Talk:The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

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Contents

[edit] Mass hysteria

Please Please please, not the old "Mass Hysteria" excuse. the Skeptical Inquiror uses this to the Nth degree for just about everything and its wearing thin, very thin. Industry Pollution or an actual Criminal I will believe, but not Mass Hysteria. Magnum Serpentine 14:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Whether you chose to believe it or not isn't our concern. It's what the experts say and have always said, from the police at the time up to the present. Encyclopedias go by what the experts say, not what you want to believe. DreamGuy 18:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Charles Fort once had some remarkable comments to make about the very phenomena you describe; he referred to it as the "Proclamations of the Scientific Priesthood." Also, be aware of something: encyclopedias OFTEN go by what experts say, and encyclopedias are usually wrong because of it. They should go by what PEOPLE have said, experts and kooks and rational, open-minded people alike... If. Sourced. --Chr.K. (talk) 12:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Actual Assailant paragraph

It should be clearer up front that Scott Maruna wrote a book on this subject. The information on Farley Llewellyn seems closer to slander than factual information. In every article I've read about the Mad Gasser, his name does come up - but I've never seen any documentation regarding him. 74.136.9.70 02:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Actual physical condition

Nowhere on the page do you discuss Hypnagogia, the actual physical condition that is described by the "victims" of the gasser. Most people experience this condition at least once in their lives and it is often brought on by sleep disruption, stress, and or being over-tired. E Warnke

[edit] But which is it?

I'm not sure what distinction this parenthetical hopes to make...:

The attacks (or "attacks," according to some observers) began on August 31, 1944.
(as of 16:56, 18 October 2006)

... so I'm deleting it. 75.22.27.213 20:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright Violation

Large sections of this article appear to be near word for word copies of a chapter from Jerome Clark's Unexplained.

This needs sorting out as copyright violation need to be trodden on swiftly.

perfectblue 16:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm on it! Totnesmartin 19:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Done. Totnesmartin 21:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table talk

That new table needs to be wider - there's a narrow column of text down the right hand side. It looks terrible! Totnesmartin 18:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

That's actually caused by your web browser, I've checked it in Firefox and it looks perfectly OK, it only looks as you describe when I view it in an older copy of Internet explorer.
I thought the page would depend on the page and not the make of browser. Shows how much I know about computers. Totnesmartin 16:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
It kinda does depend on the page. The problem is that different browsers interprit the code differently. The problem her I think was that there was an empty variable at the top of the table. Firefox interpreted this as being a value of 0 and said that everything was OK, but the version of IE that was being used didn't know quite how to cope with things and instead of closing the table and starting a new paragraph (which was what firefox does), it continued on and dragged the text up to meet the start of the table. I could have written the code differently, but I wasn't paying attention or something, when it looked right to me I left it. No harm done though as it's fixed now.
perfectblue 16:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I'll fix it to the oldest standard of IE that I have, but if that doesn't work for your version, I'm afraid that you'll have to edit it yourself.
perfectblue 18:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Fixed

perfectblue 19:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question...

...this was, if anyone, obviously a human attacker, so wouldn't infobox Criminal make more sense? 68.39.174.238 19:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, no... it's not "obviously a human attacker" at all, in fact most reliable sources say no person was involved at all and that it was just hysteria. Framing it as if it were a real criminal would be highly POV-pushing and inaccurate. The template currently there also is misleading, but not as much as a criminal one would be. DreamGuy 18:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, that solves that problem. 68.39.174.238 18:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, there are rumors and speculation that a mentally unstable local man was behind it, but nothing was ever proved. This case has been used as a text-book example of mass hysteria for years. The attacker is most likely a phantom of the minds, not a real person. - perfectblue (talk) 20:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Matton1.png

Image:Matton1.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 16:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)