Talk:James Randi/Archive 5

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1 ← Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

James Randi's spouse

This may have been hashed out previously, but there's a lot of back talk archives to look through. Question is this: Is there some reason not to recognize in the "Personal Life" section that the person Randi met at the Fort Lauderdale library was Deyvi Pena using the alias "Jose Alvarez", not the actual Jose Alvarez? I made an edit to that effect, and it was immediately reverted. It's a bit jarring to see one place that Randi moved in and is still living with "Jose Alvarez", and then later in the section see that he married and is still living with "Pena" (no Deyvi mentioned there). Randi fans might know what's going on, but I guarantee that will confuse people who don't know, and are looking for information on him. Personally, I think all the information about Randi and Deyvi's love life should be consolidated into one passage. I know it's chronological as is, but it would be clearer if it were topical instead of chronological. Applejuicefool (talk) 05:41, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

We just had a discussion about this at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive228#James Randi's spouse I am taking the liberty of reposting one of the comments from that discussion here:

For folks that might not know, the reason that "Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga" is being shortened to simply "Deyvi Peña" has to do with Venezuelan personal-names having the form FirstName MiddleName PaternalLastName MaternalLastName, whereas in the United States and American English FirstName PaternalLastName is the typical style. Also, I have seen the 2014 documentary about this, not sure if that makes me biased or not.  :-)     There are eight personas involved here (to date!), but only three humans.
#1. Randi (everyday), The Amazing Randi (stage), Randall Zwinge (birth) ; #2. Alvarez (real) ; #3. Peña (everyday), 'Alvarez' (false), The Great Carlos (stage), Peña-Arteaga (birth).
  • persona#1A. James Randi (professional magician and skeptic), bluelink
  • persona#1B. The Amazing Randi (stage-name of a professional magician), redirect to the person above
  • persona#1C. Randall James Hamilton Zwinge (birthname of the above), redirect to the person above
  • persona#2A. José Luis Alvarez (full legal name of the innocent New York resident aka the REAL José Alvarez), redlink presumably -- and per WP:BLP1E likely to remain a redlink, unless they are wiki-notable for reasons unrelated to the spouse-of-James-Randi
  • persona#3A. Deyvi Peña (spouse and former hoax-participant), currently a redirect under Deyvi Peña-->>James Randi as the spouse thereof, which is prolly appropriate since most people searching for that name "Deyvi Peña" will be interested in the human-as-revealed-to-be-not-the-same-as-José-Alvarez-of-New-York, and because whilst "José Alvarez" was in the WP:RS for various things "Deyvi Peña" is mostly not in the public eye, that I'm aware, in terms of being featured in the WP:RS by name, with the exception of the WP:NOTSCANDAL stuff directly related to the identity theft of the human from New York, and the WP:NOTINHERITED stuff about being the spouse of Randi.
  • persona#3B. 'José Alvarez' aka 'José Luis Alvarez' (false identity used by Deyvi Peña), should be a redirect to the article on the human who is the spouse of James Randi (whatever name that article is... right now we just redirect to James Randi methinks). This persona#3B -- as very much distinct from #2A -- should be listed at the DAB-page for Jose_Alvarez, which right now it is not so listed. Something like, "Deyvi Peña fka 'José Alvarez' (born YYYY), spouse of James Randi and participant in the Carlos Hoax" seems appropriate, but we could also go with two DAB-entries, which I think some annoying WP:MOS rule mandates because one-bluelink-per-DAB-entry, which means we need one DAB-entry for "Deyvi Peña, aka Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga, fka 'José Alvarez' (born YYYY), spouse of James Randi, used a false identity to immigrate from Venezuela to the United States" and then another DAB-entry saying "Deyvi Peña fka 'José Alvarez' (false identity), participant in the Carlos Hoax" or something along those lines.
  • persona#3C. The Great Carlos (stage name), which is a redirect to the Carlos Hoax. Since 99%[citation needed] of the WP:RS on the Carlos hoax call the faux-psychic by the stage-name The Great Carlos, and call the person behind that stage-name 'José Alvarez' , wikipedia should stick with what the sources actually say. However, the first time we *use* the now-known-to-be-false-persona-name 'José Alvarez' in the article about the Carlos hoax, we should have a footnote or a parenthetical mention or something, which explains that the REAL human named José Alvarez is a relatively-unknown resident of the great state of New York, and the REAL human named Deyvi Peña was actually the person with the stage name of The Great Carlos and the false identity of 'José Alvarez' ... but that at the time, this false identity was still fully intact, and thus almost all the wiki-reliable sources refer *incorrectly* to José Alvarez as the man behind The Great Carlos, when it is *correct* to refer to 'José Alvarez' as the man behind The Great Carlos (not addition of scarequotes).
  • persona#3D. Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga , the full legal birthname of Deyvi Peña , and almost certainly (though I've not read them all so I don't know) the most commonly-found name in the WP:RS. There are conflicting guidelines here; WP:COMMONNAME says that *article-titles* should be the most common name of the topic as used in the WP:RS, other things being equal. However, in this case, there *is* no dedicated article for the human Deyvi Peña aka Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga fka 'José Alvarez' fka 'José Luis Alvarez' fka The Great Carlos. The other guideline, is that when it doesn't matter, defer to what the BLP wants, aka the human named Deyvi Peña, and to a lesser extent, the human named James Randi. Nowadays, if the BLP themselves wants to call themselves by the name Deyvi Peña, then that is what *we* should call that human, per the WP:BLP rules of being nice to humans when we can, see also WP:NICE which is similar in ultimate nature. There are undoubtedly a lot of WP:PRIMARY court-documents, which refer to only the full legal name Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga, but wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a court-recording-service. Similarly, there are undoubtedly WP:109PAPERS that mimic the court-documents, and use the full legal name, but wikipedia is an encyclopedia and WP:NOTNEWS. In other words, I think the case can be made that wikipedia should, in articles and/or subsections-of-articles where it makes sense, use the everyday name Deyvi Peña, as preferred by James Randi, and presumably as preferred by the human-sometimes-called-Deyvi-Peña-et-cetera. (See the example of The artist formerly known as Prince for a case where the preferences of the BLP-in-question were trumped by WP:COMMONNAME, by contrast; wikipedia does not call the article about the singer some unpronounceable un-type-able symbol, though we *do* have the symbol listed there, and I believe we even have a redirect somehow implemented ... is there a unicode-codepoint for the Prince-symbol? Anyways, methinks Deyvi Peña is a case where we can use the everyday name, even if we have a lot of primary-court-docs and a lot of churnalism-newspaper-reports that use the full legal name of the defendant aka the accused, because "encyclopedia".)
So, with the redirect mostly covered, in terms of our *textual* use of names, in the prose of articles (as opposed to redirects and titles), I recommend the following: in the article on Carlos hoax ... and holy WP:42 batman, why don't we even have a dedicated article about that incident, there must have been hundreds of newspaper reports and television coverage and all that stuff, sheesh ... in the hypothethetical article Draft:Carlos hoax about the incident, we should refer to the stage-name The Great Carlos when we are giving details *about* the hoax-persona, aka "According to the hoax-paperwork, The Great Carlos claimed to be a psychic that performed at The Majestic Theater in Woodstock New York, when in reality no such theater actual exists." Elsewhere in the hypothetical article about the hoax, we can say that the WP:RS at the time reported that the person behind the stage-name was 'José Luis Alvarez' with scarequotes explicitly included, and then parenthetically mention that it was later discovered that the REAL unscarequoted José Luis Alvarez was not involved at all, but that the human actually behind The Great Carlos was Deyvi Peña ... and then give a fuller explanation, of exactly why Peña was using the 'Alvarez' persona, with all the extended details, over at the appropriate linked article. Most of this is hypothetical, all wikipedia has right now is a one-liner at List of hoaxes#Proven_hoaxes_of_exposure which says this:
My long-term suggestion is that we use the documentary and the 60 Minutes footage and all the other coverage, and write a dedicated article about the Carlos hoax, but for the short-term-moment, I suggest we revise the one-liner like this:

References

  1. ^ Although it was not known in 1988 at the time of the Carlos hoax, later in 2011 it turned out that 'José Luis Alvarez' was a false identity used for immigration purposes, and that in actuality Deyvi Peña was the person who played and helped concoct The Great Carlos.
We can leave the details out of the hoax-article (and the DAB-page and redirects and such), and concentrate on getting all the details right in our main article. Now, at the moment, we have no dedicated article on Deyvi Peña the human (under any article-title), nor on their various personas and stagenames used at earlier dates. What we do have, is a redirect to James Randi, their spouse since 2013, and also their co-worker and friend since 1988 in the skeptic-investigation-slash-debunking-business. Thus, the "main article" that wikipedia has about the human-sometimes-known-as-Deyvi-Peña, and thus the main article that we have about persona#3A thru persona#3D, is in fact the James Randi article (which also necessarily covers the human behind persona#1A thru persona#1C of course).
suggestions for what exact human-monikers ought be used in 3 specific sections of James Randi , which is also the 'main' article currently about Peña-fka-'Alvarez'
   In the context of the James Randi article, we generally refer to "Randi" and in rare cases to "James Randi" ... in other words we use abbreviated and full-length instances of persona#3A to refer to that human ... because that is the title of the article, and that is what 99% of the WP:RS call him, and that is what he calls himself nowadays. We *also* refer to him by his full legal name at birth (persona#1C), thrice plus the infobox, and we also mention that he was a magician with a stage name (persona#1B) at least a dozen times, e.g. in the bibliography-discography-section and in the paragraphs on his career as a magician. So that all seems to be done properly, in my eyes.
   We cannot do the same thing for Peña fka 'Alvarez' fka 'Carlos' because he has been using the 'Alvarez' persona most of his adult life, rather than his birthname. In a way, though, the situation is very similar to Randi; the exact same reason we call him "Randi" instead of his birthname "Zwinge" is simply because, per WP:NPOV, the vast majority of the WP:SOURCES call him "Randi". Wikipedia needs to reflect what the sources say, for all encyclopedic topics, and the bulk of the sources refer to magician and skeptic as Randi, plus the human refers to themselves in that fashion, so wikipedia follows suit. Most of their lifetime, 'Alvarez' referred to themselves as 'Alvarez' at all times, and thus the vast majority of the WP:RS about 'Alvarez' follow suit, and thus so must wikipedia follow suit... in the appropriate sections of our articles on the topic.
   Taking it section by section: when we are covering the subtopic of the Carlos hoax in the appropriate place, which right now is paragraph starting with "In February 1988,..." under the James_Randi#Skeptic subsection, we need to refer to 'Alvarez' with scarequotes... since per WP:THETRUTH we now know that the unscarequoted-Alvarez was NOT actually involved. The first time we so refer to 'Alvarez' in the James_Randi#Skeptic section, we need a footnote that explains the truth: Randi described 'Alvarez' by that name, and said he was a friend, at the time, and 'Alvarez' described himself by that name, also at the time, and thus so did all the WP:RS at the time... but later, it turned out they were more than friends, and later it also turned out that from 1987 through 2011 'Alvarez' was the false identity being used by Deyvi Peña (born Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga).
   In the James_Randi#2010s subsection, where the 2014 documentary I saw is briefly covered, we currently have the following sentence-fragment: "...focuses on Randi's life, his investigations, and his relationship with longtime partner José Alvarez, a.k.a. Deyvi Peña.[75]" First off, this is not an NPOV-compliant description of the film. The focus of the film, as evidenced by the title thereof, is on the seven distinct personas jointly utilized by Randi and by Peña-fka-'Alvarez', plus on how those personal personas are related to their joint work skeptically-investigating-and-debunking. The goal of the skeptic is to seek truth, and the goal of the debunker is to reveal fraud. Randi and 'Alvarez' perpetuated a falsehood known as The Great Carlos in an attempt to reveal truth, that the mainstream media is gullible and won't fact-check a juicy story. There was a deeper falsehood hidden within the overt fraud of Carlos: it turned out that 'Alvarez' was not really Alvarez, and that 'Alvarez' and Randi were not mere friends. Randi's career as a magician (aka an honest liar) is also covered; Randi's use of a stagename, rather than Zwinge that he originally used for his magic act, is also covered. But the core of the documentary, is that Randi has been forced to be a liar his entire life: about his work (professional magician), about his sexuality (non-heterosexual), and about his spouse's legal name (not 'Alvarez')... yet at his core, Randi is still an *honest* liar. It's a good documentary, I highly recommend it; try the veal. So what is the neutral boring cold hard just-the-facts prose, which wikipedia should use in wikipedia's voice to summarize the focus of the film, and more broadly, to summarize the real-world-events that the film is a documentary about? Currently we say that the film is:
  • ...focuses on Randi's life, his investigations, and his relationship with longtime partner José Alvarez, a.k.a. Deyvi Peña.
I suggest instead we ought to say something like this:
  • ...focuses on Randi's name-change from Zwinge to The Amazing Randi early in his career as a magician, his later skeptic investigation-and-debunking work (including the Carlos hoax with 'Alvarez'). Additionally the film focues on Randi's relationship with Deyvi Peña, both since their overt marriage at a federal courthouse in 2013, as well as their earlier personal and professional partnership since 1987, when Peña (who was born Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga in Venezuela) began using the false identity 'José Luis Alvarez' to illegally remain in the United States (convicted in 2011 and assigned NNN hours of community service but allowed to remain in the country as a non-citizen).
That is obviously quite a mouthful, and should probably be chunked up into a triplet or quadruplet of sentences. But, it cannot be cut by much, if we want to neutrally cover what Honest Liar is ACTUALLY about. We cannot be vague and weasel-worded; the documentary is not about Randi's "life and investigations and relationship" the documentary is very specifically about lies, and liars, and which ones are "honest liars" (e.g. James Randi per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV at least), and which ones are not (e.g. Peter Popoff per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV at least). Similarly, we cannot simply replace every instance of Alvarez in wikipedia with the name Peña, because that's not what happened (and it's not the name that the WP:SOURCES actually use). What we *can* do, with wiki-honor fully intact, is replace every unscarequoted use of Alvarez ... except when referring to the New York resident who is the REAL Alvarez o'course... with the corrected 'Alvarez' using explicit scarequotes, and in a footnote explain that the real Alvarez was not involved whatsoever, but that the real Peña was involved, though at the time he was impersonating the real Alvarez and calling himself 'Alvarez' while never calling himself Peña. Make sense? As simple as possible, but no simpler.
   Finally, when we are covering the |spouse= portion of the infobox on Randi, we can simply say "Deyvi Peña" since that is what Randi *calls* his spouse nowadays, and then in a footnote attached thereupon, explain the details: namely, that Randi has been living with his spouse since 19xx (not sure what year exactly... I believe 1987... but the recent 2014 documentary mentioned that specific factoid, methinks, if no other WP:RS does), and that due to the laws related to marriage, they did not *formally* get married until 2013. Furthermore, go on to explain that during most of their decades together, 1980s/1990s/2000s but not 2010s, both of them publicly referred to Deyvi Peña (born Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga) by the false name of 'José Alvarez' aka 'José Luis Alvarez' which moniker was in turn related to a different bunch of laws revolving around passports and legal immigration and identity theft. Might also mention the Carlos hoax and the stage name of The Great Carlos which Peña fka 'Alvarez' briefly assumed during the late 1980s, since that hoax involved international travel to Australia under the now-known-to-be-falsified passport, or might leave that bit out of this particular spouse-specific-footnote; depends on whether we want to combine everything into a single big footnote, or have a set of three or four footnotes for different subsections of the "main" article about Deyvi Peña.
Apologies for the length of my reply. The BLP-conundrum is an interesting one, partly because the real-world-topics-which-led-to-this-BLP-conundrum are in fact real-world-interesting; I think wikipedia should treat it (the real-world-topic) correctly, and as neutrally as possible, but without varnishing nor censoring the cold hard facts. 75.108.94.227 (talk), originally posted at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive228#James Randi's spouse, 20:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The above seems like a good plan to me. Does anyone object? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:01, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

My concern with this issue has always been undue weight. The article is about Randi, not his spouse and not his spouse's life history. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 03:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with WV. I haven't followed this recently (are we supposed to read all the gumph above??) but in the past people have wanted to add gotcha statements to show some negativity about its subject (Randi). Is there a specific proposal? If it's above, please quote the first couple of words so I can find it. Johnuniq (talk) 05:59, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Junk sources

Somebody has recently added something attributed to dailygrail.com. I quote the foot of the top page of this website:

The opinions expressed on TDG reflect solely the opinion of the person posting the material, not TDG nor its editors.

So there's no editorial oversight, and what appears is only on the authority of its writer. Seems to be junk. I'll remove it. -- Hoary (talk) 02:17, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Identity theft case

Hi, I am surprised that there is currently no mention in the article of the fact that Randi's spouse was arrested and sentenced for identity theft. I have tried to add some mention of this [1] [2], as have others before me [3], but it was reverted. From the reverts and the discussion above on similar topics, I see that the main counter-argument seems to be that this case is not relevant because the article about James Randi. But I would contend that it is relevant, at least for the following reasons:

  • The article mentions the two names of Randi's spouse, Deyvi Peña and José Alvarez, without a clear explanation of the relationship between these two names. This is confusing, and it would seem logical to give some explanation of the situation.
  • Randi has called Peña's arrest the "hardest moment of [his] life" in [4], so this seems like a pretty relevant point to mention in the "Personal life" section of the article on James Randi.
  • The case is mentioned prominently in another biographical source about Randi, namely, the film An Honest Liar, in addition to many newspaper articles about Randi (cf sources cited in the reverted edits above), so there are definitely serious sources which think that it is a relevant point about Randi's personal life.
  • Randi has admitted under oath that he was aware of the deception (see [5], search for "Randi testified"). Given Randi's role in debunking frauds, this has been used by various groups to criticize and discredit him [6] [7] [8]. I understand that this is just ad hominem, but it feels weird that there would be no mention of these facts in the Wikipedia article.

For all these reasons, I believe that we should add some mention of this case to the article, for instance following my latest edit. If there are valid arguments to justify that this is irrelevant for the article, please let me know. Thanks! --a3nm (talk) 13:16, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't see any of the above as being sufficient reason to highlight a crime committed by a low profile individual. As it says in WP:BLP1E: "The significance of an event or individual is indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable sources". --Guy Macon (talk) 15:09, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
@A3nm: If you find the two names confusing, then follow the link to the first reference after the names are mentioned in the article. It explains it all in more than adequate detail. That's one of the great things about Wikipedia references, they are a wonderful resource for learning more and for finding out about related subjects that would be WP:UNDUE to include in the encyclopedia article about Randi. --RexxS (talk) 15:57, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: Thanks for your explanations. I understand the point about Peña being a low-profile individual, but as the question is about inclusion to James Randi's page, I think the main question is whether this story is relevant to James Randi's bio. If it is, I guess it should be included nevertheless, even if it incidentally mentions Peña's crime. About "persistent coverage in reliable sources": the story was prominently featured in one movie and was the topic of articles in major newspapers (LA Times, NY Times) as well as local newspapers (South Florida, Sun Sentinel Sun Sentinel again) over five years (from 2011 to 2015). I think this justifies that it is significant, don't you agree?
@RexxS: I agree that readers can follow links to external articles, but how are they to guess which one to follow? Wouldn't it be simpler to just explain briefly the situation and point to external articles for additional detail? I don't think articles should be confusing and rely on external links just to be understood. I understand you believe that it is WP:UNDUE to mention this story, but please argue why -- I have given several sources over a five-year period above to justify that it is notable, and several reasons in my original post about why it is a relevant thing to include. Thanks for your input! :) --a3nm (talk) 18:23, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
@A3nm: The external article in this case is a reference and – like all inline citations – it can be found in close proximity to the text to which it relates. It wouldn't be simpler to include more content because it would be undue in an article that is not about Peña. The content you're keen to write has Peña as its subject, not Randi. If you think the sources are sufficient to write an article about Peña and justify his notability, feel free to do so, but remember that notability is not inherited.
The sources you suggest should justify Peña's notability are not relevant to Randi, but if you still think that some content is relevant here, despite our WP:BLP policy, you always have the option of opening an RfC to seek input from more editors. I also invite you to review the opinion offered by Johnuniq in the section #Carlos hoax in Australia that the details of Peña's court case are not suitable content for an article whose subject is his spouse, any more than it would be for any married couple. --RexxS (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
@RexxS: Thanks for your input. I don't think writing a full article about Peña is adequate, though -- in any case, definitely not about this incident. However, I do think it is relevant to an article about Randi. First, because part of the content I am suggesting to add is undoubtedly about Randi and not Peña, see the second bullet point in my original lists of reasons above.
Second, because all sources I have indicated above except the Sun Sentinel articles (i.e., movie LA Times NY Times South Florida) are about Randi (as their titles indicate). So I don't understand why you say that they are "not relevant to Randi". Could you clarify?
As for Johnuniq's opinion, his second message in the thread that you mentioned indicates "If the matter is as substantial as described above, it will develop, and secondary sources will write a thoughtful analysis of the situation. That is when information should be added here." This was written in 2011 and such secondary sources now exist as I pointed out, so I think it makes sense to reexamine the matter.
I will not open an RfC for now as I am still waiting for the opinion of more editors here. Best regards, --a3nm (talk) 19:18, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
There are a number of issues here: simply because Randi said this event was the most difficult moment of his life doesn't make the event about Randi. Try searching the articles of a number of actors to determine what they felt was the most difficult role of their lives was; you won't find it. Try searching the articles of a number of scientists to find what they felt was the most important discovery of their career; you won't find it. In all those cases, the subject is the role or the discovery, or (in the case of Randi's quote) the arrest of his spouse.
There's also the issue of WP:BLP concerns. Adding content about a crime committed by a BLP subject's spouse implies wrongdoing on the part of the BLP subject. Even if it is very carefully worded, it nonetheless implies something due to the way the human mind (of the reader) works. There's a reason that guilt by association is such a common fallacy; it works. For newspapers to write about it is natural: they are conveying news. For an encyclopedia to write about it is not: we are attempting to provide an overview of the subject.
The final base consideration is one of relevance. The usual heuristic I like to give to new editors is "if something doesn't change the narrative of the article, it doesn't belong." In this case, we have the narrative of a man who started as a stage magician, then turned towards debunking fraudulent psychics, then turned his efforts towards managing an educational foundation devoted to promoting critical thinking and skepticism. The fact that his spouse committed a crime doesn't change that narrative one bit. Had Randi committed a crime, that would change the narrative.
Last but not least, there is an issue that arises when you consider the last two base considerations: writing from a neutral point of view. This information does nothing to change the narrative of the article, while simultaneously impinging upon Randi's reputation. It makes our article less than neutral, because we are conveying negative information about a person for no appreciable benefit to the article.
I hope this helps. I know that the rules we have here can be confusing, and that many times something which seems fine by the standards we publish can result in a bit of drama. That's normal. The biggest rule here, one which is rarely written down, but which every editor is expected to follow in every edit is: make sure what you're doing improves the project. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:50, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
At Wikipedia, anyone can add anything. Therefore the community has developed strong procedures to avoid coatracks for the frequently occurring cases where a notable person (X) has a relative (Y), and an unfortunate incident occurs regarding Y. The rules are simple:
  • If X's career is affected, write about the effect (something substantive, not that they felt bad for a while).
  • If Y is notable, write an article about Y.
  • If the incident is notable, write an article about the incident.
However, do not use the article for X to write about Y or the incident. The benefit is that BLP articles will be free from undue muck—if a reliable secondary source has failed to detail substantive changes to X's life due to the incident, the negativity is WP:UNDUE. Johnuniq (talk) 05:04, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

a3nm, it appears that what we have here is a good-faith disagreement about article content. Everyone is being reasonable and thoughtful, which is a welcome change from how these content disputes sometimes go. You can post an RfC, but considering that so far there are six editors who disagree with you and zero who agree with you, it is doubtful that such an RfC will go the way you want it to. Nonetheless, you are free to try -- I might be wrong. I wrote an essay about this exact situation which you might find to be useful; it is at WP:1AM. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:32, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your detailed and civil feedback. As @Guy Macon: points out, given that no one here seems to agree with my opinion on this, I will not be pressing the matter further. If anyone else cares, though, they are welcome to comment.
Maybe some explanation about my motives may help understand why I have been pushing this specific issue. (Of course I don't care personally about Randi, Peña, or any of that stuff -- I had just vaguely heard about Randi some years ago.) It's just that, the other day, I stumbled upon this Conservapedia page mentioning this weird scandal about Randi and Peña that I had never heard of. At first I thought it was complete bullshit, but researching it a bit showed that it was at least based on a true story. In this light, I found it pretty strange that the episode was not mentioned at all anywhere on Wikipedia (indeed, its absence had help me believe initially that it was bogus), so I thought it would be an interesting addition, although I expected there may be some disagreement.
Indeed, as it turns out, the consensus appears to be against the addition. I understand that there are valid general motives against it, in particular the need to avoid drawing unwanted attention to Peña, or the general fact that the story is unexpected but not especially relevant to Randi's professional achievements (no matter what Conservapedia and others would imply). Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder: when I see the very careful efforts to avoid mentioning an incident that could put Randi in bad light (i.e., guilt by association), I wonder whether all Wikipedia article subjects enjoy the same level of care. I suspect that the fact that we all like Randi adds up to bias in our treatment of people like Randi on Wikipedia relative to other people that we don't like as much, especially as it is easy to justify (in good faith) this bias through selective application of Wikipedia's vast corpus of policies.
Anyways. I hope this can be helpful to understand my point of view. In any case I appreciate the fact that everyone was very civil about the matter. :) As I said earlier, I won't be insisting further because I seem to be alone with my views, but if someone else agrees that the episode should be mentioned, they are welcome to express themselves.--a3nm (talk) 14:19, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Clicking on that conservapedia article is great for a laugh. It opens with a ridiculously contrived claim (that the majority of "prominent and vocal defenders of the evolutionary position" are atheists) sourced to two creationist publications and just goes downhill from there. I would not give much thought to what conservapedia has to say about anything, in honesty. Just one click away from that page, you can find them using a 2006 arbcom case about competing claims of harassment between two editors to claim that "evolutionist administrators" tried to force arbcom to delete the article of a creationist and that arbcom heroically declined. So of course conservapedia will make a mountain out of a molehill for any prominent atheist or skeptic: they are, quite literally, ideologically opposed to critical thinking. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:25, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on James Randi. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 11:27, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

View on Religion and Church of Spiritual Humanism

I am removing the entire final paragraph in 'Views On Religion'. What struck me at first was the final sentence - it is out of place and describing a church in it's own sentence awkwardly. If they wanted to describe Spiritual Humanism as it is not a commonplace term, maybe link Religious Humanism? Regardless, the source of the first statement does not fit the text - it claims that Randi is a minister of Spiritual Humanism, and did officiate the wedding. However, he did not "become ... a minister ... to perform the wedding", claiming that is why he became a minister.

With the final sentence removed and the first sentence only being about a wedding he officiated, it does not seem like a worthy point to make in relation to his Views on Religion.

I could not find any source saying when he became a minister at this church, or else perhaps I would keep the paragraph and add that as a reason to bring it up. If somebody can re-word this with more information available it could be worth mentioning, but as of right now the tidbit is so light on relevant information I think it's better removed.Vegeto079 (talk) 06:04, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on James Randi. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 11:41, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

This page is extremely biased.

This page is extremely biased and clearly written to present James Randi in a positive light rather than in an honest manner. Why, for example, is there no mention of Randi being complicit (for many, many years) in the identity theft that his partner was jailed for committing? Why is there no discussion about the real reasons his foundation crumbled? Or why he "retired?" A simple google search leads one to many sites that elaborate on numerous questionable and controversial things that Randi has done over the years. This page was clearly written by a Randi fan who, like many, has chosen to ignore the truth in favor of keeping Randi on some sort of Super Skeptic pedestal. This is not a Wikipedia page - this is a Skeptic's fan page.

Written by a Randi fan huh! More than 1400 different editors have edited this article. There are 171 reliable references justifying the information contained in the article. You never gave a single ref for your accusations here. Moriori (talk) 01:06, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Hello anonymous person who is making an accusation. The rules here on Wikipedia are such that we always try to assume "good faith" which means that instead of assuming you are a troll or a person with malice in mind, we need to assume that you genuinely want to improve the James Randi Wikipedia page because you think that it is lacking something that would make it more accurate. So assuming good faith I will explain a few things to you, I apologize in advance if you already understand how this works and here I am explaining it again to you. But I am making the assumption (lots of them apparently) that you are not aware of how Wikipedia actually works, considering that you did not sign your request. It is possible that you just forgot to do so, and have no problem backing up your statements with your name as I am doing at this moment. Anyway, when it is a Wikipedia page for a living person, we have higher standards than if it is a person who has died or if it were not a person but a "it" like a flower or cabbage. Words can harm, we can't slap accusations onto a Wikipedia page as if it were a tabloid magazine. The standard applies to everyone not just to James Randi. If you were to browse through Wikipedia articles of controversial people who are still alive you will see what I'm talking about. Look at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's pages and you will see are written as neutrally as possible. Also we can't just do a Google search and find some person's opinion and slap that onto an article as a citation. Wikipedia has standards as I said, without those then anyone could say anything and it would become a citation. Someone could say that he is a lizard person on a website and then the next thing you know someone could use that as a citation and then the Wikipedia page would say that. Obviously that isn't allowed. If a notable news source does not pick up the story and report on it, then it can't be used as a citation, otherwise everything would be on the page, what Randi has for lunch and what his favorite color is would be on the page, useless trivia. Now who would want to read that? I wouldn't and I doubt you would either. About these other statements that you seem to think should be on the page... Why is the identity theft not mentioned on the page. GOOD QUESTION. I'm not sure. He did talk about it on the documentary. And there are probably notable news articles mentioning it. Personally I think it probably should be on the page. I've not seen any mention of the JREF "crumbling" do you have a good notable citation for that? And what about his "retirement" not sure why you added the quote marks? Are you insinuating something? Maybe because he is 89 years old? Maybe because he wanted to? One more thing anon editor... you are choosing to use words that are not appropriate for Wikipedia. Those are words that you would use on social media or maybe a comment thread somewhere. We don't use those words. You look very biased and angry. We are not kind to people who spout statements that look like conspiracy theories. It isn't nice, and it isn't helpful. If you are here on Wikipedia to improve, then welcome, learn the rules, sign your work, watch your words, assume good faith, there is a lot of work to be done. Sgerbic (talk) 01:56, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Excellent answer. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:40, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on James Randi. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:14, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on James Randi. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:38, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

RfC: What name should we use use for James Randi's spouse?

There is no consensus in this RfC about what name to use for James Randi's spouse owing to low participation. There is no prejudice against a new RfC that follows Snow Rise's advice about presenting an overview of how sources refer to James Randi's spouse to help participants conduct a WP:WEIGHT analysis.

Cunard (talk) 01:08, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should James Randi's spouse be called [A] Jose Alvarez, a.k.a. Deyvi Peña or [B] Deyvi Peña, a.k.a. Jose Alvarez? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:16, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Previous discussions:

Survey

Comment:(Summoned by bot) More information besides "See previous discussions" would be helpful in helping respondents properly address the RfC inquiry. Really this should boil down to a straight-forward WP:weight analysis. While the preferences and proclivities with regard to proper name of the individual in question are not altogether irrelevant, in general we simply utilize the name which receives highest usage in sources. If those presently engaged in the pre-existing content dispute could give us a brief overview of what the sources tend towards, the matter can be resolved as simply as that. But putting forth that inquiry without presenting some amount of the sourcing results in one of two outcomes: A) the respondents must dig through previous discussions to to research the matter themselves (not ideally efficient) and likely to cause some sourcing to be missed by those not previously involved in the dispute, or B) respondents (especially less experienced editors) may instead lean on their own idiosyncratic notions of which name is more appropriate in the abstract sense, which is an approach that does not conform well to policy. Snow let's rap 05:29, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

I'm not sure where this question is coming from, but Alvarez appears to be known primarily by this name. Now, if this were the page Jose Alvarez, I could certainly see the need to establish the other name, but the fact that he occasionally adds the (D.O.P.A.) following the Jose Alvarez does not mean that what DOPA spells out to is a name he is particularly known by. --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

The question is coming from these edits:[9][10], and from the fact that the name we use use for James Randi's spouse has long been a point of contention. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:57, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

I would use the most common name. I have seen Alvarez used far more often than Peña. I think if this is seriously going to be a point of contention, then we just need to buckle down and count sources. Because, you know, simply not caring either way is never going to fly on Wikipedia, even though I'm perfectly okay with both of those edits. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:02, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

I am leaning towards A. He self-identifies as "Jose Alvarez DOPA" or "Jose Alvarez (DOPA)", the DOPA meaning "Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga",[11] and he is best known as Jose Alvarez. In fact, I am having trouble finding any sources that call him Deyvi Peña outside of the legal case. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:13, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Citation bot changes

It looks like this bot made a huge number of minor changes, most of which delete information, but a few add information. What should we do? Mjsteiner (talk) 01:50, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

James Randi repeatedly said he prefers the term "conjurer" rather than "magician"

This is an example of one case in which he explained the difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgXQYg0bru8

We should change the terminology to the term he identifies as: a conjurer. 5.173.152.149 (talk) 20:09, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You need a more RS than Youtube. Also, while it would be fine to add an addition that he prefers the term conjurer, the more familiar term is magician. What he would prefer to be known as and what he is known as are two different things. Vyselink (talk) 20:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Death.

supposedly james randi has passed away today, i not been able to find a source other than a close friend Penn Jillette. DRnibbles (talk) 21:11, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

https://twitter.com/pennjillette/status/1319014935544750080 and https://twitter.com/pennjillette/status/1319015298184278016 — Preceding unsigned comment added by DRnibbles (talk • contribs) 20:59, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Here is another source:

https://www.thewrap.com/james-randi-magician-and-paranormal-debunker-dies-at-92/ MikaelaArsenault (talk) 21:52, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

And another https://web.randi.org/home/james-randi-has-died 86.29.109.76 (talk) 22:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)


He actually died on October 9th, but they kept deleting and reverting my edit... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:1970:4B25:2D00:A963:4231:8FE5:640 (talk) 20:40, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Idenftity theft

"The identity confusion caused the real Alvarez some legal and financial difficulties" That's a funny way of saying identity theft, and certainly not encyclopedic. It's hilarious how themRandi apologists try to cover up his accessory to criminal activity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BenW (talk • contribs) 01:00, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I found a cite that shows the date of his death as well as the location for a reputable source. Please see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/obituaries/james-randi-dead.html and https://apnews.com/article/james-randi-magician-obituaries-8b14c7fe50695303efd0ddd029e68f18 According to the obituary, it says that "he died on Tuesday at his home in Plantation, Fla. He was 92." The date of the original posting was October 21st which seems to contradict the October 9th date. Jurisdicta (talk) 00:01, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Except that the October 9th date of Randi's death was in fact published by RT News and The Telegraph--both overseas news sources. Or did the exact date of Randi's passing simply get lost in the American political sideshow that we're all so enamored with? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:1970:4B25:2D00:A963:4231:8FE5:640 (talk) 04:01, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

"Personal life and death" for section heading name

There are over three thousand results for a WP search of "Personal life and death" (Attempted to link directly to search results but apparently that just isn't allowed to work, oh well). I most definitely do not want to start an edit war or anything, but that hardly seems "non-standard" as Rp2006 put it in their reversion of my recent edit. Perhaps this merits a larger discussion on general WP formatting, doesn't seem there is a single standard for sections/subsections on the death of an individual. QuietHere (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

  • "Personal life" 181,753 (98.1%)
  • "Personal life and death" 3,401 (1.9%)
I don't see the above as being a good reason to remove "and death", so it is up to consensus.
My !vote is "I don't care". --Guy Macon (talk) 01:18, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
Huh? Over 98% use one format and you don’t see that as a good reason to use it? How imbalanced would it have to be to indicate to you which is the proper standard? RobP (talk) 06:09, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
That is correct. I do not believe that when 98% of section titles use one wording that means that we must change the 2% that don't just to enforce some sort of made-up conformity rule. BTW, I just did a count[Citation Needed] and found that, of the people who have expressed the above opinion,[Citation Needed] 97.9%[Citation Needed] used the phrase
"Over 98% use one wording and you don’t think that is a good reason to use it?"
and only 2.2%[Citation Needed] used the phrase
"Over 98% use one format and you don’t see that as a good reason to use it?",
so you should of course use the standard phrase.[Unless I just made up those stats, which I did.] --Guy Macon (talk) 08:42, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
It should be just "Personal life". The "and death" was presumably added when the recent death occurred, but WP:RECENTISM fades quite quickly. See Deaths in September 2020 for recent examples (October deaths currently redirects to Deaths in 2020). Johnuniq (talk) 01:36, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree that "Personal life" is adequate. Some biographies include a separate "Death" section when the death itself was widely discussed, unexpected, controversial or somehow shocking. Age related death at 92 does not qualify. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:10, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
So, unless a bunch more people weigh in, with one for "Personal life and death", three for "Personal life", and one "Don't care", "Personal life" has consensus so far. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:04, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
"Personal life". Death, as mentioned above, is not unusual or unexpected in 92 year olds.--Dmol (talk) 07:25, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
If the Personal life section warrants dividing into subsections someday, the Martin Gardner ("Retirement and death") and Carl Sagan ("Death") articles are examples having a Death subsection in some form. 5Q5|✉ 14:22, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Moved here from my talk page.

(Moved here from my talk page. The article talk page is where you are supposed to discuss what goes in the article. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:53, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

So how exactly do I correct this? It's inaccurate as it stands from the source on the page. All that I used was on there already. I'm not sure what the problem is.Mcc1789 (talk) 02:53, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

This is regarding this edit:[12]
You can't "fix" it by inserting your conclusions that it is inaccurate even if you are right. We have a policy on that: WP:OR. You also can't do WP:SYNTH based upon primary sources. Either find a reliable secondary source (see WP:V and WP:RS) that directly supports your conclusion, or give up. I know that it is frustrating (there are several things that I know are correct that I can't put into Wikipedia articles) but that's how encyclopedia's work. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:53, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Randi's comments about drugs in this blog post in April 2009 do look a lot like social Darwinism. In fact, it's hard to see how they could be interpreted as anything else. There were some problems with WP:SYNTH in the reverted edit, but the basic point was correct.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
You may very well not "see how they could be interpreted as anything else", but I don't see even a hint of social darwinism in that source. I see support for good old fashioned Darwinism and some over-the-top commentary about how stupid and deadly it is to become a drug addict, but I don't see any social Darwinism at all. As it says on our social darwinism page: "Social Darwinism refers to various theories that emerged in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s that applied biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics, and politics." Randi is applying it to biology. He isn't saying that the strong see their wealth and power increase while the weak see their wealth and power decrease. He is saying that drug addicts are more likely to experience physical, biological death. The idea that traits that cause you to die before you breed tend to die out in the population isn't social darwinism. It is just plain darwinism.
The fact that different editors can look at the same primary source and come to different conclusions is why we forbid editors looking at a primary source and coming to conclusions not explicitly stated in any reliable secondary source. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:18, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Randi seems to look forward to a world where drug addicts have removed themselves from the gene pool. I think that this fits the duck test for social Darwinism, but agree that it should not come from interpretations of primary sources. As the article notes, Randi backtracked on his position following the Storr interview in 2013.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
I strongly disagree that drug addicts removing themselves from the gene pool fits the duck test for social darwinism. Again, read the Social Darwinism page and compare it to the Darwinism page. One talks about biology -- physical death caused by a trait. The other talks about sociology, economics, and politics -- in the most evil examples purposely killing people because of a trait. With all due respect, I really do think that you are calling darwinism social darwinism. But none of that matters. Our opinions are irrelevant. Is there a reliable secondary source that explicitly calls James Randi a social darwinist? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:55, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Randi seems to have realized in 2013 that his views on this issue were offending some people. While there is a case made by some people for legalizing drugs to get them off the street, Randi went further and said that drug addicts dying and removing themselves from the gene pool would be a good thing. Bring it on, he argued. He quotes Darwin during the 2009 piece. Again, I'm not going to argue over this without secondary sourcing, but this did offend some people and led to him repositioning his argument.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 15:37, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

recent changes

The reference that was added and taken out does say: "I am a magician by trade. I should say, more correctly, I conjure. We magicians don't do magic. The word conjurer is much more accurate, which is somebody who gives the illusion of doing magic. So I am a conjurer by trade, have been since I can remember." Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:44, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  • He called himself a magician. "Oh, as a magician for 86 years, that's a long time to know about these things and develop your knowledge about it."[13] (direct quote from the same source you just cited).
  • The biography on the back cover of his book "Flim-Flam!" says "James Randi is internationally known as a magician and an escape artist"
  • The New York Times called him a magician.[14]
  • BBC called him a magician.[15]
  • The Los Angeles Times called him a magician.[16]
  • NPR called him a magician.[17]
  • The Chicago Tribune called him a magician.[18]
  • CNN called him a magician.[19]
  • The Hollywood Reporter called him a magician.[20]
  • Rolling Stone called him a magician.[21]
  • The Washington Post called him a magician.[22]
  • People called him a magician.[23]
  • Snopes called him a magician.[24]
  • The New York Post called him a magician.[25]
  • Associated Press called him a magician.[26]
  • The Guardian called him a magician.[27][28]

And WP:PRIMARY] says "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation". --Guy Macon (talk) 05:43, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

The edit which attempted to add false information about what James Randi called himself is here:[29]
Sources where James Randi asked to be called a conjurer instead of a magician: none.
The bad edit takes something that James Randi, along with fellow Magicians Penn and Teller, often point out -- that magic isn't real and that they are tricking you -- and through WP:OR and WP:SYNTH comes to the false conclusion that James Randi somehow didn't want to be called a magician. P&T had a TV show with a title that describes that conclusion. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:52, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Houdini also was "accused" of actually being a psychic

I think by Arthur Conan Doyle, not sure if we should add to the article something like "similar to Houdini, people asserted that despite debunking psychic phenomena, he himself actually was psychic" 50.230.251.244 (talk) 00:56, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Sources? JimRenge (talk) 08:46, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
  1. It does not matter. This arricle is neither about Houdini nor about Conan Doyle.
  2. A primary source is given in Harry Houdini. Doyle was obviously unable to imagine that anybody could be smart enough to trick him; this enormous overconfidence is probably the root of all belief in psi. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:29, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
The coming of the fairies (1922)
Correct. JimRenge (talk) 15:47, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Voice Sample

Is there any way we can get a less distorted voice clip? This one sounds like it's 50 years old. Tesserex (talk) 21:37, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the audio quality is a bit rubbish. What seems to have happened is clipping in the original recording and this would be hard to fix.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:22, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Correction to Randi's years on WOR radio in NY

The article states that Long John Nebel turned over his all night radio program on WOR in NY to Randi in 1962, but follows that saying that Randi had the show from 1967-68. Randi had the show from 1962-1963, and I was on the show twice in 1963. I am sure of my dates because I was a high school senior at that time. SolenopsisAgain (talk) 07:57, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this here. I checked, we used to say "mid-1960s", which was changed to "late-1960s", then 'reworded' to "1967/68". We cite a biography published on Randi's website said: "1966/67", though official biographies are not necessarily accurate. We also cite an interview with Randi, where he doesn't give dates but mentions he was fired after a year and a half. Extensive WOR-AM archives that could help us verify this are available at the Library of Congress, but they're not digitised.
Then-friend James W. Moseley said on page 189 of his book that Nebel left WOR in summer 1964, that Randi was given the slot right after, and that he (Moseley) appeared regularly on Randi's show before Randi was fired in January 1966.
"1964" for Nebel's switch to WNBC conflicts with "1962", which we say both here and in Long John Nebel. There, it's cited to a 1974 book by Donald Bain. Bain actually says August 1963. Reports published in August 1964 in Billboard and New York Times make it clear that the correct date is 1964. That's also supported by a short biography of Nebel written by Syracuse University Libraries.
I'll change the article to 1964-65 based on these sources. Since you say you were on the show twice in 63, could it have been while Randi guest-hosted for Nebel? DFlhb (talk) 10:04, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
As a high school senior in 1963 I had traveled solo through the Peruvian Andes. I had to hike the last 18 km to Macchu Picchu, which was part of rhe reason Randi invited me for a discussion of Teen Travel along with several other teens. I had been a longtime listener to Long John Nebel and knew when he was replaced by Randi. I was on a second show with Randi with the topic of Peru, along with Mosley. The latter had crazy ideas about finding Peruvian buried treasures. Subsequently Moseley and I were invited to speak at a dinner sponsored by the NY Adventurer's Club. A short time later I was invited to be on Randi's program again, but his show was cancelled before that happened. At TAM2012 I asked Randi if it was possible to find the recordings of my appearances on the show,but he said they were all on non-indexed giant reels, so it would not be possible 2603:8001:BC02:45BF:70F2:8665:CECA:EDC5 (talk) 22:38, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
I must be off by at least a year since it was definitely after Nebel left. I don't have any memorabilia of the time. Thanks for checking into this. SolenopsisAgain (talk) 06:08, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
I made a second comment to this topic, but I had not logged in beforehand SolenopsisAgain (talk) 22:45, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
You're free to edit your comments before others replied (WP:TALK#REVISE), including to replace the signature, and you're still welcome to do that since I don't mind.
I found several more newspaper reports about Nebel's show from 1964, that list him as still being on WOR, including this and this. Unfortunately it's hard to go against such sources based on personal testimony, as I hope you can understand. DFlhb (talk) 05:10, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:James_Randi/Archive_5&oldid=1193752079"