Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skepticism

David Dees article

Hey folks! I'm currently working on a draft for an article about David Dees, the conspiracy theory artist. Before I dedicate a lot of time to writing it, I wanted to gauge if people felt like he meets notability guidelines, as well as get feedback on my prospective list of sources (and perhaps see if you all have additional sources I could use).

My plan is to build off of the (sadly somewhat thin) German Wikipedia article on Dees, as well as perhaps using the (not-particularly-encyclopedic) RationalWiki article for some supplementary ideas. In terms of sources, I was planning on using Brad Abraham's short documentary Do You See What I See?, the ADL's 2008 profile on him, and Ashley Feinberg's 2015 Gawker article. The German article has additional sources listed, but I think an editor who's fluent in German or French would be necessary to most accurately cite those.

Any feedback that people could provide would be greatly appreciated! Ithinkiplaygames (talk) 17:56, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Here's the (very preliminary) draft so far: Draft:David Dees. Ithinkiplaygames (talk) 19:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Well that is a beginning. I would think he is notable, even I've heard of him before. I'm curious why you are using Draft and not your Sandbox for work? Sgerbic (talk) 22:51, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hey, apologies for the late reply! Thanks for the feedback—I'll keep working with my existing sources and I think I can produce something that's at least serviceable

To be honest, the only reason I'm using Draft is because I'm new to making articles, and Draft was the option that popped up when I used the Article Creation Wizard. I imagine the drawback is that it's editable by others, unlike a sandbox? Ithinkiplaygames (talk) 04:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

We can edit each other's sandbox, but we shouldn't. I don't know why it looks odd to use Draft, I suppose there is nothing wrong with it, it just looks odd to me. I think that a sandbox is usually for something you are working on and intend to fuss over for awhile. But draft is something complete that you are hoping for feedback on, like a final product. Anyway, find the at least three really best citations that prove notability. Start there - otherwise you will spend a lot of time on something that will get deleted. Those three citations should be easy to locate - if you are having trouble then he probably isn't going to pass notability. I'm happy to have a look as you need help - ping me. Sgerbic (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

In terms of sources that prove notability, I have the aforementioned Gawker article, a 2010 Uproxx article in a very similar vein, the ADL article, and a Times of Israel article about the controversial use of one of his illustrations in a textbook. Think that's enough? I want the general thrust of the article w/r/t his significance to be about how his art has been widely-spread, both as an object of mockery/fascination by non-believers and as a legitimate method of spreading conspiracy rhetoric.

I also have some questions about WP:PRIMARY, WP:INDEPENDENT, and WP:RELIABILITY. When looking for biographical details, the main sources I've found about his life come from Abrahams' documentary, an interview appearance on some fringe podcast called The Michael Decon Program, and Dees' own self-written bio. The documentary is fairly obviously an independent source, but all of the biographical information within comes from direct interviews with Dees—should details sourced like that simply be presented at face value, or should I still preface them as being claimed by Dees. For the other two sources, I think it's fairly obvious that they're not exactly independent, being published by a fellow conspiracy personality and Dees himself respectively, but they also seem to verifiably come straight from the horse's mouth and to contain details of his life that don't seem to be found anywhere else. I'm not sure Dees would have any reason to lie about going to Emory to a random podcast host, but I can concede they're crappy sources, and so am very conflicted about including them. Ithinkiplaygames (talk) 05:50, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

It's okay to use interviews to document mundane details about themselves, such as where they grew up, what sparked their interest in that field, etc. Anything that actually related to notability - awards, employment, claims to fame - should come with an independant source. Robincantin (talk) 13:13, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey, Ithink -- did you make any progress with this? When I do a Wikipedia search on Dees, I find your page. Was that your intent?Ed Gracely (talk) 20:51, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fringe theories has an RfC

Wikipedia:Fringe theories has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. (Note: from continuation of ongoing discussion at Village Pump (policy).) SamuelRiv (talk) 00:35, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

How to add an article to this WikiProject?

There is a new article Timeline of UFO investigations and public disclosure which seems to be right in your wheelhouse. I have looked through the content here, and I can't see how to add this article for the WikiProject. Can somebody please tell me how to add it? Gronk Oz (talk) 11:49, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I think (It's been awhile since I did it) just add the tag to the talk page of the article. Sgerbic (talk) 16:38, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

It's time to tackle the list of books about skepticism

This is a big project, but over the years people have been adding books to this list that are NOT Wikipedia notable. I suggest that people take it in turns to cut this list by about 3/4's - if the book does not have a Wikipedia article, then it needs to go. Double check that there is no article before you remove it from this list, as they might not have been hyperlinked in this list. List of books about skepticism Good luck! Sgerbic (talk) 07:10, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

In a first step, I automatically replaced the italic titles by wikilinks. Now we can easily tell the redlinked ones apart from the bluelinked ones. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:55, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

It has been reverted by someone who does not get it, but it does not matter. You can see in the old revsion [1] which books have an article about them and which do not, which was the point. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:51, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: I reverted your edit because first, you removed the italic markup from book titles. Book titles should always be italicized (see MOS:ITALICTITLE). Second, you created redlinks by linking the book titles with no Wikipedia articles. Redlinks shouldn't be used unless an article is likely to be created (see WP:NORED). —Bruce1ee^talk 13:23, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

As I said, my edit has fulfilled its goal even if you do not understand it. The revert does not matter. It's fine. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:14, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

great idea Hob. Sgerbic (talk) 16:16, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey, gang - I've started working on this project. As I understand it, I'll be removing books from the list in question that do not have their Wikipedia pages. One immediate question I have is the following: Should the links from the notable titles remaining in the list not go to the Wikipedia page? The first one I came across goes to an image file. I will go ahead and edit the links to go to the relevant page. Drobertpowell (talk) 14:17, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by the "Should the links from the notable titles remaining in the list not go to the Wikipedia page?" Only books that have Wikipedia articles should remain on this list. Everything else should go. If people write new articles for books, then they can add them to the list. I'm expecting when this is done there will be a quarter of the list left. It's been added to for so long without following the rules. Sgerbic (talk) 18:19, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't really understand this. I have a number of books that are very clearly reliable sources on psuedoarchaeology which don't have their own articles. Great sources, but not on the list. Eg see Ronald H. Fritze. I'm sure I have others whose authors don't have their own articles. Doug Weller talk 14:05, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

The list should contain only books that have Wikipedia articles, notable on their own. It does not mean that a book can't be a reliable source, but we need to pair this down otherwise it just becomes a list of every book on the subject of scientific skepticism and I see inclusion of pure science creeping in. We don't want this to become another list like a UFO "notable" events, who decides what is notable. Many of these books being removed, I have in my own library and find them useful but they probably shouldn't be on the list. I would love to see our community buckle down and write articles for the books that are notable enough to pass the strict standards of Wikipedia. Sgerbic (talk) 18:11, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@Sgerbic Why not also include those whose authors have articles. Note that my concern is the lack of books on pseudoarchaeology.. Doug Weller talk 19:20, 30 November 2024 (UTC)