Talk:Paranormal disappearances

This is more to avoid 'persistent creation of articles on the entries and prompt deletion thereof' - if a 'Not to do list' is developed an entry on 'Persons notable chiefly for having vanished' could be included (g). Jackiespeel (talk) 15:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Jackie....

Nothing links to your article, and it links to nothing. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 15:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Kiteflying again: there should be some means of listing 'topics which need significant development to justify articles on RP' (see the Talk page associated with Lord Lucan).

Richard III and the Princes in the Tower might justify a RW page. Jackiespeel (talk) 21:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

"Kiteflying" might be better achieved via saloon bar conversation than creating random articles. ħuman 02:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

We'll find a way of deophanising it. It's good to have a list like this, there's always going to be conspiracies about this sort of thing. If people are interested, it's a good branching point to start from. ^theist 22:12, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we could create companion articles "Famous for having lived", "Famous for having died" and "Famous for having ridden horses."--Bob^{Bring back the hat!} 22:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)--Bob^{Bring back the hat!} 22:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

'NOTE: It is incumbent on the editor who adds this template to an article to explain why they did so, in order to start the discussion. "Drive-by" templating without stopping to discuss is discouraged.'

Authoritarianism? Antiscience? Color me confused. -- =w= 22:15, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Paranormal

Are all, or indeed any, of these "paranormal"?--Bob^{Bring back the hat!} 22:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC) "allegedly paranormal disappearances" is too long. -- =w= 22:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I see about four (Airhart, Celeste, Triangle, Hoffa) and only two really engender "paranormal" explanations. I might go in and delete all the cruft and see if there's something to be salvaged here. ħuman 02:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

They seem to be people disappearing, but nobody knows why. Wouldn't a discussion on people claiming paranormal explanations rather than engaging their brain be more on mission than mealy a list of people who disappeared quite suddenly? - π 03:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

There are a few theories about what happened to the princes in the tower, but to my knowledge none of them are paranormal. Ditto Lord Lucan. This looks like a pretty arbitrary list. Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 20:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this supposed to be an article or a todo list?

Because as an article it's shite, and we already have a todo list. If this is really to be a place where we discuss "potential" articles, it should be in the RW namespace and have a useful title. And introduction. ħuman 02:44, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

If I understand what it says at the top of the page, it's a "not to do list" - i.e. a list of people & events which are mildly interesting but don't justify RW articles. Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 20:47, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It is as Weaseloid says - people whose disappearance, and discussions thereof, are insufficiently interesting to justify RW articles - so that 'eager newbies' don't start them off and get discouraged (g). I just listed the names I knew of offhand: and most are not overtly paranormal.

There is a case for Richard III and the Princes in the Tower is probably marginal - two societies, assorted partisans and any number of books and discussions. Jackiespeel (talk) 21:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah! A list of things not to write about? How remarkably ... ummm ... "useful" isn't actually the word which occurs to me. On the other hand anybody who is bored could certainly spend quite some time making such lists. Is somebody pulling our legs here one wonders? --Bob^{It's cold!} 22:47, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

(EC)OK, so let me see if I get this right - it's a list of things not interesting enough to write about? That, if it is to exist at all, ought to be in the RW namespace. A list of the category "talk pages for deleted articles" should go on it, too? Not really sure this makes any sense at all, since an "eager newbie" isn't going to know of its existence anyway, right? ħuman 22:49, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm jumping to the wrong conclusion, but I reckon this probably comes from Jackiespeel making a few articles which were off-mission or borderline, & getting frustrated with the criticism with them. Perfectly understandable. But making a list of things to write about or not write about isn't a great way forward. & Still largely off-mission. Richard III and the Princes in the Tower is a case in point. There are differing theories, as there are on many historical events, but nothing to connect the controversy to our site's missions. We cover some conspiracy theories because they relate to what people are prepared to believe about modern governments and the alleged secret power structures behind them. Fifteenth century royal intrigues are much less relevant. Probably the best thing to do if you want to write about something but aren't sure if it's appropriate for RW is to discuss it first, either at Saloon Bar or by asking another editor for advice. Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

This is just my random list from Talk:Lord Lucan, isn't it? the one where I said "get rid of this or have boring articles on..." Totnesmartin (talk) 23:48, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Why not consider the historical perspective - and, after all, Henry Tudor did backdate his reign to the day before Bosworth: and there are claims of conspiracy and cover up with Lord Lucan. Kite-flying and marginal articles can have their uses - seeing in which ways the site can or need not be developed. Jackiespeel (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Re KF and MAs, we already have perfectly good ad hoc and formal structures for doing that. Creating MAs is not how we do it usually. People have suggested a few of these ways to you several times now. A marginal article on something obscure is not likely to live long, the only reason they survive as long as they do is we're all trying to be really nice and respectful of your efforts (I think). The weakest part of the way you are doing it is people only ever even know if they see the article creation on RC or on new pages, so you aren't really "starting a conversation" so much as cluttering up the wiki and making a lot of work to clean things up. A much better place to experiment with marginal stubs would be in sandboxes of your user space. Then bring them up on the SB when you think they are ready for the mainspace, or insertion into an existing article. ħuman 21:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can someone give this a better title? Perhaps 'Disappearances and Urban Legends' - who was the Australian PM who disappeared and some argue was involved in an incident with a submarine? Conspiracy theory meets urban legend.' Jackiespeel (talk) 23:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Harold Holt and what do you mean disappeared? Everyone knows he was kidnapped by a Chinese submarine. 07:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes: "deleted". JS, this "article is "garbage". ħuman 07:54, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this kind of what you were aiming at: wp:Unexplained_disappearances? If so, you could follow their format, although I can imagine our version being considerably shorter. Quite a few of their examples amount to "They're gone, and we're buggered if we know why?", and it's probably only on-mission if the disappearance is a source of wingnut speculation that we can then attempt to refute. --^{Ask me about your mother} 23:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Possibly - individually most of them are 'below the RW radar' - but collectively there are enough speculations to argue the case for a general article and 'these are some examples' (so anybody doing a RW search comes across the reference and does not pursue the matter unless they have creative skills). Jackiespeel (talk) 13:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I originally considered 'Alien abductions - the histoircal cases' as a title.

Soemthing along the lines of 'Certain people are notable more because they have vanished than through anything else' (and HH would be so to non-Australians). As such they do not requre RW articles.' - followed by a list and comments.

There is something suitable for RW 'hiding' in the concept (g). Jackiespeel (talk) 15:19, 13 January 2010 (UTC)