Talk:List of common misconceptions

Pseudoscience vs "Common Misconception"

Entries include: "Herbal medicines are not necessarily safe and side-effect free; such medicines can have adverse effects." "There is no peer-reviewed scientific evidence that crystal healing has any effect beyond acting as a placebo."

Are these really common misconceptions? How widespread are they? The former is vague enough to be a catch-all that even practitioners of herbal medicine might agree with; the latter is fringe. Pseudoscience ≠ common misconception

Likewise, there are no entries on chiropractic or acupuncture, whose value and efficacy are supremely and commonly overestimated. Even if hedged for controversy, there are definitive statements that could be made - and worthy of inclusion, regardless.

And obviously the above is nonexhaustive. This is just what I noticed when browsing the page. 45.50.184.185 (talk) 19:24, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Acceptable content on Wikipedia is determined by citation to reliable sources. Take one minute to look at the cited sources. If you have reliable sources regarding chiropractic or acupuncture, feel free to provide them here. Sundayclose (talk) 19:51, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Pyramids of Egypt and Slave Labor

Given that the topic is still under debate by Egyptologists, I think that listing this as a "common misconception" is misleading.

Corvee labor can, in my opinion, be plausibly described as slavery, though it isn't the same as chattel slavery that modern Americans might be most familiar with.

Sources that support the idea that slavery was used for the construction of the pyramids:

Edward Frank Wente and Edmund S. Meltzer, Letters from Ancient Egypt, vol. 1 of Writings from the Ancient World (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990), 74. (Primary source)

Mazzone, David. “The Dark Side of a Model Community: The ‘Ghetto’ of El-Lahun.” Journal of Ancient Egyptian Architecture 2 (2017).

Miers, Suzanne. “Slavery: A Question of Definition.” The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia. Edited by Gwyn Campbell. Studies in Slave and Post-Slave Societies and Cultures. Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 2005.

Langer, Christian. “Forced Labour and Deportations in Ancient Egypt: Recent Trends and Future Possibilities” 2.19 (2020).

I am drawing from the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpyWYcNP0Rw AbeAllowed (talk) 22:36, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't have access to the sources cited above, but if as you say "the topic is still under debate by Egyptologists" the entry should be removed from the article as it is a matter of ongoing dispute.

Do you have a link to support that claim?

The topic article, Slavery_in_ancient_Egypt#Great_Pyramids_not_built_by_slaves, seems to contradict your assertion. I'd suggest sorting it out there rather than here.

Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:48, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

eBay

Could there be an addition, eBay was not created to sell Pez dispensers? Best source found https://www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-was-ebay-founded-as-a-way-to-trade-pez-dispensers-1

“PR manager Mary Lou Song, admitted that she had invented the Pez story after the fact, in hopes of attracting media attention.”

https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/smallbusiness/1103/gallery.business_creation_myths/index.html

Media outlets believed the story, there are still these stories online. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:C601:6010:AC06:AD02:50D2:8655 (talk) 01:54, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Convert to a simple list of lists

I have to express admiration for the effort involved in constructing this page. The technical wrangling used to bypass the standard referencing system is impressive. Sadly however, this is like admiring the craft involved in removing the speed limiter on a juggernaut – nifty but unwise. This article needs to be changed to a short, simple introduction and then a set of links to the "children" pages. The three other "children" articles can then be simplified to be plain standard lists without any of the heading trouble and the many hundreds of noinclude tags — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 13:42, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

The RFC that resulted in the current situation is at Talk:List_of_common_misconceptions/Archive_34#RFC_on_number_of_pages_to_split_to. It's less than six months old. Perhaps consensus has changed in that time, but I' skeptical.

My take is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Others may have other opinions. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:28, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

The RFC closed with Template:TQ. That is fine, having three lists is not the issue. The issue is trying to have those three lists AND also keep the original page with the complete list. The current system of transculsions is broken and being reported as an error, which is why I arrived at the pages. For example, a child page starts with a H3 heading and not a H2 – see https://checkwiki.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/checkwiki.cgi?project=enwiki&view=only&id=83. The huge use of noinclude tags is hostile to systems that process references as well as adding unnecessary overhead to editing. The parent page should be a simple index to the other pages, which can themselves be simplified and fixed — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 06:16, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Recently there was a discussion about moving the three sub-articles to the template space with no one objecting to that solution to the header problem. @Dajasj (talk) was going to implement that solution, however, it didn't get done for whatever reason. See the discussion at

Talk:List_of_common_misconceptions/Archive_35#Headings.

Reading through the various comments on splitting, there is a consensus to address the technical issues, but only minority support for splitting the article for editorial reasons. Moving the three articles to the template space would seem to address the technical issues. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:01, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Moving article text to template space is absolutely the wrong move. The child articles are still articles — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 13:06, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, but currently, the child articles do not meet the guidelines for headings. That's something that has to be solved to keep it as articles in the main space imo. Dajasj (talk) 13:18, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't thought about it. If there is (still) consensus I can do it soon. Dajasj (talk) 13:17, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Also, this solution to the header problem was tried. [1] We didn't follow through with it, but it's an alternative. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:23, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

It is broke. Just fix it. Fixing it is simple. Make this article a plain, real, list of lists article and the others into plain, real, list articles (in article space) with correct headings. Normal. Compliant. Quick. Easy. Simple. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 17:45, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Left it for a week. There has been no further feedback, so fixing the pages — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 14:39, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Green tickY — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 15:04, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Should the list of common misconceptions about the Middle Ages be given its own line item? It's a subsection in the list of common misconceptions about history. Carguychris (talk) 16:19, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe. Probably not – the Middle Ages article is large enough to exist on its own. I have added it to the main index. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 16:37, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

The sciences article is also rather large (over 500 refs!) – it should probably be split into "sciences" vs "technologies". Several smaller chunks would be better, because nobody will ever agree which stuff goes in which part if there are just two halves Template:Kitty — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 16:37, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

No one other than you has weighed in to support this. Reverting.

Obtain consensus here before edit warring. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:32, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

To elaborate, the current status was the result of a long process of consensus building including an RFC. I understand your criticisms, but no one other than you has offered support for this major change. I was being quiet to let others state their opinion, and figured that if nobody "seconded" your proposal it would die from lack of support. I was surprised that it was implemented without any support from the talk page.

Let's obtain consensus here before making this major change. If the consensus is to implement the non-transclusion solution I will respect that. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:50, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

In the absence of any interest in changing this article to be a simple list of lists as nature intended, I have instead tested a simple fix of the heading issue that was the start of all this. Chances are that nobody reading the articles will notice any difference, but it should stop the article being reported as malformed — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 16:11, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

That is one of the solutions proposed by @Dajasj (talk). See Talk:List_of_common_misconceptions/Archive_35#Headings for details. Seems like a reasonable approach.

I see that it's been implemented in one of the three sub-articles, List_of_common_misconceptions_about_arts_and_culture, so I'd encourage editors who may have an opinion about this to take a look. If there are no objections, I'd support making similar edits to the other two sub articles. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 18:34, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Also, the mix of onlyinclude and noinclude tags is really really really the technically better way of doing what you want — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 19:06, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand why using a mix is technically better, but I'm ok with it since it makes no difference from an editorial perspective. Do you have a article that explains why that approach is better from a technical standpoint?

BTW, the fist attempt at transclusion was implemented via onlyinclude tags, subsequently reimplemented using noinclude tags after a few complaints. . Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:14, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Help with

I added a bit about the etymology of the word kangaroo, but when I tried to put the <noinclude> on either side of the citations, it doesn't work and just shows up in the final version. What did I do wrong? Ash assists (talk) 12:14, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Don't mind me, I guess it just takes a little bit to show up properly. Ash assists (talk) 12:43, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Right. Changes to the transcluded pages do not appear immediately in the main article. But it's pretty fast - I haven't timed it but it's usually less than a minute. And thanks for adding the kangaroo entry. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:45, 2 June 2025 (UTC)