RationalWiki:Duplicate articles/Archive7

Critique of Ray Comfort arguments and Ray Comfort
Overlap is obvious. 01:58, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The critique was cut out of the Ray Comfort article because it was making it too long & waffly. 02:16, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer a longer article over split articles. Esp. because most of the CRCA page has directly equivalent sections on the Ray Comfort page.

03:10, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Obvious overlap, indeed. Merge. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:12, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Merged. 00:24, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Unidentified submerged object and UFO
At this point, I think that the USO article could easily be a subsection of the UFO article. In that case, I think that the Unidentified submerged object article should be made into a redirect into that section. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * An "unidentified Xing object" article would be nice, if a suitable verb exists. 04:04, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * ...was that for or against my merger suggestion? :3 Reverend Black Percy (talk) 04:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * For. If a good title can be found. "Unidentified alien object" might work. 03:15, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

So, I don't know if I'm to delete this section, or archive it, or whatnot. So I'm just going to flail my arms here in the hopes that a mod or other nice person can finish this for me. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 02:00, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Thomas Aquinas and Summa Theologica
We don't cover the Summa in enough detail to merit its own article; without it, the Aquinas article is sparse. 21:18, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
 * bump 15:27, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and added a Summa Theologica section to Thomas Aquinas. I don't think these pages need to be merged as such. Carpetsmoker (talk) 15:36, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * CS, all the sections are about stuff he wrote in the ST. 16:40, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ehh, right. Sorry, I missed that. Yeah, merge in that case. Carpetsmoker (talk) 03:39, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and support a merger here, if done properly. Aquinas will be quoted on ST constantly for his views; at this point I don't see a problem with merging the articles. If nothing, the work may inspire a general lengthening of our coverage on this peculiar apologist. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 00:32, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Merged. 01:31, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Charity and Effective altruism (separate)
Concepts are very closely related. I say we copy all of Effective altruism into Charity. Carpetsmoker (talk) 16:07, 27 December 2015 (UTC)


 * No, different concepts. Effective altruism is really about the Effective Altruism subculture, not even about altruism that is effective per se. See talk page for stuff that's relevant to EA. The Dylan Matthews article in Vox is particularly useful in distinguishing "EA" from "A that is E". Put it this way, people from MIRI get money from EA supporters, and MIRI makes the Make A Wish foundation look a paragon of utilitarian effectiveness by comparison.
 * (The EA article is pretty crappy and I say that as its author. was working on it a bit but seems to have stopped.) - David Gerard (talk) 16:56, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've done some more reading on the topic, and I agree on both counts (that our page on it is not exactly our best page, and that it should remain a separate page). Carpetsmoker (talk) 21:36, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Template:Jargonnav and Template:Languagenav (merged)
I see no reason why we couldn't merge these two into just the Languagenav, and then make the current contents and snark in the Jargonnav be a sub-header for the languagenav. Or, by all means, making the Jargonnav the main nav. It doesn't really matter which - just merging them and having one "jargon/language" nav that has both their current contents as subheader 1 and 2. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:30, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Forgot to do this a while back. It's done; nothing of value was lost. 21:43, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Sweet! Thanks, Fuzzy. You may archive. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Old Testament oddities and Old Testament (merged)
The oddities page could easily fit in the OT page. 01:14, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * yeah, obvious - David Gerard (talk) 08:17, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

User:FuzzyCatPotato and RationalWiki:Duplicate articles (separate (for now))
I propose that FuzzyCatPotato and Duplicate articles be merged into a single entity whose purpose is assessing whether any two given articles are duplicates and then it's up to us to decide whether said entity's assessment is correct or not not that that'd be much different from the status quo |₹Λ¥$€₦₦  ''Your memes end here! 19:31, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * :-) (and keep up the good work FCP!) Carpetsmoker (talk) 19:34, 24 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Snark detectors triggered!
 * The suggestion above would prob'ly be the best anti-Fuzzy measure, if you've got any name ideas. 19:40, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

[ [Biblical criticism]] into Bible (merged)
I suggest the BC stub be merged into the main Bible article. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 01:45, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I wish we had a better BC page, talking about how pseudoscientific modern BC "scholarship" is, but for now this seems best. 16:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I read that as a vote for my proposition to merge? :3 Reverend Black Percy (talk) 17:11, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. 17:58, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Can't we just outright delete the Biblical criticism page? I mean, there's hardly any content to merge... Carpetsmoker (talk) 16:09, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Though, as I plan to merge this I'm going to add sources and information that will make that section worthwhile to have in the Bible article. Just let me get around to it old timer? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:12, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Ingrid Newkirk and PETA (merged)
It's difficult to tell where PETA stops and Newkirk begins. Doing a full and comprehensive criticism of both would involve a lot of duplicate material. Carpetsmoker (talk) 17:10, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm for a merger. Ingrid produces nothing notable outside of playing a role in the PETA madness. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 00:34, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

AfD and RationalWiki:Duplicate articles (separate)
Merging/redirection, for not dissimilar reasons, are often discussed at AfD, which also has the advantage of attracting a seemingly greater number of people to any given discussions. 104.5.9.13 (talk) 03:53, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the edit summary. TBH, this isn't a bad idea. This page doesn't get much traffic. 04:20, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd actually want AfD and DA to remain separate, myself. Though; I'm fully receptive to arguments pro and con. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 04:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * In principle they should be separate but it might help with visibility if they're on the same page. Too many merges are going through on only a couple of people's say-so, which hardly ever happens with deletions, and an article merge is actually a lot more hassle to revert than a deletion.  18:41, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Why not rename "Article for deletion" to "Call for attention", where people can bring up articles which need the community's attention for some reason. This can be because the article should be deleted, but also because it should be merged, or because of some other reason. Carpetsmoker (talk) 14:18, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that would be too broad unless we set some pretty clear guidelines on what should & shouldn't go there. For example, general quality/POV/accuracy issues about an article belong on its talk page, not some central location.  18:41, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * And if it's a "nobody pays attention to this talkpage" issue but you still need a second opinion, you could gauge the indifference of everyone else in the bar. Walker Walker Walker 00:35, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Would "articles for deletion/merging/redirecting/keeping/goating" (and its abbreviation, "AfDMRKG") be too cumbersome? 03:17, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably yes. Articles for consideration sounds too euphemistic though... Walker Walker Walker 03:26, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

13 and Friday the thirteenth (Merged)
We can probably merge this I think? Carpetsmoker (talk) 22:37, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Speedy merge 23:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Merged. 17:23, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Alan Sokal (Merged)
I think that the Alan Sokal page does not add much to the section found on Sokal in Postmodernism ("Sokal affair"). Bongolian (talk) 07:56, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think we could probably expand on his bio with more sources and quotes. If so, keep separate. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:35, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There is some duplication but I don't think merging into postmodernism is the right way to handle it. Better to keep the article on Sokal separate and put the more detailed analysis there, then have a brief summary within the postmodernism page with a main link to the Sokal article for further info.  13:55, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm with the Weaseloid on this one. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:02, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * +1 Carpetsmoker (talk) 14:43, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I would support expansion of the Sokal article. Thanks for putting some work into it, RBP! Bongolian (talk) 18:41, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * No problems, good buddy. I think there's enough to work with to make it a real article which - as Weaseloid suggested - should contain the full-length Sokal business, while the postmodernism article should contain the short version (e.g. not Alan Sokal's entire bio) and then do a main article hatnote to Sokal. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 18:46, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Main-article'd. 17:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Heterosexual and Heterosexuality (Merged)
I don't think I need to elaborate. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 18:04, 9 February 42016 AQD (UTC)
 * 142's certainly thinking straight. 18:10, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Ha, nice pun. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 18:11, 13 February 42016 AQD (UTC)

Merged. 17:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Neopaganism and Celtic neopaganism (Merged)
Celtic neopaganism is probably better off as a subsection of Neopaganism. Bongolian (talk) 02:14, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yea, and it's short enough to fit in. 17:06, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Merged. 17:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Scott Walker and 2011 Wisconsin protests
Clear duplication. 16:18, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but inserting the detail of the 2011 Wisconsin protests page into Scott Walker will overwhelm the latter. A little work from a volunteer (which might turn out to be me) is required. MarmotHead (talk) 18:23, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Merged. 17:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

RationalWiki:Webshites and List of Internet kooks
Both cover crazy Internet personalities. Is there any reason to separate the two? 15:53, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * This user votes for merging of the pagesFAMAS (talk) 08:30, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Merged. 03:55, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Science stopper and Falsifiability
No need to discuss unfalsifiable ideas separate from falsifiability. Also, a terrible stub. 01:54, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed. SS is also very short so it won't matter very much, I think.--JorisEnter (talk) 08:18, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Merged. 03:55, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Hepatitis B Virus with Hepatitis B Vaccine
this user is requesting a merger based on the fact that both are stubs and contain almost the same contextual data regarding vaccination and theist responses against itFAMAS (talk) 08:38, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * And lets just call it Hepatitis B. 18:21, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Merged. 03:55, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Template:Paranormal and Template:Magic
Two reasons. First, magic is ugly as fuck. Second, magic is very clearly a subset of the paranormal -- or, "various unexplained phenomena" which "[m]ore often than not [...] invoke supernatural rather than naturalistic explanations". 23:50, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Not sure why magic is that ugly; and at any rate Magic contains articles that wouldn't really sit well at Paranormal, like Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and grimoire. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 17:12, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Something being a subset or overlapping with something else does not necessarily mean that it's identical.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:14, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * @Smerdis: Sorry for insulting your creation! It's because the icon doesn't fit with the other icons. I'm not sure how the HOOTGD (a group of people who believed in the paranormal) or grimoires (books that claims to allow control of the paranormal) wouldn't fit, at least within a broad conception of paranormal.
 * @ZG: That's true. I just think it'd be better as one template. 16:58, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I went and made a new Magic icon with a much simpler design. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 21:32, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Separate. 03:55, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Omphalos hypothesis and Last Thursdayism
I like both articles; however, both cover the same topic and can both be criticized in the same way. WP has both at, but I personally think Last Thursdayism is more memorable a page title. 23:02, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * There's a lot of duplication on those pages; they should probably be merged.
 * On one hand I like "Last Thursdayism"; it's a memorable and funny parody on just how ridiculous omphalos is. On the other hand, if we're doing a serious page on omphalos, naming it after just one particular parody does it injustice...
 * If we merge it, we should probably stick with Omphalos hypothesis and redirect Last Thursdayism to that... Carpetsmoker (talk) 15:26, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Not sure why you say it's ridiculous. Creating the world in the state you want it in instead of fine-tuning the Big Bang just right so Adam and Eve will come popping out and then waiting several billion years sounds like a lot less of a hassle. Anyway, I'm not opposed to merging, but some of the content would conflict, e.g. the Omphalos article says most modern creationists don't believe in it, while the image captions on the Last Thursdayism page seem to assume otherwise. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 15:41, 8 January 42016 AQD (UTC)
 * The concept is ridiculous because it's about as unscientific as you can get. Basically, you can use this sort of special pleading to handwave any evidence away you don't like. Carpetsmoker (talk) 15:47, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * It's infalsifiable and thus unscientific, but it's not nonsensical. It can't be used to gain any kind of certain knowledge and is perhaps impractical to believe in, but there's nothing wrong with a little bit of uncertainty about reality. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 15:54, 8 January 42016 AQD (UTC)
 * We should call it by its proper name (Omplalos) and have the Thursday as redirect - David Gerard (talk) 15:43, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * ^This. And the main focus of the article should be actual Omphalos beliefs/arguments, with Last Thursdayism mentioned somewhere lower down the page.  19:29, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm hesitant about merging because the Last Thursdayism page is often linked to, to provide a clear counterexample to YEC beliefs, while the Omphalos page very rarely is. Merging might mean less in-links, because the page would be less specific to the parody. 23:46, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Funspace states and non-funspace states

 * 1) Why do we have funspace articles on Kansas, Hawaii, Colorado, but still have non-funspace Kansas, Hawaii, Colorado when their funspace counterparts have more info then them. Honestly, we should just move all of the US states articles out of the funspace so people can find them.--Owlman (talk) (mail) 07:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC) 07:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 2) Aye.--JorisEnter (talk) 18:26, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * 3) Yep. 19:12, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

From AFD

 * 1) Side note: I would support merging A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, CMI list of scientists alive today who accept the biblical account of creation, and Talk:List_of_scientists_who_became_creationists_after_studying_the_evidence into a giant sortable table. This has the added benefits of reduce duplicate content and showing how many of the signatories of these lists signed both lists, reducing the number of creationist scientists even further. 16:07, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily the same thing, as this page is about non-creationist scientists who became convinced by the creationists argument. I think many creationists scientists are creationists because that's what they were brought up with? Carpetsmoker (talk) 16:13, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Not merging those articles into this one, but making a serious version of this article. Something like "Lists of creation scientists". 16:18, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Also the ICR's (old) bio and phys lists. 16:40, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * A smart merger could be smart. I'm just here to save the snark, so a good merger or an actual "article" on the topic isn't something I oppose in the slightest. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 04:14, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

That makes two for merging, none against. 20:07, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, to reiterate, I'm to be counted (as done already) as being openly for a merger. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 20:19, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

More than a week has gone by now without opposition to this proposal. "Speak now or forever hold your peace"? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 05:04, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Heh, it's already begun:
 * Lists of creation scientists
 * Feel free to merge in ASDFD. 14:49, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

To late to voice my opposition to a merge? The list of signatories to A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is precisely *not* a list of creation scientists. Most of the signatories are not scientists, and many of them are, in fact, not creationists (as opposed to what the Discovery Institute claims). That's the whole point of spelling out who the signatories are!! And the value of having such a list is that the petition comes up again and again in a discussion: having the list of *the signatories* is valuable for contributing to such a discussion; merging the list with the list of creation scientists completely undermines that point. The list of creation scientists is also currently a mess: At least we need a separate article on A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism with an explanation of what it is.
 * "Most of the signatories are not scientists"
 * Yep. This is also true of the creation scientist lists -- look at how many people's broad fields are education, history, etc. I think the table format makes it easier to make this clear.
 * "many of them are, in fact, not creationists"
 * Yep. I think a table format (with a column for their creationism-ness and evolution-ness) and unified lists makes this clear.
 * "merging the list with the list of creation scientists completely undermines that point"
 * Actually, I'm not sure that it does. If the combined efforts of 4 creationist organizations couldn't come up with a good list, that undermines creationism even more than attacking each list separately. Furthermore, if specific debunking of the DI list is needed, people can use the "sort" function on the table to see the DI signatories and their flaws. 17:49, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the combined list might be useful (though the article is currently a serious mess, mostly because the introductory text doesn't make sense at all anymore, being randomly merged from different articles). And you are right that the combined list really shows the bankruptcy of the creationist movement's attempt to pretend to have scientific legitimacy. It is, however, a less useful reference in discussions about the Discovery list in particular (I've been in those kind of debates and the article, the way it was, has been very useful). At the very least I think RationalWiki needs separate articles also on the different lists to make it easier to have a quick reference to what each of those list attempted to accomplish. My preference would really be to have separate pages on all the lists, and include lists of the signatories specific to that list on the respective pages *in addition to the combined list page*. Yes, that would duplicate content, but so what? What er want to avoid is duplicate entries on the same phenomenon, not duplication of information on separate pages about different, important phenomena (there is a reason why the wiki doesn't consist of a single entry, "stuff", where all the information about everything is collected). I realize that people here disagree (though I'm not entirely sure I understand the reason). My fallback position would be to have briefer, separate pages on each of the lists with overview information (including the inclusion criteria and why the lists are silly), with links to the current big lists for the signatories themselves. I really think we need a page for the DI petition, and probably the other ones as well. After all, the lists are supposed to serve very different purposes (the CMI list includes Biblical literalists, while the DI petition those who reject "Darwinism", which, given the description offered, as Larry Moran points out, many contemporary scientists might actually do - so even real scientists, if they were unaware of the DI's subversive intentions and didn't bother t double check, might be tricked into signing)

I'd be good with very short articles on each and then one centralized article with the list and the general criticisms. Alternately, it would be possible to have four subsections explaining the purpose of each of the lists on the centralized page (which I'd prefer). Either way, I agree the content needs improvement -- on both the CMI and DI lists, maybe 75% of entries had no citations, which seem essential. 03:41, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Part of the reason why there are no citation is that nothing citable could be found: for many signatories no information at all could be found about the signatories, which by the way was part of what made the original DI article valuable. The current, combined lists don't include a fraction of the entries in the original article - in particular, it seems to have dropped those people about whom no information or publications could be found despite searching all the common places where research is listed (from google scholar to discipline-specific databases). The current list also seems to have dropped most of the signatories who are demonstrably not creationists and the dead ones. But that was precisely what made the original DI article so valuable! It included *every single signatory* and information on each to the extent that such information could be obtained, and thereby showed in the most effective possible manner how few of them were actually active researchers (including at least one example of a duplicate entry). The current combined list seems to be intended to serve a completely different purpose, namely to list scientists - or people claiming to be scientists - active in the creation movement! Dammit; if things don't improve significantly in the next couple of days I may have to spend some time trying to repair damage here (including restoring the original articles, which were among the most valuable on RW), and I will also forward a request: Please don't merge articles that are not duplicates! There is, I think, sufficient server space to maintain separate articles on different but related topics, even if there is some overlap in the information (and have comprehensive articles like the current lists of creation scientists as a supplement), and merging should really be reserved only for situations when you have two articles trying to cover exactly the same thing. You are not helping readers by lumping everything together in a heap.

The only reason some entries weren't included is that I haven't moved them over yet. Every single member of every list is included. 17:14, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Sadhguru and Isha Institute of Inner Sciences (merged)
There is clearly no need for these two to be separate articles. Some may even push for deletion, however I think the subject of these articles is clearly missional. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:29, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Go for it - David Gerard (talk) 12:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep. 14:44, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Done. 15:32, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Merging E-Meter, Auditing_(Scientology) and Dianetics
I argue that these two-stubs-and-one-semi-long-article (E-Meter) which all relate very, very closely to the exact same topic ought to be merged. Auditing is the name for the "session" in which Dianetics is actually practiced, and the E-Meter is the tool used during the Auditing sessions. I argue that Dianetics should be the main article, with Auditing and E-Meter made into sub-sections of that same article (as Dianetics is the mother theory, Auditing is the practice and the E-Meter is the Auditing tool). Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:10, 17 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Might as well unless and until we have good reason to separate them - David Gerard (talk) 12:58, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep. 14:45, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea.--JorisEnter (talk) 17:44, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. 19:53, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Negative proof and Argument from ignorance (Merged)
These two are the exact. Same. Fallacy. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 01:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep, just do it. 04:55, 7 April 2016 (UTC)