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Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust

While there were some valid questions about whether this article could be used as a source for an article like
WP:VPM. signed, Rosguill talk
15:53, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

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

Recent paper by Jan Grabowski & Shira Klein discussing Wikipedia's coverage of the Holocaust in Poland in The Journal of Holocaust Research. Link is here (Open Access). The paper (as its title would suggest) is quite critical. Are these criticisms founded? Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Completely founded. They also didn't find everything, see for example Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 333#Mass removal of criticisms from the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
One of those co-authors has been directly mentioned by a indef-banned editor who holds their exact same opinions by the looks of it (based off a quick search). And the article seems to be very against certain editors that the unnamed editor also had issues with. Granted, I wasn't on Wikipedia when all this went down, but from an outsider's perspective, there's clearly a bias that at least one of the co-authors hold. Plus, given the authors obvious in-depth research of all the editors named in the article, I cannot believe they weren't aware of the arbitration about the topic and the changes made over the years to actively combat misleading or biased info. The article also uses diffs that date back to 2011 that were made by a separate indef-banned editor as evidence of Wikipedia's bias. In addition, it also seems to want to push POV into articles that are neutrally-worded. Rhayailaina (talk) 03:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
I don't say this lightly as I take antisemitism and Holocaust denial quite seriously. But I also find the framing of the article to be questionably done. Rhayailaina (talk) 03:45, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:ARBECR, so non-extended-confirmed editors cannot participate in project-space discussions concerning this topic. I've struck Rhayailaina's edits and will leave a note at user talk. Levivich (talk
) 04:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
The more I look into the authors, the more one seems to be very overly-biased. Klein seems reputable and good at not inserting a POV. But Grabowski's entire body of work is nothing but this topic. Some of it looks quite good and well-researched, but some of it seems to be singling out Poland as a bad actor, and not that Europe as a whole had certain biases that weren't unique to Poland. Rhayailaina (talk) 04:04, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. It's very obvious from that text that it was co-written by Icewhiz and is essentially a list of his grievances, feuds and yes, lies. 99.99% of this material has been combed over repeatedly by a very wide and diverse group of Arbitrators, Administrators and commentators. And guess what? None of these accusations were found to be true, for the very simple reason that they weren't true. Hell, the article indirectly acknowledges this when it starts whining about how "wrong people were banned" (no, Icewhiz was exactly the right person to ban). If anyone wants to point to/ask about a specific issue then go for it. We can re-re-re-re-hash these disputes for the millionth time I guess. Volunteer Marek 04:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm unsure of the hostility, as I'm not fully disagreeing with you, though I'm not agreeing either. Also
WP:DBTN, I literally stated that I was not around when this happened but was doubtful about everything being shown in context Rhayailaina (talk
) 04:48, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Icewhiz was monumentally disruptive, but they weren't fundamentally wrong when it came to what was taking place in articles related to the Holocaust in Poland. Wait, you have barely over 20 edits. How do you know who Icewhiz is? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:53, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
No, Icewhiz was indeed "fundamentally wrong" which is why they were topic banned. They were notorious for misrepresenting and lying about sources as well as about other editors. Volunteer Marek 04:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has ever been banned for being wrong, perhaps your memory is acting up? You seem to have forgotten that you were also topic banned at that time. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
"Fundamentally wrong" is HEB's wording, not mine. If you want to get specific, although I believe you know this well, Icewhiz was banned for [1] "inappropriate ethnically derogatory comments", "interpret(ing) an apparent error (...) as a deliberate hoax" and "inappropriately and falsely" accusing others of Holocaust denial. That puts it in the "fundementally wrong" category in my book, but oh! wait! there was also "us(ing) inappropriate sources in BLPs ([71]), ma(king) negative edits to BLPs ([72]) including editorializing in Wikipedia's voice ([73], [74]), and made arguably BLP-violating edits on talk pages by posting negative claims or speculations about living scholars".
Me? I was topic banned for "accus(ing) Icewhiz of making things up on numerous occasions", using sarcasm (it's true, I was guilty) and appear(ing) to edit an article because Icewhiz did so". Hell even this article we're discussing acknowledges that the ArbCom found no fault with any of my content edits, unlike with Icewhiz's, they just slapped a topic ban because I was rude to him when I pointed out the nature of his actions (which in retrospect, given what he got up to subsequently was extremely mild, to put it nicely). I believe you know all this already, no? Volunteer Marek 05:33, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm HEB. Its my wording. There is no love lost between Icewhiz and I, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:50, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
God that's a tired cliche. A broken clock may be right twice a day but any other stupid appliance that's broken is... just broken. A broken dishwasher is not right twice a day it just doesn't clean dishes. This whole "right twice a day" thing maybe would have some legs if this wasn't all stuff that's been discussed to death a hundred times already. Volunteer Marek 06:02, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
My understanding is that its a metaphor, I wouldn't worry about taking it too literally. Is there a point somewhere in there or is this just bludgeoning for bludgeoning's sake? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:12, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes, the point is that the Icewhiz "clock" is not "right twice a day". Volunteer Marek 06:17, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
My own assessment largely matches that of Icewhiz and the academic work. What else am I supposed to think when I've been watching it happen for years. Go back and read the defense of the Institute of National Remembrance you made in 2021 which I linked above, the things you wrote should shock and appall you when you read them. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:30, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Well, either your assessment matches that of Icewhiz or it matches that of academic work, because both of those can't be true at the same time. Which comment of mine in that discussion is upsetting you, exactly? I have no way of knowing since you did not participate in that discussion. And actually, neither did Icewhiz as he was already indef banned by that time. Volunteer Marek 07:09, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
The article mentioned Icewhiz by name, which I didn't recognize that name so I wanted to see who that was. Rhayailaina (talk) 03:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Lets see what you found, where is this direct mention which demonstrates a clear bias from your outsider's perspective. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Ok, well the bias isn't just the mention alone, but the mention is right above the image that is figure 1. As for Icewhiz mentioning the author by name previously years ago, I can link that in a min. Rhayailaina (talk) 04:13, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Where is the bias? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:14, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
I think the bias stems from one of the two authors, Grabowski who basically acts as a foil to the claims he makes about suppressing an antisemitic bias. I don't see any evidence it's Klein who is the one purposely presenting everything in a way that assumes bad faith about everything. But the article likes to leave out information when referencing things about sourced claims that were deleted- for example, when talking about BLP, it erroneously claims that the removals weren't of BLP-violating content, despite the fact that the sourced websites certainly weren't adherent to BLP (at least those that can be accessed, some of the links no longer work). Rhayailaina (talk) 04:42, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Now I don't think the content should've been removed, as I think it was valid to keep, but the attributed sources aren't exactly reliable. Rhayailaina (talk) 04:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
@
WP:RS, it depends on for what content in what article. (Although it's peer-reviewed scholarship, so...) Levivich (talk
) 04:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
I was thinking for Reliability of Wikipedia. Just because something is published by a reputable publisher doesn't mean that it's necessarily reliable. I've seen very questionable research published in major journals before. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:50, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Ah, makes sense. At
WP:TIER2, unless we have other RSes that question its reliability. I'd say attribute for content that can only be cited to this source, and it can also be used as one of multiple sources used to support statements in wikivoice. Levivich (talk
) 05:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Right. Do you seriously want to re-do the COIN dispute from ... whenever that was. It was the same issue. The same fundamental problem (Icewhiz's off wiki hi-jinks), the same exact diffs and stuff. Volunteer Marek 05:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
While I won't comment on the whole Icewhiz situation, because I'm wanting to keep as far away from that as possible, I will say that the criticisms in the "Confronting distortionists" section from Buidhe about how our arbitration process fails at handling cases with selective picking of sources to arrive at a particular narrative are both accurate and sadly not limited to content on the Polish Holocaust. Sideswipe9th (talk) 04:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
"Just because something is published by a reputable publisher doesn't mean that it's necessarily reliable." What else is new? Over my years of creating or editing Wikipedia articles, I got into the habit of checking works by university presses for errors in chronology and/or geography. Some of these "academic" works contain really shoddy research. Dimadick (talk) 12:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Problem with those "true in general" criticism is that while being kind of true, they're always used in a self-serving manner. I *also* happen to think that "our arbitration process fails at handling cases with selective picking of sources to arrive at a particular narrative". Everyone involved in a given dispute *always* believes *the other side* is cherry picking sources. Volunteer Marek 05:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps, as Levivich points out, this discussion may belong at another noticeboard. Whatever. But wherever it occurs, that conversation needs to be serious, in depth, and conducted primarily though not exclusively by neutral, uninvolved editors. No bludgeoning by the accused. I am utterly unimpressed by the flippant response by Volunteer Marek who claims that 99.99% of the assertions are false. Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence, so it is incumbent on Volunteer Marek to refute 9,999 claims while conceding one, or else to withdraw that hyperbolic assertion. Of course this article is contaminated by the participation of Icewhiz. The authors acknowledge that editor's compulsive sockpuppetry but fail to report on that editor's lengthy and vicious harassment of other Wikipedia editors. But even a broken clock can be right twice a day. A longstanding pattern of POV pushing cannot be excused by pointing out that an abusive editor was one among many who raised objections. So, let's look into this, in a sober and level-headed fashion, unswayed by indignation and deflection and stonewalling and sandbagging. Is there something fundamentally non-neutral about our coverage of the Holocaust in Poland, or is everything copasetic? Cullen328 (talk) 05:48, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
" No bludgeoning by the accused" - I'm sorry but that's ass backwards. The accused gets to defend themselves. The "bludgeoning" is done by the accuser.
"Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence" - yes, yes they do, but I am not the one making "exceptional claims". As I already said, all of these false accusations are old as heck, have been poured over by many outside parties, have been repeatedly rehashed and the conclusion has always been the same. No, it is not "incumbent" on me to prove anything, when this matter has already been in front of ArbCom, up and down WP:AE and WP:ANI and god knows what other venue.
And like I already said above [3], if anyone wants to bring up anything SPECIFIC then yeah I guess we can go over it yet one more time (though here?). But don't you dare accuse me of "bludgeoning" when all I'm doing is defending myself from false accusations by a guy who was globally banned in part because he threatened to kill me and rape my kids (as well as other nasty stuff). Volunteer Marek 05:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
@
WP:DENY recognition to the Icewhiz's campaign of harassment. PS. Weird thing is over a year ago I was interviewed for this essay (btw, it's an essay, as the authors write themselves, and essays are opinion pieces rather than neutral research pieces, by definition...) by Grabowski's co-author, Klein, but it seems to me they obviously "lost" my interview, as I clearly corrected some factual errors or explained my comments they refer to in the article (some from 2007 or likewise ancient history), yet my corrections/clarificaitons are absent from their discussion. Klein told me back then she was also interviewing Icewhiz, and obviously, that interview was not lost :/ Back then I tried reaching to Grabowski and Klen, suggesting that if there are errors on Wikipedia, they are welcome to edit them, or ask their students to do it as part of an educational assignment, and it's pretty disappointing that what we get, years later, is just a rehash of his old newspaper piece, based on diffs/commentary supplied to them by Icewhiz. This topic deserves better, both on Wikipedia and in outside discourse. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here
08:31, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
It's a 50-page piece with >300 footnotes, quoting more than two dozen Wikipedians and even one WMF staff. You yourself were interviewed for this essay (as was I, and presumably many of the others), which you acknowledge was over a year in the making. Pretty dishonest calling it "just a rehash", don't you think? François Robere (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Did the authors identify some pattern in (un)reliable sources used by the alleged "distortionist editors"? They only looked at 25 articles, but there might be some finding of broader usefulness. If the suggested learning is "don't use sources aligned with the

PiS or the ruling parties of Poland", however, that's a pretty hard criterion to implement. Nemo
07:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

No, they mostly just repeat, almost verbatim (which is pretty strange), Icewhiz's false claims dating back to 2016-2019. As I've said, all this stuff has already been looked at. It's just false claims.
For example, the article claims " Volunteer Marek described Kurek as a ‘mainstream scholar". This is just a verbatim repetition of a falsehood Icewhiz tried to use (unsuccesfully) in this AE report from 2018 (five years ago). I did not describe Kurek as a mainstream scholar. What I said was: "Now some of his (Icewhiz's) edits on these articles may be justifiable. But there are plenty that aren't and taken as a whole it's one obvious attack by Icewhiz on multiple mainstream scholars (Polish, Swedish, British) whom he decided should be attacked because what they wrote doesn't let him push his POV." Icewhiz - and now Grabowski and Klein - only *pretended* that this was a reference to Kurek. In the same AE report I also explicitly stated "regarding Ewa Kurek I believe I've expressed the opinion that she should not be used as a source" and "I generally agree with User:Ealdgyth that these are sources (Kurek - VM) better to be avoided." (these comments were later cut by Sandstein because they exceed the 500 word limit... thanks!) See how twisted this is? Basically *every claim* in that article is like that.
And again - if there's any specific concern you have in mind, please ask. Volunteer Marek 08:50, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
It's not as clear-cut as that. Here you state that Icewhiz "resumed his attacks on BLPs of historians that disagree with his extremist views. Gunnar S. Paulsson (and [53]), Norman Davies, and also Ewa Kurek." Then, you admitted Now some of his edits on these articles may be justifiable. Nevertheless, you said, it was an obvious attack by Icewhiz on multiple mainstream scholars (Polish, Swedish, British). Paulsson is Swedish. Davies is British. And so the "mainstream Polish editor", in your own words, is Kurek. Kind regards, W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 11:35, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Ah, I see you mentioned it yourself already. But the point still stands. You called Kurek mainstream, and later said she shouls not be used as a source, leaving room for ambiguity. W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 11:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
No, I did not call Kurek mainstream. I said Icewhiz was attacking mainstream scholars in addition to making some justifiable edits. Volunteer Marek 12:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
OK, so Icewhiz has been manipulating users and admins, now he is manipulating researchers into writing scholarly articles, the peer reviewers bought into it, and no one but the supposed conspiracy's victims are unable to see through it. I got it, but please address the inconsistencies to the authors, or the publisher, not us. I hope they will be receptive if the rebuttals are valid. Why argue about whether the sources are valid if you can improve them yourself? As a last resort, there are IRL courts where one can sue for libel.
It's not for RSN (AN might be a good place for discussion, and indeed someone started a discussion to ban Klein's account). I suggest moving the discussion there. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Well, no. Admins banned him so at least there his manipulation failed (though it wasted a lot of time). And this is one particular very specific scholar we're talking about here. Volunteer Marek 12:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
We shouldn't focus too much on the Icewhiz thing here. What is done is done. But Piotrus himself acknowledges that "Grabowski is considered one of the authorities on the topic of Holocaust in Poland". Now, if one of the authorities on the subject publishes an academic essay claiming that 25 WP articles in his area of expertise are affected by minor errors ... subtle manipulations and outright lies, we must first and foremost identify the "outright lies" and correct them. We don't necessarily have to subscribe to their judgment on "subtle manipulations" – historians are not angels detached from politics and passions – but we do have to remedy the outright lies. To this end, we need this article as
WP:RS – or does anyone think it's unreliable? Gitz (talk) (contribs
) 12:32, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
What is the RS question? Slatersteven (talk) 12:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
I imagine it's about the usage anywhere on Wikipedia, and my answer is "not now". The controversy just began, so let the dust settle and we will see. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
  • So editor feelings trump sources? Whatever ancient history editors and icewhiz have, whatever disruption he brought is quite simply not a replacement for [[WP:V]. If you would like all sources related to Icewhiz banned from Wikipedia then make that argument and get community consensus to override
    WP:RS or he is not.Slywriter (talk
    ) 14:00, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

This does not seem to be an RS question, so can we please close this? Slatersteven (talk) 14:11, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

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

Oneindia as a reliable source

Oneindia is a website which provides informations like list of members of a state legislature in India[1], biography of politician[2], news updates[3] and also do factcheck[4]. The website has news in many main languages like English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Gujarati and Kannada language.[5] Some leading news medias like Times Internet and The Times of India used it as news stories.The Hindu, most trusted newspaper of India wrote is as "one of India's leading portals". [6]

@

Oneindia.com "Seems reliable to me" at here. ​​​​​​​𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙‍♂️Let's Talk !
06:55, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I used to consider the
Times of India to be a reliable and venerable source published since 1838 until I learned about Paid news in India, which indicates that major publications in India such as the Times of India will give you favorable coverage if you pay them, or ignore you if you do not pay them. If this practice is widespread, then we need to refuse the reliability of any Indian news source that does not explicitly reject this "pay to play" business model. Cullen328 (talk
) 08:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
@Cullen328 Can I use Oneindia in any wikipedia article as a citation. ​​​​​​​𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙‍♂️Let's Talk ! 12:22, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
LordVoldemort728, I recommend that you be cautious. Here is what an editor who knows much more about Indian news media than I do wrote in 2015:
"I have never been particularly happy with anything relating to oneindia.in It seems often to be an aggregator and I've seen enough examples where the aggregation appeared to include material that closely resembled our own articles. Proving unattributed use of our material would require a lot of work but perhaps we need to try to do that at some point. For now, I would suggest not using it in BLPs on the basis of "least harm". - Sitush (talk) 08:23, 22 May 2015 (UTC)"
Please take that into consideration. Cullen328 (talk) 18:29, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
Ok ​​​​​​​𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙‍♂️Let's Talk ! 18:47, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
The website advertisers itself as one that "churns out around 1000 articles a day and has industry best engagement metrics" and has only 10 listed staff authors (most of whom seem to have edited their own profiles lacking even a basic house style), which should give a clear indication that the website can have no meaningful editorial oversight, without going further into its frequent typographical and factual errors. Most of the content on the website is just material sniped (and then sentences being mixed around, sometimes couple sentences added, etc) from other sources which includes absolutely everything from news sources of all kinds to the most random blogposts and social media comments (for example read this clickbait "moving story" taken from a twitter account). The website also hosts its article space for advertisements and contain no disclosures on what's an advertisement and what isn't (for example, fairly certain this "news" is an advertisement). This is the kind of deceptive paid news Cullen328 is talking about above and most news source wouldn't be so brazen about it, usually there are closed door "private treaties" with select partners instead of article space being kept on open display for anyone to advertise on like OneIndia does.
This also applies to all of their linked derivative websites; Boldsky.com HTTPS links HTTP links, DriveSpark.com HTTPS links HTTP links, Gizbot.com HTTPS links HTTP links, NativePlanet.in HTTPS links HTTP links, MyKhel.com HTTPS links HTTP links, Careerindia.com HTTPS links HTTP links, GoodReturns.in HTTPS links HTTP links and Click.in HTTPS links HTTP links. There are more but most of them pop in and out of existence and mostly contain content copied from the main sites. Of interest would be that it's partnered with DailyHunt, an aggregator which is currently on the spam blacklist for picking up exactly this kind of content. Tayi Arajakate Talk 09:26, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

The Backrooms

Are Mark Frauenfelder's Substack and Happy Mag reliable sources on The Backrooms article? — VORTEX3427 (Talk!) 12:45, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Which posting on Substack for what on The Backrooms? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:18, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
Refs 6 and 7, respectively. They were in the article at the start. — VORTEX3427 (Talk!) 22:48, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
@Vortex3427:, I'd say yes to Happy Mag & no to Substack. Happy Mag is generally reliable for film, music, games, and TV. Substack is a blog where anyone can post whatever they want, with no editoral oversight. After reading the Backrooms article, it reminded me of the Magic Theater in the novel Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. Best regards ~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 00:50, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The Floridian

This is my first time I've written on this noticeboard, so please excuse any mistakes on my part.

Anna Paulina Luna is in the news recently. I was reviewing the citations on her wiki-article, and one source, The Floridian (a news website), caught my eye.

  • "Trump Will Host Fundraiser for Anna Paulina Luna". The Floridian. November 17, 2021. Retrieved August 23, 2022.

As I was navigating the site, it seems (to me at least) that this site has a bias. I did not find this site on

WP:RSPSOURCES
would be worthwhile.

Thanks!

KD5TVI (talk) 12:12, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think having a bias matters too much in the grand scheme of things, we all have one. The quality and standards of their reporting matters more then them having a preference. With that said, there's substantial issues with that quality and standard. The seem to be widely described as a blog. Their coverage is described by one reliable Florida politics outlet as not just biased but sycophantic. And the head guy, a failed congressional candidate, had his twitter DMs exposed by another conservative Florida media org in large part because they were sick of him asking higher profile outlets to retweet his stories. All in all it doesn't give me the feeling that they stand on solid ground with regards to their journalistic standards. --(loopback) ping/whereis 12:31, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Many issues, I am unconvinced that this publication is legitimate.

  1. The link to the article you provided had an incomplete sub-title: "President Trump called her a". Another article that I quickly found [5]: House Democrats banned together in support of Omar - "banded"?
  2. See bottom of page, the Twitter account of this publication is a personal account @JavManjarres, while the email of this publication is Diversenewmedia@gmail.com .
  3. Clicking categories they feature at the top of the page, they refer to Biden as "Joe Biden" and Trump as "President Donald Trump".
  4. Their sidebar still has the title: Stop Nancy Pelosi, over one month after she is no longer Speaker of the House. Three of the four advertisements are for politicians, Republicans I assume.
  5. They write about [6] the Biden classified documents incident that Evidently, the National Archives informed Biden attorneys two months before the story became public last week ... but other sources (including Fox, the source they actually linked to [7]) report that Biden attorneys informed the National Archives of the documents. starship.paint (exalt) 12:43, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • I have no opinion as to whether “the Floridian” is reliable or not, however I oppose adding it to the RSP list in either case. That list is for sources have been discussed multiple times (the P in RSP stands for Perennial), and “the Floridian” has not. Blueboar (talk) 12:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Per Blueboar above, a general RfC on The Floridian is inappropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:05, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Meh… Requesting comments on a source’s reliability is fine (that is what this noticeboard is for)… my objection is purely about adding it to the the RSP list. That part is premature. Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
OK then, to be more specific, an RfC on adding The Floridian to WP:RSPSOURCES is inappropriate. Though if such an RfC were appropriate, the wording above wouldn't be, since it isn't neutral, as WP:RFC requires.
There has been an increasing tendency for 'reliability' RfCs on this noticeboard to be seen as a solution to disputes over sourcing in specific articles, rather than perennial questions, and in my opinion it needs to be actively discouraged. At best, it is premature and based on a misunderstanding of WP:RS in general (which doesn't support a simple binary segregation of sources into abstract 'reliable' and 'unreliable' categories), and far too often, such RfCs become proxy battlegrounds for debates over single uses of a source.
Rather than an RfC, what is needed in this case is a simple discussion of the specifics, as laid out in the notes at the top of this page: what wording is The Floridian being cited for, and where? And as far as I can see, that hasn't even been discussed on the article talk page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:11, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Frontiers Genetics (ethno-religious population origins) and Raphael Falk (academic)

There is a currently open RFC re Frontiers at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC: Frontiers Media.

There is a discussion at

Frontiers Media SA
, while Iskandar323 and Nishidani are more supportive of it.

Iskandar323 has floated the idea of a new RSN discussion, because past RSN discussions (such as this one) have never mentioned Frontiers Genetics, specifically. However, my take has been that, as a rule, all journals published by Frontiers Media SA are considered unreliable for bio-sciences, which includes population genetics. If Frontiers Public Health is unreliable, so is Frontiers Genetics.

Anyway, is Frontiers Genetics a reliable source for in-Wiki author statements like "not surprisingly, Ashkenazi Jews prove to compose a distinct yet quite integral branch of European genomic tapestry"? - Hunan201p (talk) 12:42, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

The topic of the quality of the source as a whole is a somewhat separate discussion from individual instances of usage. These are macro and micro issues with respect to each other. If we unpack the first, the thing to pay attention to is the journal's own literature on its process, alongside its Impact Factor (4.772) and CiteScore (4.9). Regarding the example of individual article usage provided (a quote), even a self-published source can be used for a quote attributed to a sufficiently eminent subject-matter expert, per
Iskandar323 (talk
) 13:23, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Comment I am extremely perplexed as to why anyone should raise doubts about this source.

This is not about Frontiers of Science. It is about the reliability of Raphael Falk as a source for the history of genetics regarding the Israel/Palestine context.

It is therefore utterly irrelevant what venue Falk chose to publish his overview in. Misguided attempts by editors of nondescript background (on the talk page it was even asserted that Falk's views were 'anti-Jewish', codelanguage for antisemitic!!!) to challenge his work on molecular genetics, or his theoretical and historical work, by citing one or two putative examples where his affirmations don't agree with snippets of what other wiki articles cite for ideas contary to those of Falk are, frankly, outrageous. His competence as an authority on the topic (as a geneticist and historian of biology) he is cited for has never, to my knowledge, been questioned. On the particular points paraphrased from Falk, the views are increasingly commonplace and have been endorsed by eminent scholars specializing on the origins of Jews as varied as

ISBN 978-0-691-19165-2 and Shaye J. D. Cohen. There is nothing 'controversial' here. I've cited Falk's 2017 book for a number of articles and no one has ever thought this problematical.Nishidani (talk
) 14:10, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Can't see a problem with citing a subject matter expert with attribution. Selfstudier (talk) 14:43, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
For all genetics-related studies – whether they have appeared in Nature or Science, or in a journal which uneven output when it comes to Quality, like Frontiers in Genetics – the impact of the source is a good indicator for due weight. A widely cited paper in Frontiers in Genetics (and there are loads of them) is better than a low-impact article in Science. Falk's article "only" has 12 citations in Google Scholar, but then we have to consider that this is not your usual population genetics paper with PCAs and f3-statistics, but a critical review of the methods and interpretations employed in modern population genetics in a very complex context. Such studies by their very nature have a different impact, quantitatively and qualitatively. So no undue weight here IMO, but I would probably move away from plain Wikivoice and attribute the material in-text to Falk. –Austronesier (talk) 15:13, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
What is an editor of nondescript background? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:28, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
I think it's the opposite of a high-pitched agitated editor, but I might be mistaken. –Austronesier (talk) 17:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
I used the term both in the general sense, editors of indistinct background whose competence to judge cogently issues of genetics is unknownm (including myself), and, in the narrower sense, I had in mind the editor who today trashed an article by Israel's whilom foremost historian of biology, a leading geneticist, as 'junk', and yesterday binned the same with a dismissive insinuation he was an antisemite, i.e. pushing an 'anti-Jewish POV'. Perhaps in the latter instance, I should have used a harsher adjective. The first rule in editing complex topics is humility and an awareness of the limits of one's sense of omniscience.Nishidani (talk) 19:51, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Comment The subject of Jewish genetics is highly controversial and contested. Many editors involved in this discussion have insisted that Raphael Falk is a "professor emeritus" and pointed out that he is Jewish, as if this gives him the privilege to self-publish, or makes it impossible for him to be an anti-semite. However, see the example of

Richard Falk, who is also a professor emeritus, also Jewish, and also an anti-semite. Raphael Falk, the genetics expert we are discussing, was not an anti-semite, but he was an anti-Zionist, and spent most of his career trying to refute any notion of distinctly "Jewish" genetic ancestry, for better or for worse. Falk's research has clear ideological underpinnings, since "As Raphael Falk has argued, the question of Jewish genetics is not solely a scientific one, since the way one interprets the science, the uses one puts it to, and the very way in which one poses the questions are cultural and political, rather than only scientific."[8] This makes Falk by admission an un-objective participant in this field of research, who is at the opposite end of a spectrum from zionists who believe in a Jewish 'race'. There are sometimes highly ranked professors with controversial or opinionated ideas, and they also get their works published in shoddy journals. See Richard Lynn as another example, but note that I am not comparing him to Raphael Falk. - Hunan201p (talk
) 19:00, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

This is not worth replying to because of (a) its epistemological naivity and (b) failure to grasp the principles of paradigm analysis in the history of ideas. Knowledge is embedded in interests and assumptions. Historical analysis teases out these biases, and no one who does that well assumes that they alone are exempt from the cognitive pressures of their own times and milieu. Don't reply please. Read at least Falk's works on the topic before blathering about the person.Nishidani (talk) 22:33, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
Richard Falk has been accused of antisemitism (so you might care to strike that comment), much like Kenneth Roth is, along with pretty much anyone else that criticizes Israel for anything at all (or they are accused of anti-Zionism it then being argued that is the same thing as antisemitism).Anyhow, this has fa to do with what we are discussing here. Selfstudier (talk) 19:52, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
I second that. The editor should immediately strike out the absurd claim that
Richard Falk is an antisemite. Disgraceful.Nishidani (talk
) 20:22, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
Falk is obviously not "anyone who has ever criticized Israel, at all".[9][10][11] IMO, Nishidani and Selfstudier are over-reacting here. - Hunan201p (talk) 21:28, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
You are calling a still-living person, a Jew at that, an antisemite. Technically you mean he is a Self-hating Jew. The usual attack media can get away with that, and we invariably note the tripe as an accusation when a RS reports the assertions. You, as a wikipedian editor, cannot. You are not a reliable source, and you are way out of your depth here. So, retract that smear.Nishidani (talk) 22:16, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
IMO, your description of reliable sources as "usual attack media", as well as your very staunch defense of a guy who has been condemned for anti-Semitic stuff by several top diplomats, makes you seem like an especially tendentious editor. Are you really capable of bringing an objective and divorced perspective to this discussion? Please try to. - Hunan201p (talk) 23:23, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
@
Iskandar323 (talk
) 05:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
@
Iskandar323
: Really? Did I do that all by myself?

Frontiers is a predatory publisher. Anything published in a Frontiers journal should be treated as suspect. If someone publishes in Frontiers, the first conclusion is that they couldn't publish with a non-predatory publisher. This comes across as a farrago of special pleading. If the guy wrote a blog post, is he such an expert that it would be a

WP:MEDRS? Of course not - David Gerard (talk
) 09:14, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

@
Iskandar323 (talk
) 09:38, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Or, if you are equating Frontiers with a blog, that hyperbole really needs explaining/justifying. Also, Frontiers Media was only classified as a "possible predatory publisher", and that was only according to the now highly dated 2015 Beall's list.
Iskandar323 (talk
) 09:44, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Frontiers journals are not treated as good-enough journals on Wikipedia, and if you want their predatory listing removed then a discussion on dubious genetics sources isn't a place to do that - David Gerard (talk) 16:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Not that we are really relying on Frontiers here, but just for my edification, where on WP is the consensus that Frontiers journals are not treated as good-enough journals on Wikipedia and where is the predatory listing? Selfstudier (talk) 17:24, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Not reliable Frontiers is unreliable, that's not something we need to debate much. It is a predatory publisher with substandard reviewing. The argument that we should trust the article because the author has done some other good research doesn't hold. Having done some good research is no guarantee that all research is good (I've published many articles in leading academic journals in my own field, that does not mean I can submit a paper to a predatory journal and demand it should be respected just because I've done other things that were good). Quite the contrary: if the findings would be reliable and noteworthy, hardly any academic would submit to a journal such as Frontiers. In my department, even doing so would result in a warning. Jeppiz (talk) 14:38, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment I've added a warning on the talk page of the article in question to users
    Triggerhippie4 to stop the long edit war over this Frontiers article. All users, regardless of opinions, would do better to await the outcome of this discussion. Whether the Frontiers article should be in or out pending this discussion is something I don't have an opinion of, but if it is kept in, the tags should be kept in as well. It is disappointing to see both how long this edit war has been raging, and that even good established users get drawn into it. Jeppiz (talk
    ) 15:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
    @
    Iskandar323 (talk
    ) 17:00, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
That's all good but I would still like to see the WP consensus against Frontiers that David Gerard mentioned above. Also this discussion appears to be confused as to whether we are considering the author reliable as a subject matter expert or whether we are relying on Frontiers. Selfstudier (talk) 16:56, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Selfstudier above. Ad stated on the talk page, I believe Falk's findings to BD correct and have no problem with his hypothesis. My issue is with using Frontiers as a source, given that it's a very poor academic source. As I would seem Falk has published the same research at Springer (a reliable source), I would have no problem at all with the same content being in the article but sourced to his publication at Springer, not at Frontiers. Jeppiz (talk) 19:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of declaring Frontiers entirely unusuable. Like MDPI, there are topics that it generally shouldn't be used for at all (like medicine) but for some other topics (like paleontology) I think it's okay to use on a case by case basis, provided that what is being said is not contentious and that the authors are established experts on the topic. (No opinion on this particular case though). Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:55, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:CHERRYPICKING so that predatory journals are fine when they say what the users wants but unreliable when it contradicts them. The case in question is no exception, falling into the usual default lines we see in ARBPIA topics. (Personally, I am happy to declare I will never put forward an article from Frontiers or MDPI regardless of what it says). Jeppiz (talk
) 20:14, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
I don't know what your speciality is, but unfortunately, within paleontology (vertebrate paleontology at least), MDPI and Frontiers have become mainstream enough that they can't be ignored like this. Species are being described in these papers, which are accepted by other researchers. The people using the venues are not some rank amateurs, but some of the most senior figures in field, like Éric Buffetaut and Robert R. Reisz. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
That is unfortunate. There are a lot of things about academic publishing which are unfortunate. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and not positioned on the bleeding edge of academic research. I don't think we want to treat predatory journals as just blogging platforms for reputable experts, but maybe that would work in some cases. For papers being cited as peer-reviewed research, if other researchers accept some work from these predatory journals, those other researchers should be cited instead of citing these predatory journals directly. Grayfell (talk) 00:21, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
PS Equally confusing is the claim "so predatory that it amounted to being self-published". Those are two entirely different categories, it's not like "very predatory" equals "self-published". The statement makes no sense, sorry. Jeppiz (talk) 12:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Raphael Falk, reliability

Recent AfD at WP:Articles for deletion/Raphael Falk (academic) closed as Keep.

The discussion above is clearly about the reliability of Frontiers, yet some users insist on making it about Raphael Falk. This is not academically sounding, and rather indicative that the motive is the desirec include Falk's claim in Frontiers, rather than discussing the academic merits of Frontiers (in general). It would be better to keep these two entirely unrelated discussions apart. As for Raphael Falk, his academic output is very modest. I can only assume the reason we have an article about his is because of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, because ad per

WP:ACADEMIC, Falk is very far from any academic notability, as already a quick look at Google Scholar and JSTOR confirms. A few modest publications, with relatively few cites from other academics. Jeppiz (talk
) 12:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

If it is about Frontiers, we need an RFC to determine reliability.
If it is about Falk, he qualifies both as a subject matter expert and because apparently the same material that is in Frontiers is published by Springer in Hebrew. Selfstudier (talk) 13:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Agreed on Frontiers. As for Falk, one of tens of thousands of non-notable academics (he does not satisfy even one of the eight criteria at
WP:ACADEMIC for being a notable academic), the same normal academic rules apply to him as to everyone else. A publication by Falk (and by any bona fide academic) in a good academic publication is reliable. As a non-notable academic, Falk does not benefit from any intrinsic reliability (nor do I, despite being much more widely cited than Falk, so no offence to Falk intended). Jeppiz (talk
) 13:24, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Falk has a WP article, that means he is notable by WP standards. If you think otherwise, then maybe AfD that article? Selfstudier (talk) 13:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
I did, though that is rather irrelevant for this discussion. Thankfully, having a WP article and being RS as an academic are entirely unrelated (some [in]famous academi s have articles despite being uncitable. Far more common are the tens of thousands of academics whose research is RS though they have no article on WP). Jeppiz (talk) 14:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
I started the RFC below. If I read
WP:CITEWATCH correctly, the general thought seems to be that it is hit and miss. But given this discussion and what's in the archives , maybe we should just sort it out. Maybe you would like to kick off? Selfstudier (talk
) 14:52, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Source code as a reliable source for anything that papers doesn't have?

Continuation of the

verifiability policy since I now have a working demo for the sliding windowed infinite Fourier transform that can be cascaded just like IIR filters, which the original paper didn't mention it (not even alpha-SWIFT part) and it is cited on the relevant part on an article about sDFT. So the question is the source code a reliable source if there are working demos for it and there are no papers about any algorithms described by the actual source code? 2001:448A:3043:762C:746D:DED5:4321:8398 (talk
) 20:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

As was mentioned in the first discussion linked above, interpreting anything other than the most trivial and obvious information from source code is
concerns of due weight for article inclusion direct us to use secondary, not primary, sources when considering the addition of information to an article. signed, Rosguill talk
20:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
Code that you wrote and posted on a
MrOllie (talk
) 23:53, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
@
MrOllie and Rosguill: Does these working demos for above count as secondary sources since it demonstrates how the algorithm works, or is still a easily-misused primary source? 2001:448A:3041:7E63:D3E:5407:F6DD:3DF5 (talk
) 18:23, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
That is still very much a primary source. We would want a reliable secondary source (magazine, expert, etc.) to interpret it for use on Wikipedia. The system excludes what might be a lot of good content, but also keeps the site from devolving into endless pet theories. Happy Friday. Dumuzid (talk) 18:29, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of the Catholic Culture website

Editor @Horse Eye's Back: has stated that the website Catholic Culture along with everything hosted on it (be it electronic reproduction of material already published somewhere else and hosted on it, or publications by Catholic Culture) are to be removed from Wikipedia, as the user claims this website is not a reliable for any of its content. The user has already begun removing the sources from the website (from 22:43, 26 January 2023 to 22:57, 26 January 2023).

I oppose such a jugement on Catholic Culture (CC). From experience, yes CC is reliable. And it hosts electronic versions of previously published documents (journal papers, dictionary entries) which most of the times cannot be found anywhere else, with proper referencing of its original source (e.g. [12]).

The reproduction of documents on CC, from those I have been able to compare, are faithful:

Horse Eye's Back main criticism is the About Us page of CC. I do not see why the user thinks such a page would indicate CC would not be a reliable source. Compare it to the same 'about us' pages for similar websites which as far as I know are considered as RSs: America [13], Catholic News Agency [14], Catholic Herald [15], The Tablet [16], Orthodox Times [17], Orthodoxie.com [18], Christianity Today [19]. Veverve (talk) 15:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

CNA is not a WP:RS (its an EWTN product, nothing EWTN touches is reliable), Christianity Today is not a WP:RS. Not intimately familiar with the others but I'm getting the feeling that you don't really understand what a WP:RS is. I asked you before and I'l ask you again, is there even one sentence you feel comfortable pulling from their about us page? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Who or what is EWTN? Johnbod (talk) 16:16, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
EWTN is an extremist broadcasting organization operating out of Alabama. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:18, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Ok, I see - but what makes you think CC and EWTN are connected? It doesn't seem as if they are. Read that "About us" page more carefully, & follow the links. Johnbod (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't think they're connected, what gave you that impression? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:24, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
a) You said: "CNA is not a WP:RS (its an EWTN product, nothing EWTN touches is reliable)", which I misread - you use too many initials that non-Americans won't follow, and b) you keep going on about EWTN - why is that? Johnbod (talk) 16:28, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
OP mentions EWTN almost as much in their opening statement as Catholic Culture. Wouldn't have gone on about it except some guy asked "Who or what is EWTN" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
All the websites I gave are sources used throughout Wikipedia for years and considered as reliable by all people who have regularly worked on WP articles concerning Christianity. Your attack on EWTN is gratuitous; CNA is a very professional and neutral specialised news source. Veverve (talk) 16:20, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
No it isn't, EWTN is not a WP:RS. It isn't even a RS for Catholic opinion because they fight with the church so much. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:23, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
an extremist broadcasting organization, they fight with the church so much: says who? EWTN is not the topic. You appear to be extremely biased, to the point of not being non-constructive. Veverve (talk) 16:25, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Says any reliable history of EWTN... Given the list of "reliable sources" you just trotted out I wouldn't be throwing accusations of bias around. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:27, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
CNA is quite well-respected for its reporting as far as I can tell (alongside its sister publication, ACI Prensa), and it's a well-established
WP:NEWSORG. Christianity Today is also a well-established news organization with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Merely being affiliated with a religious group does not make something unreliable, Horse Eye's Back. — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
19:56, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
CNA/EWTN is *not* well-respected and is not well established, its niche at best. What sort of reputation does Christianity Today have outside of evangelical circles? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:04, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Catholic News Agency has an editorial structure where journalists report the facts on the ground and editors who review reporting and conduct fact-checking. My understanding is that it's generally reliable for reporting on Church affairs, and that it has a good reputation among journalists who cover the Catholic Church. CNA is also nineteen years old at this point, so I would say that it's pretty well-established; it's certainly not a new upstart like
WP:GREL
source, founded in 2011), and I'd find it incoherent to argue that the latter two have somehow had enough time to become well-established if the formermost source has not. ACI Prensa is even older (founded in 1980).
Christianity Today, outside of the mainstream Evangelical population, generally has a positive reputation going back a long time (The New York Times has referred to it as respected as far back as 1972!). I'm frankly surprised that this is even a question. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:17, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
"generally reliable for reporting on Church affairs, and that it has a good reputation among journalists who cover the Catholic Church" so like I said... "its niche at best" if you want to continue this discussion we can open a section for EWTN/CNA. If not lets focus on Catholic Culture. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:23, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Certainly here reliable for what is a question.
Age alone is not a solid indicator, or being respected in 1972, as some sources that may once have been reliable may have fallen of late to printing things like The Jewish Racket Known as the Right-to-Life Movement as seen with one of the sources referenced in this thread (not that
The Christian Broadcasting Network
?
That a source might have a bias or agenda doesn't impact its reliability (e.g. BuzzFeed News) but once challenged we need to have the discussion of what current editorial oversight and fact checking is taking place. Where did you learn of the CNA's editorial structure and fact-checking? That does sound like evidence of reliability. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:38, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
E. Michael Jones, the writer of the piece you're referring to, has... never exactly been a reliable guy (there's enough written about him that he may be notable... that's a new article idea). But where is that on the Catholic Culture site? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:43, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
This was published by the same publisher, so they are reprinting material from a dubious publisher, and this was one of the things that Veverve listed as something to cite to Catholic Culture. It's tangential of course, but it does call in doubt to my mind exactly what is being published on the site. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:53, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
I found that through [20] along with numerous other antisemitic publications. Basically the entire publisher looks like garbage.
E. Michael Jones does look like a good candidate for an article. I'll make a stub if enough sources turn up. —DIYeditor (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
@
WP:NBASIC (there's at least 3 pieces of SIGCOV about him here, plus the reviews of his books to help fill in some of the details on his writings). Feel free to join/expand if you'd like; it's currently beyond barebones. — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
 21:57, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
The difference between CNA and CBN starts at the top: the editorial staff actually has a journalistic pedigree, blending experience in secular and Cathoic Journalism. The editorial team of CNA is led by editor-in-chief Shannon Mullen, who worked for 10 years with the
SBS for a decade before moving to CNA as the founding Editor-in-Chief of CNA's German-language service CNA Deutsch. Zelda Caldwell, formerly an editor of Catholic online periodical Aleteia
, is a News Editor.
Meanwhile, it's a bit hard for me to discern the editorial structure of CBN, but it looks like Pat Robertson and his son Gordon are the people making editorial decisions for a large portion of the organization. Neither are journalists by nature, and the whole editorial structure doesn't really hold up to that of CNA. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:09, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Ok, fair enough, that sounds reliable on the surface. CNA is not the site in question unless it relates Catholic Culture. I've shown them reprinting material from a clearly unreliable publisher, for what it matters. —DIYeditor (talk) 21:17, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Fair enough. My best reading of Catholic Culture is that it's like New Advent inasmuch as it's a reliable republisher but additional considerations apply for original works. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:21, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
The Catholic Herald seems to be a fringe publication which publishes the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Milo Yiannopoulos, am I missing something here? None of these appear to be top tier WP:RS and a good number of them appear to be unambiguously bad sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:39, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
To say "a fringe publication which publishes the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg..." Is just silly - like him or not Rees-Mogg is a senior politician and minister who I'd imagine has had articles in all the English nationals (except perhaps the Guardian, but that's their "fringe" position). Johnbod (talk) 16:51, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Now do Milo Yiannopoulos. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:53, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
No thanks - don't know as much about him - he's not on the BBC the whole time, "fringe" broadcaster that they are. Johnbod (talk) 16:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
No worries, I'l give you a minute to read his wikipedia page. Also RE BBC you understand the difference between a guest and a contributor, right? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Were you planning to mention that you'd been canvassed[21] to this conversation? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:29, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Would you consider Business Insider to be a fringe publication? It takes more than publishing opinion columns by one person to land one's publication in
cuckoo land. — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
19:52, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Is this a trick question? Business Insider is not a recognized WP:RS, check
WP:RSP. Horse Eye's Back (talk
) 20:04, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
I am asking you whether or not you consider Milo Yiannopoulos to be indicative of the editorial position of Business Insider on the basis that they allowed him to publish a column. Do you genuinely believe that Business Insider has the same political leanings as Milo? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:22, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
We aren't talking about editorial position, we're talking about reliability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:24, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Ah. I thought you were referring to the use of "fringe" in
WP:FRINGE to argue that the source ought be afforded little weight for reasons extraneous to reliability. — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
20:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Fringe in the
WP:FRINGE is about reliability. How can one make a fringe argument that is extraneous to reliability? Horse Eye's Back (talk
) 22:51, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
We generally don't use advocacy sites because they don't separate news and opinion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:18, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
This is not an RS. It's not even close. It's not scholarship. It's not journalism. I see no masthead, no professional journalists, no editors, no fact-checking, no ethics policy, no separation of news and opinion... this is not an RS, it's just an advocacy website, and it says so on its about us page. I don't even see any news that they actually publish... it seems to be entirely commentary and reprints? Levivich (talk) 16:34, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
It's got leadership listed on its website, and the person listed as an editor of CWN is a career journalist who has served at numerous publications. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:01, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Sure when you phrase it like that it sounds nice. But it doesn't sound as great as naming those "numerous publications" which are
Catholic World Report, and Catholic World News. Those are all kissing cousins, he appears to have no mainstream media experience. Horse Eye's Back (talk
) 20:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Is there any particular reason to consider Catholic Culture reliable? Their about page suggests that they are an advocacy organisation. In cases where they are simply re-hosting things which have been previously published in an unquestionably reliable venue, simply cite the reliable source. In the case of the Modern Catholic Dictionary specifically, their dictionary says that it is based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, ([22]) – it is specifically not claiming to be a faithful reproduction of the Dictionary! Their news section appears to largely consist of excerpts from other sources, in which case we should reference those other sources. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:58, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
@Caeciliusinhorto-public: despite the "Based", the Dictionary on CC appears (I have not checked all 5000 entries) to reproduce word-for-word the original printed material. Veverve (talk) 17:20, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
If you have the original printed material then there is no reason to use CC. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
An electronic version is better (ability to ctrl+F, to change the police's size, etc.). But this is off-topic. The Dictionary was used as an example of how faithful the reproductions on CC are, and that therefore those that are hosted on the website can be trusted. Veverve (talk) 17:26, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
How can it be an example of that if you haven't actually checked whether it is or isn't? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:29, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
There's a whole article that's available at Sampling (statistics) if you'd like to learn more about how random sampling works. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:04, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Zero is still zero no matter how big the dataset is. Veverve doesn't have access to a reliable copy of the source, they haven't actually compared a single entry against that entry in the source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:32, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
The about us page of Catholic Culture gives no indication it's a reliable source. I agree with Levivich that it appears to be an advocacy group, and that if a reliable source exists use that instead. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:26, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Concur with the several editors above who find this source dubious. What reason is there to rely on this, what information is unique to it that can't be found on a clear RS? —DIYeditor (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@DIYeditor: as I wrote, some of the works previously published that the website hosts cannot be found anywhere else online. And the website also hosts the Catholic World News. Veverve (talk) 19:01, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
If the material is available in print why not use the print version? If you use a digital version for searching and cross referencing that is up to you, but I think it should be cited to something published by a reputable publisher. Which brings up another question, are the three works you cited themselves RSs on Wikipedia? The first is a dictionary, a tertiary source, correct? And published by whom? The second is published by someone (Fidelity Press) who features on their website a "Culture Wars" magazine the title of the January issue being The Jewish Racket Known as the Right-to-Life Movement. This seems like a rabbit hole I'm quickly losing interest in descending through. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:18, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Not everyone can go to a US library to read a paper from a 1950s or 1990s journal on theology, hence why having online editions is helpful. CC for example contains articles from the Homiletic and Pastoral Review.
The Dictionary is reliable: the book was published by Doubleday (publisher), and is written by Catholic theologian John Hardon who taught at university.
As for the editorial line of Fidelity press in December 1994 (the date the second article is from, almost 30 years ago), I do not know about it. Veverve (talk) 19:39, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Hometic and Pastoral Review is an Ignatius Press publication not a Trinity publication. Not the first time you've made that mistake in this convo[23]. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:43, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, it does host papers from the Hometic and Pastoral Review, the which is published by Ignatius Press, e.g. [24]. Veverve (talk) 19:48, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Why would we use Catholic Culture if we can just cite the actual article in the Hometic and Pastoral Review? I can make a blog and host a lot of reliable sources there, that doesn't make my blog a reliable source. Lets also be clear, Fidelity Press is not a WP:RS, you weren't asked about their editorial line you were asked about their reliability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Were you planning to mention that you were
canvassed[25] to this conversation by the OP? Also we don't appear to use Catholic Culture at Crisis pregnancy center, what am I missing? Horse Eye's Back (talk
) 22:45, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Not sure a frequent user of a noticeboard who chimes in on a conversation moved off that noticeboard should be characterized as "canvassed", but then again
some policies are just not worth remembering when trying to make a point. My comment was exclusively in response to your statement CNA is not a WP:RS (its an EWTN product, nothing EWTN touches is reliable), a bizarre mischaracterization that arouses concern regarding your judgement in this case. ~ Pbritti (talk
) 16:39, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
But that's not what happened, you were pinged by the OP [26]. You are Pbritti are you not? What is the mischaracterization? CNA is 100% owned and operated by EWTN, no? EWTN is a fringe advocacy organization, correct? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:49, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't know why OP persistently pings when I've noted to them previously that the noticeboard is on my watchlist and is a priority for me. Look at my record on that noticeboard, if you'd like; I actually ended up here because of my watchlist, noticing the ping after the fact. Your claims regarding the journalistic quality of CNA is frankly absurd and it doesn't take long to find instances where their reporting is accepted unchallenged by consensus-agreed reliable sources such as AP, NBC, NYT. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
OP pings you because they're canvassing people they believe will be sympathetic to their position (note that 2/3 supporters for their position here were pinged by them). So you don't dispute that EWTN is a fringe advocacy organization and that EWTN is the owner and operator of CNA you just say that despite that CNA is reliable because its been used by others? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
I'm terribly sorry that frequent contributors in a subject area have looked into your claims and have disagreed with some of your statements. I am disappoint the OP pinged people on the noticeboard; that's behavior they've been chastised for before. For what it's worth, Austronesier's position on CC is mine. Your spiteful and poorly-supported claims have proved a deficient on this noticeboard in the past year; please reflect on your approach towards editors and this noticeboard and reconsider your understanding of what constitutes reliable sourcing according to policy. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:29, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
The community has repeatedly accepted those "spiteful and poorly-supported claims," if you can't contribute in a subject area impartially I suggest that you don't contribute in it at all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:37, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
What you've said in this conversation about EWTN and CNA suggests that you're not exactly impartial here! I wasn't pinged to this conversation and I suggest with others that Catholic Culture is reliable for reproduction of things published elsewhere. Jahaza (talk) 23:48, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
What about my comment suggests that I'm not an impartial when it comes to discussions of reliability? I've participated in hundreds of them across dozens of topic areas. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:56, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
@Jahaza: Seriously, how is EWTN a WP:RS and not an extremist advocacy organization? EWTN routinely promotes conspiracy theories like the Irish slaves myth, see this piece which even goes as far as to claim "All writers on the 17th century American colonies are in agreement that the treatment of white servants or white slaves in English colonies was cruel to the extreme, worse than that of black slaves"[27] Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:00, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • This site doesn't seem to be particularly problematic, I can see that attribution could be necessary quite frequently as it (like every other non-academic source) is biased. Horse Eye's Back is there some particularly factually inaccurate material on the site that you have not noticed, or are you concerned that is used for notability? Boynamedsue (talk) 08:18, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
@Boynamedsue: what on the site do you think could be used with attribution? Their news reporting is just re-prints of other sources and the people who write their commentaries aren't in general subject matter experts. The "factual" content they do publish is unusable, going alphabetically we find Abortion... The first line of abortion is "Abortion is the greatest single scourge of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, claiming far more innocent lives than any other threat, including war, poverty, starvation and natural disasters." are you suggesting that we can add that to Abortion as long as we attribute it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:23, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
No, I wouldn't add that, but it would due to
WP:UNDUE rather than reliability concerns. That is clearly opinion, and there are far more prominent sources for Catholic perspectives on the topic where they would be relevant. The news stories do contain original content, though much of it is attached to an original story taken from elsewhere. --Boynamedsue (talk
) 07:50, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
It isn't presented as opinion, its clearly presented as factual information and that's the problem. The same with the miracles, they're presenting
WP:FRINGE as fact. Horse Eye's Back (talk
) 18:30, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Most media outlets mix fact and opinion without explicitly labelling content as opinion, I can point you to dozens of articles in the Times, Guardian or Telegraph which do the same. Often they do it in a much more deceptive way. The language here is clearly that of opinion, and as such would need attribution. It is not trying to pass this opinion off as fact, but as moral truth. As such, it presents no problem for us, it can easily be distinguished from factual claims. --Boynamedsue (talk) 16:50, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
Factual claims like what? What are you finding on this site? I found that they reprint material from the most reprehensible of publishers as I outlined above if you've read the discussion. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
Is there a reason you're ignoring their claims about miracles? Also just FYI that isn't a "moral truth" its a historical claim which is presented as factual. It isn't presented as a subjective opinion, it is presented as an objective fact. For example: "As a willful attack on unborn human life, no matter what the motive, direct abortion is always a grave objective evil." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:53, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
I've not seen the claims they make about miracles, I only just noticed your mention of it. What do they say about them? I would say that claims made about the supernatural by people belonging to mainstream religions do not disqualify those sources on other matters. A Christian, Buddhist, Jew or Muslim by definition believes things we should not report as fact, but they are not disqualified as reliable sources. :::::::As for the second point...Do you seriously claim that stating a debatable opinion without explicitly declaring it to be opinion disqualifies a source? We would have next to nothing to base our articles on if that were the case. A writer is allowed to forcefully state what they see to be a true argument, this is not factual inaccuracy. Boynamedsue (talk) 21:49, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
They say that miracles are real and not in the sense that Catholics *believe* them to be real but that they are factual events which actually occurred. Reliable sources do not mix factual reporting with personal religious views. Mixing the two does in fact disqualify the source. If you compare NYT articles by Christian, Muslim, Atheist, and Jewish writers you aren't going to find any substantial differences in how they report facts. Its not opinion, they clearly declare it to be the objective truth. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:56, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
You'll find support for private revelation in plenty of peer-reviewed theological journals too, so I don't know what to tell you. Graham (talk) 21:26, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
That
WP:FRINGE is already a content guideline so we don't have to do anything? Plenty of theological journals which aren't WP:RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk
) 21:33, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm referring to ones which do meet
SAGE
, or the like.
And I would encourage you to read
WP:EVALFRINGE), which begins, "Notable perspectives which are primarily non-scientific in nature but which contain claims concerning scientific phenomena should not be treated exclusively as scientific theory and handled on that basis [emphasis in original]." Graham (talk
) 22:15, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
Nobody is proposing that they be treated exclusively as scientific theory, people are saying that they should be evaluated on both a scientific and a theological basis. Pardon my ignorance but what scientific phenomena does private revelation make a claim concerning? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:22, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
In terms of an example of the kind that a conservative Roman Catholic website like Catholic Culture would conceivably discuss, I would point to Our Lady of Fátima as an alleged apparition that many would dismiss as a scientific impossibility. Graham (talk) 22:45, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
The problematic ones are generally the healing miracles "He spat in my eye and now I don't have cancer!" and such. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:27, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Not an RS. It is a religious movement, and as such, its conflict of interest makes it inherently unreliable and gives rise to their NPOV and NOTRS. The CC links Veverve provided highlighted that CC writes non-neutral opinion pieces (not journalism) and the same goes for the “previously published documents” Veverve linked to. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 20:23, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Hürseda Haber

Any opinions on this turkish journal I've never heard of and isn't mentioned in archived discussions? I haven't found any english sources for its statements. In particular, is it considered reliable for using the following quote, that contrasts with what most Western perennial reliable sources have been reporting?

"İddia: MOSSAD'a göre Ukrayna ve Rusya kayıpları". hurseda.net (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 25 January 2023. As of 14 january according to Israeli intelligence sources: Killed combatants: NATO: 2,692; Non-NATO: 2,360; Ukrainians: 157,000; Russians: 18,480. Wounded combatants: Ukrainians: 234,000; Russians: 44,500.

Thanks for your inputs. 89.206.112.12 (talk) 11:44, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

The source itself might be OK (it gets cited by others) but the statement (translated) "Allegedly, the field data of January 14, 2023, based on Israeli intelligence,..." would give me pause. I would want confirmation from elsewhere for that info. Selfstudier (talk) 11:59, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

it has been cited, but not in a good way [[28]]. Slatersteven (talk) 12:04, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
If Israeli intelligence estimates are being made public, which is possible, then I think we should try to get them from a stronger source. One concern is trying to make sure that this is really from them, but a second aspect is trying to make sure we use a source that has a reputation for the competencies needed to interpret such information. As with governments, not all comments from intelligence services is equally reliable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:45, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
If they are, why to this source, why not to a better quality (say, Israeli) one? But what do we know about this source? Slatersteven (talk) 13:47, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
Just a note that this does not match public Israeli intelligence estimates, those numbers are all wrong. I think you're looking at a Russian
information operation. Horse Eye's Back (talk
) 19:10, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
The details they are posting have been widely debunked, so regardless of the site the particular article is not reliable for anything. See AFP or PolitiFact. Previous Russian disinformation about NATO troops fighting in Ukraine has also followed the same pattern, see this BBC article from last September for instance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:13, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Several points:

  • What "public Israeli intelligence estimates, that the source doesn't match" are you referring to?
  • All reliabe sources confirm the presence of foreign volunteers including instructors in the Ukraine conflict, as does indeed the above BBC article.
  • The Ukraininan government and Fact Checkers mentioned above deny the presence of regular NATO troops in Ukraine.
  • The source in question never claims, that the casualties it reported were regular NATO troops, but divides foreign casualties by country of origin. The UK and Ukraininan government's denials of regular NATO troop presence don't contradict the source.
  • The Ukraininan government has publicly raised very high demands ahead of the Israeli foreign minister's visit, that his government is interested in lowering, e.g. by means of publication of confidential data. [29]
  • Such a diplomatic strategy may only work, if the data is too accurate for the interlocutor to deny.
  • The UK and Ukraininan governments have not disputed this data in their statements, which is especially remarkable in the face of the very high Ukrainian casualty estimate.
  • Being the only NATO member advocating discussion as a conflict resolution mechanism, Turkey's media are likely to be closely monitored by Ukrainian officials, answering your question on Israeli intelligence conveying their threat of embarassment thusly.

89.206.112.13 (talk) 17:06, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

The BBC article says the MOD denies the claim, so not it does not confirm the story, it conforms the story exists, yes, not that it has any validity. Slatersteven (talk) 17:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
The article says 2,458 Dead – NATO soldiers, so it quite specifically says what you're saying it doesn't. There may be foreign fighters, but to say they are NATO soldiers is a complete fabrication. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:34, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
There's no point in trolling: it has been confirmed by more than 350 citations already.[30] 89.206.112.13 (talk) 10:56, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Again your pointing to foreign fighters in Ukraine NOT NATO soldiers, the presence of which has be debunked by multiple high quality reliable sources -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:00, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
If the Mossad were going to leak casualty estimates in an attempt to influence Israeli-Ukrainian negotiations, as you seem to be implying, and wanted this information to be seen by Ukrainian officials, why would they leak it to an obscure news provider, rather than one of the major Turkish newspapers? BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 21:55, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Because a low-visibility outlet, that he still may notice, gives your opponent more leeway by reducing the chance of it being picked up by major global publishers, while at the same time clearly demonstrating your determination of not just threatening but actually pulling the trigger on going public. The Ukraininan government could have easily called this bluff by disproving the claims, but instead chose to already lower its demands in full public view, before they even met with Israel, lending yet additional credence to the source. This amounts to the diplmatic equivalent of implorimg them to stop embarassing them in public and stay quiet.[31] This being nevertheless inductive, does really nobody on this noticeboard know any actual facts about the outlet Hürseda Haber? Who are they anyway? 89.206.112.13 (talk) 10:56, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
If the data is suspect anyway, it doesn't matter that much who they are. Maybe a Turkish speaker could check the Turkish Wikipedia for some info but I think your original question has been answered...not reliable for the quoted material. Selfstudier (talk) 11:19, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Hürseda seems to be basically a party propaganda outlet of Free Cause Party, a political splinter group of pro-Kurdish-minority, pro-Islamist orientation. Its party line seems to be strongly pro-Russian, pro-Iranian, anti-Western, anti-Jewish. Definitely not the kind of thing we should use as a source. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks for being the first to introduce some facts into this discussion. Care to share the sources, according to which it "seems" to be a party propaganda outlet? 89.206.112.12 (talk) 15:09, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Musicnotes.com

So I've noticed that a lot of song-related articles site the sheet music website musicnotes.com as a source supporting the claims of the following things: the tempo, the key, the time signature, the vocal range. However I feel that this would classify as

WP:OR given that there is no evidence that the sheet music on the website is provided by the artist themself (Musescore has "official" scores which they've said are given to them by the publisher but those are of dubious quality from my experience, but that's a whole other can of worms). So should we classify it as OR, or leave it as is (or some other option I didn't think of)? ― Blaze WolfTalk
Blaze Wolf#6545 18:24, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Their work is officially licensed by most major music publishers, per this. That seems to be something in their favor. Have you found any third-party reliable sources that have analyzed the music one way or the other? I see a smattering of individual online reviews, but that's mostly irrelevant for our purposes. What we need is some kind of third-party analysis. --Jayron32 18:58, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
It also says this however: "Our in-house staff of professional arrangers ensures quick-to-market production of the largest selection of officially licensed pieces. " so the pieces are officially licensed, however they might not be 100% accurate to how it was originally intended. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 19:09, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
The problem is, that lots of modern music (perhaps most) does not begin life as sheet music; it is transcribed by later publishers. Is Hal Leonard any better than Musicnotes.com? Other than being a legacy publisher from the pre-internet age, are they really better than Musicnotes, for example? --Jayron32 19:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Shaffer, Lynda Norene (1996). Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500.

The book Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500. by Lynda Norene Schaffer[1] has received a review that states that it contains "many errors of fact, misleading simplification of material and references that are frequently inadequate, inappropriate or dated." The review almost exclusively covers the deficiencies of this work and closes by saying "It is not my practice to comment negatively on the work of fellow scholars, but on this occasion I feel I have a duty to speak out." (Andaya, B. W. (1996). [Review of Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500, by L. N. Shaffer]. Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 10(1), 152–155.)

Having in mind guidance like

WP:HSC, it is difficult to see how a work with such a damning review could be considered an RS. It is also a little dated, now, and there are other works that could be used to reference any editing that it might otherwise be used to support. If you have access to JSTOR, you can find the review here[32]
.

I am asking for comment here, as I have deleted the use of Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500 in the handful of instances where it has been used in Wikipedia. Three different editors (who are unknown to me) have thanked me for making those edits (on 3 Sep 22 and 2 Sep 22) on three different articles. I now find that use of this work as a reference has been reinstated in this edit[33] (together with reinstatement of other problematical references that are another matter). I have had no success with engaging with the editor involved (largely in other articles). Hence I am trying to find another way of dealing with the use of this book as a reference. Also, it occurs to me that there may be some reason that I have overlooked as to why this book should be acceptable as a reference

I should perhaps add that I often look for reviews of historical, archaeological, etc. books in suitable academic journals before using the work of an author unknown to me. I don't know if this goes further than other editors working in similar fields. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ISBN 978-1563241437
    .

"Ombudsman" of the "Donetsk People's Republic"

Can various pages[34][35][36][37][38][39] of a website claiming to belong to the "Human Rights Ombudsman" of the "

War in Donbas (2014–2022)
 ?

Currently, they are used in this section:

Talk:War_in_Donbas_(2014–2022)#DPR_and_LPR_casualties
.

Apart from being primary sources published by one side in the war, I see additional problems: (1) They use the TLD .ru (Russia), although at that time they claimed to be an independent republic, that was not even recognized by Russia (the last page was published after the recognition by Russia). (2) They use propaganda terms like "Armed Aggression from Ukraine"[40] which are against all reports by reliable sources. They also justify the Russian aggression against Ukraine ("After the recognition of the Donbass Republics by Russia, the Ukrainian armed formations intensified shelling, as a result of which, on February 24, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin made a decision to start a special operation in Donbass in order to protect the civilian population from the aggression of Ukraine.")[41] Rsk6400 (talk) 18:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry but using quotation marks in this context is like kindergarten. It also makes the question moot. No need to discuss anything, if the ombudsman does not exist, and the Donetsk People's Republic does not exist. Ymblanter (talk) 18:13, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
It is not and it does not, because there is good precedent. At the risk of derailing the actual discussion:
UN human rights agencies and news media use the same quotation marks, or caveats like so-called and self-declared, to avoid endorsing the legitimacy of fake Kremlin-controlled organizations. The “ombudsman” of a former fake state and current Russian civil-military occupation administration is not what one can reasonably consider an ombudsman, and courts have determined that the “republics” were under the overall control of Russia since May 2014.
For example:
  • UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Such detentions were formalized with the introduction of so-called ‘administrative arrest’ territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’, and ‘preventive detention’ in territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘Luhansk people’s republic’. ”[42]
  • CBC News: “While Canada and the rest of the world doesn’t recognize the self-declared republics, the area has served as ground zero for this intractable war, where no territory is being gained and multiple attempts at ceasefires have failed. . . . At one point during the trip, a blue and yellow Ukrainian flag was visible in a field. But directly across was the black, blue and red flag of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), denoting the start of non-government-controlled territory.”[43]
  • Historian Serhy Yekelchyk (107): “all this happened before the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic formally established the union state of New Russia . . . At first they operated within the old Soviet paradigm by creating ‘people’s republics,’ . . .”[44]
The reason this is not even more obvious is that sources very often defer even using the names, formerly using expressions like “pro-Russian separatists,” but now mainly just refer to “Russian occupation forces” as such or “Russian-occupied territory.”
(Denigrating justified good-faith concerns as “kindergarten” and showing up just to reject even the notion of holding a discussion is not an argument, and it is not nice.) —Michael Z. 18:44, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
  • No  Agree that these are not reliable sources on anything but their own statements. At
    WP:RSP Russian state media like RIA Novosti, TASS, RT, and Sputnik are already flagged as “biased and opinionated,” “generally unreliable,” or outright “deprecated.” PR/propaganda organizations of the Russian-controlled “republics” should be treated as even less reliable during the period of 2014 to September 2022 when the Russian government denied its relationship with them, and as equivalent since the Kremlin claimed the annexation of parts of south-eastern Ukraine.  —Michael Z
    . 18:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

I will just say, what I have already previously said, regardless of ones own POV regarding Russia. Claims by both belligerents during a conflict should be viewed as equally reliable or unreliable, just as in any conflict, and both views require equal representation. Excluding the views of one over the other creates an unbalanced view. Previous editor discussions/consensus at the start of the War in Donbas, as well as at the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was that DPR reports of their own military losses (which have been relayed by RS as well, like the BBC) can be used so to present the DPR's claims of their own losses, just like we present Ukraine's claims of their own losses. If the DPR's numbers of their losses were to be removed, the information in this regard would be skewed heavily towards the POV of Ukraine, whose claims of their enemies losses we also include and regularly update, despite a number of RS calling into doubt Ukraine's claims which are consistently well above Western estimates of Russian losses. In any case, the removal of the POV of one of the belligerents in the conflict, while continuing to include Ukrainian claims and sources such as Kyiv Independent and Ukrayinska Pravda which are heavily biased towards Russia, will create articles that are heavily skewed towards the POV of one belligerent over the other. I will ping other editors who have been involved in previous discussions or editing the casualty figures to voice their own opinions on the matter @Cinderella157:@Jr8825:@PilotSheng:@Mr.User200:@Pincrete:@Alaexis:. As for myself, I am not going to repeat myself any further than I already have at the article's talk page and here and leave it to the community to decide. EkoGraf (talk) 19:53, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

In general, during the war everyone downplays their military casualties while the civilian ones are sometimes exaggerated, sometimes downplayed, and sometimes just not known precisely. The official losses and the estimates can differ by an order of magnitude (13,000 vs 100,000). One of these numbers is bound to be wrong but for now we keep both of them on Wikipedia!
This particular site is used for the numbers of military and civilian casualties of Donetsk People's Republic. We have no reason to think that it's *especially* unreliable and not including the casualties taken by one party of the conflict would clearly be a WP:NPOV breach.
Finally, in the cases when it's possible to cross-check the numbers from this site with the ones published by UN [45], they seem to be in line. For example, according to UNCHR 6,500 rebels and 3,400 civilians were killed in 2014-2022 in the whole of Ukraine, compared to 5,042 civilian and military casualties in DPR according to the ombudsman's site. Alaexis¿question? 21:11, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
You’re missing the fundamental fact that the so-called “DNR” and “LNR” are Russian-controlled militias, and do not have their own civilians. They do not have defined territory and borders, nor have they ever held their entire claimed territory (which is not defined), nor do they have their own population (much of the population in or near their controlled territory fled years ago). The civilians that are being displaced, forcibly deported, wounded, and killed are Ukrainians in Ukraine. These Russian-controlled military groups were covert occupation administrations for Moscow, and since September they have been overtly civil-military occupation administrations for a foreign government.  —Michael Z. 15:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
It's not black and white. You could say that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is a "covert occupation administration" for Turkey and that it has no civilians, as all the people living there are Cypriots. That's partially true but the fact is that it is the current administration of the territory and therefore produces data about the population of North Cyprus, which is used on Wikipedia, with the necessary attributions and caveats. Here the situation is similar: some figures are only available from the de facto administration of the territory and sometimes it's worth using them here. Alaexis¿question? 20:03, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Northern Cyprus is not a battlefield where Turkey is levelling cities, forcibly deporting millions of “its civilians,” and accused of incitement to genocide. So I’d say it’s in some ways not similar. —Michael Z. 20:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Well, there was a much more thorough ethnic cleansing in Cyprus than anything that has happened in Ukraine. Alaexis¿question? 20:20, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
You want to make Russian government officials in Ukraine look reliable, pretty much your only comparison right now is ISIS/ISIL.  —Michael Z. 17:37, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
  • No, Russian state-run outlets are not reliable. Just use the OHCHR figures. That's the best way to go. There is absolutely no reason that we should use Russian state-run propaganda outlets. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 01:34, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • NO, as per above. This is not an independent third-party source. Slatersteven (talk) 10:35, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Context is everything
    War in Donbas (2014–2022). Figures from an involved party are reliable for what they state. It might be appropriate to use such a source within the body of the article, where due weight can be applied to figures from both sides. However, when it comes to a summation expressed in a Wiki voice (eg in the infobox), we should only be relying on independent third party sources that have made their own assessments - eg the UN figures. Cinderella157 (talk
    ) 12:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
    This is a very sensible approach, I would support it. Alaexis¿question? 19:59, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
    I support too this kind of approach. Mhorg (talk) 20:13, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
    Reporting by reliable sources is not “parroting.” Treating Ukraine and Russia as exactly equal and opposite is not an
    WP:NPOV position, but a false balance
    .
    Furthermore, in this conflict, “he said, she said” and we can’t know who is more likely to be right, if at all, is literally a Russian propaganda view intended to demotivate and promote disengagement while Ukraine needs aid.  —Michael Z. 20:19, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
    Also support Cinderella157's approach. EkoGraf (talk) 15:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
  • No the "Donetsk People's Republic" is in quotes for a reason, it does not exist. This would be like citing Vichy France for WWII reporting. Zaathras (talk) 21:10, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Context is everything per Cinderella157. I agree that (even given good will), the figures coming from ALL parties should be treated with great scepticism, in this case there are additional reasons to be sceptical about this quasi-regime. BUT as a clearly attributed claim, there is no reason to NOT use these figures, though to do so in any other way would be inapt. Even UN etc figures are often dependent on data sent to them by warring parties, since the practical difficulties of collecting their own data are too great - though these are generally the best figures available. Pincrete (talk) 11:19, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
  • No Use third-party sources that have vetted information and don't have a pony in the race. Russian-state-sourced media has a long history of problematic reporting and very questionable reliability; this is no different. --Jayron32 19:01, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Bureau of Investigative Journalism

This looks RS, but I have not encountered this group before. Just doing due diligence; I know for a fact that such a scandal happened, and other sources will definitely exist. However, this *appears* to be well-researched long-form journalism, which I would like to use. Does anyone have any thoughts? Elinruby (talk) 04:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Did you notice that the article Bureau of Investigative Journalism exists? ☆ Bri (talk) 04:33, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
Generally reliable. Excellent reputation. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:24, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
It appears to be treated as among the most reliable sources by other reliable sources. That's a hallmark of reliability. Looks really solid. --Jayron32 12:49, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
Our articles generally suffer from a lack of investigative journalism, and an over-reliance on day-to-day news reports. Definitely include. DFlhb (talk) 19:10, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Project CHECO and other U.S. Military sources

I'd like some input on whether declassified studies (see below) conducted by the U.S. Military constitute reliable sources for information like aircraft losses, military equipment performance, and the employment and effectiveness of doctrine/tactics. Particularly in regards to Project CHECO, a fairly large undertaking to study the effectiveness and use cases of U.S. airpower in the Vietnam War. Also, apologies for vomiting these links at the end but I can't be bothered to cite them nicely at the moment.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA486516.pdf - Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report. Fixed Wing Gunships in SEA (Jul 69 - Jul 71)

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA487052.pdf - Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report. USAF Tactics Against Air & Ground Defenses in SEA, November 1968 - May 1970

Further, are defense analysis papers or military college papers usable?

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADB033848.pdf - TYPES OF WEAPON PROGRAMS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR NATO STANDARDIZATION OR INTEROPERABILITY Norman J. Asher Janice B. Lilly July 1978

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA485884.pdf - Overreliance on Technology in Warfare: The Yom Kippur War as a Case Study

Rsemmes92 (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

nosh.com as an RS

This is about a

WP:WAWARD
) 22:40, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

  • I am trying to get a better understanding of how to pursue encyclopedic merit for my sister's bio, which has been declined at
    WP:WAWARD
    ) 22:40, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
The source and its parent is a news aggregator for the beverage industry that consists largely of disseminating press releases. In the case of this particular article, it appears to be reproducing the subject's email announcing a job change with the thinnest of veneer to make it look like a real article. There is nothing that inspires any confidence in the source. Not reliable, especially not for a BLP.
Banks Irk (talk
) 23:48, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
Why isn't it listed at
WP:WAWARD
) 05:27, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
RSP is a list of stuff that has been repeatedly discussed on this and other WP-pages. If you know of such discussions about nosh.com, you can suggest it at RSP talk or go
WP:BOLD. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk
) 09:25, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:WAWARD
) 22:24, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
The article explicitly says so. It references and extensively quotes her email.
Banks Irk (talk
) 23:00, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:WAWARD
) 16:39, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:RSP does not mean it is independent. A source that is an interview with a subject is by definition not independent of that subject, and one that is known for basically rehashing press releases is even less so. To be frank, it's a similar question to your own judgment on writing this article - you may very well have reliable information, but as her brother you are not independent. Melcous (talk
) 03:31, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
There is no doubt I am not independent of my sister and thus I am editing by special process. The source article at issue here is clearly not an interview. An interview is an article where an author presents a list of questions and responses to those questions. My point on this source is that as a producer of 100s of DYKs, 100s of GAs and dozens of FA & FLs, I have a lot of editing experience. I have presented a lot of sources. I have never presented a source with an editorial team like this and had it not be considered a source. As I am talking to more people about this source, I continue to look at the article and see quoted and unquoted content. I feel that the unquoted content was not of my sister's hand. Thus I thought it was fair to say that with this editorial team it has to be good content. Now, I feel that you are saying all of the unquoted stuff is truly sourced to press release content that my sister could have had a hand in. I think a large percentage of content on WP is sourced to press releases. I am not sure I truly understand why press releases are so bad, but for a CEO, I guess independence may be an issue.--
WP:WAWARD
) 03:53, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't have much experience with this sort of speciality source but I'm not sure the editorial team is as impressive as you are making it out to be. For starters, that link seems to just have general staff roster rather than being exclusive to info on their editorial staff which is what a good source generally does, and means we have to pick through it to see what's there.

Further their "CEO / Founder / Editorial Director"'s education seems to be in marketing not in journalism. Putting that aside for a while, I'm not sure having their CEO as "editorial director" fits the sort of independence of editorial staff we generally expect (i.e. separation of church and state), nor "vision shapes the editorial, publishing, and positioning of all of BevNET's properties".

The "Editor, NOSH" while having journalism qualifications seems to have worked mostly in marketing. The "Managing Editor, Brewbound" at least does have some journalism experience and education but her more recent experience (stated to be nearly 10 years) and education seems to have been in marketing.

Their "Editor-in-Chief" at least seems to have been mostly or exclusively a journalist and also their "Editor, Brewbound" and possibly their "Managing Editor, BevNET". The qualifications and experience of their "Producer, Taste Radio; Contributing Editor, BevNET", "Spirits Editor" and "Editorial Assistant, BevNET & NOSH" are unclear.

Mind you I assume this is a NOSH article and people who only work on Brewbound or BevNET (or probably the Spirits Editor) are irrelevant. But that further fits into the wider issue that we can't just look at the link see a bunch of people and assume their content is fine.

From a BLP standpoint, while these sort of sources are generally mostly positive and as mentioned by others generally coming from the companies and the people around them, I would oppose their use for content about living persons because their poor standards means there's always a risk they will repeat inaccurate information. (And putting aside it should not matter, it's not guaranteed that the subject will always be happy about the material since the interests of a company don't necessarily align with individuals involved.) Perhaps we could make an exception for very basic details like person X was hired for role Y in company Z, but that's about it. (And it also doesn't demonstrate notability.)

As for your press release comment, I'm not convinced it's true. But in any case while it is true we have a lot of material not sourced to RS (whether no source at all or the source is an RS), it doesn't mean it's acceptable to add to the problem by adding more improperly sourced content. And press releases are rarely RS and especially not in a BLP.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:40, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

southasiatime.com

This looks a bit dubious. I found it sourcing some stuff at Miss World 2023. The "about us" page has no physical address or list of people, notably not an editor-in-chief or information about any associated print publication. The "about us" does claim ownership by "LDC News Service". Best I can tell is that LDC is a group with a Facebook page (if it's the same outfit); I'm not even sure if it's incorporated or (looks probable) student-run or something like that. Can anybody else tell more? ☆ Bri (talk) 21:19, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

From the about page, I see an editor listed but no editorial guidelines. Domain is only four years old and there is no indication it is anything other than a blog. I would say not reliable. --CNMall41 (talk) 05:49, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Defence-blog reliable now?

In the about us page, Dylan got some staff now doing reports. In the past, some editors considered it to be not reliable and blacklisted the page. Ominae (talk) 05:54, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Multiple people contributing to an unreliable source does not make it more reliable. How is the source treated by other sources? Is it cited by other scrupulously reliable sources? Does it have editorial control? Does it respond to errors and make corrections? Does it employ respected writers and investigators who themselves have a reputation of reliability? If ALL of that doesn't happen, it isn't reliable, no matter how many people write for them. --Jayron32 12:52, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
I just saw some wiki pages around here that are using it. When I used it before, it got blocked by the blacklist. Ominae (talk) 18:51, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
I mean, don't judge something is correct merely because other people are also doing the wrong thing. Go back to core principles. Check a source against
WP:RS. Does it meet all the criteria. This one clearly doesn't. Don't worry if someone else did the wrong thing. That's not license to also do so yourself. --Jayron32
13:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
I feel like a broken record but a few people writing guest articles on their friend's blog does not turn it into a news outlet. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call: Reliability and Trade Publication Status

Following

WP:ORGIND. QuintinK (talk
) 15:47, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Just a note that Congressional Quarterly wasn't mentioned at all in the AFD, let alone the subject of a disagreement. The other source mentioned in that discussion is The Hill, not Congressional Quarterly. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
No, under no reasonable definition of the term, are they
trade publications. They just aren't. They are specialist journals, for sure, but that doesn't mean they are trade publications. That's just silly. Politics is not a trade or an industry, it's a matter of public interest. Journals that focus on politics aren't trade publications. Regarding RSP listing; are these sources frequently discussed and is their use frequently under contention? I mean, one person in one AFD making one claim does not a controversial source make. I see no reason to list them if they are not frequently brought up for their reliability. This includes Roll Call, CQ, and The Hill. These are perfectly reliable sources for all purposes, full stop. They also don't need to be listed at RSP as there is no evidence anyone is questioning these.--Jayron32
16:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Roll Call seems to sponsor the Congressional Baseball Game, so it's not clear to me that it's not generally independent for items related to that specific event, nor is it currently independent from anything related to FiscalNote (its owner), but I don't think they're trade publications in the sense of something like Supermarket news.
The current form of Congressional Quarterly feels more like a business intelligence source rather than a traditional news source. There are going to be additional considerations with respect to
WP:ORGIND that apply for BI sources, since they have a tendency to regurgitate press releases with relative frequency. But, if there is original reporting from CQ, then I don't see any independence issues per se that are more broad than "it's not independent of organizations substantially owned by their parent company/projects of a sister organization". — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
17:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Michael L. Kurtz

I was considering using that material in the article about Joseph Civello, but I am having troubling evaluating contradictory aspects of the suitability of this source. On one hand, Kurtz is a professor emeritus of history and the book in which his chapter appears was published by a university press. On the other, he is a JFK assassination "researcher" with at least two other books on the subject - both also published by a university press - who doesn't know who really killed JFK but that it had to be a conspiracy.[46] Those views spill into this book when after the bit about Civello he made a number of unfounded claims about Jack Ruby including 1) he was "probably the best-known individual in the history of organized crime in the South", 2) he "began his career in the Al Capone organization", 3) he "joined the Civello organization" when he moved to Dallas, 4) "he assisted in smuggling arms and supplies to anti-Castro guerrilla fighters in Cuba", and 5) he was in cahoots with the mob to have JFK assassinated. With these statements Kurtz repeats what various conspiracy sources have claimed while contradicting what the largest investigations into Ruby have found (i.e. Ruby was not a member of organized crime anywhere but that he was acquainted with a lot of underworld figures[47]).

If an editor wanted to use this material in the

Location (talk
) 21:32, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Wow, this is a really good question. I think I would have trouble taking anything seriously that he writes about history if this is the quality of his scholarship. But we editors really don't get to have an opinion. So I think we would need to move to the next generation of researchers who hopefully are evaluating his work. What do they say about this person who would appear to the public to be on the same equality level. In the world of psychics we have Dr. Gary Schwartz who has "tested" all kinds of people who claim to be psychic, his testing is so flawed that although he has a PhD and is tenured at his University, the rest of the scientific community thinks he is a joke. Though when I went to look for evidence of this, I find little. But because of his lack of methodology I personally would not rely on his scholarship, though it might be difficult to back that up if we are talking about using him on an article here on Wikipedia concerning psychics. I'm interested in others thoughts. Sgerbic (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
On the positive side, both the general editor of the series, Charles Reagan, and the volume editor, Amy Louise Wood, appear to be respectable scholars of southern US history. If Kurtz's work were solely complete crankery, you would hope that they would not have invited him to write an entry; if he had written a completely bunk entry you would hope that they would have not included it. (Indeed, even Kurtz's work on the JFK assassination seems to have recieved reviews in scholarly journals which don't immediately dismiss it as complete crankery - I don't have full text access, but both Conkin's review in the Journal of Southern History and Turner in the Journal of American History don't seem to be dismissing him completely out of hand.
On the other hand, you can always use your editorial discretion to not use a source that you don't find convincing; until another editor makes the case that it's important to include you don't have to use any given source! Especially if that source is claiming things which you believe are contrary to the academic consensus! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
@Sgerbic and Caeciliusinhorto-public: Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the editors of the series and book, Wilson and Wood, are respectable scholars, and that is part of what makes it difficult to evaluate this scholar.
While I agree with Kurtz that "little is known about the Dallas family of Joseph Civello", I think I would have trouble justifying to another editor that statements in one paragraph of his article should be considered reliable, but statements in another paragraph should not. As far as finding alternative sourcing for the article, the difficulty I am having is that most reliable sources of information for Civello seem to be primary sources, but almost all of the secondary sources that discuss him either do so in the context of the JFK-was-killed-by-the-mob conspiracy theories (this is Kurtz) or they are books/websites about organized crime who have gotten their information about him from the conspiracy books (this also appears to be Kurtz). -
Location (talk
) 17:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I would probably air to not using the source. You have put a lot of thought in it and the arguments you are making against using it seem to outweigh the few reasons to use it. Sgerbic (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Showering and disease prevention

Shower has a section that reads:

Showering is mostly part of a daily routine primarily to promote cleanliness and prevent odor, disease and infection. Advances in science and medicine in the 19th century began to realize the benefit of regular bathing to an individual's health.

This statement is backed up by a single source: a sociology book from 2003. While I do not discount the importance of

WP:MEDRS in this case since the article is making sweeping claims of the disease prevention effects of showering, and MEDRS firmly establishes that medical claims must be backed up by sufficient peer-reviewed secondary studies published in reputable journals and not a book about sociology, and certainly not science from the 1800s. Existing precedent would suggest removing this statement until MEDRS-compliant sources can be found. MarshallKe (talk
) 13:18, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

This seems to be more an a
wp:rs issue. Slatersteven (talk
) 13:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
I'd move this to the talk page rather than deleting, to give people an opportunity to look for MEDRS that may or may not substantiate dueness. I generally don't like to judge dueness based merely on sources we cite, without doing my own survey of sources from scratch. Also, while we should use MEDRS for medical claims, the sociologist author seems reputable, and I'd expect there to be non-medical statements we can source to her. DFlhb (talk) 21:37, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The Times, NYT, British media and LGBT

This discussion doesn't seem headed towards any sort of productive resolution. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:44, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

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

With the concerning reporting coming from

killing of Brianna Ghey (where The Times "corrected" their story by misgendering Ghey), I hope we can reconsider some of those newspapers as reliable sources (but considering we still have FOX News as reliable in any capacity, I doubt it). LilianaUwU (talk / contributions
) 20:21, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think 1 single incident would be enough to make The Times and NYT completely unreliable (NYT isn't even British, it's American) ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 20:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
You failed to mention the part of that source that states, referring to The Times, "The article was later amended again to restore the word 'girl' and to remove Ghey’s deadname." EddieHugh (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
@EddieHugh The Times shouldn't have "corrected" the article to deadname her in the first place. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 20:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm sure The Times's "apology for the previous apology" will be discussed at some length the next time we have reason to evaluate that source's POV amd reliability on transgender issues. Newimpartial (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
The Pink News article also doesn't say that Ghey was 'misgendered' ("remove the word 'girl'" isn't equal to 'use the word "boy"' or not mentioning gender). And the second version of The Times article doesn't do that either (it repeatedly and consistenly uses "her"). EddieHugh (talk) 20:59, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Deadnaming is a form of misgendering. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 21:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
It can be, but in this instance the source also used "her" consistently, so this looks like whoever made the changes didn't think it through, and a few hours later they were corrected. So, not desirable for anyone, but not as reprehensible as I thought from your initial post – hence my replies, to add some of the detail for others reading here. EddieHugh (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Still, saying she was a girl then purposefully updating the article to call her a "transgender teenager" instead (as if "transgender girl" is so difficult to type) and releasing her deadname without reason speaks wonders to the Times' general editorial line on trans people. The reason its called a "
talk
) 21:43, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
One instance that was corrected doesn't make a source unreliable. To see what unreliable is see the Daily Mails coverage of the killing, which is deeply unpleasant. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:48, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
For context on the NYT, here is an article discussing the recent complaints against them. Here is an article that provides some more in-depth criticisms as opposed to just reporting on them. Long story short, ~200 NYT contributors signed an open letter condemning their coverage of transgender people/healthcare. GLAAD and 100+ LGBT organizations/advocates (including even WPATH, PFLAG, and the Human Rights Campaign) also issued a statement condemning their coverage. The criticisms include: platforming anti-trans groups and conversion therapy organizations like
talk
) 21:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Close There are no factual errors for this board to assess. Sources are under no obligation to follow
    WP:DEADNAME, a wikipedia policy. Slywriter (talk
    )
There are factual errors at least in the case of the NYT. Should that be discussed here or would it be better in a section dedicated to their coverage specifically?
talk
) 22:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist
If you think they rise to the level of needing RSN input, a new section with specifics would be best. This is generic, broad-brushed and already gone down a rabbit hole.
With that, not sure why a one-off of NYT botched a story would require anything more than discussion on article talk page. As much as I'd enjoy seeing all newspapers barred from being used as sources for recent events, I doubt this would rise to gaining consesua to making NYT generally unreliable.Slywriter (talk) 22:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
It's more of a pattern of botching stories rather than a one-off, and I'd say it should still be considered generally reliable but with a caveat noting their coverage of trans topics specifically. @LilianaUwU, would you mind creating the section?
If created I'll also do an analysis of how their articles have been cited on WP to see the extent to which it's a problem.
talk
) 22:24, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
@
TheTranarchist I'm assuming you want me to create a RfC? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions
) 22:50, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes please!
talk
) 23:22, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
We just had a giant RfC on The Times (of London) in this context, and no uncorrected errors of material fact are being alleged in this thread, so I see no need to attempt to re-litigate the discussion with respect to the UK newspaper of record. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 22:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
If a UK newspaper of record decides to misgender and deadname a murder victim - and then changes its mind - I don’t expect other editors to be as tolerant of that as you are (in the next giant RfC). The problem with The Times on trans issues isn't that it makes uncorrected errors of material fact, it is that it presents selective reporting in service of its avowed editorial aims, including the marginalization of trans people and the reversal of their rights and access to health services. You may not see this as a problem - and it isn't a problem
WP:RSN is well-equipped to deal with - but I dare say many other editors do see it as a problem. Newimpartial (talk
) 22:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I should probably stay out of this, but I can't let "its avowed editorial aims, including the marginalization of trans people and the reversal of their rights and access to health services" slide by – where has The Times stated ("avowed") that these are among its editorial aims? EddieHugh (talk) 22:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
According to its editorial articles, yes. This is also a conclusion reached within peer-reviewed scholarship. Newimpartial (talk) 22:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
"its avowed editorial aims" doesn't mean that others think that those are its aims; it means that The Times itself has stated that. I doubt that it has done that. If it has, please provide full citations. EddieHugh (talk) 23:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
This article sets out The Times's view on transgender health in fairly clear terms, I should think. Newimpartial (talk) 23:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
That's The Sunday Times, but regardless, I see no statement of editorial aims there. Some of its principles are mentioned here, for example. EddieHugh (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
To be clear, when I say their avowed aims, I mean the objectives pursued directly in their editorial line, not the fluff they insert in an about page. So fiscal prudence and border security might be some of the other "avowed aims" (declared editorial objectives) for which The Times advocates more or less consistently. Newimpartial (talk) 23:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
If there are no issues with the factual accuracy of the content in The Times, and the only issue that editors take is the way that The Times goes about characterizing public disputes, that's a complaint about
bias, but, as the relevant guideline goes... reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. The same guideline also notes that [w]hen dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. If there is evidence of it lacking editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and/or editorial independence, the last RfC would have been a great place to make those arguments. And some did make them, but the small amounts of evidence presented regarding the publication's alleged failures in fact-checking have been plainly unconvincing to the community writ large, nobody seems to think that The Times lacks editorial independence, and The Times has a generally strong and robust system of editorial oversight. — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
00:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I remember that RfC. It was flawed and sprung upon those of us who were preparing for such an RfC early. While the Times might be a newspaper of record on some topics, it is very much not so for trans and non-binary topics.
On the specific issue of Brianna Ghey, The Times was one of only two UK newspapers to make the choice to deliberately misgender Ghey, the other was The Daily Mail. While the editorial bias of The Times has lead to heavily slanted and inaccurate coverage, this choice to deadname a teen who had just been killed was a new low. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps this discussion should mainly be about whether these newspapers are reliable with regards to the narrow topic area of gender. Taking the New York Times as an example, I don't think there is ever going to be consensus that it is anything other than reliable in its coverage of local or national topics (e.g. I doubt its coverage of gender topics has anything to do with its coverage of topics such as subway construction). However, I do think it would be a good idea to host an RFC on whether these newspapers' coverage of gender topics is reliable. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
We had one... three months ago. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes, definitely too soon to revisit that (The Economist was also covered). EddieHugh (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
As was The Telegraph. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:00, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps this discussion should mainly be about whether these newspapers are reliable with regards to the narrow topic area of gender. Yes, that was actually the RfC I was preparing for back in November (alas recovery from laser eye surgery has held me back from completing the prep work). The unreliability of sources like The Times and Daily Telegraph is focused almost entirely upon their trans and non-binary content, though recently they've also been branching out into more generalised anti-LGBT+ content.
Alas because the November RfC was launched prematurely to say the least, and in general we don't revisit past RfCs until at least 6 to 12 months has passed since the last one, and because collating and presenting a set of examples of unreliable coverage alongside the context for why the examples are so bad such that editors unfamiliar with GENSEX content can understand why these papers are not reliable on this topic, I'm not hopeful for any RfC along even those narrow lines to have any chance of success prior to at least June if not November.
Even just collating and presenting the set of examples is incredibly time consuming. When considering just The Times and Telegraph, both papers have been publishing at least one anti-trans article, per day, since 2019/20. I don't have the exact figures to hand at the moment, but in the last year alone The Times has published over 1000 anti-trans articles. It's not just a case of "they've published some bad articles", they're publishing hundreds of bad and misleading articles. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to try to comment a second time here without being censored. The notion that The Times or The New York Times aren't reliable because they mentioned someone's former name is absurd and at odds with the central mission of this project, which is to assemble verifiable facts. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

You aren't being censored, publicizing the deadname of a dead trans girl is a shitty thing to do that speaks to a basic lack of respect for trans people, whether you or the Times does it, especially when she was never notable under that name. Explicitly stating her deadname had no bearing on the discussion and was just cruel. I know you seem to think that deadnaming and misgendering living trans kids is okay, but apparently even in death you can't respect them. At least on WP, we don't allow that.
talk
) 00:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
@
TheTranarchist, which is exactly what happened in The Times. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions
) 00:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes, that's the very definition of censoring. While I agree that it would be rude to call a transgender person their former name to their face, in the context of what we are doing here, assembling facts about notable topics, the idea that you can't even mention a birth name in a meta-level discussion is absurd. We all ought to be able to decouple the horror of what happened to this apparent murder victim from our efforts to discuss the facts of the topic. That some some of us may be applying this sort confused logic in how we determine reliable sources could be utterly crippling for Wikipedia. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
@Jweiss11 Not publicizing a dead trans woman's name is not censorship, it's basic decency. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 00:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
LilianaUwU, I would recommend you revisit the definition of censorship. It applies even to things we would all consider indecent. Also, comments on a Wikipedia administrative discussion board qualify as publicity? Jweiss11 (talk) 00:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
It's called WP:Advocacy gone wild, but the community has apparently endorsed it, so yes, you can be censored. The fact that we are even discussing a source because of it's ideological leanings being at odds with the societal norms that Wikipedia has established for itself with no real evidence they published a falsehood should tell you how far from the core mission we have strayed on this one issue. Slywriter (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Slywriter, are you disagreeing with the frequently-reiterated community consensus that for WP to include non-notable deadnames is a
WP:BLP issue? Or with the scope of application of BLP policy that includes recently deceased people, as well as Talk pages? Or are you objecting to both things? Newimpartial (talk
) 01:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
When we are discussing a sources reliability because the source violated
WP:DEADNAME, policy they are clearly not bound to, we have gone too far. When labeling a source "Anti-Trans" and then trying to remove it from use on Wikipedia on trans topics for that reason, we have gone too far. It's one thing to ask for decency and respect in our interactions among ourselves and to try our best to limit harm, but when it affects sourcing because people don't like it, that's gone too far. Sensitivities of editors and subjects should play zero part in our editing. Republicans don't like being called far-right. Its offensive to many who are not far-right. I am personally offended anytime someone use cismale as I am a male without qualification and don't see why someone should force their word-coice upon me. I also don't advocate on wikipedia to limit use of far-right or ban use of cis because those are distractions from the core mission and my sensitivities should play no part in editing. Slywriter (talk
) 01:52, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Jweiss11, when you cry censorship, are you disagreeing with the frequently-reiterated community consensus that for WP to include non-notable deadnames is a
WP:BLP issue? Or with the scope of application of BLP policy that inclides the recently deceased, as well as Talk pages? Or are you objecting to both things? Newimpartial (talk
) 01:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
You're obviously not being censored, as you've been more than happy to repeatedly express your opinion misgendering and deadnaming are fine and trans kids should just have to put up with it. Wikipedia doesn't allow doxxing or slurs, that's not censorship it's common decency. It's rude to call a trans person a deadname to their face or to needlessly reveal their deadname to others who don't know it. You indeed publicized it. It had absolutely no bearing on the discussion and you chose to include it anyways - your rant could have worked just as well and conveyed approximately the same level of callousness if you hadn't explicitly stated it. That the Times chose to publicize the deadname of a murdered trans girl for shits and giggles shows they have little concern for fair reporting on transgender people.
talk
) 01:03, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

:::Best put diffs up for such an extreme claim. Otherwise, retract because I uphold policies I disagree with every day, while also expressing the accurate fact that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place to change the world. ::::Slywriter (talk) 01:11, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

You want us to link to the diff where Jweiss used Brianna's deadname, which has been oversighted (check the page history) and that no-one outside of those with the
Oversight role can actually read? Sideswipe9th (talk
) 01:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
From the placement of this comment, Slywriter, it appears to be a reply to TheTranarchist, but from the indent level it looks like a reply to Jweiss11. In either case, however, the comment you are replying to isn't about you or your actions so your call for diffs and your defense of your actions elsewhere in the project seem, ahem, misplaced. Newimpartial (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Sticken and thanks to both of you. Misaligned in my head and was upset an editor I've interacted quite well these last few days had an issue with me. Slywriter (talk) 01:52, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Were it not for The Times and Daily Mail deliberately choosing to publish Brianna's deadname, would anyone outside of her family, friends, and possibly local community actually known it?
There is a reason why we have the
a privacy interest
separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name. (links from original text).
For Brianna, sadly she was not notable (in the GNG sense) prior to her death, and the article we have on her is focused on her killing (which is notable in the GNG sense). The
WP:REVDEL policy states plainly what circumstances content can be either redacted (so that only administrators can view it) or suppressed (so that only those with the Oversight role can view it), and this was one of those circumstances. Sideswipe9th (talk
) 01:09, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
No disagreement with any of this, except it's not a reason to exclude a source from Wikipedia. They didn't lie. They said something we don't like here. That's not actionable. Slywriter (talk) 01:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I was not aware that the MOS applied to talk and discussion pages such as this—to the point that oversighting would be deployed. Wow. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
@Jweiss11 Privacy violations against a deceased person isn't just a MOS guideline. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 01:24, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Not the MOS. It's a
WP:BLPNAME issue. BLP apples to any edit about a living or recently deceased person, on any page, anywhere on enwiki. Sideswipe9th (talk
) 01:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
How is it a privacy violation if it's public information as it was published by mainstream news sources (e.g. https://archive.is/PZRQO)? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Rather than WIKILAWYERING over whether it is a privacy violation, can you concede that it is a BLP violation? Otherwise it looks as though we are headed to
WP:ARE. Newimpartial (talk
) 01:34, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Per BLPNAME When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated. Temporary publication in one source we consider reliable (The Times), and one we consider unreliable (Daily Mail) is not "widely disseminated".
Also like the last time, you could have easily asked this question without linking to the archive of the source, just as how I'm not linking to archives of The Daily Mail's article that also contains the deadname. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
In isolation it's potentially a reason to exclude the specific article, or archived versions of it, from Wikipedia. But that's not what this tangent discussion is about. This tangent seems to mostly be about why Jweiss11 believes they were censored, despite it being a very clear privacy violation of a recently deceased person. Jweiss11 could have made the same point about about The Times without any need to mention Brianna's deadname. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
The irony here is that Jweiss11, in their contributions, is providing a rationale for this filing that did not exist ab initio. Normally we use
the balance of coverage and what counts as widely distributed information. By drawing attention the clash between what The Times (and The Daily Mail) have chosen to publish and Wikipedia's norms, Jweiss has given reason to question whether The Times should be considered in assessing DUE inclusion of content, regardless of whether its reporting meets minimal standards of facticity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newimpartial (talk • contribs
) 01:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Daily Beast and Mediaite for extraordinary claim in a BLP

Regarding edits to

WP:RSP
, and so the edit was reverted.

The claim was restored [49] citing Mediaite and The Daily Beast.

WP:RSP says this about Mediaite
:

There is some consensus that Mediaite is only marginally reliable, and should be avoided where better sources are available. Editors consider the source to inappropriately blur news and opinion, and

due weight
should be considered if no other reliable sources support a given statement.

and this about The Daily Beast:

There is no consensus on the reliability of The Daily Beast. Most editors consider The Daily Beast a

living persons
.

Is this sufficient reliable sourcing for the claim being made? — Archer1234 (t·c) 00:40, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

No they shouldn't and they definitely shouldn't be hidden behind "it was published" without the who plays published. Also, if no one else covering the incident, doubt it is
WP:DUE. Slywriter (talk
) 01:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
These sources definitely shouldn't be used for any BLP claims. I'm skeptical that we should be using them at all given that they're basically tabloids. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:00, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
No, these sources should not be used for extraordinary or contested claims about living persons. Find a better source or take it out of the article. --Jayron32 13:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Regardless of sourcing, her husband is not a public figure, and her article cannot contain allegations of crimes potentially committed by him, per
WP:BLPCRIME. It's also clear that these sources can't be used. DFlhb (talk
) 14:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The Free Press

Bari Weiss has converted her Substack Common Sense into what appears to be an attempt to create a more "institutional" organization called The Free Press. It describes itself as a "new media company", and it does not seem obvious to describe it merely as a blog (as Weiss' Wiki article seems to imply). It features a cast of contributing journalists/writers, not only Weiss. I know Bari Weiss is, perhaps to some, a politically controversial figure, yet her credentials as an established journalist seem fairly clear by her resumé. Is there any consensus or opinions on whether this source is OK for Wikipedia? Obviously it not a major, traditional institution like the Washington Post or ABC, but it does appear to merit some discussion as it appears to be rather more than a blog. Euor (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

A pretty looking blog is still a blog. There is no editorial board, no standards, and no mechanism for corrections, literally nothing except a note from Bari Weiss... It remains a blog, not a bona fide news organization. Slywriter (talk) 21:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
It still looks like Weiss's blog. Should be treated as a
WP:SPS. Horse Eye's Back (talk
) 21:48, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
I agree with the above,
WP:SPS and should not be treated as a media organisation. Jeppiz (talk
) 23:15, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
This looks to have some degree of editorial oversight, and I wouldn't characterize it as being composed entirely of
WP:GREL so that does not appear to be blocker in and of itself) and that (2) the new media organization is truly new; it doesn't appear to be well-established quite yet. But the basis of editorial review and fact-checking appear to be present, so this is definitely not a self-published source in any reasonable sense of the term as it pertains to the articles written by the various writers and contributors. — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
04:44, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
Largely matches my view. They seem to employ good people. I recommend waiting until they're more established to classify them either way. DFlhb (talk) 19:01, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
Possibly better than most group blogs but still basically that. No reputation for fact checking an accuracy so probably not a usable source for facts unless authors are subject matter experts. As opinion, unlikely to be noteworthy as too fringe. So not necessarily never usable but I can’t imagine many situations when it’d be worth citing. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
What exactly do you mean by too fringe? The opinion range seems to broadly span center-left to center-right. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
I also found that statement a bit odd. I also find it reflecting centre-right to centre-left view. Obviously it will appear to contain deeply heterodox opinions if you strongly adhere to a certain orthodoxy. But if you zoom out and attempt to detach yourself from POV (impossible to do completely, of course), it seems to reflect certain ordinary opinions of a considerable segment of the population. Example: it appears The Free Press has now written an article concerning a new audio interview series with J.K. Rowling. If you strongly reject Rowling's views, I am sure it would appear "fringe", bringing on all kinds of criticisms toward The Free Press about "platforming" and so on. But zooming out, is J.K. Rowling and her stance in the whole gender debate "fringe"? Or is it representative of the position of a considerable section of the population, whether you agree with that position or not? To dismiss it as "fringe" despite a wide base of support for her, including among generally the right-side of the political spectrum (~half the population?) implies a value judgement that is problematically POV to me. And I say this as someone that is no fan of her positions. Anyways, this is beside the point of whether its editorial standards and reputation is acceptable as of yet.--Euor (talk) 19:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:SPS still, despite the glossy coat of credibility paint. It still has none. Zaathras (talk
) 03:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree with

self-published source we can only use on the author's biography here. In no case can it ever be used to comment on a living person anywhere at Wikipedia. That's BLP 101. The only way we can document what it says is the exact quotes from it that are cited by secondary and third party RS, and then we cite those sources/URLs. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me
) 01:48, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

opinion pieces published by the AP?

I was summoned by the bot to an RfC where one of the arguments is based on this. Anyone know more about the extent to which the AP publishes political opinion pieces like this (without marking them as such)? There's no opinion section at the top of apnews.com, and while I know the style of say, style/entertainment sections necessarily involve a degree of opinion, I guess I was under the impression they didn't get into this kind of thing (Black Lives Matter "rejecting the perfection of God and Jesus" and whatnot). I mean to read it, it's obviously an opinion piece, but I'm curious what other folks have seen. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I do agree it looks like an opinion piece. I'm not entirely sure where it's categorized. The author is not your usual pundit type though. Long time historian and a retired PoliSci professor, he's extremely widely published in newspapers for historical perspectives mostly in the Texas area but also as far afield as Connecticut and has over a dozen books mostly focused on Texas history. It's an interesting find. --(loopback) ping/whereis 14:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
It's an opinion piece, there's no doubt there, also the same author has other AP articles (example) that run in a similar vein and are also opinion pieces. I also hadn't realised that AP published opinion pieces such as this. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:26, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
The AP might occasionally fail to label obvious opinion pieces as opinion pieces. That's bound to happen when the AP is producing such a large volume of content; I've seen organizations like The Guardian and the religion section of The Washington Post make this sort of mistake before.
WP:REPUTABLE asks editors to exercise common sense when evaluating sources, and it's very clear that the particular piece you're bringing here is an essay expressing the opinion of the author, so common sense dictates that we should treat it like an opinion piece. — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
15:03, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
The AP has historically allowed a bit looser standards when it comes to religion (it is a field largely devoid of facts in the traditional news sense after all, one who sets out to fact check the Bible is in for a world of pain). I wonder if this piece didn't start on the religion side rather than the politics side. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
  • An opinion piece is as an opinion piece does. If it quacks like an opinion piece and it walks like an opinion piece, that's what it is. It also has no bearing on the general reliability of the AP. Treat that one article as an opinion piece, and that's all you need to do. --Jayron32 16:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
    • Yup, but I didn't ask what to do with that case; I asked for information/insight about AP practices, their website's organization, and the extent of this phenomenon. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
As the ever-reliable Poynter points out, it is quite routine for otherwise-reliable sources to improperly or insufficiently mark opinion pieces. I've also been seeing some articles that combine both news and opinion (not by the AP, just in general by WP:RS), though that's thankfully rare. As long as editors know to exercise proper judgment, and attribute whatever should be attributed, there's no problem. DFlhb (talk) 21:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
At least in the past, I know that we have considered a failure to properly separate news and opinion to be an indicator of unreliability... though it would be admittedly hard to apply this to the AP (partially because reliability is a combination of factors of which that is just one.) But it's definitely not a good look. --Aquillion (talk) 04:30, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I’ve never noticed this kind of opinion piece on AP before. I can’t work out which section it appears in. It’s very egregious that it’s not clearly labelled as opinion, so we might need to watch out for this. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Part of the confusion may be simply computer or human error. I've noticed that archived news articles, be they native or syndicated, often lose some key information and formatting over time, either from link rot, bad OCR scans, or just poor digital maintenance. For instance, digitized historic New York Times articles frequently have mangled titles that may omit the byline/dateline, and only subscribers with access to actual page scans can see the full context (e.g. whether something is clearly placed on an Opinion page). Sometimes articles on the AP website seem to be only partial versions of syndicated versions seen elsewhere in print. I think editors should always be aware that what they are seeing on a screen may not be exactly the whole truth (see also scanned journal articles from the 1920s whose online DOI says "published 1 Jan 2011" because that's maybe the month/year it was digitized). There is a Texas based syndicated columnist named Robin Montgomery who appears to write on religion and history, maybe one of his articles got filed in the AP website, either on purpose or by mistake (thanks, AI!). Glad to see people using their brains here in recognizing opinion from news in the absence of an explicit "OPINION" stamp. --Animalparty! (talk) 03:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
    My best guess would be some kind of CRM (database) migration. Article may have been prominently labelled opinion, but some metadata got lost in the transfer. I'll note that its URL was never archived before the last few days, and it's common for CRM migrations to involve URL moves. DFlhb (talk) 11:19, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Mercola.com

This is NOT an RfC, (so just discuss) but a feeler for whether we should start one to see if we can get his websites (plural) listed and deprecated at WP:RSP. I was amazed to see it wasn't even mentioned there. His websites are so bad they violate

WP:ELNO
.

Joseph Mercola is possibly the most infamous, currently living, peddler of pseudoscientific alternative medicine products and truly dangerous ideas. He is now suing Google/YouTube for removing his videos. He has several websites, the most notable of which is https://www.mercola.com/. He has also moved much of his content to Substack, which is an infamous "last refuge" for bad actors who get banned elsewhere (that applies to quacks and fringe journalists). Mercola's content is literally "so bad no one else will host it".[1] Here's a sample from our article:

He was warned by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in February 2021 for selling fake COVID-19 cures.[2][3] In March, the Center for Countering Digital Hate named Mercola as one of the 12 most prominent sources of COVID misinformation in a report later cited by US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.[4] In September his accounts on YouTube were removed by the company for breaking their policies on COVID-19 misinformation.[5] Mercola then moved some of his content to Substack. According to Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Mercola's content is "so bad no one else will host it".[1]
On September 29, 2022, Mercola filed suit against Google, who owns YouTube, alleging they violated their provision of giving the subscriber an opportunity to remove any of their content to comply to a new policy.[6]

Is there some interest in pursuing this endeavor? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Mercola.com HTTPS links HTTP links Shows exactly one use that isn't the article about Mercola himself. I think in order to call a RfC you would need to demonstrate that its use is a problem, which I just don't think is the case here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
I removed that one other use (it was at Sauerkraut, where the citation was not needed). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
I would say Mercola should be considered generally unreliable if not deprecated. However as Hemiauchenia says I am not aware of anyone trying to add Mercola links to Wikipedia. Andre🚐 00:59, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Definitely unreliable, don't need an RfC. Could be a case for Xlinkbot. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

It appears that most editors are fairly sensible since they aren't adding him as a source to articles. That's good. What I'm really after is a community decision at WP:RSP about it. We need to get it deprecated. (Only sensible and uncontroversial sources can explain no mention at WP:RSP. Mercola is neither, so a community decision should be found there.) Right now his article has only one link, in the infobox, after I removed one link from the External links as a violation of WP:ELNO. I'd like to get rid of the one in the infobox, and I'm hoping a decision at WP:RSP would enable that move.

What's the next step? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:35, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I think you can go ahead and remove the link from the infobox based on this discussion, but you don't need to add it to RSP unless it comes up again in the future. Andre🚐 03:37, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Okay. Then, if anyone complains, we can take this further. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:40, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
It probably doesn't matter because anyone can search for Mercola and easily find his website. In regards to his lawsuit he sued because Google had a policy to allow all users time to comply with any new policy changes but neglected to do that in his case.Red Rose 13 (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Strong support to deprecation. It's not that the links are there at this moment; it's that they keep being added every now and then and it takes time and effort to remove them.
Links to this peddler of fringe nonsense should have no place in any self-respecting encyclopaedia. — kashmīrī TALK 12:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
  • So like, what's the point? Deprecating/listing on RSP/etc. etc. are all about controversial sites; things that either have been, or that we anticipating being, points of contention. Stuff that is on the face completely unreliable doesn't need to be listed (or even discussed, really), as we expect people to be able to apply
    WP:SOFIXIT applies here as anywhere else. Permission is not needed. --Jayron32
    14:38, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

  • I agree there's no reason to have an RfC on RSN but I think most other editors have missed a wider point. The OP seems to be under the mistaken impression deprecation would mean we're forbidden from including the website in the infobox or as an external link and that seems to be the primary reason they're asking for deprecation.

    But that's not what deprecation is for or what it achieves. It's not even what blacklisting achieves since the link can still be whitelisted where it is appropriate. Consider famous cases like Breitbart News and Daily Mail. Unsurprisingly both articles include links to their respective media outlets in their infoboxes. (Maybe elsewhere, I didn't check.)

    To be clear, deprecation is about preventing editors using something as a source in all but the most exceptional of circumstances. It makes it clear to editors the default would be to never use the source (as an RS) and they would have to have a very very good argument as to why we should use it as a source in any particular case. Blacklisting is about preventing abuse or mistakes e.g. for sites which are spammed or which contain dangerous enough material that we have to be sure it never occurs. There should be evidence there is actually such a problem. If there are zero links to a source and people aren't too many cases of people having to remove them then it is unlikely blacklisting is needed.

    Whether to include a link to the website not as a source but either as external link or infobox should be discussed in the article talk pages where such a link is proposed guided by our relevant guidelines and policies of which WP;RS is basically uninvolved. There is no reason to involve RSN in it since it's not an RS question the website isn't being used as a source in any way.

    We definitely consider potential harm from the website but you don't need a discussion on RSN to establish potential harm. For example we removed the link to Kiwi Farms after this RFC Talk:Kiwi Farms/Archive 4#URL and 8chan after Talk:8chan/Archive 2#Inclusion of the link to 8chan but still link to Stormfront after Talk:Stormfront (website)#URL. To give a bunch more examples, we also still link to The Right Stuff (blog), VDARE, [[The Daily Stormer], 4chan, Encyclopedia Dramatica and Wikipediocracy. No idea about discussion on these. If any of those websites have ever been discussed on RSN before, I assume these have been short discussions since there's no question they aren't suitable as sources. (Like with Mercola, they're so bad that they're definitelty a case where I think we should not include a link even if we're covering something because of secondary source discussion unlike I think we generally should as mentioned in a discussion above.)

    With the exception of the last three, personally I consider all of these websites more harmful than Mercola. But I acknowledge a key difference is with most of them it's unlikely people visiting via us is a significant factor in the harm since anyone who is taken in by them is probably going to find it anyway and are unfortunately already down a rabbit hole Wikipedia can't do much to prevent. But it's possible some people may visit Mercola's website and be taken in by some of the absolute nonsense without that being the case.

    Note I am not saying you need to start an RfC on the article talk page. As always, if you've removed the link, explained your reasons and no one has objected you can leave it at that. I'm also not trying to say we should keep a link to Mercola's website/s. There is a key difference between the Mercola case and the one ones namely that the other ones the entire article is basically about the website but thankfully we do not have and I don't think we need to have an article on Mercola's websites, we just have one on the person. But the point is discussion here and even deprecating or blacklisting is of very limited relevance to the question you seem to be asking.

    Nil Einne (talk) 09:01, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

    • Nil Einne, thanks for your interest. I just saw this now. Not that I ever even considered it, but I agree that blacklisting is not needed, and since a local consensus can solve this issue, I'll go that direction. Thanks again. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b Elizabeth Dwoskin (January 27, 2022). "Conspiracy theorists, banned on major social networks, connect with audiences on newsletters and podcasts". The Washington Post.
  2. ^ "FDA warns Mercola: Stop selling fake COVID remedies and cures". Alliance for Science.
  3. ^ Nutrition, Center for Food Safety and Applied (March 4, 2021). "Mercola.com, LLC – 607133 – 02/18/2021". FDA.
  4. ^ Salam, Erum (July 17, 2021). "Majority of Covid misinformation came from 12 people, report finds". The Guardian. Retrieved July 18, 2021.
  5. ^ Alba, Davey (September 29, 2021). "YouTube bans all anti-vaccine misinformation". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
  6. ^ Pierson, Brendan (September 29, 2022). "Google sued by anti-vax doctor over YouTube ban". Reuters. Retrieved February 11, 2023.

Tennessee Star - reliable source?

The Tennessee Star (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) / Official website

I'm leaning "no" because it's a right-wing website that tries to make itself look like a newspaper, but I wanted to seek additional input here. Wes sideman (talk) 13:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  • Could you link to an article where it is being cited, so we can see the context in which it is being cited? Blueboar (talk) 14:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
@
WP:DUE, in an RfC at Talk:Shaun King. Wes sideman (talk
) 17:08, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Kathy Barnette is one, which I remember, because I added the cite. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Self-described as "the flagship member of the Star News Digital Media family". More on Star News Digital Media in Snopes here. -
    Location (talk
    ) 15:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • No, it is not reliable. It's a Breitbart clone; set up by the same people, for the same purpose, on the same model. It is not a reliable source of information. --Jayron32 15:13, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
    Clearly ideological but how is it a Breitbart clone? Springee (talk) 15:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
    This makes the case that it's exactly that. To wit, "He agreed that “Breitbart of Tennessee” would be a fair description of his site," where "he" is Steve Gill, the founder of the website. It isn't me calling it a Breitbart clone, it's the guy who founded and runs it that is. --Jayron32 16:34, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Strikes me as marginal. I don't see an issue using it for the opinion of the writer or for basic, uncontroversial facts but not much more. I do understand that a lot of editors say "it's connected with X source" however we appear to accept media sources that are connected with ideologically motivated groups in some cases but not others. So long as it has the basics of a RS and the claims it is used to support are either uncontroversial or attributed to the author (not just the site) I would say it's OK to use with caution.
Springee (talk) 15:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
It should not be used with caution. It should be avoided at nearly all costs, and treated like Breitbart. See above, the founder of the website has himself agreed that it is the "Breitbart of Tennessee". That doesn't indicate to me that it is trying to be a reliable source of news. --Jayron32 16:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • "The publication has been compared to Breitbart, which Leahy also writes for". Taking a gander at the website, it isn't as outright bad as Breitbart, but is still markedly conspiratorial (I mean come on). I don't see why this should be used when other forms of media will cover the same topics. Curbon7 (talk) 15:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
    "News the Mainstream Media and Big Tech Don’t Want You to Know" is always a signal. Curbon7 (talk) 15:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • Yeah this seems like the kinda source to avoid. Skimming through some articles seem more professional and “objective” a bit with conservative leanings/views. Others though definitely has a more tabloid flavor to it than that of a newspaper. At best people should be cautious using it and it probably should not be the sole source for something except maybe for local issues in Tennessee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3Kingdoms (talk • contribs) 18:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Probably should be avoided, and definitely not used for BLPs. Might be useful with attribution about local issues. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • I think it should be treated on a case-by-case basis. It may be unwise to use for contentious political matters due to its slant, but more appropriate in other cases. Note that whatever
    WP:PARTISAN. For what it's worth, according Media Bias/Fact Check it hasn't failed a fact-check in the past 5 years.[57]. Probably all the Star News Network websites should be treated as one outlet, especially since they seem to share articles and editors. --Animalparty! (talk
    ) 23:24, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
  • I generally don't look favorably upon the use of hyperpartisan local news websites for contentious facts.
    Biased sources can be ok if they have substantial editorial oversight and engage in substantial fact-checking, but generally the problem with them is that they have less well-established editorial controls and tend to blur the line between factual reporting and opinion. I'd agree with Springee that it's marginal; it's probably fine for ordinary statements about local politics and local politicians (stuff like Jane Doe has been a member of the Harrison Township Board of Education since her election in 2016 seems fine if it's sourced to the Tennessee Star), but I would generally advise against using it for contentious statements. This seems like a fairly straightforward partisan mirror of The Colorado Times Recorder, which is being discussed above, and similar considerations should apply to each. — Red-tailed hawk (nest)
    00:19, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
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