Avoid crack theories and pseudoscientific claims.
Aww but I love talking about Altaic!
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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Linguistics
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Nowadays Altaic is a discredited hypothesis, but I wouldn't consider it a crack theory or pseudoscience. So there's still some room to talk about it, within discretion.
If I said the variant of the Altaic hypothesis that includes Korean, can it be classed as a crack theory?
Okay Starostin, now you're going too far. :)
I'm joking. Seriously, it depends a lot on how you approach it. Macro-Altaic is heavily controversial, not supported by linguistic and/or genetic evidence, but it is not blatantly false. So it should be fine to talk about it, or even propose that it might be true, as long as there's no attempt to disguise it as incontestable truth or scientific consensus.
Here's some examples of things I'd consider crack theories, and remove accordingly:
- Obnoxious and insistent claims that English is Romance, Romanian is Slavic, Japanese is Sinitic etc., even in the light of evidence contrariwise
- Claims that all languages are a degenerated version of Hebrew, Sanskrit or ULTRAFRENCH
- Crappy Proto-World reconstructions that make no attempt whatsoever to use the comparative method correctly
The problem of those isn't just that they're discredited; they're blatantly false and/or grossly disregard proper scientific methodology.
Are comedic posts still going to be allowed? I looked through the community and saw a couple. I suppose they are covered by rule 5?
You mean stuff like this, right?
This sort of stuff is mildly discouraged. People are probably better off sharing it in [email protected] instead. But as long as there's some room for genuine discussion or info sharing about language, I won't remove it. Because, yes, rule 5 (nobody likes "stop having fun!!1one" style e-jannies).
Note that neither @[email protected] nor me are too strict on the rules. For example I'd rather tell users "don't do this" than to temp-ban users.
Thank you for bringing this up!
I didn't see that one, but in the recent posts there is "bro wake up, seven new laryngeals have dropped" and the xkcd about "going to".
Oh yeah, I forgot about linguistics_humor - even though I'm subscribed already. That does make sense.
Ah, got it - I know which posts you're talking about. Same deal, except that both have more room for discussion.
All seem like improvements to me.
I'm just a lurker, but does rule #3 come from that user that started a nuclear war because someone told them their link was behind a paywall? That thread was embarrassing, so I guess it makes sense.
Kinda.
To be frank I was already considering this sort of rule ages ago, regardless of that discussion. (Nobody was "starting a nuclear war" though.) So the role of that discussion was
- to make me consider this a more pressing matter
- how to handle this in a way that satisfies both sides.
I'm open to better ways to handle this, in case anyone wants to chime in.
Nuclear war?