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Daily Mail (sigh, yes, again)

I'm reviewing Daily Mail cites. We still have many thousands of these. Quite a few are in sports articles - the Mail's sports coverage is much less controversial than its news articles: the main issue with any link to the Mail's sports articles is the repugnant "sidebar of shame". I don't see much reason they would be a problem for simple stuff like signing fees and dates, though I would not want to use the Mail as a source about players' off-the-field activities, or anything with political or racial overtones. Should we ignore use of the Mail for simple statements of fact about sporting matters? Or should I continue to tag even these as needing a better source? Guy (help!) 12:22, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

For long time I have had these links on my user page : BLPs that cite The Sun Daily Star Daily Mail. The latter is gradually going down; we've currently got about 900 BLPs that cite the Mail and that's about half of what we used to have. The crucial action I take is to ensure the article is properly fixed by removing the Mail or Sun citation - that means either replacing it with a more authoritative source, or removing the claim entirely. For something like "On 21 March, Joe Blow's wife gave birth to their daughter Francesca<ref>[cite to Mail]</ref>", that can just just be removed per
WP:BLPSOURCES. For something like a sports result citing The Sun, that needs to be checked against other sources and replaced carefully, which takes time. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)
12:40, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Is there an RfC which deprecates the DM? Does it use that word? Does it define it? We have an ongoing problem where the term is being bandied about, but no-one agrees on what it means, and what the appropriate response is. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:19, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
    WP:DAILYMAIL for example. Guy (help!
    ) 13:34, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • (
    WP:RSP, which lists 37 discussions around the Daily Mail, the most relevant one for us is the 2017 discussion here which reached the following conclusion, and I quote "Consensus has determined that the Daily Mail (including its online version, dailymail.co.uk) is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. As a result, the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability, nor should it be used as a source in articles. An edit filter should be put in place going forward to warn editors attempting to use the Daily Mail as a reference." You'll note that the conclusion of that RFC does not use the word "deprecate" (though the words it does use contain a near perfect functional definition of deprecate as it is defined in the previously cited dictionary definitions) I hope that helps. --Jayron32
    13:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • That's the problem. Without an agreed definition, how do we go about "deprecating" it?
The term is well-known and well-understood, albeit within a very narrow field. But it's always used for its specific and subtle implication (as has been supported by the definitions given), which also fits with our situation here: "Stop doing any more of that, but we aren't able to simply remove all those which already exist". Specifically, blanket removal would generate first a rash of {{
cn}}s, then likely a rash of removals. Unless we know that we're actually questioning the truth of something, not merely its sourcing, then that's far from being a simple improvement. Andy Dingley (talk
) 15:13, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Truth cannot be separated from
verifiability at Wikipedia. Something is either verifiable (that is, shown to be true) or not verifiable, and things which are not verifiable should be removed (pursuant to expediencies such as giving people a limited amount of time to find new sources, etc). Truth, while it may exist outside of are ability to verify it, is not our standard here. The standard is verifiability, that is can you show it to be true. There is no functional difference between "don't know if it is true or not" and "not true". Something is either verifiable (able to be shown to be true) or not verifiable (not able to be shown to be true). --Jayron32
16:19, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Why would "sports" be any less problematic for the DM?
Now I don't like the DM, but this is mainly because of editorial bias, rather than inaccuracy. For sport I don't see a particular problem. But yet there has been a position advocated (and you've been the strongest advocate of it) that all DM must go. So why this relaxation here?
Also, wouldn't the factual aspect of sport (i.e. match results etc) be one of the easiest things for which to replace the DM? Isn't there still a specialist sporting press which is regarded as reliable? So from your past comments, surely each of these becomes a new tag type for "Replace DM with Sporting Life cite"? Andy Dingley (talk) 13:24, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Sports would be less problematic because they have no record of fabrication or extreme bias in sports reporting, unlike their approach to other areas. Per the RfC. Which you participated in. Guy (help!) 13:35, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
So what is "sports"? If we mean "David Beckham scored two of the winning goals", then we're both on fairly safe ground, and also easily able to upgrade that source to a dedicated sporting source. But is, "Gorgeous pouting David Beckham today launched another fashion line, seen here modelled by his wife and her peachy derrière" also "sports"? Where do we draw the line (as one of the most problematic non-brexit lines in contemporary UK newspapers) between sports and sports people? Andy Dingley (talk) 13:41, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Andy Dingley, exactly as I stated: runners and riders, result, the like, fine, prurient content, not so much. Guy (help!) 13:51, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Yeah I don't think it's that hard to understand. While I didn't read either of the major RfCs that well, I assume this exception came about because it's far harder to mess up sports results. I mean sure you could say England won by 28-7 against Scotland scoring 4 converted tries to Scotland's 1, when in reality it was 9-3 to Scotland and no one scored any tries, but that's difficult and just weird so they don't generally do that. More likely would be careless fact checking like saying Jonny May scored the try when it was actually Kyle Sinckler, but I assume even that isn't particularly likely. Frankly if you want to ask about grey areas, it would be better to look at other stuff. For example, would it be acceptable to cite the Daily Mail story talking about how "Ref DESTROYS England's dream with TERRIBLE ERROR"? Is this source good enough to mention that there was controversy over some decision by a referee? What about if the story claims the ref's non selection for some future game is an indication the IRB is unhappy about the decision? Nil Einne (talk) 14:06, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • It's a UK paper. Factual accuracy is generally good (they want to avoid being sued), editorial bias is terrible (because they're expert at misrepresentation without provable error). So things like "European ref steals victory from plucky Engerlund and gives it to Remoaner Scotland" are much more of a problem, and I don't see "sports" (war without tears) as being any less of a problem there.
If it's just scores, then that's also the aspect most easily replaced. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:18, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Nil Einne, I am finding a lot of trivia about sportsists cited to Daily Mail stories with lurid headlines invoking well-known Dail Mail tropes like "beach ready" or "flaunting" or whatever. That is trash and I am replacing them when I can with sources that address the newsworthy matter rather than turning to the audience with a barely-suppressed "PHWOOOOAR!", a failing regrettably common to many tabloids. Guy (help!) 15:06, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
One thing to remember - HEADLINES are never considered reliable sources (no matter which outlet we are talking about)... it’s the reporting after the headline that we need to examine when we judge reliability. I’m not arguing that the DM has a good reputation for accurate reporting, just that we need to ignore the fact that they use click-baity sensational headlines when making a determination of reliability. Blueboar (talk) 15:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Blueboar, sure. The content is normally every bit as bad. Often a thinly veiled excuse for paparazzi photos of WAGs. Guy (help!) 17:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Guy, I personally you think you should spend less time whacking Andy around the head, and more time cleaning up serious BLP violations like this. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:43, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Ritchie333, check the history, Andy started the argy-bargy, not me. That is, after all, what he does. And if I had spotted that content I would have nuked it for certain sure. Not as a BLP violation (it probably isn't, it appears to be true) but because it's hopeless. I will review your maintenance pages, though - they look useful. I'm sure you've mentioned them before and I didn't bookmark them, my bad. Guy (help!) 13:58, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
"not me" Andy Dingley (talk) 14:01, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Andy Dingley, funny, I don't see any commentary about you in that diff. Guy (help!) 14:11, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Guy, are you so insecure that you can't take any comment on the issue here without seeing it as "argy bargy" and some sort of personal abuse? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:14, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
I think the pair of you need to either report each other at ANI or shut up about each other.Slatersteven (talk) 14:45, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't spend a lot of time talking about it or even thinking about it, but I also have problems with Andy Dingley's behavior. The best answer I have found it that when I see his signature I skip to the next comment without reading whatever he wrote. Responding just encourages him to post more of the same.
         Responding just 
         encourages him! 
                \ 
                 >') 
                 ( \ 
                  ^^`
--Guy Macon (talk) 19:08, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • A related question which I just came across recently: What about The Mail on Sunday? They were founded by the same person and have the same owner, but have an entirely separate editorial staff. --Aquillion (talk) 02:42, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
    This noticeboard has been mostly silent about
    deprecation of the Daily Mail. — Newslinger talk
    03:01, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
    Aquillion, MoS had a different editor and the two were at loggerheads for some time, based in no small part on Geordie Greig's contempt for Dacre's transparent attempts to influence the news to fit his ideology - at least if you can believe Private Eye, which in this case you probably can. That said, much of the most biting criticism has focused on Mail Online, which remains appalling. The comments, the "sidebar of shame", the endless churnalism. I would never link to the Mail's website for anything. Guy (help!) 15:01, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Opinions in the Daily Mail

In the

WP:ABOUTSELF? — Newslinger talk
12:43, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Yet again, a UK tabloid is not a US tabloid. The DM doesn't run "Elvis on the Moon" stories. But it does try to rig elections. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:26, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • This is a generic problem affecting a lot of sources. "According to X, Y - source, X saying Y". If it's not covered by other sources then it's
    WP:UNDUE. If it is covered by other sources then the primary source may or may not be appropriate, depending on local consensus relating to the actual content (e.g. we might well include a report on the BBC about egregious racism published by The Daily Blah, but choose not to link to the egregious racism itself). The main self-sourcing use of the Mail I'm seeing right now is Mail contributors' opinions cited to the Mail, particularly Mail bloggers. That fails UNDUE if not covered elsewhere. Mail blogs are not RS anyway, for the same reason as we already decided not to use Forbes contributor blogs as sources. Guy (help!
    ) 13:40, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • If it's an Op-Ed piece by an expert or other authority on the subject then I don't see the problem (as long as it's attributed). I'd be careful about stories with "Celebrity X said Y" as the DM has been known to make those up as well. Black Kite (talk) 13:43, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I still think the general guidance of "If it can be confirmed in another source, use that source. If it only exists in the DM, pretend it doesn't exist" is probably best across the board. In the very limited case of directly quoting a person describing themselves in their own writing published in the Daily Mail, there may be some allowance to be made, but really, we'd need to see the exact Wikipedia text in the context of the article in question in order to decide if an exception is worthwhile. We should default to exclude in general. --Jayron32 13:47, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
    Jayron32, Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. Even when self-courcing is unambiguously appropriate, we should still not include comments that have zero coverage other than by the individuals themselves. Guy (help!) 14:10, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Only opinions of paid DM writers published by the DM should be consider usable, not opinions of others published by DM. One of the RFC pointed to a case where the DM was caught changing the statement of a third-party, so we cannot trust that DM is simply reprinting words quoted to them. Opinions of its paid writers seem to be fine, but then if they should be used falls into UNDUE territory (as with Brietbart, etc.) --Masem (t) 14:23, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Basically not. If it's only in the DM, there's probably no reason to run it. There may be exceptions. But basically, I think there's not much to gain from looking for reasons to use sources we already know can't be trusted - David Gerard (talk) 16:13, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Notified: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 14:40, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Opinions, well that can be broad. I don't read the Daily Mail, but I remember some complaint at the time of the first RfC that we were throwing out "important" arts critics (I presume of theater, art and other "culture", and I hope not gossip culture). I was not sure that we were even throwing out any such, at the time, but can we first find out, Does the Daily Mail have such "important", "well regarded", or etc. professional critics of cultural arts? Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:42, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, of course it does. But who are they well regarded by? Even Alex Jones has his fans. The Mail has names like A. N. Wilson, Bel Mooney and Craig Brown, for whom it's hard to say they aren't "big names". But then they also have the Piers Morgans, Sarah Vines, Liz Jones and Richard Littlejohns. Now we're into subjective issues of not trusting their standpoint, rather than saying they're unimportant. Can WP make such judgements neutrally? Andy Dingley (talk) 17:02, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Your response was not very enlightening, the links you provided do not seem to link to people known for arts criticism (at least in thier Wikipedia articles), so your answer to my actual question appears to be, NO. And the ones you did not link, who knows (but really now, Piers Morgan? Arts critic?). Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • You said cultural arts, rather than arts critic. Now Wilson is more literary than fine arts, but he'd surely qualify. Bel Mooney similarly: not the most artistic commentator, but you can't write her off as lowbrow. If you include theatre critics, these are the people you'd expect. Sarah Vine was arts editor at The Times, even if these days she's seen as the more politically interesting Mrs Gove. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:19, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
I again refer to their Wikipedia articles and I can't see what you are talking about, so let's approach it this way, (Where on Wikipedia is the arts criticism at the Daily Mail written by Sarah Vine, Bel Mooney, or A.N. Wilson cited in Wikipedia?), and/or (What RS would you cite for the fact that any of these are known for their cultural arts criticism?). If it will help, see for example Chris Jones (drama critic). Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:41, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Alanscottwalker, anyone who reads Private Eye does not take A. N Wislon too seriously. Guy (help!) 08:55, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I read Private Eye, I certainly don't. But I do recognise that others do. Can I, on that subjective basis, dismiss Wilson as not being a "serious" commentator? Similarly Vine et al. And where does that leave Brown, who writes for the Eye? We have to be very careful here to write in WP's objective voice, not that of a personal viewpoint. Much as might like to, I don't think we can write them off so easily. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:36, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • No. There are too many stories floating around about paid Daily Mail writers who, as a condition of employment, have to put up with material being published under their byline which has very little resemblance to what they had actually written. Yes, they gave permission for this sort of thing when they started cashing the paychecks, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept the fabrications as if the person credited actually wrote them. Nothing written in The Daily Mail should be trusted at all. Find another source that says the same thing and use that. If you can't find another source, don't use it at all. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:20, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • As always, when using the Daily Mail, we should take care: per Jayron32, if statements can be confirmed through other sources, we should default to using those sources (of course); but our deprecation of the Mail should not go so far as to exclude the opinions of Mail writers, employed by that newspaper, and published within the Mail, as Masem so astutely notes. (Generally, though, I get the feeling that controversial opinions would naturally be covered by other sources, and we should use those in place of the Mail.) — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 00:12, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Not quoted opinions, no, since they've been specifically caught manipulating those. I would generally avoid using even the published opinions of DM staff writers unless a particular piece has secondary coverage in a reliable source (in which case we'd use that instead) - while
    WP:RSOPINION is, mostly, for things like editorials in otherwise reliable publications. --Aquillion (talk
    ) 02:56, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Since the DM cannot be used to determine weight, then opinions published in it have no weight and therefore cannot be reported unless they are picked up in other publications that meet rs. TFD (talk) 19:54, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
    • This is not exactly true. It is extremely rare to have any source discuss the relative weights of viewpoints in a topic of debate, and that evaluation falls onto WP editors to assess as per UNDUE. That said, either the case with DM is that they will share the opinion of one of the significant viewpoints offered in a debate , and because there are other such viewpoints to pull from, it likely isn't needed to pull DM's version; OR otherwise DM is pretty much isolated in its stance and at that point questions of FRINGE weight would come into play. In either case, it is nearly ever necessary to pull in a DM opinion for a topic, but there may be such a case as allowed per UNDUE. --Masem (t) 20:17, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • No - douse it all in napalm per Guy Macon's link above. Daß Wölf 02:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • After considering the above, I come down generally with TFD's No, the publication is not RS, which renders it generally useless for RSOPINION (note the RS) - this makes sense as a matter of ordinary logic: the project has found the editorial process of the DM untrustworthy, so we can't trust that that editorial process publishes encyclopediclly useful opinion, either. If Masem's caveat means that it generally has no weight under DUE, OK, but it seems to still circle back largely to, not RS. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:45, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes Opinions cited as such are generally usable. The "Ban the Daily Mail" viewpoint is primarily political. I, personally would ban every source for "celebrity gossip" known to man as being a far better "ban" than this "not really a ban" has turned out to be. Collect (talk) 15:56, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
And do you know why the other Daily Myth, and the Snu and the Daily Excess have not been deprecated people arguing that if we do not depreciate the other Daily Myth we should undeprecate this daily Myth. It has not been those of us who wanted this Daily Myth deprecated who have fought for the other Scandal rags not to be.Slatersteven (talk) 16:07, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
I fear your aside has little or nothing to do with my post. Perhaps you can show me where you are on point with my comment? Collect (talk) 14:26, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I still think we need to distinguish between the opinions OF the Daily Mail (written by editorial staff), and opinions of published BY the Daily Mail (written by experts). For the second, the AUTHOR is more important to determining reliability than the venue of publication. If (for example) the DM was to publish an opinion piece written by John Bercow about Parliamentary procedure, it should be attributed to Bercow, but deemed reliable as expressing his opinion. Note, this is not the same as the DM reporting on something Bercow said. I am talking about Bercow himself writing something for publication in the DM. Blueboar (talk) 17:14, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • No. This is already covered by the deprecation. There is no inherent difference between the Daily Mail reporting on the fact that someone holds a particular opinion and the Daily Mail reporting on any other facts. This does not change if the opinion is attributed explicitly by quotation, or attributed implicitly by claiming that an article was written by the person in question. This is not one of the exceptions listed at WP:DEPS, or for that matter in the original Daily Mail RfC. Arguments to permit the Daily Mail to be used for this purpose would need to establish that it is unusually reliable among deprecated sources for reporting the opinions of others, something which I think has been adequately refuted above. Sunrise (talk) 03:02, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
I fully agree when it comes to the Daily Mail reporting about someone’s opinion in an article... and even agree about a DM article quoting some one in an article. But an op-Ed piece actually written by a subject matter expert - someone who is not employed by the DM - is different. In that situation, the DM is simply the venue in which the author is stating his opinion. Blueboar (talk) 03:35, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
I feel that the appropriate thing to do in that situation (when an expert is published in a venue that provides no reliability) is to apply the
WP:SPS.) --Aquillion (talk
) 18:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Sure... restricted... limited... rare... put what ever terms you want on it. The point is that this would be a valid exception to the depreciation, and is a legitimate counter to the kneejerk “never ever ever use” argument. You always need to examine exactly WHAT is being cited before you say it isn’t appropriate. This is why we can’t leave reliability up to bots. There are always exceptions, even if they are rare. Blueboar (talk) 19:26, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
@Blueboar: In case I wasn't clear, the point I was trying to make in that case was that if we don't trust the DM (or any other deprecated source) to faithfully report on someone's opinion, we have no reason to trust them to faithfully report that an article was written by the subject-matter expert in the first place (which is just another form of reporting on someone's opinion anyways) - as opposed to simply making it up and putting that person's name on it. Or, perhaps more likely in this case, taking a genuine opinion article and then embellishing it to make it more sensational, which is the sort of thing we've already established that they do. I suppose it would be another matter if we had external confirmation where the person said "yes, this is an accurate representation of my views", but I would say that's just another variation of the "if it's true then it will be published elsewhere" issue. Sunrise (talk) 08:17, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Are you seriously suggesting that the DM would fabricate an entire opinion piece (an essay length document) and ascribe it to someone who didn’t write it? No, Even the DM does not go that far. Blueboar (talk) 12:31, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Like I said, in the case of the DM specifically, I think it's more likely they would embellish it than fabricate the entire thing. But either way, the point remains the same. Sunrise (talk) 18:01, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Embellish their reporting on someone’s opinion, sure... but embellish something that the person actually wrote... no way. Is there ANY indication that they have ever done this? Blueboar (talk) 19:03, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Not this exact thing (that I know of), although I wouldn't be surprised as I don't think their record sets a good precedent. Sunrise (talk) 04:23, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
David Gerard Is the online DailyMail.com not the same as Daily Mail, the broadsheet? I assumed it was similar, editorially, to The Times of London.--Doug Mehus T·C 21:30, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Why we should never use The Daily Mail as a source

Let us consider the following story, published in The Daily Mail in 2017:

Porn really is bad for you! Lonely Japanese man who amassed a SIX-TON pile of dirty magazines died when it collapsed on top of him... and his body wasn't found for six months\

Go ahead an read it. Pay attention to the details. I will wait.

Now imagine that you are a Wikipedia editor and you want to see whether you can use the above in any way.

"Ah! First I need to will see whether any other sources confirm the story" You might say. That's what many Wikipedian's advise; if you can find it in another source, use that other source. If it is only in The Daily Mail, assume that is never happened, they will tell you.

[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

Some of the above are pretty bad sources, but then again, do we really expect The New York Times to to feature somebody who died in a room full of porn?

If you happen to read Japanese, you might have noticed that The Daily Mail stole a story in the Japanese language from from The Nikkan Spa: 大量のエロ本に囲まれて孤独死…死後1か月以上経過した部屋のすさまじさ Here is a Google translate of that page. The Nikkan Spa published it on February 28, 2017. The Daily Mail story was published on March 3, 2017.

Yes, the man had a large porn collection, and yes, he died, but that's pretty much the only thing The Daily Mail got right.

His body wasn't found for six months? A lie. The real source says that his body wasn't found for over a month

He was crushed? A lie. He died of myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack.

His name was Joji? A lie. The real source gives no name.

Found when the landlord entered the flat to find out why the rent had not been paid? A lie. The real source doesn't say who found the body.

Found dead in his flat by a cleaner? (wait a minute.. the same DM story says it was the landlord!) A lie. The real source doesn't say who found the body.

A bunch of sites have covered that fact that The Daily Mail lied about this specific story: [11][12][13][14] Again ,not the best sources, but most legitimate sources don't waste time documenting every time The daily Mail lies. Despite the many sites that talk about it being a lie, The Daily Mail has never published a retraction or correction.

Bottom line: Don't read anything in The Daily Mail. If you are foolish enough to read something in The Daily Mail, don't trust any other source that tells the same story unless it was published before The Daily Mail published it. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:34, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't disagree, but was it really necessary to make a new section for this when we have a discussion on the Daily Mail open above? --Aquillion (talk) 05:38, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I thought it was too long for that thread, and I didn't want to cut out any of the documentation. If you think it works better in the thread, feel free to move it. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:47, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I've moved this into a subsection of the other discussion, mainly to avoid adding another discussion entry to
WP:RSP § Daily Mail. (The Daily Mail currently holds the record with 39 significant discussions, including 2 RfCs.) — Newslinger talk
08:33, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • No-one is questioning that the DM is frequently unreliable, to the point of fabrication.
The question is, what do we do about it? Is a blanket run to delete everything and leave gaps a good thing? Given that RfCs at
WP:DAILYMAIL have already rejected that repeatedly, why are we even still saying that we should do so? Who wants to be one of those people whose response to losing an argument is to carry on with the same rejected assertions as if it never happened at all? Andy Dingley (talk
) 11:14, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes it is, we are here to provide our readers with the most accurate and relevant information we can. We do not serve them by having dubious or irrelevant information just to "fill gaps" in articles.Slatersteven (talk) 11:25, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
The Japanese porn story has become a millstone around the DM's neck, and it is mentioned every time
WP:DAILYMAIL is brought up. However, it is no worse than "Freddie Starr ate my hamster" and umpteen other pieces of tabloid junk. I've said many times that the DM is deprecated as a source, but this is also true of the UK tabloids as a whole.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me)
11:45, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I agree and have started a few RSN threads on just that, but two wrongs do not make a right. Just because we cannot get the "Daily Diana princes of our hearts" or "The wonderful, throw away Snu" banned does not mean we should not ban the Daily Myth. In fact on more then one occasion such threads have been derailed by those clearly trying to get the daily Myth Unbanned (Yes I know it is not "bvanned" its shorthand) using just this argument.Slatersteven (talk) 11:50, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
(OT: Hence the hazards of whataboutism, speaking of things that should be deprecated.) ―Mandruss ☎ 12:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I think it is worth emphasizing and repeating that formal depreciation is an extreme step which we only take in situations where a source is both systematically unreliable in virtually all cases and is nonetheless being constantly cited by editors. Both these things have to be true for depreciation to make sense. We're not trying to produce an exhaustive list of every single terrible source here. --Aquillion (talk) 16:18, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
We clearly want to remove all DM from BLP ASAP, but the RFCs poses reasonable steps to do this beyond mass removal (otherwise we'd have a bot or AWG users already having run through to remove). There are times that DM does not lie about BLPs (moreso for basic biographical facts) but it some time and effort to find a better RS for those sources. We should be running through to tag all DM links on BLP pages as dubious sources to encourage replacement, but a mass wipe is not appropriate. --Masem (t) 17:22, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Masem, Right. We do what I am doing: review each one, remove the DM if it is redundant or if it is the single source for controversial content, and no other source covers it, and otherwise we tag as needing a better source. Then we review in a few months and if nobody has found a better source we replace where available and remove the content where there is no reliable source. Guy (help!) 13:41, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Only additional suggestion I would have is that after you've felt you reached the state that all DM links are marked for deprecation removal, to post in a central location "In two months, I will remove all DM links that have been tagged as such. Find replacements if you got them." Gives fair enough time for them to be fixed, and you have a notice you can point back to to justify the mass-removals then. --Masem (t) 14:07, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
Alternately, we could not gratuitously hobble the process of removing references to the lying source that we literally cannot trust. There is no good reason to enact your suggestion - David Gerard (talk) 17:21, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

BTW, when replacing Daily Mail references - their supposedly okay sport coverage is often trivially replaceable with BBC coverage - David Gerard (talk) 21:19, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

BTW, I'm seeing new BLPs being created with dailymail.co.uk links - the filter that tags edits adding the DM doesn't seem to tag creation using the DM - what can be done about this? DM is unacceptable for BLPs David Gerard (talk) 21:41, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

The source ban for The Daily Mail & The Mail Online should be rescinded

I have no great stake it this, but put forward the proposal simply because it seems to me short-sighted and very silly. Reasons:

1. The charge that The Daily Mail has problems with reliability, poor-fact checking, sensationalism and bias cannot be seen in isolation: such issues, to varying degrees, now plague most mainstream papers, which have moved from a strict stance of publishing 'neutral news' to 'opinionated news'. (e.g. Even The New York Times in the weeks following Trump's election, lost its collective head, publishing strings of news items that were actually egregious opinion pieces.)

2. The Daily Mail has enormous journalistic resources that many media outlets can only envy. It is therefore able to publish a significant number of exclusive pieces.

3. The source ban on The Daily Mail and Mail Online, when there a great many news outlines on the Left that are equally vulnerable to the charges of "reliability, poor-fact checking, sensationalism and bias", opens Wikipedia to the charge that the ban has been instituted by leftist 'woke' editors, and that, far from being neutral, Wikipedia is biased itself. (That is a truism of course, as a glance, for example, at any sunny article about any member of a despot's family would reveal, but the goal should at least be to get the rules in order.)

4. The Daily Mail Archive has been digitised, and its hundred year odd worth of articles is of extraordinary historical value. That such a ban could even be considered highlights how shockingly narrow the historical understandings are of those that proposed it. (One doubts they would even know whom Lord Northcliffe was.) This is not to say The Daily Mail is unflawed: it's been flawed since the Boer War, but equally, so was almost every other newspaper to various degrees during that criminal War. Things haven't changed.

Proposal: that the ban be rescinded, but that, as with other sources, when The Daily Mail is referenced, it is done so prudently, as happens with other sources. ClearBreeze (talk) 04:27, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

If you think that other sources should be disallowed, gather your evidence and create a proposal that is a s convincing as
WP:DAILYMAIL was. --Guy Macon (talk
) 07:02, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
  • 1. I agree, but just because Barry also kicks my cat does not mean I cannot ask Kevin not to do it, it just means I should also ask Barry not to do it.
2.And at issue are many of those "exclusives" which often turn out to be riddled with mistakes and falsehoods because of a rush to publish rather then fact check (see 1 also).
3.Its not a ban, and see 1.
4.Just because its available does not mean we should use it (and see 1).
One reason why no other UK scandal rag has been sanctioned is not those of us who supported this for the Daily Myth saying they should not, its people using tying to use the lack of sanctions to get the Daily Myth unsanctioned.Slatersteven (talk) 10:20, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
The Sun and the News of the World (RIP) have been too - David Gerard (talk) 13:42, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
I've converted this discussion into a subsection of the other active Daily Mail discussion on this noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 12:12, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
  • No. Two major RFCs, one of these being just earlier this year. This is premature at best, and gives the strong impression the proposal was made without doing the reading - David Gerard (talk) 13:41, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Report Honour killings in Iran

Is it possible to use this source to support following material in the Women's rights in Iran?

  • In Iran, honour killings occur primarily among tribal minority groups, such as the Kurdish, Arab, Lori, Baluchi, and Turkish-speaking tribes, while honor-related crimes are not a tradition among Persians who are generally less socially conservative. Discriminatory family laws, articles in the Criminal Code that show leniency towards honor killings, and a strongly male dominated society have been cited as causes of honor killings in Iran.

Thanks!--Saff V. (talk) 12:30, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Soultracks

Many people object to having their birthdate in an article.

Sometimes the concern is identity theft. The current community position:

WP:DOB
Is that the month and days should not be included, but if reliably sourced, the year can be included. Some people object to the year being included on the basis of age discrimination. That's a discussion for another forum. There is a current dispute at: Jeanie_Tracy. I have posted at the article talk page: Talk:Jeanie Tracy. My narrow question here is whether the reference qualifies as a reliable source. I searched for it in the archives but did not see that it has been discussed. I don't see any evidence that they have the type of editorial control we normally require to qualify as a reliable source.S Philbrick(Talk) 17:00, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Sphilbrick, excellent question. It's unclear what authority that site could possibly have for this so i would rule it out on the basis that BLP is correctly conservative. Guy (help!) 00:51, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
JzG, Thanks S Philbrick(Talk) 02:43, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
Comment - Soultracks is used on thousands of pages on Wikipedia. Soultracks is very similar to Rolling Stone Magazine or Billboard Magazine. They are a credible website that has been around for over a decade. They review albums, do celebrity interviews, have press releases, etc. As for the Jeanie Tracy, that is a completely separate matter that is inappropriate to discuss under this topic. However, "identity theft" is not an issue here. "Some people object to the year being included on the basis of age discrimination." Well who are these "people" and why don't they discuss it on the appropriate platform. Because right now, you are the only one with that problem. Horizonlove (talk) 07:47, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
Horizonlove, they are definitely not similar or equivalent to Rolling Stone or Billboard. And this is the appropriate venue for discussing the reliability of a source. The site has no obvious authority as a source for biographical data like this. Whether it's reliable for any content at all is a different question. Guy (help!) 11:18, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
JzG Please read carefully and slower. I didn't say "this is the appropriate venue for discussing the reliability of a source". I said "As for the Jeanie Tracy, that is a completely matter separate that is inappropriate to discuss under this topic.". As for you not considering Soultracks similar to Rolling Stone or Billboard, that is more of your opinion than a fact. When you compare them, they are obviously similar platforms. Horizonlove (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
No, a website that has been around for 'over a decade' isn't 'obviously similar' to high-circulation print magazines which have been around since 1967 (Rolling Stone) and 1894 (Billboard). I suggest you read
WP:RS and then if you want to argue for the reliability of Soultracks, come up with an argument that isn't quite so ridiculous. You could start by finding evidence that third-party publications etc consider it a credible source. 86.143.231.214 (talk
) 07:23, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Clearly not a
WP:BLP material – this is paid promotional content masquerading as factual material: "For both major label and independent soul artists, SoulTracks is the way to reach your target audience through creative promotions at a very affordable rates"; see also this. Justlettersandnumbers (talk
) 13:49, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Interesting. If someone has the time, it might be a good idea to check existing citations to Soultracks: a search finds it mentioned/cited in over 200 articles. Some of those may possibly be acceptable, but if it is being used for paid promotion, more of less anything beyond a raw non-contentious fact should probably be removed or a better source found. 86.143.231.214 (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Newsweek RfC

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS APPLY
Note: This is not a no consensus close, because there is clear consensus that Newsweek is not generally reliable post–2013.
There has been clear evidence presented that there are systematic editorial problems currently present at Newsweek, and the best mark found was following its 2013 purchase by the International Business Times. There may have been some minor issues post-2011 at the magazine, but it would seem most editors agree the major editorial problems became widespread following the purchase.
Its current relationship with its former parent is unclear, but it would seem they inherited a lot of bad practices from IBT which have not been significantly changed since 2018 when it went nominally independent. Among the major issues editors discussed were its lack of reputation for fact checking and it taking down stories instead of issuing corrections.
I would've liked to see more conversation on the substance of the CJR and Slate pieces. Since that didn't happen, I will not comment on them except to say I read them in preparation for this close.
Kindest regards, (non-admin closure) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 19:27, 9 December 2019 (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.

Newsweek has been discussed here several times this year (see [15] [16] [17]) but no real consensus around whether it is a reliable source has been reached. This RfC seeks to come to a consensus whether Newsweek is and ever was a reliable source. This is important as it is being used as a reference in thousands of articles newsweek.com HTTPS links HTTP links. This RfC is divided into two parts in order to find consensus. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Question 1 (Reliability) and discussion

Question 1: Is Newsweek generally reliable in its areas of expertise?

Question 2 (Date) and discussion

Question 2: If the answer to question 1 is no when did it stop being generally reliable in its area of expertise (e.g. 2015, it never was, etc)?

  • I would argue sources show it's not been reliable since it was bought by IBT in 2011 and there was a further steep decline in 2017. I would suggest it was generally reliable before then. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
    Barkeep49, The Politico article points out "in 2016 the magazine was nominated for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence for one of just a handful of times in its 80-plus year history." (That was under Jim Impoco's leadership.) Also, it was sold in 2010 but not to IBT; they bought it in 2013. I just want to add that I found this RFC very sad. I haven't read Newsweek in a long time, but knew them as a respected periodical and I had no idea they'd crumbled so badly. Schazjmd (talk) 01:05, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
    Schazjmd, yeah I think that's fair. It's why I noted the dual cut-off. There was definitely good journalism done post-2011 but there processes and motivations were different. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:30, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Will just note that I think Jayron's sliding scale comment just below better encapsulates my thinking on its reliability. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:18, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I would say generally reliable before 2013, not reliable after due to the documented push for clickbait and page views after IBT bought it. Schazjmd (talk) 01:49, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I would say that there's a sliding scale of reliability that looks good before the 2011ish time period, but gets progressively less reliable over time, however they still do occasionally publish good things, as noted above. I would say that prior to about 2011, I wouldn't bat an eye at anything cited to Newsweek, but the further we get from that, the more their stories should be cross-checked against other sources. --Jayron32 14:52, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree pre-2011 Newsweek was rarely a source to blink at in terms of quality and reliability. Since 2011, and moreso lately, it has slipped into clickbait journalism, with stories with no real meaning or impact, though they still have appropriate coverage. (eg [18] looks fine pulled from its front page). I would use a different source if it was possible for stories like this. But when it comes to stories like [19] this which I am amazed to even see there, yeeeeeah. Post-2011, Newsweek should be used with caution, but generally still reliable. --Masem (t) 03:08, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • That was a great assessment with great links. And I agree with you. Lightburst (talk) 03:19, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
  • As others have said, pre-2011 Newsweek is on par with any other major news publication. Based on the information available, I think that 2017 is when we clearly move into unreliable territory, with 2011–2016 comprising a gray area. signed, Rosguill talk 18:30, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I can't be much help with figuring out if Newsweek still is reliable or when it stopped being reliable. However, I can vouch for it in its 20th century heyday. My understanding is that back then, Newsweek and similar periodicals were the most reliable news sources. They had more currency and coverage than books, and their looser deadlines let them do better fact checking than newspapers. If Newsweek is deprecated, I suggest we have separate entries for its heyday and zombie periods. - GretLomborg (talk) 20:37, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Newsweek is an old name in American journalism, but as their print operation died they fell upon hard times; the 2012 Niall Ferguson fiasco showed that, at least as of 2012, they weren't fact-checking at all. (Poynter,NYTimes) Since 2013 they are owned by IBT Media and I'm not sure of if their reliability has recovered any or if so how much. Herostratus (talk) 08:42, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

General discussion

We should use only the best sources posible. If a source is questionable ( especially in the public sphere) we should default to maintain the Integrity of Wikipedia and find a stronger source.--Moxy 🍁 15:14, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

The responses to Question 1 are more polarized than I expected. In a

Unclear or additional considerations apply" after evidence was presented that compared the publication's operations to a content farm. — Newslinger talk
20:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

There is no sourcing policy that says editors should use the best possible source. Editors can't even agree on what "best possible" means (e.g., is a free online magazine better than a paywalled academic journal?). Editors need to use reliable sources. Any source that is reliable for the particular subject/claim is good enough. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
You are correct; that there is no explicit policy that we should use the best possible source. But ask yourself just how much back and forth and dithering over sloppy and fringe sources that cause days or weeks of flame wars. If we used the best possible sources instead of whatever fits, the course of a a great many of our articles to GA and FA status and stability would be measured in weeks or months, not years.
Just because we haven't yet drilled down on deciding what a good source is doesn't mean we shouldn't make repeated efforts to do so. This is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias are supposed to be the bedrock of our knowledge. By packing that bedrock with fishwrap and gossip rags, we undermine the overall stability and integrity of the Project.
But that's just how I see it; you mileage may vary. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 06:42, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Eh, I hang out with WPMED. If any group has ever believed in excellent sourcing, it's the editors writing about evidence-based medicine. We're the ones who wrote the most stringent guideline on content sourcing, and we convinced you all to adopt it as a community-wide guideline for all Wikipedia:Biomedical information in any article. But even among this group, there is no agreement about what "the best possible source" is. This is because we have different non-scientific values. Some people are looking for ease of source access for readers (even though we know that very few people read the whole article, and almost none look at the sources), so they think that an open-access paper in a mid-tier journal is better than a closed-access paper in a upper-tier journal. Other people care about the status of the journal: papers in top-tier journals should always be cited in preference to papers in mid-tier journals, because they think that Wikipedia's reputation is improved by citing famous medical journals when a normal journal says the same thing. Others care about the age of the source: in their opinion, a 2019 paper is significantly better than an otherwise identical 2017 paper. Some prefer medical school textbooks to journal papers, or vice versa. And the list goes on, through all sorts of preferences and values.
This isn't about sources of doubtful reliability. Deciding to use "the best possible source" means that you're looking at all of the reliable sources, and excluding all of those reliable sources except the single source that you've decided is "the best". In my expeirence, using a variety of high-quality sources will improve articles and ultimately reduce disputes. Requiring editors to use "the best possible source" produces disputes over which single source is the One True™ Best Possible Source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

For the people saying it's generally reliable what indicators do you have that this is the case? I have tried to present evidence to the contrary and can't find such evidence for other sources we consider reliable like the comparable Time Magazine. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:35, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

As this RfC has run for 30 days, I've submitted a request for
WP:RFCL § Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Newsweek RfC. — Newslinger talk
13:08, 8 December 2019 (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.

Herald Sun and Andrew Bolt

Andrew Bolt writes a news blog for the Herald Sun (Melbourne). Mostly behind a paywall, but you can see some here. The newspaper is tabloid-style journalism, not known for fact-checking, and with a right-wing bias, but Bolt, as far as I can see, does nothing but push his POV (there and on Sky News). There's currently a discussion on a talk page (challenging a writer's Aboriginal ancestry), and some want to use him as a source. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 13:55, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

What talk page? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:27, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
Bolt's column is not an RS for anything except that Bolt said it, and even then third-party RS evidence it was worth noting that he said it would be preferable - David Gerard (talk) 14:36, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
Peter Gulutzan - Talk:Bruce Pascoe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laterthanyouthink (talk • contribs) 22:46, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
oh god yes. RS coverage of Bolt's blatherings, strictly - the fact is not really enough - David Gerard (talk) 23:18, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
WP:TLDR if ever I saw one. Guy (help!
) 23:20, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
it's difficult to get across to a non-Australian editor what Andrew Bolt is like, but he's the sort of content that gets sources deprecated. Laterthanyouthink is correct to flag it. Best make sure this discussion at RSN is noted at the article talk page - David Gerard (talk) 23:23, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
"it's difficult to get across to a non-Australian editor what Andrew Bolt is like..." A look at
NewsCorp. The difficulty of dealing with this in Wikipedia in an Australian context is that Murdoch controls a huge proportion of the Australian media landscape, and those who get their news and current affairs content almost exclusively from those sources tend not to realise that all that they are seeing has the inevitable Murdoch slant to it, or that other perfectly valid views even exist. It means discussions such as those back at Talk:Bruce Pascoe involve some editors who simply cannot conceive that there is a political view out there that differs from what they have been exclusively fed by Murdoch. Some unfortunate heat is often created because of this. HiLo48 (talk
) 07:08, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes - it would be hard to relate to if you live in the UK and most European countries. The only national newspaper, The Australian (Newscorp), has become increasingly right-wing, and Sydney and Melbourne have one newspaper each which is not Newscorp; all other cities only have a Murdoch tabloid. There is simply nothing like The Independent, The Guardian or The Times in daily hardcopy circulation. So the whole country is dominated by the local equivalent of a Daily Mail/Sun/Express hybrid. And Bolt to the sensationalist right of these. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:39, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I think it is a little unfair to say the Herald Sun is not known for fact-checking, and with a right-wing bias, it is nothing like British style taploids. That being said Andrew Bolt is an opinion piece contributor and so is only reliable for what his opinion is on a matter. Cavalryman (talk) 19:32, 4 December 2019 (UTC).
It's quite a lot like them, given it's a Murdoch tabloid. That said, it's not quite The Sun - David Gerard (talk) 19:58, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
  • The Herald Sun news is generally reliable, but it describes Bolt's pieces as opinion, not journalism. They are generally only reliable as far as anything else said by Bolt is reliable. The video linked from Talk:Bruce Pascoe gives an idea of the style, so I'd be very careful before using his columns as a source for anything other than "Andrew Bolt said...". --Scott Davis Talk 05:15, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Okay, possibly a bit harsh re the fact-checking, but the ABC has caught a few untruths over the years. I haven't seen one in the flesh for many years, or properly online since they put the pay wall up, but they do cherry-pick and use techniques in their language to reinforce views that toe the editorial line. if you google "front page herald sun images" you can get an idea of its style. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 14:01, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

The Herald Sun is the highest circulation newspaper in Australia, both print and online, in a country with strong defamation and media laws. It is clearly a reliable source. Claims by a senior professional journalist in a blog in that newspaper are clearly notable claims, and as such should be noted in article like the Bruce Pascoe article. Blog posts aren't a suitable as the only source for facts, however. For example, a senior journalist's online column in a newspaper is a sufficiently notable and reliable source for "Bruce Pascoe's aboriginal heritage is disputed", but not for "Bruce Pascoe has been shown to not be aboriginal". Phil153 (talk) 00:42, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

There is no logical connection between having a high circulation and being a reliable source. HiLo48 (talk) 05:11, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
This same argument was made about the
WP:DAILYMAIL, and didn't save that either - David Gerard (talk
) 07:46, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Whilst circulation figures definitely bear no relationship to reliability (how many people read academic journals?), let's just get the facts right. According to Sep 2019 figures from Roy Morgan, the SMH and The Age both have higher cross-platform readership than the Herald Sun. What I remember (because reported extensively in other media) was its pushing of the "African gangs" story - loved by the Daily Fail of course. This 2017 article in the Conversation gives quite a good summary of the media landscape in Australia and how its changed over the years. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:44, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Help cleaning up 'remainder' of predatory journals cited on Wikipedia, part 2

See also: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 278 § Help cleaning up 'remainder' of predatory journals cited on Wikipedia

Continuous a previous effort (see above) to cleanup various predatory sources, here is what has hits in User:JzG/Predatory.

Any help you can give is very much appreciated.

b
} 18:03, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I forwent an Indian Ocean example because the effort required to replace the reference for a seemingly valid passage was taking far too long (had to do with examples of adaptive radiation in Madagascar). These were from the search https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?sort=relevance&search=insource%3A%22intechopen.com%22&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D&ns0=1&ns4=1&ns118=1 and relate back to Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested#Special:AbuseFilter/891: More predatory publishers. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
@
b
} 09:30, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Should sources be stripped simply for having been added by their authors?

See "rm fringe cite added by Shuker himself (User:Czbiker)" on British big cats. See also [21] for a slew of similar deletions.

The author of this book is

WP:OUTING
. The Karl Shuker article was created some years earlier by an IP and likewise I have no reason to connect it to the subject (not that that would matter), and it seems unlikely (the IP is in the wrong location).

Is having edited one's own link (actually mis-formatting it, here) alone sufficient reason to bulk remove them? I cannot see that as any such justification.

We have a long-standing, declared interest from the subject of an article to an article about them. Not unreasonably, they did so as part of simple vandalism complaints.

I am far more concerned that here the connection is being used to strip sourcing from a number of articles, then to AfD one or more of them, in their stripped form, as being "unsourced". I can't find that one under

WP:BEFORE. Andy Dingley (talk
) 19:33, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

While I am not involved with any of these discussions to date. I think it’s worth noting here that Shuker’s work is deeply fringe and strongly in the realm of pseudoscience—none of his work should every be cited directly, IMO, as it falls strongly astray of
WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE, Cryptozoology). :bloodofox: (talk
) 20:49, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
In what way is Shuker " in the realm of pseudoscience"? He's one of the most reliable and scientifically-based of the cryptozoologists. Should we delete all the folklore sources because their historicity is questioned?
Also, that's to reduce this to "Delete as WP:WEDONTLIKEIT". Andy Dingley (talk) 21:41, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
Holocaust denialism. We have a plethora of reliable sources discussing this at length over at our cryptozoology article. Shuker, a highly visible pseudoscience proponent, is absolutely not a reliable source. :bloodofox: (talk
) 00:00, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Well, that's what the WP article says. I wonder why?
Also, even as it is, it bases cryptozoology on folklore! Do you really need to have the distinction explained between a serious, rigorous study of a subject and the possibly fantastical nature of that subject? It applies equally to both.
Apart from the pejorative (and, of course, unsourced) snippets like "Few cryptozoologists have a formal science education,". Despite many doctorates, and Dr Shuker being a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. As to your holocaust denialism implication, that's simply offensive (although I know it's an accepted attack on WP these days). Andy Dingley (talk) 02:25, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Nonsense: Our cryptozoology article is extremely well sourced, including the quote you provide. It contains dozens of academics flatly stating that cryptozoology is a pseudoscience right there with flat earth theory, ghost hunting, and, most importantly, Young Earth creationism, with which cryptozoology strongly overlaps. It has indeed been compared to Holocaust denialism by academics—we quote Donald Prothero making exactly that comparison in the article. There's no controversy: Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience, plain and simple, and cryptozoologists are pseudoscience proponents, plain as day. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:23, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
There is a rather obvious fallacy in that whilst some YECs are looking for cryptids (but only the "right" cryptids) it's yet another pejorative claim from you to lump cryptozoologists in with YECs. YEC is an inherently anti-science discipline, in that it knows the answer already and is just looking for evidence which can be selected to support it. Good cryptozoology is the antithesis of that, even though you've clearly decided (on no evidence) that such a thing is impossible. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:45, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
We have a whole, fully-sourced section on cryptozoology and Young Earth creationism over at our cryptozoology article, and scholars like Prothero have spoken extensively about Young Earth creationist group funding for cryptozoologist groups and the Young Earth creationist involvement with cryptozoology circles since at least the 80s. Whether you deem this "good" or otherwise, it's nothing new. The reality is that the space you seem to be claiming for "good" cryptozoologists is already occupied by academics: Biologists regularly identify new species, and folklorists regularly write about entities from the folklore record, monsters or otherwise. No pseudoscience necessary. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Agree being used to strip sourcing from a number of articles, then to AfD one or more of them, in their stripped form, as being "unsourced" is highly problematic. Suggests system gaming where AfD nominator lacks confidence in asserting article ought not be on its merits. Hyperbolick (talk) 23:12, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm the one who removed the Shuker content. Czbiker, who has identified himself as Karl Shuker, made numerous contributions that served only to self-promote and did not add useful content to articles. These include adding his books as refs to already-sourced content [22], dropping them in bibliographies [23], and adding mention of his name and works to various narratives [24][25]. One of the more outrageous claims can be found in an edit summary: "Added are the primary contributions to this subject by Dr Karl Shuker, the world's leading winged cat researcher"[26]. Combined with fringe concerns pointed out by Bloodofox and the obvious COI, practically none of Shuker's contributions added anything of value.
I must have overlooked the fact that Shuker's book had first been added to British big cats by somebody else and Shuker merely added a link. By no means did I intend to imply any connection between Greenfinch and Shuker, however the fringe nature of the work makes it unsuitable for Further reading regardless. –dlthewave ☎ 21:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
He probably is the world's leading winged cat researcher. I'm unaware of any league table for them. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:15, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
  • That is more of a
    WP:COI spamming.) And some COIs, unlike this one, are more ambiguous and should be discussed to ensure that there's a general consensus that it's an actually meaningful COI, so we don't have eg. someone going around reverting every edit someone made related to the country where they live or something ridiculous like that. --Aquillion (talk
    ) 22:51, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
  • No. We are not an anti-Technocracy or an...Amatocracy. We do not eschew experts merely because they are experts. Compare No Gun Ri massacre, a neat little GA written with the help of the singular expert on the event, who first broke the story and won a Pulitzer Prize for their trouble.
If they are citing their own work in a way that is unduly promotional then you should remove it because it's unduly promotional. If they are citing their own work because they are outstanding among experts in the field and their work is outstanding among the most reliable sources, then the correct response is to give them a barnstar, thank them for their trouble, and hope the stick around. GMGtalk 23:14, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
But how do we determine that someone is a reputable expert? My assertion is that we rely on the editorial process to do that, which means, basically... edits are presumed to have consensus if nobody objects to them, but that we need at least one person who thinks a source is worth using. And I don't think an edit burdened by a
WP:COI edits, to the point where we should err on the side of removal in unclear cases. --Aquillion (talk
) 23:53, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

To my mind yes, if they are truly an RS someone else will add it. If no one else wants to add it its clearly not all that significant.Slatersteven (talk) 09:14, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

  • If the source is good and unambiguously improves the article, and your only objection against a source is who added it, that is not a good reason to remove it (unless the editor is banned: banned editors are prohibited from making good edits). This applies especially to inline citations helping to verify article content. —Kusma (t·c) 10:03, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
    WP:REFSPAM. We can patiently explain that they need to post their content on Talk first and allow others to decide. This is absolutely routine. Guy (help!
    ) 17:31, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
    JzG, should I see a Fields medal winning mathematician improving an article while adding a citation of one of their relevant papers, I am not going to revert them, and hope you don't either. Deterring spammers is fine, but pissing off experts because of THE COI RULES is just stupid. —Kusma (t·c) 17:43, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
    WP:COI, and ask them to suggest their own work on the Talk page where it can be reviewed and added by others, to protect them from accusations of self-promotion. Guy (help!
    ) 18:24, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
In this specific instance it was not removed solely because the author had added it, it was also removed because it was fringe. In this instance (thus) the question you asked is not wholly relevant as he did not need to add "by the author" as there was a better reason (in his view, and those who support the removal) to do so, it violated
wp:fringe. You say it was added by someone other than the author, care to provide the diff? But this also was only a "further rerading", not sure I see why this is not a a valid use if it)Slatersteven (talk
) 11:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
  • What is "fringe"? Should folklore exist on WP, or should the whole topic be deleted because "There can be no possible robust or reliable study of a topic based on unreliable material or mythology." But that's no part of WP that I recognise. Cryptozoology is not unreliable, at least not inherently or if done correctly. Despite the aspersions being widely cast here, some of the better-trained cryptozoologists are formally trained, professional zoologists with doctorate or higher qualifications, often with established careers in some other branch of zoology. They have an additional interest in cryptids, because who doesn't like a good monster story?
    Fortean
    principle: Weird shit does indeed happen, and a robust study of it is entirely appropriate. That's far from claiming that something is a dragon / pixie / alien / whatever, it's recognising that it's a UFO (Unidentified Floating Olfactobarf, with the emphasis on it being unidentified) and thus worthy of some cataloguing and attempt at study to see if it does turn out to be explicable. Yes, it's probably some sort of beaked whale. But we should at least look. Although Shuker has talked to many people who believe in the more esoteric explanations (and WP has articles on religions too, and we don't denigrate others' taste in sky-pixies as being increduluous ab initio), I know of no reason why Shuker's own writing should be tarred with the same brush.
care to provide the diff? Read the posting. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:38, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Misinformation about folklore and folklore studies aside, this forum is not a place for you to air your grievances about academic consensus about cryptozoology's status as a pseudoscience. Fringe proponents, be they cryptozoologists, flat earthers, Young Earthers, etc, are not reliable sources under any circumstances on Wikipedia, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:29, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Generally this should be considered on a case-by-case basis. In this case, the sources in question are unambiguously garbage and promote a
    WP:FRINGE and incorrect point of view. I approve of removing them. Reyk YO!
    11:18, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

conflicts.rem33.com

Hiya. Is this source reliable (for historical stuff)? [27] I would say a big no no, but I'm curious to hear what you guys think. --HistoryofIran (talk) 00:50, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

ICv2

I just need a confirmation that this is indeed a reliable source. Their "about" page can be found here, the editors involved appear to be vetted, and the source is mentioned by others such as Publishers Weekly. [28] - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:06, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

You need to provide the relevant edit and article in the source to determine this. While it appears to be a reliable source for its topic area, not every article in a reliable source is reliable and sources should not be used outside of their area of expertise. TFD (talk) 18:11, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Southern Poverty Law Center

I know this has come up before, but from what I can tell, it appears that the

Rick Tyler (white supremacist)
which is about a person who claims to not be a racist, but pretty much everyone else agrees that he is.

Sorry if this discussion inconveniences anyone. I just wanted to make sure if it is okay to use these sources and whether or not I should try to find a better source in substitute of the SPLC. Consensus seems to also show that we should not label every group that is classified as a hate group by the SPLC in the lead, if I am not mistaken. Bneu2013 (talk) 02:03, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

SPLC is widely respected as researchers and authorities on hate groups and their activities. I think any group labeled by them as a hate group *should* include that information in the lead as one of the significant defining aspects of their activities. Gleeanon409 (talk) 03:26, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
No non-MOS-prescribed content (e.g., identifying the subject of the article) automatically warrants inclusion in the lead. The lead follows the body, and what is contained in the lead is an editorial decision that has to be made on a case-by-case basis based on the content of the body as decided through the normal editorial process. GMGtalk 03:38, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
And more often than not, a group being a hate group *is* the most defining notable aspect about them. It motivates their activities and purpose. Gleeanon409 (talk) 05:05, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • As has been discussed in the past, the SPLC is generally reliable but should be attributed. SPLC has been wrong before, and if those objecting can produce mainstream reliable sources directly addressing the SPLC as missing the mark in this particular instance, then they have a leg to stand on. If they can't then they don't. GMGtalk 03:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • The following opinion appears to go against consensus, and I strongly believe in following consensus even when I personally think it is wrong, but in my opinion the SPLC used to be generally reliable.
Sources:
I do not want to start Yet Another Huge Discussion about things like retracting when you are shown to be wrong vs. retracting only after you lose a lawsuit, so please leave this as me expressing my opinion while acknowledging that the consensus is against me. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:08, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
And we should acknowledge that of these sources—at least some of which are obviously opinion pieces—and others touching on the same case, simply attempt to chip away at SPLC’s reputation which remains remarkably intact with the biggest accusation that they are a liberal agenda pusher. Gleeanon409 (talk) 05:05, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I am aware of Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I once gave a book by Ali to my mother as a gift. (It didn't go over well.) In both these cases we had mainstream reliable sources pushing back against the SPLC in that instance in particular. I don't believe that this gives ammunition for discrediting the SPLC on the count of every run-of-the-mill neo-fascist, unless we have specific reliable sources pushing back against them. GMGtalk 05:10, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Those pieces - mostly opinion pieces - get trotted out every time the SPLC comes up (notably, it's always the same ones, focusing on the same thing, showing those criticisms weren't sustained.) But even if we take them all at face value, they all also take the perspective of "the SPLC is widely respected, and here's why this tiny sliver of people think it shouldn't be." That supports the idea that they enjoy the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that
    WP:RS status into question. --Aquillion (talk
    ) 18:55, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
My opinion : if the SPLC is simply talking broadly about a topic related to racism but is not reaching out to call any specific existing group/person as a hate group or their other cateogorization, it is a reasonable source. I remember there was an article they did within the last year or so about the various Confederate monuments to categorize why they exist, etc, if they serve a hate-group purpose, and so on. That's fine. When SPLC is specifically writing to classify a group or person as a hate group or other categorization, that is not allowed to be used unless this is a facet noted by other RSes (which does frequently happen). We're talking in the framework of BLPSPS to a degree: we should not allow self-published material that does not necessarily have editorial standards to be used as a talking point by itself. And when it can be used, it must be used with in-text attribution. I would expect the same for any "think tank" group that is focused on a specific topic area and structured similarly to SPLC. --Masem (t) 04:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
I concur. When I see the SPLC talking about broad trends and entire movement, in my experience they are still really really good. When I see them labeling a group or an individual as a hate group, sometimes they are obviously right and other sources (and not just sources parroting the SPLC) also call the organization a hate group. But when I see them labeling groups as hate groups simply because they nonviolently express unpopular political opinions for religious reasons, and when I see them just flat out refusing to provide a shred of evidence when challenged on dubious claims, I have to conclude that they are not a reliable source on whether an individual or an organization is a hate group or even on whether it even exists at all.
As one example, please see this report from the Iowa City Press Ciitizen:[31]
Apparently, someone with the screen name "Concerned Troll" posted "The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub was a success!" on the Daily Stormer website, claiming that this "book club" met sometime in September 2016 at a unnamed restaurant somewhere in the Amana Colonies, Iowa. Based upon nothing more that that single post the SPLC listed the Iowa town a "refuge of hate" and listed them as as the home of the The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub neo-Nazi group.
Later, facing a storm of criticism, the SPLC changed the The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub’s designation to "statewide."
One small problem: The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub never existed. They never met. The restaurant was never named. The local police did a thorough investigation and found zero evidence for the meeting ever happening or or the group ever existing. Someone with the user name Concerned Troll posted something on the Daily Stormer website and that's all the "evidence" the SPLC needed. And the SPLC vigorously stood by its claim for a full year[32], ignoring all calls for any actual evidence, and only reluctantly posting a "correction" that still insists that the nonexistent group exists on a statewide level, and only posting the "correction" after there was a huge public backlash. Needless to say, there is zero evidence for the "statewide" claim either.
David Rettig, executive director of the Amana Colonies and Visitors Bureau, says that he attempted to reach out to the SPLC as soon as he learned about the map, but nobody from the civil rights organization would return his message. "It was a shock to us when we found out," he said. "We’ve checked around with the sheriff (Rob Rotter) and he indicated to me there is absolutely no hate group operating in the Amana Colonies, and he checked with his superiors in Des Moines and there are no reports … we’ve seen nothing of this, visitors or residents." Rotter backed up Rettig’s remarks" "There is no such neo-Nazi group in Iowa County." and that the SPLC was "irresponsible at best. I would hope that the SPLC is a more responsible organization than this example of their professionalism exhibits." The Des Moines Register contacted the SPLC, and Ryan Lenz, a senior investigative writer for the SPLC initially told them that claims by community and Iowa County leaders that no such groups exist in the town are wrong. Then later, after there was a storm of controversy, they changed the claim that this imaginary hate group is "statewide". And yet the SPLC still to this day refuses to provide any evidence other than the internet post by "Concerned Troll".
When you make a claim without a shred of evidence[33] other than a post on a neo-nazi website by an admitted troll, and then stand by your claim for well over a year without providing a shred of evidence, you no longer have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, as required to be considered a reliable source. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:08, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
Brevity is the soul of wit. GMGtalk 06:10, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
A fancy way to say
tl;dr — well, I did read. But it was for naught, I already heard about that Iowa Stormer Bookclub thing on Wikipedia on multiple occasions. Oh well! El_C
06:17, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
Alas, brevity when discussing the SPLC is a surefire way of being accused of making everything up. Because the SPLC has so many devoted fans you need to provide not just sources but direct quotes from those sources. To do otherwise is to create an even longer thread, as every claim is challenged and has to be answered with a direct quote from a reliable source. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:22, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
They are at it again. Southern Poverty Law Center Identifies Hate Group Activity in Santa Monica The evidence?
"We listed The Daily Stormer and its affiliated 'Book Clubs,' or local meet ups, as hate group chapters in 2016 based on their own accounts of meetings that took place across the country," a spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center said in an email.
Seriously? They just took the neo-nazi's word for it? Is there any possibility -- and chance at all -- that maybe random neo-nazis posting on the Daily tSormer discussion group might -- oh I don't know -- tell a fib or two about how widespread the movement is and how many local groups they have? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:38, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
No worries there,
Breitbart has you covered. They seem to be one of the few covering the case. Gleeanon409 (talk
) 06:48, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with the positions presented by Masem and Guy Macon. The Encyclopedia Britannica, a tertiary and highly respected source, published the following information: SPLC’s activities have long generated both widespread acclaim and ongoing political controversy. The organization has been accused of financial mismanagement, misleading fund-raising methods, and institutionalized racism. In addition it has been charged with exaggerating the threat of racism for purposes of fund-raising, of wrongfully applying the term hate group to legitimate organizations, and of promoting a left-wing “politically correct” agenda under the guise of civil rights. While the latter should not be cause to dismiss SPLC as a RS, it is a substantial enough reason for us to exercise due caution when citing SPLC, and certainly justifies using in-text attribution, especially in cases where there is doubt over material that may be challenged. Atsme Talk 📧 13:13, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • SPLC seems to have a reputation for fact checking, in fact a very high reputation. I think (because it is an advocacy group) it needs attribution.Slatersteven (talk) 13:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I strongly disagree. The SPLC has a reputation for not fact checking, not publishing corrections, and not revealing what they are using for evidence. They did have a good reputation in the past, but those days are gone. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:12, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
If The evidence of your own eyes tells you that an anonymous poster going be the name "Concerned Troll" posting on the Daily Stormer website is an acceptable source, then I suggest that you get your eyes examined. BTW, The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub never existed. The SPLC still says that it does, but they are lying. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:16, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
  • SPLC seems to have a reputation for fact checking, in fact a very high reputation.- Slatersteven. Of course, I fully agree. But, their work is under such a scrutiny since 9-11, wars in the Middle East, and the rise of Islamophobia, Alt-Right, and so on, that a number of cases where they have been shown to be mistaken is still minuscule, and really negligible - and, this is exactly what escapes Guy Macon in his own disagreement with this statement and personal assessment that "the SPLC has a reputation for not fact checking, not publishing corrections, and not revealing what they are using for evidence. They did have a good reputation in the past, but those days are gone."
Somehow I doubt that we could find one organization to be infallible in that field of work they are in. They are the experts and probably most prominent name in the field. Someone cited Encyclopaedia Britannica as "highly respectable" - EB have publish more nonsense along the years that if one is to publish just that in one edition it would make volume(s) of unforgettable comedic literature.--౪ Santa ౪99° 20:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
It isn't just me that says ""the SPLC has a reputation for not fact checking, not publishing corrections, and not revealing what they are using for evidence. They did have a good reputation in the past, but those days are gone." Multiple sources have said it or something close to it.[35][36][37][38][39][40] --Guy Macon (talk) 11:16, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

On a wholly separate matter from SPLC

Uh I just noticed the article mentioned from above is at

WP:LABEL should never be used as a disambiguation term. The disambiguation isn't even necessary, as there is only one other topic that shares the name, that being Hourman (Rick Tyler), a comics character and speaking a specific iteration. If we needed disambiguation, then "(politician)" (even though he holds no office yet) would be better and within BLP/NPOV. I have boldly gone ahead to sort this out, moving the BLP to Rick Tyler and using a hat note to link to the comic character. --Masem (t
) 01:08, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

The reason I used the disambiguator is because there is political analyst on MSNBC by the name of Rick Tyler who may be notable, and just in case someone were to create this article. But that is probably better now. Bneu2013 (talk) 01:51, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, if we get to that point, I think you'd want to use "politician" for this Tyler, and then "journalist" or "reporter" for the other one. --Masem (t) 01:56, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Media Matters for America

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
From what I can see, the current reliability status of Media Matters for America is generally reaffirmed. The "reliable" and "uncertain" arguments were fairly even, but a lot of the arguments in general default to "uncertain", especially considering that the firm has made occasional mistakes every now and then. ToThAc (talk) 22:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

reliable sources, I'm going to propose, again, that Media Matters' status as a reliable source to be changed to redlisted or blacklisted (whichever is preferred). --Doug Mehus T·C
00:16, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo, See the discussion I am currently having whereby a sentence in that article relies solely on Media Matters in estimating the number of advertisers the show apparently lost. We should be independently verifying this with primary sources or with another green-flagged source.Doug Mehus T·C 00:45, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
If people ignore the instructions given, and use the list primarily as a summary judgement of black, green, yellow, and red sources, rather than a collection of subjective community assessment discussions, then the problem is not with the list, the problem is with how it is being used. We do not adjust our methodology to the lowest common denominator of users who wish to use it wrongly. The purpose of RSP is to make it easier to think about the use of sources on Wikipedia, not to remove thought from the evaluation process.
Many partisan sources are nominally reliable, but are mostly useless for determining DUEWEIGHT (which is an entirely separate issue from reliability, and not the primary purpose of RSP). If I run an advocacy group for animal abuse, then my incentive is to publicize information that supports my advocacy for animals, and ignore neutral or disconfirming information. My incentives do not align with those of more non-partisan groups, like Gallup or the Census Bureau, who would conduct research and publish the results, without the prior calculation of whether it serves some larger political purpose. GMGtalk 22:49, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Generally reliable. They are indeed partisan and biased, but they are factual, and therefore we can use them. When in doubt, attribute the source. Use them for facts, and attribute their opinions. --
    talk
    ) 02:45, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
    BullRangifer, For clarity, this could include, but would not be limited to, noting their partisan affiliation either in-text or in a footnote, refactoring overly brief statements that are otherwise misleading, and the like. Doug Mehus T·C
    02:49, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
  • generally reliable news sources. MMfA is commonly compared to Media Research Center (RSP entry), as seen in a 2010 RfC. — Newslinger talk
    07:26, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
    Newslinger, Well said. I'd also add that Media Matters' name is intended to confuse the public into thinking it's some independent, neutral media watchdog like the Pew Research Centre, which is wholly and unquestionably reliable. Doug Mehus T·C 14:32, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Context dependent. I'd file it under: fine with
    WP:ATT, evaluate individually before using for statements of fact in wiki-voice. Guy (help!
    ) 10:18, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
    reliable sources without regard to the colour shading (yellow versus green). Thus, I'm thinking, what would the harm be in redlisting or blacklisting this source a la Breitbart, InfoWars, et al.? Doug Mehus T·C
    14:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Those sources are redlisted for publishing outright lies or distortions, not just because of their political bias. If we banned sources for having a strong political bias that they've worked to conceal, we would 100% have to ban eg.
WP:BLUDGEON; replying to almost every post in an RFC is generally considered inappropriate. RFCs are for gathering outside opinion, not a place to argue with everyone you disagree with. --Aquillion (talk
) 17:29, 15 November 2019 (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.

Interviews & opinion pieces (The Daily Caller)

Should an exception be added for verified interviews and opinion pieces by notable individuals for The Daily Caller depending on the cirucmstances?

Examples:

"McCotter continued his efforts to be included in the debates in September. In an interview with
John R. Bolton announced he would not run for president, foreign policy discussion had ceased. McCotter hoped the next president would select Bolton as Secretary of State
.<ref name="bolton"/>"
However, the official Twitter for McCotter @ThadMcCotter recognized @McCotter2012hq as the official Twitter for the 2012 campaign, which retweeted the interview, verifying the interview was a factual representation of the campaign's stances.
  • The following text was removed from the same article because it references an opinion piece from The Daily Caller:
"According to
libertarian
-leaning Republicans, who enjoy rock music.<ref name="re">{{cite web|url=http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/24/the-red-eye-candidate/|title=The Red Eye candidate?|last=Lewis|first=Matt|authorlink=Matt Lewis (journalist)|date=May 24, 2011|work=[[The Daily Caller]]|accessdate=August 3, 2013}}{{deprecated inline|certain=yes}}</ref>"
However, it is merely for stating the opinion of the notable journalist Matt K. Lewis, who is now the senior columnist for the The Daily Beast. Lewis's verified twitter account linked to the article, confirming he did in fact write it.

Thanks.William S. Saturn (talk) 23:45, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Is sportinfo.co.ng a reliable source?

Is sportinfo.co.ng a reliable source? e.g. this topical obituary? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I doubt it, but there are better sources.Slatersteven (talk) 14:43, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Seems unnecessary, as there's plenty of good obituaries in scrupulously reliable sources. What piece of information are you using from that source which you cannot find elsewhere? --Jayron32 14:46, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm not using it. It's been slapped onto the top of the article, ostensibly to support his dates, with the edit summary "(This explains more about the death of David Bellamy, Also shows lots of notable tributes)". Seems a little self-promotional. But I've see quite a lot of this website used for recent deaths lately. So I thought I would ask here. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:02, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
If you really need a statement on it, no, it's a WordPress blog that seems to be run by one person. It doesn't even show up on rating sites that normally look at news sources. But I don't know why you need me to explain that to you, you've been around here long enough to recognize that. Just remove it and replace it with something actually useful. You don't need permission to do that. --Jayron32 15:16, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
I wasn't asking permission, I was asking for some opinions. It's sometimes better to gain a clear consensus. Very sorry to have wasted your time. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:19, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
No need to apologize, and you wasted no one's time at all. You wanted to know if the source is reliable, and I told you why I didn't think it was. I'm not sure what you would like from me additionally, at this point, but I'd be glad to help out further if you can clarify. --Jayron32 15:28, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
I don't want anything from you additionally. Many thanks for your advice. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Can we discuss the matter in hand, it isn't an RS. I have said no, Jay has said no. It would be nice to have a couple more opinions, but at this time it is an emphatic no.Slatersteven (talk) 15:31, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
We don't get many news sources originating from Nigeria do we. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:37, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
True, but this does not appear to be anything more then a blog (which also confused the hell out of me as I wondered why a sports blog had an obit for a naturalist until I realized it was an Obit blog, whose title in no way bears any relation to what it is about). Not a news organ.Slatersteven (talk) 15:41, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. I will remove it. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:19, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
I've informed that editor, who has since continued adding the site to source deaths. This also seems related to a recent site blacklisted for spam, schooltips.com.ng (MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#schooltips.com.ng).—Bagumba (talk) 10:21, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Doctorate thesis

Is it ok to use this Doctorate thesis to verify "In Iran, women's pursuit of equal rights to men date back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Women's movements in Iran can be divided into eight periods" in Women's rights in Iran?--Saff V. (talk) 07:59, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Please, could you provide direct page you want to cite? This thesis has 150+ pages and I was not able to find the above mentioned information. Pavlor (talk) 08:32, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
@Saff V.: I'm afraid almost certainly not. Although not conclusive, a ctrl+f search of the document shows hardly any of the statement's keywords are used. "Nineteenth century", "eight periods", "eight", and even "pursuit" are either not used at all out used in completely different contexts. Mind you, with the possible exception of the eight periods assertion, it doesn't sound such a wild statement as to not be found in a secondary source somewhere? ——SN54129 08:52, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
@Saff V.: update. Although the pdf linked to in the reference is that doctoral thesis, see the ref itself is to a completely different piece (an article in the Journal on Human Rights). So no wonder it's completely different. The actual article is open access at [47], and IIRC the pages you want for that claim are 17 and 81.
I guess all the other refs will have to be changed too. It would also be interesting to discover who falsified the citation originally. ——SN54129 09:20, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
@Serial Number 54129: why did you remove my answers?! Saff V. (talk) 09:28, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Any way How strange! Thanks for effort!And this is reliable. Am I right?Saff V. (talk) 09:43, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
@Saff V.:, I really do apologise for removing your edits! I honestly don't know what happened—I'm on the mobile, and I got an edit conflict with you when I tried to post, so I left the edit window. But it saved the post anyway even though there was an edit conflict?! I'm very sorry about that!
Anyway, yes the SUR journal is an excellent source, peer reviewed academic journal with an international editorial board. Best of luck! ——SN54129 10:09, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
The second sentence, regarding the "eight periods", is an original concept introduced in the source, and should be attributed to the author, Nayereh Tohidi. -
talk
10:34, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

CIA factbook

Hi, is the CIA factbook a state-owned source? can we use it in the United States article when there are independent sources that disputes the CIA factbook figures? For example in here the CIA factbook says that the U.S is slightly bigger than China making the U.S the third largest country. According to Britannica "China is surpassed in area by only Russia and Canada" and also Britannica says that "The United States is the fourth largest country in the world in area". In Wikipedia's United States article it says the United States is the third or fourth largest country by area and there is a note there that says that the "The figure for the United States is less than in the CIA World Factbook because it excludes coastal and territorial waters" this is not actually supported by the source and it is unclear for me why the CIA factbook figure is greater than in the Encyclopædia Britannica. So I think the CIA factbook should be dismissed if there are independent reliable sources that disputes the CIA factbook figures. Because it has a conflict of interest and it is written by a state-owned agency that works for the U.S. government.--SharabSalam (talk) 15:13, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi SharabSalam, and thanks for posting this question.
Measuring the size of a country depends upon some details, and when two countries are similar in size, different methods will produce different results. This does not mean that either of the answers are wrong! It just means that there are different results. To give another example of this, parents want to know how big their babies are, but babies can't stand up to have their height measured like an adult. So with a little baby, you put the baby on a table and measure how long the baby is. With a three year old, you ask the child to stand up, and measure their height like an adult. And at 12 or 18 months, you could do both on the same morning, and you will get different answers. Neither answer is wrong! It's just a different measurement system.
Some of these country-size measurements include the land area plus the nearby ocean (which the country is expected to control, e.g., to provide air-sea rescue services to sailors in that area). Some measurements include only the land area. These different systems will produce different results for countries that have coastlines. This is the difference in this case. If you look at the detailed statistical breakdown on the US and China, China has a slightly larger land area, and the US has a significantly larger water area, so the "total" makes the US larger – if you happen to be someone who likes to measure everything, but not if you happen to be someone who only cares about the land area. Neither answer is wrong.
You will also see differences in size based upon disputed territorial claims. A reliable source might decide that Kashmir is part of India, and thus get one size. A different reliable source might decide that Kashmir is not part of India, and thus get another size. This does not seem to be a particularly important factor in this particular situation, however. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Without getting into the details on this one source, I do need to point out (as I have done a few times above in different discussions) on the difference between a state-owned source and a state-run source. The BBC is a state-owned source, and yet we hold their work to be scrupulously reliable because the BBC is under no editorial control of the British state. This is quite different from something like
Russia Today and Telesur which are organizations where the state has considerable editorial control over the work. However, even with those considerations, it isn't as though even state-run media is necessarily suspect; one would need to consider factors such as the source's purpose and the source's reputation for fact checking. It should be noted that The World Factbook is, as it's primary purpose, a reference work intended for internal use within the U.S. government, and as such, generally does a decent job of trying to be correct. The US has little interest in being deliberately incorrect in the data it uses for itself. It isn't a propaganda work in the sense that it isn't primarily intended for another audience to push any kind of agenda. While it may differ in certain definitions, those differences are almost always part-and-parcel with genuine disputes, and as with any source, it may "cast its lot" with one side or another in any particular dispute; but then again, when we are dealing with disputes, we shouldn't rely solely on any one source anyways. It seems, from my research, that (like any source) they have some reported inaccuracies which exist as good-faith mistakes; the publishers do correct mistakes and genuinely wish to "get it right", and while they differ on disputed matters, so does everyone else, because that's what a dispute is: a lack of clear agreement on a topic. --Jayron32
20:40, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
I would generally agree that The World Factbook is a usable and reliable source. There are facts upon which reliable sources can disagree without inhibiting their reliability. BD2412 T 04:30, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
SharabSalam, I've always considered it reliable for uncontroversial facts like population and area. Guy (help!) 15:06, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
  • It is definitely usable for uncontroversial facts, which is usually the only thing anyone would want to cite it for anyway. However, I would sometimes qualify it as a
    WP:PRIMARY source, or at least something close to one. The contradiction here is unusual because I don't think this is particularly a controversy, just the sources using different measures. While Britannica is also a generally-usable source, I feel that neither are fully-ideal; in a situation like this where there's a contradiction, what you want to do is find secondary / tertiary sources that provide more in-depth details and analysis than you get from a dry encyclopedia summary or the CIA world factbook. So in this particular case I'd avoid relying on either of them, because if they're contradicting and it's not clear why, that reads like neither of them going into enough depth on the definitions they're using. --Aquillion (talk
    ) 04:15, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
That's the problem with using tertiary sources. They don't provide sources and so we cannot compare the information they provide. Good secondary sources would explain their methodology in determining relative size and then we could determine which one was more acceptable. TFD (talk) 05:41, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
TFD, I agree that a detailed secondary source has some advantages, but... you said that tertiary sources don't provide sources, except that Wikipedia is a tertiary source, and it names its sources. Also, the CIA's World Factbook does explain its methodology: "This entry includes three subfields. Total area is the sum of all land and water areas delimited by international boundaries and/or coastlines. Land area is the aggregate of all surfaces delimited by international boundaries and/or coastlines, excluding inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers). Water area is the sum of the surfaces of all inland water bodies, such as lakes, reservoirs, or rivers, as delimited by international boundaries and/or coastlines." And we shouldn't be determining which method is more "acceptable"; all the standard measurements are acceptable. We should be focused on accurately reporting the meaning of the numbers we give – in the instant dispute, to clearly say that the US is the fourth largest in land area, or the third largest in total area, and not just "third biggest" or "fourth biggest". WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:04, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Tertiary sources are defined as "publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources....Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources." These typically do not have provide sources. It's irrelevant that the policy says Wikipedia is a tertiary source since in cannot be used in Wikipedia articles escept as a primary source. The CIA Factbook does not say where it gets its raw data, so it cannot be compared with other sources. TFD (talk
) 12:45, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Use of The Sun in Team Trees article

This is what I would consider a very trivial entry. Recently I had an edit reverted about the Sun being used as a source.[48]. The Sun article that was removed.[49] The Wikipedia article it was removed from: Team Trees. Link to previous discussion of the source on this board.[50]

My reference to The Sun was under the Responses subheading, which is used to show the response to the fundraiser from different media groups. The statement that the source supports is

[The Sun] released [a] positive article about the tree-planting campaign and it's subsequent environmental impact

Although The Sun is a deprecated source it has a unique position to prove that it, a tabloid newspaper, responded positively to the fundraiser, which would fall under

WP:ABOUTSELF
. The Sun article is not used to unduly increase notability, it is not used to verify any new or exceptional claims. The article makes no claims that are disputed by any other references on the page.

As a new editor, the inclusion of this source is not very important to me (and there may be reasons to not include the information for other reasons), however I am interested on a principle basis as to whether there is a reliability issue with including the article. Pabsoluterince (talk) 13:29, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

It maybe an RS for the fact it said this, but there are also other considerations such as
wp:undue, which may be one reason it was removed.Slatersteven (talk
) 14:02, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Fundamentally - The Sun is a deprecated source, you need a pretty strong justification to reference it at all. "It's in our press clippings collection" really isn't one, I'd think. There is literally no reason to list The Sun here, except in an attempt at promotional editing for the article subject. This is in the context of a list of "media mentions", i.e. the puffery you see in every promotional article to try to show the subject is noteworthy - it's literally not being used as any sort of source, and the actual RSes in that list should be used as references if they're references - show, don't tell. I urge editors to have a look at the article Team Trees - other promotional editing includes a whole section showing fundraising progress, 100% sourced to the organisation's own site. The bizarre thing is that the article has all this spammy promotional content, but it seems to be genuinely quite notable, and would be fine without it. Yes, I hit the talk page about this and suggested they make the article read a bit less like a marketing brochure - David Gerard (talk) 15:22, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
I agree that The Sun reference should have been removed, just too little to justify the addition of a deprecated source :). Thank you. Pabsoluterince (talk) 15:47, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

BMW G80 M3

There has been a heated discussion going on at

Apple electric car project, an article based on pure speculation with the subject matter not being in physical existence being cited. A consensus was reached over the matter but that page continues to exist and continues to be used as a precedent in support of adding data about a vehicle before its official introduction. Much of time and energy is already being wasted over this new M3. It's time for a clear decision about the addition of information about a vehicle on Wikipedia which has not yet been introduced. It is also time for a decision about the reliability of mere statements of confirmation to the automotive press about a vehicle being in development.U1 quattro TALK
09:29, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

This is what
Libra (cryptocurrency) - how to write about something that didn't exist, and may never exist, but that was clearly of great interest, in a reality-based manner.) So in this case maybe the fact is worth noting somewhere - but it's definitely in the future, not the present - David Gerard (talk
) 09:50, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
WP:CRYSTAL is also being disputed at the said talkpage discussion. Most agree that it is vague in explaining in what exact content should and shouldn't be added. The fact being future is my point. A fact of the future must not be added in the present.U1 quattro TALK
18:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
Good news: WP:CRYSTAL is slightly less confusing now; my RfC to delete the contradictory language was accepted. The policy is unchanged, but the part at the top that says "Predictions, speculation, forecasts and theories stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities in a field may be included, though editors should be aware of..." is no longer contradicted by a sentence saying the opposite, "Speculation and rumor, even from reliable sources, are not appropriate encyclopedic content".

Nobody is proposing covering this "at length". It's about objecting to a mere 65 words to the bottom of an article, making no mention of unverified performance speculation like 500+ horsepwer[51], only a basic outline of a product in the final stages of production.

The question here is, "What is an official announcement?" We have multiple reliable sources saying that the CEO has stood in public and spoken words out of his mouth saying "we are going to ship this car in 2020 or 2021".[52][53][54]. Saying "seemingly confirmed" isn't accurate. U1Quattro's main objection is that there's nothing about the 2020/21 M3 on BMW's website. Therefore it's not "official". I don't believe "official" is a meaningful term. Wikipedia cares about verifiability (not officiality, whatever that is), and is this expert source, the CEO of BMW M division, an authority on BMW M division? We know that officers of public companies can't simply shoot their mouths off in public as if nothing they say mattered[55]. This is not

FUTON bias.

So if we can verify a CEO said it, and repeated it, and the company issued no denials after it was widely reported, is that "official" enough? At least for a short paragraph at the bottom of an existing article? I still think each and every article about future Tesla vaporware cars should be merged, but you can't win them all. --Dennis Bratland (talk

) 18:20, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Tesla's vaporware cars have been officially unveiled atleast. They exist in physical form. This on the other hand does not. 500+ horsepower is speculation. Since it can be more, it can be less. We don't know the exact figure since the CEO is being tight lipped about it. CEOs confirm and deny a lot of things about vehicles. Does this mean that every rumour spread by the automotive press confirmed by a CEO of an automobile company should be included in articles? I don't think so. This kind of inclusion has not happened before in existing articles and it should not happen this time.U1 quattro TALK 06:27, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
I don’t understand why you’re debating things that I’ve agreed with you about. Why does website = official? What does official mean? Does it mean BMW can never go back on what is on their website? You’re saying if Tesla promises something on their website, then that’s definitely going to happen? Because that’s not what history shows is. Explain what official is. Why are only websites official? Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:25, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
It's because the car is available to pre-order and the official specs are listed. Automotive press picks their info from the official website and press releases when a car is introduced.U1 quattro TALK 06:25, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
And yet the cold gas thrusters are mentioned despite being based on a Elon tweet, this is because that tweet was extensively covered by reliable sources. Toasted Meter (talk) 06:44, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
They should be removed then because Elon's tweets are never an official thing. He recently had to pay compensation regarding his pedo tweet.U1 quattro TALK 10:14, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
What does "official" mean? A CEO's public statements can certainly be included in a article, as long as it's worded as "Elon said X" not "X will happen". Also he actually won that lawsuit, not that it matters. Toasted Meter (talk) 10:27, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
That pedo tweet defamation suit wasn't really relevant; it was the tweets about a buyout deal that are relevant to what constitutes "official" company announcements. The SEC won a settlement for reforms and penalties, including Musk resigning as CEO, $40 million in penalties, and extensive oversight of future tweets. It puts all corporate officers on notice that loose talk, even on Twitter, can't be excused as "not official". Zero sources have even hinted that M division CEO Markus Flasch was lying, joking, speculating anyway, so the only skepticism is original research by Wikipedia editors, not a real controversy, and we have all the more reason to expect that Flasch wouldn't be saying any of this in bad faith, any more than we expect the announcement of the 2020 Olympics to be some kind of scam. We need to stop obsessing over the nebulous concept of "official" and ignore whether something is in the future or past, and look at what matters: verifiability and POV, specifically
WP:YESPOV. --Dennis Bratland (talk
) 19:33, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

So when Musk isn't the CEO, why does his statements on twitter matter anyway? Both of these cases have their differences. I just pointed them out. Comparing BMWs CEO to guy who puts out nonsense on twitter as a joke (same thing about the "pedo guy" tweet which Musk admitted was a mere insurance not to be taken seriously) makes this comparison utterly useless.U1 quattro TALK 07:34, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Musk isn't the CEO? U1Quattro, did you read it? Why isn't he CEO any more? He was forced to resign as CEO because his tweets claiming a buyout was a done deal did matter a great deal. To the tune of $40 million in fines. He tried to say, Oh my tweets aren't *official* and the SEC said: resign, and pay millions in fines, and don't tweet anything about your companies until your lawyers look it over first. That's how we know that this "not official" excuse is no excuse at all. Oh, it's just twitter is no excuse. Oh, it's just something I said casually, no excuse. Company officer speaking in public, it counts.

I really wish you'd admit that you have zero evidence for your imaginary idea that website = official. You made that up. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:55, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I didn't made that up. Majority of the vehicles present in Wiki are present on the company website. You're trying to turn the main focus away by comparing it to Tesla which is an entirely unrelated BS. I wish you'd admit that.U1 quattro TALK 03:05, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
I just told you -- again -- why things like tweets and comments by company officers are taken seriously. Musk is a perfect example: he was forced to step down and had to personally pay a $20 million fine, and Tesla had to pay $20 million more, for the mistake of thinking off-the-cuff comments (tweets in this case) don't count. They do. It's extremely relevant because it contradicts everything you've been saying about Markus Flash's public statements.

I'd be happy to admit I'm wrong if you would please explain what makes the website "official". Saying "vehicles present in Wiki" being common on websites doesn't address that question at all. I don't even know what "vehicles present in Wiki" means.

WP:SOURCEACCESS, and it tells us not to favor online sources over other media.--Dennis Bratland (talk
) 20:58, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

  • Dennis makes some good points above (including the suggestion to merge the Tesla articles into a "Tesla vapourware" article!). The key question here is whether the quote is considered a reliable source. I believe it passes the threshold. Cheers,
    talk
    ) 09:19, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
I don't think this RS/N thread is going to get a clear answer; it's too full of tangents and bickering. We probably need to re-submit using the standard template and asking a one sentence question:
Question: All else being equal, is a verbal statement by a CEO mere speculation and not official, while the same statement on the company's website is official and therefore a reliable source?
1. Source. [56][57][58][59][60][61]
2. Article. BMW M3
3. Content. BMW have announced that an M3 version of the G20 3 Series is due to begin production in late 2020, powered by the BMW S58 turbocharged straight-six engine that debuted in the F97 X3 M. All-wheel drive (xDrive) has been announced as being optional on the G80 M3, which would represent the first time that an M3 has used a drivetrain layout other than rear-wheel drive. [62] --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:53, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Mail Today (India)

Mail Today is an Indian tabloid and a joint venture of UK's Daily Mail. Does it fall under the Daily Mail "ban"? Ten citations are shown by the link summary tool. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

    • Evidence of it being unreliable is needed imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:14, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Twitter posts and John Nicolson

The current version of the article has an Unsuccessful candidacies section (permalink) added in this edit. The section includes four points like this:

Is that Twitter post a reliable source for the conclusion that John Nicolson was an unsuccessful candidate for a particular contest? Is it reasonable for the article to use these Twitter posts to conclude the subject "unsuccessfully took part in four SNP candidate selection contests"? See talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 23:16, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Lafferty, Jason (7 May 2015). "Well done @MrJohnNicolson You got my vote initially when standing as candidate in Linlithgow, so delighted you've won that seat".
I did mention on the article talk page the content is about the subject's internal party election - it was a party election to determine their candidates for the general election of that year. As an internal matter it would stand to reason the proceedings would gain less media attention; even the party themselves doesn't keep historical information on their website, but such proceedings are still encyclopedic to document the subject's political activities. But simply reliable sources are unavailable on them. Optakeover(U)(T)(C) 12:24, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
neutrality on Wikipedia considers only "significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic"; we're not allowed to add improperly sourced content to address perceived neutrality issues. Without reliable sources, deleting this content is the right thing to do (even though the editor who posted on your talk page wanted the content deleted for the wrong reasons). — Newslinger talk
12:42, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Two of the tweets are by the offical SNP branches that conducted their respectively sourced hustings. Can they really not pass RS? I can't imagine a more authoritative source. Surely the SNP is an acceptable source for such straightforward statements of electoral fact? 86.173.65.225 (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
You could make the argument that @SNPBonnyLoan and @ValeofLevenSNP are the official accounts of the
original research.

The tweet "Second up at the Loanhead Midlothian #GE15 @theSNP hustings is @MrJohnNicolson" is not sufficient to show that Nicolson had an unsuccessful candidacy in the Midlothian constituency, because that's not what the tweet says. Likewise, we can't use "West Dunbartonshire hustings chaired by @IRobertsonSNP. @MartinJDocherty @MrJohnNicolson @SuzeMcLaughlin @mhairi1921" to claim that Nicolson had an unsuccessful candidacy in West Dunbartonshire. Perhaps there are some other tweets that could explicitly verify these candidacies. — Newslinger talk

01:07, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Ugh. This is the sorta thing we'd just use IAR to pass 10-15 years ago. I'd argue that the midlothian tweet certainly shows he was a candidate, and there are shedloads of sources for the winner being someone else, and that both accounts can be sourced to the SNP as an offline source if nothing else (I'm sure there's something online somewhere...certainly at least on facebook...but then how do we know the facebook accounts aren't fake too?)...but I'mma leave it here 'cos it isn't important and I don't care enough. 86.173.65.225 (talk) 20:15, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
The four tweets are the source for the article content: "unsuccessfully took part in four SNP candidate selection contests". Such tweets are totally unsatisfactory because they do not directly verify each claimed incident (the reader has to examine what is said, assume it is valid, then reach a conclusion), and because the article content is a conclusion reached by an editor (
WP:UNDUE if the only sources are four tweets. Johnuniq (talk
) 03:02, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

pornhub.com/insights

Pornhub is on the global blacklist. That includes their pornhub.com/insights/2018-year-in-review (example). As primary sources these insights aren't very good, but if I want to discuss a fun fact about Sasha Grey as their #1 in three countries and #5 in Italy as of 2018 nine years after she left the adult business on the talk page the global block is silly.

The rules for a

WP:RS/N for issues related to a planned use as reference. –84.46.53.211 (talk
) 14:21, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I would say that a "fact" that can be sourced only from Pornhub is not essential to or even desirable in any Wikipedia article. If you cannot find a reliable source that supports that "fact", let it go. - Donald Albury 16:30, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
That might be so, mostly I need a wikilink to this section when it's archived for the white list request. The sometimes interesting and/or funny insights shouldn't be blocked ELs on talk pages. We do have Alexa and YouTube stats in infoboxes, the insights are not worse, and maybe better than IMDb and discogs (as known RS/P red flags, no issues as ELs or on talk pages). TL;DR: no
WP:UGC. –84.46.53.211 (talk
) 17:03, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
"Ukraine bursts into top 20 viewers of Pornhub in 2018" from Kyiv Post contains some of the information on Sasha Grey from Pornhub Insights' "2018 Year in Review". — Newslinger talk 05:20, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
WP:RS/P, for PH/insights a no consensus caveat (yellow) might do (?) –84.46.52.229 (talk
) 02:22, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
Blacklisted sources always have a gray background in the
inclusion criteria at the moment, so there won't be an entry for now. The list mostly covers general-interest sources, and niche sources are better handled by WikiProjects. You might want to consider adding Pornhub Insights to Wikipedia:WikiProject Pornography § Sources after discussing it with the project. — Newslinger talk
02:06, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Done. –84.46.52.214 (talk
) 03:29, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Use of caravanmagazine in Asaram article

1. Source: This unreliable reference is used and this is a link to a magazine which has paid subscription so when I opened this link I could not read full content as I don't have subscription. Also this doesn't seem to be a reliable source of information to me especially when it is there on WP:BLP article.: [63]

2. Article: Asaram

3. Content: Lot of controversial info is written based on this single reference which can not be verified by other references. Following are the 9 controversial sentences for which this unreliable reference is the only source and it seems almost entire article is biased due to it:

  1. in the Bania caste

  2. Sources mention him to have been involved in a variety of professions ranging from selling liquors

  3. Asaram gained widespread popularity, practicing a simplified tantric version of Hinduism and attracting the unprivileged sections of the society, en masse

    ------ This is definitely wrong as proved by govt. court and CID [1]

  4. It was also instilled among the devotees, to be blindly obedient to Asaram (and his son) and not to question them about anything, whatsoever

  5. Asaram had a modus operandi of occupying vacant plots of land, occupying it and unleashing a throng of devotees, when resisted by the state machinery.

  6. Another witness Rakesh Patel, a former devotee and Asaram's videographer was fired at by vehicle born assailants in March 2014. Less than a week later, another witness Dinesh Bhagchandani, was subject to an acid-attack but he managed to overpower one of his attackers; subsequent grilling revealed that the group were instructed by a devout follower of Asaram to assassinate witnesses in the case.

  7. Narendra Yadav, a vernacular journalist who profiled multiple stories on Asaram's exploits was hacked on September 2014; he survived.

  8. Rahul Sachan, another of Asaram's ex-personal-assistants, who turned witness in the Jodhpur as well as Surat case, was subject to a stabbing by one of Asaram's follower after a court-session in February 2015; Sachan alleged the act to have been gestured by Asaram, himself.

  9. Months later, Sachan went missing and police have failed to find any trace, till date; he had filed a plea at the Supreme Court for police protection, after being subject to a bevy of death threats by Asaram's followers, having mentioned about bringing more victims to the limelight

Please check the reliability of this source especially when we talk in terms of biography of living person. And if found unsuitable then please remove this unreliable reference and the 9 sentences which were written based on it. La vérité gagne (talk) 15:43, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://indianexpress.com/article/india/crime/cid-finds-no-proof-of-black-magic-in-asaram-ashram/
Being behind a paywall is not a reason to find this not an RS. Any more then me not owning a book would be. I need to see some evidacne its actually not reliable.Slatersteven (talk) 15:54, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
We can't rely on the content shared by a magazine which has controversies associated with it. It seems more of promoting the magazine content to me. As many sentences are simply taken from a link which cannot be read by people who don't do paid subscription. Do you think such a thing is suitable for article covered by WP:BLP? La vérité gagne (talk) 16:38, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
Yes we can, and often do. Yes it is perfectly acceptable (as I said the same applies to not owning a book) to use sources that have been subject to controversy. Hell even biased sources are acceptable.Slatersteven (talk) 16:40, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
policy are you unable to comprehend? ∯WBGconverse
16:45, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
  • The Caravan is one of the most premier magazines in India, specializing in long-form journalism.
    A recent piece by Dexter Filkins, a Pulitzer awardee over the famed New Yorker notes The Caravan to be a leading Indian news magazine, that was one of the two outlets in India, to offer aggressive coverage of Indian scapes, at a time when mainstream media were increasingly compelled to stifle all dissent and toe a pro-government line.
    A host of their reporters have won two of the most coveted journalism awards within India.
    It's textbook reliable. ∯WBGconverse 16:50, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
In 2011, the magazine was the subject of a Rs 50 crore defamation suit by the Indian Institute of Planning and Management after it featured a profile of its head, Arindam Chaudhuri.[1] In 2015, The Caravan was served a legal notice by the Essar Group. Essar later filed a ₹250 crore civil defamation suit against the magazine.[2]. Some other complaints: [3] [4] For hurting religious sentiments: [5] And many more.. I don't think it's a reliable magazine. It's more like promoting this magazine since a lot of content on Asaram article is only based on it and if some reader wants to verify it, they will have to purchase subscription and article is not visible fully. La vérité gagne (talk) 01:24, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/hc-lifts-gag-order-on-caravan-article-on-arindam-chaudhuri-of-iipm/articleshow/63034246.cms
  2. ^ https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/essar-goes-after-caravan-lawsuit-damning-article-magazine-gives-it-right-back-33667
  3. ^ https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/news/shocking-coffin-caste-census-complaint-against-caravan-magazine-editor/videoshow/68116777.cms
  4. ^ https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/ajit-dovals-son-files-defamation-case-against-caravan-magazine-jairam-ramesh/videoshow/67624582.cms
  5. ^ https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/complaint-filed-against-caravan-magazine-for-hurting-religious-sentiments/videoshow/68115392.cms
You have listed a large number of complaints against Caravan. It appears however that none of the sources you cite actually state that such complaints were upheld. And without seeing evidence of upheld complaints, their mere existence indicates nothing much beyond the fact that some people don't like what they say. Much the same can be said about some very trustworthy sources. And I suggest you drop the paywall argument - you have already been told what Wikipedia policy is in this regard. 86.143.231.214 (talk) 05:37, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
Are you really this stupid or are you paid by Asaram and Co.? ∯WBGconverse 07:21, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
Also even if they were upheld I even top line sources sometimes make mistakes and are sued.Slatersteven (talk) 10:03, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Getty Images

If Getty Images is a stock photo website [64] could be a reliable source? For example, some links had to be posted here: [65][66] But still you will request for comment later on. --119.94.168.236 (talk) 23:07, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Captions for images sold by Getty Images are very short, and don't contain much detail at all. Are there no alternative sources for the information you want to cite? — Newslinger talk 02:36, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
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