Talk:Thomas Cowan (alternative medicine practitioner)

This article was nominated for deletion on 11 March 2022. The result of the discussion was keep.

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Page creation

A new wikipedia page! Please feel free to improve it. Robincantin (talk) 16:58, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion: Categories?

Category:COVID-19_conspiracy_theorists and Category:5G_conspiracy_theorists --m-p{3} (talk) 17:43, 8 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The text says so and is properly sourced, so sure. Done. Robincantin (talk) 17:01, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notability tag

Just added four new sources but they only mention Cowan in passing, so we probably should keep the notability template up there. I agree it's borderline. Robincantin (talk) 17:21, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Several sources added. I think we're unambiguously good for notability now. I'll wait for the deletion discussion to end before removing the template. Robincantin (talk) 02:13, 12 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References?

Any good reason why the refs are actually placed in the References section instead of the customary in the body? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:02, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you mean, Gråbergs Gråa Sång. The refs are inline as standard. There's a Publication section that lists his books, but those are not presented as references. Robincantin (talk) 11:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Robincantin Compare this refsection [1] with this refsection [2]. Do you see the difference? I don't see a downside for the reader, but as an editor, I can't remember coming across it before. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:05, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thank you Gråbergs Gråa Sång! It's a consequence of using the Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page). template Robincantin (talk) 13:23, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Actually - sorry, that is not what happened, I answering too quickly after just glancing at it. That is a consequence of using the Template:R that I had just learned at the time. I find it convenient especially when creating new pages, allowing you to just dump all your refs at the end and then putting the ref calls in the text as you write. Problem is, most editors are not familiar with it (or don't like it) so we end up with different citation styles in the text. Not a problem according to the template documentation, but I use it less today because it causes confusion. (talk)

If I begin an article these days, I do it something like this:[3]. You started this one, so per WP:REFVAR it's your choice how to do the refs, and this way obviously works. Like you say, lazy editors like myself may then ignore the "groundrules" though we shouldn't. Thanks for talking! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:02, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Gråbergs Gråa Sång, that's a good way to do it. I think I'm going to try that for my next page this weekend. Cheers. Robincantin (talk) 14:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative Medicine practioners being called conspiracy theorists 🙄

When standard medical practices and treatments don't work or have been found to be incorrect or harmful, a good scientist will propose something different. It is called a hypothesis. You then do observation and testing. You experiment to test your hypothesis, make observations, and test some more. This is all part of the Scientific Method. By calling someone a conspiracy theorist for pointing out their observations, you hamper the Scientific Method to come to an alternative working solution to the problem. It would be better to make observations and do your own testing to prove the hypothesis right or wrong and contribute to the body of knowledge that we call science. 135.135.131.56 (talk) 17:40, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be saying that if someone spreads conspiracy theories about SARS-CoV-2 being a fake,he should not be called a conspiracy theorist because he "proposes something different". But that applies equally to all other conspiracy theorists. I don't think you are contributing anything to improving the article, which is what this page is for. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:17, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

does not meet neutrality standards

what is up with this title? i have never seen a wiki article where a person's name was displaced by a statement about them. it's not properly formatted, and the whole article does not meet wikipedia's neutrality standards. (sigh wikipedia was much better in the 2010s) 108.7.76.208 (talk) 22:09, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A: Such-and-such is not being portrayed neutrally in the article.
B: Correct, we do not confer equal validity to marginalized viewpoints.
A: Wrong, we must follow the neutral point of view policy; we must cover this neutrally.
B: The neutral point of view policy states that we don't cover this neutrally, in the sense you are using the word 'neutrally'.
A: Stop it! The article isn't neutral!
B: Right, it's not neutral because it follows the neutral point of view policy.

From WP:NOTNEUTRAL. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:22, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Adding information in the title to distinguish between people of the same name is common, especially since we cannot have two articles of the same name. See this other Thomas Cowan or this one if you really need examples. Both of them were written in the 2010s, incidentally. Robincantin (talk) 03:18, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]