Yeah, there's definitely a difference in scale and possible harm done. Unlike some minor cruft in other parts of science, they don't seem to attract much kookery either, so "fringe PLs" versus "fringe physics" is at worst clutter, not full of actively misleading nonsense.
I'd have to try to look at archives to be sure, but I think fringe-physics is actually one of the reasons some of the science-related policies are written as they are. The answer to, "how do we keep this crap off Wikipedia?" was to have some sort of policy about the existence of peer-reviewed sources. (The peer-reviewed part is necessary, because a lot of fringe physics has papers up on arXiv.)
I'd have to try to look at archives to be sure, but I think fringe-physics is actually one of the reasons some of the science-related policies are written as they are. The answer to, "how do we keep this crap off Wikipedia?" was to have some sort of policy about the existence of peer-reviewed sources. (The peer-reviewed part is necessary, because a lot of fringe physics has papers up on arXiv.)