Talk:Moon landing conspiracy theory

Pustynski

I restored the original information because it's well-sourced. The source for his Jewish origin and his programming abilities is in Russian (http://vlad7-40.narod.ru/) but you could easily translate it to English through http://www.online-translator.com — I think it's better than Google for Russian but Google isn't too bad either — and here is what you get from the main page:

And, at last (but not in the last instance!)... Being the Jew by origin, I usually participate in youth actions in Tallinn and Tartu: evenings, clubs, seminars, national holidays...

and from his autobiography there:

Programming: Turbo Pascal under DOS — it is very good; JavaScript — it is good; CI, Perl — bases

So he has been a programmer for a very long time and since most other Russian NASA defenders are programmers too, I think that this should be noted. As to his Jewish origin, this isn't something to be ashamed of or hide, the more so that he himself mentions this (as "last not least") on his page.

--Лъчезар (talk) 12:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Pustynski, so I feel I'm able to provide the most well-sourced information about myself. :)

First, thank you for referring to my person. :)

Second, I try to comment on my changes to your description.

1) The web page http://vlad7-40.narod.ru/ was not mine; somebody have stolen my old web page (it was only a copy, nothing more, but I didn't know about it). Data there was very out-of-date and thus irrelevant. When I discovered that such page existed, I had to ask the provider and with his aid this page has been removed. Now it is nonexistent. My web page is http://www.aai.ee/~vladislav/ , it contains the most relevant information.

2) I'm not Dr. but PhD. If you feel it's important you are free to add that, but I'm sure many other people in your list are also PhDs but are not mentioned to be that, so it seems there's no need to mark me out.

3) I'm not Russian astrophysicist, since I wasn't born in Russia and have never lived nor studied nor worked in Russia, nor have Russian origins. I'm a native Russian speaker, if you feel it's important you are free to add that.

4) I don't feel that "Jewish astrophysicist" is correct. I don't think "Jewish astrophysics" exists (but there exists Estonian astrophysics, Russian astrophysics, Israel astrophysics referring to national schools of Astrophysics; there also exists ancient Arab Astronomy, ancient Greek Astronomy, ancient Jewish Astronomy referring to ancient schools of Astronomy). I'm of Jewish origin and if you feel it's important you are free to add that, although I don't see any reason to mark out my and only my origin. Is my origin really important for the issue and origins of other defenders are not? ;)

5) I'm not educated nor professional programmer, and I haven't worked as such for many years. I had a job of programmer for only ~2-3 years ~6 years ago. Of course, I'm able to make computer code and I use this ability in my work since I create computer models for astrophysical applications; in fact, many astrophysicists are able to make computer programs. But if you feel it is important to mention that I'm able to make programs you are free to do so. Although I don't see any reason to mark out my and only my ability of programming. Is my ability of programming really important for the issue and abilities of other defenders are not? ;)

6) For years I work as lecturer in the local University, and I also earn money by teaching Spanish. This is my source of income, contrary to programming of itself. So I have substituted "programmer" by "lecturer and teacher of Spanish".

7) I don't use aliases much different from "7-40", but only introduce slight changes like "7.40" or "7:40" if it is technically impossible to use "-" in the nick-name. So it would not be correct to write that I use "other" nick-names; it sounds like I'm trying to conceal my identity by frequent changing nicks. Although many conspiracy theorists often think that a familiar defender is concealing his identity under different nicks and erroneously "recognize" him under any nickname (a kind of paranoia), that's usually not true (at least it's not true in my case). So I changed "others" by "similar".

8) That's it! ;)

Almir75 (talk) 12:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Almir75 (talk) 22:52, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding point 2 above, it is customary in English speaking countries to use the honorific "Doctor" or "Dr." prior to the name of someone with a PhD, often instead of (but sometimes in addition to) citing the actual degree after the person's name. Since this is an English-language article, it would seem appropriate to use the English-language conventions. 174.17.227.249 (talk) 20:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Simplifying?

Hello, a great work has been done getting the article here. Nevertheless this is Simple English Wikipedia. We write for people who do not have a very good understanding of English. I therefore think that time should also be spent making the language easy to understand. This includes:

• Making easy and short sentences; avoiding run-on sentences.
• Avoiding difficult words (hereinafter). I added a sentence saying the same, and avoided the word. Use words that only have one meaning.

At the time I write this, the article is 107k in size (which probably makes it one of the longest on Simple English). In some cases, less is more; especially if it is easy to understand. --Eptalon (talk) 18:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your words! Of course, I agree that it should be simplified. My English isn't good enough by itself, I make grammar errors and use word patterns non-typical for the native English speakers. Simplification could fix these issues too, as a side effect. But each non-native English speaker thinks in his or her native language. I don't understand how to achieve a correct and natural English text which at the same time is close to these patterns of people's native languages. It's difficult. I can't even do one of these tasks correctly by itself, let alone both. I can't predict how each reader would comprehend the text. The ways they do this certainly depends on their mother language.

This page doesn't pretend to be very well-written and its language could be improved. But I hope that it could be useful as a reference for this complex issue. Any reader who wants to comprehend it must spend much time reading various sources. Thus the most of the text he would read would be either in his or her native language, or in "normal" English (not simplified).

Lastly, even some native English-speakers may consider this text as an alternative to the "orthodox" text at the "complex" English Wikipedia. Let's hope that simplification will help them too, and not make the text look too "childish". I don't intend to do serious changes from now on, which I hope will ease the simplification process. --Лъчезар (talk) 12:06, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Multiple issues

• Way too complex
• Not neutral, especially in the lead
• Full of a lot of bad information

Purplebackpack89 (talk) 18:02, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

And? I said discuss, not make a list... And I contest the third one. They meet WP:RS. Goblin 18:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC) I ♥ Kennedy!

Just because a book was published about them doesn't make it bad information (I believe that there is a clause for deletion of conspiracy theory). For example, I could probably write a sourced article on Abraham Lincoln being gay, and somebody would (rightfully) delete it as hash. And remember that this whole article is contesting the reliability of sources. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 18:07, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, what do you (singular) mean by "bad information"? Incorrect information? Or something else?

Regarding the capitalisation, I've tried to adhere to the English Wikipedia capitalisation rules.

Anyway, the article is now in your (plural) hands. I will hardly do any more editing there. Do with it what you like: erase, simplify, improve, etc. --Лъчезар (talk) 18:40, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

Regarding neutrality, I have added the POV-Check template to the article per Wikipedia:NPOV dispute. I find the introduction to contain statements of questionable neutrality, such as: "Questioning man's way to the Moon is almost an absolute taboo in scientific circles." Also in the NASA's Response section, there is a assertion of questionable neutrality in a parenthetical comment regarding James Edward Oberg: "(and as it turned out later, China's Moon programme sceptic)" Whether Oberg was a skeptic employed by the Chinese government, or whether he was a skeptic of the Chinese Moon program, is unclear from the statement as written; either way, the inclusion of this information is, at best, irrelevant to the subject matter of the article, and at worst, an attempt to smear Oberg, perhaps by portraying him as a hypocrite.

I think it's clear that similarly to "Moon sceptic", "Chinese Moon programme sceptic" means someone who questions the respective programme. Oberg's words in the cited reference which led me to this conclusion are: Even though the Chinese insist that the first picture from Chang'e is scientifically accurate, Oberg said he expected the Chinese to "be forced to backtrack a bit" once they see the full evidence. I don't think that these words of his or my "sceptic" note portray him as hypocrite at all. Quote the contrary, he is very consistent in his steady protection of the American national interests, as he has always done by his NASA defence. --Лъчезар (talk) 13:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The article is also overly-long and contains long lists and tables which should be thoroughly checked, and condensed. Including the Wikipedia editors as a group in a list of NASA "defenders" (itself a loaded choice of words) is both cheeky and factually impossible to justify, since it is entirely possible that some Wikipedia editors do not in fact believe that Americans ever landed humans on the Moon. The Wikipedia editors are tasked with upholding consensus beliefs, regardless of their own personal opinion, and the general consensus is that the Apollo moon landings did in fact happen.

Unfortunately the Complex English Wikipedia article is as biased as possible. But there is a whole army of NASA defenders there which watch it all the time. They make it virtually impossible to lessen this bias even a bit, as I've proven there last year. --Лъчезар (talk) 13:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Similarly, including a long list of celebrities who believe that the Moon landing was a hoax hardly provides any proof, nor does it add any informational content to the article. Many celebrities on the list (for example, Whoopi Goldberg) have no scientific nor engineering background whatsoever, and while they may hold a personal opinion, their opinion is not noteworthy enough to be included in a Wikipedia article about the Moon landing hoax theory. 174.17.227.249 (talk) 21:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Of course Goldberg and many others aren't qualified to express a scientific opinion. But the inclusion of such names here serves the purpose to prove how deeply the question about the Moon landings has planted in all strata of the society, not to prove a hoax, of course. --Лъчезар (talk) 13:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki links and page title

Hello! I keep wondering if this article is the related one to w:Moon landing conspiracy theories? This article has no interwikis. It is a bit odd. Could smeone please have a look if there are any interwikilinks exist that can be added? Thanks --Barras ^talk 13:02, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The "interwikis" are currently on this "stub" article. --Лъчезар (talk) 15:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

There should something be changed. Redirect the other one, or delete the other one and move this one to the other page and leave this as a redirect. We normally use the same page names as enwiki does. --Barras ^talk 15:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, an odd situation. I followed your first advice, redirecting the other page and moving its "interwikis" here. Happy Christmas! :) --Лъчезар (talk) 16:26, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I wish you a happy christmas as well. But I will do my second suggestions. It is more like we do it normally. We just follow enwiki. I'll fix it now (delete and move). I hope you don't mind, but this is the way it works best. --Barras ^talk 16:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done --Barras ^talk 16:38, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Page title

(continued the above discussion) If this principle is always followed in the Simple English wikipedia, then I agree. But doesn't this mean that the errors in the titles of the English wikipedia articles are always duplicated here? What do I mean? The title of this page in the English wikipedia article has been changed many times, and the current title is (in my personal opinion) too general and not neutral. It's too general as "Moon landing conspiracy theories" doesn't imply that the page is about the Apollo manned Moon landings. The unmanned Moon landings of space robots aren't questioned, only the manned Moon landings are. And it isn't neutral since "conspiracy theory" is a powerful pejorative label, as psychologist Floyd Rudmin explains here. --Лъчезар (talk) 09:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you propose changing it to, then? Frankly, I don't think there is any one title that would satisfy anybody here. Somebody earlier proposed calling it "Moon hoax", but that's certainly not neutral, it takes for granted that the moon landings were a hoax, and that certainly gives way too much credence to what is clearly a fringe theory. Kansan (talk) 19:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I moved it to what may be a more neutral or informative title, please let me know if this works, or revert me. Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 20:27, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you – I think that your new title is a very good one, so I removed the POV template. --Лъчезар (talk) 19:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

"Moon Hoax (theory)" absolutely isn't a NPOV title for this page, as commented earlier by Kansan. Further, it's not as descriptive as it should be, either. Based only on the title, are we to assume that the moon itself is a hoax? Or that pictures of it are a hoax? Or that samples taken from it are a hoax? Or what?

An appropriate title for this page should include "Moon Landing", and place as much emphasis on 'theory' as on 'hoax' or 'conspiracy'. As it stands now, the title is wildly inappropriate, giving immediate undue credence to a topic which should be discussed ONLY from a NPOV. Jess ^talk _cs 20:04, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Hoaxer / Defender lists

The two lists of seemingly random people who happen to support or deny the moon landing are extremely unwieldy and unwarranted. (Frankly, I would argue the lists should be removed in their entirety, but that's something I'll take up later). For the time being, I've trimmed the first list to only those names who are actually notable; Those people who have actively taken up the 'moon landing is real' cause, and spoken or written in largely public mainstream forums about their position. Blog writers, some random journalist who wrote about it once, and wikipedians who have edited this page are not appropriate here.

That said, I may have missed someone influential. For reference, here is the original list (unedited). Please add back in anyone who has had a major impact on this issue. I'll run through the second list and do the same thing when I get the chance. Thanks Jess ^talk _cs 21:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm changing the second list now. Here's the original (unedited) version. Jess ^talk _cs 04:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Claims section

I'm currently rewriting the claims section to:

1. Include more information regarding the specific claims being made by hoaxers, and the public rebuttal
2. Adhere to NPOV policy
3. Remove factual inaccuracies, and inappropriate sourcing
4. Condense the section into a manageable form.

I have a short (in progress) version on my user page: User:Mann_jess/Moon_Landing_Conspiracies. Please feel free to jump in and contribute if you have the time. When done, I'll copy the whole section over to this article. Thanks! Jess ^talk _cs 04:48, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Jess, I'm glad to see someone is, perhaps, taking this article in hand. It is obviously biased in favor of the hoaxers, starting with the title. The one on the regular Wikipedia has probably largely been fixed, but this probably needs similar fixes. Also, it is not written simply, and many of the sources should probably be taken out? Becritical (talk) 14:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. Unfortunately, we can't just take the English wikipedia article and copy/paste their work into here. We have to work within the existing framework here, and slowly merge in any appropriate changes. This means quite a bit of time and effort, however, based on the state of the article now, that should absolutely be worth it. If you have the time, feel free to hop in. I'll be working on the article myself in spurts of spare time each day. Jess ^talk _cs 16:13, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to at least drop by although I don't have a lot of time to edit these days. Tell me about sources... can we get rid of the ones in other languages? Becritical (talk) 22:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Though I haven't looked into every source yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that many (if not most or all) of them don't meet WP:RS and will be removed. I'm not familiar with the policy on simple regarding foreign language sources. Anyone with more experience in this area, please feel free to post a link to policy on that topic. Regardless, the article is going to have to be restructured so much that some of those sources will have to be removed due to being irrelevant anyway; The sources need to fit the article, not the other way around. Jess ^talk _cs 01:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I removed the claims/counterclaims section again. The note on Becritical's edit was that it is of interest to the topic. As noted above, I agree. However, as it's written now, it's complete junk; It is quite literally less than worthless to the page. The information contained therein in entirely POV, in some cases factually inaccurate, improperly sourced, and occasionally irrelevant. What we need to do is merge any tidbits of useful information into the 'Claims' section, as has been started.

In short, this section needs to be rewritten (and merged with the en article) under the existing Claims header, not copy/pasted back in. Jess ^talk _cs 20:16, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, we definitely -definitely- don't want to be discarding the claims section. I've undone this change. This section (much like the en article) should be the bulk of the page, containing one header for each claim. We currently only have a few claims listed here... but that's a reason to add more... not to delete the section. As it expands, it should end up being quite large. Jess ^talk _cs 20:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed a bunch

I removed a lot of hoax believers POV-pushing. Essentially, we are not equipped to handle claims made by any of the hoax believers if they haven't been addressed by independent sources. This is the heart of WP:RS and trustworthyness. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I see that some of the sources that have been removed include NASA websites. Presumably these are being removed because you believe that they result in a synthesis that constitutes original research, but their removal nonetheless does not coincide with the stated reason for removal. Kansan (talk) 21:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

If it's NASA, its (usually) reliable.  PiRSquared17 (talk)  21:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes the NASA sites were being used incorrectly: to support claims that are not made at the sites. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that all of the removed material consists of unreliable sources. The section ==Poll results== consists of polls, mostly sourced from mainstream newspapers, that tell how many Americans believe the moon lands were faked. Perhaps this is not encyclopedic, but it's clearly reliable. Kansan (talk) 21:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Most of the polls are not being posed in appropriate ways and the results are somewhat misquoted. The best polls indicate a level of about 8% support for the moon landing conspiracy theories. On the other hand, about 8% of any poll will support ANYTHING. So it's hard to know what that percentage means. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

{{fact}}. Griffinofwales (talk) 23:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

All valid points, but that was not what you stated on your edit summary when removing the material. Edit summaries must be accurate when removing any material, much less that much. Kansan (talk) 00:05, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that whatever the other merits or demerits of ScienceApologist's edits, they have the merit of making the article simple without taking out any basic information. That information isn't really necessary for a simple and straightforward article, which I assume is written for children or the less-educated. Becritical (talk) 22:00, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I removed some other stuff which didn't add to the article. But we have to put back some of the information on why they think what they do, otherwise the article doesn't make any sense. Becritical (talk) 22:13, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

FYI: Simple articles aren't generally written for "children or the less educated", though I presume it would help them too. A large portion of our audience are non-native speakers of English. As a result, we do want the article to be comprehensive. We just also want it to use a smaller vocabulary than en, simple grammar, and shorter sentences, to make it generally available to a larger global audience.

Anyway, I can't necessarily say that I disapprove of removing all that text anyway, as most of it was ridiculous. (Some of it we may want to simplify and add back in in another form down the road) Regarding the "information of why they think what they do", I had started merging the information from en with the claims originally found on this page to: User:Mann_jess/Moon_Landing_Conspiracies. I haven't gotten a ton of time in the past few days to continue that project, but I think path-wise that's definitely the way to go. The original claims are located at the bottom of that page (most rows are just junk and can be simplified to a single sentence), and the claims on en are found at: Moon_landing_conspiracy_theory.

Lastly, my original thought was that the list of hoaxers/normal people should be outright removed. After having thought about it a bit (and substantially simplified both lists), I do think that the hoaxers list adds something to the article. After all, it does provide a general (and reasonably short) list of some of the major proponents of the conspiracy theory, combined with a list of resources published about the topic. While not found on the en article, I think it might nonetheless be quite valuable. I'm not currently of such strong resolve to undo the change myself, but I'd love to hear some thoughts on the subject. Here's the change in question: diff 2052350/2152349.

Thanks for the contributions both of you. I'm both thrilled proud to have helped get this ball rolling. Jess ^talk _cs 23:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, let me see.... I did a bunch of changes after deleting the lists, So I'll look over your userpage and we'll add them in later okay? I've got to go now. On the purpose of the simple WP, noted and thanks (: Becritical (talk) 01:35, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for copying over my changes. I've added in one you left out, and created about 3 more. I've tried to clean up the "NASA Response" section, but it's still pretty disastrous. Someone needs to go through the references and remove any bad ones, move the reference links to the end of each sentence, fix the formatting, and simplify the wording. I'll do that if I get the time, but I'll likely be very busy this week! :( Jess ^talk _cs 18:10, 25 April 2010 (UTC)