Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 284

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

I do find it rather concerning that perfectly good citations can be utterly destroyed due to poor RfC judgement. Why an out-right ban? This edit by David Gerard has removed a citation from the newspaper and place a cn tag in it's place. I see nothing wrong with the Sun article. If another article can't be found the citation should remain and maybe tagged. I've never seen an admin with such bad judgement across over this area. There has been a lot of links removed regarding The Sun's sports articles and some other topic wiki articles. Citations should be weighed on what they contain, not from who it is written. I strongly suggest more common sense and another review and I would go so far as to say I think David should be topic banned from removing citations relating to this conversation. Govvy (talk) 00:23, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• Concur. There was nothing wrong with the article. More common sense (and another review if necessary) are needed here. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 03:56, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• I see you're not claiming there's a reliable source stating that particular claim - is there one? I looked and couldn't find a non-deprecated statement of it. It appears to be a contrived-to-sound-interesting statistic of the sort that The Sun (and the Mail) often print, but when I go to research them - and I do go to research them - I can't even verify the basic factual claims.

The RFC says: any uncontroversial information which can be sourced to the Sun (sports score-lines et al) can almost-always be sourced to another source of repute. Is this a score from a match, or similar facts from a match? It doesn't look like one to me. Or is it a claim contrived to sound interesting?

You seem very keen to defend the Sun - a source which was deprecated in an RFC, meaning that every usage must, per

WP:BURDEN (which is policy) be justified. This appears to be because you have a family member who works for The Sun. I submit that this isn't a good reason for Wikipedia to let clearly questionable claims cited to deprecated sources through - David Gerard (talk

) 06:56, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll emphasise again - if you can find an RS for this particular claim - and it's a great claim - that'd be awesome! It's possible I just haven't the right book to hand, or my personal Google filter bubble has led me astray, or something. But it's well outside the level of sports score lines et-al, so you'll excuse me if I'm deeply reluctant to trust interesting and eye-catching claims from a source that has been formally deprecated for repeated falsification of information - David Gerard (talk) 07:11, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

1. Folha de Sao Paulo
2. BBC
3. book page 39, would need checking to ensure it isn't cloning wiki article
4. second book page 184, same check as above required
5. ESPN

There will be dozens of similar books and almanacs making the rather basic claim. Koncorde (talk) 07:27, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Reuters Koncorde (talk) 07:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• If a factual claim appears in one source and only one source, and that source is not considered generally reliable, then the factual claim must be taken as suspect at best. If a better source can be found, then it should be used in the deprecated source's place. There should be nothing controversial about any of this basic Wikipedia policy, except among undisclosed paid editors. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:37, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Separate response to the request for the RFC and smear on the editor. I would suggest that a Conflict of Interest per
  WP:INVOLVED
  is in play for Govvy.

Attempting to attack another user because your favourite uncle / cousin / relatives article was published in, and may be employed by, one of the least reliable tabloids in the UK for basic fact checking is lacking any rational foundation. To go as far as suggesting a topic ban in light of their own COI suggests that they themselves perhaps should be the ones looking at their own bias when it comes to The Sun, and in particular any material published by their relative if they are unable to see that criticism of the paper is not the same as criticism of an individual.

Any number of alternatives can be found (see above) making the presence of The Sun for the uncontroversial claim basically moot. Unless they had personally done the investigation and brought the information to light, however in this case they likely just read another published source likes the Football Guide or similar. Koncorde (talk) 07:40, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Koncorde: Technically, you could say I can have a lot of conflict of interest relating to over 100+ articles on wikipedia. But calling every person that has ever done work for a newspaper liars? Even a cartoonist? I find offence in that, I also find it strange that some, not the majority, the majority of The Sun citations I would remove, but some are okay. A primary statement with a primary source, I wouldn't argue or remove that. But David has done just that regarding The Sun RfC in play. I think he should review over some of his actions and stay away from making any more similar edits. Wikipedia shouldn't burn resources it can use. That to me is like Nazi's burning books, ideological stupidity. Govvy (talk) 09:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing "technically" about it. You are related to the person in question whose article you have perceived as being slighted. In response to this you have asked for a topic ban for an experienced editor. You haven't asked for him to review his edits, or consider your opinion - you have created a request for an RfC entirely loaded on the idea that David deserves to be topic banned and that he is (somehow) misinterpreting a very clear original RFC that The Sun is a shit newspaper of little reliability for any purpose beyond basic facts in sport, and even then there will be infinitely superior sources that we can use.

Using emotive words like "accusing", "liars" and "Nazi" is not only flagrantly misrepresenting the issue, but is then putting icing on the cake with Godwins Law. No, not all sources are equal. Yes we already throw away a lot of unreliable sources. No we do not using primary sources other than for basic facts because you can't trust primary sources to be objective about anything else - and that is where The Sun has historically had issues: it presents itself as its own primary source, with its own opinions liberally mixed in depending on whoever the editor is at that time.

The Sun is reliable (tenuously) for its own opinions. It's writers are reliable (tenuously) for their own opinions. We can say things like "in an article for The Sun X described Y as one of the greatest living players" or "a poll by The Sun in 2015 listed X as the greatest Premier League Manager" in a narrative sense. This is pretty much the only instance when they can be relied upon (and to be clear, 'relied' in this case is assuming that they don't fudge their own polls and declare conflicts of interest such as when boxing promoters promote their own boxing events in their own columns, and tie it to betting sponsored by the paper itself through their own betting company).

I cannot defend The Sun at any level, for pretty much anything. There are better sources available for pretty much any subject matter that they have reported on. Not because they are universally liars, not because they don't occasionally get scoops or do real journalism, but because their bad journalism and bad scoops have earned them a reputation that makes them fundamentally unreliable. Koncorde (talk) 10:33, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Whilst this may be true [[1]] its does not matter. The Sun cannot be trusted for statements of fact. It is a by word for shoddy Journalism and dishonest reporting.Slatersteven (talk) 10:27, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• I've added a citation to "No Bom Retiro, em 1910, Começa Esta História" from Folha de S.Paulo. This is the article that was cited in the Sport Club Corinthians Paulista for the same fact, and the source appears to be a reliable Brazilian broadsheet newspaper with high circulation. — Newslinger talk 12:36, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Newslinger: Are you not able to use one of the English language sources? I don't read Portuguese and google translates a bit funny! Makes it a little unhelpful. Govvy (talk) 14:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Non-English sources are allowed under

questionable English-language sources, including The Sun. If you can identify an English-language source for this claim that is similarly reliable as Folha de S.Paulo (which excludes The Sun), no policies or guidelines prevent that source from being cited. — Newslinger talk

14:20, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

There are four or five sources I provided above (including the Folha one), anyone can add them at their own leisure. Koncorde (talk) 14:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Koncorde! I've added Rowley's book to the Corinthian F.C. article, and used Parrish and Nauright's book to replace a "citation needed" tag in Sport Club Corinthians Paulista. — Newslinger talk 23:08, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Which all takes us back to "if better sources exist use them". We do not need the SUN for anything useful.Slatersteven (talk) 12:40, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

A more optimistic view would be "maybe the Sun isn't 100% garbage, maybe only 80%". So why not leave both references? Clearly it is fine in many cases. There is no such thing as a perfectly reliable source. This whole deprecation thing has been a huge debacle. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 12:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Precedent, We leave it in once when it is correct and the next time that will be used as an example of why it should be used alone. That is why it has been depreciated, the constant arguments about including some random bit of title tattle or out right lie. Its easier just to say no.Slatersteven (talk) 13:03, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

The problem with The Sun is that it isn't 'fine' in many cases, and its writing is not only open to interpretation but subject to persistent misinformation as a result of its incredibly low quality. Given probably most of the content of the article in question was leached liberally from Rob Cavallini's Play Up Corinth and the Corinthians own homepage at the time it's amazing how badly it has been mangled. To quote the article in question: "The club were formed in 1882 in a restaurant by St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was since destroyed in the war." I ask you a few simple questions based on this:

1. What was destroyed in the war? Multiple choice = The restaurant? The cathedral? The club? 1882?
2. Who formed the club in a restaurant? = Answer = "they were formed in a restaurant by St Paul's Cathedral"
3. What is the correct formulation of "English" grammar "was since destroyed in the war"?

Onto the next few paragraphs: "They were formed by the then secretary of the FA, N.L. “Parr” Jackson, as the England team were suffering, failing to beat Scotland — and the idea was that this group of top players would play together regularly and improve as a team. They would play no competitive matches, only friendlies. And within seven years, they were hammering Scotland with nine Corinthian FCs in their starting line-up."

1. Who was hammering Scotland? Answer = Corinthians FC
2. What was significant about Corinthian FC beating Scotland? Answer = they did so with only 9 of their own players in the starting line-up.

Next claim: "Football back then was known as Association Football and Charles Wreford-Brown was talking to a fellow Oxford University student, who asked him whether he fancied “a game of rugger” — which was an abbreviation of the word ‘rugby’. Wreford-Brown replied that he would rather player ‘soccer’, shortening the word ‘Association’."

Our survey says: "apocryphal""apocryphal""apocryphal" and there are many more, it's one of the most oft repeated stories. Most sources are kind enough to state that it is just a story however.

Lets try some fact checking "Between 1883 and 1890, 52 of the 88 caps awarded in matches against Scotland went to Corinthian FC players."

The likely original source is BBC from a blog for local clubs unclear who Mr Cracknell is.

And then lets go for some sensationalising to boot (ignoring more terrible grammar this time): "In 1914, Corinthian FC decided returned to Brazil but, as soon as they landed, received word about the outbreak of World War I and decided to immediately return home — dodging torpedoes along the way."

1. per other reliable sources: The ship was informed en route. The players knew about the outbreak of war mid-journey. 4 Naval reservists were dropped off in Pernambuco where a British Naval vessel was already in place, the rest sailed on then returned from Rio.
2. Did they really dodge torpedo's? The best sourcing I can find is that at one point they had to change direction to avoid contact with a German vessel.

In short; badly written school project level mix of information cribbed from a number of sources on the internet mixed with. Koncorde (talk) 14:02, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• My opinion: First, the Sun shouldn't generally be used, although of course the nature of the statement affects how severe of a problem it is and therefore how pressing it is to do something. (This one was, granted, probably not pressing.) Second, yes, the ideal way of dealing with it when a statement is uncontroversial and easily-sourced elsewhere is to find a better source - regardless of how we feel about the rest, plainly the Sun is at least a low-quality source and replacing it with a better one that cites the same statement is always an improvement. Third, given the importance of
  WP:SOFIXIT - just find a better source yourself, that's what the CN tag is for. Fifth, based on that, dragging David Gerard here without making even a token effort to find a better source first seems like an abuse of process. You're arguing that David Gerard's replacement of a low-quality source with a citation-needed tag is so damaging to the article that it requires sanctions, while you yourself apparently didn't consider it worth the ten seconds it would take to insert a superior source that would clearly resolve the issue. That's not a reasonable position to take; editors are supposed to take reasonable steps to resolve an issue themselves first, and "find a mutually-agreeable source to replace one that is, at least, definitely low-quality" is obviously the first step here. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 22:34, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • SOFIXIT also applies to David Gerard fixing the source rather than simply removing it and tagging it. At the very least, he could leave the source and add a {{
    better source}} with a reason of the source being deprecated. Walter Görlitz (talk
    ) 22:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• Disagree. When dealing with something that uses an inappropriate source, which route you take (remove source and leave fact tag, remove cited material entirely, add better source tag) is a judgment call based on a number of factors, such as how bad the source is, how likely you think it is that the material can eventually be reliably sourced, and the statement being cited; none of those options are particularly bad and all are generally reasonable actions to take. Finding the hypothetical ideal source is the best outcome, but the importance of
  WP:V means that we can't demand that, and can't sanction people for reasonable judgement calls made when patrolling sources - maintaining a high quality of sourcing is central to our mission. This section, though, is demanding sanctions, which means that the person who filed it is saying they think that this was an extremely serious problem - at which point the fact that they failed to put in that work for something they say is so vital clearly undermines their argument. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 09:28, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Considering The Sun has put out a newspaper every day since they started, that's a lot of content, I don't understand why people are surprised that The Sun has been used as a citation considering the huge volume of information you can cite from them. Govvy (talk) 10:51, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you're essentially trying to re-litigate the depreciation RFC with this comment. The whole point of depreciation is that they publish false or misleading material and, therefore, there is not a significant volume of information that can be cited to them; the fact that they have printed a large amount of text is meaningless when the fact-checking and accuracy behind that text was inadequate in a way that fails to pass the standards set by

WP:V. If you disagree with that, then your problem is not with David Gerard or the way he went about removing this source, but with a basic unwillingness to accept the outcome of the RFC that depreciated it. --Aquillion (talk

) 09:28, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you are confusing blacklisting and deprecation. Feel free to prove me wrong. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:30, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Sure!

1. WP:RS
   says: Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources.
2. WP:RS is a guideline, but it's included by explicit reference in the first sentence of
   WP:V, which is policy: On Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. The words "reliable source" link further down the page to #What_counts_as_a_reliable_source, which is headed with Further information: Wikipedia:Reliable sources
   .
3. Verifiability - which is policy - requires the use of reliable sources. Deprecated sources are those that have been found, by strong consensus, to be generally unreliable. The deprecation RFC for the Sun says: the Sun is designated as a generally-unreliable publication. References from the Sun shall be actively discouraged from being used in any article.
4. WP:BURDEN
   - which is policy - states: Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source.

Thus: removing links to the Sun is almost always the correct thing to do, as it is a source that has been found generally unreliable. It is not mandatory - but it is almost always correct.

WP:BURDEN

- which is policy - also states: The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. So the burden of proof for addition or restoration of deprecated sources is entirely on the person doing so, and not on the person removing the deprecated sources.

I hope this adequately answers your well-meaning defenses of The Sun in recent edit summaries - David Gerard (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

No, it does not, because many of the facts are not controversial and that was the consensus.

Also, as they are not blacklisted sources, there's no urgency to remove the existing instances. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

The policy says Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. I don't see the word "controversial" in there.

The RFC includes the string "controversial" once, and that's in the course of noting that almost anything worth including in an article that's cited to the Sun can be replaced by a reliable source. Where are you getting your claim that many of the facts are not controversial and that was the consensus from? That's not in the RFC conclusion.

The RFC - a strong general consensus - says the Sun is "actively discouraged". That doesn't mention "controversial" as a requirement.

None of that mentions "urgency", but it doesn't have to - you're throwing in a red herring.

Removing Sun links, one at a time by hand, as I'm doing, is supported by

WP:RS

(guideline with strong consensus) and the Sun RFC (strong consensus). You're failing to refute this at all.

Re-adding links to The Sun without an incredibly good reason is a violation of

WP:BURDEN - David Gerard (talk

) 19:23, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

The general consensus of the RfC—and of the editors who keep complaining about your edits—is that it is not a problem for information that is not controversial. I appreciate that you're finding sources now, but it's not necessary to have a search-and-destroy mentality at this point. I'm sorry you think I'm failing to refute your points, but you are not reading consensus correctly. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

As for my "fixes" of your additions, you recognize I'm only expanding the

WP:BAREURLS that you're adding, right? Walter Görlitz (talk

) 19:45, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! Unfortunately, neither Citation Bot nor Refill2 are working for me. I filed a bug with the former.

If you can quote the words in the RFC that you think support that that it is not a problem for information that is not controversial, please do - because I'm really pretty sure its conclusion absolutely doesn't, and says - without qualification other than

WP:ABOUTSELF - that its use it is actively discouraged. But if you can quote the actual words from the RFC that you think support your claims, as I have done to support my claims, please do so - David Gerard (talk

) 19:48, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll let you find the words and read what others have written here.

They've both been broken for me as well. I've seen several bug entries. I've been using WebRef. More listed at Help:Citation tools. I don't mind fixing bare refs when you add them. I agree that RSes are better than deprecated sources, but also think replacing them should only be happening when they're blacklisted. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll let you find the words and read what others have written here. This seems to indicate you have no policy or guideline backing for your opinions. Which is fine, but does nothing to counter the basis in policy, guidelines incorporated by reference into that policy, and the strong consensus of a general RFC, of my actions. So your objection seems to be

WP:IDONTLIKEIT - David Gerard (talk

) 20:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Was it the general consensus of the RFC. I seem to recall it was more or less its pretty crap for all but stuff we can get form elsewhere anyway.Slatersteven (talk) 10:30, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

You may not see anything wrong with the article - and indeed there may be nothing wrong with it - but RS generally treat the source as problematic, and so should we. Put differently: per policy, RS' judgment overrides ours. François Robere (talk) 11:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Using The Sun for biographical details in Hillsong Church

@David Gerard: I see you ignored the addition I made in the Why Wikipedia Is Much More Effective Than Facebook at Fighting Fake News section above. Take a look and respond there instead as you're misrepresenting the point. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Not an RS for BLP.Slatersteven (talk) 17:39, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Then remove that claim altogether. In my humble POV, garbage source is always better than CN tag, so one knows from where some (dis)information comes from. Pavlor (talk) 17:49, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

The problem is they may not be aware it is a garbage source so may take it as fact.Slatersteven (talk) 17:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

yep - little blue numbers that go to a deprecated source deceive the reader into thinking the claim is sourced, and that the source is better than no source - and deprecated sources are worse than no source - David Gerard (talk) 18:03, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

There is even a tactic called

wp:overcite which partially relies on this, the idea if its sourced it must be OK.Slatersteven (talk

) 18:07, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

So, your solution is simply to leave an unsourced BLP claim in the article? You could tag that source as unreliable (for now), attempt to find a better source, or request replacement on the article talk page. Pavlor (talk) 20:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Assuming the source had been in the article well before the Sun was marked as deprecated, and the claim itself seems not overtly controversial (which " It was founded in 1983 inside a warehouse as Hills Christian Life Centre by former window cleaner

Brian Houston and his wife Bobbie Houston." seems to be, without touching a Google search), then it is reasonable to keep the deprecated source , tagging it as such, while a replacement source can be located. That said, a quick google search brings up, at least this, thought probably not the best source given its talking about criminal issues. --Masem (t

) 18:30, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Obviously it's not just me being wound up the wrong way, seems David is has annoyed Walter now, I still think he needs to step away from screwing around with citations from The Sun for a bit. Govvy (talk) 19:00, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Not really annoyed. I saw the discussion above and recognize that not everyone is onside with deprecated equalling unusable and "remove on-sight". We should not have a search-and-destroy mentality. It is not blacklisted. So yes, stepping back would not be inappropriate. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Given it takes about 10 seconds to find an alternative source for the information, it should really be replaced at the same time as it is deprecated. But I also have to ask, how the heck did The Sun end up being the source used in the first case? [4][5][6][7][8] Koncorde (talk) 19:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

5-6 years ago, we collectively as editors didn't question Daily MAil, the Sun, etc, and likely used these sources without question. With the wave of fake news and other misinformation in the wake of the 2016 global politics , we became much more cognizant of issues with these works, and over the last 1-2 years have deprecated them. It just takes time to humanly check each use for a replacement or alternate solution. --Masem (t) 19:29, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Not helped by the "why bother" attitude some display.Slatersteven (talk) 19:31, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't buy the "didn't question the Daily Mail and The Sun", there would have been dozens of results for this search originally. And if actively undertaking removal where it is the only source it's just courtesy to make a search to see if the information in question is already out there otherwise (which, given The Sun rarely goes beyond basic internet searching for info, usually cribbing from other newspaper print, it will be). Koncorde (talk) 19:47, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I share a similar, general concern to Walter. I don't specifically have an opinion on The Sun but I think people have gone a bit crazy with deprecation and removal. One example I can think of was a fact about a shotgun (production numbers I think). It was a non-controversial claim about the manufacture having produced X number of a given model. The fact clearly came from a press release and in the article was sourced to The Daily Caller (I think). Recently that bit was removed, not just tagged as CN but removed. It's not a huge thing as the production numbers of a specific model shotgun aren't earth shattering. However, for someone looking at the article that might have been an interesting fact. Even if we were OK sourcing the fact to the mfr's statements, DUE shouldn't be established based on their statement alone. Initially that wasn't a problem because The Daily Caller's reporting of the fact addressed DUE. I know some will argue that if it was important someone else would also report it. But that's not always true. When dealing with articles that get a lot of press it certainly is true. However, one of the great things about Wikipedia is the huge number of articles on lesser topics where sourcing is going to be more limited. Even if The Daily Caller isn't overly reliable, if they get a lot of readers that suggests the content is probably, generally something of interest. Why would I assume something reported in an esoteric academic book is more DUE than something reported by a source with a large readership? I'm not claiming the academic source is less accurate, just that we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss coverage in a deprecated source as irrelevant for establishing WEIGHT. I feel the way we need to handle claims in deprecated sources is treat them with great suspicion. But if those editors think their national database of readers will care, I would assume it has every bit as much weight as say a reliable local paper with very limited readership. Sorry this is a bit long an rambling but again this is a concern of mine with regards to how we seem to be on a deprecation kick and editors are often not applying some level of common sense as to what might make for a better article. TLDR/ if the claim isn't controversial and the topic is one that will generally have limited coverage (special interest, small scope topic, etc) then removal of a deprecated source needs both justification and the removing editor should show that they tried to replace the source rather than erase the fact. Springee (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Your proposed requirement for a given action on removal of a reference to The Sun is incorrect per

WP:V and the Sun deprecation RFC - see section above - David Gerard (talk

) 18:36, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the sort of actions you are taking are not within the policies you cite. I'm also not speaking to any examples involving The Sun in particular. I'm suggesting that what we have is a situation that makes for a lesser article in the end. Think of it as complying with the WP:IAR policy. I'm arguing that we should probably reconsider actions taken when a source is deprecated and not be as dogmatic about removal. Springee (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_254#RfC:_The_Sun reads What does "actively discouraged" mean to you David? Does it mean waste everyone's time removing and finding new references? Do you see editors who actively oppose that stance now (

WP:CONSENSUS

)? Finally, I see one section addressing your behaviour: "There has been a feeling among the opposing side that this can lead to a draconian purge of Sun references from WP without due discretion and that the newbies will bear the brunt of any over-zealous enforcement.

"Hence, I will urge all editors to exercise due restrain and use common sense; whilst dealing with removals. For an example, please harvest some efforts to source a cited-info to a reliable source, prior to removal of a DM cite."

So would you like to

WP:IGNORE the rule of CONSENSUS or shall I w.r.t. RS? Walter Görlitz (talk

) 20:22, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

You will have seen that I frequently do indeed seek out replacements, as seems appropriate with due editorial consideration! So I assume you're completely satisfied now - David Gerard (talk) 20:27, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

You have been doing so recently, yes. Thanks. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:30, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

and that sections conclusion "Hence, I will urge all editors to exercise due restrain and use common sense; whilst dealing with removals. For an example, please harvest some efforts to source a cited-info to a reliable source, prior to removal of a DM cite." So no it does not say do not remove them, it says make efforts to replace then if you can.Slatersteven (talk) 10:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

One interesting issue with The Sun is that they changed their website layout a few years ago - so there's a vast number of Sun references that were dead links, any URL with /sol/ in it. The claims are literally unsourced already. Only some of this content was ported over to the new site - but I'm certainly not going to lift a finger to find a replacement Sun link to insert, and in any case doing so would fail

cn

}} is literally not changing anything, just stopping us pretending to have a cite when we don't.

In my now-considerable experience of the sort of claims The Sun is actually used to cite on Wikipedia, such links generally warrant a {{

cn

}} at best, or removal of the claim. References to The Sun are generally:

1. redundant to existing cites
2. citing quirky and eye-catching information that can't be verified anywhere else, probably because The Sun made it up
3. tabloid gossip about BLP material, which will usually warrant straight-up removal under
   cn
   }} if it looks uncontroversial
4. early-life BLP claims that can't be verified in an RS - same treatment
5. Past
   WP:CRYSTAL
   , often failed, about pop stars, TV stars or soap operas - remove
6. Sun-only-sourced inflammatory stories about ethnic minorities, which should generally just be removed
7. football scores, which are almost universally replaceable.

The Daily Mail is much the same, with an extra line in unusually-contrived sports statistics, which in science would be called "

p-hacking

".

You would probably believe how defensive Sun defenders get - including the one who edit-warred back in controversial BLP claims that were sourced to literally a dead link, and loudly asserted that The Sun was a top-notch source for the subject because it was about sport therefore was wrong to remove. Quite a lot of the people objecting recently to my Sun removals are objecting, and sometimes revert-warring, over "cites" that don't work at all. Editors who aggressively defend The Sun are, IME, loud roughly in proportion to their misunderstanding of

WP:RS - David Gerard (talk

) 18:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Masem, and there are in some cases thousands of them, and people who will bitch and moan when they are removed even when used as sources for contentious items. Guy (help!) 21:36, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Would Playmakerstats be a RS for association football articles? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:47, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Any thoughts? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 19:19, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Stil waiting. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:09, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• You need to give more details about the site and what it is being used for in referencing, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 16:26, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @Atlantic306: To be used for the Tyreece John-Jules page as a reference for his eligibility to play for Dominica. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
    • Thanks, I'll have a look later, Atlantic306 (talk) 16:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
• Hi, in their favour they do have a corrections page but I haven't found an about us page there yet. They are not included at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Links where reliable football sources are listed but any of the links there would be acceptable. In view of this Ive left a question about it at the WikiProject Football talkpage, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 18:11, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
• The feedback from WikiProject Football is that it is not a reliable source, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:24, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello everyone. Indian media keeps on carelessly giving estimations of various Indian caste, communities, etc. on regular basis, although there hasn't been a census for those details since 1931. Are those non-scholarly estimations preferred over scholarly estimations from the experts of the field? Coming to the point, on one hand, we have a scholarly source which estimates

Nah. I would be even wary of scholarly sources w/o getting clarity on how they arrived at their figures. ∯WBG^converse 16:08, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, WBG. On a different note, you had draftified grandpa's article, which has now become grandson's draft. :) I guess it needs to be moved back without leaving a redirect. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I do not believe Blender magazine is a reliable source of information, as the magazine's "50 Worst Songs Ever" and "50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs...Ever" lists are incredibly biased and comes solely from one viewpoint. It is not even factual as others claim. In addition, the supposed criteria of the former list of "all songs had to have been hits at one point" leaves actually bad songs unnoticed and the "no novelty songs" rule is a lie as "Cotton Eye Joe" by Rednex is listed in the former. Therefore, all uses of it as a source must be wiped.

73.123.30.85 (talk) 20:38, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Looks like OK magazine to me. Are there any reliable sources disputing its reliability? Even one viewpoint may be due - with proper attribution. Pavlor (talk) 06:41, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• Usable. Critical reviews of music are inherently biased because they're
  in-text attribution when published by reliable sources. For example, Rolling Stone (RSP entry) has various "worst songs" lists that are cited in List of music considered the worst. Blender is listed as reliable on Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources, and the fact that it publishes "worst songs" lists is inadequate to justify its removal. — Newslinger talk
  09:26, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable - it was a professional print magazine with editorial oversight, policies, and professional journalists. There’s a consensus for it being reliable at
  WP:RSMUSIC. We don’t deem entire publications unusable just because someone disagrees with some of its entries on a list they wrote on an opinion piece either. Sergecross73 msg me
  11:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Reliable with attribution, it is after all only their opinion.Slatersteven (talk) 12:58, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• Sufficiently noteworthy source for attributed opinions on music, per
  WP:RSMUSIC - this is not a "reliability" question at all, because we're talking about an attributed opinion piece, not a factual claim. Is Blender sufficiently notable as a source of critical opinions to note its reviews, and even its "worst/best" lists? Sure. Does it have problems that mean we shouldn't do that? No - David Gerard (talk
  ) 13:37, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• Usable (rather than reliable, per David Gerard). Lists such as those are biased by definition, and while they'd hardly be any magazine editor's finest hour, they are part of the publication's content and, by implication, subject to the same editorial oversight given to less controversial pieces. If by saying they originate "solely from one viewpoint" you mean they are the opinions of a sole contributor, that would be different – who is the contributor? are they an established
  music critic? I'd say the "only hits" and "no novelty songs" criteria you mention should definitely be outlined when Blender's lists are cited at, say, List of music considered the worst. There was no end of discussion at the talk page there over the last year (most of it archived), so I'm interested to hear that these Blender lists carry a qualification or two. In contrast to retrospective appraisals of books, films and classical or jazz music, imo, pop/rock criticism quite deliberately seeks to shoot down a previous generation's idea of what is "best" or "worst", so – again, almost by definition – there is a heavy bias and editors are not likely to include works that leave their readers thinking too hard. JG66 (talk
  ) 14:09, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable as per discussions at
  WP:Albums, has editorial oversight. These sort of lists are published in most magazines on popular culture and it's a question of due weight whether they are mentioned in articles - personally I believe they should only be mentioned if the work concerned tops the list, imv Atlantic306 (talk
  ) 18:57, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• Usable as there is editorial oversight + it has a reputation for fact-checking. Why is this even a discussion? SolarFlash^{Let's talk about it} 03:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable. Music criticism is always an opinion and tends to be biased. Just because you don't like the list doesn't make it unreliable. Bluesatellite (talk) 01:32, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Related to a recent

• Reliable as based on a magazine with editorial oversight, certainly for staff reviews, the review in question seems to be by a staff member as it does not term it a contributor. There is no evidence of poor editorial oversight, also the page regarding the public seems to be a recruitment page " to join the team" rather than requiring contributions so its questionable if there is any usergenerated content at all, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:13, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable. It's an established, well respected magazine. There's a world of difference between publishing content submitted by the public and having a page on their site inviting people to apply to work for them as contributors. Exclaim! doesn't allow the public to post articles on their website. --Michig (talk) 19:38, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

  Michig, Atlantic306 thanks both for your views. I'll say now that if nobody else feels strongly enough to comment, I'll interpret that as consensus that the source is reliable (two against one, and I'm only 'a bit concerned', rather than strongly convinced that it's unreliable) and act accordingly. Views from others would be welcome. GirthSummit _(blether) 20:56, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

•  Comment: Usage example (diff) with edit summary "more than 500 incoming wikilinks". –84.46.53.192 (talk) 04:01, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Cars.com   bills itself as a leading digital marketplace and solutions provider for the automotive industry that connects car shoppers with sellers. No editorial policy that I can see. I'm not sure what credentials the staff have. They seem to be employed in the industry in various roles, but is that enough? Just curious. This is spawned by the insistence to use it as a bare ref here. Walter Görlitz (talk) 08:32, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable.
  generally unreliable in a 2019 RfC. — Newslinger talk
  08:42, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Seems many websites make most of their money from advertising. Your arguments suggest excluding advertising websites which are some of the largest and commonly referenced. Youtube comes to mind and all news sites. Should we exclude CNN because their content serves as content marking for ads? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 04:03, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable for facts. Clearly they have an interest in selling cars; however,

• an article like this shows they allow differing opinions, with 3 reviewers sometimes agreeing, but sometimes disagreeing.
• They gave reasonable anti-fraud advice including "Avoid car listings that are too good to be true" with more details.
• While it's possible their "expert" reviews could be biased by advertising, I found no accusations of that, and the reviews are sometimes critical. On the other hand, most are written by one author, Brian Wong.
• Anecdotal, but... For cars I'm familiar with, their reviews were accurate.
• They give a policy on adverts and say they adhere to "self-regulatory principles."
• Lastly, Jenni seems to give good advice. -- Yae4 (talk) 09:58, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

  The "Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising" refer to AdChoices, which means that Cars.com gives its readers a way to opt-out of some types of cookie-based targeted advertising. It doesn't refer to the blog's content. — Newslinger talk 10:32, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Re: Editorial policy: They have an "Editor in Chief," and the introduction article states, "Cars.com’s Editorial department is your source for automotive news and reviews. In line with Cars.com’s long-standing ethics policy, editors and reviewers don’t accept gifts or free trips from automakers. The Editorial department is independent of Cars.com’s advertising, sales and sponsored content departments." -- Yae4 (talk) 10:42, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

CoinDesk claims the same. "Since being acquired by DCG in January 2016, CoinDesk has operated independently from the parent company. We work in separate offices and maintain strict policies on editorial independence and transparency, described below." While my position in the CoinDesk RfC was different than the result of the RfC, I think all sources should be treated with a consistent set of standards. Cars.com is less credible than CoinDesk, in my view, as they sell the products they write about on the same website. The phrase "apparent conflict of interest" is a key factor quoted from the

policy on questionable sources. — Newslinger talk

10:52, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Consistency has its place, but cars.com does not actually sell the products, if I understand correctly. They connect buyers with sellers, like Ebay etc. Also, it's much easier for people to find other sources to cross check info' about cars. Maybe the absence of auto-related publications on WP:RSN is because most people have much better understanding of cars than bitcoin, and don't usually have disputes about things like MPG, top speed, or other facts that can be independently checked.

Not sure how we missed the list of 18 people on the editorial staff (about page, people, editorial), and if you click each person, it gives info on their backgrounds. -- Yae4 (talk) 12:01, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't see this as any more of a conflict than just about every automotive publication running ads for cars. Toasted Meter (talk) 13:10, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

The difference is that the main product of traditional automotive publications is the content itself. Magazine subscribers directly pay for the content. Online readers fund the publication's website with

notability, since content marketers tend to cover as many related topics as possible to drive more traffic to the site. — Newslinger talk

23:36, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Re: "The difference is that the main product of traditional automotive publications is the content itself. Magazine subscribers directly pay for the content." Really? An examination of assumptions may be useful - maybe look at a couple paper publications still in print, and see how many ads they have. While traditional subscribers do pay, advertising has almost always been a major revenue source for most publications, with some exceptions, like Consumer Reports. The advertising-free list is longer than I expected, but still a small percentage of magazines. Some excerpts (including newspapers) supporting my point: "It was clear that the traditional newspaper business model, which relied heavily upon advertisements, was no longer going to garner much revenue." [12] "Despite the industry’s struggles, magazines remain an important platform for many advertisers. Consumer magazine advertising spending will reach an estimated 15.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2019, placing it in a similar bracket to ad spending for the radio and newspaper industries." [13] "Typically, the higher the circulation figures, the more advertising costs, but you may decide it’s worth it due to high circulation figures." [14] Decline_of_newspapers#Crisis may be worth a look too. -- Yae4 (talk) 04:50, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, print publications tend to make more money from ads than from subscriptions, and my wording should have been clearer. As print publications die off and more Internet users adopt ad blockers, I do expect publishers to seek other sources of revenue than traditional advertising (newspaper and digital display ads). My argument is that lower levels of trust should be assigned to publications for which the line between journalism and promotion is more blurred. The decline of journalism is a real dilemma for media outlets; Wikipedia needs to adapt appropriately, but at the same time, it's not Wikipedia's problem to solve. — Newslinger talk 07:01, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately for Wikipedia with current methods/rules, determining if a site is "reliable" or has a "strong reputation" for accuracy becomes a popularity contest, without objective grading of sites. Those (who want to be in Wikipedia) with the best PR departments and connections with previously named "reliable" sources get included most, if wiki editors take interest and also support them. Back to the topic at hand, I cannot believe we're wasting so much time discussing a source for a non-contentious fact - Hyundai Palisade has lane centering tech. A duck duck go news search for "Hyundai Palisade lane centering" gives plenty of sources, and the three I looked at all had syndicated advertising. So, there is little difference, and this is really just to mediate a ... contest between editors. The real question there is whether to include 1 or 2 sources for each factoid, as seen at the Talk:Lane_centering talk page. -- Yae4 (talk) 12:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

If sources without blatant conflicts of interest make the same claims, then those sources should be cited and not the content marketing blog. To take an extreme example,

questionable, and better sources are available. A source doesn't need a public relations department to avoid conflicts of interest. — Newslinger talk

07:28, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

(Unindenting) Almost all sites are marketing content sites (or blogs), but some are more marketing-infested than others. A possible objective criteria for rating amounts of advertising could be the number of sites supplying JavaScript, and the number of tracker sites involved, as these can be counted with NoScript and EFF Privacy Badger add-ons. The following results were seen for an arbitrary selection of site home pages, both on and off the RSPS list. By this objective measure, several sites on RSPS put heavier emphasis on advertising than a site like Liliputing, which was called "Advert-infested clickbait." [15] These include ArsTechnica, CNN, Forbes, USA Today, and Verge. Based on this, it appears cars.com, while certainly another "advert-infested clickbait" site, is being unfairly criticized in this regard.

NoScript, EFF Privacy Badger, site:

32, 17 arstechnica.com #

15, 11 theatlantic.com

22, 21 cars.com *#

2, 0 caranddriver.com *

7, 4 climatefeedback.org

9, 4 cnet.com

28, 21 cnn.com #

8, 4 economist.com

18, 2 edmunds.com *

23, 12 forbes.com @

11, 9 fortune.com *

2, 1 theintercept.com

17, 18 liliputing.com *#

9, 4 motortrend.com *

15, 11 nytimes.com

31, 27 usatoday.com #

19, 11 verge.com @

16, 7 washingtonpost.com

43, 44 wired.com #

19, 14 xda-developers.com *@

14, 6 zdnet.com

Notes:

* Not currently on RSPS list.

# hit or exceed 17 AND 18 limits (arbitrary from liliputing score, which had other problems, e.g. lack of editorial oversight).

@ hit or exceed 17 OR 18 limits.

There seems to be a glitch in NoScript counts; manual counts from the pull-down are higher, sometimes by large amounts, compared with the "mouse over" summary score, not sure why.

FWIW, From Duck Duck Go news search, there are several alternative sources for the topic. Page scores are shown below. These compare with 18, 19 for the cars.com source page. By this measure, the cars.com source page is less "advert-infested clickbait" than the RSPS-listed Forbes alternative, as well as two other non-listed alternatives. [16] (Page score: 31, 15) [17] (Page score: 25, 18) [18] (Page score: 23, 15). The other current source for the topic scored "only" 13, 9, which is good compared with most others. [19] -- Yae4 (talk) 15:58, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

That's an interesting analysis, but I think it misses my point. I did not call Cars.com "Advert-infested clickbait"; I said that Cars.com has an "apparent conflict of interest", which is a criterion listed in the

policy on questionable sources. Regarding advertising, I rarely see any display ads online because I use uBlock Origin, which blocks ads and trackers in my web browser. Display ads are sufficiently pervasive that they are not considered conflicts of interest, and online ad exchanges use a dynamic bidding model that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for journalists to predict the ads that will be shown alongside their writing. Display ads also change constantly. Citations in Wikipedia articles refer to the content of the cited websites, and not the extraneous site elements (such as the ads). Most concerns regarding reliability are also based on the content of cited sources – the material that ad blockers are not able to hide. While independent publications live and die by the quality of their content, Cars.com sells cars, and its content is just a promotional device for its car listings. Cars.com's business as a classified ad site benefits the most when it publishes content that convinces the reader to buy cars on its site. Cars.com has no business incentive to write articles that do anything else, and that's what separates content marketing from actual content. — Newslinger talk

01:42, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

One more thing: please note that articles by

Forbes.com contributors (RSP entry) are considered generally unreliable. I suspect that Forbes.com contributors would be deprecated if Forbes.com didn't make it so difficult to identify contributor articles through their URLs. — Newslinger talk

01:47, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Guy called Liliputing "Advert-infested clickbait" (seen if you followed the link given, and text-searched), which seems like a concise way of summarizing concern over interest in accurate content versus conflicted interest in ads and affiliate referral or sales income. If cars.com reviews were never critical, then I'd agree, but they are critical sometimes, and I saw no particular bias in their reviews, based on comparison with my experiences (for one particular model they were correctly critical of). They don't seem any different than most other car publications in the need or desire to push car sales. If you could point to any factual errors or pushing particular cars or models that indicate a conflict of interest, that would be good (and a focus on content).

If one lets them, display ads would be "perfectly" targeted to each reader's interests and needs, and would guide them to the "right" choices and purchases... I don't use an ad blocker because it seems wrong to block first party ads when looking at a site, unless they use "excessive" bandwidth. Blocking JavaScript and trackers does block most ads though. :)

Blacklisting whole sites for having "wrong" editorial positions makes life much easier for editors who are "right," but I think it's a mistake, and is being used to suppress and bias information in general at wikipedia. Not because of facts, but because of conclusions and opinions reached from the facts. -- Yae4 (talk) 13:01, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think Cars.com has any great depth in the articles I've read but I've also never found any great flaws. I would treat them as a lower level reliable source. Perfectly fine for basic, statements of fact, descriptions of automotive systems etc. I would be concern about using them for more controversial claims. Springee (talk) 14:14, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Not an RS for facts, as it sells stuff. Maybe an RS for what they think but not sure why they would be relevant.Slatersteven (talk) 12:57, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable and unnecessary anyway I think. Most of its content appears to be either random opinion, PR / sales, or well documented in better sources. Guy (help!) 13:49, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

That is not what I'm seeing. Do you have an example? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 04:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable for basic facts, no evidence of unreliabilty of the factual information, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:05, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable There is nothing controversial being stated. In the given example matches what dozens of other sources state. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:43, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable for the citation shown. Information matches what can be found elsewhere and seems to corroborate what that source says. --Jayron32 18:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Gatehouse Gazetteer

• gatehouse-gazetteer.info  
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 270 § Gatehouse Gazetteer

Last time there was no obvious agreement on whether this self-published site counts as a

WP:RS. Richard Nevell said he would come up with some information showing the author to be an expert sufficient to at least allow attributed use, though most of the links are decorative ("External Links" not sources). Is it valid as a source, rather than an external link (which is a separate matter)? Guy (help!

) 13:47, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

On the Gatehouse Gazetteer's position as a reliable source:

• The website is used as a source in quite a few books and articles.
• The author's work on castles has been cited by others in the field, being treated as a reliable source. Richard Nevell (talk) 14:34, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Fortnight (magazine)

Just checking this is a reliable source? Going by our article—and the heavyweight commentators it notes as writing for the mag—it should be, and it's also indexed on JSTOR. Any views? All the best! ——SN54129 17:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Sounds from our article that it should be a source of notable opinions, at least - what was its track record for facts like? And, what prompts you to ask? - David Gerard (talk) 19:26, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Are these apparently reputable Egyptologists used at Land of Punt fringe?

There are too many sources being deleted from Land of Punt here[20] by User:Dalhoa for me to go through them all, but two obvious examples are Dimitri Meeks[21] as well as Ian Shaw's Cambridge University Press book.[22] which is still used in the article. And of course as the entire section on Punt's possible location elsewhere was deleted, Meeks again as well as sources used in the section on Sri Lanka which I don't really know about. I'm mainly concerned about the Egyptologists in any case. This is I believe really a POV problem, see [23] and [24] - note the focus on the Horn of Africa. But I'll pursue that elsewhere if we can get agreement on the Egyptologists here. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 19:56, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Meeks is definitely an RS. My understanding is that an Arabian location for Punt, which he does advocate, is a minority but not fringe position. I have his essay on Punt's location (I reviewed the book that contains it here). But I've never seen Egyptologists suggest Sri Lanka, and none of the sources for the deleted Sri Lanka section are Egyptological aside from the Shaw and Nicholson book, which only mentions Sri Lanka once and not in the context of Punt. A. Parrot (talk) 20:13, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I fully agree with both of you. There is a substantial difference from minority to fringe position. I'll quote two passages from

WP:DUE: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." and "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." This has little to do with fringe, which is hardly supported by reliable sources at all. In the old version of the article, the minority positions have less weight into the article itself, just as it should be. Khruner (talk

) 20:44, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm also of the opinion that the biblical suggestions belong, their sources seem ok. As I said, I don't know about the Sri Lanka sources. Doug Weller talk 20:47, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

About the more controversial Sri Lankan claim, I don't know. I neutralized the whole POV paragraph shortly after it was written; a good half of the sources (let's say, the "Western ones", not in my intentions to be racist or whatsoever) that allegedly supported the hypothesis later turned out to be critical of it. Khruner (talk) 21:01, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Las Vegas Review-Journal

HI, I want to know are this journal confiable for wiki ? reviewjournal.DRIS92 (talk) 13:41, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

In this articles

2020 Baghdad International Airport airstrike for example DRIS92 (talk

) 13:50, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:NEWSORG (vide Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact.) ∯WBG^converse

16:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. This is a
  undue. — Newslinger talk
  02:03, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Fox Sports

Hello all, just wanted to know if this was a reliable source: [1] The article in question is Zack HampleIdan (talk) 05:05, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

References

1. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20190610120345/https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/mlb-ballhawk-zack-hample-gets-roasted-on-twitter-after-complaining-about-clayton-kershaw-062117

• It's a reprint of an article from FanSided so is FanSided a reliable source? imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:28, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:NCORP

discussion

Hello everyone, I have been discussion the removal of HYPR notability maintenance tag on

WP:secondary defines secondary source as a source that gives information about a primary source, which could be an interview. Also, he left this source out of his checklist ^[1]. Does HYPR have significant coverage in multiple secondary sources? Thanks everyone!. Kriptocurrency (talk

) 22:58, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

They're right about interviews for purposes of

WP:GS/Crypto. I see the article is already marked as likely being paid spam, so being very harsh with its sourcing is absolutely appropriate - David Gerard (talk

) 23:21, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes but it is not actually an interview, the author is just talking about something Avetisov said. Kriptocurrency (talk) 00:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I see that you are also listed as a paid contributor to the article. I suggest that this is an excellent time to step back and not concern yourself further with the article in any manner - David Gerard (talk) 06:55, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Useful rule of thumb: if a "news" story is based on a press release, it is not independent, not reliable, and doesn't support notability. It's called churnalism. Guy (help!) 09:03, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

References

1. ^ Cohan, Peter. "Should Symantec Investors Worry About HYPR". Forbes.

Hindustan Times mirroring WP

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks § Hindustan Times mirroring WP

 – NitinMlk (talk) 20:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Here is an example of Hindustan Times mirroring nearly 80% of its article's content from WP's unsourced content – copyvio report.

Mirroring by HT

This is our unsourced version as of 14 July 2012 (the sole sourced line of the following content was actually supported by this unreliable UGC ): Jaspal Bhatti was born on 3 March 1955 at Amritsar in a Rajput Sikh family. He graduated from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh in Punjab, as an electrical engineer. He was famous for his street plays like his Nonsense Club during his college days. Most of these plays were spoofs ridiculing corruption in society. Before venturing into television, he was a cartoonist for the The Tribune newspaper in Chandigarh. In the 1990s, he pioneered the home-made comedy on Indian Hindi TV channel Doordarshan. He also was famous for his career in acting and comedy. Subsequent work Bhatti's subsequently acted and directed the popular TV series Ulta Pulta and Nonsense Private Limited for the Doordarshan television network. What attracted audience to his shows was his gift of inducing humour to highlight everyday issues of the middle class in India. Bhatti's satire on the Punjab police Mahaul Theek Hai (1999) was his first directorial venture for a full-length feature film in his native Punjabi language. It was well received amongst audience for its simple and honest humour. He played the role of Jolly Good Singh, a guard, in the movie Fanaa. He played a comical college principal in Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe. He also starred in the comedy Punjabi film Jijaji. Bhatti appeared in SAB TV's Comedy ka King Kaun as a judge with actress Divya Dutta. In his latest stint, Bhatti and his wife Savita competed in a popular Star Plus show Nach Baliye which went on air in October 2008.1 The couple put their best foot forward to entertain the audiences with their dancing and comic skills. The cartoonist, humorist, actor and filmmaker is focusing on acting as he is getting numerous offers from Bollywood producers as a comedian. And this is copy-pasted version published by the Hindustan Times on 25 October 2012: Jaspal Bhatti was born on 3 March 1955 at Amritsar in a Rajput Sikh family. He graduated from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh in Punjab, as an electrical engineer. He was famous for his street plays like his Nonsense Club during his college days. Most of these plays were spoofs ridiculing corruption in society. Before venturing into television, he was a cartoonist for the The Tribune newspaper in Chandigarh. In the 1990s, he pioneered the home-made comedy on Indian Hindi TV channel Doordarshan. He also was famous for his career in acting and comedy. Subsequent work Bhatti's subsequently acted and directed the popular TV series Ulta Pulta and Nonsense Private Limited for the Doordarshan television network. What attracted audience to his shows was his gift of inducing humour to highlight everyday issues of the middle class in India. Jaspal Bhatti's satire on the Punjab police Mahaul Theek Hai (1999) was his first directorial venture for a full-length feature film in his native Punjabi language. It was well received amongst audience for its simple and honest humour. He played the role of Jolly Good Singh, a guard, in the movie Fanaa. He played a comical college principal in Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe. He also starred in the comedy Punjabi film Jijaji. Bhatti appeared in SAB TV's Comedy ka King Kaun as a judge with actress Divya Dutta. In his latest stint, Bhatti and his wife Savita competed in a popular Star Plus show Nach Baliye which went on air in October 2008.[1] The couple put their best foot forward to entertain the audiences with their dancing and comic skills. The cartoonist, humorist, actor and filmmaker is focusing on acting as he is getting numerous offers from Bollywood producers as a comedian.

I have seen many more mirrors from Indian and Pakistani newspapers, but I never kept record of them. Anyway, I will report them here in the future. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

WT:MIRROR. Mathglot (talk

) 21:50, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• We need to keep note of the journalist concerned, here it is credited to an unnamed HT Correspondent, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

MLB.com

Editors here may be interested in a discussion about whether mlb.com is a reliable source. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:40, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:DAILYMAIL alt redirect

Current consensus [25] is that

WP:RSP

.

My question is, would it be controversial/not worth the bother to add a WP:DAILYMAIL (RSP) for Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Daily_Mail? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:41, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Strikes me as a bit long to be useful.

WP:RSP#The_Sun 'cos it saved typing.) - David Gerard (talk

) 14:41, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Point.

Wikipedia:Citing Daily Mail already. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk

) 20:43, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, I have no idea why the link can't simply be retargeted, especially since there's more than one RfC, but people seem adamant. Guy (help!) 16:12, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Climate Feedback and similar blog sources being treated differently?

Here we have Newslinger removing attributed, sourced material from a Forbes blog because it is considered "self-published."[26]

Here we have

Snooganssnoogans restoring un-attributed, sourced material from a "The Guardian" blog,[27] which was acknowledged as true (blog source) in an apology here,[28] and strikethrough of personal attack here.[29]

Should similar blog sources be treated oppositely like this? Should they be used or not for this article, and if so, should they be attributed similarly? -- Yae4 (talk) 19:08, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The word "blog" doesn't mean anything for reliability outside that it means typically one person wrote the content, and likely in a format that is more personable than hands-off/impartial. Whether a blog becomes reliable is then whether there is an editorial review of that blog before it is posted for fact-checking and the like.

It has been established the Forbes Contributor blogs are posted without any check by the paid Forbes staff. This makes these blogs self-published and thus not reliable. Guardian's blogs have been show to be processed by editors before they are published, and thus can be presumed reliable. --Masem (t) 19:17, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to quite match with Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#The_Guardian_blogs: "Most editors say that The Guardian blogs should be treated as newspaper blogs or opinion pieces due to reduced editorial oversight." -- Yae4 (talk) 19:25, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Right, they still have editorial oversight but they are written as opinions, so any claims or the like should be treated with attribution, but should not be considered wholly unreliable as with Forbes Contributor blogs. --Masem (t) 19:29, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Masem: it's been shown that that particular Guardian blog was done without full editorial control, see the WP:BLPN discussion. I'm not advocating reverting but hope the record is kept straight. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Peter Gulutzan, it's simply thatribution is wrong. It should be attributed to Dana Nuccitelli not The Grauniad. Guy (help!) 19:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

in-text attribution. The text in Special:Diff/936739627 should have mentioned the author's name (Dana Nuccitelli), but the edit was otherwise compliant with policy. — Newslinger talk

20:24, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Newslinger, Dean Burnett has spoken about the level of control that the Grauniad exerts on its blog contributors> They have broad latitude but there is definitely oversight - it's largely post-publication not pre-publication, but it's there. Guy (help!) 09:02, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

A couple clarifications please: (1) Trying not to cast aspersions, but isn't using a term like "Grauniad" an example of using "derogatory, and insulting terms," or is this considered OK when directed outside Wikipedia? [30] (2) Isn't taking an isolated comment, from a long blog article with lots of details about a study, considered cherry picking or undue weight? Especially when the "highly respected and influential resource" comment is not also found in other, more reliable sources? -- Yae4 (talk) 15:02, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Not commenting about "Grauniad", but when dealing with non-ideal sources, the context and author also matter, of course. We should prevent accumulating the opinions of non-experts (even if attributed), or of non-notable people. In some cases

WP:PARITY also applies, although when this is needed it could also be an indication that the topic lacks notability and so has little critical coverage. There's also the issue that in science, scientists tend to do their work more than educate about it, so criticism may come from a psychologist about fallacies, etc... So other than a little more oversight, this particular source would be from an "environmental scientist and risk assessor" according to the profile information (I personally don't know more about the author). —PaleoNeonate

– 23:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

More about the author: Mr Nuccitelli has a BA in astrophysics and MS in physics according to his linkedin page; the decision whether he was an "non-expert" or an "environmental scientist" (at the time he wrote) has to be subjective. More about "The Grauniad" -- apparently it is just a nickname -- Guy said that Dean Burnett (who appears to be a regular Guardian blogger) says that bloggers get some oversight after they write but Guy didn't point to what Dean Burnett exactly said. If it was not referring to official Guardian policies, or if it was about regular bloggers rather than bloggers like Mr Nuccitelli, then it is not relevant, the evidence that I pointed to remains, that Mr Nuccitelli's blog lacked editorial oversight that regular bloggers got. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:01, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Yae4, the "Grauniad" spelling has a venerable history, it is a running joke in Private Eye, and Guardian readers like me embrace it. Guy (help!) 16:16, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Polls published by Center for International Security Studies (CISSM) University of Maryland School of Public Policy and Iran Poll

• Used and disputed in Qasem Soleimani article. Also used (CISSM1, CISSM2, Iran Poll) in a bunch of other Iran-related articles.
• Note:"In the past few years, the Center for International Security Studies (CISSM) at Maryland University has produced reports on polling surveys that have become popular among academics, the media and politicians in the West. The reports are mostly published under the name of Dr. Ebrahim Mohseni. In 2009,
  Ayatollah Khamenei’s special medical team". "A significant amount of effort has been dedicated to presenting the polling surveys as a product of Maryland University. However, these are produced by Iran Poll. Iran Poll conducts research freely in Iran, which no other organization is allowed to do. ... this also reveals the monopoly Iran Poll has over the Western media when it comes to Iran, which demonstrates a troubling lack of critical assessment toward a polling institution supported by the regime in Tehran, which by its very essence cannot be neutral". Based on other polls by the same group, it is "claimed that Iranians believe the IRI is democratic while simultaneously claiming that Iranians do not want democratic forms of expression."Fair Observer
  .
• Comment: Examples of absolutely questionable poll surveys conducted by the mentioned institutes as well as their suspicious connections to Iranian officials could be found in the link above. Ms96 (talk) 09:42, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Here is a pdf of the surveySelfstudier (talk) 12:13, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Academic sources are more reliable than mainstream media. This poll was published in a highly reliable academic institution. Can't be unreliable. The reasons above are absolutely absurd and laughable.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 12:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Why are the reasons above "absurd and laughable"? Seems pretty valid to me. Please do explain. --HistoryofIran (talk) 18:19, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@SharabSalam: Most academic sources are usually regarded as more reliable than most news sources because academic sources such as university presses and mainstream journals have robust editorial oversight and reputations for correcting mistakes and withdrawing discredited works. Just as some newpapers are regarded as unreliable sources, being an "academic source" does not automatically confer status as a "reliable source". - Donald Albury 19:29, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• In the report itself, University of Maryland definitely takes ownership of that poll and makes certain claims about its methodology. The authors are listed as not only Ebrahim Mohseni, but also Nancy Gallagher (bio [31]) and Clay Ramsay (bio [32]). I'd tend to trust the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy and these seemingly experienced and qualified researchers over Fair Observer when it comes to analyzing the trustworthiness of political polls. Is there any other significant criticism of this polling organization? Red Rock Canyon (talk) 20:45, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@

massacred in a small town in southern Iran. Other than that, remember that this telephone poll was conducted in a country where contact with foreign media had long been criminalized (b), Iran bans contact with foreign media (c), and even any simple contact with ordinary activists would be considered a criminal offense (d)

.

In one case,

2017–18 Iranian protests which estimated that >70% of Iranians are not satisfied with their country's situation (e), (f)

. Funny is, at the same time (after 2017–18 protests) IranPoll in collaboration with CISSM published a poll survey which concluded that <4.9% of the Iranian public opinion favored a change in the regime, which was heavily criticized:

• (g) (translation of the head: "Maryland university, or a branch of Islamic republic"),
• (e2) (translation of the head: "Another controversial poll survey about Iranian protests"),
• (h) (translation of the head: "Why the recent "IranPoll" survey is not reliable"),
• (i) (translation of the head: "How Maryland university had been able to conduct a poll survey in Iran"),
• (j) (translation of the head: "Maryland university survey, hazy and in a "security atmosphere=فضای امنیتی").

Other cases of criticism:

• "The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) polls are promoted and publicized by pro-Tehran groups in Washington" How an Iranian misinformation campaign has been adopted and promoted by the Obama administration;
• "It was a questionable choice, to telephone people who live inside Iran, under a dictatorship that controls communications." Questionable Telephone Poll conducted Inside Iran by Maryland’s CISSM;
• "Unsurprisingly, the organizations and people behind the poll have distinct ties with the regime’s institutions and its lobbies abroad. Ebrahim Mohseni, the CISSM “researcher” who designed the poll, is also the director of University of Tehran Center for Public Opinion Research, an IRGC-backed institution with a track record of promoting the views of the regime and the Revolutionary Guards ... Mohseni also works closely with the National Iranian American Council, a well-known lobby of the Iranian regime" Iran is using fake polls to discredit the nationwide protests. Ms96 (talk) 09:04, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• Well that's something. But again, those have the same problems as the Fair Observer piece. The criticism you've posted is all from popular news sources. Is there any criticism coming from experts in the field of political research and polling? On the face of it, Washington Examiner, Iranian-Americans.com, or Irannewsupdate.com are far less trustworthy of organizations than the team publishing the polls. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 13:15, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Red Rock Canyon: Have you seen this interview with Hosein Ghazian (sociologist, with expertise in Middle East and North Africa) by Deutsche Welle? I translate some parts: "One of the controversial aspects of this poll survey is its timing, conducted right after the protests when the people were overly afraid of freely expressing themselves ... It is naturally not logical to trust the data obtained on sensitive political issues under such circumstances ... But more problems appear when the questions are not well-created and there are fundamental problems in the design [of the survey] ... For instance, it is a survey containing 100 questions, which obviously makes the interviewees so tired during a phone call that there would be a comprehensive loss in the reliability of the results ... The quality of the data collected is questionable from a technical point of view."

Besides, It wasn't just Fair Observer,

VOA, DW, and Radio Zamaneh. Other cases could possibly be found upon further searching. Ms96 (talk

) 15:23, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I saw that, I just don't know much about those other sources because I don't speak German or Persian, though they appear to be just more popular news sources of similar quality. And VOA of course, which I think is always questionable. Perhaps you should let some other people reply, as the purpose of this noticeboard is to bring more editors into a discussion. And please stop pinging me. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 16:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Ah, sure! Thanks for participating anyway. Ms96 (talk) 16:18, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

RFC on SPLC in lead paragraphs

A discussion which includes the assessment of the reliability of the SPLC as a source of reference for Wikipedia article lead paragraphs is taking place here. Please feel free to participate. SITH (talk) 22:08, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

This is a question about sourcing, not lead sections, and so should surely be here - David Gerard (talk) 22:49, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

LFL360.com

The most-cited source in

WP:FANSITE and WP:PHWOOOOOOAAAAR!. Guy (help!

) 23:46, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

@

WP:PRIMARY, which of course does not inherently make it reliable, with a large dose of FANSITE. Most of the writers involved were in direct contact with the league and it was featured on LFLUS.com, the main league website, after the first season. Essentially, it seems it was utilized by the league to write press releases (and maybe it was volunteer based). By 2019, it had actually replaced the "News" tab on the league's website. They are mostly used on the routine statements made by the league, which seems to fit PRIMARY: A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. But that is just my two cents as I have been digging for any non-primary sources and RS sources trying to clean it up. Yosemiter (talk

) 03:06, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, I believe I saw a couple of articles on there in my sifting through sources written by mark Staffieri on the Canadian league (like this one). So perhaps he would know more about what kind of site it is/was. Yosemiter (talk) 03:32, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Mostly I'm disappointed that WP:PHWOOOOOOAAAAR! doesn't exist - David Gerard (talk) 11:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, see also the deleted WP:HOTTIE. Guy (help!) 11:39, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

ok,not disappointed any more - David Gerard (talk) 12:51, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Semantic Scholar clarification request

I am opening this request to seek clarification about linking to PDFs from Semantic Scholar through the OABOT tool, specifically if those PDFs do or do not violate copyright. In this way, this request for clarification is less about reliability, and more about if we can link to them without copyright infringement. I understand this topic was discussed recently here, yet I am raising this again as a result of a number of my edits, where I inserted links to these PDFs, being reverted, specifically as discussed on the OABOT Talk page here. I am seeking to follow copyright laws and uphold them here on Wikipedia, but my recent reverts seem to have conflicting arguments as to whether they should have been done or not, so I want to clarify this issue here before I take any action with either inserting more links to Semantic Scholar PDFs or reverting the reverts to my edits by citing the results of this clarification. Thank you. --- FULBERT (talk) 14:16, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I hope this is the right place for this request for clarification to be posted, as I know it involves more an issue of reliability related to copyright than reliability alone. If it should be posted or pinged in another spot for discussion, please let me know and I am happy to do it there as well. FULBERT (talk) 15:41, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

This should never be part of a bot-automated process, as each link requires checking. It should be removed from the OAbot source list. Guy (help!) 16:14, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

My opinion is that they may or may not violate copyright, that we have no way of telling, and that because we can't tell we shouldn't link to them. My experience to back this up is that I tried searching for my own papers there and the second one I tried was clearly the publisher copy of an otherwise-paywalled paper, clearly not uploaded there by any author, provided for free download by semanticscholar even though it's still a paywalled paper. I think it's reasonably likely that semanticscholar obtained a license from the publisher to index the papers, extremely unlikely that it obtained a license to redistribute the papers open-access, and somewhat likely that it decided to go ahead and redistribute the papers that it obtained anyway despite not having permission. Alternatively maybe they intended to index but not redistribute and their software has a bug. But guesswork is guesswork. We need clear evidence that the publishers allow redistribution in order to avoid linking to pirate copies of papers, and we don't have that evidence in this case. We shouldn't default to assuming without evidence that anything we find on the net is free for the taking, just like we shouldn't assume that any object we find lying on the street is free for us to take and walk away with; that's pirate thinking. The evidence doesn't have to be anything as formal as an explicit statement of permission from a publisher, separately for each link: a link that appears to be the original publisher, a site controlled by an author of the paper, or an institutional repository of the author, can all be reasonably safely assumed to be legitimate. We can't just assume legitimacy for sites like citeseerx that pick up pdfs from anywhere, but citeseerx allows us to check in individual cases where they got the file from and whether that looks like the publisher or author. For semanticscholar, we don't even have that, we just have a bare pdf, and that's not good enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:44, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Update: Semantic Scholar says that the case I found of a paywalled pdf that they listed was a "mistake" and that it has been removed. (I didn't actually ask for it to be removed, but unsurprisingly that was the result of the query.) Given how easy it was for me to find it I suspect there are or were many similar examples. But I didn't get any information about how the mistake happened, how many other articles are affected, or whether the removal is of that article only or of a broader class of similar mistakes. My contact at SS is checking whether this is a one-off mistake or broader misclassification but I don't have an answer to that yet. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:53, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The answer to how this happened was "we crawl the web for open access PDFs" and that individual pdfs can be taken down on request. To me that means they cannot be regarded as free from piracy. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• I consider this too broad a limitation. If you link through them, you should check that what they are linking to is apparently free. DGG ( talk ) 05:00, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
• Thanks to David Eppstein we now have even stronger indicators that the website operates well within the bounds of legality in USA. It's not some pirate website but a trustworthy repository and it can be linked just like any doi.org or publisher URL. Nemo 07:48, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I was asked to comment here. I'm not familiar with that particular website, but based on what I've read, one would need to check the status of an individual article to ascertain its copyright and license status and hence whether linking to it is appropriate. The other possibility for papers from years ago that are unavailable from many years ago would be to make a fair use claim. That could be difficult given that the links are to entire papers rather than portions of them, but a countervailing argument would be if there is no other practicable way to access the work even for a fee. Someone such as Moonriddengirl might be able to comment more knowledgeably on these issues. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:11, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Today I saw User:Citation bot start adding links to Semantic Scholar pdfs automatically. I undid a few but I'm confident there are a lot more like that that I didn't find. The edits are difficult to find in its history because of an unrelated bug causing the bot to emit long and uninformative edit summaries. Does it need to be blocked? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:38, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

eBaum's World

I'm curious as to whether eBaum's World can be cited as a reliable source as a reference on a Wikipedia article?--Bartallen2 (talk) 07:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Not a chance - Does that site meet any of the criteria in the
  the Biographies of Living Persons policy before editing further. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk
  ) 07:57, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The question is, what would you want to cite from eBaum's World anyway. In the past I have wanted to cite material from Know Your Meme because it is generally well put together information, but it isn't regarded as RS.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:08, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks everyone - I just wished to clarify that --Bartallen2 (talk) 08:10, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Mint (newspaper) mirroring WP

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks § Mint (newspaper) mirroring WP

 – NitinMlk (talk) 20:51, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Here's a quote from WP's P. V. Sindhu (dated 2 September 2019):

Having made her international debut in 2009, she rose to a career high ranking of no. 2 in April 2017. Over the course of her career, Sindhu has won medals at numerous tournaments on the BWF circuit, including a silver medal at the 2016 Olympics ... She is the recipient of the sports honour Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, and India's fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri.

And here's a quote from a Mint's article (dated 25 September 2019):

Having made her international debut in 2009, she rose to a career high ranking of no. 2 in April 2017. Over the course of her career, Sindhu has won medals at numerous tournaments including a silver medal at the 2016. Sindhu is the recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, and India's fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri.

So careless was the copy-paste by the Mint that they even forgot to complete the sentence after "2016". - NitinMlk (talk) 20:51, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Is this the only article where this is known to have happened?
  WP:CIRCULAR is indeed a problem that can make this source unusable for Wikipedia. —PaleoNeonate
  – 13:12, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I have read just a handful of articles of this newspaper. So I can't say much regarding its overall quality. - NitinMlk (talk) 17:52, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• We need to keep note of the journalist concerned, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

  NitinMlk, Indeed as {u|Atlantic306}} says it is important to note the author. Please use Template:Backwards copy and post this on the talk page of the concerned article whenever you find such examples. DBigXrayᗙ 17:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

So what about its editorial oversight? Actually, this is the general problem with the newspapers from the Indian subcontinent. They don't care about accuracy, and their articles can be good, bad, or ugly. And it's up to us to sort out their mess. BTW, I looked at a couple of Pakistani articles today and ended up finding around half a dozen mirrors from Pak newspapers. I will post them here today. - NitinMlk (talk) 18:09, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Dawn mirroring WP

Here is an example of the Dawn newspaper mirroring around 60% of its content from WP (Copyvio report: [33]):

These are relevant quotes from WP's version of 8 April 2012:

He suffered from poor health during the latter part of his life and died of a heart attack at the age of 48, after recording approximately five thousand film songs for 583 released films. ... In 2003, 20 years after his death, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf awarded him the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, the "star of excellence," ... He sang his first song in the Indian film Ibrat in 1951 and got recognition. His family moved to Pakistan and settled in Karachi in 1954, where he began participating in variety shows, music programs, and children's programs on radio. In 1954, he recorded his first non-film song, "Bunder Road se Keemari", written by Mehdi Zaheer for the popular Radio Pakistan show Bachchon Ki Duniya; the song was a hit and became the steppingstone for Rushdi's future. ... After the success of "Bunder Road se Keemari", Rushdi was offered songs as a playback singer for films and quickly gained popularity. He lent his voice to many hit films like Bara Aadmi (1956), Wah Rey Zamaney (1957), Raat Ke Rahi (1957), Yeh Dunya (1958) and many more.

Here is the relevant quotes from the Dawn's article of 11 April 2012:

He sang his first song in the Indian film "Ibrat" in 1951 and got recognition. His family eventually moved to Pakistan and settled in Karachi in 1954, where he began participating in variety shows, music programs, and children's programs on radio.

In 1954, he recorded his first non-film song, "Bunder Road se Keemari", written by Mehdi Zaheer for the popular Radio Pakistan show Bachchon Ki Duniya – the song was a hit and became the steppingstone for Rushdi's future.

The success of "Bunder Road se Keemari", opened new doors for Rushdi as he got offers for playback singing for films and quickly gained popularity. He lent his voice to many hit films like "Bara Aadmi" (1956), "Wah Rey Zamaney" (1957), "Raat Ke Rahi" (1957), "Yeh Dunya" (1958) and many more.

Unfortuantely he suffered from health issues during the latter part of his life and died of a heart attack having recorded about 5,000 film songs for 583 released films.

In 2003, 20 years after his death, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf awarded him the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, the "star of excellence."

- NitinMlk (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• There is no byline for this article so it could be a press release or sourced from elsewhere, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Dunya News mirroring WP

Here's an example of Dunya News mirroring nearly whole of its article from WP (Copyvio report: [34]):

This is WP's version as of 8 April 2012

Ahmed Rushdi, SI, PP (Urdu: احمد رشدی‎; April 24, 1934 – April 11, 1983) was a versatile Pakistani playback singer who worked in film music and was "an important contributor to the Golden Age of Pakistani film music." Rushdi is acclaimed as one of the greatest singers ever lived in south asia[1] and was a natural baritone, yet could sing high tenor notes with ease. Born in Hyderabad Deccan, he migrated to Pakistan and became a leading singer in the Pakistan film industry. He is considered to be one of the most versatile vocalists of the subcontinent and was capable of singing variety of songs. He is also considered to be the first regular pop singer of south asia[2] and credited as having sung the "first-ever South asian" pop song, "Ko-Ko-Ko-reena."[3]

In 1954, he recorded the official National anthem of Pakistan with several other singers.[4][5] Rushdi has recorded the highest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema in Urdu, English, Punjabi, Bengali, Sindhi and Gujarati languages. He suffered from poor health during the latter part of his life and died of a heart attack at the age of 48, after recording approximately five thousand film songs for 583 released films. Besides popular music, Rushdi also helped popularize the ghazals of Naseer Turabi.[6]

In 2003, 20 years after his death, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf awarded him the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, the "star of excellence," an honour given for distinguished merit in the fields of literature, arts, sports, medicine, or science.[7] A street in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, also named Ahmed Rushdi Road.[8]

And this is the full article of Dunya News published on 11 April 2012

The 29th death anniversary of versatile playback singer Ahmed Rushdi is being observed today. Ahmed Rushdi was a versatile playback singer who worked in film music and was an important contributor to the golden age of Pakistani film music.Rushdi is acclaimed as one of the greatest singers ever lived in south Asia. He is considered to be one of the most versatile vocalists of the subcontinent and was capable of singing variety of songs. He is also considered to be the first regular pop singer of south Asia and credited as having sung the first-ever South Asian pop song‚ Ko-Ko-Ko-reena.In 1954‚ Rushdi recorded the official National anthem of Pakistan with several other singers. He recorded the highest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema in Urdu‚ English‚ Punjabi‚ Bengali‚ Sindhi and Gujarati languages.He suffered from poor health during the latter part of his life and died of a heart attack on April 11 1983 at the age of 48‚ after recording approximately five thousand film songs for 583 released films.In 2003‚ 20 years after his death‚ Ahmed Rushdi was awarded the Sitara-e-Imtiaz while a street in Gulshan-e-Iqbal‚ Karachi‚ was also named as Ahmed Rushdi Road.

- NitinMlk (talk) 18:22, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• There is no byline so this could be a press release or sourced from elsewhere, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The Nation (Pakistan) mirroring WP

Here's an example of The Nation mirroring half of its article from WP (Copyvio report: [35]):

This is WP's version as of 27 march 2011:

... was "an important contributor to the Golden Age of Pakistani film music." Rushdi is acclaimed as one of the greatest singers ever lived in south asia[1] and was a natural baritone, yet could sing high tenor notes with ease. Born in Hyderabad Deccan, he migrated to Pakistan and became a leading singer in the Pakistan film industry. He is considered to be one of the most versatile vocalists of the subcontinent and was capable of singing variety of songs. He is also considered to be the first regular pop singer of south asia and credited as having sung the "first-ever South asian" pop song, "Ko-Ko-Ko-reena."[2] In 1954, he recorded the official National anthem of Pakistan with several other singers.[3][4] Rushdi has recorded the highest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema. ... Since 1976, Ahmed Rushdi was a heart patient and his doctors advised him to abstain from singing but Rushdi refused by saying that music was his life. When he had a second heart attack in 1981, he was composing a musical album in the voice of singer Mujeeb Aalam. His last non film song was "Aaney walo suno" which was a duet with Mehnaz. On the night of April 11, 1983, he had a third heart attack. He was immediately taken to the hospital but pronounced dead by the doctors.

And here is the quote from The Nation's article dated 12 April 2011:

He has recorded the highest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema industry. He sang over 800 songs for 583 films till his death in 1983. Ahmed Rushdi , a master of all moods was adept at singing all styles, be it happy, comedy, tragedy, qawwali, lullaby, and patriotic, pop, revolutionary or folk numbers. He was an important contributor to the golden age of Pakistani film industry and considered as one of the greatest singers of South Asia. He is also considered the first regular pop singer of South Asia and credited as having sung the first ever pop song of South Asia 'Ko-Ko-Ko-reena. Since 1976, Ahmed Rushdi was a heart patient and his doctors advised him to abstain from singing but Rushdi refused by saying that music was his life. When he had a second heart attack in 1981, he was composing a musical album. On the night of April 11, 1983, he had a third heart attack. He was immediately taken to the hospital but pronounced dead by the doctors.

- NitinMlk (talk) 18:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• This one has a byline "from our staff reporter" so seems to be guilty of mirroring, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:58, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Atlantic306, do you think they would care about byline while copy-pasting such a POV mess? BTW, can you find any older version of this content anywhere else on the net? This query is also regarding your similar comments to other mirrors. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• • I dont think it would be from anything any older as it looks like a press release put out on the event of his death by his agent or marketing agency or suchlike, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

How can these be press releases when we already had the same content way before publishing of any of these mirrors? - NitinMlk (talk) 19:33, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Because the probable press release has been copied from Wikipedia, for all we know it could be the same person who wrote the press release who previously wrote the content on Wikipedia such as his agent, marketing agency etc, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:39, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

That would make them a clear case of copyvio as they (or that non-existent agent) never gave attribution to the relevant WP articles. I guess you know that the content of this project cannot be copied without giving proper attribution. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

AskMen

• askmen.com  
• AskMen

We have around 800 articles using this as a source. According to the article it's an aggregator. A lot of the references are to listicles, often of attractive women. It's owned by

Ziff-Davis but I can't see any discussion of its editorial oversight. A lot of the content is declared as paid sponsored content, much of the rest looks like churnalism. Is this a RS? Guy (help!

) 17:18, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Not very, on its best days it would be yellow-rated - tabloid quality - David Gerard (talk) 19:01, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 Comment: Example Seinfeld: A XXX Parody reference in a GA2 pending #Filmography. –84.46.53.160 (talk) 06:24, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• It doesn't seem to have an about page, or a staff page, or anything of that nature. All it has is a media kit page, which says several alarming things that give me the impression that they do not distinguish between advertising and other content. Adweek has a lot to say about them, too: This says they do have editors (which I couldn't find on their site), but notes that though the editors aren’t really interested in product pitches, a lot of the site’s health, sexual and divorce content come from PR pros. Here is a bit more about their writers, though it doesn't say much. But note the context, again; it seems like the unspoken reality of Askmen is that its pieces are often written by advertisers, without any disclaimer indicating this. These things make me think that it's probably not a good source - it approach is slightly more sophisticated than traditional churnalism but shares the same problems. --Aquillion (talk) 11:45, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

  Aquillion, yeah, that's pretty much my impression. No journalism, just churnalism Guy (help!) 23:52, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

  Updated per Aquillion, I'm very paranoid. –84.46.52.225 (talk) 22:19, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The News International mirroring WP

First mirror

Copyvio report: [36]

This is WP's version as of 23 October 2014:

... was "an important contributor to the Golden Age of Pakistani film music." ... Rushdi has recorded the highest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema in Urdu, English, Punjabi, Bengali, Sindhi and Gujarati languages and found unprecedented success as a playback artist from the mid-1950s to early 1980s. ... He suffered from poor health during the latter part of his life and died of a heart attack at the age of 48, after recording approximately five thousand film songs for 583 released films.

Here is the relevant quote from The News International's article of 11 April 2015:

Ahmed Rushdi recorded the highest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema in Urdu, English, Punjabi, Bengali, Sindhi and Gujarati languages and found unprecedented success as a playback artist from the mid 1950s to early 1980s. He recorded approximately 5000 songs for 583 released films. ... Rushdi died of a heart attack at the age of 48 on April 11 1983. He was considered as a key contributor to the golden age of Pakistani film music.

• This one has no byline so it could be a press release or sourced from elsewhere, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:00, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Second mirror

Copyvio report: [37]

These are the relevant quotes from WP's version of 23 September 2019:

In November 2010, 27 years after his death, the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari awarded him the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, the third highest honour and civilian award by the State of Pakistan, given in the fields of literature, arts, sports, medicine, or science. ... Murad produced eleven films under his father's company Film Art. He was the youngest film producer in the industry at that time. Most of his produced films were either Golden Jubilee or Silver Jubilee. During the 1960s and early 1970s, he produced films like Insaan badalta hai (1961) (his first film as producer), Armaan (1966), Ehsaan (1967), Naseeb apna apna (1970) and Mastana mahi (Punjabi film of 1971). However, after Mastana Mahi he produced no film except Hero which was produced in the 1980s and was released after his death.

And here is the relevant quotes from the The News International's article dated 2 October 2019:

... in November 2010, after a long period of 27 years after his death, the Pakistani government awarded him with Sitara-e-Imtiaz, the third highest honor and civilian award by the State of Pakistan, given in the fields of literature, arts, sports, medicine, or science. Murad produced eleven films under his father’s established ‘Film Art’. He was the youngest film producer in the industry at that time. Most of his produced films were either Golden Jubilee or Silver Jubilee. During the 1960s and early 1970s, he produced films like Insaan badalta hai (1961) (his first film as producer), Armaan (1966), Ehsaan (1967), Naseeb apna apna (1970) and Mastana mahi (Punjabi film of 1971). However, after Mastana Mahi he produced no film except Hero which was produced in the 1980s and was released after his death.

• This one has no byline so could be a press release or sourced from elsewhere, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:03, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

PS: I found these & the previously mentioned mirrors from Pakistani newspapers by just having a cursory look at two Pak articles, namely Ahmed Rushdi and Waheed Murad. So the situation of Pak newspapers seem even worse. - NitinMlk (talk) 18:40, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• It looks more like the use of a press release to me given that only one of these articles has a byline and that one possibly used the same press release, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:03, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not going to respond to each of the substantially identical posts, so consider this note to apply to the the several above this from the same OP: This appears to be an issue for people copying Wikipedia without attribution, not on judging source reliability. Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks#Non-compliance process covers what to do in those situations. --Jayron32 16:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Uproxx again

Over at

WP:RSP. I am neutral. ミラP

02:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Update: These editorial guidelines weren't brought up in the first discussion, so I wonder if it changes anything. ミラP 02:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable it has a full staff, accepts corrections and there is no evidence presented that it is unreliable for media articles and reviews and nothing in its Wikipedia page Uproxx to ring alarm bells but probably use with caution for anything controversial, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:27, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Newspaper of record

Shouldn't we update

WP:RS/P with the Newspaper of record (NOR) list (or reconcile them). I do AIV work, and knowing that say The Hindu is a newspaper of record for India is very useful (eg. tidying up from edit warring over "controversy" sections in Indic BLPs – happens often). However, our WP:RS/P doesn't have the full global set of NORs? It would be great to have the NOR article brought up to GA (even FList) standard (e.g. every entry updated, validated and sourced), and which would automatically be included as WP:RS/Ps? Britishfinance (talk

) 11:28, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Britishfinance, I'm quickly pinging Rosguill here, just because this would seem to overlap considerably with some work they've been doing on establishing lists of reliable sources for different regions, so their view would probably be useful. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:58, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Girth Summit, thanks for the ping. I think that leveraging this information could be useful. I'm a little concerned that it seems like newspaper of record refers purely to the role of that newspaper inside that society, which would mean that we still need a vetting discussion for newspapers listed there: we probably shouldn't treat Izvestiya, Rodong Sinmu and People's Daily on the same plane as die FAZ. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Question... could Pravda be considered the “Newspaper of Record” for Soviet Union era Russia? Blueboar (talk) 17:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

  Izvestiya was the newspaper of record. _signed, Rosguill ^talk

  17:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

By saying that, I object to any blanket approval/disapproval of any type of mass-media. Any non-marginal newspaper can and should be considered a reliable/nonreliable source, depending on the context: even a local newspaper can be uses as a source for some non-controversial and low importance subjects (e.g. minor historical facts about some small town or local school). In contrast, even a top rank newspaper article is hardly a good source in an article about EPR paradox, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, or the Holocaust. I already proposed to modify the policy to make it clear that non-marginal newspapers may be reliable, depending on a context, and to explain that relevant guidelines and WP:REDFLAG should be consulted to make a final decision in each concrete case. I suggest to renew this discussion and implement these changes.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:16, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose using
  WP:OR). The BBC article lists Het Volk (which no longer exists: thus currently circulation zero). The BBC article does not mention Gazet van Antwerpen nor De Morgen, usually considered high quality newspapers (Dutch-language concept: kwaliteitskrant) in Belgium. Further, the reputations of these newspapers (as well those mentioned in the BBC article as those I additionally mentioned) varied over time. So no, "Newspaper of record" is useless as concept in Wikipedia's guidance, and Wikipedia's Newspaper of record article is badly written, so rather misguiding than helpful in the matter. --Francis Schonken (talk
  ) 18:08, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

See my above comment. I see no problem to stipulate that newspapers of records are reliable for some concrete types of statements. Thus, newly adopted laws published in such a newspaper must be considered a reliable publication. However, op-ed materials about some controversial historical or political subject can hardly be treated as equally reliable sources, especially if that statement raised WP:REDFLAG. Definitely newspapers, including newspapers of record, do not meet RS criteria listed in WP:REDFLAG. These two examples are just extreme sides of a continuous spectrum. IMO, a policy and guidelines should explain that, except some obvious cases, no universal rules defining reliability of newspaper publications can be proposed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:25, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

The proposal is not to automatically merge the NOR list into WP:RS/P (I don’t know if they are all correct), but to take out the NOR candidates that are clearly valid and referenced (E.g. The Hindu), and add them. Per my starting comment, it would be great If someone (maybe me later), would bring the NOR article to GA-Flist status (ie where the examples were all clearly WP:RS/Ps), bowever, there are quite A lot of this list that could be easily merged into the WP:RS/P list without much fuss? Britishfinance (talk) 18:23, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

(@Britishfinance - Just a quick aside. You might want to amend your comments, and not use an abbreviation “NOR” for “Newspaper of record” (or perhaps use a different abbreviation) ... the issue is that the abbreviation “

• Judging from the examples at Newspaper of record#Examples for the countries I know, either the term has little meaning, or there's enough controversy about the meaning that the list is impossibly difficult to compile and unusable in practice. I doubt there's currently any useful guidance to be gained from this classification, from the point of view of the English Wikipedia policies. One exception could be the subclass "newspaper of public record", for instance in certain countries the public administrations are forced to publish a number of official acts (such as tenders) on certain newspapers, so it could be useful for the editors to know that they can look for certain "official" information on this or that newspaper's archive. Nemo 14:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose using this for anything. Most of these are reliable sources for most topics, but these newspapers tend to reflect the views that are prominent and/or popular in their own countries (such as portraying their own country in a positive light). Not the gold standard when we should be aiming for a global perspective. buidhe 21:09, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Leah Labelle Vladowski

Hello everyone! I have used the above obituary as a source for the

A long form obit story like this (comparable to what the NYtimes may give), is reasonable. We want to avoid the short form obit common to most papers for the everyday average person as sources as those typically aren't written by the newspaper, but submitted by friends/family. A long form shows research by the newspaper itself, and then you just consider the reliability of the newspaper (of which the Seattle Times is just fine). --Masem (t) 20:05, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you for the response! That makes perfect sense to me. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
  Aoba47 (talk
  ) 20:19, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

• Long form obits in respected newspapers are excellent sources IMO. They give a good reality check on what's considered the most important facets of a life, and are a good guide to what can go in the lead. Guy (help!) 09:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you for the response! I just wanted to double-check.
  Aoba47 (talk
  ) 22:58, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Slywriter (talk) 21:31, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Slywriter, I vote nuke both. Anything significant will have an alternate source, and there are very few so the impact is low. Guy (help!) 23:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Concur. Eliminate both. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 14:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion if including shortcuts like

• Longmont Times-Call
• https://www.timescall.com/opinion/columns/
• https://www.timescall.com/author/carl-brady/
• Some recent discussion focused on one particular quote.[39]
• I found no previous RSN discussions. Maybe it's "stellar"?
• Used in ~70 sources. [40] including at least 5 opinion columns [41].
• Endorsed Clinton in 2016; Romney in 2012. [42].

​ What is their "reputation for checking the facts," "meaningful editorial oversight," or "apparent conflict of interest"? -- Yae4 (talk) 19:38, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: the specific article that began the discussion is this one. Jlevi (talk) 13:03, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

To summarize my comments from the linked discussion, I believe that this source is not strong enough for a BLP due to its editorial context and authorship. The publisher is a local newspaper from Longmont, Colorado, and I have found no reviews of the source in general; I'd probably trust it for most statements. However, the article in question appears in an opinion column, and the publisher does not have a well-defined editorial policy on these opinion columns. By

WP:NEWSORG, "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." In any case, while I do not think it appropriate to use this source for statements of fact, it might still be a useful source if the author were himself important in this discussion. However, this individual has no history (that I can find) outside of the opinion section in this particular local newspaper, so including his comments even with attribution doesn't appear worthwhile. Jlevi (talk

) 01:52, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Longmont Times-Call appears to be a typically-reliable local paper. As Jlevi notes, this is also clearly an editorial and thus the statement must be "attributed to that editor or author", not as a fact. As for whether engineer Carl Brady is worth citing or not, I'll leave that to the editors on the relevant talk page to determine. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 14:26, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello,

As you rejected my Draft:Burgeon Law stating

This submission's references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article—that is, they do not show significant coverage (not just passing mentions) about the subject in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject.

I just wanted to as if the below link would be considered as a reliable source for the firm

https://www.zaubacorp.com/company/BURGEON-LAW-LLP/AAE-9171

The criteria for determining notability of organizations such as law firms is set out at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), where it states, "The primary criteria have five components that must be evaluated separately and independently to determine if it is met:

1. significant coverage
   in
2. multiple
3. independent
   ,
4. reliable
5. secondary sources
   ."

The link you provided does not meet any of those criteria. Please do not try to create an article for this entity until you have identified multiple, independent, reliable, secondary sources that provide significant coverage of the firm. - Donald Albury 14:29, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

FWIW I found 70 uses of zaubacorp on enwiki articles, and would assume "good enough" based on that.

WP:RS/N (=here) archive search only finds your question. –84.46.53.84 (talk

) 00:54, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Information from public registries may be useable to source some basic facts, but the site in question certainly doesn´t confer any notability to the article subject. Indiscriminate collection of informations is not the kind of reliable sources we are looking for. Pavlor (talk) 16:34, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

The Hindu had copied misinformation from WP, and they never responded to multiple emails from an experienced WP editor – see Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics/Archive_68#The_Hindu_copying_misinformation_from_WP. - NitinMlk (talk) 21:06, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

NitinMlk, Thank you for mentioning this, and adding the archive link. Paging previously involved discussants @Sitush, Abecedare, and DBigXray: in case they wish to add anything. Mathglot (talk) 21:55, 19 January 2020 (UTC) And Fylindfotberserk, not previously involved afaict, but who has his finger on the pulse of related topics, and may be interested. Mathglot (talk) 21:57, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Mathglot, Thanks for the ping. It is sad to see that the hindu failed to respond to the mails. I hope the email used was the right one. I will also suggest including N Ram, in the mail chain. He is on twitter. I regularly refer Hindu for the current topics, and I fing their reporting very factual. Regarding the article, since we have a conflict and we did not get a clarity from Hindu, I would suggest to disregard The Hindu article (a news source) in favour of the scholarly secondary source. DBigXrayᗙ 22:07, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@DBigXray: I don't know how it is with emails to big media companies these days, but I suspect that they are filtered by bot, and/or humans (more rearely), and simply considered less important. If anyone saw fit to write a letter (20th-century style, you know: paper, envelope, stamp, signature, all that stuff...) and address it to one of the top editors on the masthead, I'm guessing that would gather a better response. Typed/stamped letter : Email (21st c.) :: Telegram : Typed/stamped letter (20th c). I'll mail you a stamp, if you need one. Mathglot (talk) 22:13, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Suresh Nambath

The Hindu

Kasturi Building, Anna Salai, 859-860, Mount Road

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600002

+91-44-2857 6300
Mathglot (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray, Apparently, you're not the only one whose email they don't reply to. See bold entry "Metadata" in section "Further information" here. Mathglot (talk) 23:11, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray, thanks for your input. The Hindu used to have very high standards till around 15 years ago. It is still among the best Indian newspapers. But I have seen multiple cases like the above one from it. Having said that, other Indian/Pakistani newspapers are even more careless in fact-checking.

Mathglot, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I have seen many cases of blatant copy-pastings from all major Indian newspapers. In fact, the level of accuracy of Indian/Pakistani news media is inversely proportional to the popularity of this project. Unfortunately, for the last decade or so, this project has become their de facto reference site. - NitinMlk (talk) 22:25, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@NitinMlk: Indeed, and it's only their laziness that makes it so easy to spot. What you say about the project is true far beyond Indian newspapers, and I've seen articles in various topic areas clearly leaning heavily on WP content as a crutch, but paraphrasing or summarizing just enough, that you can't quite prove it. This is becoming a more and more serious problem, and the solution isn't obvious, but good reporters on reliable media will have their own on-the-ground sources. The problem is trying to evaluate which are which. Mathglot (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

The journalists of the developed nations are taught from their early life regarding plagiarism and copyrights, which makes it harder to catch them. But the reverse is true regarding the ones from the subcontinent. :) - NitinMlk (talk) 22:53, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• • I don't believe we should rule out national newspapers from India and Pakistan for a few examples of mirroring as this would be institutional bias. Where there is mirroring that obviously rules out the source for that particular article but the use of Wikipedia is prevalent in all media , in the western hemisphere as well, not by the better journalists but by the worst lazy journalists who may just make a better job of paraphrasing it. Therefore, a case by case approach is needed imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:17, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Atlantic306, you have made valid points. The worst are the ones who just pick facts from this project. - NitinMlk (talk) 22:25, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

And, yes, we cannot rule out Indian/Pakistani news media, as a huge number of our articles are solely sourced to them, especially those of the present-day sportspersons, entertainers, and politicians. So, the case-by-case consideration seems like the only alternative. Having said that, scholarly sources should always be preferred over them. - NitinMlk (talk) 22:46, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Also agree that it should be case-by-case. Another thing to keep in mind, is that all large media companies are fallible and will have the occasional sourcing scandal, such as the NY Times and Washington Post. The key thing here, is what their reaction is: they stomp on such material heavily as soon as it is recognized, and are not afraid to criticize themselves for past actions, or to open up to reporters from other media, to criticize them. If The Hindu would respond openly and critically to DBigXray's missive, ideally in the pages of the newspaper itself, that would go a long way to mitigating the damage to their reputation. Mathglot (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• I consider The Hindu to be quite reliable in general, possibly the most out of all Indian media. However, occasional slip ups are possible. Circular reporting is actually a common problem in many Indian newspapers. In this particular case, I think it is better to use the secondary source instead of The Hindu.--DreamLinker (talk) 01:32, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Another example from The Hindu

Saina Nehwal won the inaugural edition of Philippines Open in 2006, thereby becoming the first Indian female to win a 4-star tournament. She also remains the sole Indian to win that tournament. The relevant news articles were published by all major Indian newspapers, including The Hindu, and the info was added at WP in 2006 itself. But an anonymous user vandalised it in 2014. And it remained as such for a long time. Here is the quote from the WP article as of 16 August 2015:

In 2006, Saina became the under-19 national champion and created history by winning the prestigious Asian Satellite Badminton tournament (India Chapter) twice, becoming the first player to do so. In 2006, Saina appeared on the global scene when she became the second Indian woman to win a 4-star tournament, the Philippines Open.

And here is the quote from an article of The Hindu dated 27 August 2015

In 2006, Nehwal became the under-19 national champion and created history by winning the celebrated Asian Satellite Badminton tournament (India Chapter) twice, becoming the first player to do so. She also became the second Indian woman to win the Philippines Open.

The journalist thought that the "4-star tournament" was just some excessive detail, thereby discarding that bit, although that was the main point, as no Indian female had won a tournament of that grading before. Anyway, they ended up making it more silly as 2006 was the inaugural tournament of the Philippines Open, and no other Indian has ever won that event. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• I’m noticing a pattern... the WP material is uploaded shortly before publication in The Hindu... could it be the same author? Blueboar (talk) 23:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

MMmm a case of post editing sourcing? I think a warning may be in order. This however tells me its not really a problem with the sources.Slatersteven (talk) 12:56, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, the content copied by the journalist was uploaded at least one year prior to their published article, e.g. see this revision of August 2014. In fact, the vandalised version copied by them was available from November 2014 onwards. In short, they check the latest version of WP articles to get facts and often copy-paste from them carelessly. It's been going like this for over one decade now. - NitinMlk (talk) 18:57, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Does a restaurant having a

Yes, it is the definition of making a restaurant notable. A single star rating from them can make it impossible to make reservation. Google "what does a michelin star mean"? Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Walter Görlitz. Michelin stars are a type of award that automatically prove notability. The same goes for a reference in Gault Millau. De728631 (talk) 05:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

If a restaurant receives a Michelin Star, it is virtually certain that the restaurant will receive significant coverage in many other reliable sources. The best of those sources should be added as references in the article and so your time as an editor would be better spent improving the article rather than trying to delete it, Adamant1. I am unaware of any Michelin starred restaurant that is ignored by other reliable sources, although perhaps I could be proven wrong. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:36, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think any single source automatically proves notability. Since by definition notability is about "broad coverage" in reliable "sources", but that's just me. I know guidelines are malleable for people that want to make them that way. Ultimately, I'm perfectly fine with Michelin stars making something notable on its own if that's what the consensus is. That's why I asked. At the end of the day I'm not going to disregard other people's opinions on what counts or doesn't as a usable source, like some other people tend to do. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:14, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Let me see if I understand this correctly.

You came here of your own free will. You asked a question. You received a unanimous opinion from the first three editors who responded. Now you're going to lecture us on how we're wrong?

Did you read what we wrote? I did not write it meets our notability criteria (which was not the question you asked) I said it makes the subject notable (which is the question you asked). Cullen328 elaborated by making it clear that "it is virtually certain that the restaurant will receive significant coverage in many other reliable sources" which meets GNG. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:36, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

As long as we keep in mind that the Michelin star only grants presumed notability, one that can be challenged if one tries to find additional secondary sources where it would be expected to find them and cannot come up with any. As others have said, getting at least one star is near certain that the establishment had or will get more coverage, but we have an out in case that never happens. --Masem (t) 06:41, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Piling on here - a Michelin star is the top award a restaurant can get - there is no higher accolade (well, except two and three stars, obviously). For such a restaurant not to be covered in other sources following receipt of a star seems improbable - it should certainly be taken as a sign of presumed notability. GirthSummit _(blether) 06:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I am happy to agree with Masem here. Michelin as a single source cannot establish notability because we require multiple sources. However, a Michelin star is an extremely powerful indicator that additional reliable sources almost certainly exist. Maybe somebody can point to an example where that is not true, but I doubt it. In this particular case, I was able to find an English language book published by a university press that discusses this restaurant. I do not speak Dutch. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:49, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

And that is an important point , since Michelin is global, this means other sources may be in foreign languages, in print form only in that country, etc. so a proper

WP:BEFORE effort is likely to require more than just searching the Internet. Personally, were I creating such an article, and the only source I had was from Michelin, I'd simply hold off until I could find at least one other secondary source (meeting the various notability guidelines does not require a standalone article to be created, only that it gives the allowance.). And this is highly specific to Michelin. We would not, for example, use Zagat because they rate everything (good or bad), and just getting a 5-star Zagat review means little towards additional sourcing. --Masem (t

) 06:54, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• If a Michelin star means that there *should* be additional non-primary reliable sources elsewhere, then we don't really need to say that the Michelin star by itself is enough to prove notability since there should be additional sources elsewhere. At most, we should really just say "double check because it's probably out there somewhere," but addressing "what do we do if the only source on the restaurant is Michelin" with "well there just has to be sources somewhere" is responding to a hypothetical with further hypotheticals. Ian.thomson (talk) 07:06, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• That's partially true, but I do feel it's useful to have red-line notability guidelines for clear things like this, and a Michelin star is a pretty good one to go by. We have comparable notable-award rules in other notability guidelines, so I don't see why the Michelin star wouldn't qualify. --Aquillion (talk) 15:42, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• I would have to say yes. A Michelin star is the gold standard of a restaurant and confirms it is a noteworthy one. I think we can equate it to
  WP:ANYBIO where it says receiving a major award makes something notable, this would apply here as a Michelin star is the highest award a restaurant can receive. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk
  ) 07:41, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Not sure, at the the end of the day the Michelin stars are not an "award" they are a rating system in a travel guide (which has been subject to some criticism). So I err on the side of no not really a sign of notability.Slatersteven (talk) 14:02, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• I would say that a Michelin star counts towards notability, but is not, on its own, enough to establish notability. I very much agree that a star means that other sources are extremely likely... and so WP:BEFORE is in play (and must be addressed by those wishing to delete in any AFD nomination). A star means we should hesitate before deleting. It makes it more difficult to delete, but does not mean an automatic keep. Blueboar (talk) 14:54, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, per The C of E. Just like
  WP:SNG, individual cases may merit their own special consideration, but the bar for demonstrating lack of significant coverage in an AFD must be higher for these entities than for other run-of-the-mill restaurants. In particular, to nominate something like 't Brouwerskolkje for deletion one must be extremely sure that it's somehow escaped the notice of all reliable sources except for the Michelin guide.  — Amakuru (talk
  ) 15:01, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• I would challenge you to find a Michelin-starred restaurant that has no other sources. In the end
  WP:GNG is rooted in policy so is not optional. Guy (help!
  ) 15:03, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • A side note: Notability is decidedly not policy (though is rooted in policy), but definitely, we're not going to IAR the allowance for a standalone article for a restaurant without some evidence of notability per WP:NOT#PROMO. Of which the Michelin star is definitely "some evidence". --Masem (t) 15:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Yes - apart from anything else there will be sufficient RS coverage in the Michelin Guide itself to meet GNG, plus there is bound to be other coverage in reviews. I wonder how many people commenting here have actually seen a red Michelin Guide? Johnbod (talk) 15:48, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Proposal This conversation is probably moot now that Cullen328 has found a book that discusses this particular restaurant in depth, but there seems to be general agreement here that the existence of a restaurant that has been awarded a Michelin star, but has never been written about in RS, is unlikely. WP:NRESTAURANT is a redlink - how about we create an SNG, with a single criterion - Any restaurant that has ever been awarded one or more Michelin stars is presumed to have been covered by reliable sources and is presumed notable. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • There is a area at
    WP:NORG that gives guidance for specific types of organization, where this single restaurant criteria can easily fit. No need for a separate guideline. But we probably want to make sure the editors that have crafted NORG are aware of this; NORG has to play a fine line between "notable" and "promotional" so getting their opinion would help. (I will ping them to this convo as to keep it in one place). --Masem (t
    ) 01:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd support the addition of this as an SNG. It may be out of scope for this discussion, but there are perhaps other top-tier restaurant recognitions that would be appropriate to include (I'm no expert, but De728631 mentioned Gault Millau as another candidate above). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 02:18, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• The only thing that determines notability is the existence of a substantial quantity of reliable, independent source material. It may be that a Michelin star indicates there is a good likelihood of such material existing, but if it in fact doesn't, the restaurant in question is not notable. There is no substitute or proxy for that. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • But it has been long established that WP does allow for the presumption of notability for a limited set of cases (those defined through the subject-specific guidelines) that allow for a creation of a standalone article as to put it to the wisdom of the crowds to help expand, and that we can delete such articles if it is clear through a thorough search of appropriate references that sourcing is just not going to come in the future. A Michelin Star test is a perfect example of how this model should work. --Masem (t) 02:18, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
    • Yes, and in areas like sports, those "presumptions" have had the effect in practice of filling the encyclopedia with garbage. I am therefore against any new such. Find sources first, start article after. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:20, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

      Seraphimblade has it exactly right. Unless there is coverage, what are we even going to write? A significant award or something like it increases the likelihood that sources may exist or will eventually emerge, but if it becomes clear that such sources do not exist, an article cannot be sustained. Vexations (talk) 02:59, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I think the point of presumed notability is that it is exceedingly unlikely that there won't be coverage. In the case that initiated this thread, for example, Cullen328 was easily (I assume - certainly quickly) able to find a reliably published book giving the subject in-depth treatment. I'm not an expert, but I find it difficult to believe that a restaurant that has been awarded even just one Michelin star has not also been subject to multiple reviews in RS. I'm not calling for a mass creation of millions of foodie microstubs, I just think that restaurants of that caliber are guaranteed to have been written about more than, say, a footballer who played a couple of games for Aston Villa in the 1980s. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:31, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we would never allow mass creation of restaurant stubs using automatic or semi-automated tools that use a digital version of Michelin to fill in the details: such mass creation in the past is why we have 10,000s of stubby athlete articles. We want editors to create these and add some additional sources - maybe not enough to satisfy the GNG, but enough to show that Michelin isn't the only mention, so that mass creation should not be possible. --Masem (t) 14:44, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Notability is not a binary proposition dependent on meeting simple "yes-no" criteria. Some things can give an indication that something might be notable or is likely to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article to be about it. However there is ONE and ONLY ONE set of criteria which decides if a particular topic is suitable for an article. That is
  significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic. Very simply put: unless we have enough source text to use to support a reasonable-length Wikipedia article, we should not write articles. Michelin stars may be an indicator that the source text is likely to exist, so that it would be worth it to start searching for said text, but Michelin stars by themselves are not source text. If the entire, total, and complete text of an article is "Such and such a restaurant received Michelin stars" and there's literally nothing else we can use to expand the article, we should not write that article. --Jayron32
  14:51, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • This actually suggests a reasonable thing to add to our notability guidelines (or process), when dealing with subject-specific guidelines. We don't want editors creating articles that are basically one or two sentences that show how the SNG is met, and that's it. Stub articles created this way are useless. We want a tiniest bit of effort to show there's more about the subject even if the sources to support that don't meet the GNG. For example, a restaurant with a Michelin star may have some local area articles about it or the owner/chef/etc. that could be added but per NORG/AUD, those local sources add nothing to notability. But together with the Michelin star, you should have more than 2 sentences to write about the restaurant, and because it meets this proposed new SNG criteria, will be in no immediate danger of deletion. That could apply across the board, but that would need discussion beyond this topic. Key is that we can protect WP from mass creation of stubby articles based on one criteria, but just need to make that clear at the right policy and guideline pages. --Masem (t) 15:14, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• I think there is a distinction to be made between sources that demonstrate notability (a Michelin star), and reliable sources for content. It annoys me everytime I see someone say, "We don't care what an article subject has to say about themselves" because, really, sometimes a business' or person's own website or an interview with them or whatever really is the best source for a specific piece of content, however they don't contribute to notability. For a restaurant, the Michelin star contributes to notability but you need other sources for content. ~
  problem solving
  14:52, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

  Right, but having indicators of notability does not force us to create an article. Content is the most important thing, and lacking independently-sourced content is something we don't want. And what an entity says about itself is marginally useful for banal, basic things like statistics and simple facts (dates, names, etc.) however that content is rarely also enough to build any article out of either. The value of independent sourcing is verification, vetting, editorial control, and evaluation of what details are and are not worth writing about anyways. Self-published material is useful for adding the sort of banal trivia like how many employees a company has, the brand names of their products, the date a person got married, what high school they went to, etc. None of that is particularly stuff that we can base the bulk of an article on, however. --Jayron32 16:21, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

HLHJ, in principle I agree but this needs a carefully worded RfC identifying specific sources and the areas for which they should be considered unreliable. Guy (help!) 23:51, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

HLHJ, agree. Add to the list, Al-Arabiya and CNN Arabic, they are all propaganda machines for the Saudi regime.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 00:14, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Does this need an RfC? I genuinely don't know, I haven't spent much time here. Agreed on the need for specificity. I think that "media produced inside Saudi Arabia, under Saudi media law" and "anything on a .sa domain" are clearly-defined categories, and would avoid having to re-RfC for each new publication. Media published abroad, with anonymous correspondents in KSA, exist and can be quite independent. Complete Saudi ownership of overseas media could in theory occur without Saudi control, but I don't know of an instance.

Al-Arabiya is a Saudi-controlled domestic outlet, and in my limited experience not at all reliable on these topics; CNN Arabic I have not come across. It is based in Dubai, which might come under "beholden"; my (again limited) experience is that these are sometimes a bit better. HLHJ (talk

) 05:47, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

HLHJ, yes, per my comment above. We don't deprecate without an RfC. Guy (help!) 10:09, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, it took me a moment to understand your comment. I was thinking that general policy, deprecating non-independent sources, seems to apply here; the only problem is that it may not be immediately obvious to an editor that, say, Arab News isn't independent. You are talking about an explicit "do-not-use" rule. While one could define categories of media, one could not produce a definitive list of media outlets (new ones keep coming out) or topics.

"Subjects of interest to the Saudi government" vary. People and policies win and lose government favour rapidly and unpredictably. The Saudi government changes the URLs of many webpages frequently, so it's often hard to go back and find out what they said a few months ago. Older media articles are also often only available through the Wayback Machine.

I'm trying to think of topics on which the Saudi government would probably be a reliable source. Generally, I'd take them as reliable sources on themselves; indications of the positions of the government, sources for self-fulfilling statements like official appointments, and sources for what Saudi media said about X. I would not use them to establish notability, any more than I would a press release. I'm not sure what other topics they'd be reliable for. Maybe I'd take them as a source on the location of Saudi cities, for instance, unless it becomes politically advantageous to claim they are further south or whatever (but not their size; they often seem to inflate statistics). Can you think of a better example?

The thing is, to know if Saudi media are an independent source on X, you have to understand all of the relevant current positions of the government, and that requires independent sources, who probably have better coverage. Any formal rule will need to take this into account. RfC phrasing suggestions? As an informal rule; if it's Saudi-controlled, don't use it for anything except

WP:SELFSOURCE. HLHJ (talk

) 17:44, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I would vote support for your RfC.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 13:42, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

HLHJ, do you want to start a RfC for this? All of the Saudi newspapers are controlled by the Saudi regime either directly or indirectly since there is absolutely no freedom of speech let alone freedom of journalism in Saudi Barbaria whatsoever unlike many other "Muslim" states.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 16:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

SharʿabSalam, I think this is part of a broader discussion. The problem is not specific to Saudi Arabia (though there are obviously specific reasons for editors to be particularly aware of Saudi COIs at the moment, which is why I posted here). The media in North Korea, for instance, are not independent sources for statements that serve the North Korean government. I am continuing this discussion at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Freedom of press. I invite anyone to join. HLHJ (talk) 04:07, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• Can bestseller lists be bought? --The Los Angeles Times
• R.N.C. Spent Nearly $100,000 on Copies of Donald Trump Jr.’s Book --The New York Times
• New York Times Best-Seller List: Biased Or Just Plain Bogus? --Investor's Business Daily
• The convoluted world of best-seller lists, explained --Vox
• Behind the Scam: What Does It Take to Be a ‘Best-Selling Author’? $3 and 5 Minutes. --Observer
• This Book That Scammed Its Way Onto the Times Bestseller List Is Real, Real Bad --Electric Literature
• How To Get On The NY Times & Every Other Bestseller Book List --Scribe

--Guy Macon (talk) 22:38, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, those articles that are about the NY Times list are mostly about how a few publishers have gotten books onto the list (and most of them are about the same book) by secretly buying a bunch of copies of their own books. If the only way to manipulate the NY Times best-seller list is to buy lots of copies of the book, then that list is still doing exactly what it claims to be doing. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 23:06, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

According to Scribe is not the only way that the NYT list can have incorrect answers. There are also a bunch of ways to not make the list when you should -- which calls into question all of the lower-selling books that make the list simply because better-selling books were left out.

According to scribe, ways to not be listed as a best seller when your book sells more that the ones on the list:

• Be something the people running the folks running the list don't like, such as The Exorcist.
• Fail to be published by a big New York publishing house.
• Fail to get enough pre-orders. It seems that a book that starts slow and builds popularity isn't allowed on the list no matter how high the sales eventually get.
• Make your sales through traditional bookstores. If you sell 100X higher than the books on the list but do it through Bible Bookstores, no listing for you.
• Fail to get press in the media sources centered around New York City or that the coastal media elite read and take seriously.

--Guy Macon (talk) 01:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, interesting question. I'd say not, as there is sufficient documentation of the few cases of fraud that we can discuss it from RS in each case, but I would certainly not use the NYT list as a source for "best-selling author" (a phrase I think we should kill with fire anyway). Guy (help!) 23:48, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Should we assume that in every case of someone buying their way on to the NYT best seller list there will be a reliable source that documents it? If, as is claimed,

Nielsen BookScan gives a reasonably accurate (but not accessible to most Wikipedia editors) record of cash register sales of books in bookstores and give widely different answers than the NYT on most books, that would seem to argue against making such an assumption. -Guy Macon (talk

) 01:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Most of the sources you've presented are fairly measured in their criticism, saying essentially that it's very difficult to count every book sold, and each list has to make their own judgement calls with imperfect data. The NYT tries to catch books that are being pushed through bulk sales, but some inevitably slip through. Some of their decisions can be questioned, but there is no perfect list. Only the Scribe article by Tucker Max and the Dennis Prager opinion piece outright call them biased or wrong, and those are frankly just very unreliable sources. I don't think I'd use either of them for any factual claims about anything. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 01:42, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, the same criticism has always been applied to record charts and movie takings. Fraud happens. Mostly, though, fraud doesn't happen because the publisher has a vested interest in being trusted and looks out for these things.

So, in short, yes, I think we should assume that any meaningful level of fraud would be identified in RS, until the big expose that says otherwise. But it's unsatisfactory. What I find particularly annoying is the way bestseller lists are asserted as some kind of proxy for quality. Jeffrey Archer writes bestsellers, but they are unmitigated dreck. Guy (help!) 10:08, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

This could (it may still be the case) said about records charts, in fact I suspect any chart. So I would say, no no chart should be RS. But I do not think the NYT can be singled out.Slatersteven (talk) 13:18, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Good point. It is quite likely that the NYT is talked about not because it is worse but because it is prominent. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:40, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I think the prominence makes it a bigger target for fraud as well, so a bit of both. Nobody would give a damn if someone made the Podunk Leader's best seller list, so there's no incentive to do it and no incentive to cover gaming if it happened. Guy (help!) 10:03, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Many charts are evidence of prima facie notability, i.e. that enough people cared for the thing in question to chart. And a link to officialcharts.com is perfectly usable as official evidence that a record was a hit in the UK. But, of course, we still need the RSes for a standalone article - David Gerard (talk) 21:52, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

• The only useful thing to put in a Wikipedia article is about the book appearing on the NYT Bestseller list. The list itself is a perfectly and self-evidently reliable source for the books that appear on it. Whether or not articles should report a book's status on the NYT Bestseller List is a different question, but the presence or not on the list is reliably sourced to the list itself. --Jayron32 16:51, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with the others here saying it should not deprecated. In some ways I think that would fall under "original research" -- despite a few flaws and ways of gaming it, the NYT bestseller is still considered the gold standard of measuring book success by reputable RS's. --MaximumIdeas (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• Close as poorly formatted RFC - This is not a content discussion as it is not linked to any actual content - no example of where this is an actual issue for Wiki have been mentioned. Instead it is a forum discussion about the NYT best seller list being "bad" in some vague fashion. Therefore
  WP:FORUM applies. FOARP (talk
  ) 08:01, 31 January 2020 (UTC)