User:Catalan/Mises Daily and reference quality

Mises Daily (archives) is a weekday, online publication, published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. The quality of the articles is not too dissimilar from those published in The Freeman and Reason magazine. The main difference is that the online format, allowing for greater flexibility, means that there are a much greater volume of articles published (as of 26 September 2010, three per day, fifteen per week). Mises Daily, without exaggeration, is the foremost Austrian publication for the layman (this excludes academic journals, such as the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and Review of Austrian Economics, which are not necessarily meant for laymen).

Given its online format, and the fact that it is linked to a blog, there has been some controversy and much uncertainty over its value as a credible reference for information. For example, Fifelfoo justifiably questioned the credibility of Mises Daily in a peer review of Richard Cantillon. Also, undoubtedly, a few older articles published by Mises Daily are undoubtedly poor references, and these may bring into question the reliability of the publication as a whole. Additionally, it must be remembered that the Mises Institute—like most publications—operate on a specific purpose, and that is on furthering Austrian theory and beliefs. Therefore, it is justifiable to question the neutrality of any Mises article, which may or may not jeopardize the article's status as a reliable source.

In my attempt to "defend" Mises Daily as a reliable publication, and therefore Mises Institute as a reliable publisher, I find it necessary to make a general comment on source reliability in general. It is effectively impossible to eradicate bias in a single-author publication (this distinguishes traditional publishing from Wikipedia, where countless amount of editors are consistently peer reviewing articles and introducing new points of view). Therefore, all publishers necessarily suffer from the same weaknesses as the Ludwig von Mises Institute—this is why top-quality articles can hardly be based on a single, or even two or three, sources. In light of this, it simply does not make sense to single-out the Mises Institute for potential bias, when in fact this is attributable to all major publishers. Of course, one can judge on the reliability of a source based on the reputation of the publisher, but a truly accurate review of source reliability requires a case-by-case examination.

The general comment aside, in the present essay I will attempt the following:


 * Explain the editorial process behind Mises Daily,
 * Suggest a method by which to judge the reliability of Mises Daily,
 * Offer a perspective on the Mises Institute as a publisher in general.

I hope that the present essay will not only clear up confusion related to the Mises Institute, but also will offer weight towards future controversy related to any other questionable source material. The main purpose of the present essay, with that said, is to offer a guide for future controversy which may arise over the use of Mises Daily articles as sources: whether on an article's talk page, peer review, Good Article review, or during featured article candidacy.

A general comment on source reliability
One of the problems of—not just Wikipedia—publishing is finding an effective way of judging on a particular reference's reliability. Of course, generally publications have specific topics and the editors are usually well-read on said topic (for example, an economics journal will boast of a panel of judges who are themselves economists, or have a good handling on the subject). When the panel of judges is well-read on the topic it usually follows that they will recognize certain references, and so they can judge on reliability based on personal experience. Otherwise, publications can also usually access the reference and just in that fashion. Wikipedia, for the most part, generally does not have this advantage (sometimes it does, if the project is lucky enough to have another editor who is also well-read on the subject, and therefore can comment on the reliability of the source—this occurs with some topics on WP:MILHIST, for example). Therefore, Wikipedians tend to judge on the reliability of the source by looking at certain characteristics.

Books are usually given heavier weight than online articles. Some publishers are held in higher esteem than others. For example, an economics book published by Penguin, or Yale University Press, will automatically be considered more reliable than a book by Lazy Joe's Publishing Company. The case is similar for academic journals—the Journal of Political Economy is likely to be seen in better light than the Libertarian Papers. Author names that are familiar with reviewers will usually be better seen than authors who are unknown to the reviewer—David M. Glantz may automatically be considered an authority on warfare on the Eastern Front over Joe Public, for example. While on an encyclopedia like Wikipedia such a method may be necessary in order to effectively review the reliability of sources (knowing the limitations of personally reviewing each and every reference), it still holds that this kind of categorization and generalization is a weak method of review, speaking in absolutes.