Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 200

Confirmation for reliable sources
I am on of the regular editors of article Diyar-e-Dil and have started this discussion for confirmation of few websites which are considered to be acceptable by me and few other users. However, one of the user has started removing them by declaring them non-reliable, the article is in serious consideration and by this moment we need a confirmation if these sites should be used or not. As It is a Pakistani TV Series, our region has few sites available with such information, we are are not in Hollywood where printed media such as Hollywood reporter, variety, Guardian, New York Times, TV Guide, LA Times or all other acclaim mediums who released entertainment news on major level, our media industry mainly confined to TV medium and to us they are proper sources, howevernewspaper such as Aaaj News, Dawn News, Express Tribune release news regarding showbiz of television or their details and production but very often, so in that case we have to use references like that. But they are not poor, where as user RedPenOfDoom removes them. I have added few examples for you so you can see if these sites are acceptable in such cases.

Lastly should also be noted that due to limited web information, any user generated material was never or would never be added to the article e.g promotional material, false information, fan's information or user's personal opinion regarding the characters or the series itself, only important material such as release dates, production information, cast information etc. will be extracted.

Please respond to my request as soon as possible i have made this attempt once again for the article, please respond as soon as possible

Article: Diyar-e-Dil

Content: 1. Previously it was announced that the show will air during Fridays replacing channel's Sadqay Tumhare. 

2. "Cast selection was a mutual understanding between Momina, Haseeb, and me. Everything in this script was done with mutual agreement of all of us and I am very satisfied with the cast and very happy. There are many details in the characters and really this was a dream cast." Farhat Ishtiaq and Haseeb Hassan talking about Diyar-e-Dil cast and writing. 

3. Sheeba Khan of HIP states the serial is, "As great as the script was, the direction was equally fantastic. Haseeb Hassan took the script and visualized it for us with absolute perfection. The cinematography and presentation was beautiful and it was nice to see the beauty of Pakistan.

4. Commenting on the leads of serial Sheeba Khan of HIP said, " We got to see more of Wali and Faara along with the dining table in the haveli. It was nice to see the lead pair's banter. With all the hatred Wali says he has of Faara, you can see how completely he is in love with her. In their last scene together, you could see how the hurt in his eyes when Faara tells him off, again!"

5. Writer/reviewer Ghazal Sulaiman at BrandSynario, praises the chemistry between Sanam Saeed and Meekal Zulfiqar saying, "All praises for Diyar-e-Dil, this drama seems to have all the elements to be HUM TV’s next hit. With an outstanding entry in the season, the drama is pacing fast and is successfully keeping the viewers hooked. Moreover, the drama’s crisp editing and exceptional direction will make you head over heels in love with the natural scenic beauty of Baltistan."

6. Filming of the series was extensively done in hills areas of Pakistan, production house choose Khaplu Palace for main shooting location, in Skardo, Gilgit–Baltistan. 

Sammy.joseph (talk) 09:03, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Is a government site a reliable source for non-controversial claims about its actions?
The section Israel was largely supported by this. Recently some editors began tagging the section as WP:SELFPUBLISH. There are no sources contradicting the claims and it's possible to find independent sources supporting each of the claims, but perhaps this is a wasted effort.

Can the section be considered properly supported just by MFA's site ? &#8220;WarKosign&#8221; 20:30, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * WP:SELFSOURCE can be used as long as the "The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim." The content about Israel's international humanitarian efforts is clearly self-serving if not an exceptional claim as well. Tanbircdq (talk) 20:58, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * No, governments are not reliable sources for their own actions and intents. They're in the business of defending policy with all the spin it takes.
 * Remember WP:42. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 21:04, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Regardless of the possibility of spin, this sort of source could be used, although third party sources are preferred. In this case it appears to be WP:UNDUE for the page about the country.Martinlc (talk) 22:21, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Intents - probably not. Verifiable facts - I believe they usually are. Discovering government lies is a good subject for journalists and historical/political researchers, so as long as nobody disputes a fact I think it's reasonable to accept it. For example, large parts of NASA's New Horizons mission are supported by nasa.gov and nobody seems to object. &#8220;WarKosign&#8221; 22:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * They are easily reliable, but also primary and biased. Their uses and contexts have to be scrutinized. Rhoark (talk) 22:30, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Journalists and historical/political researchers not objecting to the content is a poor argument for a source being reliable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with those adding or restoring material, not the other way round.


 * Regarding the NASA example, it depends on the particular case in question and its context. As Qwertyus has stated, government websites are not reliable sources for their own actions and intentions as they operate to defend their policy.


 * In addition, this particular subject is not included within articles of other nations. The section appears to give an editorial POV to the article, and in absence of independent, reliable, third-party sources it is self-serving, disproportionate coverage therefore WP:UNDUE. Tanbircdq (talk) 23:59, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to dissent here and say that this is probably fine as a source for straightforward, factual details, particularly when those details appear to square with accounts in independent RS, as is the case here. The Israeli government website puts a political spin on this that would obviously be inappropriate for an encyclopedia article, but there is no compelling reason to doubt the facts themselves. The WP:DUE question is a separate matter that I won't venture an opinion on. The Blue Canoe  04:01, 24 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Just because the content is presented as factual doesn't make it factual. The impartiality of the source itself makes it doubtful and we don't just blindly AGF with such sources. The content could be partially correct but the claims could be exaggerated. For example,  here it states about the Haiti earthquake that "Israel was the first country to set up a field hospital" but this isn't supported by the corresponding sources, I presume this is originally from the MFA website. This could also possibly be the case of the claims regarding the tsunami in Japan.


 * To assume that because some of the content appears to be accurate then all of the content is accurate appears to be WP:SYNTH. Tanbircdq (talk) 12:47, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You're misreading the source. The Argentinian field hospital was already deployed in Haiti. The Israeli field hospital was the first one to be deployed after the quake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_Air_Force_Mobile_Field_Hospital#cite_note-9 Sir Joseph (talk) 05:11, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

There are authoritative sources on 'International humanitarian efforts', World Food Programme, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, International Organization for Migration, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, ... these are infinitely preferred to  WP:SELFPUBLISH sources. If the authoritative sources are silent, it's a hint to me that the WP:SELFPUBLISH are WP:POV (except for breaking news, since many of those orgs aren't exactly nimble). Stuartyeates (talk) 20:12, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Anyway the point is moot now, several editors found independent sources for every single statement that was originally supported by the governmental site. IMO this effort could be spent doing something more useful. &#8220;WarKosign&#8221; 15:56, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The section header is misleading. The claim specifically about 'first field hospital', later tweaked 'capable of complex surgery' is a complex claim, and looks wobbly. I believe government sources must be  avoided for reasons mentioned above by  Qwertyus and others. Most of the facts are simply picked up in scholarly works on each country, and they are the secondary sources we should be using. I would note however that there is a danger here. One cannot just single out Israel's mfa in this regard - I note that no one is challenging the articles on Canada, the United States, Great Britain, etc., which use a few government sources. The extreme caution about using government sources should be applied across the board. To have to raise this only with regard to Israel leaves, in my mouth, a sense of distaste for obvious reasons. But the argument against mfa citations is, for all that, sound. Nishidani (talk) 19:30, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Canada was actually citing that country's military for its peacekeeping in former Yugoslavia. Replaced that with a critical scholarly piece. More work needed. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 21:03, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Nishidani (talk) 11:12, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for avoiding double standard and for finding better sources. Regarding "First field hospital" there is no contradiction between sources, but they have to be read carefully. Argentine Air Force Mobile Field Hospital happened to be already deployed before the earthquake, while Israeli field hospital was the first one deployed after the earthquake, and the first one capable of (complex) surgery. &#8220;WarKosign&#8221; 07:51, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You have 1 source for a contested claim. Israel’s hospital was operative by the 16th. 4 days later the IDF announced the situation was so serious that the IDF was preparing for ‘the long haul’ and that Israeli medics would stay on for at least another month, and then a week later, closed down its hospital and withdrew its medical staff, a mere 11 days after it was set up. (Marcy Oster, Israeli delegation leaves Haiti Jewish Telegraphic Agency January 27 2010). Unfortunately, as is common in many international relief operations by first world nations, it looks like a media stunt. Mind you, Cuba's huge investment of resources in international relief gets the same accusation, as if it were a sort of Trojan horse of Cuban ideology. Perhaps, but the sheer scale since 1963 of its humanitarian assistance shames the big name blatherers of international relief solidarity, who likewise get into these things with the usual mainstream reporter entourage praising them.


 * As many sources now state, there was a huge media touting of U.S. relief efforts: in 700al hundred of these mainstream reports, Cuba was mentioned 18 times in passing, and the profile given Médecins Sans Frontières was equally low. Lost in the media shuffle was the fact that, for the first 72 hours following the earthquake, Cuban doctors were in fact the main medical support for the country. Within the first 24 hours, they had completed 1,000 emergency surgeries, turned their living quarters into clinics, and were running the only medical centers in the country, including 5 comprehensive diagnostic centers (small hospitals) which they had previously built. In addition another 5 in various stages of construction were also used, and they turned their ophthalmology center into a field hospital-which treated 605 patients within the first 12 hours following the earthquake. Israel's contribution got widespread praise and coverage. All this runs in the face of the fact that MSD and Cuba were (a) on the scene first; (b) had improvised surgical wards set up in tents first (c)were the major bearers of the burden of medical relief, and did several thousand surgical operations (MSF surgeons performed 5,707 major surgical procedures in the Ist 3 months, Cuba over 6,000), whereas the US did 800 (Israel 319). The IDF spoke of Israel's long term commitment, which however, like that of the US withered rapidly, whereas MSF treated more than 358,000 people, performed more than 16,570 surgeries, and delivered more than 15,100 babies.
 * That said, Israel does frequently in humanitarian relief operations, and it is well documented. Trying, however, to tweak that, using just one promotional source, as a 'first', and somehow unique, looks to me, contextually, in poor taste. The source itself mentions what was being done in Port-au-Prince, and we have no idea of what Cuban doctors were doing all over the island in improvised situations of surgical emergency. Nishidani (talk) 11:12, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Wired re: time travel
Wired (magazine) is a generally a reliable source, but a generally-reliable source is not always a reliable source. In the case of the article List of films featuring time loops‎, this diff uses a rather poorly-researched article that makes a contradictory claim: the film Looper features a time loop and a grandfather paradox. Unfortunately, these two options are mutually exclusive. Either the character keeps reexperiencing the same events and time "resets" with each subsequent pass (Groundhog Day), or the characters can change time. In Looper there is no repetition, there is a grandfather paradox. The claims made in the previous sentence can be cited.

Many Wired articles are reliable, but this particular blurb in this particularly poorly-researched article is not. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 18:00, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Reliable sources are not ones that don't make mistakes (all sources make mistakes), but ones that correct them when they do. Report the error to the editors. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:15, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * As the article doesn't seem to touch on distinguishing between the types of time loops, which to me is a vague-enough term that an average person would readily use to group both causal loops and grandfather paradoxes, I would agree for the purpose here that it's not a usable source. Particular when other RS articles go into depth on describing the exact nature of time travel in the film. --M ASEM (t) 21:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * BrightRoundCircle are you suggesting that the film Looper does not have reliable sources, because it is not a time loop film? Have you tried looking for sources or is your intent to have your version of the article retained so that your view prevails? The time it took to set up that chart on the talk page could have been used sourcing those films if you disagree with its status. What about Primer and 12 Monkeys which were sourced and removed. I agree with M ASEM we need to specify the types of loops if sources can be found. Deleting content instead of tagging for improvement is not the way to go.  Valoem   talk   contrib  00:26, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I remember commenting on this list before (AFD?) where I did suggest that because of the common use of what a "time loop" means by the population at large, which includes strictly repeating time loops (Groundhog Day) as well as casual loops and grandfather paradoxes, even though "time loop" more precisely means the Groundhog Day-type scenario, that it seems perfectly reasonable to add one column on this list to explain the type of time loop, and/or separate into different tables on the same page, as long as one has a source to indicate the proper time loop type, as above with the Atlantic article on the Looper. Otherwise, you are going to have people continually adding films they think have a time loop (which I would include 12 Monkeys and Primer in) even if they are not meeting the exact definition of a time loop. --M ASEM (t) 00:45, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I am suggesting the claim "Looper features a time loop" is not cited in reliable sources, and the current proposed source making this claim is generally reliable but not so in this particular case. Further, I suggest that all sources that merely mention this in passing are not reliable (in those particular cases) because it's more of an offhand comment than an actual analysis or serious consideration. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 14:11, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, different sources may have different criteria used to define some pop culture trope, such as time loops in films. Just because one source doesn't agree with another source (or sources) doesn't suddenly make it unusable.  It means that the definition may not be as stringent as some purists might like it to be.  When someone disagrees with another source, it doesn't make their opinion "poorly researched".  It means they have a different opinion. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:41, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The article is poorly researched because it features a small one-paragraph blurb in a list of "N best X". Regardless, you raise the point of the meaning of "time loop", which I have raised before (which has no bearing to the quality of the Wired article, which is poor, because it only involves a one-paragraph blurb among ten other blurbs about other films, and doesn't analyze the time loop in the film to any sort of extent).
 * I raised this issue in the AfD process and it didn't get any consideration, so I guess I'll try again here:
 * Either "time loop" means time loop, or
 * "Time loop" means causality loop, grandfather paradox, and other assorted time travel phenomena, in which case the article List of films featuring time loops‎ should be merged with Time travel in films.
 * In fact I have argued the latter previously, and merged the articles, but the merge was reverted. Now I'm trying to clean up the list to comply with the former.
 * So please decide what you want time loop to mean (by citing reliable sources of course) so this disagreement can be settled. "It means what the Wired article (or any other citation) says it means" opens the door for any time travel movie to be called a "time loop" movie, and so the list should be merged. Otherwise, the list should be kept to the cited standard. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 14:24, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * People could say "time loop" while meaning causal loop, because it also involves a loop and involves time travel. Most time travel films feature causal loops, for example Terminator: While Skynet attempts to prevent John Connor's birth (grandfather paradox) it actually causing his birth (causal loop). Back to the Future) involves "ruining" the future (grandfather paradox) and "correcting" it (causal loop with a twist).
 * Time loop of the kind of Groundhog Day is an entirely different thing, not always related to time travel. Perhaps it's best to add a disambiguation notice on top of Time loop article. &#8220;WarKosign&#8221; 14:43, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If you want the list to be strict time loops you definitely need to qualify that in the lead and say this does not include casual loops, grandfather paradoxes, and the like. Mind you, I think BrightRoundCircle's point about this being part of a larger time travel aspect in films so that we don't keep on running into the problem of the "loose" vs "strict" definition of a time loop, but that's beyond the RS here: there is nothing wrong with Wired's take outside of not being very exact and using the "loose" definition. --M ASEM (t) 15:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

The Michigan Daily — a reliable source or not?
I'm looking for consensus as to whether The Michigan Daily newspaper can usually be considered a reliable source which can be used to establish notability, as with most independent newspapers with editorial control and presumed fact-checking, or whether it should instead be considered, like most other college newspapers, not to be of sufficient reliability for establishing notability. The paper is published daily (M-F) during the school year and weekly during the summer; unlike most school newspapers it offers subscriptions rather than being a free paper.

I'm inquiring about this newspaper in an attempt to assist a visitor to the Teahouse (where I volunteer) who has been working on this draft article and is having difficulty establishing the notability of the draft's subject, Mike Green, a motivational speaker. While other sources are sparse, there are a number of articles in The Michigan Daily which are substantial enough to establish notability... if the paper is reliable enough to be used for that purpose.

Here are the most germane of the Michigan Daily articles I've found:

If these Michigan Daily sources can be used, Green's notability will easily be established; if not, someone will have to go hunting through library archives for other articles. Thanks in advance to all who respond. — GrammarFascist  contribs talk 16:12, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

The aper is a reliable sources for the facts about something o the university campus or relating to the university. it is not, nor is any campus paper, a reliable source for notability, any more than any other local paper is for local figures. The may be accurate, but they are not sufficient discriminating. More precisely, they coverall college events and speakers. Further, reports of a speaker's talks on college campusesor anywhere else will normally be considered mere notices, and will not establish notability in any event. DGG ( talk ) 08:56, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

No. (See how easy that was, DGG?) DreamGuy (talk) 14:11, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Unreliable sources found on the article Bulgars
Hello,

Reading the article "Bulgars", which topic is history, I found that there are cited two books written by amateurs:

1. Encyclopedia of European Peoples, https://books.google.hr/books?id=kfv6HKXErqAC written/compiled by the musician Carl Waldman; here is how Amazon.com describes him: "A musician as well as a writer, he has also delved into the lives of Sinatra and Elvis. And he writes fiction." http://www.amazon.com/Carl-Waldman/e/B001K8GLRM/ref=la_B001JSBPA6_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1448590686&sr=1-1

The book is cited 7 times in the introduction of the article Bulgars : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgars

2. The Jews of Khazaria, https://books.google.bg/books?id=hEuIveNl9kcC&redir_esc=y is written by the business administrator Kevin Alan Brook: http://www.khazaria.com/brookcv.html

The author of the article refused to remove them - as you can read on the talk page of the article "Bulgars": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bulgars#Hard_question

Citing such unreliable sources (written by amateur enthusiasts) multiple times on important article as "Bulgars" doesn't help to improve WP.

Thank you NewZealot (talk) 21:04, 27 November 2015 (UTC)


 * They are professional. They wrote the books. That's not unusual. People can have multiple interests. Do you have other problems with the sources, or better ones? DreamGuy (talk) 14:15, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't argue that they are not professionals. Probably they are. What I argue is that it is forbidden on WP to cite books (in some particular area) written by people who don't have degrees in that area. NewZealot (talk) 15:37, 28 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Neither Waldman, nor his coauthor, seem to have any credentials in history, so the Encyclopedia of European Peoples is certainly not an ideal source and I'd say that any scholarly source that contradicts it should override it. As for Brook, he seems to have done some historical research and got this published in academic journals. I'm not familiar with the field, so I cannot comment on the quality of those journals. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 16:50, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

NPGL teams sources for notability
Hello all, I am looking for some outside input on a few recently created articles where I am not sure the sources used would allow them to pass GNG. A user decided to make team articles for the National Pro Grid League, a barely covered new fitness sport league which spun off of the CrossFit Games. It has been occasionally shown on NBC Sports, but other than that I have a hard time finding non-routine coverage for anything significant on the teams themselves. I gave the user what advice on the Talk Page for as much as I could on the three articles he has created so far but I don't want to waste much time improving them (content-wise anyways, as I can't find any significant independent coverage) if they will be deleted anyways for failing GNG. The articles in question are Baltimore Anthem, DC Brawlers, and Phoenix Rise (GRID). Most of the sources used are either primary or non-independent secondary sources (ie, non-notable fitness magazines and journals). The independent sources used, such as The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun, seem like they could be borderline WP:ROUTINE as they are simply announcements of the existence of a team or a signing in their local coverage section. Thanks, Yosemiter (talk) 18:51, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Reliable source on South Asian History?
Is A.P.H. Publishing reliable? Also, is this book published by them reliable? It is titled "A Social History of India" by some S. N. Sadasivan. Xtremedood (talk) 02:12, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

The Five Gospels, Robert Funk, the Jesus Seminar
The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say?

Robert W Funk, Roy Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar

HarperSanFrancisco, 1993

Topic: Historical Jesus, especially on the Jesus page

Funk was a noted expert on Jesus' parables. John Dominic Crossan (one of the top names in contemporary historical Jesus research) was the co-chair of the Jesus Seminar. The Seminar includes other "name" scholars in the field and dozens of experts from various fields. The books that the seminar created include thorough reviews of the gospels, including summaries of scholarly thinking on many issues. Given the controversy around applying critical scholarship to Jesus as a historical figure, it's no surprise that editors object to books from the Jesus Seminar. Given that the Seminar represents many experts and several top thinkers in the field, I'd like it to be considered an RS. Given its breadth, I'd consider it a tertiary source. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 02:50, 22 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't know what it could be considered a reliable source about, other than a primary source for the outcome of the Jesus Seminar. The length of the criticism section in the latter's article (which if anything is abbreviated) should be a clue: it represents one minority, popularized opinion. Mangoe (talk) 03:31, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Mangoe. Do you have any evidence for your opinion? WP pages are not RSs, and using the Jesus Seminar WP page to assess their reliability is circular. Opponents of the historical view of Jesus hate the JS, but maybe that's just because the JS does such a good job of summarizing the historical view. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 16:16, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Please. The criticism page is well-cited; the citations are the evidence. Look, it appears to me that you're giving them a pass because you like their conclusions; but they do represent an eccentric methodology and position. Many of the people involved in the JS were not scholars, and people who objected to the methodolgy (and the press-mongering) as a rule were therefore self-selected out of participation. It's not surprising that their Tillichian precepts produced a result largely harmonious with the hist-crit zeitgeist, but that's something of a question of scholarly convergent evolution. Mangoe (talk) 22:56, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It is unquestionably a reliable source for the perspective it represents. The perspective it represents is unquestionably a significant one that is owed due weight. That means describing its conclusions as well as putting it in context as to how well accepted those conclusions are. Rhoark (talk) 22:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Rhoark. They are a significant minority opinion in terms of whether Jesus was apocalyptic. Other than that, they seem to be mainstream. But citing them as representing the most significant minority view seems fine by me. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 16:16, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Gizmag.com
It seems that there are hundreds of technology and science articles that have used this as a source. I don't find it in the archives here, which comes as something of a surprise. I'm concerned about it in several ways, not just reliability: the site is loaded with clickbait, it often fails to clearly identify the sources it draws from, and it often blatently copies content from those sources. Is this a candidate for the blacklist? LeadSongDog come howl!  21:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * So it's a wannabe Buzzfeed? Welcome to the 2010s. Has a (hidden) editorial board, so it isn't as bad as some. I never heard of it until now, which means nothing. I'd lean toward not using it until reliability can be established one way or another. DreamGuy (talk) 01:25, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

When there are no RS
Scenario - a relatively new city (1970s) with attractions and much of its history undocumented in RS; much of the content is dependent on OR. Page and section banners have been added along with cn templates. At what point can the material be removed or should it be? Atsme 📞📧 15:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * "any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material" (WP:V) ... My interpretation which agrees with some other editors, is that the "is likely to be challenged" is indeed important. Unsourced statements that are common sense and basic and not likely to be challenged, can remain in articles. Someone could come along and maliciously challenge any statement, if they choose. (An article could state "Dogs are animals" without a source, and someone could challenge that. That one could be sourced, but it would take some poor editor's time for no reason, and some things that are obviously true are hard to source.) Anyway, that's my 2 cents. My attitude is to leave non-controversial unsourced content, because unless there is a reason to challenge it, it is just make-work. That said, an article on a city is not meant to be a tour guide to the city, and this hypothetical article might do with some pruning anyway. SageRad (talk) 15:42, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I am always suspicious of such open ended questions, because there may be disagreement about the details in a specific case, and coming to a forum with a vague question is an old tactic to try to over-rule another editor. Normally on this noticeboard it is said that we should give the specific context. For debates about how to word generalized policy, we can discuss on the talk pages of the relevant policy pages for example. So can you please give specifics?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I understand your sentiments,, so the specifics are best addressed with a quick review of the tags and templates on the article itself, Faisalabad. Atsme 📞📧 17:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * So which article is involved?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:38, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Andrew Lancaster, it's Faisalabad. Seeing the article definitely clarified the question. There doesn't seem to be anything complex going on here.
 * Atsme, the primary rule underlying everything is: Do what you think will improve the encyclopedia. Improve the content if you have the ability and motivation to do so. Leave it if it seems basically correct and useful. (i.e. Don't pointlessly challenge good-but-unsourced content.) Remove it if removal is an improvement. Tag it if it's questionable or needs fixing. If something is questionable and has been tagged a long time, that weighs into your discretion: unsourced dubious material may be removed at will . Alsee (talk) 09:18, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Relative weight when highly reliable sources don't agree.
I have a question regarding dealing with relative weight when reliable sources don't agree. A subsection of the Southern Strategy article[] has several claims largely based on two books from academic publishers, Lopez and Aistrup. Material in two books, Cannon and Mayer disagrees with some of the material from Aistrup and Lopez. Neither Cannon nor Mayer's books are published via academic press but...

Mayer is a university prof in the field. His book has been reviewed (favorably) in a peer reviewed journal. For 310 pages of text the book as 50 pages of citations/references. His text has been cited as a reference by other scholars in peer reviewed articles/academic books. The text has a Google Scholar citation count of 51. I verified that at least 10 of those 51 citations are peer reviewed sources using Mayer as a reliable source (used without disclaimers or simply to show what others are saying). Thus other scholars treat Mayer's work as scholarly. The material in the book on the whole not controversial. The book has been cited in other parts of the article without controversy. I argue that based on WP:USEBYOTHERS the Mayer text should be treated similarly to an academically published book.

The second text is by Lou Cannon. Cannon is a reporter but acknowledged by scholarly authors as a Ronald Reagan biographer and has published several books on that subject. The book in question has been reviewed by at least 4 peer reviewed journals and has almost 600 citations according to Google scholar. Another database shows 141 citations in peer reviewed journals. Again, we have wide spread use of this source in other scholarly works WP:USEBYOTHERS. The work has also undergone peer review via the post publican reviews in peer reviewed journals.

I feel the above is enough to give the articles weight similar to what the Lopez and Aistrup articles are given. In places where they conflict both views should be presented. What are the thoughts of other editors? Is it reasonable use it were it does not agree with statements from the Lopez and/or Aistrup books? Does the WP:RS guideline intend that the only sources that can conflict with a scholarly book are other scholarly books even if the "non-scholarship" book is widely cited in scholarship? Would WP:IAR trump a narrow reading of WP:RS reasonably apply assuming the books are of high quality (not fringe) and widely cited already?


 * Side note: This question is related to a stale NPOV discussion opened by another editor.[]  Because that topic has been stale for almost two weeks with no 3rd party input I decided to ask my questions relating to RSs here.  I state this to avoid an impression of forum shopping.   Springee (talk) 07:47, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Privately published books are not as reliable as scholarly articles that have undergone the peer review process. Counting citations does not bypass WP policy identifying the most reliable sources and WP:RS specifically says "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." Both of the peer reviewed sources are more current than the Cannon source, and both of them reflect the scholarly consensus of the Southern Strategy being a top-down strategy consisting of racially coded language largely responsible for southern realignment following the 1960s. So there is no reason a less reliable source should be used, especially when it's being used to try and contradict what peer reviewed sources say. Also, since you referenced WP:usebyothers, it explicitly says "If outside citation is the main indicator of reliability, particular care should be taken to adhere to other guidelines and policies, and to not represent unduly contentious or minority claims." Since your argument almost entirely rests on outside citations, it's clear other WP policies should be used.Scoobydunk (talk) 09:05, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Per WP:IAR we should avoid being dogmatic to rules when common sense suggest otherwise. Note the word "usually" in your quoted sentence.  It does not say that we cannot treat other works as highly reliable.  A claim their works are fringe would need to be supported.  The two books in question works have been reviewed by scholarly journals and have been cited by main stream scholars.  WP:USEBYOTHERS says, "How accepted, high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation. The more widespread and consistent this use is, the stronger the evidence. For example, widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability".  Both Cannon and Mayer are widely used by scholars without comment and for facts thus mainstream scholars have accepted the work as reliable.  We should not censor the work because it disagrees with specific claims contained in other works. Springee (talk) 18:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, it says "usually" then gives examples of out date sources or sources not representative of the scholarly viewpoint as the exceptions. I've already addressed these concerns and neither of these apply to the numerous peer reviewed sources being used for the article. Common sense says we use the strongest sources available, which WP defines as peer reviewed scholarly sources, also I'm pretty sure WP:IAR doesn't apply to the pillars of WP. Regardless, you've presented your questions, I suggest waiting to hear from others.Scoobydunk (talk) 23:12, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * No, it doesn't limit "usually" to just discounting out of date sources. Common sense does not say we exclude highly reliable sources just because they don't agree with a few scholars.  With regards to the particular points in question there the article does not present a scholarly consensus.  Furthermore, we are not trying to present a single answer.  In cases were reliable sources disagree we should provide both points of view.  WP:IAR applies to all WP guidelines.
 * Just to add a bit more information about Lou Cannon to assuage any concerns that he might be a fringe source. He was granted an honorary doctorate by Cal State [].  In granting the doctorate the Cal State announcement noted:
 * Mr. Cannon has written five books about Mr. Reagan, including the acclaimed President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, originally published by Simon and Schuster in 1991. ... Mr. Cannon has received many distinctions from several higher education institutions in California. ... On a national level, Mr. Cannon has won numerous awards including the White House Correspondents Association's coveted Aldo Beckman award (1984) for overall excellence in presidential coverage, and the first Gerald R. Ford Prize (1988) for distinguished reporting on the Nixon, Ford and Reagan presidencies.
 * Dismissing his work just because it wasn't published by a university press simply doesn't pass the sniff test. Springee (talk) 00:59, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Just like you removing Herbert from the article doesn't pass the sniff test? This is no different, regardless of how you try to dress it up.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:21, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Herbert is not part of this discussion. Please confine discussions of other sources to the article talk page. Springee (talk) 05:38, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Go by the other sources to weigh a percentage, and if there aren't any put both opinions in the article. We aren't here to pick. DreamGuy (talk) 02:21, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input. I agree that we should include both.  What do you mean by other sources weight?  Do you mean if other reliable sources say something like "author A is the majority view"? Springee (talk) 02:59, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * @ Dreamguy - Sounds like you're addressing weight instead of answering concerns about privately published books and blogs being less reliable than peer reviewed scholarly works.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:19, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Why are you talking about blogs? None of the sources being discussed are blogs.  The sources are widely cited books, one by an acknowledged scholar and the other by a distinguished reporter.  Both books have been subject to academic reviews after publication and both books are widely cited by peer reviewed academic articles with out disclaiming comments.  Note that WP:RS states, "Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications. Deciding which sources are appropriate depends on context. Material should be attributed in-text where sources disagree."  So if non-academic sources may be used in articles about scholarly issues, how can we justify excluding Mayer and Cannon, sources that are clearly respected by scholarship, from mention just because they don't agree with Lopez and Aistrup's interpretation of the facts.  Do note that there isn't a disagreement on the facts of the event, only how the information should be viewed.  Springee (talk) 05:48, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that the part preceding that explains how peer reviewed academic works should be used when available and the Southern Strategy is vastly covered by academic sources, so thee is no need to include inferior quality sources, especially when they are being used to dispute what scholarly sources say. This is why WP establishes peer reviewed sources as the most reliable. This applies to privately published books, new articles, and blogs, which is why I mentioned blogs, especially since you were just trying to add a blog into the article.Scoobydunk (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, you are trying to muddy the waters with claims of blogs. We are not discussing blogs here.  Springee (talk) 19:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I went hunting for previous archive topics similar to this one. I found a discussion by the editors who worked on WP:RS that I think is relevant and probably can close out this topic.  What I basically read in that discussion is that peer review is one way to establish a reliable source but it is not the only one and it is abusing the policy when one says a non-academic source can not be used if it disagrees with an academic source: There are many other examples, in many areas, which I have seen myself over the years, where editors become confused and assume that scholarly sources always trump news media or other popular sources, to the point of excluding the latter kind.  Springee (talk) 07:18, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Quoting one part of a conversation 5 years ago, doesn't close out this subject, especially when other editors explicitly say that peer reviewed academic sources trump non-academic sources. The conversation boils down to how do we define reliability, and WP:RS clearly considers peer reviewed sources the most reliable. As I said before, specific exceptions are given being that an RS is too old to reflect current scholarship and/or is a view not representative of current scholarship. Neither of these apply to Lopez and Aistrup. You can not take a book from Ken Ham and use it to dispute claims all over the article regarding Climate Change. This is why articles are written based on the strongest sources available and when there are peer reviewed sources available, the article is written to reflect those peer reviewed sources. Scoobydunk (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I quoted one of many editors who said the same thing. The editors were discussing if it was necessary to draw specific attention to this phrase in WP:RS "but material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications."  They were discussing emphasizing that passage specifically because of cases where editors tried to exclude reliable sources that didn't agree with a scholarly source.  There is clear consensus that it is not OK to exclude a reliable source that doesn't agree with an academic source because it isn't academic.  That is exactly what you are trying to do on the Southern Strategy page. Springee (talk) 19:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Clarification The article currently uses Lopez and Aistrup to avoid WP:CITECLUTTER, however there are numerous sources that support the relevant entries. Here is a list of more sources, all of them peer reviewed/scholarly sources:
 * "Like Nixon and others, Reagan successfully used the southern strategy...Reagan's use of such racial code words...was enough to win back the South."


 * "....Reagan playing very much to the Southern Strategy...using those code words."


 * "The Southern strategy offered a more palatable reality, retooled and 'recoded' by...Reagan to sell an embittered white citizenry..."


 * "Reagan made his case against civil rights legislation not in the pugnacious, arm-waving, and belligerent style of Wallace but in a polished and low-key manner."


 * "Reagan showed that he could use coded language with the best of them, lambasting welfare queens, busing, and affirmative action as the need arose."


 * "While Nixon has been more pronouncedly identified with the southern strategy, many presidents before Nixon and since have used it. Ronald Reagan did in his infamous 1980 speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in which he called for states' rights."


 * "The strategy for such a politics gathered a powerful momentum during the Reagan era with the practice of "coding" racial meanings so as to mobilize white fears. Hence, the use of terms such as quotas, busing, welfare, and multiculturalism as signifiers to arouse the insecurities and anger of whites.

The above is simply an attempt by Scoobydunk to cloud the issue or perhaps to shut down this discussion via a wall of text. The base question appears to have been answered by an archived discussion, WP:RS was not meant to be a way for editors to block reliable content just because it didn't come from a scholarly source. Springee (talk) 04:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Focus on the content and not personal attacks. Facts don't cloud the issue and only give more context on the fact that there is a clear scholarly viewpoint on Reagan's use of coded language during his campaign. It makes no sense to use less reliable sources in an attempt to refute what so many peer reviewed sources acknowledge. Scoobydunk (talk) 07:53, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You are making the flawed claim that non-scholarly sources are inherently less reliable or lower quality vs ones from a scholarly publisher. It is clear that the editors of the WP:RS policy say you are incorrect in that assumption.  Additionally, there are thousands of works that talk about Reagan.  Google was clearly your friend in finding those.  You have not shown that POV to be scholarly consensus.  Putting up a wall of text however, makes it quite likely that few additional editors will join this discussion.  So far we have one for inclusion and clear evidence that WP:RS does not mean to say scholarly sources automatically trump others.  Springee (talk) 12:55, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * My claim is not flawed and that's directly how WP policy is written. The strongest sources should be used and peer reviewed sources are generally the strongest sources and are the most reliable. If your authors views had any merit, then they'd be able to get them published in a peer reviewed source or at least you'd be able to find a peer reviewed source that voiced the same perspective. The "editors of the WP:RS" discussion from 5 years ago were split and there clearly was no consensus. Also, the only person who's responded only voiced inclusion if there were no other sources and clearly there are multiple peer reviewed sources that support the position as Lopez and Aistrup. Based on his comment, that means he doesn't support inclusion. That's the reason why I've listed multiple peer reviewed sources, because the only editor who's commented expressed interest in determining what other sources said on the topic. You're attempt to boil this down to 2 sources vs. 2 sources, misrepresents the scholarly viewpoint that Reagan used racially coded language. WP:BESTSOURCES also clearly explains that the best, most reliable sources be used to avoid POV concerncs, which is exactly the opposite of what you're doing. Again, this is why we don't use Ken Ham's books to write articles about dinosaurs in Eden, when there is scientific scholarly material already covering the dinosaurs.Scoobydunk (talk) 16:32, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Those who wrote and edited the policy do not agree with you. Your summation of their discussion is wrong.  They didn't agree on changing the language, they do agree that it was not meant to exclude on scholarly yet reliable sources.  Your claim of bestsources is nice but it doesn't support your removal of Mayer and Cannon which are clearly strong sources.  Springee (talk) 16:58, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

You two really need to work on depersonalizing this: what you need most is more people in the discussion and outside perspectives, but you're arguing in a way that makes everyone else reluctant to jump into the middle of a knife fight.

As far as I can tell, this is a question of weight rather than reliability - whether or not Springee's sources are reliable isn't the issue so much as whether they're being used in a way that gives then undue weight, and makes it look like the mainstream/consensus view (that Reagan used racially coded language to win votes) has been more thoroughly challenged than it actually has. Fyddlestix (talk) 17:08, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * You are right of course. The question I asked was reliability since Scoobydunk was reverting my edits claiming RS.  I think we have agreement that WP:RS does not imply scholarship always trumps other sources.  I think most agree that Mayer and Cannon are highly reliable sources and thus it would only be a weight question, not an inclusion question.  It also means we should not present one POV as the only one.  We certainly can not justify a passage, written in WP voice, stating Reagan's "young buck" comment was testing coded racism if a reliable source says otherwise.   Anyway, [WP:RS/AC] says we can not assume or claim a scholarly consensus unless we have a source that says so.  Yes, Scoobydunk has used Google to find scholars who are making a set of claims but none claim that theirs is the scholarly consensus view.  Until that is shown we might as well count citations of the primary sources.  Both methods are imperfect ways to decide consensus.  Regardless, I would welcome your level headed views into this conversation. Springee (talk) 17:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I was asked to comment here, but it's too much to read. Springee has said (on my talk page) that these books are not being regarded as RS for Southern Strategy – Lou Cannon's President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (Simon & Schuster, 1991) and Jeremy Mayer's Running on Race: Racial Politics in Presidential Campaigns, 1960–2000 (Random House, 2002). I don't know whether that's an accurate summary, but if it is, can someone say what is wrong with those sources? SarahSV (talk) 01:36, 3 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Springee intends to use those sources to "cast doubts" on what the numerous peer reviewed sources listed above claim about Reagan's use of coded racism. This isn't simply a matter of reliability, it's a matter of how they're being used, and when there's roughly 9 plus peer reviewed articles discussing Reagan using the Southern Strategy through coded racism, I don't think less reliable privately published books should be used in an attempt to refute or contradict what scholarship says on the matter.Scoobydunk (talk) 03:30, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, this board is for getting outside opinion. If you people simply bicker among yourselves, everyone else will tune out. Secondly, there is no automatic rule for reliability, it is always in context, and dependent on many things, including author, venue, peer review, citations etc. Thirdly, on a major historical topic, usually a lot is written, and you can often find even famous and well-regarded people to advance any viewpoint. It is generally better to stick to the best sources available. I would generally. Fourthly, I can't stress this enough, reliability is always in context. A reporter may be cited by an academic source as to Reagan's campaign or whatever (I have no idea what he is cited for), but are his judgements regarding the Southern Strategy being cited by the peer reviewed sources? Fifthly, one should aim to have up-to-date scholarship if possible, they often have better sourcing. Lacking any details, I would not consider the latter two sources reliable. Kingsindian &#9821;&#9818; 01:51, 3 December 2015 (UTC)


 * It definitely feels to me like Cannon and Mayer are being given WP:UNDUE weight here; their view is relatively WP:FRINGE on the topic, which should be obvious from the extent to which the debate focuses on them (that is, few other sources that could even be claimed credible take their perspective, while countless other sources oppose them.) They could perhaps be mentioned in a sentence, but more than that -- and particularly giving their view equal weight to the mainstream view, or trying to use them to discredit it -- would be WP:UNDUE, all else aside.  And beyond that, I don't think their sources are as credible as some of the others that have been used; their contributions look like coffee-table-style popular-interest political books intended to convince ordinary readers rather than academic sources that can be relied on to determine scholarly consensus.  (The number of citations doesn't change this, since most of those citations could be eg. "a few people have dissented from this view" citing the tiny number of books that have dissented, or citations describing the popular perception of Reagan, or things to that effect -- citations are more meaningful for scholarly works, less significant for books like those.)  Additionally, their books are not about the Southern Strategy in particular, whereas eg. Lopez and Aistrup are.  If there is genuine debate among scholars over the Southern Strategy, it should be possible to find academic papers specifically focused on it that take a different view, rather than having to pull out sections of popular biographies.  For example, Springee mentions that they used a large number of sources in their books -- why not go to the sources that they used on the Southern Strategy?  If their claims in those books are backed up by academic research, we should be able to find the papers themselves.  The Southern Strategy is not an obscure topic in political science, so I'm leery of trying to use excerpts from biographies on Reagan to try and refute peer-reviewed papers that discuss it specifically. --Aquillion (talk) 03:49, 3 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Kingsindian, I think you are lacking the information needed to decide Cannon and Mayer are not reliable. Cannon is a VERY noted biographer of Reagan who has been widely quoted by many scholars.  The book I was quoting from has been reviewed by 4 peer reviewed journals and cited by over 100 peer reviewed articles/books.  Mayer is a scholar even though the particular book I was quoting from was not released via a scholarly press.  However, that work has been quoted by a number of peer reviewed articles as well.  Regardless, yours and Aquillion's concerns regarding undue weight are further evidence that I need to beef up my references and too that end I've spent some time in the research library and have turned up additional sources.  I think the additional sources, and the fact that, unlike the scholars discussing the causes of southern realignment, none of these scholars have claimed theirs is the consensus view with respect to the 1970-1990 section of the article.  The material I was quoting was in response to specific claims, not the broader Southern Strategy or the evolution theory in general.  I would note that the evolution section really seems like it would fit better in a broader "race and elections" topic.  Recently we had a discussion in the talk section regarding the scholarship section of the article which illustrated one of the issues with refuting specific claims.  Rjensen, (Richard_J._Jensen) noted that historians that don't agree with a topic aren't always going to spend their time writing an article that says "no".  Instead they write an article that is closer to their interest and which might refute the other theory but not state it.  Hence a book that talks about say the top 5 reasons why the South turned to the GOP and doesn't mention the Southern Strategy should be taken to mean the author doesn't consider it a factor vs the alternative which is to assume because "Southern Strategy" wasn't mentioned it isn't a relevant soruce.  Regardless, it's best when we have sources that have easy to digest quotes and I'm endeavoring to expand my references.  To that end.  Springee (talk) 06:15, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Ship on a banknote
Based on this source there is an editor asserting that the ship on the 500,000 Rubles and 500 New Rubles note is the Argentine sailing ship ARA Libertad (Q-2). The source itself doesn't make that claim it states:

i.e. the article is repeating Internet rumours this is the case. I'd appreciate some third party input on whether this is a reliable source to make that claim. The relevant edit is. According to the Russian Ruble article it is the STS Sedov. See File:Banknote 500 rubles 2010 front.jpg and File:Banknote 500000 rubles (1995) front.jpg. WCM email 08:55, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Other sources confirm Sedov ,,,. WCM email 09:13, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If reliable sources say it, then cite those sources. If it's just rumor then remove it. You know what to do here. 14:18, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It is not reliable sources. The latter, in general, a copy of the wiki-article Russian ruble.--Insider (talk) 10:18, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Designer (painter) of the banknote Igor Krylkov in the interview said: "I immediately found a photo of the sailboat and repainted." (Я срочно нашел фотографию с тем парусником и перерисовал.) See also: 02:08 "Народная экономика" выяснила, как время изменило виды с денежных купюр // First Channel (Russia): "Многие горожане думают, что на 500-ке изображена шхуна "Запад", она стоит с 83 года, последний парусник Беломорья. Если взять справочник, то можно определить - это корабль ВМФ Аргентины "Либертад", - говорит историк Сергей Терентьев..--Insider (talk) 09:21, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * At no point does the designer say it is the Argentine ship. All online sources state this is the STS Sedov. WCM email 19:34, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * тем парусником in Russian means "the sailing ship", not just "sailing ship". Definite sailing ship, which is written above (парусник идентифицировали как аргентинский корабль “Либертад” - sailboat identified as an Argentine ship "Libertad"). --Insider (talk) 08:30, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Also see video (from 00:39) of Channel One Russia. Если взять справочник, то можно определить - это корабль ВМФ Аргентины "Либертад", - говорит историк Сергей Терентьев. - If you take a guide, it is possible to define - it is the Argentine Navy ship "Libertad", - says historian Sergey Terentyev. --Insider (talk) 08:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Further, no I am not a moron, I didn't cite a wikipedia article, I cited a number of currency websites, all of which say Sedov. The above claim of a quote saying it is the Libertad is citation fraud, it does not at any point state it is the Libertad.  Further in the same interview he ridicules the suggestion of "secret signs" or gaffes.  WCM email 19:58, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * - See to bottom of the page "Source(s): Wikipedia Ruble (Creative Commons)",  - copy of the article Russian ruble (images, wiki-markup). The rest of the sites of the same authority. See official page of Bank of Russia: just "sailing ship", not Sedov. All the more so on the banknote 3 mast, but the sailing ship with 4 masts. That is generalized image of one of the birthplace of Russian civil and navy fleet (Arkhangelsk). --Insider (talk) 08:05, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Also see modifications 1995, 1997, 2001, 2004 and 2010. The first four identical, but 2010 has a different pattern sailing ship, modified just after scandal in the blogs with the ship "Libertad". If this Sedov why it repaint? --Insider (talk) 08:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Also see modifications 1995, 1997, 2001, 2004 and 2010. The first four identical, but 2010 has a different pattern sailing ship, modified just after scandal in the blogs with the ship "Libertad". If this Sedov why it repaint? --Insider (talk) 08:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Original image from soviet book-guide. It is worth paying attention to the position of the sails, sailors, flags and other details. --Insider (talk) 09:03, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Wrong, the website you linked to doesn't state that is the photograph used, it merely repeats the rumour. There are more differences with the Libertad than there are similarities, this is just another Internet conspiracy theory.   The interview you partly quoted above states quite clearly the author ridiculaes the suggestion it was the Libertad.  Misquoting a source is not the way to get your edit accepted.  WCM email 21:06, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Why you added the photo of the sailing ship "Mircea"? Let's use the source properly (for example without "Internet rumours" - not in source). Your suggestions? I expressed on the talk page of the article. --Insider (talk) 07:00, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Making a point, anyone can post a picture of a sailing ship that looks vaguely likely the one on the banknote. Analysing the picture is WP:OR and WP:SYN but you've looked at a picture convinced yourself you're right and are looking for evidence to support you rather than looking for evidence.  The interview with the designer quite clearly dimisses this as Internet rumour and conjecture - you're simply ignoring inconvenient statements in the source.  Further, you're continuing to revert to versions of the text that are not verified by the source.  WP:BRD does not allow you to restore unverified material.   WCM email 08:11, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * "The interview with the designer quite clearly dimisses this as Internet rumour and conjecture - you're simply ignoring inconvenient statements in the source." Cite this from interview. --Insider (talk) 09:23, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

direct democracy ireland
Moloney, Mark (28 April 2013). "Ben Gilroy and Direct Democracy Ireland: Look behind them". An Phoblacht. Retrieved 12 September 2015 – via An Phoblacht - http://www.anphoblacht.com/. this is a newspaper by a political party hardly a reliable sourceRailsparks (talk) 22:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Article link: Direct Democracy Ireland
 * Statement being sourced appears to be: The Christian Solidarity Party also took out advertisements in support of DDI. CSP candidates also included the website of Direct Democracy Ireland on their election literature. 


 * Railsparks, could you clarify if it's both sentences, or just the second sentence? Could you point out the relevant text in the source? Is the newspaper affiliated with the Christian Solidarity Party, the Direct Democracy Ireland party, or some other party? Is there anyone who says CSP candidates didn't included the website of Direct Democracy Ireland on their election literature? If it's sourcing both sentences, is there anyone saying CSP didn't take out advertisements in support of DDI? Alsee (talk) 10:24, 2 December 2015 (UTC)


 * hi alsee, i not disagreeing that the CSP or any other group took out advertisements in local papers in support of DDI or ben gilroy,who wouldnt turn down free adverisement there is nothing stopping any group from taking out avertiseing in support of any group its a free country,but it has been used to shed a group in a particular ie right wing,to this day DDI has not committed one right wing act,and there is no evidence to prove this there is not one mention in the reference on DDI wiki that they are Right wing,DDI have stated time and time again that they are neither left nor right but about balance ie (libertarian,centre) recently DDI joined Right2change movement in the hope of forming a left alternative government,if DDI is so Right wing why would they bother signing up to this program.Railsparks (talk) 14:26, 2 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Railsparks, I don't know Irish politics, but that isn't relevant here. The only factor on this board is whether it qualifies as a Reliable Source. If it's a party publishing simple facts about itself, that is a Reliable Source. It sounds like that is the case here? Including the information in the article might be WP:undue weight. Other policies might apply. It might need to be rephrased. Or it might simply be a fact that you're stuck with, no matter how it looks. I dunno. Those are issues to sort out at the article.
 * P.S. If you include Alsee or shortcut user:Alsee in your post, that ensures I'll get notified. I included your name in my post so you'd get notified. Also you can use colons to indent replies. Alsee (talk) 11:45, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Malini Agarwal
Her personal website is being used by experienced users in Bollywood articles. How much reliable is a personal website. --The Avengers (talk) 03:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)


 * A person's personal website may be used to cite uncontroversial facts about that person (though even with uncontroversial facts, it's better to seek a secondary source) but is not considered reliable for anything else. — GrammarFascist  contribs talk 16:27, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * In particularly, for performers ofany sort, some basic factsabout their earlier work, their birthplace, and their date of birth, are particularlikely to have some degree of inaccuracy,and even these should have third party cofirmation.  DGG ( talk ) 08:58, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This is the website in question missmalini. -- The   Aven gers  16:08, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

MissMalini’s World (missmalini.com) appears to be a professional news and gossip web-based title - a problog - broadly for the Bollywood lifestyle scene, and as such, should be usable as a reliable source for certain types of information (determined case-by-case as for any other source). It does not appear to be a "personal web site" in the sense of someone sitting on their bed with a laptop, banging out a gossip blog, or an individual spouting personal and unsupported views - it is a recognized pro media venture. There's more, but based on that alone, the site should be considered as a potential source for entertainment information. It may be argued against due to its "gossip" and "blog" labels, when in fact, it appears to be a bona fide digital age entertainment news organization, widely known and perhaps preeminent in its space in India. --Tsavage (talk) 21:01, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * A recent Forbes interview with Agarwal confers business credibility, and indicates that the web site is a full-time staffed media house, and that Agarval has significant prior professional background in the entertainment media industry.
 * According to our article, Malini Agarwal, "Agarwal and her blog missmalini.com are regularly featured in leading digital and print fashion and lifestyle publications, including Elle,[13][14] Cosmopolitan,[15] Harper's Bazaar,[16] Grazia,[17] Femina (India),[18] and Glamrs.com[19] among others."
 * A spin-off Miss Malini's World is in its second season on TLC, described as featuring "exclusive conversations with Bollywood celebrities starting from Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kangana Ranaut to Hrithik Roshan [and] the best of fashion, beauty and Bollywood." which indicates professional media stature and entertainment industry access.

The salary of a public figure
The job held by the current governor general of Canada, prior to his appointment by the queen, was as the president of a university in the Canadian province of Ontario. The province has made the salary of most high-grossing "civil servant", which is what this is as the school is funded primarily with public funds, public. At least two reliable sources have published and commented on the salaries: http://www.macleans.ca/education/uniandcollege/how-much-does-your-universitys-president-make/ http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/gg-johnston-earned-more-than-1m-in-2010-at-waterloo-1.625946, with the latter directly related to the subject. It was removed. It was restored. It was removed again. A discussion was opened Talk:David Johnston. It's claimed that it's a violation of BLP. I don't think it is. Comment here or in the talk page. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:05, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the CTV News Toronto source is reliable for the information on his salary. Looking at the edit on the page concerned, the text may be slightly WP:UNDUE in reporting details of his salary, but an abbreviated comment ("In 2010, he earned over 1 million") would not be undue, IMO. I don't see a BLP issue here. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 13:42, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Typically the salary of a public servant would not be notable enough to include however, because David Johnson has been recognized among the "most high-grossing civil servants", it may be significant. I think those who are wanting to include this content on the page have a clear motive - to disparage the subject by noting his salary is funded by public funds - and for that reason, I do not support adding the information. Meatsgains (talk) 18:49, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * The salary is clearly reliably sourced, from the news sources provided, and presumably from a primary Ontario government source, an annual list of highest payed government employees (over $100,000). The same sources make it noteworthy for the article, both the news recognition, and the fact that the Ontario government has explicitly created this "sunshine list" to make public this information (it is not simply a dug-up statistic). The argument against inclusion, here and on the Talk page, seems to be about neutrality and undue weight, in general, or specifically with respect to BLP content (in that case, it would seem to be more of a matter of wording than exclusion). --Tsavage (talk) 21:27, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

GeekWire
Dear editors: Wikipedia's article about the website GeekWire seems to indicate that it is a news source. Sometimes companies with the word "Wire" in their titles put out mainly press releases, so I thought I'd look further. The site's About page indicates that companies can buy memberships giving them various privileges, but I don't see company announcements among them. Is this a reliable news source? I ask because This draft relies heavily on it. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 11:47, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Though the name is a bit deceiving as you pointed out, GeekWire could definitely be used as a reliable source. Reporters, columnists, and editors are all listed the website. Meatsgains (talk) 04:20, 3 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Every indication is that GeekWire is a reliable source for tech news, including their staff listing and credentials, and the pick-up of their news on other tech news sites like TechCrunch. (Also, I looked at This draft: Remitly, Inc - although kinda blandly written as it is now, the subject is extremely interesting and adequately-sourced for WP:GNG, it should be an article.) --Tsavage (talk) 23:44, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

BS3621 at Mortise lock and use of commercial sites as refs
Comments please on the triple removal of these two refs as "refspam" and "rv, refspam/not RS. Links added by SPA" (I object to being described as an "SPA")
 * How to choose the right lock type
 * What is BS3621, BS8621, BS10621?

BS3621 is an obscure, widely misunderstood, and important sub-topic for mortise locks in the UK. Insurers generally require it, home owners (and many insurers) don't understand what it means. We need to cover and source this.

It is hard to find up to date refs on this. The related BS8621 & BS10621 need to be covered too. My bookshelf doesn't go that recent. An online ref also has the advantage that it can be supplementary text for the article, not merely WP:V, thus offering an explanation to our readers even before anyone has written content for the article here. These refs are useful for this and meet the immediate needs of WP.

These refs have been removed as seemingly "all commercial sites are assumed to be spam". I know of no WP policy that claims this, or any blanket ban on commercial sites per se.

Thoughts? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:56, 3 December 2015 (UTC)


 * This seems something of a theme "commercial link" I fail to see how http://www.londonlocksmiths.com/history-of-locks.html can be seen as overly promotional. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:59, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * That references on the topic are "hard to find" isn't a reason to include a particular citation. I never said that all commercial links are spam, and I do not hold such a view.-KH-1 (talk) 13:04, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * These refs are not pushing a particular product. Why do you either see all commercial links as spam, or see these particular links as particularly spammy, more so than other "acceptable" commercial links? These are not spammy links (in a world of spammy links). Your removals only make sense in a context that any commercial link is implicitly spammy, and that is not our policy. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:14, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

See also User_talk:Andy_Dingley Andy Dingley (talk) 13:15, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * What did I say in my edit summary when I removed the links? -KH-1 (talk) 13:37, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * They is no prohibition on commercial websites as RS. (There is the WP:EL policy but that is for External Links, not RS) - SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT tells us to cite the source used.  However, in this case, the website does not meet RS standards.  As the URL makes clear, the content is from community blog posts with little to suggest that there is any rigorous editorial oversight.  The content seems sound enough superficially but we have no way to judge whether it is reliable.  Martinlc (talk) 13:43, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * RS is not based on regex parsing of URLs.
 * These are not "community blog" posts. They're the publisher of the site using it as a CMS. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:12, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The website hosts blog posts. My point about the lack of evidence of editorial oversight remains - these are effectively SPS.Martinlc (talk) 17:17, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Aside from the valid concerns about general reliability, WP:QUESTIONABLE clearly discourages the usage of promotional sites. A quick Google search for those locks standards (just search for the IDs) revealed several other possible sources. Some of them may still be "commercial" strictly speaking, but they seem to be less promotional - and haven't spammed Wikipedia in the past. Note: most "reliable" sources don't have to spam unrelated websites for a bit of additional publicity. GermanJoe (talk) 18:27, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Ideally we'd want to cite the original source - the British Standards Institution(BSI)'s own definition of BS 3621 etc. They charge freaking 90 Pounds for a copy. I searched the International Standards Organization(ISO) and I found that they 'reconfirmed' the standard, but no actual info. If someone wants to be ambitious you could try emailing BSI, explain you're a Wikipedia editor writing an articles on these standards, request free access to the downloads, and that you'll include cite links back to them.
 * 1) They might consider it free advertising, the cite links might encourage people to buy copies. (Maybe mention this.)
 * 2) A lot of people don't realize Wikipedia Editors are just a bunch of random yahoos. Chuckle. They might give you the same sort of respect they might give to professional Encyclopedia Britannica staff. (Don't mention this, Grin.) Alsee (talk) 00:48, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Felix V: Are These Reliable sources?
Felix V is an ancestor of every French monarch from Francis I (succ 1515) onwards and, through Mary Queen of Scots, an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Umberto II, the last king of Italy.

Here is a line of descendants from Felix V to Queen Elizabeth II. It shows the descendant on the left of each row (both parents above). I am convinced it is well sourced. Please let me know if there are any errors or inaccuracies. AlwynJPie (talk) 01:19, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Amadeus VIII of Savoy, Pope Felix V (1383-1451) = Mary of Burgundy (1380-1422) are parents of: Louis I of Savoy (1413-1465) = Anne of Cyprus (1418-1462) are parents of: Margaret of Savoy (1439-1483) = Peter II Count of Saint-Pol (1440-1482) are parents of: Marie of Luxembourg (1472-1547) = François of Bourbon, Count of Vendôme (1470-1495) are parents of: Antoinette de Bourbon (1493-1583) = Claude of Guise (1496-1550) are parents of: Mary of Guise (1515-1560) = James V King of Scots (1512-1542) are parents of: Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) = Lord Darnley (1545-1567) are parents of: James VI & I (1566-1625) = Anne of Denmark (1574-1619) are parents of: Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662) = Frederick V Elector Palatine (1596-1632) are parents of: Sophia, Electress of Hanover (1630-1714) = Ernest Augustus (1629-1698) are parents of: George I (1660-1727) = Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick and Luneburg (1666-1726) are parents of: George II (1683-1760) = Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1683-1737) are parents of: Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-1751) = Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1719–1772) are parents of: George III (1738-1820) = Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818) are parents of: Adolphus of Cambridge (1774-1850) = Augusta of Hesse-Kassel (1797-1889) are parents of: Mary Adelaide Wilhelmina Elizabeth (1833-1897) = Francis of Teck (1837-1900) are parents of: Mary of Teck (1867-1953) = George V (1865-1936) are parents of: George VI (1895-1952) = Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900-2002) are parents of: Elizabeth II (1926-)

http://fabpedigree.com/s076/f662700.htm http://humphrysfamilytree.com/famous.thelist.html#henry.ii

AlwynJPie (talk) 23:57, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * These look like personal webpages and not published, vetted information.  Gamaliel  ( talk ) 20:08, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I have looked at each Wikipedia article for each of the descendants on the list from Felix V to Elizabeth II above, although that only show immediate descendants and ancestors, taken together they appear to confirm the list of descendants is correct. How can I tell if the two websites I quoted are adequate for Wikipedia? AlwynJPie (talk) 23:39, 30 November 2015 (UTC)


 * You can't. They aren't. What you can do is use the references from the Wikipedia pages (I do hope they have reliable references) to make the point. I hope this helps. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:14, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * You have also got to consider weight. If no reliable source makes this observation, then there is no reason for an article in Wikipedia to make it.  TFD (talk) 02:12, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Acceptable source for altmed/pseudoscience topic
See here for diff, and discussion on article talk page. Basically it is a source that fails MEDRS, but it's the only review in a journal that discusses the topic, and it's about the best source we have. I feel it would be useful to include it, to give readers an idea of the actual science behind this pseudoscientific topic. --sciencewatcher (talk) 18:01, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I posted my comments on the respective article's talk page. As stated before, though it is not incredibly reliable, I support using the proposed literature review as a source. Meatsgains (talk) 18:10, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The review (if that is what it is) is 15 years old, and the abstract doesn't even mention the subject of the article under discussion. Unfortunately, the reviewers seem to believe that adrenal fatigue is a real thing, not something made up in 1998 with no evidence. Unsuitable as a source. -Roxy the dog™ woof 19:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Functional hypocortisolism due to stress is a real thing, which is borne out by many high quality MEDRS sources. Unfortunately none of those mention "adrenal fatigue". Anyway, the review does seem to be based on good science, it's just a shame that they didn't get it published in a better journal. --sciencewatcher (talk) 20:02, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The reason for MEDRS is that we should not provide medical information that readers could rely on unless it is provided from established sources. I find though that in a lot of these articles the guideline is taken too far, so that we do not get any idea of what the topic is about.  There is more to the topic than just assessing the medical claims - one also wants to know what those claims are, who makes them and who believes them, none of which come under MEDRS.  TFD (talk) 02:10, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * As long as the information is properly cited and identified for what it is, why censor it?  shows it was cited by over 100 PubMed Central articles, the authors are certainly credible and so is the Center for Psychobiological and Psychosomatic Research at the University of Trier, Germany.  While systematic reviews are preferable, I learned from Doc James that MEDRS is malleable in some situations. Atsme 📞📧 02:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Any experience with "The American War Library" http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/
Greetings. My question is about this site:  http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/

It has been used as a source for several articles in WP. On the objection of an editor, I now want to verify its reliability. I emailed the site's owners asking for sources, but they just directed me to a list of other military forums stating that I should ask them instead. I find that strange. If they are to post numbers in their website, I would suppose they can back up their sources. They don't have a link to any source nor do they make reference to a traditional source (at least, I did not find any). Should this site be discounted as a reliable source for WP?

Thanks for your input. Historiador (talk) 18:49, 2 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I see no reason to assume its reliable. Half the links seem to be dead or empty, and it asks you to install a Windows binary to access the database - a big red flag. Both layout and content seem quite amateurish to me. On the positive side: It's not full of advertising spam, so it looks like a real labour of love. But that does not make it reliable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Helping_Hand.png. That's how I saw it too. This is the WP article in question. So, not until the project managers could provide the source of their numbers should we use it in WP as a reliable source. It may, however, be posted in the external link section with a note about how the info here may relate to WP's article. What do you think? Historiador (talk) 09:31, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it meets WP:ELMAYBE point 4 - so if there is consensus that it is useful, it would be ok. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:25, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Are Xinhau and WND reliable sources for information on Islamism in the Gaza Strip
The former is the official press agency of the People's Republic of China, the country with one of the world's worst levels of press freedom. The latter promotes birther conspiracy theories about Barack Obama. Are these reliable sources? Brustopher (talk) 22:58, 5 December 2015 (UTC)


 * It would be helpful to know the precise nature of the claims for which these sources are used, but in general I'd say no—find better sources. The Blue Canoe  02:28, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd say WND, definitely not; they lack the "reputation for fact checking and accuracy" that WP:RS requires, so it's hard to think of many claims they could be used for that wouldn't be better-served by a different source. Xinhau I'm less certain about, so I'd have to know what claim they're being used for -- them being the official press agency of the PRC is a matter of WP:BIASED rather than necessarily a matter of fact-checking and accuracy (that is, they could pass WP:RS for situations where there's no reason to expect there to be an official Chinese government line for them to toe, and could be used with in-line citations making their viewpoint clear in contexts where they might be biased.) --Aquillion (talk) 04:05, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The question comes from Talk:Islamism in the Gaza Strip, where I wrote regarding the Xinhau source: "1. All press is censored to some degree, either by government organs or simply by the editors themselves. That doesn't mean all press is not reliable. 2. If a censor removes a certain piece of information, that does not mean that the rest of the article is not true any more. 3. I agree that it is all a matter of degree and form of censorship, but the simple fact that a source is from China does not mean its information is incorrect." I have no opinion on the WND source. Debresser (talk) 05:46, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * From my point of view none is reliable and notorious enough to report what it says if it is not also reported by other sources. Whatever they claim, if it is not reported by other sources, whether it is false (WP:V) or it is not notorious (WP:due weight). So, cross-checking the information should solve the issue. Pluto2012 (talk) 08:17, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Are we abandoning indents now? Not that I'm worried. Anyway, definitely without the shadow of a doubt no to WND. And no to Xinhau for this article. But User:Pluto2012 has it right. When you can only find one or two sources for something, we, at least in most cases, shouldn't include it, correct or not. Doug Weller (talk) 09:09, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * WND should never be used as a reliable source. DreamGuy (talk) 17:32, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Similar information as can be found in the Xinhau source I found also here, which after having a look at the impressive Staff and Board list, seems a good source. I also see more or less the same information in other sources, like, and . Debresser (talk) 18:55, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Arguments relied on unofficial organization website
In the Rojava article there are many claims which are based on the news of the Kurdwatch.org. This website belongs to the organization which is not recognized or registered by local Government (Syria&Iraq). It reports from Germany. Also, Kurdwatch has informed the following on its own website: (http://kurdwatch.org/?cid=179&z=en) ''This website has been created with the greatest possible care. Nevertheless we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information contained therein. We are excluded from liability for damages that directly or indirectly result from the use of this website, provided that the damage is neither intentional nor the result of gross negligence.''

They have fierce accusations and don't offer any proofs. Is Kurdwatch.org reliable source? Ferakp (talk) 16:43, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Attar-Aram comment: It would be very strange if the recognizing of a human rights organization by corrupt regimes as a criteria for reliability.
 * Kurdwatch's reports were used by the US Department of the State
 * It is considered reliable enough for Human Rights Watch
 * Kurdwatch in no different from SOHR (widely used in Wikipedia) who is also based in the UK and claim claims based on supposed reporters inland and not recognised by Iraq and Syria (it would be like waiting North Korea to recognize a human rights organization for that organization to be reliable).--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Human rights organization doesn't need to be recognized if it is well known and if its reports are widely accepted. It is just difficult to trust their reports if they don't give any details, they don't show any evidences and if they say that they can't guarantee information they provide. It is just plain text on their website. Kurdwatch's reports are not used by US Department of the State. They have only mentioned Kurdwatch. SOHR and Kurdwatch are totally different, SOHR is mentioned in thousand of news and in other sources but Kurdwatch reports are unknown and not used. Ferakp (talk) 21:50, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


 * It would be quite unusual for a Kurdish human rights NGO to have official recognition from the Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian governments, wouldn't it? That's not what concerns me. It seems that most of the reports on this site have some level of corroboration, though there are presumably a few difficulties involved in getting timely and accurate information from some of the regions in questions. I would say that this source can probably be used with some caution, and perhaps by qualifying its statements with something like "According to the website Kurdwatch...."  The Blue Canoe  02:51, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

The first problem is that Kurdwatch website is used as a source in more than 15 sentences. I don't think it is a good idea to mention "According to the website Kurdwatch.." in every sentence. The second problem is that Kurdwatch reports are not ordinary human rights reports and accusations that are mentioned in Rojava article are extremely serious. They never provide any kind of information or details which could support their claims. Also, if source doesn't provide reliable information and warns about it, will the use of the source make any sense then? -- Ferakp (talk) 07:36, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

KurdWatch is a project of the European Center for Kurdish Studies: The European Center for Kurdish Studies—Berlin Society for the Advancement of Kurdish Studies is a private research institute that is registered as a non-profit association. It was established on September 1, 1999 to continue the work started by the Kurdistan working group at the Free University Berlin. Our goal is to promote Kurdology and Kurdish Studies, two terms we use synonymously to denote the interdisciplinary academic discourses on Kurdistan and Kurds in both their places of origin and in the diaspora. Moreover, we have been instrumental in establishing civil-society projects in Syria since 2005 It looks like a credible academic project, it has published a number of books and publishes a journal. I expect the books and journal would qualify as Reliable Sources, so I'm cautiously leaning towards accepting Kurdwatch as well. Does anyone have anything else to indicate pro-or-con on reliability? Alsee (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2015 (UTC) WAIT - on second thought: Reliable sources must be strong enough to support the claim. I was applying more typical RS standards. These are heavy weight claims, and they need multiple or clearly strong sourcing. So I say not sufficient as Reliable Source here. Not unless more evidence is established for the solidity of this source. Alsee (talk) 15:04, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The US Department of State cited Kurdwatch at least 4 times suggests reliability.
 * A bare listing at Human Rights Watch doesn't seem to say much.


 * I agree with Alsee, reliable source must be strong enought to support the claim, claims in Rojava article are heavy weight claims.
 * What is a final decision, it remains reliable source? -- Ferakp (talk) 20:26, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Ferakp, are you editing without login in ? it is Ok ofcourse but you need to declare it so that IP opinion doesnt get treated as a different opinion.
 * Alsee, obviously Kurdwatch cant be vetoed as reliable but its claims need it to be a very strong source (I cant understand how SOHR is any stronger).
 * Anyway, Kurdwatch is also being used by professors in academic books:
 * 1- Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies
 * 2- Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War by Michael M. Gunter is a professor of Political Science at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. He is the author of many critically praised scholarly books on the Kurdish question, the most recent being The Kurds Ascending: A Historical Dictionary of the Kurds.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:53, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me, I forgot to login. It seems that it will be difficult to classify Kurdwatch as a unreliable source despite even though it doesn't itself guarantee reliability of its news/reports. At this moment Rojava's article quality is really poor due to serious claims that are based on plain texts on Kurdwatch website. Many Kurdwatch reports are extremely inaccurate so it's impossible to even search for similar news/reports from other sources. However, Kurdwatch as a source is not enough for the claims that are mentioned in Rojava, so we can't keep them without other sources. Rojava article will be pretty messy if we start to write details about Kurdwatch reports reliability so I will suggest a new article "Human rights in Rojava" in talk page and I think it will be appropriate to transfer all Rojava's "Human Rights" section to this article. Details about Kurdwatch reports and its reliability will be mentioned there, is this a good solution? Ferakp (talk) 20:26, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I see Kurdwatch is enough just like SOHR. But anyway, your suggestion is great. But any criticism of Kurdwatch must be based on neutral sources with no personal opinion, just like the criticism section of SOHR. Plus, if Kurdwatch reliability issues will be mentioned then the criticism of SOHR will also be mentioned. Ofcourse, the new article shouldnt be for the sake of bashing Kurdwatch or SOHR, just short notes on their reliability.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 20:32, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Official residences
Re: Monarchy of Canada:  "The sovereign's principal official residences, as well as that primarily used by the governor general, are Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Ontario, and the Citadelle, in Quebec City."

The Glossary in A Crown of Maples Constitutional Monarchy in Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage, p. XVII says, "Government House: Her Majesty’s official residences in Canada, situated in Ottawa and most provincial capitals and occupied by the Queen’s representative. Government House in Ottawa is known as Rideau Hall." It provides no reference for the claim.

There are reliable official sources that each of these dwellings is the residence of a governor general or lieutenant governor, who all represent the queen, but none that they are the official representative residence of the Queen. I would expect if they were official residences that there would be an official source, such as legislation, orders in council, or case law. Also, "The official website of The British Monarchy" does not mention these residences although it has a section on Canada and lists her numerous official residences in the UK (See: "The Royal Residences".)

Who or what made them official residences, when was this done and does it apply to government houses in the dozens of government houses throughout the Queen's realms and territories? Or are they just unofficially official residences? I think this is an extraordinary claim that requires an extraordinary source explains the situation.

TFD (talk) 02:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * You're confusing "legal" (legislation, orders in council, case law), with "official" ("relating to an authority or public body and its duties"). This is no more an extraordinary claim than the fact that the official residence of the Governor General is Rideau Hall, or the official residence of the Prime Minister is 24 Sussex, and in fact there are two official sources below, it's rather straight forward:


 * 1) Crown of Maples (official Government of Canada publication put together by academic and professional experts): "Government House (“Rideau Hall”) is the official residence of Her Majesty The Queen", and "Her Majesty’s official residences in Canada, situated in Ottawa and most provincial capitals and occupied by the Queen’s representative [the governor general]. Government House in Ottawa is known as Rideau Hall."
 * 2) The Parliament of Canada's official journal, Parliamentary Review: "...Rideau Hall the Governor-General's and the monarch's official Canadian residence".
 * 3) From the book Fifty Years the Queen by Arthur Bousfield (published historian): "Rideau Hall was her home...the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Airforce - took turns mounting guard at her Ottawa residence [Rideau Hall]", and "She [the Queen of Canada] stayed at the Citadel, her official residence".
 * 4) From Canada's Constitutional Monarchy by Nathan Tidridge (multiple books published on Canada's constitutional affairs). "Serving as the Sovereign's primary Canadian residence, as well as the governor general's office and residence", and "Her Majesty's official residence in Canada...and occupied by the Queen's representative...".
 * 5) From Shelldrake: Canadian Artillery Museums and Gun Monuments by Harold A. Skaarup (published historian): "The Citadelle...has also been an official residence of the Queen in Right of Canada and the Governor General of Canada since 1872".
 * 6) From The Queen at the Council Fire: The Treaty of Niagara, Reconciliation, and the Dignified Crown in Canada by Nathan Tildridge (published author on several books on the Canadian constitution/monarchy), "Rideau Hall (the Queen's Canadian residence)".
 * 7) From Royal Tours 1786-2010: Home to Canada by Arthur Bousfield (a historian) and Garry Toffoli (both who have published numerous histories), "...as they mounted a guard for the first time at the queen's residence, Rideau Hall".
 * 8) The Complete Works of John Buchan (Illustrated) by John Buchan (former Governor General of Canada), "Rideau Hall, the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and the Governor General of Canada - Buchan's last home".
 * I have yet to see any sources stating that these residences are not official residences of the Queen of Canada, so in light of multiple reliable references supporting a clear fact, and no reliable sources contradicting this fact, I don't see what has lead the editor to believe that the Canadian head of state has no official residences in Canada. trackratte (talk) 04:05, 29 November 2015 (UTC)


 * It is impossible to prove a negative. If a source said that Rideau Hall was also the official residence of Celine Dion for example, it would be hard to find one that says it is not.  Instead I would ask for the official order that made it her residence.  And of course a good reliable secondary source that said it was her official residence would cite the fact to an official source.  TFD (talk) 00:38, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * TFD, if an official Government of Canada source, and a wide variety of other official and other secondary reliable sources said that Rideau Hall was also the official residence of Celine Dion, the governor general, and the queen, and no other source contradicted this fact, then it would be a fact and reflected as such within Wikipedia inline with Wikipedia's policy. It is not up to individual editors to arbitrarily determine for themselves what the "facts" really are, and then impose these unsubstantiated opinions on articles. It's an encyclopedia not an opinion or research forum. trackratte (talk) 04:34, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've 3 sources here, here and here, supporting that RH is the official residence of the Canadian Governor General. These are just 3 of many sources that present Rideau Hall is mostly & at times exclusively the Governor General's official residence. Per WP:WEIGHT, we should be reflecting this in related articles. GoodDay (talk) 04:07, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It is reflected in articles, and the sources above, for example: "...Rideau Hall the Governor-General's and the monarch's official Canadian residence". trackratte (talk) 04:37, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Not accurately reflected in the article Rideau Hall, though. The article's intro gives the impression that the Canadian monarch resides at RH, when in fact the Canadian monarch resides in the United Kingdom. GoodDay (talk) 04:39, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This is about sources used at Monarchy of Canada, not about editorial choices at a completely different article. And as an aside, no it doesn't give the impression that Elizabeth II resides in Canada, it doesn't say anything about her living Ottawa, it says "the official residence in Ottawa of both" the Queen and the Governor General, which is exactly what the reliable official, expert, and other secondary reliable sources say, ie it's simply a reliably sourced fact. In addition, "official residence" is blue-linked to ensure the reader knows what that term means if ever they are unsure. Wikipedia assumes that readers know what common terms in plain language mean, and as we know, the term is blue-linked just in case they don't. trackratte (talk) 05:15, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * By having Rideau Hall & Citdelle in the infobox. The infobox of that article creates a false impression. It also goes against WP:WEIGHT. Sources have been provided via Canadian news media (for example), that the Governor General 'only' is recognized as official resident of Rideau Hall. Anyways, I don't think there's going to ever be an agreement between us. It's best to allow others to decide on how to display such information. GoodDay (talk) 05:25, 4 December 2015 (UTC) repeated below, and responded to below, avoid having mirror conversations at multiple places running in parallel, especially as they are on the same page. trackratte (talk) 05:47, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The positive is already proven by several reliable sources, including the official stance of the Government of Canada. Thus, all of these reliable sources are not even disputed in any source. All of these sources also support the fact that the Governor General of Canada, as the Queen of Canada's constitutional representative, is also the official resident of Rideau Hall and the Citadel. Further sources supporting this fact are inline, and not against, the fact that these are the official residences of the Canadian crown. For example, the Government of Canada's official publications states that "Her Majesty’s official residences in Canada ... and occupied by the Queen’s representative [the governor general]". trackratte (talk) 04:23, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Let's not forget that "An official residence is the residence at which a nation's head of state...officially resides. It may or may not be the same location where the individual...actually lives". Actual occupation has nothing to do with the designated status of "official residence" for an office. trackratte (talk) 04:26, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Secondary sources favour the Governor General as the sole official resident of Rideau Hall. During the coverage of PM Trudeau's swearing in, little to no mention was made by CBC news, of RH being the Queen's official residence. Yet plenty was mentioned of RH being the Governor General's residence. WP:WEIGHT favour we show that the Governor General first & foremost is the official resident. GoodDay (talk) 04:42, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

With most sources supporting the Governor General as 'sole' official resident, we should remove both Rideau Hall & Citadel from the infobox of Monarchy of Canada. Also, having them in that article's infobox, only creates the false impression that the Canadian monarch resides in Canada. GoodDay (talk) 04:49, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * No it doesn't, it says right in the lead that "Elizabeth II lives predominantly in the United Kingdom". Second, there is a bluelink provided for official residence in the text in the case a reader did have questions regarding it.
 * Second, which sources state that Rideau Hall and the Citadel are official residences of solely the governor general and not the Queen? trackratte (talk) 04:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * CBC new & CTV news, during Trudeau's swearing in, mentiond in coverage & on their websites, that RH was the Governor General's official residence. Neither network mentioned the Queen as official resident. GoodDay (talk) 05:09, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * And why would they? It wasn't pertinent to their news coverage. In the same way they say 'Parliament passed a law today', instead of 'the Bill presented and passed in the House of Commons, and presented and passed in and by the Senate, was granted royal assent by the Governor General on behalf of the Queen of Canada today'. Just because some sources don't go into the details do not mean those details do not exist, particularly when the details are presented in several reliable sources, including official sources published by the Government of Canada and the Parliament of Canada. trackratte (talk) 05:20, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Going by WP:WEIGHT, we should be stressing that the Governor General is the official resident. To present the GG & the monarch as both official residents in the manner we have been doing, is creating a false impression of the situation. PS: We're never going to agree on how to display this information, so it's best to let others decide. GoodDay (talk) 05:27, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, going by weight, there are no two sides, the sources all say the same thing. Some sources don't provide further details, but some do, there is absolutely no source contradiction anywhere here. Secondly, sources such as scholarly articles, professional journal articles, official sources, and published histories have more weight than non-expert news stories. Third, official sources by the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada trump the Globe and Mail or Salmon Arm Review. Fourth, to present the GG & monarch as both official residents is simply a plain fact, to cut out either the governor general or the monarch, or both, is POV. Fifth, the officials determine what is an official residence or not, and as we can see from the official sources (as well as the rest), these are the official residences of the Canadian sovereign and her representative, plain and simple. This, also supported by the fact that the Canadian sovereign owns both properties. trackratte (talk) 05:47, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * We're never going to agree on this topic. So, it's best to allow others to decide. GoodDay (talk) 05:51, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This isn't a content dispute, but to determine if the above listed sources are reliable or not. Given that your stated purpose as a republican is to remove the monarch, I don't expect anything other than your clearly POV attempts "to delete the Canadian monarch from the infobox" regardless of sources. trackratte (talk) 06:20, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You're free to believe what you like. In the meantime, we'll have to allow others to judge the sources. GoodDay (talk) 06:24, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

From an uninvolved position, after reading this thread and looking at some sources, it would seem that a definitive reference for the Queen's official residences in Canada is the first cited reference (from above), Crown of Maples (2015), which is an official publication of the Canadian federal government's Department of Canadian Heritage. It states:
 * "Government House: Her Majesty’s official residences in Canada, situated in Ottawa and most provincial capitals and occupied by the Queen’s representative. Government House in Ottawa is known as Rideau Hall."

Elsewhere in that document, it is noted that Rideau Hall is the Queen's official residence, "when in Ottawa." Also noted, "Given that the Queen’s principal residence is in the United Kingdom, she cannot be in Canada at all times. It is for this reason that her Canadian representatives — the Governor General (federally) and Lieutenant Governors (provincially) — are appointed and act on her behalf in performing certain duties and responsibilities."

From the Governor General of Canada's official web site, "The Citadelle of Québec" article indicates that the Citadelle includes an official Residence of the Governor General.

Given these sources, my clear understanding is that, the Governor General and the Lieutenant Governors represent the Queen when she's not around (because, hey, she can't be everywhere at once), and usually live in official residences while doing so, and when the Queen is in town, those residences become her official residences. So it would seem that the very least that can be safely concluded from these most reliable of sources for this subject is that (according to the Government of Canada) the residences of the Governor General (Rideau Hall and the Citadelle) are also the official residences of the Queen. I can't see by Wikipedia's WP:RS standards, how we could need additional verification for this information. --Tsavage (talk) 01:41, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Um. I am uninvolved and hope to stay that way but as a Canadian it is clear to me that the Governor-General to all intents and purposes *is* the Queen in Canada. The fact that the Queenur usually lives in Britain is irrelevant. Yes it's a bit arcane, but so is pretending your country is a monarchy. Hopefully this helps.Elinruby (talk) 02:19, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Salon.com
The piece was originally published by The_Washington_Spectator with it's own editorial staff and a print circulation of 60,000. The piece was then reprinted by Salon.com. Salon's editorial staff can be viewed here. The piece in question has therefore been through two rounds of editorial review. Salon.com is cited in ~17,394 Wikipedia articles, indicating a rather substantial reputation as a reliable source in general.

Article: Rafael_Bienvenido_Cruz

The source is being cited for "How salon describes Cruz". Specifically:

"Salon described Cruz as a 'Dominionist, devoted to a movement that finds in Genesis a mandate that 'men of faith' seize control of public institutions and govern by biblical principle.'"

Rafael Cruz is primarily notable for his speeches at the intersection of religion and politics. Salon is far from the only source describing Cruz as Dominionist. Of particular note Encyclopedia Britannica says: Rafael Cruz, was a pastor with the Dominionist ministry

I'm posting because User:Winkelvi objects that Salon.com is "just the opinion of a Salon blogger".

I'd like to use the Salon cite because it was the top hit in my Google search, and because it conveniently includes a reader-helpful definition of Dominionist. If Salon is not an RS, would it be acceptable if I used Encyclopedia Britannica as an emergency replacement Reliable Source here? Or is Britannica also just the opinion of some blogger? Thanx! Alsee (talk) 00:55, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Definitely a RS. To argue against it is weird. It's not a blogger by any means, since it was in two publications that count as more of a real source than most. DreamGuy (talk) 01:06, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Salon is probably fine with attribution, but given the number of other sources attesting to Cruz's association with Dominionism, it might be better to pick a stronger source. (For example, from the National Journal: "(Cruz) has been iden­ti­fied over the years with a move­ment known as Chris­ti­an Domin­ion­ism. In a 2012 ser­mon pos­ted on­line, Ra­fael preached that Chris­ti­ans are 'anoin­ted' to 'take domin­ion' of every as­pect of life on Earth—'so­ci­ety, edu­ca­tion, gov­ern­ment, and eco­nom­ics.') MastCell Talk 01:10, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Concur with what's been said here. Also, the primary author, Louis Dubose, has what appears to be a healthy resume as a political journalist.   Gamaliel  ( talk ) 01:12, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * First of all, I have always been told by other experienced editors over the last three years that salon.com is not a reliable source. Secondly, sources may claim Cruz is a dominionist, however, if Cruz himself has not said he is a dominionist how can we claim he is? It's truly no different than when political publications say Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya, but if Barack Obama himself has not said he is born in Kenya, then we don't say he was born in Kenya. Reliable sources can still be reliable sources but if what they are publishing is opinion, we need to make sure that what we write indicates that it is opinion only and that the individual has not confirmed one way or the other.  This has been my problem with the dominionism content from the beginning: we have nothing saying that Cruz is a dominionist from his own mouth, or even from the mouth of his son.  One can attend a Catholic Church regularly, that doesn't make them Catholic.  Same with Cruz: he may attend a church that preaches Dominionism, but does that make him a Dominionism?  I say it does not.  Barack Obama for 20 years attended a church that preaches a certain Black Nationalism philosophy: he later denied he espoused those beliefs.  How is this instance with Rafael Cruz any different?  -- WV ● ✉ ✓  01:21, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * We go by reliable sources. If multiple reliable sources say he's a Dominionist, he's a Dominionist regardless of whether he says anything. Salon and Spectator are obvious reliable sources. There can be even better, and they exist too. Wikipedia follows the sources and not the subjects. DreamGuy (talk) 01:42, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * No. If a reporter gives an opinion -- doesn't back it with facts and proof -- we don't blindly go with what a reporter says because they work for an alleged reliable source.  If we truly did that, we would go with every op-ed in the NYT, LAT, and so on...because it's coming from a reporter who works for a major publication and they have journalistic oversight.  Never mind that the reporter has given no proof to support their opinion.  That's not the way to build an encyclopedia, that's the way to build a tabloid or online blog.  Someone needs to save Wikipedia from itself if that's truly what WP:VNT and WP:REF means.  -- WV ● ✉ ✓  02:44, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * So Winkelvi's original objection is that the information & cite came from Salon.Com. However, since every interview and article I've seen about Rafael Cruz describes him as being a Christian minister, I think it is valid to describe his particular theology in the associated Wikipedia article and to provide cites to back that information up...not every Christian sect is the same, not every theology described as being Christian is the same...for instance, there are many differences between Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostals/Charismatics and Church of England...yet all of these institutions are described as Christian churches by multiple reliable sources...  Veering off of the matter at hand (re Salon.Com etc) but how should Rafael Cruz's theology be described by Wikipedia.  He doesn't have a church, the Suzanne Hinn/Purifying Fire Ministries no longer exists, Cruz told National Journal writer Andy Kroll that "Puri­fy­ing Fire and Grace for Amer­ica are merely the names for his {Cruz'] trav­el­ing preach­ing busi­ness, which is based out of his apartment."  So what does Rafael Cruz believe, what is he on record as saying about his religious beliefs? Shearonink (talk) 05:01, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Shearonink, Cruz is extensively on the record in sermons and in political speeches (which are commonly compared to sermons). He preaches/campaigns that God has anointed Christians to take dominion over Government, business, and social institutions. I find it amusing that he preaches that God will transfer wealth from the unrighteous to the righteous during the end days.... but only if you tithe lots of money to him now. As far as I know Cruz has not publicly described himself as a Dominionist (it would be politically inconvenient to do so). However sources, up to and including Encyclopedia Britannica, routinely use "Dominionist" in connection to Cruz. Some people think "Dominionist" is a positive term, some people think it is a negative term. The issue here is whether we should expunge that word, and expunge the Weight of Reliable Sources using that word, because Cruz himself has not publicly described himself with that word. Can we quote them using that word. Alsee (talk) 05:49, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * If someone said they believed that Jesus was God and the Son of God, but never specifically said that they themselves were Christian but multiple reliable sources described them as such then I think Wikipedia would also describe them as such (with appropriate information & cites). Not every Christian follows what Raphael Cruz preaches, I think it is important to delineate what particular theology and tenets he espouses. Shearonink (talk) 18:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * WV, I appreciate and share your concern to be very careful with biographies. Particularly when it comes to something like religion. "if Cruz himself has not said he is a dominionist how can we claim he is?" - We don't. You cited it yourself - we deal in Verifiability, not truth. We don't debate the Truth of it. It is Verifiable to say Salon describes him that way. When there are a pile of valid sources all saying basically the same thing then it is Due Weight to accurately inform the reader what those source are saying. Our job is to summarize what Reliable Sources say, with due caution on BLP-sensitive aspects. We don't allow attack-POV, but we also don't whitewash anything Weighty. Alsee (talk) 05:49, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * We also don't allow undue weight. As long as there is no undue weight, the content is worded NPOV, doesn't try to lead a reader to a conclusion via insinuation, and it is clear the writers of the articles are claiming Cruz is a Dominionist and Cruz has never said he is a Dominionist, there should be no issue(s).  If the content, however is attempted to be used subjectively to paint the article subject and his son as fringe religionists, we will have problem. -- WV ● ✉ ✓  06:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * WV, sounds good to me. I've already backed you up on several of those points. My first priority was to get those issues under control, then more carefully bring in what was appropriate. Alsee (talk) 09:33, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * WV, you're trying to define UNDUE as "anything I disagree with". That's not UNDUE, that's OR and POV. The strongly reliable sources say he is it, period, end of discussion. And Cruz is a Dominionist, regardless of what he says and regardless what you say. DreamGuy (talk) 02:07, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

@WV: "No. If a reporter gives an opinion -- doesn't back it with facts and proof -- we don't blindly go with what a reporter says because they work for an alleged reliable source." In fact this is how Wikipedia works, although obviously not blindly. We do actually discuss if a source is the right kind to be reliable for the case.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:55, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Something else to consider per WP:V
 * Exceptional claims require exceptional sources - Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources.[11] Red flags that should prompt extra caution include:
 * surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources;
 * challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest;[8]
 * reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, or against an interest they had previously defended;
 * claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living people. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them.
 * I agree with WV and will add that the claim could certainly be considered exceptional. Atsme 📞📧 02:33, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Atsme, Could you clarify what you think could possibly be an exceptional claim here? There's not one line in RedFlag that remotely applies. We have someone extensively on the record preaching dominion, everything is absolutely in character and unsurprising, we have a multitude of sources, there appear to be zero sources contradicting it, and the sourcing goes all the way up to Encyclopedia Britannica. Alsee (talk) 18:12, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * If the sources are not bipartisan (Salon reports from a liberal perspective and the US is gearing up for the 2016 presidential election), and the man himself does not admit to the claim, then it's considered exceptional. WV provided an in-depth explanation. Atsme 📞📧 18:25, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme, this started with Salon being a "blog", and now Encyclopedia Britannica is a worthless left wing rag part of a WP:REDFLAG lacking any neutral or bipartisan sources ?? Alsee (talk) 22:17, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * P.S. Your argument is also contrary to Policy. But lets address Britannica first. Alsee (talk) 22:41, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The question was whether it's a reliable source. It is. There are also more extensive others sources saying the same thing. All the arguing in the world won't change that. At this point the question is asked and answered. All the wikilawyering in the world won't change that. We're done here. If you want to take it elsewhere, feel free.DreamGuy (talk) 01:50, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * , please stop your unwarranted allegations that what I suggested is biased or contrary to policy, especially in light of WP:IAR which allows for the application of common sense. Your bullying with the innuendo that I or anyone else suggested the Encyclopedia Britannica is a worthless left wing rag are your words, not mine. Please focus on the original question not the editors who are here to offer a response from a different perspective.  RS/N is for reaching consensus and should be void of PAs and any form of battleground mentality simply because an editor disagrees.  In a nutshell, if the involved majority believes a consensus has been reached, then an uninvolved editor needs to close this discussion noting the prevailing consensus.  Good day.  <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 19:37, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * You misinterpreted an innocent link. I linked a Policy named WP:BIASED because it addresses biased sources . I never alleged you or your argument were biased. I was not bullying or making PA.
 * I apologize for my 'rag' hyperbole. I struck and corrected it. Alsee (talk) 10:19, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the explanation, . After further thought about citing what appears to be a cherrypicked comment from Salon regarding the religious beliefs of a BLP, I offer the following suggestion: Since this RS/N was about citing Salon and not the Britannica, why not simply comply unambiguously with NPOV and remove the partisan comment from Salon, and use the encyclopedic information in the Britannica Book of the Year 2014 instead?  Problems arise when partisan sources are used in what appears to be an attempt to discredit or exemplify something that could be misconstrued as a negative about a BLP - not saying that is the case here, but it does have the same flavor.  Salon articles are undeniably written from a liberal perspective; therefore, their articles and editorials tend to be questionable at best.  It is probably best to avoid political and religious comments published in partisan sources like Salon and Breitbart when the US is gearing up for a presidential election.  I'm not saying we can't use biased sources under the right circumstances and with the utmost respect to UNDUE and NPOV.  I'm also not denying that the Britannica is a RS (tertiary).  What I don't understand is why this particular BLP must include a religious comment by Salon.  It's rather obvious what they attempted to do when they wrote the piece.  Why not just include the Britannica's version of the man's religious leanings with an inline citation?  The following source provides both sides of the man's religious leanings, .  BLPs about pastors, priests, rabbis and/or imams, for example, can be touchy areas for editors which makes the choice of RS even more important than say an article about the tensile strength of structural steel.  We are also allowed to cite a tertiary source when warranted, and this appears to be the perfect situation considering the political overtures of Salon and the upcoming presidential election.  Happy editing. SMirC-thumbsup.svg <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 21:19, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I opened article talk about possibly replacing the Salon source 5 days ago :) Alsee (talk) 05:25, 7 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I think that questioning the reliability of Salon as a source is just one of many diversions. I offered many sources (which WV rejected) as the basis of my edits for the dominionism references. Here's but one: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/ted-cruz-rafael-father-video-christian-tea-party That article has many embedded video references of what Cruz said to different audiences. A main speech has been removed by its owners from the Internet, presumably because explaining the remarks of Cruz away has become a bit of a liability and formidable task, but excerpts remain which are embedded in that story. These sources all consistently pretty much say the same thing. There are over a hundred of them. They are certainly not all wrong. In one of the MJ videos Cruz says Obama needs to go "back to Kenya," by the way, with a good deal more of extremely startling additional rhetoric. Activist (talk) 12:08, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * So,, now your anti-Cruz POV and bias is out in the open and the reasons why you have been working so pointily to add the amount of undue weight on certain aspects of his life and religious beliefs along with sources that share your anti- bias is exposed. Good.  This will cause me to take an even more cautious approach in regard to your edits at the article.  See, I don't care one way or the other about the man or his son.  I just care about the integrity of Wikipedia's BLP policies being upheld and that the readers of such BLPs come away with an informative, balanced, and NPOV experience.  Perhaps you now will better understand my motivation at the article in question.  I'm certainly glad I now better understand yours. -- <span style="text-shadow: 4px 4px 15px #0099FF, -4px -4px 15px #99FF00;">WV ● <span style="text-shadow: 4px 4px 15px #FF9900, -4px -4px 15px #FF0099;">✉ ✓  15:16, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * It's fine for us to attribute what Salon has said. If even better sources have also said it, then we can use them instead.  I don't see a problem here.  It's clearly not just the opinion of some blogger.  The other issues can be resolved at WP:BLPN or WP:NPOVN, though I hope this drama will simply get dropped. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:05, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

New York Post
Is the New York Post considered a reliable source? In particular I would like to determine whether this is a reliable source or not? ParkH.Davis (talk) 00:45, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The New York Post has to be used with caution as it can sometimes have a clear bias. Whether it can be used as a reliable source depends on the content it is used to support. What information are you pulling from the article? Meatsgains (talk) 02:12, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Another editor actually added the reference from the NY Post, but it has since been removed by a third editor. The information was used in the "motive" section of the infobox for 2015 Colorado Springs shooting.  ParkH.Davis (talk) 02:36, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like the issue is resolved. Using the New York Post as a reference on such a controversial event would be tough to do. Meatsgains (talk) 15:16, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Re-examining TMZ
I know TMZ has been brought up before, but I wanted to bring up the subject again. As noted in Potentially_unreliable_sources, TMZ "is increasingly seen as credible by other news agencies." Also, since the last noticeboard discussion that I could find, TMZ has actually been nominated for an Emmy (for its TV show, as an "Outstanding Entertainment News Program"). Despite them being the source that has broken a lot of major stories, it is rarely referenced in any relevant articles because there is a stigma about it being TMZ simply because "it's TMZ." Can we say that being nominated for a news-related Emmy meets the criteria of being a reliable source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdude04 (talk • contribs)
 * Reliability is contextual. What do you want to cite them for? --Aquillion (talk) 20:06, 5 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The main problem with TMZ is weight. If something is only covered in TMZ, then it is usually too trivial to mention. The lead story on their website today is about how Khloe Kardashian arrived at a hospital after the birth of her nephew. While I have no doubt it is true, I question whether her article should mention all the mundane details of her life which only get covered in TMZ due to her celebrity status.  Of course if the New York Times picks up the story, then that could provide an argument for inclusion.  TFD (talk) 20:36, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed with TFD. TMZ is the type species for an entire genus of personality-driven tabloid sensationalism that doesn't belong in a high-quality encyclopedia. We have a clear policy directive to treat living people with sensitivity and write about them conservatively. If the only source for something is TMZ, that suggests we shouldn't be talking about it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:01, 5 December 2015 (UTC)


 * We rely on reliable sources, including to help determine which sources are reliable. By that measure, it would seem that any source that is nominated for an Emmy Award as an outstanding news source, and has been mentioned by other reliable sources in a way that suggests it "is increasingly seen as credible by other news agencies," cannot be dismissed out of hand, regardless of the general nature of its content, and should be fine for consideration as an RS on a case by case basis. --Tsavage (talk) 23:04, 5 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd just say no. There are better sources, and if it's not there then we don't care anyway. It's how it wants to be known, and an entertainment award for news still means it's entertainment. DreamGuy (talk) 17:40, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it is still a tabloid and relies on "celebrity gossip". And as stated above, there are plenty of better RS news sources for "entertainment" news. Kierzek (talk) 14:04, 7 December 2015 (UTC)


 * What if TMZ is the one that broke the story, and then was subsequently picked up by other sources like The New York Times, and we include the NYT ref as well....but it is noteworthy that TMZ broke the story first so in that context wouldn't we consider TMZ an RS? See Donald Sterling and Ray Rice as examples. Mdude04 (talk) 22:53, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Nerdly?
Would any of you consider Nerdly to be usable? I've read the site in the past and offhand they look to be usable enough. They do have an editorial board and they've received some mention in the media for things like this. The site's editor, Phil Wheat, wrote for Blogomatic3000, which was listed as a source in this academic text.

The reason I'm asking is that this being seen as a RS would greatly help with the deletion discussion for Assassin (2015 film) and would actually enable the film to pass notability guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  10:06, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Not sure where you discovered that Phil Wheat wrote for Blogomatic3000. If you could provide a link to confirm that would be great. If in fact he is a reputable editor, then I'd say yes, Nerdly could be used as a reliable source. Meatsgains (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Patrick Agte on Jochen Peiper (WWII)
Article: Joachim Peiper

Source:

Content that the source is supporting:


 * In 1934, during the annual Nuremberg Rally Peiper gained the attention of Heinrich Himmler. Himmler convinced him to enlist in the SS-Verfügungstruppe ....


 * He developed the tactic of attacking enemy-held villages by night from all sides while advancing in his armored half-tracks at full speed, firing at every building. This tactic often set the building's straw roofs on fire and contributed to panic among enemy troops. Peiper's unit gained the nickname the "Blowtorch Battalion" as a result.


 * Exploiting the confusion among the enemy, the battalion advanced on Leninskij and broke the last resistance. By an immediate advance, he inflicted heavy losses on the enemy which was fleeing through open fields. The battalion destroyed one T-34, six guns 7.62 and captured 300 horses. Three sledge columns were routed. The enemy casualties amounted about to anywhere from 800 to 900. SS-Sturmbannführer Peiper has distinguished himself in all these fights by a sensible command of his battalion and personal bravery and has proven himself worthy of the Deutsches Kreuz in Gold.


 * Peiper had just started writing a book about Malmedy and what followed.


 * Twelve days later, Peiper demonstrated his military skill when he led his unit at full speed through Russian positions in a surprise attack on Belgorod, causing the surprised Russians to flee.

The work in question - Jochen Peiper: Commander Panzerregiment Leibstandarte - has been referred to as hagiography in Agte is referred to as a "Neo-nazi" in Rethinking the Space for Religion by Catharina Raudvere and al.

It should also be noted that Agte was closely associated with Waffen-SS revisionist organisation HIAG. Perceived by the West German government to be a Nazi organization, it was disbanded in 1992, per HIAG's periodical Der Freiwillige (De wikipedia) (The Volunteer), continued on and Agte was (is?) its publisher. He is the current owner of Munin Verlag GmbH, a right-wing extremist German publishing company (De wikipedia). -- K.e.coffman (talk) 18:40, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Books published by J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing have been described as 'romancing' Nazi Germany's war effort, and I would't treat them as reliable sources. The other commentary relating to this source and its author should rule it out IMO. Nick-D (talk) 07:07, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I have two books they have published (not this one) and can tell you that not all of their books meet that opinion stated; but in this case, I would agree that Agte is shown to clearly not be one writing from an NPOV standpoint or objectively on the subject. There are other objective books on Peiper which can be used for sources/citing instead. Kierzek (talk) 12:43, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Tampa Tribune vs. Yahoo! News in Personal life section of Graig Weich
Hi. I don't want to load too many redundant citations at the end of a passage, particularly when the sources say pretty much the thing (presumably because both are derived from the same AP source). So for this passage (and for future reference), which would be the stronger, more reliable source, if either: [http://news.yahoo.com/photos/image-distributed-disney-consumer-products-graig-weich-manhattan-photo-130901709.html Yahoo! News], or the Tampa Tribune? Nightscream (talk) 20:16, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Since both stories are wire reports from the Associated Press, including the pictures, the best source would be the Associated Press article, otherwise they are both equal. Both are redistributed wire reports with no staff actually adding any journalistic value. Lipsquid (talk) 21:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)


 * If you source AP, then you should also say where you got it. But the newspaper source says that staff were involved in writing it, which could means is probably not exactly the same as the original.  TFD (talk) 21:59, 9 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Nice catch, it says "Staff and Wire" so the Tampa Tribune should be seen as slightly more reliable. The original AP report would still be best. Lipsquid (talk) 22:16, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Direct democracy Ireland
on the DDI page there is alot of unreliable information which is not allowed to be edited.Railsparks (talk) 20:13, 10 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Specifically? Gob Lofa (talk) 20:19, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

"Right-wing" no evidence and it is not even mentioned in any of the referencesRailsparks (talk) 21:35, 10 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Not one? Gob Lofa (talk) 21:38, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

fair enough right-wing is mentioned once but its to do with another political not even in ireland,just because you try to compare one party to another that does not make them right-wing or left-wing as i said before there is no evidence to substantiate the claim that DDI is right-wing "Would you agree on that point"Railsparks (talk) 23:00, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Mayweather–Pacquiao / PPV figures
Multiple sources since September have reported the pay-per-view figure of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao to be 4.6 million sales. Initial estimates were 4.4 million. However, User:TwoNyce disagrees and insists on sticking with the original 4.4 million figure at the Floyd Mayweather, Jr. article. He has twice reverted my edits to reflect the new figures, and claims he will keep doing so. Therefore, I present a handful of reliable and recent sources which all state 4.6 million as the sales figure:


 * Yahoo! Sports: "Espinoza said sales of that fight are now up to 4.6 million, which is where he expects them to settle."
 * ESPN: "The pay-per-view sales record for that fight has been amended from the originally announced 4.4 million buys to 4.6 million."
 * Business Insider: "Mayweather's previous fight against Manny Pacquiao drew 4.6 million PPV sales."
 * International Business Times: "... Mayweather's May 2 mega-bout with Pacquiao, which generated 4.6 million buys. "

Must I produce even more to convince him to let my edits stick? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 15:56, 10 December 2015 (UTC)


 * ESPN is a top tier source for sports info, and it explicitly updates the figure from 4.4 to 4.6. The multiple sourcing clearly shows this isn't some anomalous report. I'm baffled why someone would resist updating explicitly amended figures. Alsee (talk) 01:56, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Use of advocacy orgs as sources in Campus sexual assault article.
A couple of editors have recently insisted on large content additions to the that pull exclusively from Know Your IX and End Sexual Violence organizations. Sample edits by a new, single issue editor include and  by one editor. After the content was removed due to WP:RS concerns by me, another predominantly single editor issue editor restored it.


 * Know Your IX describes itself as here.
 * End Sexual Violence describes itself here.

Are these reliable sources?Mattnad (talk) 00:38, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Query seems to conflate reliability with bias. Inclusion or exclusion of this content is an editorial decision that should be decided on the article talk page. VQuakr (talk) 01:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * As VQuakr notes, there's no firm rule against citing advocacy sources, and you yourself have included several citations from advocacy sources in that very article. I think there portions of those additions that could use some editing, but I reverted you because it seemed like you undid several workable edits while providing nothing more than an edit summary that appeared to misapprehend the rule it cited. It seems hasty to bring this to a noticeboard before making any effort to discuss it on the talk page.


 * As a side note: all first time editors are "single issue editors" by definition, and maybe it would be better to offer some friendly advice and mentorship rather than biting the newcomer. Nblund (talk) 02:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * As it happens, I did provide the new editor with friendly advice with a detailed explanation on his or her talk page. And let's be clear, you've argue against including material from rights organizations unless it's covered in a reliable source like a newspaper, and then only if it's characterized as opinion (which I'm fine with).  You didn't have the same reservations with the material when you wholesale reverted it back into the article until you thought better of it later and removed it.Mattnad (talk) 15:56, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

2014 "correction of the year"
Craig Silverman at Poynter Institute says:
 * This New York Times correction combines Kimye, butts and a writer treating a fake news website and a fake radio station as real. Bravo:
 * An earlier version of this column was published in error. That version included what purported to be an interview that Kanye West gave to a Chicago radio station in which he compared his own derrière to that of his wife, Kim Kardashian. Mr. West’s quotes were taken, without attribution, from the satirical website The Daily Currant. There is no radio station WGYN in Chicago; the interview was fictitious, and should not have been included in the column.

It is slightly possible that the Gray Lady was a tad wrong in not fact-checking (or laugh-checking) a claim about a living person. Collect (talk) 16:17, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Reason Magazine at David Lisak
Is Reason, a libertarian think tank and magazine known for its longstanding opposition to anti-rape activism, a reliable source to support over one quarter of the biography of David Lisak, a prominent researcher of rape? Jvpwiki argues that the claims sourced to Reason are not disparaging but only "raised some questions about the subject's activities" and also argues that it's fine since the controversy section is shorter than the section on the BLP subject's research; while I argue that in order to claim that "controversy" about Lisak's research exists at all, reliable sources must first be cited, and then due weight must be observed according to the quality of the sources. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 23:03, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's accurate to call Reason "opposed to anti-rape activism". Even if you believe it's true, it doesn't help make your point here. This is the version and text wants included for reference. I think Reason is a reliable source for Reason's reporter's personal conduct (probably an WP:UNDUE issue here though) and if there's actually links to articles, the actual criticism seems to be from a Dr. Mary P. Koss at the University of Arizona. So the question is, is Koss a reliable source or does Koss have a WP:FRINGE view in criticizing Lisak's work? Reason seems to be the middleman here. There's also Talk:David_Lisak for reference where a 3rd opinion seemed to support Jvpwiki. It needs to be tightened to focus on Koss to me who seems to be a reliable source. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:17, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * There's also the issue of due weight. Even if a controversy sourced entirely to Reason can be included at all, Jvp's edit makes it one quarter of the article - compare the varied and reliable sourcing for the information about his research. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 00:27, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Reason falls under WP:BIASED (if one is charitable), but the way it's being used here by Jvpwiki is a massive violation of due weight. Massive. MastCell Talk 00:52, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * David Lisak's work has had a huge influence on how allegations of sexual assault are being handled on campus and elsewhere. The fates of thousands are affected. Valid questions have been raised in academic quarters and elsewhere about the methodology and application of that work. (Example: follow-up interviews of anonymous subjects.) I take no stand in my editing; for example I removed the word "alleged" from the original article's report of the research because of its implied bias. I added a report of the controversy in a concise way. If the complaint is that the controversy section has too many words, then please make that clear; how many need to be excised, in your opinion? Roscelese is simply deleting anything that could be construed as negative regarding the research. This is censorship more than editing. His original deletions included several segments of the original article prior to my edits because, again, they implied a critique of the research. When I restored the cuts after making further edits in an attempt to mollify him, he has reverted over and over, each time adding various insults in arrogant tones. I turned to 3O using a neutral description of the issue and the editor who replied concurred that the controversy should be included in the article. It is not the article that is controversial; the article includes information about a significant controversy. JCvP 02:36, 10 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jvpwiki (talk • contribs)
 * Then provide sources about said "questions" being raised. Academic sources. And no, a reporter remarking that he was hung up upon when he bugged the guy doesn't count. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:59, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Reason entries are almost all commentaries rather than news reports and therefore are not reliable for facts. While anything written there is a reliable source for what its author wrote, weight prevents use in most cases.  Also, the value of a scholar's academic work should be assessed by its reception in the academic literature, not what columnists think.  TFD (talk) 01:13, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Let me add one more observation, this particular Reason article mostly reports on the reporter's own investigation and analysis, that is, what she did, observed, and concluded (for example, using one thing that was pointed out in the addition to the Wikipedia article, the statement that Lisak ended the call after she asked a particular question is the reporter's observation of something that happened to her). As a report by a first party participant, this Reason article is mostly and perhaps entirely a primary source and subject to the restrictions set out in that policy, most importantly, "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." (Emphasis in original.) It is also subject to the BLP policy section on primary sources which says to, "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources." Thus, to extend the prior example, characterizing Lisaks' ending the call (which is what was stated in the Reason article) as "Lisak hung up the phone" is an improper and incautious interpretation of the source. I express no opinion about the reliability of the Reason article and these observations are based upon the assumption that is is reliable. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 02:31, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Reason could be compared to Salon, which has been cited over 17,000 times and is considered a reliable source in general even though its "entries are almost all commentaries rather than news reports". Reason has been cited over 1,100 times. I'm not in sympathy with its politics, but I assume that should not disqualify it as a source for a significant part of an article. JCvP 02:41, 10 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jvpwiki (talk • contribs)
 * The article referred to by TransporterMan cites other sources and is not a primary source unless investigative journalism as such is primary. A full professor at the University of Arizona is cited (Prof. Koss, who is not the author of the article) and her scholarly objections to the methods of research and their promotion are detailed in the article. JCvP 02:47, 10 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jvpwiki (talk • contribs)
 * And much of investigative journalism is, indeed, a primary source. To the extent that the reporter merely repeats or reports upon what someone else has done, however, then it's a secondary source. A piece can be primary in part and secondary in part. In reading through the piece quickly, I was left with the impression that it was, as I said, mostly primary, but on a closer analysis it may well indeed only be partly primary. But even if it is primary that doesn't mean that it cannot be used if the conclusion here is that it is, in general, a reliable source and if the restrictions imposed by PRIMARY and BLPPRIMARY are observed. Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 20:23, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The Koss et al. paper which is one of the bases behind the Reason article certainly meets minimal standards for academic writings, but it is quite new and untested in terms of its impact. It's too much to base a "controversy" section on this; you would need a wider spread of sources for that, and in particular third-party non-participants. OTOH there is a smell of "anyone who disagrees with the orthodox position is of course insignificant" to this dispute. At any rate this is a biography and not an article about date rape etc., so it would be questionable to go heavily into this unless the "controversy" came to be associated with Lisak's personal "failings". Mangoe (talk) 02:58, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. At best we have a single sentence that a reliable academic paper questions or disputes. A controversy section is beyond overblown here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:59, 10 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Linda M. LeFauve is not a reporter, she is described as a "contributor" to Reason and her full-time position is Associate Vice President for Planning and Institutional Research at Davidson College, which is an administrative position. And while the Koss et al paper qualifies as a reliable source, there is an issue of weight and we would need to show the degree of support it has.  If a story is picked up only in non-mainstream writing, it usually means it lacks weight for inclusion, but that is beyond the scope of this noticeboard.  TFD (talk) 18:18, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Reason is, as I understand it, an advocacy outlet, not a newspaper -- it's mostly opinion pieces. It can sometimes be cited for its own opinions, but the extent to which it's used here is clearly grossly WP:UNDUE, since their view in most things is generally WP:FRINGE.  When something is covered only by them, it should get a sentence or two at most, generally attributed to them directly as their opinion. --Aquillion (talk) 21:03, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment I'd suggest this be closed as another discussion is now going on at Dispute resolution noticeboard. Meanwhile the article has been revised to quote NY Magazine quoting Reason's two hit and run blog entries, rather than their actual contributors or the actual academic source and to downplay the Huffington Post response. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 18:04, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Irish Travellers
I need some help to decide if a source from 1909 is a reliable source or not. First of all, for some reason, some editors tried to remove the Romani origin theories from the Irish Travellers article in the past. Therefore, the "Origins" section is a quite sensitive part of the article. I placed a "dated source" tag  for Meyer's source in April because I assumed it wasn't appropriate for Wikipedia. After more than half a year, I decided to remove it from the article, but according to an editor there is nothing wrong with the reliability of the source (the dispute is here: Talk:Irish Travellers). I'm not a language expert, however, I think we should use up-to-date sources instead of questionable ones. Fakirbakir (talk) 21:35, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I am just here asking my own question but the age itself of the source is not an issue if that is all that is wrong with it. I have not looked at the article and am not volunteering to do so but if the source is being cited for the *history* or *ethnography* of this group, age might actually make it a little better. It has to be verifiable, not necessarily easily, but possible to verify. If the claim is something to do with genetics or biology or psychology, obviously the field will have changed a lot aned the issue of the source will be of more concern. Elinruby (talk) 00:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)


 * , It is to do with the Traveller language Shelta going back to the 13th century, it is a work by Kuno Meyer. Murry1975 (talk) 09:40, 14 December 2015 (UTC)


 * @Murry1975 @Fakirbakir so it's history? linguistics? hmm. Are there sources that say something *else*? Is it a language isolate? Elinruby (talk) 20:50, 14 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I found some discussions of these sources here and here, it seems that these scholars' contribution to the historical debate over Shelta's origins is well known and notable. That said, those discussions make it clear that their scholarship was very much rooted in the class/ethnic assumptions and hierarchies of their time, so while the opinions of Meyer and Sampson may be worth mentioning in the article, I don't think that we can treat what they said as unproblematic facts unless more recent sources corroborate them. There appears to be a considerable amount of more recent scholarship which would be much better sources for the article, if someone could get their hands on Alice Binchley's chapter in this book that looks like it would be a good place to start, it's a review article from just a few years ago. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:32, 15 December 2015 (UTC)


 * They are cited on the Shelta page too. At least the Meyer is. There is also a 2002 reference in the origins section that looks pretty authoritative (Trinity University) -- do any of you have access to that? Elinruby (talk) 04:06, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Are there facts or assertions that are being disputed besides where the language came from? I gather from some of the comments above that the author had some of the less endearing qualities of ethnography at that era? Elinruby (talk) 03:58, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Kindle
I have a kindle books,, written by the subject of the article James Peck. Seems to be an WP:SPS but presumably there is an exception here for facts about the artist himself eg his travels? As an aside does anyone have any guidance on how to cite a kindle book as it doesn't have conventional pages? WCM email 00:35, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ebooks (including Kindle books) are generally treated the same way as regular books. Ebooks do usually have pages just like normal books, but it's not a dealbreaker if you can't find the page number (it's certainly preferred). The big question is what you want to use it for. The most relevant guideline to consider is WP:PRIMARY, which explains that secondary sources are most often preferably to primary sources, but that there are uses for primary sources (for a biography of a living person, for example, we could use a primary source for information about, say, that person's hometown or religion). Before using that source it's also worth considering that it's a self-published source. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 01:40, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I wanted to use it for some personal stuff eg his band, studying in the UK and Australia, travelling between the Falklands and South America. WCM email 09:48, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

On page numbers/citation, both APA and the Chicago Manual of Style recommend including the chapter/section title when you're citing a specific part of an ebook without page numbers, and APA recommends also including a paragraph number (counting up from the first paragraph in that section/chapter) as well. Either one of those approaches is probably acceptable. Don't use kindle's "location numbers," they are not consistent across devices/users. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:45, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Local sources, local coverage
In Articles for deletion/Nextiva Inc. and a number of other recent AfDs I've been involved in, editors have used the argument that a source is "local" against it. For example "Local newspapers are similarly unreliable with local firms" and the dismissal of The Arizona Republic as a "local" source. I don't understand this negative view of local sources, and it's not written up in any of the policies and essays about sources that I can find. I've also searched the archives on this page and have found some similar examples of bias against "local" sources.

So what is it about local sources that is negative? How do we define what is a local source? The Arizona Republic is in the top 25 newspaper by circulation in the US, so it's hardly a fly-by-night operation. Why isn't the supposed concern about "local" sources written up in any of our policies? I'm confused and would appreciate some input. Sbwoodside (talk) 03:55, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:AUD is a relevant section of the notability guideline for organizations that helps to define the term. VQuakr (talk) 04:16, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The issue was whether coverage in local papers only can establish notability. They can provided the coverage is extensive and ongoing.  If a local paper runs a story about a new business set up in town, which they frequently do, it does not establish notability.  TFD (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2015 (UTC)


 * But there is no reason that local sources cannot be reliable.Martinlc (talk) 22:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Reliability is contextual. They are reliable as a source for facts, but often not for establishing WP:WEIGHT or relevance. --Aquillion (talk) 20:21, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I think a) The Republic is not a local paper and b) in some cases the local paper is in fact the best source. I follow politics in New Mexico fairly closely and to some extent Arizona because of the overlapping tribal and land issues and my personal gold standard for environmental issues is Hopi public radio. That is a local news source. The Republic I would consider reliable for anything in Arizona. I'd have to know it and the issues better to evaluate it for slant on a particular point. Elinruby (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * In many cases, when someone says "Only local coverage" what they mean is "no one outside of the immediate area has written about it". The Arizona Republic looks like a good source; the person's concern was perhaps something like "All the sources are coming from Pheonix". Howicus (Did I mess up?) 21:47, 14 December 2015 (UTC)


 * could be. I was just coming back to clarify my remarks since I realized that it might be important to say that in my example above I was talking about uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, not on Wikipedia, so I am not necessarily expressing Wikipedia policy here, just the reality of the extreme extreme emptiness of the American Southwest. Anyway, my point is that uranium mining in the Grand Canyon is notable, and if we don't have an article on it we should, whether or not the Wall Street Journal has done an article. But I am very very very sure that the Repubic and Indiannewstoday have written an order of magnitude more about it than the New York Times or any "national" paper. If you are saying nothing in flyover country gets an article until the news media on the coasts have taken notice, give me a break. I am involved in a heroic cleanup of somebody's insane project to import a machine translation of a Japanese guidebook to Paris. Or something. If individual streets in Paris get pages based on what the algorithm was probably trying to say, then I think there is a pretty low bar for anything that has news coverage at all. Elinruby (talk) 04:20, 15 December 2015 (UTC)


 * bottom line, now that I look at the context a little more, I think you would have to consider the Republic as a regional news source and maybe national, if that is at issue. I've quoted it on the subject of the Washington Redskins name, because the lady who sued lives on the Navaho reservation in far northeastern Arizona and they wrote a great interview. My larger point is that these definitions/guidelines are really rather ethnocentric in that they assume that if it's important the "big papers" will take notice. Not so. Over in New Mexico some of the best political coverage is coming out of the blogs, one of the regional papers is nakedly partisan, and a lot that goes on never gets covered at all. This is for major news stories like the Secretary of State getting arrested on corruption charges. I had a very difficult time finding Wikipedia-acceptable sources for that. Elinruby (talk) 18:45, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Non-peer-reviewed paper used as sole source for two paragraphs of empirical content
At Talk:Genetically_modified_fish a discussion has occurred where an editor User:DrChrissy with known WP:OWN problems is insisting their preferred content is okay.

The controversy is that the following source is used as the sole citation for two paragraphs that make a variety of empirical claims about the characteristics of genetically engineered fish:



The source in question is a report that apparently did not receive peer review and was "commissioned by Compassion in World Farming and made possible by a grant from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA)." This is dubious at best. I suggest either finding a new source for the content that it footnotes or removing the content altogether.

The person who wrote the content and included the source refuses to accept that peer-review is necessary for the content, in spite of WP:SCHOLARSHIP.

Cross-posted to WP:FTN.

jps (talk) 02:08, 9 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The article is by Donald Broom who is a recognized expert in animal welfare and published by Compassion in World Farming a reputable advocacy group for animal welfare. The World Society for the Protection of Animals, now called World Animal Protection appears to be reputable too.  There is nothing requiring peer-reviewed writing for sources.  It could be that there is a weight problem but that is better discussed at the NPOV noticeboard.  TFD (talk) 02:31, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Why can I not find a peer-reviewed article that corroborates the claim? Isn't that a WP:REDFLAG? jps (talk) 02:46, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

It would have been helpful if you had mentioned which claim you dispute. However, the first claim in the Wikipedia article sourced to Broom says, "In transgenic fast-growing fish genetically modified for growth hormone, the mosaic founder fish vary greatly in their growth rate." That claim is made in Broom's paper (section 7.3.1.1) and is sourced to two peer reviewed articles:
 * Devlin, R.H., Yesaki, T.Y., Donaldson, E.M. and Hew, C.-L. 1995. "Transmission and phenotypic effects of an antifreeze/GH gene construct in coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch)." Aquaculture, 137: 161-169.
 * Nam, Y.K. et al. 2002. "Accelerated growth performance and stable germ-line transmission in androgenetically derived homozygous transgenic mud loach, Misgurnus mizlepis." Aquaculture, 209: 257-270.

TFD (talk) 21:56, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I was looking through those sources, but I don't think that the statement in question which is meant to claim a variance from what is expected are well-supported by these citations. What do you think? jps (talk) 23:34, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you are wasting everyone's time. If your position is that the secondary source was not supported in its peer-reviewed sources, you should have said that to begin with.  TFD (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I could be wrong. Part of the reason we insist on peer-review so strongly is to avoid poor scholarship. If you disagree with my assessment of the sources you provided, I'm happy to have the discussion. Ideally, we would replace a non-peer-reviewed source with a peer-reviewed one, but I haven't seen any offered that support the text in question -- including the ones that you mentioned which are cited in the non-peer-reviewed source. jps (talk) 03:57, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Since we do not insist on peer reviewed sources, your point is moot. TFD (talk) 06:07, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

You need peer-reviewed sources to back up scientific facts. See WP:SCIRS. I pointed out that there doesn't seem to be any peer-reviewed sources that back up the claims in the two paragraphs. That is a WP:REDFLAG. You tried to offer two, but I pointed out that they don't really back up the claims. So basically it is your WP:RANDY outlook which is preventing us from moving forward with figuring out whether this stuff is actually reliably sourced or not. jps (talk) 07:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

The OP had already been informed by an independent editor that peer-review is not required, before bringing this to the noticeboard here. Wasting time? DrChrissy (talk) 00:01, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Peer review is explicitly mentioned at WP:SCHOLARSHIP.
 * Would this editor please sign their post and perhaps indicate what they mean by this. It might be mentioned on the page, but does this mean that peer-review is not needed? DrChrissy (talk) 01:02, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * SCIRS is an essay, not a policy or guideline. Again, you should have mentioned it in your initial post.  Instead, you keep bringing up new arguments when your initial ones fail.  TFD (talk) 17:43, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I have been perfectly consistent. That you have not been able to verify the factual claims in the article is the entire point. jps (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The source you are disputing is a review article (secondary source) of primary sources. The factual content is all verifiable in the primary sources cited therein.  I personally would prefer to cite the primary sources, but as WP editors, we are encouraged to use secondary sources. DrChrissy (talk) 23:09, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a review article that has not received peer review. jps (talk) 14:06, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * We are going in circles here. You have been told several times that peer review is not a condition of including a reference. DrChrissy (talk) 18:19, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Since there doesn't seem to be any peer-reviewed sources which agree with the review's attempts at summarizing primary sources, we can only use the paper as a statement of the opinions of the authors. That is not how it is being used. It is being used to promote opinions as fact. 21:31, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Merchant sources as a source
I'm in a bit of a discussion on an article where someone is trying to use an author profile to back up Amazon bestseller status for Iain King. The profile only says that he hit two bestseller lists on Amazon UK, but not which ones. There are thousands of subgenres when it comes to Amazon so it's really not difficult to sell well in something if you mince things down enough.

In general I don't think that merchant sites are usable for anything. I know that part of RS says that you can use them to back up basic details, but I don't really know that there's any details that really need sourcing that badly that it'd merit using a merchant source. My thing with merchant sources is that they're inherently promotional and can easily make an article seem like it's endorsing the product or site it's linking to, plus in many cases the information is submitted by the publisher or representative, so it's also a SPS and has all of the various issues that come with self-published sources. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  04:49, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm being reverted several times over this by Francis Schonken. Can someone please weigh in on this? I really, really don't think that this should be in the article for several reasons, which I've elaborated on in the article's talk page. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  06:04, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I suppose "merchant sites" is a totally unusable concept for determining which content is retained or excluded from Wikipedia. If the distinction is "commercial sites" and "non-for-profit" sites, we link to both, each with their own set of issues to look out for (the non-for-profit ones like IMDb having their own problems in terms of suitability for Wikipedia). Then, taking a closer look at commercial sites: where is the distinction between "merchant" sites and other commercial sites? The merchant sites selling something produced by others, the non-merchant ones only selling self-published material? Well then, merchant would often be preferred over self published for Wikipedia's purposes... or the the "merchant" ones having a "add to shopping cart" button as opposed to non-merchant commercial sites? That is an obviously unusable distinction... e.g., most pages of the New Bach Edition website have such shopping cart button, I won't link any less to that site as a reliable source.
 * That being said I'm in the balance whether or not we should include this Amazon based material on the Iain King page, that's why I'm fine this being discussed on a broader forum like here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:26, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * For me, a merchant source is any place where the primary goal is to sell someone something. For example, Amazon would be a merchant source since it's a place where you purchase things. They do have some other offerings but anything they offer has the end goal of getting you to purchase an item from them. Things like publisher sites are more questionable. They weren't previously considered a merchant source because you couldn't buy something directly from them. They'd link to other sites, but that's to be expected from them. However nowadays many publishers - especially indie publishers - have storefronts on their websites. It's why I very rarely use publisher sites anymore in external links sections, as they're fairly questionable nowadays and it's much better to be safe than sorry, especially if the article is about someone or something that is only on the cusp of notability. An article with an overwhelmingly strong assertion of notability (like Stephen King or Crimson Peak) wouldn't have to worry about a merchant source being used as much as an article like say, Julie Murphy (author) would have to be cautious of using merchant or merchant-esque sources. Now when we have places that only list various places to purchase something, that's fine. IMDb, for example, wouldn't be a merchant site in my opinion because they're not directly selling something to the reader. You can purchase tickets via their site (from Fandango), true, but that's not their primary goal. Of course we can't really use IMDb as a source, but I'm mostly using them as an example. Stuff like that is fine. It's just when something is selling directly to the consumer that it begins to become problematic. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:24, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't consider it an appropriate source at all. I've always read our policies as permitting commercial sources to support non-controversial claims, similar to self-published sources. But here it's being used to source an inherently promotional claim, not to mention (a) the source doesn't actually support the claim, (b) nor does it name the categories or give any indication of how broad or narrow they are. It also smacks of synthesis to pick two categories where this book is (supposedly) #1 and mention that as somehow worthy of note. I mean, we're not talking about some recognized category on the New York Times Best Sellers List here! If a reliable, third-party source cares to say that a "best-seller in two UK subcategories" is important, so be it. Otherwise, it seems undue to include that claim based on a single commercial link. Woodroar (talk) 06:50, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Re. "a merchant source is any place where the primary goal is to sell someone something" – so you're going for a for Wikipedia's purposes even more unusable definition of "merchant"...
 * The primary goal of every for-profit organization is to sell something (even the non-profit ones are asking for your money, giving you usually nothing but a good feeling in return). Or did you think Bärenreiter, the publisher of the New Bach Edition, is some kind of charity only interested in promoting classical music without any financial gain? That their primary goal would not be "sell as many scores as possible"?
 * You're asking Wikipedia editors to second guess about "intentions" of the people behind the sources we use. So you ask us to distinguish, for instance, between Univerities, that always have a mixed motivation of "spreading" knowledge for its own sake and "selling" knowledge, well, yeah in order to have more money. So what you're proposing is that Wikipedia guidance should be read as encouraging editors to find out what the balance is: when the University is slightly more motivated by financial gain its publications should not be used, when it is slightly more motivated by the idea of spreading knowledge (using money only to be sustainable), then its publications can be used at Wikipedia? Obvious nonsense, I will have no more of it. I've written quite some Wikipedia guidance, none of that is an underlying reasoning. As said, websites that are not primarily interested in "selling someone something", such as IMDb, have their own problems, and are often less useable for Wikipedia's purposes. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:04, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, we can and do consider source motivations, which is why the community created policies and guidelines like WP:NOTRELIABLE/WP:SPS and WP:SCHOLARSHIP, among others. It's silly to pretend that there's no difference between "business that sells a product and has a vested interest in promoting that product" and "academic institution that requires money simply because it exists in a market economy". If Amazon ever gains the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy despite their own interests, then perhaps we can consider them a reliable source. But they certainly don't have that reputation now, which is why we should only consider them for uncontroversial claims.
 * But this is all really beside the point. The source in question doesn't even support the claim that "[a]t launch in July 2015 it became best-seller in two UK subcategories at Amazon". And it's not just part of the claim, it's the entire thing: there's nothing about "July 2015" or "best-seller" or two categories or subcategories attributed to Amazon. That NPOV and OR/SYNTH territory, not to mention edit warring to retain the material. I will politely suggest dropping the stick as consensus is clearly against you here. Woodroar (talk) 18:58, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I think that it's fairly obvious what is and isn't a merchant source when it comes down to places like Amazon and Barnes & Nobles. No one could ever deny that their primary goal is to sell you something. You wouldn't mistake it for anything other than a merchant source. Non-profit organizations are almost entirely a completely different beast and I think that the average person will tell you that there's an even more obvious difference between Amazon and any given university, so I don't think that it's really rational to equate the two together. That's reaching quite a bit. It comes down to whether or not the website is directly selling a tangible item (MP3 downloads count) to a consumer. While sure, we could say that universities are "selling" degrees to people, that's a fairly crude way of putting things and one that depreciates the amount of work that a reputable institution would require a student put into a degree. Plus very few people will consider a university a merchant in the way that Amazon is a merchant. We could, if you like, change the wording to e-commerce websites, but in my mind it's pretty much the same thing. The long and short of this is that merchant websites are directly selling things to people - you hand them money and they hand you a product. Places that require far more work from the individual like universities are not considered merchant sites as far as Wikipedia is concerned, to the very best of my knowledge. When it comes to publishers the area is - as I stated above - very gray. Traditionally their websites have not been considered merchant sources because for the very longest time they didn't sell directly to the public. If anyone wanted to purchase a book, they had to go through a middleman. The Internet has changed this to where many publishers do now offer direct sales to the public, which makes those websites all but a merchant source in my opinion. As far as the non-marketplace books goes, yes they're essentially still selling their product. However the difference here is that they aren't selling the products directly to the person visiting the page, which makes a world of difference. In that instance we can't be accused of endorsing a specific product because we're linking to the product page. I need to add that people have specifically stated this in the past when it comes to obvious and not so obvious advertising attempts in the past (like hotlinking, the external links section, or telling people where items can be found) - they've argued that because one article links to iTunes, Amazon, or any other merchant site, that they should be allowed to do the same. I've also had people accuse Wikipedia of a bias even when they're not trying to insert links to anything else, just because of the presence of merchant pages on various articles. That's why I like to avoid merchant links.
 * But getting back to the subject at hand, I think that the average reader will be able to tell the difference between a merchant site like Amazon and a university website. The intentions of each are quite different when it gets down to it. Publishers websites are a grey area. The websites formerly used to be a place where the books had a basic description and blurbs from reviews and such. Promotional? Sure, to a degree, but they were't outright asking you to directly fork over your money right then and there. Over time they've become far more, to where many are their own storefronts. My general rule of thumb is that if they have a storefront, I should look elsewhere for a source. However the basic things we'd pull from these sites are very specific: basic details, the likes of which are typically listed elsewhere and/or don't generally need to be backed up with a source. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  09:33, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Basically: storefronts like Amazon are inappropriate because they're inherently promotional and can give off the impression of a bias. They're extremely dodgy when it comes to backing up anything other than basic data like ISBNs and other basic info that can almost always be found elsewhere. Publishers are more of a grey area and in general should be avoided if they're directly selling something and for the most part can't be used for any claims beyond basic data. Universities can be considered merchants of information, but they're not on the same level as Amazon. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  09:35, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * really this discussion is going nowhere when you keep insisting on the "merchant" distinction. The Bärenreiter website is a "merchant" website. It can be used as a reliable source in Wikipedia. In which circumstances it is appropriately or inappropriately used as a source in Wikipedia is unrelated to it being a "merchant" website. And again, non-merchant websites also have their problems. So "use only non-merchant websites for Wikipedia" is abject nonsense. Please leave that line of thought aside, it is going nowhere, and instead maybe say something useful on whether or not we should use the discussed content and/or its source in the Iain King article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:16, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * However the problem is that part of the main issue here is that the only place supplied so far is an author's bio on a merchant source, so defining whether or not a merchant source is appropriate to back up a claim is something that needs to be discussed to a certain point. I've given my opinion on the difference between the various types of websites and I think that the basic rule of thumb is whether or not a reasonable person can tell the difference between a university website and a merchant like Amazon, which I think that the majority of reasonable people could. The same could be said for publisher's websites when it comes to them offering direct sales to people.
 * I don't think that it should be used to back this up given that Amazon is trying to sell you, the reader, King's books and the only place that makes this claim is King himself. What makes this more difficult is that both King's article and the book's article (when it existed) had some serious issues with making grandiose claims that were really only backed up by King himself. Granted this is a fairly minor claim, but it makes verifying the Amazon claims that much more difficult. We can't really trust anything from King and I'm not sure that this claim has really been repeated by anyone who wasn't just citing King himself making the claims. On top of this the claim is pretty minor and dubious in nature, given that there are many thousands of book categories on Amazon. At some level almost every book is a bestseller if you go far enough down the categories and subcategories - and there are many of them. To add to this, he's making these claims about the UK site, which has far less traffic than its American counterpart.
 * What Woodroar said is pretty much the point of the matter: this is a very, very minor claim and one that's only really backed up by King himself. Adding it to the article is at best putting undue weight on Amazon sales, especially since King doesn't state the categories. Also, Amazon never really keeps track of their sales list because they change so often. Even their list of 2015 bestsellers says that they update this daily, so there's no way to accurately track their sales, which makes it of a far different distinction than other bestseller lists. There are also things like this that further explain why very few places really consider Amazon lists to really be anything of true note, because there have been so many unscrupulous people out there. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  10:39, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * As in general merchant sources are neither always acceptable nor always to be rejected the point you've been able to make thus far is naught. Maybe possibly somewhat less walls of text too, please, if I may make a suggestion, they're far less impressive than they look. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:49, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It was done to explain my point, since you were asking for an explanation as to my line of thought. It wasn't done to impress. My point is basically that merchant sources are inherently promotional and since the only way they can be used is to back up basic, non-controversial details that are usually backed up in non-merchant sources, that makes them unusable in my opinion. It's rare that a merchant source like Amazon will be the only place to find track listings or ISBN data and it should not be used to back up claims like bestselling status. In my opinion the policy is written to exclude merchant sources almost entirely except for that exceedingly rare situation where they're the only source available, which almost never happens, precisely because merchant sites are inherently promotional and prone to many, many issues, which include giving off the impression of a bias and the other things I've listed above. Not all "merchant" sources are the same, but the average person will likely identify a merchant source as something like Amazon, not a university page. Grey areas should be avoided because they also pose the same issues. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:08, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, the "merchant" vs. "non-merchant" distinction has no practical use here. Since you keep insisting on the point I reject your walls of text entirely. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:11, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Further, I'd invite you to stop venting your anti-merchant gospel. It is an unacceptable deformation of the actual Wikipedia guidance on the topic. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:18, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Ok... but I'm writing this because you're essentially saying that we should accept Amazon sales ranking claims based on a self-published source published on a website designed to sell you a product, which poses a huge conflict of interest. They will allow their authors to write almost anything on there as long as it doesn't run afoul of their basic guidelines and it takes a lot for someone to have their profile removed. As stated above, sales rankings are exceedingly easy to manipulate on Wikipedia because there are so many categories to the point where almost anyone can publish something and purchase their product until it hits bestseller status. People can and have done this. Now considering that there are many places that have openly shown that Amazon rankings cannot be trusted and are irrelevant to most people other than the publisher and author, the question is why should Wikipedia contain this information? You saying that you're rejecting everything because I'm writing long sections isn't really a good counterargument. So far one person has agreed that the Amazon sales claim has no place on the Wikipedia page. We still need others to come in, but I think I've made a fairly good argument as to why the information shouldn't be in the article - especially considering that King articles have a history of making various claims that do not hold up to scrutiny. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:21, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I think that the average person can easily identify a merchant source. Amazon is a merchant source by the most common definition of the word. A university website is not. Publishers are grey areas for the reasons stated above. Also as Woodrose has stated, merchant sources are inherently promotional since they exist to sell you something. They should be avoided as sources for this very reason. That we should avoid using self-published information on a merchant site goes without saying because people can claim anything on their own profile and unless it goes against one of Amazon's guidelines, they're unlikely to challenge or question any author's addition. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:24, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Basically, Amazon wants to sell you something so they're unlikely to challenge anything that makes someone look good and by extension, makes you more likely to purchase something. This is why we can't just link to the critic review section on Amazon, because people can and have edited reviews to make them look more positive. In more than one occasion it's emerged that the review wasn't a review at all, but an offhand mention in relation to something else entirely, like an author or a topic. In one case I actually came across a review blurb that was taken directly from a film's press release, meaning that it was written by the film's PR crew and was just reprinted by a news outlet - and was very obviously from a press release. That's why you can't really trust anything written on Amazon unless it's extremely basic data and in those situations that's almost always information that's ppublished elsewhere like WorldCat or Discogs. Even their interviews are suspect since they are geared towards getting you to make that sale. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:32, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm going to tag User:DGG on this. He's a person whose word I seriously respect so if he says that this should remain in the article with this type of sourcing, I'll let this drop. However I also need to point out the research I'd done on the book article here because the claims in the article were that problematic. In several instances the article tried to say that various places had made a statement when they made no such claims. This is why we really cannot rely on anything King has written. That it's in a merchant source only adds a cherry to the top of everything. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  11:28, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, jumping in here, I think that even high-quality newspapers like Le Monde are in the business of making profit and selling something. Rather than figuring out of a source is "for profit" or not, we should stick to what works and determine on a case by case basis, is the source in question a high-quality reliable secondary (or, more rarely, primary or tertiary) source on the subject. Now clearly if the source is trying to sell the very item in question, that specific material has to be taken with a grain of salt and it cannot possibly be the kind of high-quality source we'd like to use. Now the question arises, is whether there are any high-quality secondary sources that cover just that information and it may well be that there aren't. In that case, the information shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 11:43, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Primary sources are acceptable within the constraints of WP:PRIMARY. In this case it is a primary source (the retailer chosen by the author and the publisher of the book). The information is uncontroversial: the book had a relatively successful launch, nobody is denying that, but that's not the way we can put it in a Wikipedia article ("relatively" being a weasel word and all), so we put the information as found on the retailer's website, which is "At launch ... best-seller in two UK subcategories" of that retailer. The same sentence also contains the launch date, again, uncontroversial, and no reason why the retailer launching the book and providing that information should not be used as a source for that information. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:00, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * However the issue here is that the claim has so far only been backed up by sales in two (unnamed) categories on Amazon UK, which has less traffic than Amazon US does. It's also only really sourced to the author's page and sales rankings on Amazon are extremely fluid and unstable, so it's easy to claim bestseller status in the smaller categories since you have many different formats (Kindle, audio, print) and many different subcategories. King can claim anything he wants on his page and Amazon is unlikely to challenge the information. Most page listings are written by the author or publisher and unless they violate some hard rule on Amazon, they're left to their own devices and the information is rarely removed. There's already been good reason to suspect information supplied by King and people representing him, so I really do not think that it is wise to trust a merchant source since King's claims will benefit them and because Amazon sales rankings can be manipulated. Now if you had something more reliable than Amazon that'd be a different story, but the problem here is that the only person who is really talking about his sales is King and his agent. Did he sell well? It's likely, since most of the authors I've known don't want to go to the trouble of buying sales ranks. However the article in the mainspace was one that was pretty clearly written by a paid editor and the claims in the book and author pages had issues with puffery. It's not prudent to use merchant sources but it's really not prudent in this case, given the history behind the King related articles. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  12:18, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I don't know that I'd consider sales and bestseller claims to be uncontroversial, since that's something that can actively be questioned. (Especially as the term "bestselling" can be considered vague and somewhat arbitrary.) I've always understood uncontroversial claims to be things like ISBNs, book page counts, basic publisher information that you'd find in the average database. Anything beyond that can be easily seen as controversial (IE, questioned as to its veracity and weight) and I've seen people contest even seemingly inconsequential things like where a person lived or attended school. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  12:20, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I object to you pinging people of your liking. As far as convincing me of your argumentation such actions are highly counterproductive. As I've already said: I've closed threads for less. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:27, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty puzzled why this is even being contested, it seems obvious that the source is not an RS and that the content in question should not be in the article. Looking at the url cited, it seems that the "bestseller" claim is basically sourced to the author himself rather than to an actual list of bestsellers. More to the point, I don't think being a "bestseller" in a subcategory of a single vendor's sales is noteworthy. Such charts are way too easy to manipulate - people have been known to get on amazon "bestseller" lists by giving the book away for free, for example, or to claim "bestseller" status in a very narrow category over a very short period of time, when the number of books sold is actually tiny. I know it's for music rather than for books, but WP:CHART is dead on when it says that "Charts which rank material from a single vendor or network are generally unsuitable for inclusion in articles." I see no compelling reason why books should be treated differently. Our notability guideline for books also clearly states that "bestseller lists in merchant sources like Amazon or self-published sources like personal websites, blogs, bulletin boards, wikis, and similar media are not considered reliable." Fyddlestix (talk) 14:12, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Again someone trying to use notability guidance as a guideline on article content. The footnote Fyddlestix links to is not very well formulated, but whether that is the case or not: it is a guideline on how to determine notability, and again these notability guidelines "do not limit the content of an article" (original emphasis) as it is in the intro of Notability. No amount of quoting footnotes of notability guidelines out of context can remedy that. I've been looking through WP:V and WP:RS related guidance to find something similar, but didn't really find anything that would exclude Amazon to be used as a source for a publication date, when both the author and the publisher of the book indicate that site as being the retailer of the book. The NBOOKS footnote seems like a remnant of days when there were no wikis that could be used as reliable sources yet. Some wikis are now (but not as a general rule). So I'd recommend to update that footnote to current standards, or make it at least a bit more resilient against quoting out of contet. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:39, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I was aware (and thought I had specifically acknowledged) that I was citing guidelines from a somewhat different context. I don't think it matters for my larger point, which is that we should not be using single vendor lists to label something a "bestseller" in any context. We're not here to shill for Amazon or for authors - if we don't already, then we should have a guideline for what constitutes a legit "bestseller list." And just as we do for music, that guideline should specifically rule out amazon and other single vendor lists. The fact that the letter of our guidelines doesn't clearly state this at the moment doesn't change the fact that these lists are generally considered pretty meaningless except as a marketing tool. If you know what you're doing, you can sell a couple hundred books and make amazon's "bestseller" list in a specific category. It's not a noteworthy achievement. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:05, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Which is a WP:WEIGHT argument, not a WP:RS argument. If it's OK for everyone I'd close this WP:RS discussion now as indeed, there's no way to reject this content on a WP:RS argument, apart when starting to misread notability guidance. On the WP:WEIGHT issue, as said I'm not too sure this merits inclusion, but that's another discussion, less suitable for this noticeboard. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think closing is premature at this point. Heck, looking at the edit summaries it looks like you're the one that insisted Tokyogirl bring this up here. You don't get to do that, then dismiss the discussion when it leans against your position.  I'll not argue with you further but I think your statement that "there's no way to reject this content on a WP:RS argument" is wholly (and very obviously) inaccurate. I'd like to see what other editors have to say.  Fyddlestix (talk) 15:54, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with you people? Tokyogirl proposed to bring it here as we weren't agreeing on the WP:RS issue at the article talk page. I said OK, but let's not discuss it in several places at the same time. That Tokyogirl's take on the WP:RS issue was wrong from the start has been demonstrated. WP:RSN topic has come to an end. Let's look at this from the WP:WEIGHT angle. Then don't start slinging mud at me for framing this as a WP:RS issue, while I didn't: I said from the outset WP:RS was the wrong angle. Tokyogirl wouldn't believe me and that's how the topic arrived here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:13, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * This is veering into off topic and not-so-helpful territory now, but you did tell them to "take it to RSN" in this edit summary. You also specifically endorsed taking the issue to RSN on the talk page here. A non involved administration has also said on the talk page that RSN can and should resolve this.


 * And if I may say, if you're already at the "what's wrong with you people" stage a break from the discussion might be in order. As I said above, I'm really puzzled why this is even contentious.  Fyddlestix (talk) 16:24, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * He and I obviously disagree on the RS angle, but in Francis's behalf I do want to say that I had no problem with him requesting that the conversation be restricted to here. It is a form of closing, I suppose, but I saw it as more of a signal to incoming editors that the main conversation would be brought here and that we should keep it to one place for clarity's sake. It was reasonable enough. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  04:54, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Tx, basicly I wanted to know for myself too, while objecting to a general rejection of Amazon-like sites, which seems incompatible with WP:RS, so, no, I'm not contrite for supporting to bring it here. See below for my proposal to remedy the situation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:51, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * We could call this an WP:RS issue, a WP:N issue, or a WP:WEIGHT issue and it would end the same way. For WP:RS purposes, see "inline citations may be allowed to e-commerce pages such as that of a book on a bookseller's page or an album on its streaming-music page, in order to verify such things as titles and running times". In other words, the most basic information about a subject, not the subject's relationship to the vendor. I have trouble buying (pun intended) the argument that "everybody's selling something so what's the difference between Amazon and an academic journal" (paraphrasing) as genuine, let alone persuasive. Regarding Amazon Bestsellers in general, let's not forget that you can pay Amazon to promote your book (or your client's book or whatever). Promoting content on Amazon impacts sales figures on Amazon. The Amazon Bestseller list is not a survey of the industry but a measure of who sells the most books on Amazon. It's the same as going to bestbuy.com, arranging camcorders by "most popular" and writing about the top 50 on Wikipedia. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 16:31, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * An Amazon merchant profile's automated statistics lack any form of editorial oversight, nor do they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; therefore, it trivially fails WP:RS. (Note that this is not true of some other aspects -- titles and running times have to be manually input and presumably have some degree of fact-checking and editorial control, but automated sales results do not.)  Therefore you need a reliable source asserting the significance of those results, which the merchant profile itself cannot accomplish.  Truthfully, I'm a bit confused that the discussion has gone on for this long -- an Amazon merchant profile is plainly not a WP:RS for the claim being made here.  Find a good WP:SECONDARY source or remove it and drop the issue. --Aquillion (talk) 20:17, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with the people who've said Amazon is unreliable. There are almost always better sources, and if you can't find a better source than an online store, then the information is very likely to be undue emphasis.  Showing significance for an Amazon.com bestseller list is also an issue.  I imagine it's not difficult to become one of the bestselling authors in dinosaur erotica.  Doesn't mean we should trumpet it on Wikipedia.  I think my opinions on this used to be in the minority, but, in the past few years, I've encountered very little resistance to replacing citations to Amazon.com with better ones.  One of the previous times this came up here, I got attacked for saying this, and I'm puzzled why people get so worked up and uncivil over amazon.com debates. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:45, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

WP:NBOOK's footnote 4
Above I proposed a rewording of footnote 4, as it can be misinterpreted that the listed sources are considered unreliable across the board, which contradicts WP:RS allowing inline citations "to e-commerce pages such as that of a book on a bookseller's page" under certain strict conditions (see WP:RS).

I went ahead and updated the footnote, also replacing "merchant" by "retailer" which imho seems more to the point. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:51, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * If we're not going to go with the term "merchant" then we should probably use the same term used at Identifying_reliable_sources, which is e-commerce. I think that the two terms are pretty much the same thing, but if we're going to go for uniformity then it should reflect the terminology used at the other board. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  10:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I will concede that the term "e-commerce source" would be more specific for incoming users. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  10:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd cast the web wide enough. Not every book retailer is an e-commerce. Maybe for the articles you regularly edit it is, but the rule is somewhat broader than that. To give an example: for the Hogarth Press it is known which was their author leading sales before the second world war. The publisher published its last book in 1946. It never was an e-commerce.
 * I see no disadvantage in using different terminology at WP:NBOOK (currently "retailer") and WP:RS (currently: "vendor"): the first treating the "notability" aspect, the second the "content policy" aspect. If anything what was bugging me when this discussion began was the confusion between the two. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

FYI I reverted the edit but restored the change from "merchant" to "retailer" and added e-commerce. I agree "merchant" could be ambiguous. E-commerce doesn't include offline retailers (e.g. local bookstore), and retailer doesn't include sites set up by the author him or herself. Hence "retailer or e-commerce". But I reverted because of the other change, which seems to fly against what others are saying here: the change from "are not considered reliable" to "are considered as falling below the radar of this notability criterion and/or too unreliable". &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 14:47, 14 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Reliability-related guidance should be in guidelines and policies relating to reliability, not hidden in a footnote in a notability-related guideline.
 * Single-outlet sales figures are irrelevant for notability, whether the mathematics of such statistics are reliable or not.
 * So I propose to replace "are not considered reliable" by "do not qualify for this criterion". --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:16, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems OK then, no further objections? --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:10, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Reliability is relevant in the context of why those sources don't qualify, but I'm inclined to agree with your reasoning here. No objection from me for that change. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 22:48, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

E-commerce at WP:RS
Someone above suggesting a guideline to "specifically rule out amazon and other single vendor lists", I think I obliged to the suggestion, here --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:07, 14 December 2015 (UTC)