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Is TalkOrigins a reliable source for science topic?

Distilling this discussion: TalkOrigins is a well-known archive of material from numerous sources. One cannot say that it is blanket reliable or blanket unreliable, it will depend on the material, its author, and the statement it's being used to support. So this one has to be reviewed case-by-case. Disputing it because it promotes the scientific consensus view of evolution is never going to fly on Wikipedia. Evolution is not a belief system, it's a conclusion form observed facts, and our content will reflect that for as long as it continues to be the case. Guy (Help!) 20:21, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There is an ongoing discussion on Macroevolution page whether TalkOrigins can be used as a reliable source for a scientific article. (It is cited in multiple locations in the article.)

To recap, even TalkOrigins themselves admit to the lack of scientific reliability:

"How do I know the contents of this archive are reliable?"
Visitors to the archive should be aware that essays and FAQs appearing in the archive have generally not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Rather, they have been commented on and critiqued by the readership of the talk.origins newsgroup. While many of the participants in talk.origins are well regarded scientists, this informal procedure is not as demanding as the process a scientist goes through to publish a paper in a scientific journal. It is important to keep this fact in mind when reading the contents of this archive. Because most of the essays have not undergone rigorous peer review, some of them may contain errors or misstatements of fact.
Isn't the Talk.Origins Archive just some website that has no particular credibility? Those FAQs and essays aren't peer-reviewed, and many are written by interested laymen rather than specialists, so they can be ignored, right?
We encourage readers not to take our word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature and evaluate the evidence. While materials on the Archive have not necessarily been subjected to formal peer-review, many have been subjected to several cycles of commentary in the newsgroup prior to being added to the Archive.


Even they acknowledge that their contents may contain errors or misstatements of fact because they had not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Furthermore, they themselves encourage readers not to take our word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature.

I propose that TalkOrigins lacks scientific reliability and neutrality to be used as a reliable source. Could you advise please?

69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:17, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

http://www.talkorigins.org/ is a curated repository of essays and papers on the topic of evolution or the evolution/creation debate, written by biologists and scientists, for the public. It seems that the site is cited four times at our page for Macroevolution:
  • First, to document that evolution is ongoing and speciation has been witnessed by scientists today. This essay is a peer-reviewed article from The American Naturalist also held at talkorigins.
  • Second and third, to note that evolution is both a theory and fact.
  • Fourth, to note that scientist define macroevolution as "any change at the species level or above."
talkorigins is neither an ideal (e.g. textbook) nor a wholly uncredible source. Because it is being used to source uncontested statements of fact I would recommend the citations not be removed, but instead replaced with better sources. I would invite the IP to engage in this work for their own sake and ours if they want to improve Macroevolution. -Darouet (talk) 20:47, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
Darouet, your argument that "evolution is both a theory and fact" is an uncontested statement of fact, is inaccurate. There are many scientists who contest against regarding evolution as both a theory and fact.
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/ResBot/EvSy/PDF/Fitzhugh%202007%20-%20Zoologica%20Scripta.pdf
‘Evolution’ cannot be both a theory and a fact. Theories are concepts stating cause–effect relations. Regardless of one’s certainty as to the utility of a theory to provide understanding, it would be epistemically incorrect to assert any theory as also being a fact. ... An emphasis on associating ‘evolution’ with ‘fact’ presents the misguided connotation that science seeks certainty. Acknowledging that the statement, ‘evolution is a fact’, is an incorrect assertion has the benefit of focusing our attention back on the goal of science
I do agree with you that the references to TalkOrigins should be replaced with the better sources.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 21:24, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
(an aside) "Evolution" has several distinct meanings and connotations. That species adapt genetically over time is not mere theory - it is observable fact, evidenced by mapping of genomes. That entirely different groups of animals have a specific single common ancestor is still "theory" as unless or until a specific reasonable lineage is shown, it is speculation, and there may be several distinctly different ancestors for different species, or even several different lineages for what is now a single species. As we do not have proof of any positions, there are a bunch of differing "theories of evolution" in that sense. The DNA evidence that many humans have significant Neanderthal DNA is one of the more recent surprises in that area. Collect (talk) 13:47, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not the place to conduct a battle over evolution. -Darouet (talk) 21:37, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Short answer: Yes. Talkorigins is, generally speaking a good enough source, though if a better source exists for a claim, use that.
Long answer: First, talkorigins is not the source of most claims cited to it. Rather, some paper which caught the attention of the users of talkorigin and managed to impress the credentialed users and staff sufficienty is generally the source. In that case, we can link to the talkorigins copy, but we cite the original publication. Additionally, if you think there are problems with the theory of evolution, such as your insistence that it cannot be both a theory and a fact, you have absolutely no business editing any articles on evolution. This is not only common sense (you don't see the majority of liberal editors editing
wikipedia policy. Pushing an anti-evolutionary agenda here is a sure-fire way to wind up topic banned or indef blocked. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it.
21:52, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
Darouet, That is why TalkOrigins should be removed. According to them, the main purpose of TalkOrigins is to address creationism/evolution controversy. Let's not bring the controversy to Wikipedia.
 
MjolnirPants, You should follow the PDF link to find out whom I have quoted saying, "‘Evolution’ cannot be both a theory and a fact."
You just accused Kirk J. Fitzhugh of "pushing an anti-evolutionary agenda" just because he explained how a scientific theory can never become a fact.
Here is [another] from National Science Teachers Association:
I have heard too many scientists claim that evolution is a fact, often in retort to the claim that it is just a theory. Evolution isn’t a fact.
And that is one of reasons why TalkOrigins should not be used as a reliable source. It causes Wikipedia to lose neutrality, and makes people like yourself to think even legitimate scientists are anti-evolutionary simply because they spoke science.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 22:32, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
Off topic
Here are the US National Academies speaking upon "theory or fact". Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:38, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
And Here is National Center for Science Education refuting such misconception.
Misconception 2 "Theories become facts when they are well supported and/or proven."
The second statement implies that theories become facts, in some sort of linear progression. In science, theories never become facts.
(Please read the aforementioned Dr. Fitzhugh's article who explains it more clearly.)
The fact of the matter is that the original argument made by Darouet that "evolution is both a theory and fact" is an uncontested statement of fact, is inaccurate because clearly, there are many scientists who contest it. There are plenty of legitimate scientists who find the such argument false, not because of some religious reason, but because the such argument goes against the philosophy of science itself.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 00:18, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
That's already made clear at Evolution as fact and theory#Evolution as theory and fact in the literature. No need to repeat the same stuff all over the place. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:09, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for providing the link to the article discussing evolution and its relationship to theory and fact. Now, please ask yourself - if someone asserts that "evolution is both a theory and fact" is uncontested, without mentioning other disagreeing viewpoints, is that person being neutral? Furthermore, the disagreeing viewpoint gets automatically labeled as "anti-evolutionary agenda." Is that a neutral position? Is Wikipedia neutral?
69.75.54.130 (talk) 01:19, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
There is an article about difference between evolution as fact and evolution as theory at [1]. Its gist is in this Dobzhansky quote: "Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms."
So, most reliable sources seem to consider evolution either fact, or theory, or fact and theory. The germane neutrality requirement is
WP:UNDUE, which recommends using sources proportionally to their adherence (majority view/minority view). Tgeorgescu (talk
) 01:51, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality in this case rests with scientific consensus. It is our job to build an encyclopedia of human knowledge, not teach basic biology to every creationist who decides they want to edit. -Darouet (talk) 02:51, 12 August 2016 (UTC)


@69.75.54.130: You have completely misrepresented what I said. Let me try to spell it out: If you (the IP editor who made a good enough argument once to change my mind about something else) push an anti-evolutionary agenda here on WP, you will almost certainly end up on the receiving end of a topic ban or an indefinite block. I have not accused anyone of pushing that agenda, I have instead, warned you (not the author of the paper) not to. If you never intended to, then that's just awesome. I'm happy to hear it, but I'm completely flabbergasted by your arguments here.
As far as the paper, yes I read it. Do you know what it is? It's a jumbled mess of conflated jargon and semantics. It's pure pedantry. It's using precise language and arguments to debate the accuracy of vague terms and simple logic. It is a near-total misunderstanding of the differences in language between scientists and lay people. It's the scientist equivalent of a literary critic interpreting the phrase "He had a black heart." as a Freudian slip exposing an author's subconscious racism against people of African ancestry.
It argues against the accuracy of a common idiom based on the presuppositions that 'evolution' is meaningless except as the definite article denoting a specific scientific theory, cannot be used in any tense except as a definite article, that the word 'fact' has only one meaning, a very specific one that just happens to be the meaning it has in the author's professional jargon, that (for some unfathomably ridiculous reason) everyone who's ever heard this idiom will not only be aware of the single specific meaning he permits each key word to hold in his musings, but will agree that those are the only possible meanings as well.
In short, it's nothing more than a brilliant answer to the question "Why do some people think science is extremely boring?" For all that he makes a good argument in the specific context his letter (not peer-reviewed paper, mind, but a letter to the editor), it is one that does not account for the double entente inherent in the phrase, and thus the actual meaning of it. For all intents and purposes, the phrase means "The massive preponderance of evidence points to the theory of evolution, notwithstanding our admittedly limited understanding of it, as the most accurate explanation for the current diversity of life on earth." or possibly "Evolution actually happened." if one can wrap one's head around using 'evolution' to refer to the sequence of events predicted by the theory of evolution.
You might notice "Evolution is both a fact and theory." to be catchier and easier to remember.
  • tl;dr: While you are technically correct,
    "Wikipedia is written in plain terms and concepts that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field..." and thus this jargon-fueled argument fails to find traction here, except as it has been documented to have been made by notable persons. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it.
    03:24, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
@Darouet,
@MjolnirPants,
  • Here is what you wrote in your warning: "if you think there are problems with the theory of evolution, such as your insistence that it cannot be both a theory and a fact, ... Pushing an anti-evolutionary agenda here is ..."
For you, "insistence that it cannot be both a theory and a fact" somehow equated to having "problems with the theory of evolution" and you would take it as "pushing an anti-evolutionary agenda".
Thus, the warning wasn't just addressed to me; it was addressed to anyone who would insist that it cannot be both a theory and a fact. That is why I've shown you how there exist many legitimate evolutionary scientists who do insist so, also. Well, from the fact that you now backpedal, it looks like you've realized your mistake; so, I am going to let it go, although a simple mea culpa would have won you more respect.
  • Thank you for acknowledging that I am technically correct. It is my hope that we all strive to make Wikipedia a scientifically reliable and neutral source of information.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 16:50, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
This is no longer a discussion about the reliability of talkorigins: we should move further discussion about facts and theories to Talk:Macroevolution. -Darouet (talk) 17:03, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
I am sorry, but I would like to hear from a couple of more neutral people regarding the reliability of TalkOrigins.
Again, even TalkOrigins acknowledge that their contents may contain errors or misstatements of fact because they had not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Furthermore, they themselves encourage readers not to take our word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature.
For example, here is one of their erroneous articles written by a scientist and cites many primary literature, but it wouldn't pass a peer review, although it would fool the general public. The article claims that there were 1,000 times more ocean water back on the early Earth, and then uses this absurd figure in his calculation to support his claim. Also, the article grossly misstates the primary literature by claiming "a staggering 2.5 x 10^112 sequences are efficent ligases" and uses this erroneous figure in his calculation to support his claim (the actual value in the cited source is 2.5 x 10^12.) The article has more errors, but these are just a couple that I still remember on top of my head.
These are type of incorrect calculations that even scientists would not easily recognize. No wonder TalkOrigins puts up a disclaimer to warn the readers not to take their word on the issues, but rather to look at the primary literature. I understand that they have good articles, too. But, the bad articles are also written by scientists and cite primary literature. How are the general public supposed to tell them apart? I have no problem Wikipedia citing the primary literature used by TalkOrigins, but TalkOrigins themselves should not be considered a reliable source.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:01, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

The example you post looks like a simple typo, and given the responses so far, it's unlikely that there'll be a blanket proscription against talkorigins. People here like to know specific contexts, which are often relevant to reliability. If your specific content concern is about Evolution as fact and theory, we have a whole article about that topic. -Darouet (talk) 20:10, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

If those figures were not used in his calculations, then you can claim it to be a simple typo. It is not a simple typo when the author uses the erroneous figures in calculations, then uses the erroneous outcomes to back up his claim. Furthermore, I am not even going to get into other errors (not typo) in his article. I had challenged the author long ago, but he has never responded. I think it's because there are many other people who found many other errors in his article, too. The article is unreliable, period. And TalkOrigins posting such unreliable articles should not be considered a reliable source either; simply putting up a disclaimer that we as the readers should check the primary literature does not exonerate their sloppy publishing practice. I don't worry about checking primary literature when I read an article in normal science journals. But, with TalkOrigins, I don't take them at face value. Is this how low Wikipedia wishes to lower the standards of reliable source?
69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:46, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
@69.75.54.130:Thus, the warning wasn't just addressed to me; I just erased the sarcastic response I typed up first because this thread is getting sidetracked. Suffice it to say, telling another editor what they really meant is never a very polite or particularly intelligent thing to do. I know you're an intelligent person, so please try to stick to intelligent commentary.
Also, let me offer you some advice: Just let this thread sit. People will continue to read it, and if they feel the need to add to it, they will. But the longer it gets, the less likely new people are to join it. I've hatted the off topic discussion, which should help shorten the thread up quite a bit. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:57, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants, Thank you for steering the thread back to the original topic and hiding the off topic discussion. And I'm sorry for the whole warning business; let's start over. I'll listen to your advice and wait for others to chime in. Have a great weekend!
69.75.54.130 (talk) 22:35, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

As far as I can see, all the cites to TalkOrigins are to essays by established experts on biology and evolution; therefore, even if we consider TalkOrigins a personal website (which I'm not sure is correct), they still fall under the exception in

WP:SPS for work "produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." In fact, it seems like almost a textbook case of that clause, and I would not be at all surprised if it was one of the specific examples people had in mind when that clause was written. --Aquillion (talk
) 02:28, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Aquillion,
[www.scirp.org/journal/ojg/[predatory publisher] Open Journal of Geology] is a peer-reviewed scientific journal and it is reputably ISI-indexed. Yet, it cannot be cited by Wikipedia simply because its parent publishing company (which owns 250 different journals) happens to be deemed predatory. There is not a single shred of evidence that Open Journal of Geology had ever published a scientifically inaccurate article. But, because of its mere association with the parent publisher, it is deemed unreliable by Wikipedia.
On the other hand, TalkOrigins is neither peer-reviewed nor a scientific journal, which even they admit. I even pointed out an error-riddled article that they had published. Yet, TalkOrigins is reliable, while Open Journal of Geology is not???
69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:16, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
@69.75.54.130: We've gone around on this before; Journals from predatory publishers are considered highly suspect, but papers published within them are to be judged on their own merits. If there's enough evidence that the paper is a reliable source we can use it. If there's no evidence of reliability, then the only thing we know is that this paper was published by a company that isn't rigorous enough to trust. This was the linchpin of our argument on the James Ossuary: Until you made the case to me, and showed me how the paper you cited had been presented to a wider audience of experts without any backlash, and that it was written by respected experts in the field, the only information I had to go on was the publisher, who is highly suspect.
Also, you seem to be hung up on sources, but while we often make generalizations about sources, sources aren't the focus in these discussions. Claims are. If the source is reliable for the particular claim it is used to support, then we can use it. So if we needed a citation on the sentence "the sky is blue," I could go to any tin-foil-hatted, lizard-people-run-the-government, Bob-Barker-controls-my-brain-with-television-signals conspiracy theory website that happens to mention the sky is blue and cite that. It'd be fine. So we can't use a physicist's peer-reviewed, widely cited paper on some minutiae of
PET scans to support a claim that PET scans are medically useful. However, we can use some doctor's off-the-cuff comment on his or her personal blog somewhere for it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it.
20:38, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
If what you've said is true about "papers published within them are to be judged on their own merits", then how come the editor removed the journal reference from James Ossuary and labeled it as "unusable as a source"? Perhaps, it is true to you, but certainly not true to other editors of Wikipedia; also, you'd be fine with citing an unreliable source based on a claim, but not to other editors of Wikipedia.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 23:16, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Well, that editor was me, and I just (explicitly) answered your question in the comment you asked that question in response to. See This was the linchpin of our argument on the James Ossuary: Until you made the case to me, and showed me how the paper you cited had been presented to a wider audience of experts without any backlash, and that it was written by respected experts in the field, the only information I had to go on was the publisher, who is highly suspect. I strongly suggest you read a comment in it's entirety before you respond in the future (even if it's a bit long-winded, as mine tend to be). If there's a way to sum it up in one or two sentences, I'll add a tl;dr note at the top or bottom. Otherwise, you kinda have to read the whole thing to know what I'm saying. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 02:10, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
That editor is not you. I have written twice that my comment was about "other editors".
Look at the history page of James Ossuary and you will see that an editor named David Eppstein was the one who had removed the reference to Open Journal of Geology.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 17:54, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
I must have missed that. Still. The addition was done with consensus, so go revert him and direct him to the talk page in the edit summary. It's more productive than complaining about it here, and asking me to explain why he did it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:02, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
You're missing the point. The point is that there are always other editors (most of them actually) who disagree with your interpretation. They would automatically reject Open Journal of Geology (peer-reviewed; science journal; no erroneous article found), yet they would automatically accept TalkOrigins (not peer-reviewed; not science journal; erroneous article found).
And you bring up a good point -- you've said that you would accept a citation from even an unreliable source based on a well-established Claims, e.g. "the sky is blue." Think about that for a minute: if the claim is indeed well-established, then certainly there are many truly reliable sources other than TalkOrigins that can be cited. But, if the claim cannot be found in other reliable sources, but is found only on TalkOrigins, then from deduction, the claim is not well-established, but the claim is unique only to TalkOrigins. Thus, Wikipedia should cite other truly reliable sources instead of TalkOrigins for a well-established claim.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 18:05, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
The point is that there are always other editors (most of them actually) who disagree with your interpretation. You asked me to explain why the other editor did that, if I was correct. I can't explain why he did that. You should ask him. But as to why me might have done that? Maybe he didn't read the talk page. Maybe if you point him to the talk page, he'll change his mind. You won't know until you find out. So maybe try finding out instead of trumpeting this as proving me wrong somehow. Even if he doesn't change his mind, the fact that he disagrees with me doesn't make me wrong. I've got another editor right now going around saying I 'forbade' him from arguing with me in a comment in which I said I'd "...be happy to continue arguing with [him]". I've seen editors say that it's not against policy to cite a conspiracy theory blog to claim the government is mind controlling people with television signals. I've seen editors argue that the bible is a reliable source for historical claims. None of those editors were even slightly right. It could be that this guy is just plain wrong. Or, as I already mentioned, maybe all he knows about that source is that it's published by a predatory journal. Or possibly me and he simply assign different weights to the evidence. Your evidence was enough to convince me. Maybe it's just not enough for him. There's certainly no policy that says we must remove any source published by a predatory journal.
if the claim is indeed well-established, then certainly there are many truly reliable sources other than TalkOrigins that can be cited. While that's a good heuristic that should be used frequently here, it's also a well known logical fallacy that doesn't work for dismissing any use of a given source. Frankly, if a source is 'good enough', then, while we can use it, we hopefully do so only temporarily, until someone finds a better source. But we can still use it. As I've pointed out once before: the reliability of a source depends on the claim. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:45, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants,
I am okay with your approach to cite whichever source as long as it is done with neutrality. However, realistically, the other editors won't follow your practice. So, let's hear from other editors here: do you agree with MjolnirPants that any source can be cited, e.g. creationist website, pro-life website, etc.?
69.75.54.130 (talk) 19:45, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Do not put words in my mouth. I never said "any source can be cited, e.g. creationist website, pro-life website, etc." full stop. I put an extremely important qualifier there and you leaving it out is highly misleading. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:01, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: There is too much noise in the above discussion and I didn't wade through it all. TalkOrigins is not taking responsibility for the accuracy of the articles. So the articles have the status of
    WP:SPS. However, WP:SPS tells you: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. So, if it is an article by a reliable scholar, treat it as reliable (but with caution). Otherwise, don't. -- Kautilya3 (talk
    ) 22:08, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants,
I apologize if you thought that I was putting words in your mouth; I was simply being succinct. Anyone can read your qualifier on the previous comments and would have known what I've meant.
@Kautilya3,
Thank you for your input. WP:SPS description sounds reasonable. However, there are two wordings that would still create disagreements, and I would appreciate if you could clarify those wordings: "by an established expert on the subject matter" and "relevant field".
  • Who qualifies as "an established expert on the subject matter"?
    • I have a science degree; I publish paper on a reliable science journal. Nevertheless I wouldn't consider myself to be an established expert on the subject matter, although I possess deeper scientific understanding than non-scientists. Is there a list of criteria that Wikipedia would consider someone to be an established expert on the subject matter?
 
(I have also provided additional supporting citations by National Science Teachers Association and National Center for Science Education to back up Dr Fitzhugh's writing.)
But, a certain editor (who does not hold the science degree as far as I know -- please correct this if inaccurate) quickly disregarded Dr Fitzhugh by saying that his writing was "a jumbled mess of conflated jargon and semantics. It's pure pedantry." Furthermore, he said, "The author's credentials as a scientist do not make him an authority on logic and rhetoric. I am every bit as qualified as (in not slightly more qualified than) he is to speak on the subject as he."
Thus, apparently according to that editor, even an established biologist who specializes in the philosophical foundations of evolutionary theory is not qualified to give his professional statement that "‘Evolution’ cannot be both a theory and a fact" because Dr Fitzhugh's evolutionary biology background is not relevant field.
So, who gets to decide what "relevant field" is?
  • Using that editor's logic, one might say that this citation is unreliable because the author, Laurence Moran, is a biologist, and thus not an expert in the relevant field.
P.S.
WP:SPS also states: "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest".
TalkOrigins, by their own account, does not check facts and lack meaningful peer review; moreover, the website is mostly dedicated to the evolution/creation controversy from a mainstream scientific (evolutionist) perspective -- which introduces a conflict of interest on an evolution/creation topic.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
IP, Fitzhugh was writing about semantics, not about evolution. He's not an established expert on semantics. I've already explained to you what issue your sources take with the phrase "evolution is a theory and a fact", how they are correct in their analysis, and how they still fail to get the point of the phrase. I've even explained why. You keep presenting these links as if they argue against the assertion that evolution almost certainly happened, but none of them actually do that. They take issue with the semantics of the term because, in the jargon they speak, the term isn't accurate. Furthermore, It's a well-known (but poorly defined) norm here not to cite any expert on views that diverge from the established consensus. So we don't cite Lee Smolin for how gravity works, even though he's a well respected, established physicist. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:34, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants,
I would like to stay focused on the topic instead of chasing after your straw man, but nevertheless, I am curious -- so, please allow me to ask you for the same evidence that I had asked another editor: please cite a reputable source that states that there exists a consensus that evolution is a fact.
I can cite you a reputable source that clearly states that there exists a consensus on climate change, but I have never seen a consensus on evolution being a fact -- though I see many scientists supporting evolution as being a theory, and disagreeing on it being a fact.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 20:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Well, first off: You're apparently a creationist.
So don't expect me to entertain your pedantry any longer
. I have no patience for debating such an incredibly obvious fact with someone who will take the word of a bronze-age priest over that of all of modern science and never entertain the notion that maybe that bronze-age priest was writing metaphorically. But, in the interest of integrity, here's a few that I dug up in about ten seconds of googling:
So basically, take your creationist crap elsewhere: It's not wanted here. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:51, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
@MjolnirPants,
  • As expected, you cannot cite a single source to back up your false claim. I have looked at all your cited sources and none of them claims that there existing a consensus on evolution being a fact. What you fail to understand is that scientists agreeing on the theory of evolution (= consensus) does not equate to the same scientists agreeing to a theory being treated as a fact (= not consensus).
This is not a matter of evolution vs creationism; this is a matter of the philosophical foundation of science. That is why even Dr Fitzhugh (who opposes creationism) rejects the theory of evolution being treated as a fact.
  • It's ironic that one of your cited source is National Center for Science Education. That is the very source that I have cited and it states:
Misconception 2 "Theories become facts when they are well supported and/or proven."
The second statement implies that theories become facts, in some sort of linear progression. In science, theories never become facts.
It is very unfortunate that you cannot take a neutral position. You think I am a madman because you're content looking at shadows on the cave wall.
69.75.54.130 (talk) 21:26, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
IP, you've never given any indication you're truly interested in the semantic issue of "fact" vs "theory:" to do that you would need to make it obvious you don't doubt the reality of evolution (of which "Macroevolution" is a part) in nature. As I wrote a long time ago, Wikipedia is not the place to waste people's time arguing about evolution, and this "fact/theory" discussion looks like a
WP:TROJAN Horse. -Darouet (talk
) 05:13, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Are readers' comments to an online article acceptable to quote in the lead?

There has been a bit of a dispute at International Music Score Library Project. The website introduced a controversial paywall that was mentioned in the lead of the article. To balance this out, a user wants an addition to the end of the sentence:

According to Norman Lebrecht, the change was met with a "rising surge of anger amongst composers and musicians", whereas comments to Lebrecht's article were mostly in favor of the change.

For those who do not know, Lebrecht is a famous music commentator and critic who runs a classical music news website having previously written for British newspapers. Is it acceptable to cite the opinions of readers to balance out the criticism? It feels wrong to me. Please do come over to the page: it is not a heavily-edited page and the other user seems to be avoiding discussion as long as the article is as he wants it. 94.119.65.149 (talk) 19:21, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

This is a tricky one. Normally, I would say "readers comments" are not acceptable. However, it might be argued that Lebrecht is an expert, and we accept monologues and even blogs by those considered to be experts in their field. DrChrissy (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Sorry: let me clarify. I agree a reference to Lebrecht's article should be included: he is an expert who has given a relevant description of the paywall and reactions of musicians and composers to it. My concern is that the other user wants to lessen this criticism by saying that the comments made to the article (by readers of Lebrecht's article) were more favourable. I am not sure this is okay. 94.119.64.7 (talk) 19:39, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
In other words, the other user wants to include the bit in bold above. I do not agree: I do not think we can use this to respond to the main article. 94.119.66.43 (talk) 19:40, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
The comments are
Strongjam (talk
) 19:46, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
e/c Oh I see. IMHO the bit in bold can not be included because it is not verifiable. The source appears to be an article by Lebrecht himself. There needs to be another independent source saying his comments "were mostly in favour" - otherwise, I suggest this is original research. DrChrissy (talk) 19:48, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Strongjam. DrChrissy: let me clarify again, sorry. The quotation is directly from Lebrecht's article: the article was describing the opposition to the paywall. The bit in bold at the end is the other Wikipedian's interpretation of the user-generated replies to Lebrecht's article. He seems to want to include it so as to deflect the criticism.
Would one of you be happy to remove the bit in bold and place a note on the talk page? The other user just keeps reverting. When he did eventually come to the talk page, he reverted the page again before getting a reply. We could do with a proper third-party judgement. 94.119.65.142 (talk) 19:55, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
  • This is a no-brainer. We have absolutely no way of authenticating those reader comments, they have no peer-review and are just opinions by J. Random Reader. No, we absolutely do not include them. Lebrecht is a quotable commentator, probably my favourite writer on classical music today, but he is very opinionated so we have to be sure not give even his comments too much prominence unless it's assessed to be significant by reliable independet sources. Guy (Help!) 20:10, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
The phrase has been deleted with a suitable edit summary left. I'm now watching the page so can respond at the talk page if necessary. DrChrissy (talk) 20:15, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Per Guy's comment, I'm moving the sentence from the lead to the meat of the article as there is no evidence it has been assessed to be significant by reliable independent sources. Will not change the sentence itself. 2600:387:5:807:0:0:0:C1 (talk) 20:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Deseret News as a source for LDS-related subjects

Over the years there has been a string of AfD nominations for articles about

Notability for article subjects. (To my knowledge normal Deseret News reporting has editorial independence from the LDS Church, but it publishes a weekly insert titled Church News that is published directly by the church.) I believe the readers are predominantly Mormon, though I don't have a source for that. To be clear, the argument is not that Deseret News is an unreliable source for the article content (usually uncontroversial stuff like names, dates, square footage, etc.) but that it can't establish notability for the article subjects. By way of example, there's a current AfD open at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hugo E. Martinez (2nd nomination), and a closed AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Montréal Québec Temple
.

I'd like to get some input from the wider editing community on this issue. Can a large newspaper be used to establish notability for a member of an organization that owns the newspaper?

Pinging User:Purplebackpack89 who I expect will have a lot to say on the subject

~Awilley (talk) 16:31, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that discussion. ~Awilley (talk) 18:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
  • As Only in death points out, we had this discussion only a few weeks ago. Awilley thinks I may have a lot to say, but he has in fact summarized my main argument: that since Deseret News is owned by the Mormon church, it is not independent of LDS leaders, LDS edifices and other LDS topics. FWIW, other discussion have also pointed out that Deseret News' editorial policy favors a pro-Mormon view of things; and that it refuses advertisements from things shunned by the Mormon hierarchy. Therefore, in order for an LDS topic to pass GNG, it needs sourcing from something other than just Deseret News or other LDS publications and website. I don't really see what the size/circulation has to do with anything: having a large number of readers doesn't some how make it more independent. I also don't see why my point of view should be the least bit controversial. If it was an article about a bandleader, we wouldn't allow it to be sourced solely from his band's website. If it was an article about an executive, we wouldn't allow it to be sourced solely from his company's website. Why should LDS officials be any different?
    p
     17:24, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
You seem to be operating under the assumption that the newspaper just prints whatever the church tells it to print, the way a company website would reflect what the company leaders wanted published. Assume, for sake of argument, that the newspaper had editorial independence and could print whatever it thought would appeal to its readers. Would that change anything for you? ~Awilley (talk) 18:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
For one, there's a lot of evidence to say that, yes, the paper does print what the church tells it to (or, at the very least, reprints LDS press releases almost verbatim). For two, no, I think I'd still be troubled by its ownership.
p
 18:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. Re: "verbatim" I assume you're referring to the Church News insert that they distribute weekly? If so, I think you're correct that is directly from the church. I don't read the newspaper myself, but our article says the newspaper is "usually described as moderate to conservative, and is often assumed to reflect the values of its owner, the LDS Church". For that reason I would agree that it should be used with caution as a source for controversial issues related to the church. But I have no problem using it as a source for, say, the square footage and completion dates of LDS temples. What I'm really looking for though is outside input from people who have dealt with issues like this before. Like was there ever a discussion on whether we could use major newspapers as sources about the owners or employees of their parent companies? For instance, can the New York Times be used as a source for Carlos Slim? ~Awilley (talk) 03:01, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
The issue I'm trying to raise isn't necessarily "can it be a source?", more like, "can it be the source"? I've never had a problem with LDS Church News being used here and there for details on LDS articles, nor do I have a problem with the NY Times being used here and there for details on Carlos Slim. What I would have a problem with is Carlos Slim (or Rupert Murdoch) being sourced ONLY by media he owns. Likewise, I have a problem with LDS leaders and edifices being sourced ONLY by LDS papers and websites (and, yes, I DO include Deseret News among them).
p
 13:03, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
It's not independent, though. I and others have explained to you the difference between reliable and independent in the last discussion, Unscintillating. This isn't about Deseret News saying things that are inaccurate, it's about DN covering things that normally wouldn't be covered by other RSes, simply because it is owned by the Mormon church.
p
 23:32, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
The unsourced claims about what "others" have "explained" are some kind of fallacy, possibly argumentum ad populum, as what "others" have "explained" may or may not be good explanations.  Here is our last exchange on this noticeboard, from [2]
  • AfD has closed with a conclusion that, "I consider the primary argument around the definition of 'independent source' to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what we mean by 'independent of the article subject'. The sources aren't directly connected to the article subject but to an organisation of which he's a part, and that degree of connection isn't sufficient to discount the sources, any more than we would discount the Journal of the American Statistical Association or The Spectator as sources for biographies because most of the people mentioned will be connected to the ASA or the Conservative Party."  Unscintillating (talk) 01:17, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
So? This isn't AfD, there's no consensus here right now that Deseret News is independent, and there's already considerable blowback to that statement made as part of a biased supervote. If the admin wants his opinion heard here, let him come here.
p
 03:26, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, no one is stopping you from pinging him, but what he said seems clear.  Unscintillating (talk) 21:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
  • One of your comments at AfD was, "Nobody here's saying that Deseret News is unethical.", diff.  If they are not unethical, then they practice independence in their journalism ethics.  Unscintillating (talk) 21:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
Unscintillating (talk) 22:56, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Funny how you claim my argument is just "some other people said this", then you try to demolish it with what one person (a rogue admin) said, coupled with your own take on independence on sourcing, The stuff in blue up there omits that I (and believe other editors) also took issue at your claim that I must think Deseret News is unethical if I think they are not independent. Since the AfD was closed as no consensus, it can't be used as precedent. The previous discussion on WP:RS/N either ended in no consensus, or a consensus for my way of looking at things (FWIW, I stand 100% behind what I said in the previous discussion, including what's in blue up there). And, no, Unscintillating, what other people say isn't a fallacy, it's building consensus, of which in this particular discussion, you have none.
p
 13:03, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
The first word here, "funny", is an appeal to emotion.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Ahem, the admin who closed the AFD is far from being a 'rogue' admin. The closure went to deletion review and was found to have overwhelming consensus to endorse the closure as proper. So no, it was not just what 'a rogue admin' said. Which you know perfectly well because you contributed there. At length. The closer of the AFD had this to say about you personally, "I'd also add that the conduct of some parties in this discussion, particularly the nominator, has been absolutely atrocious," - I dont see that your conduct has changed much since. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:16, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
@
p
 13:30, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
The point is, you are making the same arguments now you did then, which were soundly rejected. The AFD was closed as no consensus with your *specific* arguments regarding independance being rejected and your conduct reprimanded. Making the same argument now using the same tactics is just tiresome. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:47, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
@
p
 13:57, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
I do not need to give proof a reliable source is independant. You need to provide convincing proof it isnt. Being owned by a related organisation does not mean it is not independant for the purposes of being a reliable source RE notability. As multiple people have explained to you. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
I hope you realize what a can of worms you're opening up with that standard. Also, I've explained why I don't think it's independent (not independant, which isn't a word) above, and in other linked discussions to this. To review, even though the connection to the LDS Church is not direct, the policies of the paper to promote a Mormon view of things are problematic (See also alanyst's comments below).
p
 14:59, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Deseret News is both a reliable source and a suitable source for evidencing notability of LDS subjects (or any other). - MrX 13:11, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
@
p
 13:27, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
No, it's controlled by the these people. It's owned by a company which is owned by a company owned by the LDS church. According to
WP:GNG "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." Unless the subject of an article is the Deseret News, Deseret News Publishing Company, Deseret Management Corporation or the LDS church, the Deseret News is suitable for contributing to establishing notability according to the guideline.- MrX
14:03, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
I hope you realize what a can of worms you're opening up with that standard. You haven't even excluded people who work for Deseret News or for the LDS Church under your standard. Think about what would happen if that were applied to corporations or to musical groups.
p
 14:59, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, User:alanyst, I think you're right about not trying to judge everything on a single guideline. My feeling is that LDS Temples are inherently notable (all 166 currently have articles) while mid-level general authorities are not necessarily. ~Awilley (talk) 15:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Deseret News is both a reliable source and a suitable source for evidencing notability of LDS subjects, in particular LDS personnel. It would not be a good source for articles on the excellence of the Deseret news or articles on, say, Islam.
    Oculi (talk
    ) 01:42, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
@
p
 01:46, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes; I have made no claim to the contrary.
Oculi (talk
) 01:59, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Harry Watson, Jr.

An editor JLOPO is reverting the date of death of comic/actor

Harry Watson, Jr.
to October 1, 1965(without sources) when an official source, Silent Film Necrology, points to his death as being September 23, 1930. Between the two of us we keep reverting back and forth. If JLOPO is correct he needs to source Watson Jr.'s death from 1965. The editor says he knew the actor and can get a pic of his grave. That means nothing without newspaper, obit, trade-journal etc. proof. Harry Watson is a common name and I think the editor is confusing two people. Furthermore actor/comic Watson Jr.'s work history ends in 1930 just when official sources state he died. A second-rate comic going into 1930s Depression America would certainly need to keep working. If the editor can provide proof that contradict said source, then that would be fine and I would concur. But saying he knew somebody with a common name isn't proof or substantial at all and contradicts a given credible source. Thanks.

My most recent version of the article(sourced) which JLOPO keeps reverting: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harry_Watson,_Jr.&oldid=736356715

JLOPO current version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harry_Watson,_Jr.&oldid=736435486


Thanks Koplimek (talk) 14:37, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi,

This actor is my uncle. I created the article under the account "Lobby" (I have since lost the password). Koplimek's ultracrepidarian behavior must end. Koplimek's sources say he was born in Philadelphia which is not accurate. No doubt there is another actor named Harry Watson Jr, another Wikipedia page should be created for him. Koplimek's is using the IMDB and google books. If you actually look at those sources you will see that they do not correspond with the works of Harry Watson Jr. except for a few minor occurrences (which may be an error by the IMDB). Harry Watson Jr. is a common name, so common there may even be two actors.

I have attached an article showing Harry Watson Jr. grave file. Perhaps we should be looking for new information to support the theory of two actors instead of adding inaccurate information. Harry Watson Jr. was an actor in Musty Suffer. However he was not an actor in many of the other films. I am proposing that the sources added for Harry Watson Jr. are actually for another actor. Go look at the films that he allegedly made, you will find that he does not look like the Musty Suffer actor at all.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=watson&GSfn=harry&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GSsr=321&GRid=99378194&df=all&

Thanks JLOPO (talk) 14:58, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Just provide a source for his date of death. You can't. Koplimek (talk) 16:28, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

You sources are just as equally unreliable. Instead of attacking me why don't you examine the facts. JLOPO (talk) 16:34, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Since when am I attacking you. I asked you to provide a source for his date of death. you haven't.Koplimek (talk) 16:41, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Your past history of editing this article. As I said your sources are just as equally unreliable. JLOPO (talk) 16:45, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

rateyourmusic.com

Is rateyourmusic.com a

WP:RS? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk
) 21:55, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

We would need to know the claim the source is being used to support first since in several instence a source can be reliable for one thing but not another.--67.68.161.51 (talk) 03:50, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
No, rateyourmusic.com, it is not a reliable source. Per their website, "RYM is a community-built music and film database where you can rate, review, catalog and discover new music and films as well as participate in contributing to the database itself... Anyone with a RYM account can help contribute to the database." Meatsgains (talk) 20:11, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Modern Firearms

Modern Firearms is a blog written by Maxim Popenker, author of several books about firearms. According to @Mike Searson:, it is not reliable. Here and here. It is used in lot of articles about guns. Here is the statement, from SIG MCX.

According to Maxim Popenker of Modern Firearms, it uses the same overall layout as those rifles.[1]

References

  1. ^ http://world.guns.ru/assault/usa/sig-mcx-e.html

So, what do we do? Felsic2 (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

The site is a self-published and sole-authored blog derived from open source material with little to no oversight. He has gotten things wrong more than once, and it may be a language issue, but I do not consider it as a reliable source. If his books are so great, use those as sources; at least there is a coauthor and editorial oversight there. The point is that there are copious sources that state the same thing he states (because like a wiki, he got it from somewhere else), use one of them. Newsweek, Time and US News & World Report all said the same thing.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 22:29, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
This is cut and dried If other sources say the same thing we don't need it if other sources say something different creditability comes in via
WP:rs If every source says the same thing it may not need a citation. J8079s (talk
) 05:25, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. I'm trying to prune these out as I find them.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 07:35, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Mike, I'm confused becasue you've said that the Modern Firearms source is wrong, but you're also saying that it the same claim is made in several other sources. Can you cite these other sources you're talking about? Felsic2 (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
(
WP:COMMENT so other editors can check it, presumably more conveniently than a print source. Hijiri 88 (聖やや
) 07:36, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Apparently he (Maxim) is a published author on the topic of a book by The Crowood Press UK for what it's worth. Also apparently an officer in the russian military.TeeTylerToe (talk) 08:38, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
And published sources are better due to editorial oversight and the fact that he works with a co-author. Service as a military officer does not automatically translate into weapon's knowledge. He could supervise the motor pool for all you know.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 18:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
@Hijiri88: - I have no opinion on whether this source is reliable or not. Felsic2 (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
For what it's worth, after reading the first two comments, I would have said almost exactly the same thing as Hijiri88. (I probably would have even used the same example. ;) ) Nothing said since then really changes that. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:54, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
FWIW. There is a hierarchy for reliable sources. The top might be an article published in an unimpeachable peer-reviewed academic journal published in the last edition. One rung down might be the same, except from the edition before that. At the bottom might be no source whatsoever. In the middle is wibbley wobbley. Having unimpeachable RS is always the goal, but some featured, article of the day good articles simply have to mostly rely on blog sources. And while in the past this may not have been true, we may be looking at a reality where content published on paper may become less carefully vetted and edited than online content as things like newspapers shift their focus from print journalism to focus more on online journalism than print journalism, and as more people self-publish, and as book publisher vetting slips.TeeTylerToe (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
In the middle is wibbley wobbley. It may also be timey wimey... Stuff. Just saying. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
TTT, I do agree with you in principle, but Wiki seriously needs to play catch-up on that. Although having gone through FAC about 10 times, I doubt this source would pass muster.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 19:58, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
I don't either. Well, I do have fond memories of my father letting me stay up late to watch the 60s-70s version with him, though no real desire to re-watch them. But it's just so damn popular these days, I figured I'd get a hit. Oh well. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:58, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Don't blink. Dr Who is a work of towering importance if only for its theme tune, written by Ron Grainer but realised using entirely analogue pre-synthesiser technology by the legendary Delia Derbyshire. Guy (Help!) 20:13, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
A theme tune which I have personally remixed at least a half dozen times, listen to regularly and stands as the one aspect of that show I will never get sick of. Truly, a modern masterpiece. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:39, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Because the poster has no opinion on the source they should

Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources Thank you J8079s (talk
) 20:25, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

While I had no opinion, another user did and I asked for input. I haven't failed to assume good faith just because I wanted to get wider input before declaring as unreliable a widely used source. Frankly, I'm confused as to the outcome here. Felsic2 (talk) 02:23, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

OMICS

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/08/ftc-charges-academic-journal-publisher-omics-group-deceived

I think this might be a first. Guy (Help!) 22:08, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. "A spokesperson for the FTC confirmed to us that this is a precedent-setting case: 'This is our first case against an academic journal publisher.'" Quite remarkable. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
Does this make the works published by journals under OMICS unreliable? As I read it this is more an issue about "pay to publish" and lack of disclosure (hence why the FTC is involved), but this doesn't seem to necessarily subvert the peer-review process that the editors of these journals used. --MASEM (t) 02:16, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
My impression from other discussions is that OMICS is typically considered an unreliable source for being a predatory publisher. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:42, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
The FTC complaint goes into great detail about the problems with peer review in OMICS journals. For our purposes, the lack of effective peer review means that articles in OMICS journals (or predatory publishers in general) are essentially
self-published sources. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk
) 14:35, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Serious problem of
WP:COI
users editing articles about religion statistics

(
WP:COIN is probably a bad idea. Hijiri 88 (聖やや
) 07:51, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Articles such as:

Are in a horrible state. First of all I put a question mark on the utility of such articles. They should be merged into "major religious groups". They seem to be primarily meant as platforms of propaganda by certain religious ideologies. They are mostly contructed through unreliable and biased sources, such as tabloid articles and Christian literature, and I make reference especially to the sections about Christianity recently reviewed by user Jobas.

I think that the time has come to purify these articles or purify Wikipedia from these articles.--151.34.106.205 (talk) 16:01, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Moreover, inspecting some of the reliable sources used (I mean the non-biased academic ones), I have found that they do not contain what is reported in the article!
Update: I hope Jobas won't revert again the tags pointing to unreliablity, COI and bias that I have added to the articles.--151.34.106.205 (talk) 16:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Update: I have also discovered that user Jobas was already blocked back in 2007 for adding false information:
17:38, 6 July 2007 Georgewilliamherbert (talk | contribs) blocked Jobas (talk | contribs) with an expiration time of 72 hours (account creation blocked) (Inserting false information: also sock User: 84.109.2.234)--151.34.106.205 (talk) 16:14, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Most of the sources of these articles are from Pew Research Center, several national Census, Eurobarometer, The Guardian, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, BBC News, Encyclopædia Britannica, UNHCR, World Christian Encyclopedia, Arena - Atlas of Religions and Nationalities in Russia, reuters, Without addressing the references from books etec. The last time i checked these references they were not from "Christian literature" or been called as part of the "Christian propaganda". And I'm not the only - as you try to show- one who revert your edit, User:Bbb23 edit your edit in the article Growth of religion and left attention in your talk page, Oh it is totally irrelevant to bring up blocking me from 2007 (9 years ago!).
The artilce Christianity by country for exmaple is quite exist as Islam by country and Buddhism by country, I don't see you go there asking to "delet it".--Jobas (talk) 17:47, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
First of all. You declare to be an Arab Christian and on your personal pages you make your faith / religious ideology very evident, with Christian phrases and imagery. You have been engaged for a long time in pushing your views about the demographics of Christians, most of the time using unreliable sources and ignoring good sources. Given this, you have a huge
WP:COI
in writing those articles.
Regarding the list of source agencies you have provided: The Guardian; the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Values; BBC News; UNHCR; World Christian Encyclopedia; & Reuters are not good sources and should not be used in Wikipedia. They are journalism and tabloids with a certain political bias, and besides this "journalism" is not (or no longer) academic: they make the readers believe what they want, they don't base their claims on academic sources and don't need to do so, and many of their articles are fabricated lies. The World Christian Encyclopedia is a biased source by the same name it uses. All the other sources you have listed are worthy to be used.--151.36.88.240 (talk) 15:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
I ask intervention of administrators, since I am unable to open a request on administrators' noticeboard. This problem of source quality has to be resolved.--151.36.88.240 (talk) 15:56, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
Wow really? So for you being Christian mean i can't edit in articles related with Christianity and Christians?. Is this also applies to the Muslim editors of Islam-related articles? Or atheist Editors who edits in atheism related articles?
The source that you mention before are widely used in the wikipeida, Most of Statistics in the articles are from Pew study and several national Census, and from Eurobarometer, Many of the previous sources that you described as "not good" are in fact - if you even tried to read it - Review statistics from the Pew study and several national Census, and by the way World Christian Encyclopedia is a reference work published by Oxford University Press, And its widely used in dozens of articles here - and two of these articles are use this source only in two sentences-.--Jobas (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
I have not said that you can't write because you're a Christian, I have said that you have demonstrated to have a conflict of interest in the way you edit and in the unfair use you make of sources. It is not true that the agencies that I have mentioned as not good and not reliable base their claims on national censuses, eurobarometer, and pew study. Most of them are tabloid articles.--151.68.22.109 (talk) 23:12, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
I am still waiting for the intervention of a third party, possibly an administrator, to solve this issue and purify those articles.--151.68.22.109 (talk) 23:14, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Excluding reliable sources:
WP:CRYBLP
?

The following RfC is either an example of excluding reliable sources based on

WP:CRYBLP
, depending on which side you are on:

Talk:Murder of Seth Rich#Should the WikiLeaks reward be mentioned in the article?

We could use some more eyes who are familiar with what our BLP policy actually says about excluding reliable sources. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:47, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:AVOIDVICTIM. For pete's sake. Jytdog (talk
) 07:21, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
The notion that merely mentioning a reward for a murder -- a reward that has significant coverage in the press -- has anything at all to do with AVOIDVICTIM is contentious. I am not going to argue my side of the content dispute here. Rather, I am asking that those who have familiarity with where BLP applies and doesn't apply look at the issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:52, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Priceonomics.com, CNN, and selfie-related death.

Source: CNN[1] "What they found was sobering: Since 2014, 49 people had been reported dead as a result of some sort of accident involving a selfie."

The 'they' in that quote is Priceonomics[2], CNN's source: Underneath multiple graphs laid over photos of people using selfie sticks reads "Zachary Crockett; Data via Google News Archives, Wikipedia"

Priceonomics' source: An earlier version of List of selfie-related injuries and deaths

Article: The current version of List of selfie-related injuries and deaths

Content:

First sentence, cites CNN "This is a list of serious injuries and deaths in which the victim or a member of their group (for group selfies) took a selfie, or was preparing to do so, and any death(s) or injury(s) sustained were at least in part attributed to this activity causing distraction." The second sentence cites an article in the Telegraph which links directly back to the wikipedia list, and makes claims which are debunked in the CNN article. The ledes third section focuses on India. "As of February 2016, Priceonomics had recorded more selfie-related deaths in India than any other country. The data service provider said data gathered from Google News Archive and Wikipedia showed 19 people were killed since 2014 in India while taking selfies, accounting for 40% of all selfie-related deaths."

The last quote selected cites the CNN article and an article from AP. Both explicitly lay the data at Priceonomics, whose 'experts' used Google and the Wikipedia list. My question is not about circular sourcing. I have brought it up and had no support, and I have tried to make it explicit in the lead without damaging the lead.

My question is about Priceonomics. Priceonomics is a privately owned content marketing company which sells training bootcamps, marketing campaigns where it edits company data to increase web presence, and two books titled 'Everything is Bullshit: The greatest scams on earth revealed' and 'Hipster Business Models: How to make a living in the modern world'. It gives away software called Priceonomics Content Tracker (I assume the idea is you'll want them to show you how to really use it), and it runs a blog as its sole form of self-promotion. The idea is to show how viral they can consistently be. And it works. Every major news source uses them (except, perhaps, BBC). I've found them in law journals and pre-med reading lists. They have been very explicit about what they are, what they sell, and what the blog is (they don't have a Wikipedia page so I drafted one it's waiting approval, but more info can be found in its references Draft:Priceonomics). My question is, does Wikipedia consider company advertisements via blogging a reliable source for this lede? ~ Fiachaire (talk) 10:52, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I believe this was answered here. Samsara 12:36, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
You mean this answer? "Methinks the lady doth protest too much. I can't wait to hear why TIme, CBS News and the Guardian aren't reliable sources either.Pschemp (talk) 14:16, 16 June 2016 (UTC)" Priceonomics is reliable because x,y, and z are reliable? ~ Fiachaire (talk) 12:46, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
No, I mean the diff that the link points to. Try clicking it again. The text is highlighted. Samsara 12:50, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
I don't see the relevance here. Also, as the lede stands now that distinction would only apply to one citation: "More people have died by taking selfies this year than by shark attacks". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 26 September 2015. And that citation is addressed above. ~ Fiachaire (talk) 13:19, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "How selfie-related deaths happen". CNN.com. CNN.
  2. ^ "The Tragic Data Behind Selfie Fatalaties". Priceonomics.com. Priceonomics.

http://www.channelfireball.com/

http://www.channelfireball.com/ - Magic the Gathering news website--Prisencolin (talk) 03:19, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it's fine as a source within the sphere of Magic: The Gathering and/or related games. It is also the page of a business which sells cards, though, so when it's used, the potential for a
conflict of interest in its writing should be considered. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk
) 03:24, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Agreed, channelfireball.com can be used as a reliable source within the scope of Magic the Gathering . Meatsgains (talk) 16:43, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Source being used in the
S-400
article

I need an opinion on a Russian-language source which is proposed for deployment. I reverted it [[3]] but this is purely provisional based on community consensus. The I.P. is in communication via my talk page and has left me the source link, [here]. Comments appreciated. Simon.
talk
) 18:35, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
RIA Novosti is a large news agency, generally acceptable as a source for Russian topics. The one you reverted, vpk.name,[4] sounds a bit propagandish but does quote military personnel extensively, so I think it has some credibility, provided it is attributed properly (just like we would take with a grain of salt claims of strike capability from any military in the world). — JFG talk 17:18, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
@
WP:SPS. In this instance, the RIA source is an infographic (basically, the specs for the particular missile). I edit a lot of the Russian military and militia articles and don't have a problem with these. They're basically specs being published on behalf of the RF by RIA. Essentially, it's no different than publishing specs for US, Australian, or any other government's accumulation of militia. You're not going to know anything other than what they want publicised unless there are leaks, and leaks are a different kettle of fish. Yeesh! Apologies for the weird bag of mixed metaphors! --Iryna Harpy (talk
) 05:32, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

The Score esports

This site has surfaced as a source in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CJ Entus. My position is that it's unambiguously user-generated content (see the terms of use, point #5), but I've been advised that there's "no chance of consensus" about its reliability. Let's see!—S Marshall T/C 11:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

This was discussed at WP:VGRS and Talk:League of Legends Pro League.--Prisencolin (talk) 19:51, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
The Score isnt 'user generated' as we generally use it (wikipedia, facebook, youtube etc). Its used often because in some areas *any* source is better than none and The Score has fairly extensive details. Some of its contributers would probably pass for being knowledgeable subject matter experts (I think at least one is an ex pro-gamer, and it has 'staff' writers). I wouldnt use it where any other better source was available, unfortunately there rarely is. The other side of course is that the info it is used to source is not contentious at all. I would rather a poor source than no source. I would say that it is no indication of notability of anyone it covers, but that its info is likely accurate. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:52, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, what the terms of use say is that the publisher doesn't take any responsibility for the content, so there's no editorial control and no fact checking. In that sense, it's user generated content. I'd agree that the source is no indication of notability, but I don't see why we would assume that the information is accurate?—S Marshall T/C 11:46, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I took a look, a lot of the stuff its reporting are things that are available elsewhere, like social media, games forums etc. So from a (admittedly not comprehensive) look it appears the information is verifiably true. Personally I would use a self-published source for something like 'Player X has left team Y' as Player X will undountedly tweet/stream about leaving Team Y in short order. But wikipedia strongly discourages primary sources, even though in some circumstances its perfectly fine. Either way, it is certainly not useful for a deletion discussion. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:55, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Every single online reliable source with comment sections has a terms of use like that, it's a disclaimer that user-submitted content (i.e. comments on articles) are not completely screened. The terms of use has no bearing on the editorial policy of the publication. You can see similar sections at the Toronto Star under "User Conduct, Indemnification and Licence Granted", The New York Times has two sections dealing with this, CBC under s. 3 and s. 5, which all tell the user to assume responsibility for their submitted content. Those terms of use do not mean that the TorStar, NYT, or CBC are user generated and unreliable. TheScore Esports has a writers page, where one writer, "Daniel Rosen" is listed as its news editor, which makes it clear that there is in fact editorial control. If we base our understanding of what constitute reliable source publications on what their terms of use say about who is responsible for user-submitted comments on their content, we wouldn't be able to use any online sources. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 17:58, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

RfC on Michael Greger

See Talk:Michael Greger#Request for comments on SBM source --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:23, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

CoinDesk and CoinTelegraph on the article Ethereum

1. Source. CoinDesk and CoinTelegraph [5].

2. Article. Ethereum.

3. Content.

Ethereum's live blockchain was launched on 30 July 2015.[1][2][3]

References

  1. ^ Caffyn, Grace (30 July 2015). "Ethereum Launches Long-Awaited Decentralized App Network". CoinDesk. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  2. ^ "Ethereum Launches Frontier; Ether Mining Begins, Trading to Follow". InsideBitcoins. 5 August 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  3. ^ Galt, Juan (28 July 2015). "Ethereum Announces Official Launch Date". CoinTelegraph. Retrieved 29 August 2016.

4. Discussion. A couple of editors over at

WP:FRIND, and thus repeatedly deleting content. See a current discussion here relating at Talk:Ethereum#Coin_desk. Thus I have created this RS noticeboard discussion as well as a Fringe Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Ethereum discussion. These editors refer to CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph, Bitcoin Magazine and others as blogs and unreliable news sources or they refer to them as primary sources (see this edit) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethereum&oldid=736535460
. I wanted to get some input from the larger community so we can maybe reach a consensus on it, and make editing of the affected pages easier (as we will then understand if I can use these sources or not).

Thank you Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:27, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

  • No in my opinion. Using promotional advert sites is just a gateway to the crypto currency world. They are primary promotional. It would be like using Kitco [6] to source our gold articles. Kitco is only a buying and selling information site that promotes the buying of gold as do these coin sites. Stick with actual news worthy sources not promo rah rah sites. Earl King Jr. (talk) 04:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong support for the use of CoinDesk as an independent reliable source on the date of Ethereum launch. Reasons:
  • CoinDesk is a news source with editorial board and independent policies in place.
  • There are citations of CoinDesk news in other reputable and independent sources.
  • In contrast to suggestions at Talk:Ethereum#Coin_desk, the date of Ethereum launch is not a fringe theory, it is an undisputed fact.
  • In contrast to what Earl King Jr. suggests, CoinDesk is not a buying and selling site of Ethereum tokens. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:49, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Huh? It is an industry promotional site of how to buy cryptocurrency [7] So a combination of that and a bunch of press releases that are worthless for sourcing and blog articles with a bunch of people that support Ether and Bitcoin. Earl King Jr. (talk) 06:59, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes, Earl King Jr., you can find the information how to buy bitcoins in CoinDesk. You can find such information also in The Telegraph[1] or other reputable sources. Does that mean that all the sources are "promotional"? The answer is "no". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:10, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Sparkes, Matthew (15 January 2014). "How to get your virtual hands on some bitcoins". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
As a public person that writes on this subject on the internet and is a part of the CryptoCoin world I would think that perspective is needed. Your comparing the two sources is ludicrous. A main feature of CoinDesk is worthless non notable press release things and a How To Buy Guide which is very detailed. Very different from the article you conjured to make but not make your point. Earl King Jr. (talk) 07:17, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Earl King Jr., actually, I did not need to "conjure" anything. There are many more independent reliable sources that inform their readers how bitcoins can be acquired. If anything is conjured, then it is not me who does it. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:24, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Moreover, the presence or absence of the information how to acquire bitcoins has, in my opinion, no relevance to examine the sourcing of the Ethereum launch date. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:28, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Kabali (film) and List of highest-grossing Indian films

Hey all, I'm having some ongoing problems at both

Kabali (film)
, although to a lesser degree.

With that wave of disruption mostly over, a new disruption arose after Financial Express, which is generally considered a reliable source, made claims that the film has grossed 650 crore and higher. However International Business Times, which is also generally considered reliable, has outright called these high estimates "fake", noting that they include income unrelated to the film's box office take. IBT places the more reasonable estimates at 309-350 crore (3.09-3.5 billion rupees) as has First Post, which has said, "More conservative estimates put Kabali’s collections at around Rs 300 crores from worldwide ticket sales." This is obviously less than the 320 crore that the producer was reporting a few days into the film's run.

This talk page comment of mine is a bit of an obnoxious read in response to an IP user's demand for a detailed explanation, but I think it clearly explains the various issues. If anyone is willing to comment at either that discussion, or at

Talk:Kabali (film), or at both, that would be appreciated. Or just to add these pages to their watchlists to help address some of the questions would be helpful too. Thanks! Cyphoidbomb (talk
) 02:42, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, the 309-350 crore figure is currently outdated and we now have multiple sources pointing the Domestic collection as "Rs 211 Crore" and International Collection at "Rs 259 Crore", which brings the world wide theater collections at atleast 470 Crores. . Yes, Tamil Nadu government has a cap on ticket sales at Rs 120 per ticket hence the domestic is lesser than the international. Indiatimes, The Financial Express, BoxOfficeCollection-India, Galaxy Reporter and Bollywood Box Office Collection. So i think we can move on from Rs 350 Crore to Rs 470 Crore until a more updated figure is available. Thanks. --Pearll's SunTALK 03:45, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Kabali (film) until multiple sources report independently of Financial Express what the gross values are, but somehow I strongly doubt you're interested in a compromise. As noted, the only thing we know for sure is that the film has crossed 350 crore. We do not know for sure if the 470 crore estimates are close to what the rest of the film analysts think. I'm proposing caution and circumspection with time determining what value should be used, you're proposing we rush to publish what one periodical thinks, apparently with no regard for whether or not we'd be republishing bullshit marketing hype. Yours is not the sound position. Cyphoidbomb (talk
) 04:28, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
Cyphoidbomb. Perfect, Why publish a wrong figure or publish a disputed/inflated one? Removing the box office data entirely from the article claiming it to be "disputed" sounds like the best way to keep off false figures from the article. Also when we check google, it seems to reflect wiki and shows a wrong value. But on the "Highest Grossing Indian Films", can we say its around 350 - 470 Crore or 350 - 650 Crore and call it disputed?. Let's not fix a value by ourselves. Thanks. --Pearll's SunTALK 04:37, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
I would remove the gross from List of highest-grossing Indian films and from the Infobox at Kabali, with the latter maybe pointing to a relevant section in the article that discusses the disparity, maybe with "Disputed, see Box office". An option for the former article might be to present the gross in the form of a range as I previously did, and as you suggested above, but to flag it as disputed with {{disputed inline}}, linking to a relevant discussion on the talk page (see template instructions). I don't have time to do this now, so if you want to handle both, I'll trust your judgement. Whatever you do, you might want to link to this discussion in your edit summary. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:01, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm a bit biased but when real reliable sources say that the 600 and above range is complete rubbish and anonymous blogs are cited as the exact kind of thing that the reliable sources consider quoting the rubbish, using the anonymous blogs as evidence for a mid-level claim. I'd rather keep a week-old citation and then we can figure out whether or not than a poorly sourced recent one. As noted, our policy is that badly sourced information is worse than no information at all and being conservative is better than claiming things like "this moves from the 14th highest Indian film gross of all time to 6th" and possibly retracting that entire claim. This is no small claim. Just to make sure it's clear, a number that is literally tens of millions of dollars more as we are moving from 350 crore (about $52.6 million) to 470 crore ($70.6 million). A difference of 120 crore which is equivalent to $18 million or basically what the third US box office results were in their entirety this weekend. I know one huge problem is that the Indian film task force has not really analyzed these websites (in part because a new one seems to pop up every few months) and we tend to take the "accept it unless evidence is to the contrary" approach instead of
    WP:BURDEN the reverse. -- Ricky81682 (talk
    ) 08:05, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
Ricky81682, thanks for your comments. IBT's latest from 9 August 2016 is casting some shade on some of the broken record claims. They also wrote: ""Kabali" has collected more than Rs. 300 crore at the global box office in 17 days and its current pace shows it will not be able to surpass the Rs. 500 crore mark in its life time." It's somewhat noteworthy that the milestone they mention is 300 crore, not 400 crore. Though I have no evidence to support it, the Financial Express pieces read more like press releases than articles. Knowing that the Kabali producer was claiming 320 crore gross a few days into release, which was not supported by independent sources, it would not surprise me if his people had flooded Financial Express with a puff piece and they reprinted it without fact-checking, which is kinda what IBT suggested when they mocked the unnamed publication for printing claims of up to 675 crore. Needless to say, other sources hungrily reprinted the nonsensical claims without any effort of fact-checking, because hey, it brings in clicks. In the discussion above with pearll's sun I recommended presenting the data in the form of a range. It's one way to go and I would typically endorse that for minor disputes, but I really don't know how much Financial Express can be trusted on this. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:28, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Cyphoidbomb Yes, IBT says it has collected over 200 Crores in India. But again we need to see which are the most trustable sources. For me all the popular Indian news media are a trustable source and IBT is new one as only post Kabali reports i learned about this news agency.

1: India Times - 1 week back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall. 2: FilmiBeat - 2 dys back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall. 3: India Today - Film producer claims film earned 320 Cr in 6 dys in Tamilnadu there is a Cap on ticket sales at Rs 120 whereas [8] and theaters sold the tickets at 10 times the price which does not happen otherwise in TN which is illegal, now the question is if the quoted price from IBT could be at Rs 120 per ticket and Producers claim could be the other one. 4: Financial Times - 1 week back - 211 Cr Domestic + 259 Cr Overseas = 470-500 Cr Overall 5: Domestic collection at over 200 Crore - BoxOfficeCollection-India And we have 6: IBT that keeps publishing same collection report for past 1 week.

Now which one to choose? I too second in Ricky81682 comment that "badly sourced information is worse than no information at all". Do we have any option (an e.g. from any article) to place a value such as "350 Cr to 700 Cr" with a tag "Disputed"? or simply remove the value and place "Disputed - See Box Office report within article"? --Pearll's SunTALK 14:15, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

IBT is not a "new" source. It's been around for years and is widely considered reliable by the Indian cinema task force at Wikipedia. Per your points:
  1. The India Times reference you keep bringing up cites Financial Times as the source of the info. That's not an independent confirmation, so it doesn't count as an additional source. It is not constructive to keep bringing it up as though it were a unique source reporting its unique findings.
  2. There's also no indication that Filmibeat is considered a reliable source by the
    WP:ICTF
    . On the contrary, the community appears to dislike Filmibeat/Oneindia as a reference.
  3. The Indiatoday source you bring up cites the producer as the source of the financials. We don't use
    primary sources
    for controversial data. Obviously the producer has a financial interest in inflating the box office claims. I don't know exactly what point you're trying to make about the ticket scalping, but why would it matter if we're going to discount what the producer claims anyway?
  4. Yes, we are aware of the Financial Express claim.
  5. There's no indication that Boxofficecollection.in is anything more than a blog, or that it is in any way considered a reliable source by WP:ICTF. Useless for our purposes.
  6. Yes, we are aware of IBT's adherence to a value <400 crore. Does it occur to you that this is because IBT doesn't believe the film crossed 400 crore? Like here where they mention crossing 300 crore, but not 400 crore?
Your suggestion that we list the top-end estimate at 700 crore is ludicrous. You couldn't possibly believe that 700 crore is a reasonable top end, since not even the poorest of the sources you've provided has claimed that Kabali grossed 700 crore at the box office. I genuinely don't understand your reluctance to wait a couple of weeks until the chaos subsides. It is not inaccurate to say definitively that the film crossed 350 crore. What is inaccurate is to say definitively that the film crossed 400 and 500 crore. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:56, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
700 Crore is just a figure and can mean anything the sources claim it to be. So instead of focusing on the "700" i think we should see if we can either place two figures and call them disputed or remove the outdated 350 Crore claim by IBT (unless wiki clearly specifies IBT to be only reliable source).
  1. If IBT is widely considered reliable, does all other popular news including "Financial Times" and "India Times" considered un-reliable?
  2. Is IBT the only reliable resource of wiki?
  3. For me IBT and other sources such as "Financial Times", "NDTV", "India Times" and other popular press media seems same unless wiki specifies a list of most reliable sources.
  4. I'm now so glad that google has finally removed the 350 Crore figure from its search sourced from wiki and placed "5.7 billion INR (570 Crores... no idea if this is right or wrong yet they seem to have an updated figure)". Hope wiki too finds an acceptable solution for such issues.

Thanks. --Pearll's SunTALK 14:24, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb Also i want to know why we have to keep waiting (its also a waste of time which drains valuable efforts which can beneficial to other wiki articles) for some estimate to surface when we have an option to either place two figures and call them disputed or remove the entire figure from the box office zone and point to "Box office" section within the article. Even if we never have a sharp value even after two weeks or two months, this arrangement should suffice as calling the box office collection "Disputed" forever can work as we at wiki aren't in the job of placing our own assessments (if done can easily go one sided) when such a huge difference is being projected.

Also i wish to reiterate Ricky81682 lines here "Our policy is that badly sourced information is worse than no information at all" and i thing we are exactly doing what we dont want to "publish a badly sourced and outdated info". Thanks. --Pearll's SunTALK 01:13, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

  1. Please stop asking me about India Times, it's getting irritating. I explained it very clearly the last time, and I've probably explained this to you three times already in various ways at different discussions: If a site simply reprints what another site says, that's not an independent verification. That's just a reprint. If fifty reliable newspapers reprint a producer's quote that the film made ₹NNN crore, does the fifty reprints mean that we have fifty unique sources that endorse the information? No, it means we have one source that made a claim, the producer, and fifty sources that blindly reprinted the claim. Please meditate on this response, because it'll be the last time I give it.
  2. No.
  3. Okay, and?
  4. Okay, and? Google's business is Google's business.
  5. The articles have remained relatively stable for the last week or so, so I'm not sure what grand waste of time you're complaining about, especially when I'm the one who has invested the most time dealing with the fallout. If the disruptions continue in the next few days, that would be a very odd coincidence. If we remove all mention of Kabali's gross from either the
    Kabali (film), I think there will be a greater disruption than there has been already. So if you're concerned about wasting editors' time, it seems that maintaining the status quo has been the best approach. Adding the range in this case seems like it would just serve to promote the film. As I have previously said, we know that the film made ₹350 crore. It is not inaccurate to say that it has grossed that much. When reliable sources decide to sack up and start publishing their own analyses of the gross, then we can increase the figure. And since I wind up saying the same over and over to you anyway, I'll say it again: we know that the film made ₹350 crore. It is not inaccurate to say that it has grossed that much. When reliable sources decide to sack up and start publishing their own analyses of the gross, then we can increase the figure. Not sure why that's a sticking point for you. Cyphoidbomb (talk
    ) 07:49, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Ricky81682, thanks for clarifying your position. BOI isn't always a great choice because in my experience it seems they lose interest in tracking box office figures sometimes. Occasionally their values will go static while other sources' figures are unfolding. I don't know, maybe they're actually good and they know when the income starts to dry up, so they stop updating the gross because it's not worth the effort. Whereas the other sources are just repeating what the producers are saying. Who knows. But there are other issues to, like that their URLs sometimes become dead links over time, which requires us to dig up archives. Also, they don't publish dates in their box office breakdowns, so you never know exactly when that figure was relevant. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 07:55, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
US-Canadian non-inflation film rankings, it would be like arguing about whether we should rank Shrek 2 above Avatar when sources explicitly state that the producers of Shrek 2 are giving out completely nonsensical figures rather than wait more than a week to get consistently stable figures. -- Ricky81682 (talk
) 08:34, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Ricky81682 I found this DNA article from 27 July 2016 it predates the other sources, I think, but it speaks very loudly to the questions that have been raised, and while they're talking specifically about box office inflations made early on, it indicates very clearly that there was an active campaign to inflate figures to lure people to see what they consider to be a sub-standard film.

Rajinikanth’s Kabali reportedly collected a record Rs 250 crore on its first day. An industry source says these figures are grossly inflated ... But everyone seems to have bought the lies. Often, the producers send out inflated figures and the media carries it without checking the facts ... One doesn’t know where these inflated figures of Rs 250 crore have come from. Who’s going to check the box-office figures in India? That is why producers give out such inflated numbers. The film has no chance of sustaining as it’s a very bad, amateurishly-made film

— DNA
Given that these opinions come from a few different analysts, they comprise more voices articulating that the bloated figures shouldn't be blindly swallowed. If the campaigners are desperate at the start of a marketing blitz, they're surely desperate at the end of their marketing blitz. This is allegedly the second highest-grossing Indian film of all time, but none of the major news sources have said anything of substance about this film in the last two weeks. That's also telling. It's the biggest movie that the media forgot. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 07:59, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
It is so surprising that none of the trade analyst (more voices or north voices??) who have commented are from the Tamil industry and its also sounds childish for a well known print media to publish a comment from a distributor who will obviously promote the direct hindi movies that he distributes and not some dubbed tamil movie that he may not have any idea. This distributor says at the 1st week " For Kabali the reviews are bad so there may be a drop this week." while the actual picture sings a totally different song that too at the end of its 3rd week. The film is said to have made huge profits from both the South India and from the Overseas so unless we hear from both these locations. If we keep on considering and lauding articles that rubbishes Tamil movies which it actually has no idea (clearly evident when it calls a blockbuster movie "Kabali" as "very bad, amateurishly-made film" and more funnier as a "sub-standard film"), then we might have to consider the following for Mohenjo Daro which is claimed to be below average and Rustom which too as an average grosser and Sultan which completely went missing from Chennai theaters after Kabali was released. And this "IBT" which wiki considers as "Most Reliable" collects all its reports about kabali from some overseas based blog and a twitter account and has no info on its own nor does any research. Hope we start considering some genuine news articles than those who publishes and promotes false reports and personalized articles for some particular peoples interest. Again i wish to quote that "lets not fix and publish a particular figure and instead claim the quoted figure as disputed". Thanks (Magizhchi). --Pearll's SunTALK 11:02, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
You keep citing
WP:OR, but I'm guessing you haven't read it. A source exists for 350 crore, thus it is not original research. We know it made at least 350 crore. That is a fact, not original research. If I said "Kabali is based on the American comic book series Spider-Man", that would be original research, because no reference exists for that. (It's also a lie.) If you're going to criticize IBT and their sources, that's perfectly reasonable, but who are Financial Express's sources for the data? The producers? Sure sounds like it. It doesn't strike you as bizarre that a film is alleged to have grossed so much money that it allegedly has become the #2 highest-grossing Indian film of all time, yet no reliable source other than Financial Express has published this? That's not strange to you? It's not odd that The Hindu or Hindustani Times or Deccan Chronicle or Mumbai Mirror or even Forbes, which occasionally weighs in on noteworthy Indian cinema accomplishments, hasn't said anything about this? Not even a "Wow, Kabali did way better than we thought" comment? By the way, it's certainly possible for someone to anticipate a drop across all of India, but still see an increase in Chennai. Not sure what you're trying to argue, but an increase occurring at X doesn't mean an increase occurred at A, B, Y and Z. Cyphoidbomb (talk
) 20:40, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
  1. Please post the source that says it made exactly 350 crore.
  2. Yes, definitely when the someone happens to be a distributor then he would not only anticipate but also might pray for a drop for a movie that he doesn't distribute. A movie review would be fair only if written by a person with no Conflict-of-interest and with proper knowledge on the subject. Here all the reviewers on the subject has either COIor has absolutely no knowledge on the subject (being a tamil guy myself cannot be the right person to review nor comment on a direct Hindi movie).
  3. Financial express says over 430 crore on day 7 Source - Points to an analyst and not the producer.
  4. Rajinikanth's Kabali box office collection is Rs 650 crore Source - No source specified and again not the producer.
  5. [ http://www.ibtimes.co.in/kabali-box-office-collection-rajinikanth-starrer-fails-beat-bahubali-baahubali-us-record-690995#EGT4sFDeMZZhllgy.97 As per trade reports, the worldwide gross collection of the film is said to be over Rs. 350 crore] Source - Some twitter account and a blog.
  6. This over 350 cant be taken exactly as 350 so it would be better to call it disputed.
  7. And i seriously dont care it if it made 250/350/550 or even a 1000, but i just wish wiki to have a perfect value or place a disputed tag so people who access and consider wiki as perfect source of details gets the right message.

Thanks. --Pearll's SunTALK 10:12, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

  1. At no point did I say that it made exactly 350 crore. I have never said that. Re-read my statements. I have said repeatedly that it has made at least 350 crore, and that is the only figure we are sure that the film made.
  2. No idea what your point is. How do you feel about the analyst mentioned in the Financial Express article you keep waving around? What's his/her name again? I couldn't find it. What are their qualifications? Do they have any conflicts of interest, like being in the back pocket of the Kabali producers? If you're going to question the analysts, perhaps you should question the ones in the Financial Express article too. If you can find their names.
  3. You're really hanging your hat on that Financial Express article. Though it's certainly benefited from the clickbait headline, it actually does express skepticism. "Aside from S Thanu who went the whole hog about the Kabali numbers, no other figure or filmmaker has stepped forward with a statement that puts the data in perspective." "Whole hog" is criticism toward Thanu for exaggerating the figures, and they seem to be lamenting the lack of corroboration from anyone other than him. (Not that we would trust corroborated data that comes from a primary source, but the fact that they haven't heard anything is questionable. They further express doubt in their subtle phrasing, "if we follow one particular analyst" to arrive at a certain figure for the international gross. "If we follow one particular analyst" doesn't sound like a confident report to me. You might as well say, "if this guy is to be believed". They further say "what is increasingly being feared is that the movie has quit working as much as was indicated in the wake of the movie just being released." This is another way of saying that the film is slowing down, which the other reports said. And the coup de grace, "We have already indicated the film may well have crossed the Rs 600 crore, but that is yet to be substantiated as data is still incomplete. Till the final word on this exercise is said there is going to a big question mark hanging on the whole isue." [sic] So, are you just swallowing the numbers, or are you reading the subtext?
  4. ?
  5. ?
  6. Repeating: I never said "exactly". You keep repeating your preference for it to be labeled as disputed. You don't have to keep repeating yourself. When you repeat yourself, it forces me to repeat myself. I don't agree with you at present, because I still think we should wait. Based on all the doubt, even by Financial Express, marking it as disputed would give credence to the high values.
  7. We will never have a perfect value for an Indian cinema article, because all the values are estimates, and corruption is rampant. Maybe you aren't familiar enough with Indian film article editing as I am, but every time there is a new film, the exaggerations begin.
This is the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Instead of discussing whether or not Financial Express's data should be published blindly, this discussion has become a seemingly endless debate between me preferring to wait until the data solidifies, Ricky seeming to prefer that we wait as well (if I am interpreting him correctly) and you wanting to include a range of data and mark it as disputed. We appear to be going nowhere with this, but I certainly don't want to take up any more screen space here. That's not what this noticeboard is for. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:43, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Now we have an article from the India Today that says "Kabali shattered all box office records and the film reportedly grossed over Rs 600 crore worldwide.". --Pearll's SunTALK 11:57, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
The same source that was citing the producer as the source of the data? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:54, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Here's one more, The Indian Express says Kabali reportedly earned Rs 500 crore worldwide at the box office.. Hope 2 sources from the Reliable sources list are more than enough for WP:RS and i think i have done my part here. Thanks. --Pearll's SunTALK 18:22, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
"There's a problem with source A."
"Okay, how about this article from source A?"
Maybe if we go through another ten rounds of this you'll begin to see the problem. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 01:42, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Problem is everywhere, if we keep finding more and more problems then we may have to edit every single Indian film article matching the data filed with the IT dept. I just wanted to have an useful discussion (yes, a discussion alone to reach a consensus as i dont believe in pushing my opinions on others) on why cant the word "Disputed" be used when multiple varying values are suggested. So far all i can see is people wanting to keep a fixed value as per their choice (yes, it had made atleast 350 crore, and also atleast 250 crore and definitely atleast crossed a 50 crore). For me calling a dispute as "disputed" sounds like a proper solution and for some others delaying/waiting sounds like a better solutions. Another Ten rounds? I'm seeing a way different wiki from what i remember. Over and Out. Thanks (Magizhchi). --Pearll's SunTALK 13:25, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Citing a CD Error Using the CD

So it was pointed out to me that some copies of the Permanent Record: Al in the Box contain an error, and the first part of the song "Hooked on Polkas" is cut slightly. However, I can't seem to find a third-party source to back this claim up, and in the words of the editor who pointed it out to me, "It's sort of an ontological quandary." Would it be OK to cite the album/song itself as a source for this error? I can't seem to think of another way around this, but it does seem like a noticeable fact worth mentioning (not the mention the fact that the article already has a small section detailing track listing and pressing errors).--Gen. Quon (Talk) 18:38, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. It is a quandary.One of the purposes of refs is so the reader can check the fact for herself. Typical allowable refs would thus be attainable with reasonable effort -- by going to a library, for instance (or: going online; obtaining a copy of a book other than through a library; or any other reasonable, traditional way of verifying information. "Getting a copy of the CD and listening to it" might not fall under this rubric. If it did, we could ref the list of tracks on an album, not to AllMusic or whatever, but to "just listen to the CD", which I'm pretty sure we don't do. It is frustrating I agree.
Also -- I think that one of the reasons we don't much like primary sources is "if not one human person has seen fit to take notice of this in a third-party source, is it really important enough to include in the article?" and this factoid may fit under that rubric. Herostratus (talk) 21:10, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Snopes' Field Guide to Fake News Sites and Hoax Purveyors

Snopes.com's updated guide to the internet's clickbaiting, news-faking, social media exploiting dark side: [ http://www.snopes.com/2016/01/14/fake-news-sites/ ] --Guy Macon (talk) 19:37, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

  • Tidy. Thanks for that. Guy (Help!) 11:29, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Weak sources for basic facts about Pakistani pop singer Momina Mustehsan

So this young woman has a whole crush of fans. She has apparently moved back and forth between Pakistan and US There are no great sources for content about:

  • her birthdate: September 5th (not year; no source for that)
  • completed A Level from Lahore Grammar School in Lahore
  • Went to college at Stony Brook University in New York for Biomedical Engineering, along with a minor in business

There are two weak sources for the information above. They are both interviews published in blogs. Falls somewhere between

WP:SELFPUB
...

OK for these facts (nothing more) on a BLP? Jytdog (talk) 08:49, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I would say not, as there is no evidence they are either reliable or independent. Guy (Help!) 11:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Unreliable for a BLP. A primary source (the subject directly herself, eg a verified twitter account with a post going 'its my birthday today!') would be ok (but not ideal) for basic uncontroversial info, but these are interviews in non-reliable sources. Without a reputation for fact-checking etc we cannot say those interviews are an accurate reflection. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:46, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
I am with both of you and I actually took these sources and that info out of the article. It is just that people keep showing up to add this stuff back in (usually unsourced) and it is a pain in the butt to keep deleting it... and it's best if it is not just me saying the sources are not OK. But more feedback would be good. Jytdog (talk) 11:59, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

http://obozrevatel.com/blogs/13804-fly-myi-sohranim-og.htm

http://obozrevatel.com/blogs/13804-fly-myi-sohranim-og.htm this particular article is being used in

Fly (video gamer), not sure if it's just a user generated blog or the website's real content.--Prisencolin (talk
) 17:44, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Redbull.com

Looking for input on using Redbull.com as a source for a BLP. This [9] appears to be mostly a fluff piece on the energy drink's website. I can't see where they have a reputation for reliability in bio's or editorial oversight. Opinions? Niteshift36 (talk) 23:12, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Where is it from? You need to give us an article and content. Ellomate (questions? talk/consult my lawyer) 06:45, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
There's also another article from the site being used that isn't an interview. Also, the interview is a fluff piece, but it may be reliable for selective contexts.--Prisencolin (talk) 17:46, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
  • The difference, aside from it not being an interview, is that is also has an author listed. I have difficulty with the drink site being a reliable source for much besides their own activities. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:21, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Youtube video used as a source in the lead section of the
Blockchain (database)
article.

Hi, this source, actually a Youtube video recording a spoken presentation, is used as the source in the

programs—with each block holding batches of individual transactions and the results of any blockchain executables
.
"YouTube videos" are not inherently reliable or unreliable as sources, any more than "books" or "TV programmes". It depends on (1) what the video is and (2) what the claim for which it is being cited is. YouTube's original business model, and their name, have no sway on whether this or that video that is linked to is an objectively reliable source, because in practice most of the time a YouTube video is cited by an experienced Wikipedian and someone else says that "YouTube is not a reliable source" and the discussion winds up here, the source itself (a video lecture, more often than not) is not self-published or dubious at all.
Typically, recordings of spoken lectures by reputable authorities are reliable sources in general, with the only potential issues being copyright (as sometimes videos that were ripped from DVDs or the like are uploaded to YouTube without permission) and whether the presentation was actually delivered by a reputable authority. The former is probably not a concern, as the YouTube channel appears to be the official Ethereum account and the presentation appears to have been given at an Ethereum conference.
The latter is muddier, though: I have no subject knowledge in this area, so I cannot tell you whether Lubin is a reputable expert in the field, or whether Ethereum having invited him to give a presentation gives him any authority as a source of information on Blockchain. Your suspicion about 'a "DEVCON1" publisher' seems a bit like an overreaction -- did you watch the video? "devcon one" is obviously just the first Ethereum Developer Conference: whether "a DEVCON1 publisher" is reliable depends 100% on whether Ethereum is reliable.
The fact that the speaker spent some time shilling for his company is irrelevant: the vast majority of the YouTube-viewable public lectures by
Bart Ehrman
were delivered to commemorate the publication of Ehrman's latest book, their content is derived from Ehrman's books, and Ehrman frequently tells listeners that if they want a fuller picture they should buy his book -- this does not mean Ehrman is not a reliable source.
I would say you should explain why you think the claim in question is dubious -- do you have a (possibly) better source that appears to contradict it, or does your own intuition tell you that the claim is questionable based loosely on some other source? If all you want to do is replace the current source with a different one, without altering the content of our article, then that is what you should do, and then we can have a discussion of which source is better.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:32, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
  • "Typically, recordings of spoken lectures by reputable authorities are reliable sources" - and where exactly is a proof that Mr. Lubin is a reliable authority?
  • "did you watch the video?" - yes I did, and found out that the main content of the lecture is advertisement of ConsenSys activities. As mentioned above, I did not find much (reliable or not) information on the structure of the blockchain, which is what the lecture is supposed to confirm.
  • "do you have a (possibly) better source that appears to contradict it" - I think that the claim is
    WP:OR, and that it is, most likely, contradicted even by the video in question, although I am unable to tell for sure. Ladislav Mecir (talk
    ) 07:16, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
  • and where exactly is a proof that Mr. Lubin is a reliable authority? Woah. Holy hostility, Batman! You have the editorial authority to question the reliability of the source, and if you have another source that appears to contradict the claims, or indicate that the claim somehow constitutes an advertisement for the company that employs the author of the source, then you can remove it, and the
    burden to convince the community
    is on anyone who wants to re-add it. I was merely addressing your apparent assumption that a "YouTube video" is an inherently unreliable source. I have seen material cited to Yale and University of North Carolina professors, as well as generally reliable news agencies, removed because some ignorant Wikipedia editors believed that "YouTube videos are not reliable sources". Anyway, per OID's comment below the burden is now on you to find another source that contradicts Lubin for basic factual information.
  • I did not find much (reliable or not) information on the structure of the blockchain, which is what the lecture is supposed to confirm I have not watched the presentation from start to finish, and I don't intend to, so I cannot verify or falsify your claim, but if you believe the source does not verify the claim being made in the article, then you can
    remove it
    , but you'd need to be careful that you have fully checked the entire presentation to make sure that it doesn't verify the content.
  • I think that the claim is
    WP:NORN
    .
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:16, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

That would be this Joseph Lubin who probably does know what he is talking about regarding blockchains. I would not have an issue with him for basic factual information regarding blockchains, but obviously anything that may be disputed should not be sourced to him, due to his commercial involvement. He is not an independant academic, he has a vested interest in blockchains. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:45, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

My main problem with the video is that it presents commercial activities, not the structure of blockchains. That is why I think that it should not be used as a source in this specific case. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 12:35, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Thats not really a concern unless the commercial aspects impact or could lead to doubt on the reliability of the information provided. Example, you would not generally query the reliability of the chairman of a commercial bank for explaining how bank accounts work, but you would look a lot more closely at claims he made regarding the suitability/performance of them. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:53, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
(
WP:CONTEXTMATTERS
: we should not function as an advertising mouthpiece for Mr. Lubin, but citing a lecture that he intended to serve a partly, or even mainly, commercial purpose for an innocuous factual statement is in theory perfectly acceptable.
The problem here is that you are being very slippery with what your actual problem is. Did you watch the video and see nothing that verified the material attributed to it in the article? Then per
WP:V
the commercial nature of the source is completely irrelevant. Or did you watch the video, find that it does verify the material, but your intuition tells you that the material is still wrong and the source is misleading for commercial purposes? If this is the case, then the burden is on you to find another source that contradicts the material in the article. Either way, the commercial nature of the rest of the source apart from the bit relevant to what is in the Wikipedia article is not something that can be discussed on RSN.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:56, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
@Only in death: Yeah, what you said. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:56, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Regarding the original statement (which I dont think is in the article currently) it looks to be a description of what people who are implementing 'blockchain 2.0' are doing. See Ethereum. IMO its an accurate description but there should be better sources out there. Last time I was looking at Ethereum however, a lot of the material was either commcercial or presentation based for factual stuff, with brief glossed-over references (absent useful detail) in reliable sources. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:01, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Hijiri88 wrote: "...the commercial nature of the rest of the source apart from the bit relevant to what is in the Wikipedia article is not something that can be discussed on RSN" - I did see the commercial presentation, but I, actually, did not see the bit you mention, relevant to the above article content, just a part that actually contradicts it. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 13:35, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
@Ladislav Mecir: Kindly drop the hostility. I did not "mention" any "bit". I said that you were giving contradictory statements regarding your view of the matter, either that you thought the video did verify the content but was an untrustworthy source and the content didn't sit well with you or that you thought the video didn't verify the content, and that in the former case the only way the commercial nature of the video would be relevant would be if you could locate a better source that contradicted the content in the article. However, now you are presenting a third possibility, that the video contradicts the article content. If you are right, then the material should not be in the article, as the source says something else and not what is being attributed to it. Can you tell me where in the video (preferably minute:second format) is the point that actually contradicts the article content? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:54, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
"Kindly drop the hostility." - why do you think that the sentence "I did not see the bit you mention" is hostile? You mentioned "the bit relevant to what is in the Wikipedia article" (citing your own words) and I was uncertain where it was. I find it possible that I overlooked something in the sea of commercial announcements, and I hoped that you may help me with that by telling me where in the video it is. As to the part that actually contradicts the article content - I would not use the video to confirm an opposite claim than present in the Blockchain (database) either, since, as far as I observe, it is not intended to communicate informations on blockchain structure. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 04:16, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but if you are not willing to cite a source that contradicts the article content, then it is really unclear what you want from us. this noticeboard is not designed to slam this or that source because it is "commercial" or "a YouTube video". Allwe can do is say whether a source is adequate for a particular statement in this or that Wikipedia article, and the reason you say you are suspicious is that the source appears to contradict the claim attributed to it, but you don't seem to be willing to tellus where in the source is this bit that contradicts the claim attributed to it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:26, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
"you don't seem to be willing to tellus where in the source is this bit that contradicts the claim attributed to it" - I do not think it is needed at all. I think that it suffices to determine whether the video is appropriate to confirm the claim attributed to it or not. I did watch the video, and my opinion is that it is not appropriate for the purpose. Do you express an opposite opinion, and based on what reason? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:34, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
It is needed, for any source. If your opinion is that it is not appropriate, you need to say what exactly makes you feel it is not appropriate. As Hijari and I have pointed out, merely being a youtube video does not make it unreliable for some claims. If you think the info sourced to the video has been misrepresented or is incorrect (Video says A when actually the video says B), you need to say where. 'The video is wrong' is not a strong argument. As far as I can see the actual statement at issue is not contentious in any manner. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:57, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I'm N2e, the editor who has originally added that YouTube source of the conference talk recording to the article you three have been discussing over the past week. I did not know this discussion was going on.

Thanks to Hijiri 88 and Only in death does duty end for clarifying the circumstances under which a YouTube source might be perfectly fine. Those comport with my understanding; an understanding I had previously communicated to Ladislav on that Talk page.

Several days ago, I had said to Ladislav on that Talk page that I would get find a more specific source within two days. I did, when about 24 hours ago I added a time stamp to the specific part of the video that supports the challenged statement. That is here:

Talk:Blockchain_(database)#Article_lede:_question_of_sourcing
Some questions on Ladislav's part remained, and I answered those in the past hour, in that same section. That discussion is moving along rather cordially.

Unfortunately, in another section on that Talk page, Ladislav moved to personal attack on me this morning (I know, not a subject for this noticeboard). But it does leave me wondering, as you two above, whether something else is going on here. Cheers. N2e (talk) 12:20, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

@
WP:ANI, not this noticeboard or NORN. Hijiri 88 (聖やや
) 14:33, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I finally succeeded to get an information, what, in the video, is supposed to confirm the claim attributed to it. According to N2e, it is this part:

In Ethereum, all transaction processors come to consensus about what happened and when with respect to transmission and storage of the ether value token as well as coming to an agreement about all the processing that occurs on all of the shared programs on the world computer.

Since:

  • the claim purportedly supported by this citation is about the structure of the blockchain in general, while the specific citation discusses only Ethereum, the claim is not confirmed in general
  • the claim is about the structure of the blockchain, while the citation is about the consensus in Ethereum, not discussing the structure of the blockchain at all.

I am now able to determine that the video really does not confirm the claim in question. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:57, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Ladislav Mecir Wow. Just wow!
  1. You are incorrect, you subject video of a conference presentation does support what was originally challenged there: that blockchains might now (in 2016) also contain results of executables rather than merely transactions. And your issue about the "structure of the blockchain in general" (the new issue, the one you switched to as an issue only recently) is addressed by a citation I added at the end of that sentence yesterday.
  2. This has been discussed in rather great detail on the article Talk page, where just like on this page, you have been slippery in changing what your asking for as time goes on and your issues are sequentially addressed
  3. I will leave it to the good folks who frequent this page to tell you whether this page (RSN) is the appropriate place to address your issue, or if it is the article Talk page. But we could very much use additional eyes on that Talk page, so anyone please feel free to drop in over there at
    Talk:Blockchain (database). Cheers. N2e (talk
    ) 12:06, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
To sum up, you, N2e state that you edited the claim yesterday, and, because of your edit, I was wrong when filing up this notice 9 days ago. More importantly, you still use the above mentioned source to "confirm" your claim about the structure of blockchains in general. I already summed up that the source does not confirm the claim, having a different subject and purpose. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 12:19, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
No, that's not it. When you filed this action on this RSN a couple of weeks ago, you were arguing that the source, being a YouTube video, could not be a reliable source. You were not correct, as two non-involved editors informed you, above. And they each noted you were changing your argument as the facts went against you.
Only long after that point, when your no-YouTube-as-a source argument failed, did you switch your argument on that article talk page to be one of the very basic structure of the blockchain (data --> blocks; block ---> chained together == "blockchain") become your argument; a statement that is nearly "sky is blue true" in that article and subject area. (Incidentally for other readers: Ladislav had been heavily editing that article for over a year when I first encountered that article 5 or 6 months ago; not sure it rings true that he only wanted sources to support that very basic structure of the blockchain...). However, once Ladislav made that argument on the article Talk page, I quickly added another different source to support that, as there are hundreds for such a straightforward point. The YouTube source in question was always and only used, since it was added some 5 months ago or so, to support just one aspect of newer blockchain databases: that, in addition to storing transaction data that they have stored since blockchains were a new thing in 2009, they could now (in some blockchains, after c. 2015) also store programs, and the results of particular program executables. That is the only thing the YouTube source was ever used to support, and the only issue as articulated by any editor on that Talk page until just the past week or so.
So, no, me adding a source to support your recently-challenged (almost sky is blue true) simple statement about blockcahin structure, has nothing whatsoever to do with the YouTube source, which supports (and always has) only the newer/changed part of that statement after c. March of this year. So the argument of your "12:19, 1 September 2016 (UTC)" post above is not persuasive. N2e (talk) 16:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Mano Laohavanich

Hello Wikipedians,

I have noticed one or two edit wars going on at the Wat Phra Dhammakaya page over this so I think it would be a good idea to start a discussion over this in order to settle this dispute once and for all.

The issue in question that I would like to bring up is whether or not Dr.

WP:QUESTIONABLE
. For the experienced Wikipedians here, what are your thoughts on this?

From what I can see, I do not see him as a reliable source as Dr. Laohavanich has stated himself that he left Wat Phra Dhammakaya due to conflicts with the abbot. This would make him bias and not objective. This would normally be fine in regards to

WP:BIASED under certain conditions. For instance, I remember a previous version of the Wat Phra Dhammakaya page cite another Dhammakaya critic, Sulak Sivaraksa, saying he stated that the temple promoted greed by teaching that donations are a way to make merit. But it would not be acceptable to take Sulak's comment and say "Dhammakaya promotes greed by teaching that donations are a way to make merit", for obvious reasons. But the issue is that many of Dr. Laohavanich's statements are spoken as if factual, for instance he has stated the temple has a secret passage way[10]
and I have seen editors use such statements to contribute to the page as if they were factual.

I would also like to state that I believe Dr. Laohavanich is not reliable on Dhammakaya not just because of bias but also because of a verifiable history of making questionable claims about Wat Phra Dhammakaya. For instance, Dr. Laohavanich has made unsubstantiated claims that Wat Phra Dhammakaya was stockpiling contraband.[11][12] I have also noticed a few inaccuracies in his statements, for example he had stated that Wat Phra Dhammakaya has two Cetiyas/Stupas, but according to the Dhammakaya website they only have one. The other "similar" structure in which Laohavanich called another Cetiya was the Memorial Hall of Phramonkolthepmuni. [13] So he seems to have less actual knowledge of the real temple layout than even what is available online to the public via the Wat Phra Dhammakaya website.

Finally, if Laohavanich is indeed deemed an unreliable source, would this constitute removing the link to one of his writings on the "Further Readings" section of Wat Phra Dhammakaya? [14] The writing in question is "The Esoteric Teachings of Wat Phra Dhammakaya".[15] It seems to make equally questionable claims about the temple as some of his other statements and I also noticed that Laohavanich doesn't provide references for most of his claims in the paper. So there is nothing out there that supports a lot of his claims other than himself saying so. Many of the references he uses only cover very specific statements and he even puts himself as a reference, I think possibly to pad his references to make the paper appear more scholarly. On the other hand Laohavanich's paper was published by the Journal of Buddhist Ethics which is a reasonably reliable journal so I am not sure if Laohavanich himself being deemed unreliable would still constitute removing this link. In my opinion yes because it is not likely to display reliable and accurate content to readers even if put in the further reading section due to the author's history of making questionable and unsupported claims about Wat Phra Dhammakaya. Can some experienced wikipedians weigh in on this issue as well as the points about citing Laohavanich in the Dhammakaya pages? Wikiman5676 (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Buckwheat honey
 and one Robert Campbell's blog

Is this a reliable source? Pwolit iets seems to think so. I disagree, but I would appreciate neutral opinions on the matter. This is what he intends to support with it:

In Ontario, Canada, the local buckwheat honey gets a premium price of over $5/lb. in the barrel. It is sold in fine restaurants and in specialty shops for gourmet cooks and chefs where it can be used as a coffee sweetener and on vanilla cake as a dessert option. (Diff.)

In my view, that's also unencyclopedic: we don't usually report local pricing (and how big is a barrel?), and the fact that sweets may be used as a coffee sweetener is hardly worth mentioning.

Thank you. Rebbing 15:51, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Blogs generally aren't reliable sources for this kind of information. Speaking with my entomologist hat on, buckwheat honey is one of the more common monofloral honeys, so it probably does warrant mention in the honey article and that monofloral honeys do tend to have higher prices (more work to produce, etc.). I would not go into exact prices on any type of honey though as those are subject to change across time and location where sources would be outdated quickly, especially on an annual basis.
On sweeteners, etc. that's really more of a general honey use, so I overall agree with your take. I get the feeling we'd be fishing for blog-like sources to find a monofloral honey namedropped for a specific use. This all seems to suggest to me that this article is better redirected to
talk
) 16:15, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Is there any reason the types of honey cannot be merged into a list article with a paragraph on each? This and
Clover Honey for example are never going to be more than small overly-padded-with-useless-info stubs. The sourcing is not gread because there is not much to say on the subject. Monofloral honey already says most of what needs to be said on the subject. Only in death does duty end (talk
) 16:19, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
I didn't think to check
talk
) 16:36, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm married to a foodie who also works in ecology. Sadly I know too much (more than I would like) about monofloral honeys. And bees. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:10, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Thank you all for the input and for the merge suggestion. I've started a merge discussion for these three. Rebbing 16:47, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
This looks largely resolved (in terms of whether the above is an RS), but just to add something that it doesn't look like has been mentioned yet: as far as I can tell, anyone interested in the subject can sign up for a blog like the one linked. In other words, it's not even the Ontario Agriculture blog (presuming there is one), but similar to the various reader blogs hosted by e.g. Huffington Post... or a FaceBook post. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:28, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Content Usage from WIKIA to Wikipedia

I want to confirm here that is it permissible to use the content of

Wikia
in Wikipedia? since Wikia allows us to use, modified or share contents unless they remains copyleft where they are being used under same rules, and Wikipedia's contents are copyrighted. So tell me if i want to use material from Wikia, will i be able to use on Wikipedia or not? I am not going to use it as reference or source, but what i need is contents of it, since it is written exactly the same way we use to write here, the tone, the style of writing and what i actually need is summary of a series. Since plot descriptions are typically not sourced; usually editors watch the film / read the book and then write the plot descriptions. So the specific question is that Should i copy the summary plot and used it here, in new wikipedia article with same title, lead section and other. Because if i want to write myself, i wouldn't be able to change much except for wording, because whatever i need is same just different platforms for same subject.

  • Source: The contents i need is here, it just one page on Wikia, i will be needing all the episodic summaries: [16]
  • Article: The Article has not been created yet but it will have the same title as it is mentioned in above source like, "Chapter 40 (House of Cards)"

I have already discussed this with @Diannaa:, she refers me here, you can check our conversation here See discussion history. Nauriya (Rendezvous) 11:35, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Plot summaries are implicitly sourced to the original story and are thus frequently not cited - not even in featured or good articles. They must strictly follow the original story without any re-interpretations as otherwise they are original research. Two other pieces of advice would be to a) check that the Wikia summary isn't copied from another website, possibly a non-free one, and b) to clearly mark the copied summary so that it doesn't look plagiarized. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:10, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
I did search on Google the first sentence of Plot, but couldn't find it any where in any reviews of media publications and i have already read it and it is not an original search and is written in an Wikipedia Tone Style in user's own description and follows the original story, second if were to copy where should i provide attribution of "copied" here while creating in Edit Summary or Talk page? and what does "marking the copied summary" means? Nauriya (Rendezvous) 14:35, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
It means that you need to add a {{
Wikia content}} template with the proper parameters in the references section of the article, basically. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions
) 09:26, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
It was an exact answer i was looking for. Thankyou. Can you just show me an article where this template is actually being used. Nauriya (Rendezvous) 17:09, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
Disney Fairies? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:12, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/, used in The Secret Team.--Prisencolin (talk) 00:00, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

As far as I can figure out, it's not reliable, but repeats all kinds of conspiracy gossip. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:43, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
I've been looking at this site for a while. I file it under "conspiracist bollocks" but some people make a valid point that its authors are notable activists. As a sole source for an article, or as a source for notability? No way. Guy (Help!) 12:05, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Absolutely not reliable - it's a conspiracy theory site, and an obvious one at that. I suppose you could use it to document the opinion of a specific writer, but that would have to be attributed and the site would have to be clearly identified as a conspiracy site. That would reflect poorly on the writer and it would follow that the opinion has next-to-no weight though, so really, why bother? Fyddlestix (talk) 14:04, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
And even then
WP:UNDUE might come into play. Doug Weller talk
14:50, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Definitely not reliable - conspiracy-theory website. Perhaps citable in the very narrow context of a notable conspiracy theorist's biography for his/her beliefs. Neutralitytalk 14:54, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm trying to use it to prove the notability of the book The Secret Team. Is it okay in this context? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prisencolin (talk • contribs) 17:33, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
It's full of odd conspiracy theories. It isn't reliable. 173.67.106.134 (talk) 22:11, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Eyeballs needed on Talk:Anime Matsuri

I was asked to weigh in on a discussion at Talk:Anime Matsuri about some edit warring over sources. Long story short, one editor wants to use both social media (Facebook) and AnimeCons to back up convention attendance for two years. Another believes that this is unnecessary as AnimeCons alone would be sufficient and that the Facebook link is redundant. There has been some limited talk about this, but a bit more input from others would be good since there's a bit of a pushback here.

Offhand my thought is that AnimeCons is enough by itself since the site is trusted, the content on the page was provided by the convention itself, and as was said on the article talk page, social media links tend to disappear quite easily for various reasons.

(｡◕‿◕｡)
03:26, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Star City Games

Magic: The Gathering website.--Prisencolin (talk) 21:36, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

As with ChannelFireball, I think SCG's articles are reliable sources within the context of MtG, but they should be used with caution given the potential for a conflict of interest given that SCG's business is selling MtG cards. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Anca Verma Wikipedia page

OP blocked as a sock of blocked user Authorincharge, mentioned below. Jytdog (talk) 04:51, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I expanded Anca Verma article on Wikipedia with reliable citation with the text below:

'In 2016 the Romanian press and TV credited Verma as the richest Romanian in the world with a fortune of over 3 billion Euros, based on Forbes magazine survey.[10][11] [12].'

The citations alongwith text above were links from Romanian newspapers and TV sites below. After posting, my edits were reverted by Jytdog (Undid revision 738137705 by Mainstreamwikipedia (talk) no thanks; you will need to go to RSN and get OK for those sources there before adding)


http://www.viata-libera.ro/prima-pagina/79686-anca-neacsu-galateanca-mai-bogata-decat-tiriac

http://www.romaniatv.net/o-fosta-miss--cea-mai-bogata-romanca-din-lume--are-o-avere-de-3-miliarde-de-dolari-foto_304884.html

http://www.libertatea.ro/stiri/stiri-interne/romanica-de-trei-miliarde-de-euro-care-devenit-lordul-armelor-din-india-1548535


What is wrong with my expansion to the above article, please advise. It would have been simpler for Jytdog to have used google translator to translate these newsarticles instead of reverting my revision.

Now that I am here at RSN, please validate these articles and undo the last revision of Jytdog. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mainstreamwikipedia (talk • contribs) 04:19, 7 September 2016 (UTC (UTC)

as this is a
WP:BLP article and these are extraordinary claims, i thought it wise to have the community check on these sources and the content based on them. Jytdog (talk
) 04:27, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Jytdog, Are you telling me that Forbes and half a dozen Romanian press and TV channels are making EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS? If this be the case, please delete all the other articles on Wikipedia that are cited with articles about subjects' networth and their financial standing. Please apply your mind and read each and every article before reverting these articles. Just like you, I am also a contributor to Wikipedia and not some vandal. You have already received an EDIT WAR NOTICE from another Wikipedian on your talk page for reverting his/her edits aggressively. Be fair, we are here to improve the quality and credibility of articles and not here for any personal gains! I have gone through your talk page and have seen that you have this habit of being unfair and reverting edits / revisions of contributors quite a bit which would lead you to being blocked from editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mainstreamwikipedia (talk • contribs) 04:36, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes as I mentioned on my Talk page this article has been subject to all kinds of bad editing, both pro and con. One strange thing here is that all three Romanian articles mention that Forbes defined her wealth, but if you search for forbes anca verma you don't find where Forbes did that; same thing at Forbes' own site. Weird. Jytdog (talk) 06:13, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
While researching for this article/subject expansion, I also tried to find Forbes newsarticle but could not find it. However, I came across several TV interviews and newsarticles that talk about Forbes. One explanation could be that sometimes international magazines like Forbes or Vogue or Time are printed in local languages and uploaded on the net the same way. The search engines dont pickup keywords when googling in English. I had the same problem for two other articles when I was researching for Ravi Ruia and Vijay Mallya which I would be editing next. The articles about them were in Hindi and search engines were not picking up the news updates. During my research on subject Anca Verma (formerly Anca Neacsu) I viewed TV interviews of the subject with Romanian TV channel Kanal D and had these translated by a fellow professor in the University who specializes in Slavic languages. In the interview the host of the show is congratulating the subject Anca Verma on her being credited as the richest Romanian in the world. The link to the interview is herebelow:

http://www.stirilekanald.ro/multimedia/cea-mai-bogata-femeie-din-romania--despre-cei-4-ani-petrecuti-la-puscarie--poate-a-fost-un-mesaj-de-la-dumnezeu-prin-care-mi-a-zis--stai-ca-ai-zburat-_15235.html

I also searched other newsarticles on Kanal-D website about the subject, who too wrote the same.

Perhaps it is better to expand the article of subject Anca Verma with the following text:

"In 2016 the Romanian press and TV credited Verma as the richest Romanian in the world with a fortune of over 3 billion Euros."

We should delete reference to Forbes and just quote the Romanian press and cite the three newsarticles far above, as well as the videograb of the TV interview with the subject in question. Or we could leave Romanian press crediting it to Forbes and annotate it with "citation needed" remark.

Since you and I are working jointly on this article now and I had seen your contributions and page protection of this article, I would be happy to let you do the needful and compose expansion the way you feel like. Should I have any suggestions I shall write to you on talk page or over here.

I also invite you to provide inputs and suggestions to the other two pages, I would be editing later tonight after my classes with the students. These would be edits in Ravi Ruia and Vijay Mallya both notable personalities in India. We should work as a creative team rather than being on the opposite sides of the same spectrum of Wikipedia.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mainstreamwikipedia (talk • contribs) 07:05, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) So I went hunting in Forbes. They don't keep the old Billionaires lists around (they are already on 2016, and the claim is about the Forbes list in 2015). I did find this Forbes video listing their youngest billionaires for 2015, who range from 31 to 26. She should have been in there and isn't.
we have an article List of Romanians by net worth and interestingly in these difs an editor User:Authorincharge added Anca to that list; that editor was blocked in May. The OP here was the last editor to edit that article, in these diffs from late July of this year; which make no sense. As I mentioned the Forbes Billionaire list is always current (so it is now 2016) and they don't archive the old list and you cannot internet archive the old list, so I don't know where those figures came from for 2015 - the Forbes list is the only source provided.
I updated the article in these diffs. Forbes has profiles on its billionaires that you can archive so I was able to provide data for 2015 and 2016 for two guys that were there before Authorincharge added Anca. I found no record - no profile - for Anca Verma at Forbes. I also found this ref from last March saying that only those two guys are on the list. No Anca.
So I am thinking this is part of the pro-Anca campaign and those refs above are bogus. Maybe there is some other explanation though. Jytdog (talk) 07:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Mainstreamwikipedia those sources do not appear reliable; she does not appear to have been on the Forbes list in 2015 and as you noted those refs all say that. These sources don't seem to fact check, and that is our #1 requirement for reliable sources. But let's wait to see what others will say. That is what this board is for. Jytdog (talk) 07:27, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

If the Romanian sources were very specific that this claim comes from Forbes, and no such source can be located, that's reason to suspect it's entirely false. It wouldn't be the first time an otherwise reliable source (I'm just assuming here that the publications you linked are reliable, for the benefit of the doubt) made a mistake, and we are always free to

dispense with policy and use common sense instead. Now that said, I did look very hard for information on this. Forbes maintains a list of every billionaire they can verify according to their methods, and neither Verma nor her husband are listed. Nor are they listed in the separate list of Indian billionaires. However, this list does not include individuals if it's suspected their income came from crime, which may be the case here. Forbes occasionally publishes articles on rich criminals, especially billionaire criminals, but they do not seem to maintain a systematic list against which Verma may be checked, nor could I find any article they wrote about the Vermas. You could always just ignore me and I won't complain, or I suppose you could email the news sources that reported this and ask them where they got their info. Someguy1221 (talk
) 07:32, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

  • Hello Jytdog: I called and spoke to one of the editors of the publication in Romania today at 12pm UTC. She said that they complied the list of richest Romanians based on their Romanian tax filings, declared assets as well as stock holdings and its valuation and according to the filings the declared assets onshore and offshore Romania of the subject Anca are in excess of Euro 3 billion as per filings, and thus it was published in the press. When I asked them about the article in Forbes, the editor mentioned that she had in their archives hardcopy of a Forbes magazine from 2010/2011 wherein there was an article which feature Anca and her husband as the SuperRich of Romania as she was living outside the country and probably the richest offshore Romanian citizen and in 2010/2011 the article in Forbes 'estimated' her wealth at Euros 2 billion since her tax filings were in India and not Romania back then. This year when she filed her taxes in Romania and declared assets there, then it became a newsitem in July 2016. According to the editor, the articles they have published in July have not stated that subject Anca is in the rich list of 2016 or 2015, rather they have quoted Forbes article of the past and have stated that as of July 2016 according to the assets held, subject Anca has surpassed the wealth of Ion Tiriac and the other guy in Romania.
After talking to the editor and understanding her journalistic view, I am of the view that Anca may not have been on the Forbes list in the past, but there was certainly an article published in Romanian Forbest in 2010/2011 as told to me by the editor and her net worth was 'estimated' at 2 billion and now with the recent filings in tax dept she has declared her actual wealth assets at Euros 3 billion. This is what created sensation and became big news in Romania.
Therefore, we should give benefit of doubt to these people and not call them 'criminals' or refer to the news as 'bogus' as my journalistic ethics do not allow me to interpret any good or bad news that way. We have to be very careful before passing judgments as journalists or editors of Wikipedia. One more thing, I specifically asked the lady editor if subject: Anca was mentioned in any criminal list published by Forbes. She said "no" because the story published in Romanian Forbes was about lifestyles of Rich and Famous Romanians and back then according to my research on the net and this editor lady, the romanian subject Anca did not get arrested by the cops in India or any other country. So if no case, no crime according to me.
In regards subject Anca's husband Abhishek, I did my research and he was on the youngest billionaires list in November 1997 issue of India Today.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/rich-across-the-world-identify-with-the-same-brands-for-status/1/276726.html
The husband Verma is also being prosecuted for tax evasion and corruption for several billion dollar defence deals and according to the CBI and tax department, they are trying to unearth billions of dollars of unrecovered/undeclared assets in benami (fictitious names) as well as offshore holdings of his.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/charges-against-verma-fabricated/article3474228.ece
http://www.sunday-guardian.com/investigation/former-partners-accuse-each-other-of-fraud-in-massive-defence-deals
http://cbi.nic.in/newsarticles/pressclips/jun_2012/pc_20120612_1.pdf (This article is on the website of CBI which is a Govt investigation agency).
http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/the-world-of-abhishek-verma/977650/0


Thus, Newspapers and TV of Romania ran the stories on subject Anca based on her tax filings and asset holdings and referred to Forbes article published on the lifestyles of rich and famous Romanians 5-6 years back.
Conclusion: Like all other third world countries politicians and their siblings, this subject may have massive undeclared wealth and all the efforts of Governments to prove their case against her failed in their efforts due to lack of evidence as per my research and perhaps we should discuss how to phrase the same. Suggestions welcome.
BTW, I am tired of this subject and the research I have put in the whole day today! I have other articles to edit and expand. So better get going and divert my attention towards other subjects as well. You are invited to peruse Ravi Ruia and Vijay Mallya articles tomorrow as I would be working on them. Suggestions welcome. If you have a difference of opinion, please feel free to discuss on the talk page and I will make suitable amends or offer explanations/clarifications, if any. thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mainstreamwikipedia (talk • contribs) 12:55, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
User:Mainstreamwikipedia Would you please clarify exactly what content and sourcing you are now proposing with regard to the wealth of Anca Verma? If you don't want to propose any at this time, please say so. Thanks Jytdog (talk) 17:20, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
User:Jytdog hello I am at a family dinner. I will reply to the above tomorrow as difficult to type on small keyboard of my iPhone thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mainstreamwikipedia (talk • contribs) 17:33, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is Morning News USA reliable?

Is Morning News USA a reliable? It seems to be under editorial control. 173.67.106.134 (talk) 19:39, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, seems to have editors (http://www.morningnewsusa.com/about-us). The parent company is Tune Media (https://www.linkedin.com/company/tune-media). Servers are under the URL http://www.thebitbag.com/. No instant red flags, but no track record that I'm aware of either. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:46, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
I wouldn't use it for anything contentious, but for simple claims, it should be alright. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:58, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
It's a bit strange to me that a website called "Morning News USA" is registered in Australia [17], owned by a company itself registered in Australia [18]. Looking through their articles, it seems that this site doesn't do any independent reporting. Everything is just rehashed from other websites (though they helpfully link to them, at least). For some of their articles, especially on US politics, they are citing some rather ridiculous sources. So my recommendation would be to never cite them, ever. If something this site carries seems worth reporting, simply link to wherever they got it from instead. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:59, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
What if I cite other sources with it as well, including the links? 173.67.106.134 (talk) 20:16, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Why would you cite the morningnews at all then? Cite the publication that actually did the research - Morningnews doesn't add anything of value. So lets say you find an interesting article on Morningnews that itself cites CBSnews. Just cite CBSnews. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:47, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Seconded; if a better source exists, use it. Also, the next time you post here, please include the text and the specific citation you wish to use. If, for example, you want to cite that website to say that the score of a particular football (soccer) game was 4-2, that's the sort of non-contentious thing I referred to above. But if you want to cite it to claim that Donald Trump has been caught taking campaign contributions from Russia,
I think we're gonna need a bigger boat. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it.
22:01, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
It's about a lawsuit against Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. It appears Morning News USA got its article from this original source, which lists legal notices. Would it be reliable if I include both sources which are: the Morning News USA article, and the site of the original legal document that Morning News USA copied? 173.67.106.134 (talk) 01:20, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
The filing of lawsuits is not noteworthy. They may come to something or not. There is BLP here as well per
WP:BLPCRIME. Those sources are not even close to strong enough to add content. Jytdog (talk
) 01:29, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Jytdog is correct.
Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We will only report on lawsuits that make a notable impact on the parties and have significant coverage in third party sources. I don't think this site or the 'original' source qualify as significant coverage. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it.
13:07, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
I think these sort of websites are not reliable sources. Like probably hundreds of similar sites (many of which do seem to be registered in Australia and most of which use names that imply they are based in other countries), it just reproduces content derived from (or directly taken from) real media sources, or takes feeds delivered from other media outlets, or reproduces verbatim the press releases from state media outlets, in order to drive its page count up to gain revenue from the advertising placed on its pages. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:23, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Reliability of Snopes articles that cite links to legal documents

This Snopes article contains a copy of a rape lawsuit against Donald Trump. Is a Snopes article reliable if it cites links to legal documents like this one and cite both of these sources? 173.67.106.134 (talk) 00:59, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

This is a duplicate of what was posted on the
article talk. I pointed out that WP:RSN could be used if three elements were presented: the article where an edit is planned; the proposed edit; and the source. This noticeboard does not deal in hypothetical edits that might be made to a hypothetical article (see the edit notice displayed when editing this section). Regarding the issue of whether a Wikipedia noticeboard or article should be used to amplify the problems of political candidates, the answer is no. Johnuniq (talk
) 01:34, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
There can be no final determination without considering publisher, author, claim, and text. That doesn't mean a source can't be evaluated on its own, for example on whether it exerts editorial control. Judging by archives, opinion on Snopes is mixed - no blanket consensus. Typically, citing sources does not make an unreliable source reliable, as those sources might be used incorrectly. Citations could hypothetically make the difference between between whether or not a reliable source is reliable enough for
WP:REDFLAG claims, but I don't know whether many sources actually teeter on the edge like that. Without a claim and text, we can't tell if this is such a case. Rhoark (talk
) 22:08, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Two student-written university publications

I would like to use two sources, both student-written university publications:

The Yale Herald http://yaleherald.com/reviews/music-taylor-swift/

and The Daily Cardinal (University of Wisconsin - Madison) http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2014/11/exploring-the-resurgence-of-disco-in-popular-music

Are either of these reliable sources? Life of Tau (talk) 04:51, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

For what article, and for what specific statement in the article? Neutralitytalk 04:54, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
what neutrality said, but if the content is something about taylor swift or the resurgence of disco, there must be better sources... Jytdog (talk) 06:19, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Augustan Society

Is the

International Commission on Orders of Chivalry. Cheers, Bromley86 (talk
) 08:24, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Source on the Pleistocene lakes of Bolivia (resurrected from archive)

I have a question about the reliability of http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1414-753X2015000100011&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en for a limnographical claim, a paper that involves the lakes of

Lake Poopo, the salt flats and probably Uru Uru Lake as well. If Tauca was indeed 10 times the size of Titicaca it could conceivably encompassed Titicaca as well given the geography - but Titicaca is larger than 8000 km2, thus "ten times the area" would be over 80000 km2, not anywhere close to 43000 km2 claimed (which may be too small to encompass Titicaca as well, moreover). In other words, I wonder whether that source is reliable enough for information on the size of the lakes. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions
) 20:55, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: No, she's not an expert on this and we need to use sources that are. Eg [19] and perhaps [20]. Doug Weller talk 14:50, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Rescuing this from the archive. I've found a lot of disagreement between various more pertinent sources thus the sandbox now cites several different sizes. The next question would be whether http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.280/full is a reliable source for the claim that Mataro (...) constituted the largest recorded expansion of Lake Titicaca, overlapping much of the Altiplano and the corresponding map. Concern being that while the Mataro lake cycle is not much discussed (probably little research exists) such a size is a strong claim, especially given that some sources in the sandbox (the ones associated with Titicaca's lake level decreases) imply that a higher sill between the Titicaca and Altiplano basins may have confined such a lake to the Titicaca basin. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:11, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Luisa Piccarreta

I have some questions about the reliability of the following sources used in the above article:

  • EWTN - looking at the homepage, it seems to be actively prosletising (e.g. mentions of missions and donations on the home page), which makes me wonder if it can be
    WP:RS
    .
  • Divine Will looks straightforwardly promotional of Luisa Picaretta as someone to be venerated, and makes no attempt at being a
    WP:RSa
  • Everett Crawl Space Blog mentions crawl spaces, but not the subject of the article as far as I can find.
  • This is another link to EWTN - as first item.
  • luisapicarreta.co seems to be openly lobbying (e.g. "Contact your bishop").
  • bookofheaven.org.uk fails to load for me, however the URL resembles the name of Bookofheaven, who has been blocked for using the account for purposes of promotion.

Granted, religion is a very sensitive area for many people, but am I right in thinking that most of these sources fail

WP:RS? Autarch (talk
) 14:46, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

rebelmagazine.com

Digging around I found out that this "Rebel Magazine" is not even the Rebel Magazine we have an article on ([21]), but instead some obscure Arizona Christian publication. A publication so non-notable that it doesn't even have an article on Wikipedia, and so poorly managed that none of their websites ([22] [23]) are even functional (though they do have a facebook page [24]. Therefore this source should not be considered as reliable on any article, including

Shaun_King_(activist) (which by the way is the only article trying to use it as a source). -75.140.253.89 (talk
) 03:16, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Article in question: [25]
Sources without proper websites or Wikipedia pages are not necessarily unreliable. The website may not be functioning now, but it was in August 2014, when the archive snapshot was created. Is there anything to suggest this Rebel Magazine lacks editorial oversight or has a poor reputation for fact-checking? clpo13(talk) 03:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Assuming that it's really theirs, the twitter that they briefly reached out from really lacks professionality: [26]. Other than that I am not really sure how to demonstrate a lack of editorial oversight, only the opposite. I guess I'll read around about the process? -75.140.253.89 (talk) 04:01, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, you could demonstrate a lack of editorial oversight or reputation for poor fact-checking by finding evidence that the source in question has a broadly-held reputation for, and documented history of, publishing misstatements, fabrications, politically-motivated smears and outright lies about people. Sort of like, say, Breitbart does. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:17, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Sources are not usually presumed reliable until proven otherwise. Having no reputation is often considered nearly as bad as having a bad reputation. Rhoark (talk) 22:18, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
That's what I had thought until I was met with such resistance. I'm glad to finally hear some reinforcement of my assumption. So if anyone would like to show evidence of Rebel issuing corrections, that would easily establish reliability. -75.140.253.89 (talk) 19:19, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Encyclopedic dictionary of Azerbaijan toponyms. In two volumes. Volume I. Baku: "East-West". 2007.
ISBN 978-9952-34-155-3

So called "material" from this obvious non-

WP:RS "source" is being spammed on many (low-profile) articles by User:Freedom Wolfs
. His mass "citing" of this material seemed highly suspicious from day 1. "According" to the "book", everyone in these towns/villages/etc. is only occupied with "husbandry", "gardening", and "animal keeping" (not even joking!), and whole etymology sections of millenia old place names are suddenly Turkified by said user while citing this so-called book.

I did some research myself and in fact, I couldn't find literally anything about it. In fact, it seemed to be as if the whole book didn't even exist. I subsequently raised by concerns @Doug Weller:, who agreed with me that its definetely non-RS, but advised/asked me to bring it here to make it official, and for the record as well. Pinging Tiptoethrutheminefield, MarshallBagramyan, and Yerevantsi, as they shared the exact same doubts about this so called "encyclopedia" as me and Doug did. - LouisAragon (talk) 00:01, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

See my previous dialogues with Doug as well about this.[27]-[28]. This is going to be quite a hell of a rv spree btw, as he literally "spammed" (sorry, but I believe thats the only termination appropriate here) on so many articles. - LouisAragon (talk) 00:01, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
The book exists and the rarity of the book is irrelevant to its reliability. I can understand the frustration of being unable to check material added from a source you don't have access to, but those are not grounds for excluding the material. What you need to do is check out the editor/author and publisher to see if they are well-respected or not. I see that Näsimi adına Dilçilik İnstitutu (something like Nasimi Institute of Linguistics) is listed as a corporate author, which is some sort of academic institute. Did you ask the person citing the book to explain what it is? Incidentally all the small villages in a region tend to be rather the same, so it proves nothing if their one-line descriptions are much the same too. Zerotalk 01:32, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
More on this: the Institute for Linguistics named for Nasimi is an institute of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. On the basis that the encyclopedia is published under their auspices, it is reliable until proven otherwise. Zerotalk 01:45, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
This is going to be a complicated issue because it involves a knowledge of what is truth and what is lies, and why the lies are produced. Would Zero have talked the same way about 1940s institutional academic Nazi-produced publications detailing the origins of the German nation and its place in the world and the Jewish "problem"? Probably not, since the status and context of such publications is well known, making their use as acceptable sources unlikely. Unfortunately, in this particular case a specialized knowledge is required - and to be quite honest I question that the procedural methods of Wikipedia can easily stop such propaganda publications on obscure and little written-about subjects being used to generate Wikipedia content. The solution might be to firstly provide sources indicating the propaganda nature of Azeri-produced and Turkish-produced material dealing with Armenian history, and in particular the Turkification/Azerification issue, This would indicate that that they are almost all grounded in an ideology of state-cultivated and state-required race-hatred, and that they all should be excluded unless third-party impartial sources have cited them as usable sources. And, secondly, to provide a number of examples where the toponym explanations found within this particular source are clearly ludicrous, or are clearly false. For this, I think that as well as trying to find sources that give correct toponym explanations, since such sources are going to be hard to find, we should also use whatever expertise we can find amongst Wikipedia editors, have them comment on the quality of the toponym explanations, in order to come to a conclusion based on probability that the source is either acceptable or unacceptable. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:28, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
I suggest inviting editors [29] who might have some specialist knowledge of linguistics to this discussion, such as Florian Blaschke and TaivoLinguist, to give their opinions on the credibility of the place-name explanations found it the source, and whether the methodology revealed by these explanations is comparable to that found in acceptable sources in the field. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 02:40, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
When people invoke offensive Nazi analogies to support their arguments, I take the rest of what they say with a grain of salt. I have no personal knowledge of the subject area and don't intend to get involved in the details of it. I'll just repeat that "reliable until proven otherwise" is Wikipedia's attitude towards works published/edited by the highest academic institution in the country of publication. If you want to eliminate it, you need to provide more than assertions based on your own beliefs. Find negative reviews or something. Listing this discussion on relevant noticeboards is good and inviting people who know the field is also good provided you invite people who might disagree with you as well those you think will agree. Zerotalk 03:02, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
You are just revealing your ignorance of the subject, despite your proclaimed "research". You actually cited the fact that the publication comes from an academic institution in Azerbaijan as a reason for accepting its reliability. Anyone who knows the contemporary politics of this region (which could be gained by doing just a cursory amount of online research) would know that this origin will indicate the exact opposite, that its production via an academic institution in Azerbaijan will mean it will be highly unlikely to be acceptable for its reliability. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 13:28, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
The attitude of Wikipedia towards sources is what I was referring to when I said this is "going to be a complicated issue". From its outset, Wikipedia set itself as being averse to the use of experts. In fact it is often written (off-Wikipedia) that being an expert on a subject guarantees that you will to be banned. This is why almost no academics edit Wikipedia. An actual functional Reliable Sources noticeboard would have set groups of editors who are established experts in certain fields and who would be consulted to give their expert opinion on sources to be used for Wikipedia content. Bet we don't have that or anything close to that - we have everyone able to contribute their penny's worth of opinion, all set against a background of Wikipedia's distain of experts and a very loose criteria for deciding on which sources should be allowed. There is simply not an easy way to get propaganda sources excluded if they deal with obscure subjects that credible sources have neglected. It is what Wikipedia is. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 13:50, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Tiptoe, it would help if you actually cited anything for your allegations about why Azerbaijani sources shouldn't be trusted. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:41, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
See the two posts I've now made further down this thread. I realize the post I made above is a bit of essay writing, and, now that I see the
WP:USEBYOTHERS guidance that another editor posted, I think maybe an overly negative one.Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk
) 17:19, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Zero also misunderstands my suggestion for inviting linguistic experts. It is nothing to do with inviting people who will agree or disagree with a pov, nor anything to do with getting people who might be experts in this particular region. It is to get people who might know what an academically sound publication in the field of toponym research should look like. A comparison of the methodology of the toponym "analysis" presented in this book against similar works that are widely accepted as academically sound might be a way to decide on its credibility and thus its suitability as a source. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:09, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Tiptoe why do you always have this holier than thou attitude, you need to show some respect to Zero. Alexis Ivanov (talk) 15:05, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Can I point to
WP:USEBYOTHERS which reads in part "How accepted, high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation. The more widespread and consistent this use is, the stronger the evidence." It's a very useful guide for sources such as this one (which I'll also note is a tertiary source which we generally try to avoid). The fact that few libraries or universities seem to hold copies of it also argues against using it. Also, reliability is not the default position. You need to show that a source meets our criteria. I don't think this one does. And as I can't read the original and know that the editor involved doesn't understand our copyright policy regarding images, I wonder if there is any copyvio involved, although that's a separate issue. Doug Weller talk
19:41, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
I think you are correct and you hit the nail in the head, good feedback Alexis Ivanov (talk) 22:42, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Is there anything on Wikipedia as

WP:REDFLAG as Azerbaijani toponyms? Rhoark (talk
) 22:22, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The rarity of this book in the libraries that subscribe to WorldCat (mostly libraries in the West) is no doubt largely down to the fact that it is written in a language that few users of those libraries understand. Libraries generally do not buy books that will never do more than gather dust.
WP:SOURCEACCESS says that rarity does not eliminate a source. (Answering Tiptoe:) Unsupported claims like "the fact of its production via an academic institution in Azerbaijan will mean it will be highly unlikely to be acceptable for its reliability" without any evidence whatever looks just like a statement of personal prejudice and is not acceptable here. Provide an assessment from an expert to support your views or keep them to yourself. Zerotalk
00:03, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
  • hm. The givens.
1) super hot topic here in WP.
2) obscure book rarely found in libraries worldcat) (although there is a digital version)
3) in a non-English language, and
4) I was unable to find out much about the publisher, Şärq-Qärb other than, a smattering of university libraries have one or two books from it; they seem to publish academic stuff;
5) I wasn't able to learn anything about the author, Rübabä Äliyeva (5 google hits...) so just more obscureness; so
6) we have really no basis to judge the reliability or otherwise of the publisher or the author.
7) ~maybe~ some highly respected editor (known by their deeds here) will come along and bless the publisher and author or provide some source that allows us to judge. But in the absence of that...
here is where i end up
A) generally the ugliest disputes in WP happen in super hot topics where there is also a lack of high quality sources that everyone agrees are authoritative and has reasonable access to.
B) injecting a source like this into such a topic is basically a trump card for the one who has the source, as few to no other editors will have access to it even to assess it, much less get consensus that the content generated from it is really verified (which is always what we care about - we ask - "is this specific content supported by this specific source?")
C so this is a place where IAR comes in, and we should exclude this source. I am making no judgements on whether it is reliable or not. It is really about whether it is possible to reach solid CONSENSUS that content generated from it is truly supported by it.
So exclude this source Jytdog (talk) 06:16, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
While "non-English language" is not a killer argument against a source, Azerbaijani is sufficiently obscure that the circle of Wikipedians who can use the source productively or merely assess its reliability is expected to be very small. I've cited academic publications in German before, which I thought was defensible because it is an important language in academia (especially historical linguistics), so there is a reasonable expectation that I'm not the only editor who will be able to access and read the source. French, Russian, Spanish and Italian are widely understood by academics, too (depending on the field), as they are widely studied as second or foreign languages. Azerbaijani is definitely not such a language. So I think both the difficulty of library access and the language are very weighty points, in addition to the others you bring up, Jytdog. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:34, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
For an understanding of the contemporary Azerbaijani political landscape in which this source exists and from which it was created, see "The Invention of History: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and The Showcasing of Imagination" by Rouben Galichian, 2009. I'm mentioning it because there is link to a pdf version of it I found using google. I'm not going to reproduce the link here because it is probably an unofficial pirated copy of the book, but you can easily find it. The book details Azerbaijan's 1990s and onwards destruction of everything culturally or historically Armenian that existed on its territory and the "Azerification" of the territory's history. The situation in Nakhchivan is detailed on pages 84-100, (the editor who has been using the Encyclopedic dictionary of Azerbaijan Toponyms source has restricted its usage to content on articles about places in Nakhchivan)Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:01, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

The extremely partisan nature of the source is revealed in its exclusion of all mention of non-"Turkic" origins of place names in Nakhchivan. All of the territory of Nakhchivan was historically part of Armenia, and all of its population was originally Armenian. So, while 1000 years can make a big difference, it is not credible that not even a single present-day settlement name in Nakhchivan has an Armenian origin or root. This fact alone indicates its propaganda nature: it follows the state ideology of Azerbaijan regarding Nakhchivan's history. This ideology was also expressed in the response to the destruction of the medieval Julfa cemetery: "Armenians have never lived in Nakhichivan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial" [30]. For an example of the source's exclusion of alternative (i.e. non-Turkic) interpretations of place-names see the "Etymology" content on Aşağı Əylis. As well as (in my eyes, anyway) being such a convoluted and contrived explanation as to be barely credible, it excludes mention that the oldest known form of the placename is "Argulik" (see the related Yuxarı Əylis article), and that an alternative explanation of the placename is that it means "Rich in Gardens", derived from the Armenian word "aygi", meaning "garden", or from "argilis", from the Armenian word meaning something "forbidden" or "inaccessible". This is on page 33 and 34 of this source [31]. There is also an additional folk etymology explanation given in this source. This source is an English translation of a work by an Iranian-Armenian academic who was actually born in Agulis, but note its author is nothing like as absolutist as the Azeri source because he recognizes that these sort of toponym explanations can almost never be substantiated at a scientific level. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:35, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

"From time immemorial". Heh. I call these kinds of ridiculous claims, usually by ultra-nationalists and easily refuted with basic knowledge of history, "Anglo-Saxon cavemen". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:26, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
After reading through the comments, a lot of important arguments/reasons have already been said. Thanks much for the constructive responses. Doug, Jytdog and Tiptoethrutheminefield basically summed up everything that rules it out as a legit source. With all due respect regarding Zero0000, I genuinely appreciate it that he, as an admin and an assistant on this noticeboard, took the effort and time in order to help us deal with this matter, and was in fact the first one to reply here. However, as already mentioned by/hinted on by others here, I genuinely think that he lacks the needed knowledge and reading on the area (Armenia/Iran/Azerbaijan/Turkey), which without a doubt is needed in order to be able to present a proper conclusion, stance, and verdict regarding this matter. Once again, with all due respect. - LouisAragon (talk) 01:50, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
There is a pretty well-sourced subsection on Wiki as well regarding state-funded Azerbaijani attempts to falsify Armenian history, for readers to get a basic grasp of how rampant these Azerbaijani attempts have been in the past years.[32] Keep in mind however that these attemps aren't just limited towards Armenia, but also towards Iran (though literally no one takes those seriously). Azerbaijans main "beef" is for now, after all, mainly directed towards Armenia. - LouisAragon (talk) 01:50, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Reliability of Mail & Guardian from South Africa

Is South Africa's Mail & Guardian reliable for Wikipedia? 173.67.106.134 (talk) 03:33, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Please provide context: what article? what proposed text? what source (reference)? No reference is reliable for all things. Johnuniq (talk) 04:01, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
The Mail & Guardian is a mainstream national weekly newspaper, take a look at our article, it seems to be well regarded. However, as Johnuniq has said, each individual reference must be evaluated on its specific merits, so please give us more details. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:25, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Birth date of John Penn ("the American")

Our article John Penn ("the American") currently gives his date of birth as February 29, 1700 (which necessarily is in the Julian calendar, since the Gregorian calendar does not have such a date). The source is Norris Stanley Barratt(1913), specifically a caption to a photo. I have viewed the Google Books scan and verified the statement.

Another source cited in the article for the date of death is Howard Malcolm Jenkins ed. (1903). I have viewed that source in Google Books too, and find that on page 374 it gives the birth date as "Jan. 29, 1699-1700". The dual year indicates the Julian calendar combined with the convention in England, Wales, and the American colonies that the year began in March. So the full meaning of the notation is the year 1699 of you follow the calendar in force at the time, which started the year in March, or 1700 if you follow the modern convention of the year beginning in January.

The source I have the most confidence in is four images obtained from Ancestry.com. The citation for the collection is

  • Ancestry.com. U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

The collection has both text extracts, as well as images of the hand-written originals. The four images I found all state the birth date as month 11, day 28, year 1699/1700. The Quakers didn't use the pagan month names, numbering the months instead. There are other entries that follow the same convention, of indicating a double year for dates the eleventh month if the year was before 1752, the year the British adopted the Gregorian calendar. This must be interpreted as the eleventh month of 1699, counting March as the first month, that is, what a modern writer would call January 1700.

My inclination is to regard the Quaker meeting records as the most reliable of these sources, and revise the birth date in the article accordingly, but to create a footnote describing the conflicting values in the other two sources. I seek others' opinions on this. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

heritage-india.com

Is heritage-india.com (a commercial book site) a reliable source? I found a newly created page

talk
) 08:54, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Having 11 citations to support the innocuous "Ranadeep also regularly writes on heritage and culture for Heritage India Magazine & the award winning Maharashtra Unlimited magazine" appears excessive and actually indicates possible OR. But "Award winning" is editorializing and peacock because there is nothing to suggest it is "award winning" due to the actions of the subject of the article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
talk
) 16:50, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
The website just mentions one obscure award it got, so it would be too much to say "award wining" even for an article (if one existed) about the magazine. It (the Heritage India magazine) seems to be a genuine magazine based on the contents within them, though it is curious there are no circulation figures, or advertising department. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:10, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
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