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The entire description section was wiped out in this edit, which incidentally left a number of redirects targetting nothing. FRINGE sources and UNDUE were cited in the edit summary. Ok, but we still need a description of what the claims are exactly. All that's left in the article is comments from historians etc saying this is wrong/no evidence etc. That makes for a very confusing article. We need to explain first what this fringe theory is, and then move on to the scientific response. SpinningSpark18:16, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the description in the article: Cook described Witkowski's claims of a device called "The Bell" engineered by Nazi scientists that was "a glowing, rotating contraption" rumored to have "some kind of antigravitational effect", be a "time machine", or part of an "SS antigravity program" for a flying saucer. It's pretty clear what the fringe claims are. What would you like added and from what source? - - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:16, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The specific thing that drew my attention to this was that I noticed The Henge redirect at RfD. Now I remembered that I had put an anchor in the article a few years ago to give that redirect a specific target. I did not create the redirect or write any of the prose in the article. I came to it after watching the structure featured in a TV program and wanted more information. Now if I wanted information on the structure, I'm pretty sure other readers will have looked for it as well. There's a whole bunch of other redirects that similarly went dead that were mentioned in the section above. For sources, I put some inforamtion with sources in Project Riese. The lack of a "Description" section made it difficult to re-add it here and I did not want to start a fight over it.
But my objection goes way beyond that specific item. The whole structure of the article is now broken. "Cook described Witkowski's claims..." does not really fulfill that function. Putting aside that that is the second sentence, it's starting off by assuming we are already familiar with Witkowski's claims. That leaves the reader baffled. It's just not good enough. The article needs to clearly state what Witkowski was claiming before moving on to examining whether or not there is any evidence for it. SpinningSpark22:59, 9 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think the main problem with the previous Description section [1] was that it was cited to Stevens (Hitler's Flying Saucers: A Guide to German Flying Discs of the Second World War), Cook (The Hunt for Zero Point), and Cook (UFO: The Secret Evidence telecast) — which is an over-reliance on non-WP:FRIND sources. The other problem is that the subject of the article is essentially a rumor about a thing, rather than an actual thing. Nick Cook was told by Witkowski...who was told by an anonymous source...who said that Sporrenberg said....etc. So it's appropriate that the History primarily describes the origins of the rumor and some details of the thing the rumor described. This is not to say the details couldn't be improved if other WP:FRIND sources besides Cook could be found. - - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:18, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well I don't dispute what you say about the original description and that it was cited to fringe sources. Something needed to be done with that. That in no way detracts fromn the need for a description section. Total deletion was not the ideal solution. We need to directly say what the hoax actually was claiming, not merely tangentially by talking about the criticisms. What is or is not appropriate for the history section has nothing to do with what should be in the description section. So I don't know why you are even raising that. I am also starting to take exception to FRINGE being repeatedly raised here as if I have been trying to insert fringe sources. Let me reiterate, the sources I used at Project Riese for "The Henge" are not fringe and are published by reliable book publishers (ISBN1784622958, ISBN1473847389. While it has been deleted there again as being irrelevant to that article, I don't think it is irrelevant here. The fringe claim about it originated in Witkowski's book and it is notable enough to have featured in at least two TV documentaries, both centred around the fringe claims for it. SpinningSpark14:28, 12 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think I was trying to explain how Description sections about a rumor are a problematic. Like Black Knight satellite, you can't write a list of stats about a thing that's 100% hearsay. But I would like to try to solve the problem with the redirects by beefing up the existing description, perhaps with detail regarding "The Henge" structure. I haven't found access to the text of these yet: Mike Bennett, A Brief History of Science with Levity, p. 135, Troubador Publishing 2015, and Graham M. Simons, Operation Lusty: The Race for Hitler's Secret Technology, Pen and Sword, 2016....but let me poke around a bit more and see what I can find. - - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:51, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I did find a Google preview of the text of Mike Bennett, A Brief History of Science with Levity. Unfortunately the title page includes the publisher imprint of Matador (the self-publishing arm of Troubador), so as an WP:SPS it would not be usable here. But I'll dig around further. I'm going to tag User:Mu301 who helped rework the article, maybe he has some ideas. - - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As discussed, I've beefed up the description using some existing sources (Colavito and Schaeffer) [3]. This should enable the Wenceslas mine redirect to be reinstated.- - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:40, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing the legwork on that. I guess my sources weren't as good as I thought they were. I had noticed that Troubador had a self-publishing arm, but the gbooks metadata said Troubador, not Matodor so I thought it was ok.... By the way, are you sure of the spelling? Isn't it Wenceslas Mine, not Wenceslaus Mine? SpinningSpark16:56, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
