Talk:Myth

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 10 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): JaneAshton99 (article contribs).

Academics often take a word and give it their own specialized definition. That's not a myth

First of all, I am an academic, so I am complaining about what some of my colleagues do. Sorry, World. Increasingly, academics take words in common use and then give them narrower and more specialized definitions. Then their students are taught that this is now the official definition of a word and demand others follow this. "Racist" is a good example of this. "Myth" is one of the worst cases of academics narrowly defining a word already in common use. Anybody reading academic writings that mention "myth" has to carefully discern which of the too-many definitions of "myth" the writer is using. To students in any of the disciplines that use "myth", please forgive us academics. Read discerningly. Pete unseth (talk) 12:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

No one can be more deeply jaded against academics than other academics, so thanks for the disclaimer. But wait—what are we meant to do about this, exactly? I see nothing that amounts to a point beyond WP:NOTAFORUM soapboxing, which is doubly perplexing given you're very much an experienced editor that I would expect would provide something actionable here. Surely, you know the talk page isn't for disclaimers we feel to be salves for the reader against what we're forced to tell them. That's patently inappropriate. Remsense ‥ 论 12:32, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Maybe some soap in my box, but just trying to remind readers that authors often do not clearly define their definition of "myth". All need to read carefully. And I need to write carefully. I suppose I should have pointed out places in the article where definitions are vague or assumed. Better next time. Pete unseth (talk) 15:20, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Typo on picture description

“Thor’s fight with the Giants” in the image caption has a typo. Thor is spelled Tor. 24.62.178.236 (talk) 13:01, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

 Done Peaceray (talk) 14:32, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Partners & Spade which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:18, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

"Social mythology" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Social mythology has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 January 4#Remaining redirects created by User:Anti gozo|Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 January 4 § Remaining redirects created by User:Anti gozo]] until a consensus is reached. I₂Overcome ^talk 02:30, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

José Manuel Losada

In December 2025 happened an ENORMOUS infusion of the novel (2022) theory of this porfessor. I believe this constitutes a WP:UNDUE promotion and must be severely trimmed. I removed huge chunks of Losada's theory, because I see no secondary sources commenting on Losada's theory in order to establish its validity and conformance to mainstream. All this must go into José Manuel Losada#Cultural Myth Criticism

I'd like opinions of other Wikipedians. --Altenmann >talk 01:57, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I've looked at the José Manuel Losada article and tagged the Cultural Myth Criticism section there as lacking independent sources. I've looked at this Myth aticle as it was at 20:08, 28 February 2026 and the same problem was present here, with all the sources in the Cultural Myth Criticism section being to Losada's work. I agree that removing the material from the Myth article is appropriate. If the section in the José Manuel Losada article ever beomes more independently sourced, maybe a brief summary of the work could be reintroduced in this Myth article, but only a brief summary.--Northernhenge (talk) 11:04, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks. I had noticed the large quantity of information from that one scholar, and I agree that it needed cutting down. It seems most of the information cited to Losada was added in recent months by a single user. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:09, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

"Mythos" hatnote

@Michael Aurel: I noticed you recently reverted my edit that added Claude Mythos to the "Mythos" hatnote. I had added it because Claude Mythos has been dominating the news lately. (For example Google Trends data shows that search interest in "mythos" is still largely driven by interest in Claude Mythos rather than other topics like the Mythos beer or so on.) Do you think that there's any topic that's worth emphasizing by putting into the hatnote? Duckmather (talk) 03:56, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

• WP:NOTNEWS.No reason to promote yet another half-baked LLM. --Altenmann >talk 04:21, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

@Duckmather: We generally don't prioritise certain topics solely because they're in the news at the moment. This is partly why our article titling policy includes the long-term significance criterion; otherwise, we'd be moving articles all the time based on recent, fleeting surges in popularity. WP:NOTNEWS is also of relevance. As to Do you think that there's any topic that's worth emphasizing by putting into the hatnote?: the meaning of "mythos" covered by this article is the primary topic (at least according to the current arrangement), so I don't see any reason to afford special priority to any particular non-primary meaning. If you think Claude Mythos should be the primary topic for the search term "mythos", WP:RM is the venue for that (though I'd oppose such a move). – Michael Aurel (talk) 06:46, 24 May 2026 (UTC)