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Gray Alien article

More eyes would be appreciated at Gray alien. Two editors who have professed belief in the reality of the subject are attempting to make the article more 'neutral'. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:46, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

The recently-added main image of sinister aliens lurking in deep shadow isn't an improvement. The old image was objective and dispassionate, something an encyclopedia should strive for. - LuckyLouie (talk)

The image I reverted was because I thought it was "AI" generated and I was worried about copyvio. If I'm mistaken please revert me. Simonm223 (talk) 15:18, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

AI images can't be copyrighted, though there's currently a community discussion about whether to ban their use in general, and it seems likely to pass. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:40, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
My concern is more that we would be violating the copyright of the "training data" owners - IE the owners of the image rights that the diffusion model was trained upon. Simonm223 (talk) 15:43, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
Ahh, yes. I don't think that would actually apply directly (at least not in a court of law, as the image itself isn't a copy of copyrighted work), but it is a broader ethical concern that I, as an artist, very much share. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:50, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
Fair enough. I'm not a lawyer so I'd comport myself conservatively here and avoid anything that has even the implication of copyright violation but it's not a hill I intend to die on. ;) Simonm223 (talk) 15:53, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
I completely understand that sentiment. It's a good approach, honestly. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:05, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
I've tagged the image using the broadest template available on Commons (Commons:Template:PD-algorithm). I am personally averse to using the image as there's no specific discussion within the article that describes depictions of gray aliens as created by AI (which is typically a requirement for any article on en.wikipedia to use such images, especially so for the main image), and the methods by which this image was created are not described in any way. (This is true for all of the images that have been uploaded to Commons by Mesoutopia (talk · contribs).) Reconrabbit 16:32, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
I just had a look and, yeah, the one of Jesus and a Gray Alien would likely be a copyright violation for the movie Son of God (film) marketing material. Simonm223 (talk) 16:43, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
Ooof, yeah, that's a shockingly similar face. You know, I work with deep learning systems, and have even built one. I use generative AI in some of my artwork, as well, and yet it is exactly stuff like this which makes me so wary of using it to produce images for anything other than the sheer entertainment value of making images by typing a prompt. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:34, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Recovered-memory therapy

Recent suspicious activity in those articles this month, moving articles about false memory towards the "false memory proponents are pedophiles" narrative. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:20, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Visions

Edit war at Category:Visions (spirituality). Please chime in. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:45, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

James Tour

Bona fide scientist, but flirts with intelligent design. That was in the article, but the sources were not great. An IP deleted all of it after unsuccessfully trying to remove just the criticism. I think it is an improvement - we do not have to add "believes in crazy stuff" to every BLP where the LP happens to believe in crazy stuff. Especially if the reception is thin, as in this case. What do others think? --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:58, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

In reality BLP über alles. This does mean some people who believe in batshit get sanitized Wikipedia bios, but them's the breaks. Bon courage (talk) 07:08, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Agree with Hob Gadling. I know he was recently elected to the National Academy of Engieering too. Ramos1990 (talk) 07:12, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
Ignoring WP:NPOV for a moment, I agree—and personally feel the less we feel the need to automatically nail people for fruity views like these, the less fodder some figures have to develop persecution complexes, the better. I don't even think Tour's "crazy" per se if I take their essay (the parts I both read and understood, at least) at face value here—more than a little idiosyncratic, unduly jaded, and likely ignorant as a chemist and silicon-toucher of things evolutionary biologists and hydrocarbon-touchers may have more of a clue about—but those may be my own metaphysical biases showing a bit.
Back to reality and NPOV: it's the advocacy that's a sticking point. I would resent a campaign to tag every biography possible with the creationist category, but this is clearly at least a perennially visible component of Tour's public intellectual life. Maybe not visible enough, but it seems borderline to me. Remsense ‥ 论 07:16, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
The fellow is just religiously motivated to attack a scientific field outside of his expertise which conflicts with a belief he holds to be foundational, namely he believes that life is a miracle and natural processes cannot explain its miraculousness. This is certainly a WP:FRINGE claim in the sense that it is bogus, but he is only unique because he pushes this claim as a kind of nadir of his career sort of gambit. Laundering pseudoscience with credentialism is the new Nobel disease. Compare Avi Loeb and aliens.
The chronically online know the guy from his fights/debates with a minor YouTube personality where he doesn't come out ahead, really. He was invited to "debate" at Harvard, but it didn't go well.
I wouldn't say he "flirts" with intelligent design. He is a dishonest evangelical who cannot see that his picking and choosing which science he accepts and which he rejects is classic pseudoscience just like the less sophisticated creationists who crow, "Were you there?"
jps (talk) 05:23, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I don't think we should be citing the guy for any of his positions about biology whatsoever, to be perfectly clear. Since writing this, I've done the barest bit of probing and found that Inference, a magazine he's citing his own articles for a lot in that essay, is a Thiel-funded concern that apparently has a habit of publishing advocacy for various creationisms. Bah humbug. Remsense ‥ 论 05:29, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Well, I removed the "Personal Life" section as, apparently, no other sources think that this is relevant to his biography except for his own attestation. If we are going to take WP:Independent sources seriously, I think we need to see what the best sources say about the guy. They don't mention his religion. Neither should we.
If one day Tour's bloviating ends up getting him profiled reliably as a creationist gadfly, we can always add it all back. Until then, let his actual WP:PROMINENT accomplishments remain in his wikibio.
jps (talk) 05:34, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Seems like the right move to me. Remsense ‥ 论 05:48, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
In reality, a majority of scientists believe in God or a higher power, so there really is nothing unusual about Dr. Tour. This echo chamber is the actual fringe. I agree that most of his published work is not related to his religious beliefs so I'm okay leaving it off of his bio. In actuality, his challenge to origin of life research doesn't reference religion at all.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ PerseusMeredith (talk) 17:43, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
If you actually read the conversation to this point, you would know we're not criticizing Tour or expressing concern about him merely believing in a higher power. Save your time and ours if that's all you have to contribute, please. Remsense ‥ 论 17:45, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
"He is a dishonest evangelical who cannot see that his picking and choosing which science he accepts and which he rejects is classic pseudoscience just like the less sophisticated creationists who crow, "Were you there?""
Based on the foregoing, this is clearly incorrect. This thread is loaded with disrespectful comments to the majority of the population that believe in a higher power and violate, "batshit crazy," "fruity views," that violate the civility policy. [[1]] PerseusMeredith (talk) 18:43, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
If you immediately conflate "evangelical" here with "believes in a higher power", that's clearly your own baggage at play, not anything that was actually said by anyone. Cheers. Remsense ‥ 论 18:44, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
But most of the comments are disparaging people that believe that the world was created by a higher power. There isn't anything related to interpretation of the Bible which would imply distinction amongst theists.
So I'm trying to understand your point. Are you saying it's okay to disparage someone because they belong to a certain group (Evangelical)? PerseusMeredith (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Nope. I meant the totality of what I've said in this thread, not any other words you want to put in my mouth. Remsense ‥ 论 22:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
But most of the comments are disparaging people that believe that the world was created by a higher power. No, they're not. Using colorful language to describe people's strange beliefs is not the same as disparaging the people. Also, you are conflating the specific strange beliefs of a person with the more general strange belief "that the world was created by a higher power". It is not this belief of his that is being described in a way that you dislike. So, wrong on the disparaging of people, and wrong on which belief it is that is being described in colorful language. VdSV9•♫ 21:02, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
(Please drop it.) Remsense ‥ 论 21:04, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
Knock it off, User:PerseusMeredith. If you think there is a violation of civility policy, report it to the appropriate noticeboard WP:ANI, WP:AN, or WP:AE. jps (talk) 18:48, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
I don't want to get anyone banned. I wanted to point out that a lot of the comments on the thread are disparaging and I find them offensive. PerseusMeredith (talk) 21:59, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
Noted… now let’s move on. Blueboar (talk) 22:04, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

I have tried to collect my thoughts on this. There are two usable sources for this mess: [2] and [3]. From those sources we can say that in 2014 Tour tried the Non-overlapping magisteria approach to his religion and science even while he signed a clearly pseudoscientific declaration of war against biology. In 2023 he lost a debate to a high school science teacher. Not sure there is enough there to really establish something WP:WEIGHTy. Anyone see anything else? jps (talk) 05:45, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

I have started a workshop section at the talkpage of the article for a possible section based on these two sources. jps (talk) 12:05, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
AFAIK, Dave Farina is not and has never been a high school science teacher. He was a college "lecturer" before, and makes tutorials on university-level subjects as well as, I guess, high-school level material. VdSV9•♫ 21:11, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
I was being a little fast-and-loose, I will admit, but one of Farina's gigs is as a tutor for Advanced Placement chemistry [4] teaching high school students at a college level. My apologies if it was overly flippant. jps (talk) 21:40, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Edit war

Note that Alephjamie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) seems to think that I am a YouTube fan of Dave Farina trying to promote him? Talk page discussions, opinions, and discernment welcome. I have alerted the user who has been removing the statement cited to the Rice University student newspaper that their actions are superficially appearing to be like WP:POVPUSHing. jps (talk) 15:46, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Dallin Oaks homophobia, due or undue?

Discussion underway at talk:Dallin H. Oaks He is a "prophet" who can hear messages from God, apparently. But editors of the page think this is too confidential to discuss. Hot Drinks and Rock n Roll (talk) 02:35, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Is this about the retracted speech that, apparently BYU, doesn't want us non-believers reading? Simonm223 (talk) 11:58, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
Do RS discuss it? Slatersteven (talk) 12:03, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
  • What is this section? The title mentions homophobia, but your comment talks only about whether or not we should mention that he's considered a prophet. I did a scan of news sources about him, and saw no mention of homophobia, but I also saw no mention of any kind of prophecy (though to be fair, I eschewed sources from within the church). Furthermore, you don't mention which discussion and I can't find your signature anywhere on the page. Given that your only two edits were to create your own user page and then to make this, I suspect there's some puppetry happening. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:31, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
  • Not sure this is relevant to this noticeboard (that a senior religious leader is reputed to be homophobic is certainly not outside the norm)... I think this is more a question of due weight and OR which should be resolved on the article talk page. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:18, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
Where's the discussion under way? There hasn't been any comment for 15 days and the more recent discussion seems to have ended because an editor wanted to add something they considered important but where they couldn't provide any reliable secondary sources to demonstrate this. Nil Einne (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

ONUS and CTOP

I have been speculating about adding CTOP to the "if it's contested, leave it out until you have consensus" standard (e.g., to handle disputed CTOP material the same as we handled contentious BLP material). However, the result might be blanking everything (e.g., I remove everything that doesn't agree with my side, you remove everything that doesn't agree with your side, and the result is a blank page). Please join the discussion over there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:46, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Mixed feelings on handling CTOP the same as BLP… but… I definitely DON’T think it should be coat racked into to W:Verifiability. Blueboar (talk) 19:47, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Fresno nightcrawler

Brand new article about the latest urban myth that a mystery creature roams Fresno. Article treats the subject as if it really exists, despite cited sources stating the opposite. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:07, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Now at Draft:Fresno nightcrawler. This is a recreation of a deleted article (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fresno nightcrawler), although the sources of the new version are substantially different. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:20, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
I'd forgotten the AfD, thanks. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:34, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Stargate Project (U.S. Army unit)

This article is about an undeniably real and interesting project but reports claims in a credulous way. It would benefit from a lookover.Boynamedsue (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

The lead had some details added about President Carter that somebody thought needed showcasing, but I moved them to the appropriate section. The rest of the article could use some copyediting. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:15, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
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