needs cleanup. Moreschi (talk) 10:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Great Pyramid

A user there is insisting that this be kept in the article: A Great Pyramid feasibility study relating to the quarrying of the stone was performed in 1978 by Technical Director Merle Booker of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America. Consisting of 33 quarries, the Institute is considered by many architects to be one of the world’s leading authorities on limestone. Using modern equipment, the study concludes:“Utilizing the entire Indiana Limestone industry’s facilities as they now stand , and figuring on tripling present average production, it would take approximately 27 years to quarry, fabricate and ship the total requirements.” Booker points out the time study assumes sufficient quantities of railroad cars would be available without delay or downtime during this 27 year period and does not factor in the increasing costs of completing the work.pgs. 104-105, 5/5/2000, Richard Noone, 1982 Three rivers Press, New York ISBN 0-609-80067-1

My problem with this is that Richard Noone is fringe of fringe, the guy that promised 3 miles of Antarctic ice on 5/5/2000, and that he is the only source for this report (which is evidently photocopied in one of his books). The only references I can find to Merle Booker or the report are from Noone or from the Misplaced Pages article. I've removed this at least twice. The poster finally moved it to the alternative theories section, but as there is no way evidently of verifying the report and the source is dubious, does it belong on Misplaced Pages at all? Thanks.--Doug Weller (talk) 22:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

In other words, the claim comes from Noone who talks about Booker, but you are not sure if Booker ever actually wrote the study? Hmmm... At best, we should directly attribute this to Noone... as in: "According to author Richard Noone, a Great Pyramid feasibility study relating to the quarrying of the stone was performed in 1978 by Merle Booker, Technical Director of the Indiana Limestone Institute...etc." Have you thought about contacting the ILIA and asking them to confirm whether Booker was their Technical Director in 1978, and if he actually wrote this study? Blueboar (talk) 22:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I am that "user". Like you are a user. I moved the article to the alternative section for the time being to allow further discussion. I do not defend Noone's more controversial ideas, yet regardless this should not discount his book as a source in this matter because he provides the original signed document on company letterhead which is allowed by Misplaced Pages as an acceptable reference. It is because Noone choose to reprint this letter that we do not have to take his word for it, we can take Booker's. Dougweller is suggesting essentially that Noone, because he is an "unreliable" alternative writer, like they all are, made Booker up as a fictional character and forged the photocopy of Booker's original correspondence. This is "nonsense" as he likes to say. The studies findings are not "according to Noone", it is according to Booker at the request of Noone. It's not like he is repeating a phone conversation and is engaging in heresay; he's reprinted an original letter from a qualified expert which speaks for itself, something that Dougweller hasn't even actually read. Noone commissioned Booker to do a 3rd party study and wisely choose an expert in such things-the technical director of the Indiana Limestone Institute. Now who would be more credible to speak about what it takes to move limestone blocks: an Egyptologist or the technical director of the Indiana Limestone Institute? Regardless, Noone's only involvement is that he asked the question and printed the findings verbatim in his book and we must take Booker's statement by itself because as it is presented in it's unaltered state. The I.L.I website is:http://www.iliai.com/. Their contact info is: Indiana Limestone Institute of America, Inc. 400 Stone City Bank Bldg. Bedford, Indiana 47421 Phone: 812-275-4426 FAX: 812-279-8682. I will contact Jim Owens to verify Booker's employment and if possible his participation in this study and post my correspondence. If I am able to only verify his existence I will leave it in the alternative section. If I can verify the study I will move it back to the main article. thanos5150

Based solely on what I've read here, I'm leaning towards "doesn't belong at all." --Akhilleus (talk) 05:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It is my impression that the text on the study reported in Civil Engineering Magazine has been just rewritten to denigrate it, while the alleged Booker study has no details, only conclusions -- and if that's all that's in Noone, again that's a reason it shouldn't be there. The footnotes are now an unreadable mess also.--Doug Weller (talk) 06:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

In fact evidently the alleged Booker feasibility study is apparently just a photocopy of a letter in one of Noone's books.--Doug Weller (talk) 06:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Doug-help me out here, I need a break from all this typing. Your killin me. All of the negative assumptions made so far are by people who have not read Noone's book or even seen it. Just because you can't find corroboration in a Google search means nothing. That's what books are for. Regardless, I have corresponded with Jim Owens, a representative of ILI, and confirmed Bookers existence and former employment as technical director. I don't think its appropriate for me to copy and paste a private e-mail in a public forum, but will basically tell you what it said. Owens said Booker was way before his time (nearly 30 years ago) but that Booker was employed as the Institutes's Technical director, but without going through the archives he couldn't give exact dates of employment. He said while he could not confirm or deny Booker's report (being nearly 30 years old), it was his opinion if it were signed and on company letterhead it was likely genuine. He did point out that that every 4-5 years for as long as he can remember rumors have popped up about the Institute building a replica of the Great Pyramid or working to restore it, neither of which he says are true. He didn't elaborate further, but it seems obvious this is a result of misinformation concerning Booker's report in 1978. I think that this sufficiently proves Booker is a real person and was employed at ILI as technical director and that Noone's correspondence is genuine. Regardless, because the original report cannot be reproduced by ILI then I can concede the reference should remain in the alternative section. It also should be noted that Noone provides photo copies or transcripts of all the technical correspondence in his book.

As far as Booker's qualifications go-who would be more qualified to speak of the requirements of quarrying and moving stone using modern equipment: the technical director of ILI or an Egytologist? In fact, if an Egytologist were to want such data it would stand to reason they would go to someone exactly like Booker. People may disagree with Noone's theories, but there is no reason to doubt his correspondence with Booker not to mention Booker's qualifications or actual existence. I can understand the argument of where to put it, but to exclude it all together seems more like a witch hunt than responsible skepticism.

Booker's report: I am not going to retype the whole letter but will give you the basics. This study was only for the purpose of determining how much stone would be required and how long it would take for ILI to quarry, fabricate and ship enough stone to fill and cover the volume of the Great Pyramid using modern equipment and stone from ILI facilities. It has nothing to do with how Egyptians would have done it, which is really irrelevant in this case, but what makes the finding even more stunning. Booker used a base of 755'-9" X 755'-9" with side slope of 51 degrees-51'-14.3" and figured on hollows from the chambers and passage ways. All exterior and interior blocks were based on a size of 12.0' X 8.0' X 5.0'. Based on these measurements a volume is apparently derived in which Booker says approximately 264,216 rectangular core blocks would be required plus 12,723 exterior sloped blocks with very precise joint surfaces. The quantity of blocks required would equal 131,467,940 cubic feet of quarried finished stone. What Booker and his associates have obviously done is calculate a volume from base and slope and estimate a uniform block size to fill and cover it taking into account known hollow spaces and computed a total estimate of stone required factoring in the time to fabricate each block and transport it. Not build it, not level the site or anything else associated with construction-just quarrying, dressing and moving the stone which is their only field of expertise. The letter does not go into more detail, but given truck and rail car capacity and known production outputs which Booker feels is required to triple, he estimates it would require 27 years using 1978 technology to complete the task.

Given the large average size of the block they used, this is obviously an extremely conservative # of blocks compared to what is accepted. And it still would take them 27yrs. I will ad some of this information for better context, but the reference itself is valid and needs to stay. The alternative section is fine.

As far as the edit on the civil engineering report goes, that is exactly what they said word for word. If their own words degenerate the study then that is their own fault, but to their credit they were responsible enough to say such things. As it is written in the Wiki article it sounds like a pretty open and shut case, but by their own admission that couldn't be farther from the truth. They again and again make general assumptions that may not even actual apply and even have factual errors such as the stones in the Kings Chamber being only 20 tons. The study is clear that many assumptions are made and in the end it is still unknown exactly how it was built. These guys are saying that without the use of iron, wheel or pulley, the Egyptians possessed unknown means and/or methods comparable to modern day construction techniques using laser technology no less and to mention this is degenerate? Seems degenerate not to mention it to me.thanos5150

OK, it is nice to know that Booker was a real person, and that he was probably Technical Director at the time Noone says he was. So the question becomes: did he actually write the study and if so what did it say? Noone says he did, and we have Noone's account of what it said. Unfortunately Noone does not have the best reputation... he is considered a psuedoscientific and pseudohistorical fringe source. Because of this, we can not simply accept what he says about the study as fact. We either need to cite the actual study, or clearly attribute the material to Noone. Blueboar (talk) 03:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

So, did you not actually read what I wrote or just not understand it? ILM has confirmed Booker was technical director at this general time. It is their opinion that the document is real. Noone provides a photo of the original signed and dated document on company letterhead along with photo's of several other authorities he corresponded with. For the umpteenth time-the actual study is cited, not Noone. It is not Noone's opinion or interpretation, it is verbatim what was written by Booker taken directly from the photo. If any individual here requires any more proof, regardless of just plain common sense, then the onus is on YOU to go read the book as well as prove Noone to be a liar and a forger of this document. Until you can do this, this is a real verified document worthy of reference. As far as I am concerned this matter is closed.thanos5150

My view is that unless we can:

• Find a reliable source that confirms that the study exists, and that it says what Booker quotes, and
• Verify that the original study was published in a peer-reviewed journal, or at least in a publication with a reputation for editorial control (and not, say, an ILIAI newsletter)

the content does not belong on wikipedia. Note that ILIAI is a trade association, which publishes some how-to manuals for architects, contractors, masons etc, and promotes Indiana's limestone industry; and is not an academic or research institute. So we need to exercise extra caution as per WP:REDFLAG. Abecedare (talk) 05:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Regardless, this reference is in the alternative section and references the author's book. At this point it does not matter. For example:in the alternative section to reference Graham Hancock's ideas Hancock's book is the only reference required. As far as the validity of Booker's letter I am quite sure it would be very easy to prove it is real in a court of law.thanos5150

I can sympathy with thanos5150 to some extent, I have information I'd love to add to articles but policy says I can't (eg something that proves a book wrong, but doesn't mention the book). And a sci-fi article up for deletion I like, but I can't vote keep as I know it breaks guidelines.

I think he just doesn't understand yet the various policies and guidelines you are expected to follow. I know I don't. I do have another problem with him I don't think he understands about his edits and deletions of my edits. For instance, I've deleted a couple of times the bit after the date (and I'll add that the reference for that is I think bad and needs replacing, which I can do):

The generally accepted estimated date of its completion is c. 2560 BC. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/khufustory.html though this date contradicts [[Great Pyramid of Giza#Dating evidence|radiocarbon dating evidence, it is loosely supported by a lack of archaeological findings for the existence prior to the fourth dynasty of a civilization with sufficient population or technical ability in the area.

First, the radiocarbon dating part. Radiocarbon dating needs to be interpreted. First it needs calibrating, but that's not my gripe. Even after calibrating it always needs interpreting. It's true the dates don't match up, in fact the dates are scattered so much you need an explanation. The explanation given by the authors of the report is that the builders had a problem getting fresh wood and had to use what they called 'settlement debris', ie stuff left over from the past (and dead wood lasts a long time in the desert). So the wood used in building the pyramid comes from trees cut at a wide variety of dates -- and as they were finishing up at the top, they ended up using older and older wood for their mortar which gives a reasonable explanation for something thanos5150, quoting Schoch, finds puzzling, that there are older dates at the top.

Secondly, the 'loosely supported' bit is a fringe claim, like the claims Egyptian civilization developed almost out of nothing. Egyptologists have a number of reasons for the dating of the GP, and that one doesn't feature very high (and is 'loosely supported' acceptable.

The study has clearly interpreted the data and does not dispute the findings itself, the only problem they have is that it does not match up with their timeline which is lacking on it's own merit anyways. The dates given in the 1995 study are calibrated dates. The result is the "old wood" theory" which is completely ridiculous if you think about it just as a matter of common sense, and is ultimately nothing more than a desperate attempt to confuse the issue and save face. There is no doubt I am sure the Egyptians used old wood, this is common through out history even today, but the quantities that would have been required did not exist at that time. If you only take the time period from Saquarra to the Great Pyramid you have a society of what Egyptologist's say to have been a million people or more all relying on this "old wood" for approximately 100 years. This is only for arguments sake as it is clear this "old wood" would have been used in great quantities for various purposes for at least several hundred years prior. But only within this time frame, between daily life and construction of several staggeringly large monuments, literally thousands of tons of this old wood would have been used which is not even closely supported by the geological record. Even if these vast forests of dead wood did exists, it would have been one of the most bizarre landscapes on earth.

Just think about the amount of rollers used to move the blocks alone just for the Great Pyramid. There are 2-2.4 million blocks which most Egyptologists agree rollers must have been used in some fashion. How many rollers would be required? Keep in mind they have a limited life from being continuously crushed under tons of lime stone and each block would at least require 4-6 rollers of a reasonable length and circumference. Scrub brush will not do-mature trees are required. The total would most certainly be in the millions. It also would have required a massive stock pile of constant reserves to replace the ones that were crushed as well as keep the construction process going. Also, mortar was used in the casing stones which is known to have been refined with heat and would have required massive amounts of wood by itself. Egytologists say wooden scaffolding was likely used also requiring massive amounts of wood. If you only take the Great Pyramid alone, literally forests of old wood would have been required as it is accepted new growth forests did not exist in 2500B.C..

As far as the older wood being used at the top as compared to the bottom to explain the dating discrepancy of the G.P., this notion is easily dismissed. The problem with this logic is that given that the Great Pyramid was built before the 2nd and 3rd pyramid, this theory is only valid if the wood found in the latter 2 pyramids, not to mention even later constructions, were older or at least as old as that found in the Great Pyramid or earlier structures, which they are not. As wood resources dry up, even older wood is used, or at least all that is left is old wood, so it is only logical that this progression of older and older wood would get more severe as time went on, but this is clearly not the case and actually the exact opposite. If the oldest wood was found at the top of the GP then this trend would continue at the bottom of the 2nd pyramid and so on until the supply was exhausted. The samples taken from Menkuare's pyramid and later structures are much closer to the accepted dates than those found in earlier structures. Also, this study did not use only "old wood" for it's results, it used short lived materials as well, meaning things from the time, that all dated earlier though more closely to what is accepted. It could be argued they used up all the wood and used "new wood", but there is no new wood. Well, then maybe they imported it, but there is no evidence they did on an industrial scale and as they had no wheel for transport if they did would have required fleets of barges traveling hundreds of miles with a constant flow of wood. What we have here is hard science which is gladly accepted as valid in any other situation, but the only reason it is not is because it does not agree with accepted dogma. Not once, but twice has this dating given older dates. Instead of some wild story about how the Egyptians used thousands of tons of old wood, which there is no reason to believe was available in such quantities and is contradicted by the studies own findings, why not just call a spade a spade? The world will not end if the Pyramids are admittedly older than what is accepted. I believe in this instance occam's razor applies-accepted dating is wrong and the structure was built at a time when their was sufficient new growth wood to support its construction.thanos5150

Related to his edits, when I deleted an obsolete comment by Schoch about the data not being published, and provided a link to the new report which provides a huge amount of data, he cut out my comment "The full data of the study was published in the journal Radiocarbon in 2001 and are available on the net" although he did leave the reference. I don't know, is that reasonable?

After removing the outdated reference your comment is not required-the reference speaks for itself.thanos5150

To give him credit, some of his edits I like and we agreed on cutting out one very fringe statement from an unverifiable source. But others I think are too POV (and he thinks the same about me, so...)--Doug Weller (talk) 08:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand to the best of my ability, but my statement above is true-being it is in the alternative section and references Noone, the point is moot. Get over it. I have a problem with you-you have imposed your POV on the entire article. You do not edit anything, all you do is delete. You pick and choose what you want to delete based on your POV and hide behind Wiki "rules" to justify yourself. Technically, you make your point as far as the rules are concerned, but your motives are clear. You are not doing this in the best interest of the article, reader, or even subject material; you are doing it to further your own beliefs and prejudices. Not to mention you haven't even read any of the work you discredit relying solely on the opinions of others. You may be exactly right in many cases but if you haven't even read it yourself who are you to judge either way? And the professional skeptics you rely on-who peer reviews what they say? thanos5150

Gee, thanks, ad hominems and mind-reading. I'm trying to improve the article and make it factual. That includes accurate reporting of appropriate (according to Misplaced Pages policy and guidelines) alternative viewpoints. In fact I have contributed some new stuff and hope to do more, but yes, I found a bit of nonsense and POV and OR (like the mathematical calculations you (I think) added) and removed them. You have no idea what I have read although I admit to not having read Schoch's book or Noone's. And I am bound by the rules too, you know.

I also do not appreciate the insult about professional skeptics, by whom I presume you mean archaeologists Egyptologists. Would you please name them? I do have some prejudices. I think that things should be properly referenced, that context should be clear, that statements telling the reader why Khufu's pyramid is date the way it is should be accurate and references instead of just someone's opinion. The problem I have with the Booker study is the source. It's a shame it was never published, but because it is only in Noone's book so far as I can tell (and I know some Egyptologists) it's never been commented on by anyone who knows anything about the pyramid. I admit I don't trust Noone. I think he is in it for the money and anyone who would play on people's fears the way he did with his 'planetary alignment' scare is capable of anything. He may be telling the truth here, in fact I would guess he is (although I don't know if he gave Booker guidelines that might have affected his report). If you can convince people there is a way to include the Booker stuff I'm happy with it, it is just another guesstimate in the end with different inputs. Now, can we please stop the name-calling (but I really do want to know who the professional skeptics are) please?--Doug Weller (talk) 17:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Doug. Its getting old repeating myself so I do not mean to take it out on you. We have both agreed we have different view points illustrated by our edits so I am satisfied to leave it at that. I agree, all sources must be properly referenced. The Booker report as I have said should be left where it is in the alternative section, because there Noone's reference is acceptable. I suppose a statement should be added to the effect "According to Richard Noone, he corresponded with Booker, blah, blah". I have only read Noone's book and know nothing of the man, but reading the book I do not think his aim was to profit by scaring me into buying it. I think Noone's biggest mistaken was being bold enough to put an actual date on it. Not wise. Can't say I agreed with Noone on some particular points, but in principle the idea of crustal displacement and pole shifts is sound in which Einstien agreed. To apply it to the present day with global warming, to think a major displacement of weight on the earth's surface from the poles to the equator from melting would not potentially have a devastating structural effect on the earth, or that this could not have happened at least once if not several times in the past, is wishful thinking in my opinion. We should only be so lucky. We know the poles have flipped several times, the only question is why.

As far as professional skeptics go, how about Doug Weller who's website is devoted to the skeptical review of alternative theories though admits he has not actually read any of the books himself? The problem is this: Egytologists are the only ones "qualified" to speak of anything regarding Egypt. Anyone else whose ideas do not support the Egyptological view by default is engaging in psuedoscience or psuedohistory. Not very democratic I would say. The scientific method should allow for the inclusion or at least rational debate of all credible ideas regardless of their origin, but in Egyptology this is not the case. We are not talking about language, economics, art, and the like which is the only area of expertise an Egyptologist has-we are talking about engineering, structural architecture, geology, mathematics, physics as it relates to the moving of stone, carbon dating, astronomy-these things have nothing to do with Egytology and yet has everything to do with the monuments of Egypt (and elsewhere). And yet it is the unqualified Egyptologist that is the only authority on such matters? Do you not see a problem here? Egyptologists rely on grants and funding from public or private sources. How long would someones career last if they disagreed with fundamental dogma? Not long. And by the same token, the Egyptologist is fully indoctrinated to the only acceptable thought so probably does not to think reassess the data or have an independent thought.thanos5150

The relavant policy statement here is WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. You are essentially trying to use Noone's book as a convenience link to the study... but Noone's book is not a reliable source for that. Unless we see the actual study (as opposed to a photograph of something that Noone says is the study), we can not make statements of fact about it. All we know for sure (and can verify) is that Noone says the photograph is of the study. We can talk about what the photograph in Noone's book shows, but we can not talk about the actual study based upon the photograph. Blueboar (talk) 16:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Blueboar, thank you for your edits. I don't think thanos5150 quite grasps the point though, that we don't have evidence beyond the photograph that allows us to assert what he has in his new edit.

thanos5150, I have a number of books in my library by people like Sitchin, Lomas & Knight, etc. that I've bought and read. I just don't have the Noone and Schoch books (which aren't available in my local library and I didn't feel like buying them). --Doug Weller (talk) 22:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

So, apparently no one actually reads what I write. Didn't I say something earlier to this effect before Blueboar's edits? I edited his edits to a more coherent form, but do I get any credit? Noooo. It's always Blueboar did this, Blueboar did that. But, yeah, I get it. I got it before. It makes me laugh like a school girl to reduce this to having to say "the photograph says". That is a hoot. Regardless, I am confident the reader can make up their own minds.thanos5150#

This is getting beyond a joke. Thanos5150 is now adding things to footnotes, in this case "How does this reference verify what it actually says?" He repeadly removed the bit in parentheses from this sentence "As a result, given Egyptologists have ascribed the pyramid to Khufu (for a number of reasons including graffiti including his name in areas only accessible during construction),", he insists on calling Manetho's Aegyptica revisionist even though I and one other person have asked for references which he won't give, he's added (as a Wiki link for some reason) "(note:it has been independently verified for this article that Booker was employed at I.L.I as technical director during this time frame and in their opinion the document is likely genuine)". He has a bit of a record for doing this elsewhere, eg his attempt to rewrite the article Pseudoarchaeology from his POV. See http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Pseudoarchaeology&diff=next&oldid=36004873--Doug Weller (talk) 06:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Carantania

This arrived on my talk page today. Curious dispute concerning nationalism, fringyness, bad sourcing, the lot. Needs some more eyes. Moreschi (talk) 10:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Also affecting Slovenia and Slovenians by the looks of things. The main claim appears to be that there was a "Slovenian" state in 595 AD. Also pushing the theory that the Adriatic Veneti were in fact Slavs. --Folantin (talk) 10:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Aye, and that the Slovenians were indigenous to the Eastern Alps. See also Marcos G. Tusar (talk · contribs). Looks like an equivalent form of OIT has arrived - just this time for Slovenia. Moreschi (talk) 10:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, see Slavic settlement of Eastern Alps. The standard theory that the Slavs migrated into the area is being contested on the basis of information from a Geocities site. The chief promoter of the "Venetic theory" is one Dr. Jožko Šavli who is an economist not a historian . --Folantin (talk) 10:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

ahem, pure South Slavic national mysticism. I've been there and bought the T-Shirt several times over. dab (𒁳) 12:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the affected pages are:

• Carantania
• Slovenia
• History of Slovenia
• Timeline of Slovene history
• Slavic settlement of Eastern Alps

--Folantin (talk) 12:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I cleaned up Slavic settlement of Eastern Alps and Carantania, and made Venetic theory a redirect to a section at Protochronism where I inserted a reference to the idea as a list entry. Note that this seems to be overlapping with a (bona fide) dispute whether Slavic arrival in Slovenia should be dated to the 7th or already to the 6th century. I have no opinion of this. It will need to be looked into if there is positive evidence for 6th century arrival. If there isn't, well, we cannot expect to determine the exact year the first Slav set foot in Slovenia, mid 6th to early 7th century sounds about right. dab (𒁳) 12:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

it appears that Carantania as a "Slavic principality" was established in the mid 7th century, while it is of course plausible that Slavic settlement had been ongoing since the mid or late 6th century. Compared to the "Venetic theory", this is just a detail that needs a source. Samo will also need to be looked at in this context. dab (𒁳) 13:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice to see some other people found this topic. I didn't know about the existence of this page otherwise I would pop in earlier. I'd be happy if someone could keep an eye on those articles in the future also, I am fed up with all the theories and the debate was going unproductive. --Tone 13:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Energy therapy

Energy therapy and related articles need some people to help do some things:

1. Get better secondary, independent sources. Right now these articles are mainly sourced from unreliable true-believers.
2. Make sure the lack of scientific evidence for mechanisms/efficacy is explicitly and prominently stated in the article.
3. Remove any content that goes into excessive details about claimed benefits as such benefits cannot be verified.

Please note the following articles especially:

• Energy (spirituality)
• Acupuncture
• Aura-Soma
• Chromotherapy
• Electromagnetic therapy
• Energy medicine
• Polarity therapy
• Reiki
• Quantum-Touch
• Sonopuncture
• Therapeutic touch

There are some single-purpose accounts guarding these articles carefully, so watch out!

ScienceApologist (talk) 15:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've already been at work on electromagnetic therapy, adding some references from the Cochrane Library and the American Cancer Society. For the energy medicine article, this recent series of articles in the Seattle Times should be referenced more heavily as a reliable secondary source. In general, for articles on alternative medicine as it applies to cancer at least, useful secondary-source material can be found on the websites of the American Cancer Society, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (among others). The latter two have sections devoted to reviewing the scientific evidence (such as it is) on many alternative treatments for cancer. MastCell  17:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've placed the two company-related articles up for deletion on notability and sourcing concerns: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Quantum-Touch (3rd nomination), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Aura-Soma. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Paging Dr. Boubouleix?

This post reminded me of our old friend. Kafka Liz (talk) 19:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Me too. --Folantin (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Blocked indefinitely, he either stops losing his password to his existing accounts or doesn't edit at all. Moreschi (talk) 19:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Boubouleix is already indef banned so he doesn't get to edit at all even as a sock . I believe his likely impersonators are also indef banned so the same applies to them. --Folantin (talk) 20:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I'd forgotten that. Good point. Moreschi (talk) 20:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Just to confirm those other blocks and . --Folantin (talk) 20:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick action.  :) --Elonka 20:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

"TROUDUCUL"? O_o -- vulgaire plaisanterie indeed... I think I actually resent le crétin des Alpes dab (𒁳) 21:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess this explains the 2 emails I just received from him. I don't think he grasps how Misplaced Pages works at all.--Doug Weller (talk) 21:35, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, so it was him... I bet he's beginning to understand a bit about Google rankings for unusual names like Boubouleix. --Folantin (talk) 21:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, my curiosity has gotten the better of me. Can you tell us why he emailed you? Kafka Liz (talk) 14:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

This character is a riot. The prototypical vitriolic Frenchman as if sprung out of a Monty Python sketch. dab (𒁳) 15:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

"Your mother is a hamster and your father smells of elderberry!" I wonder if the good doctor is really just John Cleese trolling incognito on the Internet. --Folantin (talk) 15:20, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Aratta

This needs some attention. A whopping chunk of the article is devoted to unlikely-sounding "location hypotheses" relating to a place in Sumerian myth. There's a dispute between Sumerophile (talk · contribs) and Til Eulenspiegel (talk · contribs) over this section. To complicate matters, I just blocked Sumerophile for 3RR only to realise he'd spent most of today reverting, you guessed it, the socks of our old friend Ararat arev (talk · contribs). I've unblocked him ASAP with apologies but the article still needs looking at, with undue weight in mind. Moreschi (talk) 19:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Nearly all of the peer-reviewed, scholarly literature on Aratta that can be reliable referenced, beginning with the original translator, Samuel Kramer, is devoted to "location hypotheses" - just as with other locations given geographical references only in Sumerian literature, like Dilmun and Meluhha, etc. Anyone who researches the topic can quite easily satisfy himself of this fact, so why should wikipedia attempt to present an editor's POV instead? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 20:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

this is a clear case of "academic references only". If it's published academically, fair enough, however unlikely. If it is WP:SYN or armenianhighland.com blogcruft, remove on sight. dab (𒁳) 21:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It becomes more and more obvious to me as I look at ancient history articles that there is too much unreferenced or badly referenced (Discovery Channel, Nova, etc, let alone personal webpages) stuff. Academic references only unless there are notable alternative authors (such as in the case of some of the Egyption stuff like the Sphinx).--Doug Weller (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Help with paranormal original research

A number of articles have been redirected by myself as being original research. Two articles that have been mentioned at the Paranormal WikiProject are: Reality shift and Anomalous phenomenon. Please comment at their respective talkpages.ScienceApologist (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Articles which have not yet come up on the paranormal radar screen but have also been redirected include:

• Anomalous cognition
• Anomalous operation
• Anomalous perturbation

Also, I tagged the Fortean Times article which reads right now as a Paen to this fringe publication. God we need help! ScienceApologist (talk) 15:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Fortean Times is a pop-weird-stuff magazine, based on the work of Charles Fort. I personally like the guy (he had a great satirical voice), but he literally chased fringe ideas for a living, chronicling thousands of strange ideas that popped up in scientific journals of the day, almost with a religious fevor, so what do you expect? : ) I'd be happy to help straighten the article out, but I didn't see any specific things you had objections to on the article's talk page. --Nealparr 22:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I also commented about the redirect of Anomalous phenomena on it's talk page, but I support all the other redirects (all the other stuff is just psi stuff). --Nealparr 22:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

There is now consensus for the creation of the Anomaly (Forteana) article which retains the old history of the previous article. I believe that the redirect for anomalous phenomenon should be to anomaly, but others feel that since the links in the 'pedia to this article generally regard "paranormal" stuff, we should be careful. What we need to do is go through this list and disambiguate all the links and phrasing. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:59, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

What the Bleep again

I know that people who have SA's respect frequent this board. I would like people to look here and comment on the situation (preferably here, not cluttering WTB's talk page worse than it is)..Kww (talk) 23:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Number 44 surely applies here. Moreschi (talk) 12:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

On the content, perhaps. On the issue of modifying a paragraph that was the result of three weeks of negotiation and presenting the modification as non-controversial to attempt to persuade an admin to edit a protected article, not so much.Kww (talk) 14:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

people on either side of the fence should obsess less over this sorry excuse for a documentary. However, if "a connection between quantum physics and consciousness through quantum mechanical means" is the result of several weeks' negotiations I don't know what to say. What does it even mean to "posit a connection between A and B through means of A"? dab (𒁳) 21:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Not a lot, I suspect. This is the opposite of what Kelly Martin calls "dartboard editing": this is manic-obsessive editing. It can produce just as much balls as dartboard editing, it would seem. There's no call for it, either. Ramtha School of Enlightenment and JZ Knight are both to in the lede. That's all your average reader will need. Moreschi (talk) 21:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

My exasperation poured itself out here. Maybe time to protect the damn talk page as well. Moreschi (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

DBachman, I wish you'd been a bit more careful about factual accuracy before you ridiculed a group of editors (half pro-science and half otherwise) who participated in this "three week negotiation." The lead that we worked so hard to agree on doesn't (and didn't on March 21) read "a connection between quantum physics and consciousness through quantum mechanical means," which of course would be ridiculous. The actual wording of the section is (and was): "What the Bleep Do We Know!? ... is a 2004 film, followed by an extended 2006 DVD release, which combines documentary-style interviews, computer-animated graphics, and a narrative that posits a connection between quantum physics and consciousness. The film suggests that individual and group consciousness can influence the material world through quantum mechanical means." (in a sentence closely following, it's made clear that scientists don't agree with this suggestion). If you have a problem with what we've done, take it up on the talk page of Bleep, except I don't think there's anyone there any more; it appears we've all become so discouraged we've given up entirely, at least for the time being. Woonpton (talk) 16:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should be more careful. Dbachmann was simply follwing the version recorded in the Talk page section to which User:Kww pointed. Paul B (talk) 16:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Ultimately, I should have been more careful. When I attempted to restore the phrase, I pasted it into the wrong spot. Caused a bit of confusion in a few places.Kww (talk) 16:51, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Point taken, just wanted to set the record straight. Woonpton (talk) 18:51, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

RfC on Orthomolecular medicine

See Talk:Orthomolecular_medicine#Request for comment on the attribution of criticism in the lead. All comments would be welcome. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Very welcome indeed. :) Tim Vickers (talk) 17:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Sunscreen

This whole article has been hijacked and completely re-written (in extremely poor English) by individuals claiming that sunscreen causes melanoma. The scientific consensus is that it prevents it. The article as it existed before the hijack was much more informative and objective and better written than the polemic that has replaced it. I think it would be better to revert the whole article to an earlier version. Suitsyou (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe that recent research in the last few years has demonstrated that some of the chemicals in the newer sunscreens are less safe than we had previously thought, and that the old-fashioned physical barrier sunscreens (with groundup zinc or titanium, for example) might be safer therefore. I have seen a few WP:RS to this effect. --Filll (talk) 17:13, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok I just looked at the article. What was reasonably balanced before is now a mess. And you are right, the English is horrible. Can we just revert back and start over, and then fight these characters who want to create a massive bias? It just reads like a polemic or diatribe now.--Filll (talk) 17:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it is clearly POV. Probably easiest to revert and start over, obviously including all aspects of the safety issue.--Doug Weller (talk) 19:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is this would probably lead to a reversion war with the individuals who have hijacked the article. They're constantly removing the disputed factual accuracy tag so I'm sure they would just revert the article back to their version. I agree that reversion to an earlier version is the best option but I'm not sure what the right course of action is in the event of a reversion war. Suitsyou (talk) 10:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the first thing is we have to collect a substantial number of people interested in NPOV and balance in the sunscreen article. Then, we force them to discuss their POV on the talk page by using up their WP:3RR, and blocking them if they violate 3RR. Then we dismiss their arguments and explain NPOV. If they argue tendentiously, we block them for violating WP:TE. If they are repetitious, we blank their comments or usefy them. And eventually, we will have made headway. It is ugly, but that is all I know how to do. There are other approaches of course, using mediation etc. But I am not experienced in those.--Filll (talk) 13:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

we can't have "individuals" hijack articles and rewrite them according to their own agenda, particularly in broken English. Revert to the last sane version. Force these "individuals" to make some sort of coherent argument on a talkpage and see if they have anything to say that can be translated into a well-phrased, well-referenced addition. dab (𒁳) 16:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

They are pretty fierce. This is going to take a huge amount of effort and show of force, unfortunately. We could use some help.--Filll (talk) 16:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Baghdad Battery

Would someone please take a look at the discussion at the bottom of the Talk:Baghdad Battery page between User:Reddi and myself where he thinks a link to a UFO website with an article on non-existent Indian texts should not be deleted. I've never run into a self-professed 'inclusionist' before. He doesn't seem to think links need justifying if he thinks they are important. He's obviously also very possessive about the article. And doesn't like what he calls 'septics'. Thanks--Doug Weller (talk) 17:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

a true antiseptic, then :p dab (𒁳) 18:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure he won't like our policies on reliable sources and external links either but tough luck. --Folantin (talk) 18:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I felt I needed backup as he is obviously a very experienced editor, especially compared to me! Tags all over his user page... Is that Inclusionist thing a big deal?--Doug Weller (talk) 19:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

No. People can call themselves what they like but they still have to abide by Misplaced Pages policy. --Folantin (talk) 19:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I love that guy's userpage. That's the first time I've ever heard somebody claim that minority theories and idiosyncrasies generally are underplayed on Misplaced Pages! "Since skeptics (in particular, those who claim to be) and pseudoskeptics cannot accept factual writing, this forces honest contributors no platform in this project; those who are still willing to honestly contribute are attacked by the bias of these skeptics and pseudoskeptics. It only takes a few to believe something is wrong to prevent the completion of the proposed goal of Misplaced Pages. The proposal of Misplaced Pages of trying to gather what constitutes human knowledge about various subjects is besiged by those that deny and ignore facts and is in constant danger on Misplaced Pages. Let the reader beware of this and that the disclaimers are heeded." <eleland/talkedits> 23:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

complete failure to understand WP:UNDUE in so many words. I wonder what a pseudoskeptic is? Somebody who thinks they remain unconvinced but secretly are more credulous than they like to admit? strike that, I saw the link to Pseudoskepticism. It's a term from the Protoscience walled garden... dab (𒁳) 16:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

He's still at it by the way. I've left some remarks on his talk page but I haven't removed the link again (three reverts and all that). --Folantin (talk) 16:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hittites

Goldenhawk 0 looks as though he may be back in the persona of "IndoHistorian". He has added a lot of stuff to the Hittites page, which seems to be designed to demonstrate that the Hittites were "yellow". It has been partly cleaned up by another editor, but still seems very bizarre. Paul B (talk) 08:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Goldenhawk 0 et al are undoubtedly the latest avatars of User:Maleabroad, who was a persistent sockpupeteer editing (or rather POV pushing) on various Hinduism/Buddhism related articles. If it helps, take a look at this subpage that we had created about a year back to keep track of his latest socks; although be aware that the page was last updated in May 2007. Abecedare (talk) 08:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I remember Maleabroad well. If that is so, his interests and obsessions have evolved somewhat. Paul B (talk) 09:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The main change is that he has started adding refs, although I wouldn't take any information he adds at face value. He still is interested in Sacred Cow and Decline of Buddhism in India (earlier he used Buddha as an Avatar of Vishnu and Zoroastrianism and Hinduism to push the same POV). But all editing similarities asides, here are the damning links , and (note the date of the two wiki edits). I assume you recall that Maleabraod = Brown Hindu = PrimeDirectives. QED Abecedare (talk) 09:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Good sock-spotting. checkuser gave us confirmed: couple of new accounts blocked indef. Moreschi (talk) 20:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Medak Pocket

Apparently this battle between Canadian UN peacekeepers and Croatian army forces never happened. Nope, it was all made up — Western media, the UN, the Hague, we all just made it up. We know this for sure, because lots of websites that end in .hr tell us so. *Sigh*... the Plague spreads... <eleland/talkedits> 16:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Remember: Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. I doubt if those .hr sites fit the bill. --Folantin (talk) 16:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Assyria (Persian Province)

see here: we now get articles on non-existent Achaemenid provinces, for the purpose of, you guessed it, national mysticist coatracking (note the section on "survival" / "continuity"). Article should reside at Persian Mesopotamia or similar, if not split altogether into the articles on the actual provinces, Media (Persian province) and Babylonia (Persian province). --dab (𒁳) 16:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

If the province didn't exist then obviously we shouldn't have an article on it. --Folantin (talk) 09:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

it may be useful to do an article on the "History of Mesopotamia during Persian domination". This appears to be the intended scope. The appropriate title would then be Persian Mesopotamia or similar. The article presents some sort of soundbite of a "megasatrapy of Assyria". I've never heard of the term "megasatrapy". Neither has google. What is intended by this is "the two satrapies of Babylonia and Media taken together", but phrased by hook or crook so that you get "Assyria" in the title somehow. dab (𒁳) 10:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

"it may be useful to do an article on the 'History of Mesopotamia during Persian domination'". That would certainly be possible. In fact, I once looked into that area of history. IIRC there were several revolts in Babylon against Persian rule, for example. --Folantin (talk) 10:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I was just at the British Museum at the Terracotta Army exhibition, and was looking at books in the bookshop and thinking I must get some on this era so I can help with it. I've looked at the bit about the revolt and can edit that later today with a reference.--Doug Weller (talk) 12:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking at the pages you're allowed to view on Google books of the Cambridge History of Iran (Vol 2 ). The relevant chapter is number 10: "The Babylonian Evidence of Achaemenian Rule in Mesopotamia". From reading this and a few other things, it seems a family of financiers called the Murašu and their archives are important for this era. But we don't have an article on them. --Folantin (talk) 13:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

General impression: (a) Babylonia was extremely important to the Persians; (b) we don't have much information about it. --Folantin (talk) 13:42, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I also see that Chaldean and Tourskin have created an article Fall of Harran which basically repeats the information in Harran -- leave, put up for deletion? What really gets me about the various articles they are creating or expanding, is that they simply don't care about references, citations, what have you, the articles they write are just plain substandard.--Doug Weller (talk) 17:05, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

There were Assyrians under the Persian Empire (possibly mixed up with the Syrians) but, as far as I can see, no "Assyria" as such (the Cambridge History of Iran says it's far from clear what "Athura" meant and views it as an ethnic not a regional designation). I'm not sure why we can't treat the region under the heading "Mesopotamia under the Persian Empire" (the Cambridge History has a chapter heading "The Babylonian Evidence of Achaemenian Rule in Mesopotamia") because there's not exactly a vast amount of information out there and adding Babylonia would give the page more substance. Maybe I'll get round to it one day. --Folantin (talk) 17:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Safavids

Some so-far minor problems here with Altai Khan (talk · contribs) busy claiming the Safavids were "pure Turkic" (yes, I'm sorry to bore everyone with the Perso-Turkic stuff again, we've seen it all before, but then there is an awful lot of this bollocks). Apparently he has some other curious beliefs. Anyway, so far it's limited to talkpage tendentiousness, but it could turn nastier. The user may be a reincarnation of some IPs, at least one of which I blocked, who played silly buggers with this same page a while back, but then again he may not be. If not, he'll be in need of the Misplaced Pages Rehabilitation School for Clueless Prepubescent Nationalists. Moreschi (talk) 20:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

This whole Iranian-Turkic brouhaha needs knocking on the head but I'm too tired to dig out the reliable sources at the moment ( maybe never given the inevitable endless wrangling it would involve). Basically, we have the ongoing spat between Persophones and speakers of Azeri (a Turkic language) in the modern Islamic Republic of Iran being back-projected into past centuries. There's also a confusion over the meaning of terms now and then. Our contemporary POV-pushers are obsessed with some allegedly scientific definition of ethnicity based on blood analysis. But in the time of the Safavids, "Turkic" and "Persian" have a cultural and linguistic meaning. From reading Jean-Paul Roux's Histoire de l'Iran et des Iraniens, the founder of the Safavid Empire, Shah Ismail, might possibly have been Kurdish (and therefore Iranian), but his culture and language were definitely Turkic and his power was based on the support of the Turkic Qizilbashes. Of course, some of the later Safavids distanced themselves from this. But that's by the by. Our friend Altai Khan, who believes the ancient Indo-Iranians, Iranians, Perrsians, Parthians, Achaemenids, Scythians were really Turkic, is a Pan-Turkist crank who should be dealt with quick-smart. --Folantin (talk) 20:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Amen Clinic and Daniel G. Amen

=) Someone ] has been removing criticism and trying to make these articles promotional... and low and behold, it is someone from..... drumroll...... the Amen Clinic!

Any help patrolling or dealing with this appreciated. Hohohahaha (talk) 02:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Mahāmada

While I admire the work that went behind this article, it really needs attention from some informed and sceptical editors. Abecedare (talk) 07:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, the exact content is also repeated at Mahāmad. I'll redirect. Abecedare (talk) 07:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

oh dear. Classic WP:SYN fringecruft. I mean,

"In the 20th book of Atharvaveda Hymn 127 Some Suktas (chapters) are known as Kuntap Sukta. Kuntap means the consumer of misery and troubles. Thus meaning the message of peace and safety and if translated in Arabic means Islam."

..."Kuntapa" means "peace". "Islam" means "peace". Therefore, the Atharvaveda prophesies Islam. Any questions? You also got to love the way the "References" are stashed at the end of the article without rhyme or reason in 31 consecutive footnotes of, let's say, heterogenous nature. Unsurprisingly, this turns out to be blogcruft. . dab (𒁳) 10:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Any article referring to Bhavishya Purana, Nostradamus and the ilk, needs impeccable academic sourcing; because an online search, or books published by 'independent'-publishers, can yield just about any prophecy one wants attributed to these sources. The Bhavishya Purana article has an interesting quote by A. K. Ramanujan on this phenomenon, taking it as (tongue-in-cheek) evidence of the Puranas being an "open-system". Abecedare (talk) 13:38, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Note --> Article is still going through edits. and Actual photos from Vedas and Context from Vedas as well as Puranas will be put in as References and Literature. You can help by improving article .

Comment - A. K. Ramanujan is just a writer who in describes personal view of some Puranas. Mahamad is in Puranas and Vedas etc ... If you want to research please goto websites that provide information on the Holy Books that were mentioned in article. --DWhiskaZ (talk) 16:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, the Ramanujan quoote is taken from Doniger, Wendy (editor) (1993). Purāṇa Perennis: Reciprocity and Transformation in Hindu and Jaina Texts. Albany, New York: State University of New York. ISBN 0-7914-1382-9. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help), and is not some random entry on a website/blog.Abecedare (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that the consensus of scholarship considers the "prophecies", for example in the Bhavishya Purana, to post-date the events they discuss. Vassyana (talk) 17:13, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The blogcruft is rather old, actually, and can be ultimately traced back to the ramblings of Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi. Blooming nonsense from beginning to end. rudra (talk) 18:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

"Actual photos from Vedas" -- what is this even supposed to mean? This is, of course, blooming nonsense. The question is, is it notable. It's some sort of "the Vedas predicted Islam" hoax. Can we establish it as a notable hoax? In this case, we could keep the article (appropriately rewritten of course). Otherwise, put it on AfD. dab (𒁳) 14:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It is unlikely to be notable. The basic history is that Muhammad was "predicted" in the Bhavishya Purana (probably in the 19th C, perhaps a little earlier) as a destructive force. Abdul Haq Vidyarthi, an Ahmadiya dawagandist, reinterpreted the derogatory passage as an affirmation of Islam, not that anyone would notice or care. That is, until the invention of the blog. rudra (talk) 17:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

ok, it redirects to Bhavishya_Purana#Pratisargaparvan now. I was wondering why a Sanskrit text should portray Muhammad in a positive light. Could you add the detail on the Ahmadiya re-interpretation to the entry perhaps? dab (𒁳) 17:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It should not be Redirected because we already mentioned that Real Photos from Bhavishya Purana, Kalki Avatar, All Vedas that hold information about Mahamad will be added as Refs and Information. We are getting all Holy Books that contain information about Mahamad. and add Real Photos from them. If the article gets redirected to Bhavishya Purana it doesnt make sense to Kalki Avtar, or Atharaveda, Rigveda and all vedas that mention Mahamad. So thats why Redirect is not needed either you put it on AfD or wait untill information from Vedas are provided. --99.238.149.85 (talk) 18:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

If you going to put it up on AfD than AfD al links then inform DWhiskaZ or you can wait untill information from Vedas are posted.--99.238.149.85 (talk) 18:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear IP/DWhiskaZ, if you have access to manuscripts of Bhavishya Purana pre-dating the 6th/7th century that mention Muhammad, you should definitely get that published in an academic journal and announce the monumental finding to the world ... but not through wikipedia.

The redirect to Bhavishya Purana is a good idea till actual scholarly secondary sources on the topic are found that establish Mahāmada is notable, even as a fringe belief. Abecedare (talk) 18:19, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

AfD isn't needed. There's a squib on Mahamada in Bhavishya Purana: just the factoid should be enough. As for "Muhammad/Islam in the Vedas" whatnot, please desist. There are no reliable sources here. All you'll find in blogspace is dawagandists and fringe Hindu loonies, who have diametrically opposite views on these "predictions" or "anticipations" or what have you. Note also that AH Vidyarthi's "translations" are uniformly bogus, for understandable reasons. rudra (talk) 18:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Aside: We can add this to the article:

Mahāmada was one of the hottest topics on wikipedia on March 28th, 2008.

... it is as well referenced as anything else in that article :-) Abecedare (talk) 18:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

While I heartily agree with everything that has been said thus far in favor of whipping this thing back into Bhavishya Purana, I have one point of purely formal concern: The fact that the author included claims connecting 'Mahāmada' with texts other than the Bhavishya (i.e. the Veda Samhitas) - and supposedly with the support of (admittedly suspect) literature - might require us to first expose the true nature of these claims before a merge or even deletion is fully justified. If "real" literature pops up in the discussion - which, I believe, will at best document this as a phenomenon in Islamic/Hindu exegesis of Vedic literature - then 'Mahāmada' might well deserve to survive as a stub or be incorperated elsewhere. But maybe I'm being too lenient... Aryaman (☼) 19:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK, no one has really bothered to debunk AH Vidyarthi's "research" and "translations", which are at the root of all these supposed claims. Believe it or not, I actually spent a day researching this some five years ago, prompted by a thread on a web forum (now, sadly, defunct, taking my post with it into electronic oblivion). I recall one classic mistranslation (of RV.8.6.10, where Vidyarthi read the name "Ahmed" in aham id dhi pituh...) which was the essence of his technique: isolate some words, especially those suggestive of Islamic cognates, and concoct a translation stringing them together without regard to the actual Sanskrit. He wrote an entire book full of stuff like this. rudra (talk) 20:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed that Vidyarthi's book does not qualify as a reliable source, but I found a reference that may be relevant:

Purohit, Teena (2007) 'READING GLOBAL ISLAM THROUGH MESSIANIC RENEWAL IN DASAVATĀR', Sikh Formations, 3:2, p. 151 - 167, Routledge

The paper, which I have only skimmed, discusses and analyzes various instances in which Muhammad (sometimes spelled as "Mahāmada") is considered an avatar of Brahma, Vishnu etc in Ismaili, Sufi and some interpretations of Hindu literature. This gives us some material to write up an encyclopedic entry on the subject, but I am not sure that Mahāmada would be the right title for the page. Any ideas on how to proceed ? If needed, I can email a copy of the paper since it is not freely accessible. Abecedare (talk) 20:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Islamic hermeneutics of Hindu texts? Gah! rudra (talk) 20:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm stabbing in the dark here: Tafsir? I don't know if Tafsir is sub specie aeternitatis performed only upon the Qur'an, or if the term can also cover interpretations of other "books" (i.e. the Bible, the Vedas, etc.). Aryaman (☼) 20:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Theoretically (i.e. literally) it could, but not in practice, as it has long since become a technical word, to the exclusion of its generic meaning, and could very well be deemed blasphemous in some quarters if not applied to readings of the Quran. (In fact, translations of the Quran to other languages are also called tafsir out of politeness, if not piety also. Pickthal titled his work "an Interpretation"!) rudra (talk) 01:46, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment According to my team at Universtiy of Toronto (Scarborough Campus) we have come up with the following statements

• Mahamad is not only mentioned in Bahvishya Purana
• Mahamad is also mentioned in RigVed, Atharvaveda, Kalki Avtar, Bhavishya Purana and Samaveda
• Mahamad may also be mentioned in other vedas not mentioned above
• Going through all these books will take time because books are really thick
• Peronsal matters can be doubt with in Talk page of article

--DWhiskaZ (talk) 21:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Once again, please desist, unless you can find reliable sources and avoid synthesis (such as supposed "corroborations" in the Quran or whatever). In particular, note that anything attributable to AH Vidyarthi is known to be thoroughly unreliable, including the stuff you had copy-pasted from www.islam101.com. (And, one alleged "Ved Prakash Upadhai" (i.e. Upadhyay) is a complete cipher. He may not even exist.) rudra (talk) 00:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Potential merge target Since all the blog/web sources about Mahāmada being mentioned in the Puranas/Vedas etc eventually lead back to the books by A.H. Vidyarthi (see the 30+ links in the Mahāmada page), I think the article content should be merged with Abdul Haq Vidyarthi. In that article we can clearly state his views on Mohammad being prophecized in Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Parsi literature with fewer concerns about WP:REDFLAG and WP:UNDUE. Abecedare (talk) 03:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Note: I just ran across this. Not a WP:RS, obviously, but he seems to have done his homework. rudra (talk) 07:11, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

still at it. Ultimate Prophet (Pbuh) Foretold. I think a block may be appropriate at this point. dab (𒁳) 10:59, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

another possible merge target would be Prophecy#Ahmadiyya. --dab (𒁳) 11:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Note Article was already trimed down and you already tried redirecting it to another Holy Book that also contains information about Mahamada. The article was created to post views from all Holy Books. --DWhiskaZ (talk) 11:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

the article doesn't contain anything of merit. Misplaced Pages isn't a blog. dab (𒁳) 12:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Location hypotheses of Atlantis - COI?

Can someone please look at the recent edits by Atlantis-korrekt in the light of and tell me what they think? Leave it or? And while I have someone's attention, what do I do when an IP user starts calling me a Nazi on my talk page as they have twice in the last few hours? Thanks.--Doug Weller (talk) 07:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

George Washington a Catholic?

There is apparently a Catholic urban legend going around that George Washington was baptized Roman Catholic on his deathbed by Leonard Neale, 2nd archbishop of Baltimore. The typical "reference" for this is to a pair of articles supposedly published in the "Denver Register" in the 1950s. Laura Scudder very graciously went to the Denver Public Library and discovered that these references appear to be spurious, as detailed here. We've managed to keep the material out of George Washington and religion, but User:Dwain has been diligent in keeping the material in Leonard Neale, now resorting to a new set of references referring to the National Catholic Register, something called "Information Magazine", and a book by Leonard Feeney of Feeneyite fame. I have no assurances that the NCR ref is legit, and the other two don't give page numbers or issue information or anything else sufficient to find the supposed passages.

There are two eyewitness accounts of Washington's death, and neither of them gives the slightest hint that any such thing happened. It would be nice if some others would take a look at this. I've tried remonstrating with Dwain, with negligible success. Mangoe (talk) 17:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

If one could actually track down the NCR cite (1957? ouch...), I would judge it a reliable source. But in lieu of that, since there seems to be no more mainstream coverage of the incident, or even coverage of buzz about the incident, I would agree that the information is dubious at best. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, according to their website, The National Catholic Register was founded in 1927 as the national edition of the Denver Catholic Register. In other words, it was the same paper that we have already discounted under a different banner. I think it highly unlikely that the article appeared in the National edition and not the local one. I would say that it is up to Dwain to demonstrate otherwise. As for the other sources, we definitely need publication info to say they are reliable. I am also concerned that these sources are simply repeating the rumor without fact checking. As WP:V states: "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources". This is certainly an exceptional claim... but I don't think any of these qualify as exceptional sources. Blueboar (talk) 18:46, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that the NCR is the real source of this, just as it has been made clear that "Denver Register" wasn't the immediate source earlier. This is a textbook case for WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, as I have no doubt that User:Dwain has never seen the actual documents he cites. Mangoe (talk) 20:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Baccyak4H, you are correct that NCR is a reliable source, I have located the original articles from The National Catholic Register. The opinion of these two that I am lying is insulting. Since I am only referencing a tradition that Leonard Neale baptized Washington on his deathbed and am not stating that the story is real or not but only that it exists and have sourced it I don't believe there should be such a controversy over this. Mangoe threatened me not to add it again earlier on my talk page and now even after I reworked the info, corrected a source and added more sources, Blueboar is deleting the information. The fact is there is a "story" and Leonard Neale was mentioned in it. I am not doing anything wrong. Dwain (talk) 22:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Dwaine, you are doing much more than just mentioning that there is a "story" about Leonard Neale. This is a rather exceptional "story" that also concerns one of the most prominent men in American History (George Washington). This "story" takes up two of the largest paragraphs in the article... which only has about ten paragraphs. So even if we were to include it, there is a question of WP:Undue Weight. Spending that amount of space on a "story" gives it a certain level of creadance. More importantly, if it is "just a story", we should not be including it in the first place. An encyclopedia should not repeat rumors and legends, especially rumors and legends about notable historic figures. Qualifying what is a rather extraordinary claim behind "There is a story that...", does not change the fact that it is extraordinary. We still need exceptionally reliable sources to repeat that story. Blueboar (talk) 23:13, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

OK... we definitely need a third party (preferably a neutral admin) to review this before it gets into futher edit warring. Dwain has already violated 3rr (I have warned him, but not taken any action) and has rejected any and all arguments that Mango and I have presented on the talk page. Any takers? Blueboar (talk) 12:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Truthers at ArbCom

September 11 conspiracy theories and related issues have been taken to ArbCom. The case is currently at the Workshop stage, and a large part of the page is ArbCom looking at various implications of WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV. It might be useful for editors experienced in the area to keep an eye on the workshop page to make sure the poor little dears don't get confused and come down with an interpretation of policy that makes our life difficult. Relata refero (talk) 20:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been watching that page and related pages with some trepidation. I have contributed a tiny bit as well, but some was nuked because it got a truther upset. And I was given a nice threat of a block for upsetting the truther. By the way the WP:CIVIL police are on the hunt to make the word "truther" an uncivil slur and its use a blockable offense.--Filll (talk) 12:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

it is sadly true that the arbcom seems to be losing their footing in the purposes and realities of this project. Unlike other recurring problems which the community can route around, this is a real and upsetting danger, because the arbcom stands outside and above the wiki process. I don't know what can be done about it. There is no bad faith involved as far as I can see, just an increasing unwillingness to apply common sense. This is the "IRC admin" attitude: editors are peons, just slap them now and again to keep them in line. Content is for editors, we manage the 'pedia, we don't condescend to either read or write it. We've come a long way from "admins are janitors". dab (𒁳) 14:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

These days, admins remind me of playground supervisors who let the kids beat the hell out of each other, but come running in if one uses the word "fuck." <eleland/talkedits> 20:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Eleland, this comment should be framed and placed right at the top of the WP:AN/I page. I remember everyone shrugging and saying "RfA is broken" back in 2006. What we now experience are the long-term repercussions of that defect. I sometimes feel we need two classes of admins: those trusted with menial tasks like slapping vandals, and those trusted to have a grasp of encyclopedicity. Spend enough time vandal-slapping, and you develop the feeling that Misplaced Pages is about "the vandals vs. the admins", forgetting the actual encyclopedists that plod away between the fronts. dab (𒁳) 09:25, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Civility is the only policy enforced nowadays because it takes no effort or intelligence for any ignoramus "uninvolved admin" to interpret it. Apparently, Misplaced Pages is no longer an encyclopaedia but a finishing school for young ladies. I love the idea that banning the word "truther" will solve all our problems with bug-eyed, overcaffeinated conspiracy theorists. That's magic thinking at its finest. About a year ago, there was a move to purge Misplaced Pages talk pages of the "offensive" word "cruft". Of course, since that time not one of our articles has been afflicted by agglomerations of inane pop cultural trivia, so the method clearly works. --Folantin (talk) 11:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know who these "uninvolved admins" are because I can' be bothered to follow these discussions, but it is getting worse. Since 2007, I have come across admins with astoundingly bad judgement that would have been unthinkable in 2005, and that's not even including the (still very rare) instances of actual bad faith. We have made "admins" of mere well-meaning vandal-slappers with no education or grasp of anything more complicated than the decision process required to figure that replacing a page with "penis penis" is vandalism. We've done that because we need these people to bear the brunt of the graffiti artists and bored highschoolers. But we should have made sure they would not get the impression that they "are" the encyclopedia or that they are "running things": this may end in despair. Moreschi et al. have seen the rainclouds and built an ark. It's a good thing the community is reasonably inert (I should know), but we absolutely need to counter the rampant anti-elitism. An encyclopedia is elitist. Not necessarily "elitist" in terms of who may contribute, but elitist in terms of what is required of editors, whoever they are. dab (𒁳) 18:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Race and intelligence article

Some editors of this article have stated that it includes fringe theories. Do you believe that the article presents fringe theories and what in the article do you consider fringe? --Jagz (talk) 18:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Consensus on the neutrality and fringe elements of this article have already been built in an RFC - User:Slrubenstein and others have already gone into great detail on the talk page to explain the problems with this article. A lot of people's time and WP space has been given to this already--Cailil 20:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

::If I thought there was consensus of what the fringe elements of the article were I wouldn't have listed it on this Noticeboard. --Jagz (talk) 20:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, you are being told there is consensus, according to non-involved observers. Are you going to keep denying it even exists?--Ramdrake (talk) 20:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

::::I see a lot of mention of fringe in the RfC but they do not always specify exactly what they are referring to. The RfC was to answer whether people thought the article was neutral and the answer was no. I'm looking for the specifics of what fringe items need to be addressed. Also, the article looks headed for Mediation so there doesn't appear to be a lot of agreement. --Jagz (talk) 20:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

You have had the article well analyzed on the talk page already, Jagz. You have had an RFC. Outside opinion has been sought and given. Consensus has been established on the page. Now, considering your edit summary closing the RFC (today) saying " I think we have had enough replies, removed RfC templates" outside views are no longer being looked for. Coming here to "ask the other parent" is "antithetical to the way that Misplaced Pages works" and may be considered tendentious--Cailil 22:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz is pushing a POV that has been discredited and is frankly Pseudoscience. Thank you Cailil for making this point. Jagz' tendentiousness is exhausting. OrangeMarlin 23:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This isn't worth all this abuse. --Jagz (talk) 23:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Notes: (1) The strikethrough of OrangeMarlin's comment was made by Jagz. Update: Jagz has undone the strikethrough of OM's comment. (2) I concur with Cailil on the remainder. I am not an administrator. Antelan 06:48, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

when something is truly controversial, there is nothing for us but to simply state that it is controversial, and put the best references we have alongside each other. I find it astounding how difficult this appears to be to understand for some people (Kosovo...) dab (𒁳) 09:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Technical analysis

The stock market equivalent of tea-leaf reading, promoted par excellence by Misplaced Pages. "Critics say it's wrong, but look, here are some outlying studies!" 64.231.60.239 (talk) 01:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The IP's right. Anyone here ever seen a broker analysing charts? An astrologer with a star-map has nothing on the level of inexplicable confidence those chaps display. Off there to crack a few heads. Relata refero (talk) 08:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Done some rewording, added cites, made the mainstream opinion clear in the lead. Hopefully the manager of grandma's pension fund will read it and re-think giving several billion dollars of small investors' savings to a firm run by loopy chartists. Really, if there's one thing that the Mantanmoreland-Bagley-Weiss business should have taught us, its that POV-pushing is inevitable in articles related to theoretical finance. Relata refero (talk) 12:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The coverage of the efficient markets hypothesis is criminally poor — the synonym for it is the Hayek hypothesis, and he isn't even mentioned. --Haemo (talk) 19:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right, the "theoretical background" section is unreadable. (I am not fond of thinking of EMH as the Hayek hypothesis, incidentally, partly because I was taught that the HH was a response to the Walrasian "socialist calculations" summarised in the Lange-Lerner Equations. And I bet that's a redlink too.) Relata refero (talk) 22:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, whaddya know. Someone wrote this. Never underestimate the Austrians. Relata refero (talk) 22:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Everything related to technical analysis in Misplaced Pages (and there is a bunch!) suffers from COI, self-interested point-of-view pushing. Since some people make money attracting customers to their "predictive services" they do not give up easily. Essentially much of it is spam. Glad to see RR and I agree on something, but I don't get the MBW reference or conclusion. Happy editing in any case. Smallbones (talk) 21:20, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I really liked your revision of the article, Relato, but wondered how long it would stay that way. It's being rapidly reverted to a more technical-analysis-friendly account. Woonpton (talk) 15:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Megalithic geometry

This one is getting ridiculous. Deleted, recreated, another attempt at deletion which failed, which I think was a mistake. It is now both growing like Topsy and being used (I believe) to add 'salt line' fringe stuff to other articles such as Avebury and Ring of Brodgar. See Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Megalithic geometry (2nd nomination). I'm guessing that once the editor is finished with this article you will see bits of it all over the place.--Doug Weller (talk) 17:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully I'm wrong about his intentions to exploit this, as he's said I can delete the stuff on the Avebury and Ring of Brodgar articles.--Doug Weller (talk) 19:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I redirected this nonsense to pseudoarchaeology. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Now see Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2008 March 29#Megalithic geometry (closed). The SPA guarding this idea has made a complaint about my redirect of Megalithic yard. There have also been some untoward inclusions of these ideas at:

• Phaistos Disc‎
• Avebury‎
• Stone circle‎
• Ring of Brodgar

which I have reverted.

ScienceApologist (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Where do I find the edits I made to megalithic yard? I need to reinstate these in the metrology article.--Doug Weller (talk) 20:52, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

All are still available here. ScienceApologist (talk) 09:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

"$ETHNIC warfare"

I've found a new popular outlet for testosterone-imbued ethnic nationalism.... articles on ancient warfare!

We have Celtic warfare (and Gaelic warfare), Illyrian warfare, Assyrian warfare, Military history of Iran, Ancient Macedonian army/Hellenistic armies. Not all these articles are terrible. But they need supervision. It is also clear at a glance that the same nationalisms that give us grief elsewhere result in poorer "Ancient warfare" articles. Unsurprisingly, of course. I can only state my puzzlement over the fact that Ararat arev hasn't given us a glowing account of Armenian warfare yet :) dab (𒁳) 18:46, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

"In massed fighting however, the Gauls' rudimentary organization and tactics fared poorly against the well oiled machinery that was the Legion."

So, where do I enlist? :) Aryaman (☼) 12:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Dossey sub-section on Efficacy of prayer

From Efficacy of prayer:

In his book Reinventing Medicine Larry Dossey claims that there will be three eras of medicine, the first dealing with physical medicine (where patients take pills), the second with mind-body medicine (where the body treats itself through psychosomatic methods) and the third with eternity medicine in which patients are affected from a distance via intercessory prayer. As evidence, the book refers mostly to the same third party studies mentioned above, but suggests that they will be further strengthened by future studies.

Is this guy notable enough to warrant an entire sub-section?

His name pops up on QuackWatch several times. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:54, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe... though I don't think that particular subsection would be the one. Hohohahaha (talk) 04:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Dossey gets plenty of hits within and without WP, but that paragraph belongs in his article (which probably should exist). Whatever else, it does not belong in the "Scientific and medical belief and skepticism" section. Faith healing has some pretty decent references for expanding on the idea of prayer as an alternative approach to healing. Energy medicine does not mention prayer specifically, but I seem to recall that some of those references should also be relevant at least as a starting point. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 04:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

TM-Sidhi Program

The section above on technical analysis brought to my mind this body of new-age research (also including the random-number generator stuff--I haven't even looked to see if WP has a page on that) which operates the same way, using voodoo statistics to locate spurious patterns in what is essentially noise.

The article has a neutrality problem (someone else has also noticed and put a neutrality tag on the page). There is some criticism of the "research" but the criticism is subjected to a kind of smoke-screen rebuttal and the general impression left is that there's something wrong with the criticism rather than with the research. Even the fact that some of the research was awarded the IgNobel prize, is given a positive spin in the article. I don't have the time or energy to take this on, but it needs more "eyes" as the saying goes. Woonpton (talk) 18:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Pseudohistory

Those of us who regularly watch this page are quick to spot pseudoscience and label it as such. We are much slower off the mark as to pseudohistory (Probably more scientists watch this page than historians). In any case, a slow boil edit war (ie it changes back and forth about once a month) is going on at the article on Robert Lomas, the author of "The Hyram Key" (basic premise for those not familiar with the book: The ancient Egyptians had ritual certain practices; The early Christians in Jerusalem followed these practices, and by the way Jesus did not die on the cross; Suppose they hid documents to this effect in the ruins of the Temple. The Knights Templars are said to have found something in the ruins of the Temple, therefore what they found were these documents. Since the Freemasons might be descendants of the Templars, the Masons are directly connected to the Ancient Egyptians.) To me this has so many suppositions and conjectures that it can only be called pseudohistory. However, attepts to categorize Lomas as a pseudohistorian and his label his work as pseudohistory are reverted. Note... the book was a best seller and helped inspire The DaVinci Code... so it is notable. Those of us arguing to call it pseudohistory are not attempting to delete the article... only to make it clear that this is not history. Some assistance by those who care about historical Fringe Theories is needed. Blueboar (talk) 00:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is even pseudohistory. Category:Fantasy writers may fit better. I mean, I do not hope anyone is suggesting any of this has anything to do with actual history. It may still be interesting as "alternate history" literature. --dab (𒁳) 07:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

5 celebrating men after the Sept 11 attacks

This is my first time in this Noticeboard, I hope I have come to the right place. There has been a dispute going on here on the inclusion of the incident reported by the New York Times, NYT says:

Sherri Evanina, a F.B.I. spokeswoman in Newark, said five men were detained late Tuesday after the van in which they were driving was stopped on Route 3 in East Rutherford. She said witnesses had reported seeing the men celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center earlier in the day in Union City.

Other editors have objected to covering this incident in Celebrations of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the base that this incident was reported by anonymous eye-witnesses. In my opinion, the incident is notable enough to be covered in the article. Imad marie (talk) 13:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

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

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