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Oh, that was a GA review? Sorry, but you have been greatly involved in this article. We need someone to review who hasn't been involved- and who isn't biased. I'm hoping to bring in someone who is neutral on the issue of EVP, rather than someone who is part of the Rational Skepticism project which has as a goal to bring Skeptic's |
Oh, that was a GA review? Sorry, but you have been greatly involved in this article. We need someone to review who hasn't been involved- and who isn't biased. I'm hoping to bring in someone who is neutral on the issue of EVP, rather than someone who is part of the Rational Skepticism project which has as a goal to bring Skeptic's Dictionary into Wikipedia. |
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The [[Wikipedia:Good article candidates]] page says "Anyone who shows understanding of the criteria and the instructions below can review an article, as long as you are not a major contributor to the article being reviewed." ——'''[[User:Martinphi|<span style="color:#6c4408;border:1px dashed #6c4408;padding:1px;background:#FFFFFF;">Martin<sup>phi</sup>]]'''</span><sub> ([[User talk:Martinphi|Talk]] Ψ [[Special:Contributions/Martinphi|Contribs]])</sub> 01:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC) |
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Paranormal B‑class | |||||||||||||
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Skepticism B‑class Mid‑importance | ||||||||||
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Spirituality B‑class | ||||||||||
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TOC changes
On invitation, I've perviewed the article. I think your on your way to good article status. I've made some slight changes to the TOC, which you may change back if you feel it is necessary or better the other way. My main concern here and elsewhere is readability. The word 'paranormal' is used way to much as is 'hypothesis'. The opening paragraphs should focus first on the general concept and then go into skepticism by science or others. The article as a whole should focus on the general research and concept with the skeptics or scientific view holding its own in its own section which pretty much exists for the most part. I'm open to your thoughts on my observations and to working with the editors here to achieve a 'good article' status as you desire. On references - article seems well referenced. --Northmeister 00:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- I like your changes. I had to change one thing, because in science an hypothesis is different from a theory. You were mixing up the common usage of "theory" which means "idea" with "hypothesis" which in science and popular usage both means "tentative idea." But in science the word "theory" means an idea which has some good data to back it upj.... and there ain't none here.
- I re-arranged some stuff in the lead and did a little re-writing- see if it is any better. If not, then it should be reverted because the former lead had consensus. I'll go through and see if the word "paranormal" can be replaced sometimes. It needs to be in the lead because it serves to frame the issue, per the recent ArbCom [1]. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 02:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed. I'll look over the changes. --Northmeister 02:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- I changed the References to notes while creating a Reference section for major works used in this article. --Northmeister 02:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- You should add the major works used in this article to the References in standard format with the ISBN numbers etc. I like the changes you made to the opening. Will have to go through each section to see what I can do for readability. Not much time tonight for that though. Will do some tomorrow. --Northmeister 02:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- Eliminated ref. section. I see no major need if only one work is used. The notes takes care of the rest. Sleep now - will catch up later. --Northmeister 02:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Changed some words and tried to link Jurgenson - to no avail. We must not have an article on this person. Feel free to change what you like if you feel the original was better. Not sure if the Edison stuff works where it is. But, not sure what to do with it either. --Northmeister 22:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- I change some of the TOC around. The best format is to present the EVP research which has more often relied on paranormal explanations - while presenting its critics who offer more scientic or skeptical conclusions - thus criticism. I redid the History section putting in subsections along major lines of research ie. "Raudive voices" or "Spiricom" that readers may wish to refer to when looking at the page. Redid - Popular Interest divorcing it from Organizations - which might be best last - not sure. I encourage editors to revert any changes thought not helpful - to see where we stand with the TOC. My thoughts center on: History - Explanations(or Paranormal explanations) - Criticism - Popular Interest - Organizations - etc. Something along those lines. --Northmeister 00:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
- I like everything you've done so far. I was hoping to avoid saying "criticism." As long as we make it clear that mainstream science has ignored EVP, we hopefully might be able to avoid casting the article as a debate between skeptics and believers. I just summarized and then took out a bunch of quotes which were genuine criticism, as opposed to explanation. I was hoping to change the tone of the article away from this tension, and into just stating the facts [3]. So anyway, consider keeping the headline "Non-paranormal explanations," unless it really interferes with things. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 02:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
- I changed the opening around a bit for flow. However, feel free to tweek it further or restore the original if that works better for you. I comment on the history section below - interested in what we can do to improve this section. --Northmeister 01:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
- I like everything you've done so far. I was hoping to avoid saying "criticism." As long as we make it clear that mainstream science has ignored EVP, we hopefully might be able to avoid casting the article as a debate between skeptics and believers. I just summarized and then took out a bunch of quotes which were genuine criticism, as opposed to explanation. I was hoping to change the tone of the article away from this tension, and into just stating the facts [3]. So anyway, consider keeping the headline "Non-paranormal explanations," unless it really interferes with things. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 02:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Fix the Refs please
Someone please format the refs. ASAP. Thanks. Wikidudeman (talk) 17:14, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant references. Not EL's. I've changed it. The References need formating. Wikidudeman (talk) 21:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah, we're doing it. Gradually. It's a boring job which I at least wouldn't mind sharing, and I'll do a little every day till they're done. I'm using the generator you gave me a link to, here. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 21:46, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
- I'll see what I can do to help as well. --Northmeister 21:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
- We've got 3 people working on fixing the references and 3 days later and still they aren't all formated? Wikidudeman (talk) 20:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
- Why don't you format the refs on the Non-Paranormal explanations section? ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 22:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
History section
I've begun work on the history section. The Spricom subsection should mention George Meek [creation of the machine or at least contain more on him]. Right now I am using internet sources - but there must be better references to use instead. Here is something from Professor David Fontana on ITC Journal website:
- This new era of research dates from the work of Friedrich Jurgenson in 1959, with his discovery of voices on an audio tape used to record bird song, and from the subsequent research of a number of careful investigators such as Raudive, Bonner, Alsop, Schneider, Senkowski, Bender, Estep, Cass and many others. But it was not until 1977, when American George Meek built a machine (the 'spiricom') which allegedly allowed two-way conversations with the dead that researchers moved from the reception of single words and short sentences to lengthy and coherent dialogue. Meek's machine impressed many (although after an encouraging start it mysteriously failed to produce further results), and Koenig's ultrasound device, first demonstrated in 1983, went even further in that it produced voices, high technicians testified as inexplicable by normal means, over the air at Radio Luxembourg.
This seems like a reasonable guide for our history section, in so much as covering the research done in the EVP or ITC field. From what I've read, its becoming apparent that although EVP is more commonly known, it is considered a sub-field of ITC now; rather than as I thought; the other way around. We might want to consider moving everything to ITC with EVP as a subsection - but not sure of this. We should look into Bonner, Alsop, Schenider, Senkowski, Koenig etc. to see if they are worthy of inclusion in the history of this subject. --Northmeister 00:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, the field is really quite huge. I have Fontana's book Is There an Afterlife, and also There Is No Death and There Are No Dead. I also have The Scole Experiment. But I don't have much time to use them right now, as compared to the requirements of a good history section.
- I'm hoping that once we get this into Good Article status, that it will be worth putting in text. If you look over the history, it has been destroyed again and again by edit warring and extreme debate. So I never tried to do much in terms of adding text.
- EVP is a sub-field of ITC, but EVP makes up almost all of what is out there. So I think at this point unless somebody wants to do a lot of research right away, we might as well keep ITC as a sub section. Then when and if ITC is expanded, we can put it off into another article. Do you want to do that much research? Alternatively, we could rename to ITC, and then just make the article mostly about EVP- since the history wouldn't have to be changed much. Visual ITC I think has only become significant recently. But for ITC we'd have to cover what's his name, Ted Serios, Scole, and who knows what else. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
- Your observations are quite understandable. As long as you can provide the background material; I'll work with you on the history section. I've tried to update myself on the 'edit wars' here in the past. But, I see no legitimate objection to including a serious chronology of the major work into EVP/ITC into the history section. On your observations about ITC, I think your right in your apprehension, although your last suggestion might be workable - hence we build an ITC article up starting with its major component EVP and add in the Scole Experiment etc. If the ITC article becomes to large we can break it off then into sub-articles if necessary. I'll leave the choice up to you and others though. --Northmeister 02:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
- If I had my way, I'd get EVP up to GA status, then work on the ITC section till it got too large for this article. EVP is going to end up with an article to itself anyway, because there is enough for an article on other forms of ITC. But one link which might help is [4]. We could follow this as a guide. I suggest we stick to EVP for now then start an ITC article and do a history in paragraphs, and if it seems right we could then integrate with the EVP article easily, just by inserting the paragraphs at the right point in time.
- I don't have access to a library, and I have a hunch that such would be necessary to really do a good job of ITC..... dunno. Also see [5]
[6] ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 02:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
- That makes sense. Your links are really helpful. Let's work with this information. Per, the references - Are you working on those to bring them up to par? If so I'll stay away from that to work on the article's content and look. --Northmeister 02:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks. I'll work some more tomorrow. Late here. --Northmeister 03:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Alternative name of article
This article seems to expand into the topic of communicating with the dead with any technological means through electronic communication. I would propose that this article's name be changed to correspond to that. I would suggest that we also expand on attempts to communicate with the dead via television, computers, etc as well. I previously suggested merging this article with 'Instrumental transcommunication' but that's pretty unclar. Per the naming conventions we should use the most encompassing and popular name. What is the most common term used to communicate with the dead and is also most encompassing? Wikidudeman (talk) 14:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
- I'm open to change per the discussion above. After reading through sources - it's become apparent that EVP is part of a larger ITC research field - although EVP is the more commonly known term. Martins' observations do make sense however, considering that there is much more material on EVP than ITC at the moment. Either way would work for me. As to the fact tag, I'll work on addressing this unless another editor gets to it first. --Northmeister 15:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Article improvement discussion
Whats other users thoughts on "Organizations" and "Popular Interests" sections? I feel they should simply be summarized much like "Organizations" at the Parapsychology article. Gives a better feel to the article. --Northmeister 01:30, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
- That would be OK also, although there are much fewer main ones to cover in this article. Here is a link: [7]. The primary organizations are AA-EVP, SKYELAB, Il Laboratorio, ITC Journal, Verein für Transkommunikations-Forschung (VTF), Forever family, and Infinitude, according to what I've been told. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:45, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
GA nomination
I went ahead and nominated for GA status [8]. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 21:54, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
- This is a positive step. At best we'll achieve status and at the least we'll get some informative advice on moving forward. --Northmeister 22:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
- An article in such shape as this shouldn't be nominated for GA, If you want information and advice for improving it then you should Peer Review. Wikidudeman (talk) 23:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
- I'll concur with that if there are still objections to references I've read below. A peer review might be best to sort out any issues that linger here. Martin, you might want to recinde the GA nomination until we work on this some more and ferret out any problems. In time we'll achieve the GA status. I noticed others engaged at the Parnormal Project in editing. It might be a good idea to get some of those editors involved here to help out. Any thoughts? --Northmeister 00:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I've gone over the references extensively, and I do not see any problems. Fontana is the very least problematic source in the entire article. The other sources, such as the AA-EVP, are used with attribution, as are the critical sources such as those for Rorschach Audio. There are only a few sources I haven't gone over. Personally, I think it is amazing that an article on EVP has been sourced this well. Although there are quite a few EVP experts out there who haven't been sourced, I don't think the article needs them. If that is the only objection, I'll leave it up for GA. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Reliable sources
Many of the sources cited in this article don't seem to meet the guidelines of reliable sources. One of the most cited sources is a book called "Is There an Afterlife: A Comprehensive Review of the Evidence." by someone named "David Fontana". How is this a reliable resource? What credentials does the author have that makes it reliable to be used as a source for all of the claims it's being used for? Wikidudeman (talk) 23:37, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
- To quote his biography: "Professor David Fontana is a Ph.D. in psychology, and is currently Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Cardiff University in South Wales, Great Britain, and Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, also in Great Britain. In addition he has held invited professorships at the Universities of Minho and of Algarve in Portugal. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, a Chartered Psychologist and a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and the author of 26 books on psychology translated into 25 languages." [9] - He seems to be reliable enough for usage. What are your thoughts? --Northmeister 00:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- He's a psychologist yet he's being sourced for historical and other non-psychological assertions. He might be considered a good source as far as psychology goes, but that's about it. Wikidudeman (talk) 00:38, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- He's also studied EVP as the link above shows. However, I've not looked at how his material is being referenced - so I can't comment on its use in the article at the moment. What specifically do you object to for usage? Maybe we can go from there. I'll also look over the article for background. --Northmeister 01:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- He's a parapsychologist and one of the best sources there- probably the best in a "mainstream" encyclopedia. If we're going to question sources to this extent, we aren't going to have a critical section at all, or maybe one paragraph. We have to go with the best sources, being aware that this is a fringe subject. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- I've looked the article over for clarity on your objections. This link at Amazon is the best I can do as far as observing the books use [10] in so much as whether there is coverage for the use in history or how it is referenced here. We know that the book does contain material ont he subject. As far as the exact pages used and the exact material being used - Martin should be able to provide that for us. I can go to the library to see if I can't pick this book up and peruse its usage - but I don't have the book myself. My best suggestion is to have Martin list clearly the pages used in the book in references and to offer some snippets on its use here for discussion to address Wikidudemans concerns. --Northmeister 01:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- I just looked at how the book is used in the article, and if I wasn't working too fast, it isn't used for anything but some mundane dates and facts. We don't need exact page numbers, and I can get -if anyone wants it- a range of pages to cite in all those refs.
Problems with Electronic Voice Phenomenon Article
Aside from the obvious issues with reliable sources and fringe sources being framed as objective, I see three major problems with the present article.
Article Lead
The article lead erroneously defines EVP as legitimate technological/scientific phenomena, rather than a claim or fringe belief.
There is no recognition of "Electronic Voice Phenomena" as "speech or speech-like sounds heard on electronic devices, but not heard in the environment at the time they are recorded" found in any professional technical journals of the audio recording industry, signal processing, or electrical engineering. Neither is the term found in current academic textbooks on the subjects, such as Speech and Audio Signal Processing: Processing and Perception of Speech and Music by Ben Gold, Nelson Morgan, Nelson Morgan Instead, engineering texts refer to the condition claimed by proponents as "EVP" as Rorschach Audio, a subset of Psychoacoustics.
Outside of the paranormal community, EVP is not recognized as a legitimate phenomena. So the term "EVP" must be clearly framed in the lead as a term originated and used specifically by its proponents and researchers.
- Taken care of- now defined as part of "paranormal." It really isn't a good idea to break open old arguments which were discussed ages ago. I think you should look over the archives of the talk page. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- The problem is not taken care of. The defintion in the lead must be correctly identified as originated and used by its proponents and researchers. -- LuckyLouie 01:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- Taken care of- now defined as part of "paranormal." It really isn't a good idea to break open old arguments which were discussed ages ago. I think you should look over the archives of the talk page. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Weighting
Per WP:FRINGE, article weighting must reflect majority mainstream sources treatment of the subject. Mainstream reliable sources overwhelmingly characterize EVP as a claim, not as a legitimate phenomena.
Fringe journals call EVP "purported" rather than a legitimate phenomenona.Journal of Scientific Exploration: "(EVP) refers to the purported manifestation of voices of the dead and other discarnate entities through electronic means."
It's clear that EVP is not a legitimate observable phenomena and is not recognized outside of the paranormal milieu. Presenting the subject as a controversial "phenomena" and offering competing "explanations" is not appropriate and highly misleading. Rather, the proponents beliefs should be accurately reported as beliefs and opinions which are at odds with mainstream majority views on the subject.
- Everything is attributed. As for "purported," see the paranormal ArbCom. In terms of WEIGHT, the article is about a fringe subject, and covers that subject. It is made completely clear that the mainstream does not accept it. There is no problem of WEIGHT. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- The word "purported" is not the issue. And I don't see how "attribution" solves the problem of unbalanced weighting. - LuckyLouie 01:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Criticism
The article inexplicably omits a Criticism section. There are plenty of WP:RS critics of "EVP", from Scientific American to James Randi. I suggest an appropriate criticism section be written.
-- LuckyLouie 01:35, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- The non-paranormal section has the normal explanations, per consensus. ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks but this is a GA review, not a defense of consensus. And anyway, if one editor objects, there is no longer a consensus. - LuckyLouie 01:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
GA review
Oh, that was a GA review? Sorry, but you have been greatly involved in this article. We need someone to review who hasn't been involved- and who isn't biased. I'm hoping to bring in someone who is neutral on the issue of EVP, rather than someone who is part of the Rational Skepticism project which has as a goal to bring Skeptic's Dictionary into Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia:Good article candidates page says "Anyone who shows understanding of the criteria and the instructions below can review an article, as long as you are not a major contributor to the article being reviewed." ——Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 01:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)