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This category is within the scope of WikiProject Science, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Science on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject ScienceTemplate:WikiProject Sciencescience
This category was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:
Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Misplaced Pages aspires to be such a respected work.
Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification.
Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.
Many of the inclusions are subjective. Is it right to describe all parapsychology as pseudoscience? There are pseudoscientists working in the field (and indeed physics, chemistry etc - witness the cold fusion debacle), but there are also certain people who attempt to employ scientific method. --MacRusgail (talk) 16:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Those people do not self describe as parapsychologists; they look for a scientific explanation. For example, Chris French looking at it from a psychology perspective. Considering that science operates under Methodological naturalism and appeals to the supernatural are essentially a form of special pleading which make a stab at wearing the guise of science while they do it. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:48, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
What a mess!
A few notes:
I have cleaned up the category page:
removed links to project namespace
removed redundant bare url (ext link to dictionary.com - hey we got our own!)
removed redundant wikilinks
tweaked layout
I am now trying to clean out the contents. It was a mish-mash of over 250 articles that readers would struggle to wade through.
Removed companies, products, unrelated lists, and minor topics that had little to do with the subject.
My attempt to clean it all up is being hampered by editors who do not understand the category guidelines (or convention - they vary!), do not understand the hierarchical nature of topics, and attempt to link everything to everything else. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:22, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Please focus on the content and policy/guideline issues rather than the editors involved.
There seems to be a great deal of disagreement on whether or not some of the articles are relevant to the subject. Discuss rather than edit-war please if you want to change consensus. --Ronz (talk) 20:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
You know, I don't really overly care about this category, or even this topic (and not even certain how I saw/got to this page).
But you would be hard pressed to claim that I do not understand the category guidelines and policies : )
Anyway, in reading the arbcomm case, and associated pages, it seems clear that this is a drama-laden topic, and by extension the pages thereof.
So I would think that it would be a good idea to at least provide the opportunity for "enthusiastic editors" to check out certain project pages. Links are cheap. And having links to project pages on a category page (as opposed to categorised IN the category) is very much not uncommon.
Our goal should be to reduce disruption, and if a couple links may help to prevent future disruption, then that's a no brainer, I would think. - jc3720:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
"Our goal should be to reduce disruption" Having some familiarity with some of the drama around this topic, let's be clear: our goal first is to improve this encyclopedia. --Ronz (talk) 20:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Lol, yes, and one way we do that is by reducing disruption.
I'm not sure what your concerns are, or even what edits your concerned with.
For me it's that the links to the Project pages which cover this topic broadly (WP:FRINGE#PS for example) should be linked in the category page intro. In looking over other situations in categories, it would seem a hatnote would be the best way to go with it.
If you're interested in arguing what should be a member of this category, sorry, I'm not who you're looking for. - jc3721:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Since the links are already here at the top of the talk page, I just added a hatnote to see the talk page. I still think that a link to a related project page should be at the top, but for now, this should suffice. - jc3721:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
As I have already said at the head of this thread they don't need a category relating to pseudoscience since it a non-existent or tenuous relationship. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 07:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
