Talk:Mothman

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Killer Moth

@LuckyLouie: As a non-native English speaker, I am always glad when my grammar is improved. However, your edit does not make me totally lucky, for the following reasons: The name Mothman was used in the local media quite from the very beginning, see for example here and here in The Herald-Dispatch. So, when there is a source claiming "As the story spread beyond West Virginia, other newspapers coined new names... One Midwest editor apparently decided to name it after one of the villains - "Killer Moth" - from the then popular Batman TV show", we know from the facts that this is not to be taken at face value. Further, it remains a fact that also Batman himself is credited as an influence. Overall, I think it is legit to tell the readers of the many names used for the creature in an explicit way. So, I would like to restore the section, with some adaptions, but in principle as it was. --KnightMove (talk) 18:32, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for starting a Talk page discussion. Since the newspaper clipping from November 17 uses the name “mothman”, I’m OK with saying something like “newspapers soon coined the term “Mothman”...” and referencing the fictional enemy of Batman. The text you had previously inserted mistakenly gave the impression that the name was coined by the first claimants (Roger and Linda Carberry) on the day of the first report, which is simply not the case. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:07, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I've copyedited the text to reflect that the name was coined by newspapers soon after the first reports. "Further, it remains a fact that also Batman himself is credited as an influence". The book The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters does say it was named after Batman, however this is likely a truncated summary of the Batman enemy Killer Moth, and is conflicted by other, more reliable sources. Note that author Rosemary Ellen Guiley is a well known WP:FRINGE proponent and not considered an authoritative source by Wikipedia. Best regards, - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:34, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the extensive answer, I have let it sink in. My opinion about the situation the following:

1. If Rosemary Ellen Guiley is not a citable source, well then, Cassandra Eason certainly is even less and also to be taken out. You have added Richard Moreno as a source for Killer Moth, who is certainly a much more serious author. But then, he only says that apparently one editor decided to name it after Killer Moth and is not sure about it.
2. Much more important: The report of Ralph Turner from 19 November 1966 clearly states "Since Tuesday more than 10 people have spotted what they described as a "birdman" or "mothman"..." - Roger and Linda Carberry may have been the first, but not the only ones. We have a source stating that the term was used by eye-witnesses, and thus, the claim of later coinage by the newspapers contradicts the evidence.
3. There are many more, and more serious, sources only mentioning Batman resp. the popularity of the Batman series, without mentioning Killer Moth (example); and then, there is quite a distance between Killer Moth and Mothman, isn't there? A loose inspiration by Batman and Killer Moth is more plausible than a direct takeover from the latter. And not forgetting... Killer Moth did not even screen in that cited, popular televison series!

As a summary, I think my former section was - apart from necessary improvements in language and formatting - the most accurate way possible to summarize the connetion: Mothman was one of many terms used by the eye-witnesses and prevailed as the only name still in use. Sources cite an influence of the Batman franchise, some explicitly of Killer Moth. But as the claim of those sources of an only-later coinage of the term is proven wrong, it is not to be taken over - and the Batman/Mothman/Killer Moth connection only to be added with care in this regard. --KnightMove (talk) 01:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding #2, especially for a WP:FRINGE topic, we prefer the arms-length analysis of reliable secondary sources over contemporaneous news reports that are indulging in WP:SENSATIONAL, often tongue-in-cheek reporting. A WP editor combing through old news reports to select details that are at odds with secondary sources in order to create a unique narrative section about the mothman name is doing WP:OR, and we should avoid that.

As for the mothman name being influenced by Batman, I’d have to take a closer look at the sourcing, but perhaps we could include both Batman and Killer Moth as possible influences, rather than definitively declare it was either one or the other. In any case, it would be helpful to hear opinions from other editors, since there is WP:NODEADLINE. Best regards, - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

"perhaps we could include both Batman and Killer Moth as possible influences, rather than definitively declare it was either one or the other" - this is exactly what I had done in the previous section.

As of WP:SENSATIONAL, well, even reporting the incident could be valued as such (some quality newspapers probably would have rejected that) - but I don't see a logic to disregard the journalist's wording "... what they described as a "birdman" or "mothman" as possibly non-truthful due to sensationalism. Without those reports, Mothman would not be a topic for a Wikipedia article. Any the term was used in the early reports across the newspapers, here in the Huntington Advertiser.

About WP:OR, I think it is a misuse of the rules to blindly follow secondary sources, if their claims are incompatbile with facts proven by primary sources. When a secondary source says "As the stories spread beyond West Virginia, other newspapers coined new names... Thus "Mothman" was born", although the name was evidentially and extensively used already in the very first reports in local newspapers, the claim is proven wrong and can't be taken over. Are we interested in facts or formalized rules (like trusting secondary sources) as a fetish? --KnightMove (talk) 22:13, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Batman/Mothman connection?

For the benefit of anyone who wants to edit this article (I won't be signing on as an editor myself because the behaviour of some of your more obsessive and less pleasant long-time editors makes trying to edit articles on topics like this a pointless waste of time for anyone who isn't truly passionate about the subject, and/or at least borderline autistic), the connection between Batman and Mothman seems to be this.

Batman's comic-book adversary Killer Moth has been around under various aliases since 1951, but he was always one of the many obscure Batman baddies most people have never heard of, and his only connection with the sixties TV series was to appear in a 15-minute pilot shot as test footage for new character Batgirl that was never aired. His costume does include wings, but otherwise its bright colours are a very poor fit with the reported appearance of the dark, shadowy Point Pleasant bogeyman. And he was never actually called Mothman, so he isn't very likely to have been the direct inspiration for the nickname.

On the other hand, here's a quote from Chapter 12 of Gray Barker's 1970 book "The Silver Bridge", which, though far less well-known than John Keel's "The Mothman Prophecies", predates it by 5 years and was the first book-length treatment of these events. Although marketed as non-fiction, it includes numerous passages that are clearly very fictional indeed, so it's hardly the most reliable of sources. But I think it's reasonable to assume he's telling the truth about not particularly fantastical details such as this:

"The phone rang. It was Channel 13, Huntington, whose news editor had already seen the brief AP item, and was trying to get the whole story. They carried the “Batman” TV show, and had coined a name for the bird-like creature, as a promo for the series. They thought “Mothman” might be a good appellation."

So there you go: it was a catchy nickname directly inspired by the Batman TV show, and not at all by the D-list Batman supporting character Killer Moth, whose vague similarity to Mothman appears to be purely coincidental. I hope this will be helpful to anyone who fancies having an edit-war with those nasty little boys who have successfully dissuaded people like me from wasting our time trying to improve Wikipedia.