OK, I could very well be wrong. May I ask, is it the
only meaning of
the word mentioned, or the main one? Someone else who has a good book
to check? Words often have several meanings... the word is often used
as an insult, carrying negative connotations. On that I hope we can
agree.
Certainly. And the word "quackery" is negative
because the phenomenon it describes is negative
like, say, "vandalism".
It looks to me that you actuallly
want to use it for this very purpose - to warn the readers i.e. you
decide what people should be warned of. Maybe I want to warn people
for religion - can I create [[Category:Unscientific supernatural
beliefs]] and put [[Christianity]] in it?
Fine by me. And wouldn't most Christians
agree that their religion is a collection
of unscientific supernatural beliefs?
During the course in oncology, our teachers told us
that many of their
patients also sought for some alternative method of various kinds.
They were not at all against it - they said the alternative people
gave the patients something they badly needed, both for better
prognosis and for quality of life - often not a very long period of
time. That thing the alt.med. stuff can give in that situation, is
hope...
Sure, how about [[Category:Comforting lies]]?
and I still can not see that you have explained
wherein the usefulness of this particular category lies.
What's the usefulness of any category? It's mostly
an aid to browsing, I suppose. You're reading about
one thing and maybe you'd like to read about other
similar things.
You're right that the category shouldn't be a primary
warning label. The article itself should make clear the
efficacy of its subject (or lack thereof). On the other
hand I'm arguing that upholding a distinction between
quackery and alternative medicine in the category system
is misleading.
Regards,
Haukur
P.S. I hope I'm not getting too worked up about this.
I haven't actually edited much in the quackery field
in the past, I mostly work on Norse mythology. In that
field I frequently see categories used to claim something
not actually supported by the article.