Talk:Haunting

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The article reads as if ghosts, demons, etc. are real and only a minority of skeptics don't believe in them. You might want to NPOV the language in the description. --- LuckyLouie 19:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your input. I thought it was clear that this is how the hauntings are defined, not that they exist in reality. The tendency on WP to constantly say 'alleged' or 'supposed' makes for truly bad style. Here is how Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia defines 'Apparition.' [1]

"Apparition, spiritualistic manifestation of a person or object in which a form not actually present is seen with such intensity that belief in its reality is created. The ancient and widespread belief in apparitions and ghosts (specters of dead persons) is based on the idea that the spirit of a man, or of any object, is endowed with volition and motion of its own. Apparitions, especially particular shapes attached to certain legends or superstitions, are often considered as premonitions or warnings. They may appear in any form and may manifest themselves to any or all the senses. The most evil apparitions are said to be those of persons who have died violent or unnatural deaths, those with guilty secrets, and those who were improperly buried. However, not all apparitions are believed to be dangerous; many, especially those associated with a particular religion, are thought to be signs of divine intervention. Summoning apparitions by means of incantations, crystal gazing, polished stones, hypnotic suggestion, and various other ways is one of the oldest practices of divination. See spiritism."

They don't constantly say 'alleged' or 'supposed.' It is far more professional. --The Argonaut 19:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The first sentence of the Haunting article uses the words 'belief' and 'alleged.' "Belief in alleged hauntings and ghosts spans the world geographically and is recorded throughout history." Also, there is NO space given to 'believers' whereas skeptics do get print. Here is how the American Heritage Dictionary defines 'ghost.' [2]

"The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats." --The Argonaut 20:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Once again, there isn't any of this 'alleged' and 'supposed' business. --The Argonaut 20:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added the following sentence under the 'Types of hauntings' section: "The following are definitions of different types of hauntings and are not meant to imply either the existence or nonexistence of ghosts or demons." I hope this helps to clarify matters. --The Argonaut 20:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the constant use of "alleged" is poor style. Thanks for the clarifying edits. You have done an excellent job. --- LuckyLouie 21:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment. It's appreciated. --The Argonaut 21:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted this back to its original disambig state, as the entire article was a copyright violation, copied and pasted directly from the source at the bottom. --InShaneee 14:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the disambig. Quest Magazine allows reprinting. It's stated on the bottom of the article's page on their site. --The Argonaut 15:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Considering the wealth of information available on hauntings, we should probably augment this article so that it's not all coming from one place, like a reprint. I'm a little wary of mirrored articles anyway. Even if the source does allow sharing, Wikipedia has the resources to write something unique from scratch and probably should to separate it from the original source. Plus this source here is a little ambiguous about its copyright. The article says clearly that sharing is alright, but it also has a copyright notice at the bottom as well. So while it grants permission to be used elsewhere, it's not really copyright-free. Clearly defined copyrights might be needed for Wikipedia from a legal standpoint. And again, considering the amount of source material out there, it's not like we have to use this source. --~Nealparr~ ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 09:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Also occured to me that it has a lot of POV statements that aren't exactly neutral. This may be because Quest doesn't suffer from having to be NPOV like Wikipedia.

Here's an short example from the article (my comments are in parenthesis):

An intelligent haunting may be by a ghost or a demon (or a hoax, or delusion, or something else). With an intelligent haunting the entity is aware of its surroundings (clearly POV as there may not even be an entity to speak of or evidence as to what it is thinking), including living people who may be present. This entity may be either benevolent, benign, or malevolent (or non-existent). A haunting by a demon would always be considered malevolent (yeah, if you assume that demons exist).

I'm pro-paranormal, and on my own personal sites I write exactly like the above. But on Wikipedia you have to present both sides. --~Nealparr~ ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 10:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvios

This is why it may be a good reason to re-write all the articles that use Quest as a base from scratch. I've mentioned this before and this is a good example of why I did. Articles on Wikipedia need to be free from copyright because they are open source and repurposed through the GNU Free Documentation License, to anyone, anywhere. If someone wanted to reuse material on Wikipedia, they should only have to abide by the policies of Wikipedia's GNU Free Documentation License, and not have to worry about a third-party's unclear copyright usage.

Although Quest may say that they allow someone to reuse the article's content, it's not really free from copyright. It's not public domain, nor is it licensed through clear policies like the Creative Commons license. There's an important distinction there. Although Quest may allow someone to use the article:

Quest -> Someone else

The way it works on Wikipedia is that articles can be used again by third parties:

Quest -> Wikipedia -> Someone else

Quest has not clearly authorized Wikipedia to regrant licensing.

I also pointed out above that with the vast amount of resources out there in terms of sources and contributors, there is no reason to start with someone else's article as a base. It pains me to say this because of the extra time and contributions people have put into the articles, but I vote re-write.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 15:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)