User:Sideways713/Reliability isn't always immediately obvious

It often happens that Wikipedians look at a source to see if it's reliable and end up uncertain, or certain of the wrong thing. This is because the reliability of any given source may not be readily obvious to wandering Wikipedia users. It's true that reliable sources tend to look reliable while unreliable sources look unreliable, yet judgements based solely or mostly on what the source happens to be wearing can easily be incorrect.

A page can look professional and still fail Wikipedia's reliability guidelines. There are many reasons why this could be the case; often it is because the source is, so to speak, somebody's blog dressed up in expensive clothes. Such sources are often self-published and written by someone who isn't really the expert he sounds like. Be particularly careful with promotional or decidedly non-neutral sources (though note that sources are not required to be neutral).

Less commonly, the untitled, undated Estonian document with a decidedly home-produced look will turn out to have been written by a recognised leading expert after meticulous research. The author and publisher of any source are better indications of reliability than the appearance. It is nevertheless true that most recognised leading experts in any field, Estonian or not, generally produce more obvious quality than that while in their Official Expert Analysis Mode; a huge majority of chunks of mud do not contain hidden gold.