Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 332

Discussion (China Daily)

I just want to highlight some content from China Daily:

Anti-government fanatics are planning massive terror attacks, including blowing up gas pipes, in Hong Kong on September 11.[51][52]

[53]

A protester fires a US-made M320 grenade launcher at an illegal assembly in Tsim Sha Tsui amid escalating violence in Hong Kong on Sunday night. [54][55]

In both cases, we have outrageous lies pushed by China Daily. There are more at China Daily. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

These are both Facebook posts, not articles published in the China Daily. I don't think we consider any newspaper's social media accounts to be reliable sources. At least, I've never seen someone try to cite the NY Times' Twitter account on Wikipedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:44, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

And just today, we have this:

Eradication of extremism has given Xinjiang women more autonomy, says report.[56]

Missing in China Daily's discussion of the "autonomy" of Uighur women is any mention of the

The last of these articles gained notoriety in the past day after an excerpt from the article was shared on Twitter by the Chinese Embassy in the United States. The excerpt is reproduced below:

This tweet (and accompanying China Daily article) appears to be a defense of certain elements of the

Uyghur genocide, and has received coverage in Ars Technica (RSP entry) and an opinion piece in the Washington Examiner (RSP entry). — Newslinger talk 06:45, 8 January 2021 (UTC) Added archive link. — Newslinger talk

11:17, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

As morally unacceptable as that is, "moral unacceptability" is not part of

WP:RS, so I think we should judge based on factual accuracy. (t · c) buidhe

13:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Ok, let's look at factual accuracy. From the China Daily article:

The research center's report said safe, effective and appropriate contraceptive measures are now available to couples of childbearing age in Xinjiang, and their personal decisions on whether to use those measures — which include tubal ligation and the insertion of intrauterine devices — are fully respected.

Contrast this with reports from actual

WP:RS of forced sterilization of Uyghur women [57][58]. Is forcing sterilization on someone consistent with respecting their decision on whether or not to use contraception? And the nail in the coffin -- one might argue that China Daily was simply reporting what the "research center" said and was therefore accurate. But in that case, shouldn't they have characterized both the "report" and the "research center" differently? Because neither "research" nor "report" are accurate characterizations of the document in question, are they? Adoring nanny (talk

) 13:44, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Just focussing on factual accuracy almost all of it is false. This is not a study that an independent source or one with basic fact checking abilities would have used. Its almost laughable, lets for instance contrast this statement with the well known second class political status of women in modern China "In the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no long baby-making machines, it said. Women have since been striving to become healthy, confident and independent.” The CCP doesn't promote female emancipation and gender equality even for Han women... Are we really expected to believe they do it for the women of a minority which by all reports they are repressing? I’ve certainly never seen a WP:RS give these sort of bullshit propaganda reports the time of day. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

I think this conversation should stick to source analysis, but just as a matter of historical interest, one of the major societal reforms that the Communist Party tried to carry out after coming to power in 1949 was to change the status of women in society (e.g., legalizing divorce, trying to stop forced/arranged marriages). The New Marriage Law was one of the first laws the PRC passed, and it was accompanied by massive propaganda campaigns to get people to accept it. The status of women, more generally, was one of the major issues of contention between the Communists and Nationalists (the latter taking a much more traditional view of women's roles in society). That is to say, while you say it's ridiculous to think that the CPC would ever promote female emancipation, it wouldn't actually be out of line with their history or ideology. This isn't a comment on the specific report that China Daily reported on - I haven't looked into it carefully. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:19, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

You seem to be missing that post-Mao the status of women within the Party and in society in general plummeted, today there are no significant female party leaders and both within and outside the party women have second class status. If you want a better understanding of the modern history may I suggest Judd’s The Chinese Women's Movement? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, there you have it: government-run press outlets aren't particularly reliable on the subject of whether the government in question is perpretrating something horrific. Everyone knows that. We shouldn't be using those statements to reference statements about that issue. This would be true for any source in any country. For example, the 2021 election in Chad is almost certainly going to be rigged; the article manages to cite statements from the current president about what he said, while also citing statements from RS about whether it's true. What's this got to do with wholesale deprecation? jp×g 20:38, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Update: According to The Guardian (RSP entry), Twitter took down this tweet, having concluded that it breaks its rules. The Guardian highlights the discrepancies between the claims in the China Daily article and the results of the investigation by the Associated Press (RSP entry). Additionally, The Guardian confirms that the Xinjiang Development Research Center study is "unpublished", which makes China Daily the original published source of the claims. — Newslinger talk 11:21, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

China Daily attributes the claims to the report. Unless you're claiming that China Daily fabricated the existence of this report, what is the RS problem here? Are we going to deprecate newspapers that describe the contents of Chinese government reports that editors find objectionable? -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that they described it as a "research report", and not as "propaganda" or the like. When one invents lies and publishes them, that's not research. For an example of an appropriate way to cover nonsensical claims, see The Atlantic here.[59]. At no point do they ever refer to any of the nonsensical claims they cover as "research".Adoring nanny (talk) 16:09, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

China Daily is reporting the claims of a report written by a governmental group. China Daily repeatedly attributes those claims to the report, just as it should do. You're saying that China Daily is not reliable because it does not inject the types of editorial comments you would like it to make. Of course China Daily is going to write about reports created by the Chinese government, but as long as it properly attributes the claims, it's usable. On the other hand, a lot of the claims being made about Xinjiang come from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was created by the US government, and which could just as easily be viewed as a propaganda organization. That doesn't mean that the claims are wrong, but this connection is rarely explained in news articles (including by the AP) about Xinjiang that rely on claims that come from this organization. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:17, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the point you’re missing is that a WP:RS would never have taken that report at face value as China Daily does, the claims made in it are absurd (as are most claims China makes about human rights issues within China, remember that according to themselves the Chinese government respects human rights more than literally any other government on earth). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:29, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Are you arguing here that China Daily's article is inaccurate? All I can see is that you're arguing that they do not make an editorial comment that you would like them to make. If one were to note (with attribution, of course) the views of the Chinese government on this issue, then this China Daily article would be a good source, because it explains what the Chinese government report states. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the word "research" is inaccurate. The phrase "study shows" is also false. And phrases like these frame the reader's understanding of the entire piece. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:48, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

The China Daily article does not use the phrase, "study shows". The article also describes the "research report" written by Adrian Zenz of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (established by the US government). The China Daily article doesn't say that Zenz' claims are wrong, and it doesn't say that the Chinese government's claims are wrong. You're essentially demanding that the article take an editorial stand, but if we want a source that simply describes the claims made by the Chinese government report, I don't see why that's necessary. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

The phrase "Study shows" is from the tweet describing the article, not from the article itself. But the underlying problem here is that the article frames the report as "research", which it is not. If we were to allow it as

WP:RS, a user might reasonably paraphrase it to say "research shows that Uighur women's decisions about contraception are respected", which is obviously nonsense. Additionally, as User:Newslinger pointed out, the document they describe as the "research center's report" itself is unpublished. So China Daily is effectively the original publisher of this "information". Under the standard you are proposing, anybody could type up a document, call themselves a "research center", and then any source could decribe the document as a "research center's report", regardless of its contents. For example, "research institute says that the Theory of Evolution has been refuted."[60]. Adoring nanny (talk

) 16:32, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

The tweet comes from the Chinese Embassy in the US, not from China Daily, and we're not discussing whether tweets are reliable sources, anyways (we typically wouldn't cite tweets from any news outlet). There is an actual report by a Chinese government agency. China Daily has seen the report and is reporting on its contents. Other news outlets have also reported on the contents of the report, and even interviewed the author. a user might reasonably paraphrase it to say "research shows [...]". That would be user error. A better paraphrase would be, "A report written by a Chinese government agency stated, ...". Note the attribution, which makes it clear to readers that we are reporting the views of a third party. Inclusion would be subject to the usual considerations of weight, NPOV, etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:02, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• @
  WP:RFCBRIEF, which requires the RfC statement to be "neutral and brief"? Specifically, "Media Bias Fact Check classifies it ... 'state propaganda.'" cannot be in the RfC statement since it advocates for a position, but you can move it into either the survey or discussion section. The link to MBFC's rating of China Daily should also be moved or removed from the RfC statement. — Newslinger talk
  21:51, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done Firestar464 (talk) 11:38, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment regarding the above: Xinjiang and Tibet (along with HK, Taiwan, the South China Sea) are two controversial areas that we should probably refrain from using Chinese state media in, but for most non-controversial mainland news, it should be

The problem with that is that we can't know in advance what they are going to start lying about. In general, a rule like this would require readers to keep up with a lengthy and continually changing list of areas of concern. For example, prior to December, 2019, there was no reason to suspect their information about coronaviruses. See also Censorship in China. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:03, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

This seems that out of thousands of articles in hundreds of topic areas there are some CCP-sensitive pieces of concern or POV differences. But this is not showing an issue re RS attributes with all content, most content, or even a common occurrence. Got any problem with their topics today of Covid, or Plastics, or Smartphones ? Or is it just China political content ? If there was bad info on in 2019, is that not the same info all papers had at the time and a matter outside them? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:14, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

The Chinese government and their media entities spreading covid related disinformation has actually been an acute problem, are you unaware of this? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:32, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Stop it with the unfounded Association fallacy accusation. We are specifically talking about the China Daily here, show evidence directly about the China Daily. NoNews! 02:13, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

We aren't talking about separated entities here, such as the Washington Post being owned by the same person that owns Amazon. We're talking about multiple arms of the same cephalopod; China Daily is directly owned and run by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, commonly called the Propaganda Department. IHateAccounts (talk) 02:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, and it was a wrong use of the term association fallacy. This is not about "ownership" in its usual sense of being a shareholder (which is essentially the residual claimant), but about the direct command and control from the Chinese Communist Party and the lack of editorial independence by design for all Chinese state media. Normchou ^💬 02:41, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

On a separate note, there are a lot of editors writing "oppose deprecation," though not everyone is actually saying what option they are in favor of. Options 1, 2, and 3 each do not involve deprecation, so I am not sure where consensus currently is pointing. It looks like the majority of editors have concerns regarding the paper's ability to cover China, so is this something we wind up breaking into multiple categories (such as we do for FOX News and Huffington Post)?

I suppose Option 2 is a good summary – many editors have raised concerns about political topics, but many have pointed out that China Daily is generally reliable for ordinary news. If we wanted to go the "Fox News" route, maybe Option 1 for most news about China, Option 3 for internationally controversial political issues. As User:Jumpytoo pointed out above, China Daily is generally reliable for mundane (uncontroversial) political news. —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:50, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Most of out currently deprecated sources, for instance RT, would be generally reliable for mundane (uncontroversial) political news. That isn't the standard we use, the whole MO of a modern state media source with a penchant for disinformation is to have the disinformation make up only a small fraction of your reporting. Thats why we focus on the small amount of reporting (normally 1-5%) which is problematic and not the 95-99% that isn't. The other big flaw in that argument is that without inside access to the CCP we don’t know what they consider to be controversial or political which renders it at best an entirely unachievable standard. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:48, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello,everyone!I am a Wikimedian from Jiangsu China.My English is terrible,so I use Chinese to talk.首先，中国的新闻还算自由（至少和朝鲜民主主义人民共和国相比好多了），第二，由于某些文化差异与政治上的意识形态差异，所以请不要使用西方的思维来思考中国发生的事情。维吾尔人大多生育一人以上的子女，而中国大陆在2015年之前法律规定都倡导生育一个，而大部分维吾尔族人士有“超生”现象，所以绝育是无稽之谈。关于禁止说维语：中国的通用语言是普通话，维吾尔语是少数民族语言，有一说一，目前来看，维语的保护形势比方言好多了，所以某些西方媒体还是关注一下中国的方言吧！此外，新疆的确有宗教极端分子。别一天到晚说那些稍微了解一些中国状况的人都觉得毁三观的“新闻”！关于香港：香港自秦朝以来就属于中国领土的一部分，秦朝时归属南海郡，清朝时归属广东省。我看过VOA关于香港抗议的视频，掐头去尾，只留下容易对港警行为产生歧义的片段。总体上来说，中国日报对于香港的报道比苹果日报以及VOA为首的某些西方媒体好多了。每个人都喜欢另类的东西，比起真正的中国，大部分人更喜欢不一样的中国，所以某些媒体就想方设法的抹黑中国。而且由于中国的意识形态与西方国家存在差异，所以说这种污名化会更加受到欢迎。希望会中文的人士帮我把我的言论翻译一下！谢谢！Jerry (talk) 02:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

有一点忘记说了，补上，省的给我扣帽子：所谓再教育营存在吗？不存在，澳大利亚智库以及BBC的报道中所谓的“再教育营”中，有工厂，刑事羁押机构甚至是学校，我想问一下，各位所在的国家有学校吗？学校里面装监控吗？有刑事羁押机构吗？进去蹲牢的标准是什么？有工厂吗？工厂有监控有围栏吗？我敢说，按照BBC的标准，世界各地都有（包括英国）Jerry (talk) 03:15, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

[Translation of the above statement] First of all, China has some sort of news freedom (at least, much better than North Korea). Secondly, due to some cutural and ideology differences, please REFRAIN from using western minds to interpret things going on in China. Most Uyghurs raise more than one child. Mainland China advocates that each family should raise only one child by law until 2015. Most Uyghurs fail to meet this requirement (that they should only have one child), therefore, it is TOTAL NONSENSE to say "sterilization". Regarding the ban of the use of the Uyghur language: The general language of China is Putonghua/mandarin Chinese. Frankly speaking, currently, the preservation status of the Uyghur language is much, much better than Chinese dialects. Thus, "some certain western media" (in China environment, the use of "some certain" usually contains sarcasm), focus more on Chinse dialects! There ARE regious extremisms in Xinjiang. DO NEVER report those "news" that even someone with only bare knowledge of China would find them breaking their worldview, philosophy and value! About Hong Kong: IT IS A PART OF CHINA SINCE QIN DYNASTY. During Qin Dynasty, it belongs to "South-sea county"; during Qing Dynasty, it belongs to Guangdong Province. I have seen the VOA video about HK protest. Much shorter, no [video] beginnings or endings, with only the clips that make people easy to misundstand the behaviors of HK police. In a nutshell, China Daily is MUCH BETTER than "those some certain western media led by VOA and Apple Daily". Everyone likes alternate things. Compared to the true China, most people want a different China. Therefore, "some certain media" defame China USING ANY WAY THEY CAN. In addition, because the ideology of China is different from that of western countries, those smears are more welcome. I hope someone [whose native language is English] who know Chinese could translate my statements, thank you! (Yeah, I have done your favor, although I am a Chinese native speaker who know English) [Original statement posted by User:城市酸儒文人挖坑, translated by Milky·Defer 04:50, 14 February 2021 (UTC)]

[Translation of the above statement] I forgot something, and I add it here, so that nobody could accuse me that I am poisoning the well (correction: poison my well). Those so-claimed reeducation camps, do they exist? NO, NEVER! The "reeducation camps" from Australian think tank and BBC reports, contains factories, detention centers, even schools. I may ask, don't you have schools in your country? Don't schools have surveillance cameras? Don't you have detention centers? What's the criteria that make people go into jail? Don't you have factories? Don't them have surveillance cameras and fences? I dare to say, based on the BBC standard, everywhere in the world, including Britain, does (have "reeducation camps"). [Original statement posted by User:城市酸儒文人挖坑, translated by Milky·Defer 04:50, 14 February 2021 (UTC)]

We are talking about the China Daily here, show evidence directly about the China Daily. --BlackShadowG^★ (talk) 07:03, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The above statement by Jerry, arguing with apparent sincerity that the Xinjiang internment camps do not exist, is an excellent, if inadvertent, illustration of why CCP-led media, including China Daily, need to be deprecated. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:07, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

jfc. Yes, if China Daily leads to beliefs about the world like that, it needs deprecation - David Gerard (talk) 13:24, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. 由于某些文化差异与政治上的意识形态差异，所以请不要使用西方的思维来思考中国发生的事情 is the exact type of platitude which has been indoctrinated into the Chinese people when it comes to criticisms of the CCP, and which is intended for those in the West who are susceptible to "orientalist" sympathies towards the "other people in the East" to believe. But no, this has little to do with "culture" or "diversity". It is precisely political in nature. Normchou ^💬 20:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

我声明一点：我弗曾畀洗脑过，如果侬箇佬讲个话，我可弗可以视为箇是弗尊重事实？是对我人格个侮辱？言论自由没有错，但请侬注意一注意侬自由个度！Jerry (talk) 07:48, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

[Translation of the above statement] Let me make it clear: I have NEVER been brainwashed. If you insist that, may I see it as not respecting reality? May I see it as an insult to my personality? There is nothing wrong with freedom of speech, but DO MIND ITS BOUNDRY! [Original statement in Wu Chinese posted by User:城市酸儒文人挖坑 aka Jerry, translated by Milky·Defer 08:54, 15 February 2021 (UTC)]

楼高头额宁首先请提高自噶额阅读理解能力，弗要动弗动就对号入座。欸有，此地是英文维基百科RSN，来发言额宁是弗是要有一定程度额英文水平，帮理解同自噶弗一样文化额知识储备帮视野？尤其是当一个宁指责别宁使用西方的思维额辰光，侬晓得侬勒嗨港撒伐？吾实则上都弗想回复箇种低信息量额发言，但还是忍弗住补充一句: Indoctrination can exist both explicitly and subliminally, and with varying degrees of sophistication. There are many "buttons" in the collective (sub)consciousness of the Chinese people that are the direct result of this process (e.g., their response to the mere statement "Taiwan is a different country from China"). I will not digress any further, and anyone who knows enough about contemporary China issues understands precisely what I am talking about. Once again, I am strongly for the deprecation of all CCP-controlled media outlets, and the above thread shows an excellent example of why this needs to be done. Normchou ^💬 17:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Maybe,you need to read this:wuu:Wikipedia:用词指南8.210.36.128 (talk) 08:57, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia, Please write in English, it makes it easier for other editors to join the conversation. --BlackShadowG^★ (talk) 10:18, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

My apologies. It was a conversation with little information anyway. All meaningful arguments of mine have been made in English above. Pardon me for getting into this disruptive altercation with the other user. Normchou ^💬 14:58, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - Many above are assuming that CD is reliable for non-political material. The problems is that in China everything can be political. For this reason CD regularly fabricates quotes/makes up stories and omits key details from reportage even when the subject matter is mundane. Just what content, other than
  WP:ABOUTSELF, is it that they are supposed to be reliable for? — Preceding unsigned comment added by FOARP (talk • contribs
  ) 21:05, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me that "Women Warriors of Sinauli: Discovery Of The Century", Discovery+, in Hindi, which was added again with this edit, is far removed from being

This article by the supposedly reliable Tatler suggests that Diana Lanni, a fairly obscure American chess player, may have been at least partly the inspiration for Beth Harmon in Walter Tevis's The Queen's Gambit. Problem is the article is not based on an actual interview with Lanni; it is clearly just recycling material from this self-published article by "batgirl" (amateur chess historian Sarah Beth Cohen) and this podcast/interview by chess and poker player Jennifer Shahade. Either of these sources would be considered a bit problematic to use on wikipedia. Howevere, the Tatler article also introduces errors of fact. Nobody ever called Lanni "The It Girl of chess", that was just a throwaway remark by Lanni herself; she was never ranked number 2 in the world; and she never appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated (she did get briefly quoted in a 1985 article about women in chess).

So the upshot is the supposedly unreliable sources are good, but the supposedly reliable source is rubbish. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 00:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

A multilayed discussion has arisen on Talk:Pit bull on the use of an episode of the Canadian news program The Fifth Estate (TV program), in particular, its use as an EL and an RS. The episode in question is here. I would argue this is not a reliable source which should be used for statements of fact, as its a highly sensationalist piece of journalism from a television series that was forced to pay out the largest libel suit in Canadian history. PearlSt82 (talk) 21:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that an award-winning CBC investigative public affairs program that has been on the air since the 1970s was sued 25 years ago, but I am more than a little surprised to see it challenged as an RS on these grounds. I wonder if the same people even still work there? Geogene (talk) 21:23, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

• Remember that even the most reliable sources can occasionally get something wrong. So, rather than trying to argue that the TV program (as a whole) is unreliable, you might do better to argue that the specific episode of the program simply got it wrong... by pointing to scholarly research and journalism that contradicts what is stated in that episode. If you can demonstrate that the show is an outlier, then mentioning it would be UNDUE. - Note... I am not saying the episode is (or is not) inaccurate or UNDUE... just saying that this may be a better approach to resolving your issue. Blueboar (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

The content being disputed is this [61], There is a lobby of animal rights groups that are spending millions of dollars to try to "re-brand pit bulls as family dogs.". This isn't a SCIRS domain, it's standard journalistic fare. Pearlst is being obstructionist in bringing this here. Have you seen the kind of BLP-sensitive claims that are being sourced to the same program elsewhere in WP? In last month's Signpost, for example? [62]. Geogene (talk) 00:08, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

The piece isn't presenting the material in a neutral manner, but rather presents a very sensationalist tone throughout. The episode description is non-neutral summary of the issue On one side, traumatized families and public safety advocates. On the other, a powerful group of lobbyists who say pit bulls are the most misunderstood breed of dogs and are no more dangerous than any other pets., presenting a false dichotomy of the issue as being between "public safety advocates" and "a powerful group of lobbyists". The piece opens up with someone screaming on an emergency call, the narrator injects statements like the shelter offers them a pit bull, and a sale’s pitch that would make a used car dealer blush, the documentary doesn't interview experts in the field, like veterinarians or animal behaviorists, but rather spends most of its time presenting anecdotal evidence and stories. The National Canine Research Council is brought up, but no one in the film is interviewed who can speak to dog bite incidences in an academic capacity. For factual claims, it claims that 103 people were killed by pit bulls in America since Daxton Borchardt's death, but this number seems to be far lower based on

WP:UNDUE claim to present in wikivoice. I don't see how the Signpost issue is relevant given that the program isn't being used for statements of fact, but rather as a primary source. PearlSt82 (talk

) 00:29, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

It isn't up to you to wave off journalism as "sensationalist" just because you don't like it. That's not how things work here. Unfortunately, it seems increasingly likely that your inability to compromise even on trivial things is going to end with sanctions. Geogene (talk) 00:39, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Its sensationalist for the reasons I've described, not because I "don't like it", and I invite everyone reading this noticeboard to view the episode themselves and make the determination. I don't see how

threatening sanctions against me helps your argument here. PearlSt82 (talk

) 00:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Its sensationalist for the reasons I've described

WP:IDHT. Geogene (talk

) 00:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Please see this edit by myself a few minutes ago. I'm in the process of merging content from a series of review articles into a related history article and checking sources as I go along. When I clicked on the link to the ABC site, McAfee generated a serious security warning message. I've removed the citations but I don't know if the site has been sourced elsewhere on WP. If so, it needs to be deleted. It was added to the 1744 article two years ago. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:25, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I found four more instances of the site in a variety of cricket articles and deleted it from all of them. I only did a simple search, though, using "ABC of cricket" as the string, so it might not be exhaustive. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Be careful about just deleting sources because of security warnings - the archived version does not generate any warnings and the original just seems to be a dead-link for me - even if the original has been usurped, as long as it is still verifiable (which it is if it is archived) and is a reliable source) then it can still be used.Nigel Ish (talk) 09:23, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough, Nigel, but I've looked at the archived version in the meantime and it's by no means a reliable source. It was self-published by its creator, Shane Dell. As with all these things, it might well be good work but self-publication means original research that hasn't been reviewed or met the requirements of normal publishing standards. I would think the original site has been usurped, as you say, and McAfee certainly didn't like it. Thanks for your help and I think we can consider this case closed. No Great Shaker (talk) 09:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Of course, removal because a source isn't reliable is a different question, especially for a subject like the history of Cricket where there should be no shortage of proper reliable sources to use.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm concerned that AFP is an unreliable fact-checking source because it spins the facts as the following will demonstrate. See this article by AFP. They reported that Kirk and Trump tweeted that the yellow vests were chanting "we want Trump" - which is factual, no problem there - but in their article they cite a specific video that was not a recording of the yellow jacket protests; rather, it was a UK video for something else. The false information is AFP's matter-of-fact statement: The articles all backed their claims with a video posted to Twitter on December 2 by user @jackwhite, which was retweeted more than 17,000 times. I see no evidence that supports such a claim. AFP cited 2 sources that used the video, and in doing so, they juxtaposed the information with what actually provoked Kirk's & Trump's tweets. One of the sources AFP cited for the video is The Black Sphere, and the other is Clash Daily. Those sources were not the sources that provoked Kirk's or Trump's tweets based on the following. It was the Rush Limbaugh report which was quite different from the clickbait sources cited by AFP for the video, and under much different circumstances. AFP states in their article (my bold underline for what applies here): Although he was the first to be retweeted by the US president on this information, Kirk was not the only one to relay the idea of Trump-infatuated French protesters. On December 3, several English-language online media reported that French protesters were chanting for Trump, as well as American radio host Rush Limbaugh. The articles all backed their claims with a video posted to Twitter on December 2 by user @jackwhite, which was retweeted more than 17,000 times. In the video, a man wearing a Trump mask stands atop a bus while a crowd of hundreds of protesters chant, "We want Trump" repeatedly. There is nothing that I could find that supports AFP's claim that all backed their claims with that video. Look at the NBC report which states factually that there was no evidence to support Trump's tweet. They mention nothing about the UK video. The Hill reported: "Kirk's information about crowd chants seems to come from an article Rush Limbaugh wrote on iHeart Radio on Monday, which claims that friends told him that protestor are asking for Trump." They are referring to the iHeart Radio report - again nothing mentioned about the UK video - and Limbaugh's show. There is little to no doubt that Trump supported & followed

So, your personal analysis of the matter is at odds with a source that is "in the green" so to speak at

WP:RSP ? ValarianB (talk

) 20:06, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with an OR analysis to show why a particular article from a source is wrong. RSP "green" rating is not foolproof and editors are always allowed to challenge the validity of any particular source for any particular claim. This is backed by WP:NEWSORG which notes even good sources can make mistakes. Springee (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Sources can make mistakes. We should not be deeming a source unreliable (or even worse "deprecating" it) after one or two mistakes. If the information is wrong as per the given sources there is no harm in leaving it out. In the situation that the article was not a BLP I would say it could be included as a conflicting source, but better to be on the safe side and leave it out in a BLP. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:07, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

• Reliable. The AFP fact check did not actually state that Kirk's tweet was referencing the London video. It says, "The articles all backed their claims with a video..." (emphasis added), but Kirk's tweet is not an article, and the sentence does not apply to his tweet. Based on this, I don't see any inconsistencies in the AFP fact check.

  On a general note,

  International Fact-Checking Network (RSP entry), which was determined in a 2020 RfC to be a positive indicator of its reliability. — Newslinger talk
  08:31, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• You're taking it out of context, Newslinger. The material that was added to the Kirk BLP is cited to that source. "In December 2018, Kirk falsely claimed that protesters in the French yellow vests movement chanted "We want Trump." These claims were later repeated by President Trump. The cited videos were from a far-right protest in London.[22] Do you see my point? It is not a RS for that claim. Kirk did not use that video to make his claim about the yellow jackets. And this is exactly where the problem is with the entire WP:RSP - CONTEXT. You think the source is reliable when in fact, it is not reliable for that statement. Finally, I've provided some proof to support my concerns, so thank you for your response. Atsme 💬 📧 16:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• Both Limbaugh and Kirk are referring to the deceptive video, which preceded both of their claims.
  talk
  ) 16:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• There are no inconsistencies in the AFP fact check, although the current language in the
  Charlie Kirk (activist)
  article needs adjustment:
  1. The initial comment in this discussion does not show that the AFP fact check contains an incorrect statement. No evidence was provided to support the claim that AFP is unreliable.
  2. The following content in the
     yellow vests movement
     chanted 'We want Trump.' These claims were later repeated by President Trump."
  3. The following content in the
     Charlie Kirk (activist)
     article is not verifiable to the AFP fact check: "The cited videos were from a far-right protest in London." (The fact check did not claim that Kirk's tweet cited videos of a far-right protest in London.)

— Newslinger talk 19:47, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• Atsme is correct, this fact check does not support the claim: "In December 2018, Kirk falsely claimed that protesters in the French yellow vests movement chanted "We want Trump." These claims were later repeated by President Trump. The cited videos were from a far-right protest in London.". The gap is that the tweet doesn't provide a source or proof for any of the claims thus it is not correct to say that because this video was not from Paris no one in Paris did X. Ultimately the tweet may be false but the AFP fact check does not prove/disprove the claim. Springee (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I want to know how reliable WWF is, considering it is an organization based on the conservation of endangered species. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The great Jay (talk • contribs) 05:52, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Guessing The great Jay means https://www.worldwildlife.org/ David notMD (talk) 11:08, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes Blue Jay (talk) 12:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• What do you want to cite them for? I would say "use cautiously" - I don't think there's any specific reason to doubt them, but they're not a news organization, an academic source, or anything else that makes fact-checking and accuracy their main focus. so it's not certain how much fact-checking random statements they make or stuff on their website gets. Uncontroversial details can probably be cited there (as can anything about themselves, obviously), but I wouldn't want to cite them for anything
  WP:EXCEPTIONAL, and I'd assume that anything like that would get secondary coverage anyway. (Also, I'd want to know what part of their website you're thinking about - different parts of it probably have different levels of editorial control. Some stuff on it seems blog-ish, but OTOH the authors may be experts, so check who wrote what.) --Aquillion (talk
  ) 21:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi all. Is the source Exclusive: Pandemic relief aid went to media that promoted COVID misinformation written by journalist Catlin Dickson reliable enough for inclusion on PragerU? This is not syndicated--it is a Yahoo News piece. There is also a small content dispute through DUE which I don't think is appropriate for this venue, but hope to clear up the RS question here.

Opposition to inclusion on an RS basis seems to involve claims of churnalism or low-quality reporting. Springee and Hipal describe the article as a "puff piece" and a "warmed-over press release". Noteduck and dlthewave disagree, describing Yahoo!News as a generally reasonable source in general (if not of the highest tier, I would say) and this article in particular as a combination of original reporting, original analysis, and analysis described from a nonprofit group's report.

On the basis of the quality of this story, should it be considered RS? Is this affected by its publisher, Yahoo News? Jlevi (talk) 14:24, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Pinging other participants:

Ryk72 Jlevi (talk

) 14:26, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this. Hipal also was a participant. Springee (talk) 14:29, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Even though it's a bit late now, apologies to Jlevi, as Hipal was pinged. Springee (talk) 03:22, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

• Yahoo News! has never been a major topic of discussion at RSN as far as I can tell (other than some of its syndicated content). Jlevi (talk) 14:48, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
• They used to be known as exclusively an aggregation and reprint site. They still do a lot of that, with a bunch of content sharing deals that muddy the waters a little, although other publications' material seem to be clearly labeled as such. But they began publishing their own journalism a decade ago. This Nieman Lab page is pretty old but describes some of that move. Now their original content seems pretty reputable. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:42, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

• I note that most of the material on Yahoo News consists of reposts of articles from other outlets (although I am not sure if this is the case for the specific article cited above). So, some caution and due diligence is needed - to ensure that the originating outlet is considered reliable. An article originating from (say) the deprecated Daily Mail would not become reliable just because it was reposted on Yahoo. And when the originating outlet is considered reliable, best practice would be to cite that, and not Yahoo. I have no opinion on material originating with Yahoo’s own staff. Blueboar (talk) 16:52, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
  • FWIW, the direct Yahoo News article: [63] shows no indication that this is a republished story. --Masem (t) 17:00, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
• PragerU (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk:PragerU#Is_a_Yahoo!_News_article_including_material_from_the_Alethea_Group_due?

Hmmm. I don't know why we're here. The concerns are with NOT and POV, not RS. --Hipal (talk) 16:57, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Issues of SOAP/NOT/POV seem to come from the argument that this piece is churnalism or a press release (example diff). My understanding is that this argument comes from the 'press releases' subsection of

WP:NEWSORG, which makes this noticeboard the right location for broader discussion. Jlevi (talk

) 17:17, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Hipal As you seem to be the primary person challenging reliability on the talk page, this strikes me as strange. You have claimed that it's churnalism, a warmed-over press release, and promotional. Those are RS issues. Ah. Somehow didn't see that Jlevi wrote basically the same thing just above, sorry). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:53, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think there's an RS issue, no sign that the Yahoo piece is unreliable, and barring doubt published from other RS, any reason to doubt what the Alethea Group or GDI have compiled as reported by Yahoo. What I will say is that the inclusion of the piece, as is currently being edit-warred, is part of the continued problem of editors too focused on the laundry list of every bad thing a group/person seen negatively by the press has done, rather than being a proper summary. For example, a "theme" around PragerU is its misinformation (not just COVID related), and thus I would expect a section to talk about how others discuss PragerU's misinformation, what has been done (eg Youtube's labeling), what PragerU has responded with, and so on, in a summary style and avoiding proseline/timeline style approaches. That would mean this specific article would fit into that section as one part of their misinformation aspects. In other words, it is definitely not UNDUE as claimed, but only if the article's structure is properly brought into line as we'd expect a summary of how the mass media sees Prager is properly summarized. --Masem (t) 17:09, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

  I agree, except there's a lot of work to be done before we know what is due/undue to present from this one reference. We certainly can use this Dickson(2021) ref, but to what extent will depend upon the broader context. These are POV issues. Ideally, we'll have academic references that give broad, historical context, making one-off reporting like Dickson(2021) irrelevant or nearly so. --Hipal (talk) 22:51, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

• The source is fine, this is good, independent reporting and not a reheated press release or promotional as has been claimed. There is some seriously biased sanitisation going on if sources like that are excluded through wikilawyering. Fences&Windows 18:05, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
• I could find no fault in terms of reliability, especially with such a basic claim, the GDI analysis has a published methodology and the article about it was by a widely written journalist. I can't speak as much to Yahoo News in general but I was not aware of any notable problems with the outlet. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 21:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable and
  WP:NEWSORG, as Yahoo! News – the "web's most popular news site, with more than 88 million unique visitors in the month of April 2011" – has delivered original reporting as early as 2014 (and likely earlier) to a large audience with minimal controversy. The article under examination is very detailed and features interviews with both the researchers and the groups that were being researched. There is absolutely no evidence that the article is a press release or "churnalism", especially considering that, according to the article, the researched groups are denying some of the researchers' conclusions. — Newslinger talk
  00:18, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

  For anyone looking at this discussion in the future (for research), Yahoo! News underwent a "major expansion" in 2013 that included a focus on original reporting. Yahoo! News is still the most popular American news website as of 2017, with "close to 90 million unique monthly visitors" in May 2017, which makes Yahoo! News a publication that should be weighted as highly as any other uncontroversial

  mainstream news organization. — Newslinger talk

  23:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

• My concern is DUE, not so much if this is reliable. Much of the yahoo content is simply stating what the report said. But why should we care about what this particular group says? One of the original red flags for me was the content in the PragerU article focused on what the Alethea group report said. So who are they and why should we care? If the WSJ chose to quote a report from the Alethea Group then we assume weight based on the reputation of the WSJ. Conversely, we often include material from prominent activist organizations/think tanks even when covered by a lesser RS because these are well known organizations. In this case we have a group with very little weight and a new sources with little weight saying what the group said. That becomes a simple case of UNDUE to me. I will close by saying I think Masem is correct in that a problem with the PragerU article is editors are often fixated on dumping every negative report into the article so long as it can be remotely justified based on RS etc. That makes for an overall poor article as it tries to make the trees bigger than their forest. A section talking about general problems with their videos would be good. It should describe a high level pattern then show examples. The Mother Jones article actually was a decent model except that they made factually false statements about several of the videos in their article. Springee (talk) 03:33, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable Yahoo News is a reputable news outlet that has been doing its own original reporting for years with no major issues that would raise reliability concerns. This is not a press release ("warmed-over" or otherwise) or promotional content; the writer independently verified and analyzed the Alethea Group's findings and requested comment from the five companies mentioned. –dlthewave ☎ 13:42, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
• Thats not churnalism or a warmed over press release. As for the claim that editors are packing the article full of negative coverage... This is an article about an organization which is primarily notable for the (often comically) low quality of the content they produce, it seems like some editors are unwilling to accept that fact. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:03, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't question PragerU is going to draw negative coverage, and our article can't shy from that. But again, the issue with the current state of PragerU (and most articles of topics that recieve negative coverage) is that editors see a bit of negative coveage and add it to a running list to the article, which over time can create excessive and undue coverage of the negative coverage if every little bit of negative press is added. Per
    WP:CRIT the article should strive to cover this more narratively - as I mentioned above, there is absolutely a theme related to PragerU and misinformation, of which this Yahoo! article would absolutely fit within. The article's coverage of PragerU's should be summarizing from this bigger picture -- which may mean some smaller events that turned out to be nothing may need to be dropped. We absolutely should not be able to strive to identify every time PragerU is faulted (that falls under RIGHTGREATWRONGS), but instead try to understand and summarize why PragerU keeps on appearing in negative coverage in the press and popular opinion. But that is far from the question of RSes at this point. --Masem (t
    ) 15:11, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
    • I don’t see what we have here as being distinct from the universal problem of
      WP:RECENTISM. Another University thats not really a University on my watch list (University of the People) has similar issues. Horse Eye's Back (talk
      ) 15:25, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
      • Part of it is the general issue that
        WP:PROSELINE also develops from in how the wiki model works - an editor sees something to add and the easier way to add "yet another bullet point" than find a cleaner point of integration. We need editors, at times, to deconstruct such list of bullet points and recreate them as summaries. This applies to both factual aspects that PROSELINE tends to draw, and stuff like media criticism like on PragerU. But again, this is well beyond the RS question (of which I agree, there's nothing here to question Yahoo! as an RS for this purpose). --Masem (t
        ) 15:36, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) You've made part of the point I was making in the ec, but I'll leave this here anyway. It seems like you're making a different point from what this section is about. Nobody has said "we must not summarize". The thing is, summaries are even harder to find consensus for than the piecemeal approach, so calls for "we must not add piecemeal" is an effective way to just omit the material. The most effective way forward here IMO is to include the material that should be summarized first, and then come up with a summary. Trying to argue over both at the same time isn't productive. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:57, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
• Since several editors expressed due weight concerns, I've opened a discussion at NPOV Noticeboard here. –dlthewave ☎ 03:55, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
• Noteduck made a very good and specific UBO argument for the reliability and relevance of Yahoo! News original reporting very early on in the original PragerU talkpage discussion (diff). Noteduck pulled out some NYT articles that highlight Y!N reporting on political matters. Noteduck also brings up a 2010 NYT article that discussion Y!N's first push into original journalism. This demonstrates the long time Y!N has been in the original journalism game.

I just bring it up again because I think this comment got lost in the shuffle, and it's a good contribution to the general evaluation of Y!N reporting. Jlevi (talk) 05:04, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Notice of due weight discussion

For comments on weight for this specific article, consider contributing here instead: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#COVID_misinformation_and_PPP_loans_at_PragerU Jlevi (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

• Lyme_disease#GAO_investigation

I am requesting assistance from experienced editors in a controversial topic area. A lot of media attention has been given to the origins of Covid-19, but there has long been speculation about the origins of Lyme disease, and a possible connection to the US biological weapons program in the 50s. Some scientists think its a conspiracy theory not worth investigating, and some believe only a whistleblower or declassification of information by the Pentagon can decide the matter.

There has also been an amendment to a bill ordering the US gov to investigate the allegation of the disease's origin in bioweapons research:

https://lymediseaseassociation.org/government/gao-investigation-of-ticks-vector-borne-agents-biowarfare-experiments-passes-house/

Prior to this bill, a few books made the connection between the disease, its discoverer Willy Burgdorfer; and US government facilities in Plum Island (New York) (where he worked):

• https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nazi-Hydra-America-Suppressed-History/dp/0930852435
• https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lab-257-Disturbing-Governments-Laboratory/dp/0060011416
• https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Weapons/dp/006289627X

There are also many articles in reliable sources covering this topic:

• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/16/pentagon-review-weaponised-ticks-lyme-disease
• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pentagon-ticks-insects-biological-weapons-congress-bill-chris-smith-a9006701.html
• https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/lyme-disease-amendment-investigation/index.html
• https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/07/nj-congressman-tries-again-to-find-out-if-pentagon-turned-ticks-into-lyme-disease-bioweapons-during-cold-war.html
• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-passes-amendment-ordering-pentagon-to-investigate-whether-ticks-were-weaponized/
• https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4784
• https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3018918/did-us-military-turn-ticks-secret-bioweapons
• https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/07/did-us-invent-lyme-disease-1960s-house-aims-find-out/158529/

There are also a few articles with opposing views:

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/no-lyme-diease-is-not-an-escaped-military-bioweapon-despite-what-conspiracy-theorists-say/2019/08/09/5bbd85fa-afe4-11e9-8e77-03b30bc29f64_story.html
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/neaxdq/the-conspiracy-theory-thats-got-a-congressman-demanding-a-probe-into-weaponized-ticks

I would appreciate some help from other editors in presenting this story from these sources in the most neutral way possible. The state of the subsection before I found it gave undue weight to the opposing views, without any details of the allegations made in the books and articles above. We should also expect updates as this investigation gets underway.

RebeccaofLondon (talk) 13:45, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

• What
  WP:MEDRS sources say about it? That disease was well studied, and Borrelia and the ticks are obviously of natural origin. Doing some research does not mean much by itself. But did they actually breed new strains of Borrelia or particularly aggressive sub-species of ticks? That does not appear in sources above. Also, this is apparently a very old disease [64]. My very best wishes (talk
  ) 17:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

And a disease that is predicted to become more prevalent as ticks spread north, related to climate change, not because of biotechnology, —PaleoNeonate – 00:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• Update: the material is now excluded from the
  WP:FTN. —PaleoNeonate
  – 07:59, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

https://meaww.com/

Mission Statement

The source (MEAWW) claims that, "MEAWW is an initialism for Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide. We are one of the world’s fastest growing media-tech companies with hubs around the world. MEAWW brings you the best content from its global team of reporters on a platform technologically tailored to meet the needs of the modern reader."

Article Example on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tim_Pool#Meaww_article_re._%22impeach_Queen_Elizabeth%22

Content of Article

Article makes claim that famous YouTuber Tim Pool made viral tweet regarding impeachment and Queen of England.

Context

In a recent (as of March 12, 2021) podcast, Tim pulls up news website Media, Entertainment, Arts, WorldWide (also known as "MEAWW") wherein there is an article speaking about his viral tweet here, a sarcastic joke suggesting that people simple "impeach Queen Elizabeth [II of England, presumeably for her "racist" comments regarding the child of her grand-daughter-in-law

• Will Meghan Markle and Harry's interview hit US-UK ties? It won't have any "lasting consequences," says expert
• Feds tear gas "Antifa" activists in Portland, Internet says "protest looks exactly like the ones under Trump
• "Q: into the storm" Live stream, release date, plot and all you need to know about HBO's documentary on origins of QAnon

მაLiphradicusEpicusთე 15:41, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

• Let's have a look at the headline article on their front page. "Is Judea Hartley still single??". Tabloid gossip site. So for a BLP? No. Black Kite (talk) 15:58, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi, at the Cancel culture article we have a number of editors claiming that op-eds and opinion sources are essentially equivalent to or better than peer reviewed academic papers in terms of scaling the quality of sources (including an admin): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cancel_culture#Bari_Weiss I find this totally out of step with what I've learnt about sourcing when I was at university and also what I had come to believe was the standard here at Wikipedia. So my question is: are peer reviewed Academic sources preferable to opinion columns and op-eds? Thanks in advance.

WP:DUE), in which case the op-ed is a reliable source for the opinion cited.--JBchrch (talk

) 22:27, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I agree attributed opinion is acceptable, but would you agree that generally speaking peer reviewed academic sources are the better quality sources than op-eds? My issue with sourcing at that article is that nearly half the article is cited with opinion type sources.

drum

22:37, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Generally yes, but there can be situations where this is not the case. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

On thing I think is very helpful when deciding whether an opinion piece is usable is to think about what it would look like if you boiled it down to the bare minimum summary of "Person X thinks Y", with Y summarized in as few words as possible. "Donald Trump criticized this as 'VERY BAD'" or "the world's foremost historian says this is nonsense" are clearly opinions worth including. Whereas if it would boil down to "opinion columnist X disagrees", it probably shouldn't be used. --Aquillion (talk) 23:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

• Opinion sources are only reliable sources for the opinions of their authors - that is, they're supposed to be used to establish "person X thinks this" in contexts where the fact that person X, specifically, thinks a thing is noteworthy. They shouldn't be used solely for the sake of presenting arguments in the text, or to imply facts, or to provide a framing for the subject; those aren't matters of opinion. Worse, many columnists are employed specifically because their views are contrarian and because they say
  WP:SYNTH. If we're going to discuss major strands of opinion on a topic, the ideal way to do it is with a non-opinion secondary source that provides necessary context and actually describes how widespread or significant the opinions are, or by citing the the opinion of experts and people significant enough that their views can be reasonably taken as clearly-relevant. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 23:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Your first sentence is not supported by policy, there are opinion pieces that can be regarded as factually reliable (see also below). As for the separate issues of weighing opinion under NPOV, I agree that it makes a difference whether an opinion has been reported by a third party article in a RS publication or merely expressed by the opinion-haver themselves in an opinion piece published by a RS. But that doesn't mean that there is a blanket prohibition of citing opinion pieces. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I certainly didn't say there's a blanket prohibition on citing opinion pieces; it's just important to be cautious with the opinions of non-experts, and only cite them in contexts where "X thinks Y" is the thing they're being cited to establish. That is roughly what the second bullet point of

WP:RSEDITORIAL essentially says. And AFAIK that has always been the case - opinion pieces by non-experts are meant to be used to establish "X thinks Y" in contexts where what X thinks is clearly relevant. --Aquillion (talk

) 20:56, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• As is often the case - IT DEPENDS. a) It depends on the authors, b) It depends on the topic. Was the op-Ed written by an acknowledged expert, is the “academic” source written by a fringe nut job? Is the topic pop culture or astrophysics? Blueboar (talk) 23:32, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
• Yea, depends. I prefer scholarly if they are available, with recent things, they may not be. Expert opinions are OK as well. And the humble newsorg is still good, too.Selfstudier (talk) 23:57, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed with Blueboar and Selfstudier. There seems to be a lot of confusion above between factual reliability and bias, and between self-published items and opinion pieces that are very much undergo editorial selection and review. At least in the US, it is a widespread practice among newspapers to fact-check the opinion pieces they publish. Some quick examples:

• The New York Times' opinion section employs a dedicated fact-checker, and their new Opinion Audio section hired a dedicated fact-checker too.
• The exception that proves the rule: When The Wall Street Journal's opinion section violated such expectations last year (by e.g. publishing a piece by Mike Pence that had included questionable COVID-19 stats, and was later corrected), more than 280 of the paper's own employees took the highly unusual step of writing a letter to their publisher to voice "concerns about the Opinion section’s accuracy and transparency" and "its apparent disregard for evidence [which] undermine our readers’ trust and our ability to gain credibility with sources". Currently, https://opinion.wsj.com/ stresses that "While we aim to persuade, every word we publish is the product of rigorous reporting, research and debate."
• Lest someone think this is only the norm at big national papers, here is a student newspaper discussing their practices in publishing opinion pieces: "When an opinion is submitted, it’s first edited and fact-checked by the current opinion editor [...], checked for grammar and AP style by copy editors and then edited and fact-checked once more by the managing editor and editor-in-chief."

Of course opinion pieces are more likely to raise

WP:RSEDITORIAL does actually not disallow citing them for facts beyond the author's opinions (contrary to what was implied abov), but still seems to be worded too conservatively. I haven't dug into how it came to be, but at least this discussion

raises the question if that wording really reflects consensus.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

To be clear,

WP:RSEDITORIAL does unambiguously bar citing editorials from non-experts for facts beyond the author's opinions. When taking information from opinion content, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint.[notes 2] If the statement is not authoritative, attribute the opinion to the author in the text of the article and do not represent it as fact. There is some room for nuance in terms of who qualifies as an expert, whose opinions are relevant, and so on, but it is unambiguous that you cannot cite an opinion piece from a non-expert for a statement of fact. AFAIK this has always been the case, and I would strenuously oppose any effort to change it or to weaken the relevant language - it is an absolutely vital part of how we handle opinions and editorials, which (largely) lack fact-checking. --Aquillion (talk

) 20:56, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• All things being equal, "in terms of scaling the quality of sources," peer reviewed academic publications are higher quality than op-eds. Acousmana (talk) 11:11, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. I can see a troubling pattern on this noticeboard. There are at least two similar threads above, about Poland and Lyme disease. Those are typical content disagreements that are not about any specific source. Instead of simply following WP:RS, i.e. Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process, people are bringing this here. But WP:RS tells this already: "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.". So, yes, the specific source under discussion can be used, but it should be attributed to Bari Weiss. Why bring this here? Just read the WP:RS please. My very best wishes (talk) 16:00, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

It is partially a matter of

WP:DUE. See my explanation above - if we boiled this down to "Columnist Bari Weiss criticized the concept", it would be obviously irrelevant, which shows that it isn't cited here to establish her opinion, but in an effort to introduce her arguments as a broader framing for the topic. That requires either an expert source or a non-opinion one. --Aquillion (talk

) 21:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

"an expert source". Yes, exactly. If an author qualifies as an expert on the subject, then providing their views is fine. And I think that's the case here. This is just something from pop culture, not rocket science. My very best wishes (talk) 16:05, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

For myself, I don't find that someone whose only relevant expertise is journalistic opinion writing to be equally an expert on the subject as those who write peer-reviewed scholarship on a topic, but clearly our assessments differ. Newimpartial (talk) 18:09, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Bari Weiss is not a subject matter expert, they’re a professional op-ed columnist. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:13, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Academic papers are generally reliable sources for facts, while op-eds are not. In an article about the Mars rovers for example, it makes sense to use a peer-reviewed paper by a professor of astrophysics rather than an editorial in a newspaper by someone with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

The issue here seems to be weight. It's not whether the facts are right, but what weight should be given to the opinions expressed. I think the best approach is to use secondary sources that report the opinions. That is helpful in determining how accepted each view is. It's also important to know the political orientation of people expressing these opinions if they are reported in editorials. Personally as a rule I find it useful to never directly report opinions but to use reliable sources reporting on them.

TFD (talk) 17:57, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Thursday that it is the job of Fox News to serve as the opposition to the Biden administration, clearly stating the political biases of a network that until 2017 billed itself as "fair and balanced." [65]

Further evidence that Fox News should not be cited for anything related to American politics. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Was it considered a reliable source before this? I mean, sure,

Daily Caller are considerably worse, but that's not exactly an argument FOR reliability of Fox. But, yeah, definitely a "in no instance" usage in regards to at least politics after a statement like that. Silverseren^C

04:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:FOXNEWS. Firestar464 (talk

) 04:44, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I can only but question the participants in those past discussions and their personal motivations, as the unreliability of Fox (and the lies in print and pushing of conspiracy claims) has been a common talking point and joke among the general public for years. Like, I wouldn't use it for anything, even entertainment news. Silverseren^C 04:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

The story seems to be a response written by

talk

) 07:55, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• Being in opposition to a political party or administration IS bias... however, having a bias does NOT mean a source is unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 13:04, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  Blueboar, correct. See, for example, the Ad Fontes chart which has two axes, bias and reliability. However, reliability does decrease as bias increases, and Fox has become markedly more biased and consequently less reliable over the past five years. This is reflected in things like the departure of Shep Smith and the advancement of Big Lie proponent Maria Bartiromo (and firing of Chris Stirewalt) after the insurrection.

  So: Fox responded to the worst crisis in American politics for well over a century by firing people who reported facts and promoting those who peddled conspiracist bullshit, and that is directly relevant to reliability. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:45, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

• Reliability depends on the nature of the facts reported. Fox should be considered a source of opinion, like a blogger, when it comes to American politics. They are a reliable source for their own opinions, and if they report a quotation "X said Y", that may also be reliable. If they report an opinion such as "Biden is destroying the country" that would obviously not be reliable. With regard to Fox, nothing has changed. There's no need to change our approach. Jehochman ^Talk 13:14, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• Rhetoric aside, isn't this the sort of thing we want from all our media outlets? Not that we want them actively against but we definitely want them to push back on politicians at all levels. This seems like yet another case of a news network playing high school gossip games. Fox and CNN do it all the time and it's a discredit to them both. NBC isn't immune either. Basically this is a non-story. Springee (talk) 13:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• 2020 RfC for reference. François Robere (talk) 13:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• Fox is already marked to be treated with care in the world of politics from the last RFC (from FR's link above). No need to change it due to this announcement. Mind you, this is no different from the bulk of major media sources being implicitly anti-Trump over the last four years though obviously they didn't announce it, and they kept their bias restrained for the most part. --Masem (t) 13:52, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Well yes there is, as this is a clear statement they will be biased, rather than just it being implied. But bias is not a reason to exclude, even stated bias. But I think it is a good reason to keep an eye on them, as this stated bias may push them over into editorial deceit.Slatersteven (talk) 13:55, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
    • I'm just saying that the last RFC cited added this to
      WP:RS/P, which still applies and needs no changing in light of a statement of explicit bias from Fox: There is no consensus on the reliability of Fox News's coverage of politics and science. Use Fox News with caution to verify contentious claims. Editors perceive Fox News to be biased or opinionated for politics; use in-text attribution for opinions. --Masem (t
      ) 16:00, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure they all did keep their biases in check. I've been concerned about a number of examples of Politifact basically arguing too a conclusion vs impartially reading the facts. I think I have four or five examples thus far. Springee (talk) 14:04, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• We should not make a
  WP:FALSEBALANCE between Fox's announcement of opposing Biden and the mainstream media (such as the NY Times and CNN) giving Trump negative coverage. Trump aggressively promoted demonstrable lies, such as the falsehood about the stolen election, climate change denialism, slurs against Mexicans and Muslims, and quack cures for COVID-19, and he did it on a large scale. Other Republicans (such as former president Bush and presidential candidates McCain and Romney), who did not do this, were covered much more sympathetically by the mainstream media. NightHeron (talk
  ) 14:36, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
  • There is an element of RIGHTGREATWRONGS here though, as well as RECENTISM. There is no question Trump will go down in history as a bad president and there will likely be a number of things that he handled poorly will be highlighted as such hallmarks of his poor presidency. But that takes time to figure out. Right now, however, is not that time, everyone is still far too close to the situation to be unbiased, even academics. Yes, we can discuss that broadly, right now, the public impression is that Trump did a poor job, but per NOT#NEWS/RECENTISM, we should not be trying to qualify that to a great degree with commentary from RSes at this point. Just as we would not try to use Fox here to qualify that Biden is also doing a bad job (which there would likely also add UNDUE/FRINGE to the mix). This is broadly the general problem with any politic coverage we do on WP - editors want to include what commentary and opinion says but this is the worst possible material to include when we don't have years between the events made and the comments said. We're incorporating those implicit biases by default. But this is not saying no commentary can't be included, but it should be very clinical and not trying to mirror to the tone and intensity of the current media. Only until enough time has passed and more dispassionate commentary (which still will likely paint Trump very poorly) can be made can we get into a more detailed commentary about Trump. --Masem (t) 16:10, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

You misunderstand what I said. I said nothing about Trump being a bad president. Bush was a bad president. He started a brutal and pointless war in Iraq, whereas Trump, to give him credit, managed to get through four years without starting a war. The point is not that Trump was a bad president or is a Republican, but that he's a pathological liar, which Bush, Romney, McCain, Biden are/were not. This is not POV or RECENTISM; it's fact: the 2020 election was not stolen, anthropogenic climate change is real, Mexicans and Muslims are not undesirable, bleach does not cure COVID-19. There should not be false balance between someone who consistently lies and someone who doesn't. NightHeron (talk) 20:43, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, it is one thing that we can readily document neutrally without commentary the number of lies and misleading statements Trump has made and compare that to other presidents and world leaders. It is the next step of calling him a "pathological liar" which is the commentary on the matter from recent sources that we have to wary about in the short term. We may all agree that his lies were dangerous and the like, and there's certainly an overwhelming amount of voices from mainstream media that would support this direction, but per RECENTISM/NOT#NEWS as well as RIGHTGREATWRONGS we should be careful about giving that stance too much weight at this time. If ten years from now Trump's still considered a terrible president in contrast to the next 2-3 because of his pathological lying, then we something that it far more distanced that makes for better review for inclusion under UNDUE that is no longer subject to RECENTISM. That's the nature of the implicit bias of the media that we had to be careful about; there are elements that are clearly factual (that Trump lied) that we can documnt regardless of source bias, and there are elements that are opinion (that Trump is a pathological liar) that we have to be a bit wary about inclusion and the impact of unstated source bias if we're still too close to said events. Of course, here when a source says "we're going to bias this way" then we have more reason to be wary of their opinions from the start including potential impacts on their factual reporting. --Masem (t) 21:48, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the media are biased. For example, we have perfectly good May, 2020 sourcing that it would take a "miracle" for Trump's claim that there would be a covid vaccine in 2020 to be correct.[66] And when the vaccine was in fact approved in 2020, there was curiously no NBC article crediting Trump with a "miracle" accomplishment on his watch. Though HuffPo did give us a "fact check" that Pence was incorrect when he called it a "miracle" [67]. Fox News took an honest look at the situation[68]. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

• This discussion is quite enlightening. News media is supposed to expose politicians and keep them in line, hopefully not in the same manner they handled the Trump presidency. I often see FALSEBALANCE & WHATABOUTISM used as excuses when things come full circle and don't align with a particular political POV, and to me that emphasizes WP's own systemic bias. Noncompliance with RECENTISM is how we learn to be better editors, because it usually doesn't take too long for all the misinformation and BS to be exposed. Retrospect is 20-20 vision. We need to avoid WP's own systemic bias because WP:POV creep is an issue in our political articles, and has resulted in what I consider harmful criticism about WP's NPOV. When choosing RS for the inclusion of material, we are obligated to choose our sources from a NPOV, the sources themselves don't have to be neutral or unbiased. There is not one RS that I can name, in clear conscience, that is flawless. Based on my past & present experiences in the media industry, they all make mistakes, but our reason for coming to this noticeboard is to discuss specific material for inclusion based on the all-important CONTEXT in a specific source - not to judge entire sources based on aspersions, the POV of competitors, journalists with an axe to grind, cherrypicked mistakes, and/or political opinions by opposing political forces, and sadly, that is exactly what we've done. The irony of consensus is that we're ok with the news Fox reports, but not their political news because WP's systemic bias doesn't align with their POV - that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Such judgements make aspects of WP:RSP noncompliant with WP:RS wherein it states: Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process. Context is an integral part of the decision-making process. We can go toe-to-toe and show that propaganda and misinformation occurs in ALL online news sources. They have all published false allegations, POV speculation, sensationalist headlines, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. In fact, a couple of our highest quality RS (NYTimes & WaPo) had to return Pulitzers because of fake news. If you think going online tightened down proofing by the respective editorial boards, think again - some of these editorial boards are writing their own political opinions and propaganda. What we really need to do is back-up, and utilize WP:RSN the way it was intended to be used; i.e., request input for specific material IN CONTEXT that was proposed for inclusion, or that was removed from a specific article. The closer of those discussions should be neutral with no political bias, or we're left with the hegemony of the asshole consensus, and I find that more harmful than helpful to the project. Politics is not medicine, although it is served to us in big doses, and political articles don't need as stringent a sourcing requirement as do our medical articles. Common sense usually prevails. That's my nickel's worth, and I'll add that I'm open-minded to being convinced otherwise, but please don't try to relitigate and attempt to convince me that MSNBC or CNN is any better than Fox News. Atsme 💬 📧 16:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• 2 cents...this does not or should not alter the way Fox News sourcing is handled in the Wikipedia. All they did is say the quiet part out loud, for once. ValarianB (talk) 16:15, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• If we deprecated sources for being the "loyal opposition", we would lose sources such as The Guardian, Haaretz, Novaya Gazeta, Cumhuriyet etc. Editors hyperbolizing about Fox's reliability appear to be failing to make the distinction between their commentary shows (clearly not reliable) and their news programming (no consensus). Move along folks, nothing to see here. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  Well put. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:32, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

• I mean, this is well-established. But the reason Fox is unreliable isn't because they have a bias (proclaimed or otherwise), it's because they have an extended history of publishing false or misleading things in the service of that bias - that is to say, the network has a structural problem stemming from their devotion to their ideological goals that interferes with the fact-checking and accuracy required of a
  WP:RS. That quote doesn't really add to that (since showing it interferes with their fact-checking and accuracy is what matters); I'd be more concerned about their coronavirus reporting. See eg. [69][70] - IIRC that development was one of the reasons the most recent RFC failed to find a consensus that it was reliable for politics and science. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 21:26, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• I'm against the over-generalization of any source as being overall reliable / unreliable and wish Wikipedia would cease such activity. Which basically amounts to voting based on Wikipedia's systemic bias. Actual reliability comes from expertise and objectivity regarding the item which cited it and varies case by case. But on the issue of bias, almost all media has become biased including sources that are highly regarded in Wikipedia. For better or for worse use of biased sources is specifically acknowledged at wp:NPOV. North8000 (talk) 21:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• For anyone doubting Fox News' lack of integrity, I recommend picking up Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics,[71] written by three academic heavy-hitters, Professor Yochai Benkler and Hal Roberts[72] from Harvard and Professor Robert Faris[73] from the University of California, Davis, published in 2018. The book demonstrates (using a lot of quantitative data analysis) that the right-wing "information ecosystem" including Fox News no longer follows basic journalistic norms. A good quote: [right-wing] radicalization was driven by a group of extreme sites includingBreitbart, Infowars, Truthfeed, Zero Hedge, and the Gateway Pundit, none of which claim to follow the norms or processes of professional journalistic objectivity. As we will see time and again, both in our overall analysis of the architecture and in our detailed case studies, even core right- wing sites that do claim to follow journalistic norms, Fox News and the Daily Caller, do not in fact do so, and therefore fail to act as a truth- telling brake on these radical sites. Indeed, repeatedly we found Fox News accrediting and amplifying the excesses of the radical sites...over the course of 2017 Fox News had become the propaganda arm of the White House in all but name (p14). They cite Fox's promotion of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory (159-166) and the claim that the Clintons were linked to pedophilia (92-93) - Fox's most widely tweeted and shared on Facebook story of the 2016 election cycle(!) - as particularly noxious examples of Fox's political radicalization. There's also very solid academic work done about the effect of Fox News on driving Republican support. Martin and Yurukoglu concluded that the precise impact of removing Fox News from cable networks in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 election cycles would have reduced Republican votes by 0.46%, 3.59% and 6.34% respectively. Similarly, in a widely cited article Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan found that Fox News was responsible for a 0.26-0.36% vote shift in the 2000 presidential election (note that Fox cable coverage was much less entrenched at this time.[74] Academics have written about the notorious "Fox News effect",[75] based on a poll in 2012 that found Fox viewers were less informed about politics than people who professed no interest in politics at all, which was not the case for viewers of NBC and CNN.[76] These are all peer-reviewed articles in high-quality academic journals. I think these all prove that Fox News is partisan, misleading, and a serial promoter of conspiracy theories, demonstrating that Fox News should not be used as a source about American politics except for uncontroversial claims Noteduck (talk) 02:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
• I second what Rosguill said, and will add (my opinion/commentary unrelated to Rosguill's comment) that I think that some of the comments here should likely be viewed as violations of
  WP:RGW - they're simply masquerading as a legitimate discussion. If Fox News should be considered "more unreliable" because of their opposition to Joe Biden, then CNN and MSNBC should be considered equally less reliable for their overt, universal opposition to Republicans/Trump - which has been, over the last 4 years, overtly stated by multiple people who work at those networks, even if it wasn't the CEO. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!
  ) 02:33, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

• Fox News is unreliable because it purposefully puts lies to print and promotes conspiracy claims. If it was just biased, then things would be different, but its willingness (much like Breitbart) to put out outright falsehoods is the concern. Silverseren^C 02:49, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

  And that's fine, and why I have no problem with the "use caution" present on RSP and the outcome of the discussion about it (having read it over). However, that is not what the person here is proposing, nor is it what somewhere around half of respondents here are arguing. This statement has absolutely no value in any discussion of reliability. Period. Reliability on Wikipedia is disconnected from any bias the source may have - it is based on editorial controls and reputation for factual data. Biased presentation of facts is still facts (not saying that's what Fox does). My comment about RGW was not directed at yourself, as you provided a concise statement that you feel this should be considered - even if I disagree with that statement it's not indicative of you having some crusade as some other editors here seem to be on. I also further think you should reconsider your statement regarding the "general public", as it likely is based on only what your closer connections feel - there is, after all, 45% of the general (voting) public who voted for Trump and would be reasonably expected to consider Fox a reliable source - which in and of itself disproves your statement that it's been a "common... joke... for years". But I digress - this is all discussion that could be had in a structured, specific RFC if anyone really feels that one is needed at this time on Fox - this discussion itself should likely be closed as irrelevant, moot, and useless overall as nothing will come of this other than people going back and forth. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:45, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

• Fox might once have been the right-wing equivalent of CNN but over the last five years the distinction and balance between factual reporting and opinion has changed, it has become more biased and more discobnnected from reality, and this is an inevitable result of the system of incentives within the conservative media bubble (see Network Propaganda by Yochai Benkler). Of particular note, following the January 6 insurrection they fired Chris Stirewalt, who reported accurately on the election and was viciously attacked by Fox viewers as a result, and promoted Maria Bartiromo, an active proponent of the Big Lie. It appears to be deliberate policy to continue to move toward the extreme right and put ideological Truth above empirical fact. As a data point, in the several days of saturation coverage of the "cancelling" of Dr Seuss, only of their news programs actually showed any of the images in question (source: [77]). Guy (help! - typo?) 17:09, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
• Then depreciate The Guardian since it opposes the current Johnson ministry. Oh wait, just because a source is biased it does not mean it is unreliable, *sigh*.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:34, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
• The Telegraph must also now be an unreliable source, as they’ve overtly opposed Biden at this time. This is how absurd making determinations as to reliability based on political leanings is, or rather how far it could be taken if this sort of slippery slope is allowed to continue. This discussion isn’t producing anything useful - and it should likely be closed before it wastes more time and electrons. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:49, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

The source is by the Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady [Kurds: A Concise Handbook, 1992, Routledge]. In short, while Izady is an academic, he engaged in pseudo history to push nationalistic agenda. I will list these following scholarly treatments of his book:

• First, start with reading the book review: V. Strohmeyer. Review [M. Izadi, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, London: "Taylor&Francis", 1992], Acta Kurdica, vol. 1 (19994): 221-222. Published by RoutledgeCurzon
• Second: from the book: Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan, by Maria Theresa O'Shea, published by Taylor & Francis:

1-Page 181: "Much of the rest of Dr. Izady’s book is well written, dealing exhaustively with many hitherto unexplored aspects of the Kurds and Kurdistan. However, certain sections, such as that on ancient history are subject to seriously flawed reasoning, and the lack of citation ensures that his own conclusions are presented as factual evidence. However, its wide range of coverage and accessible tone, combined with its affordability and accessibility ensured that it rapidly became a ‘bible’ for both Kurds and Kurdophiles."

2-Page 136: "For example, Izady claims that less than 60 percent of Kurds are Sunni Moslems, and attempts to diminish the role of Islam in Kurdish culture. He also attempts to link the several heterodox sects in a way that make them simply remnants of an original Kurdish religion, a religion that he implies is more ‘natural’ for Kurds than Islam.64 It is probably only in the former Soviet republics with a large number of Kurds, such as Georgia and Armenia, that the experience of being Kurdish is inherently bound up with Yezidism.65"

3-Page 134: "Izady has developed a theory of Kurdish language classification, which is markedly different to any other.Curiously, he asserts that this classification is accepted by all educated Kurds, whereas, I have not seen or heard any other reference to Pahlawani, nor heard Kurmanji in general referred to as Badinani.53"

4-Page 132: "As described in chapter 6, more fantastic claims of Kurdish history have recently been advanced. An excellent example of this trend exists in Izady’s recent account, where a speculative account of Kurdish history from 10,000 BC onwards is given as if factual. Except in Izady’s work, narrative usually skips from Xenephon to Marco Polo to the nineteenth century European travellers,40"

5-Page 60: "Thus there is a shift away from the purely philological argument to the territorial argument whereby, as for Izady, any past inhabitant of present day Greater Kurdistan was Kurdish."

6-Page 59: "Even during the classical period, for which there are more sources, Izady continues his flawed axioms. A fundamental problem in Izady’s reasoning is that he confuses the Kurds with Kurdistan."

7-Page 59: "Although Izady’s thesis is so fundamentally flawed, the overall theme is likely to become an inherent part of the Kurdish mythology. Indeed, many articles and works now refer to Izady as an authority on Kurdish history"

8-Page 60: "Citing Izady’s work offers an alternative to charges of orientalism, lends a pseudo-academic tone to writings, and can be used to justify almost any Kurdish nationalist myths."

9-Page 58: "The culmination of attempts to establish an unbroken chain of Kurdish historical presence in Kurdistan, as well as a glorious history is reached in one of the most outstanding, as well as astonishing, attempts to create a complete Kurdish history by using a combination of remembered, recovered, invented and borrowed history,18 that of Mehrdad Izady, a Kurdish scholar from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University"

10-Page 59: "He traces the existence of Kurdish culture back more than 50,000 years, to include the Neanderthal findings in the Shanidar caves.20 His thesis is the astounding claim that, ‘I treat as Kurdish every community that has ever inhabited the territory of Kurdistan and has not acquired a separate identity to this day, or been unequivocally connected with another identifiable nation, the bulk of which is or was living outside the territories of Kurdistan. This is consistent with what is accepted by consensus for the identification of the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, and the relationship they have to modern Egyptians and Greeks.’21 Using this thesis, as well as judicious extension of the boundaries of Kurdistan, Kurds can claim credit for the Neolithic revolution;22 the invention of agriculture (prior to Mesopotamia); the domestication of animals; the invention of material technologies, such as pottery, metalwork and textiles; cuneiform writing; urban communities, until Kurdistan was overshadowed by Mesopotamia. According to Izady, although unsourced and elsewhere not mentioned, in the 3rd millennium BC the Qutils established a unified kingdom and were the only Zagros group to conquer part of Mesopotamia, namely Akkadia and Sumer, which they ruled for 170 years.23"

• Third: Turkey's Alevi Enigma. The article: A Comprehensive Overview- The Debate on the Identity of 'Alevi Kurds', by Paul J. White, published by Brill:

1- Page 22, where it is commented on Izady's attempt to claim that Dailamites are Kurds: "Quite a different view is propounded by the noted Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady , who states that the Dailamite expansion ended in Dailam. Izady, who is otherwise a scholar of considrable merit, is not able to present any proof for this astonishing assertion , or even to cite a similar view by earlier scholars . Izady's view must therefore be considered as so far unproven".

So, I stongly believe that Izady should not be used for topics relating to Kurdish history, or at most, any info coming from him should be qualified and attributed to him as his own opinion--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 19:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:RS

to me:

• Published by Routledge, originally in 1992 and republished in 2015 [78]
• 367 Google scholar cites [79]
• Reviews of the original 1992 include Journal of Third World Studies [80] There are many good features of this book...,
  Review of Middle East Studies [81] This is a much needed reference source on the Kurds., and Current History [82]
  : As a reference work, The Kurds is remarkably complete.

I'm not familiar with V. Strohmeyer or Acta Kurdica, or Maria Theresa O'Shea's book, but some scholars disagreeing with Izady doesn't mean his book not an RS. Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:02, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the topic or with the book but I found another book in the "Handbook" series (The Chechens by Amjad Jaimoukha) also somewhat problematic in a similar way. I'll try to find some kind of a review confirming this. Alaexis_¿question? 20:31, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

More:

• "The alleged pan-Kurdish proto-religion called “Yazdanism” is a fabrication of contemporary Kurdish scholar Mehrdad Izady." -- Richard Foltz (2017). The “Original” Kurdish Religion? Kurdish Nationalism and the False Conflation of the Yezidi and Zoroastrian Traditions. Journal of Persianate Studies. Brill. p. 91 (note 3)

- LouisAragon (talk) 21:03, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Paul Joseph White, Joost Jongerden. Turkey’s Alevi Enigma: A Comprehensive Overview. Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2003, p. 22;

“The Kurdish nationalist establishment ducks this problem, sometimes because tie ants to rely on Izady as an authority who considers the Zaza and Kizilbas to be Kurds. But this is not good scholarship. Points must be proven; nothing is gained by simply appealing to authority. The Kurdish nationalist establishments claim that the Dailamites were Kurds only makes sense if one either accepts Izady’s manifestly unproven theory about the direction of their migration, simply because it suits the Kurdish nationalist project.“

“Not a single scholar or even nationalist party claims that Daylam is in Kurdistan! (Dailam was on the south-western shores of the Caspian Sea, literally hundreds of kilometres from Kurdistan!)“

Gunter, Michael M. International Journal of Middle East Studies 26, no. 2 (1994): 323-25. [83]:

”One problem with Izady is that he sometimes claims too much for the Kurds. His exaggerated assertion of a "Pontian Kurdish Empire under King Mithridates VI [the Great], ca. 86 B.C." (map, p. 37) that totally encompassed the Black Sea and included practically all of modern Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, as well as parts of present-day Ukraine and Russia, is an example. Although Mithridates may have had some Kurdish ancestry, to refer to him as "the Kurdish Pontian king Mithridates" (p. 38) is bound to strike most historians as iconoclastic, if not simply incorrect.” p, 324

--HistoryofIran (talk) 21:33, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Not reliable by our guidelines. When the complaint is "pseudo academic" from peer scholars its a warning sign there may be fringe content in the book mixed in with good content (sch as the "the Kurdish Pontian king Mithridates" example in the above comment). Spudlace (talk) 07:52, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Not reliable I used to think he was, but I clearly didn't do my research. Neanderthal Kurds? That's about as fringe as you can get. Doug Weller talk 13:25, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Not reliable per Doug Weller. In any case, if there were a Kurdish Neanderthal culture whose features continued on in some fashion to a later human culture in Kurdistan, it could not have been reliably posited in 1992; the research on Interbreeding between archaic and modern_humans emerged in the 21st century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:39, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § Islamic Republic News Agency

 –  Newslinger talk 23:53, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Is Islamic Republic News Agency considered an RS for non-political articles? ~ HAL333 21:30, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

• Likely to be similar to the China Daily discussion up-thread. If state-owned media (which IRNA is) has a history of pushing contentious, propagandastic claims then it should probably only be used for "banal" claims, when a better source has no access or coverage of it. I would favor using IRNA or China Daily to support claims about noncontentious claims relevant to their respective localities — "non-political articles" included. As we saw with China's state-owned media, never using it for such can be destructive to parts of the encyclopedia, with the example of articles about train stations in China being stripped of all sourcing. I wouldn't favor using them as a source about Israel or Taiwan, respectively, and snooping around the IRNA website's archives tells me they speak a lot about foreign policy and the affairs of other countries. I spot coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and of banal topics like movies too, though. It may be helpful in documenting the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran in some instances (eg, "According to the Iranian state-owned IRNA, X cases were reported in Y town and Z city") or about cultural topics. Even there though, the stipulation about contentious claims applies. If they post some conspiratorial nonsense about COVID-19 (which propaganda arms of the Iranian state have been no stranger to), that would not be a banal claim; It could be used as a source for "Iran is spreading COVID-19 misinformation, here's how". Ultimately, we know they aren't a reliable source in a general sense, but should also recognize they may be the only accessible source for certain mundane claims. This would apply to any state media who engage in both. --Chillabit (talk) 01:19, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
• Among
  press freedom
  that have been discussed on this noticeboard, two types of sources have consistently been classified a certain way:
  1. Major state-run
     in-text attribution
     . These news agencies can be relied upon to accurately reflect the positions of their respective governments.
  2. Sources identified as
     generally unreliable
     .

This comes up so often that we might consider adding it to the

Probably a good idea. It's also a factor in the China Daily discussion on this page currently so wording it to include state-run/state-controlled media as well as just news agencies might be worthwhile too. Thryduulf (talk) 16:42, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Many reliable sources say that the aim of the

• ISBN 978-975-428-345-7
  . The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 officially recognized the " ethnic cleansing " that had gone on during the Turkish War of Independence ( 1919 - 1922 ) for the sake of undisputed Turkish rule in Asia Minor .
• Avedian, Vahagn (2012). "State Identity, Continuity, and Responsibility: The Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey and the Armenian Genocide". European Journal of International Law. 23 (3): 797–820.
  ISSN 0938-5428
  . The 'War of Independence' was not against the occupying Allies – a myth invented by Kemalists – but rather a campaign to rid Turkey of remaining non-Turkish elements. In fact, Nationalists never clashed with Entente occupying forces until the French forces with Armenian contingents and Armenian deportees began to return to Cilicia in late 1919.
• ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3
  . The famous 'war of national liberation', prepared by the Unionists and waged by Kemal, was a vast operation, intended to complete the genocide by finally eradicating Armenian, Greek, and Syriac survivors.

• ISBN 978-1-4008-8963-1. Thus, from spring 1919, Kemal Pasha resumed, with ex- CUP forces, domestic war against Greek and Armenian rivals. These were partly backed by victors of World War I who had, however, abstained from occupying Asia Minor. The war for Asia Minor— in national diction, again a war of salvation and independence, thus in- line with what had begun in 1913— accomplished Talaat's demographic Turkification beginning on the eve of World War I. Resuming Talaat's Pontus policy of 1916– 17, this again involved collective physical annihilation, this time of the Rûm of Pontus at the Black Sea. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |lay-url= ignored (help
  )
• Levene, Mark (2020). "Through a Glass Darkly: The Resurrection of Religious Fanaticism as First Cause of Ottoman Catastrophe: The thirty-year genocide. Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924, by Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp., USD$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9780674916456". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (4): 553–560.
  doi:10.1080/14623528.2020.1735560
  . Ittihadist violence was as near as near could be optimal against the Armenians (and Syriacs) and in the final Kemalist phase was quantitively entirely the greater in an increasingly asymmetric conflict where, for instance, Kemal could deport "enemies" into a deep interior in a way that his adversaries could not..., it was the hard men, self-styled saviours of the Ottoman-Turkish state, and – culminating in Kemal – unapologetic génocidaires, who were able to wrest its absolute control.
• Levon Marashlian, "Finishing the Genocide: Cleansing Turkey of Armenian Survivors, 1920-1923," in Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, ed. Richard Hovannisian (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), pp. 113-45: "Between 1920 and 1923, as Turkish and Western diplomats were negotiating the fate of the Armenian Question at peace conferences in London, Paris, and Lausanne, thousands of Armenians of the Ottoman Empire who had survived the massacres and deportations of World War I continued to face massacres, deportations, and persecutions across the length and breadth of Anatolia. Events on the ground, diplomatic correspondence, and news reports confirmed that it was the policy of the Turkish Nationalists in Angora, who eventually founded the Republic of Turkey, to eradicate the remnants of the empire's Armenian population and finalize the expropriation of their public and private properties."
• Shirinian, George N. (2017). Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923. Berghahn Books. p. 62.
  ISBN 978-1-78533-433-7
  . The argument that there was a mutually signed agreement for the population exchange ignores the fact that the Ankara government had already declared its intention that no Greek should remain on Turkish soil before the exchange was even discussed. The final killing and expulsion of the Greek population of the Ottoman Empire in 1920–24 was part of a series of hostile actions that began even before Turkey's entry into World War I.
• ISBN 978-0-87436-928-1
  . Mustafa Kemal completed what Talaat and Enver had started in 1915, the eradication of the Armenian population of Anatolia and the termination of Armenian political aspirations in the Caucasus. With the expulsion of the Greeks, the Turkification and Islamification of Asia Minor was nearly complete.
• ISBN 978-0-674-91645-6
  . The Greek seizure of Smyrna and the repeated pushes inland— almost to the outskirts of Ankara, the Nationalist capital—coupled with the largely imagined threat of a Pontine breakaway, triggered a widespread, systematic four- year campaign of ethnic cleansing in which hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Greeks were massacred and more than a million deported to Greece... throughout 1914–1924, the overarching aim was to achieve a Turkey free of Greeks.
• Meichanetsidis, Vasileios Th. (2015). "The Genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire, 1913–1923: A Comprehensive Overview". Genocide Studies International. 9 (1): 104–173.
  doi:10.3138/gsi.9.1.06
  . The genocide was committed by two subsequent and chronologically, ideologically, and organically interrelated and interconnected dictatorial and chauvinist regimes: (1) the regime of the CUP, under the notorious triumvirate of the three pashas (Üç Paşalar), Talât, Enver, and Cemal, and (2) the rebel government at Samsun and Ankara, under the authority of the Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi) and Kemal. Although the process had begun before the Balkan Wars, the final and most decisive period started immediately after WWI and ended with the almost total destruction of the Pontic Greeks ...
• The Turkish war of independence is also cited as an example of ethnic cleansing in books such as Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe[85] (t · c) buidhe 21:35, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
• Scholars disagree, how boring would it be if they didn’t? I see bias in some of the sources here but no propaganda, these scholarly opinions carry weight. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:07, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

This isn't an

WP:RS question. The weight we give to any opinions in articles would be based on secondary sources (which sift through this stuff). This doesn't mean the sources are non-reliable for their own opinions. Spudlace (talk

) 07:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Primary source would be a first hand account of atrocities or original document. These *are* secondary sources. (t · c) buidhe 02:33, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

• Source: DUK News - https://dailyuknews.com/
• Article:
  Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds MP)

Could someone take a look at recent edits to

If no decent RS has reported this I would question it. Even his own website seems to contain no mention [[86]].Slatersteven (talk) 11:52, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

According to their About page this DUK site just copies articles from other news sites, with no editorial oversight. This particular one comes from the Daily Mail [87], which is itself deprecated as a source. the wub "?!" 13:32, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I found only two other instances of this site being used as a source on en.wikipedia, both copying a Daily Mail article, and both are now replaced with a better source. the wub "?!" 17:43, 14 March 2021 (UTC)