Talk:List of common misconceptions

How to split

Thanks Andrevan for closing the discussion. Some options for splitting from my reading of the prior discussion:

1. Simple split into two articles (minimal simple split)
2. Simple split into three articles (likely into Arts and Culture, History and Science, and Technology)
3. Simple split into subarticles. A subarticle for medical claims to help with [WP:MEDRS]] (currently 80+ misconceptions listed)
4. Other simple split
5. Split and transclude selections into larger article
6. Transclude references from child articles, per this proposal from S Marshall

Options are not mutually exclusive. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 07:30, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

• Split it into three, grouped by topic. When we've got a logical split I'll try to work out a way to make it display on one page.—S Marshall T/C 08:24, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

  It would be nice to see an example of this prior to us making a decision. Can you work up something in your sandbox? It doesn't have to be perfect, just enough to give us an example of what this might look like. Thanks. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:12, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

  Sure, no problem.—S Marshall T/C 18:10, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

  This looks really good. There may be some issues with managing editing (only the transcluded articles are editable, if I'm understanding correctly) and with the talk page(s). Will we wind up with four talk pages if we split it three ways? Not sure that would really be a problem, but worth considering before making the leap. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:49, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

  I would suggest only using the main page's talk page. To do this I would redirect all the transcluded subpages' talk pages, and use an explanatory hatnote.—S Marshall T/C 22:29, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

  That would be my preference as well. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 01:46, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  @S Marshall Now I'm confused. Below you suggest that the "main page" would be a WP:DAB, but here you seem to suggest that the talk page for the transcluded pages would be the talk page for the "main page". My understanding is that a DAB page is not usually used to discuss material for the linked pages. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:55, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

  Let's see what the consensus is before we get bogged down in hypothetical detail.—S Marshall T/C 15:35, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

  I seriously doubt that this will be accepted.

  • Some editors will object to displaying the content without the refs purely on principle. They want readers to see those little blue clicky numbers.
  • More editors will object to the extra markup in the subarticles.

  We really need to look at this as a true split: These are going to be separate lists, including the possibility of editors making different, incompatible decisions (e.g., different formatting). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:50, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  My take is that we write the articles for the readers, not the editors. If "some editors" are so narrow minded that they need to see little blue clicky numbers, that's irrelevant to the general readers. As note (b) in WP:verifiability states:

  "The location of any citation—including whether one is present in the article at all—is unrelated to whether a source directly supports the material."

  Anyone can click the link to the transcluded material and see the little blue clicky numbers.

  I don't understand what is meant by " extra markup in the subarticles".

  Seems to me that this is a good compromise that addresses the concern raised in the discussions above. Building consensus is about making compromises. I'm on-board with this one. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:24, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  By "extra markup" she means that I've replaced the #invoke syntax with <onlyinclude>...</onlyinclude> to omit the references. There are alternative ways to do it which involve similar amounts of extra markup.—S Marshall T/C 19:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks. I was wondering how the "magic" was done.

  So, presumably, that markup would need to be added around any text that is not a cite. That doesn't sound too onerous, and someone could probably write a bot to automagically do that so editors wouldn't have to deal with it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:34, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Mr swordfish, if you'd like, we could leave a note at WT:V to ask the regulars there whether they think it's okay to have an article in the mainspace that hides the little blue clicky numbers, so long as the refs were just one click away. Would you like to post such a note yourself? (I can, if you'd rather not.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  I don't know that WT:V is the right venue for that question. There's big warning that "This page is not meant for general questions, nor discussions about specific articles." I'm not sure what the right venue is, but I'd be happy to bring this idea up for discussion if I can figure out where it is.

  I'm wondering if something like this has been done before or if this would be the first implementation of such a strategy. Perhaps @S Marshall knows something about the context.. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:30, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  Putting the citations on a subpage is, to the best of my knowledge, entirely novel. WT:V is one of several appropriate venues to discuss the question of whether, in principle, policy allows us to place references on a subpage, and if that's the venue WAID chooses, then I don't object.—S Marshall T/C 21:42, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  (Later) For clarity, I'm not proposing that List of common misconceptions should look like this. We've decided to split the page, so List of common misconceptions will become a DAB pointing to List of common misconceptions (topic_01), List of common misconceptions (topic_02) etc. I'm proposing that one of the options on the DAB points to List of common misconceptions (one page version), and I'm doing so in pursuit of compromise. I'm mindful of the downsides of the extra labour involved.—S Marshall T/C 21:58, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

  My reading of the closer's note is that that we have not reached consensus on how to split the article:

  There is not, however, a consensus whether to split the article in 2, split it into 3, or to do some wizardry using templates and transclusion to somehow be even more creative.

  So, your example is entirely consistent with the consensus (or lack therof) as described by the closer. Of course that doesn't mean that there's consensus to implement it, only that it's not foreclosed by the closer's verdict. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:51, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

  I have posted a note at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Source display. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

• Prefer split into two (option 1), would support split into three (option 2). Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:10, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
• Any simple split. Maybe three is best, but two is good. A separate page for medical content is okay, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:44, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
• Any simple split. Preference for a split into four (a subarticle for MEDRS), and if having that as a subarticle is not conferring any noticeable benefit, merging it back into three at a later date. Reading the convo at WT:V, I think Actively Disinterested's point on the importance of local verification of quotes/BLP etc is a compelling reason not to pursue a transclusion. Interested to hear if Mr swordfish can think of a way around this issue. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 02:15, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  I didn't make this point before since the split discussion was about technical as opposed to editorial concerns, and it's probably too late to matter now, but the reason I opposed the split is that currently the article is THE wikipedia list of commmon misconceptions. Once split, what remains is just several articles in a collection of List of misconceptions about yada yada yada. that is, it loses its gravitas once it loses its singularity.

  The transclusion approach, as I initially understood it, would keep that status, but as proposed by @S Marshall it would not. And without that feature the work putting in all those onlyinclude tags seems to be more trouble than it's worth.

  The "right" technical solution would be to implement some AJAX/JSON partial-postback implementation to only load material that the user has clicked to expand, but I don't think that is available as an option. I'm open to other ideas, and if something emerges that solves the technical issues we should consider merging the split sections.

  Regarding BLP or direct quotes needing local ref tags, the bigger issue that I see is that material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged is also supposed to have a local ref tag - and seems to me that every single entry is likely to be challenged at some point, since otherwise it wouldn't be a common misconception.

  My preference at this point would be for a simple two-way split; a separate article for MEDRS seems like organizing things for the convenience of the editors not the readers. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:09, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  No, Rollinginhisgrave, it's not a compelling reason to avoid a transclusion. If the community does decide that BLP content and quotes need inline citations on every page where they're displayed, then we can accommodate that in the one-page version. On a technical level, it's rather easy -- we just decide to transclude those refs.—S Marshall T/C 16:35, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Since these articles exist:

  • List of common misconceptions about language learning
  • List of common misconceptions about the Middle Ages
  • List of common misconceptions about HIV and AIDS

  it's already the case that this page isn't "THE" sole list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  I think you just reinforced the point I was trying to make.

  Right now, it's the "List of common misconceptions" FULL STOP, not one of several ""List of common misconceptions about yada yada yada". Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  The way I see it, it's currently one of four, and it's about to become one of six or seven or eight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps I am not explaining this adequately. Let's try an analogy:

  The US Academy Awards gives out an award for Best Picture. It also gives out "lesser" awards for categories like Best International Feature Film, Best Animated Short Film, Best Documentary Feature Film, etc. Imagine if the academy decided to eliminate the Best Picture prize and instead split it up into two or three, with no one film getting "best picture". That would be a major change, and my guess is that it would receive roughly zero support. Splitting this article is roughly analagous to eliminating the best picture category for movies.

  Of course, this analogy is not perfect; there is no technical reason why the academy would do this, while for this article we have consensus to split it to address technical issues. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  Agree, there's only a half dozen or so entries about living people, so that's a minor issue that's easily worked around. I'm not sure about the "likely to be contested" part though. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Re; SMarshall, setting this up would be quite easy, but maintaining it will be a lot more difficult. The #invoke syntax decayed within a few months. In five years its difficult to believe it will be enforced as enthusiastically.

  Re; MS, "likely to be contested" is an issue for all of these, as seen by the length of the talk page. "Political" misconceptions seem to be a particular issue right now. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 02:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

• I think we need more editors' input here.—S Marshall T/C 09:58, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  We could have another RFC, if we really needed to. I think the main options are:

Options for simple splits

Two	Three	Four
List of common misconceptions about arts, culture, and history List of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics	List of common misconceptions about arts and culture List of common misconceptions about history List of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics	List of common misconceptions about arts and culture List of common misconceptions about history List of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics List of common misconceptions about health

The complicated transclusion proposal will require the splits to happen first, so I think we should start with simple splits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Mr swordfish, @Rollinginhisgrave, @S Marshall: For the basic split (which is a necessary prerequisite for any future use of the includeonly syntax), do you see an option here that you would personally prefer? It doesn't matter right now which one you prefer, so long as there actually is one that you prefer. I don't want to start an RFC about how to split if each of you can't see your own personal preference among the options. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

• My preference is for the four split, and merging health back in if there's not a substantive benefit for MEDRS. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 03:00, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks. Again, I don't need to know which one you would choose. Right now, I'm just trying to make sure that if we start an RFC with these three options, none of you will instantly respond with "Wait, you missed the option I like best!" WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake. Thanks for clarifying. Options look good. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 03:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

• I'm relaxed about how we do it.—S Marshall T/C 05:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Two is better than three. Four is unnecessary and I would not support that.

If we're going to use the transclusion route I would prefer if everything was in place prior to release. Agree that the split has to happen first, but we don't have to release the final version until everything is in place. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 18:27, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Mr swordfish, once again, I'm not interested in how many you prefer. The question here is, if you prefer two, are these the correct two sets? Or is there a different way that you would prefer to see them split into two? For example, if you think that the history information should be put with the science information, then now's the time to say that. If you think that the two sets ought to be "health" and "everything else", then now's the time to say that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't think of a logical way to split it other than along the three main sections of the present article. Maybe Part 1 and Part 2 to de-emphasize the categorical nature of the split and emphasize the technical reason for the split. But I don't think that will get much support, if any. So, yeah, I'm not seeing a viable option that's not listed. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:28, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Mr. Swordfish. As I said before, I do not support any solution that does not preserve the main page. Benjamin (talk) 16:06, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Benjaminikuta, we have a consensus to split, and we're not re-litigating that. Using S Marshall's technical approach to reassembling the main page requires us to do a split first. The question at the moment is whether you want:

• To split the page into one of the above listed sets (and hopefully use technical magic to reassemble a single copy of it later), or
• To split the page into a different combination of content (and hopefully use technical magic to reassemble a single copy of it later).

WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I was trying to help a compromise be found. I hope my words were not misunderstood. Benjamin (talk) 16:11, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Is steak tartare named after tartar sauce or vice versa?

This article states that steak tartare is probably named after tartar sauce (the article Steak tartare appears to be in agreement), while the article Tartar sauce claims the opposite, that it's named after steak tartare. One of these must be wrong, can we clear this up? Thank you. Neropenna (talk) 06:19, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The place to do that would be at the topic articles. If that gets straightened out then there might be an entry for this page. A quick look at those articles shows that they cite different references, which apparently say different things. That happens sometimes, and it's up to the editors at those pages to either document the conflict or determine which one is better supported by the reliable sources. I think it's worth raising the issue at the topic articles' topic pages, but this is not the venue for that discussion. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Mr swordfish how does what you're saying here apply WP:NPOV? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 03:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

My cursory reading is that an WP:NPOV approach would be to adjust the two topic articles so that they are consistent, most likely just reporting that reliable sources differ. If that's the case, then it's not a candidate entry for this article. If it turns out that enough reliable sources support one vs the other then that should be reported in the topic articles, and perhaps it becomes a candidate for inclusion here.

I don't know enough about the subject to venture an opinion, and I'm not interested in researching it. This is not the venue for determining which was named after the other. Feel free to take it up on the talk pages of those articles. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 18:35, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I think you're confusing some things about this entry. I'll rectify it. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 01:41, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

You're right. I was confused. I didn't realize this material was already in the article, I thought someone was proposing an entry that it was a misconception that the sauce was named after the steak dish, not the other way around.

It's not clear to me which came first, the steak dish or the sauce, and I haven't chased down the references to evaluate which ones are better. Since this entry is not about which came first, we don't need to come down on one side or the other here.

The topic articles are in conflict with one another, with cites to support both:

Tartar sauce is named for steak tartare, with which it was commonly served in 19th century France.

and

"Steak à la tartare" (literally meaning "served with tartar sauce") was later shortened to "steak tartare" Over time, the distinction between steak à l'Americaine and its tartar-sauce variant disappeared.

Please take a stab at rectifying it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:50, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Captions

I went through the photo captions to make them more concise and include only relevant information. Here are the guidelines I followed:

• It's never necessary to say "a photo of", "a painting of", "an illustration of" -- that is obvious from the image itself. That is, however, appropriate in the alt text for the blind.
• Do include facts relevant to the misconception. For example, for the misconception that sushi always contains raw seafood, it is useful to mention the fillings in Kappa-maki.
• Don't include background information -- that belongs in the text of this article or of the main article.
• Especially don't include additional information that has nothing to do with the misconception (e.g. that the far side of the moon has more craters).
• Don't give background info about the image (the subject, the source) which is irrelevant to the misconception and easy to find by clicking through on the image.
• Don't use unnecessary adjectives, adverbs, etc. ("clearly", "significantly").
• Don't mention the common misconception itself ("despite the common belief that..."). Just state the fact or the falsity of a claim.

Happy to discuss these if anyone disagrees. --Macrakis (talk) 15:26, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

This all sounds very reasonable to me. Sometimes, less is more.

I'm guilty of lazily copying some pictures from the topic articles and pasting them here without editing the captions, so thanks for editing those additions. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:53, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Coal formation in the Carboniferous period was not caused by an evolutionary lag in fungi and bacteria

This misconception seems to be spread by false assumptions and ungrounded speculation, but plenty of evidence supports the fact that lignin-degrading fungi were present during this period (I mean come ON, 60 million years? For FUNGI to catch up? I don’t think people realize how much faster microorganisms evolve compared to larger organisms) 173.184.103.119 (talk) 00:09, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there some specific statement in the article that you are objecting to? I'm not sure what the issue is here... Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

This is a good candidate for common misconception if you get good sources that say it's a common misconception and that it is in fact a misconception. Mateussf (talk) 02:20, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Pictures

Looking at MOS:IMAGES, I think the usage of images could be improved:

• There are a few places where we present a wall of text that would look better with some graphical elements
• Some of the images we currently include don't advance the narrative, e.g. the photo of Adolf Dassler does nothing to help the reader understand the entry
• There are some places where adding a graphic would help with understanding, e.g. the entry about the classic coca-cola bottle, which was once ubiquitous but there may be readers who have never seen coke in the classic bottle.

I'll look at addressing this in coming days, but graphical design is not my expertise, so would welcome help. Thanks. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:51, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

National variety of English

Recently, there has been an edit and reversion related to the national variety of English used for this article.

According to the manual of style, MOS:ENGVAR, "The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety over others." and "The conventions of a particular variety of English should be followed consistently within a given article."

According to MOS:RETAIN, "When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary."

So, the question then becomes, what national variety of English has been established for this article?

Currently, there is a mix of American and British English. Searching for "color" vs "colour" shows that only a few entries use the British spelling, while the majority spell it color. I find similar results for "flavor" vs "flavour". I haven't researched every possible variant. but so far the results argue in favor (or favour if you prefer) of US English. A quick search of the talk page archives doesn't turn up any discussion of this issue, so perhaps no national variety has been clearly "established".

According to the manual of style: "When no English variety has been established and discussion does not resolve the issue, use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety."

The first instance I can find of a "fork" is from Sept 2005 where this entry was added:

• All the color of lakes/oceans does not come from sky reflection. Water is actually a blue substance.

[1]

It would seem that the ball would be in the court of those advocating for a national variety other than US English to make their case.

Frankly, I don't really care one way or another, but these edits/revisions based on color vs colour (and other similar disputes) are tiresome and it's most expedient to just point to policy to resolve them. Plus I'd prefer to see this settled prior to splitting the article so that we don't have to deal with it in multiple places.

So, which is it? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 01:36, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

I reverted that colour to color because it was an unexplained spelling change in what seemed to be a stable article. Based on your findings about post stub spelling being US, I'd be satisfied with using US sp for this article. I shall revert my edit. Masterhatch (talk) 01:50, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Blood vessel length

Though the total length of a human's blood vessels is commonly stated as about 100,000 km, a 2022 estimate[2] placed the length far lower, between 9,000 and 19,000 km. This estimate is mentioned in the Blood vessel article. Is this misconception worth including in this article? ISaveNewspapers (talk) 18:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

If the original/incorrect estimate was only made two years ago, then I doubt that the information has spread far enough for it to be a common misconception. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

The 2022 estimate was for the 9k to 19k figure; according to the cite above the old 100k figure was provided by Shack August Steenberg Krogh who died in 1949.

That said, I don't see how this proposed entry meets the inclusion criteria: although the 9k-19k figure from 2 years ago is stated in the topic article, I don't see where it says anything about earlier, longer estimates. And the cite above doesn't establish that it is a common misconception, or even a misconception at all. Maybe there's adequate sourcing somewhere that would meet the inclusion criteria, but I'm not seeing it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:49, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I believe this common misconception does meet the criteria for inclusion. The academic journal article cited ("August Krogh: Muscle capillary function and oxygen delivery") mentions that the incorrect length "captured the attention of scientists and school children the world over by being sufficient to circumscribe the Earth nearly three times at the equator". The incorrect length is sometimes cited in modern scientific articles (e.g. by the British Heart Foundation, the International Journal of Biological Sciences, and by LiveScience). Pastelitodepapa (talk) 22:50, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Pastelitodepapa, the source establishes that it was a common misconception 100 years ago. Being occasionally cited in modern scientific articles is insufficient to establish it as a common misconception; we need an RS (preferably more than one) identifying it as a "common misconception" (or "contrary to popular belief" etc.) Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 23:59, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

This meets the inclusion criteria in my opinion. If Kurzgesagt's sources document counts a reliable source, it could be used to establish that this is a common misconception in the current day. –CopperyMarrow15 (talk – edits) 02:15, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

CopperyMarrow15 (last ping); Unfortunately the inclusion criteria requires misconceptions be sourced as current (Criteria #4). I am not sure about the Kurzgesagt source document. How would you say it relates to WP:SPS? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 02:23, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Kurzgesagt's document is self-published, but the way I see it, we wouldn't be using it as a source for the length of the blood vessels, but rather as a source for the fact that the misconception is current and common. The beginning part of the document lists so many recent, highly reputable sources making this false claim, and that list alone seems to fulfill criterion 4, so I don't see any big reason why we shouldn't use it. –CopperyMarrow15 (talk – edits) 02:38, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure you can see an issue with us saying "if ten sources in the last 30 years repeat it, it is 'commonly' believed". Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 02:47, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I understand. I have no issue with you removing it, and I can only hope that more reliable sources cover it (which I imagine they will because of Kurzgesagt's recent video) so it can be readded. –CopperyMarrow15 (talk – edits) 02:52, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I also imagine they will, I did have a quick look to see if anyone had already and didn't have any luck. We will see over the next few days. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 02:54, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

CopperyMarrow15 Sorry, I should ping you as well for the above comment as you were the one who added the entry. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 02:10, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

RFC on number of pages to split to

We have already established a consensus to split this very long list. The next question is how to split it. Should this become two, three, or four separate lists of common misconceptions? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Here are three options:

Options for simple splits

Two lists	Three lists	Four lists
List of common misconceptions about arts, culture, and history List of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics	List of common misconceptions about arts and culture List of common misconceptions about history List of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics	List of common misconceptions about arts and culture List of common misconceptions about history List of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics List of common misconceptions about health

Note to people who wish the page wasn't being split: There is an effort (explained above) to create a single page view for readers. Splitting the current list is a necessary prerequisite for accomplishing that goal. Even if you opposed the decision to split this page, you are still invited to express a preference about how the pieces will be arranged. We can make no progress towards the goal of reassembling the pieces into a single view until we agree on what the pieces will be.

The first option is "Two", and the second option is "Three", which could get confusing for the closer ("He said two, but did he mean two lists or the second option, which is three lists?"), so please spell out your vote in this format:

• Two lists
• Three lists
• Four lists

or in some other equally unmistakable format. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

• Two lists. The consensus was reached to split for technical reasons, so no need to split any further than necessary to address the size concerns raised in the split discussion. STEM vs humanities is a natural divide. UPDATE: below, some editors are !voting for One list - that is my very strong preference. As explained in the split discussion, I reluctantly agreed to a split if necessary for technical reasons. That necessity has still not been established. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:40, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

• Three lists. The article is already divided into arts and culture, history, and STEM, so it'd be easiest and most natural to do it that way. (Summoned by bot) Ships & Space_(Edits) 22:24, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

• Four lists, but three would also make sense. Splitting by existing sections makes a lot of sense, but, judging by eye, the expected content for Health is about the same size as History, and also makes a lot of sense to me as a conceptual split. I want to say I prefer not to see the arbitrary clumping of two lists, but this whole thing is arbitrary at a certain point, isn’t it? — HTGS (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2024 (UTC)
• Four lists. If a separate page for "Health" is not benefiting WP:MEDRS, it can be merged back in to three at a later date. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 23:56, 29 October 2024 (UTC)
• One list, Keep as is. It's not that long (most of the text's body is made up of References), and it's a great read and popular topic, obtaining over 2,300 readers a day for the last year! I haven't read the entire thing, so thanks for bringing attention to it. Nothing wrong in keeping this well-known list (and importantly, splits lose readers, I think, because not everyone goes to every page of a split topic). univolved in the discussion to split, missed it, was it every posted at the affiliated WikiProjects? Randy Kryn (talk) 01:50, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  One list, much as Randy Kryn suggests, but if the insistence is on more, then someone will have to put a LOT of effort into cross-linking to the separate parts. If you are lost in one list you can always do a find for keywords, whereas trying that with multiple lists is cumbersome and confusing.

  Furthermore, misconceptions do not come neatly packaged into categories. Plenty of examples are both science-related and art-related, and history-related. Either you make it cumbersome with multiple entries in more than one list (and keep the entries equally updated and consistent!!!) or you wish the reader pot-luck in finding the right place and getting the context right.

  Probably a better investment of effort would be the insertion of a lot of illustrations, and a lot of careful editing of ambiguous or unhelpful entries that even if not wrong, are no more helpful than the original error. Consider the one about cells not outnumbered by microorganisms -- it is just one example. Plenty where that came from. JonRichfield (talk) 06:26, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Randy Kryn The split discussion was not an RFC (it should have been) and to the best of my knowledge was not posted at at the affiliated WikiProjects. Agree with keeping it as one list, as do several other active editors for this page. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:59, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  Hello Mr swordfish, and yes, this is such an iconic and well-known page of Wikipedia that such a major proposed dissection surprised me (especially when not the subject of project alerts or other ongoing discussion promotion). Maybe you can boldface the words 'keeping it as one list' to make your comment clearer to readers and a potential closer. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:07, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Randy Kryn, we already have a consensus to split. If you wish to challenge that, then please see Wikipedia:Close review.

  If you want to re-litigate the previous discussion, then please note that this list has gotten so long that we can't use regular Wikipedia:Citation templates in it because of the WP:PEIS technical limits, and at the current rate of growth, even the workaround will eventually break. Any attempt to keep this on one page needs to explain how you're going to make the sources visible when even the capacity of the workaround is exceeded.

  After the split happens, we're looking at a way to re-assemble the page into a single view for readers who like that. But we can't do that until the split happens. So what would actually be helpful here is "I'd like the technical split to involve ____ subpages, and I want S Marshall's magic solution to be implemented as soon as possible so people can still read it on one page". What's not helpful is "I'd like to kick this can down the road until it's an emergency". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  Just to be clear about the technical problem, take a look at the refs section in this version. Do you see 891 refs there? I don't. When you put too many templates on a page, they stop being shown. From the reader's POV, it becomes a completely unsourced article.

  Now, if that's what you want, then you can just say that. A !vote like "Who cares about sources, since readers don't look at those anyway" would do. I'd even back you up with a source that shows readers almost never look at the sources. But if you think that article content should be cited, and not just by hiding the information in the wikitext code, then we are going to have to change our approach, and the only question is whether we do it now, with plenty of time to work out solutions, or when the whole page breaks and there's no time to do it well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  I don't know what you are trying to accomplish by deliberately breaking the references and then claiming that the page is broken, but it's not a very convincing argument. The references all appear in the current version. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:49, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  The sources are there and look fine on my computer. As for criticizing my !vote of keeping the list, two things. The RFC title asks how many pages the list should be split to. I suggested one list, to keep the page. That's my opinion in answering the title question. Then look at the List page itself, the opening template asks for comments about a split, on the page since July. No split needed. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:31, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  Agree that the opening template needs updating given a consensus to split has been found. What would be an appropriate template? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 23:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  Nothing to agree to, I did not suggest changing it. This RfC opened and has progressed under it, and my opinion to keep the page as one list also rests on both the title of this RfC and the message of the present template. Arguably, the time has passed to remove that template, which should now be linked with this RfC. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:51, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  Removed the template. For reference, the question this RfC aims to answer is Should this become two, three, or four separate lists of common misconceptions? One list is answering a different question, that has already been asked and answered. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 00:04, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

  "One list" is my answer to the RfC title. Since you removed the present template, and left no other, this RfC is presently going unannounced[Returned with the new date, October 2024]. The language on the template you removed seemed fine, just an update on the date and a link to this RfC should handle it. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:22, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

  The RfC title is the topic, not the question. I did have a look at other current RfCs to find an applicable replacement template, and none seemed to indicate on the article page that an RfC was ongoing.

The template text "It has been suggested that this article should be split into multiple articles." is outdated, given there is a consensus that the article should be split into multiple articles, and this RfC is determining how to implement that. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 00:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

There was no notice about a split discussion outside of the page itself, as far as I know, even though many Wikiprojects are involved in this article. If this RfC answers 'None', or 'Keep as is', then that's a perfectly good option. There is no "have to split" if consensus on this RfC chooses not to. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:36, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing linked the notices above. You are more familiar with Wikipedia processes than I. Is this a thing you can do? Disregard the RfC question and instead use the RfC to challenge the consensus it's implementing? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

While there were some "notifications" outside this talk page, they did not reach a large audience. In particular, there was no notification to the standard places that an RfC would normally get i.e.

• History and geography
• Language and linguistics
• Maths, science, and technology
• Media, the arts, and architecture
• Politics, government, and law
• Society, sports, and culture
• Religion and philosophy

Trying to claim that posting a question at the village pump is adequate is not very convincing. Randy Kryn observation that the split discussion was not adequately advertised is apt, and if a consensus forms among the wider audience of editors now made aware by the RfC not to split, well, consensus can change. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 02:05, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Mr swordfish if you think the consensus to split was inappropriately established, it's worth going through WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 02:16, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

• Two or three. We should follow the precedent set by WP:REFDESK and split into lists according to those subject areas as needed. we can start with three lists: humanities, science and technology, and mathematics. Or two lists, humanities and STEM. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:21, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Three or four lists. To my eye the larger-scale topics are a bit ungainly, and as Ships&Space states, this article is already split into three topics. I wouldn't be opposed to spinning out health per HTGS's reasoning though.  novov talk edits 09:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

• Find any consensus. It really doesn't matter how many pages to split to. What matters is that we finally get on with splitting it in whatever way the fewest editors disagree with.—S Marshall T/C 22:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

• I want to add that it's needful to split this page for technical reasons, and "don't split" is an option the community has recently considered and explicitly rejected.—S Marshall T/C 22:05, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

• One list, Keep as is, per Randy Kryn, Mr swordfish, etc. Benjamin (talk) 04:44, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
• Three lists: The categories for two are ugly and awkward, but we should try to split as little as is reasonably possible. If a recent consensus hadn't been reached, I'd be against splitting at all, but since it has I am very against trying to override a recent consensus. Loki (talk) 06:07, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

  LokiTheLiar, thanks for an interesting comment. You'd rather have one list but are going with a split that you don't like. This shows that the consensus reached was both premature and ill-timed, as it should have been reached at an RfC (preferably this one as an option). This RfC question is 'how many pages to split to', and your and other editors is 'none'. To not split. That seems the correct option for this long-term near-iconic Wikipedia page. The only split needed is the existing Table of Contents, which is used for that purpose. Readers know how to use a Table of Contents. Please reconsider, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:55, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

  Randy, can I just ask: do you fully understand the technical considerations here? Do you understand that post-split there would still be a one-page version? Do you understand why and how the unsplit page is breaking Wikipedia's underlying code? We didn't decide to split on a whim.—S Marshall T/C 13:48, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

  Just got back to this, thanks S Marshall. No, I really don't understand the tech end of this, just seems that Wikipedia coding should be able to handle the page's uploading capacity on mobile (that's coming from someone not at all knowledgeable about code, or mobile, but expecting miracles and full functioning from both). I do know that the discussion had two sides, so keeping this as one page doesn't seem too much off the mark. In any case, I came in cold (or code) and answered the question about how many pages do I think this should be split into, and I opined about keeping it as is. That's still my opinion, given that I think that if the servers and coding can't handle the size of this page then they, and not the break-up of an iconic article, should be improved and brought up to speed even if it takes a Wikipedia/WMF Moon shot to do it. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:46, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

  Right --- no, it's not that. This isn't about server load and it isn't about whether the page will render on mobile.

This is about the hard cap on the number of templates that will display.

And I expect you're thinking, "What?" I know I did when I first came across this.

Why is there a hard cap on the number of templates that will display? Well, it's necessary to protect the servers from certain kinds of sophisticated vandalism that amount to attacks. A clever vandal could set up templates that called each other recursively, so you end up with very large numbers of templates proliferating and absorbing our resources. There are good security reasons why we wouldn't want to change the cap. And the cap is set at such a high level that it almost never comes up (which is why it's confusing so many editors here).

How does the hard cap affect this article? Well, all our references are in templates (and they rightly should be). So we've made this article unexpandable: we can't add further references. For a while now, editors have been using a workaround by adding special code into the references, but this too is on the point of failure.

I've scratched my head about this and then devised a solution that keeps the whole article displaying on one page. The method uses selective transclusion. We can split the article into two, three, or four sections for editing purposes, but someone just wanting to view the list of common misconceptions as a whole will still be able to see it on one page. Some or all of the references won't be visible on the one-page view; but they'll still exist, and they'll be one click away.

If you read the previous discussions, you'll find a link to a demo/mockup/proof of concept that I've set up.

However, we can't proceed with this if we don't split the page.—S Marshall T/C 00:12, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks S Marshall. You say the page will still be presented to readers as one page, and I can't say I understand the coding but will take your word on that. Which is all I was saying when presented with the question of this RM. If true, wasn't my 'one' already correct no matter how many pages the sources are split to? In any case, since you designed the work-around, I'll ease up on my comments above due to my misunderstanding the concept, but would still like to hear Mr swordfish's analysis or objection in this sub-discussion. Mr swordfish, is it correct that the article's text will still be presented as one page? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:34, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what S Marshall is proposing. I thought I did, but was told otherwise. Ideally, the article would look the same for most readers, rather than being N separate articles. There's a way to do this with transclusion and tags to suppress excessive templates, but I'm not sure that is what is in the works or whether it would be acceptable to have the citations "one click away" vs right there in-line. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 17:10, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@S Marshall Suppose we split the list into two, add in all the markup to make the transclusions work, create the one-page article, all in some sandbox. Then, suppose we decide later the split should be three or four (or more) sub-articles. How much work would it entail to make this change? Seems to me that it would just be a matter of adding a couple of lines to the one-page version and cutting and pasting material into the one-page version. i.e. the majority of the work would be the initial addition of the suppression markup and that a 2 vs 3 vs 4 way split would be a trivial amount of work in comparison.

Which is to say, what are we waiting for? Split it 2 or 3 or 4 ways in a sandbox somewhere, do the rest of the transclusion magic, and let's take a good look at the final result. I understand that there's a fair amount of markup to be added, but there are dozens of us that the work could be split among. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 18:10, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

It's enough work that I'm not willing to embark on it speculatively. I want a community decision on what we're doing, which should precede the actual doing it. WAID asked about the "one click away" references on WT:V but didn't get much engagement from people who understood the question.—S Marshall T/C 18:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Mockup

For ease of reference, my mockup/proof of concept is at User:S Marshall/Sandbox/List of common misconceptions demo.—S Marshall T/C 10:15, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I expanded your demo to include the entire article. It's at User:Mr_swordfish/List_of_common_misconceptions.

I can't say it's perfect at this point, and I'm not sure what we're going to do about the talk page or what happens when a naive user clicks the edit button, but it's a start. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:11, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

I assume by treating them to a giant edit notice, although I can't say the edit notice already on the page has been given much heed.

I assume you and S Marshall missed my comment for potential issues with transclusion, mentioning it again in case. I am sympathetic to WAID's comment since, but if that is our approach, it should be identified as such. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 20:32, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Masturbation

Popular belief asserts that individuals of either sex who are not in sexually active relationships tend to masturbate more frequently than those who are; however, much of the time this is not true as masturbation alone or with a partner is often a feature of a relationship. Contrary to this belief, several studies actually reveal a positive correlation between the frequency of masturbation and the frequency of intercourse. A study has reported a significantly higher rate of masturbation in gay men and women who were in a relationship.[52][64][65][66] Benjamin (talk) 17:19, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not understanding why you posted this "common misconception" here on the talk page. Can you help me understand your purpose? Penguino35 (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Crime: gun homicides in the united states

The crime section states or implies that the number of gun homicides in the US decreased, either "since the 90s" or "between 1993 and 2022", depending on how you read the sentence. The source is a Pew research article from 2014. The same source now shows a very different picture: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

In general, I'm not sure statements such as "crime is up" or "crime is down" really belong on this page. We would need to cover all possible geographical areas and time ranges about which misconceptions supposedly happen, and then update them permanently. It's hard to see how we could provide any sort of valuable information unless in the scope of a much more detailed, dedicated article such as "History of Crime in the US" or other. 2A02:6B6F:FC00:9001:C600:A518:A2E3:B732 (talk) 23:54, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Those data from Pew go to 2021, which was a spike year. Since then, we've seen it decrease. See https://www.americanprogress.org/article/early-2024-data-show-promising-signs-of-another-historic-decline-in-gun-violence and https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/2024/continuing-trends-five-key-takeaways-from-2023-cdc-provisional-gun-violence-data

Also note that Pew is using CDC data, not NIBRS/UCR data EvergreenFir (talk) 00:10, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

The sources you point to here seem to establish that there were more gun homicides in 2022 than in 1993 (not enough time to go down from the 2021 spike), and the last sentence in this wikipedia article's related paragraph seems to imply the opposite.

Note that this is all in absolute numbers ; in terms of rate I think the overall trend remains downward in spite of the spike. So if we rephrased that to be "gun homicide rate" instead of "number of gun homicides" I guess it wouldn't be blatantly wrong anymore.

But your good point about 2021-2022 being an unusually high period also applies to the 1990s. Why use the 1990s specifically as a point of reference? Is the common misconception specifically that crime has been going up since the 1990s?

Otherwise, if I arbitrarily pick two points on a historical series with a bit of variation, I will always be able to find specific periods where the series is going up and others where it is going down. For instance the chart right next to that paragraph shows that overall violent crime rates roughly doubled between 1960 and 2020.

If the common misconception we're trying to address is "<some type of crime> rate has been multiplied by 10 in the past couple of years", then I think the paragraph could be rephrased a bit to insist on long term trends versus spikes, give some orders of magnitude, and explain why this sort of claim just don't really make sense. But I'm not sure the general statement "crime is up" or "crime is down" even makes enough sense to be proved or disproved in the first place, so we probably shouldn't start the paragraph like that. 2A02:6B6F:FC00:9001:C600:A518:A2E3:B732 (talk) 23:50, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

References

Suggested inclusion: tax on charitable donations from customers

Suggested inclusion in the "Economics" section - this is a resurrection of something I proposed back in April 2023, which I think merits inclusion as the concept now specifically has its own Wikipedia article that mentions the misconception specifically:

Businesses do not get a tax benefit from collecting charitable donations from their customers, for example at supermarket checkouts. In most jurisdictions, corporation taxes are assessed based on a business' profits; a corporation gains zero tax benefit from collecting funds from customers to then pass on to charities, since the donation would not reflect as either an expense of or income for the business. A business could only use donations to reduce tax owed by donating their own money or resources - this would reduce tax, but only by reducing profit. It would not make economic sense for a company (or an individual) to donate money solely to save tax, since the amount of tax saved would be significantly smaller than the amount donated.

Inclusion criteria:

1. The common misconception's main topic has an article of its own.: Yes, checkout charity

1. The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception: Two sources provided, one referencing a widespread TikTok on the matter and the other from a major news source mentioning this being spread in Facebook. AP News has also fact checked this: https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244

1. The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources: Yes.

1. The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete: Sources are from the past couple of years, and it is a perennial misconception on social media.

Foonblace (talk) 18:12, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing where a reliable source establishes that it is a common misconception. "Thousands" of facebook or tiktok posts wouldn't seem to be enough - there is so much misinformation floating through those and other similar social media sites that "thousands" is a drop in the bucket and I don't think we can list every single piece of misinformation that attracts 1000 or more posts. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Surely it being something that both the Associated Press and USA Today have published pieces rebutting, as well as being mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the overall concept, establishes that it is common? Foonblace (talk) 21:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Foonblace both of these outlets post thousands of fact-checks [3][4] and do not make claims that the facts they are checking constitute "common misconceptions" in general, nor in the linked articles. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 20:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)