Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:06, 22 April 2009

Template:Archive box collapsible

Neil Brick

Anyone watch this page? Check out the contributions of Neil Brick on Citizendium - . Anyone who knew ResearchEditor should check out some talk page contributions too, they're pretty similar... WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 12:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Talk: Skeptical Inquirer

Hi. As per Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines#Others' comments, yes you can indeed remove Talk Page material if it does not pertain to improving the article. Article Talk Pages are not forums or message boards, and thus, using them for general discussion of the article's topic is not permitted. You say that some of the material has "merit". In terms of a discussion about the magazine, yes, but in terms of Talk Page guidelines, it has none, since there is no discussion about improving the article in that thread. If, however, you can point where there is mention of improving the article in that section, I'll hold off from removing it again. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 02:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't get the context of the original question, and therefore I didn't realize it referred to something in the article. The rest, however, does not. Material relating to the magazine is not appropriate for inclusion on a Talk Page. Since you made a comment to this effect yourself in that thread, I'll let it go. Thanks again. Nightscream (talk) 01:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Spoliers

Thanks for that. I thought I'd read something like that before, but I wasn't certain. Alan16 23:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Cathy O'Brien & other fringe figures

Thanks for your input. I'm actually in agreement with you regarding Satanic Panics. O'Brien has pointed to Hammond's speech as proof that she's not nuts. If I can find a reference from a decent source, I'll use that instead. I feel it's important when editing articles about such fringe figures to include material that is supportive of their claims even if that support is in and of itself not proof. At the time of the speech, Hammond's comments were considered remarkable and important. Even though he has backed away from them somewhat, he has stopped short of disavowing the speech. The speech is one of the few examples of "establishment" support for such claims. Clearly I need to find a better way of including it if it's to be included at all. I'll check back with you if I find anything that stands up to scrutiny and I won't include it without talking to you first.

My word, WP:TLDR normally applies. I usually only write this much when I'm bludgeoning a POV account to get them to leave. If O'Brien has pointed to Hammond, then that MUST be sourced to avoid WP:OR. If Hammond has distanced himself, then that should also be sourced, and also means the entry should be considerably shorter. Linking the two without explicity sources makes it a synthesis that we should not use as it makes wikipedia look like it is supporting a conclusion.

I see you have also made some edits to Ralph Rene. His is another article that often gets tipped over towards out and out ridicule of the man. Please help me prevent that article from tipping in that direction in the future if you can. It's easy for some Skeptics to justify savaging elderly or recently deceased conspiracy theorists, but I don't think that serves the Misplaced Pages purpose any more than an overly indulgent article would. As a "rational skeptic" myself , I feel we have a duty to accurately represent what these folks believed, why they are notable, support for their positions and reasonable criticisms of their theories and/or the support for them. A well-sourced article can speak for itself and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Yes, we should briefly document their beliefs, but we should equally document how actual science does not support them. Fringe theory pages should, to the furthest extent possible with the sources we have, make it clear that the theory itself is not supported and should include reasons why (IMO).

On another matter, I see you have an interest in moral panics. Would you consider taking a look at the following article:Gerald Robinson (priest)?

I'll have a look. Note that ] and ]s both render as moral panics. The latter saves you time.

As a folklorist and someone with ties to the Toledo are, I followed this case with interest. At first it was fairly obvious that the priest was the object of a witch hunt. However, Toledo is an odd place. Over the past ten years there have been a number of very public Catholic Pedophile cases and when Robinson was arrested, the local newspaper, the Toledo Blade, assigned a reporter whose editorial stance seemed highly antagonistic towards The Church. His reporting gradually focused more and more on increasingly bizarre and tangential accusations of Satanic Ritual Abuse. Most of what he wrote about never made it into the trial but it did have the intended effect of whipping a certain sector of the community into a frenzy. Even so, most people in Toledo were shocked that he was convicted and don't believe the accusations. Locally, the case has been compared to that of the West Memphis 3. The reporter for The Blade apparently already had a book deal in hand before the case was decided and it appears to me (in my humble opinion) that it may have colored his reporting significantly.

Unfortunately without sources there's not much you can do. However, since satanic ritual abuse is a fringe theory, WP:PARITY applies and the bar is somewhat laxer. Is it this Gerald Robinson? This book would also seem to be a good source. Tantalizingly, this book also mentions him. The page does need a re-work, those external links need to be included as inline citations rather than external links (see point 1). Also, it's not mandatory, but citation templates are of considerable help to a reader, particularly to someone reading a print version. And if the link to the WM3 is your own analysis, it's probably also not a good idea (though see also links have a much looser set of criteria for inclusion). Also needs an infobox, probably {{infobox person}}.

All I ask is that you look the article over and decide if there should be a separate article on the crime itself and one for his Bio. That is often what editors do when the crime itself has fantastic elements such as satanism alleged. This way the bio of living persons standards can be applied to the bio article and the crime article can contain all the crazy stuff. If you decide that two articles aren't justified, please just look over the article and see if you can't bring a little balance to it. As it stands now, it reads like this "Evil Satanist priest kills nun and now is properly rotting in jail". I recognize that the man was convicted of the murder and that belongs in his bio. He may even be guilty of the crime. The thing is, the satanism stuff is almost all coming from one reporter. The jury didn't convict him of being a satanist or for being part of a vast satanic conspiracy, ya know? They only convicted him of murder.

Considering the page is solely about the murder and there's virtually no detail about Robinson himself, the page should really be called Toledo Mercy Hospital murder case or something similar. IMO neither Robinson nor Pahl deserve a separate page if all they are notable for is being killed. WP:BLP also applies. The only way to bring balance to the article is to review hte sources and include information they contain on why people don't think he's actually guilty. Sometimes it's not possible.

If you don't have time for this, I understand. I merely thought you might be of some assistance given your recent edits. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!LiPollis (talk) 03:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure. My overall advice, is to read up on WP:N, WP:BLP, WP:FRINGE and the other generic policies. In general, I don't need to invoke WP:IAR to improve a page on satanic ritual abuse, because there's a lot of skepticism and skeptical sources. I'll try to look into it, but it's a new topic and it'll take some reading to get up to speed. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 13:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Your note on the ID talk page

Your comment here was at the very least BITEy. I see no sign of trolling in the guy's posts. Aunt Entropy (talk) 14:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Meh, if it's a WP:SPA I'm not super concerned and if it's a throwaway account they won't be back. Either way, it's too vague to do anything with that I can see. I've dealt with soooo many fundie trolls on the evolution pages that I've very little patience for them. I know what the arguments are, I know what the replies are going to be, and I don't like going through the same dance every time. If they turn out to be a solid contributor over the long term, I'll apologize. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 20:18, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Gerald Robinson (priest)

Thanks for taking the time to have a look at that article. the two books you linked to are in fact, about the case. The second book you linked to by David Yonke will not likely be a good source NPOV facts. He's the reporter from the Toledo Blade. His writing leans in favor of Satanic Ritual Abuse and satanic conspiracies. However, his book is likely to contain more direct information on the trial since he covered that beat. The first book looks to be a typical lurid true crime book cranked out to coincide with the release of Yonke's book. The author, John Glatt, is as true-crime writer who pumps books like this on a regular basis. He doesn't usual have any direct involvement in the cases he writes about.

The most helpful comment you have made is to point out that the article really ought to be renamed. Your proposed name sounds fine to me and I would support your making the change. That would solve the immediate problem of the POV issues in a BLP article. Going ahead with the name change would put the focus on the crime itself and make it much easier to introduce facts about the case. In the event that you want to do some reading, Court TV's article is a good place to start. It's a good representation of the lurid nature of the reporting on the crime and the case at is progressed. Here's the link: Killer Clergy.

Thanks again for everything. I'm not a Wiki novice but I've not had a lot of time to edit in the past year. I've gotten a little rusty. Also, when an article is just thoroughly troubled, it's often hard to know where to begin! Thanks again. LiPollis (talk) 18:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Drunk. Will reply later. 01:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

You always begin with the sources. If the Toledo Blade is very biased, use it for factual and that's it. Supplement with info from other sources that are more skeptical. Anyway, I'm not really that interested in expanding the page, I may review the extant online sources and see if there are any low-hanging fruit to pick but if you really think it's problematic, the best thing is to change the page yourself. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 16:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the info. I'll remember it next time, and avoid wasting my time on debates where people have made up their minds and are not planning on changing any time soon. I've started this one though, so I'll see it through to the now somewhat inevitable result. Thanks. Alan16 02:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Meh, part of learning wikipedia is learning when you're banging head against a deletion debate you can't win. I've been through it. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 02:22, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Non Sequitur

WLU,

I am interested to hear the reasons that led you to think that the connection between interest (emotion) and attention is an example of Non sequitur (logic). Diff - http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Attention&diff=prev&oldid=278541451

I might as well misunderstood the revert you made.

Perhaps you think there is a connection, but you didn't like the way it was illustrated in the text you reverted? In that case, for the purpose of better illustrating the connection perhaps you might want to formulate something like this: "This however does not happen unrelated to emotions and their intensity levels. The more one finds oneself intensively interested in particular content of another person's conversation, while at the same time one finds the third persons conversations' contents much less interesting, the more - if not entirely exclusively - one finds one's own attention getting concentrated on one conversation only, or - in the other case - the more one can find one's own attention being shared among other, not so interesting conversations, or other not so interesting aspects of one's environment at the time, and/or withdrawn and directed instead at one's own thoughts/memories/plans/etc, not paying attention to what's being said." I wonder if such formulation makes sense to you, or it should be re-formulated furtherly yet... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.2.237.17 (talk) 10:34, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Please read WP:LEAD. The lead is meant to summarize the text in the main body of the page. This is a large dump of information about a different topic (interest and the cocktail party effect) in the lead of attention. This should be written, and sourced, in the body text, then briefly summarized in the lead. Even a brief paragraph filled with examples that are tangentially related to the topic at hand is inappropriate. It is also unsourced, looks a lot like original research, is full of examples, just barely avoids WP:TONE through the use of "one" instead of "you", and is really only one small part of all of what attention is. If you are truly interested in "interest" becoming part of the lead, I would suggest writing an appropriate section in the body before placing a suitably short section in the lead. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 12:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi mate

I would like to ask you if you would like to look and give your opinion on the new Articles for deletion proposal for FreeOrion. I wrote a new version article and I would like to ask you if you could vote on it http://en.wikipedia.org/FreeOrion and http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/FreeOrion_(3rd_nomination) . Thank you! Peer-LAN (talk) 13:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)