Talk:Homeopathy Unrefuted?

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected, closed by Launchballer talk 00:08, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

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Poster for the 2022 documentary *Homeopathy Unrefuted?*, featuring sugar reflected in a mirror as homeopathic globules.

• ... that using the Socratic method on homeopaths, as done in Homeopathy Unrefuted? (poster pictured), can prove devastating for their claims?

• Source: Cited at ref 3 in the article: Hippen, Wilfried; Die Tageszeitung, 8 February 2022, p. 24, ISSN 0931-9085. (in German)

• • ALT1: ... that Homeopathy Unrefuted? (poster pictured) never sets out to disprove homeopathy—yet its practitioners often end up doing it themselves? Source: per source 1 in article: Thiam, Boussa (February 14, 2022). "Die Widersprüche der Koryphäen". Deutschlandfunk Kultur (in German).
  • ALT2: ... that in Homeopathy Unrefuted? (poster pictured), when homeopaths finish explaining their therapy, few consistent principles remain? Source: per source 1 in article: Thiam, Boussa (February 14, 2022). "Die Widersprüche der Koryphäen". Deutschlandfunk Kultur (in German).
  • Reviewed:
  • Comment: Image is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 on Commons, free use confirmed.

Created by KAMfakten (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

KAMfakten (talk) 13:34, 4 September 2025 (UTC).

• Comment: I bolded the article you are nominating, please make sure to bold them next time. Thanks Warm Regards, Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs) 11:35, 6 September 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose: I don't think this is interesting or neutral in any way. Should be rejected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingsacrificer (talk • contribs) 19:41, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Need a full review, my two cents one that explains why it's not "interesting or neutral in any way". ミラP@Miraclepine 01:11, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - n
• Neutral: - n
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - n
• Interesting: - ?

Image eligibility:

• Freely licensed:
• Used in article:
• Clear at 100px: - n

QPQ: None required.

Overall: The article has sentences that are non-neutral. For example, The topic was perfectly suited to the medium of non-confrontational Socratic dialogues expresses in wikivoice what the source presents as the views of the filmmaker. Unsourced sentences like Even though Homeopathy Unrefuted? is certainly conceived as a niche product, it's unclear whether it's of more interest to homeopathy's proponents or opponents appear to be original research. Meanwhile, none of the hooks work. ALT0 is not explicitly stated in the article, and the only discussion of the Socratic method is cited to other sources, not the source provided in the nom. Meanwhile, ALT1 and ALT2 are sourced to a Q&A interview with the filmmaker, which is not independent, and thus the hook should be attributed to the filmmaker. However, attributing a rather banal observation about how the film is constructed to the filmmaker makes mostly uninteresting hooks even less interesting. At any rate, the article and the hooks need some work. I'd suggest some new alternatives where the hook matches claims in the article and is sourced to a suitable reliable source. Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:28, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, this was helpful! I clarified the source of the first statement and deleted the second one without source. I also checked the article about other non-neutral sentences. If you find more, I will correct them. I refrased the first hook in a way, that it reproduces exactly the wording of the journalist in Die Tageszeitung and offer a second hook that is less literal, but would be more poignated:

• ALT4: ... that Homeopathy Unrefuted? (poster pictured) only features people who believe in and practice homeopathy, yet the film ends up being more damaging for them than if critics had been included?

• Source: Cited at ref 3 in the article: Hippen, Wilfried; Die Tageszeitung, 8 February 2022, p. 24, ISSN 0931-9085. (in German)

• • ALT5: ... that Homeopathy Unrefuted? (poster pictured) interviews only homeopathy believers, yet this alone makes the film more damaging for them than including skeptics?

• Source: Cited at ref 3 in the article: Hippen, Wilfried; Die Tageszeitung, 8 February 2022, p. 24, ISSN 0931-9085. (in German)

KAMfakten (talk) 15:38, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• • Neither of these new alternative hooks is neutrally worded. They present the opinion of a single interviewer in wikivoice as a fact. For all I know, not having seen the movie, the film is more damaging to homeopathy than if critics had been included, but that is the opinion of Wilfried Hippen, not something we can state on the Wikipedia homepage as a fact. Normally we'd want to attribute the opinion to the person expressing it, but Hippen appears to be non-notable and has no Wikipedia page, so I'm not sure that saying ...did you know that Wilfried Hippen thought this about a movie works at all as a hook. Also, neither of these hooks appears in the article. P.S. Upon second thought, the text in the poster image is not legible, so I've updated the review to account for that. If this is eventually promoted, the image should not be used. Dclemens1971 (talk) 20:51, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, I see what you mean. So what about hooks based on the films content itself, like:

• ALT6: ... that Homeopathy Unrefuted? features homeopaths naming remedies made from cancer tissue to magnets — and even the Berlin Wall?
• ALT7: ... that Homeopathy Unrefuted? lets only homeopathy advocates speak — yet hardly seems to flatter the method?
• ALT8: ... that Homeopathy Unrefuted? gives the floor solely to homeopaths — with unexpected results?
• ALT9: ... that Homeopathy Unrefuted? featuring only defenders of homeopathy ends up questioning the method’s credibility?
• Comment: A statement like "ends up questioning the method’s credibility" is no interpretation of mine or of a journalist or the filmmaker, but this is, what actually goes on in the film itself.--KAMfakten (talk) 20:10, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

First, to establish my bona fides on this topic: did you hear the one about the homeopath who forgot to take his medication and died of an overdose? Second: too many of these are formulated as Your Opinion. ALT6 will work. DS (talk) 13:48, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

@KAMfakten: I agree with DragonflySixtyseven that ALTS7-9 do express personal opinions (or present personal opinions in wikivoice). ALT6 is in the article, but it does not comply with WP:DYKHFC's requirement that The facts of the hook in the article should be cited no later than the end of the sentence in which they appear. Plot summaries are not required to sourced in articles that appear in DYK, but the hook fact is, without any exception for hook facts that appear in plot summaries. The hook would also need to be rephrased as something like this ALT6a: ... that Homeopathy Unrefuted? features homeopaths naming remedies derived from cancer tissue, magnets and even the Berlin Wall? But before anything else can be done, the WP:DYKHFC issue must be addressed. Dclemens1971 (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

In order not to rely solely on the film itself with a time stamp as a source, I have modified the hook to reflect facts that are mentioned in secondary sources:

• ALT6b: ... that the documentary Homeopathy Unrefuted? shows homeopaths suggesting that even a fridge, a camera, or the Berlin Wall could be made into a homeopathic remedy?

• Sources: Cited in ref 1: Hoffmann, Werner; Forum für Kritisches Denken, and ref 2: Oßwald, Dieter; Kontext: Wochenzeitung (both in German).

Question: I added these footnotes to the content section of the article to meet DYK requirements. May I remove them again after the DYK review, or should they remain? KAMfakten (talk) 21:18, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

@KAMfakten: The Berlin Wall reference appears to be confirmed only in remarks by the director (that source is a Q&A interview), and I'm reluctant to approve a hook about a movie that's based on claims made by the filmmaker. The refrigerator and camera bits do come from secondary coverage. Is there a third substance you can source from a secondary source for what homeopaths in the movie claim therapies can be made of? On a separate note, the section headings in the summary of the documentary's content are excessive and affect the article's presentability; see WP:OVERSECTION. I do not believe it's necessary for readers to read single-sentence summaries of each individual "chapter". As for your question, please leave citations in the content section. They should be in the article for readers' benefit if and when this appears on the main page. Dclemens1971 (talk) 12:18, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

@Dclemens1971: The Berlin Wall is mentioned by the journalist, and then the director explains why he included it in the film. This should be sufficient as a secondary source. And yes, you're right — I’ve used the flexibility of the Wikipedia Manual of Style in the summary in favor of clarity and orientation, and that was intentional. The subheadings make the text scannable: readers can quickly grasp the structure and choose what to explore in detail. Even short paragraphs deserve their own heading when they cover a distinct topic — this prevents separate ideas from blending into a vague summary. Moreover, the headings exactly match those in the film, and the text’s structure visually mirrors the film’s structure itself. I wouldn’t normally use paragraphs that way in a plot summary, but in this case, it seemed like the right decision. KAMfakten (talk) 14:02, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

@KAMfakten: The interviewer's only mention of the Berlin Wall is Die "Berliner Mauer" wirkt automatisch lächerlich (roughly The 'Berlin Wall' automatically seems laughable). That doesn't say that the homeopath brought it up as an example of a homeopathic remedy. The source also doesn't support the text in the article, which names the interviewee who said this when the source doesn't. So this part of the hook still needs to be fixed. And WP:OVERSECTION is quite clear: Very short sections and subsections clutter an article with headings and inhibit the flow of the prose. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheadings. The "Content" section of this article is exactly that -- too many subsections that are just a sentence or two. There is no requirement that the content section include subheadings that match the chapters of the documentary, particularly if the summaries of them are so short, and it does seriously interfere with the presentability of the article. Dclemens1971 (talk) 01:26, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

@Dclemens1971: I absolutely agree that we should work by the book — but within reasonable limits. What other explanation could there be for the journalist mentioning "Berlin Wall" and the filmmaker explaining why that remedy appears in the film — namely, that he wouldn’t have included it unless the homeopaths themselves had brought it up? How could this not count as sufficient proof? (As a side note: a quick search reveals articles about the existence of the remedy "Berlin Wall" in The Times, The Guardian, Medscape, and the Daily Mail.) Regarding the structure: yes, you’re right in a formal sense. However, as a frequent reader of high-quality Wikipedia articles, I find that a bit of flexibility in applying style guidelines can sometimes improve understanding. Let’s be honest — most readers will only read this summary and never watch the documentary. Yet the film features the leading authorities on homeopathy contradicting each other on every fundamental aspect of the concept. Presenting these contradictions in clearly subdivided sections — just as the film does — provides valuable clarity that would be lost in a continuous block of text. The subsections are concise, but none consist of a single sentence. Considerable effort went into keeping them short while preserving completeness and neutrality. I genuinely believe this structure serves readers best in this particular case. KAMfakten (talk) 21:39, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

@KAMfakten: It appears this is your second article and first DYK nomination, so I don't want to discourage you, but we have a large backlog of DYK nominations and so there's very little reason to pass a nomination that falls short of the DYK guidelines. In this case, we need: (1) to have every element of the hook clearly validated in a reliable source. I have identified above why the Berlin Wall reference is not fully validated by a source provided (I am not going to Google; if you want to bring a source to the discussion, bring a source to the discussion), and (2) WP:OVERSECTION is part of the Manual of Style, which is a guideline (best practice supported by consensus) and it's not my place to waive guidelines, particularly in a case like this one where I see their merits. It may be mystifying that DYK reviewers insist on certain things (it was to me when I first began nominating hooks here), but there are good reasons, and my concerns are founded on WP:DYKG. Since you appear unwilling to make further modifications to the article or hook (which is your prerogative), I will bow out of this review and open it up to another reviewer for a second opinion. Good luck. Dclemens1971 (talk) 00:00, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

• Having taken a look at the article, the article is not ready for DYK at this time. The sectioning issue has not been addressed; in addition, I know that this is about a documentary, but the Plot section taking up much of the article is something that MOS:PLOT discourages; thus it would need rewriting. The sectioning is also an issue; despite concerns raised, this has not been addressed. I cannot speak for the claims or their referencing as this is outside my expertise, and I tend to be fine with primary sources being used to support hooks as long as they are not contentious claims. However, the fact that this is homeopathy we are talking about, a fringe theory, we do need to have more scrutiny over the article. With the issues raised by other editors unaddressed, and the nomination now being the oldest unapproved nomination and having already turned two months old, I am marking this for closure. I would suggest trying again if you bring this to GA status, as a successful GAN run should also solve the concerns. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 16:00, 4 November 2025 (UTC)