User talk:Svaihingen

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Blog sources
Hello. What do you mean when you say you've "verified credibility" regarding a blog source? Does it meet the "produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications" of WP:BLOGS, or are you just saying that the blog entry itself is reliably sourced? (In the latter case, we may as well just use the original sources, once we've checked them.) --McGeddon (talk) 10:06, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

March 2015
Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Unicycle. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include, but are not limited to, links to personal websites, links to websites with which you are affiliated (whether as a link in article text, or a citation in an article), and links that attract visitors to a website or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam guideline for further explanations. Because Wikipedia uses the nofollow attribute value, its external links are disregarded by most search engines. If you feel the link should be added to the page, please discuss it on the associated talk page rather than re-adding it. ''You've been warned before that this blog is not a reliable source. Please stop adding advertising for this blog to Wikipedia.'' Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:09, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Reliable Sources
The source whose reliability and credibility is challenged in the "blog sources" and "March 2015" sections above, is the Early Sports and Pop-Culture History Blog (ESNPC Blog), written and maintained by Peter Jensen Brown. I believe that both McGeddon and Dennis Bratland are simply incorrect in their understanding and application of the Wikipedia guidelines. Anyone interested can read a thorough analysis of the issue here: [|User_talk:Dennis_Bratland ESNPC Blog - Unreliable - or Not]

The Wikipedia guidelines for evaluating the reliability of sources provides that, although self-published source are, “largely not acceptable. . . self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications.” That is the case here.

The ESNPC Blog and its author have been cited in numerous reliable, third-party sources, including: Lingua Franca, Language and Writing in Academe, Edhat Santa Barbara, Lexicon Valley (a service of Slate.com), Word Routes (a service of Visual Thesaurus, published by well-known linguistics writer, Ben Zimmer), SiliconBeat (a service of The Mercury News), Comments on Etymology, Vox.com, MSN News, City Lab (A service of The Atlantic magazine, online), Language Log (a service operated by Linguistics professors of the University of Pennsylvania), The Bleacher Report, and The Stanford Law Review.

Dennis Bratland's assertion that I have been "warned" twice is simply untrue. I have been told twice, by two self-published opinions, that two people's initial impression of the source I cited was that it was unreliable. I believe that any reliable third-party who took the time to read the Wikipedia guidelines and apply them correctly, would found the ESNPC Blog to be "reliable," as that term is used and defined by Wikipedia's guidelines.

Furthermore, although McGeddon's suggestion that we, "may as well use the original sources, once we've checked them," makes sense in some instances, it is not applicable to all situations. Using an original source might make sense for a simple factual statement. But in other cases, where the comment being cited is based on extensive analysis of numerous sources; it may be difficult to rely on the original sources without recreating the entire content of the intermediate source being referenced. In that case, it makes more sense to cite a "reliable" researcher, than to copy and paste their entire research paper and all of their sources and analysis, in violation of the copyright laws.

In the past, that is precisely how I tried handling Wikipedia subjects that I edited in the past. I would include a few particular relevant original sources - to show the earliest date of something - but also refer to ESNPC Blog's conclusions or analysis - and give credit to ESNPC Blog for that conclusion or analysis.