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Was the "Irish ghost video" staged? If so, how?

The last comment of the video analysis explains how original research is not allowed.

OR is not "disliked", but explicitly forbidden by the community rules on skeptics and mods will delete such answers, even if highly upvoted.

Where does one go to ask people to teach you to be more critical, spot such signs, learn what to look for, and so on?

This SE is really named too generally. It's not about most things that skeptics would discuss. It is not about skeptical analysis, but for looking up and consolidating analyses posted elsewhere. This SE should be named for being "a curated index of skeptical debunkings" and not imply "for asking questions on the subject of skepticism".

This answer is interesting and the analysis informative, not just for this video but for learning how to watch critically, and encouraging people to ask such questions rather than just spread disinformation.

This answer should be automatically sent somewhere, rather than just deleted and/or berated. Where is "somewhere"?

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    I'm not sure what this question is asking. For resources on how to learn to be skeptical? For a name change? For a scope change? For the ability to migrate to a non-Stack Exchange site?
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 3:19
  • You can only handle one point raised per discussion post? You summarized my main points, so you can be sure you understood.
    – JDługosz
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 8:48
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    @JDługosz I improved your question and hopefully made it clearer. I have a question though. You say we imply our topic is "for asking questions on the subject of skepticism". Where did you read that quote? It is not our topic and we need to correct it if that is the case!
    – Sklivvz Mod
    Commented Oct 4, 2015 at 8:28
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    @JDługosz: I have given four different answers for the (at least) four unrelated questions that you asked in the same post.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Oct 5, 2015 at 5:30

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You are correct that this site is not for learning about scientific skepticism. In fact it's a place to apply it.

However, scientific skepticism is different from rational debate. It is a discipline based on examining evidence and balancing it against propositions. In a way, it is dissimilar from science because skepticism is not about discovering new laws or phenomena. Furthermore it is dissimilar from rational thinking and theoretical speculation because it's not about what could happen or what theories predict.

Skepticism is about distinguishing what we know, based on evidence, from what we do not know.

The key is understanding what constitutes acceptably strong evidence.

  • personal opinions from our basically anonymous users are very poor evidence, even if the personal opinions are based on common sense (the current answer is an example)

  • a specialist analysis on the matter is much more interesting, especially if it is published in view of peers (and thus, somewhat, reviewed). It is not conclusive evidence.

  • a full scale investigation made by a reputable party is stronger still, especially when methodology is disclosed, is published, reviewed and replicated

  • a large scale study on the phenomenon which concludes it is a real phenomenon certainly makes it much more likely the video is genuine

On this site we have a hard cutoff at "personal opinions". This is pretty standard across the Stack Exchange network. This network is for teaching facts, not for debating them.

As such, it's perfectly adequate to have questions that we can't answer skeptically... yet.

On the other hand we have absolutely no interest in debating personal theories about claims. While they might be interesting and informative they are not applied skepticism.

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This SE is really named too generally. It's not about most things that skeptics would discuss. It is not about skeptical analysis, but for looking up and consolidating analyses posted elsewhere. This SE should be named for being "a curated index of skeptical debunkings" and not imply "for asking questions on the subject of skepticism".

Yes. We apply scientific skepticism on Skeptics.SE, rather than discuss the meta-topic of Skepticism.

Name changes were discussed during the Beta. (e.g. "Citation Needed") None were agreed upon. It is very unlikely to change at this stage, now that the brand is established.

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What is a good stack exchange where to learn about skepticism?

The Stack Exchange sites are Q&A sites. They are a good place to have specific questions answered, but they are not intended to be useful as general tutorials or a place to research a topic.

There is no good Stack Exchange site to learn about Skepticism.

On the other hand, if you have specific questions...

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This answer should be automatically sent somewhere, rather than just deleted and/or berated. Where is "somewhere"?

There is no migration path from Skeptics Stack Exchange to any non-Stack Exchange web-site, apart from cut-and-paste.

This is appropriate. I cannot see it being changed.

It isn't clear what such a migration would look like, or what destination sites might be targeted.

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    It's not possible to migrate answers at all. Only questions can be migrated...
    – Sklivvz Mod
    Commented Oct 5, 2015 at 16:28
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The last comment of the video analysis explains how original research is not allowed.

It isn't clear any more which line you are referring to.

No, original research is generally not permitted since the very early days.

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Philosophy SE is a good site to learn about logical thinking, reason, logical fallacies, proofs, etc. It's just a small part of what it means to think skeptically, but it may be helpful.

On occasion, even History of Science and Mathematics may be useful.

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