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Russell Targ

A new user claiming to be Targ has turned up on the article deleting skeptical references and inserting personal comments. Any eyes appreciated to watch over this, I have reverted him but he keeps re-adding his personal commentary. I have a feeling the same person was also editing on a bunch of IPs on the article deleting references a few weeks ago. Goblin Face (talk) 21:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

So far as I can tell, Targ wasn't particularly significant in laser development, but was a very significant woo. Adam Cuerden 07:19, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

He published some stuff on LIDAR for measurement of wind shear. The sources cited are primary. We can say he did that, but its significance is far from clear and it does not belong in the lede. We should be respectful but firm, as always. Guy (Help!) 21:59, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

There is some more activity here. A new user is inserting content from an unreliable source. Discussion on talk page. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:44, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Mindfulness meditation

Until two weeks ago, this was a redirect; it has become an article and is accumulating some content on research into the health effects of meditiation (/mindfulness), over which there is some Talk page discussion. Fringe editors may wish to monitor this. Alexbrn 15:38, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

(Add) Relatedly, I notice we also have:

• Neural mechanisms of mindfulness meditation

which has a lot of non-WP:MEDRS sourcing at its heart. Alexbrn 07:40, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Mindbody relaxation

Do your thing. TimidGuy (talk) 10:38, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, QTxVi4bEMRbrNqOorWBV, for following up. TimidGuy (talk) 09:42, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Do we have to qualify scientific results as "known to scientists"?

Given that this was important enough to Til Eulenspiegel for him to edit war (2 week block), I'm thinking that what I've raised at WP:NPOVN#Attribution issue at Ethiopia - do we need to say "known to scientists"? is a fringe issue - he seems to think it needs to be attributed to scientists - one of his edit summaries said "Uh oh, seems Doug Weller prefers to flare this into a dispute, says "attribution isn't necessary" for what European regime-paid scientists say, published views of Ethiopian scholars he deems irrelevant but theirs is the more prominent voice in that nation" - although I can't figure out from Ethiopia what he is talking about. At the moment the lead still has Til's version attributing it to scientists (and is vaguer than the relevant section in the article). I didn't bring it here earlier to avoid accusations from Til, but as he is now blocked and as I see it as a fringe issue relevant to other articles, I'm mentioning it here. Comments should go there, not here. Dougweller (talk) 14:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

If something's reliably sourced and not seriously contested it can generally be asserted as a fact. Attributing it can have the unwarranted effect of making it seem contested. There are circumstances however where it can be useful use attribution to emphasize that a view is firmly held in (say) the scientific community. So I guess it depends - for topics covered by this noticeboard I always want to look at the end result of the text and ask if it is making any implications of a pro-fringe nature. Alexbrn 14:14, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

If Til is involved it's very safe to figure that the point is to imply that scientists don't know everything and that sometimes other sources know more. Mangoe (talk) 16:44, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

What is the disputed text? bobrayner (talk) 17:57, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

This is the diff . The context is that Til is a biblical literalist. His creationism is also combined with various Garveyite and Rastafarian-influenced ideas about the biblical history and world significance of Ethiopia and African races. So there's often a combination of standard creationism with accusations of racism and Eurocentrism. However, he does try to stick to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines most of the time. Part of the problem here is that scientific accounts of the early history of humanity are in some ways uncertain, so it may well be legitimate to say something like "scientists believe ...". It depends on the specific claim being made. The convoluted wording used by Til is a characteristic masterpiece of circumlocution: "Ethiopia is one of the oldest locations of human life known to scientists"; that's transparently designed to evade referring to evolution, by implying humans just appeared at a "location", Ethiopia being "one of" the places where the oldest evidence of their presence has been found by scientists. Paul B (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for enlarging my understanding of where Til comes from. Your explanation, that he is trying to evade referring to evolution, makes a lot of sense. However, I'm not in full agreement with you over his adherence to our policies and guidelines - it's my impression that he dislikes our NPOV policy, presumably because it conflicts with biblical literalism, etc, and although many of his edits are good, his personal beliefs intrude too often. And of course he ignores WP:AGF and WP:NPA completely - he barely escaped a ban or block over his attack on me and Dab which was rev/del'd and that was only one of many personal attacks he's made. And of course this is his 7th block for edit-warring. In this specific case the main text in the article didn't say scientists believe, and was more specific than the lead which as you noted didn't have any suggestion of the evolution of humanity. I hadn't thought of that. Dougweller (talk) 20:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Forgot - he is also a fringe supporter of various ideas relating to hyperdiffusion - European and other visitors to the Americas before the Vikings. Dougweller (talk) 20:40, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Biochemic tissue salt

• Biochemic tissue salt (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Seems to be related to some kind of pseudo-homeopathy, the article as written presents these "remedies" uncritically. Could use the attention of someone with a broader knowledge of this area than I possess. CIreland (talk) 21:32, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The article originally mentioned is now redirected to List of Schüßler cell salts which says,

"The twelve tissue remedies or "cell salts" promoted by Wilhelm Heinrich Schüßler in his controversial treatment system of minerals...".

Shouldn't the "treatment system" be described differently than "controversial" for instance ineffective or content added like that in the Wilhelm Heinrich Schüßler article,

"According to Quackwatch, "cell salts" are predicated on the theory that disease is due to a deficiency in one mineral or another, but the Schüßler remedies are in general too diluted to act as an effective supplement even if a mineral deficiency did exist. Tests by the Western Australia health commission confirmed this."

Just saying, even a list shouldn't present a "treatment system" without giving the current scientific medical information on said "treatment system". - - MrBill3 (talk) 23:10, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Mazzaroth

I've cleaned it up, but this could probably use some bookmarks - it had grown a thick crust of fringe theories and original research. Adam Cuerden 16:18, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

If at first you don't succeed...

...start another discussion.

...and another discussion.

jps (talk) 12:25, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Whatever floats your boat ... ;-) Alexbrn 12:40, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

This is the myth that isn't called a myth because some people believe it. Barney the barney barney (talk) 18:42, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

What is the fringe theory here? We know that some Christians (and followers of other faiths) don't like their creation myths being described as such - but this is a dispute over a label, rather than a theory, and as far as I can see not directly of relevance to this noticeboard. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:05, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Fringe theory: These myths are not actually myths because they actually happened. That's clearly not the only argument that one can marshall against labeling the article with some term other than "myth", but it has been a consistent distraction in previous discussions on the subject. Maybe it won't be this time, though, and we can take your point to heart! I will hope for such an outcome! jps (talk) 19:53, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Andrew McIntosh (professor)

Andrew McIntosh (professor) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Please note that there is very little in the way of explanation of fringe nature of this person's YEC beliefs.

jps (talk) 12:26, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

AfD'd per WP:BLP1E and WP:COATRACK. Likely not to be nuked (for reasons that are only explicable with extreme cynicism). Guy (Help!) 00:48, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

When is a creationist not a pseudoscientist?

Category_talk:Answers_in_Genesis_staff_and_speakers#Category:Pseudoscientists.

jps (talk) 12:51, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Um, when all of them all are? One would think that since creationists as a class would be considered pseudoscientists, the category structure would dictate that they don't get double-categorized. Mangoe (talk) 18:48, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Why is this even a category? If Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 April 24#Category:Answers in Genesis staff and speakers fails it should be moved to Category:Answers in Genesis or Category:Advocates of pseudoscientific bullshit. Guy (Help!) 22:35, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Russell Targ (again)

As mentioned before, Targ (on an IP address) and on an account "Torgownik" was editing his article adding in personal commentary and deleting references that were critical of his work in parapsychology. He was told to add reliable references for his claims when editing the article, but he did not listen. He has since complained on his facebook that users with a "hatred" for ESP are editing his Misplaced Pages article to remove his science career. Of course this is not true, neither is his other claim that Misplaced Pages banned him from editing his article. This is obviously a case of meat puppetry as he is telling people to come over and edit his article, , his rant has now been spammed around on various conspiracy theory/crank paranormal websites , etc. There is now a single purpose account adding in some fringe sources (obviously a friend of Targ), he was reverted but others will probably join in. The issue here though is that users such as myself have found it hard to find any reliable sources for his work in lasers. For example Targ claims to have been a "pioneer" in the earliest development of the laser but it has been hard to find any references for this, I also can't find any sources for his claims about working with NASA, if he did what did he work on? He claims to have worked on airborne laser wind measurements. Any help please appreciated with looking for these sources. Goblin Face (talk) 19:45, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

The legion of loons has not yet arrived, if they do, please let me know and I will get the article semi-protected. Your vigilance is appreciated, thank you for keeping an eye on this one. Guy (Help!) 21:08, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

An ESP gizmo he helped develop was used for something partially funded by NASA. A pretty tenuous connection. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:57, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Always tracks back to SRI, doesn't it? These guys are past masters at the appeal to authority. We once weaselled money out of a credulous Uncle Sam, therefore unicorns. Guy (Help!) 22:29, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Also in the early 1990s, he was one of the authors of a paper on windshear sensoring "as part of the NASA / FAA National Integrated Windshear Program" so he had some professional contact with the second co-author of the paper (who worked at NASA Langley). Still, I don't see a brush with NASA as having any weight in the article since it hasn't been covered by secondary sources as being significant. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:50, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

If its not considered notable by a secondary source its not encyclopedic. - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:09, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Asserting facts about fringe topics, again

Prompted by a recent thread at WT:MED#Asserting "facts" and by discussions on the Talk page of Reiki, I want to ask a general question to check the consensus on neutral presentation of "facts" about claimed pseudoscientific phenomena. I'm using "fact" in the Misplaced Pages sense of being information about which there is no serious dispute. So, taking Qi as an example, and having a good source which states "The existence of Ki (or Qi, life energy) has not been proven scientifically", and assuming there are no reliable countering sources, should Misplaced Pages state:

1. In 2008, Lee and colleagues said that qi had not yet been proven to exist by Western science
2. In 2008, Lee and colleagues said that qi had not been proven to exist
3. As of 2008 no evidence had emerged that qi exists
4. There is no scientific evidence that qi exists
5. Qi does not exist

In my view 4 & 5 are the only neutral variants and either is good (depending on context). Attributing this information gives an unwarranted implication that it is in serious dispute or is just opinion. I certainly don't think what is currently in our Qi article is good:

• Some studies claim to have been able to measure qi, or the effects of manipulating qi (such as through acupuncture), but the proposed existence of qi has also been questioned within the scientific community.

Thoughts? Alexbrn 06:59, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I think as a rule we should tend to prefer #4. The inclusion of a date in the first three is weaselly, and the fifth is too "scientists are the guardians of Ultimate Truth" to pass NPOV muster. As far as the current wording is concerned, I've come to take a hard line on these uncited claims, and I revert them on sight these days. If you cannot come up with evidence, you shouldn't be inserting the claim when it's obviously controversial. Mangoe (talk) 10:01, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

But scientists are the guardians of ultimate truth! Guy (Help!) 15:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

1. 4 is preferable because it states the the context of Qi's non-existence. I could say "Unicorns exist in the imagination of fantasy writers" which is a true statement despite no living, corporeal unicorn ever having existed. --Salimfadhley (talk) 20:51, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Grinberg Method

Grinberg Method (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

It has an isolated "Controversies" section, but besides that, it's gushing uncritically about... well, whatever this thing is (a "structured methodology" of "the expanded outlook of foot-analysis, reflexology and bodywork"). References are mainly primary, with a healthy bit of WP:OR sprinkled throughout. Kolbasz (talk) 14:31, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Ariel UFO incident

Ariel UFO incident (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Aliens land in Zimbabwe and communicate telepathically with school children... - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:29, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure it wasn't South Africa? Oh, wait, no, that was District 9. Guy (Help!) 21:32, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese medicine

An editor is trying to force a fringe journal into the lede along with other controversial text. See Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 40#Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine for previous WP:CON on the source written by the trade. The other text is from a personal website that may not be RS. I think none of the changes improved the lede. QuackGuru (talk) 02:25, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Some déjà vu there. One would have thought these POV-pushers would have been around long enough to grasp some basics of writing Misplaced Pages articles - like that it's a bad idea to load content into the lede that doesn't reflect what's in the body. Alexbrn 09:51, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Alexbrn, take a look at this. After being warned he is contuning to violate the 3RR rule. QuackGuru (talk) 01:28, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

The text "Although advocates have argued that research had missed some key features of TCM, such as the subtle interrelationships between ingredients, it is largely pseudoscience, with no valid mechanism of action for the majority of its treatments." was deleted from the lede again. The text is obviously sourced and is part of the summary of Traditional Chinese medicine#Drug research. QuackGuru (talk) 01:28, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

You try to include the statement "TCM is largely pseudoscience" to the lede of this article. I actually agree that TCM probably is just pseudoscience, but your and my opinion doesn't matter here. We're here to write a good article for the general reader. Throwing around derogatory judgements like this when we don't have a good source for it is definitely not going to help our cause. We're not here to deliver judgements. We're here to deliver facts.

As a source, you want to use this: "So if traditional Chinese medicine is so great, why hasn't the qualitative study of its outcomes opened the door to a flood of cures? The most obvious answer is that it actually has little to offer: it is largely just pseudoscience, with no rational mechanism of action for most of its therapies." This source doesn't even really make it a fact that TCM is pseudoscience; it only theorizes that it is the most obvious answer. For sure, this source is far from asserting that TCM is widely considered a pseudoscience in the scientific community.

When I tried to compromise and change the statement in the lede to: "TCM has been labeled as pseudoscience" you opposed me. You don't really participate at the talk page discussion either. Once again, I don't see you being willing to work cooperatively on this encyclopaedia at all. I opened WP:DR about this. C u there. --Mallexikon (talk) 06:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews: Where woo is fine.

n:Glasgow cannabis enthusiasts celebrate 'green' on city green

"One speaker, who produced a bottle of cannabis oil he had received through the post, explained this cured his prostate cancer. Others highlighted the current use of Sativex by the National Health Service, with a cost in-excess of £150 for a single bottle of GW Pharmaceuticals patented spray — as-compared to the oil shown to the crowd, with a manufacturing cost of approximately £10."

Can we shut down this embarrassment to Wikimedia yet? Or do we have to let it zombie on to eternity?

Adam Cuerden 02:37, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews notified of this discussion. μc8 (talk) 02:59, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

You found a less-than-perfect word choice in an article, and that's the best excuse you can come up with to continue your vendetta against Wikinews? I suppose it's less fundamentally incoherent than that Frankfurtian so-called "op-ed". Still Frankfurtian, though. --Pi zero (talk) 03:07, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

If you're actively encouraging people to use something to treat their cancer, and attacking existing medical drugs, then that's more than an imperfect word choice. Adam Cuerden 10:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Adam, don't worry; given the inherent dishonesty of Wikinews, we can assume that the alleged "speaker" never said that about prostate cancer in the first place. Remember to always read Wikinews as you would read The Onion and there's no problem. Treat it as satire, everyone else does. Viriditas (talk) 10:18, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

You've put your opinion as a fact. Shows how easy it is to produce groundless biased output.

A cry for attention is incompatible with neutral intercourse. —Gryllida (talk) 10:38, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Another happy Wikinews user! Thanks, but I like salad on my plate, not in my words. Viriditas (talk) 11:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there any reason why we should care? To be blunt, Wikinews is not a reliable source and so is of no real relevance to us other than as a venue to which we send people who are trying to write personal opinions about current events. Guy (Help!) 10:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I've never looked at Wikinews before. I shall never bother again if that's the sort of stuff they do. Like the Daily Mail with a wiki gloss, but without any standards. -Roxy the dog (resonate) 11:13, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Don't worry, the attacks on Wikinews being blithely bandied about here have nothing to do with reality. --Pi zero (talk) 12:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Wikinews has consistently failed to report relevant and accurate news stories for ten years. The reality is that Wikinews is your personal dictatorship, where all critics are purged, blocked, and ignored. The reality is Wikinews doesn't work and should not be associated with Wikimedia because it is a total embarrassment to the concept of journalism. Viriditas (talk) 19:41, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Errm, forgive me, but shouldn't a reaction to having published a claim that cannabis cures cancer ("highly misleading" according to Cancer Research UK) a cause for embarrassment and retraction, not bullishness? I hadn't heard of WikiNews before but this exchange seems informative. Alexbrn 12:21, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Alexbrn. There was no publication of a claim that cannabis cures cancer. There was a publication of a factual report that some nutjob claimed such. The wording was imperfect, especially in that it wasn't proof against willful misreading (so, we've been considering how to address that). For perspective on the willful misreading, you do have to understand that certain parties at Misplaced Pages have a genunine non-rational vendetta against Wikinews (though there are, just to state the obvious, lots of really great folks here, who keep the place going despite the bad apples). --Pi zero (talk) 13:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Lots of really great folks keep the place going? In what reality? The site is run by you, and maybe one or two other people, depending on who shows up to patrol the dead site. It's as if a funeral home published a gazette about the dearly departed. Viriditas (talk) 19:50, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

The utter baseness of the efforts to suppress the medical use of marijuana cannot be exaggerated. Spiritually rooted in the witch hunts of the Middle Ages and the open racism of the 1920s, they cast aside the work of three millennia of physicians to put forward a faith-based theory that "herbs cannot work", which can be enforced only by open violence against millions of people. Based on an outright lie (not out of character) by Nixon, they 'temporarily' permanently banned medical use of marijuana, then doggedly ensured that NIDA refused to study the mechanism for two decades, insisting that a drug with specific and reproducible effects on the brain literally had no receptor, then used bureaucracy to hold back all practical research for another decade. We don't have any idea of all we have suffered because of this - we don't know what drugs against pain, obesity, inflammatory diseases, sea-sickness or any other nausea, and other common maladies have been lost. There definitely is reason to consider use of cannabis against prostate cancer, though it isn't the first herb I would have thought of for the purpose. While I would not accept an anecdotal account as scientific evidence, I cannot blame a patient who tries using cannabis and sees remission from drawing the personal conclusion that it worked. To assert that Sativex, based on the two most prevalent active chemicals in cannabis, should have effects that cannabis does not, when it was created solely as a method to placate the bureaucracy while extorting a patent toll from ancient medicine... contemptible! But to insist, like a Putin or an Erdogan, that an entire method of distributing news be abolished because they allegedly made a single word error, already corrected (though perhaps not visible via the magic of "Pending Changes") that is worse. Wnt (talk) 15:06, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Is this a joke, because it certainly reads like one? Paul B (talk) 15:19, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Sadly, I doubt it is. Wikinews collects fringe pretty readily, and will aggressively defend even their worst mistakes. Adam Cuerden 16:54, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't going to respond to that, since there isn't any actual argument there, but I should clarify that I haven't been meaningfully involved in Wikinews. Wnt (talk) 18:07, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Just as well you're not trying to add that to Misplaced Pages. Guy (Help!) 20:11, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

• Here's a real zinger from 2011. The same Wikinews author gave precedence to a minority fringe opinion which claimed that it was "fairly standard police procedure" to use pepper spray on nonviolent protesters. The only problem was, virtually every mainstream reliable source said the complete opposite ("Our policy is that we do not use pepper spray or Tasers or batons against passively resisting people") and the man who invented the pepper spray product in question even came out and said his product was never designed for that purpose. When the same Wikinews author was confronted, he denied writing it, said he only copyedited, and refused to fix the problem. Please, shut this absurd excuse for journalism down. Viriditas (talk) 20:25, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

The same "minority fringe" opinion appears in a New York Times editorial about the event, which cites quite a few other incidents. Also the title of an article in The Atlantic. Many other hits come up on a search. Even if the editor were wrong to include this statement the way he does, to be taken seriously you would need to (a) cite the actual article and whatever diffs, (b) discuss it at Wikinews, (c) try to show that Wikinews had bad policy or governance and systematically failed to fix it. You can't even get off the starting block here. It's like saying Misplaced Pages should be abandoned because there's a vandal on it, when it isn't even a vandal. Wnt (talk) 22:27, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Double huh? The NYT editorial you cite treats the opinion as a minority one, just as I did. Did you even read it? Wikinews repeated what an AP story about an alleged ex-lieutenant for the Baltimore Police Department named Charles J. Kelly said. I say alleged because back in 2011 I tried to track him down because I couldn't believe what I was reading. As it turns out, there is no mention of a Charles J. Kelly anywhere except for that AP article which hit the wire services. And yet, news story after news story said it was not standard procedure, and this was eventually confirmed as true in the aftermath, so Kelly's statement was not only blatantly false, it was spread around the country by the Associated Press and repeated by Wikinews without any critical judgment or comparison and contrast with other sources. I had no idea Wikinews was an excellent source for propaganda, I thought it was actually trying to write news stories. Anyway, please try to track down this "Charles J. Kelly". I don't even think he exists. Viriditas (talk) 02:28, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

P.S. if you want to see what police do when they're being unusual, look up the video of the events behind Lundberg v. County of Humboldt. Concentrated liquid pepper spray, straight into the protesters' eyes. Wnt (talk) 22:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm quite familiar with that case, and it's relevant not for the reason you seem to think. First of all, in that case, the police did not spray anything, they applied pepper spray with Q-tip's to the eyes of the protesters. This was recorded on video and is online for anyone to watch. Second of all, this case was cited as the rationale for why it was not standard procedure, since the courts declared it to be excessive force (hence not standard procedure) all the way back in 2005, six years before the incident at UC Davis occurred. Therefore, there was a legal precedent for the police to avoid using excessive force on peaceful protesters. This imaginary "Charles J. Kelly" who claims to have once worked for the police department in Baltimore, doesn't seem the least bit familiar with the law. Finally, these two examples prove what Will Potter has been saying for years about the Green Scare and directly links to what other authors and journalists have alleged about how the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI worked with local law enforcement to use violent methods to crackdown on peaceful Occupy protests. And where the Occupy protests were not peaceful, other journalists claim to have uncovered evidence of agent provocateurs from law enforcement who deliberately incited violent acts to justify a brutal crackdown in the first place. At the end of the day, Wikinews is nothing but an organ of the establishment. It needs to stop pretending to be open to citizen participation, because it most assuredly is not. It has a proven track record of selectively citing sources that make extreme, unverifiable claims while ignoring easy to verify claims that are widely published. In this latest incident report, we have a "reporter" claiming that a protester said cannabis cured his cancer, but did the protester really say that? It's hard to believe because Wikinews cannot be trusted to report news in an accurate manner. Viriditas (talk) 02:33, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to do with this. First, the Lundberg v. article says pepper spray was sprayed as well as applied by swab, but I'm not quite sure the point - I gave it as an example of what is unusual and I don't see you disagreeing with that. The point is, if the outlier is there, simply using pepper spray doesn't seem like such an extraordinary claim. Then as for Green Scare, are you saying Wikinews is suppressing mention of that? Or what? Also you sound as if you can't participate there - if there are arbitrary ways in which you're excluded from doing so, that would be a criticism I would be moved by. Wnt (talk) 02:42, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't go by or depend on what Misplaced Pages articles say, I go by the actual sources. In this particular case, Lundberg v. County of Humboldt completely refutes the nonsense spread by "Charles J. Kelly" in the Associated Press. It was not standard procedure to spray peaceful protesters, as that case had been declared an example of excessive force six years before the UC Davis incident occurred. I suggest you perform actual research on the UC Davis incident. The majority of reliable law enforcement sources cited on the case explicitly refute and contradict "Charles J. Kelly". Wikinews should never rely on one single source to write an article, yet that's what they did because there was no critical thought put into it, just a rehash and regurgitation of what the AP said without question and without looking at what other sources said. And this is exactly what they did with the cannabis protester. A science journalist would at least illustrate the alleged quote with a brief sentence or two on the scientific consensus regarding cannabis and cancer. Again, Wikinews is Wiki-worthless. As for my participation there, that has nothing to do with this discussion, just as your tangent about the history of cannabis controversy has nothing to do with this thread. Viriditas (talk) 02:50, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Cold fusion

Cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

There's some talk page activity suggesting a resumption of the long term POV-push, and our favourite Nobelist is there too. Guy (Help!) 09:41, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I assumed that this section title is the article name, and linked to it as such. —Gryllida (talk) 09:58, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Bumping thread. Guy (Help!) 11:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Anons and a couple of logged-in editors forum shopping frantically in an attempt to make the nasty reality-based community go away. Guy (Help!) 11:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Urine therapy and Urophagia

• Urine therapy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Urophagia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Need eyes. Yesterday I reverted an editor who added, amongst other material that "This age old natural therapy can prevent and cure cancer, AIDS, Renal failure, gall bladder stones, cerebral palsy" with some non-RS sources. He's replaced some and I've reverted again. Hopefully he will stop and I've asked people at a couple of Wikiprojects to counsel him. Dougweller (talk) 15:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Watchlisted. Do we really need two articles on this? Alexbrn 16:04, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, urine was a notable form of quackery back in the day - they were known as piss-prophets - but this was as a diagnostic leading to the prescription of cure-alls, not urine therapy as such. There's probably only one article's worth between them, and a reference to Burzynski may be justified as the most notable current proponent of this quackery. Guy (Help!) 16:39, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Template-fu

Anyone with good template-fu might like to add File:Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement.svg to the talk page header template for fringe topics under arbitration, or possibly to the "controversial" talk page template. Guy (Help!) 16:37, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Biologically based therapy

• {{Biologically based therapy}}

The term "biologically based therapy" seems to me to be POV and lacking in any concrete definition; it was transcluded on urine therapy and Chinese food therapy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), the last of which I have nominated for deletion as it's a single sentence that does not even try to establish its significance.

I have TfD nominated the template and moved the articles to {{Alternative medicine}}. Guy (Help!) 21:07, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Blood Moon Prophecy

• Blood Moon Prophecy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Although created in 2009 heavily revised in the last few weeks as it was about the April eclipse. Might be worth putting on watchlists. Dougweller (talk) 09:12, 23 April 2014 (UTC) Bumping thread. Guy (Help!) 21:28, 27 April 2014 (UTC) I've taken on the task of pruning this down to what's actually verifiable from reliable sources and encyclopaedic; ThaddeusB, who added the content I removed, seems to believe that WP:BRD starts with my bold reversion not his bold addition, and I'd appreciate some help explaining WP:ONUS to him. Guy (Help!) 21:24, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

First of all, the article was not created in 2009. It was created about a month ago, by me. Second, I greatly dispute Guy's interpretation of the dispute. ONUS does not give him unlimited rights to delete whatever he wants and make me prove it is worth including. It means he can challenge specific facts that are uncited, not ignore BRD because he feels some details aren't worth covering. He has cut 2/3rds of the article, including tons of material sourced to sources normally considered reliable (Fox News, Washington Post, etc.) Additionally, his edits have introduced factual inaccuracies that I carefully avoided because he insists the details are mere "trivia", but are actually crucial to understanding certain points. We are attempting resolve the issue on talk (while he insists his version must stay in the mean time, ignoring BRD), but I certainly welcome more opinions. --ThaddeusB (talk) 22:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Does 'he supposedly had "discovered"' seem like a neutral tone to you? More generally though, an article about a pseudo-science should give all the space needed to explain its thinking to the reader. I mean, I don't believe a word about astrology, but if I had a reason to draw up someone's natal chart for fiction or comedy, I'd want to be able to find out how to do it right here. There are too many people on this board treating a 'rational' point of view as something to POV-push, rather than as a method of thinking and neutrally evaluating the available evidence, however absurd an idea may be. Wnt (talk) 00:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I think we are in agreement then. My problem with Guy's edits is that he has removed all context of the Blood Moon idea, to the point where he has actually introduced factually accuracies about what its proponents believe. I fail to see how that is a "better" article, and how the ONUS is on me to prove (to him) the context is necessary. (I do agree that specific sentence was not ideal and could be better worded.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:25, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

No, I mainly removed in-universe cruft sourced to wingnut fundamentalist websites. We must not give undue weight to the opinions of cranks, what is needed is reality-based descriptions of the concept. Through various edits this was being asserted as on a par with end times and armageddon prophecies generally, but as you yourself wrote, there is no evidence it ever gained significant traction. This is a very minor fringe cult notion. Guy (Help!) 09:47, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

We disagree about what you removed... In the interest of progress, I have proposed rewriting the article to exclude the 2 objectable sources. If you could reply on talk, I'd appreciate it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:40, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I apologise, not sure how that happened as I meant that April 2014 lunar eclipse had been created in 2009. Dougweller (talk) 13:48, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I think anyone on Misplaced Pages who speaks of "cruft" is making bad decisions, no matter what the target of their disdain. Misplaced Pages contains a lot of data, and much if not most of it seems dull and pointless, but it should be edited with a respect for the effort that was put in to collect it, and I would even say, with respect for the idea that even when we cannot perceive it, the data wants to lead us to insight and understanding. We're here to free the data, to listen to it as we can, to try to see where it is leading. Just because the idea is "astronomically" unlikely doesn't mean that we can't understand where it came from, what it inspires people to do, its effect on the economy, the motivations of its adherents, etc. But we have to understand these concepts.

Hagee's religion may be very uncommon, and repugnant to many of us, but it is still a religion, and like any religion, we should take ample time to go through the concepts it is based on without dismissing them as beneath investigation. Wnt (talk) 16:39, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Thunderbird (cryptozoology)

Thunderbird (cryptozoology) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
The bird equivalent of Bigfoot. Claimed sightings and argued existence cited to fringe sources and About.com. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:51, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

FAB, Virgil. Guy (Help!) 09:50, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Telepathy

User deleting mass material from the telepathy article claiming telepathy has scientific evidence and deleting references as biased "skeptical" sources. Two IPs have also joined in. They may all be the same person. They have been reverted, but it may be worth watching over this. Goblin Face (talk) 14:15, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Chinese food therapy

This is up for deletion. I strongly doubt that there is any such thing, and that there is nothing more than the kind of folk "eat your carrots' sort of thing that is also found in the west. I personally don't have a lot of time to pursue this but I invite others (who may also be more familiar with the territory anyway) to have a look. Mangoe (talk) 15:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Jean-Émile Charon

A French physicist who has written some new age books. Some strange stuff on his article:

"There are microscopic individualities inside every human. They think, they know, and (they) carry Spirit in the Universe.” Charon chooses to call these individual beings of intelligence, “eons.” They are otherwise known as electrons. Each electron or “eon” is an enclosed space, a thinking entity, intelligence, and even a micro-universe. But this is an inaccurate way of speaking about them, because as Michael Talbot (1991/1992) warns us in The Holographic Universe, “the only time quanta ever manifest as particles is when we are looking at them.” Thus, it would be more accurate to think of these beings in terms of wave interference patterns."

"The goal of the electron is developing the order of its Spirit. There are four psychic forces that organize living forms into entities of increasing energy or order: reflection, knowledge, love, and action. As the order grows, so do the psychic properties."

Finding it hard to locate any reliable references in English. Goblin Face (talk) 17:18, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Homeopathy advocacy at black mamba

See talk:Black mamba#Homoepathy section. Guy (Help!) 10:29, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Acupuncture

I thought the debate was settling down at TCM but now it was moved to acupuncture. The text is a summary of the body. QuackGuru (talk) 06:07, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Mazzaroth

Had a reversion today back to the fringe-filled version. I can see no evidence that the people whose opinions were quoted (or, in one case, the completely uncited, probable original research reading of the Bible) are notable opinions on the subject. Adam Cuerden 13:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Yin yoga

This is a non-notable article that should be deleted. QuackGuru (talk) 17:01, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Fringe at Subartu, Sabir people

There's been a good amount of material added to these pages recently pushing the fringe belief that the Bronze Age Subartu are the same people as the 7th century CE Sabir, and are thus an example of continuous Turkish presence in the Near East. There are a great deal of inline cites provided, but following these I find at least one blatant fabrication - the claim that H. Mark Hubey contributed to The Cambridge Ancient History series and that the book supports the Sabir/Subartu connection (also added to Subartu but removed by another editor) - several fringe sources sometimes connected with the Hungarian or Turkish right-wing (in the last the Christian is reliable, but being misrepresented), and a number of scholarly sources that are being misrepresented, such as Dhorme, , the Christian linked before, and a group of sources concerning etymology that may be taken out of context, such as . The use of Old Turkic to provide an etymology for a people that preceded Old Turkic by over a thousand years is a sign of sloppiness at best, and illustrates what seems to be the thought process behind the sourcing: Google for anything that looks like Subartu, Sabir, Subar, etc., and assume that it must be making a Subartu-Tukish connection and present it as such. As the editor has a definite WP:IDHT problem, and I would rather not be in an edit war, some more eyes on this would be good. Ergative rlt (talk) 17:09, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

The same issue is also discussed at "Multi-referenced scholarly viewpoint and persistent vandalism" section of Misplaced Pages: Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Lamedumal (talk) 18:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Multi-referenced_scholarly_viewpoint_and_persistent_vandalism. This would certainly mean that user Ergative rlt seems to be the next candidate who has problems with multi-referenced scholarly viewpoints due to his own contradictory viewpoint, which became quite clear when he put his focus on the Turkic and to a lesser extend on the Hungarian theory, instead on the others, such as the Armenian, Kurdish, Slavic or Greek theory. - Hirabutor (talk) 19:10, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

The "multi-referenced scholarly viewpoint" is original research with misleading or fringe cites. And now that Lamedumal has pointed out the RSN discussion, I see that the misrepresentation of Dorme was specifically pointed out there as well, but Hirabutor's added it back. Also, the Slavic and Greek theories appear to be more of Hirabutor's OR, with once again a misleading citation. Ergative rlt (talk) 19:51, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Lamedumal seems to have misinterpreted Dhorme, since Sabirois etc. lived in classical times and not in the bronze age, as mentioned by Dhorme. - Hirabutor (talk) 19:58, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Jan Peczkis

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jan Peczkis

Comment.

jps (talk) 18:58, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Ken Ham

There is currently an edit war going on over adding the category pseudoscientist to Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati and John Baumgardner (and probably others) The argument has reached the level of absurdity to the point the following is posted on the talk page "Whether proof that a subject engages in pseudoscience allows us to add him to the "Pseudoscientists" category (which I dispute on the basis of WP:BLPCAT" A report has been filed at 3RRNB here and as I strongly suspect meat/sock puppetry as SPI here. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:22, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

The Pseudoscientists cat is up for deletion

See Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 May 1#Category:Pseudoscientists. QuackGuru (talk) 08:33, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

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