Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 04:29, 5 March 2006

• ]

If an article links to this page, it is because someone is concerned that the article may be significantly inaccurate. Such articles have the {{disputed}} warning at the top:

This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help to ensure that disputed statements are reliably sourced. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The accuracy of an article may be a cause for concern if:

• it contains a lot of unlikely information, without providing references.
• it contains information which is particularly difficult to verify.
• in, for example, a long list, some errors have been found, suggesting that the list as a whole may need further checking.
• it has been written (or edited) by a user who is known to write inaccurately on the topic.

A related collaboration mechanism is concerned with disputed statements.

If you come across an article with an accuracy warning, please do the following:

• don't remove the warning simply because the material looks reasonable: please take the time to properly verify it.
• visit the talk page to see what the issues are.
• correct it right away if you can. Please take the time to properly verify it. Please also add to the article any sources you used to verify the information in it: see cite your sources.

If you come across an article whose content seems or is inaccurate, please do the following:

• correct it right away if you can. Please take the time to properly verify it. Please also add to the article any sources you used to verify the information in it: see cite your sources.
• if the neutrality of the content is in question, please look at Misplaced Pages:NPOV dispute.

• if only a few statements seem inaccurate:
  • insert {{dubious}} after the relevant sentence or paragraph.
  • insert a "Disputed" section in the talk page to describe the problem.
  • (Or insert {{dubious|section}} replacing 'section' with the appropriate section on the talk page.)

• if there are more than five dubious statements, or if a dispute arises:
  • insert a "Disputed" section in the talk page to describe the problem. This will help focus contributions from others.
  • paste {{disputed}} in the beginning of the article to add a general warning. Check dispute resolution for ways to resolve it.
  • if you find that the article remains unnoticed, you can draw more attention to it by listing it on Misplaced Pages:Pages needing attention.
  • once you've found the correct information, edit the page to correct it, remove the warnings, and put something like the following in your edit summary:

Verified article -- removed accuracy dispute

When you add an accuracy warning, you are invited to also help resolve accuracy disputes by checking the

• recent list of disputed articles (or the latest (noisy) list and related Accuracy disputes).

Alternative terminology pages that redirect here

Many Misplaced Pages contributors are newbies not familiar with Misplaced Pages's specific terminiology. For their convenience, the following alternative terms for "Accuracy dispute" all redirect here. If you can think of additional terms a newbie is likely to use, please create a redirect page and list it here alphabetically. To create a redirect page, put the exact term in Search and press Go, not Search. the entire text of the page should be: #REDIRECT ]

• Misplaced Pages:Accuracy disputed
• Misplaced Pages:Accuracy disputes
• Misplaced Pages:Accuracy contested
• Misplaced Pages:Contains factual errors
• Misplaced Pages:Contains wrong information
• Misplaced Pages:Contains inaccurate information
• Misplaced Pages:Disputed accuracy
• Misplaced Pages:Disputing accuracy

Current disputes

Serbophobia

This article has some serious problems with factual accuracy and POV pushing. It contains a reference to NY Times article with a problematic interpretation of the title (to say the least). The article may damage Misplaced Pages through this defamation of NY Times. There are other PoV issues and insulting accusations being pushed. Discussion page is bordering personal attacks and attempts to make the article NPoV through discussion is either being ignored or disregarded.--Dado 02:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Michael Graham

Recently, an editor inserted a statement that he commutes to work every day in a single-engine jet, and that he lives in Massachusetts with his (presumably gay) partner. Graham, upon seeing this article, debunked this himself in this column. This article clearly needs work on making sure that its information is factual. --Idont Havaname 01:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Italian_Beef

Check the discussion page, but basically another user disputes referenced recipes and the availibility of variants of the Italian Beef including cheese despite the fact that menus from several chains that have websites were sourced as references to the existance of Italian Beefs with cheese. As stated before, check the discussion page and a history or edits. This editor also removed all external links that were part of the article including recipe's since he himself did not agree with the contents of the recipe.User:MysteriousMystery 00:29, 4 July 2005

Heruli

This article has been subjected to considerable original research, since I unwatched it many months ago. Anyone can have a look at its talkpage to see concerns raised by readers about its accurracy. I understand that it is a fringe subject that very few people have any knowledge of, but I hope that users who have not been implied in any revert wars about the page in the past can have a look at the facts..--Wiglaf 11:56, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Islamofascism

This article has been stripped to the bare bones and apparently (according to reports on the 3RR and Vandalism report pages) locked by an admin (or possibly multiple admins) who is abusing his powers and enforcing POV. Motive for the stripping of the article seems to have been the failure of a Vote for Deletion attempt by a group who have their own POV to push. It would be far better for the article to be locked back to the state it was prior to the initial vandalism (wholesale content deletion) by Grace_Note.

"Background: the before-and-after original vandalism which has been locked into place by Admins abusing their power"

Cyprus

This article neglects to present many, many necessary facts. Firstly, The Turkish Northern Cyprus is not a country in and of itself -- or at least as far as international legitimacy is concerned -- and has no right to consider itself plainly as "Cyprus." The article needs to better represent the history of the dispute between the Turkish-Cypriot North and the Greek-Cypriot South, as well as the uncertainty as to the North's existance as a state, rather than an occupier. Some user has recently replaced the articles pertaining to the legitimate Greek government, Republic of Cyprus and the article pertaining to the island itself, Cyprus, with highly disputable information. For instance, the article pertaining to the EU-Member Greek Republic of Cyprus with a short stint about Turkey being the country and the democratically elected Greek leader being a "rebel" terrorist.

I'm not sure how long this comment has been here,but I have been working to turn Cyprus into a neutral and balanced article. Some of these criticisms appear to be irrelevant now, and as the comment is unsigned I don't know when it was made. Further discussion welcome on Talk:Cyprus or my talk page. Peeper 22:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Taiwan

There is much discussion and no agreement.

Haimirich

This article seems to mix two basic Germanic roots of which many names derived, Haimirich and Amalric . The latter isn't mentioned in the text, but quite some examples given of nowadays forms of Haimirich are either from Amalric (like Emeric ) or their history is doubtful, i.e. could go both ways, could have a totally different root from the mentioned two or its history is very unclear. This problems arises because of the similarity of the two Germanic roots, not in their ancient form, but in the forms that appeared later, with the possibility of growing almost together. Amerigo is an example of a name that could be from both. It could either be a variant of the Italian name Enrico, which is from Haimirich, or from Amalric, through Imre, the Hungarian Saint. In other words, we need some expertise here sorting this out and change this article into something more accurate, distinguishing the two groups clearly and off course we have to create a new article, one about Amalric. 13:55 (GMT), 22 Dec 2004

2004 U.S. Election controversies and irregularities

This article seems to be a conclusion searching for evidence. Except for some very small stories in the mainstream press, this article takes data from unverifiable and dubious (partisan) sources, and attempts to expand the "controversy" into something much bigger than reality. Other editors have produced chartes and graphs based on this dubious data, which firmly goes against Misplaced Pages:No original research. All unverifiable and unreliable data or conclusions should be removed from this article and replaced with brief summaries of the concerns. -- Netoholic @ 17:55, 2004 Nov 11 (UTC)

Intelligent Design

I'm wiping this clear, my comments, and the comments of others fell into two categories, out of date (IE, objections to things that have already been fixed in the article), or coffeeshop debate, things irrelevant to the actual article itself (my comments included). They didn't have a place in on the talk page either.

I'm going to recommend that Intelligent Design be removed from Accuracy Disputes, since a recent series of updates have resulted in a high quality article, with vast citations, and good NPOV. It can still be improved, of course, but there are no egregious problems at the moment.

Could someone else verify or deny my instinct by reading the article, and then either removing Intelligent Design from Accuracy Disputes, or adding a note here outlining the reason it should remain here? Phidauex 17:27, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Sneeze

The article seems presents a large number of facts with no references to back them up. Some facts are internally inconsistent (eg, the speed of a sneeze). Some parts have already been removed for being inaccurate and implausible. The whole article smacks of one of those 'did you know' e-mails that are regularly circulated around offices, and many of the statements therein seem dubious at best. The culture-related facts are not something I can't easily verify.

I'm sure there is some good material in the article, but it's difficult to tell what's truth and what's not. I'd love this to be reviewed by anyone with a more detailed knowledge of sneezing. --PJF 02:25, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sexual characteristics

In an attempt to push a POV, AlexR has inserted many errors into this biology article ranging from simple typos (such as dysmorphic, but note that dimorphic, which was clearly intended is also innacurate) to injections of non-sequitur references to psychological, social and political topics relating to Heteronormativity. Attempts to address some of these problems have been reverted by the above user.

Gallery of sovereign state flags/List of sovereign state flags

Without consensus, and in spite of a similar dispute occuring due to the inclusion of the flag of Palestine, a user has begun to add the flags of non-recognized countries. These entities already have their own page, and their inclusion here is inapprorpriate for the reasons I outline on the Talk pages of both articles (1 2). Furthermore, one of these articles should probably be a redirect to the other. Justin (koavf) 03:35, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

List of born-again Christian laypeople

Some long-time editors resist (and revert) efforts/requests to provide citational evidence of listed names. I don't think these editors are ill-intentioned as such, but a small clique seems to wish to use the page as a proselytic device rather than an explicitly evidenced list. Most likely a few rejoinders about WP, the wiki-way, NPOV, and page quality would nudge the long-timers in the right direction. In initial examination, a large percentage of the names listed have prima facia negative evidence against their inclusion (but how do you fully prove a negative?): No mention of "born-again" in corresponding WP article, official site, fansite, etc; Google fails to show any affirmative statement by the public figure. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:17, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

Timeline of the Muslim occupation of the Iberian Peninsula and List of themed timelines

The term "timeline" is wrongly used in the titles of these articles. Indeed, it is wrongly used throughout Misplaced Pages, being a widespread linguistic error that needs to be remedied. See the discussion in the talk section of the first article or the second.

Moot point , the terms timeline and chronology as somewhat interchangeable in common english usage. --Dewiro 06:16, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Issues in American Football

We've had an ongoing edit war between an anonymous IP putting information into the article and a user (Mithotyn) taking information away. The anon user uses edit summaries, but ignores the talk page. I took the section out of American football to keep the wars out of American Football, which has slowed down the onslaught... but there's still no way to resolve this. Anyone who knows a lot about steroids in football... actually, anyone, period... please help out. Matt Yeager 17:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Issues in Church of Christ, Scientist

I've made a post in the talk page that no one has yet disputed to indicate that the Christian Science Church is indeed a Christian cult (due to its contradictions with the doctrines of Christianity). Yet at the same time people insist to directly refer to it as Christian despite evidence to the contrary that still has not been disputed. Since people can not respond to my comments on the talk page I am posting this here to prevent a needless edit war. I will accept that they claim to be Christian but that alone doesn't make it so. For example, Christianity holds The Bible first, while the Christian Science Church holds the Bible up as it is interpreted in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by its founder Mary Baker Eddy and is stark contrast to the teachings of Christianity such as the Trinity. Note that this is also in contrast to denominations of Christianity which the Christian Science Church claims itself to also be a member. If this dispute is steadfastly removed as many other reasonable attempts at editing the article, without responding to any discussion, I would go so far as to say the article still has NPOV issues. Quadra23 22:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Loyola University

I have added a factual dispute on Loyola University Chicago's page... it's just a factual mess... --Nick Catalano (Talk) 04:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm confused. No tag on the linked page. No indication of anything being disputed. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Puerto Rico

There is an ongoing fight about who is the Chief of State of Puerto Rico (the infobox), since people are vandalizing this information by removing it from the article. If anybody can please help and contribute to fix this problem, it would be very appreciated. Here is other US Territories that use a different infobox than what Puerto Rico uses: Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands.

What people are fighting about is that Puerto Rico is using its "own" country infobox, which should NOT be used since its a US Territory. Thanks for your assistance, and happy holidays!

• No signature above. Puerto Rico and Northern Marianas are not equal commonwealths associated to US. The infobox is correct and meets wikipedia standars for non sovereign states with a high degree of autonomy(UN country code for Puerto Rico:630). Any POV information that is not required by standard infobox could be considered as vandalism. --User:Vertical123 02:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• Since 1917, when the Puertoricans were granted US citizenship, there have been a strong move among the inhabitants of this island towards full independence. The fact is that it remains a commonwealth associated to the US, though with some distinguishable differences, Puerto Rico is still a US possession as much as Hawaii and Alaska. Source: CIA - The World Factbook (2006).

Authors_Banned_or_Blacklisted_by_USCF_Sales

Sam Sloan is using Misplaced Pages to publicize his unverifiable attacks on the United States Chess Federation. For example, at

http://en.wikipedia.org/Chess_Life#Authors_Banned_or_Blacklisted_by_USCF_Sales

he is claiming that Anatoly Karpov is "Banned or Blacklisted by USCF Sales". There is a need for an inspection of his supposed evidence for such a claim, so that a judgment can be made about whether or not it is appropriate for such claims to appear where there is an aspiration to present verifiable information. I am ready to help with assessing whatever evidence Sam Sloan produces. Thank you for your attention.

Update: Sam Sloan has removed Anatoly Karpov from his list, but, in the discussion, he continues to maintain that "it is obvious that Karpov is blacklisted". I have moved on to another name on the list (Ron Henley), but I have seen nothing further from Sam Sloan. Is there a way to initiate proceedings for the removal of the unverifiable claims of Sam Sloan - claims that he no longer seems willing to even discuss? If so, I would be grateful if someone would contribute a description of the procedure to the discussion. (I am sorry, but I do not know much about Misplaced Pages. I am only here because I heard about how Sam Sloan was using Misplaced Pages to publicize his attacks on others.)

Further update: For the moment, the supposed blacklist is gone, but Sam Sloan is still defending it in the discussion section. His unverifiable attacks should be removed from there as well.

List of ethnic slurs

This article has a history of being barely-sourced. The only real reference, for over a hundred entries, is an old list from the Internet, which I believe may have allowed for open submissions (plus some misc references, and a changed link) Most of the terms are unverifiable by Googling (i.e. "1/4") ). There have been many exhortations over the last year or so to clean up the list, and User:Guettarda recently proposed to start requiring sources, Talk:List of ethnic slurs#WP:V and WP:CITE, with which I strongly agree. OTOH, another editor is saying that no entry may be removed except by a special vote showing consensus, and that until then the status quo trumps WP:V and WP:NOR. The questions are: What kind of reliable sources are even possible for slang terms of foreign cultures? Does the removal of unsourced material require a positive, specific consensus, even if it has been tagged and other requests for sources have been made? Thanks, -Will Beback 04:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Telepathy

The article presents an overwhelmingly telepathy-exists stance. Very little discussion on why is is regarded as junk science is in the article. Has to be totally rewritten. Tyir 18:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Jeffrey Vernon Merkey

The article is being roosted upon by what are clearly the subject of the articles detractors who are posing as editors of Misplaced Pages. Virtually all of these editors have identical account names on Yahoo SCOX, a message board which is engaged in the SCO/IBM lawsuits. The article paints a "merkey is bad" message which is unbalanced, and much of the content is unverifiable and POV, and does not allow any other viewpoints to be added. Attempts by any editors outside of a small circle of rather vocal detractors to enhance the article results in revert wars and distortion and "spinning" of the content. The article needs review and impartial editing. Waya sahoni 05:44, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

My knee-jerk reaction was to remove the dispute tags without discussion. I apologize for that reaction, even though I am convinced this article has been thoroughly verified. It has been fairly obvious from the first that Waya sahoni (talk · contribs) is a sock puppet of Jeff Merkey's original account, Gadugi (talk · contribs), which has been permanently blocked. The contextual and behavioral evidence alone is very persuasive, but he has also forgotten to logon on several occasions and has edited as 67.177.11.129 (talk · contribs). Mr. Merkey has acknowledged using the following sock puppets: 67.177.35.25 (talk · contribs), 67.137.28.187 (talk · contribs), 67.137.28.189 (talk · contribs), 67.177.35.211 (talk · contribs) and 67.177.35.222 (talk · contribs). Despite Waya sahoni's claims to live in Houston, he is editing from an IP in Utah in the same range as all the other IPs used by Merkey. So long as he was contributing positively, it didn't seem worthwhile to make an issue of his sock puppetry. Now that he appears to be resuming his past behaviour, perhaps it is time to make it an issue. — MediaMangler 14:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Can waya^WJeff point to any specific instances of inaccuracy, and cite sources where we can verify his version of events? Jeff's complaint seems to be a big nonspecific handwave at us, and given the article uses a lot of readily available internet sources, he really should at least state specifically what's wrong with the article, and why whatever sources cited are wrong, if applicable. Otherwise the tag should be removed. --Aim Here 20:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not appreciate either set of accusatory commentary. Please don't make allegations against other users. It's WP:NPA. Waya sahoni 02:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You mean it's a personal attack to give evidence suggesting that a Misplaced Pages user is using a sockpuppet account to evade his ban? If that's the case, how could Misplaced Pages work to ban sockpuppets at all? You're a real piece of work, Jeff. -- Aim Here 20:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Edward Winter biography

Once again, Misplaced Pages is being used to publicize an unverifiable attack. In this case, the target is Edward Winter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/Edward_G._Winter

Some sample ridiculous statements:

(1)  "For the past more than 30 years, every time a new book by Keene has come out or a new article by Keene has been published, Edward Winter has written articles attacking it."
(2)  "Kingston is from the same part of England that Winter is believed to be from."  ("Wow, I didn't know that ... San Diego, California (where I was born and lived until 1980)  part of England." - Taylor Kingston comment)
(3)  "Edward Winter filed an ethics complaint with the FIDE Congress accusing Keene of unethical conduct in writing books almost exclusively about opening theory, whereas Winter said there should be more books about chess history."
(4)  "Keene's opponent was Florencio Campomanes who Winter supported."
(5)  "Chess Notes ... contains brief commentaries usually not more than one or two paragraphs in length attacking usually insignificant errors and spelling mistakes made by this or that chess writer."
(6)  "If a book by Keene contains a spelling mistake, Chess Notes will point it out."

At rec.games.chess.politics, samhsloan@gmail.com has referred to this as "my biography". Sam Sloan is the one who contributed the subsequently deleted supposed USCF blacklist. See discussion at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/Chess_Life#Authors_Banned_or_Blacklisted_by_USCF_Sales

He also contributed the subsequently deleted Tom Dorsch "biography". See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tom_Dorsch

It should not be necessary for anyone to do a point by point refutation of the Edward Winter "biography". The "verifiable" sources do not exist and the author will not be able to produce them, as even a minimal amount of inquiry would reveal. I apologize once again for not being acquainted with the details of Misplaced Pages procedure. I have no interest in Misplaced Pages beyond the hope that those in charge will take measures to prevent its use for the promotion of garbage.

Update: The Edward Winter entry has been much improved. (I understand that this has been against the will of the writer of the original version.) I still think the best thing would be to delete the article altogether. Still, I am grateful that it is no longer the disaster that it was. My thanks to those responsible.