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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by ADroughtOfVowels (talk | contribs) at 17:17, 28 October 2024 (More appropriate.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Happy editing! violetwtf (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Uralo-Siberian?

Are you certain that Uralo-Siberian is fringe, as there are more than just one or two linguists open to a relation between Eskaleut and Uralic? Although I can see how it becomes fringe if we start adding in Nivkh and Chukchi, however Fortesque himself does not hold that either one of them are in the family. Although Uralo-Siberian or Uralo-Eskimo is not the consensus, it is generally not seen to be a theory like Ural-Altaic or Sino-Uralic, which in actuality do have very low support. I added in that the theory is speculative, however the term "fringe" I feel is too radical. --ValtteriLahti12 (talk) 19:21, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Are you certain that Uralo-Siberian is fringe"
Absolutely, 100%, and beyond any reasonable doubt. This is a very small opinion in linguistics which is pretty much universally rejected. It may, with more evidence, turn out to have more substance, but for now it is firmly a fringe theory. So far only one major proposed macrofamily has any acceptance, which are the Dené–Yeniseian languages. You can check how the cautious and slow acceptance of that contrasts to a wild macrofamily which attempts to link languages that very clearly don't have a strong genetic relationship.
Almost all the references to Uralo-Siberian which treat it seriously are from Fortescue himself, and apparently all which appear to treat it seriously accept other fringe theories regularly rejected by the majority of mainstream linguists (Nostratic, and the Altaic languages which show up in the cited works, for example). There's a reason there's zero mention of Uralo-Siberian on the pages for the languages that supposedly comprise it; because the evidentiary standard simply hasn't been met. I'm not even convinced that there has been enough published outside of one single author to warrant inclusion of Uralo-Siberian on Wikipedia, rather perhaps it should be relegated to a footnote on the articles about those languages, as many fringe language relationship (see this section on the article for Basque, for example) theories are.
As is, this wikipedia article is actively misinforming people, which as a historical linguist is slightly bothersome. You won't find mention of it in any mainstream text on historical linguistics, apart from in the same breath as Nostratic. Warrenmck (talk) 19:51, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well I think a problem here is that Uralo-Eskimo and Uralo-Siberian are in two different pages, although being almost identical (with the exception of Yukaghir), although the Uralo-Eskimo theory has been mentioned by more reputable scholars such as Ante-Aikio as plausible (although he did not dogmatically state it). Instead of having a separate article for Uralo-Siberian, it could be better idea to perhaps mention the theory in the Eskimo-Uralic wikipedia page? --ValtteriLahti12 (talk) 19:56, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Eskimo-Uralic doesn't particularly have a good claim to being taken seriously over Uralo-Siberian. I hadn't seen that page, and that one appears to have similar issues of presenting a fringe theory as legitimate. There is one singular macrofamily proposal taken seriously at present in historical linguistics. Actually, I worry a bit about how prominent Fortescue is on these pages considering his propensity for fringe.
I've started a thread on Wikipedia:WikiProject Linguistics about the possibility of merging these into a Proposed Linguistic Macrofamilies article, since a lot of these macrofamily proposals aren't really meeting WP:N given how few people are taking them seriously at present. That may change, but for now I think this part of WP:FRINGE presents a real problem for some proposed macrofamilies:
The notability of a fringe theory must be judged by statements from verifiable and reliable sources, not the proclamations of its adherents. Additionally, the topic must satisfy general notability guidelines: the topic must receive significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
The only real discussion and coverage of these theories, post historical-linguistic consensus going "nah" is from adherents continuing to work on it, arguably with the exception of Altaic, which does have a lot more discussion all-around. Don't get me wrong, that's good and may produce real evidence in the future, but that evidence doesn't yet exist. Warrenmck (talk) 20:11, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To note, I am not a dogmatic follower of either theory, but I have read of the existence of a higher number of linguists who have proposed Eskimo-Uralic than with Uralo-Siberian, although I am not an expert so I do not have the same knowledge to make as educated statements, for me linguistics is more of a hobby I like to look into, while theology is my main study. --ValtteriLahti12 (talk) 20:20, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a historical linguist by education and training, so these are quite within my wheelhouse (and while I want to avoid WP:NOR, these's some very, very blatantly bad comparative linguistics in those word pairings. Quick example, but "a[m/b]a" as some indicator of parental terms is pretty widely accepted to result from those among being the easiest sounds for infants to make).
I think that what you're talking about here is why I'm reacting so strongly to some of these articles, to be fair. The notion that these are given serious weight in historical linguistics isn't really backed up in the field (though we're not out to condemn those trying to find links for macrofamilies, that's obviously valuable and the research may turn out to be fruitful in the long run!). I don't think the theories should be given undue weight prior to evidence being presented to a standard that it can receive meaningful acceptance in the linguistic community, lest people who are hobby linguists (of which there are many!) accidentally misunderstand the fact that these are, well, fringe theories. Warrenmck (talk) 20:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well on the topic, would you think the "Eskimo-Uralic" page is somewhat better written? --ValtteriLahti12 (talk) 20:39, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It definitely does a better job in mentioning that it's not really accepted, but I still think it give undue weight to the topic. Particularly the "proposed evidence" section fails the WP:FRINGE guideline:
Fringe theories in a nutshell: To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea. More extensive treatment should be reserved for an article about the idea, which must meet the test of notability. Additionally, in an article about the minority viewpoint itself, the proper contextual relationship between minority and majority viewpoints must be made clear.
Emphasis mine. I do think the solution here is to merge these theories into a single article, since it comes across as trying to make a case, rather than inform what the scholarly understanding of the topic is. Warrenmck (talk) 20:46, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to find a source on the acceptance of Eskimo-Uralic, and found one which states "On the one hand, it is not yet clear whether the morphological comparisons given are striking enough, and the chain of argumentation leading to them to be justified enough, to make a case in favour of the suspicion of relationship" (direct quote), and attempted to add it into the Eskimo-Uralic page. --ValtteriLahti12 (talk) 20:58, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That does help! I don't want to make too many drastic changes without talking about this with the Linguistics Wikiproject, but I don't think that the "evidence for" section should be more than a short paragraph or two, which should be paired with an equal amount of content (at least) addressing the linguistic consensus. Warrenmck (talk) 21:01, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Fringe"

Information icon Hello, I'm David Eppstein. I noticed that you made an edit concerning content related to a living (or recently deceased) person on Allan R. Bomhard, but you didn't support your changes with a citation to a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now. Wikipedia has a very strict policy concerning how we write about living people, so please help us keep such articles accurate and clear. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you! —David Eppstein (talk) 18:50, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein That citation was present on the article, I’ve reverted your revert with comment, but I’m aware of the policy in question. I won’t revert again if you roll it back, but that link I provided is from a Nostraticist linguist in a peer reviewed journal explicitly calling out the person in question as fringe. Hope that helps, and sorry for not providing that in-line citation on the first reference to him being a fringe theorist. Warrenmck (talk) 18:53, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@David Eppstein Just to be clear, Nostratic theory is inherently considered fringe in historical linguistics (at this juncture, that was certainly not always true). A lot of the lack of direct evidence for that individual comes from the fact that he’s publishing fringe theories. It’s like being a bit bothered that not all flat earthers are explicitly named by astrophysicists; the sheer degree of fringe creates a catch 22 for evidence dismissing the claims. Unlike physics, linguistics lacks the pop culture cachet for people to be familiar with the issue at hand, which is why I’ve tagged the wikiproject noticeboard. I don’t intend to edit war, but I do see this as a problem with people unfamiliar with the issue falling victim to a middle ground fallacy. Warrenmck (talk) 18:58, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The citation you used does not appear to characterize Bomhard's work as fringe. It does heavily criticize Bomhard in other ways, but not for being a fringe researcher. Please do not abuse sources to push your point of view. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:00, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@David Eppstein Again, I will not further revert. I am not abusing sources to push a view, this is scholarly consensus in the field that Nostratic theory is a fringe theory. That this isn't apparent is a problem, and is why I am trying to work with the linguistics wikiproject at large to clean up the serious WP:FRINGE issues that are present on macrofamily articles.
From a 2007 paper in the SKY Journal of Linguistics:
As the Nostratic affinity is in itself a fringe theory based on near-zero evidence, such speculation hardly lends credence to the model.
(Turning Puns into Names and Vice Versa, Lillo, 2007)
Like I said, this is a challenging one because linguists don't actually still talk about Nostratic much outside of a very small cadre of Russian linguists, who still represent the minority (Notice that my edits on Sergei Starostin, himself a nostraticist, have only been to point out that his macrofamilies have not seen acceptance. While he himself advocates for nostratic, he is a credible publishing linguist with a minority opinion. This is simply not the case for Allan R. Bomhard). This is not an issue of "pushing my point of view" any more than denying infinite free energy in an article about thermodynamic laws is "pushing a point of view", it's an attempt to improve the scholarly quality of wikipedia to bring it in line with current linguistic understanding.
If this was me trying to push a specific view I can't imagine why I would attempt to reach out to the entire linguistics wikiproject on this issue. If someone whose life work is advocating a fringe theory, which is known to be a fringe theory, and is called in peer-reviewed publications in the field a fringe theory, cannot be labelled a fringe theorist then I am uncertain how that label could apply to anyone. I guess researchers could maintain a peer-reviewed database of fringe theorists per-field which meets Wikipedia's standards, but that seems exhausting.
There is a real issue with people who adhere to macrofamily fringe theories on Wikipedia. A lot of the macrofamily articles are directly against the scholarly consensus and make a pleading case for plausibility with huge WP:UNDUE issues. As I said, I will not revert anymore, but I encourage you to look up the consensus among linguists on this one, because it's not controversial. Warrenmck (talk) 19:18, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please undo your major removal of sourced content

Please undo your removal of 10kb (147 paragraphs) of sourced content at Proto-Human language, and stop insisting it be kept out, citing WP:FRINGE and WP:DUEWEIGHT. You are still new here, and you clearly don't yet understand how Wikipedia handles WP:FRINGE topics, or how WP:DUEWEIGHT works within the context of an article about a fringe topic. That's okay, you're not expected to know everything right away. You seem to have bumped up against some opposition on the subject of fringe topics already before, however, so this is clearly an area you could benefit from reading up on, and avoiding bold edits on fringe topics until you understand better how Wikipedia deals with them.

Additionally, when a WP:BOLD edit of yours is reverted at an article, as at Proto-Human language, don't just double down and redo your removal of content again (whether you "respectfully disagree" or not)—that may be considered edit-warring. Iinstead, go to the Talk page (which you did; kudos) and talk it out. While it is under discussion, the status quo ante should prevail. This means, you should undo your last removal of content until there is a consensus at the Talk page in favor of removing that content.

I hope this helps, and if you have any questions, you can {{reply}} to me below, or feel free to contact me anytime on my Talk page. You can also get help at the Wikipedia:Help desk. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 20:14, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot just because someone viscerally disagrees with your read of a situation does not mean that they're new. Warrenmck (talk) 20:38, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize if I misread your seniority level here; I saw a March welcome message above, perhaps I misread the situation. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 20:44, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, this is a WP:CLEANSTART account since I wanted to use my real name for uploading photos while ceding rights to them. I do not edit under any other account name, though my most recent active account is somewhat easily figured out. :) Warrenmck (talk) 23:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Proto-IE reconstructionists

Some things are just too weird that you wouldn't even think of them to exist in the literal sense. Initially, I also read "reconstructionist" in a besmirching sense, in fact, I was actually about to make scathing comment in reply to what I have perceived as an overt disdain for the object of our passion (= historical linguistics), but then **ḱréddʰh₁etiyeh₂, the IE Goddess of Assuming Good Faith inspired me to search for "IE reconstructionists" in Google, with baffling results which left me doing countless dental clicks. Austronesier (talk) 20:56, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely was trying to strike a balance between assuming good faith and clarifying if they were viewing PIE reconstruction as fringe but I think I may have failed slightly.
Purely on a talk page, I actually think given the cognate of *H₂weh₁yú with Vayu, I kind of suspect that in the long run that synthesis will turn out to be correct, since that's (as far as I recall, again, Assyriology, not IE lingustics!) what the situation looks like with Dyaus (from *dyā́wš) etc. Warrenmck (talk) 21:05, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Have you seen User:KHR FolkMyth's comment in the AfD? I think that nails it. But then, IE isn't my field either. My actual expertise obviously lies with a different major language family (my username is a tongue-in-cheek self-outing of my broader ancestry and research area at the same time).
Btw, have you seen this discussion: Talk:Indo-European_migrations#Hybrid_Hypothesis? It might be of interest for you since it is about the same methodology that we have discussed in the Dravidian article. But this time it's Gray & associates themselves.–Austronesier (talk) 19:28, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't yet, I'll take a look! I've always sort of got as far back as Hittite and then just lost the plot with PIE, sadly. I'd love to have had a chance to learn more. Warrenmck (talk) 20:58, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Not sure if have ever put an eye on Elamo-Dravidian languages, but it is one those pages that slowly build up in-universe content if not constantly monitored, and comes as perfect illustration for your point that having such individual pages can be quite a structural problem for Wikipedia (but it's not that I'm finally convinced of your proposed remedy of a single fringe dump page😂). I recently de-fringed the lead which apparently makes some people unhappy. –Austronesier (talk) 19:26, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's been on my watch list, but I try to only poke a few at a time so as to not be accused of WP:DRIVEBY since the easiest thing to do is throw up the fringe tag. I also want to be careful to avoid coming across as tag teaming since you've already got this one going a bit.
I still stand by the idea that a central page plus expanding Macrofamily is the right call, but obviously that's a bit of a hot take still. :) Warrenmck (talk) 02:13, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Though that comment about Brahui needs to be excised right-quick at this point. Warrenmck (talk) 02:16, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of Dispute resolution noticeboard discussion

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The thread is "Allan R. Bomhard".

Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you!

NotAGenious (talk) 12:49, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion has been moved to WP:BLPN, feel free to join. Enjoy your vacation! NotAGenious (talk) 18:02, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@NotAGenious Thanks! I was mid-reply to that when I noticed this tirade so I'm going to bow out of pretending there's a good faith discussion to be had here. This is very clearly a case of WP:NOTHERE. Warrenmck (talk) 19:25, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Clarity/POV issue

Hello, I generally agree with your comment about the balancing issue at Altaic languages talk page but Altaic languages hypothesis can still be seen in academic publications. In such case, I do not find the change in question appropriate without adding sufficient resources. The article can be described as "widely rejected" rather than "controversial" if sufficient sources are collected in the "Arguments" section. Kyzagan (talk) 21:03, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it has a higher degree of acceptance, but the amount of acceptance still represents a very slim percentage of linguists. That said, I’ll try to put some effort into further citing that. My concern with “controversial” is “controversial” risks a false balance, though I could be wrong there. There are some other language macro families with “Spurious” as their status, which I wouldn’t go so far with with Altaic, but I don’t disagree that maybe finding a way to add some nuance to it is best? There was a discussion about this at the Linguistics Wikiproject, and we could probably bring it up there if we’re at a bit of an impasse, but I still think “widely rejected” is accurate, as the article points out it’s generally accepted as areal influence rather than a family at this point. Warrenmck (talk) 21:10, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I will not fight the deletion of Proto-Altaic language, but let me disagree with your radical defintion of "frige". "Contrary to mainstream theory" should mean "it contradicts a widely accepted MS theory", like Flat Earth contradicts geophysics's claim "the Earth is round", and Creationism contradicts evolution theory "species evolved from other species over millions of years by natural selection". "Contrary to MS" should not mean just "the evidence is not considered convincing by MS researchers". The latter is evidently the case for Proto-Altaic and Greenberg's mass comparison technique, but I am not aware of any way either actually contradicts mainstream linguistic theories.
Mainstream linguists have theories for how languages evolve and diverge, but they themselves admit that those theories cannot let them reconstruct the evolution of languages beyond half a dozen of millennia in the past. However, unless one believes that humans developed language from nothing dozens of times, all over the world, all currently accepted families must descend from a single proto-proto-proto-family. So Japanese and Korean must have a common ancestral language, and also Basque and Navajo, or Swahili and Sumerian. The question is only when they branched off, and which which languages and families branched off before others. Greenberg and those other "fringe" linguists are just willing to accept weaker evidence that suggest branchings that occurred a few millennia further in the past. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 07:19, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I actually don’t think I called Altaic fringe? When I added the fringe tag to a few big articles like Nostratic, I believe I only added an NPOV issues one to Altaic. I’m definitely aware it has serious, credible supporters. I do think attempting to reconstruct a proto language in the absence of enough evidence to even clearly define a relationship is getting into fring-y territory, but not like, say, Borean.
However, unless one believes that humans developed language from nothing dozens of times, all over the world, all currently accepted families must descend from a single proto-proto-proto-family. So Japanese and Korean must have a common ancestral language, and also Basque and Navajo, or Swahili and Sumerian
Monogenesis vs Polygenesis is a pretty hot topic and not something that one can just assert, to be fair. Warrenmck (talk) 22:22, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seriously? Are there any rational arguments for "polygenesis"?
Is that "theory" arguing that Homo sapiens spread all over the world with the ability to speak complex languages, but without doing so -- and then various tribes suddenly discovered, "hey guys, we can use syntax and lexicon, not just grunts and growls!"...
All the best, Jorge Stolfi (talk) 22:18, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings and notification about AE request against a User whom you interacted with

Greetings Warrenmck. I have followed your recent contributions on Fringe Noticeboard with interest. I appreciate your thoroughness and enjoyed reading your style of writing.

On a related note, I have just started an AE sanctions request against Bloodofox for his edits concerning the topic, Falun Gong at that article and at the FTN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Request_for_Sanctions_against_Bloodofox_for_Disruptive_Editing%2C_Activism_and_PA.

I am notifying you as you appear to have recent interactions with this editor relevant to the matters raised in my request. Hence you might be interested to know. Thank you and cheers. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 03:05, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When did human language begin?

@Warrenmck: (and others) - Thank you for your recent rv of my edit re an approximate starting age for the beginning of human language[1] - this is somewhat relevant to my own {{Human timeline}} template - the best current determination seems to be between 1.5 to 2.0 million years ago - based on the recent news report[1] - however - you seem to be more knowledgeable than I about all this - just curious - what would be your own current estimate re the beginning starting age of human language (based on the responsible scientific literature if possible)? - Thanking you in advance for your reply - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ a b Keys, David (25 March 2024). "The 1.6 million-year-old discovery that changes what we know about human evolution - New research suggests language is eight times older than previously thought". The Independent. Archived from the original on 25 March 2024. Retrieved 26 March 2024.

Drbogdan (talk) 14:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abuse of WP:3RR

You have now reverted the same sourced content 4 times in total while trying to warn me of the exact thing you are doing. Stop reverting sourced content. The content is from an extremely reliable source who has worked with dozens of other professionals in the fields of linguistics, archaeology, and more. The point of the article is to help people understand what the theory proposes, not to convince people of it. There's no need to be so defensive. I assume if I removed sourced content from Vovin, who is extremely biased, you would revert it. This is a warning to not break the same rule again or I will make a report. 2A02:C7E:3011:FC00:68AB:3511:3ACB:5016 (talk) 20:39, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let's

Hi Warrenmck, let's find our common ground here: User:Austronesier/Linguistic macrofamilies. We can start with a collectively written essay in userspace and invite more people from WP:LING and WP:LANG to have it ready for an essay in WP-space. Maybe we can even turn it into a community-approved guideline eventually. I'll be more than happy if you are interested to collaborate on this. –Austronesier (talk) 21:03, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely! I think it'll take more than one set of eyes to do this well, especially maintaining neutrality between lumpers and splitter. I do have a sandbox article which I was hoping to work on to expand some of the smaller macrofamily proposals that may not warrant a whole article on their own, but perhaps there's a better way to approach it. I really like the idea of a collectively written essay as a guide. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:33, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apology for the actions made in Allan R. Bomhard

Hello, @Warrenmck. I'm very sorry for the actions I made, it was a misunderstanding of mine. I've answered completely at my talk page. Thank you, Pcg111𒂊 18:13, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Pcg111 It happens! Thanks for your attention the article though. :) Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:17, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fringe in Old Tamil

Good catch! I find it alarming that this kind of garbage can be added by a student editor[1] without any further scrutiny of their supervisors or peers. Austronesier (talk) 16:45, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to help! One thing I've found useful is going through and Google searching things like '"sumerian" "tamil" site:en.wikipedia.org', helps to track down fringe content added in obscure places. If I find one new set of fringe I can link in that way it helps to uproot the whole thing! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:53, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good idea. This way you can also identify authors of self-published fringe material and purge their work from articles outside of the our radar.
Thanks for this one too[2]. It's sad to see that this otherwise very well written article could remain defaced for more than a year. @Metta76 and I always try to have an eye on the predictable fluff that regularly gets added to Tamil-related topics, but these have escaped us. –Austronesier (talk) 16:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good idea. This way you can also identify authors of self-published fringe material and purge their work from articles outside of the our radar.
Thus, a huge chunk of my Bomhard edits. :)
And yes, Tamil linguistics does seem to be very fringe-prone and I watch them as well (pretty sure you've beaten me to it a few times). People seem to have it in their head that their proto-language being older (somehow) is more prestigious, I guess. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:00, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Once there was a silly IP edit in a Tamil-related article with an edit summary in Tamil. I can't read and speak Tamil, but I had a strong guess about its content which was confirmed by a machine translation: what else could be but "Tamil is the oldest language in the world". :)
Another thing: please don't be surprised (or dismayed), I might add a word or two about Nostratic in Afroasiatic languages, basically just a list-like mention (similar to what we did in Sumerian language. Two high-quality handbooks (Afroasiatic languages, Frajzyngier & Shaye (eds.), 2012; The Oxford Handbook of African Languages, Vossen & Dimmendaal, 2020) make a short mention of Nostratic among the wide-range proposals that include Afroasiatic. The chapter in the Oxford volume was written by Victor Porkhomovsky; being a Moscow-based linguist, he was apparently more inclined to take the Nostratic proposal seriously (e.g. The further development of Nostratic studies may help to resolve the problem of the AA Urheimat (original homeland).)[3]. But I will follow Frajzyngier & Shaye (The Nostratic hypothesis is highly controversial and has very few supporters among specialists in Afroasiatic languages.) for WP:RS/AC.
Finally, these two volumes[4][5] are extremely helpful for bringing our perpetual trainwreck Altaic languages into a shape that is aligned with the way mainstream linguistics talks about Altaic. While not fully representative (there are some pro-Altaic authors), my favorite quote is by Anthony Grant: "I should point out here that I regard Altaic as a wish rather than a fact and that I regard Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, often unified as ‘Altaic’ (to say nothing of Japanese and Korean, also included in ‘Transeurasian’: see Robbeets and Savelyev 2020), as unrelated families whose members have interacted with one another in ways which still await close analysis from a contactician’s viewpoint." And there's the admirable grandeur of Vajda when he talks about the "still unproven Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis" and barely mentions it in his Yeniseian chapter. –Austronesier (talk) 15:36, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm sure it won't shock you that I disagree with giving Nostratic extra mentions (especially in an Assyriological topic), but I assume I can't convince you otherwise at this point, and hey, WP:BEBOLD! I honestly feel Nostratic is to linguistics as homeopathy is to medicine: patent bunk but so commonly referenced that it's verging on unignorable, but I fear its inclusion only serves to confuse readers as to just how wildly fringe it is. I'd probably try to go with something a bit stronger than "highly controversial" since that's often used for Altaic. Speaking of which, I'd actually appreciate you taking a glance through my recent edit history, I tried removing a lot of errant mentions of Altaic as fact while not obliterating the mentions from existence (in most cases), and I wouldn't be surprised if you disagree with some of my edits, though I tried to be neutral. The bot did save me on a Vovin edit I was too heavy handed on in the Kahn article; that one wasn’t too bad.Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My intent is only to quote "very few supporters" which speaks for itself, and leave the labelling aside :)
I'll look into the Vovin stuff. You must keep in mind that he referred to things collectively as "Altaic" even when he already had become convinced of its intenability. His intent then was to say, "hey, this material is not related to Turkic, Mongolic, nor Tungusic, but to something else". Maybe we can paraphrase it without even using the term Altaic and still faithfully represent his point. But of course only if it's not fringe itself; Vovin did in parts terrible linguistics in order to dissociate as much as possible from the historical Altaic concept. Especially his chasing Austroasiatic and Austronesian rainbows in Japanese vocabulary, which is even below the standards of pro-Altaicists. He basically wore the Moscow-school jacket inside out and this probably made him so popular among trolls in Reddit and other amateur spaces. –Austronesier (talk) 12:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My intent is only to quote "very few supporters" which speaks for itself, and leave the labelling aside :)
I still think this'd run badly afoul of WP:PROFRINGE but I'm not going to try to personally police all Nostratic content off Wikipedia. I genuinely think it's out of place but WP is collaborative, so you do you. :)
I'll look into the Vovin stuff. You must keep in mind that he referred to things collectively as "Altaic" even when he already had become convinced of its intenability.
I actually just got caught out by this one of the articles I edited and had to undo it! Lesson learned.
Maybe we can paraphrase it without even using the term Altaic and still faithfully represent his point.
I don't disagree, though a lot of what I did was try to just make clear that Altaic is a sprachbund, so hopefully not too much of what I did is unreasonably spicy. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:49, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't understand the promotional (← the PRO in PROFRINGE) part of it when a fringe theory is proportionally given the same space of mention as in a high-quality handbook from a mainstream academic publisher? I always have considered my own contributions to such handbooks (Routledge, OUP; soon De Gruyter) a thing to be proud of, only now to learn that such handbooks aren't good enough to give us adequate guidance about what to add where with due weight? *sigh* #sadlywalkinghomewithtstoopedshoulders 😂 –Austronesier (talk) 19:02, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I'm hardly the arbiter here. Like I said, I won't puppy-guard articles, edit away! I just think that given Nostratic's standing as, well, bull, it's worth considering WP:PARITY here, which I'm absolutely certain you have and arrived at a different conclusion than me, and I can't imagine why my perspective should be weighted more here! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 19:09, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Here's a new one: Japanese–Hungarian linguistic connection. I've removed some of the most obvious OR and SYNTH, but there's still much left. After we've got rid of the pseudo-sources, it will be easy to scrap this via AfD. I'm so busy that I can only edit at micro-speed right now, maybe you can also have a look at that article. –Austronesier (talk) 18:50, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh god... I'm increasingly convinced that Wikipedia needs a mechanism for a "this is what the established consensus is, there may be sources that disagree but these should be considered outside the mainstream" at the top of a wikiproject, becuse there's just been a lot of times that we run into this in linguistics and I end up having to explain mainstream consensus in an AfD or ANI over and over so it doesn't look like a content dispute. 🫠 Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 08:13, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Life

Regarding the recently-concluded ANI fracas, you may want to set aside some time and browse the Life article to see if anything unwarranted has slipped through. My attention was called to it because of a deletion debate, and I noticed some edits that looked familiar [6]. Nothing looks egregious, but I haven't been able to investigate very closely. XOR'easter (talk) 15:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly we’re going to be finding breadcrumbs of this mess for years, I suspect. I’m working on the List of rocks on Mars article right now and I don’t want to spend too much time digging around ~96k edits for the bad sourcing, but if I find some I’ll make sure to remove them. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:36, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. XOR'easter (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unrelated, but I have to say it was pretty amusing simultaneously getting ANI and metallicity watchlist notifications from you! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've been going through and undoing the mess of images which were added to Jezero (crater), Curiosity (rover), Ingenuity (helicopter), and List of rocks on Mars (so far) and completely redid List of rocks on Mars into a list. Some, like Timeline of Mars 2020, are such a mess that it'll take more than a little WP:TNT to set straight. I don't think I'd really appreciated the scope of poor editing involved here until trying to do this, but if you feel like tackling any of it there's conveniently an archived list of articles that were heavily edited on the user's page (in the history). The adding-all-possible-images editing style seems to be the worst offender here, actually. Some articles were straight-up unreadable. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:21, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tamil Language IP

I saw that and am a bit dubious about all of their edits. But I'm far from being an expert on Tamil, just on our policies and guidelines. Doug Weller talk 12:32, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Which IP? The edits I just reverted were from a user with an account, but they weren't vandalism, just not necessarily understanding some of the terms involved ("Southern most Dravidian" for South Dravidian languages). Unless I'm missing a revert I did, which is entirely possible.
There's a bunch of us watching Tamil language since it's pretty prone to low-quality pseudovandalism. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:36, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, not an IP, that account. Doug Weller talk 14:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yeah, I think it came from a lack of understanding some of the specific terminology around the linguistics side of Tamil, as opposed to just familiarity with the language. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:23, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks. Doug Weller talk 14:47, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of the Vovin passage at Rouran language

Hi - I notice you deleted mention of Vovin's recent publications on Rouran on the basis that "Vovin's Altaic conjecture here is frankly pushing WP:PROFRINGE.", which is jumping the gun in my view: his hypotheses have nothing to do with Altaic theory, but are merely a conjecture that Rouran is related to the Mongolic languages via a more distant ancestor. Para-Mongolic is not a fringe family proposed only by Vovin, either: Janhunen has also written about it, among others. Frankly, I feel it's pretty misrepresentative of current scholarship in Mongolic studies to call it a fringe theory, really.

Also, as a side point, I'm not particularly keen on the way you deleted the passage, then reverted a change to the article's colour scheme on the basis that you "Can't find a source that Rouran is considered part of the Altaic sprachbund." I'm not a proponent of Altaic theory, and I don't think Vovin was either, but this rationale pretty plainly contradicts the reasoning for your previous deletion. Theknightwho (talk) 21:16, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I think your critique re: Vovin is actually fair here, but it still seems like WP:OR to jump from Vovin’s linkage of Rouran to Altaic in the infobox. Keep in mind those edits came several months apart, it wasn’t intended as a linkage between them. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 12:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've responded to this in more detail on the talk page. Hope that helps. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 08:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What even is Commons

I edited your userpage and I responded over at Files uploaded by User:Drbogdan. Have a nice day, Polygnotus (talk) 06:15, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for catching the typos! This is what I get for late night editing, sometimes... Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 08:43, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Supernovae outflows"

From a google scholar search, it looks like "supernova outflows" is about 4x as common as "supernovae outflows". I still think the latter is ungrammatical, regardless of how many supernovae or outflows are involved (you wouldn't say "I found many humans teeth" even if multiple humans each lost multiple teeth (though you might say "many humans' teeth", with a possessive, but that's different)), but I since "supernovae outflows" is still somewhat common in the literature I'll just have to live with it. Amaurea (talk) 21:43, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reaching out re brigading problem at FTN

Hi Warrenmck, I very much agree with your post at Village pump

I haven't read all the replies but can attest that the most aggressive responder to your post (the one who argues incessantly) is an ideological warrior who attacks every article he can find on non mainstream health, including non mainstream religions. Every time he gets into an argument, he leaves a post on FTN to summon like minded ideologues to help him. On Reddit they call this "brigading". I don't know if there is a Wikipedia policy about this kind of thing but there damn well should be.

I am using a spare account to tell you about this since he regularly stalks his opponents' edit history. (This doesn't violate WP:SOCK.)

There is one particular article that I am concerned about, which has been dominated and destroyed by these people over the last 5 years. If you check his history from yesterday, you will find it.

Not sure what else to say but I am looking for advice, how to deal with this situation. 真对战士 (talk) 01:36, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I can't really offer you advice without any context. I suspect you may find I'm quite anti-fringe as well, though. :) Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 09:06, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Even so, you sound a lot more reasonable than the ideologically warrior that I am currently dealing with. Is there a way I can direct you to the article without infringing on sock puppetry or canvassing? 真对战士 (talk) 06:57, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It'd definitely be canvasing, especially as you're using an anonymous account to potentially do so. Two things: One, this very much looks like canvassing, and while I respect it isn't since you didn't actually link me anything, I think that trying to get people specifically to look at pages where @Bon courage is active should almost certainly mean they should be pinged here (since this is, I assume, largely about them), and two:
If you're running up against FTN with content you want to add, they're incredibly good at being discerning most of the time. The places that FTN falters tend to be around deeply technical details in otherwise Fringe-y topics. That said, your comment:
who attacks every article he can find on non mainstream health
Gives me a pretty good idea where this whole exchange is heading, with all due respect. There's mainstream medicine, then there's (typically) non-medicine, with maybe a couple of exceptions which are more artefacts of law than academic understandings. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 08:48, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was complimenting your contributions to Village Pump which I felt was quite accurate. I don't have any fringey beliefs about non mainstream health that I want to espouse. Rather I agree with your assessment that FTN is basically a canvassing meeting place for fellow atheists to come together to brigade against new religious movements. 真对战士 (talk) 13:49, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@真对战士 I think in the absence of examples I don't have much more I feel I can say? It really feels like you don't want people to see what, specifically, you're referring to unless you know they're on your "side", which even if that isn't the case makes it sort of hard for me to do anything, helping or otherwise. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:27, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Undoing your cut

Hello Warrenmck. I undid a cut you made to the Washoe page regarding the "Clever Hans" conference. This event was the culmination of a heated debate around the sign-language ape studies at the time and your cut removed one side of the debate. Monkeywire (talk) 14:05, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hah, we should pick a talk page as we both apparently did the same thing. The debate doesn’t need to be presented on Wikipedia, as there’s a consensus among subject matter experts. We can mention the disagreement from those involved in the studies but we don’t owe their arguments a large chunk of the article unless there’s evidence that experts find them compelling. From WP:UNDUE:
Giving undue weight to the view of a significant minority or including that of a tiny minority might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject.
Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:26, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A thought on fringe

I'm messaging you on this because I respect your contributions, and I'm actually perplexed by some of your comments at Great ape language. It may be a stretch, but I think one can relate it back to some of what some of us have been worried about in the discussion at VPP on FTN -- that WP:Fringe and FTN have a cultural impact on involved editors that can be counterproductive (ofc whether combined with the productive effects it's a net plus or minus, I dunno). I feel like your immediate references to wp:fringe (parity etc) and related policies (like wp:redflag), in what is as you first claim a cross-disciplinary dispute among scientists, is like what we referred to on VPP as FTN regulars who have wp:fringe as their hammer and see everything as a nail.

If you disagree that's fine. SamuelRiv (talk) 02:02, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To be perfectly honest, I have had the same though, or perhaps that I’m being a bit WP:RGW. My issue is that broadly I think, and I think a large number of reliable sources agree, that these experiments are often straight up just not actually academic work in retrospect. Don’t get me wrong, there’s academic work in there (and plenty like Nim and Kanzi are/were being handled with much greater tact and are credible), but at some level there’s just very much not actually credible scholarship but outright fraud [or] self-deception. (From "Does man alone have language? Apes reply in riddles, and a horse says neigh") and we shouldn’t pretend there is (there’s some, to be sure).
I get the impression that many an exasperated primatologist agrees, since the literature isn’t always kind to these experiments either, and it feels disingenuous to frame it as linguists vs. primatologists when it’s really most of the pertinent academia vs like a half dozen research teams and people who cite them uncritically. I do actually think this is a case of WP:FRINGE, especially in light of several of these studies being far more concerned with getting time in front of cameras than into peer review, which is pretty textbook for fringier science. For all my dislike of this you haven’t seen me attempt to edit in the WP:BLP-passing source that calls Patterson an “ape-stealing quack”, at least.
I think there’s a substantial lay misunderstanding on this topic, as well, and that some primatalogists (and adjacent editors) struggle to recognize that they’re lay on this topic as well. Just see how many times people have tried arguing that primatologists are using a different definition of language despite that simply not being a claim made in those studies. It’s wishful thinking. Basically I don’t think people realize just how bull some of this is and the popular press and Wikipedia have normalized it, so now I’ve got to convince editors their fundamental understanding of nature is an extreme outlier rejected by the mainstream and it’s not going well, which is why from step one my hope was to bring in others familiar with the scholarship here, which doesn’t appear to have worked.
I do want to be careful to highlight that I see the issue with the results reported when it’s being presented as “Wow, this ape learned ASL and has the grammatical capabilities of a three year old!”, not that these experiments are being done in the first place (hell, I’m personally somewhat convinced by some of the emergent research on cetacean linguistics, academic consensus be damned).
But if you made it this far through my long-windedness, I guess I just have to say I broadly agree with you while not knowing how to proceed when a huge swathe of Wikipedia is promoting junk science. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 03:03, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's only peripherically related to the above exchange, but I don't feel this is significant enough (at least at this moment and at the very preliminary stage of shaping my thoughts about this question) to open a new section: I wish you had brought English Qaballa to WP:NPOVN rather than to WP:FTN. Religious beliefs are behavioral observables and are as such just as much amenable to both maintream and fringe studies about them as material observables are. Religious beliefs that make claims about material observables that do not align with the mainstream view about these material observables (i.e. the mainstream view within in the field of study of material observables) are not per se fringe, but these claims are rather part of the behavioral observables and should be covered as such (provided they are actually covered in independent reliable sources). They only become fringe when these claims interfere with the study of material observables, either explicitly (e.g. when people want to prove the literal occurrence of the Mi'raj), or in the form of bias (e.g. when Shroudies interpret data of physical measurement in a way to align with their preferred narrative). The article about English Qaballa is problematic not because of its topic, but because of the persistent pattern of highjacking WP as soapbox and personal webpage for material related to stuff that is largely insignificant in the pulbic view and especially in the study of behavioral observables (here: religious studies), which has resulted over the years in a walled garden of non-encyclopedic articles that collectively violate WP:DUE and WP:N. I know that WP:FTN usually elicits a quicker reaction than WP:NPOVN (as long as you don't ask about fringe topics in our shared field linguistics, where you maximally catch the interest of the few "polymath" editors), a result that often resembles Pavlov-triggered behavior (as you know and rightfully deplore so well). But English Qaballa is entirely a POV issue.

As you see I care very much about the question of FTN and religious beliefs, but I'd probably prefer to write an essay (along the lines sketched above) in my secluded attic (where you're always welcome), rather than plunge into the heat of a drama board. –Austronesier (talk) 15:04, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I did write an essay on it, check WP:VPP, it’s still an active thread. :) I didn’t bring it there, it was just already there, that’s why I questioned if it counted as WP:FRINGE. If you decide to weigh in there would you mind mentioning this comment? I don’t want to be accused of canvassing considering how hot tempers have gotten at times, there. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware of the WP:VPP discussion, but I have a paper, a peer-review and two book chapters to write (not to mention the older kids drowning in the pool, if you're familiar with the academic version of the meme), so don't expect me to read that thread LOL. Maybe I'll draft a 30k essay, throw it as a ninja comment into the thread and leave then it alone ;) –Austronesier (talk) 15:37, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I’ve got three papers going out soon. I’m mainly just trying to stay out of this after how that thread went but it’s still maddening seeing open hostility and treating religious topics as fringe. That’s a big reason I think FTN should be merged with NPOVN. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:39, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder when they start to consider non-reproducive sex as fringe coz it's sooooo irrational. –Austronesier (talk) 15:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Followup

None of this explains why you felt accusing me of being a promotional editor was appropriate or left standing. For at least the fifth time, I did not accuse you of being a promotional (i.e., in this context, PROFRINGE) editor. I observed that if you advocate FRINGE/FTN changes that would harm our ability to police fringe PoV-pushing, then there isn't an effective difference between you and a pro-fringe editor because the results would be the same.

As a trivial side matter, I also observed that your habit of "over-capitalizing for signification" of certain generic common-noun phrases in this context, like "new religious movements", is one that often corresonds to PoV pushing about that kind of subject. This is also consistent with your repeatedly going after FTN regulars en masse with unsupportable accusations that they amount to a conspiracy against religious-faithful editors.

While these two data points do not conclusively prove that you have a pro-religious PoV position, they are good evidence in that direction. That in turn would not prove a pro-fringe PoV (one central point in the entire debate, that everone appeared to agree on, is that being religious is not fringe). But that was never an idea I was raising. Rather, it is meaningless for you to say from your right hand that you have an anti-fringe stance, while with your left proposing to undermine our anti-fringe processes. The actions matter, the rationalizations do not.

That is, you don't seem clear on what is and is not pro-fringe in any practical sense, and this has pretty obvious implications for why your VPPOL proposal, and the half the follow-on RfC you supported, failed to gain anything close to consensus.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:46, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I apologize if my original wording was somehow loose enough for it to be possible to misinterpret it as something along the line of "Warrenmck is trying to push a fringe position". It's difficult to see how it could be taken that way, but ultimately it's not really necessary for me to understand or agree with why something came across as unreasonably negative or wrongly accusatory; I can just concede that for someone it did and express that this wasn't the intent. (This doesn't constitute a retraction of my underlying criticisms of your FTN/FRINGE complaints and change proposals, and their inconsistency with a declared anti-fringe position. Not every well-meaning idea is a good one.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:04, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If Warren has, as they claim, done a significant amount of antifringe editing, then it would be unnecessarily hostile to accuse them of being effectively profringe, even if true in certain ways. WADroughtOfVowelsP 17:09, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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