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Waterboarding (2)

There is an ongoing difference of opinion as to how to interpret this on the article Waterboarding. Most editors are in favour of stating in the lead: Waterboarding is a form of torture. As I understand it the views on this are:

1. Most experts (>140) consider waterboarding torture,
2. A very small group experts (<4) and notable individuals consider it not torture,
3. The fact some oppose the majority view this is torture proves there is a dispute.

Regarding the above I am interested to hear how to interpret this. Do we, as in Intelligent Design, start with the consensus among experts (it is torture) and continue to explain in the article body what a notable minority thinks? Does opposing a similar stance as with ID violate WP:FRINGE/WP:WEIGHT? Respectfully Nomen Nescio 16:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

As well as the individual experts considering it tortur is the Council of Europe. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

This question should be placed on the main noticeboard page, not on the talk page. Here on the talk page the discussions address how to organize and use the noticeboard. Comments here are not answered as quickly. I suggest you move your question to the main page at WP:FT/N. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 20:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

(moved here from talk page Nomen Nescio 21:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC))

Fringe is often defined as at the edge or outside of the mainstream or prevailing view. Mainstream is typically seen as the most popular view, but I don't think that's necessarily always true. Take the debate on creationism for example. In America we have a large portion of the population who subscribe to the Christian religion and statistics show that apparently there are more people here that don't believe in evolution than those who do. The prevailing view, however, the one that wins out, is that evolution should be taught versus creationism. I don't think it's always a numbers thing, and instead should be looked at as which view is more dominant. I don't know which is in waterboarding, but I can give you a hypothetical example that might help. If there are more military experts who do not feel that waterboarding is a form of torture, but waterboarding is illegal and people have been prosecuted for doing it, then the prevailing view is that waterboarding is a form of torture despite that not being the popular view. I don't know if any of that is actually the case in waterboarding, it's just an example of what I'm talking about. --Nealparr 22:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

This entire debate (over whether waterboarding is torture or not) is not really FRINGE. Both views have been expressed by multiple mainstream sources. This is a debate that is taking place within the mainstream and not on the Fringe. Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

There is an issue that the term "torture" is defined through humanistic rather than materialistic constraints. The key here is the legal definition and precedent: if courts have ruled waterboarding to be "torture" and no court has ruled to the contrary, then you are in business for applying WP:FRINGE to the idea that waterboarding is not torture, for example. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

You mean, from the POV of the US courts. It is still an international debate. Nigel Barristoat (talk) 14:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

in fringe theories along the lines of "Troy was in Britain", it is neither the meaning of "Troy" nor of "Britain" that is under dispute, but the actual claim. What we have here is political hand-waving surrounding the term "torture", not fringe claims about what waterboarding is or is not. In this sense, this isn't about waterboarding at all, but about hte propagandistic uses of terms like "torture". We had a similar case involving "genocide" before. dab (𒁳) 16:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

In '67, prominent British philosopher Bertrand Russell convened the Russell Tribunal in Stockholm that was critical of US war actions. Numerous other prominent persons for instance Dr. Benjamin Spock were also outspoken critics of US foreign policy. No doubt the US government had a definite political interest in marginalizing such viewpoints by presenting them as "fringe", but our interest is remaining neutral, since the Russell Tribunal et. al certainly represented a significant POV at the time. Things in the world today have not changed much for the better since then, so naturally the dispute continues. Nigel Barristoat (talk) 16:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

One of the problems at Waterboarding is that one group of editors seems to think that any questioning that involves the use of water is both waterboarding and torture, since they can find many sources that do this confounding, while others object to this confounding and want the article to be about the specific (if vague) topic of waterboarding. htom (talk) 17:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This content dispute contains issues for NPOV, RS, V and a host of other policies and guidelines, but not one for WP:FRINGE. The idea that Waterboarding is torture is simply not a Fringe theory... and neither is the idea that it might not be torture. These are both opinions that are discussed heavily by mainstream media, in the political arena, by religious leaders, etc. etc. etc. People may (and do) disagree as to whether waterboarding is or is not a form of torture... but there is nothing even remotely FRINGE about the debate. OK... The Waterboarding of Bigfoot by Illuminati Space Aliens to discover whether he was the second gunman on the grassy noll, might be fringe... but not the topic in general. I realize that the various parties to the dispute would like to be able to point to a Misplaced Pages Policy to back their particular view point... but this simply is not the right policy to point to. Blueboar (talk) 17:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Clearly my question was too vague. Confronted with a dispute consisting of 150+ sourced consensus against 2-5 people being unable take a position, does the 5- side fall within WP:FRINGE? Nomen Nescio 18:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. In this specific case, no. Neither side in the dispute falls under WP:Fringe... because the entire topic itself simply isn't a WP:Fringe issue. What you are discussing is more properly a question of weight, two legitimate points of view that have an uneven number of adhearants. Blueboar (talk) 18:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Why isn't it a fringe issue if the scholarly opinion on the matter is fairly clear? (I know nothing of the issue, but I get the sense that this is yet another instance of a lively "popular" debate being mistaken for scholarly disagreement. We can't use the "debate in media" to gauge if an issue is settled among experts. Lots of things are debated publicly about which the experts see little need for debate. Could that be the case here?) futurebird (talk) 19:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, for one thing there isn't a theory involved here. Waterboarding isn't a theory, nor is torture. Whether waterboarding is a form of torture is not a theory... it is a point of view. And while published scholarly opinion may lean heavily in favor of a particular POV on the issue... you also have to take into account non-scholarly published opinion (such as political opinion, the opinion of the media, etc.) This isn't just a scholarly issue. It isn't Fringe to adhear to one view or the other... and it isn't a Fringe theory to state view either. Blueboar (talk) 20:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

(conflict)The problem (well, part of the problem) is that many of the 150 sources confound waterboarding with other water tortures, and so it may not be that they are actually talking about waterboarding (whatever waterboarding is; the definition of that seems to have changed several times over the last fifty years, but there are many other water tortures as well.) Since there are these many different things swept up in this popular confounded "waterboarding" it is only natural for people who know particulars about the things swept up into it to have differing ideas, it is not so much fringe as it is confusion. htom (talk) 19:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

←This is not an issue of WP:FRINGE, which applies to fringe theories of science, including social and political sciences. The policy that covers the issue you asked about is WP:NPOV, and in particular the section on undue weight, found here: WP:UNDUE.

After reviewing the article, my first impression was that the coverage space given to people saying it's not torture is out of proportion, because the vast majority of sources say that it is torture. But then I saw the poll that found 29% of Americans polled did not think it's a form of torture. Wow, that's an eye-opener! So I read the article about the poll, on CNN's website. Clearly it's a reliable source, so with 30% that's not a tiny minority, it's a significant minority and their views are relevant to the article in some way. But it should be in proportion - and, as someone above mentioned, it should only be in the part of the article about policy/legal debate.

There's no dout that the majority of sources defining it as torture among scientists and academics turns out to be much larger than 70%, so the minority view among the population in general that it's not torture should not receive undue weight. If you need stronger references, try using Google Books and Google Scholar, with search terms like "Waterboarding +torture +history" and other combinations. Instead of leaving the references on this to the popular press or political magazines, find some scholars to make it clear that there is no question about it being a form of torture, in any forum other than political debates where it is not truly a debate about the truth of what waterboarding is, the debate there is actually about whether or not the method can continue to be used. The only way it can be used is if it's not called "torture"; that's a clouding technique being used in the public forum and does nto apply to the actual definition of the procedure. That's why I suggest finding scholars discussing this from outside the present day policy arguments.

Here's a few sources I found that may be helpful - there are many more in the searches:

• NPR analysis
• google books Democracy in Chile: The Legacy of September 11, 1973
• google books The Phenomenon of Torture: Readings and Commentary
• google books Human Rights Watch World Report 2006

If the pages with the details don't come up in the link, just search for the term inside the book and they will appear. Apparently in Latin America, the call the technique "the Submarine". Good luck with the article. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The NPR Report you list above is one of those that confounds waterboarding with water cure. htom (talk) 19:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

At some point, the harping on confounding becomes nitpicking. While is appropriate for Misplaced Pages to carefully disambiguate, it is not our place to discard sources simply because they haven't done as good of a job researching as we have. The standard for Misplaced Pages is verifiability and not truth, after all. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

At some point, the use of reliable but inaccurate sources becomes WP:SYN. htom (talk) 20:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really. It may generate problems with verifiability, but it's not original research. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This should be easy to resolve, in theory. Simply state: "Waterboarding is considered by many groups to be a form of torture, though some have defended its use as a legitimate interrogation tactic." Of course, as Homer Simpson once pointed out, communism works in theory. MastCell 21:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I would love for it to be so simple, but I don't know if that would fly at this point. Each conversation there now upon reading them can be summed up as d'oh. I can only imagine the state it will be in by November if water boarding stays a hot potato. Lawrence Cohen 21:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that this issue has been accepted by ArbCom. — BQZip01 —  05:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the US has already ruled that this is torture and that its use can be considered both a war crime and a criminal offense. In Asano Yukio a Japanese soldier was convicted of torture after using water boarding and in 1983 a Sheriff in Texas was sentenced to 10 years after water boarding a prisoner in his jail. - perfectblue (talk) 18:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect. All of Asano's conduct was collectively described as "torture" by a prosecutor, not by the court; and his conduct included repeated beatings of POWs (who were protected by the Geneva Convention) with his fists, feet and a wooden club, and burning them with cigarettes. The actual offense for which Asano was convicted by the Court was "violation of the laws and customs of war." Not "torture." The sheriff in Texas was convicted of violating prisoners' civil rights. Again, not "torture." Again, a prosecutor called it "torture," but the court did not. Perfectblue, it is exactly this blurring of subtle but important distinctions that has led to so much hostility and incivility on Talk:Waterboarding. It is apparent from the proposed decision at ArbCom that they will not resolve this issue for us. We must resolve it ourselves. Where there is a significant dispute among experts over facts and definitions, Misplaced Pages cannot pretend to resolve the dispute. Neutral Good (talk) 05:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

V.T. Rajshekar and Dalit Voice

I was involved in these articles a while ago when there was some very intense POV-pushing by a now-banned sockpuppeteer, but I never quite felt I knew what I was doing. One is a BLP of the editor of the other. Both really need attention from more editors who understand how to deal with very controversial issues. Dalit Voice probably qualifies as an extremist source, so should be "handled with care" even in the article about itself. I'm not quite sure what that care should be. It is incredibly easy to trawl through its online archive and pull out statements on all kinds of issues, much harder to do that in any systematic or balanced way. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

yes, i recall those issues a while back. generally this is not so much fringe issues, as reliable source and misuse of sources issues. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll ask for comment on the RS noticeboard. If anyone would like to cast an eye over it I'd appreciate it. Itsmejudith (talk)

Oh dear. I'll have a look. Relata refero (talk) 17:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Bicameralism (psychology)

is this a full-fledged crackpot theory, or a respectable, if eccentric, academic minority hypothesis? dab (𒁳) 13:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The Dennett quote, the post at Princeton and the Penguin publisher point to respectable speculation.Itsmejudith (talk) 13:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

that was in the 1980s. The idea has a certain charm prompting you to go 'hm, interesting thought' the first time you hear it. I shouldn't have said "crackpot". It was briefly given some attention in the 1980s. But is there anything left of it today, or will you just be laughed out of court if you mention bicameralism with a straight face in 2008? I am not trying to suggest you will: I genuinely don't know. I just noted that the man is still around, and there is a "Julian Jaynes Society" still arguing the 1976 idea, and that a volume entitled Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited appeared in 2007 (published, it should be noted, by the Julian Jaynes Society). I suppose I'll have to search for reviews of that. dab (𒁳) 13:31, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I observe that lots of psychology ideas take a while to move in and out of the "academic consensus" mostly as it takes so long to do any meaningful research on most of the ideas, so....it might still be a valid area of work, even though maybe a minor one. I really have no idea. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 16:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I would put it under "out there but a little bit interesting" - one of those things that pops up and almost immediately falls by the wayside. Mostly now it is interesting as a picture of the zeitgeist of 1976 and how far neuroscience has come in forging itself as an actual science. Frankly, our minds are not lateralized to the extent necessary for this to occur, and neither in the article nor that I have ever heard (IANA neuroscientist) is ever put forth a convincing explanation for why early humans would evolve this way or what forced the integration. Interestingly, there *is* actual research suggesting that our minds are not nearly the unified self it usually feels like. A patient who had a particular area of her brain stimulated laughed, explaining that she found highly amusing 'just the way you people are standing around' or 'that picture over there'; apparently, she was rationalizing her behavior after the fact (without cognitive dissonance, no less). And, of course, there is all the fun with presenting words or colors to only one half of the visual field so the halves of the brain are getting different stimuli.

Unless someone is pushing it in a way of which I am not aware, I would just file it under pop-psychology and move on. Eldereft (talk) 18:17, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Nobody is pushing it, I just stumbled on it and was wondering. It would be nice, however, to add some pointers to actual (current) research into this direction. dab (𒁳) 18:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I added lateralization, which explains how left-brain/right-brain dichotomy actually works. Any other ideas? Eldereft (talk) 02:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

<undent>My impression is that it is controversial, but of historical interest and was quite influential in some circles. It still is influential among those who suffer from "hearing voices syndrome", since it is sort of one of their bibles. If I remember correctly from a documentary I heard, more and more people are turning up who "hear voices" but few of these are actually bothered by the voices or pay attention to them, and therefore are not classified as psychotic. With the internet, these people can find each other and network and form support groups, leading some academics to study them. And this bicameral mind material features prominently in the therapies of those who "hear voices" and is referred to by those in these support groups as a way to "explain" this symptom (probably the wrong explanation, but oh well).--Filll (talk) 13:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be a notable fringe theory. I changed the word "theory," to "hypothesis," since it hasn't been widely accepted. It is often referred to as a "theory," but this is an incorrect, colloquial usage. As an example, the Sapir-whorf hypothesis is broadly accepted by Sociologists, but obviously it isn't a "scientific theory."

I haven't been able to find a source for this fringe theory, but I looked in both my intro to psychology and abnormal psychology textbooks, and it isn't cited in either one of them, which is a red flag. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The whole article needs better sourcing anyway, but this appears to have generated quite a flurry at some time, so that shouldn't be too hard. To me this looks like an eccentric development of oldish theories proposing a drastic split down the middle in the functions of the human brain, an idea which is, AFAIK, not nearly as influential as it once was. Lateralization looks to explain this quite well. Moreschi 21:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It's an awfully beguiling idea, isn't it? I do note that it seems to have had a certain amount of literary influence, especially among cyberpunk authors. I'd say we're dealing with a single individual's eccentric idea, but an idea presented within the academic framework, i.e. no POV-pushing or claims of censorship, and at least the acceptance of possible falsification. Relata refero (talk) 08:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

"lateralization" in general is a perfectly valid topic (as Eldereft notes above). The cranky aspect here is the idea that the "collapse" happened suddenly, as recently as at the Bronze Age collapse (the driving inspiration appears to be that Homer still records the pre-collapse situation). If you move the "collapse" back to the emergence of behavioral modernity (Upper Paleolithic), the scenario would become ever so much more plausible, but sadly you'll then be left with the Homeric deities (the theory's original motivation?) being deeply post-collapse. dab (𒁳) 12:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Seagrave's Yamashita's gold

There is a long, slow burning conflict on that page between opponents and proponents of including extensive information from a book called Gold Warriors by Sterling & Peggy Seagrave. The claim is that a massive Imperial Japanese hoard of looted gold was secretly discovered during the Cold War and used as the lynch-pin of American "dirty tricks" and CIA activities in Asia for decades. The Seagraves provide enormous volumes of documentation, none of which actually proves their key claims, which might as well be sourced to "that guy, what was his name, Dave I think?, in the airport bar at 2 AM." And they literally claim that the conspirators are out to kill them. <eleland/talkedits> 18:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I've looked at the page. The page is about a cache of gold that may or may not have existed, and if it existed may or may not have been removed, and if it was removed may or may not have been removed by the Japanese to fund their postwar miracle, the CIA to fund the Cold War, or the Marcoses to fund Imelda. It is a Historical Mystery of the type that belongs on pop history channels at 2am, and, as such, I hardly think that the CIA-gold theory, which spawned a dozen bestsellers and random programmes, is irrelevant. You might as well remove speculation from Jack the Ripper. (I see someone did, but only to spawn a couple of daughter articles and a category. The point remains, though, that notable speculation belongs in an article about a subject notable for speculation, and this particular speculation is notable.) Relata refero (talk) 17:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I failed to find a dozen bestsellers that supports the conspiracy theory birthed by the Seagraves’s novel that the United States military intelligence operatives located much of the “loot”; colluded with Hirohito and other senior Japanese figures to conceal its existence, and; used it to finance US covert intelligence operations around the world during the Cold War. Jim (talk) 22:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Seagraves' book, however, does meet our definition of a reliable source. Therefore, instead of trying to throw out the book as a source, the article should simply reflect all of the reliably sourced viewpoints on the subject, Seagraves's and any others, as we have done in countless other articles. Cla68 (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Cla68…the Seagrave’s novel falls under Misplaced Pages guideline for Questionable Source: "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Such sources include websites and publications that express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, are promotional in nature, or rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions." There is no peer-review, only a book review. Jim (talk) 11:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Does the book have a "poor reputation for fact-checking"? I don't think so. We have to be careful when dismissing an opinon that we (not a nosism) don't agree with as being from a questionable source when it's from a published book. Better to introduce the author's opinion in the article along with dissenting or opposing, documented opinions so that the article's readers can make up their own minds. Cla68 (talk) 07:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the novel has a poor reputation for fact checking. In the same “glowing review” in the London Review of Books, it is noted: “The Seagraves’ narrative is comprehensive, but they are not fully reliable as historians”…"The book is full of errors that could easily be corrected by a second-year student of the language” and “One of the Seagraves’ more controversial contentions is that the looting…”

Oddly enough, the same book review that applauds this single-source conspiracy theory…also condemns the “reliable source” reference. Not fully reliable as historians, the book is full of language errors and controversial contentions should qualify as questionable sources. Therefore, your suggestion is to include the material in the article, and then argue within the article the validity of the material. That would probably work IF the article were about the Seagraves’ publications. However, it is not.Jim (talk) 11:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. Repeat after me: the Gold itself is a conspiracy theory. Given that, excluding a major take on that theory because its - wait for it - a conspiracy theory is hardly likely to wash. Relata refero (talk) 21:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

No, the actual gold itself is a known urban legend in the Philippines. The conspiracy theory comes into play in the Seagraves’ novel. Lost treasure legends themselves are not conspiracy theories.Jim (talk) 08:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Arsenicum album‎

Have a look at the ridiculous "Scientific evidence" secrtion Dana Ullman added, and which homeopaths are fighting at all costs to keep in the article. Adam Cuerden 00:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Adam, I respect what you're doing a lot. You should already know that. However, to avoid clutter, can we make a main Homeopathy section on this noticeboard and when you find multiple articles, then create sub-sections? There's the same kind of clutter at WP:RSN on Islam and it makes using the noticeboards difficult. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 12:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It might work, but this one is particularly bad, so I'd suggest a look. Adam Cuerden 21:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I see one of the sources is which is obviously not self published and is a peer reviewed scientific journal. This seems to me to be a reliable source. --Blue Tie (talk) 21:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I see another source is something like Science of the Environment. It is not clearly stated that this is a peer reviewed journal, but I note that there are guidelines for reviewers. I looked at those guidelines and the way the reviews are scored, and it appears to be a scientific peer reviewed journal also. --Blue Tie (talk) 21:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is cherry picking. VEry small studies being presented as the end word on the subject. Adam Cuerden 22:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, you are saying above that the sources are ridiculous. They do not appear to be ridiculous but you appear to be overtly biased and not assuming good faith. More importantly though, if you believe that there is an alternative view, then find other studies and present them. Then both sides of the issue should be presented according to the guidance of NPOV. But I note that where there are peer-reviewed journals that specifically have studied this issue, these should not be called "ridiculous" and "particularly bad". --Blue Tie (talk) 23:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Adam, I don't mean to sound like Jimbo here, but if they're cherry-picked studies, then dig out references to dispute them. Yes, I know it's tedious but it's policy, so w\e. You can't claim, "Such and such is not reliable," on your own basis, because all claims about sources have to be cited in sources, themselves, in accordance with WP:NPOV. If you think something is disputable, you can get rid of it while you try to find stuff to verify it, but you can't just remove it if it looks like a reliable source without having an additional source to back up your claim.

The only exception is the really wild fringe theories where there won't even be any papers on mainstream journals ridiculing it. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 23:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

These are fringe theories, and I've added plenty of studies generally refuting homeopathy in the lead. However, these are tiny studies published in very low impact journals or CAM journals, and as such, there does not seem to be specific comment on most of them outside of this Misplaced Pages article, and even the New Scientist reference seems never to have been picked up again. Adam Cuerden 02:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The relevant standard here would appear to be WP:V#Exceptional claims require exceptional sources -- claiming experimental scientific validity for a concept that gives every appearance of violating all known theoretical science would appear to be sufficiently "exceptional" to require absolutely bulletproof substantiation. Hrafn_Stalk 02:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree that this is so. As wikipedia's goal is to disseminate information, part of the information includes studies -- one way or the other. Both sides can get some review and peer reviewed journals are good sources. Moreover, before you can declare that research to be "contrary", you must show research that is contrary to it. --Blue Tie (talk) 04:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with hrafn, generally. If these are real studies, but small...we need to say that. If they indicate that it works, say that. In health, especially, very little is super rock solid under any circumstance....so....Say what's what. "some small studies indicate success, most larger one's don't and the theoretical basis doens't fit with most science." --Rocksanddirt (talk) 04:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I do agree with Rocksanddirt's approach, however the "most larger ones" need to be cited. --Blue Tie (talk) 04:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Then it becomes a WP:DUE weight question, and the majority of weight would need to be placed on the larger, more reliable, studies. Where the size/reliability disparity is sufficiently large, the smaller studies should be ignored altogether. Hrafn_Stalk 04:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

First you must find the larger, "more reliable" studies that studied this matter specifically. So far, I have not seen ANY other studies but those that are cited here. You cannot claim that the studies identified here should be done away when you offer nothing in response. --Blue Tie (talk) 05:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

well....if the smaller ones have an intersting result (like efficacy waaaay over expectations), we might want to keep them anyway. but yes, REFS FOR ALL! --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

But these "interesting" results are generally because the experiments were "waaaay" unreliable, so should be excluded -- as I pointed out above, exceptional claims require exceptional sources. Hrafn_Stalk 01:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this is exactly the point being made, and tend to agree with it. The statement "homeopathy has medical merit beyond a placebo" is an extraordinary statement, and in the absence of absolutely bulletproof evidence for it, we should not make it — even in the qualified form that "Study X said that homeopathy has medical merit", since that gives the false impression that there is a body of literature out there which provides substantial scientific evidence to support the extraordinary claim. --Haemo (talk) 02:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Where is there a study that has reviewed this Arsenic Album and found it to be ineffective? If the only study you can cite is one that generically lambastes homeopathic remedies but is not focused on Arsenic Album, then it would be undue weight to give that study too much sway above studies that are specific to the subject (Arsenic Album) in an article about Arsenic Album. At the same time, wikipedia does not have to advocate homeopathic remedies. Just report the facts. --Blue Tie (talk) 05:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a huge difference between a claim a particular treatment had particular effects under particular conditions, and broad general claims such as "homeopathy has medical merit." Whether a particular treatment works empirically or not is not necessarily correlated with the validity of any claimed theoretical basis behind it. Small doses of Arsenic Album may or may not have any legitimate medical benefit, I wouldn't know, and if it does the reasons why would not necessarily have anything to do with the validity of homeopathic medicine. We can point out information included in studies, such as if numbers of patients are very small compared to other studies, whether or not there was some sort of control, randomization, consistency of instruments, etc. We can print this factual information if described in the articles. What we can't do is print our own conclusions about whether or not studies are reliable. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 01:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Articles on right to self-defense and gun control

There's a number of really horrible articles on this, but they're in horrible shape. This isn't a "fringe theory" persay, but editors are operating with the same essential modus operandi of POV-pushing, so I thought I'd post it here for you folks to comment.

Some good info, but POV fork:

• Justifiable homicide
• Make My Day State
• Make My Day Law

Need to be merged\distinguished:

• Right of self-defense
• Right to bear arms
• Imperfect self-defense (in particular, look at the "see also" section )

Other relevant articles:

• Castle Doctrine

Also, the article on gun politics is bad, too. Not POV for gun control. On the contrary, it's cluttered with dozens of bad sources with the intent of opposing gun control. Somebody posted on WP:RSN and I commented in the talkpage about it. Check it out.

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they really are awful. What about tagging for experts or bringing them to the attention of people who edit United States law articles. US-centrism is a huge issue here. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Which POV do you think prevails? Tparameter (talk) 12:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

POV is not the main problem. Plagiarism is the first thing that needs to be checked out, followed by sourcing and, as Zenwhat says, deciding where articles need to be distinguished and merged. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, he mentioned POV-pushing - so, I'm wondering which POV prevails. Tparameter (talk) 13:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Tparameter, it doesn't particularly matter which POV prevails, only that all POVs are removed and the article reflects the NPOV, based on reliable, verifiable sources. The fact that you'd ask such a question is absurd. To answer, though: there is POV-pushing on both sides. As noted above, overall, there are several Misplaced Pages articles that were apparently written by some Europeans, "Oh! Those horrible Americans and their horrible guns!" But then, on the other hand, on gun politics, you have some gun nuts typing "gun rights" into Google and flooding the article with the first articles they come across. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 19:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

an example of the problems involved is that the 2nd paragraph of Imperfect self-defense is a pull quote, sourced to answers.com 01:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow. An absurd fact. Interesting oxymoron. Hadn't heard that one before. Well, anyway, I was just curious if one side or the other was currently prevailing in their POV pushing - absurd or otherwise. Tparameter (talk) 01:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

"Jewish women did never come from the middle east to begin with"

An IP editor is campaigning against genetics research included in Palestinian people, which relates to a particular genetic marker "167delT, which appears specific to Israeli Ashkenazi and Palestinian populations."

This user is arguing an originally researched reason why this information is not valid; he attempts to discuss population genetics but does not appear have the slightest idea of what he is talking about (see above.)

The article has been the subject of Israeli-Palestinian POV wars but I don't even know which side this guy's on, if any. It's just a matter of science versus fringe theories. Please keep an eye and make sure the information doesn't get suppressed by an Internet kook. <eleland/talkedits> 08:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I thank Eleland for their as usual diligent and highly valuable efforts, to uphold Misplaced Pages's integrity and standards. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is a classic anti-semitic conspiracy theory. It's true that Ashkenazi Jews have a lot of non-semitic caucasian DNA (hence the reason why Iraqi and Iranian Jews look so little like Ashkenazi Jews). However, using that to push the claim "they're not real Jews," is absurd, because their still genetically of partially semitic origin. The claim "they're not real Jews," is generally used as a basis to support anti-semitism. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, though, one thing I would add: The entire section on genetics should be deleted. Scientists do not recognize the idea of a "race" based on genetics and genetics are occasionally used by Kahanists and anti-Arab racists, too, to argue "There's no such thing as a Palestinian people."

Well, yes. This is true. But based on the same data, there is no such thing as a Jewish people. It's all based mostly on social convention, not DNA. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Scientists frequently use genetic comparisons of populations, put them together with genetic drift and compare that to linguistic data to try and establish the evolution and movement of ethnicities. That isn't fringe at all, actually. Relata refero (talk) 22:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

there is no reason to include DNA evidence denigrating another group. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

None at all, and that would be grounds for a severe warning, and a block if reinstated. Referenced, mainstream comparative studies are, however, another matter. Relata refero (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

DNA Clues section are found in many other wiki articles, and banning it in Palestinian People confirm the suspition being rumered in the internet that wikipedia is not a so called 💕 but run by zionists or at least controlled media ( one sided media that uses double standards.

a claim suppoted by more than one reference ( scientific research that is repitable ) is not to be deleted according to wiki riles. I demand that any such statements that are scientifically firmly reliabe as mentioned above should stay and any counter statements should be also stated if more than one study prove it.

As my referenced studies are mostly made by academically strong jewish scientists and the strongest DNA testing to date (autosomal), the counter objectors should rather find and search for good scientific evidence to support their claims and anxieties( seems to me they are inable to do that)So far their requests are politically and racially motivated since they are unable to refute (scientifically) different referenced statements75.72.88.121 (talk) 07:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC) Also, there is no such thing as fringe theory or original research in my contributions. All my words are taken to the letter from other proven-scientific websites!75.72.88.121 (talk) 07:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Monetary crankery on Monetary policy of the United States

User:Gregalton brought this to my attention.

From the article :

Additionally, one notable myth debunker documents how the Federal Reserve system is audited and cites numerous instances of independent inspection of financial documents by private accounting firms and the Government Accountability Office. {{Cited in Geocities This debunker's website then also lists the legal exemptions to outside audit, "Exemptions to the Scope of GAO Audits:The Government Accounting Office does not have complete access to all aspects of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Banking Agency Audit Act (31 USCA §714) stipulates the following areas are to be excluded from GAO inspections: "(2) deliberations, decisions, or actions on monetary policy matters, including discount window operations, reserves of member banks, securities credit, interest on deposits, open market operations." The same author also can be quoted in one related article as saying "in terms of monetary policy, the most important power is ... open market operations." The GAO certainly does have the power to conduct audits, but one author noted that 'the GAO audit is extremely limited: it can only examine the Fed’s 'administrative expenses.'" {{False citation [[http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-0305100-180653/unrestricted/Ch.5.pdf here} see page 142}} As the New York Times summarized in 1989, "such transactions are now shielded from outside audit, although the Fed influences interest rates through the purchase of hundreds of billions of dollars in Treasury securities." {{Okay citation in the New York Times''', but a little silly and somewhat used improperly with the rest of the paragraph above}}

On that last source, newspapers themselves have occasionally played up monetary crankery to sell papers and generate ratings. A boring lecture on the Federal Reserve isn't all that scary and is actually better if it's independent doesn't catch your attention, like, "THE BIG EVIL BANKERS ARE PRINTING MONEY AND STEEEEEEEEEALING IT FROM YOU! WE MUST TAKE AMERICA BACK! RON PAUL, 2008"

Similarly, you sometimes see newspapers misrepresenting science by implying in some of their stories that there is a genuine "debate" over intelligent design and global warming. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 20:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

My biggest issue is the use of a (credible) ecological economist's paper -- not on monetary policy -- to support a statement that is both loaded and obscure on monetary policy. Now, with all due respect to ecological economics, it is not mainstream, and certainly not notable on monetary policy. There has been an RfC, but few straigthforward comments that in a discussion about monetary policy, ecological economcs is hardly a core reliable source.--Gregalton (talk) 20:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

First.... The title of this noticeboard section ("Monetary crankery") is loaded, and somewhat disparaging to me, personally, as I am the primary editor behind the alleged "crankery."

Next, it seems there are two separate issues here:

1. dispute over audits, and
2. dispute over the ability to quote an expert economist who discusses things that are not related to heterodox theories in a reliably-published source.

Is this section about 1 or both? BigK HeX (talk) 04:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Meh ... I'll go ahead and assume both. BigK HeX (talk) 04:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The article is slowly being re-written, so a lot of this will go out the window over time. --Haemo (talk) 04:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, .. what does this mean? "{{False citation blahblah see page 142}}

The citation should be appropriate according to Misplaced Pages:REF#Say_where_you_found_the_material, no?

Dispute over comprehensive audits of the Federal Reserve

Well ... this one is easy. If the NY Times article is in question, then we can quash that right now. Quoting from WP:V, "Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text. The policy strongly implies that, if there is a conflict or contradiction here, then the best that should be done is to include any conflicting view. The wiki article already (somewhat) attempts to do this (although I highly doubt that any reliable source states that monetary policy transactions have ever been verifiably audited by any independent party). I make no mention of it in the wiki article for NPOV reasons, but even the Fed's own Office of the Inspector General serves only at the leisure of the Board, unlike the "true" OIGs imposed onto other agencies of the government. BigK HeX (talk) 04:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that was easy. But wrong, or at least biased allegations based on innuendo, and essentially following or repeating allegations of fringe/conspiracy sites.

This source clarifies the situation: Money and the Federal Reserve System: Myth and Reality, G. Thomas Woodward, Specialist in Macroeconomics, Economics Division, July 31, 1996, Congressional Research Service Library of Congress, CRS Report for Congress, No. 96-672 E. (This source is also available in book form at , I'm just using this one for ease; unlike some other branches of government, the CRS does not systematically publish all their reports).

"One of the difficulties in understanding the audit issue is in the different types of audits. Most people think of audits as financial audits. These are principally concerned with whether an institution has spent the money and maintains the funds as it has claimed in its financial statements, and whether it is complying with procedures designed to safeguard it from misappropriation of funds. This is no doubt the kind of audit most people have in mind when expressing their concern over whether the Fed gets audited."

"But audits are also designed to review management efficiency and to evaluate the policy of an institution. It is the latter kind of audits that are the reason for the restrictions on GAO's audit authority over the Fed. The concern is that more extensive audits will become policy evaluations second-guessing the Fed's monetary policy, and not examinations of Federal Reserve financial safeguards and procedures. Under current law, policy is reviewed twice annually by the Congress."

The conflicting view quoted from the Times article is prior to the docs above, and prior to a change in law in 1999 requiring the Fed to have their financial statements audited. The specific comment above, "I highly doubt that any reliable source states that monetary policy transactions have ever been verifiably audited by any independent party" is silly: anyone remotely familiar with financial audits (and as Woodward makes clear) would know that monetary policy transactions would affect both the balance sheet and income statement, and hence are audited as part of the financial statements. This does not ensure perfection, but nor does any system made of man.--Gregalton (talk) 17:46, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

1999 law revision is completely irrelevant. It makes no mention of monetary policy, and has been characterized as only "formalizing existing procedures." The claim about "open market operations affect statements" being asserted as if that were sufficient in some way is a silly claim ... especially considering that the same editor him/herself posted a source from the GAO comptroller that is fighting for audit privileges over monetary policy transactions (only 1 of MANY attempts to receive such oversight). This is a book from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors published in 2002 where they themselves still maintain that the GAO is restricted from audits, as does this source from 2005. In any case, many different figures maintain that the exclusion of this audit is signifcant, even despite the audits that are allowed. Assertions that attempt to downplay the difference are quite tenuous ... perhaps, "disingenuous."

As for "oversight" through the the Congressional hearings ... those have been characterized as having little effect for oversight purposes. BigK HeX (talk) 01:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Dispute over use of non-heterodox statements from a proponent of heterodox economics

One particular editor continues to dispute the usage of a source from Herman Daly, even though the source was academically vetted and published reliably. No editor involved in the dispute has provided a conflicting "mainstream" view, so WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE would not seem to apply yet. As posed in the RSN page, does a person's vigorous support of a non-mainstream theory, 'taint' everything else that an otherwise acknowledged expert ever says in his field of work, even when not related to his fringe theories? BigK HeX (talk) 04:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually more than one editor. The question as put above does not faithfully represent the dispute. I would rephrase as "can an expert's views be used as a core source when the subject matter is not that experts area of specialisation?" Some might say "it depends": to which I'd add the following info: a) expert in question is a leading figure in a branch of economics that is (by admission of the expert himself) heterodox; b) the source in question that is being cited is not on monetary economics, but on ecological economics, so to use as a reference in a Wiki article entitled "Monetary policy..." is inappropriate; c) the specific formulation is not found in mainstream texts. On point c) alone I would say that this is undue attention to an approach that has no visibility.

In addition, the editor who insists on keeping this source has frequently said that mainstream texts say "the same thing"; feel free to provide.--Gregalton (talk) 05:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Err .. what? The expert's field *IS* economics. You keep using this "specialization" rationale as if he were a some lowly office-clerk waxing philosophic on the nature of the Universe or something. The author is a noted expert on economics and the material I quoted was on the topic of economics. By your qualifications, apparently an organic chemist is "unreliable" when discussing the "inorganic chemistry" of combining baking soda and vinegar. I'd say Gregalton's protest in this case is quite heavily contrived. BigK HeX (talk) 17:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Right! Lets quote Marx! And Hayek! And, while we're at it, LaRouche! Please. The paper states in the beginning that its about ecological economics, that that is not part of neoclassical economics, and WP has no business at all putting anything non-neoclassical on pages not devoted to evaluating those other marginal theories. Relata refero (talk) 22:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Did Marx draw any widely notable and informative conclusions about Monetary policy in the US that were reliably published, too? Hmmm ... if so, we definitely better get him in there. Isn't this type of hyperbole fun, Relata? BigK HeX (talk) 01:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

One way to resolve this might be as follows: economists of various orthodox and heterodox schools disagree about the nature of money itself and the way that money works in a developed capitalist economy. So present all those debates in the articles about money, money supply, monetary policy in general. US monetary policy is just one specific case to which those principles debated by economists are applied. At the moment I find the article virtually impossible to make sense of because there is constant slippage between the facts about what the US policy in relation to money is or has been, and the theory-derived arguments about whether this is what its policy should be. In other words the article has been allowed to take a normative tone. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Really though, I have *yet* to understand why neoclassicism or even ecological economics keeps being brought up as some sort of legitimate challenge to this source. The text in question is not derived from either theory. Instead the text is simply a (fairly obvious) conclusion drawn from the way that monetary policy is used today. Its not delving into IS-LM Models or any such theoretical underpinnings; it is really not theoretical at all. BigK HeX (talk) 00:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Marx was not a trained and qualified economist. Neither is LaRouche.Wjhonson (talk) 23:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we are talking about Marx in the context of an article about US monetary policy but just to quibble, in his day he was as trained and qualified as anyone else writing about political economy. At least he had a PhD which is more than you can say for Smith, Ricardo, Ure and the rest of the giants whose shoulders we aspire to stand on. And Hayek - an absolutely indispensable figure to mention when discussing monetary theory in general, but by no means a primary source for US policy in the 21st century. "WP has no business at all putting anything non-neoclassical on pages not devoted to evaluating those other marginal theories" is one of the weirdest statements I have read for a long time, and by Relate refero too, an editor whose work I've been mightily impressed with until now. Are we supposed to be policing the whole of economic theory to make sure that it conforms with someone's criteria of orthodoxy? No. Do we make sure we reflect the range of academic opinions about the major debates in the field? Yes. Surely there's enough being written about US monetary policy to quickly knock up an NPOV article on it that does not have to go into delve into theoretical issues that are better covered in their own articles? Itsmejudith (talk) 00:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Marx's PhD was in Philosophy not Economics. There's no indication he really had a good grasp of economics even by the standards of his own day. His work is full of bizarre ideas that simply do not and could not work. None of the communistic systems set-up actually follow what he actually said. Marx was mentioned above, I'm just pointing out that bringing up extreme statements in this discussion does not lead to resolution. And coming to a consensus is why we're all here.Wjhonson (talk) 00:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Itsmejudith, we don't have to police economic theory: they do a good job by themselves. Anything non-neoclassical announces itself as such in the abstract, like the piece that BigK is trying to quote does. Economists make it clear what part of what they produce is mainstream work, and what part is abstract speculation or heterodox theory. They even make it clear when they are using mainstream theory to try and get heterodox conclusions. We don't have to do anything.

We do have to, however, take them at their word, and ensure that our economics pages - which are terrible, really, and its only because each time I try to fix them MBAs come along and revert them to some kind of odd business-speak - are not over-run by people who've read pop economics.

About Marx, Hayek and LaRouche: Marx is invaluable to the study of the history of political economy and of philosophy. As an economist, use value and exchange value is considered fringe now in economic analysis (I can actually remember when it was not), so not very helpful there. The others, we all know have determined adherents who'd want them on every econ-related page if poss. We can't allow that.

About what is written by US monetary policy: pretty much everything in an RS that does not announce that it is fringe is fair game. The problem is that this editor has gone about and found something published in an RS in which a respected economist has published something that says: "look, here's another way of thinking about these things, I know none of you thinks like that, but isnt it interesting to look at these problems in a different and novel way" and is using that as a significant minority opinion when its actually nothing of the sort. Relata refero (talk) 08:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Dissertation?

I don't know enough about economics to follow this dispute very well, but a citation in the blockquote at the top of the section appears to be from a doctoral dissertation: . It's cited in the current version of the article as footnote #42. Doctoral dissertations are not really peer-reviewed publications, and in general shouldn't be used as sources in Misplaced Pages articles. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The dissertation is actually a secondary source of the quote that is used in the wiki article. The primary source is

Kettl, Donald F., Leadership at the Fed, New Haven: Yale University Press {{citation}}: External link in |title= (help); Unknown parameter |published= ignored (help).

Unfortunately I must follow Misplaced Pages:Citing_sources#Say_where_you_found_the_material. BigK HeX (talk) 01:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Since when are doctoral dissertations "not peer-reviewed," according to Misplaced Pages guidelines? My goodness, for anyone who has received a doctorate or for anyone who knows someone who received a doctorate (especially in the United States), they would realize that doctoral candidates have supervisors and sometimes co-supervisors, not to mention a fairly rigorous defense of their findings every step of the way against doctoral committees. This subject comes up quite often on the reliable source noticeboard. Unless the consensus recently changed, editors usually agree that dissertations constitute reliable sources. J Readings (talk) 02:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

"Peer-review" is a fairly elastic concept, I suppose, but I usually take it to mean the kind of double-blind review practiced at many academic journals. The kind of editorial control exercised by a dissertation committee is of a different sort: the director is usually someone who is personally acquainted with the dissertation student, ditto for the rest of the committee. In the fields I'm familiar with, dissertation work is a kind of rough draft of the articles or monographs that the student will publish once s/he gets a position. They're far from finished products, and they haven't been subjected to the kind of scrutiny that an article or manuscript receives as it gets reviewed.

If it's common practice in economics to use dissertations as sources for journal articles, then perhaps it's ok to use Mitchell's diss; but take a look at the articles in journals in classical studies, ancient history, or religion, and I think you'll find that there are no citations to doctoral dissertations. That's because in these fields dissertations aren't regarded as very good sources. (I can think of exceptions, but they are usually unpublished dissertations from German universities in the 19th/early 20th century, or the dissertations of scholars who went on to become prominent after they got their doctorates.) --Akhilleus (talk) 03:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Never let it be said that I'm not open-minded (^_^). I take Akhilleus' point regarding his field of study (classical studies, ancient history, religion, etc.) and happily concede his experiences to be true. Speaking from my own personal experiences, however, and realizing that this comment is still anecdotal, I've found the social sciences to be a bit different depending on the subject matter and the academic. For political science, political economy, and sociology, I *have* come across cited doctoral dissertations in academic works from reputable university publishers. Would that make Mitchell's dissertation acceptable? I would lean towards thinking so, but I haven't read the Mitchell dissertation to form an definitive opinion of what's being cited. J Readings (talk) 04:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I can speak for economics and political science in the US: the dissertation is not usually that reliable in its entirety. The general rule is that it is composed of three separate papers, one of which is the 'job market paper', and that's the one that is most carefully researched, presented in most places, and eventually submitted for publication. Usually when a doctoral dissertation is cited, its because of that section of it. (The time to publication after submission in econ journals has grown enormous, so if people were always to wait for publication before citing something, it can grow troublesome. It is still very much the exception, though.) Relata refero (talk) 13:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

What I would recommend, then, is that dissertations *generally* not be considered reliable sources, with exceptions made for those that are cited by journal articles, etc. In the present situation, that would mean that the Mitchell quote is admissible, because it's been cited in a monograph. However, I'm still puzzled by the way the quote found its way into Misplaced Pages: is this part of Kettl's argument (in which case cite Kettl, and don't quote Mitchell, instead summarize Kettl), or is this Mitchell's argument? Is there a different source that can be used to make this point (in which case we avoid the dissertation issue entirely), or is this so non-mainstream that only Mitchell (or Kettl) make this point? --Akhilleus (talk) 18:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

About BigK Hex

On List of conspiracy theories:

The Federal Reserve is a plot to bankrupt the United States

Please see my posting on WP:ANI.

On the talkpage, he admits to being blatantly biased and fooled by fringe sources. Then when his behavior is challenged, he suddenly accuses others of attacking his "reliable sources" in order to "censor" him.

Now, he manages to dig up one heterodox economist to prove the fringe claim that the Federal Reserve is a conspiracy (see WP:SYNTH). When he did this, he gave the reference the inflammatory title "slamdunk_bwhahaha_booyah" . ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 09:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this as I now see why editors were so concerned. I was alarmed that heterodox economics was being equated with fringe theory and now I understand that that was not the intent. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:08, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Non-neoclassical economics is not fringe by any means. It is merely too minority a view for certain policy-related articles. In Monetary Policy of the US, for example, we should rely on orthodox economics. In Theories of Money, we are definitely permitted to - indeed, should - include major alternative viewpoints. Relata refero (talk) 13:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

... and where is THAT policy? WP:IgnoreSignificantMinroityViewpointsAboutPolicyInArticlesAboutPolicy (not that I agree about the "minority viewpoint" contention) BigK HeX (talk) 19:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

errr ... WHA??

"he admits to being ... fooled by fringe sources"

If you're going to continue to make perjorative characterizations about me, then at least have the fortitude to admit that your assertions are your own. Don't try to falsely pass them off as my own admissions. You are blantantly crossing the lines of civility and decency, here.

As to "when his behavior is challenged, he suddenly accuses others of attacking his "reliable sources" in order to "censor" him." ...... I apologize. I must have misunderstood the protestations to a source acknowledged as meeting WP:V (and admitted), and I must also have mistaken the deletions of the verifiable text as censorship.

But anyways, for the record, please provide the diff where I added into any wiki article anything that implies 'The Federal Reserve is a plot to bankrupt the United States'. Thanks in advance. BigK HeX (talk) 10:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

BigK Hex, that was based on your own comments on the talkpage here. After being accused of pushing fringe sources, you cited WP:Disrupt:

So, if you truly belive that I am pushing a fringe opinion with undue weight, then the guidelines suggest that "Sometimes well-meaning editors may be misled by fringe publications or make honest mistakes when representing a citation. Such people may reasonably defend their positions for a short time, then concede the issue when they encounter better evidence..."

If that was not an acknowledgment of your own blatantly horrible use of sources, then his accusation of bad-faith was justified. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 12:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Please keep your comtempt under control. I'm pretty sure that the qualifier "if you truly belive" strongly implies that I, personally, do not believe the following assertions. Misrepresenting my statements is quite incivil. BigK HeX (talk) 19:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

In response to the request, "please provide the diff where I added into any wiki article anything that implies 'The Federal Reserve is a plot to bankrupt the United States'": please see here, where the following text was added - "Much of the movement of the US Economy is artificially engineered through the monetary policy crafted by the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve System - a group of private banking corporations which are chartered by the national government to influence the ]." True, does not exactly say "to bankrupt the United States"; terminology is strikingly similar.--Gregalton (talk) 17:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Just in case anyone thinks I'm picking at random, the from before other editors started getting involved (i.e. most is BigK). Some samples: "In, summary, almost every single US Dollar↑↑ anywhere in the world represents a current outstanding loan of some US citizen somewhere. By virtue of this process, more loans must be granted than are repaid every month in order to support the amount of US money in the world. If the total amount of loans were repaid to banks, then the entire supply of US dollars would be destroyed (and, actually, not even the entire collection of US money in the world would be sufficient to cover all of the loans due to the interest that is also expected to be repaid)." "Despite the arguments of many myth debunkers, Americans actually do have to pay for the money that is printed by their government. This payment is in the form of the interest that is charged on the bank loans - loans which are required in order for money to be injected into the economy, and even simply for existing money to be maintained (as noted in "Step 7" in the above process)." "hough gold was once the basis for the money supply, the government gradually transitioned away from precious metals and into the use of the National Debt as the economy's foundation. Experts are hopeful that other assets could take the place of National Debt as the fundamental basis, but comments from Alan Greenspan, the longest-running head of the Federal Reserve, indicate that there is no clear or easy plan." "An additional important ramification of this process is the fact that economic growth becomes coupled with debt, and this coupling is argued to create a social conflict, which may otherwise not exist." "Thus, this exponential need for more and more money may be contributing directly to inflation in the US. Inflation raises the cost-of-living for everyone, and if inflation exceeds the growth of income, then people are effectively made poorer over time through no fault of their own."

I cannot be certain that all of this text is BigK's, however.--Gregalton (talk) 17:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Errm yeah. My request was to please provide the diff where I added into any wiki article anything that implies 'The Federal Reserve is a plot to bankrupt the United States'. I did NOT request a diff where I say things that are "strikingly similar (but don't actually mention bankrupting anyone)." Please provide this diff, immediately. The accusations of me engaging in outright crankery is very much a personal attack. BigK HeX (talk) 19:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

If you feel that providing a diff that clearly indicates support for a fringe interpretation of Fed policy, on a fringe noticeboard, is a personal attack, then please report me. I think your text speaks for itself, the "bankruptcy" part is just one of the many different variations on a conspiracy theme, and your insistence on that part of it is disingenuous wikilawyering.--Gregalton (talk) 19:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Ohh.. OK. Well, I'm going to continue being "disingenuous" and request the diff where I state there is ANY type of plot ANYWHERE. Please provide immediately. Thanks in advance. BigK HeX (talk) 19:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

(OD) Let's all try to refrain from personal attacks and focus on discussing the argument. I'm sure you are all aware that even reasonable people can read two different sources differently. Hitting other editors with a club doesn't make them see the light. Have a great day! Wjhonson (talk) 20:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I have no idea how creating a section to attack my persona is in any way appropriate. This issue is being addressed elsewhere. BigK HeX (talk) 21:59, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Edward M. House

There is a big problem in the article that I have no idea what to do about. Someone keeps inserting wild, unsourced assertions about House's supposed involvemen in various illicit and subversive plots. Several of us have tried to correct these but they keep coming back. This is the sort of thing that leads many scholars to reject Misplaced Pages out of hand.

Ouch. Just get rid of that stuff every time it rears its head, unless there are some actual reliable sources behind it. If it's a specific editor having problems, then let me know. MastCell 06:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Satanic ritual abuse

Satanic ritual abuse (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is currently in horrible shape. It presents the clear majority view the Satanic ritual abuse does not exist as an actual conspiracy as a minority view. It busies itself with presenting apologetics in favor of the fringe conspiracy theory, much of it in an "absence of evidence does not indicate evidence of absence" fashion that likely violates WP:SYN and WP:UNDUE. Some feedback and extra eyes would be appreciated. Vassyana (talk) 20:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd advise a few people to check out the contributions of Abuse truth (talk · contribs). I agree the SRA article is a joke at present - we've already had complaints about it on this noticeboard at least once before - but with the current crop of users editing it I'm not sure much can be done. Moreschi 10:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The article used to be of good quality, until a handful of conspiracy POV-pushers came along and screwed it up, and ever since then they have staunchly insisted upon keeping conspiracy theories in. There are a number of underlying problems. First of all, many of the journals being cited are not available for free on the Internet, so people pretty much have to take the word of the poster that the source is not being misrepresented. I no longer trust the conspiracy theorists to cite sources fairly. Secondly, we have an issue of people outside the field being used as expert opinions. Allegations of SRA are primarily a criminological and sociological issue. Virtually all criminologists and sociologists agree that the SRA scare was a moral panic (though there may have been isolated cases where abuse took place with ritualistic overtones). Most of the gullible conspiracy theorization comes from psychiatrists and people in a handful of radical fringe fields. But I see no reason why psychiatrists should be considered expert on this subject, any more than they would be on (say) evolution or American history. *** Crotalus *** 21:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

One of the chief POV-pushers (I posted a detailed critique of the edits here, it's now in the archive) seems to be AWOL since mid-December. No doubt THEY got to him. A conspiratorial mind might note that the disappearance occurred exactly as we were beginning to move towards mediation. <eleland/talkedits> 11:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

not again. Enough time has been wasted in futile debates with conspiracy mongers who are obviously not interested in a neutral report on mainstream opinions. Good faith has been stretched to ridiculous lengths. This article needs to be put on Misplaced Pages:Article probation, and probably also needs to be semi-protected. Before we go any further here, it needs to be reverted to the last sane version. After this, uninvolved admins should clamp down on any editor trying to push an agenda or spin the article into suggesting conspiracy mongery. dab (𒁳) 13:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I see the real problem as being that certain editors only want one POV on the page. One that is skeptical of SRA. Any sources that may even suggest the existence of SRA are attacked, no matter how reliable and editors that promote these sources are threatened and called names. IMO, this is the real problem here. To have a NPOV page that is edited via the consensus process, the threats, name calling and reversions without consensus by those skeptical of the concept of SRA would need to stop. Abuse truth (talk) 22:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

AT's claims aside, there are problems with the assertions of the existence of SRA. These are discussed in detail and generally dismissed. AT has never managed a reply, rebuttal or follow-up that was convincing. I have read every post AT has left on the talk pages we are involved in, and always reply. If AT has a point, I edit accordingly. If not, I reply why I don't think there is merit. WLU (talk) 13:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I've not only read his posts, but printed and re-read the entire SRA archived talk pages. It took me several days to go through and digest all of the "Satanic" child abuse debate.

We have pointed out to AT what a good RS is, the peer-reviewed journal. He ignores it and continues to call self-published texts "RSs".

It's not that skeptical editors are allowed in the wiki and the believers not. It's a matter of the reliability of sources: something that AT has not understood yet.

User:Cesar Tort —189.145.190.2 (talk) 18:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Infobox deletion

FYI: Misplaced Pages:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Infobox_Pseudoscience. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Weird philosophy/religion mashup needs attention

Let me see if I can explain this well because it's a confusing mashup and hard to weed through. There is a religious movement called Spiritualism (religious movement) that was really popular between 1840 and 1920. It's still around today, and has spin-offs in Spiritism. Defining characteristic of the movement is a belief in communicating with spirits through seances and mediumship. That's one third of the equation. Second part: "Spiritualism" is often synonymous to, especially in Europe, the philosophy of Idealism, by far a more mundane philosophical thought that is pretty much just a belief in the supernatural and spirits. So already we have a problem because in America the popular use of the term "spiritualism" is to refer to the religious movement and in Europe it's to refer to "idealism". Which gets top billing, and which one is disambig, and should idealism mention "spiritualism" or is that giving fringe weight to the religion? Big mess, and I haven't even gotten to the third part. Third part: Often "spiritualism" is synonymously used to refer to animism and shamanism practices.

That third part is what brought me here looking for help in sorting out an article. A few editors split the spiritualism article into two articles, one for the religion and one (presumably) for "other uses". Well, an enterprising editor came in and filled the "other" article up -- Spiritualism (beliefs) -- with what appears to be WP:SYNTH that takes Western philosophy (idealism called spiritualism), mixes it with the religion, and mashes in Eastern mysticism, shamanism, animism, spiritism, and occultism in an attempt to write an article about some sort of universal ground to all spirituality which would be less dubious if the editor didn't say, "So what is your point? Spiritualistic phenomenon manifests itself worldwide ... and is referred to as that. The topic is very well referenced" when I called them on it.

What's more, is that I found at least one section that they wrote called "Mediumship in Tibet" that was completely bogusly sourced. I looked the book up at Google Books, searched inside the book, and it said nothing whatsoever about "mediumship" or "spiritualism".

I don't know what's WP:OR, what's WP:SYNTH, or what's legit in the article Spiritualism (beliefs). I'm also concerned that it's trying to equate the Western philosophy of idealism with less popular practices like shamanism, mediumship, and seances to make it appear that those practices are more widespread than they actually are (which is why I'm at the WP:FRINGE noticeboard).

Anyone familiar with these topics that can hop over and help sort out the mess, I'd really appreciate it. --Nealparr 08:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like WP:SYNTH to me - these are the characteristics of spiritualism, X has those characteristics, ergo X counts as "spiritualism" irrespective of what any sources actually call it. Also, for what it is worth, you are entirely correct that it would be silly to put that infobox on Faith healing. Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 10:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but removing it from all the articles it doesn't belong at (like spirit of all things), and making sure one single editor who wants it there doesn't keep putting it back, is apparently considered disruptive editing and gets you blocked for 48 hours : ) Now I have to seek help sorting things out instead of just being WP:BOLD about it. If it were just up to me, I'd wipe the whole article and make a disambig list out of it, but I'm on a short leash. --Nealparr 10:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It's important to note that philosophy and religion are not necessarily distinct concepts. They have historically been considered opposed in western history, but this is not true in the east. A lot of westerners who have absolutely no education in either philosophy or eastern religion continue to have this blatant misunderstanding. To see what I mean, see Talk:Eastern_philosophy#Merger_proposal.

The founders of Spiritualism themselves seemed to mix philosophy with religion, just as Deists did. So, I don't really see anything objectionable about the article, just that its sources need to be checked.

Spiritualism (beliefs) certainly seems to overlap a lot with Spiritualism (beliefs), though, and an investigation into the matter may yield the fact that they're the same idea. Historians tend not to be very good scientists. In my opinion, they largely have a tendency to just make stuff up as they go along, so they aren't very consistent and will have very absurd categorizations, like this. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 04:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree that philosophy and religion mix, for example Buddhism. What you've got going on in this article, though, is mixing the religion of Spiritualism -- an 1840s to 1920s religious movement that emphasized seances, ouija boards, and hoaxes like spirit photography to create a sensational belief in the afterlife -- with ancient shamanism and animism, a little mysticism and occultism, and passing it off as a foundational philosophy when there's little distinction between the religious use and the philosophical use, and a lot of synthesizing of the philosophy with dubiously related philosophies. The sources are the real problem. They're a mix of sources about shamanism with sources about the religious movement, equating it all as the same thing. What's more is that the editor who wrote the article actually has demonstrably thrown in quite a bit of synthesis. I started going through the sources and stopped after finding that most of the sources in the first few sections either didn't even mention "spiritualism" at all, or was just about the religious use. Honestly, it's too much for me to sort through and see what's legit and what isn't, so I'm passing it off here : ) I don't have the time to deal with it myself. --Nealparr 06:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I admit I don't really know much about it. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 10:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Origin theories of Christopher Columbus

no comment necessary. dab (𒁳) 09:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

No, none. This is beyond ridiculous. I've removed some of the most painful silliness, but there's still a lot remaining. Some people need to remember Misplaced Pages is not an advocacy vehicle for your favourite nationalist author. Moreschi 10:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Amazing - I got reverted. Thankfully someone reverted back and I've permanently semi-protected the article. Moreschi 12:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

To save people time, you should clarify that it's specifically about Origin theories of Christopher Columbus#Portugese theory. The whole page isn't a fringe theory, just the contentious edits a few users have been making to that one section.

It's such patent nonsense that it doesn't even really belong here. I sent it over to WP:ANI as patent nonsense. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 10:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Seeing how as Moreschi already sees it, sending it over to WP:ANI would be counterintuitive. So, I removed my posting there. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 08:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

GUCT

I've prodded this article because (a) the subject does not assert it to be a notable fringe theory, (b) the article is still a mess almost 3 years after creation, (c) the article cites no sources, and (d) it gives undue weight to the theory. The creator of the article has been notified, and I will notify other users who have made significant edits to the article. Bearian (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Hilarious.

The GUCT is the Grand Unifying / Unified Conspiracy Theory (a play on Grand Unified Theory) and is a disparaging term used by doubters to refer to supposed links drawn between one or more conspiracy theories, for example, chemtrail theory, JFK's assassination, the Apollo landing hoax, the Bilderbergers, free energy suppression, and water fluoridation are all part of some overarching plot (probably by aliens).

In the edit-history, at one point somebody added a mythology stub, another person added "see also -- vast right-wing conspiracy." As time went on, people also added to the article, by tacking on new, different conspiracy theories. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Seems like a classic example of a "neologism which is in wide use, but for which there are no treatments in reliable secondary sources." (WP:NEO) I really see no risk of "undue weight to the theory," as it is treated as self-evidently nonsensical. The term is mostly used to disparage conspiracy theories, anyway. <eleland/talkedits> 07:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I would guess that its content originated from a Humorix article, dated April 16 2002, titled "Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory Of Everything" (and subtitled as "Fake News"). Ayla (talk) 10:30, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of fractional-reserve banking

Is economic support for the theoretical advantages of "full-reserve banking" considered to be non-mainstream? (Disregarding the practicalities, I suppose.)

The criticisms of fractional-reserve banking seem to have wide support, including:

• Irving Fisher,
• Frank Knight,
• Milton Friedman,
• many ecological economists (such as Herman Daly)
• along with economists of the Chicago School (such as Henry Simons)
• and Austrian School economists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BigK HeX (talk • contribs)

Fisher, Knight, Friedman and Simons are all acceptable sources. I'd have to look and see whether there's unacceptable synthesis happening, however. Relata refero (talk) 13:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The Criticism of fractional-reserve banking article would appear to be a POV-fork. I would much rather see all the relevant criticisms, including the ecological one if it is well sourced, added to the Fractional-reserve banking article. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:11, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Ziusudra

there are allegations of pushing of fringe theories I find difficult to evaluate. Sumerophile (talk · contribs) appears to take any comparison of Sumerian and Biblical flood stories as implying the claim that they refer to some "real" historical flood. That is, it appears this user is reading fringe claims that nobody ever intended to submit. But maybe I am missing something. See here, and Talk:Ziusudra. dab (𒁳) 12:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

looking into this, the picture becomes rather clear. While "Sumerophile" in his mission to "remove fringe theories" doesn't shirk from removing without comment references to University of Pennsylvania Press or Cambridge University Press published sources (apparently because they were being used to reference view he opts should be deprecated), his nemesis Greensburger (talk · contribs) who is allegedly a subtle pusher of fringe views shows a perfectly sane editing pattern, removing fringe claims or reverting blanking (and shows a refreshing failure to qualify as a single-purpose account ). dab (𒁳) 13:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories

another loopy theory that escaped notice. I have done some preliminary cleanup, but this article clearly needs to be surveyed (if not deleted or merged as unnotable kookery). dab (𒁳) 13:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Some of the theories mentioned are notable. I have a scholarly book that mentions one or two and hope to add refs when I have a minute. There was also a documentary about the issue shown on UK television a few years back. We should bear in mind that there is also much speculation and uncertainty in the mainstream views of how the Americas were peopled. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Notable in the sense of? None of the uncertainty in mainstream views is about African contact. The basic arguments about how and when Native Americans arrived from Asia. There is one hypothesis (put forward for testing that is) which is very minority that some may have come from Iberia (the Solutrean suggestion). I have no idea what TV programme you have in mind and I'd be very interested in what scholarly book you have, even just the name would be useful. Thanks.--Dougweller (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

A distinction needs to be made here between origin and contact. Dougweller seems to be discussing the various theories about the origin of humans in the Americas... and I would agree with him on that issue. But I think the topic here is contact... the various theories that once humans had settled in the Americas, there was occasional contact between them and humans in Africa. These theories are certainly Fringe, they are not accepted by most scholars of pre-columbian history. However, I think they do pass the basic test for inclusion outlined in this guideline. I too have seem programs on TV (Discovery Channel, History Channel etc) that have discussed such theories. Thus, the topic has achievied the level of mainstream recognition that this guideline requires. It is appropriate to have an article on the topic. Determining what is stated in that article, and how it is stated is a different matter. Blueboar (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

note that I am not opposed to keeping this article around (or I would just have AfDd it): Misplaced Pages articles are justified by notability, not by sanity of their subjects. The point is that the article needs to make clear that although notable, these theories have no merit. dab (𒁳) 16:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

In other words, we have to make clear that we here at WP:HERESY have unanimously declared this idea 'heretical', and thus we must 'educate' all those poor fools who do subscribe to it, that their POV is simply wrong, because their books are wrong - while our 'approved' books are right. Wouldn't be 'neutral' any other way, would it. ;) 141.152.54.105 (talk) 17:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I can agree with that. I am sure that there are good sources that have debunked all of these theories. They should definitely be discussed. Blueboar (talk) 16:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Book is Timewalkers by Clive Gamble. By a scholar for general readership. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just ordered it from Amazon. --Dougweller (talk) 17:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Note it is about origins rather than contact. It describes the way that humans spread throughout the world. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:51, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Consciousness causes collapse

Minor tussle. A number of the editors asserting ownership of this article are obvious fans of quantum mysticism and don't like having the science rug wisked out from under them. A few voices of reason could be helpful here even while the article is protected. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Walled garden discovery

Check out the various articles related to Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. In particular there is Social cycle theory of Sarkar. Progressive utilization theory, Microvitum, Neo-humanism, Ananda Marga, Ananda Marga Tantra, and AMGK. Do we really need all these articles? ScienceApologist (talk) 23:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I am very familiar with philosophical and religious topics. I will take a better look over that set, but on first impression it's at the least a promotional set of articles. In terms of fringe concerns, "neo-humanism" is the most obvious problem. "Neo-humanism" bears no apparent relation to the philosophy of humanism and seems preoccupied with "New Age"-style concerns such as "universal love" and "holism". Additionally, there is a promotional tone used throughout the articles. For example, from the subject's main article:

After I take a better look over the articles, I will tackle maintenance task such as merges, PROD/AfD, cleanup tagging, clearing up the promotional tone, etc. Any assistance would be vastly appreciated. Vassyana (talk) 06:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

good catch, ScienceApologist :) dab (𒁳) 15:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

• I've made a first go at merging and redirecting, as appropriate. However, the remaining articles (Ananda Marga and Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar) still need a lot of work and attention. Any assistance in cleaning up the language, condensing the material, removing promotional and instructional text, finding additional references, etc would be greatly appreciated. Vassyana (talk) 07:40, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

and another

Category:Uhuru Movement, surrounding Omali Yeshitela. An entire category of articles without a single citation that would establish notability. Omali Yeshitela himself may be notable (some 10,000 google hits), but the remaining articles accreting around him clearly are not. dab (𒁳) 15:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

African nationalism uses "Uhuru Movement" in quite a different way since "uhuru" means "independence" in Swahili. I imagine that many Africans would be quite upset to see this general principle taken over and by a relatively small group of Americans. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

there is Uhuru (independence) (a redirect). Uhuru is just the Swahili for "freedom". As such, it would belong on wiktionary, not Misplaced Pages. The "Uhuru Movement" appears to be of rather limited notability within US Afrocentrism, but its notability could be sufficient for inclusion. It's just that somebody will have to establish notability (as in, cite third party sources). dab (𒁳) 16:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Much of that is non-notable. The African Socialist International probably is for the history of third-world fellow-traveling. There seem to be a couple of discussions of its founding in 1981 in the appropriate commie-watching journals, and it merits an entry in the Historical Dictionary of Socialism. Also known as the Socialist Inter-african and the League of Something or other. Relata refero (talk) 20:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I changed the link in the African nationalism article. African Socialist International is surely not notable if they are still talking about holding a founding congress in the near future. If they eventually do found the organisation properly then perhaps it will be worth including. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No, that's an error. I fancy this chap is piggybacking on an actually notable organisation. Founded apparently by Leopold Senghor of Senegal. Relata refero (talk) 16:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I've done some merging/redirecting. The remaining problem articles are African Socialist International, Omali Yeshitela and Chernoh Bah. dab (𒁳) 18:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll rewrite ASI. Relata refero (talk) 19:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. It was great! If there's anything more absurd than Soviet propaganda in full flight... "Dangerous and opportunistic". "Betraying the worker's revolution". "Petty-bourgeous conspiracy." Relata refero (talk) 19:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Albanian origins fringe theories

New user Pelasgicmoon and not new Dodona have been reposting material on Fringe theories and have been rejected about 50 times(Dodona mostly since Pelasgic is new) on various pages by Admins,Users and Dodona even by his mentor. They dont get the rules and have a dogma about it and just keep posting reposting ignoring and going on reposting..........Megistias (talk) 16:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

that would be blockable as disruption. dab (𒁳) 15:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Then please do so.Megistias (talk) 20:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

ok, we have some minor problems with Albanian nationalists at Talk:Pelasgians, Talk:Chaonians in case anyone is interested. See also Origin of the Albanians, Albanian nationalism, Dodona (talk · contribs), PelasgicMoon (talk · contribs). Things are generally under control, but more eyes are welcome. dab (𒁳) 15:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, how did I not have Pelasgians on my watchlist already? Admins should be aware of WP:ARBMAC if things get hyper. Moreschi 11:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

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)

Tamil roots of Carnatic Music

This discussion on WP:RS/N is trying to obfuscate some fringe-y POV-pushing regarding the origins of Carnatic music, pitting a bunch of Tamil chauvinists against an equally fractious lot of Kannadigas (who usually are the most sensitive to their neighbors' antics) over the WP:RS status of a website. This could get bloody. rudra (talk) 04:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Heating up already. rudra (talk) 05:37, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Page now protected until March 1. Surely they can settle their differences before then...or hang on a sec, maybe not. We'll see. Moreschi 12:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

David Barton

Where a controversial 'historian' (who has no formal education in history and makes claims that have gained no acceptance in the academic historical community) is widely described as a "pseudohistorian" and has had his work widely criticised by legitimate historians, is it reasonable to note these facts in the article lead? This seems to be authorised by WP:LEAD when it states: "It should establish context, summarize the most important points, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describe its notable controversies, if there are any." There is another editor who is trying to move all mention of this characterisation and criticism out of the lead to the end of the article. Hrafn_Stalk 14:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at how this is handled in the case of Bat Ye'or where a compromise has been quite painfully hammered out between opposing groups of editors. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Does the Scientology Galactic Confederacy qualify as "fiction"?

There is currently a proposal to merge the Galactic Confederacy article into the main Scientology article on the basis that the Galactic Confederacy qualifies as "fictional" at Talk:Scientology#Merge proposal.. Any input as to whether this apparently acknowledged belief of Scientologists qualifies as "fiction" would be more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 16:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Umm, what is the basis for differentiating this topic from any other religious belief/scripture? Is there any argument for this being "fictional" that couldn't as easily apply to them as well? But in any case, even if it isn't "fictional", I don't see it having any notability at all that isn't heavily dependent on, and derivative of Scientology's notability -- so it should probably be merged somewhere (though I tend to agree that Xenu or Space opera in Scientology scripture would be more appropriate targets). Hrafn_Stalk 17:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. All we have is one editor, comparatively new, who is insisting that it qualifies as "fiction". I have left a note for him on his talk page to the effect that he has to prove that this matter of religious belief qualifies as fiction. He has also accused an experienced editor of "vandalism" for having removed a merger tag. And, it has at least three cited references, which I think qualifies it as notable enough. I agree that there isn't much content, and that might be reason to perhaps merge it to Scientology beliefs and practices. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a guideline or policy which specifically differentiates between matters of religious belief and fiction. Does anyone know of such a policy, guideline, or whatever? John Carter (talk) 17:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

If the merge goes through, then I'm going to do something I always wanted to do: go through some of the worst written articles on Bible chapters and the like, dropping Template:In-universe on all of them that treat religious dogma as historical fact. Relata refero (talk) 17:37, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

They should all be written from a scholarly (Biblical criticism, Biblical archaeology, etc), rather than theological, perspective. However dropping a tag that explicitly calls them "fiction" on them would be highly incendiary -- I hope you have your asbestos underpants on. ;) Hrafn_Stalk 06:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

After a little escapade at Book of Esther round Purim time one year, I always keep the asbestos handy with those articles... No, the reason I said it is because it sometimes seems the only way to wake the main contributors up. Otherwise it usually is just the "in-universe" people who edit those. Relata refero (talk) 10:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

And my objection isn't that they're written from a theological perspective.. that's not that bad. Its when they're written as history that I get irritated. ("..and then in the next decades the Medes conquered XYZ..." and the like, sourced to specific Bible verses.) A related problem is in all ancient Near East articles, where "in-universe" Bible commentary and the Catholic Encycl. is treated like a reliable secondary source. See Nebuchadnezzar, though at least there someone managed to persuade them to use the word "portrayal". Relata refero (talk) 10:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Royal Rife

Royal Rife, particularly the talk page: there are no active content issues, but the talk page is an absolute mess of conspiracy theories and the like, and has drifted quite a ways from anything relevant to improving the associated Misplaced Pages article. I'd just like some outside review of the talk page with an eye toward the talk page guidelines and moving it away from Conspiracypedia and back toward discussion of concrete improvements to the actual article. MastCell  20:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

• I archived it and semi-protected for a while. Looking at it from afar, I'm afraid that "David" had no interest in policy, neutrality or anything else, he just wanted to use Misplaced Pages to correct the fact that the world regards Rife as charlatan. Guy (Help!) 22:02, 15 February 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)

Criticism of atheism

In the "Criticism of atheism" article (which btw has a pretty pro-atheist slant but thats not the point of my discussion) there is a section detailing a Christian writer noting that "Stalin and Mao, not to mention Pol Pot and a host of others, all committed atrocities in the name of a Communist ideology that was explicitly atheistic". There's a 'rebuttal' by Sam Harris that goes "The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions." That kind've avoids the point, but again, this my POV so I'm not going to add it into the article. So far it contains two cited arguments.

Now this was followed up by "Further, this criticism is simply a poisoning the well fallacy variant, as well as a strawman of atheism. It is clear that not all communists are atheists (see Christian Communism), not all atheists are communists (see Ayn Rand), and attacking atheism via communism attempts to paint atheists in a negative light initially so as to discredit anything they may say." which I removed as uncited POV. The user who added it, Knight of BAAWA, reverted it back saying it was a fallacy and thus did not need a source. The wikilink to "straw man" was enough. At the very least, they needed a quote from someone stating that argument.

Now a second user, Deus Ex Machina, has added it back saying "The source is already there" without adding any. I reverted, it saying that I didn't see a source.

Now this paragraph doesn't seem to be in align with any of WP's policies, but if someone with more experience could run in that would be great.--CyberGhostface (talk) 15:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

AIDS denialism

There has been a recent upsurge in AIDS-denialist agenda-account activity. Specific pages involved include:

• AIDS reappraisal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Koch's postulates (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Zidovudine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Robert Root-Bernstein (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Since AIDS-denialist groups have in the past coordinated "attacks" on Misplaced Pages, I'd just ask for eyes on these articles and any others which turn up (I could list a bunch of other former POV forks and walled gardens of AIDS denialism, but that would violate WP:BEANS). MastCell  22:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Add Incarnation Children's Center (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to the list. This facility, which provides care for children with HIV, was the subject of a report by a journalist named Liam Scheff alleging that they were force-feeding the kids poisonous medications (N.B. that Liam Scheff denies that HIV causes AIDS). These charges were amplified in a BBC documentary, but subsequently the BBC backtracked in response to complaints about their accuracy (). In any case, Liam Scheff (talk · contribs) has now edited the article introducing his (unsourced) take on this dispute. I've left a WP:COI warning, but again, more eyes are necessary on these articles at present. MastCell  06:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

On it. Relata refero (talk) 19:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Add Paul Gann to the list; an account is continually replacing his cause of death (AIDS, as described by the New York Times) with AIDS-denialist claims from Peter Duesberg's book. MastCell  18:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

John Zizioulas

Request assistance on BLP-article on John Zizioulas, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamon. The page has been protected due to an edit war (see Talk:John_Zizioulas) over the inclusion of fringe-group material and references accusing Zizioulas of being 'deceitful', 'heterodox' and at odds with 'traditional Orthodoxy', which had been occupying half the article.Seminarist (talk) 00:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Bulgars

Bulgars#Iranian_theory: Comparable to the Albanian frolicking above, here we have expounded an apparent fringe theory popular in 1990s Bulgarian nationalism. Misplaced Pages is very vulnerable to this sort of thing. I tend to file these cases under Category:Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups: reviewing that category will raise your hair, and give you an inexhaustible field of fringe cleanup work. dab (𒁳) 14:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the Azerbaijanis is another all-time favourite, if you can be bothered. dab (𒁳) 14:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I am reminded of the time a friend's half-senile mother was reading an account of the Wolfenden report and declared that "they can't spell burglary". Guy (Help!) 15:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

these articles are apparently written by people who are not quite senile enough to be prevented to use a web browser... dab (𒁳) 18:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

And yet again, Armenians trying to claim Mitanni. rudra (talk) 03:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

these kids are not really a credit to their nation, are they... I guess I'll just semiprotect the article to buy it some peace. dab (𒁳) 10:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I think what we've got to start doing with fringe theories like this is to give the reasons why they arise and why they become so popular. For instance, it's not really going out on a limb to speculate that the "Iranian origin of the Bulgars" theory caught on because of the anti-Turkish campaigns in Bulgaria in the 1980s and 90s when it became politically undesirable for the Bulgars to have been Turkic. If we can find a scholarly source explaining this we should add it. --Folantin (talk) 10:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

sure, we have dedicated articles for this sort of stuff. Macedonism. Illyrian Movement. Albanian nationalism. Armenian nationalism. National awakening of Bulgaria. Rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire. Indigenous Aryans. National myth. Nationalism and ancient history. Strangely enough, the nationalist zealots never seem interested in adding material to these. dab (𒁳) 11:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

speaking of "Indigenous Aryans", could somebody be bothered to speedy Aryan invasion theory (Europe) and have a chat with its creator? dab (𒁳) 12:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. PROD is rather too kind for stuff like that. Such patent nonsense really is CSDable. Moreschi 14:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Postscript: in fact, I've just blocked the author of Aryan invasion theory (Europe) indefinitely as a result of Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Goldenhawk 0. Hats off to Dieter for spotting the socks here. Moreschi 09:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Ayurveda

for everyone battle-hardened on the homeopathy front, you may be interested in looking at Research and innovations in Ayurveda and similar articles.

dab (𒁳) 18:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I'll have a look round and see what I can fix. Moreschi 10:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Questionable sources

Hi everybody, a proposal is being made to ease the current restrictions on questionable sources in the verifiability policy. I think editors with experience of dealing with such issues on this noticeboard might have a useful viewpoint on this proposal. See Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hare Krishna/ISKON Bias and Control on the Vaishnava section

For the last several months; on the Vaishnava section. There is a Hare Krishna/ISKON person maintaining a very strong Hare Krishna/ISKON slant and bias to that section. Others and myself, have been contending and arguing with this person to put our vaishnava groups information section. We have all editted, and he would come and re-edit what we have done. I have emailed Misplaced Pages about the situation three times already and they have not been helpful. This person has written the whole section with a definite ISKON/Hare Krishna slant. He has a strangle hold on the whole section. I will be taking this to wikipedia one more time. If they have done nothing to resolve the problem...I will be taking this to the ACLU in Los Angeles.((Govinda Ramanuja dasaUSA

Some of the problems at Vaishnavism appear related to the recent issues at Thoughtform (which is improving - good work). - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 07:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Though not primarily. I believe that diff1 and diff2 are instances in the issue at hand. It looks like WP:PROVEIT needs to be invoked, though I fear I cannot discriminate the good information from the bad and will be sitting this one out. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 07:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

this is difficult because it isn't about "fringe theories" as such, but about the relative weight a valid sub-sect (Gaudiya Vaishnavism) should be given in the treatment of a larger movement (Vaishnavism). It's a case of WP:UNDUE, but there will be room for bona fide disagreement. dab (𒁳) 09:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Satanic ritual abuse still a problem

Maybe not the best place to post this, but an editor has expressed concerns elsewhere that the above mentioned article is becoming overly reliant upon and probably giving undue weight to the belief that many of the claims of satanic ritual abuse are valid. Anyone with any knowledge of the subject, particularly if they can contributed sourced information regarding the consensus who tend to discount the majority of these claims, is more than welcome to do so. John Carter (talk) 13:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, y'know something? This article has improved since the previous two times it's been up on this noticeboard. That awful list of "allegations" has gone from the main article, split off to elsewhere - have to monitor that, though, and NPOVfy - and the proposed split looks reasonably sensible, though one must be careful to avoid POV forks. Someone's been doing good work. If we are going to split the material up, though, care has to be taken that Ritualized child abuse doesn't become filled with all the crap that previously clogged up the SRA article. Moreschi 14:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

A comment - the spin-out of specific cases was contested. There is an extant discussion as part of this section, and a much longer discussion focusing on the spin-out here. The rational was WP:UNDUE given to allegations, and my more recent thinking is that many of the allegations had satanism as an afterthought or allusion rather than a central aspect of the case. If I'm missing any policy or guideline based reasons for the split I would appreciate them pointed out, as the spin-out has been reverted once already. Thanks for the attention on this matter, it has been a labour of hate since no-one can love such a long, drawn out contested work towards the current version. WLU (talk) 14:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I very much doubt that Ritualized child abuse become filled with all the crap. I started it (I am a skeptic of the "Satanic" claims of SRA) and, curiously, the SRA believers immediately nominated it for deletion! My educated guess is that they want the hard facts of child abuse mixed together with the highly dubious claims, the "Satanic" ones.

Thanks again for the attention on this matter.

—Cesar Tort 15:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Speculation on the motives of other editors doesn't really help the page, which should be based on reliable sources. You knew I was going to post this Cesar, I will beat you with this wiffle bat until you repent : ) WLU (talk) 15:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Drug addict fringe needs dealt with.

From Mescaline:

Users typically experience visual hallucinations and radically altered states of consciousness, often experienced as pleasurable and illuminating but occasionally is accompanied by feelings of anxiety or revulsion. Like most psychedelic hallucinogens, mescaline is not physically addictive. Mescaline-containing cacti can induce severe vomiting and nausea, which adds an important part to traditional Native-American or Shaman ceremonies as it is considered cleansing.

From Psychedelic psychotherapy:

Psychedelic psychotherapy in the broadest possible sense of the term is likely as old as humanity's ancient knowledge of hallucinogenic plants itself. Though usually viewed as predominantly spiritual in nature, elements of psychotherapeutic practice can be recognized in the entheogenic rituals of many cultures.

Then there's also the nonsense I dealt with a while back on Cannabis. Cannabis-related articles, including the various "strains" on Template:Cannabis resources need to be cleaned up (some strains may need to be deleted) and Portal:Cannabis needs to be made encyclopedic.

On Portal:Cannabis:

Did you know that cannabis is considered a soft drug, and it can not cause physical addiction, as opposed to ethanol ('alcohol') and nicotine.

Also:

Hard and soft drugs

I agree with that assessment of cannabis as a soft drug, but it's still OR, because governments and scientists of the world (despite their distorted view of cannabis) do not share that view. Because Misplaced Pages's standard is verifiability, not truth, it doesn't matter that the mainstream view of cannabis is wrong. The fringe view should not be given undue weight, regardless.

Regarding other psychadelics, like mescaline -- just imagine if some kid reads this material on Misplaced Pages, then goes out and OD's on some psychadelic drug, like MDMA, because he read on Misplaced Pages that it was harmless.

So, yeah, a broad variety of articles related to psychedelic drugs needs to be given a closer look. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Isn't this mainly an issue of improving sourcing? The BBC website currently carries a feature on whether MDMA is less harmful than alcohol. There has been a great deal of discussion recently in the UK about the classification of cannabis, with various doctors and scientists weighing in on one side or the other. All that can be cited. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:42, 26 February 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)

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)

Greek nationalist whackiness

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)

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)

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)

Durupınar site

I'm sure this has come up before; it's one of the most ridiculous, embarrasing young-earth-Creationist fantasies ever promulgated. To the point where Answers in Genesis rails against it. But not Misplaced Pages! :-)

The ground penetration radar yielded a regular internal structure as documented in a report to the Turkish government. Fasold and the team measured the length of the formation 538 ft (164 m), close to the 300 cubits (157 m, 515 ft) of the Noah's Ark so-called drogue (anchor) stones that they believed were once attached to the ark were investigated. These very large stones have in common a hole cut on a radius at one end (so as not to chafe an attached rope). Such stones are alluded to in Babylonian accounts of the ark.

<eleland/talkedits> 07:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

"Babylonian accounts of the ark"?? dab (𒁳) 10:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep. See Sumerian creation myth and Ziusudra. Fasold was an atheist and thought the ark found was that one, not Noah's.--Dougweller (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

ok, I have redirected David Fasold as a coatrack fork on the same topic, but I found myself reverted by Tuckerresearch (talk · contribs). dab (𒁳) 19:55, 23 February 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)

When "Reliable Sources" are unreliable

This relates to the issues of WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE. What happens if a paper is cited that can unequivocally be demonstrated to contain unreliable information, albeit that it is from a peer-reviewed journal which is regarded at Misplaced Pages as WP:RS by definition? This resembles a converse of the "oneway linking principle"- The mainstream will ignore many fringe ideas especially when we get into the minute details of that fringe idea so the mainstream does not bother to create a WP:RS refutation of that fringe WP:RS. One might hope that when discussion on a Talk page has revealed that the cited sources are unreliable a well-intentioned editor acting in good faith would accept the need to withdraw them. But, I cannot see an route by which to insist that such Fringe information should be held away from a main Article page especially when the Article is already in a Fringe area and the effect of WP:WEIGHT is less strong. In the current instance, there is no way that the Mainstream would have created a detailed refutation of a 20-year old research paper in an obscure journal and a 14-yr old meta-analysis in a similarly low-quality journal. How can their inclusion in an Article be challenged, or at least balanced especially when another editor refuses to accept the refutation of his sources' ideas?OffTheFence (talk) 13:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Clearly this section is a continuation of what was discussed above, but things have moved on at the Talk page itself. OffTheFence (talk) 13:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, you have already tried arguing from logic and from editorial license to choose a fair representation of the field as a whole rather than just cherry-picking examples. Your best bet now may be to track down one of the more recent metareviews (described here and here, abstract or more online , , , , and ) of homeopathy as a whole (I have not seen anything else for arsenicum album itself) and find these studies (I assume - I have not checked) listed as methodologically lacking. A second option would be to use GoogleScholar or CrossRef (or whatever equivalent for biomedical) to see how papers in quality journals treat the Linde et al. (1994) and Cazin et al. (1987). One equivalently reliable source expressing concerns or dismissing the results or analysis would require a caveat in the article, and several might require that the papers be treated as solely of historical interest. They probably should not be eliminated from the article both for encyclopedic reasons of detailing the intermittent interest actual researchers show this stuff, and for the practical reason that such removal would not be stable - some editor will wander along later to "correct" the "oversight" of omitting them. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 18:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a real problem - without commenting on the particular aspects of this dispute, more sophisticated editors wishing to advance a fringe or minoritarian POV often track down individual peer-reviewed studies supporting their view and insist on their inclusion as reliable sources. I can produce maybe a dozen peer-reviewed papers arguing that HIV is not the cause of AIDS - but that doesn't mean that these should be cited and expounded upon in our article on AIDS. Similarly, there are a number of peer-reviewed studies claiming that secondhand smoke is harmless, but to cite them all and discuss each at length would produce an inaccurate representation of the actual state of human knowledge on the subject. It's a question of WP:WEIGHT. Individual studies should be viewed in the context of WP:WEIGHT provided by expert reviews, scientific consensus statements, and other secondary-source representations of expert opinion in a field. It is way too easy to cherry-pick the primary peer-reviewed literature to produce an inaccurate, biased, or inappropriately weighted overview of a subject, and this is exactly the sort of abuse that WP:SYN and WP:WEIGHT are intended to prevent. MastCell  18:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm comparatively new here. Is there a specific rule that prohibits the consideration of anything that isn't from a RS in discussions on a talk page (I can see the need to keep these off the actual articles)? In the course of recent discussions of a particular paper that is claimed to provide positive evidence for homoeopathy, and whether it should be included in an article, some perfectly valid (and as far as I'm aware unrefuted) criticisms of the article were cited, but two editors who are supporting the inclusion of the article simply stated that we can't consider them because they had been published on a blog. Brunton (talk) 19:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

A useful policy in this regard is WP:REDFLAG. It should be used more forcefully throughout talkpage discussions. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what SA means here. It is very common on talk pages to bring attention to texts that you are not proposing to use as a source in the article. So long as you keep within the rules of discussion (be civil, work towards consensus, stick to discussing improvements to the article) then you can mention any text you want to. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that some people refer too often to texts that are making extraordinary claims to bolster their tenuous and decidedly "fringey" position. This can have the effect of overwhelming talkpage discussions to the point of making it appear that the sources are good enough to pass WP:REDFLAG when in fact they are not. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

But the problem here is different. It is that a WP:RS is being demanded on a Talk page merely to support criticism of papers that have been added to the main Article, when an analysis of these papers makes it self-evident that the studies are defective but no one else has ever bothered to do that analysis. So, in Misplaced Pages terms the analysis is WP:OR but it is also uncontestably correct. I would not want to include this WP:OR in the main Article, the appropriate remedy is to remove the defective studies from the main Article, but their fans do not accept this. My problem therefore is that Misplaced Pages's rules are effectively being exploited to ensure that bad studies can't be deleted from an Article by consensus. OffTheFence (talk) 21:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

If the paper is dubious (has internal inconsistencies, for example) it may be judged to be an unreliable source in spite of the journal in which it was published. One need not necessarily have to provide a paper refuting it if it is a poorly done paper. Peer review does not equal imprimatur. WP:REDFLAG is important because a reliable source for an extraordinary claim (e.g. "homeopathy works!") needs to be exquisite above and beyond normal sourcing requirements. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Any confusion here may be my fault: AS wasn't replying to me; I had indented my comment under MastCell's (as it seemed more relevant to the issue of peer-reviewed sources without peer-reviewed criticism) and above SA's comment. Brunton (talk) 21:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I think I see. The only thing that concerns me now is that it should be remembered that we are working to verifiability rather than truth. It isn't our job to correct the scientific consensus. When there are different views in peer-reviewed papers then we need to establish weight by referring to overviews (e.g. reviews of the literature) or by looking at the standing of the journals in which the different views are published. While it is up to those who want the material included to show that it is notable and well-sourced, I'm not sure how far you will get by arguing that a peer-reviewed study is defective unless you can show a very good reason. A source that contradicts it would definitely help your position, but it is not appropriate to demand on a talk page that someone produce a source for their argument. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Scratch that idea - those articles seem to have (deservedly) foundered in unciteability as far as mainstream WP:RS are concerned. Mentioning when the studies were published and the lack of high quality confirmation is relevant. Commonly accepted methodological problems, such as lack of blinding or randomization, should be noted, and there are a couple of metrics for comparing the quality of studies that should be allowable to compute under the obvious deductions section of the not-OR essay. In any case, utter lack of scientific plausibility and the scientific consensus against homeopathy are perfectly relevant. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 00:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that reliability of a journal refers to its current reputation for accuracy in a community -- the reputation of the journal as a whole. An editor's opinion about an individual article wouldn't seem to be relevant to the reputation of the journal publishing it in the community, so I don't understand why such things are thought to have any bearing on the question of a journal's reliability. It is the journal, not the study, that is the source. The journal is our evidence that a study existed. The journal's (or possibly the author's) reputation -- not anything that can be said about an individual article's content -- is the basis for reliability. I completely agree that editors' personal personal beliefs about and critiques of study methodology etc. are entirely original research and canot have any weight. A claim that a study in a reliable journal does not reflect consensus or has so little weight as to be fringe has to cited to some other reliable source. What editors personally believe is correct has nothing to do with it. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 01:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Not really - journals themselves generally say nothing other than to validate that a certain article passed a bar of peer review, which varies by the importance of the journal to the field. Being published in Science or Nature carries more stringent requirements than something with more adjectives (or Medical Hypotheses, which is not a reliable source at all). This high regard by the scientific community is why such articles are generally RS. It would, however, be entirely incorrect to cite any information from Schön's withdrawn papers regardless of publishing journal, or to cite "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" other than in the context of the Sokal Affair.

The case at hand, I will admit, is somewhat less clear-cut than these examples. It remains, however, appropriate to exercise editorial oversight to ensure that our articles fairly represent the whole of the relevant corpus. By all means any quality studies which have not been superseded should be cited, but they should also be provided with context. Ideally, an unbiased reader who happens across Arsenicum album should leave knowing what it is, how it is produced, why it is prescribed (history and symptoms), and that there is some small evidence of efficacy but no sound theory of action. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 02:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be a consensus that bad studies can either be removed or have their deficiencies shown in a main article- sacrificing WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in favour of WP:UNDUE and WP:REDFLAG, and probably WP:IAR, amongst others. But with the whole of homeopathy under "probation", if I edit the main Article don't I still find myself subject to being complained against, because no consensus has been reached? None of this should be necessary if editors acted in good faith and withdrew source material that has been shown to be unreliable or appeared open to qualifying any account given of it in the main Article, but that is where we are. I feel that the principle is important enough to take it up the decision chain to establish a proper precedent. Where does it go next?OffTheFence (talk) 08:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

A request was posted at WP:RSN#Arsenicum album. I should not need to point out that we are not going to sacrifice WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR in favor of your POV. —Whig (talk) 08:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I phrased that badly. The aim is to achieve NPOV. What needs to be sacrificed/compromised is the idea that NPOV falls out immediately simply by following a rigid and narrow interpretation of WP:RS and WP:NOR. NPOV is not negotiable, it is the means to achieve it (and, I suppose, the definition of NPOV) that are. NPOV has not been achieved by going down the path you and DanaUllman have taken us. That is why we have a problem. OffTheFence (talk) 12:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It is important to AGF, but it is hard to do so when many of the above editors give you only half of the picture. Still, I will AGF. Although these editors insist upon the "unreliability" of the Cazin study and the Linde (1994) meta-analysis that verifies the study as valid, these editors have accidentally (?) not mentioned the numerous double-blind placebo controlled studies (on animals and on humans) published in RS journals showing benefits from homeopathic Arsenicum album. Recently, yet another human trial was referenced to an even more prestigious journal ("Science of the Total Environment"), and yet, editors have stonewalled its inclusion. I also referred to an article in Annals in Internal Medicine in which the Linde paper is also described as a review of "rigorous laboratory trials." Please note that one editor above expressed concern that randomization of rats was not done (I personally thought that this was humorous and asked if he wanted blue-eyed rats to be separated from those brown-eyed rats). That said, I have asserted that blinding is not used in certain scientific arenas, such as surgery (and I should also add that many physics experiments also are not blinded). I believe that it is not our duty as editors here to judge whether a study is or isn't worthy just because it wasn't randomized or blinded. Instead, we must rely upon their source of publication. Is the source a RS? Also, once one sees a pattern (as I have described above and as is in the Arsenicum album article), editors must avoid stonewalling the body of evidence. DanaUllman 14:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I would be more inclined to believe you if there wasn't so obvious a conflict of interest soapbox for you to promote homeopathy. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:01, 27 February 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 books 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)

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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