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Talk:Servitor (chaos magic)

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Notability/Fringe

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Given that establishing notability for a general topic requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", and for a fringe theory, a topic "is considered notable enough for a dedicated article if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers" it's not obvious that Servitor (chaos magic) meets notability. Of course, that doesn't apply to content within an article - one could easily have a section on "Servitors" within an article on chaos magic, but establishing notability for a stand-alone article is another matter entirely. Also, I'm not sure that just saying "within chaos magic" justifies talking about this as a real thing in Wikipedia's voice. --tronvillain (talk) 14:20, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Tronvillain:. Actually, servitors don't fit the definition of "fringe theory" as defined by wikipedia, given that Wikipedia:Fringe_theories states: "In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field." (emphasis mine).
Regarding notability for a general topic, the guidelines are quite specific about what consitutes an "independent" source: Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_independent_sources states that "An independent source is a source that has no vested interest", and "Interest in a topic becomes vested when the source (the author, the publisher, etc.) develops any financial or legal relationship to the topic." So, by that definition, texts on chaos magic are independent sources. The authors profit from selling those books, of course, but that is true of any source -- authors of maths textbooks profit from selling maths textbooks, for example. That's different from a financial relationship to the topic. The guidelines are also quite clear that "Independence does not imply even-handedness. An independent source may hold a strongly positive or negative view of a topic or an idea." Rune370 (talk) 23:36, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Probably also worth noting is that texts on chaos magic don't have any obvious conflicts of interest, and they're not self published sources -- which are two easy tests for whether or not a source is independent. Rune370 (talk) 23:42, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Following on from this, I've removed the "fringe theory" tag at the top of the article. The banner states "This article may present fringe theories, without giving appropriate weight to the mainstream view" -- if you can explain to me what the mainstream view is that this article departs from, I'll happily agree that it should be there. Rune370 (talk) 23:46, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so let's be absolutely rigorous about this now. Firstly, the topic of this article is not a fringe theory. When you have a mainstream academic or scientific explanation for something, and somebody then advances an alternative explanation, which departs from the mainstream view and is not widely accepted, then that alternative explanation is a fringe theory.

The term only applies to theories (of course), not concepts. It also only applies to theories within academia or the sciences, in which there is a mainstream view. Wikipedia:Fringe_theories makes this clear, when it states "In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field."

Religious and spiritual concepts are not inherently fringe by virtue of being non-scientific. I don't want to devote too much time to this point, because I think it's fairly apparent that "fringe theory" is a mislabelling of the topic of this article, but I'm happy to delve down into the minutae should anybody want any further clarification.

So, regarding notability generally: a topic is notable when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic.

  • I just want to note, in passing, that Wikipedia:Notability seems to use "topic" and "subject" interchangeably.
  • I also want to note the obvious: that the topic here is "Servitors (chaos magic)", not chaos magic itself.

Let's start with independence. The aim here is not to find sources that are from a non-chaos magic perspective, like academic journals or scientific studies. The aim is merely to show that the sources don't have a vested interest in the topic, and as Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_independent_sources states, "Interest in a topic becomes vested when the source (the author, the publisher, etc.) develops any financial or legal relationship to the topic."

What does this mean exactly? For a particular person, like Tom Cruise, anything Tom Cruise says or writes about himself forms a dependent source. A book about Tom Cruise, written by someone other than Tom Cruise, and which Tom Cruise had no editorial control over, is an independent source. It's independent of Tom Cruise, the topic. OK?

This doesn't change just because we're dealing with an abstract concept, that cannot talk about itself. There's a fairly pedantic discussion about this here, which states that a textbook on algebra is an independent source on algebra, whereas somehow quoting algebra itself would be a dependent source, and that "one cannot quote the planet Neptune, and the typical rock has very little to say about its history. In these cases the subject of the article cannot be used as a source, so 'independence' of sourcing from the subject of the article is not a concern."

If you look at Wicca, for example, all the sources are from books about Wicca. If you look at Complex analysis, all of the sources are books about complex analysis. So a book specifically written about servitors would constitute an independent source, let alone books on chaos magic generally, which are one step removed.

Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_independent_sources also clearly states: "Independence does not imply even-handedness. An independent source may hold a strongly positive or negative view of a topic or an idea."

Moving on to reliability, Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources states that "Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both."

So let's identify some reliable sources here. Hugh Urban, professor of religious studies at Ohio State University, gives Peter J. Carroll and Phil Hine as definitive sources on chaos magic in "Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism", published by University of California Press. So I would consider texts by either of those two authors to be reliable sources.

The topic is also discussed in "The Varieties of Magical Experience" by Lynne Hume, Professor in Studies in Religion at the University of Queensland, and Nevill Drury, who held a PhD in anthropology from the University of Newcastle. So I would also consider that book to be a reliable source.

The topic is also discussed in "Postmodern Magic: The Art of Magic in the Information Age" by Patrick Dunn, who is a professor of English at Aurora University, Illinois. So that's written by an academic, but not someone who is a specialist in religion or anthropology -- you may or may not consider that reliable.

Slightly further down the spectrum, there are other sources on chaos magic that are published by large, well-established publishers like Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari or Llewellyn Worldwide. I would argue that these are reliable sources when it comes to determining whether something is a significant topic within chaos magic.

So now the question is, is there significant coverage within these sources? To which the answer is yes:

I believe that this constitutes significant coverage. However, I think it's also worth pointing out that the first ever book on chaos magic, Liber Null (1978), also mentions servitors (albeit briefly), and that the concept itself was introduced by Austin Osman Spare in The Book of Pleasure (1913) (Spare's ideas being the basis of chaos magic). So this is a topic that's been discussed widely in occultism over a long period of time.

To summarise all of this, there are a multitude of reliable, independent sources that provide significant coverage of the concept of servitors, and the topic is therefore notable enough to merit its own Wikipedia page.

I believe I've aptly demonstrated this, and I'm removing the tag that states "The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline" from the top of the page.

Biogeographist and tronvillain, I'd particularly like your opinions on this, given that you both flagged this page as potentially non-notable. Rune370 (talk) 11:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was gone for the weekend, but perhaps we'll see what the fringe theories noticeboard thinks about this. --tronvillain (talk) 12:51, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Tronvillian, I've put in my two cents over at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Chaos_Magic. Rune370 (talk) 21:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have much to say about this that I haven't already said at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skepticism § Confirmation bias and "synchromysticism"?; As I pointed out at that talk page, the sources that Rune370 cited are fringe sources. Postmodern Magic: The Art of Magic in the Information Age and The Varieties of Magical Experience, cited above but not at the other talk page, are more widely held by libraries in WorldCat than the other books, and the authors are professors as noted above. But these books are not solely about servitors. So the argument for notability is getting stronger, but is still questionable. One way to settle the notability question is to send the article to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion on the basis of lack of notability and see what the outcome is. Planeswalker was nominated for deletion based on lack of notability, and the outcome was merge to Magic: The Gathering.
Regarding the Template:Fringe theories added by tronvillain: I agree with Rune370 that this is probably not an appropriate template. Whether servitor and chaos magic are a "fringe theory" depends on their epistemological status. I see them as fantasy (much like Magic: The Gathering), not as serious theory, but then in the book The Varieties of Magical Experience I noticed pseudoscience-like statements such as: "To this extent Chaos Magick takes Quantum theory's Uncertainty Principle to a new level" (page 233, capitalization as in original). But even this sentence seems to me to be clearly tongue-in-cheek and not serious theory; however, this judgment reflects my own view of the epistemological status of chaos magic. Since I've read only a few paragraphs of the book, I can't say what the authors' view is. Following the principle of charity, I will assume that the authors know enough about philosophy of science to know that the quoted sentence is a joke. Such a charitable interpretation is supported by the authors' statement on the next page: "Chaos magicians often display a whimsical sense of humor and take care not to take themselves too seriously" (page 234). Biogeographist (talk) 13:21, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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