Talk:IFLScience/Archive1

Kickoff
Right, let's get this started! Space Turbo (talk) 15:16, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Delete?
I don't agree with the deletion. IFLS explores science topics and could use a rational treatment.NerdyWizardyou believed that why? 02:11, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * SIf all it takes for an article to be missional/needed is "it is about something we care about" then we need an article on every minor tumblr with one follower.-- Mie kal  02:15, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Disagree. IFLS isn't minor in any sense of the word - it is a massive project with millions of followers. Additionally, they do post crap and glurge as opposed to actually promoting science; in a sense, they are promoting a peculiar fondness for science but not actual science. I can't think of anything more mission related for RW than that! Space Turbo (talk) 17:16, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * That's my stock response to anybody who says "we need x because it's related to stuff we care about", because by that logic every munor science/pseudoscience/woo tumblr needs one too-- Mie kal  21:02, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd want the IFLS page to be more than just a stub page, like it is now. There's no treatment of the on-mission concerns about IFLS on the page as-is. Remember the admonition on the RW To Do list: "If you find yourself creating a stub-level article just to remove a link from the list, consider whether you should be doing it at all." --Tracer (talk) 19:29, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * One argument for deleting the article was that it was a stub. I've expanded it enough to feel comfortable with removing the stub status. Cheers. NerdyWizardyou believed that why? 22:55, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Much thanks. I just saw that the To-Do and got the ball rolling; I do not know enough about IFLS to fill in the gaps but I do know that it certainly isn't a "minor tumblr." Space Turbo (talk) 23:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd recommend, in the future, that if you are going to go off the list and end up just making a stub, that you should leave the article to someone else who can at least get it going enough for it not to be a stub. The Wiki is littered with them and we don't need more. NerdyWizardyou believed that why? 23:07, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Shall we keep the "An editor wants to delete this article" notification at the top, for the time being? --Tracer (talk) 23:33, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I assume so, the original editor's argument was unrelated to its stub status. I say let the RationalWiki:Articles_for_deletion resolve, although with the person arguing that it was a stub being removed/invalid, it would be tied for keep status. NerdyWizard (talk) you believed that why? 23:39, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually only half their reason was "it's a stub" so... not really, still 4-3-- Mie kal  19:43, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Rumors of purging
There's a rumor I've heard that the IFLS facebook page used to have a whole bunch of page admins, some of whom were contributing content. Then Elise Andrew came back after a bit of a hiatus and, overjoyed at how popular the page had become, kicked out all the other admins. It was then that the quality of the entries started to suffer and the clickbaitish posts started appearing.

Is there any truth to this rumor, or is it just one of the vicious rumors that got started when people discovered "ZOMG it's run by a female!!"? --Tracer (talk) 15:19, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I've heard that too, but I haven't found any legit documentation/citeable source to back up the claim. As far as it stands now its hearsay, in my opinion. --NerdyWizard (talk) you believed that why? 18:34, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Plagiarism

 * https://twitter.com/AstroKatie/status/583842331318554624 --ZooGuard (talk) 16:53, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Damn. Wonder why they didn't link back? αδελφός ΓυζζγςατΡοτατο (talk/stalk) 17:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * To quote this Twitter user, "IFLS has attribution allergy". They probably just harvest "memes", assume that the authors are impossible to track, and skip the effort of tracking them down.--ZooGuard (talk) 17:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Why is Rational Wiki smearing one of the most popular science websites in the world? (1)
I have only recently come across IFLS, but it seems to me that it is in the business of responsible science journalism. The fact it has been so phenomenally successful (their Facebook page now has more than 22 million followers) might lead the more cynical to assume that it *must* be churning out nothing but bunk, but I think that readers and contributors of this site would be pleasantly surprised were they to bother to go and take a look. (I am new to Rational Wiki too, but if you are in the business of promoting science and rationality, my point is that you *should* be pleasantly surprised -- delighted, even -- that so many people are taking an interest in science.) Far from churning out pseudoscience, their editor and writers appear to be scientists themselves (their news editor Justine Alford, for example, is a virologist with a PhD from a very prestigious British university), and they have articles on (e.g.) how to spot bad science, the problem of false balance in science reporting, how confronting anti-vaxxers with science only makes them more hardline, on the crisis in psychology because most experiments are not replicated, on cognitive biases in science publishing, and so on. It is also worth noting that they have been strongly endorsed by the likes of Richard Dawkins and the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe.

In short, I do not see that any of the accusations and criticisms on this page – e.g. that IFLS is "seriously skewed to the pseudoscientific", that it "has gradually drifted from being somewhat interesting ... to being a lot of clickbait cute/gross animal photos", and that it "has gradually followed a general trend of decline in its quality” -- are in any way substantiated by the actual content of the IFLS site, and no examples have been provided.

Looking through the history of the page it seems that all of this content was written by someone posting as "NerdyWizard”, who even admitted in his summary of his edit that his actual purpose was one of "denigration". I have raised these issues on NerdyWizard’s talk page but received no response – little wonder, given that his intention seems simply to have been to dishonestly malign one of the most popular science websites in the world. In any case, given that he provided no sources for his attempted smear in the first place, isn’t it time that all this defamatory content – content that is nothing short of libel, and that has been published on this site since July 2014 -- was removed? HalHuxley (talk) 10:44, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, it appears no one objects. Feel free to edit out the unsourced slander. &#60;-𐌈FedoraTippingSkeptic𐌈-&#62; (administrator) (system operator) (talk) 10:48, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks -- shall do.
 * K. &#60;-𐌈FedoraTippingSkeptic𐌈-&#62; (administrator) (system operator) (talk) 11:34, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * That was not a minor edit, and, generally, no - David Gerard (talk) 12:25, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I was just about to remove the unsourced slander when I saw your comment. To be clear, when I added this section I marked it as "Watch this page". I then fixed a couple of typos in what I had written, and marked those as minor edits, because they were. As for "and, generally, no", I'm afraid that's a wee bit elliptical. If you disagree with the proposed expunging of the wholly unsourced traducement, please spell out your reasons here. I'll give you a little while to respond before I go ahead with it.HalHuxley (talk) 15:08, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Your fact tags were completely inane, and the claims are addressed in references already in the article.
 * I see from your talk page you have a problem with impetuousness and expecting others to dance to your tune. You should probably slow down a lot - David Gerard (talk) 19:09, 25 September 2015 (UTC)


 * What is "inane" about requesting that claims be supported with evidence? In this case, Rational Wiki is smearing and maligning a science website that reaches 22 million people, and which has been strongly endorsed by the likes of Richard Dawkins and The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, without any supporting evidence whatsoever. Why would you want to do that? And no, the claims are NOT supported in the articles cited. Anyone who has a modicum of background in science should be able to tell, simply by spending some time on the IFLS website, that they are in the business of responsible science journalism and popularisation, not pseudoscience. So why persist in traducing them? Why deliberately malign a website that has had so much success in sparking and nurturing a passion for science in so many millions of young people? Isn't that what we want?HalHuxley (talk) 08:21, 26 September 2015 (UTC)