Talk:Trick deck

Many magic secrets are closely guarded. In accordance with Wikipedia guidelines, only those with reliable and cited sources can be included in Wikipedia articles. If a secret cannot be verified through independent sources, it will be removed from the main article. Any "secret" revealed on this talk page may not be accurate; it may be speculative, erroneous, or even deliberately deceptive.

Unsourced Material Deleted -- Justified Under Wikipedia Guidelines

Material in this article was deleted because it had no attribution, source, or citation.

See Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Attribution, and Wikipedia:No original research.

This deletion is also in accordance with Wikipedia:WikiProject:Magic policy, as stated below:

If information about a method is quoted from another freely available source then it becomes more difficult for magicians to argue that Wikipedia is the point at which exposure is occurring. Proper citation of sources should also help to defend Wikipedia against any action for breach of confidentiality. In addition, some unsourced information on methods that has crept into Wikipedia appears speculative and inaccurate, which undermines the quality of the Magic Project generally and contravenes WP:NOR

It is therefore especially vital to adhere to WP:Attribution.

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If a method is added to an article but no reference is provided the following from WP:Attribution will apply:

"Any edit lacking attribution may be removed, and the final burden of evidence lies with the editor wishing to add or retain the material."

Given the sections above about controversial material and original research, this can be applied immediately and overrides the practice of tagging information as unsourced and then waiting for a period to see whether citations are subsequently provided. A request for sources for a method should be placed on the talk page. Only when a full citation can be provided can the method be added to the article. It is recommended that a link to these guidelines be included in the message.

ShimmeryPhantom (talk) 21:53, 12 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, you actually removed sources in your massive edit. And in at least one case moved a source so that it appeared not to apply to the section you wanted to delete! It's clear you have an agenda here. ApLundell (talk) 00:17, 13 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted and added sources to the portions that were legitimately unsourced. ApLundell (talk) 00:56, 13 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am a relatively new Wikipedian and a noob. I thought that the methods in question were genuinely unsourced, but now can see that they were sourced. Thank you for reverting these edits. I have reverted the sections about the Mental Photography deck and Brainwave Decks , as they are legitimately not sourced anywhere.ShimmeryPhantom (talk) 01:05, 13 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bah, you're right, I missed those. I'll find sources for those later. I'm too lazy to do it right now as they don't seem to be covered in either of the two books I grabbed from my bookshelf. That's what I get for preferring older books. ApLundell (talk) 01:15, 13 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Agreed with below. This page serves to reveal the methods behind many classic gaffed effects in card magic. It would be better to removing the parts that contain method and simply stick to what effect the deck ACCOMPLISHES. Magicians in the online community have become used to exposures on YouTube and other sites, but an easily searchable database of text explanations greatly reduces the barrier for an interested party to find the method. Wikipedia should not just aggregate all the methods in magic, as fewer people would benefit from the knowledge (beginners, etc) than would suffer (professional magicians, kids, etc).

Loyaleagle (talk) 15:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not in the business of intentionally hiding relevant, published information. That is very much against the spirit of the project.

If you look up a movie or book the Wikipedia article will tell you how it ends.

If you look up a magic trick, the Wikipedia article will either tell you how it was done, or tell you that the method has never been published and is therefore still a mystery.

Think about what you said "the barrier for entry for an interested party to find the method". That implies that you want someone to come to Wikipedia looking for information and not find it. That does not help the project. That does not help the user. It is the entire point of the Wikipedia project to lower the barriers for people seeking information.

But don't just take my word for it. It has long been consensus that the "Magic Exposure" that is sourced (like the ones you removed) should remain in the article, while exposure that is not sourced should be regarded as either speculation, or a potential intellectual property breech and removed immediately.

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Magic#Magic_Methods_and_Exposure

APL (talk) 16:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The argument made by your reference SOUNDS reasonable (to laymen anyway), but in reality, just because a method has been published does not mean that method has been expressedly exposed. Almost ALL magic (with the exception of very new techniques that are still floating about in the underground) has been published in one way or another, but many of the books containing magic methods are only available through "magical" resources or are difficult to find. This is partially due to the fact that magic SHOULD have a barrier to entry. While individual users on Wikipedia may benefit from the knowledge, the collective community of users (in other words, all people) will be harmed if All published methods are up for grabs.

Further, I too thought of the "movie spoiler" example you gave, but the metaphor is imperfect. While you may know the plot of a movie and still enjoy watching it over and over, magic relies on hidden knowledge to have any meaning at all. As a magician who generally understands how most of conventional magic works, I no longer can enjoy performances the same way as other people (and instead must appreciate the skill, not the "story"). Your metaphor about movies works better if you say, by reading this article, people can no longer "see the special effects" in that movie.

Lastly, with the exception of ID, which someone else removed the method from before me, most of these particular effects are not widely used by professionals. I think what people are more upset about is the precedent that these kinds of articles could have. An article exposing all of the mechanisms of The Ambitious Card or The Tossed Out Deck would probably have an overall negative impact on the experience of many people in the public.

While this project MAY have stated its intentions toward exposure, that does not mean they are inherently good or correct intentions. I would urge this project group to take a more intelligent stance on exposure that recognizes that magic is secretive for a very good number of reasons. The overriding ethic of magic is usually, "I won't tell you how it's done because it's not mine to give away [as in, I didn't invent it and I'm not the only one who uses it, so it's rude to tell you]."

Loyaleagle (talk) 19:06, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "precedent", only policy. If a trick's methods are publicly known because they are published in freely available sources, or because they are patented, then they are public knowledge and should form part of that trick's article.

From WP:Censor :

" Nor will Wikipedia remove content because the internal bylaws of some organizations forbid that information to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations. "

If you're looking to get that changed ... you've got a long road ahead of you. I suggest you start at either Wikipedia:Village pump or the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Magic. APL (talk) 20:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This page exposes tools of the trade (stripper deck, Svengali deck) that magicians, including possibly professionals, use; while the rest of the article is well-written and neatly skirts around exposing the secret to the other effects, these bits of exposure should be removed.

This should not be merged into trick decks; I learned all of my early card force tricks with a regular deck.

As a magician, I don't think this should be merged into trick decks, although, honestly that's exactly what it is. The root of this item is "List of Magic tricks".

Buddpaul 19:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the Svangali Deck, Stripper Deck, Invisible Deck and Brainwave Deck should be merged into Trick Deck, considering that the individual articles for each are pretty short and after all, that's what they are. Crooked Deck and Miniature Deck should probably be added too for the same reason. Card forcing is more to do with sleight of hand than the deck itself. The forcing decks should be moved to the Trick Deck section in my opinion, but references to sleight of hand methods of forcing should remain in Card Force. Card Marking is difficult; it could go either way. There are some decks specially printed for the purposes of magic with special back designs. These I consider to be trick decks. On the other hand, taking a regular deck and marking it wouldn't really make it a trick deck in my mind; this sort of thing is more in the field of gambling and as such should remain in its own page. Maybe Trick Decks should mention it in summary but link to the other page for more details.

Jamiemlaw 23:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the situation might be resolved with some attention to the structure of this main article. There should probably be sub-sections for each specific deck here. These couldbe grouped into higher level sub-sections for "forcing decks", "marked decks" and so on. If the material on any of the specific decks becomes substantial enough to warrant its own article then Wikipedia seems to have an established arrangement for that by having links out to "main articles" above an abstract in the parent article. GTrendall 21:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)GTrendall[reply]

In my opinion, this article should try to focus on how the decks of cards are used, not how they work.

Jamiemlaw 16:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Marked Cards

Marked Cards points to a book which is not about trick decks. Tinus 22:55, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It should also me noted that marked cards are in a whole category of their own. When a magician thinks of trick decks they are refering to decks like the Invisible deck, etc. In addition, someone who is researching marked decks probably would not think of using the key words "trick deck" if the are looking for information on marked cards.

Another reason not to merge marked cards with "trick deck" is that people who are trying to find out if someone is cheating them in a game of cards will more likely search under "card marking" or "marked cards" vs. trick deck. Most trrick decks can be found in "joke shops" like the "crooked deck" or cheap "stripper" decks. Conversly, marked cards may be used by the serious professional and not jokesters.

I support the merge into this article because experts call them trick decks. On Wikipedia you'll find most articles are named after the "correct" terminology. Often there will be a redirect pointing to that article for slang or layman terms. So "marked deck" could redirect here. MaxVeers 02:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder what "experts" are being referred to...I have also been a magician and associated with magicians for over 40 years. While a layman may think of a marked deck as a "trick deck", it falls into a very different category of trick decks and should be kept separate. Much like a "square" is a specific type of "rectangle" people who want to know about squares....typically would not think to look under rectangle for information......Similarly, marked decks should not be assoctated with "real trick decks" like a Svengali Deck or stripper deck, etc. because they tend to be in a category of their own. Bold text

Svengali Variations

The "Mental Photography Deck" (Who calls it that exactly? I have a version that's simply called a "blank deck") and the "Forcing Decks" (which is really just a derivative of what the repeated card is called in a Svengali Deck) are all just variations of Svengali. They'd be better served as new paragraphs under that heading. ZbeeblebroxIV (talk) 05:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]