Talk:Witch window

A fact from Witch window appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 24 August 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that a Vermont window (pictured) is said to let coffins through, but keep witches out?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/August.

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This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Isha Bassi (27 March 2018). "24 Weird AF Wikipedia Pages That'll Make You Say, "Wait, This Actually Exists?!"". Retrieved 27 March 2018.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report. The week in which this happened:

October 16 to 22, 2016 (2nd)

Page views[edit]

Other names[edit]

It's good to see someone was able to write an article about this. I've intended to for a while now but hadn't gotten around to it. Anyway... I've also heard these referred to as "lazy windows" but don't have a reliable source for it. Maybe someone else can dig one up. Dismas|^(talk) 10:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What happened?[edit]

What happened on or just before November 23, 2011, that caused this page to get more than 6,000 hits???--Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 21:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or early March 2016 (close to 15,000)? --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 20:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Or October 19, 2016 (about 800,000)! --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 16:29, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Ok that's bizarre. Brycehughes (talk) 17:02, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that a single sentence, late in the article and almost a throw-away, has taken over. This article has been classified under "superstitions", which may be the cause of its popularity, despite the caveat that the broomstick explanation—if real—was probably not taken seriously. Go figure. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 20:47, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Other reasons: the page was mentioned (and linked) on Reddit, and Buzzfeed named this page as one of the "24 Of The Strangest Wikipedia Pages That'll Send You Deep Into A Wiki-Hole". That likely sent a lot of traffic this way in the next day or two. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 15:08, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Missing section on operation[edit]

This article needs a section on operation. Normal sash window counterweights hang adjacent to the sash. For a diagonal sash, how would this work? It would seem that the weights drag against the framing; wouldn't the friction be a problem, as well as cause wear and tear? Or, if these windows do not open, the article should say so. —Anomalocaris (talk) 03:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, windows in Vermont don't tend to have sash-weights. On those occasions when vertical windows are open, they are often held open with a short piece of wood. Some houses' windows are notorious guillotines. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 01:04, 24 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Article needs a serious revamping[edit]

I just happened to come here in response to a Facebook post with some information I doubted. Just a short amount of digging quickly revealed a bunch of dead reference links, some unreliable references, and eventually one good reference not used here that refutes some of the information here. I don't have time right now to work on any of this but if someone else decides to move in, they might find this article very helpful. https://www.vpr.org/post/whats-history-vermonts-witch-windows#stream/0 SentientParadox (talk) 04:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So I just noticed today that the link I provided is already referenced. Which makes me think perhaps nobody's really gone over the article with a fine tooth comb because that reference actually does refute other claims in the article. If I have time sometime in the near future I'll see what I can do to clean it up. SentientParadox (talk) 19:42, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The linked source actually agrees with this article that the explanations for the names are far-fetched, etc. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 22:04, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Have sources been removed? I can go through and rescue dead links with IAbot, if the old links are still there. jp×g 19:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]