Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 408

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This article by whynow.co.uk is being used in the article

I say this publication is marginally reliable. Its about page contained no info about its editorial team and I saw only one use by others. But it seems like a decently large media organization with many staffs.

talk to me!

00:42, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Used as a biographical reference in Samuel Amo Tobbin, but the article's nominator at AfD says Who's Who in Ghana isn't a reliable source. I would treat Who's Who in Ghana like other national biographical directories. This reference (the only hit on Google Scholar) appears to be to an unrelated and much earlier Who's Who in Ghana: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22Who%27s+Who+in+Ghana%22&btnG= Two websites, and I don't quite see why: https://whoswhoghana.app/ and https://whoswhoghana.com If it's a reliable source, editors could use it to create more articles about notable Ghana people, who are probably underrepresented in Wikipedia. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 23:55, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I spent sometime looking into it, and editors should be weary of any "Who's who" as many are pay for inclusion. However this does seem to be legitimate. Inclusion wouldn't be enough for notability on its own and I'm not making comment on the other references, but this does look like a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:36, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

In theory, such publication should have some editorial controls, even if most of the entries are submitted by the subjects. So yes, I'd call them reliable (except for REDFLAG statements), but not sufficient for notability due to "pay us to include you" business mentality pervasive for such publiciations. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:11, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Sources on the Holocaust give varying estimates for the total number of non-combatants killed by the Nazis.

An argument is made at

1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Documenting numbers of victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution
   • This provides a table of estimates for different groups, summing to a total in excess of 17 million.
   • For citations and mentions of this USHMM page in Google Scholar you can paste https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q="Documenting+numbers+of+victims+of+the+Holocaust+and+Nazi+persecution"+ushmm&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 into your browser
   • For citations and mentions of this USHMM page in Google Books you can paste https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&hs=oBf&q="Documenting+numbers+of+victims+of+the+Holocaust+and+Nazi+persecution"+ushmm&tbm=bks&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmyPOlvLj_AhUOWcAKHRz0CqwQ0pQJegQIJxAB&biw=1547&bih=1592&dpr=1.2 into your browser
2. Donald Niewyk, Francis R. Nicosia: The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 2000, republished 2012)
   • This states that a Holocaust death toll including Gypsies, the disabled, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, political prisoners, religious dissenters and homosexuals would require acknowledging as many as 17,000,000 victims.
   • Cited e.g. by Amos N. Guiora: Tolerating Intolerance (Oxford University Press, 2014).
3. Martin Gilbert: The Holocaust: The Human Tragedy (Collins 1986, Rosetta 2014)
   • This states that As well as six million Jews who were murdered, more than ten million other non-combatants were killed by the Nazis.

Are these sources reliable enough to give a figure of around 17 million to illustrate the upper range of death toll estimates in The Holocaust? Andreas JN466 10:46, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

No one there has disputed that these are potentially RS, the dispute is about choosing among various RS. I don’t see any advantage in splitting the discussion, it should continue on the talk page. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 11:47, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

• Comment In addition to what 100.36 said above, we also need to be careful that whatever sources for the toll we cite have a definition of the Holocaust consistent with what we are using in The Holocaust article. Picking the scope of the article based upon one set of sources and a toll based upon another set that uses a wider/narrower definition will lead to factual errors and be a form of source misrepresentation. Abecedare (talk) 13:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  For reference, we currently say in The Holocaust#Death toll that in addition to the six million Jews murdered, A similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and POWs—estimated by Gerlach at 6 to 8 million—were killed by Germany and its allies.

  The question is about the range of estimates for non-Jewish civilians and POWs killed by the Nazis. Gerlach's estimate of 6 to 8 million (for an overall total of 12 to 14 million) is lower than

  • the 6 million Jewish + over 11 million non-Jewish non-combatants listed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
  • the 17 million total given by Niewyk & Nicosia in the Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, and
  • the over 16 million given by Martin Gilbert.

  The definitions used by these three sources are as follows:

  • The USHMM page specifically lists Jewish and non-Jewish "civilians and captured soldiers" (exactly the same as Gerlach).
  • The Columbia Guide refers to Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, Soviet POWs, Polish and Soviet civilians, political/religious dissenters and homosexuals (i.e. various groups of civilians and POWs).
  • Gilbert refers to Jews and "other non-combatants" ("civilians" plus "prisonders-of-war").

  So the definitions match. It is the figures that don't. The question is whether the higher figures given by these three sources are sufficiently reliable to be quoted in the section. Andreas JN466 15:56, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

• This is a pointless and unhelpful post. No one is saying that the sources are not at all usable on Wikipedia, only that there are better sources for this particular information. (t · c) buidhe 16:21, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  I am asking specifically whether these sources are reliable enough to use as an illustration of the upper end of the range of estimates. Buidhe has argued[1], for each of them, that they are not reliable enough to be used for that purpose in the article, and suggested no alternative source naming these or similar figures. What we currently have in the article is a single estimate that is over 3 to 5 million lower than the figure given by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Andreas JN466 16:26, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  Note that the argument you described and the argument in the linked diffs are substantially different... I know you didn't mean to misrepresent them but saying that its not good enough for FA is not the same as saying "that they are not reliable enough to be used for that purpose in the article" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:14, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  Buidhe keeps removing the higher estimate from the article (which, by the way, is not an FA) to leave Gerlach as the only estimate given. I can give a practical demonstration, if you like. Andreas JN466 17:19, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe instead of treating it like a battleground you take a second to try and understand where Buidhe is coming from. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:21, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  I assure you I have thought about it – this discussion has gone on for a while – but I am simply not convinced that I should pay Buidhe's viewpoints more attention than whatever Gilbert, Niewyk and Nicosia, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have written about this topic. They are all known quantities in the field, with an international academic reputation. Buidhe is not. Moreover, Buidhe has not presented a single source arguing that any of these sources are unreasonable, or gravely mistaken.

  If Buidhe would like to get the USHMM, Niewyk and Nicosia to change their figures, then all well and good. Until such time, they are reliable sources, entitled according to our policies to have their views represented in our article on The Holocaust, and Buidhe is not. Doing what Buidhe wants would be to accept that a widely cited page on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust and Gilbert's book are WP:Fringe publications. That is just one bridge too far for me. Regards, Andreas JN466 17:44, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  They do not at all appear to be saying that these sources are fringe publications (per their comments here and there they don't even appear to be disputing their reliability at all). Also note that if your beef is with editor behavior and not actually a reliability dispute then this was the wrong forum to bring your issue to. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:01, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

  Maybe instead of treating it like a battleground you take a second to try and understand where Buidhe is coming from. Maybe you could take a look at the discussion, which I just read in its entirety. I have enough else to do and don't intend to participate in this discussion, but yeah, it's a battleground and IMHO it isn't because of Jayen466. Buidhe has unilaterally redefined the Holocaust to include only Jews for a start. I've suggested that it's a WP: COMMON issue, to no particular avail, but maybe I just haven't been far enough back in the archives to see where the ngrams got pulled out. I am somewhat neutral on that subject, but the question needs to be resolved, say I, as someone who's been rehabbing Collaboration with the Axis powers for a few months now and is at the moment *not* using the Jews-only definition.

If we're going to make The Holocaust only about Jews in concentration camps, then we are going to need several new articles, though, and would do well to establish the topic architecture now. And until these articles are created, I see no reason why cited material about atrocities against the Roma or the Poles or anyone else should be wholesale deleted. There is no question that these numbers, whatever they might be, amount to notability.

Getting back to the numbers. All of my experience at this board says that if author A says x and author B says y then we teach the controversy and say that author A says x and author B says y. What we don't do is wave a hand at some unspecified archive and say it proves...whatever. Buidhe however believes she is right and is fighting hard to disallow the numbers at the higher end, citing various reasons. Possibly so they don't become fodder for a DUE argument? Hard to tell, since Buidhe is not exactly communicative.

Oh and sorry to dump all this as a reply to you, as some of it you probably haven't noticed, but Jayen is not the one with the battle ground mentality. I also invite interested editors to examine the carnage at

Holocaust in Poland

.

As for "wrong forum", hehe, AE thinks these are content disputes she is having. So let us talk content then. Without regard to who is causing the dispute, does it have any merit? That is what I would like to know. Elinruby (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Those sources seem reliable to me. Regarding "there are better sources", well, that's debatable. Those sources are reliable and new. Who says that, for example, USHMM estimate is "not good enough" to be cited? The page cited above ([2]) is good enough for numerous books to cite it, for example, and while the quality of those books vary, some look relevant and reliable... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:26, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I hope this is the right place. At Talk:Genesis creation narrative#Requested move 7 June 2023 we are discussing using Google sources. A Google scholar search for "Genesis story"[3] gives about 14,000 hits. Besides the fact that I'm not sure that at times it isn't picking up the two words separately, not as a phrase,[4] the book Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought shows up about 5080 times.[5] And of course Google scholar picks up unpublished works, self-published works and fringe. Doug Weller talk 14:29, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Should I bring this up somewhere else? Doug Weller talk 07:03, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

User:Doug Weller: Google Books Ngrams Viewer -- GreenC 06:29, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

@GreenC Yes, but how does that meeet my concerns? I see criticisms of it on various grounds not including my comments about self-published and fringe sources. Our article on it says "it is risky to use this corpus to study language or test theories". Doug Weller talk 07:01, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I wish to understand what is the general consensus about use of Rediff.com as a source here. I recently started a discussion about MSN which educated me that MSN is just a web portal and not highly reliable and I tend to see Rediff in the same way and wished to understand if that is really so. Particularly, is Rediff reliable to be used in political reporting and opinionated pieces?

I came across

A journalist employed by Radio New Zealand dishonestly edited wire stories (mostly from Reuters) to fit a Russian propaganda angle. Employee in question is placed on leave and RNZ is investigating. They say this may have gone on for as long as about five years. They've corrected at least 22 articles so far; the altered versions may have been captured in web archives however and it's plausible someone might use them as a citation. I'm not proposing any changes to the reliability status of RNZ, but just making this board aware. Sources: RNZ, CNN, AP. VintageVernacular (talk) 06:59, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I suspect that the answer to this is obvious, but since it's another weird term from Forbes I thought I'd double-check here in case anyone can spot anything I missed. Forbes now has articles like this, which look similar to their Contributor ones, but which, instead of having a byline of "contributor", describe the author as a "Forbes Councils Member" and, perhaps most amusingly, "Forbes Technology Council - COUNCIL POST - Membership (fee-based)". The description of Forbes councils says that Forbes Councils is an invitation-only, professional organization where top CEOs and entrepreneurs like you build professional skills and gain connections and visibility on Forbes.com., but, as noted, these are also fee-based, eg. from here (Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only, fee-based organization comprised of leading CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. I assume that these are just like Contributor pieces in that they have no actual editorial controls or fact-checking, and are therefore not

Am I mistaken in thinking this looks like pay to publish? Springee (talk) 18:16, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I think adding this to

WP:FORBESCON is a good idea. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk

) 18:25, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

yeah, Forbes Councils is pay-to-publish. Here's how it works. We've discussed it a couple of times before: [6] [7] At best contributor, at worst paid advertising. We should definitely be noting it on RSN, this is the third discussion - David Gerard (talk) 13:46, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

According to its own wikipedia article, The Bulwark is an American neoconservative anti-trump news website. I have never heard of them before, but in the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive, specifically the Analysis section, the Bulwark is mentioned as:

According to The Bulwark, Ukrainian victory in the war "hinged" on victory in the offensive.^[1]

I have never heard of the Bulwark before, nor are they present on

If I'm not mistaken they had a recent reorganization and attracted some new writers. Generally reliable though may be biased. I think in terms of RS this is probably fine with attribution but a different concern is

WP:NOTNEWS - will this still be relevant in a couple months or even weeks? Volunteer Marek

23:14, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like an opinion statement. Seems

WP:UNDUE

in any case. As for The Bulwark generally, every piece of theirs I looked at appears to be an opinion piece:

[8] -- repeatedly talks about "dysfunction".

[9] -- "Here on earth, a**h****s are rewarded constantly with no sign of karmic abatement."

[10] -- Talking about Pence's campaign launch and accusing him of hypocrisy for backing the rule of law but not the Trump indictment.

[11]

"I do not love Chris Christie". Adoring nanny (talk) 23:42, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

If we use it, I'd attribute it to the author rather than the publication. The author is William Nattrass, a freelance journalist. See his output here for consideration of whether he is an authoritative voice: https://authory.com/williamnattrass Bylines on international relations and geopolitics in RSs such as Politico, Telegraph, New York Times - but also in less reliable Spectator, UnHerd. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:36, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Did we consider

Weekly Standard RS? Seems to have same editorial team and stable of writers. BobFromBrockley (talk

) 10:37, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Pretty familiar with them, pre-Weekly Standard hires. I'd classify them either as an advocacy group (for what could be called "establishment Republicanism" or "neoconservatism", meant non-pejoratively), or as an opinion site. Neither would make this claim due: it's an opinion piece, outside their domain (domestic American politics, not military strategy). I also can't find the quote in the citation. DFlhb (talk) 02:42, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

YI will confess I like and read The Bulwark, but yes, it is basically entirely opinion. Fine to use attributed, but I also agree that not due in this particular case. Might be worth using on intraparty Republican dynamics, but we shall see if it ever comes up. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 02:50, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

These two sources - 5TV (Russian TV channel), controlled by Russian propaganda network RT and Rambler (portal), a web portal owned byRussian government bank Sberbank - are being used in the article on the Graham Phillips article to make "heroic" claims about the subject, whom other, actually reliable, sources describe as simply a pro-Putin propagandist who helps to spread pro-Kremlin conspiracy theories.

IMO it's pretty obvious neither of these are reliable but wanted to check in here first. Volunteer Marek 23:13, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, anything owned by Russia is not reliable. For that matter, I wish we would make a rule that nothing owned by any totalitarian gov't is reliable, ever. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:38, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I'd support that. Why not start an RfC :) _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:43, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I started writing an essay to this effect a few months ago, but I never got far enough to actually publish it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:53, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Anyone wanna remove the relevant text based on these sources? Volunteer Marek 23:23, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to include in articles references to primary sources (newspaper photostats, photocopies of signed eye-witness testimony, or photocopies of signed/sealed letters, etc.) that are hosted on websites that are not independent? For example, a personal website of a member of the clergy that hosts many articles in support of a specific point of view regarding a topic (non-independent), in addition to hosting many primary source documents concerning that topic/event. Arkenstrone (talk) 00:40, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

No. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:52, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm no wiki-lawyer, but I think a blanket "No" is too simple. It depends on context, but copies of newspaper articles should be OK whether you find them in an archive at your university library or uploaded on a website. Assuming the newspaper is otherwise reliable, and there is no reason to suspect tampering with the copy. You may have issues with

WP:PRIMARY says "Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources." and this may apply to letters. You may run afoul of issues with "reputably published", however. I think there are likely more issues with "testimony". Good luck. -- Yae4 (talk

) 02:58, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

The newspapers should be reliable, you are citing the newspaper where a copy is hosted doesn't change that. Eye-witness testimonies and letters would be primary documents, and as Yae4 said they need to have been published by a reputable publisher. If this is the only place they are published they may not be usable. Given this appears to be a religious matter I would also point you towards

WP:EXCEPTIONAL. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords

° 12:17, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Yae4 and @ActivelyDisinterested for your helpful comments. Your explanations clarify things quite a bit. Arkenstrone (talk) 06:34, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello. I'd like to get feedback whether the following sources are reliable scholarly sources (whether they're in line with

Reliability depends on the context. What statements do you want to base on these sources? Alaexis_¿question? 18:07, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

They're already cited in articles. The first and third source are cited to support a specific case of historical negationism in wikivoice (as can be seen in Historiography in North Macedonia and Bulgarian Folk Songs), while the second source is used to support biographical and historical information (as can be seen in Temko Popov), but it's attributed. The first and third source especially do not appear to be sufficiently reliable to me, considering the seriousness of the case. I'm not sure about the second source. StephenMacky1 (talk) 19:19, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for providing context. For the benefit of everyone else, the claim being sourced to Lazarević is that the Macedonian state archive at some point published a scan of the Bulgarian Folk Songs book cutting off the word "Bulgarian." Do you have specific concerns about this assertion or the author? Has anyone said that it didn't happen? Have her other works been criticised? Alaexis_¿question? 11:44, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Also, what is the problem with the article by Živić and Vranješ? Unlike Lazarević's work it's not a thesis but a published article. Alaexis_¿question? 11:47, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest in resolving the matter. I'd like to point out that I was the one who cited the article by Živić and Vranješ a while ago, so my only concern with that source is that it's not cited in the literature at all. Otherwise it directly supports the statement about the Macedonian State Archive, unlike Lazarević's source. The answer to all of your questions about Lazarević's source is no. StephenMacky1 (talk) 12:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

The PhD thesis has been cited once according to Google scholar, and was apparently supervised by Dr Peter Guest who appears to be an archaeologist/numismatist with no particular expertise in the Balkans. Given the contentiousness of Balkan politics, I would generally be very cautious about using it – though as Alaexis says, it's always easier to assess reliability if you give more specific details. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi everybody. I will allow myself to intervene in the discussion, since I am the editor who used the sources in question. They concerns a rather very delicate and complex context, namely the

Macedonian historiography, Macedonian nationalism and Bulgaria–North Macedonia relations. My modest opinion is that the sources mentioned above may be used in this complex matter, but with care and by an editor who knows the subject well. Regards. Jingiby (talk

) 03:19, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't think ChatGPT is a reliable source. The website itself claims that it may produce inaccurate or misleading content, and the WP article about it states that it has been accused of having left-leaning biases despite it claiming to be neutral, and the accusations were confirmed on a paper written about it in which the writer conducted 15 different political orientation tests on it (see ChatGPT article for more details). Also, when you ask it to cite sources in MLA, APA, etc. it might make up sources. It also makes up stuff *very* often. Should ChatGPT be listed as "generally unreliable" at the Perennial Sources? Félix An (talk) 09:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT output isn't 'published', it is an unverifiable one-off non repeatable response to user input, and thus can't legitimately be cited as a source in the first place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:40, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Perennial sources are only for sources that have been discussed multiple times. ChatGPT is an obviously unreliable source so it does not need to be listed.

talk to me!

09:55, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Some people might not know that though, especially newer editors, so it would be wise to put that before an influx of ChatGPT citations start coming in. I stand firmly by

WP:ETN, and by making the citation policies clearer for newcomers, it is easier for them to make constructive edits. Félix An (talk

) 13:38, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

The Wikipedia opinion is pretty much to kill anything AI-generated with fire. So perhaps a more general note on ChatGPT and similar tools might be appropriate.

There's been discussion on wikimedia-l about use of ChatGPT in writing. I personally would like to discourage it, but a lot of people do find spicy-autocomplete useful as an assistive writing tool if they're mindful of their responsibility for every word in the output ... but that's probably not an RSN issue - David Gerard (talk) 11:39, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is the essence of the draft

WP:LLM policy. ~UN6892 ^t_c

13:41, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT usually lets out nonsense, jokes and hoaxes, who will think that is a reliable source? List these to blacklist if being repeatedly added. -Lemonaka‎ 02:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The perplexity.ai chatbot shows the sources it used in generating a response. -- GreenC 14:18, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Not impressed: by this attempt. Brought there by RfC at Talk:Fifth_Industrial_Revolution. Burn it down? -- Yae4 (talk) 01:07, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Was that article AI-generated? Félix An (talk) 02:04, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Supposedly, the starting stub. The edit summary when article stub was started says,

"as edited by Jean.julius... at 01:07, April 14, 2023 (Stub created using references and ChatGPT - an example of how human - machine co-learning is possible in a forthcoming 5IR. You may also help in expanding the article.)."

Aquillion just cleaned up some of the poor sourcing and BS (Thanks).

-- Yae4 (talk) 06:12, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

For more extended discussion on this issue, see WP:Large language models. In general, language models should never, under any circumstance, be cited as the source of a claim. The idea of doing this is gobsmackingly ignorant (would you write something on a piece of paper, and then cite the pen as the author of the claims you made?)

Apart from that, there are some very obvious and severe problems for asking them for sources and not double-checking them output before blindly pasting it into the edit box. Multiple real incidents have occurred in which somebody did this and published a shite article where all of the references were 100% fake -- people should not do this. Apart from that, though, I think it is quite useful for assistance in formatting, phrasing, et cetera (check out the tables!) jp×g 07:08, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Looking for input on the RFC about the dominant ethnic background of the Imamate of Aussa see talk [12] Magherbin (talk) 02:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Is econstor.eu a reliable source? I want to know if this sauce can be used to describe tourism at Sol de Mañana. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:10, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

EconStor is a place to freely publish work, so on its own is has no reliability. Instead you need to look at the authors of the work, in this case the two authors appear to be reliable. One thing is that the work is not peer reviewed, in another setting it would be called pre-print, so you shouldn't use it for any exceptional cliams but run of the mill details should be fine. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:09, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello. Is Mapping Prejudice a reliable source in the Minneapolis article? We have one editor who objects and termed them unreliable. I understand that debate on this topic can be difficult. Mapping Prejudice did not appear in my search of the archives and your list of perennial sources.

Mapping Prejudice is used maybe five times (and is cited by other sources) to say (this first one is what the editor finds to be contentious):

• "The effects of racial covenants remain today in residential segregation, property value, homeownership, wealth, housing security, access to green spaces, trees and parks, and health equity."^[1]
• "Minneapolis has a history of structural racism"^[2] and has racial disparities in nearly every aspect of society.^[3][4]
• "Kirsten Delegard of Mapping Prejudice explains that today's disparities evolved from control of the land"^[4]
• the city was relatively unsegregated before 1910,^[4] when a developer wrote the first restrictive covenant based on race and ethnicity into a Minneapolis deed.^[5] But then realtors adopted the practice, thousands of times preventing non-Whites from owning or leasing properties,^[6] and they continued for four decades until the city became more and more racially divided.^[7] Though such language was prohibited by state law in 1953 and by the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968,^[8]

We have had Mapping Prejudice as a source in Minneapolis for years, since somebody added their co-founders' 2017 publication.^[9]

The project is an influential, widely-cited group of academics at the University of Minnesota who've had 6,000 local volunteers reading real estate deeds in the Twin Cities under the supervision of a historian who is a property records specialist. The group inspired PBS, who won a local Emmy for Jim Crow of the North. (Citations include AP News, Bloomberg CityLab

Since their founding in 2016 they won a Mellon Foundation grant^[10] won a catalyst award from the National States Geographic Information Council^[11] and a John R. Finnegan Freedom of Information Award from the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information. They also won an Outstanding Public History Project Award from the National Council on Public History.^[12]

This one editor doesn't want to research this, and so far says what we're citing is "stupid." Must I remove this source and content to satisfy one person? Thank you in advance for your opinions.

Works cited

• Delegard, Kirsten; Ehrman-Solberg, Kevin (Spring 2017). "'Playground of the People'? Mapping Racial Covenants in Twentieth-Century Minneapolis". Open Rivers: Rethinking the Mississippi (6).
  doi:10.24926/2471190X.2820
  .
• Walker, Rebecca H.; Ramer, Hannah; Derickson, Kate D.; Keeler, Bonnie L. (2023). "Making the City of Lakes: Whiteness, Nature, and Urban Development in Minneapolis".
  S2CID 256754104
  .

• Foreign Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations
  .

• Paul J. Smith: "Reviewed Work: Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists by Alessandro Orsini", Perspectives on Politics, Cambridge University Press.

Others

I would also be interested in editors' views on the following reviews that similar objections might be raised against:

• John R. Hall: "Reviewed Work: Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists by Alessandro Orsini", Contemporary Sociology, American Sociological Association.
• Tobias Hof: "Alessandro Orsini, Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 317 pp.", Cold War History, Routledge.

I would also be grateful if interested editors could review the paraphrases presented in this section and compare them to the underlying quotes. Thanks, Andreas JN466 16:27, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

• Comment - We have ten reviews by specialist scholars, who have some kind of expertise in the topics covered by the book. So, we need not scrape the barrel by adding capsule-reviews from Foreign Policy. Additionally, neither Lawrence D. Freedman nor Paul J. Smith has any subject expertise to make their reviews worth DUE. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:41, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  Nobody has questioned Tobias Hof's or Jeffrey Herf's creds or suggested that their reviews be kept out; so, I don't know why their reviews have been selected by Andreas. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:42, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  I thought from this edit yesterday that you intended to question Herf's credentials as well.

  As for Hof, you're right; he's cited in the article. Though I don't agree with the summary I found in the article. It seemed to take considerable liberties with what Hof actually wrote (Wikipedia library link for reference). Andreas JN466 18:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  Last I checked, RSN is not the place to dispute or even discuss whether content has been fairly summarized or passes

  WP:INTEGRITY. TrangaBellam (talk

  ) 20:23, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  • Lawrence Freedman: "Terrorism as a Strategy", Government and Opposition, Cambridge University Press.
  • Paul J. Smith contributed a chapter on the precise same topic Orsini's book is about to Armed groups : studies in national security, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency, published by the U.S. government (U.S. Naval War College). (H/T to WO member eppur si muove.)

  Andreas JN466 18:49, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  You appear to believe that anybody who works on terrorism — from al-Qaeda to revolutionary terrorists of colonial Bengal to the Italian far-left — is adept to review each other's works? Wow. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:53, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  If a peer-reviewed journal like Perspectives on Politics, or a journal like Foreign Affairs, decides to publish their review, then why should Wikipedia ask TrangaBellam's opinion about the author's qualifications before including a summary of the review?

  What makes TrangaBellam more qualified than these publications' editorial boards and reviewers, who decided to publish the reviews for their readership?

  The journals, their publishers, and their authors are known quantities, with international reputations. TrangaBellam is not. Andreas JN466 21:25, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  For precedence, see the protracted discussions at this t/p thread. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:30, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Another useful source might be 'Comments on Marc Sageman's Polemic "The Stagnation in Terrorism Research"' by Alex P. Schmid. Not a review as such, but he mentions that "More researchers, and more good researchers, have joined the field in the last decade and the results begin to show in excellent works like Alessandro Orsini's Anatomy of the Red Brigades (2011). Andreas JN466 19:17, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

This is not the article t/p, where you suggest sources for generic improvement. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

As I said on the t/p, given his subject expertise, the Paul J. Smith review should be included as it is the best expository (i.e. non-polemical) review of what is contained in each chapter. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 21:00, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I do not oppose inclusion of Paul Smith. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

• This is a strange thread. All these reviews were published in scholarly journals, several of them being among the leading journals in the field. The journals' editors considered that the authors of the reviews had relevant expertise when they commissioned or accepted the reviews, and it would be bizarre for Wikipedia editors to seek to dismiss this. They are all excellent sources. Nick-D (talk) 00:25, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Foreign Affairs is a trade magazine (though of renown); not a journal. As our article makes clear, they have resident-reviewers for regions; reviews are never commissioned. Besides, the review in question is a one-paragraph-long "capsule-review". When we have 10 detailed reviews — some of which run for five to six pages — in the article from high quality peer reviewed journals by academics with specific expertise in the topic area, why scrape the barrel? DUE etc.TrangaBellam (talk) 06:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Reviews in Foreign Affairs are definetly not scraping the barrel. Nick-D (talk) 09:00, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Nick for your comment. Everyone else who has commented so far (including me) has come here from the article. It would be good to have more comments from people who are new to the and situation can comment on the reliability of the sources without the possibility of their comments being influenced by the content of the reviews. Dronkle (talk) 13:51, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Book reviews typically are citable as opinion, unless information from the review is being used for factual statements. It is not clear, therefore, that the question really is one for this noticeboard. It sounds like the dispute is over whether citation to these sources is due, and we cannot help you there. John M Baker (talk) 00:10, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Dirt.com is owned by Penske Media Corporation, which also owns Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline Hollywood, Rolling Stone etc. It started off as the real estate news section of Variety in 2014 (though based on a gossip column) before becoming its own site in 2019.[42] It has an editorial team[43] and has published corrections in the past.[44] It doesn't seem especially unreliable for its type of news, I guess. DoubleCross (‡) 17:14, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

And now reading the Cartoon Brew article, it seems they retracted it not because of unreliability, but because of angry pushback from readers over fears of Sugar getting doxxed. - DoubleCross (‡) 19:44, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

If the article was withdrawn as a possible invasion of privacy, that really sounds to me like something we should not be citing. I also note that the gossip-ish nature of the source makes it sound questionable at best for a biography of a living person. John M Baker (talk) 20:26, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything particularly gossipy about the site. Celebrity-focused, yes, but out here in the Los Angeles area, celebrity real estate is fairly mainstream coverage, to be found in the Los Angeles Times and the like. It neither focuses on the lurid nor on rumors; the name "Dirt" appears to be a joking reference to land. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 14:28, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Also want to clarify something here: It's Cartoon Brew who retracted their own article about this, not Dirt.com. Personally I think the content (of the Dirt article at least) is innocuous and mainstream. DoubleCross (‡) 16:48, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Does this book by Rabindranath Chakraborty falls under

It is obviously an academic book. The foreword was written by a history professor. On the back cover there are endorsements from a historian from Prague and a historian from Calcutta. Unfortunately the foreword is not in the preview and the acknowledgements are cut off after the first page, but my guess is that it is a PhD thesis in history. So, prima facie it is a perfectly respectable academic history book. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Is

I am skeptical about using the page itself. There is just no information about editorial background or even about the background of the authors (e.g. are they journalists, academics, ...). I would treat it like a group blog (possibly an expert blog). So I see limited usefulness for non-controversial statements, possibly opinions. If RS use it as a source we have to assume that they did their homework and verified as much of the information as possible. It is also quite possible that a source like BBC or Reuters has some kind of insight into who is behind the page. So I would be careful stating things in wikivoice, but with attribution it should be fine when it is reported by RS. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:58, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Back in the late 1960s I was the Public Information Officer for a combat unit in Vietnam that is currently listed on Wikipedia. At that time we published yearbooks for the combat unit that were made available to the soldiers and the chain of command. Those publications carry pertinent information about activities of the combat unit that are not mentioned in the current Wikipedia page and are both informational and useful for those who might research the combat unit in Wikipedia. If I want to use those sources, how can it be done? Thank you. Lowcountrywriter (talk) 23:40, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Those being

b

} 23:49, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Those sound like they're primary sources, so you'd want to see our policy on such at

WP:PRIMARY. Jahaza (talk

) 23:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Could Today News Africa be considered a reliable source for African affairs? A quick glance through some of its articles shows that it's reliability on USA issues is definitely very, very questionable, but what about in African affairs? Presidentofyes12 (talk) 13:25, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Generally unreliable. The website seems to be little more than a blog run by

WP:USEBYOTHERS or corrections policy as far as I can tell. Isi96 (talk

) 23:59, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you forgot to link the Fanbyte source.

For the Best Life source, it seems fine to me. Their about-us page mentions an editorial team, a place to raise corrections, and have been established for almost two decades. Ca ^{talk to me!} 09:13, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

@Ca: Sorry, here's the Fanbyte source. — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 12:49, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Probably not reliable. Questionable sources shouldn't be used in BLP articles. Also, the person who created the article only wrote on the site once? Contributing writers can often be suspect. Ca ^{talk to me!} 12:52, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 13:06, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

The source, Winsipedia, is located at [45]

Because its scope is all teams in

The issue is that, while Winsipedia does not appear to be incorrect, it also does not show which sources/references were used for their information. Other sources for the same information do not have this issue, such as Sports Reference ( https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/ ), or ESPN (which would be considered a reliable reference for sports stats/records), or the official records of the member universities themselves, which are often available in their media guides, or the official records as kept by the NCAA, also available online ( http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/2020/FBS.pdf ).

As far as I can tell, the best option for Wikipedia is to avoid using Winsipedia as a reference. (u t c m l ) 🔒 ALL IN 🧿 18:54, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks like the link should be http://www.winsipedia.com/. John M Baker (talk) 13:35, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

First, let me correct your link -- they're at [46] (this is one of those sites that actually requires the www.)

We do not generally require our sources to list their sources. Checking out one of the other sources you you try to hold up as an example, I don't see any reference for their source of information on, say, the 1910 Penn State Nittany Lions -- and surely, the site was not around in 1910 to generate that information themselves. That's not to say that Winsipedia is therefor accurate, but one can claim sources and still be wrong, or one can lack stated sources and still be right. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 13:36, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I am currently conducting a GA review for Love or Loved Part.1. Currently, there are two cites to social media, which I believe to be fine, but I wanted to get some second opinions here.

1. On November 23, 2022, 131 announced the upcoming release of live clips for each track, a dance practice video for the title track, "Keep Me Up", and a documentary film for Love or Loved Part.1.: cites the record label's official Twitter, which made the announcement (here: [47]).
2. The chart in the "Release history" section cites the record label's official Facebook for the different release versions (here: [48]).

Thanks! voorts (talk/contributions) 13:39, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Neither of these are controversial, they seem fine for the details they are supporting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:58, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I see climbing BLPs using "High Range book of World Records" as the RS. I think this is some kind of money-making site that UPEs use to generate climbing BLPs that use non-notable climbing records. Is there a way of confirming this (and getting it blacklisted).

For example, the BLP a non-notable (in the

The application process requires sending photos, video, audio or paper cuttings and money, and they send a certificate back. I wouldn't count it towards notability -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:52, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you think I could have this listed at the WP:spam-blacklist. There are quite a few mountaineering BLPs now using this RS, and it is promoting records that have zero notability in the wider climbing world. Aszx5000 (talk) 20:07, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I was making a citation for The Grants, and I was wondering if Under The Radar was a reliable source? Joejazzy (talk) 12:54, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Probably depends on what you want to use it for. Volunteer Marek 21:58, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I was gonna use it as a source for the song's genre. Joejazzy (talk) 02:03, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Is Digital.com a reliable source for reviews? The authors seem to be experts, but I am not sure how independent the reviews are. Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:06, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Digital.com is a web hosting service, you'll need to supply a full link. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:14, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

This one Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:53, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry my original statement was wrong, the website just has the typical look of a web host but is in fact a review site. I can't see any reason it wouldn't be reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Hey, noticeboard frequenters,

I just saw a reference for a scientist to WebOfScience most cited scientists and wondered what current thought was about this website. I did a search for RSN archives and no earlier discussions on this source popped out for me. I know in AFD discussions about scholars, their citation record is often brought up but I don't know whether or not it is taken from sites like this one. Thanks for any insight you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:33, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

b

} 00:46, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

With the caveat that WoS has very low coverage of some fields (I'm mostly familiar with computer science, where peer-reviewed conference proceedings rather than journals are the standard publication venue), I'd view it as generally reliable. As an example of what I mean with "very low coverage", I took a look at a profile of someone whose work I'm very familiar with: WoS only acknowledges less than half of their publications and 10 % of their citations, and calculated their H-index as a third of what Google Scholar shows. Ljleppan (talk) 06:59, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

WoS has transparent guidelines for their metrics and is fairly comprehensive so I would say reliable. However, there may be

WP:DUE concerns since they tend to index peer-reviewed papers, meeting abstracts/proceedings, and book series, which are more relevant to some fields than others. For example, in biomedical sciences, peer-reviewed articles are the be-all, end-all of one's career output, so WoS would be highly reliable for researchers in that area. But other disciplines, like computer science and some other engineering fields, rely less on this type of publication so WoS citation counts might be less relevant in those cases. Context is key. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk

) 21:40, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello, are sources written by authors who have a master's degree (Master of Arts; MA) reliable for history-related articles? Or can only sources written by authors at a PhD level be accepted on Wikipedia? Not sure if this is the right place to ask this.

You're approaching it from the wrong direction. Sources are expected to be authored by recognized experts in their field, no matter their level of academic attainment. A PhD may be part of that qualification, but is never all of it. Similarly, no degree at all is necessary when someone is broadly regarded as an expert in the subject being discussed. Mere academic attainment is never a sole criterion for reliability. See

WP:RS for more. Acroterion (talk)

02:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@

talk

) 03:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

As a general rule I would not view a degree as a reason to accept or reject a particular author/source. For example, I would be more willing to accept a journal article written by an undergrad (thus technically no degree) and published in a respectable journal vs something written by a post doc but self published or published in a low quality journal. In the case of the journal paper, unless the author is well known, we generally have to rely on the reputation/quality of the journal.

This can also extend to historical books published outside of traditional academia. While a lot of history is going to be written by people who are within academia, some specialized areas (say history of an industry or technology) might be written by people without degrees in that area (perhaps a journalism degree or something else). In those cases we would have to look at both what is being claimed (is it an extraordinary claim that requires greater evidence or is it an uncontroversial claim) and the reputation of the source. Occasionally a book by a non-history will be viewed as a reference quality work for it's specific subject. Springee (talk) 02:38, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@

talk

) 03:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

• @
  ThethPunjabi: I don't think the educational attainment of an author is the crux of the actual dispute this RSN query appears to relate to. IMO the problem is that a newspaper column is being used to contradict scholarly writings published by I B Tauris, Anthem press, and Oxford University Press. (There are also secondary issues of the the newspaper column being misinterpreted, and the article in the OUP edited volume, which is a republication of this journal article
  not being cited properly. But those are not the primary concern of this board and can be easily addressed on the article talkpage.)

Pinging @Acroterion and Springee: to check whether they believe their generic advice, which I agree with, is being appropriately cited in this case. Abecedare (talk) 04:23, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@

talk

) 04:26, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification.

As Acroterion and Springee indicated, assessment of a source's reliability should take into account a multitude of factors. For example, the Nalwa book is likely an unacceptable source because of its age (1935), publisher, and lack of academic reviews and peer-reviewed articles written by its author (at least I didn't find any on a quick search). The author holding "only" an MA would be the least of the concerns because during the 1930s the PhD degree was not as well-established as it is now and many recognized experts and academics lacked it.

And again, IMO the advice offered in this section is being misapplied to the Dawn article case though I'll let Acroterion and Springee speak for themselves. By the way, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is indeed scholarly uncertainty/dispute over

WP:DUE, if you want to include the argument that he was a Sikh you would need to find sources at par with the ones that say otherwise. Abecedare (talk

) 04:48, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@

talk

) 04:53, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

trying to use the most respected and authoritative sources in writing articles; unless the journalism is presenting facts that were not known at the time of the scholarly work's publication, it's generally better to use scholarly works for these sorts of historical claims. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest)

19:47, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the thrust of the debate that it is not the nature of the degree that is important, it is reputation of the person. For example Antonia Fraser has only (!) a batchelor's degree, yet her reputation as a popular historian is unsurpassed. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:25, 1 July 2023 (UTC).

Or

Banks Irk (talk

) 23:26, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

True, but for our purposes she is surpassed by nearly every academic historian... So there are levels to this. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:42, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean. A master's degree alone would not, generally, be sufficient to pass the threshold for

I thought it was worth discussing National Geographic again, given that they have made the choice to fire all staff writers in favour of solely relying on freelance work. While I've definitely seem some good science reporting in National Geographic, where they actually bother to go and actually interview experts who were not part of studies, there's definitely some fringey stuff also, like their article about crystal skulls, which seems to give undue weight to the idea that these objects are actual mesoamerican artifacts. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:43, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

• Is there perhaps a need to set a time period of reliability for the source? Since I don't think throwing out everything with it is appropriate. But clearly they've lost their reliability in recent months and years. We may need to say that only articles prior to a certain date remain reliable. Silverseren^C 01:48, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Wow, that's a terrible loss to the journalistic community. NatGeo was always the gold standard for cultural reporting. Never thought it would go digital only. Not that using free-lancers is bad, but they'll hire whomever now to get the job done. Certainly anything after the layoffs should be looked at with caution notability-wise, but the crystal skull article is much older... Oaktree b (talk) 04:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

A couple users keep restoring text sourced to militantwire.com, a substack which is being used in 10 other entries on en.wp, to

Furthermore, there were multiple confirmed cases of rioters firing in the air using Kalashnikov assault rifles.[58] A video was also filmed showing a rioter with PPS-43 style submachine-gun. Numerous cases of rioters firing at CCTV cameras with pump action shotguns were also filmed and verified.

Does anyone have experience with this substack? Do they have a corrections policy? Have they been reviewed anywhere? A search for "militantwire" "Nahel" shows this substack article has not been reported upon by any traditional media outlets, so at least for the moment, the information seems to be undue. Nevertheless, I am curious if people consider it a reliable source or not, given its use on 10 other pages. (It has been cited on other matters by Newsweek and SudOuest (a Bordeaux-based newspaper)...) Thanks for your help. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 17:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

They list staff on the about section. I don't recognize the first two authors and it's a little concerning the third contributor uses a pseudonym. Not much on writer Tom Lord. Not much on Lucas Webber, but he seems to be the most published of the three [49]. Webber may be an expert self-publishing, but I'm still pretty skeptical. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2023 (UTC):

Thanks. Indeed, the author of the article cited in the entry being "War Noir" along with the obsessive detail concerning types of weapon is what caught my attention at first. My thought is that what can be verified via other sources is likely due, and what cannot should go, including the source. But I brought it here in case anyone had inside information on War Noir's reliability. :) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:44, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Could you link the other sources that cite them you mentioned? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Nope, sorry... because reasons (good ones, actually). But here's how you can find them yourself: type site:"newsweek.com" militantwire.com somalia into google and you'll find a ref where newsweek cites the site. (If you remove "Somalia" you'll see that they seem to rely on them a fair bit actually, though not for War Noir's article.) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 20:31, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Just a quick note that, per

WP:NEWSWEEK, the modern Newsweek is a shaky source itself, so its use of the site cannot confer much reliability. (It doesn't confer non-reliability either, mind you.) -- Nat Gertler (talk

) 00:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I am using this source for the article Tai Chi. I am not sure if it's reliable. The website claims their instructors are certified. SVcode(Talk) 23:50, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Even if certification were sufficient to be considered reliable (questionable in itself), we cannot accept the website's word that their instructors are certified, as that is something that would have incentive to claim even if not true. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I have been removing this as a reference from pages due to it being unreliable (IMO). An editor raised the question about the reliability on my talk page since then so bringing it here for discussion on reliability and potential blacklisting based on paid posts. There is this at RSN and a more recent one here at RSN. The website does not list any type of editorial oversight, has writers openly seeking pay for posts, and have spammy blog content such as this. A Google search also found (fiverr dot com / gigs / ventsmagazine) showing that freelancers are offering to post on the website for pay. CNMall41 (talk) 19:05, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any reason to consider it reliable. Articles like this look like unflagged advertising. I would absolutely not consider this reliable. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:29, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

That's exactly what I have been seeing on the website. More like paid spam which is evidence of the Fiverr information posted above. --CNMall41 (talk) 02:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)