Talk:Ghost light (disambiguation)

message: Should this page have some mention of the meaning of the phrase "ghost light" in theatre?  (That is, one light on the stage that's left on when you leave the theatre.)  See here for a bit more info. —Josiah Rowe 03:46, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would presume that a new page followed by a disambiguation is most appropriate. While the two share a name, they are most definetly seperate, except for maybe in etymology. ProfMoriarty 22:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing is, I'm not sure whether the theatrical meaning can support a page on its own — it would pretty much be a definition, and Wikipedia is not a dictionary.  Hm. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've created Ghost light (disambiguation). (Emperor 23:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the stagecraft mention as it isn't appropriate for this page. Such mixed entries are only appropriate for disambiguation pages so I added it there. If you want to go itno more detail then I'd suggest starting the definition over on Wiktionary as there is no such entry. (Emperor 23:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Theatrical meaning?

message: I am currently working on a re-write at User:ProfMoriarty/Ghost light. Any and all help and advice is greatly appreciated. ProfMoriarty 22:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Re-write Draft

message: Any objections to redirecting this article to Will-o'-the-wisp? ScienceApologist 16:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a citation for this belief? ScienceApologist 17:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well for starters it says so in the article but yes I can provide more sources and will add them later.  (Emperor 05:09, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Okay, I have requested the citations. I'm going to tag the article. ScienceApologist 00:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Obviously if this is a low-traffic article, it may take an excessive amount of time for the other users to comment. In that case, it seems appropriate to do so after some reasonable amount of time, perhaps a week. Antelan talk 04:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be worth alerting the Paranormal Project - I'm sure the editors will have some input on this. (Emperor 05:09, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we go back and keep the article vs. having a re-direct? There are other ghost lights other than the Will-o'-the-wisp. TruthIsStrangerThanFiction (talk) 01:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you give an example? ScienceApologist (talk) 15:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Two of the articles I looked for were Marfa lights and Light of Saratoga. They are not listed in the 'wisp' page. The 'wisp' page just gives what looks like translation from other cultures & traditions. I don't know if these two would fit properly here or even here: Will-o'-the-wisps in popular culture. TruthIsStrangerThanFiction (talk) 22:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why wouldn't they fit there? They look like they work to me. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The 'wisp' page and its content is not as common or generic as the 'Ghost light' page. I would think that an end user looking for "ghost lights" would type in just that, and see an article with a branching of the different subjects to explore. That's my input. TruthIsStrangerThanFiction (talk) 02:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From my understanding, "will o the wisp" is the term that is usually used for such claims. Although not everyone may be familiar with this term, if a person types in "ghost light" and arrives at that page they shouldn't be astonished. More than this, I'm not sure what is more generic about "ghost light". Can you name something that is clearly a ghost light but NOT a will o the wisp? The two things you mentioned, for example, certainly qualify for the will o' the wisp definition. I also didn't see anything on the previous incarnation of this article that couldn't be included at the will o' the wisp page. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

text: The Term "will o the wisp" applies only to literary folklore, not to the paranormal. It's also almost exclusively found in UK/US folklore. You'd not find a serious debunker describing themselves as having investigated "will o the wisp", would you? In fact debunkers don't usually use the terms unless they are either using it as a metaphor (they are refering to sometihn gas bien g insubstantial), or are referring directly to folklore. perfectblue (talk) 18:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Scienceapologist, when redirecting, don't forget to bring information from the source article to the destination article. thanks. I've reverted the redirect for now to make it easier for you to do this. Totnesmartin (talk) 11:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ghostlight needs to be referenced to a third party source, or else we cannot have a separate article on it. I have merged the useful content will of the wisp per Totnesmartin's suggestion. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

text: There does not seem to be a consensus for merging.  So please don't do it till consensus emerges. ——Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ—— 00:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Read over perfectblue's statement. It's a POINT, not an actual argument against merging. Antelan talk 00:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know much about this subject, but I do know that no one has presented any outside citations for or against the redirect, and while no consensus has been reached, it seems to be leaning against redirect right now. Please refrain from blanking the page and redirecting until either consensus is reached or verifiable citations are given for doing so. -JWGreen (talk) 00:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please demonstrate the relevant WP policy for this request. Antelan talk 00:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

text: No, you missed my point. I want JWGreen, who showed up out of the blue, to demonstrate the part of wikipedia policy that states that we have to get "citations" for merging the articles. Antelan talk 00:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you think that Perfectblue needs citations, why shouldn't you provide citations.  Citations are irrelevant according to policy, however, you think they are, so I think it should go both ways.  I think thats fair.  However, if you want to stick to policy, reach concensus.  At the time of the redirect, the only person who was explicity for the redirect was ScienceApologist and Perfectblue had opposed.  1 to 1 does not constitute concensus.  Does that help clear it up? -JWGreen (talk) 03:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Right, well, I don't know what he meant by that. ——Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ—— 00:57, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure either. I have asked him on his talk page for further comment. It is strange how impartial he sounded in that comment. In looking over the edit history, I see that he is the one person who has vocalized an opposition to the merger. I am discounting perfectblue's comment for the reason I said before. Antelan talk 01:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As for how I ended up on the page, at the time it had a blurb about ghost lights in theatre so it was in my watchlist still.  After watching it being blanked multiple times without concensus, I decided to weigh in.  The first revert was because it hadn't even been discussed on the talk page before redirecting, the second because no concensus had been reached, in fact from reading the talk page concensus seemed to be leaning towards not redirecting. -JWGreen (talk) 03:45, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Perfectblue counts. ——Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've asked perfectblue for a clarification, since the rationale provided is in opposition to all editing perfectblue has done to this point. At any rate, I think that the argument itself fails. Antelan talk 01:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if as PB says they are really different things and shouldn't be confused, that seems like a valid argument. ——Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:46, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: PB says that this merge would confer false legitimacy on the paranormal. Hence, my doubt that this is a real concern. Antelan talk 01:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please work toward consensus, and assume good faith. ——Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ—— 06:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: AGF is a policy that explicitly incorporates exceptions and also carries the caveat of "use common sense." By using common sense I can distinguish a genuine rationale from one that is, at best, ironic. Antelan talk 06:46, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes, I've used that point before.  You do have a point here, but what we should actually consider is whether the argument is valid -however PB means it. ——Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ—— 07:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Redirect

message: In all the rather pointless machinations above, no one (and by no one I mean perfectblue and Martin) has provided a reliable source that indicates that "ghost light" is a term that is of broader "paranormal significance" than Will-o'-the-wisp. I have provided three mainstream sources (the American Heritage Dictionary, the Houghton-Mifflin Thesaurus, and the Columbia Encyclopedia) which all do not acknowledge the existence of the term "ghost light" while attributing the qualities found in the previous incarnation of this article to will-o'-the-wisp. My argument is one based purely on sources and nothing more. I would like to see one mainstream source that disambiguates between will-'o-the-wisps and ghost lights as perfectblue is attempting to insinuate happens. Until then, I'm perplexed as to what the rationale can possibly be against a merge. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no doubt that you are right about the sources, and you are probably right to merge (based on the fact PB doesn't seem to have any sources).  But you are very wrong to have edit warred this change in, and I've reported it for what it might be worth. ——Martinphi    ☎ Ψ Φ—— 06:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi, I just ran ""ghost light" folklore" through scholar.google.com and found it named so in folklore journals. I think that on inspection one would see that this is a more scientific term. I have myself never heard it as will'o'wisps, and you should rather prove that is correct. Also I notice that the lead seems to state that science has explanations for everything. Ugh. Somebody who actually know anything about the subject should rescue Ghost Light.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benjaminbruheim (talk • contribs) 15:02, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Won't somebody please think of the sources?

message: I'm no power editor and maybe I'm off base.  But if there is a disambiguation page, shouldn't the default term itself redirect to that?  If you type in "Ghost Light", you get sent to the "Will-o-the-wisp" page, with absolutely no indication that there are other meanings.  You have to explicitly type "Ghost light (disambiguation)" to reach that page.  I submit that most people won't know to (or bother to) look for that page when just looking up a term they've run across.
I suppose I'm just going from my experience, but I've come across the theatrical use of "ghost light" a heck of a lot more than I've ever heard its use as "will of the wisp".  It seems absurd that the latter is the default redirect.
Gilroy0 (talk) 04:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree. ScienceApologist says that we can't source "ghost light". However, think of this as an example - If you think of the word "Search", it takes you to a disambig page with quite a few different applications of the meaning. I think the same applies to the "ghost light". That term "wisp" is something I really hadn't heard used where I am from, so I agree with you. TruthIsStrangerThanFiction (talk) 23:44, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We should disambiguate ghost light to ghost light (disambiguation). That's a good idea. ScienceApologist (talk) 04:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you missed the point of the discussion and what I meant. This "wisp" label is not as common as you may think. You yourself used these words earlier on: From my understanding..., and Although not everyone may be familiar with this term, if a person types in "ghost light" and arrives at that page they shouldn't be astonished.  From your post here , granted the wisp term may appear in the sources you refer to. This does not mean that "wisp" is more popular. Do you have a reliable reference to show why it is more popular? All you did was create a link to the wisp page in the disambig, nothing more. I think this should have a broader view, and I believe others would agree. TruthIsStrangerThanFiction (talk) 01:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The issue is that ghost light is a parochial term that has not been properly sourced. We have plenty of sources that describe will-o'-the-wisps but none that reliably define (let alone discuss) ghost lights. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation and redirect?