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In trying to sort out the catechism category, I came upon this. Here's the problem: there are exactly three book references to this supposed document, all of them in the mid/late 1800s, and all of them in footnotes, as follows:

• The main passage is from St. Paul in Britain or the Origin of the British as opposed to Papal Christianity by Richard Williams Morgan, who to put it bluntly was a religious crank. He quotes an extended passage from this supposed work but gives no idea of where it came from.

• In Royal Captives by Clara Corfield, published in 1874 [1], there is a story in which the following lines appear:

The sacred scrolls of our sages say, "The state of happiness cannot be regained without knowing everything; and we cannot know everything without suffering every evil and every good that can come; for the state of happiness is perfect liberty, choosing the good and forsaking the evil, with open eyes."

This is cited in a footnote as "From the Coelbren Rhodd, a Druidic Catechism, of which a small part only is extant." The book appears to be a set of amusing/edifying tales, not a history or perhaps even historical fiction. In any case the quote corresponds to part of Morgan's transcription.

• There are a couple of references in a section on Druidism (written by "The Rev. A. H. McKinney, PhD., New York") in this survey from 1892. It's pretty clear he is also dependent upon Morgan.

Google Scholar gives nothing except Corfield's book. I am concerned about the notability of this work, or for that matter, whether it ever really existed. You would think, at least, that it would have a Cotton number or something like that. Mangoe (talk) 16:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Good discussion. I suspect the document may be forged as Richard Williams Morgan was influenced by notable forger Iolo Morganwg. Problem with Morganwg is that he was a major manuscript collector in the 18th and 19th centuries and not all of his MSS were forged and finding out what manuscripts were used when and how over two centuries ago to produce his works and works based will give you a headache, I've looked at it and if there's a way of telling, it's beyond my research capabilities anyhow. Still, people liked his work, it became very notable and people started neo-druid movements based on this very flaky information. The article probably needs some sort of notification about it's limited reliability with regards being a genuine pre-Roman druidic document. I have no way of telling due to the limited sources of the catechism's origins that you have correctly identified. It would be cool if it was genuine, but some reservation should be made about it. Paul Bedson ❉talk❉ 18:37, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why just not prod it or take it to AfD? It lacks reliable sources and there is no evidence of notability. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 21:07, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking AFD but I wanted other opinions first. Mangoe (talk) 21:28, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can't find anything myself. The sources are old enough to be considered primary sources. We should be looking for a more recent academic response (if it's not a forgery, or establishing that it is a notable forgery). I can't find anything source-wise. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge it with the Rchard Williams Morgan. Itsmejudith (talk),

Before that I would suggest assessing the reliability of the content; if it is a forgery. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:58, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If it hasn't received substantial coverage in multiple recent scholarly sources, it's difficult to justify it either having it's own stand-alone article, forgery or not. Forgeries can be notable, too. Think of the Donation of Constantine or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

As for merging, I wouldn't do that unless there were significant evidence of noteworthiness from modern scholars. After all, without that, it's just a trivial detail buried in a footnote in one of his many books. It would be hard to argue that it had any more significance than the rest of the content of his books.

As of now, I haven't found any recent reliable sources for this document, either. And I agree with IRWolfie that the sources used are too old, and qualify more as primary sources. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:09, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm putting in an inquiry with Ronald Hutton to see if he can provide some guidance. Mangoe (talk) 23:07, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Smart move! Keep us posted! Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:46, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hutton's reply has arrived. Short form: it is indeed a Iolo Morganwg fantasy. He has provided a book reference which I'm hunting down now. Mangoe (talk) 10:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hutton's comment

(which I'm paraphrasing since I wasn't able to ask him directly for permission to publish it) It's essentially something dreamed up by Iolo Morganwg and published by his son Taliesen Williams in Coelbren y Beirdd; Williams Morgan ran with it and expanded it, but it's completely bogus.

Hutton has a brief section on St. Paul in Britain in his book Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain; I have been able to read the passage, and it doesn't mention this specific spurious subwork by name. I've checked further, and I appears that almost all the web references to "Coelbren Rhodd" are either to us, to the primary source, to the other two 19th century references, or to search traps. Given what we have to work with, unless we get Hutton's email to me taken as a legitimate reference, there doesn't seem to be any other path to take but deletion. Mangoe (talk) 13:49, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Coelbren Rhodd Mangoe (talk) 14:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article was deleted, but Paul appears to have effectively recreated it. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone look over Linda Moulton Howe? In my opinion, this bio soft pedals the subject's role as a conspiracy/alien/crop circle fringe author and advocate. Until I recently fixed it, the article lead was identifying her only as an "investigative journalist", "filmmaker" etc. I haven't touched the article body, but I think it places undue weight on pre-1990s journalism and filmmaking awards and activities that occurred before she gravitated to the alien/crop circle/conspiracy fringe scene. Creates a false impression that all of those awards and activities apply to her fringe works (they don't). Other problems include paragraphs referring to her topic area as "science, medicine and the environment", referring to her website as a "news" site, etc. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:09, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the article body was added in a single IP edit which geolocates to the subject's home town. Assuming it's sourced I think we could rebalance this to give a more accurate narrative. Mangoe (talk) 18:17, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

She's definitely notable, however she's only notable as being a UFO/conspiracy person, not as a science/environmental reporter. There are no published biographies of Howe, except those provided by Howe herself or places like Coast to coast AM. Re the long list of unsourced awards, someone on the talk page explains that "A lot of journalist articles on Wikipedia do not provide refs for Awards." - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:01, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Howe regularly reports on other science topics besides fringe, as evidenced by this index on her site: http://www.earthfiles.com/headlines.php?category=Science. A lot of journalists out there are assigned to the offbeat and weird news field. My problem with the article are all the "Linda this" and "Linda that" lead ins. Too personal. She's 70 years old. It's not like the networks are calling her. 5Q5 (talk) 16:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Below are just the first 3 "science topics" found at the link given:

Science Reports

• 09/27/2012 — Ancient Foreign DNA Found in Modern Human DNA

• 09/24/2012 — Updated: Why Is NASA Faking Gale Crater Images On Mars?

• 08/17/2012 — Arctic Ice Melt Shrinks At Record Pace, While Greenland Also Melts

...the rest include equally questionable "science". Not sure WP should be calling her a "science reporter" when she's accusing NASA of faking evidence to hide aliens on Mars, etc. Fringe science reporter or conspiracy theorist perhaps, but not science reporter.- LuckyLouie (talk) 16:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not overly defending Howe, but it seems that she is the highest credentialed mainstream reporter ever to cover the fringe science field and she deserves some respect with regard to her earlier body of serious work. The problem with being a TV reporter is the lack of printed citations available. Newspapers of the era or any era don't write about and promote the work of competitors. Personally I think all the detailed travel stuff in the article is not encyclopedic other than to say generally that "she has traveled the word to cover stories" or whatever and that's it. Maybe other journalists' articles should be looked at to get some editing ideas. She probably has citations available and if asked could probably scan them to pdf and email them to any Wikipedia editor who want to reference the serious stuff in her career. Unfortunately, I'm too busy to do this. I have emailed her in the past and she has always responded politely. 5Q5 (talk) 15:59, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The reliable secondary sources now in the article do not give Howe any credibility whatsoever as a science reporter or objective 'mainstream journalist'. Our sources actually say the opposite, naming her as an alien conspiracy advocate and placing her among top UFOlogy 'gurus' such as Whitley Strieber. That's why I think the vast (self-sourced) list of irrelevant past credentials is WP:UNDUE. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting from the article on Howe: Ms. Howe has received local, national and international awards, including three regional Emmys, a national Emmy nomination and a Station Peabody award for medical programming. The photo in the infobox is for one of the Emmys. The article is flagged at top for additional citations needed. Go ahead and add line flags to certain things if the general flag is not enough. In doing a Google search for other Journalist articles: site:en.wikipedia.org journalist -journalism I chose the top five on the results list, each if which has many citation problems: Jason King (journalist), Mark Levine (journalist), Gary Wolf (journalist), Dave Green (journalist), Ben Smith (journalist) (note all the self references). See also Buck Wolf Article quote: In 2009, Wolf launched the Weird News section at AOL News. After AOL purchased Huffington Post in 2011, Wolf and his core reporters formed HuffPost Weird News. Howe's article needs the travel stuff shortened per WP:AUTOPROB, WP:NOTRESUME. 5Q5 (talk) 18:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I added two early mainstream newspaper references and a "Criticism" section giving a sourced description of Howe as a "credulous journalist" by noted skeptic Joe Nickell. You ought to see the article on Art Bell if Howe's article seems too fringe science promoting and too detailed of yearly activities. Finished: I think this discussion post has played out and I am not going to contribute further. Thanks. 5Q5 (talk) 17:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

People here might want to take a look at this. It appears to be a book and TV Forteana series; notability is being questioned. Mangoe (talk) 14:48, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article is written far far from NPOV, and contains a lot of badly sourced undue fringe material. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed some of the most undue fringe material and most egregiously unreliable sources, but it still needs cleanup. There are plenty of decent references around. Cheers for the linking IRWolfie- (talk) 22:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to ask for advice on the chiropractic page, namely about the sources. The article has lots of them, but many make vague statements that normally wouldn't be acceptable for statements in Wikipedia's editorial voice; some are also directly from chiropractors or people associated with chiropractors (e.g. sources 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8 out of the first ten), and I'm not confident in my evaluation of whether they're being used appropriately or are reliable sources. I'm still thinking about how to approach this, so most of my edits have been relatively minor thus far.

Also, I think that the page Chiropractic controversy and criticism is a POV fork. Arc de Ciel (talk) 09:51, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad to see someone bringing this issue up. I'm not sure why this page even showed up on so many watchlists. You're right that those sections are extremely biased. I think the fact that the article is on the agenda of several users on wiki has everything to do with why the article is so biased against chiropractic. If you would like some sources that may be less biased, check out pubmed and chiroaccess. Chiroaccess has a compilation of articles from many different journals, not "just" chiropractic journals. I think that sources that are obviously biased like the book "trick or treatment" should not be included in this article. Textbooks by leaders in the profession of chiropractic should count as valid sources. Information on hours of education should come from the chiropractic accrediting agency (Council on Chiropractic Education).

I think you bring up a really important issue. I do, however, think it's silly to not consider sources from chiropractic doctors to not be valid, although I understand the reasoning behind finding other sources too. I'd like to point out that this is an article about chiropractic, not about what other professions think about chiropractic. Does that make sense? Why don't we just keep the page about chiropractic instead of getting into a political war that has already been beat to death in most other forums?

Akdc14 (talk) 20:41, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you missed the points behind my questions. Any proper answers would be based in Wikipedia policy. :-) Arc de Ciel (talk) 21:25, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think something by the name of "Chiroaccess", would be something I would imagine has a lot of cherry picking. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think It looks a lot like a POV fork. I think it should be merged back in. Can you add a diff of a specific version of the article if you are using reference numbers, IRWolfie- (talk) 00:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Arc de Ciel (talk) 05:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

Ayurveda-related 'detoxification processes', e.g. "Virechan is a process where bad doshas are brought out by the way of anal canal". Not exactly encyclopaedic, I think... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:13, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello.

Ectomorphic, Endomorphic and Mesomorphic are pretty much completely pseudoscientific, with sources made up of online weight-losing guides, body-building magazines and similar. They are presented as being genuine scientific concepts, while they are probably of more interest described as cultural phenomena. We already have Somatotype for this, so I personally think an outright deletion with the pages being replaced with redirects to Somatotype would be a proper solution. Autharitus (talk) 18:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The sourcing is a complete disaster. It also seems to be acting as some sort of Guide as well. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see you and another editor removed the guidelike parts of the articles; I wonder, however, if there is any merit in keeping them at all. They represent what is thought of as nonsense by most (all?) of the modern scientific community, are completely void of reliable sources (Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)) and present the subjects in an inappropriate manner. I don't think they are salvageable. Should I mark them for deletion? I'm a very new editor, which is why I came here to discuss the issue beforehand. Autharitus (talk) 15:12, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A search on Google Scholar for these three terms brings up 1,300 results.[2] We may not be successful at AfD. TimidGuy (talk) 15:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is true, and a search for "somatotypes" [3] yields 10,6k results, with 5,5k from 2000 and onwards. Some of the articles are published in (presumably) notable scientific journals such as American Journal of Physical Anthropology and Journal of Applied Biomechanics. However, it also seems that somatyping is not widely used in the mainstream scientific community, and thus that the somatotypes are not of enough importance to warrant their own articles. Furthermore, the current articles have no credibility at all. Autharitus (talk) 08:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best thing would be to redirect them all into somatotype. Mangoe (talk) 15:41, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes just redirect them all Bhny (talk) 16:19, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. There's no benefit in having four separate articles when one can do the job nicely. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 08:26, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The fringey LGBT fantasy of Jonathan and David hooking it up is heating up again, this time with a reference to a self-published website/book. Mangoe (talk) 00:05, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a section on arithmetic in Eye of Horus which seems to be complete numerological bosh. Searching 'Eye of Horus numbers" in GBooks produces two hits, both of which look to be misses. I'm inclined to delete this and another section which refers to it, but I want to bounce this off of others first. Mangoe (talk) 19:30, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More importantly, It is unsourced numerological bosh... tagged as potential OR since last March. I am removing. If an editor objects to removal, let them come up with a source for it. Blueboar (talk) 02:32, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The section deleted is more detailed than what I know, but it is consistent with what I've read. The ancient Egyptians used parts from the hieroglyph of the eye of Horus as symbols for fractions, but only as 1/2, 1/4, etc. as the section explained. The section actually gave extensive references to various important papyri, so it was sourced. Aarghdvaark (talk) 04:35, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's not the kind of sourcing it needs - it needs references to modern scholarship that reaches the conclusions being presented, not references to papyri that contain fractions. Agricolae (talk) 05:28, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's clearly a genuine an important aspect of the topic [4]. I'm no mathematician, and I really couldn't make much sense of the section as it was written. It was also unclear how the fractions were related to the eye as such. But we should have at least something there. This is not the best source for mathematics, but at least it's clear! [5] Paul B (talk) 10:56, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So fix it... I doubt anyone will have an objection to the article including a section on mathematical use of the eye, if such can be reliably sourced (see Agricolae's comment above)... but what was there either improperly relied on primary sources or was completely unsourced... ie Original Research. Add to that the Fringe numerological ideas and the best solution was to remove and hope someone will replace what was there with something more appropriate. Blueboar (talk) 15:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't "numerological bosh" that's for sure. I'm no mathematician, as I said. I am not best placed to fix it. I was merely trying to find appropriate evidence that it's not fringy nonsense. Paul B (talk) 15:53, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources abound for some of this material MathWorld, nrich, a search for "Eye of Horus fraction" yields many more. The section does need a lot of work . I suspect the original author may well be Milogardner (talk · contribs) who has a Community Ban preventing him from work on Egyptian Mathematics. He does have a particular style evident here. There is lots of basic things right in his work but he does tend to spin things greatly.--Salix (talk): 18:17, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, he seems to have been a major contributor. The version before he came along is easier to understand (pace spelling), if equally uncited [6]. Paul B (talk) 18:54, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The older version also has the advantage that it actually says something about the Eye of Horus -- the newer (now removed) version seemed to be entirely about the fractions without making any connection whatsoever to the Eye itself. --JBL (talk) 19:28, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've found a good reference "Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures". I've now added a very brief section on the mathematics.--Salix (talk): 19:52, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to all. I think we've got this covered. Mangoe (talk) 13:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has been adding a theory about "The Electric Universe" to the article on the Tunguska event. I've opened a discussion at Talk:Tunguska_event#Electric_universe_section, and I'd appreciate other editors' input on it. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Koolokamba (talk · contribs) has a website macroevolution.net which includes a self-published alternate theory of evolution. The website has been added to a number of articles as an external link, and occasionally as a reference, although not necessarily to the alternative theory portion.

Examples:

• addition ahead of Science magazine
• as a reference
• linking to own annotated edition of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin

Based on the site supporting a self-published "alternative theoretical formulation", to what extent should it be discouraged as an external link? Novangelis (talk) 19:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like self promotion, I suggest cross posting at WP:ELN as well. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]