Talk:Ghost

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	Needs References and In-line citations, especially for assertions and reported hauntings. First paragraph of the "Beliefs" section immediately makes claims and assertions regarding ghosts. For those of us who do not give much credit to such phenomenon, this has the appearance of bias. I think I'd also like to see an expansion on the topic of ghost researchers.

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Archives

01: Dec 2005- Oct 2006

Contents 1 Not every culture has ghosts 2 Have the authors even investigated a haunting? 3 Ghost Fiction: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency 4 One Sided 5 New resource 6 British and American spellings 7 Weasel words in Notable Ghosts 8 Sources 9 Hudini [sic] and "haunting versus publication of ghosts" sections.

[edit] Not every culture has ghosts

The opening paragraph claims that every culture in the world has stories of ghosts, but this is not the case. There is very little that can be said to apply every culture.

In a somewhat famous essay [1] an athropologist attempts to tell the story of Hamlet to the Tiv of Africa, and among other things they do not understand the concept of a ghost. Pantocyclus 01:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Have the authors even investigated a haunting?

Contrary to the impression given in this article, there ARE serious researchers doing scientific work on ghosts. It is quite obvious from such research that people DO experience SOMETHING that they interpret as a ghost. The point is, what do they experience? In many cases there are mundane explanations but sometimes there aren't. That is not to imply that there is a paranormal explanation, merely that no natural explanation has been found yet. The subject is complex. It is clear that 'seeing ghosts' involves a complex interplay of perception, cultural background and the local environment.

The skeptic/believer 'analyses' of ghosts are pointless. People have been 'investigating' using such 'models' for over a century without meaningful result. With the paranormal, you find what you want. Believers go out with mediums and, unsurprisingly, 'find' spirits. Skeptics, generally go as far as the need to find the first 'natural cause' (frequently wrong!) they come across. It is time to dump such fruitless approaches and follow an unbiased, scientific way forward, which a few are doing. This article COULD be encouraging such an enlightened approach.

I think the whole entry, down to 'Notable Ghosts' could be rewritten from scratch. Much of it is incredibly vague and lacking in detail and just maintains the whole sterile believer / skeptic 'debate'. It needs to be neutral, detailed and informative with citations throughout. Ghost79 17:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia is no place for neither original research nor wild speculations, we'll have to stick to the facts and reliable sources we have. For the record, I have investigated a haunted location (a well documented one at that), but my findings are totally irrelevant for this article, since it is original research. /M.O (u) (t) 17:54, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I get the bit about original research - fair enough. I'm not sure about the 'wild speculation' bit. Can you enlarge please? Ghost79 18:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I linked the phrase about speculation to the policy page about verifiability, I suggest you read it. /M.O (u) (t) 18:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

That's OK, I will not trouble you further. I was just a little surprised, having been used to the normally excellent, factual and neutral approach adopted throughout much of the Wikipedia to come across this entry where 'points of view' (e.g. 'skeptical analysis') are so clearly evident. I wish you luck in finding 'reliable sources' in this field. I can think of very few.Ghost79 06:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't waste any time making good suggestions to the deaf. This entire entry is an advertisement for one website. If you submit an external link, it gets deleted and your IP is banned - legitimate researchers are routinely kicked out and denied a voice, so this entry becomes ever more remote from reality.

[edit] Ghost Fiction: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

I think this book by Douglas Adams should be mentioned in the 'ghost fiction' section, since it has a somewhat unusual treatment of ghosts (which are central to the plot). CarrerCrytharis 23:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One Sided

This article is not fair and balenced. This article leans too much on the skeptic point of view, this article DOES NOT offer both points of view.

This article is designed to benefit the self-appointed editor's cronies - try providing a new external link and see how swiftly it is taken down (you'll be banned too). It is NOT a public resource because input and viewpoints from others are simply deleted. I have asked for explanations - but the editor is too gutless to do anything but delete contributions and ban IP numbers. Wikipedia is anti-British and in the hands of small-minded people who can only impose their beliefs through force and not through logical discussion. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.201.12.187 (talk • contribs).

You're only p****d because the link you've been trying try to add over and over again keeps getting removed. And guess what? It will be removed the next time you add it as well. Either you start playing by the rules and accept that the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia applies to you as well as anyone else, or just go away. First of all, you could start by getting yourself an account, and by signing your posts on this page(using four tildes, ~~~~), so that the rest of us can see who you are and what you've written. That might earn you some credability. But if you prefer to be treated like some anonymous spammer, you could keep on with what you're doing now. Ie adding links to nonencyclopedic resources, as well as following those post up with plain bogus to hide your tracks. /M.O (u) (t) 18:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Since you persist in your efforts to add this link - and I assure you that it will not stay for long - despite the fact that it is against the policies and guidelines, as well as totally unencyclopedic, I have proposed it for blacklisting om meta-wiki. /M.O (u) (t) 22:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New resource

I think we should add in the link http://www.thesupernaturalworld.co.uk, it has a huge amount of resources regarding ghosts, and stories going back since nearly 2000 on ghost news. There also a huge discussion forum, and a huge image gallery full of pictures and ghost stories. The site isn't commercial, it doesn't sell anything, and I think it would be worthwhile to add as a resource

Yes, great idea - you can add your friend's site and then delete all the other external links as fast as they are submitted. What's that? You've been doing exactly that for ages already? Wikipedia seems to be run like a private club for selfish anti-socials.

[edit] British and American spellings

An unregistered user changed the spelling of "sceptic" to "skeptic." I have no preference for either spelling, but I believe a given article shouldn't see-saw back and and forth between American and British spelling. Therefore, I reverted it to the 'c' spelling in order to be consistent with other instances of British spelling in the article, e.g., 'colour'. Rivertorch 05:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I suspect the user probably just assumed that it was a mispelling, rather than a deliberate attempt to convert the article from International English to American English, so I would continue to stick with the former. - 81.178.102.118 17:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words in Notable Ghosts

I tagged that section, as it contained quite a few "likely"s and "probably"s. It should really be cleaned up. 199.126.137.209 03:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

This article has expanded and people have put in a lot of work. So perhaps it is time to start editing with a view toward having acceptable sourcing. I'll be looking at that in the next few days, possibly deleting what is not sourced. If there are objections to this, let me know here.

Martinphi 06:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hudini [sic] and "haunting versus publication of ghosts" sections.

I was reading these two sections and noticed the horrible punctuation, spelling and syntax of the paragraphs. I attempted to edit the sections, but they show up as blank pages. It's like they are not there. Like they are "ghost" sections. Weird.

141.106.17.71 09:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)S4M F1SHER

Nevermind, they are gone now.