Talk:David Wolfe (raw food advocate)/Archive 1

Untitled

Wolfe's page has already been removed from Wikipedia once, I see no reason why it should be put back. Marcdraco (talk) 10:43, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

As a warning against the man and his propoganda? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.220.41 (talk) 21:05, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

If multiple sources outside of the primary subject of the article discuss said primary subject on a regular basis, then the article is notable and thus, worthy to remain on Wikipedia. If said article is also well-written, then it does not need excessive attention. A lizard (talk) 18:32, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This article should not be speedily deleted for lack of asserted importance because David Wolfe is a TRUE PIONEER in the area of sourcing and marketing raw chocolate and cocoa products. I know of very few others in the industry who are encouraging the benefits and production of such superfoods. JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT A FAN of Wolfe, does not mean he is not a leader in this area. I will provide more proof of his notability in the near future. --Glacier2009 (talk) 20:29, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Wolf is unknown to me. I can only comment to avoid Puffery. Negative and positive-loaded language will probably result in additional tags and copy editing. Also ask yourself "In ten years will this addition still appear relevant?" Kyle^(talk) 23:25, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Another way to establish notability is whether a person is known for achievements in multiple fields. Wolfe is unique for having been an author, speaker, sustainability advocate, and entrepreneur. He is even a philanthropist/conservationist, through his "Fruit Tree Planting Foundation," which has itself earned many awards. --Glacier2009 (talk) 02:19, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Wooh there Glacier2009 are you a true fan of Wolfe? Cause that can get kinda dicey if you are not careful, you've just stated your biased here on the talk page. That might be okay if you really are interested in creating a well written page based on Wolfe's notority. I don't care if Wolfe is a Martian that eats people's brains, if he is notable (by Wikipedia standards) then he deserves a well-written Wikipedia page. Lets just remember that you are not the only person responsible for looking for sources and the content that will eventually be on the page. I urge you to discuss edits here on the talk page. If those noteworthy citations can be found, then excellent. Just remember that not all citations are equally weighted here on Wikipedia. Lets see if we can pull this together, shall we?Sgerbic (talk) 04:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I've removed some of the more obvious puffery and poorly (i.e. bullshit website) references. I've also got out and photographed the lazy "disclaimer/acknowledgement" from Wolfe's first (co-authored) book. Not that he wrote it - seems to me that he copied the whole thing and didn't really bother to change much. Anything he says has to be taken with a pinch of sodium chloride.Marcdraco (talk) 22:09, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

General discussion

Are we here to destroy David Wolfe? We cannot even have a "See also" section for relevant links? Curious readers should have a right to know about related topics of interest. And I am not a fan of Wolfe, just some of his ideas and accomplishments.

Here we go again - "issues" of notability? But Wolfe is notable-enough that he must be maligned.

I suppose I should just be content that this effort was not immediately deleted, as some would have hoped.

Way to go, Wikipedia! Must vaporize the alternative and unconventional!

This will help broaden your relevance and appeal. Glacier2009 (talk) 15:01, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

By "the alternative and unconventional", I assume you pseudoscience, i.e. things that are not true. "This will help broaden your relevance and appeal." For starters, Wikipedia is edited by normal people like you and me, so I'm not sure who you're addressing; and secondly, Wikipedia is already globally famous as the go-to starting source of information on any topic. We have guidelines and policies. A lot of people may like David Wolfe, but since most everything he can be said can be disproven by facts or common sense, we need to write an article that is accurate and free from bias. (Science is not a bias.) However, in terms of notability, he does have nearly 6 million Facebook followers, which I would consider notable. He's certainly notable as one of the biggest internet charlatans currently around. McLerristarr | Mclay1 01:05, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

If we call it "pseudoscience," even these articles have a category. Should they be deleted? I am addressing the editorial establishment at Wikipedia, which, by some standard, does seem to have a bias, even if they are "normal" people. Wikipedia has guidelines, as it should. This does not mean it is free of bias. Bias being that Wolfe's article would be deleted, even though he is notable. You've made it clear you have an opinion of Wolfe. That is not a bias, right? Glacier2009 (talk) 01:25, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Further, by "the alternative and unconventional," I mean the alternative and unconventional. This does not necessarily make it untrue (though perhaps unproven). Alternative medicine and nutrition is a real and established field (though not liked by everyone). Bias exists, that one would call anything which may seem alternative/unconventional "things that are not true." Glacier2009 (talk) 01:45, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

"Alternative and unconventional" shouldn't include the patently delusional. This guy doesn't believe in gravity! He's a charlatan. CoFoMoFo (talk) 21:03, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

NOT a nutrionist

There is no legal statutory title for a nutritionist. Wolfe calls himself one but he has made some of the most ludicrous claims made this side of David Icke. He is a self-promoter and only interested in himself. Some of the latest claims are on The Fear Babe page on Facebook and several other sites that exist to point out (with context) his ludicrous and anti-science beliefs. He has repeatedly suggested that people can heal all manner of disease by "zapping" and yet also sells grounding materials. His videos on grounding demonstrate he knows nothing about electricity or even basic nutrition. He DOES, however, promote traditional Chinese medicine which is a great way to destroy endangered species in both plant and animal kingdoms. As for the "allegations" his book was stolen - I have a recent copy in my research library and (2nd edition I think) and the is actually alluded to. We must not vaporise the unconventional BUT we also don't owe them free advertising when they are con merchants and snake oil salesmen. Marcdraco (talk) 21:47, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I called him a nutritionist only because the previous article "raw foodist" was deleted. He is perhaps not "legally" recognized as a nutritionist, but is widely recognized as a leader in superfood nutrition promotion. While I am not defending Wolfe, his leadership for the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation makes him anything but just a self-promoter, and is a form of conservation. While I do not have expert knowledge on traditional Chinese medicine, his work has been to establish more sustainable cocoa production while preserving heirloom cacao species varieties. This is not an agenda to destroy endangered species. Veganism, promoted by Wolfe as well, does not kill animals. Also, rather than claiming others' work for himself, his book is about bringing more attention to chocolate's potential as a superfood. Glacier2009 (talk) 02:45, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

This source refers to the subject as a nutritionist: "the nutritionist and best-selling author ...". North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:09, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Raw Foodist is more accurate than nutritionist - it is possible to study nutrition. David Wolfe has not. You can be employed as a nutritionist as a health care professional, so it is a title with meaning. 162.213.136.97 (talk) 02:03, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I'd agree with this since from what I've read you need a degree, license, certificate, etc. in order to refer to yourself as a nutritionist. So, I guess, if some legitimate source states that Wolfe has done so then I would support adding the title of nutritionist back into the article. Until then, I think it would be inaccurate to label Wolfe a nutritionist even if media describe him as such.Yojimbo1941 (talk) 19:47, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it's misleading to label him a "nutritionist" regardless of which meaning. He has not studied nutrition academically, and he does not serve as a nutritionist in a health care capacity. What he does for a living appears to be marketing. Perhaps "entrepreneur" or (as cited above) "author" would be better, as neither implies that he has studied or practices medical nutrition. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 13:52, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Well put, I think you've provided the most accurate description so far. Yojimbo1941 (talk) 15:56, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

• done. Jytdog (talk) 21:29, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Notable subject

The subject passes WP:BASIC, and as such qualifies for a Wikipedia article. Source examples include those listed below. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:39, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• Berry, Sarah (May 15, 2013). "'I can take any diet and tear it apart'". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved March 26, 2016.
• Skidmore, Sarah (June 14, 2005). "Raw-food fervor starting to sprout". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved March 26, 2016. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "The raw truth? Decide for yourself". The Wichita Eagle. April 21, 2004. Archived from the original on 5 May 2004. Retrieved 3 April 2016. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• "Uncooked food trend raises hopes, casts doubts". San Antonio Express-News. August 21, 2002.
• "A breath of fresh flair - raw food". Sydney Morning Herald. May 28, 2013.
• "Raw food diet is anything but half-baked idea". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. November 2, 2001.
• "Take the heat out of eating". The Telegraph. August 10, 2002. Retrieved 3 April 2016. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• "Can changing your diet prevent heart disease?". October 19, 2013. Fox News.
• Anderson, L.V. (February 25, 2011). "The NutriBullet Is Actually Kind of a Great Blender". Slate Magazine. Retrieved April 3, 2016. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Notable Nutters

Think Wikipedia needs a new page for these people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fence pailing (talk • contribs) 08:32, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

No one is stopping you. adamrice (talk) 19:16, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

There is always the Encyclopedia of American Loons: [1] --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:04, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Has he included the donald? -Roxy the dog. bark 07:49, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure he will, when he gets to T again. I guess that will be around the start of 2019... --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:05, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Article shortcomings & criticisms

"David 'Avocado' Wolfe is a raw foodist, author, and promoter of superfoods."

Firstly, the wording of this article makes it feel that the term 'superfoods' has validity in regards to the claims made regarding it, and do not feel that it should be placed there. When rewording that, I removed the title, if it can be called that.

Changed to

"David 'Avocado' Wolfe is a raw foodist, author, and promoter of alternative medicines."

"A raw vegan, Wolfe advocates a diet based on fresh or frozen fruits, seeds, and vegetables. This, he says, is a method of detoxification from symptoms of the Standard American Diet (SAD)."

In the given citation, I am unable to find anything directly linking 'detoxification' and a 'standard American diet'. As a result, I would like to remove the line and its citation, , entirely, though would like advice on it. I have also reworded the line so to remove language which I perceived as speaking of detoxification with validity

The new line read: "Wolfe promotes a diet based on raw plant food. He claims that this also has an effect of detoxification on the human body."

I feel that it would be appropriate to point out the lack of supporting scientific support of the idea of detoxification within the article, though would like clarification on whether that would be appropriate here.

"Wolfe has many fans and critics, and promotes alternative medical treatments, such as naturopathy, for cancer and other ailments."

Changed to the following. I couldn't find a citation regarding promotion of those practices to treat cancer and other ailments. Also added reflexology and detoxification as what he promotes.

"Wolfe is a promoter of alternative medicine, such as reflexology, naturopathy, and detoxification, and promotes such practices to treat cancer and other ailments."

Furthermore, the initial tone I got from this article was not as neutral as I would expect of Wikipedia's standards, parts being skewed to either side. For instance,

"He has stated that literally everything we're told is untrue and if we flip it then we get the real truth" does not feel appropriate to be written in such tone unless it were a quote.

Though, I am a newbie at writing and correcting pieces like this, and mistakes may be made. Please inform me on rules which I may miss along.

References

Thanks, Ini7 (talk) 10:19, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Request lock and/or semi-protection

This page should be locked or protected in some form. Persistent vandalism has defined its history from the beginning, and should be expected to continue. Glacier2009 (talk) 02:49, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Pseudoscience category

Category:Pseudoscience being applied to BLP articles has seen a bit of contention among Wikipedia editors. The consensus around this has been to prefer to place subjects in subcategories of the ideas they advocate for that are determined to be pseudoscientific (see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_May_1#Category:Pseudoscientists). David Wolfe is himself not pseudoscience, however he does advocate for ideas that are considered pseudoscientific by reliable sources. The ones on this article currently appear to be: Flat Earth theory and detoxification (alternative medicine). (Other things mentioned in this article might be considered pseudoscience by some people, but it would be WP:OR to conclude that without reliable sources.) For this, I would propose that Wolfe be added to Category:Alternative detoxification (a subcategory of Category:Pseudoscience), in order to fulfill the categorization, and remove him from Category:Pseudoscience per WP:SUBCAT.  Adrian^[232] 07:14, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I had a look at the subcategories, and the problem I found is that they're too specific. David Wolfe (and many similar charlatans) support numerous pseudosciences, so it's difficult to classify him in just one. It would be best to put him in Category:Advocates of pseudoscience, but the category is supposedly only a container for other categories. We should probably change that. McLerristarr | Mclay1 08:47, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Aleppo video reference

Adrian232 is of the opinion that this reference: Before and After Shots Show the Destruction of Aleppo is necessary to establish that Wolfe is a Flat Earth Theorist. I would argue that it is not.

1. We already have a reference for this view point of Wolfe - the Youtube video where he explain his views in his own words. What better source than that? Additional material is superfluous.
2. The news article is not about Wolfe's views on the Flat Earth theory. It only mentions his views in passing and gives no citation for what it asserts. I expect that they too have seen the Youtube video. It may be a reliable source but it has nothing substantial to say on this topic that has not been said elsewhere.

Ewen (talk) 19:33, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The YouTube video, or rather Wolfe's speech, is a primary source, which is not generally considered to be the best source of information and provides nothing of value for evaluating due weight. The video also does not have Wolfe identifying as a 'flat earth theorist' but rather speaking about his belief of a flat earth (I should also note here that Wolfe certainly identifies with this view, as he speaks about this issue a lot on social media and participates as a speaker in flat-earth panels). This identification is important for the categorization in both the lead section and the categories in the footer. Combining primary sources with secondary sources in order to verify information is the generally preferred way to deal with all of this unless there is a reliable secondary source that talks about it in great detail.

As for the news article mentioning his views in passing, I disagree. This news source attempted to track down the source of a video that went viral on social media as part of their story about it and landed upon Wolfe, then during their research on him came to the conclusion that the most notable aspects about him are that he is a nutritionist and flat earth theorist. This is incredibly important and shows how much weight is due to his view being mentioned here. One problem we have here is that this article is about a barely-notable subject which is greatly lacking in reliable secondary sources about him, so requiring sources to be ideal is simply not going to work very well. If there are better secondary sources talking about this subject, then we could remove the weaker sources. In the meantime and in lieu of such sources, we should keep.  Adrian^[232] 19:57, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

No. It is clear from the Youtube source that Wolfe believes that the Earth is flat. He discusses his views in some detail. The Aleppo article has no detail, no source for its assertion, adds nothing to the Youtube source and is not primarily about Wolfe's views. It's akin to citing 'A Brief History of Time' to support the notion that Wolfgang Pauli was Austrian (page 74 of my paperback edition). The reference is not about the subject it's cited to support, it's not written by an expert on the topic, and a better source is available. Ewen (talk) 20:21, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

For a reference "not about the subject it's cited to support" it spends about a quarter of the article talking about Wolfe. Sources do not have to be about a certain topic in order to be used for verifiability. I also believe the YouTube video is being overestimated in its quality as a source for Wikipedia. That source is highly likely to be challenged, and rightly so, as have other videos previously used as primary sources here. So the Aleppo article can be used as a source of fact on Wolfe's being a flat earth theorist, and the video can cover his specific belief on flat earth theory as spoken out of his own mouth.  Adrian^[232] 20:39, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Yah. A quarter of an extremely brief article talks about Wolfe, and a grand total of three words mentioning in passing that he's a Flat Earther, with no supporting reference or explanation. The article ("Before and After Shots Show the Destruction of Aleppo") is about the content of the video and Wolfe is only mentioned as its source, and Wolfe's Flat Earth beliefs are only mentioned as an aside. At best it's a sub-sub-topic of a brief article. Ewen (talk) 20:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

There's no argument here that the source isn't extremely weak, simply that it is the strongest and most reliable source we currently have, and its removal decreases the quality of the article. In fact, the information about Wolfe being a flat earth theorist was removed prior to the addition of this source: [2]  Adrian^[232] 20:57, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The strongest and most reliable source - apart from Wolfe's own words. If you want to see the sea, you can. It's over there between the land and the sky. No need to cite a third party's analysis of whether the sea may or may not exist. Ewen (talk) 21:03, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

It may be obvious to you and me, but not to every reader—readers we should treat as potential editors. What you are suggesting is contrary to Wikipedia's guidelines of primary sources and a neutral point of view, and opens it up to accusations of original research. Extra care for this is especially necessary on biographies of living persons. WP:BLPPRIMARY is relevant and was written for a reason. However, I am willing to move this to RfC if a consensus cannot be reached here.  Adrian^[232] 03:02, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I am aware of those policies but the problem with primary sources is the need to "avoid novel interpretations of primary sources" – Wolfe's words are hardly open to interpretation.

NPOV is irrelevant. We should represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views" on the topic. Wolfe's own words are significant. Nobody has published any claim that he is not a Flat Earther.

Original Research? Avoidance of OR requires that we "cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented". The Aleppo article is not directly related to the issue, the Youtube material certainly is. The objection to Youtube would be on the grounds of whether it is reliable. I notice that there are no claims that Youtube has anything other than a reliable recording of Wolfe's own words.

For a secondary source, how about this article by Rayne Constantine: [3] ? Contributions to this website have editorial control

Amusingly, although Wolfe’s website does not mention his flat earth views, there is the comment "David has circumnavigated the Earth for decades" [4] I guess he has a different definition of "circumnavigated" to the rest of us!

Ewen (talk) 06:35, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I really don't think What Culture would be considered a reliable source. It's a tabloidesque site that engages in yellow journalism. It'd be like citing Cracked or Viral Nova; while they technically have editors, they play fast and loose with fact-checking and don't have a great reputation for accuracy. However, it may be best to defer to WP:RS/N on that. For the sake of reaching consensus, I will start a discussion over there.  Adrian^[232] 07:54, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Whatculture.com and youtube videos are not "reliable sources" under Wikipedia definitions, sorry. Collect (talk) 19:42, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

There is nothing inherent about a YouTube video that makes it unreliable. The Young Turks broadcast their news-based show on YouTube. Creative Commons-licensed YouTube videos can be used by Wikimedia for images and audio. With that said, what's really being used as a source here is the original video, which contains Wolfe's own words, not YouTube as a work in itself.  Adrian^[232] 21:05, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

A YouTube video is a reliable source if it is a primary source for a quote by the subject matter of the article himself. If the article says "David Wolfe believes that the world is flat" and the YouTube video has him saying "the world is flat," then that video, in that instance, is a valid souce. A lizard (talk) 18:26, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

The cite is to a 52 minute video with no indication as to having a transcript or anything allowing us to verify the exact value of the "entire video". AFAICT, the presenter is making a theological argument, rather than a directly physical science argument. The speaker refers to a "hemispherical Earth" in one section. Now if we can get a specific time marker where he makes a "flat earth assertion" (after being bored completely I found where he makes an assertion that one sees in Hawaii the complete next island instead of just mountain tops - but the argument that you will only see mountaintops is often taught to children by teachers who do not know the concept of "refraction" - it is more a case that he does not understand refraction either than that he believes in a truly "flat earth"). Collect (talk) 21:49, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the citation for the video and added a time range for Wolfe's speech, as well as a tweet made by him expressing his belief in a flat Earth.  Adrian^[232] 02:24, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

?

User:Ewen please explain your objections here. We actually do that, per the policy, WP:PSCI. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 20:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Well no, "we" do not add a refutation to Detoxification (alternative medicine) on every page where the topic is mentioned, and nor should we. The policy asks for us not to give undue weight to pseudoscience, but this article is not about pseudoscience, it is about David Wolfe. The pseudoscientific views he espouses are discussed in the articles linked to, and on those pages the views are refuted. Ewen (talk) 20:28, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

This is a pretty common error new editors make in WP. Please read what the policy WP:PSCI actually says. biographies cannot be used as what we call "coatracks" for pseudoscience. Jytdog (talk) 20:54, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Nor is a biography to be used as an inappropriate coatrack for refuting pseudoscience. As a relatively new editor perhaps you didn't realise this? There are hundreds of pages which link to Detoxification (alternative medicine), to take one example, but very few have any discussion of this pseudoscience. Why? The articles leave the refutation to the main Detox page, because the linking article is only tangentially about Detox and is mostly about its main subject. Including a discussion of Detox on every page that merely mentioned it in passing (as the David Wolfe page does) would be redundant and cumbersome. What if the arguments on the topic changed? We'd have to alter hundreds of pages. Far better to keep the arguments on a few key pages and refer to them. WP:PSCI does not, in fact, say that pseudoscience has to be refuted at every turn. It says we should not give it undue weight when talking about pseudoscience, or including it, but in this case it is merely one word that is mentioned, with no explanation of what it is or its status. I would expect any interested reader to follow the link to the Detox (or whatever) article if they needed to know more - and they obviously would need to know about Detox than the David Wolfe article contains. Ewen (talk) 21:13, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Hm. I will get feedback from FRINGEN. Jytdog (talk) 03:33, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

done here Jytdog (talk) 03:35, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Detox is bollocks and there must be no doubt about it from Wikipedia. As PSCI says, such rubbish must be clearly identified as such. Alexbrn (talk) 10:27, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I know it's bollocks but is it necessary to say so, at length, every time we mention that so-and-so thinks it's true? Ewen (talk) 12:28, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Policy: "The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such. An explanation of how scientists have reacted to pseudoscientific theories should be prominently included. This helps us to describe differing views fairly." So long as any pro-detox stance is clearly identified as pseudoscientific with a prominent explanation of why, we're in line with policy. Alexbrn (talk) 13:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I read that too (of course) but the question remains - does this article about David Wolfe actually include a description of detox? Does it talk about detox? No on both counts. It simply mentions that Wolfe has linked raw plant food to detox. Any reader who wanted to know what detox was would follow the link to the relevant page, where it is debunked at length. Ewen (talk) 13:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't need to "include a description of detox". Any inclusion of the view gives it undue weight unless qualified by a mainstream counter. The policy does not say to include a link, but to make the qualification prominent. If detox is mentioned we need to mention it's rubbish - not necessarily at length - but policy seems plain. Alexbrn (talk) 14:24, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

1) There are over 200 articles which link to the Detox page; Good luck with adding a refutation to all those! 2) I would contend that the David Wolfe article does not include the view "Detoxification" at a meaningful level. It mentions that such a notion exists, but does not explain or endorse it in any way. Ewen (talk) 15:40, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Special:WhatLinksHere/Detoxification (alternative_medicine) appears to be an excellent resource for articles that are in great need of compliance to WP:MEDRS and WP:PSCI, so I'm not sure that helps your case here.  Adrian^[232] 18:39, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

It makes you wonder how I knew how many pages linked to Detox, doesn't it? My point is, is it better to include a refutation every time an article so much as mentions that Detox exists, or should we focus on the (far fewer) pages where Detox is actually discussed? I won't be wasting my time on your notion of how to comply with WP:PSCI. Ewen (talk) 19:13, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Please bear in mind that you are wasting our time repeating your argument. Please read WP:TENDENTIOUS. Jytdog (talk) 20:02, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

OK, so thus far three editors are in favor of something along the lines of the expansion i proposed, and one is opposed. Thus far. Jytdog (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Please read Psychological projection if you think I am wasting your time. Ewen (talk) 20:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

hello

why doesnt this article state in a more clear way that nothing he says has any factual evidence or scientific proof i do not understand why people can look up this man go to wikipedia read this article and then say well its on wikipedia so it must be true cuz ALLOT of people do think like that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A44F:2661:0:8C33:625E:D306:C27B (talk) 12:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Please sign all your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks.

Look at what the article says about his belief that the Earth is flat and that gravity is a hoax. That has a reliable source, as have other claims in the article. Do you have some reliable sources to support your claims? - DVdm (talk) 12:46, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Book

He wrote a book but it turned out to be almost word-to-word plagiarism. I don't know how to wikipedia, can someone add info about this on his page? Source here:

http://vegsource.com/talk/raw/messages/20056.html

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.47.195.34 (talk • contribs) 04:27, December 27, 2016 (UTC)

"Chocolate is an octave of sun energy"

I reverted an earlier edit that removed this quotation from the "Chocolate" section of the article. It's notable, being supported by multiple sources outside the primary, and it gives direct characterization of Mr. Wolfe's beliefs in general. A lizard (talk) 18:34, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

No worries. Somebody fixed it. Roxy the dog. bark 18:45, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Very funny referring to yourself as "somebody" to deflect the blame. Cut that shit out. Just saying that David Wolfe refers to chocolate as a "superfood" is not enough. He himself refers to it as "an octave of sun energy" and this in fact is his best known quote about chocolate. It's notable, not trivia; and very important because it places his views on chocolate in a proper context. A lizard (talk) 20:09, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

You need to learn to look at edit histories, particularly sigs. You might stop making a fool of yourself. Roxy the dog. bark 21:38, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

I would support the inclusion of this if there are reliable sources verifying the statement that also show how this is WP:DUE instead of simply being a quote that his critics frequently use against him.  Adrian^[232] 21:09, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's particularly WP:UNDUE, and as someone else pointed out, it's one of his better-known quotes. It also indicates rather clearly his position on subjects related to science and health. Some relevant links;

The Bizarre Gibberish of David “Avocado” Wolfe - Patheos

What I’m really thinking: the nutritionist - The Guardian

The Republican Party of Donald Trump vs. science - ScienceBlogs (yes, a blog source, but a well-known one)

A Challenge to David Avocado Wolfe: Take a Flying Leap (literally). - Yvette d'Entremont (SciBabe)

Alison (talk)- 21:20, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

That was my whole point of including it. You wouldn't have an article about JFK without his "ask not what your country can do for you…" quote, or Winston Churchill without his "their finest hour" speech. By the same token, leaving the "chocolate is an octave of sun energy" out of a David Wolfe article would be just as glaring an omission. And BTW, the sources I lined up include a video of Mr. Wolfe actually saying that. That's a primary source and totally allowed by Wikipedia. A lizard (talk) 00:00, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, looking at the sources, the Patheos blog identifies itself as "the home of godless listcicles" and does not identify an author. The Guardian source appears to be in a "letters to the editor" format, as it is opinion-style and attributed to an anonymous contributor. Respectful Insolence is the blog of Orac (a.k.a. David Gorski), who is a respected surgical oncologist, but being a blog without editorial control we certainly shouldn't be using that as a source for information on a living person that is outside of the author's profession. It's a similar situation with Yvette d'Entremont. Unfortunately, none of these sources meet Wikipedia's standards for WP:BLPs, and since they are mainly self-published sources, do not seem to give a particularly good indication of whether or not the quote is due.  Adrian^[232] 21:44, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• A lizard, why is it important to understanding Wolfe to include this quote - above you wrote that it provides a "direct characterization of Mr. Wolfe's beliefs in general" but I don't understand how it does that. It is kind of poetic and catchy but what does it say about his beliefs? Jytdog (talk) 22:14, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Without the quote, you simple have David Wolfe calling chocolate a "superfood." Other than the superfood article clearly saying such claims are not supported by science, that quote alone does not characterize Mr. Wolfe's beliefs about chocolate. However, a quote of him saying that "chocolate is an octave of sun energy" contextualizes his beliefs and characterizes them and illustrates exactly where he stands as an authority on nutrition. A lizard (talk) 00:02, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Does anybody know how to measure an octave of sun energy? Roxy the dog. bark 23:02, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• User:A lizard you have now added this three times
  • diff 18:19, 10 January 2017‎
  • diff 20:07, 10 January 2017
  • diff 23:45, 12 January 2017

and there is no consensus here yet, and you haven't responded to my question above. Please do. Jytdog (talk) 23:55, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Done. A lizard (talk) 00:01, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I have replaced this info. It is pertanent, referenced, and indicates his rather strange beliefs. It's not undue as it's only a short part of a paragraph and not in the lede. As far as I can see here, user ALizard is the only editor removing it. --Dmol (talk) 01:19, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Dmol, A lizard is the only one adding it. Alison supported. Everyone else here is opposing or uncertain. Where do you see consensus to add it? Jytdog (talk) 01:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC) (correct my comment, zoiks. Jytdog (talk) 01:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC))

• Y'all please stop edit warring and address Alison's (substantial) comment. I see no consensus here to either include or exclude, so no side can claim talk page consensus. Drmies (talk) 01:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for ringing in Drmies. What do you think? Include or no? I am uncertain. Jytdog (talk) 01:30, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• I always thought that the avocado was the octave, and chocolate a perfect fifth. But that's just me. I'm glad you're all talking and that y'all seem to be working something out. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 18:48, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• BTW in general when I run into a Wikipedia discussion and I don't know, I go with Alison. Haven't been wrong yet. Drmies (talk) 18:49, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I in fact did address Alison's comment but for the sake of recency, here goes: one of the references for the quote that I used was an actual video of David Wolfe saying "chocolate is an octave of sun energy." He goes on in that video to explain what he means like that and it's not a quote taken out of context. In fact, his explanation gets even more weird and nonsensical past that point. If I wanted to be "silly" or sensationalistic, I would have included his explanation that "chocolate aligns with the fifth chakra etc.." That would have made the whole "Wikipedia is not a tabloid" rebukes justified. But as was said before, it was not the first sentence, not the lede of the article. It was one added detail to a one-line entry about his beliefs about chocolate.

And this is the key point I've been making over and over again about the "chocolate is an octave of sun energy" quote. Alone, the entry about chocolate in the David Wolfe article says he believes it's a superfood. That's innocuous, and does not accurately characterize his views about chocolate. The best known (and I need to repeat this: verified) quote about chocolate from David Wolfe is that chocolate is an octave of sun energy. It might sound silly and nonsensical, but he really said it and a cited primary source (i.e., the kind that is approved of by Wikipedia) proves that he said it. Including the "octave of sun energy" chocolate comment in that entry characterizes his views about chocolate in an informative way, without adding commentary. The article is less accurate without that quote. Would you have a Donald Trump article without his comment that global warming is a hoax invented by China? Would you instead simply write "Donald Trump has expressed negative opinions about global warming" without placing it in context and giving examples of what his specific opinion was? Of course not. The David Wolfe article deserves the same treatment. A lizard (talk) 04:47, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

So, if you look at the history of this article, you will see that I worked it over extensively in October 2016. (diffs. I tried to raise source quality and follow NPOV including PSCI, which means PARITY certainly applies. I thought about including some snippets of his crazy quotes. I of course saw all the refs that Alison brought.

• I passed on the Patheos ref as I don't know the author or the site and it is just a listicle of snippets.
• The Guardian ref itself doesn't say anything about Wolfe - mention of Wolfe and the quote is down in the comments section. We don't use such things per WP:USERGENERATED and Alison should be ashamed of herself for presenting it as a valid ref.
• "Science Blogs" ref is David Gorski's Respectful Insolence blog, which is one of our go-to sites for pseudoscience. If you look at the article, you will see that Gorski is already cited and used three times, in a post actually focused on Wolfe: How is it that I’ve never heard of David Avocado Wolfe before?. And it has this quote and also "chocolate “lines up planetarily with the sun'". More on this in a bit.
• SciBabe -- I of course saw this back in October and to be frank, I set it aside because it starts out "David Wolfe is an asshole" which is just unserious. Sure it is easy to sit back and throw potshots but there is really no information there.

So... like I said. I thought about including the kooky quotes. There are so many!! So I passed on that, as it seems kind of cheap shotty to me.

I guess I am willing to include some, but I strongly disagree that a single, kind-of-poetic quote says much about him. The videos from which it comes do say a lot - the whole string of such gibberish is eye-opening and says something about him. So if we are going to do this, let's at least do both quotes used by Gorski, and we can cite that to the Gorski ref already in the article. Or to go all out, we could give an extended quote from that video in the Gorski site and say: Wolfe says about chocolate: "Chocolate lines up planetarily with the sun. Chocolate is an octave of sun energy." and "It is on same octave as serotonin. It is on the same octave as the sun. It is on the same octave as a smile. It is on the same octave as gold. Those are all the same thing." Something like that, says something about him more than a snippet does.

How is that? Jytdog (talk) 05:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

That's acceptable. A lizard (talk) 13:42, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

The reason I've been opposed to the octavian quote is because of its obvious stupidity. Putting it in seems just more piling on to humiliate him, something he manages very well himself, but not something I feel we should indulge in, and Jytdogs proposed version, while rather well crafted, is even worse!! I'm reminded of the 'chlorophill improves oxygenation of the blood' quote which I can't remember accurately, by a well known UK 'nutritionist.' Lets keep reminding ourselves that the unspoken message behind all this is Buy a Nutribullet. Roxy the dog. bark 14:19, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Yep and that is my sense too. You know when I did all the reading back in October I was struck by consistent mentions of his charisma. And I watched a couple videos of him talking. And if you suspend disbelief and take it as performance he is pretty compelling entertainment and has a way with words; it's like some poetry slams I have been to. Of course if you don't suspend disbelief and keep in mind that he is selling garbage products putatively about health with no basis in science with all that performance, it is compelling more in the way that stepping in dogshit is compelling. But I regret not being able to craft something well-sourced and NPOV about the way he talks. That is why I am not totally opposed to include something about that. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

An article that mentions something famously stupid said by someone does not violate NPOV, as long as the statement is both notable and sourced. This is the case here. That it humiliates him is non-consequential, and not relevant to the Wikipedia editorial process. I would argue that the "chocolate is a superfood" sentence (and indeed, the entire section on chocolate) should be removed if the "octave of sun energy" qualifier is not added; becuase without it, it does not accurately describe David Wolfe's views of chocolate. A lizard (talk) 17:29, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Please don't overplay; it is not like serious sources like the NYT or the WSJ discuss this; the sourcing is pretty poor actually. I doubt most people even know who he is. ( my family are decidedly mainstream americans and none of them have heard of him, much less this phrase.) Jytdog (talk) 22:53, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

That's not how Wikipedia works. If the article exists, then it is because it passed the notability test a long time ago. Whether or not you ever heard of him is irrelevant to this discussion. And I don't know how many times I have to say this: the main source I cited was a video of him saying those exact words; it's a primary source, which is an allowed source for a Wikipedia article. And I can't believe I need to tell you this a fifth time: the "Chocolate" section is completely inaccurate without the "octave of sun energy" quote becuase it does not describe his views about chocolate ina recognizable way. A lizard (talk) 02:12, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

was reacting to "something famously stupid said by someone". This is not like "it depends on what 'is' is" or like "they greatly misunderestimated me". Don't overplay the case here. Jytdog (talk) 02:54, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Wolfe is notable on Wikipedia primarily for being a marketer and television personality. Beyond that he is known for his raw food advocacy. Those are the topics with the most support from reliable third-party sources. We cannot include absolutely everything that Wolfe talks about from primary sources by him, or else we would have a horribly long and non-neutral article. While the video of him discussing chocolate and sun energy octaves is absolutely acceptable for verifiability, it is not very useful for determining neutrality by itself. We have a few sources suggesting that the quote may be noteworthy, but they all conflict with WP:BLP guidelines. This suggests that the quote is of importance only within a certain point of view, and including it would give the appearance of Wikipedia supporting that particular point of view above all others. Regardless of the accuracy of what we currently have, the article will not be improved by adding this quote using current sources.  Adrian^[232] 12:01, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Incorrect Link

In the very first sentence, it states that he is a spokesman for nutribullet. Clicking that link takes one to the magic bullet website, while I believe is associated with nutribullet. However, a quick Google search came up with a site for nutribullet itself. This should be linked instead. Smahmic (talk) 04:21, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Why? -Roxy the dog. bark 04:29, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

We don't do that per WP:EL. Not anywhere in WP. Jytdog (talk) 06:41, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Career section

The Career section of this article has gotten rather lengthy. It's mostly WP:PROSELINE, a bit messy, and difficult to read. I attempted to address this issue with this edit, but was later returned to a timeline of events which are somewhat distant from each other or overlap in places. Surely something better can be done?  Adrian^[232] 06:48, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for opening a thread. Splitting out the "entrepreneurship" from other stuff leaves the story unclear. He has had one career doing his food things, with a very clear arc. Am happy to have the prose improved but please don't create artificial splits that fragment his story. The reference to PROSELINE is inapplicable here if you look at the history of the article. Jytdog (talk) 06:53, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Degrees

this edit, restored here violates BLP in intent (per the edit note) and in what it says. The latter is due to WP:SYN - it takes statements Wolfe made on twitter (crappy source but marginally OK enough) and juxtaposes them with a blog that contradicts them. This ~could~ have been purely sourced from the blog and then there would have been no SYN problem, but the way it is done, there is one. The blog itself is a blog, and a blog is generally not a reliable source for a BLP article in Wikipedia. When it comes to pseudoscience claims made by living people, we can and do use blogs per WP:PARITY. But this is not Wolfe saying the earth is flat. This is about his resume and a blogger's claims about his FOIA interactions with Oxford. The community ~might~ decide that this is a reliable source for this content, but given the clear statement in WP:BLPSPS against this, you all need to get consensus first, before adding this to the article. You can do that at WP:RSN. Jytdog (talk) 18:14, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Cancer claims

I've removed the statement:

'He advocates that people with cancer take dietary supplements instead of getting medical treatment, which he describes as “largely a fraud.”'

This is a contentious issue, and therefore has BLP issues. It was sourced to two articles. The first, from Slate, only says that he believes that complimentary medicine can combat cancer. This is controversial, but it isn't the same as saying that he recommends it instead of medical treatment, and thus doesn't support the claim as written here. The second is from Frobes, but is self published by a Forbes Contributor, so we wouldn't normally accept it for a BLP. In addition, while it does support the claim, it does so on the basis of a page on Facebook.

If there is a good source for this I have no problem with seeing it returned, but as a contentious issue that is currently poorly sourced, we need to remove it until we can find reliable sources. - Bilby (talk) 06:36, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I didn't see this and opened a new section below where this is continuing. Jytdog (talk) 18:08, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Cancer

User:Bilby two things.

First, please clarify if you are acting in an admin capacity here or not.

Second, please review Talk:Michael_Greger/Archive_2#Request_for_comments_on_SBM_source and let me know if the following amendment would be OK with you:

• According to Kavin Senapathy, he advocates that people with cancer take dietary supplements instead of getting medical treatment, which he describes as “largely a fraud.”

References

-- Jytdog (talk) 18:00, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I point you to the discussion above. And no, the opinion published in Forbes linked to a Facebook page is not sufficient. - Bilby (talk) 18:03, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Per WP:ADMINACCOUNT please answer the question about whether you are acting in an admin capacity.

Also I was further amending and we edit conflicted. See below.

• He advocates that people with cancer treat it with dietary supplements, and according to Kavin Senapathy he advocates that people with cancer avoid medical treatment for cancer because it is “largely a fraud.”

References

-- Jytdog (talk) 18:07, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

That would be a no again. We can't use the Forbes piece. We can use the slate article, if you want to say that he advocates the use of complimentary medicine for cancer sufferers, but that isn't exactly a significant controversy without the additional claim that he advocates their use instead of medical intervention. And I have no idea why you are raising "admin capacity" - this is simply about whether or not the sourcing meets BLP standards for a contentious claim. - Bilby (talk) 18:15, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

About whether you are acting as admin, please see your talk page at these diffs.

Please let me know if you have read the RfC at the Greger article. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 18:24, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

WP:ADMINACCT: "Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools". I have not used administrator tools. Therefore I am acting as an editor. I thought that would be self evident, but apparently not.

And yes, I have read it. It is not particularly relevant to this discussion. The question here is whether or not a self-published Forbes article was sufficiently reliable for the contentious claim that Wolfe has advocated the use of complimentary medicine instead of getting medical treatment. That's a simple BLP issue. The proposed rewording is better, but I remain concerned - in part because the quote "Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud" isn't from Wolfe, but is a quote that is generally incorrectly attributed to Linus Pauling. However here we are ascribing it to Wolfe. In addition, the case that Senapathy makes doesn't seem to fully support the bigger claim. If Wolfe is advocating the use of complimentary medicine instead of medical treatment for cancer, (as opposed to simply advocating for the use of complimentary medicine), there should be a better source stating this. We just need to find the better source. - Bilby (talk) 19:26, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

You were obligated to answer. Thanks for doing so. Thanks for clarifying that you are not making this edits as an admin under BLP but simply as an editor.

I do not agree with your reading of the Forbes source which says "Exhibit A: On December 29th, Wolfe released a graphic with a quote attributed to Linus Pauling, 1954 winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. “Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them,” the quote reads in large white print over an image of the scientist. Despite the quote being taken largely out of context (Pauling was upset about a series of Mayo Clinic trials in 1979 and 1985 that refuted his work on using high doses of ascorbic acid to prevent cancer), the graphic has been shared thousands of times." In view that fully supports the content very clearly: "he advocates that people with cancer avoid medical treatment for cancer because it is “largely a fraud.”

You and I no longer seem to be able to communicate. I will stop talking with you here and wait for other feedback. If consensus doesn't emerge I will kick this to an RfC. Jytdog (talk) 21:57, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

The communication issues seem to be on your side. That said, we can't base the claim "Wolfe has promoted complimentary medicine instead of medicine for cancer" off the idea that he once reposted a meme on Facebook, and we can't attribute a quote in that meme to Wolfe when he didn't write it. Let's see if we can find a decent source for this instead. - Bilby (talk) 23:05, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Further to the above, where in "Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them" does it say that "people should avoid medical treatment for cancer"? Even if you wish to make the extreme step of saying that posting a meme proves you agree - in entirety - with its sentiments, those sentiments do not say that medical treatment should be avoided. - Bilby (talk) 23:11, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I will not be so arrogant as to claim they are all on your side and will simply say, again, that you and I seem to have a communication problem. I have spent more hours than I like looking for reliable sources that discuss Wolfe's quackery and as is typical with quacks, people like Gorski and Senapathy (and there are others who are far harsher that I have not used) are the only ones who discuss it - this is the classic WP:PARITY situation. Again I have spent hours. Please do spend your time dealing with the actual difficulties that FRINGE situations create which is why we have WP:PARITY. But as I said: a) I do not agree with your readings here; b) discussion between us had tended to be fruitless for a while now (am hoping that changes eventually); and so c) I will wait for other feedback, and if consensus does not emerge will start an RfC. Please do not expect further replies from me here. Jytdog (talk) 23:36, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

You are normally much better than this when it comes to BLP sourcing. I'm lost as to why it is such a problem this time. If you've spent hours looking for sources, and haven't found a reliable one for this claim, then perhaps there isn't one available. I'll continue to look too, but that doesn't make me feel confident that one will be available.

In regards to WP:PARITY, as mentioned before, that doesn't trump BLP. If we were discussing a fringe theory, I'd be happy with criticism of the theory by Gorski or others. But in this case we're using a questionable source to attribute a contentious belief to a living person, and that's a different problem. - Bilby (talk) 23:46, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

As an RFC seems like an awfully big stick for a small problem, I've posted the issue on BLPN. - Bilby (talk) 02:59, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Returning to the proposed text:

... according to Kavin Senapathy he advocates that people with cancer avoid medical treatment for cancer because it is “largely a fraud.”

I don't see that we can use this. I have three major problems with the text.

• It isn't according to Kavin Senapathy, as the claim she posts is a quote from the anonymous "Don’t cry Wolfe" Facebook site, and is presented as such. So we can't say "according to Kavin Senapathy", and we don't really want to say "according to an anonymous Facebook page quoted by Kavin Senapathy".
• We can't quote Wolfe as saying "largely a fraud", as the quote isn't by Wolfe, but by Linus Pauling.
• The quote from Linus Pauling does not say "medical treatment for cancer ... is 'largely a fraud.'". It says that cancer research is, but doesn't mention treatment. Thus the best we can say is that Wolfe quoted Pauling who said that cancer research is largely a fraud, which is a very different claim from advocating that people avoid medical treatment for cancer.

Bilby (talk) 10:36, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

• so no interest in this here or at BLPN so this remains a dispute between two editors which is not resolveable. I will be launching an RFC to restore this. Jytdog (talk) 00:52, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

RfC - Wolfe on cancer

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

We are having a disagreement about content and sourcing at David Wolfe (entrepreneur), and both BLP and PSCI are relevant. The most recent content offered is:

He advocates that people with cancer treat it with dietary supplements, and according to Kavin Senapathy he "demonizes life-saving vaccines and cancer treatments".

References

Use, not use, tweak? Jytdog (talk) 01:05, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

!votes

• keep Seems fair, I can't guess which side is complaining of it. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:16, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
• I can't really say keep, as this has never been in the article before, nor has it been proposed in the past. With that said, the article already states that "He believes vaccines are dangerous and may not work", so that claim seems a bit repetitive. So how about "He advocates that people with cancer treat it with dietary supplements, and according to Kavin Senapathy he "demonizes" cancer treatments." To be honest, I'm not sure of the value of Senapathy's opinion, but this would be acceptable. - Bilby (talk) 01:41, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
• Keep - He advocates that people with cancer treat it with dietary supplements and delete according to Kavin Senapathy he "demonizes life-saving vaccines and cancer treatments". IMO, Senapathy's quotes isn't needed. Condensing the claim reads more neutral. Meatsgains (talk) 02:17, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
• Not much bothered I lean towards Bilby's suggestion, but all the views so far look reasonable with their variations on "keep". JonRichfield (talk) 08:07, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
• Keep but delete Kavin's quote per Bilby. Am fine with language L3X1 Become a New Page Patroller! (distænt write) 01:48, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
• keep proposed statement. The value of Kavin Senathapy's statement is that: a) it summarizes claims that Wolfe often makes, that we will not use primary sources to quote from in the actual article; b) she is a skeptic writer a la Gorski who takes time to understand what FRINGE people say and to debunk it, and this is a fine ref per PARITY.

a) it summarizes what Wolfe actually says

• Chemotherapy Doesn’t Work 97% Of The Time (Wolfe on facebook)
• Woman Rejects Chemo, Overcomes Ovarian Cancer With Nutrition (Wolfe on facebook)
• Man with Stage 3 Colon Cancer Refuses Chemotherapy & Cures Himself with Vegan Diet (facebook)
• 90-YEAR-OLD is Told She Needs Chemo for Cancer. What She Does Next is the Best Ever! (facebook)
• #Chemotherapy anyone?!? (Wolfe on twitter, with picture of Serious Looking Guy named Dr Peter Glidden with the quote: "97% of the time chemotherapy doesn't work. So why is it still used? There is one reason, and one reason only: money"
• Doctors and their BigPharma pharmaceuticals are the third leading cause of death. (Wolfe on Twitter)
• Truth on Chemo Therapy (podcast) the first thirty seconds or Again, you know, the survival rate of this chemotherapy are being skewed, we're being lied to... the whole thing in my opinion is a massive, massive environmental catastrophe... One of the things that is not being talked about, about this chemotherapy, is the environmental catastrophe of it. Because we're dealing with radiation. When somebody has chemotherapy and they go pee in a toilet, for the next three months, they pee out ...70% of that chemotherapy gets peed out into the environment as radioactive debris, that contaminates everybody and everything, and 30% of that is retained in their body for years afterwards, and is only released slowly (If you can take it there are three others, in addition to this, where Wolfe talks about cancer. List of his podcasts are here.

And bloggers on his website davidwolfe.com follow the company line, under his name:

• THIS Plant Extract Kills Lung Cancer Cells Better than Chemo!: Erlotinib can cause upwards of $7,700 a month depending on the dose used, and it has only been shown to prolong survival, while chemotherapy and radiation have many negative side effects. Noni leaf extract can cost as little as 12 cents per 250 mg, has no negative side effects, and has been proven to aid in the process of healing.
• The Treatment That Increases Your Chance Of Cancer Recurrence, According To New Study Chemotherapy is a common, well-known course of cancer treatment. About 650,000 cancer patients receive chemotherapy each year. While doctors and patients hope for miraculous results through treatment, chemotherapy also has deadly side effects. In fact, researchers are now saying that chemotherapy can trigger even more aggressive tumors in the body.
• Doctor States Patients Die from Chemo, Not Cancer There are some constants most of us are taught all our lives. One of these constants is that chemotherapy is the treatment of choice when it comes to fighting cancer. It is so ingrained in our psyche that we equate cancer with the image of a bald, sickly person (the side effects of chemotherapy, not cancer). However, some doctors are now speaking out against this “traditional” treatment. Many of them believe that chemotherapy isn’t the best form of treatment and that it might even be doing more harm than good. Dr. Hardin B. Jones is one such doctor.

etc etc as it takes literally about 15 seconds to find.

b) she is skeptic writer like Gorksi. This is what she does.

• writeup at Center for Skeptical Inquiry
• here is her website where she does her ScienceMoms thing; (yes she was in the Science Moms movie);
• and here is a Slate piece where she rips on a company for inviting an alt-right pseudo-psychologist to teach farmers how kids communicate

So when User:Bilby writes, "to be honest, I'm not sure of the value of Senapathy's opinion" that is obviously without any effort, at all, to actually determine if it is of value.

It is. Jytdog (talk) 03:52, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

I know that it is always really difficult to write when we have strong feelings about the topic, but it would be best if you skipped the attacks and accusations. They don't help us reach consensus. I'm aware that Wolfe has been highly critical of some cancer treatments, in particular chemotherapy. That's why I am ok with the statement in spite of having reservations about Senathapy. I'd prefer to not use the term "demonizes" - it might be accurate, but it is also very POV - but otherwise I supported the change. - Bilby (talk) 05:23, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Demonises is POV, its Wolfe's POV. When he writes that "we are being lied to" and "[chemo] has deadly side effects" that sounds an awful lot like demonizing to me. Is there more neutral language? Maybe, but I think the use of the word demonize is ok here. L3X1 Become a New Page Patroller! (distænt write) 15:56, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm ok with that. I try to avoid overly loaded language, as I think it reads as more encyclopedic, but it is what she said. - Bilby (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

User:L3X1 if you are changing your mind about what to use, would you please also change your !vote above? thx Jytdog (talk) 00:43, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

• Keep proposed statement in its entirety. Senapathy's comment is appropriate (and expected) as explained by WP:PARITY for commenting on those that market pseudoscience, etc. Outside of scientists or regulatory agencies calling out a person like this (which rarely happens as explained in parity), about as good of sourcing as we can expect. There doesn't appear to be any BLP issue, especially since it's properly attributed, and it fulfills NPOV by appropriately describing Wolfe's behavior (i.e., if appropriate sources say someone vilifies, demonizes, etc. something, we reflect that). Stating that Senapathy's statement is somehow not neutral is misunderstanding how NPOV (primarily WP:WEIGHT) works. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:14, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

• comment. I am fine with the alternative "He advocates that people with cancer treat it with dietary supplements, and according to Kavin Senapathy he "demonizes" cancer treatments." It is not that different from what was proposed. The whole quote is better, however. Jytdog (talk) 00:47, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

• Keep (Summoned by bot) proposed statement in its entirety. per Kingofaces43. The 'modified' suggestion is slightly inferior as it is vaguer and does not make clear which treatments are 'demonised', presumably NOT the 'natural' treatments which he himself endorses. Pincrete (talk) 10:11, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

• Keep (Summoned by bot) not a lot more to be said about this, I think statements are both sourced to WP:BLP standard and relevant. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 12:00, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

• Keep proposed statement as it is. BTW, is davidwolfe.com on our blacklist? Should be. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:59, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Please don't just say "according to Kavin Senapathy" as though the reader ought to know who this person is. It's jarring. Two or three words is all it takes to tell the reader why their statement is relevant: "according to Forbes science writer Kavin Senapathy" or whatever. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 03:18, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

The best we can say is "science writer" - she's only a contributor on Forbes.com, rather than a writer for Forbes magazine. But saying something would make sense. - Bilby (talk) 02:28, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Scienceblogs

The statement:

He says that deer antler spray is "levitational" and an "androgenic force", which he promotes and sells.

is currently sourced to two references: Slate and Scienceblogs. The statement appears to be fully supported by Slate, while ScienceBlogs, which also covers the claim, is self published. Given that we have a reliably published source that fully supports the claim, is there any need to also include a self published source, especially given WP:BLPSPS? - Bilby (talk) 01:40, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

As we have discussed before, the Gorski ref is fine for this sort of PARITY use, as has been upheld in a past RfC at the Michael Greger article here. The Gorski also goes into more detail about deer antler in particular while the Slate ref just briefly mentions it. There is no harm in this and the objection is just WP:BURO. Jytdog (talk) 03:24, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

No, it is not upheld there. The problem is that a) we don't need it, b) it is self published, and c) according to WP:BLPSPS, we can't use self published sources for controversial statements about living people. In regard to the more detail - we don't go into more detail, either, and our text duplicates what is in Slate, not what is said by Gorski.

If this was about removing the claim you might make a case for PARITY (a tough one to make, but it might be relevant), but the claim will stay either way. If this was about Gorski's opinion, we could use it as a self published source for Gorski's beliefs. But unfortunately it is neither. It isn't WP:BURO - it seems to me that you are insisting on retaining an unnecessary self published source against BLP. If it does no harm to leave it, it certainly does no harm to remove an unnecessary source, either, and is compliant with policy. - Bilby (talk) 03:30, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

It gives more information about the deer antler claims - it has a purpose. I will post at note at FRINGEN to get more input. Jytdog (talk) 04:12, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Done: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Input_welcome Jytdog (talk) 04:13, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

If it contains more information, we're stuck with it being self published. But as we aren't using that information, and therefore don't need it as a reference, it seems so much more sensible just to use the source that fully supports our claim, is reliable and is compliant with BLP. - Bilby (talk) 04:15, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

An article should not be used for unchallenged fringe promotion. It's fine for the subject to sell levitational deer antler spray with an androgenic force but per WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV using a WP:PARITY source with appropriate information is essential so readers can find background information. Claims that the ref is a BLP problem are incorrect. We don't hide information the subject may not like. Johnuniq (talk) 04:26, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

True, we should not use an article for unchallenged fringe promotion. But it is being challenged with the existing source. The question is simply whether or not we should use a self published source along with a reliably published one in order to support a claim, where the reliably sourced source fully supports what we've written. There's no question here about removing any content. - Bilby (talk) 04:46, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Bibly, as you have in other comments on this talk page, you are acting as though BLP is the only policy that is relevant here. WP:PSCI is policy as well, and the issues are not black and white. Both topics have discretionary sanctions on them, as you and I both know. Gorksi is not some shitty blog and the spirit of BLPSPS is to avoid random shitty blogs. (and there are plenty both critical and praising of Wolfe that I would never bring to WP) Let's see what people with experience dealing with that intersection have to say about it. I will not reply to you further on this matter. Jytdog (talk) 04:29, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Gorsky is fine, and I have no problem with using Gorsky to challenge ideas or to present his views on a topic. But I do have a problem with using a self published source to support a contentious claim about a living person. The reason I'm focused on the BLP issue is, simply, because this is a BLP, and it is one of our most important policies. If this was an NPOV issue, then yes, I'd also need to take PSCI into account. But we're not taking about criticizing an idea, or removing content, or making it more or less in favour of Wolfe, but attributing a view to a living person when we already have a reliable source that attributes it.

I think that it is important to always remember that, no matter how much we may disagree with a person's views, we still need to respect BLP. We can't limit BLP to people we like. - Bilby (talk) 04:46, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

A contentious claim? Are you writing on automatic? Johnuniq (talk) 04:58, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

A good point. Not contentious as it is already supported. Perhaps just "strong". Either way, I'm not arguing that we remove the claim - just that we refrain from using self published sources to support it and stick to the existing reliably published source. The issue is simply BLPSPS: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article." In this case it wasn't written the subject, so it doesn't really matter whether or not it is contentious. - Bilby (talk) 05:14, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

This is just another gotcha—it's ok for an article to have fluffy prose about levitational deer spray, but a suitable (WP:PARITY) source cannot be used because no scientist has published a peer-reviewed paper examining whether deer spray really has levitational or androgenic force properties. Is your aim to remove as much criticism as possible from articles on those who promote fringe ideas? And you're not concerned about misleading readers? Johnuniq (talk) 06:23, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Hell no, I don't want to remove the criticism at all. What I want to do is abide by BLP. BLP says we can't use a self-published source to support a claim about a living person. So I wish to use the non-self published source instead. I don't want to see the criticism removed at all. Leave it in, by all means. I have no desire at all to take this claim out of the criticism section, and what I proposed wouldn't do that - the only thing it would do is make it compliant with BLP. - Bilby (talk) 06:30, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Just on the grounds that I see this as a BLP issue with the use of self-published sources, rather than a fringe topics concern, I've also raised the issue at BLPN. - Bilby (talk) 07:53, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I think that we should keep the respectfulinsolence.com source in this case, in the spirit of WP:PSCI, because it provides a much more detailed description of the deer antler hogwash that Wolfe peddles. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:18, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

• Two things: First: WP:BLP supersedes most other policies. No we cant use a SPS for claims about a living person - no exceptions. Secondly: WP:PARITY, WP:FRINGE etc says we can use a SPS to refute the pseudoscientific/fringe claims themselves. So as long as the self-published source is being used to refute/elaborate on the pseudoscience, rather than the man himself, its not a BLP issue. If the self-published source is merely being used to source the existence of a pseudoscience claim - it needs to be expanded to explain why its pseudoscience, otherwise its its essentially a self-published source saying 'living person X makes claim Y' which would be a nono. Ideally we would have source 1. (can be primary) showing the subject makes claim, source 2. (self-published per fringe/parity etc) showing why the claim is incorrect. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:50, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

That's probably the simplest solution - thank you. I'll modify the text to suit. - Bilby (talk) 01:08, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

As an update, there was a second use of the same Gorsky source for the detoxification claim. It didn't say anything on the issue other than that Wolfe promotes raw food diets for detoxification, and thus I couldn't use it for criticism of the claim rather than a statement about Wolfe, so I've replaced that with a source from The Times that specifically criticizes raw food and detoxification. The criticism of the claim as pseudoscience - while patently obvious - was unsourced, so the new reference fixes that. All of the other self published sources were used correctly. - Bilby (talk) 08:09, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

The source is operated by subject experts and is highly respected. It's perfectly good as a RS, and even more so on these subjects under PARITY. Go for it. An interesting sidenote. While living in Greenland, we hunted lots of reindeer/caribou (see my article), and we'd cut up the antlers in a certain length and sell them by the kilo. It would then be shipped to Asia where it was sold as a male potency enhancer. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 15:11, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Facebook

Is the removal by the subject of masses of sudden one-star reviews something of relevance to this BLP? I fear there is a wee possibility of masses of such reviews within a few hours being organized to some extent, and for this BLP to then stress that he only had a few four star reviews in the same short period of time might be UNDUE as a result. In fact, I fear the extensive "criticism" section may be intrinsically undue, as such sections are generally deprecated in BLPs. Collect (talk) 23:05, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes the Facebook thing is a silly one-off and should not be here, per NOTNEWS.

I don't know what "intrinsically undue" means.

But how would you suggest structuring the sourced content in the article? I do agree that separate criticism sections are suboptimal. Jytdog (talk) 23:31, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Nine million followers is not small fry, but I agree, NOTNEWS. Bloody hilarious though. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 23:45, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Flat Earther?

I previously read this article and recall Wolfe being referred to as a flat earth believer. He still categorized as such at the bottom of the page but I see no reference to this material anymore. What happened? RobP (talk) 14:08, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

it was removed here, while someone was cleaning up after a person was trying to bomb trivial negative information into this article. There are RS for this, and we need it to support the category, so I will restore something. Jytdog (talk) 14:25, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

I think it is possible that he is a flat earther, but do we have better sources? Both the sources we are using come from after we placed these claims in the article, and look like they may be circular as a result. I'll do some digging and see if I can find something that looks less dependent on what we wrote here. - Bilby (talk) 23:33, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

You can bring the piece in the West Australian as a source for the statement that he believes that the earth is flat and gravity is toxic to RSN if you like. It will be a complete waste of time but knock yourself out. In the meantime, stop removing and questioning an utterly mundane, mainstream news source. Jytdog (talk) 00:04, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

You are ware of the problem with circular references, I assume? - Bilby (talk) 00:14, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

RSN is thataway. Jytdog (talk) 00:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Wolfe justifies his flat Earth beliefs here; see also halfway down this page on his own website, plus this tweet. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 09:40, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The Twitter post and the comment about O'Neal don't seem to say that he believes in a flat earth - although "Maybe ... Shaq has finally seen the light about the true shape of the 'planet'" strongly suggests it. The YouTube video does, and I'd like to rely on that, but it is an anonymous post by someone else, with possible editing and no context. I'd just love to find something clearly by Wolfe that makes the claim without leaving room for ambiguity. My hassle is that I find a belief in a Flat Earth to be both cliched and extreme, so I'd like strong sources. I should add that I'm not trying to remove the claim - I'm just after stronger sourcing.

I'll add the O'Neal one, as that seems like the best we have from Wolfe. - Bilby (talk) 09:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Bibliography

Very simply, this is an encyclopaedia. When we talk about actors, it wouldn't be encyclopeadic to leave out the films they have been in, even if we don't like them. When we write about musicians, we list the albums they've recorded. So when we discuss an person known for writing books, we list their books. It isn't promotional - it is just logical. It doesn't matter if we like their books or don't like them - it wouldn't be reasonable for an encylopaedia to pretend they don't exist. If we want t point out that the books are no good, we add reviews, not hide them. - Bilby (talk) 12:22, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I thought he was known for being an entrepreneur, not a writer? -Roxy, the Prod. wooF 13:13, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

He's well known as an author. His first book has had six editions, he's sold (literally) hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, and he is regarded as a best selling author. The books are about fad diets, but fad diets sell. Seriously, we might not like his books, and we might not like fad diets, but we can't pretend the books don't exist. That's not what an encyclopaedia should be doing. - Bilby (talk) 21:04, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

An encyclopedia should be summarizing accepted knowledge, and lists of junky books ain't that. Bibliographies are appropriate for authors who commonly attract that kind of treatment (e.g. J.D. Salinger) but if other RS isn't treatng Wolfe this way, then Wikipedia will not either. Common practice on Wikipedia is to list fringe authors' books only when they receive reasonable coverage in RS. Alexbrn (talk) 21:21, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

"An encyclopedia should be summarizing accepted knowledge" - so you are saying that it is not accepted knowledge that David Wolfe has published multiple books? These are not "fringe" - he's been published by Penguin and Harper Collins, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and is one of the things he is best known for. I don't like his books either, because I greatly dislike fad diets. But I don't want to hide reality in an encyclopaedia. - Bilby (talk) 21:48, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Must say this is the first time I’ve heard this. If it is true that fringe authors books should not be listed, what do we do with David Paulides Missing 411 series? RobP (talk) 22:46, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I see no policy-based or guideline-based reason for removing the bibliography. It allows a reader to see what topics Wolfe has written about and what years he's been active, and the removal leaves the article less informative. Listing his books is not advertising them. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 23:57, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

No, this is Wikipedia. If we want to say he has published a list of books, we cite a reliable independent secondary source that says so. What is being done here instead is a list of his books with ISBN references, which are WP:PRIMARY for the existence of the books but don't establish significance or (crucially) context. Remember that he is best known for promoting fraudulent health claims, so the problem with listing books where the reader can pay money for propaganda for these fraudulent health claims should be obvious. Guy (Help!) 12:03, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

As he's written a stupidly large number of books, can I suggest a compromise position? We only list his first book, books kept in more then 100 libraries based on a Worldcat search, and we keep it to no more than five? I'm not really interested in an exhaustive list, and I'm happy to leave out self published works, but it seems to me that the book is worth acknowledging if it is kept in enough libraries. - Bilby (talk) 02:24, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

As there have been no objections, I've gone with the above proposal. - Bilby (talk) 03:02, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

You know there are objections. I already raised them. I object. These books sell fraudulent ideas, as clearly identified in the article. We should not be promoting fraud. Why do you go to bat so hard for charlatans? I don't understand it. Guy (Help!) 11:59, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

You know that WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not justification for removing content from an article. Wikipedia is not censored - we cover the facts, whether or not we like them. The fact is that Wolfe is well known for publishing books, and has published a large number of them - hiding this from readers of the article is not what we are supposed to be doing. - Bilby (talk) 12:20, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

You know that WP:FRINGE is justification for not including self-sourced or primary sourced fringe material. Wikipedia covers the facts based on reliable independent secondary sources, our mission does not include being a storefront for charlatans. The fact is that Wolfe is well known for nutty pseudoscience. And not just slightly fringe. "David Avocado Wolfe is so out there, so wacky, so full of misinformation - he makes other quacks like Dr. Oz and the Food Babe look as pro-science as the staff at the American Council on Science and Health." Guy (Help!) 13:30, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

This is not fringe. This is "has he published books, hundreds of copies of which are held in libraries around the US?" The answer, of course, being yes, he has. I can't imagine how an encyclopedia can write a biography about an author and refuse to mention a single book they have published, on the grounds that they want to "protect" people from bad ideas. This is not the role of any encyclopaedia, much less this one. I don't like Wolfe, but we're writing an encyclopedia here, and we don't censor articles because were scared that someone might read one of his fad diet books. - Bilby (talk)

What art of, say, Longevity now : a comprehensive approach to healthy hormones, detoxification, super immunity, reversing calcification, and total rejuvenation is not fringe? You know he removed all the may negative reviews of his books, right? You know that numerous science bloggers have read them and found them to be chock full of disinformation, some of which is actively dangerous? "David ‘Avocado’ Wolfe claims coconut oil ‘rids the body of lice and parasites such as tapeworms, kills infection in the gut, destroys viruses that cause influenza, herpes, measles, hepatitis and more’" [5] - happy to endorse a book that sells coconut oil as a cure for hepatitis? This is dangerous tosh. Guy (Help!) 14:08, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

We're not discussing the content of the books in the article - we're mentioning that the books exist. If you can show me that the existence of these books is a conspiracy theory, and that mainstream science has shown that Wolfe has not, in fact, published any books, then I'll happily accept that the idea that they exist comes under WP:FRINGE, and any mention of the books will need to come with the mainstream counter view that they are not real. We're not covering the content here - we're just acknowledging that the person we describe as an author in the lede of their biography has published books in the past, and mentioning what some of them are. - Bilby (talk) 14:19, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

We're actually discussing whether to include a laundry list of his terrible books sourced only to their ISBNs without any reality-based commentary to establish their significance (hint: virtually zero, I am struggling to find reviews of any of them other than on quackery websites). WP:UNDUE applies. When discussing controversial ideas, and even the titles of his books inherently invoke that, we don't use directories or self-published sources. Guy (Help!) 10:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

We don't want a "selected bibliography" unless this is what RS is doing, or unless those books are explicitly described in our text. Otherwise it's undue. Why should Wikipedia be doing what no other respectable publication is doing? Bilby seems to be WP:BLUDGEONING with their own repeated view. In the spirit of WP:ELNO we should avoid linking to "factually inaccurate material" - which this stuff most certainly is! Alexbrn (talk) 14:57, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Do we normally need secondary sources to mention a book in order to list it in the bibliography? If so, we should apply that rule here too, but I don't know of any policy that says whether books should be listed or not depends on the content of the book. Tornado chaser (talk) 15:02, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

It tends to be what happens for fringe topics (see e.g. Depak Chopra where this same topic has come up in the past). There is no explicit policy in this area so far as I know, so the best approach to emulate respectable publications otherwise a bibliography is a species of OR (an editor is saying in effect: "this is the body of work by this person which is significant!" - based on nothing but their own view). Alexbrn (talk) 15:06, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

the best approach to emulate respectable publications otherwise a bibliography is a species of OR (an editor is saying in effect: "this is the body of work by this person which is significant!" - based on nothing but their own view). This makes sense, however, we should not be listing or not listing books based on the content of the books. So now the question is: what (if any) of his books do RS find notable? Tornado chaser (talk) 15:24, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

I can't seem to find the discussion about the bibliography criteria on Talk:Deepak Chopra. Could you link to where it was discussed? - Bilby (talk) 21:45, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

All content on Wikipedia, if challenged or likely to be challenged, must be supported by reliable independent secondary sources. That is the basic rule of Wikipedia. Otherwise every article becomes a dumping ground for whatever crap people can prove actually exists, regardless of significance. Guy (Help!) 10:49, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think WP:RS is germane, as that's about verifiability, and there's no question these books really exist. I think the relevant policy is, as you note above, WP:UNDUE. That policy gives room for articles on fringe topics to properly cover the topics ("In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space.")

Re We don't want a "selected bibliography" unless this is what RS is doing, our sources are mostly news articles and human interest articles, which I wouldn't expect to include bibliographies. One would make more sense in an encyclopedia.

Though I still lean towards inclusion, I don't think our P&Gs unambiguously support either option. RfC? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:08, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

The problem here is that while there's no doubt the books exist, they are controversial, and sourcing them simply from evidence of their existence invokes two problems: first it places us in the position of judging whether they are significant or not, which we're not supposed to do, and second, it implicitly promotes dangerous nonsense, because there is no reality-based commentary to rebut the POV that starts right in the titles of the books. I am perfectly happy to discuss the books in the context of reality-based commentary on their accuracy. I would do this myself, but I am having trouble finding any reality-based commentary. In the end Wolfe is known mainly for his risible memes, and pretty much nothing else about him seems to get any notice. Only one of the books is even from a real publisher, the rest are by "mind, body, wallet" presses with no reputation at all. Guy (Help!) 08:51, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate that the books' significance remains questionable. I don't understand why you think listing them here promotes nonsense. This article makes it very clear that Wolfe promotes pseudoscience, and the bibliography appeared right below the statement that Wolfe thinks the Earth is flat. If a reader googles the title of one of Wolfe's books, isn't it far better that they end up here than at living-foods.com, freedieting.com, Natural News or similar? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:28, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

• For folks wanting to include or leaning toward inclusion, can you provide citations to book reviews in mainstream publications? If you can, that would be persuasive under the P&G to include any that have been reviewed (reviews of the books are different than newspaper coverage of his promotional tours; there are a few of those refs in the article). Otherwise the argument to include the bibliography is based on personal stylistic preferences for what , which is a weak basis.

btw "author" has been in the lead for a long time, but very few refs in the article describe him that way, so prominently; most use words like 'self-proclaimed nutrition expert" or "spruiker" (had to look that one up) or "raw food guru". the SMH says " ...David "Avocado" Wolfe, who is known for advocating the false claim that vaccines cause autism. Mr Wolfe, a nutritionist and raw food proponent who describes himself as the "rock star and Indiana Jones of the superfoods and longevity universe", sells alternative health products and is touring Australia next month.".

somehow "author" seems a bit too much ...gravitas. Perhaps "writer". Jytdog (talk) 13:36, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

That's exactly what I have been looking for, with little success. The crunchy blogs are all over his bullshit but mainstream sources seem much less interested. Guy (Help!) 08:36, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to put my oar in the water WRT the objections about the books being 'controversial': in the first case, 'controversy' is not a criterion for inclusion in an encyclopedia. If it were, the Wikipedia article about vaccine hesitancy or AIDS denialism would be entirely disincluded on the basis that such topics are 'controversial'. On the second point, I disagree that we're placed in the position of deciding whether the books are significant; if we apply that standard, we would have to decide whether (for example) Kevin Trudeau's books are 'significant'and whether or not they should be mentioned at all. Thirdly, I disagree that mentioning the books 'implicitly promotes dangerous nonsense', on three fronts: first, the books themselves already inherently 'promote' that dangerous nonsense, second, there's no 'reality-based commentary' to refute (or support) the idea of a multiverse, yet there's an entire Wikipedia article on the topic, and third, the books exist. That's a material fact, and regardless of whether they're controversial, regardless of whatever they promote, regardless of whether they're 'significant' in the Wikipedia definition of the term, they are connected to Wolfe and his (ridiculous) claims, and as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is (should be) all about allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions by presenting as much (hopefully) non-biased information as possible. Anyhow, that's just me. Back to editing! 2001:569:BD77:1100:1D29:B0FE:C98B:6203 (talk) 17:56, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Senapathy source

@Viewmont Viking:@JzG:@Bilby:@Jytdog: The Forbes piece by Kavin Senapathy may be reliable, but if it is not clearly subject to Forbe's full editorial control it is still self published and may not be used for info about a living person, despite being RS for statements of scientific fact. Tornado chaser (talk) 01:03, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

We had an RfC about a different Senapathy ref from Forbes above and we found it fine with attribution. That content was important, in my view. In my view the content about Wolfe pulling down facebook posts or whatever is trivia. I will have nothing more to say about this. Jytdog (talk) 01:06, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

As discussed elsewhere, Forbes.com contributor articles are considered to be self-published, and can;t be used as statements about living people. We do use it once in the article, where we use it as a source for Senpathy's opinion, but not as a statement of fact about Wolfe. That said, this issue is pretty much nothing - Wolfe added a "review" option to his Facebook page, critics (of which there are many) heard and review bombed it, and Wolfe turned the review option off. It sounds like a non-event. - Bilby (talk) 06:52, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

But Kavin Senapathy is a noted writer in this area, so WP:ATT should be fine, as Jytdog says. This is a perennial issue in articles on cranks: for the most part they are justly ignored by scholarly sources, and commentary mainly comes from science communicators writing in less formal channels. Guy (Help!) 08:35, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether or not Senapathy is respected, but whether or not her articles as a Forbes.com contributor have been properly fact checked and are under professional editorial control. The consensus of the community has repeatedly been that Forbs.com contributor articles are self-published sources, and therefore cannot be used to make statements about living people except for the author. - Bilby (talk) 08:39, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

"[F]act checking" and "editorial control" have nothing whatsoever to do with self-published sources, pretty much by definition, so you're just throwing mud at the walls and hoping it sticks. Oh, and you left out this bit: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. --Calton | Talk 04:02, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

You are missing the relevant issue, from WP:BLPSPS: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article." In this case the SPS was not written by the subject, and was being used as a source of material about a living person. You are correct that there are times when an SPS written by an expert might be useful, but according to BLP, this is not one of those times. - Bilby (talk) 04:11, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Even here you are doing this uncollaborative, battleground crap. Your yourself hold that SPS can be used in a BLP article, with attribution or as you say "to source content about the opinion of the author about the living person". That is no where in what you just wrote. For crying out loud. Jytdog (talk) 04:18, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm just trying to explain policy. Having this discussion with you - again - probably won't help. But saying "Senapathy believes ..." using Senapathy is using the SPS as as source of material about Senapathy, the author of the SPS. I'm ok with that. Saying "Wolfe did ..." using Senapathy is using Senapathy as a source of material about Wolfe, who is not the author of the SPS. This we can't do according to BLP. Will you please drop the attacks? - Bilby (talk) 04:24, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

No, what you are doing is giving a partial explanation of your view of policy in a way that obstructs things moving forward; masking the way forward even for you. This is not an attack; it is giving your complete view since you are not stating it. So we can move forward already and stop wasting time. In any case I have opened an RfC. There is no point to this discussion anymore. Jytdog (talk) 05:59, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

• i will add - Guy if you really want this content, you should do an RfC. You should offer content with attribution. It will come down only to a question of DUE if the content is written that way. Jytdog (talk) 14:40, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Review claims

Currently, we include:

"According to science writer Kavin Senapathy mass criticism from science advocates and skeptics led him to delete large numbers of one-star reviews from his Facebook page."

This is a bit misleading. Wolfe added a "review" option to his Facebook page, it was review bombed by critics, so he removed the option. It is trivial, and he didn't "delete large numbers of one-star reviews" so much as "deleted all reviews". Otherwise, why do we care? We're having an discussion about whether or not to list books he published without reliable sources covering them, and yet we want to cover an absolutely trivial issue that was only ever covered in a couple of self-published blogs? This feels more than a bit undue. - Bilby (talk) 22:18, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Your commitment to protecting the reputation of charlatans is as impressive as it is bewildering. The difference is pretty clear: the books promote dangerous lies, Senapathy is discussing the exact nature of those dangerous lies. I'd have thought the problems of false equivalence would be obvious in today's political climate. Guy (Help!) 22:27, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I have no interest in protecting Wolfe. I have an interest in protecting WP by making sure that we stick to policy on BLP subjects. If we are going to be effective when presenting a truth about someone like Wolfe, we need to be credible - and we risk that if we apply different sets of rules to Wolfe than we apply elsewhere. It makes us look biased.

In regard to the article, this isn't about "the exact nature of those dangerous lies". It is about a trivial action of removing an option on Facebook after being review bombed. I'm pretty sure anyone else would have done the same if they were dumb enough to add reviews and then had this response. It isn't covered outside of blogs, and it isn't important - it just makes the article look petty. We have genuine criticisms of Wolfe - we need to keep the focus on them. - Bilby (talk) 22:34, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

es, you say that every time. And yet, curiously, your edits in respect of charlatans always seem to be flattering to them. I find it baffling. Guy (Help!) 09:27, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

I find that any non-negative edits are seen as flattering to people with a strong POV. - Bilby (talk) 10:38, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

RfC - David Wolfe Facebook deletions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should this article include the content below? Please do provide a reason. Jytdog (talk) 03:39, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

content

According to science writer Kavin Senapathy, in February 2018 mass criticism from science advocates and skeptics led him to delete large numbers of one-star reviews from his Facebook page.

References

!votes re facebook

• no, it is trivia and UNDUE. Jytdog (talk) 03:41, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
• No As Jytdog says it is trivia and UNDUE. Also despite being attributed, this is really a statment of objective fact about something Wolf did rather than Senapathy's take on Wolf, so may still violate BLPSPS. Tornado chaser (talk) 04:26, 22 November 2018 (UTC) The proposed wording is also inaccurate, making it sound like Wolfe just deleted one-star reviews, rather than removing the review option entirely. Tornado chaser (talk) 12:52, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

The latter part of your !vote is literally making things up. It has no basis in any policy or guideline. You also used that in an edit note; please don't do that in the future. Jytdog (talk) 06:05, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

You are free to disagree with my interpretation of BLPSPS, but my vote above, and the edit summary you link, reflect my honest interpretation of that policy. Tornado chaser (talk) 12:48, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

• Obviously I think yes it should, as emblematic of Wolfe's approach to being shown to be wrong, which is to aggressively delete the criticism and continue being wrong. Guy (Help!) 09:26, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose proposed wording as it falsely insinuates Wolfe selectively deleted one-star reviews, whereas he in fact disabled the review feature entirely. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:25, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
• No It is canker on the face of Wikipedia. More trivia. scope_creep (talk) 23:31, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
• Yes This sort of quacking behaviour is like a Rite of Passage for the modern purveyor of snake oil dealing with social media. They dont like it when the real world kicks back to point out the nonsense, and hit the delete button and deny it happened. -Roxy, the naughty dog. wooF 10:05, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
• No. Useless, does not fit in an encyclopedia, even an online one. --@Boothsift 05:28, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
• No per descriptive comments articulated by other editors above. Seraphim System ^(talk) 18:48, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
• Not as worded. If it were corrected to disabled the review feature, it might be keepable, but only if RS have commented on it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:11, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
• Yes I could argue with the precice wording, but I believe this information belongs on the page as an indicator that the subject does not take criticism well, and instead of reconsidering his point of view, he just hides this from his fans. RobP (talk) 18:34, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Discussion re facebook

Guy I don't see much chance of this getting consensus as it stands. Should we amend the proposal so it better matches the source, or just kill this? Jytdog (talk) 19:41, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Propose move

I looked for sources for David Wolfe as an entrepreneur. Most of them appear to be either press releases or discussions of another David Wolfe (the founder of Leesa). I can't find any reliable sources yet that describe him firsta nd foremost as an entrepreneur. I would say the correct title of the article, based on what he's known for, would be David Wolfe (raw food). Guy (Help!) 14:18, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

AFAIK, he's not edible. David Wolfe (raw food advocate) might be better. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:23, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

He's as safe to eat as most of the stuff he pimps, and safer than some, I'd say... Guy (Help!) 15:16, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

I know who that specifc David Wolfe is. I see no problem for us, for him, or for the world or society of his using the avocado as a nickname. However, I, too, would prefer to see David Wolfe (raw food)!!!!

David Wolfe (raw food shill)? David Wolfe (raw food crank)? David Wolfe (raw food propagandist)? Guy (Help!) 08:42, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I'd been planning to initiate a move proposal myself. Based on WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, I suggest David Avocado Wolfe as immediately recognisable, natural, perfectly precise, and as concise as we can be. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 08:56, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Oppose I think that would be better as David 'Avocado' Wolfe. However, even then, it's generally seen as a derogatory description of him, thus not neutral enough for use here. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:36, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

He calls himself David “Avocado” Wolfe on his own website (scroll down to Top Contributors). No objection to including quote marks, though it would be straight double quotes per MOS. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:02, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, but pretty much everything he says on his website is complete bollocks, so we shouldn't be going with that. Guy (Help!) 11:04, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Acknowledged, but surely his self-identifying with it is evidence that at least he doesn't see it as derogatory. (And if it is derogatory, we need to re-write the first sentence of this article!). Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:52, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

David "Wacky" Wolfe. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 11:08, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Does he promote anything that's actually harmful? (As Gwyneth "steamy" Paltrow has managed) I'm not a devotee, but so far I've mostly seen ridiculous claims of nonsense, overblown claims about diet, but nothing which veered over into the actually damaging. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:29, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Raw food, homeopathy, MMS, anti-vaccine bullshit - that's just the Facebook posts I have seen. Guy (Help!) 15:41, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Solar panels and levitating water

We had the following two claims added to the article:

• Wolfe believes that ... solar panels drain the suns power ...
• ... and “water would levitate right off the Earth” if the oceans weren’t salty.

The second of these is sourced to a forbes.com contributor article, which is considered self-published and violates WP:BLPSPS. The first is sourced to Snopes.com, which is generally reliable. However, in this case it only says that he posted a meme - not that he believes this to be true - and it contains a specific quote by Wolfe stating that he does not believe it to be true, and that it wasn't meant to be taken literally. Thus we can't use either claim as sourced. - Bilby (talk) 11:17, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

You've repeatedly blanked both. Yet I'd see Snopes as good for both. Nor is there any reason to remove the Forbes cite (we just don't trust it in isolation). If you want to rephrase as "He posted a claim that, despite not even believing it himself", I'd be good with that. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:33, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

He posted a meme - do we really think that every meme that someone posted as humour is somehow worth mentioning in biography?- Bilby (talk) 11:35, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

• "posted as humour" That's an interesting bit of OR. How do we tell when Mr Avocado is giving us vital life guidance, and when he's just trolling us for the lulz?

He is not (allegedly) a comedian, he's a guru of arcane knowledge, sourced from goodness knows where. He has a successful career on telling us stuff that we little people cannot know for ourselves. Things like "chocolate being an octave of sun energy" et al. Now I believe (for our purposes here, and having no comment from him that he's just some sort of performance art) that he's being serious with this. This is his job, this is what he does. Of course I don't believe a word, and if I use the phrase "an octave of sun energy" (I do this once a week, whenever I buy chocolate) I'm being deeply sarcastic in reference to this hairy charlatan. But he's a straight guy, not a joker. We can't filter out his more obvious nonsense, we have to report it straight, and report the lot. It's deeply biased (and we went through this same issue with Vani Hari and her ignorance of atmospheric composition) to act as his PR agent and whitewash away their more egregious bits of nonsense. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:44, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

According to Snopes.com, he said that it "never even crossed my mind that folks would take the #SolarPower post LITERALLY". If the Snopes.com article quotes Wolfe saying that he doesn't literally believe it to be true, we can't use it to claim that he does. - Bilby (talk) 12:01, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, he tweeted that: https://twitter.com/DavidWolfe/status/730393676350926850 But that's no evidence (and it's certainly SPS, so we can't rely on it) that he meant the solar power comment as humour, rather than it being a reverse ferret afterwards (and we're back to Vani Hari), when the ignorance of his original and intentional comment became embarassing.

I believe that Wolfe (and Hari) are seriously ignorant, yet despite that they continue to pontificate to the masses in all seriousness. Snopes (which we see as RS) backs me in this. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:45, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

You can believe whatever you like about Wolfe. That's fine with me. But you still can't use a source that quotes Wolfe saying "I didn't mean that to be taken literally" as proof that he did. And if a meme he posted can't be shown to be something he actually believes, then why bother raising it in the first place. - Bilby (talk) 15:00, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

As I commented initially, I don't mind if you want to qualify this as "he posted" or even "he posted and later claimed it was a joke" rather than "he believes", "he believed" or (my favourite) "he claimed". But what you're doing is to remove all mention of it, and that's whitewashing. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:07, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm removing it because a) it was a BLP violation as written, and b) pointless. I see no value in saying "Wolfe once posted a meme and then explained that he didn't mean for it to be taken literally". It is such a pointless thing to add to a BLP, and detracts from the points that are actually worth making. - Bilby (talk) 15:30, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

• It is a highly relevant point to make in a BLP of someone who offers themself (and makes a successful career from) as an "advisor" to the population on a range of health, diet and even general science topics. It shows that their pronouncements are emphatically not to be trusted at face value, whether this is because "they were just joking" or because of their own ignorance. Wolfe's article is only here because he is a "raw food advocate" etc. It is the veracity of his public statements that is the key to his reputation, and so making statements like this is one of the most important things we could be describing here. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:39, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

• He tweeted a meme on Twitter that he explained was not to be taken literally. This is not one of the most important things we could be describing here.- Bilby (talk) 15:41, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

• He holds himself out as an expert, he shares bullshit memes, and he does not retract them unless he gets serious pushback (and often not then). He has also repeated the mad ideas, not just the memes, in his own words. But the issue here highlights the one positive we can take from this: nobody takes him seriously enough to even bother rebutting a lot of the nonsense he spouts. Guy (Help!) 15:44, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

• Edit-warring to remove this against three other editors is not the way to proceed. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:41, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Edit warring to add BLP violations is definitely not the way to proceed. Seriously, you cannot use a source that says he did not believe something to claim that he did, and you cannot use a self-published source to make a claim about a living person who is not the author for the SPS. WP:BLP takes precedence. - Bilby (talk) 11:43, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

• Inevitably, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Bilby reported by User:Andy Dingley (Result: ) Andy Dingley (talk) 11:51, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Again, reverting BLP violations is not subject to 3R. And as explained above, you were adding BLP violations back into the article. - Bilby (talk) 11:56, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

BLP reversions are still subject to 3RR. The exceptions are narrower than that. To claim them, you would have to show that Snopes here is failing WP:RS, which would be unusual. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:02, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

(uninvolved) Just a courtesy note that I have dealt with the AN3 report as follows:

No violation. We plainly provide an exception under the 3RR for editorial removal of unsubstantiated content from a living person's biography. I am satisfied that the content about subject's belief that solar panels steal energy from the sun is not substantiated with sufficient certainty. (Seemingly there is a line that he will not cross.)

Users have a greater measure of obligation to resolve editorial disagreements on the talk page when the content relates to a living person. Reverting to err on the side of caution while that discussion is underway is also generally permitted. Consequently, AN3 should not be used as it has been in this report: all parties should please return to the discussion and focus their efforts there.

I am sure these questions can be resolved by all present with just a little more discussion. AGK ■ 22:00, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

• Also raised at: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#David Wolfe (raw food advocate) Andy Dingley (talk) 12:01, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

• This seems to keep getting watered down as "he posted a meme", as if he'd re-posted someone else's that was already in wide circulation. However that is untrue: he (AFAIK) created this meme, and he certainly posted it under his own imprimatur and copyright statement. That's not just 'posting' it, that's authoring it. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:00, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the source doesn't say that he authored the meme. He may have, but without a source we can't assume that - not that it matters much. Claiming that he once posted a meme and then said that it wasn't meant to be taken literally really isn't a significant thing to say, whether or not he authored it as well. Of slightly bigger concern is the use of a source that fails WP:BLPSPS for the claim about water floating away. Given that we have a reliable source, I don't see much value in using a source that fails BLP as a second one for the same content. Is there any reason for keeping both? In case we need two, I'll see if I can find an alternative. - Bilby (talk) 13:29, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

He's claiming to own the copyright on it, thus is claiming it as his own. The point is that it's clearly more than him simply "posting a meme", i.e. re-sharing an existing one from elsewhere, as is the foundation of much of Facebook etc. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:22, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Given that he posts stuff like this, I'm hard-pressed to believe his claim that he was only joking. --Calton | Talk 08:50, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

True, but it's also clear that (fortunately) his ludicrous claims are pretty much ignored by the real world, making it hard to critique his lunacy on Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 10:38, 26 December 2018 (UTC)