Talk:Baba Yaga

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Another film

In the 2018 film Ant-Man and the Wasp, Baba Yaga isn't a character; but she is mentioned. Is it okay to be written in the popular culture section? Aminabzz (talk) 18:05, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Baba Yaga is "simply mentioned" in thousands of works. Per WP:POPCULTURE we only mention works where Baba Yaga has non-trivial role, mentioned by critics. --Altenmann >talk 18:25, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Who is Andreas Johns

Andreas Johns has only one book published, is apparently a Baba Yaga scholar, and has no other information about him on the internet. If anyone is able to find more information about him verifying that he is a reputable source, please let me know. As of now I am not sure we can trust any information from him. Evan Seker (talk) 21:36, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I had him suspicious for a long time. in author blurbs we see "Andreas Johns has taught at both the University of California Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses and at the University of Washington, Seattle" - from what I can tell he may have been a teaching assistant. I see no detailed WP:RS about. Google scholar tells me that this book is his PhD thesis. A reviewer says "it is difficut to distinguish Johns's opinion from this of his secondary sources" . Since A.J. is not a widely-recongnized scholar on the subject, I would be careful about adding his opinions into Wikipedia. 05:40, 2 February 2026 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Altenmann (talk • contribs) 05:40, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

However, the cited review qualifies what you say with "here and there" and also says that the book "displays considerable erudition and interpretive sanity" and "will no doubt stand as the authoritative work on Baba Iaga for some time to come". Considering this and the fact that the book was published by Peter Lang, a serious academic publisher, I can see no reason to doubt its reliability. Gawaon (talk) 08:11, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, disagreed. A "one hit wonder" published compilative PhD does not make a person with no further credentials an unquestionable expert. While we may cite him for facts, his opinions I would see ad dubious unless corroborated some other authorities, per WP:EXTRAORDINARY. --Altenmann >talk 18:43, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Fair enough. Reliability chiefly refers to facts, I'd say. Whether we cite his, or some one else's, or no one's opinions is a question we need to settle in the editorial process. Gawaon (talk) 19:01, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi everyone,

Did we resolve this issue? Or are we trusting his work? Sunfish93Swimmer (talk) 01:03, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

We still quote him twice in the article with in-text attribution, so it seems the issue of whether it's a good idea to do so is still unresolved. The citations seem somewhat interesting and relevant though, so I see no urgency to remove them. Gawaon (talk) 05:23, 23 July 2026 (UTC)