Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 215

Is PolitiFact a reliable source for fact checking?
1. Is PolitiFact a reliable source for reporting the veracity of statements made by political candidates? The relevant context is the proposed wording in this RfC at Donald Trump. Here is the relevant source:

2. Is PolitiFact a reliable source for reporting the percentage of false statements made by a political candidate (of the statements checked by PolitiFact), provided that attribution is given? The relevant context is the proposed wording (both versions in the blue boxes) in this section at Donald Trump. Here are the relevant sources:

(Added clarification in green 22:20, 28 August 2016 (UTC)) updated link underlying "in this section" as the section has been archived Jytdog (talk) 05:44, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. - MrX 15:59, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

NOTE: Regarding the second question, here are full cites to the two sources linked above: The Holan article is also the source cited above for the first question.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:53, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Holan, Angie et al. "2015 Lie of the Year: the campaign misstatements of Donald Trump", Politifact (December 21, 2015).
 * Sharockman, Aaron. "The truth (so far) behind the 2016 campaign", Politifact (June 29, 2016).

Survey and discussion

 * Yes Obviously. The claims that they are unreliable are confined to opinion pieces and unreliable sources such as Breitbart.com. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  16:02, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. Obviously. It has all the hallmarks of reliable sourcing: a professional journalistic operation, frequent citation by others (WP:USEBYOTHERS), awards and recognition from the profession (e.g., Pulitzer Prize). Neutralitytalk 18:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. The Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact of the 12-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Tampa Bay Times which is owned by the respected non-profit Poynter Institute is a reliable source. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:07, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. I cannot add anything to the points clearly made above. --MelanieN (talk) 21:48, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes provided the statement selected for fact-checking is clear as to what the speaker was trying to communicate  and no, respectively . Yes, they are reliable for determining whether a given statement is true or false or somewhere in between.  But, no, they are not a reliable source for a purported "percentage of false statements made by a political candidate" because they would then have to analyze every sentence uttered by the candidate, and evaluate it for truth or falsity, which would be completely impractical, and is not something that Politifact has ever attempted to do .  They can say the percentage of false statements among those they have evaluated, but then a high percentage could simply mean that they only evaluated the statements that they most expected would be determined false.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:04, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * What I meant in the second question is percentage of false statements of the statements PolitiFact evaluated. I have now clarified this in the question.- MrX 22:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay, if that is what you meant, then I still think that Politifact is not a reliable source for the percentage of false statements of those that they evaluated, if they fail to explain how they selected the statements to evaluate, or if they selected the statements based upon inquiries by unknown people. In the latter case, those unknown people are unreliable, and hence the percentages depending upon those unknown people are unreliable as well. And, as I previously said above, "They can say the percentage of false statements among those they have evaluated, but then a high percentage could simply mean that they only evaluated the statements that they most expected would be determined false."  Please note that I have given distinct answers to the two questions posed; I request that the closer not jump to the conclusion that people who only gave one answer were attempting to answer more than the first question.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:38, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Politifact is a source of both news and opinion, and Wikipedia treats those two things very differently in a BLP. Per WP:OR opinion pieces are primary sources rather than secondary sources, and per WP:BLPPRIMARY (which is under a section about reliable sources within WP:BLP) "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources....Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." It therefore seems to me that opinion pieces by Politifact can only be valid and reliable for our purposes if the opinion is also discussed by a reliable secondary source, and so mere inline attribution to Politifact is not enough. The RFC statement above cites a Politifact article by Angie Holan for both of the two questions posed, and that article is an opinion piece; it's title expresses an opinion about who should get an award for worst lie, and Holan goes on to make generalizations like "Donald Trump doesn’t let facts slow him down. Bending the truth or being unhampered by accuracy is a strategy he has followed for years.... when challenged, he offers flimsy explanations and suggests he shouldn’t be held accountable -- or simply insists he’s right." There are other Politifact pieces that are mainly factual rather than opinion, and I think we can use those factual pieces as reliable sources to evaluate particular statements by Trump, but this piece is opinion, and so it would require not just inline attribution but also discussion by a separate reliable secondary source.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:18, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. Criticisms from those not given poor ratings are generally about the concept of fact-checking as opposed to unreliability of Politfact itself. Objective3000 (talk) 22:15, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes and No. My objection on the second question above is basically the same as expressed by Anythingyouwant above: While the fact-checking organizations may be reliable for the specific statements that they analyze, we need to be careful about comparing percentages of False statements between candidates.  As far as I'm aware, the fact checking organizations don't use a systematic approach in selecting which and how many of a politician's statements to analyze.  Unless there's some indication that the statements are chosen for analysis in a systematic, unbiased manner, percentages can't be considered objective.CFredkin (talk) 22:54, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, yeah, exactly. That's why the OP is proposing in-text attribution for the comparison of falsehood rates: because it is inherently somewhat subjective. When a reliable source (like Politifact) makes a subjective judgement, then we convey that using in-text attribution. This is Wikipedia 101. MastCell Talk 04:37, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Our role as editors calls on us to exercise good judgement regarding whether information is potentially mis-leading, regardless of whether it's mentioned in reliable sources. As mentioned above, factors like the selection process of the statements being analyzed can have a dramatic impact on the percentages being quoted.  Thus far, no editor, either here or at the article Talk page has directly addressed this concern.CFredkin (talk) 05:11, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * In-text attribution for the percentages is necessary but more would be preferable, such as reliable third-party reporting of the Politifact percentages that is independent of Politifact. Otherwise Politifact would be in a position similar to a self-published source for material about a living person, not written or published by the subject of the biographical material.  Separately, any attribution to Politifact would also be safest if supplemented by attribution to the unknown people who submitted the inquiries to Politifact, if Politifact used and were influenced by such inquiries (i.e. the nature of the inquiries could apparently significantly shape the percentages).  If all of these steps are taken, I still doubt that these very malleable percentages have much relevance to the BLP, but that's a matter for discussion at the BLP talk page.Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:14, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You lost me. Politifact is not a self-published source, nor is it "in a position similar to a self-published source", and I don't see how you can maneuver it into being one. It's a third-party reliable source, and can be used for statements of fact as well as for properly attributed opinion (the latter according to WP:RSOPINION). MastCell Talk 17:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Per WP:BLPPRIMARY, "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources....Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies." If we use Politifact as a primary source about its own opinion regarding these percentages, then it would be best to also use a separate secondary source that discusses Politifact's percentages, IMHO..  Additionally, any attribution to Politifact would be safest if supplemented by attribution to the unknown people who submitted the inquiries to Politifact, if Politifact used and were influenced by such inquiries (i.e. the nature of the inquiries could apparently significantly shape the percentages).Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:25, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * "...it may be acceptable to..." and "...it is absolutely required to..." are two completely different things. In addition, if politifact says that they have checked a representative sample of a candidate's claims, then you'd need a reliable source to dispute this, not your own misgivings about whether it's true or not. We don't use WP:OR to pick and choose which statements by a reliable source are actually reliable. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  17:34, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi User:MjolnirPants, I'm hitting the road now for a long drive, but wanted to reply briefly first. You wrote, "if politifact says that they have checked a representative sample of a candidate's claims...." Has Politifact said that?  Or have they said that they checked claims that unnamed people asked them about?  Or that they only checked claims that looked doubtful at first blush?  Or that they checked a broad sample of Clinton's claims as compared to a narrower sample for Trump that only included Trump claims that looked very doubtful at first blush?  How the heck did Politifact choose claims to fact check???Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:53, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That's why I said "if". If politifact doesn't give any information on how they choose claims for fact checking, then it would take a different source compiling statistics about how many claims they fact check for us to make any statement on the overall honesty of a candidate. If however (as I believe to be the case, but haven't confirmed), politifact says that they fact claim claims based on how notable the claims are (which means how much media coverage the claim gets in the hours and days immediately after it's made), then it's neither synth nor OR for us to say that their results are representative, because the overall honesty of a politician is going to be based on notable claims they make. The other, final option is that they fact check claims based on reader submissions (which may well be the case) and their own judgement as to what 'deserves' to be fact checked. In that case, we can't report an overall judgement unless the fact checking source gives one. In the case that they do provide an overall judgement of a candidate's honesty, then it is our trust in them as reliable which we lean on to determine whether or not to use that. Since it's pretty much universally felt to be a reliable source here at WP, the onus would be on those asserting unreliability. Again, however, that last clause is only the case if the fact checkers themselves make claims about the overall honesty of the candidates, which I don't think too many of them do. In other words:
 * If the fact checking sites make claims about the overall honesty of the candidates, and we hold them to be a reliable source, then we should report those claims. We should, however put them in the source's voice instead of wiki voice.
 * Alternatively, if the fact checking sites say that 1: they check a representative sample of claims; and 2: that candidate X has more false and fewer true ratings than candidate Y*, it is not synthesis of original information for us to report that candidate X is less honest than candidate Y, because we're not producing a result that is not verifiable from the source. This can be put into wiki voice, I suppose, though I would not prefer it.
 * * Note that a table showing the number of fact checked claims for each candidate is functionally and logically a claim by the fact checking source that candidate X has more false and fewer true claims than candidate Y, assuming the table demonstrates this. The claim shouldn't need to be made explicitly.
 * Otherwise, we should not make claims about a candidate's overall honesty. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  19:54, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

User:MjolnirPants, Politifact says, "We get asked all the time how the candidates compare. We often fret the question because we don’t fact-check every claim a politician makes (we’d never sleep), and we may fact-check a statement multiple times if candidates keep repeating themselves." This is strong evidence, it seems to me, that the percentages are subjective and incorporate opinions abut which claims should be fact-checked. It's a red flag that not even Politifact considers these percentages particularly reliable, in contrast to their analyses of a particular statement by a candidate.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:39, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Given the statement on that page, I tend to agree that using politifact to make blanket statements about a candidates overall honesty in wikivoice should not be done. I'm still not opposed to doing so in source voice, per WP:BIASED. But we should be careful, using direct quotes and careful attribution. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  13:19, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * User:MjolnirPants, do you agree that the formulation of these percentages involve a substantial amount of opinion? WP:OR says that opinion is primary source material.  And WP:BLPPRIMARY seems to say (or at least strongly suggests) that we would therefore need the percentages to be reported in a secondary source to be used in a BLP.  Why do you think inline attribution is enough without any report by some secondary source other than Politifact?  Even without WP:OR and without WP:BLPPRIMARY, it seems to May that reporting in a separate secondary source would be needed to indicate that the percentages are sufficiently noteworthy for our purposes.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:58, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * What I'm talking about with respect to including any claims they make about a candidate's overall honesty is this: Politifact is notable and highly reliable. Politifact says claim X is false. Since Politifact is highly reliable, we can say "claim X is false." but politifact says "Candidate Y is dishonest." However, we have reason to doubt their conclusions, so their reliability for this claim isn't strong. However, they are still notable. The fact that Politifact said "Candidate Y is dishonest" is important to presenting a neutral, complete depiction of Candidate Y. So again, as long as it's very clearly attributed to Politifact, we should include it. Even if it's untrue, it's still worth noting that they said it. Failure to note it is equivilent to saying we can't mention many of Trump's claims which have been fact checked, because they're false. Well, we're not mentioning them because they're true, we're mentioning them because their notable. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  15:40, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * User:MjolnirPants, Politifact says "we don’t fact-check every claim" and they could easily raise a candidate's percentage of falsehood by simply not checking claims that sound somewhat plausible at first blush. I believe that the Politifact percentages therefore involve opinion.  Loads and loads of editorials and opinion-pieces in newspapers and magazines have said very negative things about Trump, and the best way for us to pick and choose which ones to mention is to follow WP:BLPPRIMARY, which seems to advise extreme caution and only use opinion pieces that are sufficiently noteworthy to be reported by secondary sources such as news articles.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything in BLPPRIMARY that would exclude the reporting of notable opinions. Notably, the section is titled "Avoid misuse of primary sources" (em added), and begins with "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources". I'm not seeing how anything I've suggested is not using extreme caution, and it's certainly not a misuse of primary sources to report what that source says. Furthermore, in this case (Trump), such opinions have been reported on by secondary sources. So I'm really not seeing a good argument for excluding such opinions (and I don't deny they are opinions, all things considered) here.  MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  17:00, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * BLPPRIMARY says "Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source...." I don't see how this could mean anything but that a secondary source is needed in order to rely on a primary source within a BLP.  The two questions at the start of this talk page section did not mention any secondary source, and I think the sources mentioned at the start of this section are not reliable without a secondary source, regarding opinions about a BLP subject.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:06, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * PolitiFact isn't a primary source. Full stop. Nor does WP:OR apply to material in reliable sources such as PolitiFact; it applies only to novel interpretations generated by Wikipedia editors. These policy objections are so obviously off-base that their continued repetition here is becoming disruptive. MastCell Talk 19:26, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Unless repeated in other media, yes, it certainly can be considered to be a primary source. Full stop.  The comment you are responding to does not mention OR either.  Arkon (talk) 19:44, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with User:Arkon. And I do think WP:OR is relevant here.  It says that "editorials, columns, blogs, opinion pieces" are primary sources for purposes of the OR policy.  I don't see any exemption for editorials and columns that are printed in the New York Times or the like.  So the question is whether editorials and columns are also primary sources for purposes of WP:BLP.  The answer is clearly "yes" because WP:BLP very prominently links to WP:PRIMARY which is part of WP:OR.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:02, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to see you believe we should abide by the policy at WP:OR, which opens its section on primary sources with Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.
 * Since that's exactly what I suggested, can we then agree that it's okay to cite them, so long as we are very careful to attribute it properly? MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  21:32, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Nope. Per my comment above, "BLPPRIMARY says 'Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source....' I don't see how this could mean anything but that a secondary source is needed in order to rely on a primary source within a BLP."  Moreover, the footnote to this part of WP:BLPPRIMARY says "Please note that exceptional claims require exceptional sources".  Claiming in the BLP lead that Trump is often false...that's an exceptional claim.  So is saying in the article body that x% of his utterances are false.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:01, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * "Anythingyouwant, you may call me handsome if you write it on paper and post a photo of that paper." Does the preceding sentence mean that you may not call me handsome if you simply type it here? No. Simply because the policy says that primary sources may be used under a given set of circumstances does not meant that they may not be used under others. Before you ask "then why would the policy highlight those particular circumstances, if not to set them apart?" let me say that those particular circumstances are ones where many editors would start crying WP:SYNTH" as soon as someone did it. It's not synth, but it really looks like synth if you say "so-and-so said X and Z, and whatsername said Y about X, without addressing so-and-so's additional mention of Z." then source that to so-and-so saying X and Z in one source, and whatsername saying Y in another. So I would say the policy highlights those particular circumstances because those are circumstances under which the rest of the policy isn't entirely clear.
 * Regarding the extraordinary sources part of your comment (which conflicted with my edit, grrr), I should direct you to the overwhelming consensus here in this very section. I dare say we have an extraordinary source for this claim. Besides which, the wikitext would be "Politifact says so-and-so is a liar", sourced to politifact saying that so-and-so is a liar. That's about as clear-cut an example of verifiability as it gets. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  22:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * User:MjolnirPants, I'm sure that you are very handsome. :-)  But, the meaning of this part of WP:BLPPRIMARY has been discussed many times in many places, and the predominant conclusion has been that attribution is not enough to cite primary sources in BLPs.  Otherwise, we could troll through court records and the like to find little nuggets that we like.  For starters, here are links to a couple prior discussions at this noticeboard, and at BLPN: Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, thank you for saying so, and I appreciate the interactive proof of my argument. :) I'm afraid, however, that neither of those two discussions addresses this question. The first link is specifically about making claims in Wiki voice, and the second pertains to court documents, a form of WP:SPS. We're not talking about SPSs, nor saying anything in Wiki voice. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  05:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No, PolitiFact is not a primary source, not today; not tomorrow; not ever. Their work is cited in other sources, but that doesn't matter anyway. Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Not only that, PolitiFact cites other sources. Another way to know that PolitiFact is not a primary source, is the fact that their fact checks specifically cite other sources.- MrX 22:26, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * So you're saying, User:MrX, that Politfact never does what the New York Times does, which is to publish or express opinion (the NYT publishes op-ed columns as well as editorials)?Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Is that a trick question? The scope of this discussion is PolitiFact's fact checking, an activity that is intrinsic to journalism. Fact checks are not in the same realm as opinion columns at all.- MrX 22:56, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * User:MrX, no, of course it's not a trick question. You made a categorical statement that PolitiFact is not a primary source "not ever".  That would be unusual for mainstream publications, most of which have a division between factual news reporting (which is a secondary source) versus opinion (which is a primary source).  I agree with you that PolitiFact does a great deal of valuable and accurate reporting, in which case it's a reliable source.  But I do believe they also sometimes mix in opinion, which is subject to WP:BLPPRIMARY.  So my question stands: Politfact never does what the New York Times does, which is to publish or express opinion (the NYT publishes op-ed columns as well as editorials)?Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:11, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

From the source: "PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics." Why in the world would a website called PolitiFact publish opinion pieces? - MrX 23:35, 31 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Answer: For the same reason that some people insert their opinions into the Wikipedia. Any source known to publish purely objective truth would soon develop a powerful credibility with its audience. Credibility is the primary requirement for the dissemination of opinion.  Opinions can have consequences, and can be highly profitably to the source.  Conversely, objective truth is only moderately profitable to the publisher.  Among human beings, the temptation to inject opinion into objective sources is usually overwhelming. No newspaper  or other news organ has been able to resist. Professors and textbook publishers are notorious. And most people cannot even distinguish between their own opinions and objective truth. Grammar's Li'l Helper  Talk 23:49, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * User:MrX, fact-checking organizations like Politifact often inject opinion in how they interpret what Trump means. Trump often does not speak with crystal clarity, and fact-checking organizations will often attribute to him the most outlandish possible meaning, and then fact-check that meaning.  This phenomenon is discussed by University of Wisconsin School of Journalism Professor Lucas Graves, author of a new book titled "Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism."  You can hear him talk about it in this August 10 interview starting at 50:30.  I'd be glad to give you particular examples of this phenomenon, but it's better you should hear it from a source like Lucas Graves than from me.  And Politifact articles can likewise use opinionated language; consider the Politifact article by Angie Holan titled "2015 Lie of the Year: the campaign misstatements of Donald Trump".  The bare concept of a "lie of the year" is opinion rather than objective fact, and she likewise writes: "Donald Trump doesn’t let facts slow him down. Bending the truth or being unhampered by accuracy is a strategy he has followed for years....when challenged, he offers flimsy explanations and suggests he shouldn’t be held accountable -- or simply insists he’s right." So, yes, there is lots of opinion involved in the PolitiFact fact-checking.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:01, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * When a highly reputable fact-checking organization (like PolitiFact) finds that a Presidential candidate is so exceptionally untruthful, and outright disdainful of the idea of truthfulness, that is notable. Yes, it's a subjective judgement, which is why it needs to be attributed (per WP:RSOPINION). I see what you're trying to do, but you're actually making a point opposite to the one intended. By emphasizing that PolitiFact has called out the unique and exceptional nature of Trump's dishonesty, you're making the case that it deserves mention, per our basic responsibility to follow high-quality sources and report their findings. MastCell Talk 17:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I emphatically agree that the opinion of fact-checkers warrant mention with attribution, via reliable secondary sourcing, in the body of the Trump BLP, and I think that I have led the way in that regard. The material now in the article body is generally nuanced and well-sourced, as it should be.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:19, 1 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes and yes. Politifact is a reliable source (really, it's not even a close call). As far as subjective judgements (for instance, that Trump is a uniquely untruthful politician), those can be expressed so long as they are relevant to the article in question and so long as in-text attribution is provided (see WP:RSOPINION). This is pretty basic, and the fact that it requires a trip to WP:RS/N to affirm (much less the fact that some experienced editors don't seem to understand it) speaks poorly to the editing environment at the articles in question. MastCell Talk 04:40, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, but Talk:Donald Trump tries to push editorial freedom too far. A source can be reliable for certain statements, but the RfC proposal that many of Trump's statements have been false goes too far. Stuff like that has to be attributed (it does not seem to be in RfC), and is undue in the lead of a BLP. Johnuniq (talk) 09:43, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes for 1, No for 2. PF is not a statistical sample of someone's public statements, and should not be used to try to paint an overall picture of someone's overall "truthiness". Timothy Joseph Wood  18:02, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Snow yes for 1,  It depends Yes but for 2. PolitiFact is one of the most reliable politics sources out there. It is cited approvingly by just about every major news outlet. If PolitiFact says something we can generally treat it as gospel. As for #2 however, I'm not aware of any PolitiFact source saying what is proposing, but I suppose it's possible. Certainly PolitiFact has published articles about the number of false statements by a politician, or using the word "many," but that's a far cry from giving a percentage of all statements the politician has ever uttered. As for #2, sure that kind of a percentage would be reliably sourced, but moving beyond verifiability, how useful would it be? PolitiFact exercises a lot of editorial discretion in deciding which statements to fact check. I think they usually consider how high-profile, controversial, or suspicious-sounding the statements. A percentage of a denominator like that says as much about PolitiFact as it does about the politician. There might be a place for this information but I can't think of where. I'm not watching this page so please ping me if you'd like my attention. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:33, 29 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes and no, per Anythingyouwant, CFredkin and TimothyJosephWood. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:49, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Alert

Compare with the RSN entry of 17:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC):


 * "You are invited to participate in Talk:Donald Trump. Prior discussion involved the reliability of the proposed sources."

One of the two proposed sources whose reliability was disputed is a PolitiFact piece. There is no consensus that the source can be used to support contentious material in a BLP. --Dervorguilla (talk) 21:08, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you really claiming that some consensus of which no-one but you seems to be aware somehow overrides a massive (and still growing) consensus here? MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  23:44, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * To the contrary, I'm alerting editors to the lack of consensus in a related discussion started by a question that was posted here less than three days ago. --Dervorguilla (talk) 09:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * So you're alerting people who have taken part in a discussion that extremely rapidly produced an almost overwhelming consensus that there's still no consensus? MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  12:45, 29 August 2016 (UTC)


 * User:MjolnirPants - he's advising other editors more fully. That may lead them to reconsider their opinions as being based on bad WP:RSCONTEXT.  That this thread was started immediately after the RFC at the other article makes this thread look suspect of WP:FORUMSHOPPING.  Witholding or opposing the info about the other RFC does not help such suspicions. Markbassett (talk)
 * It wasn't started "immediately" after the RfC, unless your definition of immediately is three days. What other RfC? There's only one that I'm aware of.- MrX 12:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Advising them of what? He seems to be 'advising' them that their voices don't count because one or two people disagree. But that's not how consensus works. The reasons those few don't agree have been addressed already by pointing out that the 'evidence' of these sites' unreliability is simply a handful of opinions. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  13:19, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

*Probably not. I googled "politifact bias" and the results are somewhat troubling. Here is an image briefly summarizing my concerns. They appear to editorialize "facts" and cherry pick scenarios which doesn't fly for me. Mr Ernie (talk) 00:51, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You're citing an anonymous Internet meme from Imgur.com in support of your conclusion? That's very creative, but makes no sense whatsoever. Neutralitytalk 01:09, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * If a meme can be used as an argument, can I use one as my rebuttal? Graham (talk) 01:13, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I didnt know it was a meme as it was the first response on my google search. Is it accurate? Regardless I'll strike my vote. Mr Ernie (talk) 01:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Accurate? It simply shows a bunch of (carefully chosen to create the impression of a bias) examples of fact checking and sarcastically claims a bias (note there are no citations or evidence presented to support the text at the top of the two columns, so that text is really nothing but the claim of a bias itself). Even the examples shown don't fit the claim. How can Ted Cruz be "off by 1%" in the claim listed at the top of the (ironically) left column? No, while the web is full of charges of a liberal bias against the fact checkers, there's precious little in the way of evidence. I did read one well-written (if not well thought-out) piece on one of the bigger news sites once, but even then, the only evidence they presented was crunching the numbers and showing that conservative politicians get worse ratings than liberal politicians by some of the fact checking sites. The author tried to imply that they fact-checked the conservatives way more often, but only showed like a 5% difference. I believe the classic response is "Reality has a well known liberal bias." MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  04:24, 30 August 2016 (UTC)


 * With caution When Politifact says the candidate said x and the truth is y, then that is reliable. But there is judgment included in their coverage too - what statements to list and how egregious they rate each discrepancy.  This becomes a particular issue when their findings are summarized:  "We checked 10 statements by candidate A and found 8 to be true, while for candidate B we found only 2 to be true."  So Politifact's summaries show that Clinton is more honest than Sanders.  TFD (talk) 05:04, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No and No. The Wall Street Journal says "PolitiFact ... has marketed itself to ... news organizations on the pretense of impartiality." ("Politifiction: True 'Lies' about Obamacare".) And the Journal is the most trusted newspaper in America. --Dervorguilla (talk) 18:08, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Dervorguilla that's an opinion piece from the WSJ, not a news article. The "most trusted" study you linked to was about who Americans trust for news, not opinion. And it wasn't the "most trusted" paper, it was just more trusted than not by people in different ideological groups.  Overall, however, the graph shows the USA Today has more trust than WSJ.Depauldem (talk) 21:19, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Exactly. It also doesn't make a declaration that PolitiFact is generally unreliable. It merely opines that it disagrees with PolitiFact's view that Obama Care is not a government takeover. - MrX 21:24, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * See the Pew studies. 1. "The Economist, BBC, ... and The Wall Street Journal are among those with the highest ratio of trust to distrust [for news about government and politics]." 2. "The average consumer of the Wall Street Journal sits very close to the typical survey respondent, but the range of Journal readers is far broader because it appeals to people on both the left and the right." So the Journal's editorial board may be far less "liberal or conservative" than the average board -- and thus more trustworthy. --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:09, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * WSJ news is generally reliable. WSJ Opinion, not covered by that survey, is another beast entirely; their "editorial board" (James Taranto basically is the editorial board) is firmly planted on the conservative side of the field. Xenophrenic (talk) 08:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * This discussion is now publicized at PolitiFact.com Talk. I rephrased the questions per core policies and for accuracy and readability:
 * "1. Is the PolitiFact subsidiary of the Tampa Bay Times a reliable third-party source for material about the truthfulness of statements made by a candidate?"
 * "2. Is it a reliable third-party source for material about the ratio of false statements made by a candidate and checked by PolitiFact to true statements made by a candidate and checked by PolitiFact?"
 * For more on PolitiFact, see this old version of the article. (It's somewhat more concise than the current version.) --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:22, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That link contains NPOV policy violations which don't appear in the present version: PolitiFact.com. Xenophrenic (talk) 06:25, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No the sources shown are not a RS for the statement.
 * WP:RSCONTEXT - the statement is an unqualified broad judgement, put at the lead of BLP. These sources are not a source of encyclopedic review of sources that would support such a claim, nor are they posing as such, they are each a single secondary source of editorial opinion.  Per WP:NEWSORG. an editorial article is suitable as one of a range of views, but not as an unqualified summary of fact.
 * WP:BIASED, Politifact and Factcheck have both been mentioned as somewhat biased by quick google check. (USnews, Forbes, WSJ, National review, Salon).  A bit from being slightly left-of-center sources, but more so from a systematic bias of what they choose to examine and that they structurally are a simplistic scoring, not something that looks for interpretations or what the person meant.  A joke or hyperbole -- gets scored as 'false', even if reasonalb e people would not take it seriously.
 * WP:RS, in particular for WP:BLP cautions about offensive words like 'false'. This has not approached the level of satisfying that.
 * Look, bottom line there is no way suc an edit isn't going to be read as WP:BIASED and WP:ADVOCATE. For the sake of WP:CREDIBILITY just reject blanket judgement statements being proposed.  We don't need to really look at whether the policy is evenly handled with other candidates or shown as just their opinion -- it's inappropriate to be going here with any candidate.
 * Cheers, Markbassett (talk) 00:52, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but PolitiFact is widely-cited by other reputable publications. PolitiFact lists sources for each of their determinations and each is reviewed by a three editor panel before being published. I notice that you haven't provided any evidence that "Politifact and Factcheck have both been mentioned as somewhat biased" so I assume there is none. - MrX 12:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Markbassett, I think you're misreading those policies and guidelines. WP:BIASED says that the bias of a source does not disqualify it--not the other way around. And WP:BLP (specifically, WP:PUBLICFIGURE) says that verifiable facts about public figures should be included even if they're negative or disliked--not the other way around. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes and (weak) Yes - They have the required reputation for fact-checking and accuracy required by our Reliable Source policies. The arguments about bias are unpersuasive, since the accusations of bias have come from both ends of the political spectrum.  Some Wikipedia editors also seem to forget that WP:RS says: reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources...  Use of PolitiFact in case (2) should be with attribution and additional care.  Xenophrenic (talk) 08:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * 1. Yes (with attribution) 2. No – No clue on methodology to pick which statements get fact-checked. Also potential bias towards checking "popular" controversial soundbites vs checking the totality of a speech. — JFG talk 11:17, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. I have a simple question. Is this the main reference we are using to say that some of his speeches contain half-truths? If it is, I don't think this should be used. Also, in fairness, have they fact-checked Clinton's speeches? I am only asking because "Hillary pinocchio" has many matches on Google, and that connotation seems to have become a campaign issue, too.Zigzig20s (talk) 05:02, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * , the scope of this query is clearly articulated at the top of this section. It's about Trump's false statements. (No idea what a half-truth is.) Yes, PolitiFact has fact checked Clinton's statements, some of which are probably in her speeches. Why is that you can hijack nearly every discussion with this Hillary pinocchio and Hillary coughing nonsense, but you can't be bothered to go to PolitiFact.com to get the answer you seek? This tendentiousness and trolling is sure getting disruptive. No more good faith for you!- MrX 13:01, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, please assume good faith. It looks like PolitiFact.com is a project of the Tampa Bay Times, which is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by the Poynter Institute, whose president is Tim Franklin. Has he made any political endorsements or contributions?Zigzig20s (talk) 13:44, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, we would need to double-check their board of trustees.Zigzig20s (talk) 13:57, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That's actually beside the point. "Reliability" and "bias" are two different things. The only question that matters is "do they have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy" (WP:RS)? Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * And if we have to ask if they are reliable, that means they are probably not sufficiently reputable. Otherwise we wouldn't even question it.Zigzig20s (talk) 14:49, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * And if we have to question Trump's honesty, that means he is probably dishonest. If we have to question whether WP:BLP applies, that means it probably doesn't. If we have to question your intelligence, that means you're probably not very intelligent*. Do you see the fundamental problem with this line of reasoning?
 * * (That is a purely rhetorical device, I'm not saying you are not intelligent, merely picking an example most likely to illustrate the utter inapplicability of that logic.) MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  18:20, 1 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes although of course there might be some instances where additional sources would be useful.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes They make occasional mistakes or use incorrect wording in their conclusions but don't we all. Gaas99 (talk) 21:26, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes and Yes - I don't know of a source that would survive the tests applied to PolitiFact by some in this thread. ― Mandruss  &#9742;  04:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes and wrong question. Politifact is not a reliable source for the number of true or false statements that a candidate has made.  They do not even claim to be a reliable source of this.  However, Politifact is a reliable source for the number of true or false statements rated by Politifact.  However, on the latter question, Politifact is a primary source, so not really usable.  Some news/opinion articles, which are secondary sources, have mentioned the Politifact statistics.  I see nothing wrong with citing those statistics, and referencing Politifact (or the appropriate wayback machine archive), but using such opinion content as a secondary source requires a careful consideration of policies other than the WP:RS guideline, such as WP:WEIGHT, WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, etc.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 22:45, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes per all of the above. --Taivo (talk) 22:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * yes to both, based on the content provided in the blue boxes, which is attributed. for the second one, the content in the blue box notes "of the statements checked" which is essential - I would have said "no" to the second one otherwise. Jytdog (talk) 05:45, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. I have requested a formal close on this. Neutralitytalk 20:56, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Commenting to prevent automatic archival pending close. Neutralitytalk 05:29, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Commenting again to prevent automatic archival before closure. Neutralitytalk 18:54, 22 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, Politifact is most definitely a reliable source. GABgab 22:02, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Sometimes and No: it's not above influence or bias. And if this is stemming from trying to edit Trump pages about his claims, we are heading towards a POV. There's a long history of biased editing on his pages. DaltonCastle (talk) 05:44, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes but and No. Yes but they are always right so if another source disagrees then we should treat it as such.  No for the second because it's based on the number of claims they have elected to check, not total claims made, ratio of claims checked vs made etc.  Springee (talk) 15:53, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes and Yes, but with caveats. I think Sławomir Biały got it exactly right above.  They are absolutely a reliable source on the veracity of individual claims (they're obviously not the only reliable source, but when there's contradicting sources, that's a WP:NPOV issue, not a WP:RS issue.)  Regarding the percentages, they're technically reliable there but are a WP:PRIMARY source on their own reporting, so it would be best to find a secondary source covering that figure (and also to establish WP:DUE weight).  In this particular case, I believe that politifact's percentages have been widely reported elsewhere, so we can grab some secondary sources and use those - eg this would be a valid source.  But I would be extremely skeptical about including eg. "X% of this candidate's statements got such-and-such a rating" if there's no secondary sources covering that figure - again, more for WP:WEIGHT issues than anything else.  Politifact produces those figures for every candidate, so to highlight them for one in particular requires some indication that it's getting coverage elsewhere.  An added advantage of this (and part of the reason we use secondary sources) is that we can then paraphrase the framing in the secondary source. --Aquillion (talk) 10:12, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

http://www.theouthousers.com
I am wondering if this website fulfills the criteria for use as a reliable source for entertainment reviews. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:58, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't think so, considering there is only one author publishing his reviews. Meatsgains (talk) 18:36, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations - List of sources
Hello,

I prepared a "list of sources" following a claim (here) that the Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations had POV and reliable source issues. Input was gathered from the RSN - and feedback on the article talk page about RSN input on reliable sources.

This resulted in this list of sources of sources used in the article, which I used to remove Politico and Huffington Post sources, because some could view it as unbiased, and replaced them with more other RS sources and reworded language as needed. There were also sources like tabloid news sources removed because they were considered unreliable per RSN. After the audit and updates to the articles using RSN defined reliable sources, the original poster of that (in a series of) NPOV claims did not respond that there was still an NPOV or reliable issue.

In the last few days, a neutrality tag was applied to the article, and a recent discussion (this discussion) seems to indicate that there is a neutrality issues because we are following feedback from the RS noticeboard. I realize that the RSN is a fluid entity. I have said that all future comments will refer to the RSN and not the list.

I also made a posting about LawNewz, I think I had even originally added the content, and found that was not reliable, so I removed the LawNewz content here.

I see the downfall of using it for guidance, people think that there was some ulterior motive in what got added. And, discussions may be too fluid to prepare a list, except for on-the-spot auditing to address POV and reliable source claims.

Would you please comment on this: Is there any reason why we should not be using RSN as a resource to determine whether sources are reliable? Is it inappropriate to find replacement sources based upon RSN postings? -- CaroleHenson (talk) 21:06, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I apologize, I have made some edits to this since posting for clarity. No one has commented yet, so I thought I could sneak in. Done, any further clarification will be noted below.-- CaroleHenson (talk) 22:28, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * RSN is typically used for establishing whether this or that source is reliable for a particular statement attached to it, not to adjudicate on some nebulous universal concept of "reliability". Depending on the context, even dubious, untrustworthy, self-published, bias, or first-party sources can be considered reliable; it depends 110% on how they are used. You appear to want some definitive list of "what is reliable" and what is not -- that is not what this noticeboard is for. Trump is a living person, and so we have different, stricter rules for our article on him than our articles on most topics, but RSN is not the place to discuss the applicability of those rules to how a source is used -- you should ask at WP:BLPN. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 05:18, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you,, will do!-- CaroleHenson (talk) 05:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

PJ Media opinion piece
Interested editors are invited to participate in the following request for comment: Talk:Dreams from My Real Father. The citation at issue is an op-ed piece/blog post in PJ Media, used to support a factual claim about a film reviewer's political leanings. Neutralitytalk 21:00, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That RFC title is incredibly long, and your citing it makes your second sentence redundant. :P Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 05:32, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

COI editor using RSs (that mention his study) to support COI edit
The diff. Thoughts? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:44, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd say remove it in general. (And have done just this.) The sentence relating to him came across a little promotional. This might be because it was him making the edit, but in general it just seemed like a way to make himself seem more legitimate. The source itself is fairly short and not really in-depth enough to where I'd say it's a notable enough comparison to justify inclusion. If multiple outlets wrote about this then that'd be different, plus ideally they'd also show proof of this somehow. I also note that his only other edit was to add his official website to this article back in 2013. He seems to really only be here to promote himself. He's never been warned, but I'm going to give him a short block for this. I'm tempted to make it indefinite given that his only two edits were to add his stuff to Wikipedia - and this latest one seemed to have been done somewhat sneakily by inserting it along with other sourcing. I'm leery about what his future edits will be like. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  10:45, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Whats the policy reason for blocking there? At best you could say its slightly promotional, it was from a reliable source and it was relevant to the topic. People with COI's are not prohibited by policy from editing. Its not 'spamming' - one link in 2013. At most it merits a firm warning to avoide self-promotion. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:28, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * He had only two edits, both of which were to add himself to Wikipedia. The first time he didn't add anything of value to the page, he just linked to his real estate business website. I originally was only going to warn him, but there was no reason for him to add his website at all to Wallace Neff, especially since the link goes to his website, which is predominantly concerned with selling people property. He made no other edits except to come back and add his name to an article. Other than the news link there's not really anything to show why he should be essentially quoting himself in an article. There's not a heavy amount of coverage that would justify singling him out for mention on the page. In my experience people coming back twice to only write about and link to themselves (either directly or indirectly) tend to be doing it in order to make themselves seem more legitimate. Now I will say that I only made the block a short one, 48 hours. If it were just one or the other edit I'd have been more understanding, but two edits that dealt with adding himself into Wikipedia seemed a little deliberate. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  13:00, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Does this seem like it perhaps belongs at WP:COIN rather than here? Just a thought. Safehaven86 (talk) 16:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The added text is also a verbatim copy of its scpr.org source, aside from the valid concerns about COI and self-promotional undue weight. GermanJoe (talk) 16:37, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The only thing you can say in favour of this edit is that it's less blatant than his only other edit. Guy (Help!) 15:47, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Rappler.com?
I was just looking over our mess of an article on Rodrigo Duterte. Until today it included several citations of pages with "blogspot.com" in the URL, and at least one blogspot.com blog that didn't happen to have blogspot in the URL. It currently cites Rappler.com several dozen times, and I can't figure out whether it's a reliable source -- the only thing I could find in their "About" page (really a drop-down tab -- the "i" in the upper-right corner) was "Welcome to Rappler, a social news network where stories inspire community engagement and digitally fuelled actions for social change. Rappler comes from the root words 'rap' (to discuss) + 'ripple' (to make waves)." Thoughts? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:38, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It looks like it's all user-submitted stories with absolutely minimal editorial control (their terms of use talk about stuff like "don't submit NSFW stories", which makes me think that they exert no actual editorial control at all and that stories go live instantly without review.) They fall under WP:SPS, I'd think - they're generally not usable for anything except the opinions of the author, and even then, unless there's a more reliable secondary source covering that person's opinion (ie specifically talking about something someone said on Rappler), it would be very difficult to argue that anything published there could satisfy WP:DUE to be used even as an opinion. --Aquillion (talk) 21:40, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

If an Australian newspaper gives a "$" figure...


Can we assume they mean USD? Why would it not be AUD? Am I missing something? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 11:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't get that video (Warren Rodwell plea) to load correctly, but other sources suggest that in it the hostage specifies USD. Can anyone confirm? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:12, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * There's no way in hell I'm watching that video (even if I can get it to load), but even if he did specify USD, then don't we still have a WP:VNT issue where we know based on a primary source that the secondary source means USD, but the secondary source itself looks like it would mean AUD? Wouldn't subbing in one of the other sources you mention be better? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 12:56, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Given that the primary source is in this case actually embedded within the secondary source being cited, I wouldn't say so. But if you want to cite another source, take your pick: . Nikkimaria (talk) 01:16, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Are Jack Chick Affiliated Sources RS?
There is a discussion on the talk page of Jack Chick concerning the reliability of certain sources cited in the article. Interested editors are encouraged to join the discussion. The Fringe Theories Noticeboard has also been advised of this discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:08, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Depends what you mean by "affiliated", and how they are attributed inline, but in general HELL NO. Nothing published by Chick Publications is a reliable source for anything other than the opinions of their authors and/or the opinions of Chick Publications. Within the Jack Chick article, WP:BLPSPS allows for limited usage of primary sources as long as they are properly attributed and not WP:UNDUE, but any biographical claims apart from the extremely mundane (Chick is American, Chick is a Christian, Chick doesn't like Roman Catholicism) should be attributable to reliable third-party sources. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:15, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Shit. I had no idea he died. BLP no longer applies, but everything there that is not attributable to reliable third-party sources should be appropriately attributed directly to its author and mention should be made inline to their publisher if their publisher is Chick Publications. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:17, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * BLP continues to apply to the recently departed for a reasonable period of time per WP:BDP. There is no hard formula for how long but generally it is understood to be not less than six months and barring something very unusual, not more than two years. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:50, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Academic working papers
Quick question: can I use academic working papers like this one as in-line references, or do I need to wait until they've been published in a journal? I have never done this but it could be useful. Thanks.Zigzig20s (talk) 04:48, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Either published, or in some cases if they are cited by others heavily (but this is rare, as they are almost always published at this point). Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:59, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Jersey devil needs help please
1. Source.Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation's Weirdest Wonders ... By Loren Coleman page; https://books.google.com/books?id=Z2UlKsvrX60C&lpg=PA1&pg=PT270#v=onepage&q=popuessing&f=false

2Jersey devil article.

3.The dispute; Talk:Jersey_Devil

I have included the TP dispute. This source is good imo and the reasons given for why it would not be do not apply to this article and are destructive in my opinion. Any guidance appreciated here, ty.TeeVeeed (talk) 17:02, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The author is this fellow. The book in question is a typical cryptozoology work. Cryptozoology is, of course, a pseudoscience (thus WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE and WP:FRINGE). I've requested that the user provides a source from an academic who works in folkloristics or history but the user hasn't been able to produce this. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 17:14, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The source was published by Simon and Schuster and continues to be supported by them. I found this source after the original ref in the article was deleted. The original ref gave this source as a reference, so I used this one to try and amend and appease the deletion of content and sourcing. I'm running into a problem of OR if I go any further here and the noted passage is referenced in multiple other sources, but most use the WP article itself as the source, so I think this would be best here, or maybe the original ref. but I do NOT agree with this folklore stipulation and I again think it is destructive to the article and Wikipedia in generalTeeVeeed (talk) 17:27, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * We don't use flat earth theory works to write our geology articles for the same reason that we don't let cryptoozologists turn our folklore and biology articles into their personal Pokémon databases: Wikipedia simply isn't the place to promote pseudoscience. The project in fact has a variety of policies restricting pseudoscience (for example, WP:UNDUE).


 * Now, if the information is solid, there shouldn't be a problem finding a reliable source for it without resorting to pseudoscience. If it can't be reliably sourced, then it just needs to come out of the article until when and if it can be reliable sourced (WP:PROVEIT). &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 17:33, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Survey Q- Is this book and author a reliable source? And comments

 * Yes (proposing editor)-I think this is a RS. I also believe it is being used in article properly, but I could be wrong about that because at this point it feels like a primary source to me but I've looked at it too much. But even then I think it is good.TeeVeeed (talk) 21:43, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

University student newspapers reliable?
There's a disagreement at an AfD regarding whether the MIT official student newspaper is considered a reliable source. I guess this is really two questions: 1) Are official university student newspapers generally considered reliable? and 2) Is the MIT official student newspaper considered reliable in this case? The related discussion is at Articles_for_deletion/The_Hidden_Curriculum, and the article itself is linked there. GigglesnortHotel (talk) 14:04, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Generally they are not reliable as we define them but it varies depending on the newspaper and the type of information needing sourcing. The main problem with student newspapers is the constant churn of staff of unknown experience and/or editorial practice. That's largely irrelevant however, as the MIT newspaper is being used to demonstrate notability of a book/thesis by the (then) Dean of MIT. So it fails the independence criteria for demonstrating notability. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:26, 21 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The Tech (newspaper) appears to be used as a source about a published book. indicates the book is published by MIT Press which is a reputable publisher of reliable sources.  It has been reviewed in major journals (The Hidden Curriculum "will gain recognition as one of the more cogent 'college unrest' books. Its main contention is simple. There exist, Snyder explains, two curriculums governing the university degree. In addition to mastering the substantive one (say, physics or history), a student must cope with its tactical complement, the academic game whereby his appropriate responses to institutional prejudices will best ensure a high letter-grade transcript.... [A] most provocative thesis." —Saturday Review
 * "...the formal requirements for courses or for success in higher education are often in sharp contrast to what it really takes for a student to complete a course successfully or to be acceptable to peers, faculty, and others.... The central task in studying the 'hidden curriculum' is to learn which patterns of behavior are tribally and/or institutionally sanctioned, and to learn to practice 'selective negligence,' that is, to identify the relevant and simplify the complex. The author calls for a searching dialogue on the disillusionment and gamesmanship that hide behind the specifics of the curriculum."—Library Journal
 * MIT News states: "Snyder was a professor of psychiatry and psychiatrist-in-chief at MIT from 1959 to 1969; dean of Institute relations from 1969 to 1972; and director for the Division of Study and Research in Education from 1973 to 1986. ... Snyder wrote about students and mental health; his book “The Hidden Curriculum,” published by MIT Press in 1972, was on the culture of MIT and how students cope with overload through selective neglect. The book went through various editions."
 * other sources include, and dozens of other uses in reliable sources. Collect (talk) 14:36, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, so it's really a bit more complicated than my question begins to address. Thanks for your input! GigglesnortHotel (talk) 17:53, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Heads up that the term "hidden curriculum" predates the book, The Hidden Curriculum Your last link is about the former and not the latter. Also Library Journal "reviews" typically aren't reviews but listings, shorter even than Publishers Weekly or Kirkus czar  18:35, 21 October 2016 (UTC)


 * This discussion has apparently continued into Farm-Fresh eye.png Articles for deletion/The Hidden Curriculum so please continue there czar  18:41, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * For something to meet GNG it matters if the source is independent or not; it is not only a matter of it being reliable.  The discussion is missing that point; the fact that the MIT paper is writing about an MIT dean's book pretty much crosses out "independent", as was noted above. Jytdog (talk) 08:23, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I would disagree with that analysis. Unless you wish to imply that the editorial stance of the newspaper came under the direction of the academic institution then it can be considered independent.  It's not the house magazine of a company; the editors presumably chose to review the book, and the reviewer write about it, without the author of the book exerting influence on those decisions.  It is possible that MIT-based writers might overestimate the significance of an MIT publication, making it weaker evidence of notability than another publication, but it shouldn't be rejected out of hand.  Martinlc (talk) 08:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Criteria for news sources
I see a lot of debates at Wikipedia over which news sources are reliable and which ones aren't, and usually the debates degenerate quickly into the usual ideological spitting matches. Liberals don't want to include Fox News or Breitbart, conservatives don't want to use MSNBC or CNN. Is there any rule that requires the use of an objective list based on what reputable analysts have determined about reliability? E.g. I remember a Pew Research Group study a few years ago that rated news sources. If Wikipedia doesn't use something like this as an objective litmus test, I think it should. It fits right into the usual requirement that reliable academic sources be used for everything else, so why not use a source like this to determine media reliability? BigGreenCahuna (talk) 04:51, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * There is an external sources blacklist. And I can't find it right now but, there is or was a request board for removing blacklisted external links.TeeVeeed (talk) 13:44, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * News reporting from Fox or CNN is reliable for factual content. Opinion content is not generally factually reliable, but it is reliable as a primary source for the opinion of its author.  The reliability of a news source comes from its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.  Fox News and CNN have such a reputation.  Breitbart does not.  So Breitbart is not generally a reliable source, except for opinion content.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 14:32, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Miao people's tradition of the name of Noah's wife
Trying to resolve a content dispute at Wives aboard Noah's Ark.

Is the following content reliably sourced?

The Miautso people of China preserved in their traditions the name of Noah's wife as Gaw Bo-lu-en.

To save you clicking, here is the main page for the book/website cited there.

Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:42, 26 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Not a reliable source, among other things because it states "Moreover, they [Miautso] were in possession of surprisingly accurate recollections of the Creation and the Flood,". Also "preserved in their traditions the name of Noah's wife" doesn´t work in WP:s voice. At all. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:02, 26 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I note that the website uses a text which apparently can be found at  as its main source for its claims. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:07, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * "tradition"? "their"? "preserved"? Most north-east and (though to a slightly lesser extent) south-east Asian "traditions" related to biblical figures were invented in the past one or two centuries, and most of the ones I've personally encountered (in Japan, mind you) originate either as hoaxes or romantic, elaborate and bizarre conspiracy theories. The wording of the above sentence implies this is a long-standing tradition that originates with the Hmong people themselves (as opposed to foreign missionaries or random conspiracy-minded individuals), and this is an WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim that would require an extraordinary source. "ldolphin.org/cooper" doesn't look like such a source. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:17, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Jesus is buried in Japan, you know. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:46, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Obviously not a reliable source, for the reasons explained by the three editors above. Neutralitytalk 00:17, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Journalisted.com
Is journalisted.com reliable? Specifically, can it be used as an RS for BLPs on journalists? Looks like journalists can sign up and claim a profile but I'm not sure if there is any verification process required. It claims it is "an independent, not-for-profit website" and "is run by the Media Standards Trust, a registered charity set up to foster high standards in news on behalf of the public, and funded by donations from charitable foundations." Any input would be appreciated. Thanks Meatsgains (talk) 22:28, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The main problem is on the "about" page, alas.
 * Find out further information about a particular journalist – such as links to a personal website or wikipedia page and, in some cases, an email address.
 * shows that issue clearly. It is not a reliable source as such about journalists.  But a nice place to look up news articles. Collect (talk) 14:15, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Meatsgains (talk) 16:57, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Is Encylopedia Britannica creditable when User in Wikipedia debate is submitting corrects
1. Encyclopedia Britannica- Laura Branigan

2. Laura Branigan (This is being discussed on Talk:Laura Branigan (Encylopedia Britannica topic)) 3. The issue is that looking over the history of the Encylopedia Britannica is that Born53 swe (aka Stig-Ake Persson) submitted it. I have tried to argue that it is User-generated content, but the name of the site "Encyclopedia Britannica". Please look over the history dropdown on the page and look see they doesn't seem to require proof for changes to article. All they require is second eyes (John M. Cunningham) and thats all to get a rewrite. Please note that the birthdate topic is heated on Laura Branigan article. Devilmanozzy (talk) 20:04, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, there are good sources that imply quite clearly that a 1952 date is a good one... but they only imply it. We as WP editors can't make that inference.  But EB editors certainly can.  Any interested publisher could.  But ... it is trivia that matters to a very few people in the world, and no one is likely to publish this.  If EB chooses to take the word of the primary sources, or of the person who secured a birth record, then certainly there is good evidence of the date.  I neither support nor oppose EB as an RS, just interested.  Shajure (talk) 20:48, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Although it is clear that EB has altered the birth date following the representations made by aka Stig-Ake Persson (on July 7, 2015; Jan. 9, 2016: and Oct. 18, 2016 - see the article history), it's also clear that another EB editor, John M. Cunningham, described as EB's Readers' Editor, was involved in making the changes.  If EB as an organization trusts Cunningham to make those changes, it's not up to us here to question them.  In general terms, EB is probably more reliable than most sources used in most articles.   But, ultimately, it is still a tertiary source.  As I've suggested at the article talk page, my view is that we should mention the EB information in the article footnote, but not rely on it in this case.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:09, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * New information about the EB edits have come to light. I had a conversation on Twitter with John M. Cunningham, and he confirms that the documentation was why they changed the date. Further he also notes that John was in contact via email with the owner of "http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nywestch/" and confirms the documentation came from them. So now the reason for the update on EB was given. Devilmanozzy (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * What is important from that exchange is that EB regard the information provided by Persson as giving "definitive proof" of his claims (that Branigan was born in 1952), and that, "for now", they are "satisfied [about] the veracity of the [EB] article..." - which now gives the 1952 date. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:29, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And that makes it even more dicey, I think, to use the EB. We don't normally use Ancestry.com as a source. Doug Weller  talk 12:25, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In this case, it seems that Ancestry were merely the route through which the original documentation was obtained. Ancestry is clearly not reliable for its user-generated content, but much of its content is not in that category - it is simply a republication of unaltered official documentation, as in this case.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:34, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * This will be very interesting to follow. Especially two things.. 1. Devilmanozzy, in your Twitter conversation with JC at EB you are mentioning that "The false information affecting Wikipedia's article. This statement from you demands an answer and explanation right here. Which is the false information I have posted? 2. Devilmanozzy, (you again!) "In the age of photoshop, any image can be forged". I demand you to answer this question right here. Which of my images are fabricated in PS? It would be very interesting to know, though I don't know how PS works and I don't even have PS in my computer! If you and other are starting this RSN against me, at least you have to show me and all others which is false and which is fabricated. I don't know, so you better tell me. Your answer will be very interesting. Both for me and for Wikipedia's editors or what it is called. You see Devilmanozzy, this is very much about your reputation as a wiki contributor. Not mine, I am too old having such burdens on my shoulders.--Born53 swe (talk) 14:13, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Please take the personal squabbling somewhere else, this thread is for discussing the source not for defending your wiki-reputation.
 * I spent quite a while looking into this - every article, obituary, and biography that I could find (and there were a lot) gave a 1957 birth date. This seems like a pretty clear WP:NOTTRUTH situation to me, and the modified Britannica article is a major outlier.  We should just list the birthdate as 1957. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Based especially on the comments amd wp guidelines stated by Doug Weller and Fyddlestix, in addition to my personal skepticism based that this is engineered by someone who is decidedly COI, I agree that using EB to source this article is not acceptable. We must wait for other established reliable sources to publish retractions / statement of erratum / and publish a new birth year.. Fylbecatulous talk 15:08, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you Fyddlestix! I hope you stand by your word and never let wiki change anything. I hereby trust in you that ALL changes will be undone by you and that wiki always will have 1957. You see, I love to see all wrongs and I also find it very amusing (Like people from Armonk, Laura's hometown) reading that siblings are sharing the same birth year, 1957. Maybe you should change Billy's birth year to 19xx? Otherwise, Kathleen Branigan must have being exhausted of tiredness having 2 children same year. First in Feb 28 (Billy) and then 4 month later child no 2, Laura. And about DM, though he has been in contact with Encyclopedia Britannica and accused me for lying and PS, isn't it my right to know what it is I have lied and fabricated? And if he and others are starting this RSN, how can I defend myself when I have tried for month knowing what he means? Maybe you can ask him what he means with his accuses? And ask him why is spelling my name wrong, as well. And what is a major outlier? I would think that EB will be more respectful than wikipedia ever will be. So maybe you should stay on the ground and don't fly away on your wiki wings. Remember, when you are gone, EB will always be there. So you will never be compared with them. Even if you think so. And last, which papers, obituaries, articles, etc, have you read? It could be interested to know, though many of them are out of days.--Born53 swe (talk) 15:26, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I can understand your frustration, but please understand that we are obligated to say what the sources do - I made a good faith effort to look this up in multiple databases and publications, and everything said 1957. You're right that EB carries more weight than Wikipedia but a) that's not saying much and b) it isn't enough to make us toss out or ignore the dozens of reliable sources that agree she was born in 57. The most were going to be able to do here is add a note somewhere that says some sources give an earlier birthdate, which is what's in the article right now. I'm happy to see everyone compromise on that but I don't see how the article is ever going to say 1952 up front - too many sources (including some of the most reliable sources that we could hope to find for a bio like this) contradict that. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:38, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Once again, "too many sources including some of the "most reliable sources" that we could hope to find for a bio like this". What sources are you talking about? New York Times? NYT are using former AP's Madison Gray's story. And Mr Gray has admitted to me that he wrote this story from Laura's management (wrong) press release. And he also admits that if the press release is wrong, his story is wrong. And Madison Gray's story are published in many papers. So he is out as a reliable source. Boston Globe, Seattle Times are using Madison Gray's and they are also out of date. Mr Gray has told me in an email if I want to have changes done, he can't do it, and he recommends me to contact AP's head office in London. And that has been done as well. So AP is very much aware of their wrong obituary over Laura Branigan. So Fyddlestix, what are your most reliable sources? And don't forget to ask DMy which pictures I have fabricated in PS? And my false information, as well. He must tell me, don't you think? And for me, it would be nice to know which images and false information I shall delete from my research. It would be very embarrassing for wiki if it is things I have received from Laura's former friends, neighbours and classmates in Armonk. --Born53 swe (talk) 21:35, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm going to say this and leave it at that for now, I engaged John on twitter to find out why, that is all there is to it. I could have kept the answer to myself and not shared it on Wikipedia, but I wanted all the facts on the table. I honestly brought this here to question the reference since it was at the time seen as above the commonly known birthdate and cause I've never heard of Encylopedia Britannica before this came up. To me, I see issues with the reference because they don't explain why they came to that conclusion on the page, and I had to run to the editor's twitter page to get a why. That to me really hurts the overall respect in the information. Even now, I have to assume that a email conversation happened that I can't see. Ultimately, again this is about proof. I really don't like the idea of just "trusting" someone about something, and I'd rather see a third party be the one to arrive to a conclusion that this date is wrong and prove it is wrong. Devilmanozzy (talk) 03:24, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * @DevilM, why did you write to John and accused me for fabricating images? Right here, I demand you to tell me WHICH images are fabricated in Photoshop!! I don't have PS in my bloody computer. How hard is it to understand? And what kind of false information am I spreading? Answer here so all can read it!! And do you really think I am so stupid that I would show you or others my email conversation during 1.5 year with EB?--Born53 swe (talk) 16:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Ok, since you asked:


 * Taylor, C. (2004). Laura branigan dies. Billboard, 116(37), 12. - "died Aug. 26 of a brain aneurysm in her sleep at home in East Quogue, N.Y. She was 47."
 * Obituaries: Music bizzers: Laura branigan. (2004, Sep). Variety, 396, 45. - "died Aug. 26 at her home in East Quogue, N. Y., of a brain aneurysm. She was 47."
 * "Laura Branigan". 2001. In The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, Phil Hardy. London: Faber and Faber Ltd. - says "b. 3 July 1957"
 * Hanson, A. (2005, Jan 21). Laura branigan, 1957-2004. Goldmine, 31, 20. - gives birthdate of 1957 in the article headline
 * "Laura Branigan 1957-2004." People, September 13, 2004., 72. - gives 1957 as birthdate in the article headline. "the 47-year-old singer, who died Aug. 26"
 * Gitlin, Lauren. "OBITUARIES." Rolling Stone, September 30, 2004. - "died of a brain aneurysm on August 26th at her home in East Quogue, New York. She was forty-seven."
 * "Laura Branigan, Pop Singer Famous for 'Gloria,' Dies at 47." New York Times, Aug 29, 2004. - "She was 47."
 * "Laura Branigan, 47, Pop Singer." Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug 29, 2004. "born on July 3, 1957."
 * "PEOPLE AND PLACES." The Baltimore Sun, Jul 03, 1994 - "Singer Laura Branigan is 37" (in 1994).
 * Horsburgh, Susan, and Mark Dagostino. "Facing the Music." People 57, no. 17 (May 6, 2002): 145. - "Branigan sees her comeback attempt as an emergence from years of mourning. As a 24-year-old in 1981..."
 * "1980s Pop Singer Laura Branigan, 47; was Grammy Nominee for 'Gloria'." The Washington Post, Aug 31, 2004. "Laura Branigan, 47."
 * "Obituaries; Laura Branigan, 47; Grammy Nominee for 1982 Hit Song 'Gloria'." Los Angeles Times, Aug 30, 2004. "She was 47."
 * "Laura Branigan." Contemporary Musicians. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1989. "Born: July 03, 1957 in Brewster, New York."
 * "Laura Branigan." Almanac of Famous People. Gale, 2011. "Born July 3, 1957."


 * You can see why I said EB is an outlier - and this is just a sample, as there are many many more sources that say the same thing. Newspaper searches alone returned close to 600 results. Obviously did not check every last one, but every single one that I've looked at agrees that she was born in 1957. And not just obituaries - older coverage says the same thing. So do all of the feature/magazine articles that I can find. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:50, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Just as I thought..Just crap. Most of this is persons I have been in contact with. Several of your so called reliable sources are from one (1) person, Madison Gray. A former AP staff writer. He has admitted in an email conversation that he wrote Laura's obituary from Laura's management press release from August 28, 2004. He never met Laura or her managers, he had the press release. And he also wrote to me "with a wrong press release, his story is also wrong". But he didn't know anything before I contacted him 2015. I agree with you that all wrongs about Laura depends of a setup by Laura herself and Atlantic Records A&R Dept. They had one (1) purpose with this setup, make Laura younger and attractive so Atlantic would make a lot of money of this new star. And this setup would have been the truth if I hadn't started my research spring 2014. With my research I have showed and revealed that Laura wasn't born 1957 in Brewster. It was 1952 in Mount Kisco, at Northern Westchester Hospital. Just like her little brother Billy, born Feb 28, 1957. If you know a better place to publish my research than Pinterest, please give me a note. I would really left Pinterest for something better, but have no clue where to look for it. Can anyone advise me of a webiste?--Born53 swe (talk) 16:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but the NYT, LA Times, and Washington Post can't be dismissed as "just crap" - especially when your reasoning is clear and obvious original research. Neither can any of the other sources I listed, or any of the many many other sources that also turned up in a search. It really doesn't matter what your own research has shown or who you've talked to. What matters is what the sources say. Fyddlestix (talk) 13:30, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The fact that we, as WP editors, now know the process through which EB made the change in Branigan's birth date is irrelevant. They went through their fact checking processes, and have concluded that the 1952 date is reliable.  There is no reason for us to question that process - it is not a matter for us.  If we want to question EB's fact checking process in general, and so question EB's reliability in all matters, with the implication that it should be removed as a source from all WP articles, that is a different matter, and one for wider discussion than solely between those interested in Branigan's birth date.  So, the only issue is whether the existing footnote in our article - which does not mention EB - is sufficient, or whether EB should be mentioned specifically as a source that gives a date other than 1957.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:03, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm going to agree that EB is a RS here. The age-discrepancy now has enough RS actually, (the NY Post article), to have a sentence included in the article in my opinion.TeeVeeed (talk) 15:26, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Also adding see Diem Brown. The error was caught early and acknowledged/corrected publicly in many RS, but somewhat similar.TeeVeeed (talk) 15:32, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Maybe this is stupid, but I found this from Mrs Cathy Horn on Ancestry Rootsweb. I have nothing to do with this. Laura's SS-no is there if anyone is interested. There are some errors, Manhattan should be Mount Kisco, Westchester County, New York. Laura and Larry were married in 1978, not 1981. Laura Ann Branigan, born 1952, SS no. 093-48-5378, September 29, 1970   Cathy Horn was the New York genealogist who sent me Laura's application in August. So this is what I can provide in sources. I don't know how you will value this link. It is up to you. Maybe this could be the end of calling me a liar and fabricator. This site is running by Ancestry, which I don't use i my research. I am using FamilySearch though my family tree is published there. So, conclusion maybe will be...I was right all the time about late singer "Laura Ann Branigan, SS no. 093-48-5378, September 29, 1970, Application for Account Number (Form SS-5), Social Security Administration, Baltimore, Maryland." Hope this is over now. Greetings from Sweden and--Born53 swe (talk) 17:31, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * off topic but I'm wondering why she and her husband are not available in the Social Security Death Index Master List? That could have cleared it up in my mind.TeeVeeed (talk) 20:36, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Laurence R Kruteck United States Social Security Death Index can be found here.. Laurence Kruteck SSDI But no Laura, so far--Born53 swe (talk) 21:17, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This is so creepy and tiresome that we are engaging in this amount of WP:Original research here. The Ancestry.com link: itself states (in paraphrase) that if someone is missing, the survivor benefits were probably not applied for or the number was listed incorrectly on the application.  Again, Ancestry.com is user generated and there are many errors in my so-called family tree.  We are so barking up the wrong tree here.  sigh......  Fylbecatulous talk 20:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It is completely wrong to state baldly that "Ancestry.com is user generated". That is only true of the family tree material contributed by subscribers, which is clearly not a reliable source.  But, most of the material available at Ancestry.com is not user-generated in any sense - it is a convenient republication of unaltered (in many cases scanned) original official material such as census forms, social security applications, etc. etc., which is primary source material.  It may not be reliable in preparing WP articles because we should not use primary source material, but it is certainly not "user-generated".  Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:35, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * PS: It's also somewhat misleading to suggest that "we" are engaging in OR here. What has happened is that two individuals have brought their very heated off-wiki argument over Branigan's birth date to this forum, and are taking up a lot of "our" (WP) space in arguing with each other.  "We" regular editors have simply tried to reflect established guidelines over reliable sourcing, which at least one of those two finds very difficult to accept.  I certainly understand that editors who have not followed this argument find it difficult to understand, let alone care, what all the fuss is about.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:44, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This makes no sense: not only are you asking us to assume that user-generated content which can't be confirmed or verified is right - you admit that the content contains errors. Something that an amateur genealogist posted on ancestry.com is obviously not a reliable source. All that matters is what published sources say. Fyddlestix (talk) 13:30, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Who are you replying to? Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:40, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I was replying to Born53's comment here Fyddlestix (talk) 18:42, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Anent "Published sources" and genealogy, it is widely understood that genealogies published in the late nineteenth century are apt to be erroneous, as they were generally not independently researched, but relied for information on the people paying for the publication. The current standards, while not perfect, do mean that the modern ones published using independent research are generally usable. I also note that Social Security death records have been found to have some errors, and though such are generally considered reliable, when shown to be wrong, the individual records may cease to be reliable.    Collect (talk) 14:33, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * If it was an actual scanned/digitized document or a link to the actual record I'd probably be fine with it. But that's not what this is. It's user generated - and Born53 has themselves said that it contains errors. Fyddlestix (talk) 18:42, 29 October 2016 (UTC)


 * While tertiary sources meet rs, they are not the best sources and best practice is to avoid them. The major complaint I have is that since they do not have footnotes do not form part of the academic discussion in books and articles, that there is no way of determining if their claims are correct when they conflict with other reliable sources.  For example, a false claim made about Timothy McVeigh's connection to the Michigan militia was sourced to a contemporaneous newspaper report.  A subsequent researcher, citing the original report, found that it was wrong and subsequent reports incorporated the new finding.  We cannot do that with sources that do not state where they got their material.
 * EB and other tertiary sources frequently comes up as in content disputes.
 * TFD (talk) 22:18, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Bach's Triple Concerto
Articles:
 * Triple Concerto, BWV 1044
 * Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach

Content:
 * "Bach scored the concerto for the same instruments as his earlier fifth Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1050."
 * "Bach based the Triple Concerto on two earlier compositions: the Prelude and Fugue in A minor for solo harpsichord, BWV 894, and the middle movement of the Trio Sonata for Organ in D minor, BWV 527."
 * "The oldest extant manuscript copy of BWV 894, written by Johann Tobias Krebs, dates from 1710–17."
 * "Bach's Organ Sonatas, much of which was based on earlier work, got their final form around 1730."
 * "Bach composed the Triple Concerto after 1726 in Leipzig, probably, however, it was composed in the later years of his life."
 * "The concerto has three movements:
 * (No tempo indication, usually interpreted as Allegro) – based on BWV 894/1
 * Adagio ma non tanto e dolce – based on BWV 527/2
 * Tempo di Allabreve – based on BWV 894/2"
 * "The outer movements were developed from the harpsichord piece with added tutti sections. The middle movement was expanded from the organ piece to four voices: only the solo instruments play, and the flute and violin share the melody and accompaniment, switching roles on the repeat of each half."
 * "The performance time of the concerto is c. 22 minutes."
 * "Though this is a concerto for three instruments (...), the harpsichord has the most prominent role and greatest quantity of material; there are several cadenzas and virtuosic passages for the instrument"

Sources:
 * 1) BDW
 * 2) D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 801, Fascicle 4 at Bach Digital website
 * 3) BWV2a (1998), pp. 311–312
 * 4) D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 271, Fascicle 1 and D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 272 at Bach Digital website
 * 5) Wilhelm Rust (editor). Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Volume XV: Orgelwerke. Band 1. Breitkopf & Härtel, 1867, pp. 1–78
 * 6) Dietrich Kilian (editor). Johann Sebastian Bach: Neue Ausgabe sämtliche Werke, Series IV: Organ Works Volume 7: Six Sonatas and various Single Works, Score (1984, 22013) and Critical Commentary (1988). Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, for the Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Institut, Göttingen and the Bach-Archiv, Leipzig.
 * 7) Pieter Dirksen (editor). Johann Sebastian Bach: Complete Organ Works - Breitkopf Urtext, New Edition in 10 Volumes, Volume 5: Sonatas / Trios / Concertos - with CD-ROM: Organ Works Based on Compositions by Bach and Others (includes Introduction and Commentary). Breitkopf & Härtel, 2010.
 * 8) BWV2a (1998) p. 425
 * 9) Werner Breig, Bach: Concertos for Harpsichord, ISMN: M-006-20451-9 (1999, Bärenreiter)
 * 10) Werner Breig, notes to recordings of the complete harpsichord concertos by Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert (1981, Archiv Produktion); lengths also taken from these recordings

The second of the articles mentioned above has a More footnotes tag for over five years (for the BWV 1044 section in that article it appears to fall back on the two general references in Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach exclusively, Nos. 9 and 10 in the list of sources above); Sources No. 1–8 in the list above are taken from the separate Triple Concerto article. Most of the content above appears in both places (detail about the genesis only in the separate article; harpsichord prominence only in the general keyboard concerto article) --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:12, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Let's take this one at a time: Content was removed. I disagree, it is well-sourced, and gives an insight about the genesis of the concerto's second movement. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:49, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Sources:
 * BWV2a (1998), pp. 311–312
 * D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 271, Fascicle 1 and D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 272 at Bach Digital website
 * Wilhelm Rust (editor). Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Volume XV: Orgelwerke. Band 1. Breitkopf & Härtel, 1867, pp. 1–78
 * Dietrich Kilian (editor). Johann Sebastian Bach: Neue Ausgabe sämtliche Werke, Series IV: Organ Works Volume 7: Six Sonatas and various Single Works, Score (1984, 22013) and Critical Commentary (1988). Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, for the Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Institut, Göttingen and the Bach-Archiv, Leipzig.
 * Pieter Dirksen (editor). Johann Sebastian Bach: Complete Organ Works - Breitkopf Urtext, New Edition in 10 Volumes, Volume 5: Sonatas / Trios / Concertos - with CD-ROM: Organ Works Based on Compositions by Bach and Others (includes Introduction and Commentary). Breitkopf & Härtel, 2010.
 * Article: Triple Concerto, BWV 1044 (2nd movement based on an Organ Sonata movement)
 * Content: "Bach's Organ Sonatas, much of which was based on earlier work, got their final form around 1730."


 * Anyhow, I conclude there is no problem to re-add the deleted content: I've been fine-tuning the sources in the mean while (adding more precise page numbers where possible, etc.), so that it is easier to verify that the content is covered by the sources. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:53, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

The Werner Breig sources appear irrelevant for BWV 1044: --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:16, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * (source #9 in OP): doesn't include BWV 1044. The only J. S. Bach compositions Breig seems to have edited for Bärenreiter are BWV 1052–1059
 * (source #10 in OP): doesn't include BWV 1044 (see )

For clarity: Breig was the editor of Vol. 4 of Series VII: Orchestral Works of the New Bach Edition: Vol. 4 was about BWV 1052–1059

The 3rd volume of the same series (containing BWV 1044) was edited by Dietrich Kilian: I propose to add this source to both articles menioned in the OP. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:29, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Score (1986)
 * Critical Commentary (1989)


 * Kilian source added to both articles, for the second also making clear which works are covered by the Breig sources. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:53, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

It is unclear to me why the Wollny (1997) and Eppstein (1971) sources, if they are as important as explained on the talk page of the BWV 1044 article, aren't added to the article yet. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:53, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Sources for lists of names
There is a disagreement concerning the inclusion of red-linked names in lists and the need for citing sources in Talk:Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and related discussions at Talk:Howardian High School and at User talk:Verbcatcher. These follow an earlier dispute at Talk:Académie Julian. Please help us to resolve these issues. Verbcatcher (talk) 14:16, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No double standards, no dispute--DDupard (talk) 16:19, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * There is a dispute. Verbcatcher (talk) 22:19, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Clarifying: When there are double standards, there are disputes, when no double standard no dispute--DDupard (talk) 23:00, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * For the record: over 500 references added on this page--DDupard (talk) 05:46, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That is misleading. You are linking to a different page. Verbcatcher (talk) 15:04, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Never said it is the same page. Said I added 500 ref on page List of faculty and alumni of the Académie Julian per user request. Now 500 more could be added to this other page Académie de la Grande Chaumière. (not by me though) . What is the question?.--DDupard (talk) 19:15, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I added my comment because users of this noticeboard could have been confused by your link (or by your "no dispute" comment). Your hard work on a different page is of little relevance here. If you think I am trying to impose double standards then please explain precisely how on my talk page. There is still a dispute at Talk:Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and I am seeking help to resolve it. Verbcatcher (talk) 21:30, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * !!!? No comments, the link above was introduced in the opening statement of this section: Talk:Académie Julian, (not by me). Either one adds references, either one continues to fill pages with debates (on and on).--DDupard (talk) 07:40, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

We still need help to resolve this issue. The discussion above is simply a continuation of the discussion between the main protagonists. We tried a third opinion before without success, and I want to avoid the need for formal mediation. Is this the right noticeboard? Help please! Verbcatcher (talk) 21:13, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

All sources for a national government official are in non-English languages
I'd like to create an article about a member of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia. It's a significant national government body in the world's fourth most populous country, but for the individual in question, I've literally found zero mentions of his name in English sources. Not one time is his existence even established in an English-language source, but sources in the Indonesian language mention him frequently. I couldn't find any information on this under WP:IRS...do we have an established precedent for this? Would sources be considered reliable if the average reader of English Wikipedia wouldn't be able to access any of them at all? MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:42, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * We have no requirement that any sources must be in English, only that 1) they are of equivalent reliability as compared to English-based sources of the same ilk (such as a major national newspaper), and 2) that we have a reasonably good method of translation of that material for WP inclusion. Ideally, in this case, if you or another editor can read and understand the other languages, that's allowable (perhaps using the quote= in citation templates to help explain the translation). --M ASEM (t) 03:50, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Awesome, I'll work on roughly translating pertinent sections of news articles. I know a few editors who could review those for accuracy, too. Thanks! MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:05, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The only potential problem would be translated quotes from the sources, not the sources themselves. If you want to include translated excerpts, I would think the translations would need to come from an RS, not from a Wikipedia editor. However, you could paraphrase them in your words without any problem. GBRV (talk) 04:22, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In that case, I'll stick with whatever is the least problematic/controversial. The individual and his colleagues (there are like four of them, upon inspection) aren't controversial; they're just federal judges in the 4th largest country and I felt like they're notable enough to warrant articles with basic educational and career info. MezzoMezzo (talk) 03:10, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Maps
Not sure where to post this but just wanted to ask a general question. Can maps be used as a reliable source? How about those from well-established organisations? Simply south ...... time, deparment skies for just 10 years 17:31, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The answer is going to depend on which map you're talking about, and what you want to use it as a source for. Can you be more specific? Fyddlestix (talk) 18:45, 29 October 2016 (UTC)


 * In general, I would say no, maps are not reliable sources. If a statement needs a source, then that source probably should not be a map. One cannot look at a map, see something interesting in that map, and then use the map to support that general observation. I've run into this problem many times, including today at East China Sea (where an editor is using a 19-th century French map that labels the East China Sea as the Sea of Korea to justify a statement that the French called the East China Sea the Sea of Korea in the 19th Century). An editor has also looked at a Readers' Digest map, noticed the Taiwan Strait was close to the East China Sea label, and therefore concluded that the Taiwan Strait was part of the East China Sea (it is part of the South China Sea). General statements, such as New Guinea is north of Australia, probably will not be challenged and would not need a source. One could look at a map and get the coordinates of some feature and use the map as the source for those coordinates, but even that can have problems. Go to Kiushan Tao and click on its coordinates; then click on Google Maps; you'll end up in water to the northwest of the island; now click earth view, and you're at the center of the island. Which coordinates are correct? Glrx (talk) 19:42, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

As always, "is 'x' a reliable source" is the wrong question to ask, it depends on what claim you are sourcing. Is the relevant Ordnance Survey map a reliable source to verify that Maplin Sands is an MOD danger area? Of course. What you might be getting confused with is the related question : is a topic notable if it can only be sourced to maps, which I would say "no". The charity shop at the bottom of my road is marked on maps, but it's not a suitable topic for an encyclopedia. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  10:17, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Good/high quality maps are reliable for basically one thing - their prime purpose - the location of stuff. They are not reliable for names of things (which may be different depending on the mapmaker), notability (different mapmakers consider different things are required on their maps depending on who they are selling/marketed to), or any sort of conclusion based on stuff on the map. You could use an Ordnance Survey map for quite a lot of geographical information (height of hills etc), but its unlikely to tell you the location of all the Little Chef's... Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:29, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Phone calls
For example suppose that a guest (an ordinary man) calls BBC TV program and discusses an issue, Later, BBC puts the link of this phone call in one of it's news items. Can the material discussed in the phone call be inserted in a related article? How? -- M h hossein   talk 02:51, 31 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Since the BBC is a reliable source, its transcript of what the caller said is reliable. But nothing the caller says can be assumed to be reliable.  It is hard to imagine when one would use it.  If the caller asked a question of someone important and their reply made news, then it would make sense to say what the question was.  But then we would be getting the caller's words from a news report.  TFD (talk) 05:43, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Also note that transcripts of such calls may or may not be accurate as far as spelling and implied punctuation is concerned. This is a well-known problem which plagues many sources based on the spoken words of any person. Collect (talk) 06:45, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Pinto
Based on the quality of Warfare History Network, would you say that this article about Oreste Pinto is usable as a source? DS (talk) 17:08, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That article contains clearly fictionalized accounts about incidents, as well as factual claims about the person. "Robert Whiter" is not, apparently, a published expert in the field.  Pinto wrote "Spy-Catcher" which may or may not be slightly embellished.  I would use such fictionalized accounts sparingly. Collect (talk) 06:58, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

LBGTQ newspapers
The article Sophie Labelle has been tagged for unreliable sources for the following reason: "Unreliable sources include gayiceland, due to inherent bias, gaystarnews, and gay central valley, etc, all for the same reason." Are these sources reliable in the context of that article? -- haminoon  ( talk ) 07:32, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Gay Star News looks notable to me. Not sure about the other two.Zigzig20s (talk) 08:00, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Notability wouldn't be the issue. I think the idea is that for a work of fiction with LGBT themes, such websites could be considered biased in favor of the subject. ~ Mable ( chat ) 09:16, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Every source has a bias. Also note, there's a difference between a publisher declaring that its purpose is to focus on a certain topic area, and declaring that its purpose is to promote a certain viewpoint. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:30, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

"Gay Iceland" is a tourist information commercial site, alas not RS as a result. Collect (talk) 12:04, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

The question is too vague. LGBT newspapers may be reliable or unreliable, even some freebie club mags may have perfectly good articles/interviews or be evidence of public impact of her artwork. If there is a specific list of sources which are being challenged, then it would make sense to list them here for feedback, or to do this on the article talk page. --Fæ (talk) 13:48, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, let's then look at the two sources that are still in the article and that were brought up. Gay Star News is used only once in the article to source the fact that Labelle has created educational materials for Trans Student Educational Resources, which is probably not a controversial statement. An interview between her and Gay Central Valley is used three times in the article: First for the statement that she gives conferences on trans history and transfeminism, which is not a biased statement. Second for a description of the webcomic, which might be better done as a quote, but isn't really point-of-view right now. Third for a direct quote, which is probably accurate. There is no bias to reporting Labelle's intent. Fourth is for the line "She has made educational guides to go with the comics, to make safer spaces for trans youth," which also seems rather factional. All of this seems like fairly neutral content despite the LGBT nature of the source used, so I don't think the brought up issue has much weight to it. ~ Mable  ( chat ) 14:30, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * "Is source X reliable for content Y" is the issue. Sources may be reliable for some material and not others. Some of course are so bad you cannot trust them at all, but I dont think that is the case here. Given your explanation above, I do not see how any of that material is controversial - it appears to be fairly basic statements in an area which you would expect those publications to cover. Even a tourist magazine may be be reliable for 'Person X is appearing at place Y' but would not be reliable for any sort of commentary. (Also I think you meant factual rather than factional). Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Typo - my bad ^_^; Anyway, brought up the following points on the talk page of Sophie Labelle, which I think are relevant for this discussion: "sources do not lend an air of notability, as niche sources who are biased in reporting on these niches. (...) On bias, I dont mean bias as in a biased viewpoint, but rather a focus on a very specific, and non-mainstream niche, that would alter the impressions of notability. Also, for biographies of living persons, these sources feel very unrobust, or however you want to put that." Whether this is the case for this specific subject should be discussed there, of course, but I'd like to know what opinions are on this idea. I would personally compare it to how you could not use The Signpost as a source because of its niche subject matter, even though the source may have fine editorial policy. ~ Mable  ( chat ) 10:40, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Can a source be considered reliable if the editor works pro bono?
Hi, I've been thinking about improving a stub article with information that I know about, because it happens to be something I studied in college.

My source for the material I wish to submit is a journal that existed in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was considered important reading in the field back then, and was generally highly-regarded as having good standards. You could say this publication was the "paper of record" for the field.

I have actually been in touch with the man who edited the journal. The reason I am posting here is this: the editor told me that he personally took no salary for his editorial work. As the journal was a small niche, its sales were only enough to pay for the printing and other overheads. Now, some people have told me that the fact that he was working pro bono means his journal is barred from Wikipedia as a reliable source. He did paid work on other journals throughout his career, but his work in those publications has nothing to do with the material I want to add.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no other sources on this material, except a few blogs, which I know are not permitted as reliable sources.

I would really appreciate guidance as to the question of whether journal edited by a person working on a pro bono basis can possibly comply with Wikipedia rules. If we assume that the work produced is itself of good quality, and has never been cited as containing a factual error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.171.237.68 (talk • contribs)


 * Who on earth told you this? Every journal editor I've ever known works as a volunteer. The journal may not be WP:RS for other reasons, of course. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:50, 29 October 2016 (UTC)


 * What's the journal? You're not going to get a very useful answer unless you're more specific. But I agree with Boris that the editor being unpaid doesn't in itself rule out using it. Fyddlestix (talk) 18:44, 29 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Agree with above comments -- in fact, depending on who was paying an editor and what they were paying the editor to do, a "bought" editor might be even more suspect! But it would be important that the journal in question not be the only source. If there are sources on your topic to establish WP:NOTABLE, then quotes from the journal would be OK to illustrate and give supporting details.ch (talk) 16:07, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Deletions at Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019
For the first five sonatas the succession of movements follows the sonata da chiesa four-movement model, that is starting with a slow movement, followed by a fast movement, and again a slow and a fast movement. The last sonata starts with an Allegro. After a few slow and fast movements, the sonata ends with an Allegro. Content and/or references as specified above were recently removed from the article. Prior discussion at Talk:Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019 and Talk:Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:45, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Article: Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019
 * Content/Source pairs:
 * Content:
 * To a large extent Bach followed the format of the Italian trio sonata, that is two upper voices and a continuo accompaniment. Bach gave one of the two upper voices to the harpsichord (right hand), thus giving a concertato role to the instrument. He goes further than the traditional format in giving more than one upper voice to the harpsichordist's right hand in some instances, and other variant formats.
 * Source: Violin Sonatas (CD 19–20): "Liner notes" by Clemens Romijn p. 13 in J. S. Bach Complete Edition: Liner notes, sung texts, full tracklist. Brilliant Classics, August 2014 (re-release).
 * Content:
 * The first sonata of the set is in B minor
 * Source: Bach Digital Work at Bach Digital website
 * Content:
 * ...the introductory Andante (marked Dolce in one copy)
 * Source: D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 229 at Bach Digital website, fol. 5r
 * Content:
 * ...the first two measures are in canon; the following "Allegro” is entirely fugal; from beginning to end, the Andante con poco lays a strict canon in unison between the violin and the right hand of the harpsichord over a sixteenth-note bass line; and the final Presto features multiple canonic entries at the half-measure.
 * Source:
 * Content:
 * There appear to have been two earlier versions of the sonata (BWV 1019a)
 * Sources:
 * Bach Digital Work at Bach Digital website
 * Wilhelm Rust, editor. Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Volume 9, pp. 253–259. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1860.
 * Content:
 * In the first version of the sonata there had been another Adagio, with the third and fifth movement based on material from the Courante and Gavotte, movements 3 and 6 of Partita No. 6 for keyboard, BWV 830, and the sixth movement of the sonata a da capo of its first movement. In the second version of the sonata, the third movement, a keyboard Allegro, was replaced by a Cantabile ma un poco Adagio for both instruments. This cantabile was apparently based on an aria that reappeared as fourth movement in the church cantata Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille, BWV 120 and in an earlier wedding cantata with the same musical material, Herr Gott, Beherrscher aller Dinge, BWV 120a. The fourth movement of this second version of the sonata was either the same as the one from the first version or the Adagio of the final version, and the fifth movement was dropped (the repeat of the first movement now becoming the fifth movement).
 * Sources:
 * Bach Digital Work at Bach Digital website
 * Alfred Dürr, Yoshitake Kobayashi (eds.), Kirsten Beißwenger. "BWV 1014-1019a Sechs Sonaten" pp. 415–17 in Bach Werke Verzeichnis: Kleine Ausgabe, nach der von Wolfgang Schmieder vorgelegten 2. Ausgabe. Preface in English and German. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1998. ISBN 3765102490 - ISBN 978-3765102493.
 * Content:
 * The sonatas were first published in the early 1800s, by Hans Georg Nägeli in Zürich.
 * Sources:
 * Yo Tomita et al. (23 March 2012). "Nägeli, Hans Georg" at Bach Bibliography website
 * Schneider, Max (1907). "Verzeichnis der bis zum Jahre 1851 gedruckten (und der geschrieben im Handel gewesenen) Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach", pp. 84–113 in Bach-Jahrbuch 1906, Neue Bachgesellschaft VII (3), p. 104
 * Content:
 * The Bach Gesellschaft published them in Volume 9 of the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe in 1860.
 * Source: Wilhelm Rust, editor. Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Volume 9, pp. 67–172 and 250–59. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1860.
 * Content:
 * The New Bach Edition included them in Series VI (Chamber Music), Volume 1 (Works for Violin) in 1958.
 * Source: Rudolf Gerber and Günter Haußwald (editors). New Bach Edition, Series VI: Chamber Music – Volume 1: Works for Violin. Bärenreiter 1958.
 * Content:
 * Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux recorded the violin sonatas with harpsichordist Christiane Jaccottet in 1978. Philips re-released this recording on CD in 1996.
 * Source: Bach*, Arthur Grumiaux, Christiane Jaccottet, Philippe Mermoud – Complete Violin Sonatas BWV 1014 - 1023 at www.discogs.com
 * Content:
 * A digital recording of the sonatas was realized by Susanne Lautenbacher (violin) and Leonore Klinckerfuss (harpsichord) in 1989.
 * Source: Bayer records BR 100 086 / 100 087
 * Content:
 * A 1999 recording by Luis Otavio Santos and Pieter-Jan Belder was released by Brilliant Classics as part of the Bach Edition.
 * Source: Violin Sonatas (CD 19–20): "Full tracklist" pp. 155–56 in J. S. Bach Complete Edition: Liner notes, sung texts, full tracklist. Brilliant Classics, August 2014 (re-release).
 * Source: Violin Sonatas (CD 19–20): "Full tracklist" pp. 155–56 in J. S. Bach Complete Edition: Liner notes, sung texts, full tracklist. Brilliant Classics, August 2014 (re-release).


 * These sources were inadequate and almost all primary sources. Sources on the Bach digital archive are annotations; Rust's 1860 score is musical notation and was used for creating textual content. The outdated 1907 Jahrbuch is in Gothic german. Multiple new sources have been added to the article since I started editing it yesterday; some of these are only accessible in a few restricted libraries (even here in Cambridge University, where the University Library is a copyright library).


 * Francis Schonken has been subject to editing restrictions for disruptive conduct in Bach articles and their talk pages. The above is an example of the kind of outpourings for which he was restricted. He exhausts expert editors by (a) repeated and stubborn WP:IDHT and (b) insisting on using bare lists or musical scores such as the Bach digital archive to create content. These are not even primary sources.


 * In this case since yesterday I have ascertained that the main secondary sources for content in the article is cn be found in Martin Geck's book Johann Sebastian Bach; Life and Works and in the preface to Peter Wollny's recent NBArev editions of the sonatas (2004, 2014) for Bärenreiter. Neither of these top grade sources was identified by Francis Schonken. The new set of references has books and journal articles. Schonken's references contained no books or journal articles. He used the CD liner notes by an unknown employee of Brilliant Classics to create the content, ignoring any post 1910 writings, of which there have been many. I imagine he will be further restricted from editing articles on Bach's music.


 * Often sources are hard to find and not available on the web, except in very limited form. That is the case here with both Wollny's new critical editions and with Geck's long book. Examples of baroque music which requires sources not available on the web are BWV 39, which required the 10 pages from Whittaker's book on Bach's cantatas; and Giulio Cesare (still being edited), which required a library edition of Dean & Knapp's volume on Handel operas. The sole purpose of this posting seems to be to prevent progress on adding properly sourced content to the article. Where I have started doing that, in the reception section, Francis Schnken has conducted himself in a highly disruptive fashion, casting doubts on the authority of Philip Ollesen, an acknowledged expert on Samuel Wesley and the reception of J.S. Bach in eighteenth and nineteenth England. Francis Schonken placed doubts on the 1800 printing of the sonatas held in Wesley Archive of the Royal College of Music. His conduct was extremely disruptive and this a continuation of the same. If he lacks the WP:COMPETENCE to locate proper sources, he should not prevent others from doing so. I have a lot of experience and am gradually adding content. He used the 1860 score of Rust to source his self-concocted descriptions of movements from the sonatas: I have written many articles on baroque music. In BWV 39 the detailed analysis of the movements is summarised from a book. Geck's book and other sources give a description of the movements and that is what I will use. That the article on these major works by Bach had no references to books or journal articles is a tell-tale sign that there was something very badly wrong with it. Why did he make no attempt even to look for one such source? It was a foolhardy to do that and it is now being corrected. That he comes running here when I have barely started editing is an indication of how disruptive he is. Most sources that I have chosen have paragraphs or pages on these sonatas.


 * My response is therefore to wait a week or two to see how the article develops. To find the sources I have identified will take some time. The NBArev editions are in two different libraries, one of them a College library. Similarly for Geck's book and other sources. Bach scholarship post 1950 takes place almost exclusively in books, in journal articles and the prefaces to critical editions. The web is a poor man's substitute: specialised books/journals/critical editions are quite often not available on the web. All of this takes time and I see no hurry here. For BWV 39 I had to unearth a copy of the book by William G. Whittaker from behind a double layer of chairs and boxes of books in Cambridge University Library. Mathsci (talk) 08:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Here is my current list of sources, but it is growing.

Manuscripts and published editions Books and journal articles
 * , preface, critical commentary
 * , Part of the preface
 * , preface, critical commentary
 * , Part of the preface
 * , Part of the preface
 * , Part of the preface
 * , Part of the preface
 * , Part of the preface
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)
 * (a reprint of a 1985 publication in Early Music)

Mathsci (talk) 09:19, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I now have the preface by Peter Wollny to the 2004 Bärenreiter Urtext edition coedited by Andrew Manze. My understanding is that Peter Wollny is part of the committee in charge of the NBArev, so he is one of the best possible authorities on these sonatas. The 2014 Chamber Music NBArev edition might have some more material (background, etc), but from the review of David Ledbetter in Notes (see above), there are no substantial differences between the scores. Apart possibly from the 2014 Urtext edition, it is quite hard to think of a better source (for the origins of the works). Mathsci (talk) 12:44, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I now have the preface by Peter Wollny to the 2004 Bärenreiter Urtext edition coedited by Andrew Manze. Seems the material derived from that source, currently in the Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019 article, has some interpretation issues:
 * – Mattheson, Scheibe and Quantz play no role in the reception/legacy of BWV 1014–1019 (if they played any role in the reception of these pieces it would be "ignoring their existence"). Quite unlikely they knew the works at the time of writing their comments. Nor does Wollny cite them as part of the reception history or legacy of the sonatas: he sketches the prominence of the genre in the period Bach was working on his violin and harpsichord sonatas.
 * – Wollny writes, on p. IX, "..., all in all, [Bach] wrote very few examples of [the trio] species. Besides a few isolated pieces, these examples include [BWV 525–530; 1027–1029; 1030–1032; 1014–1019]" (emphasis added).
 * The current Wikipedia text derived from that reads "In the totality of Bach's musical output, the instrumental works in trio sonata form are small in number. Apart from the BWV 1014–1019, there are the six organ sonatas, BWV 525–530, the three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027–1029, and the three sonatas for flute and harpsichord, BWV 1030, BWV 1031 and BWV 1032." – poof, the "isolated pieces" (e.g. BWV 1079/8, afaik the only piece of chamber music published during the composer's lifetime – at least Quantz may have known this one but afaik he never commented on it, nor do his own compositions show influence of Bach's trios) have vanished.
 * --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:37, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The source is not under discussion. The editing is still under way. But here you are discussing my edits. You even wanted to start a new section. My summary is accurate. The content on chamber music from other sources has still to be added. But this is for discussing Reliable Sources, not for discussing content. Off topic: this article evidently concerns the Obbligato harpsichord and Bach's contributions to the evolution of sonata form. There is more material in the organ sonatas article. Quantz, Mattheson and Scheibe knew Bach's works. Each of them wrote treatises on musical theory and form, surveying works from their time. Is Francis Schonken disputing that?  Scheibe (from Leipzig) was an unsuccessful pupil of Bach who wrote diatribes about his music. Similarly Mattheson, Quantz and Bach knew each other from Dresden.  I think Quantz occasionally played under Bach in Leipzig. So Francis Schonken's comments seem odd. Wollny refers to all three as "musical savants" who placed on high the "trio sonata form"; he states that "Hardly any other composer of the time brought this ideal to such a pitch of perfection as did Johann Sebastian Bach".  Is there something I missed in that paragraph?   BWV 1079 is not mentioned in Wollny. The trio sonata from the musical offering does not involve obbligato harpsichord and dates from 1747. I cannot see what it has to do with BWV 1014–1019. This is an article not a list. We try to communicate things to the reader.   Mathsci (talk) 13:08, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Nah, the Wikipedia article Organ Sonatas (Bach) can not be used as a reliable source for another Wikipedia article (Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019), see the WP:CIRCULAR policy. This RSN noticeboard is an excellent venue for checking whether mainspace content is covered by reliable sources. For the two cases above no reliable source has been produced thus far. The first issue is questionable without additional sources (this discussion is as good as any other to determine whether there are such sources), the second is a straightout error and misrepresentation of the source: no reliable sources will be found to cover up the error.
 * On the ground of the matter: in my original post I listed a dozen items for which a discussion of the sources was needed: notwithstanding that in each case the content was excellent a lot of that mainspace content was removed. I protest against such removals which are handled better by a refimprove tag. Then, in the same article, new content was introduced, not covered by reliable sources (questionable and/or erroneous). This is not the way mainspace content should be handled. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:03, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I can hardly provide fully-informed comment on this huge dispute but I will note: (a) citing just the score should be a last-ditch effort; doing this tends to produce violations of WP:NOR; (b) in musicology, old sources (pre-1940) often are quite bad. The old guys not only had access to fewer historical documents than the moderns, but many of them were irredeemable sentimentalizers; (c) I also think that sources that are not the publications of professional scholars  (e.g., liner notes or program notes) are not really trustable.  Judging by these criteria, MathSci's sources look better to me than F. Schonken's. Opus33 (talk) 16:58, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Just to follow up a bit, in light of JzG's comments: I think liner notes are legit if they are written by a well-established scholar. For instance, I feel comfortable citing James Webster both for his books and articles and for the liner notes he wrote for Christopher Hogwood's Haydn symphony series. Alas as far as I can tell, the Brillliant Classics notes under discussion here are anonymous. Opus33 (talk) 18:19, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Re. "...if they are written by a well-established scholar ... Alas as far as I can tell, the Brillliant Classics notes under discussion here are anonymous." – Above I wrote (adding some emphasis to make clear "anonymous" is not only incorrect in this case, but that the reference was never presented as anonymous): "... by Clemens Romijn p. 13 in ..."
 * Clemens Romijn is a Dutch musicologist with several publications, including:
 * A biography of Joseph Haydn (in Dutch)
 * Romijn is the editor of the Dutch version of Christoph Wolff's Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician
 * Descriptions/inventories of musical archives/collections in the Netherlands
 * Wrote the introduction of the republication of a 1725 score of harpsichord music
 * Shorter works on Bach, Mozart's European tour , chamber music
 * For Oxford University Press/Grove's: encyclopedia article on the Dutch/Belgian 20th-century composer Oscar van Hemel, about whom Romijn had published a Dutch biography in 1992
 * Chapter in a book on Willem Mengelberg
 * Articles on Bach's cantatas and other music-related topics
 * Educational works on classical music, e.g.
 * Program notes, e.g. for a CD by Terry Riley, and of course often for classical CD's (not only for Brilliant Classics, but for instance also for Channel Classics, ).
 * Romijn's research mentioned in other books: e.g. in a book about Bach
 * On the ground of the matter: the content and the reference for that content were both removed from mainspace (case #1 in my list above). In the comments by Opus33 above and those by JzG below I see nothing that couldn't have been addressed by a refimprove tag or some such if having doubts about Romijn as a source, or preferring more high-profile sources (which by the way are often in German, so I'd keep the more accessible source for the English reader anyhow). Since the source is now cleared (I think), there was even less reason to remove content, so I suppose content and source can be reinstated in the article, leaving it up to other editors to request additional sources if someone feels the need. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:16, 20 October 2016 (UTC)


 * In case it was not blindingly obvious, in the case of a composer as widely studied and written about as JS Bach, relying on sleeve notes makes us look stupid. I don't see a single source in the list that passes muster most of the sources listed fall far short of acceptable, almost to the point of this being a WP:CIR issue. "X was recorded by Y, source, sales listing for Y's recording of X" and so on, also crap. My personal standard is: would Martin Perkins cite it? But this fails a much lower test. Guy (Help!) 22:38, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Martin Perkins? Sorry, I don't understand that reference, could you explain? Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:50, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * He teaches harpsichord at Birmingham Conservatoire and is an active researcher in early music. Also a very nice man and plays a mean continuo. Guy (Help!) 23:44, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Tx. I never heard about Martin Perkins while not living anywhere near to Birmingham, same for you for Clemens Romijn I suppose, while not reading Dutch publications on classical music (see above). Don't know whether Romijn plays a continuo, but with the publications listed above he falls well within "reliable source" for musicological topics afaics. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:16, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Score publications
These published facsimiles of 18th-century manuscripts of these works should be added to the Manuscripts and published editions section (compare also #3 in original list): Printed editions:
 * D-B Mus. ms. Bach St 162 at Bach Digital website (partial autograph; 1725 and later; oldest extant version).
 * D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 229 at Bach Digital website (Altnickol manuscript of 1747–1759; final version)
 * D-B Mus. ms. Bach St 403 at Bach Digital website (final version in part based on St 162, copied c. 1760s–1770s)
 * DK-Kk Weyses Samling, mu 6705.1031 at Bach Digital website (middle version copied in the second half of the 18th century)
 * First publication (compare #7 in the original list). I'd propose to add the following to the Manuscripts and published editions list:
 * Hans Georg Nägeli, editor. Clavier Sonaten Mit obligater Violine von Johann Sebastian Bach. Zürich: Nägeli, [1802]
 * Rationale: list of score publications rather incomplete without listing the first publication; has a link to an on-line facsimile of this score


 * Bach Gesellschaft edition (compare #8 in the original list above, and first bullet in the Manuscripts and published editions list above). I'd change the entry for this publication in the Manuscripts and published editions list to:
 * Wilhelm Rust, editor. Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Volume 9: Joh. Seb. Bach's Kammermusik – Erster Band, "Vorwort" (Preface), pp. XIII–XVIII and XX–XXI; score pp. 67–172 and early versions pp. 250–59. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1860.
 * Rationale: page numbers mentioned; publisher, editor and publication series linked; links to files of this edition in the more common PDF format instead of in the somewhat less accessible DjVu format.


 * New Bach Edition (NBA, compare #9 in the original list above, and second bullet in the Manuscripts and published editions list above). I'd add the NBA original publication in the Manuscripts and published editions (or: have it replace the entry for the later NBA edition):
 * Rudolf Gerber and Günter Haußwald, editors. New Bach Edition, Series VI: Chamber Music – Volume 1: Works for Violin, Score, pp. 83ff. (1958; 32012) and Critical Commentary, pp. 137ff. (1958). Kassel: Bärenreiter.
 * Rationale: publisher, editor and publication series linked; Critical Commentary mentioned and linked; page numbers indicated; publisher's info linked for convenience of verifiability.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 13:33, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Follow-up:
 * Added the Altnickol manuscript and the Nägeli score to the Manuscripts and published editions list in the article . --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:00, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I discovered this scan of a cleaner copy of the Nägeli score, and would use this link instead of the harvard.edu one for linking to the score. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:53, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Updated the flawed caption of File:Title page autograph manuscript BWV 1014-1019.jpeg based on the St 162 ref mentioned above . --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:59, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Standard reliable sources on compositions by Bach
--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:24, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Bach Digital Work (BDW):
 * See cases #2, #5 and #6 in the original list above
 * Bach Digital (www.bach-digital.de) is a website managed by:
 * Leipzig Bach Archive – currently the most representative institution for Bach research;
 * Berlin State Library (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, abbreviated as SBB) – this library hosts the largest collection of Bach-related manuscripts;
 * Saxon State and University Library Dresden (Sächsische Landesbibliothek & Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, abbreviated as SLUB):
 * Leipzig University (Universität Leipzig)
 * together these are "as good as it gets" reliability-wise, and up-to-date-ness (modernity) of research.
 * Bach Digital Work (BDW) records on this website, i.e. webpages dedicated to a single (version of a) composition by Bach or other related composer, contain the "basics" on any composition by Bach, e.g. its BWV number, its key, links to standard and modern publications on the composition etc.
 * In sum, I think it a good habit for Wikipedia pages on Bach's compositions to link to their BDW pages. Whether or not one agrees with that being a good habit, BDW pages represent mainstream scholarly views on Bach's compositions: not every fringe view or novelty research is necessarily represented on them, but they give a quick and reliable approach to commonly acquired knowledge about the piece. Whether one adds such references to Wikipedia's pages on Bach's compositions or not, removing such references, and the content derived from them, can be treated as vandalism as far as I'm concerned. Of course descriptions of Bach's compositions should usually be supplemented by results of more detailed research and/or variant views, but that doesn't account for removal of the scholarly mainstream view in the BDW record.
 * Latest printed version of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, a.k.a. BWV (1998) or BWV2a
 * See case #6 in the original list above.
 * BWV2a is less than 20 years old, which is fairly recent in Bach research. Of course new discoveries have been done since it was published in 1998, which makes some of its contentions outdated, but also here the BWV2a content represents the common knowledge about a composition: e.g. about the BWV 1019a early versions BWV2a defines what in scholarly literature (before and after the catalogue's publication) is indicated as the first, the second, and the third version of the sonata: "when" these three distinct versions of the sonata originated has been approached with more precision in recent research, the definition of "what" is the first, "what" is the second and "what" is the third version of the sonata, however, has not: that definition has been constant from the 19th century (preface of the BGA) over the 20th (Critical Commentary of the NBA) to the 21st (NBArev 3 and Bach Digital website). Removing that basic information from the Wikipedia page on the composition is also no less than harmful to Wikipedia's integrity.
 * Follow-up question: give a convenience link to a page-by-page summary of BWV2a? In that case the reference could read something like this:
 * Alfred Dürr, Yoshitake Kobayashi (eds.), Kirsten Beißwenger. "BWV 1014-1019a Sechs Sonaten" in Bach Werke Verzeichnis: Kleine Ausgabe, nach der von Wolfgang Schmieder vorgelegten 2. Ausgabe. Preface in English and German. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1998. ISBN 3765102490 - ISBN 978-3765102493 (pp. 415–417)
 * I recall having had an article talk page discussion about this before but forgot where. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:39, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Comment on misunderstanding Bach scholarship Almost all the "sources" listed above are primary sources and as such are unusable in any direct way. The Bach archive for example is a bare list which only someone with an acquaintance with the current literature could understand. For example what does an annotation "Wollny 2010" mean on one of the pages of the archive? In fact it is code for a lengthy book with which Bach scholars preparing current revised editions are familiar. It's actually not described in the Bach archive.

Although some wikipedians might think that Bach scholars use lists in the way described in the previous section, that seems to be a fallacy. Bach scholars write in extended prose, balancing historical circumstances and stylistic elements with what can be deduced by careful examination of sources (handwriting, X-ray techniques, watermarks, signs of use, etc). That extended prose can result in entries on lists occasionally; but those entries are unnuanced; they are brief shorthand annotations, stripped of the intellectual content of the prose. It is that prose that is of interest to the reader. Francis Schonken is obviously trying to make some kind of point here; he seems to be giving a rationale for ignoring the major sources, which are found in books, journals and in the prefaces and commentaries to recent Urtext volumes. That was obvious to the other people who have commented here, but apparently not to him. Mathsci (talk) 22:44, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * A Bach Digital Work record is, if anything, a tertiary source. Peter Wollny is the current director of the Leipzig Bach Institute, so, if anything, currently, together with peers from four reputable institutes, ultimately responsible for the content of the Bach Digital Work records.
 * The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the ultimate primary source for the assignation of BWV numbers, the rest of its content is, like the Bach Digital Work records, tertiary source material (all of its content is referenced to research by experts in the field).
 * Both the Bach Digital website and the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis have extensive lists explaining abbreviations used for indicating their sources (BWV2a: pp. xxi–xxvii; Bach Digital: https://www.bach-digital.de/content/literature.xml?lang=en ).
 * The rest of the argumentation is disingenious: above I wrote "Of course descriptions of Bach's compositions should usually be supplemented by results of more detailed research and/or variant views", so please quit the straw man argumentation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:04, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Analekta source (item #4 of original list above)
The first development of the article was done by a student (part of Wiki Ed/University of North Carolina School of the Arts/History of Musical Styles I and II (Fall 2015, Spring 2016)). The student introduced the Analekta source as a bare link, and added content derived from that source, when the article was still in user space (20:45, 2 November 2015). After the article appeared in mainspace early December 2015, several editors performed cleanup on the article, including a conversion of the Analekta bare url to a cite template (15:16, 2 December 2015). Further cleanup and tagging of questionable aspects followed, most of it by, but throughout all that the Analekta reference and the content derived from it remained unmodified afaics.

On the qualities of the Analekta source:
 * The source is not "anonymous" although Wikipedia seems to present it that way; It also has a publication date not reflected in the cite template's current content.
 * The source is a fairly standard description of the first four sonatas of the set, reflecting what can be found in earlier German or "Denglish" sources such as BGA, NBA, BWV, Bach Digital, etc. but, unlike such high-profile sources, has the advantage of being accessible without threshold, and being in fluent English.

Also here there's nothing that couldn't have been addressed by a refimprove tag if having doubts about the source: removal of content (and reference, which at least conformed to WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT from the first contributor's perspective) made Wikipedia's mainspace only poorer, and the justification of that removal borders on WP:POINTy. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:16, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Two people have told Francis Schonken that the type of reference he is attempting to use is not acceptable as far as articles on Bach are concerned. Instead of taking any notice of them, here he is again, barking up the same wrong tree. The article now has a good set of references (see above), thanks to me. Guy described Francis Schonken's sources as "crap". I would not use those words, but I agree with what Guy means. A gap of a week and a new section heading doesn't change that. On the companion article that I am editing at the moment on a similar touchstone set of sonatas, I am fully aware of the complexity of published sources. Many things have to be researched in a library (e.g. articles in Bach Perspectives, Bach-Jahrbuch, etc). High quality content requires high quality sources. Why use a questionable source when there is an excellent source? Mathsci (talk) 16:05, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The author is a Canadian lute player and musicology professor, currently lecturing at the University of Sherbrooke, whose doctoral thesis was about Bach's music – a reworked version of which was later published as a book . Nothing there that wouldn't pass the reliable source criterion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:04, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Still barking up the wrong tree. The editing and sourcing in what you write is often of very low quality and often amounts to disinformation. It is often ungrammatical pseudo-scholarship. That is mainly due to fact that you make no effort to find proper sources. Your recently created BWV 1044 is a case in point. The whole article is problematic (I don't have time to list the numerous problems).

For what I am writing at the moment, I wanted to know when Bach experts had decided BWV 1044 was written. In your article you write:

"bachmidi.info" is apparently the source. Your source is unacceptable and you made no attempt to look for a proper one. You concocted that ungrammatical sentence as if you were a great authority on Bach. I have no idea why you did that. It was a disservice to the reader. I know where to find the answer to my question. Do you? And if you do, why didn't you use it? From what I've already written, it must be in an article in a journal or a book. Perhaps a good source is even mentioned on this page. A normal editor would write: "According to and, the concerto was written at some time between 1729 and 1740." It clearly relates to Bach's duties as director of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig, something that is not mentioned in your article. You really don't seem to have a clue about this material. Mathsci (talk) 08:33, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Your arguments against using the writings of a musicology professor with a published doctoral thesis about a Bach topic as a reliable source in an article on a composition by Bach have ceased. Failing argumentation against that source (item #4 in the original list above), I only see an attempt to change subject. I started the BWV 1044 article as a stub. I didn't de-stub it. What you quote is from a section with a incomplete section tag. Your remarks are unrelated to the source/article/content combination discussed in this RSN subsection. The question whether or not a convenience link should be used in BWV2a references is interesting, but belongs in another section. For that purpose I created a anchor above where that discussion can be had. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:39, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Oh, son of a ... Why is it that every single time I come in contact with Francis Schonken, he is either actively engaged in questionable sourcing practices (the Pontius Pilate's wife article, here), or advocating for such practices (the WP:V talk page)? Francis, can you demonstrate that this isn't a endemic problem with your edits? Because right now I'm seriously wondering what to do... Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 09:19, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Three other editors have told Francis Schonken that his sourcing is questionable. He has ignored them. He has taken a lazy approach, relying only on sources that he can find on the web. In so doing he has ignored or dismissed recent Urtext editions, books and journal articles that have appeared since 1960. I just summarise those sources. I do not invent things. He apparently doesn't have access to many of them and therefore is not in a position to verify content produced using them. Perhaps his continued posting here is an indication that he does not approve of those sources. But not using them results in content that is unhelpful and misleading for the reader. That has happened on BWV 1044, largely created by Francis Schonken. (I tried to rescue that article a little.) The flute sonatas BWV 1030, BWV 1031 and BWV 1032, which Francis Schonken has partly curated, are in an even worse state. (The sonata in B minor is one of Bach's masterworks.)
 * Bleah, I wish I hadn't made those placating remarks above about program notes. The gold standard for reference sources is: professional scholars, publishing in peer-reviewed outlets (liner notes generally aren't peer reviewed). Peer review helps ward off errors that even the pros sometimes make. I think FS should henceforth make it a practice to trudge off to a library and use nothing but unimpeachable sources -- and stop taking up other editors' time with all this special pleading for dubious ones. Opus33 (talk) 21:00, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Which misses the point for this source/article/content combination. The referenced content is a (now removed) short summary of the fugal and canonic passages in the four movements of BWV 1015:
 * ...the first two measures are in canon;
 * the following "Allegro” is entirely fugal;
 * from beginning to end, the Andante con poco lays a strict canon in unison between the violin and the right hand of the harpsichord over a sixteenth-note bass line;
 * and the final Presto features multiple canonic entries at the half-measure.
 * Such analyses can be derived from the primary source by any Wikipedian. I have two objections:
 * The content shouldn't have been removed. There's nothing exceptional about the content: removing this short analysis makes Wikipedia only poorer.
 * When the content can be referenced to a non-peer-reviewed writing by a musicology professor who has published about Bach, such reference is preferable over no reference at all or a reference to the primary source (like it is usually done). I'd be more than fine if the reference were amended or replaced by something better WP:RS-wise, but that is no justification for a removal of a reference that passes WP:RS.
 * There's of course no "special pleading" here: this is standard practice in formal analyses of Bach's compositions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:54, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

And here he is, two weeks later, still producing tl;dr walls of text. I am currently editing BWV 525–530 and BWV 1014–1019 in parallel; it is a slow and painstaking process, still in its early stages. Since Francis Schonken is ignoring or rebuffing all comments by other editors (three so far), I do not understand why he is continuing to post here. He did the same on BWV 4 and its talk page (I was not an editor there). It was disruptive there, annoyed other editors and resulted in sanctions. If he disregards or casts doubt on recent excellent sources, the only reasonable response is to ignore him. Mathsci (talk) 09:08, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

}
 * Comment. I am not very happy with the use of liner notes and other low quality sources in Bach articles.  I am also puzzled by the contention that the formal analysis sourced to the liner notes is not contentious.  The fact that this matter has been elevated to the noticeboard proves that it is contentious.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 12:00, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * How about:


 * ? --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:30, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

People are not quite as stupid as Francis Schonken seems to take them to be. He opened this frivolous thread—and this subthread in particular—to justify his own sources. Several people have told him his sources are inadequate. Then, having been told about one of the sources I am using two weeks ago, he eventually got hold of a copy or found a scanned copy on the web (I have had both for a while, but not the 2014 NBWrev edition). Instead of meakly closing this thread and apologising to me, he started showing that my source can be used for creating content. Obviously. That is why I chose it. It is not ideal, however, and other sources go into more detail. Some of them are listed above. But Francis Schonken's chutzpah really is extraordinary: realising the inadequacy of his own sources, he is now trying to appropriate sources added by me to the article and pass them off as something discovered by him. Having seen that four or five people reject his sources, he still wants to prolong this thread. Apparently the only way he can do that now is by presenting sources that I found and described two weeks ago on this page as if they were his own. But the harvtxt link works and was posted on this page two weeks ago. Perhaps Francis Schonken can explain why he is using my sources on this page and what on earth it has to do with his own source from Analekta? What on earth is he thinking of? Yes, my sources are excellent. And no, the same cannot be said about his (cf his article BWV 1014, which uses the the same kind of substandard source that he has been boasting about here). Mathsci (talk) 06:56, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow. Speak of ownership issues. For clarity: I don't claim ownership of the Analekta source, on the contrary, I carefully explained above that I had nothing to do with this source, nor with the content derived from it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:04, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I am improving the article in a radical way. No ownership at all. The article was essentially content-free before I arrived. (Thanks to you to some extent.) Now you seem to take issue with the skills that I am using in improving the article (a slow process). Judging from BWV 1044, you might not have some of those skills: the preparation of miniscores and audiofiles using lilypond and other techniques. Here is an example:


 * BWV1017 2 Allegro excerpt.jpeg

and here is an accompanying audiofile, in a preliminary version.

I am still in the midst of adding articulation and ornaments (to my ear there seem to be extraneous A flats in bar 91 of the cembalo part). Mathsci (talk) 12:24, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you intend to use such files as reliable sources for a formal analysis of BWV 2015? I hope not, they are not the correct sonata (i.e. the one we are talking about in this section), and wouldn't pass "professional scholars, publishing in peer-reviewed outlets".
 * If not, we do not need another attempt to throw this thread off-topic.
 * Above I proposed the #4 content (slightly rephrased to fit the source) based on a source you had proposed as reliable, which would allow us to come out of the conundrum of not having the #4 content in mainspace. I repeat that proposition.
 * Your claims you "own" the source, so that you are the only one who would be entitled to derive content from it is an unheard of approach, which should be rejected, at least I do. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:41, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

As it happens, I do in fact "own" the source: I bought it from Bärenreiter two weeks ago to add to the other versions I already possess. It has two violin parts. The second performing part, edited by Andrew Manze, has useful markings. Many of the articles I've written on baroque music use multimedia material. This is no different.

At the moment yours seems like a lonely voice in the wilderness. Most of what you have written here (is it part of some epic novel you intend to publish?) seems quite remote from scholarship and musicianship. But there is one positive aspect. You come from the country that produced Arthur Grumiaux and Philippe Herreweghe. In creating audio files, their recordings are often points of reference for me. I cannot recreate the sublime understatement, the lyricism and the unutterable fragility in some of Grumiaux's recordings. It's a pity they cannot be uploaded on wikipedia. After some effort I produced this, which in my view (with the viola da gamba continuo) has more educational value than the Ukrainian recording for violin and non-baroque organ that I found in the article.

Has this page become your blog now? Mathsci (talk) 12:25, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * PS. For BWV 39, I produced lots of audio files and miniscores. Francis Schonken has suggested that such files might have been used as sources for writing the article. I am sorry to disappoint him. One of the main sources was the book of William G. Whittaker that I found in a library. The audio files and miniscores are for the purpose of enhancing the article: helping the reader. Mathsci (talk) 12:51, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Off-topic. No plausible reason why the short analysis of the contrapuntal passages in BWV 1015 (content of #4) should not currently be in the article has been produced. The breadth of off-topic ramifications only underpins that simple fact. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:56, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

I am peacefully editing the article and will continue to do so. It's quite straightforward and not a competition. I decided to improve this article and am now doing so. The audio file of BWV 1017/4 is the next problem. I've had a fair of experience on creating content like this. It requires calm reflection and careful research. Mathsci (talk) 20:39, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, no relation to the topic at hand. No further objection to an insertion of the text & reference we've been calmly considering here over the last few days afaics. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:56, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

No, you initially came here because you felt your edits used good sources.

You've been told by five different people that your sources were "crap" to use the words of JzG.

Your response was just WP:IDHT. That is stubbornness.

Now you've started to follow my edits on the article and sort of imply that I cannot summarise English text from the new sources that I've found. But of course I can.

I would say that your usual style of editing is to use poor sources (exactly the sort that has been called "crap" by JzG), write inaccurate content (original research + guesswork) and poor English. BWV 1044 is a good example of that.

I am halfway through adding the articulation and ornamentation to the audio file of BWV 1017/4 (it takes several hours)—here is the unfinished product, still awaiting ornamentation and articulation in the upper parts (the viola da gamba and harpsichord bass are done):

and I am going to the university library this afternoon to get two books not accessible on the web. I wish you could control yourself a little better and stop following me around to articles where I am editing within my expertise. You apparently have decided to ignore the way I write musical analysis: painstaking gathering of high quality sources; creation of lilypond files for audio files and musical quotes relevant to the compositions; and then prose (the easiest bit). That happened on Clavier-Übung III 6 years ago. You seem to be deliberately misunderstanding or ignoring that process, as if this was the first article I was editing. Evidently it is not. You also seem to be misusing this noticeboard at the moment. What you are doing at the moment is a fairly classic kind of disruption, so well known that it has a name: the usual advice is to ignore it. Mathsci (talk) 13:20, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Not about the topic of this thread (again). I started this thread about item #4 in my OP. A slightly amended version of the content of item #4 has been proposed, based on a source that was deemed acceptable . After a few days of talk there seem to be no issues with either source or content, so suitable for mainspace afaics. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:13, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Francis Schonken's hounding and disruption
Ignoring everything that he's been told here (by five different editors), FS has now decided to start editing this article himself. It is disruptive editing and he has been sanctioned for that before. In defiance of everything he's been told here, he is trying to add primary sources of the kind rejected here. In his edit summary he wrote the opposite: that was not a very honest thing to do. A while back I had added an image with an external reference to the Loeb Music Library in Harvard. He tried to add his own version of that out of what looks like pedantry, of no interest to the reader. A combination of WP:POINT and WP:IDHT. It is just disruptive conduct. It has nothing to do with improving the article, given what he's been told here. He refuses to control his conduct. The talk page explains how my editing is proceeding and he is trying to put a spanner in the works in any way he can dream up. He behaved like this before in several other articles (eg BWV 4, Orgelbüchlein and BWV 39) and that resulted in editing restrictions. I assume the same will happen now. He could even be blocked. He did this shortly after I noted (on the article talk page) the sources I would be using for adding the analysis on BWV 1017 (and the other sonatas). I got two texts, one of them 200 pages long, from the Cambridge UL yesterday and will get a further text today. That seems to have precipitated the latest Shonkenesque outburst of WP:POINT. Mathsci (talk) 08:24, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia seems to promote incompetence when a list that is titled "Manuscripts and published editions" (emphasis added) does not mention a single manuscript. Removing all entries about such manuscripts from such list seems pure disruption.
 * File:Nägeli BWV1014-1019 Harvard Loeb Music Library.jpeg is not a "reliable source", per WP:CIRCULAR. Case in point, both the image's caption at the BWV 1014–1019 article and the image's description page at Commons contain errors. An entry about that score edition in the References section is thus not redundant, and removing that entry seems petty disruption.
 * I propose to continue this conversation about the entries of the "Manuscripts and published editions" list in the section above (where all proposed improvements seem acceptable thus far), unless item #7 of the original list merits a separate subsection here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:54, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I chose that title not realising it would be misused by you. Of course you started this frivolous thread to justify your own poor sources, which you now want to sneak back into the references. The thin end of the wedge. More often than not you concentrate on trivialities, missing the main point. (Content & sources on Hans Georg Nägeli were added here.) In the case of the main body of the article, much of the general musical analysis was done by Hans Eppstein, to whom later commentators refer. That is summarised on the talk page of the article. Having accessed content by Eppstein from Cambridge UL, I now am aware of what I long suspected was missing from the analysis section of the article. The main point here concerns Step I of how to write a wikipedia article: it involves gathering the best reliable sources, with a selection that is as comprehensive as possible. I have been doing so for some time now. You now say you want to continue this frivolous thread. Since so far you've ignored all five responses telling you that you're wrong, you just seem to be misusing this noticeboard. WP:DFTT seems to apply now. Mathsci (talk) 02:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The Altnickol manuscript is the most important source for the sonatas, as confirmed by Rust (BGA, Preface pp. XX–XXI), Gerber (NBA), Wollny (Editorial note p. XIII of the 2004 Bärenreiter edition), and of course also by the musicology professor with several publications on Bach. A facsimile of the Altnickol manuscript has been published by the reputable institute that conserves it (Berlin State Library). The Bach Digital and RISM websites have separate pages that give descriptions of this manuscript. If no other manuscript is mentioned in a list of manuscripts and editions, at least this one should afaics. Removing it once it is listed is something between innocent pettiness and disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point – whatever shade of pettiness-combined-with-disruption-to-illustrate-a-point led to that removal, Wikipedia would be improved by relisting this important manuscript. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:10, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * An update to another image caption, providing a reliable source for the correction, was reverted:
 * Source: D-B Mus. ms. Bach St 162 at Bach Digital website
 * Article: Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–1019, image caption of File:Title page autograph manuscript BWV 1014-1019.jpeg
 * Content: "Title page of 1725 partly autograph manuscript of BWV 1014–1019a. It reads Sei Sounate â Cembalo [con]certato è Violino Solo, col Basso per Viola da Gamba accompagnato se piace. Composte da Giov: Sebast: Bach"
 * The revert (including the removal of the reliable source) was a step backwards for Wikipedia's reliability and verifiability. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:19, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

AFAIK there's only one reliable source contending that Nägeli's first publication of the score was in 1800. Generally the publication date is given as: or some variation thereof.
 * [1802]
 * [1804]
 * [1802–1804]

Good to know: As for Ollesen's WP:REDFLAG contention that the score would have been published in 1800, I suppose WP:CONTEXTMATTERS applies: "... Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible ...": The principal topic of Ollesen's publication is Wesley's correspondence, not Swiss score printings (which he only mentions in passing in a footnote on Wesley's 1809 purchase of it). The Tomita et al. source, however, is exclusively focused on providing correct data of publications relating to Johann Sebastian Bach. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * square brackets around a date indicate that no date is printed on the publication, but that the date is inferred from elsewhere;
 * It was certainly not printed later than 1804, while in 1804 a copy was listed in a catalogue (see Max Schneider source as mentioned in item #7 of OP)
 * 1801 was the date Nägeli was publishing The Well-Tempered Clavier (see Yo Tomita source), afaik it is deemed unlikely that the violin & harpsichord sonatas publication would have preceded Nägeli's Well-Tempered Clavier publication.
 * That a date would have been printed on Wesley's copy (which he acquired in 1809, see Ollesen source) seems unlikely, nor does Ollesen contend that a date is printed on the score.

Malleus Maleficarum (different case)
User constantly reintroduces Jenny Gibbons as a source into article Malleus Maleficarum.

This author is used for:

1 In modern times, the book has often been viewed as a typical inquisitorial manual, a perception that many historians have refuted. According to historian Jenny Gibbons: 'in the 1970s, when feminist and Neo-Pagan authors turned their attention to the witch trials, the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) was the only manual readily available in translation. Authors naively assumed that the book painted an accurate picture of how the Inquisition tried witches. Heinrich Kramer, the text's demented author, was held up as a typical inquisitor. His rather stunning sexual preoccupations were presented as the Church's "official" position on witchcraft. Actually the Inquisition immediately rejected the legal procedures Kramer recommended and censured the inquisitor himself just a few years after the Malleus was published. Secular courts, not inquisitorial ones, resorted to the Malleus'.

2 Jenny Gibbons, a Neo-Pagan and a historian, writes: "Actually the Inquisition immediately rejected the legal procedures Kramer recommended and censured the inquisitor himself just a few years after the Malleus was published. Secular courts, not inquisitorial ones, resorted to the Malleus'.

Not only is this, in my opinion, nonsense but also this journal is unreliable.

A. Here is a complaint by another user about praised by Ryn78 author Jenny Gibbons (mentioned by Ryn multiple times). Gibbons bio:. "holder of an MA in Medieval Studies with a focus on the Christian conversion of Western Europe, medieval magick, and The Burning Times"

B. the citation is from a "journal" that is in my opinion unreliable, it is edited by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chas_S._Clifton without any academic credentials. He is a member of "American Academy of Religion". However, American Academy of Religion among its members has also "... students, and interested lay-people." Furthermore, before 2001 this journal wasn't peer-reviewed at all so basically it was more like a hosting. This source was published there in 1998 as it claims.

Is this source reliable?
--Asterixf2 (talk) 14:45, 29 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Now you're claiming an academic journal isn't reliable? Some journals don't have peer-review due to disagreements in academia about whether a peer-review system does more harm than good by allowing censorship of ideas (there's an ongoing debate about this in academia); but journals always do have a vetting process of some type. They are always considered valid under Wikipedia's rules as far as I know. Stop wasting everyone's time with this never-ending crusade of yours. GBRV (talk) 16:22, 29 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but it simply isn't true that "journals always do have a vetting process of some type," unless cashing a check counts as a vetting process. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:17, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * But there's no evidence this one is a predatory journal. GBRV (talk) 17:32, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The journal was peer-reviewed after 2004, but earlier issues (under a different editor, and published by a different press) were not. Back then it was published as the "New Journal of Neopagan Thought." So this particular article (from 1998) was not peer-reviewed. At the time this article was published, the journal was under the editorship of Fritz Muntean, who started the journal when he was still a graduate student, and appears to have only ever earned an MA. His biography also lists him as "active in the craft" (whatever that means).
 * As for Gibbons: She also apparently has an MA in medieval studies (it's unclear where from) but I can't find much else on her. Her online presence is not encouraging: mostly it's limited to different Pagan blogs.
 * All in all, I'd say that this source should be used with extreme caution. The fact that the journal editor and article writer both only have MAs and was founded by a graduate student is a red flag, as is the fact that the journal seems to have been run by-and-for pagans at this stage. Not saying that in itself is an issue, but it does suggest that this wasn't an "academic" publication as we would normally define it, and should not be given that kind of weight. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:25, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * 'Active in the craft' = Witch/Wizard/Warlock/Druid etc. People who are pagans do not necessarily claim magical powers. This one does. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:01, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * So you think it's suspect because Pagans founded and write for it, and two of the Pagans "only" have MA degrees? Since when do we disallow Pagan authors, and why is an MA degree suspicious?  There's no rule requiring someone has to have a full PhD to be usable as a source. In this case, Gibbons' MA degree is in the right field (medieval studies).  GBRV (talk) 23:00, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, normally we would expect an academic journal to have an editorial board full of PhD's. And not to have been founded by an MA student. And to be peer-reviewed. And not to have an anonymous editorial statement that clearly identifies the journal as a place for pagan practitioners to discuss questions like "Where do we come from, and where are we going? Are we a religion; how do we relate to other religions, and what do we have to contribute to the world of religion in general?". Basically, I'm saying that during the period of time when Gibbons' article was published, that was not an academic journal in the normal sense - it was a publication for pagan practitioners. This isn't something we should be looking to as a reliable source for history. Personally I would give Gibbons' article about the same amount of weight as an MA thesis or an article published in a graduate student journal. Maybe less: the current editor even admits that the journal was effectively self-published and not covered by any major indexes before he took over in 2004. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:02, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And yet, books cited for historical topics are often published by non-academic publishing companies and oftentimes the author is a non-academic. One of the most respected and widely cited historians is Henry Charles Lea, who had no college education at all. His books weren't published by a university, but by a commercial publishing company. But we don't disallow Lea's books. It just seems to me that you're setting an unusually high litmus test in the case of this one journal. GBRV (talk) 03:40, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Henry Charles Lea died in 1909 so I'm not sure that's a valid comparison. While I'm sure he's regarded as a founder of the field and revered as such, obviously there is a lot more recent scholarship that you would go to first if you were sitting down to write about the Inquisition today. Fyddlestix (talk) 04:35, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Almost Off-topic
I advise not to confuse Jenny Gibbons discussed here with Edward Gibbon. --Asterixf2 (talk) 21:21, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Gibbon himself is a very biased source. He often added his own editorial slant in his depiction of historical events. And it tells us more about the concerns of an 18th-century politician than about the Roman Empire. A few months back, I looked for published sources which point out the biases and contradictions in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The Wikipedia article on the topic already points out his widely-known misinterpretation of the Byzantine Empire, but this is far from the only inaccuracy in the work. I would suggest using Edward Gibbon and the Shape of History by Charlotte Roberts as a starting point for improving the article.Dimadick (talk) 07:56, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

reliability of source for statment that NASA photograph is claimed to be evidence of the splitting of the moon
On Splitting_of_the_moon, it states:
 * Rima Ariadaeus, one of many rilles on the surface of the moon, has been claimed on the Internet[by whom?] to be evidence of the splitting of the moon.

Is there any reason that the following would not be an acceptable citation for this?
 * https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Moon_Split_Images

Fabrickator (talk) 17:41, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * No, that's not an acceptable source. It's a wiki, so it would fail WP:USERGENERATED. — Strongjam (talk) 17:44, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed. A reliable, secondary source reporting on the fact that some people on the Internet claim Rima Ariadaeus is evidence of the moon splitting would be better. In fact, why not reuse reference 5, which already addresses the Internet claims? clpo13(talk) 17:50, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Not to be argumentative, but while reference 5 ("kind of" user-generated content, for that matter) has a link to a presumed example of such a claim, the link is dead, and does not seem to be accessible through common archives such as archive.org, so while perhaps this is technically a valid reference, it's not a very satisfying one. Do you see any objection to using the following reference? http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.hoax-slayer.com/moon-split-miracle.shtml&date=2011-05-21  Fabrickator (talk) 19:50, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That one looks fine to me. The reporting on the site at Hoax Slayer convinces me that the author is a reliable source of information in this field. clpo13(talk) 20:53, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Malleus Maleficarum
I'd like to ask if '''Behringer, Wolfgang. "Malleus Maleficarum"''' is reliable. It is used in an article Malleus Maleficarum.

Author is reliable but this source/citation is in my opinion completely unreliable but used multiple times in an article. It is not known when it was published, what it is, whether it was peer reviewed. I even doubt if it is authentic. It looks like a draft and its theories are in opposition to other writers. It has 7 pages (excluding half-page picture) and is only found on some unofficial if not weird website: http://friedo.szm.com/mm.pdf.

Some users insist fiercely on using it in a controversial Malleus Maleficarum. In my opinion, they should be able to find other reliable sources. There are around 25 serious sources in Bibliography for this article already.

This source is used for the following statements: 1 Jacob Sprenger's name was added as an author beginning in 1519, 33 years after the book's first publication and 24 years after Sprenger's death; but the veracity of this late addition has been questioned by many historians partly due to the suspicious circumstances of adding him long after his own death [...] and partly because Sprenger's known views were in many cases the opposite of the views in the Malleus and Sprenger was likewise a bitter and public opponent of Kramer. In 1490, three years after its publication, the clergy at the University of Cologne condemned the book, although Kramer would claim that several of them had approved it, which they denied. 2 In 1484 Heinrich Kramer had made one of the first attempts at prosecuting alleged witches in the Tyrol region. It was not a success: he was expelled from the city of Innsbruck and dismissed by the local bishop as "senile and crazy". 3 In the words of Wolfgang Behringer: "Sprenger had tried to suppress Kramer’s activities in every possible way. He forbade the convents of his province to host him, he forbade Kramer to preach, and even tried to interfere directly in the affairs of Kramer’s Séléstat convent... The same day Sprenger became successor to Jacob Strubach as provincial superior (October 19, 1487), he obtained permission from his general, Joaquino Turriani, to lash out adversus m[agistrum] Henricum Institoris inquisitorem (against Master Heinrich Kramer, inquisitor)." 4 The book became the handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe, but was not used by the Inquisition, which "denied any authority to the Malleus" in the words of historian Wolfgang Behringer. 5 Wolfgang Behringer argues that Sprenger's name was only added as an author beginning in 1519, thirty-three years after the book was first published and decades after Sprenger's own death. [...] Many historians have also pointed out that Sprenger's actual views in his confirmed writings are often the opposite of the views in the Malleus, and Sprenger was unlikely to have been a colleague of Kramer since Sprenger in fact banned Kramer from preaching and entering Dominican convents within his jurisdiction, and spoke out against him on many occasions. 6 The alleged approval from the theologians at Cologne, which Kramer included in the Malleus with a list of names of theologians who he claimed approved the book, has also been questioned by many historians, since In 1490 the clergy at Cologne condemned the book and at least two of the clergy listed by Kramer, Thomas de Scotia and Johann von Wörde, publicly denied having approved the Malleus.

This is previous version of the article without this source:  current version was also cleaned up a little, but it's probable that this source will be pushed to lead section again, like it was done repetitively before, most recently:

Is this source reliable?

 * You said the author himself is reliable, presumably because he's recognized as an expert in his particular area of research, in which case I think Wikipedia's rules would regard all of his writings to be reliable regardless of what form they take. The rules state that even self-published works from an expert are considered RSs, as in this passage from the rules : "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications."  This seems clear enough: even if it's self-published (or otherwise not published thru a third-party publication) it can still be reliable so long as the author is a recognized expert who has published some of his other works in reliable third-party publications.  GBRV (talk) 02:32, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * There is no reliable information that it is self-published ( that the claimed author wrote it ). It is just some PDF from nowhere. Anybody can create a PDF with any name and any contents (even resembling some legitimate publication). This author has many official publications. I have huge doubts about this source, especially because in my opinion it is used for fringe pov pushing. Also I am interested in opinion of uninvolved users. --Asterixf2 (talk) 02:45, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Your "personal doubts" are not what we go by here. Unless there is proof that the author's name was falsely added, you have no business making the accusation out of thin air. I already told you what the rules say, and that's what we go by. GBRV (talk) 02:56, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * As I said, I am interested in opinion of uninvolved users. Source must be proven reliable, but it does not need to be proven unreliable. It's unreliable if wasn't proven reliable. --Asterixf2 (talk) 02:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * If it listed a publisher, you'd claim the publisher's name was forged just as you claim the author's name was forged. If it was on a university website, you'd claim the website was hacked. That's a senseless argument. You're just making up the idea that Behringer didn't actually write it. You don't get to make things up. GBRV (talk) 04:20, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't you have real arguments that you need to use ad hominem or appeal to ridicule? I am not making up anything and your accusations are offensive to me. It is easier to argue against broader statement. It is not on a university website. I didn't say it is not self-published. Simply nothing reliably indicates that it is self-published. Also there are around 25 other sources in the article and this author wouldn't have any problems to get something peer-reviewed and published in a journal. --Asterixf2 (talk) 10:42, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You may want to drop a note at the fringe board as well. In general, comments by an expert in the field *if uncontentious* are generally ok to be primary sourced. The *authorship* of one of the most famous/notorious religious documents related to witchcraft is certainly going to be a contentious issue. However if the expert's comments are in line with the prevailing view amongst (other) experts, this is a non starter as other sources should be available for the same material. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:04, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I've been looking pretty hard but I can't find any evidence that the book Guy refers to was ever translated into english. It's listed here as having multiple editions, but the only translation seems to have been into Finnish. I can't find it in worldcat or any other catalog, so I'm skeptical that such a translation exists. Am I missing something? Fyddlestix (talk) 19:53, 29 October 2016 (UTC) There's also the fact that the intro is supposed to have been co-written with Gunter Jerouscheck, whereas the pdf we're discussing lists Behringer as its sole author. Unless there's evidence I'm missing, I don't think this is the intro to that book. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:57, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The document at [ http://friedo.szm.com/mm.pdf ] appears to be the "intro by Wolfgang Behringer" mentioned at [ https://irinametzler.org/2013/10/10/disability-witches-and-the-middle-ages-some-mythbusting/ ]: "I have used a new translation from the oldest Latin printed edition [Heinrich Kramer (Institoris), Der Hexenhammer. Malleus Maleficarum, trans. Wolfgang Behringer, Günter Jerouschek and Werner Tschacher with intro. and ed. by Günter Jerouschek and Wolfgang Behringer, Munich: dtv, 2006, which these editors and translators felt it was necessary to produce because of the mountains of misconceptions and misinterpretations of the Malleus arising from earlier modern editions and translations." --Guy Macon (talk) 22:55, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It's true that previous translations are either incomplete or not fully professional. It has changed with translation by Mackay. It is the first both professional and complete translation into english. As far as I know Hexenhammer was not translated into english (this wouldn't make sense anyway, because direct translation from latin is preferred not from book in German with translation of Malleus Maleficarum from latin into German ). However, I was suspecting unofficial and perhaps amateur translation of some introduction. Nonetheless, this blog post doesn't link introduction to Hexenhammer with this pdf in any way unless I have missed sth. --Asterixf2 (talk) 00:55, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I established that an introduction to Malleus Maleficarum, translated to English by Wolfgang Behringer, Günter Jerouschek and Werner Tschacher with an introduction by Wolfgang Behringer exists. The document at [ http://friedo.szm.com/mm.pdf ] appears to be that introduction. There is no reason to suspect, as you have claimed, that the document at [ http://friedo.szm.com/mm.pdf ] is a forgery, so we are going to accept it as a reliable source until you obtain a copy of the book (I suggest a trip to the local library, asking them if they can get it on an interlibrary loan) and personally verify that your suspicions are correct and the PDF does not match the book. The burden is on you as the person making the extraordinary claim to provide evidence for that claim. Before you respond to this, please read the conditions of your unblock again and behave accordingly in your reply. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:47, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Then resolved, PDF does not match the book because its german only and pdf is in english. --Asterixf2 (talk) 15:24, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't resolved just because you say so. Have you even read that book to see if it's in German? Even if the origin of the text isn't clear, that only means the origin of the text isn't clear, it doesn't mean you can automatically declare it fraudulent. I can't just make a declaration of fraud for any sources that I disagree with, and neither can you. The normal procedure is to assume that if a given person is listed as the author, then it's probably true unless there is definite proof that it's a forgery. You haven't proved it's a forgery, even if it doesn't come from that specific book that Guy Macon thought it might come from. It could easily be a self-published essay that the author placed on the web for free, as a great many academics now do. That's fairly common. GBRV (talk) 16:30, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Even if you are correct, I agree with --Asterixf2 (talk) 17:14, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This is pretty clear-cut. Find the original German source, and figure out if the PDF is accurately translated in relation to the material attributed to it. If so, remove the PDF citations and only cite the original work. If not, then remove the citations and tag the material as being unsourced. Self-published translations of reliable sources are not in themselves reliable. If a Japanese source was cited on an article and some non-Japanese-speaker asked me to translate the relevant passage on the talk page, we wouldn't then cite my self-published translation in the article. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:03, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
 * In both cases this PDF cannot be cited. Also, I agree with Fyddlestix and Only in death. This source is clearly a mistake. --Asterixf2 (talk) 09:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you still pounding this issue? The idea that it's from a German book was based on nothing but a suggestion from Guy Macon. It could also be a self-published essay, or an article from an academic journal, or any number of things. You've latched onto the idea that it must be from a German-language book, therefore it must either be fake or someone's translation. You're still just making stuff up.  If it says it was written by Wolfgang Behringer then we would normally assume it was written by Wolfgang Behringer unless there is actual evidence to prove the name is a forgery. You haven't presented any evidence.  But let me ask you this: would you appreciate it if other people alleged that all of your sources were forgeries without proof?  That would get rather old pretty quickly, right?  So why do you have the right to do that?  GBRV (talk) 14:03, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * How the hell did Asterixf2 start with me writing "I established that an introduction to Malleus Maleficarum, translated to English by Wolfgang Behringer, Günter Jerouschek and Werner Tschacher with an introduction by Wolfgang Behringer exists. The document at [ http://friedo.szm.com/mm.pdf ] appears to be that introduction" and conclude that it must be from a German-language book? What part of "translated to English" is difficult to understand? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:28, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah this seems to be going in odd circles now. Is there any reason we cannot just AGF and cite the translation itself and ignore the PDF completely? Its not relevant except as additional confirmation the book covers what it should do, and since sources are not required to be online the book itself should be enough given the author? Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:40, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm still not convinced that the pdf is related to the book. The introduction to the book is supposed to be co-authored with Jerouscheck, but he's not listed as co-author of the document we're talking about. I haven't seen any actual evidence that this is from the book Guy suggested. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I addressed this above, and you didn't really "establish" what you're suggesting. There's no evidence that the book you're talking about was ever published in English. I looked long and hard, but found no evidence that an english edition of the book exists. Plus there's the issue of Behringer's introduction being co-written by Jerouscheck, while the document we're talking about lists Behringer as the sole author. But even if that's what this is - who translated it? Where does it come from? We can't use it as a source without answering those questions and confirming that it's an authoritative/accurate translation (and isn't copyvio) - you can get into all kinds of trouble that way (see a similar example on an unrelated page). Without evidence that this is an authorized, published translation (or, really, any verifiable info about its provenance) this document can't be used as a source. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:50, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I assumed Guy was referring to his original post which included "I have used a new translation from the oldest Latin printed edition [Heinrich Kramer (Institoris), Der Hexenhammer. Malleus Maleficarum, trans. Wolfgang Behringer, Günter Jerouschek and Werner Tschacher with intro. and ed. by Günter Jerouschek and Wolfgang Behringer, Munich: dtv, 2006, which these editors and translators felt it was necessary to produce because of the mountains of misconceptions and misinterpretations of the Malleus arising from earlier modern editions and translations." I read that as 'A new translation by (Behringer, Jerouschek, Tschacher) with introduction and editing by (Behringer, Jerouschek) published by DTV Munich in 2006'.... which appears to answer most of your questions? Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:57, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * No such book exists though. The source (Der Hexenhammer. Malleus Maleficarum, trans. Wolfgang Behringer, Günter Jerouschek and Werner Tschacher with intro. and ed. by Günter Jerouschek and Wolfgang Behringer, Munich: dtv, 2006) was a translation into German and it has never been published in English as far as I can tell. Certainly neither the publisher's website or any library catalog that I can find shows evidence of an English edition. So if the pdf is the intro to that book, it's an unpublished, un-authorized translation by god-knows-who that we should not be using (or linking) in an article. Also, if you look at the document, it cites the Jerouscheck, Behringer, and Tschacher edition of Der Hexenhammer. Why would a book cite itself? That's three strikes (wrong language, cites itself, Jerouscheck not listed as co-author) against this being the introduction to that book. Fyddlestix (talk) 16:04, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * No I know what you mean. I meant why cant we just cite the German translation? Unless there is some doubt about what it covers? WP:DE uses three citations for the material on Sprenger, one of which appears to be an edition of the German translation. Thomas Grüter: Freemasons, Illuminati and other conspirators. As conspiracy theories work. Fischer, Frankfurt / Main 2011 (3rd ed.), P 93. ISBN 978-3-596-17040-1, Heinrich Kramer (Institoris) The Malleus. Malleus Maleficarum, New from Latin transferred from Wolfgang Behringer, Günter Jerouschek and Werner Tschacher. Edited and initiated by Günter Jerouschek and Wolfgang Behringer, Munich 2000, pp. 31f. Christopher S. Mackay (eds.): Henricus Institoris, OP and Jacobus Sprenger, OP: Malleus maleficarum Volume 1, Cambridge 2006, pp 103-121.. (apologies for google translate) Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:11, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * OK Good - glad I got my point across! In reply: I feel like the fact that it doesn't credit the person who co-authored the introduction to Der Hexenhammer and cites Der Hexenhammer as a source makes it pretty clear that this isn't from Der Hexenhammer at all. So I would be opposed to citing the book on that basis, and also on the basis that if it's an un-authorized translation from the book it's very likely to be full of distortions and errors. We'd be putting an awful lot of trust in whoever translated it, without knowing anything about them or how reputable a translator they are (translation distortions can be really bad - see the example I linked a couple comments up). Fyddlestix (talk) 16:26, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Lest I be accused of being unreasonable here: I totally accept that Behringer is a good scholar and something he's written would be a good source. But if we're going to use a source we have to be able to confirm its authorship, cite it properly, and confirm that it's a published work (ie, not an un-authorized translation/copyvio). We can't do any of these things with the pdf that's being discussed here. We basically have no evidence/idea what it is - it could be a talk he gave at a conference, it could be a journal article, it could be an excerpt from something he's published, or it could be a poor, unauthorized translation of something else he's written by someone who's not-so-great with reading German. We need to figure out which of these things it is before we can use it and cite it properly. Fyddlestix (talk) 16:38, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well its hosted on a cryptographers personal website, so its not from a reliable source in any event, nor even a primary one. If it was hosted on Behringer's own website it would at least be eligible for the expert opinion . It looks like an except from a larger volume, Behringer has had a few works professionally translated into English that deal with Witchcraft in general (rather than specifically the Malleus) but it doesnt look like it is from them. It could be a translation of a paper submitted elsewhere. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * We're probably making this harder than it needs to be - I just emailed Behringer the document and asked if he recognizes it & what it is. Hopefully he replies. Fyddlestix (talk) 17:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I emailed him 5 days ago. He has not replied so far. I must say that I would be really upset if somebody purported to quote mi with such questionable sources with this kinds of serious doubts. --Asterixf2 (talk) 21:47, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * If we needed to email the author of every source and wait for confirmation that he actually wrote it, it would slow editing to a crawl and many authors likely wouldn't write back at all since they have other things to do. This is so far outside of the normal procedure that it seems almost surreal. GBRV (talk) 23:55, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Not really, WP:V requires that sources are verifiable. That PDF as it stands is not verifiable. If the author can say 'Yes that's my paper in journal X' - great its now verifiable. Otherwise its just a PDF on an unrelated website that has no explanation as to context, where it was published, where you would go to request a copy etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:07, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * But the claim that even the author is suspect is way out of line. Yes, the PDF doesn't say where the text comes from, but it's a giant leap for Asterix to claim that the author's name may be a forgery. Asterix only began claiming that after I explained to him that Wikipedia's rules allow self-published texts by reputable experts (like Behringer), which led him to claim it wasn't actually written by Behringer. Before that, he was arguing it was self-published by Behringer. He keeps moving the goalposts. GBRV (talk) 02:02, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * GBRV, please stop misinformation to put it mildly. At the very beginning of the post I wrote "I even doubt if it is authentic". In the first comment above in response to yours I wrote There is no reliable information that it is self-published (that the claimed author wrote it). --Asterixf2 (talk) 03:05, 5 November 2016 (UTC)