Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 4

This article cannot be found on Rolling Stone's website but it should be plainly visible, being from 2010. Legolas used it to support a quote: "a Catholic school girl on the run to discover herself, and on the way she finds the Monster Ball." This quote is not found in any reliable sources. Binksternet (talk) 02:57, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Misuse of source in GA push - Vijender Singh

• Vijender Singh is (somehow) a GA. Legolas2186 began the push for GA and in that very first edit added a citation for a previously unsourced statement regarding the subject's education. I have just removed it because the source appears to support nothing in that statement. I am also removing other cites/requesting cites in that article. At one point, Legolas2186 has used a pre-marriage interview as support for the guy actually getting married, and it is a bit closely paraphrased also. - Sitush (talk) 14:56, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• In the initial "GA push" edit, Legolas2186 adds, inter alia, that "In 1990, boxer Raj Kumar Sangwan got the Arjuna Award; a craze for boxing increased then. The sport became one of the main avenues to get a job in India." His source (after I fixed the url) says "After Raj Kumar Sangwan got the Arjuna Award for boxing (in the late 1990s), a craze for the sport increased. Coming from a poor family, it was one of the main avenues to get a job." This, remarkably, seems to be both a close paraphrase and an apparent misrepresentation of the source! I would appreciate a second opinion before I try to do something about it. - Sitush (talk) 15:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• I have listed this thread not to be archived. Regardless of whether the user logs in again, these issues with verifiability and unreliable sources need to be resolved. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:56, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Two FAs

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/4 Minutes (Madonna song)/archive3 was promoted before we had routine spotchecks on each nominator (and had a surprising number of supports from editors with colorful sigs not frequently seen at FAC).
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Madonna (entertainer)/archive1
  had a good level of support from knowledgeable and competent FA writers and reviewers, but there are two reasons it should be very carefully scrutinized:
  1. It's a highly viewed BLP
  2. I can't decipher why I didn't request a source spotcheck before promoting it-- sometimes that's because the editor's work was checked elsewhere but I can't locate that here.

So, Legolas hasn't logged in since Feb 12; that's alarming. I suggest that one way forward for him (that is to avoid being blocked), is that he tell us which FAs and GAs he falsified sources on, so those can be cleaned up or delisted. If he does that honestly, he could be granted a reprieve from an indefinite block (subject to mentorship perhaps by someone willing to monitor his work). If he doesn't do that-- or gives a response that is later found to be false-- he is blocked indef. Madonna needs to be checked by someone with access. I agree that an editor with a track record like this is likely to continue or to sock, which is why I suggest that we find a way forward involving him coming clean now and being allowed to edit with supervision. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I have started investigating

Madonna (entertainer) and found an alarmingly high rate of misapplied sources, although none so far that are completely fabricated. See here. This is going to be a lot of work. --Laser brain (talk)

22:41, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Another wave of investigation for

4 Minutes (Madonna song) here

.

At Get Together (Madonna song), Legolas2186 performed a "major expansion for GA" way back in July 2009. He added a link to an interview of Nathaniel Howe, a 3D animator and PR/branding artist. The link was to the "Drowned Madonna" fansite which is no longer working: http://www.drownedmadonna.com/modules.php?name=nathaniel_howe. The Wayback Machine has the interview here, archived from July 2007. Legolas misrepresented that Howe was interviewed by Madonna's official website Icon, but the link is to the fansite Drowned World, and the interviewer calls him- or herself "Drowned World", not Icon. Up to this point, the quote is accurate and the text from the website is accurately summarized, but the website is a weak source, arguably not reliable enough.

The next change that Legolas made to the cite is a more serious infraction. In November 2010 he deleted the dead link to Drowned World and instead asserted that the cite came from a print copy of Icon magazine, volume 23, number 11. Icon magazine was not published in volumes but in issues, according to this eBay guide to back issues. The eBay guide implies that the August 2006 issue of Icon would have been issue #45, not 23 or 11. I seriously doubt that the clunky and amateurish Drowned World interview was carried by the glossy print magazine Icon. Binksternet (talk) 18:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Subpage time?

Shall we move all this to a subpage (to avoid archiving)? We need to structure and go through in a methodical way. A bit like copyvios but in reverse in an ironic sort of way. Legolas I hope you read this, if you come and help we can try to clean this up as quickly yet as thoroughly as possible. I have seen good work as well, so let's try to move forward. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• I've been "tending the garden" at RS/N recently, and I want to keep this on the main page to attract "fixer" attention. I've set it to no-archive (until 2022). Fifelfoo (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• But this page is currently taking an age to load. Do we really want to prolong the agony here? There are a lot of active threads but I am unsure whether the solution is to cut the archiving time or subpage. I am not great on metrics. Would a solution be to collapse (or whatever) this thread, move it elsewhere and leave the no-archive setting? That way, people coming here can still see that there is an issue of some sort, but they move elsewhere for the detail? It would be great if Legolasxxxx got involved, but even if they did it seems already to be apparent that this thing has the potential to grow and grow. - Sitush (talk) 00:42, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• It's a trivial problem to move all of this material to another space such as User talk:Legolas2186/Fixing citation problems. The problems need to be identified, seen by a variety of editors—hopefully some with access to the cited sources—and fixed as appropriate. A remote corner is not so good for attracting interested editors. Binksternet (talk) 01:24, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Chief page load problems are due to a number of long items up-page that are actively being commented on (and one I'm attempting to close), I'm loathe to close discussions that have active commentary and are unproblematic. Hiding them won't affect page load times. I've changed the archive period to 7 days, which may clear some content. I'll look at manually archiving and "rebooting" some of the longer threads depending on the issues. RS/N has many more eyes than RS/N/Legolas2186 or UT:Legolas2186. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:30, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Okay - all I care is that as many eyes on it are possible to check and fix. Am happy either way with whereever it sits in the short term. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:37, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• The bot that archives this is down. Despite archiving on a 7 day basis, I only saved us 120kb. Page size is half a meg. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:14, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• This thread attracted some good activity in the past nine days, so if nobody objects I will archive it tomorrow and also copy it to User talk:Legolas2186/Fixing citation problems. I expect that two FARs and a handful of GARs may also result from this thread, as people dig in and examine sources relative to article text. The FARs and GARs that are relevant to editing problems traced to Legolas will be linked to the central discussion page. Binksternet (talk) 18:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

There is currently a dispute over whether an editor should have closed this discussion,[7] whether a second editor should have reverted,[8] and whether a third editor should have re-reverted.[9]. Uninvolved editors are encouraged to weigh in on this dipsute. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• I strongly encourage editors to review the material they first read after loading RS/N: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Header; in particular, "Editors can post questions here about whether particular sources are reliable, in context, and editors interested in sourcing issues will answer. For general or hypothetical questions concerning a source, please use the talk page." Fifelfoo (talk) 04:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

My question posted was specific to one source. The discussion at points became general, but that is not what was posted. I'm surprise you didn't see that if you had read before you closed.(olive (talk) 05:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC))

I am very much involved: Please Note

• The discussion has been open only a day and a half.

• A ruling was made on two sources that were not under discussion.

• Comments the closer used came from comments made by the other highly involved editor and were and are open to discussion, which is why this is at a NB in the first place.

• Whether the source is RS per MEDRS is not clear per the discussion

• Discussion was calm reasonable and included almost all uninvolved editors. (olive (talk) 05:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC))

• • I have taken this to AN/I as an incident as a user was upset with my closure. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

When the popular press slaps a label on an event (by the author or the editor) that isn't substantiated in the article, is that still considered a "Reliable Source"? Specifically, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:ATF_gunwalking_scandal, the press frequently calls ATF's Fast & Furious operation a "sting", although it doesn't fit the definition of a sting, nor is it called a sting by any of the primary sources nor the authoritative secondary sources (Congressional Reports). So, should we, as editors, be parroting the press?

Computer Guy 2 (talk) 16:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• How much would you weight a popular press report that lacks a basic understanding of policing procedures? See
  WP:WEIGHT. Fifelfoo (talk
  ) 23:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.(olive (talk) 17:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC))

You know what's really helpful? Single purpose civil POV pushers keeping at it even after they are roundly rejected. I think we should have more of that. Hipocrite (talk) 18:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

This amounts to board disruption. Stop. This is your warning regarding IDHT disruption. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Presumably there's a history here, but it seems to me that olive asks a good question. Cusop Dingle (talk) 07:31, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I thought Fifelefoo was referring to Hipocrite's cmt here and only today realized he was actually warning me off for asking a question here, and is threatening me as well. Or do I have that wrong? My question is legitimate and is a general question about NB posts based on my recent experience the like which I have never seen before and which I had hoped to have further insights into both for myself and others. I'll assume no one cares about this issue or has been scared off. If no one cares about this I'm fine with letting this issue go. I guess nothing should surprise me about this situation. (olive (talk) 15:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC))

Olive, it is indeed longstanding practice to

WP:ADMIN

, but non-admin closings are considered appropriate in many contexts.

The decision is theoretically not unilateral, but done by consensus. However, I'm not sure what the recourse might be if you disagree that consensus exists in this case. The guideline at

WP:DELREV

, but the latter appears to apply specifically to closing of article-deletion discussions and the like.

Fiflefoo's response to you on this thread does seem a bit

good faith look at Fiflefoo's closing summary and see whether he might in fact have had a point in closing the discussion. For example, did several established denizens of this NB come to something like a consensus on the original question? --BlueMoonlet (t/c

) 19:02, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see there's a lot more to this. I'd like to particularly endorse this comment, and indeed all the comments from User:Betty Logan and User:Manning Bartlett on that thread. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 19:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the information. The NB was closed after a day and a half. Two statements came in after the closure from DGG, Short Brigade, both respected, uninvolved editors. So I consider the close to be too early. Whether they support the sources or not is not the issue. The issue was the close which stopped everything in mid stride, and based on misassumption. I have seen some NBs where things were outrageous and can see that that kind of thing could be stopped. That wasn't the case here. I'm sure Fifelfoo meant well . I have to believe that, but the statements he made about the discussion were mistakes. He based much of the discussion on the fact that an involved editor was commenting too much. In fact, the editor he noted was an uninvolved editor. There were other errors as well. I'm happy to leave this alone. It was nasty and I haven no desire to spend time on Wikipedia any more than I have to with this kind of environment and with misassumptions about myself or other editors. I'm posted here because I don't want this to happen again to me or to anyone else, and I want to make sure the protocol was appropriate. I assume this was not the norm, so hope this kind of thing won't happen again. Thanks again.(olive (talk) 21:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC))

I take it from Olive's post [10] from earlier today that she simply will not accept the consensus of uninvolved editor comment at RSN if it conflicts with her own positions. Is there any other fair reading of this gratuitous posturing: There is a standard for WP:MEDRS compliant sources on Wikipedia. There is not a separate standard for TM articles. A NB is usually a fair way to get editor input, but editor input does not trump WP:MEDRS

Fladrif (talk

) 21:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually Faldrif the link you provide has nothing to do with this NB incident and a lot to do with your attempts to remove sources with out agreement and while applying standards that are more stringent and more personal than WP:MEDRS. If you want to discuss this take it back to where it belongs and where it was posted. It has nothing to do with this NB incident. Policy cannot be overridden by consensus as perhaps you know and that is also what I referring to. (olive (talk) 22:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC))

On what plausible basis can you assert that your post "has nothing to do with this NB incident" when it goes on to specifically complain about this NB incident?

Fladrif (talk

) 22:18, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's not correct to say that "policy cannot be overridden by consensus."

WP:BUREAUCRACY --BlueMoonlet (t/c

) 22:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Fladrif. My comment on the TMR talk page while I point to the RS NB incident is not about that per se. Its about actions which are impacting an article. You removed three apparent RS with out discussion which per the TM arbitration is not appropriate. If you do not agree they are RS they should have been discussed not removed. I moved them back into place pending discussion. You posted on the MEDRS talk page where it was suggested by LeadSongDog the discussion be brought to RSNB [11] which I then did. Yet you accused me of forum shopping [12]. Fiflefoo closed the RSNB based on several points one was that I had "moved over another discussion". You know I didn't do that. Fifelfoo also closed the NB based in large part on comments he said were the comments of an involved editor. You know Grantenaple was not part of the discussion on this source, and has never been seen on a TM article. Fiflefoo made the assumption then that there was tag team going on since in his mind Graneteple was involved. When that NB was closed you within a very short time reverted [13] a source saying "conclusively resolved", but you had to know unless you didn't read the closing statement that Fifelfoo's information was incorrect. Yet you reverted anyway. My post on the TMR page was to stand as notice that I don't think that is the way sources should be dealt with. There are other issues as well, but these points might explain to editors here my and your comments. While I believe Fifelfoo was acting in good faith, I can't understand your actions as being neutral or fair.(olive (talk) 02:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC))

Now my post here is not about sources per se, its about closing a discussion in a way that I disagree with and how that may impact other editors. If no one else has concerns about this neither do I, for now. That's all. This has become an over blown mess and If I've helped to create that I apologize. Wikiepdia doesn't need any more drama than it has.(olive (talk) 02:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC))

RS/N; and AN/I did not intervene in your interest. If editors wish to turn RS/N into a playground for battleground, then it is going to face resistance from existing policy, consensus and community interest. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

"In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word." George Orwell, 1984, Chapter 1

"Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." George Orwell, 1984, Chapter 7

Simon Kidd (talk) 14:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

We can't do that in Wikipedia, except to protect individuals from harrassment. Everything is in the page history, and your long post is only hatted and still visible at a single click. Now, shall we start again? You say that Kevin Shepherd's books are reliable sources, although self-published. Summarise why you think that. Start off with 50 words, which is enough to get the discussion moving again. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Itsmejudith above, your monolog might be more persuasive if you engaged it as a dialog instead, asking disinterested editors to start by reading 14 pages of text (8,367 words@11point font) is a little bit more of a task than most are willing to take on. Do start a discussion, Don't give a sermon. -- Maelefique ^(talk) 18:24, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• The disruption was primarily due to text inappropriately structured for wikipedia discussion, largely length but also structure. Try again, very slowly, with small amounts of text. Summarise your most immediate issue in a single paragraph. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:59, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Kevin Shepherd has been used as a source in several articles in the New Religious Movements (NRM) area for several years. He has published 11 books on subjects in this area over a period of almost thirty years. They are held in major libraries around the world, and some of them have been cited approvingly by academics in the field. In his own research he has had access to unpublished primary-source material, which he has used in his books. Although self-published, his books are no more unreliable than other sources in the NRM area, where books are often written by devotees and published by organizations affiliated with the subjects of the articles. In fact, it is arguable that Shepherd is more reliable. This has been recognized by an experienced admin and editor (DGG), who has suggested that the SPS policy be relaxed in this area. Given that DGG's original pronouncement on this was made two years ago, it is remarkable that the reliability of Shepherd's books should be called into question again. Not a shred of evidence has been supplied to demonstrate that Shepherd is actually unreliable. The mere fact of self-publication is being used to cast doubt on his reliability. Fladrif argued (against DGG and Dmcq) that Shepherd failed the "threshold test" of SPS, and he misrepresented DGG's verdict in his attempt to close the discussion. Simon Kidd (talk) 14:26, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

• Are you requesting that an experienced RS/N editor close that particular discussion? The remainder of your content is material that should be posted on RS/N, not on this talk page. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I do think that there should be some resolution, but only if the points I have made are seriously addressed. After the hatting of my extended analysis here two days ago, I copied (in slightly modified form) the final ten points from that analysis to the RS/N page. It's all there for any interested party to read. Simon Kidd (talk) 13:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• • Right, I'll read the lot—including hatted sections—and close it. Fifelfoo (talk) 14:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• It is closed. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
  • And archived here due to page size issues (over 500kb at the time of archiving) Fifelfoo (talk) 01:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Are there any? I mean a limited amount of commentary by involved parties is one thing, a general opinion and brief responses to anything truly problematic. But as we often see happens, especially on controversial issues, is involved parties leave masses of text, usually duplicative of whatever was said on article talk page, often repetitive of what they or other involved parties have said even in the WP:RSN thread, to the point of driving off uninvolved parties. And even those of us who may be more interested in hearing from uninvolved parties may get pulled into the thread to deal with it. What to do?? I myself would appreciate a little reminder note in intro to the project page saying something like: Parties involved in discussion on this issue in any articles should keep comments and responses minimal and brief to allow uninvolved parties more freely to bring forth community opinions. CarolMooreDC 14:09, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

It may take a fair amount of text to explain to non-specialist uninvolved editors why a specialist publication is reliable. It might take considerable text to explain why anyone able to understand the article would consider a calculation or unit conversion to be routine, and thus explain why numbers in the article do not appear verbatim in the source. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

You are right. I guess it's not the initial text. Is the badgering that's a problem, though it's hard to put that into officialese, I guess... CarolMooreDC 15:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I recently

It is started, but very incomplete.

Fladrif (talk

) 02:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Forgive me if I'm intruding into an issue fully clarified elsewhere, but I see three different subjects here.

1. One is "vanity presses". They are a way for people to pay to get their own work published when commercial and academic publishers won't take it. There is an overlap: some commercial and academic presses will accept, or demand, subsidies to publish certain books. I guess, if definable, a vanity press is one that does nothing else.
2. Two is "self-publication". That's arranging for the printing and publishing of your own work yourself. There is an overlap with the vanity press trade, because some businesses will do part of the job for you and leave you to do the rest. But essentially self-publication is different from publishing with a vanity press. You can't list self-publishers: anyone in the world with a book at their fingertips and money to spend can be a self-publisher.
3. Three is reprinting public domain (etc., including Wikipedia) material with your own label on it. Yes, it's certainly a great nuisance when we are trying to identify reliable sources, not to mention the other problems it causes, and it would be very good to have a list of publishers that do it. All I'm saying is, it's not the "vanity press" business -- that's quite different -- and it's not self-publication. Andrew Dalby 10:29, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Very good points. It may be possible to compile a list of vanity publishers, as that is a presumably finite group of publishers where the author pays for publication. It will be pretty much impossible and pointless to compile a list of self-publishers because anybody can simply print a run of their own book and call it "History2007 Press", "Dalby Publications", "Fladrif Books"...ad infinitum. There are thousands of them. As for publishers that are churning out volumes of material plagiarized from Wikipedia mirrors, I know that a number of them have been identified at various RSN threads, and some efforts have been taken to systematically remove those publications as references, but again its a moving target.

Fladrif (talk

) 14:37, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I just discovered that there is, in fact, an ongoing project to list Wikipedia mirror publishers and websites, which is quite extensive:

Fladrif (talk

) 14:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

A good find! Andrew Dalby 17:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Non RS website bot

Apart from the list of these self-publishers, I think it would be a good idea to:

• Have a list of non-RS websites, per project. There are several that get used in many projects and one has to debate them at times, other times they just "look like references" but are not.

• A bot that uses those lists and leaves messages for people that the website they just added is non-RS.

I suggested the bot to Blevintron who recently wrote a nice bot. Ideas? Thanks. History2007 (talk) 11:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like a handy bot if it's feasible, it would also be handy for the bot to automark the source in text as unreliable with "a added by bot comment".

talk

) 16:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes. But these things work better one item at a time. So if we get the first version, then the rest can happen too. There are other bots which do those types of things. The reason I made a suggestion to Blevintron is that he already has 90% of what is needed. And his code for the bot looked clean and nice, so no big deal in modifying it. History2007 (talk) 22:56, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

List of self publishers

Now, how about staring a page called

The fact remains that without a clear list the self-publishers may just fall through the cracks. The existence of the page will help clarify which sources are self-published and less than WP:RS. Any objections to starting that page? Thanks. History2007 (talk) 15:56, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

A separate list, not just the examples (which by definition would not be comprehensive) seems like a great idea. I would suggest creating Wikipedia: List of self-publishers as well, however, because many vanity/self-publishers will not be notable enough to be on an article list. Also, the projectspace page could potentially be formatted for use as a reference by the bot, whereas an article would be subject to different guidelines. --RL0919 (talk) 16:43, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with RL0919. Many of the self-publishing houses won't be

notable. How about creating two lists? One in Wikipedia space and one in article space? The advantage of the one in article space is that our readers's contributions will be a source of input for the Wiki list. A Quest For Knowledge (talk

) 17:02, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not happy with the terminology. "Self-publishing" is publishing your own books, so publisher = author. Anyone living in a free country can do that, and we couldn't possibly list the people who have already done it, let alone the ones who might do it in the future. Andrew Dalby 17:41, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

How about

WP:List of self-publishing companies? A Quest For Knowledge (talk

) 17:49, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there is a need or benefit to list the name of every individual. But in addition to the vanity presses that serve multiple authors, there are authors, some rather prolific, who slap a "publisher" name on their works that might lead the unwary to think a publishing house was putting out their books. It could be helpful to list those once they have put out some minimum number of books (three or more, perhaps?). And it may be that the term "vanity publisher" or "vanity press" is better to use for a page title, with "self-publishers" as a redirect for search purposes. --RL0919 (talk) 17:51, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with that. Literally we are mistaken in using the word "self-" -- the point about these businesses is that you don't have to do it yourself, they do it for you. Wikipedians call them self-publishers because we are pretending that publishing with these businesses is really just like doing it yourself (and we are not wholly wrong, of course). The terms used off-Wikipedia used to be "vanity press" and "subsidy publisher"; I think these businesses now say that they offer "publishing services". Andrew Dalby 18:20, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

We have an article on Self-publishing and the cited sources use the term, "self-published".[16][17] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, my mistake! I still find it a confusing term, but I accept that it is widely used, e.g. by Vantage Press as linked below. Andrew Dalby 09:54, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the terms, I agree that self-publisher may not be the term that these businesses use. But then they are trying to look as respectable as possible - of course. However, my guess is that the average reader will understand "self-publisher" more readily than "vanity press". As for what they do, regardless of how one phrases it, what characterizes them is:

• One needs two things to get published in these places: a manuscript and a heartbeat.
• There is no peer-review etc. and I am not even sure if they do spell checking.

So regardless of the terminology, Wikipedia needs to warn users about these types of books. I started the page anyway. If a different name is desired, a page move can be discussed of course. And please add your (least) favorite self publisher there. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 20:17, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I will leave a few messages on a few Wikiprojects for people to add items to the list, so we can get it moving. History2007 (talk) 20:51, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, the talk pages for WP:V and WP:R since those are the main policy and guideline pages. Wikipedia:WikiProject Books, too. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:56, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually the situation is worse than I had thought. As I went to build a page for Vantage Press, the oldest of them all, I saw that they are used everywhere, e.g. Perinatal asphyxia lists them in the body of the article... I will leave messages. History2007 (talk) 21:12, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

But when busy deleting, let's not forget

Wikipedia:V#Self-published_sources that does outline when such sources may be used. Especially if overtime authoritative WP:RS have taken their facts or opinions as being reliable. More than who published it should be checked out. CarolMooreDC

22:09, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

RS/N is currently 300kB with a 7 day archiving period. I would suggest that this is far too large, and would suggest we drop a day of archiving a week until we reach 4 days or 100kB which ever comes first. As this isn't a crisis, I'm not being bold, but soliciting opinion. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with it, right now at least, it seems that we are addressing the issues very quickly, and so the stale issues are making the page very long. My only concern would be if it gets tightened down too much, and whoever is here, isn't quite as speedy dealing with questions. But at the very least for now, I would say lets try it and see what happens. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 14:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Archive period is currently 6 days of inactivity. Please observe the page size / archiving of discussions / adequate level of response for RS/N questioners while we test 6 days archiving. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:26, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Since changing the archiving period RS/N has weighted between 230K and 100K, with a standard weight of around 130K. I would declare this a triumph, in moving from 7 day to 6 day archiving, we've dropped 100 to 200K of weight. I don't believe we need to reduce the archiving period any further. This means that as a minimum editors would need to scan RS/N twice a week to ensure they comment on all items (if they so wish!). Fifelfoo (talk) 01:46, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to get in the way of a celebration, but it didn't seem to be dwindling fast enough, so I rolled it back to 5 days, about 5 days ago . Pass out the party hats anyway! -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 02:55, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

That would mean 5 days without any new comments, so even if they checked the board once a week, they would still be able to comment if they need/want to. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 02:57, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Almost certainly. I think we can hold here. Anything that gets 3 days of comments (ie: lasts for a week), is worth noting. Most stuff that doesn't get more than a day of comments is generally an "obvious" result. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:09, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. At the moment, we're moving things along usually within a few hours, and with the occasional other editors chiming in as well, we don't seem to be having any problem producing opinions well within that timeframe anyway. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 05:06, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Why do these issues always seem to show up in bunches?

Your discussion is no longer on-point for this noticeboard. To keep this page tidy and functional for other editors with RS questions please take this discussion back to your article's talk page, it is unlikely that editors here will get involved in your argument beyond the RS question, and if they do, it would be on your talk page, not here. Thank-you.

We probably don't need that, but it would save a lot of typing all the time! It would certainly have trimmed down the recent medical discussion, the drug-free Australia discussion, the Thomas Jefferson discussion, and now probably the youtube discussion. Maybe it's just me, I just wanna see the question, get it answered, wait for some consensus, or not, and talk about any clarification, and then move on to the next one. Although I will admit, when an editor says that an award winning director that studied at Harvard isn't RS for what genre a movie he directed is, I do kinda lose my patience a little bit. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe just a

Resolved

template at the top of the section instead? Hmm, I don't think that's quite right though, that would seem to indicate that ppl voicing opinions here are some kind of authority on RS-ness. I don't think we really want to create that suggestion. Other ideas? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

If you haven't answered the question, and if there's a clear RS/N consensus, or, the discussion has moved clearly off topic and stayed there, I suggest closing with an visible "archived" template. Hidden archiving stuffs up the search mechanism. Visible archiving normally sends the message about off-topic discussion. Resolved works when there's a clear resolution to a small section so that other RS/N editors don't attend to already answered questions. Other thoughts? Fifelfoo (talk) 22:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean the {{archive top}} {{archive bottom}} templates? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 22:39, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

{{archivetop}} and {{discussiontop}} and the like, but not {{hat}} It is important to preserve a searchable record. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Do the people that are good at templates, that made/make {{

hat}} know there's an archiving problem? Maybe they could fix it? Hatting is so much "cleaner" than that hideous white block of text you get otherwise... -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête}

17:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I've read all about it over at template top, I think a really good idea is to see if Miszabot can automatically expand or remove hats before archiving, although it does take away from the fundamental concept that an archive is *exactly* the same... perhaps a warning at the top of each archive stating that hats have been removed (maybe a marker added in place?) for searchability reasons, and no other text has been altered? Anyone have a problem with this idea? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 18:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Relevant discussion at

→ Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 1#A FAQ? → Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 3#Should we create a FAQ?

There have been previous discussions about establishing a FAQ to address inquiries about frequently recurring sources. IMDB, YouTube, About.com, RT are names that have been mentioned or which spring to mind. Subpages, such as

I started creating a RSN FAQ a while back, but never finished it. It's available here: Reliable sources noticeboard FAQ. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:29, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Could other editors please examine RS/N#Webb Garrison A Treasury of Titanic Tales this section to give the original requesting editor more opinions? Fifelfoo (talk) 03:42, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

But is that book actually relevant to the discussion? It seems to have been thrown in as a red herring. I'm unlikely to be able to get hold of it easily, and if it is apparent from the author's credentials and the publisher that is is a populist work, then I'm not sure I would be able to add much anyway. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:58, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for dragging me into that, and then closing it before I could say something even snottier . -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 08:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Could other RS/N regulars take a gander at the Vassula Ryden's 4 sources? Discussion was disrupted by involved editors, and only two uninvolved editors have commented so far. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:41, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I know we discussed recently how to archive sections on the page, and we're not using hat because it screws up the searches (when hatted, the search still works, but it brings you to the collapsed hat, imo, most ppl aren't so dumb they won't open the hat). What if we just use hat to get rid of the "waste of time" sections, never hatting the actual/original question (which is 99% of what would be searched for), just the text that's a distraction, such as the ridiculous wall of text that now sits in the middle of the Ryden section? Thoughts? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

There's actually some valuable content in there, indicating that the article's talk page is utterly stewed—I never would have believed that a theologically qualified individual writing on contemporary theology in a theological publisher of the highest standard (OUP), would be shot down for a plain bones account of interfaith interactions. :). Hatting the second section is a warning to involved editors, plus most of the search terms already emerge in the previous discussion. I'm not a fan of hatting, but I used it on the revisiting because it was revisiting. Normal visible archiving encourages editors to believe that their comments will be read, but that further commentary isn't required. When you hide people's text it can suggest to them that their commentary won't be read which can cause problems. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I hadn't considered that ppl might think their comments won't be read, I suppose that's a good point, I know how ppl like to whine when others don't immediately agree with them (generally speaking, not referencing any topic in particular). Still makes the page ugly though. And yes, I was a little surprised at that OUP issue too. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 00:18, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Since this is a hypothetical question, I am posting it here per the instructions. I have long seen editors saying (and have said myself) that YouTube is not a reliable source. I have stated this solely because other editors have stated this as well. Is there any reason to say that this is not reliable? Ryan Vesey Review me! 22:13, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Do we have any evidence that this actually is the named professor, not a hoax? In this case we do, because it's linked from MIT as http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physics-i-classical-mechanics-fall-1999/video-lectures/for-the-love-of-physics/. But in the case of a video like this one, used as a reference in Dorcadion scopolii, it's self-published and therefore unreliable - here, we don't know how credible the identification of the beetle is, and the person who added it to Youtube, naming the beetle, may be accurate, or ignorant, or malicious. PamD 23:02, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I am considering creating a proposal on the talk page of

BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Determinations of the reliability should be made on the talk page or at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. A list of YouTube channels that generally contain videos that are considered reliable can be found at Wikipedia:Reliable YouTube sources.

If people tend to agree with this idea, I will work on finding reliable channels to create that page. Ryan Vesey Review me!

00:12, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Undergraduate textbooks, and by extrapolation undergraduate lectures, are not considered reliable science reporting due to the pedagogical intent overriding the scholarly intent of the text, see Lies for children (surprisingly we don't have a redirect to the article on this pedagogy of science concept). Fifelfoo (talk) 00:05, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

What policy do you have to support this content? I find your argument ridiculous and it directly opposes

Wikipedia:RS which states "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources" (emphasis added). It goes on to present a "however" but that is something that is also determined on a case by case basis. Ryan Vesey Review me!

00:12, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Post-graduate textbooks, whose purpose and function is professional and current are fine. School and undergraduate textbooks are generally "lies for children" and lack a fact checking structure which allows us to be confident of their capacity to supply verifiability. The clear difference between pedagogical texts, and scholarly works that merely happen to be set as texts is blatantly obvious. Moreover, undergraduate lectures, whether videotaped or not, do not enjoy the scholarly methods of fact checking and their purpose is solely pedagogical. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to disagree. To make a blanket statement that undergraduate textbooks lie and that professorial lectures are pedagogical is a standard trope of right-wing conservatives. Your comments are

WP:SOAPBOX. I'd certainly like to see hard evidence that undergraduate textbooks and college professors are all liars. --Tenebrae (talk

) 01:48, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I highly agree with Tenebrae and disagree with you Fifelfoo. It appears [18] that this is a one man campaign by you that you are trying to paint as policy. Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:56, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

If you agree with Tenebrae's personal attack, I suggest you retract that element. Tenebrae can frankly take their septic US focused analytical frame work and remove it from the encyclopaedia; apart from its obvious invalidity, it is incorrect. Ryan, go read the archives of RS/N. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:03, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

To explain lies to children with a lie to a child: If I'm going to explain to you the process of the Russian revolution, we're not going to start with the class composition of the Moscow workplace soviets and the party balance and function of the Left SRs and Bolshevik majority position in actual workers' control. We're going to start with gross simplifications regarding Lenin's substitutionalist conception of revolution in What is to be Done? Correspondingly, undergraduate teaching does note convey the actual state of scholarly consensus, where scholars attempt to explain the world. Undergraduate teaching starts with useful simplifications aimed at bringing undergraduates into a capacity to receive knowledge. This is pedagogy; this is eduction. And this is precisely what undergraduate lectures and undergraduate (and more so school textbooks are). They're educational tools, they're meant to educt students towards having the capacity to actually understand the underlying mechanism. The valence model of the atom prepares students for the quantum orbital model. But that doesn't mean we use a NSW secondary school text aimed at year 10 students for "the atom." Correspondingly, undergraduate lectures relate tangentially to the actual state of research in their field. They do not present the current state of scholarly work, because they're designed to confer undergraduate degrees. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:01, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Youtube is purely a transfer mechanism. It has no intrinsic RS qualities good or bad in itself. Any video in question is RS if the source is RS. IE, a CNN news report, uploaded by CNN is RS for CNN's views. The same video uploaded by me is not RS. I watched the video in question, and there are many things that it might be RS for, but there are many things that it would not be RS for as well. One of the keys to RS-ness is context. Is the video RS for the fact that a Professor from MIT has demonstrated that the period of a pendulum is independent of the mass, or the degree of swing? Yes. Is it RS for the fact that physicists agree that the period of a pendulum is independent of the mass, or the degree of swing? No. Also, this is 1 hour out of an entire course, context could be very hard to evaluate. I once had a history prof give an hour lecture about how in the 1940's the Japanese managed to build 250+ miles of railroad through the jungle using nothing but international volunteers, at the end of the hour, he asked us to turn all our notes in, and then told us he was talking about The Death Railway, and his point was how you shouldn't necessarily believe everything people tell you, especially in university. I learned a lot in that class, just not that day . -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 01:38, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

The instructions at the top of RSN say...

...but nobody follows them. What can we do to get people to follow them?

• Use colors to highlight the intructions?
• Create a template that editors can fill out, sort of like we do at
  WP:AN/EW? For example, this is what you get
  when you click on "Click here to add a new report"
• Create a notice which repeats the instructions when they create a new thread? For example, at List of common misconceptions, when you click on edit, there's a notice to make sure editors are following the list's inclusion criteria.
• All of the above? Some other idea?
• Drop the instructions since nobody is following them?

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:59, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Hadn't seen that notice on the edit screen at List of common misconceptions. It's a good idea, I think -- but the notice needs to be as short as we can possibly make it. Andrew Dalby 18:25, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:Dispute resolution has a nice form too. It is helpful cause even those of us who have been here many times with specific issues, diffs, etc. can forget to share some important piece of information. CarolMooreDC 22:04, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

While not all header instructions are essential in a particular request, they are so commonly essential to requests that it would help to be slightly more forceful with them. If nothing else, it will ensure faster assistance to people requesting outside opinions. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:24, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, to create a template is a good idea.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Excellent idea Paul! Hah, I was just coming over to this talk page to suggest this idea, after repeating the whole "Please list a specific source for a specific edit if you would like a specific answer, no source is completely reliable or unreliable without context" speech for the fifth time this week. I can take a shot at it later today, we'll try and keep it small? What's a good graphic for something too vague and nebulous to discuss cogently? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 14:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Here are a few samples that could be moved into the template area, they will accept |date= and |user= parameters too, so if those were used, the text would automatically change to:

On April 2, Despayre reviewed this question but decided that it did not have the required level of detail to provide a useful answer here. No source is completely reliable, or completely unreliable, without context. Please provide a specific edit, and the specific source for that edit, that you would like comments on. When you have done that, please remove this banner.

I"m partial to the 1st and 4th ones myself (I can always shrink the microscope pics a little, later, if required). Thoughts? (esp. text changes, and overall "goodness/badness" of the idea) -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to simplify the instructions slightly. In order to determine reliability, we need 3-4 pieces of information:

• Source
• Article
• Content
• Links to any relevent discussions.

But the first item (source) is broken into two bullet points. I've combined these into one bullet point and tweaked the wording a bit:

Thoughts? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:45, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes the reason editors don't follow instructions in headers is simply that it has been a long time since they've read them, if ever. One tool for dealing with this is the use of edit notices, such as the one seen upon editing this talkpage that say "The purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. If your post is about a specific problem you have, please ask for help at the Wikipedia:Help desk or see the New Contributors' Help Page." We could similarly have an editnotice for the Noticeboard page itself, though there seem presently to be problems doing so. A key template has been deleted and salted. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

In reverse order, LeadDog, while I'm sure you're right about that reasoning, I don't think your solution is ideal, as by the time they all get to the edit box, they are way more concerned with saying what they have to say, and not reading any edit notice above it. However, they will always come back to check on the current status of their question, and a little non-threatening template that asks for more info will definitely get seen.

Quest, do you think we could shorten that list of instructions even further, make the notice a little less "in your face", at the very least by keeping in shorter (narrower on the page length)? We need an edit, and a specific source, and I guess we need an article too . Plus suggest further details they may feel are helpful? Or something else? Any thoughts on exact text layouts? Lose the graphic? Keep the graphic? One of the ones I used? Some other one? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 22:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

While I value your attempt, I always need a citation. Just having the author, work title, containing object title, year and publisher makes things so bloody simple on first sight. Clicking on [34] and being taken to an external site eats up 3 minutes of trying to find bibliographic data. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Definitely true. How would you rephrase the template then? (Also, a possibility, I could add a collapsed section with further details? ie, a [show] button?) -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 23:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

"A citation containing at least the author's name, year, title of the work, publisher and a link to the source in question. For example, if the source is a web site Fred Blogs (2012) "My cat pictures" Animalpics or if the source is published, Strickland, D.S. and Worth, B.S. (1980) "Books for the children" Early Childhood Education Journal 8 (2): 58--60." ? Fifelfoo (talk) 23:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, what I meant was do you have a specific wording we could use for the template, not an example, I know what you mean, I'm just wondering if you have a take on the best way to say it, short, clear, and without the snippiness we all feel when we have to explain it for the nth time in a day (we could hide an example in the collapsed head too) -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 01:04, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think of the editnotice and the template as mutually exclusive, both would help. The editnotice would reduce the number of problem entries, while the template would help respond to them. The template should not, though, try to teach editors how to complete a citation. Rather, it should ask them to provide as complete a citation as they can. There's probably some value in having it provide easy links to some tools that would help them doing that: local ones such as

Archive.org, and the Open Library could all be usefully linked from the template.LeadSongDog come howl!

03:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

In my experience these automated tools are only as good as the user's capacity to manually fill in a citation. Most of the time the "problem" citations are the ones where a manual citation is required: the user is questioning a source that isn't part of the scholarly publications apparatus to begin with. Especially true regarding "amateur website" queries. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Leadsongdog, I like your idea of using both the template and the edit notice, I thought you were proposing an "instead of" idea, but "in conjunction with" is a good idea. Here's my next evolution for comments:

{{RSNvague}}

and with optional parameters: {{RSNvague|user=Despayre|date=April 3 2012}}

{{RSNvague|user=Despayre}}

{{RSNvague|date=April 3 2012}}

Comments? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 07:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to edit on that template (Template:RSNvague) Fifelfoo (talk) 07:15, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

By all means, I think there's definitely some text touch-ups needed at the very least. I'm out for the night, I'll check back and see what kind of communal brilliance we've created in the morning ciao. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 07:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Far more recognizable than I expected! I see you caught that pesky little "a" in the #IF statements, thanks for that too. I made a small tweak to the population bullet, other than that, I don't see too much else to do to it, lol, when can we take it out for a test drive? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 13:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked some more to avoid Good/Bad value judgement and to directly ask for links and cites.LeadSongDog come howl! 17:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I tested the template. WPBannerMeta (the template this is based on) is not meant for use outside Talk: page hierarchies. Also, the template is pretty big and hostile in practice, compared to the one line sentence I actually needed. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think we should keep everything very simple for relatively new users, so as to encourage people to come and seek advice. At the moment there are five things to include in a post, which is too many. The fifth item, diffs on the talk page are unnecessary so long as the OP tells us which article or articles the post relates to. Indeed, it is often undesirable for an RSN regular to have to read through reams of talk page bickering. We need three things, really: the source (we should spell out, book, article or web pages), the relevant article(s), and the statement(s) to be supported. I don't have a view yet as to whether it would be helpful to ask posters to fill in a form nor to whether a standard "more info please" template would be good. RSN is one of the services on the pedia that works pretty well, cutting out swathes of pointless circular argument, so I'd tend towards the ain't broke, don't fix it. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:59, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree - ease of use and low threshold for initiating a request are paramount here. If needed we can always ask for more specific (and maybe use a template for that). But if you have to figure a form or template to as k any question at all, that's definitely off putting.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@Despayre: I was going by the principle of least change, and tried not to change too much. However, here's a bigger rewrite, incorporating Judith's suggestion of not asking for links to talk page discussions.

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Good stuff. I would tweak as follows: Source. The book, article or webpage it is proposed to use as a source. (Include the web link if there is one.) Article. The Wikipedia article or articles in which it might be used. For example.... Content. The statement or statements in the article that the source would support. For example... A source might be reliable to support one statement but not reliable to support another.

A bit like that anyway. It could take a few iterations to get the wording spot-on.Itsmejudith (talk) 19:07, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I noticed that the border surrounding the instructions at

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts are yellow, which makes them stand out more. A Quest For Knowledge (talk

) 19:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Replace "Source."'s For example, with "For example, Jo Bloggs (2012) [http://www.website.com/webpage.html Furry Cats] Jo's Cat Website" or equivalent. Many RSN users simply do not know the elements of a citation to include, and there's no point in supplying half an instruction, relevant to online sources only, when what I need to avoid turning a 2 minute job into a 15 minute job is the author, title, publisher etc. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Prefer edit notice I think we'll get better results with an
  WP:Edit notice or pre-loaded text than with the other options. WhatamIdoing (talk
  ) 22:18, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Fifelfoo: I'm not 100% sure that I understand you, but does this address your concern?

Here's the same wording, but with the first instruction broken into 2 bullet points:

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, either one of those works for me. Both are expressed more clearly than I could possibly write it. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I think all the wording changes are good, are those going to be in the bullet points, or in the main section? Also, I am partial to the "quick/right way, slow/wrong way" examples, as they are pretty much exactly what we see time after time on the RSN page, and as Fifelfoo says, a lot of the people think when they supply something like "www.people.com", that *is* the source, and is what we are asking for (I think there's at least 3 examples of that on the page right at this moment even!). -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 00:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

FYI, I have no objection to anyone changing the text (try not to muck up the #IF statements though ) when you do that, the examples on this page will automatically update with the next refresh and we can see the finished result immediately. Since the template isn't in use anywhere there's no harm in messing with it right now. It's at template:RSNvague. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 00:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@Despayre: I'm not sure I understand your question. They're going to be on the RSN page directly below where it says "Editors can post questions here about whether particular sources are reliable, in context, and editors interested in sourcing issues will answer. For general or hypothetical questions concerning a source, please use the talk page." Yes, that's a good point about the source being the actual article, not just www.people.com (for example). If you notice, I changed the wording to use the phrase "web page" instead of "web site" and the example from "http://www.webpage.com" to "http://www.website.com/webpage.html". I'm not sure it will do any good, but it's worth a try. I'll take a closer look at your template (great idea, BTW), but wanted to focus on rewriting the instructions first. Once we get the wording down (maybe we have already?), I'll take a closer look at the template. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:43, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Ahh, gotcha, I was skimming the text here, and thought you were talking about the template text, not the RSN page instructions text. I thought the template would be good, because even when the RSN page is shorter, ppl still don't follow the instructions, and when it gets like it is now, the instructions aren't really seen being waaaaay up at the top, so a quick insertion of the template will catch the posting editor's eye pretty quickly I think, and tada! problem solved? Well.. maybe. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 01:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@Despayre: Right, I'm talking about the RSN page instructions, not the tempate. However, the two should be consistent with each other. The third sentence of the template has two inconsitencies with the RSN page instructions:

• The order of the three items is different (source, article, content versus content, source, article).
• The RSN page instructions ask for a blockquote and the template asks for a diff.

In order to make things as easy as possible for users, we should try to be reconcile these differences. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Nobody follows the Header instructions - Arbitrary break

That section was getting too long to scroll through...picking up here...

@Despayre: Right, I'm talking about the RSN page instructions, not the tempate. However, the two should be consistent with each other. The third sentence of the template has two inconsitencies with the RSN page instructions: The order of the three items is different (source, article, content versus content, source, article). The RSN page instructions ask for a blockquote and the template asks for a diff. In order to make things as easy as possible for users, we should try to be reconcile these differences. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Ya, they should be consistent, I can re-order the template items. Regarding the diff/block quote, I think the diff would be preferred, but sometimes there isn't a diff, it's just editors asking about a proposed edit, so then a block quote might work (but what about "is such and such a site reliable as a source for weather data in article X?", that fits neither a block quote, nor a diff). Could we change the instructions to ask for one of the two options?

Now that I look at those RSN page instructions, my first thought is that the intelligent order for the 3 items would require that both things are changed, the order that makes sense to me is, article (big picture), content (little picture), source (which now has context, big and little pictures). Thoughts on that? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 05:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

@Despayre: Sure, we can change the instructions to ask for a diff or a block quote. Here's an updated version:

As for the order of the three items, for me, the current order makes sense to me, but I'm not sure I can articulate why. Let's see if anyone else has preference. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Here's what the new header will look like incorporating the changes to the wording and yellow coloring from the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard: User:A_Quest_For_Knowledge/sandbox. I think this is a big improvement. What does everyone else think? If no one objects, I'd like to go ahead with this change. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Why dont we add a preformatted template something like submitting a new case in

Quest, I like your notice, but please mention inclusion of page numbers for books too. DB, I like the form, but I think there are too many variations on the questions to pigeon hole quite that much. As much as it's annoying when it's done wrong, a lot of the questions are done right, so I don't think we need to entirely scrap the system we have now (although it would certainly provide some continuity to the page). I'm just not sure we need to make that big of a change. Unrelatedly, I love the giant stop sign on the SPI page when you don't change the topic from sockmaster. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 21:53, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, I've added page number in my sandbox as suggested by Despayre: Proposed new RSN header. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:50, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks good to me. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 17:47, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I've also updated my template to fall in line with your layout as well. And changed some of the example wording, using "Basic way" and "Better way", and mentioning that better is better (uhm, cuz it is?) . -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 18:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, I've gone ahead and implemented the changes to the instructions as discussed. I'll take a look at the template tomorrow. Time for bed soon. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 05:26, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

As someone who has just failed to follow the header (apologies!) could I suggest changing 'You will get a faster response ... etc', to 'You may not receive a response unless you provide the following: ...'. As a first-timer on this board it currently reads as if that stuff is optional rather than necessary. BothHandsBlack (talk) 15:51, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, thanks for that input, and personally I mostly agree with that sentiment, but strictly speaking it's not "necessary". However, as editors just like you, we don't particularly feel the need to go out and hunt down sources for other articles either, so it's definitely preferred. Sometimes I have 5 minutes, without that info, it's a 15 minute problem,ergo, it doesn't get looked at. It's purely for the benefit of the editor showing up here with a question. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 02:53, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I made some minor tweaks to Template:RSNvague. See here for the changes. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The template can't use Bannermeta if it is being posted on non-talk pages. Give it a try in your own userspace and see the problem. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 14:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Nobody follows the Header instructions - Arbitrary break II

I'm not sure that this is a good idea.[19] If editors aren't following the minimum requirements of the header instructions, requiring even more isn't going to help. If anything, the longer the instructions and the more we ask for, the more likely they're going to be ignored. I'd rather keep it simple. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

That's why we also created the template, {{RSNvague}} for when they don't even give us the bare minimum. It makes sense to put at least some of the work onto the people that would like an opinion here, I don't mind spending the time answering the questions, but I do mind wasting my time going out and looking for the actual question before I can even get on with the answer. We can help more people with our views, if we don't have to take as much time on people that come here and don't read the instructions. That helps everyone, and also, the instructions (and the template), help newer editors by explaining what they should do, and that's also better for everyone. The alternative is to just ignore ridiculously phrased questions, and that seems like a net detriment to me. Aside from not getting answers to their questions, the page would get quite cluttered with questions no one is going to answer (or fewer ppl are going to answer, at least). That will then likely deteriorate into grumpy editors, bitchy comments, etc. just imo. Whenever I've had a reason to bring things to this board, I am the one motivated to make sure I get the best possible answers from here, because I want something for one of "my" articles, it makes sense that the onus should be on the person asking, and they should be the most motivated ones, it's their question. We're just disinterested 3rd parties, with opinions . (tnx for touching up that NORN question though ) -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 13:41, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

So...are you agreeing with or disagreeing this this edit? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:15, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The continuing problem with the header is that editors do not understand two things:

• What constitutes an appropriate citation
• Whether they need to supply a citation. "Oh but it was an online book"

And then the rules lawyering begins by lazy editors who don't contribute. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Weighing the pros and cons, on the whole, I agree with the edit, because, while we're here to be helpful, I'm not a fan of babysitting. If people can't read and follow clear instructions to begin with, how are we helping them by coddling that kind of behaviour? What is the long term effect of that? Compared to, what is the long term effect of having them attempt to do it the right way to begin with? That's probably a little harsher than my actual opinion, but I think the sentiment is similar at least. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 23:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd rather spend 15-20 minutes on an RS question (if needed), than 9 minutes figuring out what they are asking, and 11 minutes attempting to determine my answer. That 9 minutes is probably 2 minutes for the editor who is already familiar with the question, ergo, it kinda wastes my time, and multiply that by the amount of editors that answer that question (ok, am I just rambling now?). -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 23:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

@Fifelfoo: But if editors are too lazy to follow the existing instructions, what good does adding even more do? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't see your point. The requirements are now specified fully, rather than relying on the "assumed knowledge." Fifelfoo (talk) 23:36, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

My point is that the longer and more complicated we make the instructions, the more likely they are to be ignored. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Under the prior instruction, for a book supply a full citation, I was prompting editors repeatedly on the constituent elements of a citation, and that an "online" book is still a book. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that addresses my point that the longer and more complicated the instructions, the more likely they are to be ignored. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:38, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I personally have not noticed an increase in "bad questions" since we changed the header, between that and the template use, I think we're getting better questions. But did you have an alternative idea? The shorter instructions that were there before didn't seem to be the answer. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I do have an alternative idea. What if instead of making the instructions longer, we also put in the header text when they create a new section? For example, if I create a new section at AN/I, there are instructions at the top of the edit page that begin "You must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion....". Click here to see what I mean. So, when an editor creates a new section, they'll see the header instructions not once, but twice. Obviously, editors can still ignore them, but I think that has a better chance of improving the quality of questions.

BTW, I'm under no illusion that this is going to magically change things. When I made my original post on April 16th, I figured that it would take multiple approaches to get editors to follow the instructions. We tried a couple ideas, now let's try the next one. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I am in favour of us testing your idea. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Adding to the changes we've made already, me too. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 01:12, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, great. Which version of the header instructions do we want to use, this or this? I still think that simpler is better. In fact, I'd like to change this...

...to this...

...and get straight to the point. Maybe we are losing people's attention on the first sentence? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:23, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I like the first second one. For brevity concerns. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 21:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'm going to go ahead and do this. I don't actually know how to put the header text in the Edit page - we might need an admin to do that - but I'll ask at the Help Desk and I'm sure someone will be able to help. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:49, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:02, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I like how it looks. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Header Instructions - Break III

I am sick of dealing with this, "I can see no such requirement. I can see no discussion in RSN which obeys your requirement. In fact the top of the page just says: If it's an online source, please link to it, which I did.

I think things are getting better and we need to allow time for a new culture to sink in. I know I need to be less willing to jump straight in without full info. But sometimes we might be able to say something useful without having read the whole source in full. For example, if someone is questioning whether a book is appropriate and we can see straight away it is from an academic publisher, we would be able to say "looks OK on the face of it, what is the issue?". Itsmejudith (talk) 16:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm a little bit of two minds on this question, and I fall down on the "academic rigour" side of things, blame the teacher in me. On the one hand, it's certainly not a problem for the person who comes in here with a malformed question, if they get the answer they need without having to type everything in that's requested (and it *is* a request, not a requirement). On the other hand, it makes it a lot more work for those of us here who are volunteering our time to go out and research the context of a question, and any other relevant info that's missing (which isn't always obvious), and in the long run, isn't it better for everyone if the person with the concern puts in a little bit of effort and gets a "correct" answer from those willing to donate their time to it? The board runs more smoothly, we can answer more questions in the same amount of time, and the board would be less prone to errors from not having all the facts, and makes it much easier on those here to look at the information required. Hypothetical example: "Is fallingrain.com a reliable source?" easily looked at and discovered the answer is no. Until you go a little further and find that the article is "weather.com" where someone has inserted the text "weather.com is the only internet site that claims to provide statistical weather data across the planet". fallingrain.com would be RS to prove that assertion wrong. That's pretty simplistic, but clearly an example of why context is important. And on a personal note, if the editor can't be bothered to write out a proper question, how does babysitting that question to get an answer help that editor become any better for WP? (There was literally an editor in here recently that actually said "I can't be bothered to write it all out", personally, I feel that's a smack in the face of this board, I don't work for him. I'm volunteering my time to be helpful and I think that attitude should be discouraged, and clear questions will eventually be the norm, not the exception. On the board right now I count 6 questions that started out needing the template before I thought they could be answered, out of 18. So 33% of the editors coming here asking for help can't read? I'm not sure that's a glowing recommendation for the use of WP generally, I'd like to try and do my tiny bit to raise that LCD (lowest common denominator, not liquid crystal display ) just a little if we can. Note that the last point is purely my own personal opinion, so feel free to weigh that bit accordingly. Does this sound a little bit like a rant here, or is it just me? . -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 17:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that Judith makes an excellent point about RSN's culture. Editors are not used to be asked to provide for this information. It may take some time RSN's culture to change. Something also to keep in mind is that newbies are just feeling their way around the place. I get the strong feeling that Rob Bowman's OP is a newbie (doesn't sign signature, thinks IMDB is a reliable source and asks editors to personally contact them for the information). Sometimes it's a good idea to answer the question differently depending on the experience level of the editor. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:20, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks everyone. What I think I should take out of this is that I'll be less "BITE"y. But this is my concern about the simplified citation instruction (the "book" one). In that a small proportion of editors are belligerent rules lawyers. I'll give these instructions longer to sink in with editors bringing questions. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You know, in all honesty, we don't really need the full citation. A link to the Amazon page for the book would tell almost everything we need to know, besides page number and a quote from the source. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:53, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Possibly, but I would be opposed to that. I have no interest in suggesting users rely on an outside source, designed for profit, that may change it's format at any time, that we have no control over. That would also infer some kind of "reliability" or "legitimacy" on Amazon from WP. Regardless if that's right or wrong, I don't think we should be doing that here. What is wrong with people doing research here having to use the research skills I learned in grade 6? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:11, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I kind of figured someone would object. :) It's just an idea I wanted to throw out. Personally, I would have no problem with it because I could easly get the book title, author and publisher. Oh well, do you have any other ideas? I'm running out. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:17, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem is, I don't need the publisher or publishing location unless I really need the publisher and publishing location. And the less "usual" the source, the more I need it. Pashtun biographies published in the 1970s need fuller bibliographic details than some idiot's Kindle book. But when an editor actually bothers to present a full citation: Some Idiot My Book Online (Kindle/Amazon): Some Idiot, 2012; suddenly the concept of self-publication may dawn on them :) Fifelfoo (talk) 22:59, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The point of all this is to encourage editors to give us the information we need to properly answer their questions about reliability. We want editors to know that in order to efficiently answer their questions we need to know some context... Specifically -

• a) What is the source in question?
• b) Where is the source to be used (ie which article is source to be cited in)
• c) How is it to be used (ie what specific statement in that article is the source supporting).

We want to phrase our request for this information as a request... and not as some sort of mandated "rule". Blueboar (talk) 15:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Editors are remarkably sloppy about "what" the source is, including identifying the source appropriately in text, and quite often about "what" the source is at all. I'm less upset at editors who simply lack the capacity to make a citation—their problem is ignorance which can be overcome—my problem is with editors who can cite who are too damn lazy to show basic courtesy. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:59, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Header Instructions - Break IV

I've reverted the following undiscussed changes.[20] The change in color, in particular, clearly goes against the established concensus that we spent months discussing. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:22, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for my invasion. I've been on a noticeboard header cleanup kick and didn't realize this one was actually being discussed. Most of them are rather neglected. I see the color scheme is at issue, so I mocked up Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Header/Sandbox using the current colors. The instructions are pretty much unchanged, aside from some slight copyedits; this is mostly a formatting thing and I'm not trying to change how things work here. The current header just has text sections that seem disconnected from each other and "floaty", and I think the standard noticeboard header format will tie things together nicely. I'm happy to tweak the proposal how ever might be suggested, though I do think an update is warranted that incorporates a bit of streamlining with the other boards. Equazcion ^(talk) 06:22, 19 Jun 2012 (UTC)

I find the proposed changes to be deeply problematic. We have extreme editor compliance problems with a rigid format, that the proposed edit distracts from this essential regulation of contributions. It changes "When posting, please be sure to include any of the following information that is available:" to "Welcome to the reliable sources noticeboard," which is content duplicated from the page name own heading 1 element. It crowds it with "If you mention specific editors, please notify them of the discussion. You may use {{

I edited Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Header/Sandbox to address these concerns. I kept the purge feature in, but repositioned it -- editors have found this useful on noticeboards, as frequently-updated pages sometimes show old versions to some editors and require a purge (I rarely get this myself but it's been a concern for others). I kept the introductory title in, but made the instructions more prominent -- although all pages of course have a level-1 header, noticeboards should still contain a somewhat prominent message stating what they are; something that isn't a "Wikipedia:" jargony address, as much as that might make things obvious to us. Let me know what you think of the new version. Equazcion ^(talk) 07:41, 19 Jun 2012 (UTC)

The newer version resolves all the issues I have, I would say that I'm now "indifferent" regarding which version to use. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:45, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks :) I'm going to implement this for now. Of course, if anyone still has objections, let me know. Equazcion ^(talk) 07:50, 19 Jun 2012 (UTC)

Header instructions - Break V

Could editors think about how to integrate

I would probably cut that page down in terms of vertical formatting and transclude it somewhere beneath the header. That page should be more of a "current alerts" listing like many noticeboards have. I'd probably make it either a wide(horizontally)/thin(vertically) banner box containing a multi-columned list, or maybe a narrow list down the righthand side. Just my thoughts. Equazcion ^(talk) 09:52, 21 Jun 2012 (UTC)

While I'm happy to take advice, I'm thinking that a maximum of 3 groups / 1500 lines is a better idea to actually get through stuff without archiving. Which means keeping the "work" on one page, and moving transcluded elements of the page to the archives completely done. The "candidates" ought to handle the alert problems. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:22, 21 June 2012 (UTC)