Talk:Salt lamp

Untitled

This page is pretty much just an advertisment for quack medicine (see links at the bottom). Should totally be deleted or turned into a stub.

Agreed. I tagged it as an advertisment.

This article is crap

it doesn't even talk about salt lamps, WTF.

Very POV

It now talks about salt lamps, but smacks of quackery, especially the apology line in the first section, "Lack of evidence does not mean evidence is lacking." Yeah, it kind of does. If there is some evidence for it, whip it out. Me, I'm planning on buying one of them because I like how they look. Maybe that's a good enough reason? --StarChaser Tyger 11:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed (although for a different reason)... it is a very POV that is very negative towards salt lamps (only focusing on attacking them because of claims made about them) rather than being an unbiased article about what the salt lamps are. I'm attempting to remove everything that is heavily biased. Burleigh2 (talk) 23:56, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I've restored the material, because at least some of it is properly sourced and I think we can source more if needed. --Ronz (talk) 01:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Just because it has a source doesn't mean it is is a neutral POV that Wiki requires. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view to see what I'm referring to. Those sources are not neutral by any means and are just attacking the product because of claims that were made by a select few sellers (which don't always reflect the product or the industry). I could sell and market a Vitamin C product that makes all sorts of hocus-pokus claims that makes it sound like it'll cure everything in the world... but that doesn't mean that Vitamin C is any more or less effective because of my claims and shouldn't reflect negatively about how Vitamin C works. That's the effect of what those articles portray is an attack on the marketing that has been used by a few companies to market the lamps. If this article were truly neutral and unbiased, it would cover the fact that it's a lamp made from a salt crystal that people use for mood lighting... that's why I changed it. If this were a bigger topic, others would probably agree with this, but I can send an E-mail to a few other editors in some of the more sensitive subjects to point out how they are very biased. Burleigh2 (talk) 21:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

References don't need to be neutral to be included. However, they do need to meet WP:RS and verify the information cited.

I've removed them because neither verified the information, and I don't think the articles discuss the topic at length enough to be useful here. --Ronz (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I was trying to finish reading those references yesterday, but got too overwhelmed at work (busy day). I finished reading them this morning and they don't give any verification to what they were cited for. Also, the reason I changed the coloring to listing a natural color is because the Himalayan salt does have a natural pink color that comes from the Iron Oxide among other trace minerals (although some of the lamp companies may add extra coloring for aesthetic purposes). There is a listing of that natural color at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_salt but for the sake of various companies, I've adjusted it to say it can have both. Burleigh2 (talk) 13:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Remaining problems

I started to remove the bad science from this article, but if I continue this process to its logical conclusion then there will be nothing left but the first sentence. The stuff about humidity doesn't make sense. First the lamp attracts moisture - fair enough - but then it evaporates it again, so the net humidity in the room doesn't change*. So actually this lamp does nothing but glow, like any other lamp. I'm not arguing for deletion, but does anyone object if I take an axe to the article? --Heron (talk) 19:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

* The absolute humidity, that is. You could argue that the relative humidity drops slightly because of the rise in temperature, but then that is unlikely to have a physiological effect. --Heron (talk) 19:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Type and color

I think we need a source to verify that only salt marketed as Himalayan that is used for salt lamps. Same for the color. --Ronz (talk) 15:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding the statement, but any Himalayan Salt Lamp would be from the Himalayan Salt... I haven't really seen any other type of salt lamps before. Maybe all of this needs to be moved to a different article as Himalayan Salt Lamp, otherwise, I think it's more implied. As far as the color, the natural color is covered in the salt article. Burleigh2 (talk) 21:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that we need references for even the very basics, or at least the information in this article should be consistent with the articles that it links to. Salt lamps from Poland are being marketed as European Salt Lamps. Salt from Poland is not being marketed as Himalayan Salt. Maybe we should just get rid of the article, adding a bit about salt lamps to Himalayan salt? --Ronz (talk) 00:53, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay... so why not just delete the article and add the listing to the Himalayan Salt page? Burleigh2 (talk) 17:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

No arguments? Great! So, how do we move it into another article aside from just copy/pasting? Or is that the only option? I'm adding it as a new section in the Himalayan Salt page (at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_salt#Salt_Lamps ) in the mean time... if there's another way, it can be edited then. Burleigh2 (talk) 15:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

My only objection is to deletion. I've redirected the page instead, which retains the editing and talk history. --Ronz (talk) 15:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

That's what I was wondering how (or what the proper redirect option was since it was being added to another section). When I looked at the "move" link, it said not to delete it for the reasons that you said, but I didn't know how to redirect it when it was being added into another section instead of changing to a different name. Now that someone else said it and I thought about how to redirect it, redirecting to the Him. Salt category makes just as much sense (especially since it can't be redirected to a section in that page, which is what I wasn't sure about). Thanks, Ronz! Burleigh2 (talk) 21:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)