Misplaced Pages

:Fringe theories/Noticeboard - Misplaced Pages

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
< Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lowercase sigmabot III (talk | contribs) at 04:14, 30 December 2021 (Archiving 3 discussion(s) to Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 83) (bot). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 04:14, 30 December 2021 by Lowercase sigmabot III (talk | contribs) (Archiving 3 discussion(s) to Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 83) (bot)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Noticeboard to discuss fringe theories "WP:FTN" redirects here. For nominations of featured topics, see Misplaced Pages:Featured topic candidates.
Noticeboards
Misplaced Pages's centralized discussion, request, and help venues. For a listing of ongoing discussions and current requests, see the dashboard. For a related set of forums which do not function as noticeboards see formal review processes.
General
Articles and content
Page handling
User conduct
Other
Category:Misplaced Pages noticeboards
    Fringe theories noticeboard - dealing with all sorts of pseudoscience
    ShortcutsBefore posting, make sure you understand this short summary of relevant policies and advice and particularly the guideline on treating fringe theories. Also, check the archives for similar discussions.

    We can help determine whether the topic is fringe and if so, whether it is treated accurately and impartially. Our purpose is not to remove any mention of fringe theories, but to describe them properly. Never present fringe theories as fact.

    If you mention specific editors, you should notify them. You may use {{subst:ftn-notice}} to do so.

    Deploy {{talk fringe|the fringe theory name}} to articles' talkpages under discussion.

    Please also notify any relevant Wikiprojects to encourage an increased visibility for the discussion.

    Search this noticeboard & archives

    Lowercase sigmabot III will archive sections older than 20 days


    Additional notes:

    To start a new request, enter the name of the relevant article below:

    Article alerts


    Did you know

    Good article nominees

    Requested moves

    Articles to be merged


    Archives

    1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
    11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
    21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
    31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40
    41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
    51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
    61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70
    71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80
    81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90
    91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100
    101, 102, 103


    This page has archives. Sections older than 20 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.


    Ip edits could use a check

    An editor using at least 63.142.197.206 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 63.142.197.212 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has a worrying pattern of of pushing fringe theories about psychiatry and other subjects, eg repeatedly claiming that The War of the Worlds radio boardcast a psychological experiment when. Much of their edits have been cleaned up and articles repaired but their other edits could use a check from someone with more experience with this sort of thing.2001:8003:34A3:800:B4B7:902C:5333:4053 (talk) 07:48, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

    It was a psychological experiment, just not a voluntary/aware one. It was an unintended experiment. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:05, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
    Nope that's not the definition of an experiment. That's open-and-shut a case study. And regardless, the claim being peddled appears to be that it was an intentional experiment. I'll have a skim through their edits. --Xurizuri (talk) 13:53, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
    Alright it appears that their specific deal is about psych and history, particularly psychological warfare. They made a lot of edits to the unconventional warfare article that I don't really have the expertise to handle. There's a bunch of other assorted history edits that I don't have enough knowledge of. By the way, you'll never guess what side they fall on regarding Water fluoridation in the United States. --Xurizuri (talk) 14:26, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
    It looks like they're editing from at least this range of IPs: Special:Contributions/63.142.197.0/24 --Xurizuri (talk) 14:33, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
    Special:Contributions/2600:8800:3136:BD00:0:0:0:0/64 may also be related, —PaleoNeonate – 07:06, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

    Leo Galland- Propose for deletion

    I came upon the article of fringe individual Leo Galland, which was quite sparse and hadn't been edited for nearly a year. I then made edits to remove a reference to a defunct and non-notable Huffington Post column (such content was well-known as fringe) and being a "Castle Connolly top doctor" (which is also not notable and considered a scam by some).

    Since there were no sources remaining in the article, I proposed it for deletion. The article creator User:Binksternet reverted the article back to an even worse state and removed my deletion proposal. I'm unsure of what to do here because this is the first deletion I've proposed for a person. Thank you. ScienceFlyer (talk) 08:14, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

    Frankly, I'm surprised that someone with Binksternet's experience would even attempt to defend the article in the state it was in, given its utterly crap sourcing. If Galland merits an article, it will need entirely new sources, providing actual evidence of notability from independent sources. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:43, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
    All I was looking for was for ScienceFlyer to take the article to AfD rather than prod. Other sources exist showing that the guy is part of the media conversation. Is he notable? Let's let the community decide. Binksternet (talk) 15:37, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
    I agree the fate of this article should be determined by AFD and due-diligence search for sourcing, rather than evisceration and PRODing. I have added some reliable sources and removed the PROD of Leo Galland. Other coverage may exist offline or behind paywalls (not everything is Googleable!). Good faith efforts to find sources are appreciated. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
    @Binksternet and Animalparty: Thanks for your comments. I'm confused because it seemed like I was following the instructions at WP:BLPPROD, which only has a single passing mention of AFD, in a parenthetical. If the procedure is use AFD, then the instructions entitled "Proposed deletion of biographies of living people" need to be edited to clarify the appropriate process. As for the sources currently on the article, many are dubious. For example, one article from Salon/Undark is by one of Galland's patients. Another article is from Cosmopolitan and the title claims "How Lyme disease messes with your mind" even though the consensus of experts is "No studies suggest a convincing causal association between Lyme disease and any specific psychiatric conditions." ScienceFlyer (talk) 20:19, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
    Now at AfD, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Leo Galland. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
    @ScienceFlyer: WP:BLPPROD#Before nomination states: 1: Make sure the article contains no sources in any form which support any statements made about the person. 2: Consider finding reliable sources yourself (See also WP:BEFORE). 3: Consider using another deletion process if you do not believe the article meets notability guidelines, or What Misplaced Pages is Not... I'm sure your intentions were good, but It doesn't appear any of those steps were followed. Removing sources in any form that are already present and then Proposing deletion comes across as a bit disingenuous and underhanded. There are now several reliable sources in the article, including The New York Times Magazine, New York Daily News, and Newsweek. Whether this (and other sources yet to be added) amounts to WP:NOTABILITY is what the AFD will determine. Do not judge sources by their headlines alone, per WP:HEADLINES. And remember, Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article. Cheers, --Animalparty! (talk) 21:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
    The AfD has been relisted. XOR'easter (talk) 17:24, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

    Crazy Sexy Cancer

    Kris Carr is an alkaline diet advocate / raw vegan and alternative medicine activist who claims her raw vegan diet cured her own cancer and many others. I will fix up her biography but Crazy Sexy Cancer is in a very bad way that seems to be promoting fringe views about cancer and has no neutral or critical coverage. I think most of the article needs to be deleted and re-written. Any thoughts about what to do with this one? Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:38, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

    On a further look, Kris Carr's article is also in a very bad way. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
    That does it! I'm writing a book with a catchy title. "Dog's Diet Cancer Cure". Should I wait for a cure or just publish and be dammned? -Roxy the dog. wooF 22:41, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
    I would say nearly everything after Plot Summary can be excised or condensed into the summary, as most of the subsequent content is plot summary, background info on Carr, or borderline WP:OR analysis of themes. It may not even warrant stand-alone article: while it appears to have premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival, it appears to be a TV film aired on TLC and the Oprah Winfrey Network. If substantial coverage is found lacking after honest attempts to find them, then a redirect to Kris Carr is in order. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:59, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

    I was amazed to see that it scores 0.0% on the Copyvio Detector because, oh boy, does it read like something that wouldn't! In fact, I am wondering whether the detector is broken. Anyway, a lot of it is unreferenced guff and, if kept at all, it should be pared back to a stub or maybe slightly more than a stub based on what reliable sources actually say about it. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:17, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

    Hmm so many issues with this article... As with many propaganda films, the plot voluntarily leads into straw-men and dead-ends, to finally result in miracles (and who would recommend multiple organ replacement for a single non-metastasing tumor? It's obviously medicine scaremongering). Then there's stuff like "Carr also adopts a new, healthier way of life", when "detox" can actually be harmful including enemas... It's a case that should be rewritten from the point of view of independent sources with their analysis, rather than blindly following the story. If those are lacking, it's a case for AfD (merging would be another possibility). I'll try to look again at it next week... —PaleoNeonate – 07:30, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

    Can fringe journals be used to support non-fringe content?

    General questions: Can "in-universe" or "fringe" periodicals like Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Homeopathy or the Townsend Letter be used to verify non-biomedical facts such as biographical information of prominent practitioners, or the history of a branch of alternative medicine? And similarly, if a subject has extensive coverage in alternative medicine literature, but rather less in "mainstream" literature, could it be appropriate to draw from alternative medicine literature as significant minority views, observing WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE of course. Or is it assumed that alternative medicine literature is inherently unreliable and fringe POV-pushing in any use? --Animalparty! (talk) 22:26, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

    I think this would be something that would have to be discussed on a case by case basis. Do you have any specific examples in mind? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
    Think it'd be fine. If the point is that such-and-such person died on such-and-such date. Hyperbolick (talk) 23:37, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

    Postmodernism

    "Skeptical Inquirer is not a reliable source for philosophy or critical theory" no, but is is a reliable source for ideas that are full of bull. Are those deletions justified? Anybody more familiar with this subject? --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:04, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

    Homayun Sidky is an academic and wandering a bit out of his field here--which is anthropology--but he also does a lot with the theory of anthropology which necessarily borders on more general discussions of the theory of science. See this, for instance:. It's not a paper in a philosophy journal, but I would probably !vote to keep it in. Dumuzid (talk) 19:10, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
    The edit in question looks good to me, and I agree with the rationale. Postmodernism is only "full of bull" when it is misconstrued as anti-science. (As a side note, I had the privilege of discussing this very question with Bruno Latour several years ago, as well as with Hugh Mellor who was one of the more prominently anti-pomo philosophers of the past several decades.) For anyone who'd like an accessible intro to the topic, I'd suggest this essay in Philosophy Now. Generalrelative (talk) 19:40, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
    Yeah, this whole article seems like it was written by Stephen Hicks as it currently stands. There's a lot of work to be done on it - but one of the first orders of business is to clear out bad faith "criticisms" from people who clearly haven't done the reading. Simonm223 (talk) 20:10, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
    Also I find it very amusing that there's people who think Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida constitute fringe figures. Simonm223 (talk) 20:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
    Everyone has blind spots. For all his bluster against Derrida, for instance, Hugh Mellor was a sweet and brilliant man who taught me a lot. It seems to me that most mainstream philosophers of the current generation are largely over the cleavage between analytic and continental traditions that dominated much of 20th-century discourse. Generalrelative (talk) 20:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
    For better or worse, I guess. But, man, do I find continental philosophers insufferable. Sometimes we have "interdisciplinary colloquia" where they try to talk about what physicists don't know about time and I die a little on the inside. And if someone tells me to read Heidegger one more time...! jps (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    That does sound insufferable, but I don't think someone like Karen Barad would put you through that. Which is why I'd suggest it's probably best not to put all continental philosophers in that basket. Generalrelative (talk) 01:29, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    Just putting in a good word for reading Heidegger. The hermeneutic circle was a real mind bender for me, in the best possible way. Other things are more problematic, however....cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 03:10, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    A lot of people in the anglophone world learn about the hermeneutic circle through Heidegger but he really wasn't the originator of the idea. The concept was developed by Wilhelm Dilthey (based on earlier ideas of Friedrich Schleiermacher) and later meaningfully expanded by Hans-Georg Gadamer. In my personal view, Heidegger didn't make any meaningful contributions to philosophy at all, but that view is controversial. Generalrelative (talk) 03:32, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    You're certainly ahead of me, and I was aware there were antecedents, but for someone whose German was never much above "barely functional," Heidegger in translation was the most accessible portal I had! Still, happy to defer. Dumuzid (talk) 03:38, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    Everybody becomes a "fringe figure" when they wander outside their area of expertise and leave fringe garbage there: Kary Mullis, Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, Ivar Giaever are cases in point. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:09, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    when it is misconstrued as anti-science Well, thing is: if you would ask a cat if it is anti-mouse, it would say, no, to the contrary, I love them! Mice are great, especially the taste and the noises they make when you bite into them. The mice will say yes, of course.
    I have to get this off my chest, so, here goes, even if I am preaching to the choir.
    Philosophers of science and sociologists of science do not understand science. By which I mean, when anorganic chemists read a paper about biochemistry, they will often be stumped and unable to tell whether the reasoning is sound. Nobody can tell me that a philosopher or sociologist will fare any better, unless they have changed fields from biochemistry. The same applies to other fields. If one could understand any scientific field just by studying sociology or philosophy, universities would only need sociology or philosophy degree programs, and all the rest could be scrapped. After you get your sociology degree, you can decide if you want to be an architect, an astronomer, or a brain surgeon.
    So, when trying to find out what science is, how it works, and why one theory has beaten another in the battlefield of ideas, they will often be unable to judge the science itself. There are three solutions to that: learn, ignore or fantasize.
    • They can try to understand the meaning by asking a specialist to explain it. Good idea!
    • They can ignore the actual science altogether and instead concentrate on the things they do understand: which scientist has which social circumstances, ideological leanings, and role models; who has power over who; who lives in which society with which ideological landscape. Of course those things do play a role too, but without judging the validity of the science itself, this is like the story of the drunk who loses his key at night in one place and searches for it in another place, because that other place is well-lit. This is the way the Strong programme chose. Every competent scientist can see that Bloor's symmetry axiom the same types of explanations are used for successful and unsuccessful knowledge claims alike is a really, really bad rookie mistake: fixing the result before starting the research. "You found that good science is more successful than bad science? Wrong result, try again until the explanations for success and failure are the same!" Did no sociologist ever notice this? If someone did: why is this thing not widely used as a prime example how not to do it? Maybe they all think there is no such thing as a rookie mistake because of the results of the Strong Programme: there is not good or bad science.
    • Or they can re-interpret the language of the scientific writings. This strategy leads to Leviathan and the Air Pump, and it is like Athanasius Kircher reading hieroglyphs: his translations are pure fantasy.
    If pomos want to be taken seriously by scientists, they need to make it very clear that they are beyond solution 2 and 3 now. This implies distancing themselves from those, not just calling them strawmen. They were really used. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:30, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hail, fellow brute quantitative empirical reductionist! There are some limitations on the sociological self awareness of people doing the daily grind, that some sort of sustained distancing from the community and study of its true history (among other preconditions) is necessary to overcome, but yes: an outsider without the internal understanding can never reach full enlightenment and will constantly miss the point. Basically creating a pseudohistory to replace the Whig or victors' history. Sesquivalent (talk) 08:13, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    Skeptical Inquirer is certainly a valid source for criticism on specific types of reasoning, as that’s part of their core purpose. In this case I’d be inclined to support restoring the text in question. I’ve done so under BRD, though I’m not sure about the blockquote portion (which doesn't really address reasoning) and would be fine with leaving it out. The description of Latour is more relevant, in my opinion, and is probably an important topic that should be sourced from elsewhere as well. Latour's original work is here, and the subject has even been picked up by the press .
    Also, a previous FTN discussion about this article is at this link. The other participants from that discussion, excluding those who have already commented here, are Crossroads and XOR'easter. Sunrise (talk) 03:30, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    I agree with the restoration. Regarding postmodern philosophy in general, while there may be some good stuff there, frankly sometimes fringe anti-science is coming from inside the house academia. I am always inclined to give vastly more weight on various subjects to the scientists who study it with experimentation, quantification, and falsifiability than to a few academics who see everything as social constructs and say we need to add other ways of knowing, etc. Crossroads 05:17, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    The question here appears to me to be whether those few academics who see everything as social constructs should be taken to represent "postmodernism". I would argue that the majority of the people whose job it is to know what postmodernism is reject that understanding of the term, though I suppose we could quibble about whose job it is to know this. If the question were instead whether philosophers (postmodern or otherwise) are more reliable on scientific matters than actual scientists, the answer would obviously be "no". So we're certainly in agreement about that. Generalrelative (talk) 05:53, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    The issue here, and this is an issue quite evident in this thread, is that almost none of the critics who go after postmodernism are actually particularly versant in the discipline, its aims or even which books are well regarded within philosophy as a discipline. As an example: the philosophy of science in The Postmodern Condition is garbage. But do you know who was one of the principal exponents of that opinion? The author of that book. And even among people who read and like Lyotard it's widely recognized as just about the least valuable thing he ever wrote, whereas his work in Libidinal Economy - which was principally within his wheelhouse of the intersection of economics, psychoanalysis and semiotics has some value both as a literary work and as an academic text. Being somewhat less controversial, Foucault's work on epistemology is broadly misunderstood by science-fans who have only encountered Foucault via his critics (notably Hicks) and frankly Stephen Hicks is broadly derided for his failure to engage with, let alone understand, Foucault's epistemological work. This has led to the laughable assertion among Foucault's critics that he believed science to be entirely socially contingent and devoid of truth-value rather than his actual argument that the material circumstances that allow for the formation of a system of truth-finding are socially contingent and that systems of truth-finding tend to be logically complete and consistent within the bounds of the material circumstances they arise within. Frankly if the rational skeptic movement were closer to Hume in their skepticism they might be able to effectively engage with postmodernism as a mode of discourse since it is fundamentally a skeptical mode. Instead it tends to get caught up in the oh-so-anglosphere assumption not that absolute truth exists but that it can be attained by people. Simonm223 (talk) 12:52, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    And as for Derrida, I think this was brought up somewhere in one of my conversations on postmodernism somewhere by another wkipedian, but Derrida was done dirty by his critics Simonm223 (talk) 13:34, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    lmost none of the critics who go after postmodernism are actually particularly versant in the discipline, its aims or even which books are well regarded within philosophy as a discipline. Depressingly true. And it's not made better by the fact that it's far easier to gin up controversy and win an audience by attacking strawmen of "cultural Marxist deconstructionist relativists" than it is to sift through the actual history of ideas. XOR'easter (talk) 15:16, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
    Exactly. I've raised Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault as my three exemplars in this conversation because I've read all three and they're either well known or historically significant to the term but across those three authors there's several hundred significant works in the forms of books, major essays and transcribed lectures. Foucault's work in particular but also Derrida's also depend on a lot of reading in philosophy, history, political economy and (in Derrida's case) theology in order to have an entrypoint into their arguments. Dismissing the whole field because Lyotard wrote a book with some bad philosophy of science is frustrating to say the least. I mean before getting into "postmodern" philosophy of science I'd suggest it might be good that people at least be familiar with Difference and Repetition and The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque - in addition to Birth of the Clinic. I say this not to lionize Foucault and Deleuze but rather to draw a circle around the point that an understanding of these sorts of text is necessary just to actually know what these people were saying at all. The criticism coming out of the American and British rational skeptic movement largely misses these or grudgingly says "yeah well Deleuze was really more of an analytic philosopher rather than a postmodernist." But that just becomes No True Scotsman. Simonm223 (talk) 16:36, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

    I think we can all agree that there are some critiques of postmodernism coming from certain empiricists which fall flat, just as vice-versa (though it seems to me that these days there is far less of the latter than the former). For me, the historical legacy of the Sokal affair has been its inspiration for the grievance studies affair which has made me re-evaluate what I think went on when Sokal wrote his paper. Trolling isn't an effective critique and the fall-out from the breaching experiment approach has been more a recognition that scholarship needs to be conducted honestly. Taking advantage of the editorial largess of a different discipline is unethical practice, and criticizing an idea without engaging with it seriously is academic malpractice. jps (talk) 14:40, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

    I'll just add a couple points to this conversation: the so-called laughable assertion that Foucault believed science to be entirely socially contingent and devoid of truth-value is something that I've seen being taught and professed not by critics of Foucault, but by people who consider themselves scholars of his work. So, even if it wasn't something in which he believed, it seems to be something that can be derived from an honest reading of his work. And claiming that the folks from the grievance studies failed to "engage with the disciplines" where they published their papers is a laughable assertion. Now that is something I have to assume comes from someone who doesn't know what they did, and only read what their critics wrote of it. VdSV9•♫ 15:19, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

    I read what they did. It's a shoddy scholarship and did not even prove what they claimed it proved. Small wonder Lindsay thought it legitimate to change his politics on this basis. When you're an intellectual lightweight, it's pretty common to think you're the smartest one in the room. jps (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

    Talk:Irreversible Damage#Undue Weight

    Irreversible Damage (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    The book this article is about is part of the Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy. Editors at the talk page are discussing whether or not it's appropriate to describe ROGD as 'fringe', and if not, what descriptor to use. Firefangledfeathers 13:58, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

    "Fringe" has an internal Misplaced Pages use as a technical term of art, as in the title of this noticeboard, but to the general public it has enough pejorative connotations to make it generally inappropriate to use in article space in almost all circumstances. *Dan T.* (talk) 14:07, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
    This is one of those instances where reliable sources on the topic actually use the term, however. Newimpartial (talk) 15:47, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
    Not a single academic source doing so has been presented, and multiple sources from WPATH pointedly not describing it that way have been presented. Crossroads 04:36, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
    For context the sentence is The book endorses the contentious concept of rapid onset gender dysphoria where the disagreement is between using contentious and fringe as a descriptor of the concept. The major source used to support fringe is this, with this being the position statement from WPATH. Aircorn (talk) 18:55, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
    Not even that source claimed to support it uses the term, as can be seen from the full-text download on the author's website here. Crossroads 04:36, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
    Also for context, the only clinical study into the theory carried out to date found no support within a clinical population for a new etiologic phenomenon of “ROGD” during adolescence and mong adolescents under age 16 seen in specialized gender clinics, associations between more recent gender knowledge and factors hypothesized to be involved in ROGD were either not statistically significant, or were in the opposite direction to what would be hypothesized. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:19, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

    Polyvagal theory

    Polyvagal theory (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    This article used to take a fairly skeptical tone (see historical version). After recent rewrites, the article takes a much more credulous tone. I don't really have the background in neuroscience to understand it all myself - it could do with a review from someone with more expertise. MrOllie (talk) 14:12, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

    The lead at least no longer reflects anything about the criticism section that still exists (social neuroscience and the limited acceptance)... —PaleoNeonate – 22:53, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
    This article just needs to be TNTed and rewritten from a neutral, WP:DUE perspective. I've added some relevant cleanup tags. JoelleJay (talk) 03:46, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
    Are there any historical versions of this article that it is worth reverting to? Pinging @1000Faces: who originally created the article a decade ago. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:04, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

    Lidar being used to find the ancient Mormon city of Zarahemla

    See this article. The narrative section of our article is a mess and even includes names of notable people. Looking at this I also found Book of Helaman - hardly NPOV.

    I posted this at RSN by mistake yesterday and there are a few comments there about the “ancient city “ article with one editor saying they may take it to AfD. Doug Weller talk 19:25, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

    Oh let them have their Camelot and Atlantis..... Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:29, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
    Since the article specifies "this project is not endorsed or supported by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the largest practitioners of the Mormon faith" my impression is that it's UNDUE including per NOTNEWS, unless there's an article about the subgroup... As for the book article, it lacks any mention that it's a late forgery. Perhaps it should be merged/redirected in the main book article? There are only two sources there. —PaleoNeonate – 20:55, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

    RfC about rapid-onset gender dysphoria

    Comments would be welcome at Talk:Irreversible Damage#RfC: Should rapid-onset gender dysphoria be described as "fringe"?. Crossroads 07:31, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

    Talk:Alchemy#RFC: Should Alchemy be included in Category:Pseudoscience

    People here may want to opine there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:50, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Lists of religious converts

    Nominated Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Lists of religious converts and other similar lists for deletion. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 04:48, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

    Panspermia

    Here's a status report on the article Panspermia. There continue to be occasional attempts to add WP:PROFRINGE content to the article, although the ones since the last FTN thread (Misplaced Pages:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_81#Panspermia) have usually been reverted.

    1. The lead section of this article is much cleaner than the last time this was brought to FTN. Good job!
    2. The History section seems to be heavily WP:PROFRINGE. I already removed a paragraph that was irrelevant to the hypothesis.
    3. The Proposed mechanisms section seems to discuss a large cross section of various hypotheses, some of which may be given undue weight; it should cover only the most notable ones and any relevant mainstream commentary. Also, some of the remaining content is potentially off-topic, such as the sentence in the leading paragraph about cleanroom procedures to minimize interplanetary contamination. The Pseudo-panspermia subsection, like the History section, is largely an indiscriminate collection of studies that support the hypothesis.
    4. It seems that most, but not all, of the Extraterrestrial life section is likely off-topic; I've already removed some of the most obviously irrelevant material. It gives undue (and probably misplaced) pro-fringe coverage of the hypothesis that certain pathogens are of extraterrestrial origin.
    5. I'm not 100% sure about the relevance of the content of the Extremophiles section; it primarily covers observations about extremophiles and experiments about whether microorginisms can survive in space.
    6. I whittled down the See also section to only the most relevant articles, such as Interplanetary contamination.
    7. The contents of the Further reading and External links sections are probably pro-fringe, like the bulk of pop-science coverage of this hypothesis. I didn't look into any of the external links, but one of the books is by a top proponent of panspermia. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:51, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
    The sentence that jumps out to me is and others able to resume life after being dormant for 100 million years - whether these things are actually this old is subject to debate. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:53, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
    Thanks for working on this! I'd given up on that article as beyond repair. XOR'easter (talk) 18:38, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
    I've made some further cuts. XOR'easter (talk) 04:08, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

    Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Astrology

    Due to the Astronomy delsort getting clogged with recent astrology-related AfD's, I have chosen to create a new Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Astrology specifically for this topic area and WP:WikiProject Astrology. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:26, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

    Ehhhh. The Astronomy delsort only has a handful of entries at any one time anyway, and the Astrology AfD glut didn't reach anywhere near the size that Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Women is normally at. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:32, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

    Spagyric / herbal alchemy

    There is a discussion on Talk:Paracelsianism on the question of whether the modern application of spagyric (AKA herbal alchemy, or plant alchemy) is pseudoscientific. Help with sourcing would also be greatly appreciated. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:50, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

    September 23, 2017 star sign prophecy

    I have nominated this for deletion as non-notable. Besides that there seems to be too much in-universe detail even if people decide it was noticed enough in the major media. Your attention is requested. Mangoe (talk) 03:32, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

    ID2020

    An NGO conspiracy theorists invent conspiracy theories about, according to the lede. But the article itself is silent about that aspect. Anybody know anything? --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:48, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

    Looks like there was a section about this which Deepfrieddough removed. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:35, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
    Given that there was no edit summary or talk page entry explaining why Dfd though the section needed removal and that it created a stray floating cite not tied to any text, I reverted the removal pending discussion. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
    I agree with your revert/restore, especially considering that it played a role in notability. The article only exists since 2020, although the project seems to at least go back to 2016... —PaleoNeonate – 11:59, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

    Ivermectin again

    Recently appeared is an article (already getting ~3,000 views/day) about:

    A popular Youtuber who has increasingly been posting about Ivermectin. Push-back has largely been from qualified scientist Youtubers (e.g.) but there is a NZ fact check I have included in the article. Could probably use eyes. Alexbrn (talk) 11:00, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

    Drug Recognition Expert

    The page Drug Recognition Expert lends credence to the notion that law enforcement officers are able to detect drug impairment through observation alone. The page makes it seem as if this is a thoroughly scientific way of determining drug impairment and the page includes no criticism or skepticism of this form of drug detection. I'm not an expert on this at all, but this seems highly sketchy and I can see that some people are describing DRE methodology as akin to a coin flip. I'm curious if any subject matter experts on this board could take a look? I also wonder to what extent this page should be covered by the MEDRS guideline? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:12, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

    WP:MEDRS would apply to WP:BMI, and so probably not that relevant unless there are assertions that drug X causes observational effect Y. The Seiders source (already cited in the article) makes it clear there is legal debate about how "scientific" DRE evidence is. Our article should reflect that; a plain assertion that such assessments are "scientific" probably would be WP:FRINGE (as well as fairly meaningless). Alexbrn (talk) 14:27, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
    yep tragically medrs doesn't apply here. But normal RS still does. And if you look in the external links section, you'll see a few links to reviews that easily dismiss this. And you're right, it's incredibly fringe. Even with training, humans still have an enormous margin of error on figuring out if someone is lying - we certainly can't reliably tell if someone is intoxicated and what they're intoxicated with. Huge Quadro Tracker vibes on this claim. --Xurizuri (talk) 17:13, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

    China COVID-19 cover-up allegations

    I notice

    (newly renamed from "China COVID-19 cover-up") is nominated for deletion. May be of interest to fringe fanciers as it bears on the virus origin question. Alexbrn (talk) 18:32, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but third time at AfD this year? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:08, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
    I've kind of lost track; this content seems to be forked into multiple articles. Alexbrn (talk) 19:11, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

    Life review

    Seems to have recently (today) changed status from unproven to proven. What gives?

    Raymond Moody? That can't be good. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:49, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

    Feng shui

    Edit-warring to remove "pseudoscientific" from the lede, and now "geomancy" as well. --Hipal (talk) 19:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

    Body language

    Body language (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

    While looking up some claims from proponents of the use of body language for lie detection and other types of questionable inferences, I found that this article has many credulous-sounding claims referenced to questionable sources. Has anyone here looked at this and related articles? Am I off the mark in thinking this is pushing pseudoscience?

    Oculesics, for instance, seems quite the Fringe-fest. The "List of emotions", by the middle of the page, apparently mainly sourced from a "changingminds.org", is very questionable.

    I'll try to work on these when I get some time, but thought I'd ask the kind folks here in the meantime. Cheers! VdSV9•♫ 20:25, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

    As a rule of thumb, anything relating to body language that is used to "uncover" things will lack genuine evidence. Also, for the most part, the culturally dependent nature of body language means that any claims that are apparently global are unlikely to be true. We're not even entirely sure about exactly how many fundamental/universal human emotions there are, or how many different emotions there are. You're going to need review papers on those articles to get anything trustworthy. The oculesics article is atrocious, by the way. --Xurizuri (talk) 13:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    My thoughts, exactly! Thank you. VdSV9•♫ 18:05, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    Aminoff Entropy Definition of Human Happiness and Suffering

    I wasn't exactly sure how to tag this.

    XOR'easter (talk) 21:20, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

    And now it's been G11/G12'ed. Carry on. XOR'easter (talk) 23:50, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

    Global warming skeptic, climate change skeptic

    Do we use that euphemism, even when talking about prominent deniers?

    All have recently been changed to "denialist" by an IP, then today reverted to "skeptic" by User:Peter Gulutzan. Not sure how to handle this. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:34, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

    The IPv6 might have done more damage than that, I can't tell. If these people (most of whom are alive) have not expressed a fringe view then it's inappropriate to bring them up on this page, but suggesting changes with reliable sourcing on the articles in question, and seeking consensus, without canvassing, is appropriate for the cases that have not been discussed already. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:04, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    In general, "skeptic" in such cases is used as a propaganda tactic and does not describe any real skepticism. Follow the best references, and be very careful of using "skeptic". --Hipal (talk) 22:12, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    Yeah, that's not usually how the term skeptic is used. That term refers to pro-science people responding to pseudoscience. But, in this case, you have anti-science people pushing false claims about settled science. So denialist is the accurate term here, not skeptic. Silverseren 22:26, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    If these people have not expressed a fringe view That is counterfactual. They did express fringe views, obviously. If you still believe that climate change denial is not fringe, then maybe you should not edit articles about that topic until you learn more about it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:37, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    The National Center for Science Education has a good take on this. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 22:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    Yes, I would air on the side of whatever secondary sources call them. In most of these cases, the answer is "denialist" or "doubter" or "contrarian." "skeptic" is what many of these people would prefer to be called, but that does not necessarily make it the correct moniker. — Shibbolethink 01:43, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    A post on a noticeboard is not WP:CANVASSing, —PaleoNeonate – 16:54, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    The terms are often interchangeable (as well as easily weaponized to easily dismiss an argument), but not necessarily so: the Encyclopedia of Global Warming edited by Steven I. Dutch describes Craig D. Idso thusly: "he argues that atmospheric carbon dioxide does affect air temperature and that it may be good for plant growth." When possible, loaded phrases and labels should be replaced with more nuanced descriptions, and probably not shoe-horned into first place in the first sentence: the same encyclopedia introduces Idso and his father as geographer and physicist, respectively, not "climate change skeptic/denier" right off the bat. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:27, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    A difference is that WP should tell when it's erroneous, —PaleoNeonate – 23:37, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    "Skeptic" is itself a loaded term, in that it brings its own connotations: carefully considering the evidence, arriving at thoughtful conclusions, etc. These are often the wrong connotations, as Shibbolethink pointed out above. XOR'easter (talk) 16:12, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

    Mātauranga Māori

    The prejudice against mātauranga as science derives from historical attitudes and concepts of Enlightenment science and that it is concerned about the history of science rather than the current scientific method.

    There seems to be a kerfuffle in New Zealand, with the Royal Society there claiming that Mātauranga Māori is a "way of knowing" on par with science, and scientists being admonished for disagreeing. Jerry Coyne has been writing about it on for a while, comparing it with the conflict between creationism and science in the US. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:59, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

    Seems very similar to the "Indigenous ways of knowing" article that was deleted earlier this year, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Indigenous Ways of Knowing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:18, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
    The quoted sentence should perhaps be rephrased as an attributed opinion. As for the broader concerns, well, American young-Earth creationists never used Biblical literalism to navigate the Pacific. XOR'easter (talk) 16:16, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    Actually the statement is true - European science does tend to unfairly discredit the knowledge of any other cultural group, without any regard for whether there's truth behind it. You've also not included the citation in your quote - it's not entirely clear from the way the paragraph is structured, but the citation at the end of that paragraph also supports the sentence you quoted. As XOR'easter said, it's no mean feat to navigate the Pacific (or, as another example, wipe out the moa). I can't comment on the modern rigour of testing in mātauranga, but I'll note that the Royal Society is hardly a fringe source, and that Jerry Coyne's blog, or the opinions of a small group of assorted scientists, aren't exactly RS. Don't be so fast to discredit other sources of knowledge - unless the goal is to begin believing a book (or a journal) knows everything. In summary, find some reliable sources and don't guess. This is a complex topic. --Xurizuri (talk) 14:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    What is "European science"? Homeopathy, maybe? That would be one European equivalent of, say, Traditional Chinese Medicine. Science is not continent-specific, and that any discrediting is "unfair" is just your opinion.
    The logic "someone who knows how to build and use a ship and how to kill animals must be right about everything else too" does not really hold water either. "Other ways of knowing" are like "alternative facts", and please refrain from all those strawmen. Nobody said Coyne's website was RS. Coyne links to other sources though. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Yes, science is not continent-specific. No, practical survival skills don't imply empirical correctness about all things. The point is that a body of cultural inheritance that includes actually empirically successful knowledge isn't analogous to American creationism in a straightforward way. (As Carl Sagan said in The Demon-Haunted World, Certain kinds of folk knowledge are valid and priceless. Others are at best metaphors and codifiers. Ethnomedicine, yes; astrophysics, no.) There are ways that "indigenous knowledge" could fit into a science class taught with a historical perspective, just like introductory college physics explains Ptolemaic epicycles. In turn, it is very easy to portray neutral-to-helpful efforts to do that kind of thing and make science more culturally engaging as nefarious attempts to devalue science. At a distance, through the haze of culture-warring, it can be hard to tell the former from the latter. This is particularly true when the efforts to do the former are described in public-relations pablum, in which the Royal Society Te Apārangi indulges as much as any Society. Coyne, who is willing to cite the Daily Mail on this, seems a poor starting point for a genuinely messy topic. XOR'easter (talk) 16:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Well, that's the thing about comparisons: if Mātauranga Māori were 100% identical with creationism, it would be a synonym and not a comparison. Every time somebody compares A with B, there will not only be similarities but also differences, and somebody else will unfailingly point out that there are differences, as if that would invalidate the comparison. Must be a natural law or something.
    I just wanted to draw attention to the subject and say where I got it from, as a starting point. Coyne has a certain POV, but he quotes lots of sources in lots of blogposts, not just the Daily Mail. I had never heard about Mātauranga Māori before, but the conflict does remind me of Vine Deloria's creationism as well as of Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese medicine, and the claim European science does tend to unfairly discredit the knowledge of any other cultural group, without any regard for whether there's truth behind it surely reinforces those associations.
    You are right: without concrete examples, the question "who is right?" cannot be answered, but that is not the point here anyway. The point is to draw attention to the articles connected to this, with ensuing improvement thereof. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    I was also thinking of "allopathic medicine" vs "European science", strawmen to present a flawed description of "science", to disregard actual science, —PaleoNeonate – 21:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    Might be worth checking out the articles on the authors of this letter, most of which were seemingly created by one editor as coatracks for criticizing them: Kendall Clements, Garth Cooper, Michael Corballis, Doug Elliffe, Robert Nola, Elizabeth Rata, John Werry. JoelleJay (talk) 23:36, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Now those links are useful. The articles about the signers seem to be in large part identical. Copy-paste job. That is not how Misplaced Pages works. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    Thaddeus Golas and related pages

    These need checking for wiki-notability. XOR'easter (talk) 20:07, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

    He seems to have been a relatively little-known writer who wrote a somewhat influential book in the self-help, New Age, and psychedelic circles of the 70s. He seems to get quoted frequently in inspirational/self help literature and aphorism compilations, and his most well-known work inspired at least one canine feel-good book. I found a brief obituary that lays out his basic biographical info. He is not to be confused with Thaddeus A. "Ted" Golas, a San Francisco firefighter and occasional actor who once dated Danielle Steele and had a bit part in Star Trek IV, as well as possibly the painkiller commercial mentioned below. I've found some limited coverage, excerpted below, and if more newspaper/magazine coverage can be found then a short single article incorporating his works might be feasible, but I think three articles is unwarranted. Or perhaps he was too underground to leave a lasting legacy. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:30, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
    • When Thaddeus Golas self-published his little book The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment in 1972 it became an almost instant success. By 1976, when I dished out two dollars for my first copy, published by the Seed Center in Palo Alto, California, it was already into its sixth printing, with 175,000 copies in print. By the early 1980s Golas had achieved enough cult celebrity status that I saw him on an American television commercial making a testimonial on behalf of a popular cross-the-counter painkiller. He died in 1997, at the age of 73, after reportedly having supported himself almost entirely from the earnings of The Lazy Man's Guide...
    • It is an intriguing premise that opens the Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment — a premise that, if true, could save people a lot of time spent sitting on the hard floor over at the Cambridge Zen Center. And for this reason, the book has done extremely well. Author Thaddeus Golas first published this slim (80 pages) treatise in 1972, after he "plunged into psychedelic chaos in San Francisco for several years." Eleven years later it is in its 10th printing, and is at present being published by Bantam Books...
    Yes, there might be enough for one (trimmed) page, but 3–4 seems too many. I've gone ahead and redirected the books to the author's page, and cleaned up the latter somewhat. XOR'easter (talk) 18:28, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    References

    1. "Obituaries: Thaddeus S. Golas". Sarasota Herald Tribune. 19 April 1997. p. 6B – via NewsBank.
    2. Bane, Vickie L. (1999). The Lives of Danielle Steel. St. Martin's Paperbacks. p. 196. ISBN 978-0-312-95575-5.
    3. Hoyt, Nicole (1994). Danielle Steel: The Glamour, the Myth, the Woman. Pinnacle Books. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-7860-0032-6.
    4. Hefner, Robert (11 December 2005). "The easy road to enlightenment". The Canberra Times – via NewsBank.
    5. Denison, D.C. (January 11, 1983). "Where there's no will". The Boston Phoenix. Vol. 12, no. 2.

    Ivermectin in Australia

    Another day, another ivermectin article. This one, about an Australian doctor, has seen some ... committed editing from a WP:SPA and this may need to go to WP:COIN. In the meantime, more eyes (and more sources!) would help. Alexbrn (talk) 05:36, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    Neuro-linguistic programming

    Is science now, cause of studies, according to someone on the Talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:46, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    Belarusians are really Lithuanians?

    Cukrakalnis is spreading information that "The western Belarusian area was inhabited by Lithuanians. The western Belarusians are certainly largely Russian-speaking Lithuanians." quoting the book of Austrian-German anthropologist Michael Hesch , member of Nazi party and SS. In a discussion with me, he admitted to never having the book in his hands. More about Hesch theory is written here. I don't think Misplaced Pages should be spreading such, clearly racist, theories. Marcelus (talk) 19:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

    Even disregarding the specifics of Hesch's dubious merits as a source, and the questionable assumptions implicit in the claim, Misplaced Pages cannot possibly cite a book written in 1933 for such statements. Anthropology has thankfully long moved on from such essentialising 'origin theories' when discussing ethnicity, and Misplaced Pages needs to do the same. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:38, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Most of the research in the book published under Michael Hesch's name was done by Rudolf Pöch, who died in 1921. Applying the label "Nazi" to what was essentially his research is just ascribing ahistorical attributes. Even ascribing the word "Nazi" to a book that was published in 1933 outside Nazi Germany and based on research from World War I, is dubious. The source's statements could be phrased in a more nuanced way - some Belarusians have Lithuanian ancestry. That's all that sentence is saying. What's so radical and fringe about that?
    That Belarusians are Slavicized Balts is stated by some Belarusians themselves. If it was a fringe theory with no basis in reality, then why do multiple different individuals from radically different backgrounds come to the same conclusion? Various Belarusians, Austro-Hungarians, and Lithuanians all stating the same and agreeing to some sort of grand conspiracy? The insanity is that WP:RS are being removed because some persons value their opinion more than research by accredited academics. If Michael Hesch was the sole individual stating this thing, then it would maybe be warranted to doubt this as a single, outdated individual's POV. The thing is, that multiple various sources from absolutely different backgrounds (and time periods) are converging on the same point - Belarusian, Lithuanian and Austro-Hungarian sources. Ergo, the inclusion of that statement, because of these precise circumstances, where its findings are affirmed, is warranted.
    As for 'origin theories', I must point out, that there is nothing wrong in pointing out that e.g. most citizens of USA are descended from colonists and immigrants from Europe, or that Afrikaners are descendants mainly from Dutch people. So too, there is no reason to avoid explaining the origins and how certain groups appeared or began or are descended from.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Century old research is nowhere near a good enough source for the sweeping claims you are making. As to That Belarusians are Slavicized Balts is stated by some Belarusians themselves that is some WP:WEASELy nonsense and a bogus argument. "Some" British people claim that they are descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel, see British Israelism, doesn't mean that it's true in the slightest. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:34, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Just like Hemiauchenia said, just because you googled two articles in which two pretty random Belarusians are saying that they think that Belarusians are really just Lithuanians doesn't mean you can include it in the Misplaced Pages article. These aren't valid sources and that's not how encyclopedia is supposed to be created. Marcelus (talk) 20:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hemiauchenia, Sorry for the WP:WEASELy statement, the two Belarusians referenced in the article are the Belarusian political activist and journalist Alieś Kirkievič  and Belarusian researcher with a PhD Aliaksiej Dziermant . They respectively state it here and .--Cukrakalnis (talk) 21:15, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Moreover, these two individuals are not just some "random Belarusians" off the street, they are well-educated individuals. What they said and how they said it fulfils the criteria for a source.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 21:22, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    The question is not Have some people suggested this but rather Is this the consensus view or a significant minority view in contemporary scholarship, otherwise it is undue per WP:PROFRINGE. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hemiauchenia, thank you for the concise question. The answer is that this is a significant minority view in contemporary scholarship, because two scholarly individuals, that is Aliaksiej Dziermant , a PhD researcher specializing in the subject of the ethnogenesis of Belarusians, and Lithuanian professor Zigmas Zinkevičius, both state the view (which is being questioned as being WP:FRINGE).--Cukrakalnis (talk) 22:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    You have not fundamentally answered the question. You have yet to demonstrate that this is a significant viewpoint in contemporary scholarship rather than the viewpoint of a handful of scholars. It is important that Misplaced Pages does not lend undue weight to views of very small minorities. This would require quoting contemporary books describing the theory and the prevailing scholarly views on the topic, rather than just pulling more researchers out of a hat who support it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hemiauchenia, in the book "A History of Belarus A Non-Literary Essay that Explains the Ethnogenesis of the Belarusians" by Lubov Bazan from 2014 (can't give pages, because copyrighted material), it is written:
    "Thus, indigenous Baltic tribes became a substrate in the formation of the Belarusian ethnic group. As a result of the Slavicisation of the Baltic population and its merging with the Slavic population a portion of the Slavic people split off into a separate group of Dregovichs and Krivichs, and through their historical and cultural development this led to the emergence of the Belarusian language and the Belarusian people." Next paragraph "This theory on the ethnogenesis of Belarusians appeared in historical academic circles in the 1960s, and was based on extensive material accumulated from archaeological and linguistic research. It was called the Baltic Theory, but was entirely suppressed by the official Soviet scientific authorities."
    Basically, the view that Belarusians descend from Balts is a significant view in scholarship. I hope this hits the nail on the head, metaphorically speaking.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 23:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    The material you have quoted doesn't even remotely support a claim that 'Belarusians descend from Balts'. It suggests that Belarusians have some Balt ancestry (as a 'substrate'), but that is all it supports. Note the the paragraph following the one you quote goes on to discuss 'assimilation' by Slavs. Slavs who had presumably settled the region too: "merging". Not that it matters, since you clearly haven't read the full text. Citing source snippets found by Google-mining isn't the way to demonstrate academic consensus. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:24, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    "A History of Belarus A Non-Literary Essay that Explains the Ethnogenesis of the Belarusians" is not published by an academic press, but by Glagoslav Publications, an independnent press specialising in the translation of works to English by Slavic authors. The author is also an art historian rather than a historian of Belarus. In a book review in the journal East Central Europe, Catherine Gibson of the European University Institute, Florence writes:The book falls into the not altogether unexpected trap of being laced with Belarusian Romantic nationalism, something that the title does not attempt to hide. References are made to the Belarusian “territory” (13), “ethnic group” (14), and “language” (68) from the beginning, despite the dramatically changing borders of all the chronicled proto-Belarusian states, and the absence of an ethnolinguistic group which regarded itself as a coherent “Belarusian” entity up until the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century (Snyder 2003; Rudling 2015). I remain unconvinced. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:25, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    Do you realize that your "sources" are just opinion pieces? An§ interview and an essay? Why don't you just use some actual English literature on this topic? There are many books about Belarusian history in English. Marcelus (talk) 21:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Marcelus, opinion pieces by accredited academics still count as good and valid sources. To limit oneself to just the literature in English about a certain topic is a grave mistake if one wishes to delve deep into a topic about a foreign country.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 22:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Cukrakalnis you aren't delving deep, it's a very short article. This is an English Misplaced Pages you should be looking first of all for English literature, especially in such basic subject. Opinion pieces are opinion pieces, nothing more, and they aren't valid sources. Especially since Dziermant changed his opinion vastly since then. I doubt he has PhD or conducted any serious studies on Belarusian ethnogenesis. In 2010 he was neo-pagan member of neofascist party, today he is main mouthpiece of Moscow in Belarus and supporter of "Eurasian" projects. He isn't an authority on this topic. Marcelus (talk) 22:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    I wasn't saying that I was delving deep into the subject, I was just making general remarks.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 23:52, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    "Austro-Hungarian sources"???? By definition, any Austro-Hungarian sources are a century or more out of date, and from an era when essentialism and bizarre racially-oriented theories were thought scientific, at least by bigots and extremists. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:11, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    Orange Mike, the main point was that the international provenance of sources necessarily precludes the possibility of a nationalist conspiracy against another group. I fully understand that using a century-old source by itself is incorrect, but it is being used in conjunction with other sources, including very modern ones from the 21st century. Considering that all of these sources align, despite their age difference, reassures that these findings are indeed correct (despite the context you mention, which is indeed problematic, but then again, not everything from back then is wrong and some things from back then are still correct and valid). So, it's unreasonable to remove the source.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 22:29, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
    We aren't the slightest bit interested in whether you think something is 'indeed correct', and nor are we interested in what you think 'unreasonable'. Century-old sources cannot be cited for claims relating to anthropology and similar subjects, whether they were written by Nazis or not, and regardless who else may agree with their conclusions. If you want to include content concerning the possible Lithuanian origins of modern Belarusians, you will have to do so by citing, directly, modern sources from appropriately-qualified academics, which directly support such content. And that only after you have demonstrated that this perspective on Belarusians is shared by at least a significant minority of scholars with the relevant expertise. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:00, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    AndyTheGrump and Hemiauchenia, for possible Lithuanian origins of modern Belarusians - Article "Uniparental Genetic Heritage of Belarusians: Encounter of Rare Middle Eastern Matrilineages with a Central European Mitochondrial DNA Pool" has the following statements:
    The N1c(Tat) tree in this study indicates that Belarusians share a considerable portion of haplotypes with Balts pointing to a shared patrilineal founder(s) and history.
    haplogroup N1c(Tat) shows the highest frequency (around 15%) in north-west Belarus and is decreasing southward, as it could be expected, bearing in mind that among Lithuanians N1c(Tat) comprises close to a half of their Y-chromosomes .
    Haplogroup I in Belarusians is composed of multiple genetic inputs, mainly from the north-western Balkans (I2a(P37)), and, to a lesser extent, from West and north-west Europe (I1(M253), I2b(M223)) . N1c(Tat) along with its much less frequent sister group N1b(P43) (previously N2), detected in Belarusians indicate an ancient patrilineal gene flow from the north Eurasia westward, yet in the context of studied here populations is best explained by partially shared Y-chromosomal ancestry of Belarusians and their northern neighbors, Lithuanians and Latvians, among whom N1c(Tat) reaches frequencies above 40% , , , .
    This article, published in 2013, has the following contributors: Alena Kushniarevich, Larysa Sivitskaya, Nina Danilenko, Tadeush Novogrodskii, Iosif Tsybovsky, Anna Kiseleva, Svetlana Kotova, Gyaneshwer Chaubey, Ene Metspalu, Hovhannes Sahakyan, Ardeshir Bahmanimehr, Maere Reidla, Siiri Rootsi, Jüri Parik, Tuuli Reisberg, Alessandro Achilli, Baharak Hooshiar Kashani, Francesca Gandini, Anna Olivieri, Doron M. Behar, Antonio Torroni, Oleg Davydenko, Richard Villems.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 18:39, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    Are you really so naive as to believe that nobody is going to actually read the source you have just cherry-picked? It doesn't even remotely support any claim for 'Lithuanian origins of modern Belarusians'. It demonstrates that the modern Belarusian population has a shared genetic heritage with populations all around them: "Our results reveal that around 80% of the paternal Belarusian gene pool is composed of R1a, I2a and N1c Y-chromosome haplogroups – a profile which is very similar to the two other eastern European populations – Ukrainians and Russians. The maternal Belarusian gene pool encompasses a full range of West Eurasian haplogroups and agrees well with the genetic structure of central-east European populations. "I suggest you drop this now, before someone decides to look further into you editing history, to see if you have been as cavalier with sources elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:51, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    It should be noted that Cukrakalnis has added exactly the same material, again sourced to Hesch, to the Western Belorussia article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    It would be surprising if the Belorusian ethnogenesis did not also entail language shift, intermarriage and other things which you per default would expect with neighboring peoples. But I doubt that the simplistic formula "Belorusians = Slavicized Balts" is supported in any mainstream publication by an academic scholar of international standing. –Austronesier (talk) 23:40, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    See Talk:Answers in Genesis#NPOV tag

    The editor who added it is User:1990'sguy who also edits at Creationwiki, conservapedia and Infogalactic. Doug Weller talk 09:56, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    I did not originally add the tag.
    Also, please see WP:WIAPA: ...some types of comments are never acceptable: ... Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream. My Misplaced Pages edits/activities are separate from what I do on other Wikis (though I will note that I haven't edited CreationWiki since July 2018). --1990'sguy (talk) 15:43, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    I think Doug mentioned your affiliations not to dismiss or discredit your views, but to give people an idea which direction this specific profringe pushing is coming from.
    Dismissing or discrediting your views is not necessary since they were dismissed and discredited long before any of us was born. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:12, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    Ivermectin consolidation

    I have consolidated all the COVID-19/ivermectin content, which was spread across 2½ articles, to:

    Please add to your watchlist. This will likely soon need to be protected. Alexbrn (talk) 14:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    @Alexbrn. Well done. It was an enlightening read. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:45, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
    Definitely worth an article, and will watch. Merry Christmas! — Shibbolethink 16:53, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    And now the pushback

    Encyclopædius has removed the FDA tweet (and the lovely horse photo) on the grounds it is "propaganda" and launched a source-lite Talk page thread on that theme, claiming they're "seeing the same couple of editors putting out this propaganda", while repeating some talking points (ironically) that are propaganda from the quacks pushing this stuff (e.g. that that ivermectin is "approved" in Japan). More eyes would help. Alexbrn (talk) 17:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

    "The FDA-approved drug ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro". Antiviral Research Volume 178, June 2020
    Role of ivermectin in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers in India: A matched case-control study National Library of Medicine. "Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 μg/kg with a gap of 72 hours was associated with a 73% reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers for the following month. Are NOT quacks...₪ Encyclopædius 17:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    The first source is the one which kicked the whole thing off (as cited in the article). It's not WP:MEDRS and completely outdated by everything that followed. The second, in the PLOS ONE megajournal, is primary research so unreliable per WP:MEDRS. Alexbrn (talk) 17:50, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Gosh. I dont think I've ever seen somebody with such a history here on the project with so little WP:CLUE about WP:MEDRS -Roxy the dog. wooF 18:07, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    My most bursting question right now is: how has this user not been subject to discretionary sanctions about this? How long can you go pushing a POV absent sources and ignorant of MEDRS in a scientfiic DS area and avoid a TBAN? — Shibbolethink 18:13, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Now I know what it's like to have an idol like Linus Pauling and then see them devolve into Vitamin C pseudoscience. Very disappointing and disheartening. Silverseren 18:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Also, in-vitro cannot be used to support any in-vivo associations/claims, obviously... —PaleoNeonate – 18:41, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    We have an admin with exactly the same amount of CLUE though. -Roxy the dog. wooF 18:49, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Just the one? Alexbrn (talk) 04:16, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    A friendly reminder to be WP:NICE and keep the discussion about content, not personal feelings about individual editors. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 18:25, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

    Report them, or stop with the wp:pa.Slatersteven (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

    I suspect Encyclopædius is a compromised account, given the degree of fuckwitedness on show. The idea that an editor with over 600,000 edits doesn't know how to WP:INDENT and is utterly clueless about policy, seem improbable (or is otherwise one of the saddest indictments of Misplaced Pages ever). Alexbrn (talk) 19:56, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    I don't know, it's very different to write about films and places than to evaluate sources for medicine, —PaleoNeonate – 20:59, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Now at AE, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Encyclopædius. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    He says he's retired after 15 years here, and it'a all our fault for holding medical articles to WP:MEDRS when there's all this great stuff about ivermectin that we won't let him use. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:12, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    As they have reitred, and as it looks like they may be TBANed, let's stop this about a user stuff?Slatersteven (talk) 15:21, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    Baghdad Battery

    This is being discussed at the Facebook group Fraudulent Archaeology Wall of Shame (quite a few practising archaeologists there) and it's been suggested it isn't clear enough that this is rejected by the archaeologists who have discussed it and is more of "it could be this, it could be that". This should be a good source a blog but Carl Feagans is an expert. Doug Weller talk 14:22, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    Title issue

    WP:COMMONNAME of course says this should be the title of the article, no question about that in my mind. But how does NPOV affect this? Current scientific opinion in those articles which actually discuss it in detail rather than just mention it is that it's not a battery. But the title suggests that it is. Doug Weller talk 12:08, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

    Should ICR Discovery Center for Science & Earth History be a redirect to Institute for Creation Research?

    I don't want to do it unless it makes sense. Doug Weller talk 17:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

    I fails to see how it would be independently notable. Even if it somehow were, it would still be best as a section of the ICR, rather than a seperate article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:53, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    It has made its way into a footnote of an academic RS, but that's not really sufficient per SIGCOV. Merging it into the main ICR page is a good option. –Austronesier (talk) 18:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    I oppose merging and will contest it (note: I am the article creator). The article cites three reliable and independent sources (including The Dallas Morning News and WFAA, and these articles focus on the museum, rather than mention it in passing). I also found this source (citation here) that briefly discusses the museum. The coverage meets SICOV. --1990'sguy (talk) 19:02, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
    There's material, but not a lot of material, and it seems like the content would be better organized if it were a section in Institute for Creation Research. Having lots of tiny pages isn't always the most informative way to present the facts (though it's often not really harmful either). XOR'easter (talk) 04:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    Since it's part of ICR and that it's not particularly independently notable (there's not much to write about it using independent sources), I agree that a merge/redirect would be reasonable, —PaleoNeonate – 12:10, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    The sources in the article meet WP:SIGCOV without a doubt. The cited sources are reliable, independent, and secondary, and there's no original research required for this article. I've seen many WP:GNG articles with far worse coverage than this.desmay (talk) 19:44, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    Hmmm...well, per the comments on the necessity to use original research, it does not seem to need that. It has coverage in independent sources. Plus since the article is young it may need more time to be expanded further. Also perhaps it would be wiser to discuss the matter on the talk page than here too.Ramos1990 (talk) 23:41, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    "It might have more content in the future" is not really a persuasive argument against folding it into another article now. If that section of the Institute for Creation Research page then grows too big and unwieldy, it could be split off, but that strikes me as unlikely. XOR'easter (talk) 04:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

    Another meteor disaster in the ancient Near East?

    We've already previously discussed the claims on this noticeboard that a meteor airburst around 3600 years ago destroyed Tall el-Hammam in Jordan. See Misplaced Pages:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_82#Tall_el-Hammam_and_Steven_Collins_(archaeologist). I would like to focus on another fringe impact claim. The Umm al Binni lake in Southern Iraq has been claimed by some geoarchaeologsts to represent an impact crater that caused disaster in the Middle East c. 2200 BCE, though there has been no actual work on the ground to confirm/refute this. The primary sourcing in the article is currently done using conference abstracts by the proponents of the impact theory. I can find only one paper that analyses the claims in any detail, which claims that the lake is likely the result of regional subsidence, and finds no evidence for the impact claims. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:10, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    I've removed some OR. I also see that the article says "...Hamacher determined that an impacting bolide would have produced energy in the range of 190 to 750 megatons of TNT (for an asteroid and comet impact, respectively)" The abstract of the source says "Sharad Master used satellite images to discover a possible Holocene impact structure in the Al 'Amarah marshes of southern Iraq, known as Umm al Binni lake. With an estimated age of < 5000 years and a diameter of ~3.4 km, this structure may help explain this disaster. Using numerical models and scaling equations for a cosmic impact, I show that although destructive forces would have damaged Sumerian cities within a few hundred km of the coast, it is unlikely that this single impact would have caused the large-scale destruction seen over the larger region. The impact origin of the structure is unconfirmed and any connection to Bronze Age catastrophes remains speculative." Doug Weller talk 12:26, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    I've scheduled an email to be sent to the author asking for a copy of his article Monday. Doug Weller talk 15:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

    Lloyd Pye

    IP edit warring WP:PROFRINGE stuff. - - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:30, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    Recent edits claimed he was an anthropologist, the article claimed he also was a psychologist and had worked for intelligence services, but the in-article citations apparently did not support it. —PaleoNeonate – 12:53, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    Also claimed DNA of starchild "is not 100% human". - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:14, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    Some of my genetic material also comes from fish! —PaleoNeonate – 13:32, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
    May want to reach out for page protection if the IP continually does disruptive editing.Ramos1990 (talk) 23:36, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

    Muslims discovered America, etc

    I wouldn't be surprised if this or something she writes shows up at some time in our articles. Doug Weller talk 12:34, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

    Well, given that Misplaced Pages still contains claims that Columbus 'discovered' America, It probably wouldn't be surprising if that bit of ignoring-the-inhabitants boosterism gets in too. ;) AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:44, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
    It shouldn't, but I don't follow all the related articles. Where do we say that? Doug Weller talk 16:02, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
    I was mostly relying on my memory of the Christopher Columbus article. Having looked at it again, it seems more nuanced than it used to be, though maybe I'd misremembered. It does however say this: "Between 1492 and 1504, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage, he independently discovered the Americas. These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the Americas, as well as the Columbian exchange, and are thus important to the Age of Discovery, Western history, and human history writ large." Of course, 'independently discovered' can be interpreted in several ways... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    Incidentally, the paragraph I've just quoted is sourced to the 1993 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Which now has a much more nuanced take on Columbus itself, and probably shouldn't be cited for something it no longer says, given the date, and the subsequent reassessment of Columbus and the merits of his claims to 'discovery'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    I avoid the Britannica like a plague. It certainly shouldn't be used there. Doug Weller talk 08:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    @AndyTheGrump: I've tweaked the text and was reverted with the edit summary " the phrasing as is should stand. It makes clear that his voyage was not based on earlier European voyages)". I'm not sure that we can state that as a fact, although it's likely, in any case. Doug Weller talk 10:47, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    Sarmatism (pseudohistorical theory)

    Fresh article, ex nihilo. I don't know anything about the subject, but maybe someone could have an eye on it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:44, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

    Maybe the disambiguator could be shortened to Sarmatism (pseudohistory), akin to Torsion field (pseudoscience). –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:18, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
    Just moved it to (pseudohistory}, because I agree and it should be uncontroversial. If there's any pushback I will just move it back and start an RM. As for the article, it looks pretty NPOV to me, but I am no expert in Lithuanian history! — Shibbolethink 21:00, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

    Maria Trzcińska as a source for her own claims to provide context for later refutation

    On the talk page of the Warsaw concentration camp article, concerns have been raised about using this source's WP:ABOUTSELF usage to merely describe the main tenets of the conspiracy/fringe theory that the person propagated (her work was the seminal one to spread it):

    Trzcińska, Maria (2002). Obóz zagłady w centrum Warszawy. Konzentrationslager Warschau (in Polish). Radom: Polskie Wydawnictwo Encyklopedyczne. ISBN 83-88822-16-0.

    K.e.coffman said that WP:FRIND forbids us from citing info directly to Trzcińska at all; on the other hand, I believe that citing the pages where her assertions about the camp may be found is only to provide context for the following sections, Refutation and Reactions+the article with that text passed the GA review on PL Misplaced Pages back in 2016, from which it was translated to English in September (though admittedly PL WP's policies don't include precise language of how to handle sources such as this for WP:ABOUTSELF purposes).

    Is the framing and usage of this source in the article appropriate? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 08:54, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

    ABOUTSELF says, Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities
    So, this would be an unusual application of ABOUTSELF, justified by what?
    I would dump that source. ABOUTSELF applies to the article Maria Trzcińska, but not to the Warsaw KL article. Why would we need details on the fringe theory there? --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:11, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Maybe the whole (pretty long) section should be moved to the Trzcińska article, leaving a much shorter section in the KL article. That way, the source can be used. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:13, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Trzcińska's activity was directly connected to the article's topic (she rallied for commemoration of the victims according to her theory of events), so I think it is included in "their activities".
    As discussion in independent sources show, there are enough of them to establish notability for a section of their own, and the camp is primarily known to the Polish public precisely because of the conspiracy theory, and, to English readers, mostly due to the presence of Trzcińska's theory for 15 years on this Misplaced Pages and the whole controversy that came thereafter. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:19, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Putting aside ABOUTSELF for now, I think issues of WP:UNDUE apply to any usage of Trzcińska as a source. The theory may be notable and well covered in independent secondary sources, but if any aspect of the theory is not then I don't see a reason we should cover it. In other words, if the only source is Trzcińska, well then no one else cares about some specific aspect of what she said, so we don't either. Anything we cover should also be covered in reliable secondary sources. If editors just want to add it as an additional source since some readers may prefer it "direct" so to speak, personally I'm not fussed provided the source itself doesn't have BLP problems i.e. makes claims about living third parties. Others may not feel the same thought. I'd note that IMO using someone's self published source to cover their theories even if it doesn't affect third parties tends to violate the not unduly self-serving criterion anyway IMO. Nil Einne (talk) 11:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    Exactly, ABOUTSELF is for basic BLP article details and it's the analysis of more reliable independent sources that should be presented. When those are lacking about some primary material it's an indication of WP:UNDUE (and sometimes failure to meet WP:BLPN, but not in this case)... —PaleoNeonate – 16:33, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    The theory may well be fringe globally, it was (in effect) both mainstream in Poland and even here for a while (indeed that is kind of the point). So yes we should mention it there. But she is not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 10:53, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
    • WP:FRIND is clear: discussion of fringe theories requires independent sources. Otherwise, we are giving undue weight to the elaboration of her theories. Not clear why cites to Trzcińska are needed for later refutation either; her conspiracy theory has already been refuted, by third-party sources. --K.e.coffman (talk) 16:44, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
      I hope it's better now? I've left the Trzcińska cites but coupled them with independent reliable citations, and deleted text to which I was not able find any RS citation. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 10:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    • This is not really helpful and arguably makes things worse since now the fringe source is intermingled with a better source. In any event, there's no support for using Trzcińska -- either in this discussion, nor on the article's Talk page: . --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:54, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

    Global cooling

    Two fresh December WP:SPAs (or maybe one wearing two socks) try to WP:WAR WP:FRINGE text into the article. The next revert should come from somebody else. Maybe they both need a bit of coal in the sock too. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    I was too impatient and reverted it myself.
    That article traditionally attracts accounts that edit only it, or almost only it: Special:Contributions/Entropics, Special:Contributions/A fresh avocado and Special:Contributions/Chenzia wanted to add exactly the same fringe source as Special:Contributions/Pi_Variant and Special:Contributions/The Canonical Project, and Special:Contributions/Climate expert deleted the same sentence. Looks like a massive sock farm. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    Watching now. A good candidate for page protection if it continues. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 16:49, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    Adding: Special:Contributions/2600:387:B:7:0:0:0:0/64 (blocked as part of range 2600:387:b:7::/64 since July), Special:Contributions/2A01:B747:16D:344::/64 (blocked as part of range 2a01:b747::/32 since September), Special:Contributions/2600:1700:4810:1490::/64 apparent WP:BE, like those accounts who are most likely the same person... It's been going on often enough recently that page protection may indeed be a good idea, —PaleoNeonate – 01:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
    Request filed at WP:RPP... –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:45, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
    It was already at RFPP, where it was declined as a content dispute. I noticed this and filed Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Pi Variant, which is currently pending a checkuser response. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

    Elizabeth Loftus

    Somehow, Loftus' appearance in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial is more important than her main work now. The lede says she was "criticized by the prosecution" but not that she is "a cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory". I removed this UNDUE stuff before. --Hob Gadling (talk) 22:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

    Categories: