Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 353

Historisches Lexikon Bayerns
The Historisches Lexikon Bayerns is published as a wiki, but appears to have an editorial structure and is organized by the Bavarian State Library (an arm of the Bavarian Ministry of Sciences and Arts). There are many authors (identified in bylines on top of their articles), but the credentials or authority of the authors are not generally clear. The version histories of the articles don't seem to clarify when a version is considered done. It has a large German-language section, and a small list of articles translated into English. How should we regard this source, including for potentially controversial topics such as its coverage of Nazi-era Germany? (To provide a concrete example, let's consider whether citing the HLB article "Blutfahne der NSDAP" in our article Blutfahne would be satisfactory.) TheFeds  00:12, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes i'd say in most contexts it can be used as a valid source and probably can be treated similarly to national biographies or national/state encylopedia you find in the English speaking world. The wiki aspect (that a wiki software is used) shouldn't be an issue as it does not provide an "anyone can edit" feature.


 * As far as that specific article is concerned. First of all as far as the content is concerned I'm not seeing anything that would be controversial. As far as the author is concerned a quick check/search indicates that he has published some NS-related stuff in proper historical journals and is quoted in some reputable books on the subject. So he seems to be an expert on the nazi era in Bavaria. However I didn't find any biographical details regarding his education & career. My overall conclusion is, that he seems ok as general source for the Blutfahne article, except for highly controversial/disputed aspects maybe.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:05, 11 September 2021 (UTC)


 * From my correspondence with the author of a different article, who asked me for an informal peer review, I gather the following: At least someone on the advisory board reads the articles before they get published (not by the authors themselves but by library staff). Should be mostly solid information for a more general audience. --HHill (talk) 20:57, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Newsblaze
Newsblaze claims to be a news site: "the alternative business and world news newspaper". https://newsblaze.com/ and https://newsblaze.com.au/ There are presently 348 usages in article space.

The pressroom page states: "Newsblaze was founded with the goal of giving attention to the news that the mainstream media gives little or no time."

There are editors concerned at the quality of Newsblaze as a source, particularly given it does get usage on the encyclopedia.


 * Option 1: The source is recognized as being generally reliable.
 * Option 2: There is no consensus or additional considerations apply.
 * Option 3: The source is recognized as being generally unreliable in most cases, though it can be used under certain circumstances.
 * Option 4: The source is recognized as being not reliable at all and should be deprecated.

- David Gerard (talk) 17:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Opinions: Newsblaze

 * Option 4. We should not be using this as a source on Wikipedia for anything, to the point that I'm not confident it could be trusted for WP:ABOUTSELF. It should be deprecated, and usages removed from article space. - David Gerard (talk) 17:10, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I should note: I wouldn't have done the whole RFC thing except for discovering to my horror that it's actually being used as a source in practice - David Gerard (talk) 19:41, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , just a procedural concern. RfCs should be a neutral short question, so I'd recommend moving everything except the first line, the third line and the options, under the discussion subsection. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 19:56, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I have done this - David Gerard (talk) 23:35, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * 'Option 4. Pretty clearly not a reliable source, and not one that a serious, reputable reference work (nor responsible editors) should go anywhere near. MastCell Talk 17:42, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 4 per above. Also, the site barely even functions properly - I'm getting stuck in a redirect loop. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:51, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 4 I've reproduced the problem that ProcrastinatingReader had - might be a bug in their page. Other than that, OP's assessment that Newsblaze was founded with the goal of giving attention to the news that the mainstream media gives little or no time is even incorrect because it's not news to begin with. As CNNNN once said, Take two glasses of know-how and add a teaspoon of truth. Stir thoroughly. For me it's more of a pinch, if not less - obviously to be deprecated. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That was a quote from their site. I do think it fails at it - David Gerard (talk) 20:01, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * You just wrote that The pressroom page notes: "Newsblaze was founded with the goal of giving attention to the news that the mainstream media gives little or no time." It certainly does that, so I assumed you agreed with it. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:09, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 4 for the reasons outlined above. This is a bad source. –– FormalDude  talk  20:12, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 4 I can't see any circumstances where anything Newsblaze says would be considered reliable. Even for themselves, as David Gerard states, I couldn't be sure it is correct outside of an email address. Canterbury Tail talk 20:14, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * what is your brief and neutral statement? At almost 4,200 bytes, the statement above (from the tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for  to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Requests for comment/Wikipedia proposals. The RfC may also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 22:16, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that, I went into rant mode in the RFC text. I've shortened the text considerably, and moved my opinions and the cited support for them below - David Gerard (talk) 23:34, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 07:02, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 4 Well-known for propagating falsehoods and conspiracy theories, like here, for instance. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 02:26, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 4 as per previous comments. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion: Newsblaze
Apart from not being neutral, my summary of Newsblaze was long enough to break the bot! So I've moved it here.

The site(s) propagates conspiracy theories, fabrications and serious medical misinformation.
 * Medical conspiracy theories: Vaccine scaremongering, citing NaturalNews as a source; more vaccine scaremongering; "Australia-Japan Virtue Signal Summit Guns Blazing", where by "virtue signal" he means masks and vaccines; hydroxychloroquine advocacy.
 * "Did Twitter Delete My Tweets and Stop Me from Following Trump?"
 * Their White House correspondent, Randy Foreman, "attends daily briefings", though he doesn't seem to have filed much since the Obama years. What he does file includes supporting the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory  (enough for it to be noted by others) and giving credence to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Foreman was not invited to the briefings; he used to just sit in the New York Daily News seat, because it was usually empty.
 * "Arab Fifth Column Growing in Israel"
 * Climate change denialism: "Is Bureau of Meteorology Ignoring Science To Tell Global Warming Stories"; "killer windmills"; abuse of statistics.

There is non-conspiracy content also, e.g. treating Covid vaccines as good and climate change as real. But even both-sidesing this nonsense is bad enough.

The "curation policy" reads like an excuse for skirting copyright violation.

The site is also weirdly broken - in both Chrome and Firefox, all pages seem to reload continuously. I could only read some of these pages through archive.is. Perhaps it's just me.

Summary: this site appears to be a conspiracy theorist blog, with press release reprints and borderline copyright violations to fill it out.

- David Gerard (talk) 23:34, 4 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It's been a week since last edit - anyone uninvolved who thinks this is a WP:SNOWBALL? - David Gerard (talk) 00:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Biographies from Widewalls
Is anyone familiar with Widewalls and the reliability & independence of their artist biographies? It seems to be a commercial site for art sales and auctions based on their About Us. It's currently used in several WP artist biographies.

At Talk:Nelson Saiers, the article subject is requesting inclusion of material from this biography of the subject. My initial guess is that it's as good as an autobiographical primary source since these commercial listings tend to take material directly from the artists, although it's unclear to me if this kind of source lends any WP:WEIGHT / WP:PROPORTION so any additional input here is welcome. — MarkH21talk 07:17, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Rolling Stone
I'm curious to know what editors think of Rolling Stone. There's news this week of them being involved in COVID misinformation or an outright hoax. Rolling Stone is now famously known for multiple hoaxes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loganmac (talk • contribs) 18:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * "Multiple hoaxes" that are actually the same story twice? was also printed by many other news sources NPR Forbes Fox CBS and appear to have been caused by a confused press release from a third party ? So that'd be a no. Black Kite (talk) 22:21, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That is the wrong media screw up, Rolling Stone is the "Oklahoma ER's overwhelmed", you're linking to the "Mississippi Poison Control" story. fiveby(zero) 22:37, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, true. It's still the same story twice, though, so hardly "famously known for multiple hoaxes".  Especially spurious given that one of the reports is from Fox...  Meanwhile "The story, which originally appeared in Oklahoma's KFOR-TV news, was widely shared by reporters..." Black Kite (talk) 22:42, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The Mississippi Poison Control Center thing you linked is another story. The Oklahoma story originates from an interview that the doctor did on KFOR (a local news station in Oklahoma), and it seems he decided to make stuff up for whatever reason KFOR severely misrepresented it. People are mad at Rolling Stone because they were one of the first to pick up on it, which lead it to go somewhat viral on social media. The lack of any fact checking here is troubling, as presumably this would be easy to check with a few phone calls, but Rolling Stone were certainly not the only ones to report on this, see e.g. The Guardian. Not to say that the Rolling Stone doesn't have any skeletons in their closet, but broadly speaking I don't think this shows any grave systemic issue on their part. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 22:44, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yep. Crappy fact-checking, but they'd hardly be the first major news source to fall foul of something like this in the last 18 months. Contribs of the reporting editor are what you'd expect btw. Black Kite (talk) 22:47, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be using Rolling Stone for this type of news in the first place (eg not directly medical but related to medical crisis) - a similar factor related to the "Rape on Campus" story as that's out of their ballywig. But if we're talking anything in the entertainment industry, they still remain one of the top sources. --M asem (t) 22:52, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , you may want to scratch that where you say the doc "decided to make stuff up", according to Reason there are no quotes where he connected Ivermectin to overwhelmed hospitals. fiveby(zero) 22:58, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I had just assumed what KFOR said of the interview was accurate. Choice quote from that piece: This means, of course, that if the national media outlets had called the doctor or the hospitals, they would have easily uncovered the error. Instead, they unthinkingly spread it. That is disappointing. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 23:07, 6 September 2021 (UTC)


 * What's concerning me here is that this is a great example of failures of Rolling Stone to do independent fact-checking prior to releasing their article. It almost feels like a churnalistic approach has taken hold, especially given that the topic itself is rather clickbaity. And, well, there's also the glaring defamation problems it ran into a few years ago, which showed a complete and total breakdown of its editorial process, and this may be one of those papers where its political bias leads to actual blind spots in fact-checking, rather than it being a simply biased source. The existence of the Culture Council, where people can basically pay to publish their own writing in Rolling Stone, makes me think that the current WP:RSP listing is too simple; even though opinion pieces are governed by WP:RSOPINION, there appear to be at least some Rolling Stone pieces that are truly self-published and might not belong in a biography of a living person. It's certainly a indispensable historical source for the music industry, though I'm strongly concerned regarding its reliability since 2014—particularly on social issues and politically sensitive issues. I'd favor an RfC to clarify the extent to which others share these concerns and to help us write a better RSP entry that accounts for the Culture Council. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 07:24, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Their "Culture Council" articles are at least clearly marked, see e.g. a random example, though I agree these should be treated as self-published sources and the RSP entry should be updated accordingly. I do think they remain generally reliable for music and film/the entertainment industry, but I share your concerns about social/political issues and think an RfC would be a good means of evaluating community consensus. To me, it does feel like they haven't learnt all their lessons from A Rape on Campus, and seem too willing to churn out articles on hot-button political and social issues they know will get them clicks – like the article discussed above – and if all fact-checking the above story would have taken is a phone call to a hospital, it concerns me that they failed to do that. Outside of hot-button political and social issues though, I don't think I really have any concerns. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 08:59, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Rolling Stone on Politically Sensitive Topics and Social Issues (2011-Present)
Which of the following best describes the reliability of Rolling Stone from 2011-present with respect to politically sensitive topics and social issues? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1: generally reliable for factual reporting
 * Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
 * Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
 * Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

Discussion: Rolling Stone on Politically Sensitive Topics and Social Issues (2011-Present)

 * Option 3. Since 2011, Rolling Stone has shown a reduction in its editorial quality regarding politically sensitive issues that has resulted in it publishing false and fabricated information, churnalism, as well as pieces of questionable reliability due to conflict-of-interest:
 * Rolling Stone is a politically biased source that maintains a left-of-center lean. The Guardian describes it as a rock’n’roll magazine turned liberal cheerleader, while The Washington Post notes a left-of center political alignment and, in a separate article notes that the magazine has supported liberal causes and candidates since the 1990s. And, it doesn't appear that this sort of alignment is limited to the United States, as I discuss below with respect to Canada.
 * Bias in a source, of course, doesn't necessarily impact reliability. As WP:BIASEDSOURCES states, when dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. The problem is that it appears to generally fail on both editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking when dealing with politically sensitive topics or social issues. In a more mundane sense, its fawning cover story on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was also regarded as containing many inaccuracies by reputable Canadian news agencies including Global News, National Post, and Macleans Magazine. I doubt Wikipedia editors would attempt to verify controversial facts with a piece that states that [f]or Trudeau, listening is seducing, but this is minor compared to problems that were revealed in a notable 2014 journalistic catastrophe at the magazine.
 * It has had substantial issues with its editorial process for some time now, the worst of which was shown in their response to their libelous 2014 A Rape on Campus piece. The Washington Post ([link via Chicago Tribune) notes that critiques of the story blamed not just Rolling Stone 's editorial standards but also its left-of-center politics. Columbia Journalism Review, in its scathing report, notes that the senior editors of Rolling Stone were unanimous in the belief that the story’s failure does not require them to change their editorial systems (emphasis mine) . Rather, according to CJR, Coco McPherson, the fact-checking chief, said, "I one hundred percent do not think that the policies that we have in place failed. I think decisions were made around those because of the subject matter." (emphasis mine)
 * But cutting corners on fact-checking because a publication is doing news reporting on a social issue isn't the hallmark of a reliable source, but the hallmark of an unreliable source. This editorial attitude doesn't inspire any confidence in the ability of the source to report facts. And, by the time that Rolling Stone retracted the piece, nearly five months had passed since it was published. And, senior staff at the magazine still questioned the decision to issue the retraction years later. It's no wonder why Poynter states that The big lesson from Rolling Stone’s last debacle, “A Rape on Campus,” was that legendary magazine’s editing process had failed. It’s a lesson the institution is still struggling to learn.
 * On top of all this, nobody was fired at Rolling Stone as a result of the libelous story's publication. As CNN puts it, the magazine earned a battered reputation for fact checking and accuracy.
 * Signs of this sort of lack of editorial process appeared as early as 2011. According to the Washington Post, a report on alleged Catholic sex abuse in 2011 relied upon a witness ("Billy") who kept changing his story and might have been a warning of sorts for the sort of abject reporting failures that we saw in the 2014 piece. It goes on to report that what’s more, the author of the story, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, never mentioned a personal fact: At the time she was reporting Billy’s story, her husband was winding down his career as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office, which was prosecuting the defendants in the case. Newsweek, in a cover story, has reported similarly. The 2011 story is still up and has no sort of correction or retraction noted, nor does it declare any sort of conflict-of-interest, which... raises further concerns about editorial integrity to say the least. (The case almost went to a retrial in 2020 until COVID-19 delayed, and the prosecutor won't so much as call Billy to the stand at this point.)
 * The New York Times reported in 2017 that the last piece to have received journalistic acclaim from Rolling Stone was published in 2010. The timing of this piece, which was significant in the downfall of Stanley A. McChrystal, combined with the revelations of the 2011 conflict-of-interest problems described above, lead me to draw on reliability at around 2011.
 * There's some reason to believe that unreliability extends into other areas, such as its giving El Chapo the a role in editorial oversight over his own interview that was published Rolling Stone. This is plainly an independence problem and it shows further issues with editorial control, though it seems to be a bit more of a one-off for this sort of engagement.
 * As for churnalism in the political arena, I'd point towards a story widely described as debunked (see Bloomberg, The New Republic, and Reason Magazine). The update appended to the article shows that even basic fact-checking prior to publishing wasn't present in this case, though the correction is a sign that the article is misinformation rather than disinformation.
 * There's also a sense of blending factual reporting and opinion in its "politics news" section, which further hampers credibility. This piece comes to mind as an example (it talks about where we need to be with respect to legislative priorities). I could continue to provide additional examples if people would desire a fuller list.
 * The reason that I go with an Option 3 rather than a deprecation is that it probably is fine for the fact that X person holds Y political position. But I'd never use it for controversial facts, given that its fact-checking and editorial process is questionable at best. But, the editorial process not making changes after the absolute trainwreck of A Rape on Campus, but instead continuing the same bad editorial practices is a sign that this biased source lacks the substantial editorial control and fact-checking that a generally reliable source would possess. That, plus the mixing of opinion and fact in politics news articles, are enough to earn a WP:GUNREL from me. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Anywhere from 2 to 3 to 4. The fake A Rape on Campus report in 2014 was not the latest or most egregious of Rolling Stone's false "reporting" over the past 10 years. The most recent was from a mere five days ago, a totally fabricated and totally false story purportedly about ivermectin poisonings, complete with a totally fake photo . Rolling Stone has become an embarrassment to itself. Softlavender (talk) 01:16, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 due only to the specific issues cited which indicate a pattern of sloppiness, not because of the perception of ideological bias. RS is a monthly magazine that averages just two "hard news" stories per issue so, while the above list would not be enough to deep-six a daily newspaper, for a monthly hybrid topics publication we're talking about a pretty substantial percentage of articles. Frankly, even 2011 may be generous as we have examples of issues with RS going all the way back to 2000, such as a 2005 article in the magazine that alleged a government conspiracy to cover-up something or another about vaccines that RS chose not to retract even after it was widely debunked. Chetsford (talk) 02:50, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify my position—it isn't because Rolling Stone has a left-leaning bias per se that I'm basing my decision off of. It's more of a reported sloppiness around these issues, which occur when it ventures into the political/social issues domain. The quote from the fact checking chief that decisions were made... because of the subject matter is what I was trying to get at with how the bias on the subject matter caused material impacts on the reliability of the fact-checking process. It's the sloppiness with facts that ultimately causes problems as far as WP:SOURCE is concerned. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:52, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, I agree that 2011 might be generous, though I really couldn't find any other clean date that I could use as a cutoff for unreliability in light of how the 2017 NYT report characterized the quality of Rolling Stone. The bonkers vaccine article doesn't help its establish its credibility before 2011, but it might be best to consider that time period separately. There was a good bit of garbage reporting on vaccines in the early-to-mid 2000s, which erm... didn't help public health. But the RS piece and Kennedy's media circuit is particularly significant in spreading vaccine conspiracy theories. Yet another reason why WP:MEDRS is important, I suppose, but I'm not sure exactly how to handle the timing. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:24, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3. Thanks for your analysis above. The attitude of the editors after A Rape on Campus, as documented by CJR, troubles me: Rolling Stone’s senior editors are unanimous in the belief that the story’s failure does not require them to change their editorial system... Coco McPherson, the fact-checking chief, said, "I one hundred percent do not think that the policies that we have in place failed. I think decisions were made around those because of the subject matter." Also, as noted in the piece by CJR, the Rolling Stone does have fact-checkers who did question some of the material in the article, but "because of the subject matter", the fact-checkers were overruled: "Put this on Jackie?" the checker wrote. "Any way we can confirm with him?" ... Asked if there was anything she should have been notified about, McPherson answered: "The obvious answers are the three friends. These decisions not to reach out to these people were made by editors above my pay grade." They demonstrated significant failures in their fact-checking process there, and it appears they did not seek to correct them. This attitude coheres with the subsequent fact-checking errors with other "too good to check" stories – the churnalism from a few days ago discussed in the above section that could've been verified as untrue if they had just made a phone call, and the concerns raised over the editorial failures in the El Chapo interview Mikehawk10 mentioned above concern me as well. It is disappointing to see from a publication which does still seem able to cover music and film adequately, but I do think I'm going to have to go for option 3 here, somewhat reluctantly. I have no strong preference about a "starting date", but given RS do describe a kind of transformation in Rolling Stone, it does make sense to have one, and I guess 2011 is reasonable enough. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 15:16, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 As per analysis above. We can't use it for anything other then entertainment or music news --Shrike (talk) 15:48, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3: Cant really add to much above, they are an entertainment magazine, with some pretty shoddy journalism.Slatersteven (talk) 15:54, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 Their entertainment coverage is impeccable but they should not be used as sourcing (unless they are the central point of issue with a topic) for these types of topics. --M asem (t) 16:10, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 Per and others. The complete absence of fact-checking for the ivermectin story, and that fake photo, is what seals it.  DoubleCross  ( ‡ ) 18:02, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 - I was going to go option 2, but the above has convinced me. They used to be vastly better at this. I'm not sure 2011 is the cutoff date, but it's true in the present - David Gerard (talk) 19:12, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I should note that RS in decades past was a solid Option 1, but isn't any more. Worth determining when they turned to trash - David Gerard (talk) 14:25, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 (possibly 2) as per above. Might be usable with attribution for more robust reports on case by case basis. Strongly avoid use for medical/scientific or for any areas where proprietors have interests (e.g. US party politics, Saudi Arabia). Probably goes without saying that any political podcasts it has hosted (e.g. Useful Idiots) would not be a usable source. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 reluctantly, but the above is definitely convincing. However, I stress that this opinion is limited solely to the aforementioned and explicitly does not cover film, music, and entertainment. For those, this is a no-brainer #1. -- The SandDoctor Talk 01:56, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 per the detailed analyses above. The bogus ivermectin hospital story still has not been retracted like it should have, just amended. Given how eager I have seen some editors be to use this magazine about entertainment on controversial political issues, it's good to see it finally get some scrutiny. It is high time we stop permitting bad left-wing sources as we have long ago stopped using bad right-wing ones. Crossroads -talk- 03:51, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 good magazine for interviewing bands. no good magazine for politics. Sea Ane (talk) 10:05, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 based on the analysis above. I would still use them for music journalism, but their other reporting seems suspect given the lack of editorial control.  -- Jayron 32 17:29, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Rolling Stone Culture Council
Which of the following best describes the reliability of Rolling Stone Culture Council articles? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1: generally reliable for factual reporting
 * Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
 * Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
 * Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

Discussion: Rolling Stone Culture Council

 * Option 3. Culture Council pieces are essentially self-published sources that come about when a person to pays to publish on the Rolling Stone digital platform, per The Guardian. The sorts of stories appear to be clearly labeled, as notes in the discussion before the RfCs. This feels a lot like a blogging service. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 These are just mat releases. Chetsford (talk) 02:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 As per Mikehawk and Chetsford. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:01, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 They are self-published blogs you pay money to show to Rolling Stone's audience – Rolling Stone makes it clear they are only the work of the individual writer and that the articles do not have editorial input. Pretty similar to WP:FORBESCON. &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 13:59, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 promotional self-source blogs - often pay-for-play advertising, see previous discussion. These are advertising, not content, and should generally not be used as sources on Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 19:10, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 per . Paid blogs, no oversight, just like WP:FORBESCON.  DoubleCross  ( ‡ ) 19:19, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 It's a pretty clear pay-to-publish scenario with no editorial oversight. I guess the only exception to using them would be to cite an expert's opinion, but the Guardian indicates that the platform is primarily for PR professionals, so it's unlikely we'll ever cite this source directly. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 23:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3.5. It's clear that they are unreliable here, but it should be made clear that they are also not independent. BilledMammal (talk) 03:04, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3, per above. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:57, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3 with consideration. WP:RSOPINION may need to be taken into account on a case-by-case, same as with WP:FORBESCON. -- The SandDoctor Talk 01:59, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 3, same as Forbes and HuffPost "contributors". Crossroads -talk- 03:53, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Note: WP:UPSD update
I've pre-emptively updated WP:UPSD to mark RS as a publication whose reliability 'varies with topic/contributor'. I'll update again if the closure of the RFC is harsher/more lenient than this. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:06, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , I have closed the RfC with the ruling you can see above. Thank you for your active maintenance of the list, greatly appreciated. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 00:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Updated to mark the council articles as generally unreliable. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:50, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Are these sources reliable or not?


Thanks in advance.--TheEagle107 (talk) 13:46, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * For what?Slatersteven (talk) 13:48, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree entirely with Slatersteven, context is key, but a very quick scan tells me the former source is pretty solid--the author being a professor emeritus at the University of Rhode Island--while the second is a bit more mysterious. Again, reliability does not exist in a vacuum.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 13:51, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ,, Please take a look at here.--TheEagle107 (talk) 13:53, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems to me they are an RS for that.Slatersteven (talk) 14:01, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * TheEagle107 -- I left my thoughts on the article talk page. The short version is that I don't think reliability is a problem, but I don't care for the relevant section of the article.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:04, 14 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Both are rs, particularly the first, since it has an academic publisher. However rs says that context matters. An introduction to Asian religions written by a professor and published by an academic publisher is where a reasonable person would look for an accurate and neutral description of Hinduism. A book about Mohammed written by an Islamic scholar and published by a publisher of Islamic books would not be my go to source for Hinduism. Just because an otherwise rs contains information about a topic does not mean it should be used. The less relevant to the topic a source is, the less likely that it's descriptions will be accurate or mainstream. I would not use for example a book about Mars by an astrophysicist as a source for 19th century literature. TFD (talk) 16:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It may be the case with religious books that the author is credentialed but the faith forward study is something we just would not use. The introduction of the second book is enough to rule it out as RS "That is why Islam, revealed by God and conveyed to humanity by Prophet Muhammad, is universal and eternal. A Prophet inculcates the Creator's grandeur in the minds and spirits of human beings..." Spudlace (talk) 04:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Re the Yong Choon Kim book, Rowman and Littlefield are legitimate publishers of a variety of academic and popular books. But I would be cautious about any book offering an "introduction to the philosophical and religious thought of Asia" as many English language books on various Asian philosophies often tend to be somewhat dismissive, rely on shaky historical or linguistic foundations etc. English-speaking academic philosophy (I don't know so much about theology/religious studies) is still rather behind on a proper detailed understanding of the philosophical and religious thought of Chinese, Indian and other Asian cultures. A somewhat obscure single volume summary published in 1981 may be reliable in the WP:RS sense of the word, but to properly understand the subject in context, you might want to consult more recent sources that go into more detail. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

LevelSkip on Blacklist
Hello! So I was attempting to copy and paste the Slime Rancher page to my sandbox so I could start work on a specific section of it, when I was warned while trying to save it because one of the references (levelskip.com) was on Wikipedia's Blacklist. So I took a look at the discussion and it wasn't about levelskip.com but a whole bunch of other websites associated with one parent website. However this didn't really help me understand why levelskip.com is on the blacklist. Could anyone help me understand? Blaze The Wolf &#124; Proud Furry &#124; Discord: Blaze Wolf#0001 (talk) 18:05, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * if you've already found the discussion, it would help greatly if you would link to it so people don't have to search for it again. But anyway I don't understand what you mean by "". This discussion MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/October 2020 was about all websites associated with HubPages. Yes that included other websites, but it also included levelskip.com which is in between hobbylark.com and letterpile.com. The about us page levelskip.com/about-us confirms that it's still a part of HubPages Of course this also confirms the concern mentioned in the previous discussion still seems correct namely that it seems to mostly just let random people write articles with little editorial oversight. Nil Einne (talk) 08:54, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah ok. That was something I couldn't tell just by looking at the page. ― Blaze The WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#0001 12:47, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Financial Express

 * Financial Express

Rfc please, is the above a reliable source for establishing notability of Draft:Online Gravity - See Draft talk:Online Gravity for discussion. Amirah  talk  15:28, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Reliability of Massacres of Tamils (1956 - 2008)
The book Massacres of Tamils (1956 - 2008) was published by the North East Secretariat on Human Rights, which is the human rights wing of the LTTE (a group designated as a terrorist organization). The NEOSHR was noted by many human rights groups (such as the HRW) for attempting to whitewash LTTE's crimes and having clear ideological links to the group. Is it considered a reliable source?. And, what about other publications made by the NESOHR?. This book has been used in a number of articles throughout Wikipedia. Amritsvāraya (talk) 11:06, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Well firstly NESOHR are not the same as the LTTE, an armed group. The members of NESOHR did not take part in armed conflict like the LTTE. Secondly, it was not human rights groups which accused NESOHR of being an attempt to whitewash the LTTE, but an US diplomat, who is hardly a neutral source. A cursory glance at NESOHR's publications shows clearly that their main function was to document all the mass atrocities committed against Tamil civilians by government forces, which many international human rights groups were not covering in detail. NESOHR is the only group to cover all the massacres:


 * https://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=37441


 * The head was a Christian priest, who later got assassinated by government forces:


 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._X._Karunaratnam


 * And another member was a civilian woman N. Malathy who later wrote a book on her experiences with the organisation, she said this:


 * "Some leading members of citizens’ committees in Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa, led by Fr. Karunaradnam, got together and put pressure on the LTTE to create a civilian human rights body. NESoHR was the outcome of these two independent processes, and as such NESoHR retained a level of independence from the LTTE."


 * Source: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/12962741


 * As they lived in LTTE ruled areas, they were likely affiliated with the LTTE on a civilian level, but were not active members.


 * There was a similar wiki dispute regarding the use of Tamilnet as a source, and it was decided by Wiki admins that it was a reliable source.


 * The NESOHR source was published by an independent publishing house, and it still fits the criteria of reliable source. Oz346 (talk) 13:03, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment TrangaBellam (talk) 16:28, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Is populationu.com a reliable source
This edit replaced another source. Sadly this is one of those editors who has never found their talk page, so if I revert they're likely to replace it again, at least that's my experienc. Doug Weller talk 11:54, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It's registered anonymously via Namecheap (i.e. with the whoisguard option to hide the whois information), is also hosted via that service and I don't see any information about the site's owners or authors given on the site. They list a few sources for their information, however.  It appears to only currently be used in 12 articles and in the first case I checked it had been added by, a now blocked sockpuppet.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 16:54, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * thanks very much for this. Doug Weller  talk 13:05, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Archived advertisements
Wikipedia:PRIMARYCARE would not seem to bar use of advertisements/advertorials (Wikipedia:SPONSORED) from 1954 since nothing is now (in 2021) being sold or marketed. Or would it? Such as, in the following:


 * The homes were marketed as having air-conditioning.

Djflem (talk) 22:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It shows the fact, but I can see an objection as WP:SYNTH/original research - did a source at the time note this? But I concur that this would just be using a primary source for a fact, and not count as promotion - David Gerard (talk) 23:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Used as above, it is probably fine as far as promotional concerns go. However, I wouldn’t draw the threshold at the advertised product no longer being sold; claims made in old advertisements can still paint the company’s history in a more positive light and could thereby be used in a manner that misconstrues a company’s reputation or quality at a particular point in time. If, for example, we cite an advertisement from 1980 to say that Mercedes-Benz was the first to introduce XYZ feature into its automobiles on the basis that the advertisement says so, I think that sort of stuff would still be promotional with respect to the brand itself. Older advertisements are primary sources that probably can be sparingly used for HOW a product was marketed, but I am not sure that they would ever be considered reliable for much else. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC)


 * For context, the article in question is about the Green Meadow, Delaware subdivision. A previous version had several paragraphs which were just quotes of advertisements by the developer, along with "The houses gained popularity in the area for their air conditioning, as a heat wave was sweeping through the area at the time" written in Wiki voice, sourced to a pair of ads. In my opinion the proposed wording "The homes were marketed as having air-conditioning" is an improvement but still raises some concerns.
 * NPOV is a major issue with self-sourced content like this. Articles should be written from the viewpoint of independent reliable sources; even if advertisements and marketing statements are clearly labeled as such, they still only present the point of view of the developer. Was AC truly a major selling point at the time? Were buyers actually attracted to these homes because of the heat wave, or is that just something the builder came up with to boost sales? Was this really the "most talked about" subdivision in the area? Did people actually want to live near freeways and shopping centers or did these things turn out to be more of a nuisance? We need independent sources to put these claims in context and present an unbiased view. Even if ads are attributed as such, they still only present the developer's self-interested view which does not serve our readers well. There are often aspects of a topic that we simply don't cover because no independent sources are available.
 * In this case we do actually have an independent source, a "Community Profile" newspaper feature from the 1990s which included interviews with longtime residents. One person did mention that air conditioning was the reason she chose Green Meadow when it was first built, but there were also no trees yet and she had to drive to the post office until mail delivery was implemented (funny how the developer didn't mention that). I think it's reasonable to include a brief mention of AC based on this source, but it begs another question: Why would we ever need to cite an ad in this context if we need independent sourcing to back it up? Why not just use the independent RS in the first place? –dlthewave ☎ 16:58, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Business Today

 * Business Today

Rfc please, is the above a reliable source for establishing notability of Draft:Online Gravity - See Draft talk:Online Gravity for discussion. Amirah  talk  16:43, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It would help - it's a review in an apparent RS - but it wouldn't be sufficient to meet WP:BOOKCRIT; you'd need at least one more. Ideally, you'd have a lot more evidence of independent notability than two book reviews - David Gerard (talk) 16:54, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, User:David Gerard,
 * I have found a couple more sources, would they also help?
 * Financial Express
 * e-Review of Tourism Research 14, no. 1/2 (2017)
 * Amirah  talk  17:12, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think the Financial Express is a second RS of substantial content. I also see live mint.com has an excerpt, a few side remarks about it, e.g. Western Sydney University notes on or The Hindu.  That’s still not much.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Slovenski Narod newspaper
Hello. source: The source in question is an article in the Slovenian newspaper Slovenski Narod from 1904. The full edition is available from the Digital Library of Slovenia here where it can be downloaded as a PDF. For those without a grasp on South Slavic languages, the text can be highlighted, copied, and pasted into a web-translation for a decent idea on what is being stated. The article in question within this newspaper edition is "Položaj v Macedoniji" which is based on a conversation with revolutionary leader Hristo Tatarchev.

article: I added this article as a source to the article of Hristo Tatarchev (and was promptly reverted).

content: I used the source to support two sentences I added: diff. I essentially paraphrase two points explicitly stated in the article, one being that Turkish reforms were insufficient in his view and the other that his organization would never allow Macedonia to join Serbia or Bulgaria.

I look forward to any guidance from uninvolved editors regarding why this source can or cannot be considered reliable for the purposes I had attempted to use it. Thanks. -- Local hero talk 05:49, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, I am the other editor involved in this issue. The article in the newspaper is used by User:Local hero in historical context. However per Identifying reliable sources (history), historical scholarship is generally not:
 * Journalism
 * Opinion pieces by non-scholars
 * Popular works that were not reviewed, especially works by journalists, or memoirs—these may be useful to supplement an article that relies upon scholarly sources
 * Any primary source, etc.


 * Per Identifying reliable sources (history), to determine scholarly opinions about a historical topic, consult the following sources in order:
 * Recent scholarly books and chapters on the historiography of the topic
 * "Review Articles", or historiographical essays that explicitly discuss recent scholarship in an area.
 * Similarly conference papers that were peer reviewed in full before publication that are field reviews or have as their central argument the historiography.
 * Journal articles or peer reviewed conference papers that open with a review of the historiography, etc.


 * That means if somebody want to use such a primary source (newspaper clipping in a language that is unclear to all the readers of the English-language Wikipedia and older then 100 years) it must be supported by recent scholarly books in English, etc. Thanks. Jingiby (talk) 06:10, 19 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I’ll quickly note that the page you reference is not a Wikipedia policy and that this newspaper source is not a “clipping” as the full edition is available. Looking forward to input from uninvolved editors. -- Local hero talk 06:19, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I will clarify that the idea backed by this newspaper's article contradicts with a lot of secondary WP:RS cited in the same article (Hristo Tatarchev).Jingiby (talk) 06:26, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

todor66.com
The website http://todor66.com is being used as a reference on a number of basketball, handball, volleyball articles. Having looked at the website, I consider it to have all the hallmarks of a self-published source - amateur look & feel, owned by a single person, only operating on http not https as any credible website would these days.

I have heard from one editor today who claims it is the only source of information regarding game results on the (geographic and amateur) fringes of these sports and therefore it must be used. I don't consider that to be a valid argument as poorly sourced information is no better than unsourced information.

I would appreciate the comments of others on whether they would consider this to be a reliable source? 10mmsocket (talk) 15:27, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The above assessment seems quite right. No information about the author whatsoever, besides their (supposed) name (which happens to be the same as that of a Bulgarian footballer who died 20 yrs ago, so I can't find absolutely anything to suggest this would be an acceptable SPS). No indication as to the sourcing of the information either. If this is the only site which reports some information, then, yes, that information does not go on Wikipedia. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:39, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * added to WP:UPSD to facilitate cleanup. It's in a lot of articles so coordinating with WP:SPORTS should be a priority. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:11, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Let me know if/how I can help. I would like to think my mission here is to help clean up original research and unsourced content. 10mmsocket (talk) 17:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Podcasts to be used as: References or External Links?
I posted this on the talk page of Mona Lisa and have been directed to check here.

Can podcasts be used at all? If yes, is it as references or external links? I want to contribute quoting the episodes from the two widest known podcasts on Art History: ArtCurious and The Lonely Palette.

Here is an example from ArtCurious about Mona Lisa: https://www.artcuriouspodcast.com/artcuriouspodcast/1

It also has the transcript.

Please suggest! - Veera.sj — Preceding undated comment added 11:47, 6 August 2021

Slovenski Narod newspaper
Note: re-added after auto-archive.

Hello. source: The source in question is an article in the Slovenian newspaper Slovenski Narod from 1904. The full edition is available from the Digital Library of Slovenia here where it can be downloaded as a PDF. For those without a grasp on South Slavic languages, the text can be highlighted, copied, and pasted into a web-translation for a decent idea on what is being stated. The article in question within this newspaper edition is "Položaj v Macedoniji" which is based on a conversation with revolutionary leader Hristo Tatarchev. article: I added this article as a source to the article of Hristo Tatarchev (and was promptly reverted). content: I used the source to support two sentences I added: diff. I essentially paraphrase two points explicitly stated in the article, one being that Turkish reforms were insufficient in his view and the other that his organization would never allow Macedonia to join Serbia or Bulgaria.

I look forward to any guidance from uninvolved editors regarding why this source can or cannot be considered reliable for the purposes I had attempted to use it. Thanks. -- Local hero talk 05:49, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi, I am the other editor involved in this issue. The article in the newspaper is used by User:Local hero in historical context. However per Identifying reliable sources (history), historical scholarship is generally not:
 * Journalism
 * Opinion pieces by non-scholars
 * Popular works that were not reviewed, especially works by journalists, or memoirs—these may be useful to supplement an article that relies upon scholarly sources
 * Any primary source, etc.
 * Per Identifying reliable sources (history), to determine scholarly opinions about a historical topic, consult the following sources in order:
 * Recent scholarly books and chapters on the historiography of the topic
 * "Review Articles", or historiographical essays that explicitly discuss recent scholarship in an area.
 * Similarly conference papers that were peer reviewed in full before publication that are field reviews or have as their central argument the historiography.
 * Journal articles or peer reviewed conference papers that open with a review of the historiography, etc.
 * That means if somebody want to use such a primary source (newspaper clipping in a language that is unclear to all the readers of the English-language Wikipedia and older then 100 years) it must be supported by recent scholarly books in English, etc. Thanks. Jingiby (talk) 06:10, 19 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I’ll quickly note that the page you reference is not a Wikipedia policy and that this newspaper source is not a “clipping” as the full edition is available. Looking forward to input from uninvolved editors. -- Local hero talk 06:19, 19 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I will clarify that the idea backed by this newspaper's article contradicts with a lot of secondary WP:RS cited in the same article (Hristo Tatarchev).Jingiby (talk) 06:26, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Circular references from The Times of India
See earlier discussions: February/March 2020 RfC, November 2020, May 2021. RSP summary at WP:TOI: The Times of India is considered to have a reliability between no consensus and generally unreliable. It tends to have a bias in favor of the Indian government.

I regularly come across TOI articles which copy content from WP articles, and which are in-turn used as citations, making WP:CIRCULAR. One such examples: Sreerama Chandra at 18:21, August 28, 2021 which was copied into TOI article on 4 September 2021, about the subject and his background. The article was then sourced (thankfully only the Bigg Boss contestancy at the moment). WP:ICTF has consensus on not using TOI to source BLP details such as birthdate.

Should TOI be considered generally unreliable, or maintain the status quo of 2020 RfC outcome being "between no consensus and generally unreliable". In either cases, I'd propose extending the summary statement at WP:TOI, to include not considering for BLP details, especially when it comes to subjects related to films. Should it also include anything about circular references? — DaxServer (talk to me) 10:53, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It's possible both pieces originated in a press release. Generally I support the status quo which permits uncontroversial content but with caveats for biographic details and politics, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:21, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If its being pulled unattributed from a press release thats just as big an issue for us... Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Circular citations are unambiguously not reliable. Spudlace (talk) 04:26, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd also support not downgrading it to generally unreliable for the same reason Atlantic306 mentions, i.e, there are a lot of uncontroversial content that can be and is sourced to it. Though I think the RSP entry doesn't have an adequate summary on why it is unreliable and how to use it. It should at least mention that the paper contains undisclosed paid news and that it should not be used to establish notability or to source anything that's remotely contentious i.e, it should be removed if it's questioned in any context.


 * I have also left a notice regarding this discussion on the Noticeboard for India-related topics. I'd suggest notifying relevant noticeboards whenever you start a significant discussion or proposal, it informs others who might be interested and improves participation in the discussion itself. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 14:43, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the notification! — DaxServer (talk to me) 14:53, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I would in general avoid leaving notices about RSN discussion on topic area noticeboards unless one notifies a wide range of them (for instance here there are five relevant topic areas but you’ve only notified one of them), selective notification can be a WP:CANVASSING issue. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 15:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , I don't know how this can be construed as canvassing but alright I have left a notice at WT:JOURNALISM as well now, not sure what the other three places would be. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 17:08, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I don’t personally have an issue with it, I’m just letting you know that best practice is to cast a wide net and that some will object if you don’t. India and Journalism is probably wide enough, the other topic areas noted on the talk page are media, newspapers, and brands. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 17:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Alright, I have left notices on WikiProject Media and WikiProject Newspapers now, brands seems too tangential to me. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 15:55, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm a little torn here. a) there's clearly serious questions about reliability. b) however, we don't exactly have a surfeit of English-language media sources in the subcontinent, and as a result low-profile topics, in particular biographies of low-profile people, are often short-changed. c) ''however', if there's serious concerns about a source, should we be relying on it for determining notability anyway? At the moment, I feel the optimal solution is to allow using it on a case-by-case basis, but noting at RSP that any TOI sources we use should be checked for evidence of churnalism and/or copyvio. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Standards across the Times Group have been in decline for at least two decades, its sad that this is where we’re arrived but its not our fault. As much as it pains us thats what generally unreliable looks like and we’re poor editors if we let our personal feelings about the source get in the way of that acknowledgement. If they turn around and start moving back up the reliability scale (perhaps by going back to the bare minimum required of them by global editorial standards) we can reassess but I’m not seeing grounds for any finding other than generally unreliable or deprecate. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 15:36, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I would let the consensus of the previous discussion stand. If it is the weather in Delhi on 17 June 2021, say, fine, use it.  It is the smog in Delhi and its relation to reduced life-spans there, not fine, forget it.  Keep for easily verifiable facts; avoid for anything with even remotely political implications. I don't think you will get too many people weighing in though.  It hasn't been that long since the last RSN notice.  I am appearing only because I was mentioned there in the closing note.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:34, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed that It may sometimes be reliable as a source for somet specific  plain fact, but it is unambiguously totally unreliable as a RS for the purposes of notability under the GNG--too much of what it publishes is slighly disguised advertising.  DGG ( talk ) 06:34, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

CrimethInc.

 * Used in Anarchism in Brazil for the claim that anarcho-communist and anarcho-syndicalist organizations participated in the 2021 Brazilian protests
 * No prior RSN discussions; prompted by WP:@ discussion
 * Special:LinkSearch/https://crimethinc.com
 * Special:LinkSearch/https://crimethinc.com

CrimethInc. is a decentralized anarchist collective of autonomous cells that publishes articles, zines, and books about and for the anarchist movement, per our own article, which also cites Harper's: "CrimethInc’s core function is the creation of propaganda". I've always taken it for granted that this source is unreliable for newsworthy statements of fact in an encyclopedia, having no semblance of editorial control, e.g., fact-checking policy, reputation for accuracy, or journalistic reputation/pedigree, nevertheless considering its ideological bias. But this view was contested so looking for outside opinions both on this case and the general use of this source on Wikipedia, considering its other uses.

In this case, the claim itself is relatively innocuous, but that said, if it's noteworthy that anarchists meaningfully participated in the 2021 protests, is there really no other source for this claim? The ref itself, as noted in the linked edit above, is a repost and translation of a noblogs.org blog. My stance is that it's unregulated content. I'll let the other discussants——chime in with their own stance. czar 02:38, 14 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Is there any coverage in, say, Folha de S. Paulo or similar sources? Putting aside the questions of RSN (which I believe the source fails spectacularly by self-admission, so it might only be usable for WP:ABOUTSELF statements). Arguably that would mean CrimethInc could be used to say that these protests indeed took place, but the question here is of notability. You know, if there is a dozen of anarchists protesting near, say, Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine) with transparents reading something to the tune of "Down with the government! Down with the parliament! Down with the courts!" and really nobody cares, we shouldn't either. (I specifically chose this country as normally, if some big cheese called for such civil disobedience, such calls would have been endorsed by quite a lot of folks there, see Euromaidan, Orange Revolution). Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:14, 14 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree with both Czar and Szmenderowiecki above. I happen to love many of the things that CrimethInc has put out over the years but would never dream of using them as a WP reference. If something is notable it should be possible to find a better source. Generalrelative (talk) 21:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I think it is an OK source for this claim. Anarchism is heavily un-represented in mainstream sources and so it's often good to use anarchist sources on details of anarchist activities, and this would be one of the better anarchist sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:48, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * We're talking about sourcing for statements of fact, not for anarchist opinions on anarchist affairs. Also on what basis is this one of the better anarchist sources when we have no indication of editorial oversight? czar  15:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not talking about anarchist opinions. I'm talking about facts about anarchism and anarchists, something that many mainstream sources struggle to do. For example, anarchist involvement in protests in Brazil (or Greece, to take a recent series of reports in the magazine) might evade the notice of some mainstream journalists for various reasons, but potentially be due in articles on said protests. I think it is one of the better such sources because it has been around for a while and earned a reputation for being more professional than many other publications in the milieu. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Just because Crimethinc is a collective doesn't mean that they have no editorial standards. And they do get some really interesting interviews sometimes which it would be a shame to discourage us from citing. More directly relevant to the question, It's Going Down, which does have published editorial standards has republished many many articles by them. Loki (talk) 17:05, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Using Tidal for album credits
There is a debate about using Tidal as an reliable source for album credits. Some editors think it's only use for promotion because it's a streaming service, while others think it's useful because most albums these days have been released for digital download then physical copies. Should the website be only use for album credits and not anything else? TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 05:51, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Here are the examples of the album credits from Tidal  . TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 06:09, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Can't see those not logged in. Where does Tidal get its information? I know Spotify gets info from the uploader, and also used an old dump of AllMusic at some point - David Gerard (talk) 10:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Tidal used to have the credits in full view without ability to logged in, I guess they change that (much to my annoyance). Tidal gets their information from the album's label. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 11:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Pinging in this discussion. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 11:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If information is provided by the label and displayed without editorialization, I don't see how it would be unreliable as a source for album credits. Throast (talk &#124; contribs) 11:44, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It is a reliable source since the label provides the credits, also the part about not being accessible is irrelevant because it can be accessed on archive 1 and sources like The Times, Rolling Stone and The New York Times have limited access but are considered fully reliable. --K. Peake 12:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a primary source, I wouldn't go overboard on reliability though. The labels are sloppy as hell with metadata other than artist and title in my experience. I'd trust a screenshot from Discogs more - David Gerard (talk) 13:19, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't have a Tidal account and I can see the credits just fine; perhaps that's a platform-specific issue? I'm on desktop. Although, opening those windows a second time I'm now getting a login prompt that I can't click past so I can't scroll through the pages and see the full credits.


 * As for the original question, I'm in agreeance with Throast. So long as we know it's primary-source info (e.g. from the act's record label) then I don't see why it couldn't be useable. Same goes for Spotify, Bandcamp, et al, in my opinion. QuietHere (talk) 14:54, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * We just had a similar discussion about using Spotify for release dates (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums), and I pointed out there that the release dates provided by Spotify are not always correct, and I would imagine the same applies to Tidal. So I wouldn't call them reliable for release dates, at least... whether they can be trusted for other primary information such as writing credits, I'm not sure. Richard3120 (talk) 16:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if there's a better option than using the record label as a primary source for album credits. Secondary sources rarely list them in full and if the album has no liner notes, the label (through sites such as Spotify and Tidal) remains as the only usable source. I think it's safe to assume that the record label gets the album credits right in the majority of cases. At least I'm not aware of record labels spewing out faulty album credits en masse. Throast (talk &#124; contribs) 18:21, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * As I said, I've seen the record companies be sloppy as hell, specifically in data on Spotify (where release dates are often whichever re-release that particular remastering might be) - David Gerard (talk) 20:22, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Release dates are quite different from album credits. Dates are often confused. In terms of credits, the label would have to confuse names/people instead of numbers, which I assume is less likely to happen. If you had specific examples of incorrect credits being published via Tidal, that would be much more helpful in this discussion. Throast (talk &#124; contribs) 13:03, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't have any problems with using Tidal as a source for album credits, but some editors might not agreed with the use of it since the website is a streaming website, and streaming websites such as Apple Music and Spotify are often frowned upon. Which is why having a discussion here is the best thing to do. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 20:03, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

If you can't see the credits clearly, here are the archives so you can get a clear view of them. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 02:02, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source? (aymennjawad.org)

 * The Gallic Chronicle of 452: Translation and Commentary

This appears to be a ?blog? Is this a reliable source? --Kansas Bear (talk) 22:58, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree. TFD (talk) 23:15, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That's it is a blog? Therefore unreliable? --Kansas Bear (talk) 23:18, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * At first glance, it doesn't appear to be reliable. Apart from being a blog, the author is clearly not an expert on the subject. Is there anything in it that isn't covered in RS? M.Bitton (talk) 23:46, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Said author/translator calls the Priscillians, Manicheans. This is refuted by "Medieval Heresies: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam", page 46. --Kansas Bear (talk) 00:02, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Definitely not RS. M.Bitton (talk) 00:12, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree it is a blog and therefore not rs. It's on the author's personal website and although he contributes to pundicity, his articles are labelled as a blog. Even if it were not a blog, it's analysis by a non-expert, which also fails rs wherever it is published. Even if it met rs, it would not be the best source. TFD (talk) 00:34, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Fails RS, he's clearly not an expert. Doug Weller  talk 09:02, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

. Added to WP:UPSD, used on ~211 articles. Probably want to get help from Wikiprojects to clean this up. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I believe that Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is actually an expert and we should treat this as an SPS by an expert. See his publications for George Washington University Program on Extremism, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at Kings College London, Washington Institute, American Spectator, The Atlantic, MECRA, Jerusalem Post, Foreign Affairs, CTC at Westpoint, The Hill. Also quoted as an expert by The National, Al-Jazeera, Bloomberg, Arab Weekly, Telegraph, AFP, France24. Usable, attribute for anything contentious. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:38, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources to consider British Protectorate over Afghanistan in 1879?
Hello everyone, here are all the references that I have considered to be extremely reliable but still would like to get everyone else's opinion about what they think. Topic of discussion here is that whether Afghanistan was a British PROTECTORATE state or not after Second Anglo-Afghan War and I am stating that it was but the other editor refuses to agree and keeps reverting the changes. So if you can take a look at these references below, please state Ye or Ney to these references or any feedback would be helpful too. Reference 1, states '''Afghanistan after 1879 is a classic example of protectorate. Following the Peace of Gandamak, the Amir of Afghanistan agreed to leave the control of his foreign relations to the British Government....Afghanistan's status as a PROTECTORATE was recognized in the Anglo Russian Agreement of 1907.'''

Reference 2,. Reference states that '''1879, May 26 - Peace of Gandamak. Afghanistan became, in effect, a protectorate of Great Britain.'''

Reference 3, Reference states that At the Treaty of Gandamak in 1879 Afghanistan became a British PROTECTORATE and Kabul was opened up to a British mission, something Afghans still consider to be an appalling loss of face.

Reference 4, Reference states  The following year, Anglo Indian troops invaded Afghanistan and imposed, through the treaty of Gandamak signed on May 26, 1879, an English PROTECTORATE and the loss of control over the Khyber Pass....

Reference 5, Reference states ''' In 1878, the Second Anglo-Afghan war broke out. It ended two years later with the Treaty of Gandamak, which effectively made Afghanistan a PROTECTORATE of Britain. '''

Reference 6 Reference states Afghanistan was technically a PROTECTORATE of the British Empire since the treaty of Gandamak of 1879 and reinforced in the Durand line accord of 1893.

Reference 7 Reference states by the treaty of Gandamak of May 1879, Afghanistan, in effect, became a British PROTECTORATE and gave British control of the Khyber Pass to ensure easy entry by the British troops.

Also below information from the historical association site by Faiz Ahmed who is a historian of the late Ottoman Empire, Afghanistan, and modern Middle East from Brown University. Here is his article on Afghanistan as British Protectorate. . Here is what he states in his article: When the 26-year-old Amanullah ascended the Kabul throne in February 1919, Great Britain retained control over Afghanistan’s foreign affairs, rendering the country a British PROTECTORATE. 199.82.243.108 (talk) 17:31, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I will take a look. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:34, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

qfit.com, blackjackincolor.com, blackjack-scams.com
Web pages being used as source: qfit.com, blackjackincolor.com, blackjack-scams.com

Used as references currently or in past at:

Blackjack

Card counting

Hole carding

Shuffle track

Martingale (betting system)

The most recent editing dispute discussion appears at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blackjack under discussion #5: Informal Motion. ..

Objective3000 claims innocence at inserting citations to his self-published webpages. He states "I did not add most of these cites",

And he writes "I also don't want to get into the habit of linking to my own sites as I see what I believe are some large abuses of this practice on various BJ related pages."

The histories show otherwise. Every citation found to the self-published webpages of Objective3000 was inserted by Objective3000 himself, as follows.

"Card counting with your mind is legal and more accurate than this application".

"Another interesting aspect of the probability of card counting is the fact that, at higher counts, the player's probability of winning a hand is only slightly changed and still below 50%."

"Blackjack played with a perfect basic strategy typically . . . 10%-30% of the time depending on rules, penetration and strategy."

"Shuffle tracking is an advanced form of card counting. There exist many types of shuffle tracking."

"Betting can then be altered to reflect the altered composition."

"Techniques other than card counting can swing the advantage . . . since the shuffle tracker could be, at times, betting and/or playing opposite to how a straightforward card counter would."

"Furthermore, a straight string of losses is the only sequence of outcomes that results in a loss of money, so even when a player has lost the majority of their bets, they can still be ahead over-all, since they always win 1 unit when a bet wins, regardless of how many previous losses."

Objective3000 deleted an external link created by another editor.

Objective3000 inserted blackjackincolor.com as an external link after another editor deleted it.

Objective3000 again inserted blackjackincolor.com as an external link after another editor deleted it.

"Card counting with your mind is legal and more accurate than this application."

"Over 100 variations exist."

"However, if, because of a sloppy dealer, or a player who has trained himself to spot a dealer's hole card, the dealer's hole card is spotted, the player who plays correctly has a theoretical advantage of up to 13%, compared to the normal player disadvantage of around .5%."

"The advantage can vary substantially depending on the rules, the percentage of cards seen, and the strategies used." 

In the process of inserting the above citation to qfit.com, Objective3000 deleted two references to the webpage of the blackjack expert Michael Shackleford, aka the Wizard of Odds.

"The following table illustrates various ranking systems for card counting."

"The following table illustrates a few ranking systems for card counting. Many others exist."

The Wikipedia criterion for expertise concerning the reliability of self-published sources is clearly stated: “Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications” (WP:SOURCES and WP:RS, specifically WP:SPS).

Specific types of third-party publications to establish the reliability of self-published sources are presented at WP:V|reliable sources. Academic and peer-reviewed publications, university-level textbooks, and books published by respected publishing houses are noted as reliable third-party generated sources.

The self-published commercial webpages qfit.com and blackjackincolor.com (other than the main page) have ads for Casino Verite software and provide the name of the developer. The self-published webpage blackjack-scams.com has a link to qfit.com. That Objective3000 is the one and the same developer of Casino Verite software is established on Objective3000’s talk page "Author Casino Vérité and some other stuff. Editor here since 2007, if my ancient mind recalls correctly." .

Henceforth we will refer to the developer provided on those webpages as Mr. W.

The work of Mr. W fails to meet any of the criteria noted in WP:SPS or WP:V|reliable sources. Specifically, none of the work of Mr. W has either been published in a peer-reviewed third-party journal (google scholar search), been accepted for presentation as a paper at the pre-eminent International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking scholarly meeting sponsored by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/authors.html), or has been published in academic or general interest book form by a reliable third-party publication (amazon.com search). The name of Mr. W is not found in the list of authors at the two major publishers of gambling books, Cardoza and Huntington Press (google scholar, https://cardozapublishing.com/, http://huntingtonpress.com/authors/). His self-published book (lulu.com vanity press) is not in stock at the number one source for gambling books, the Gamblers Book Store in Las Vegas (http://gamblersbookclub.com/).

Mr. W does not therefore meet the Wikipedia clearly stated third-party criteria for being an expert. The citations that he has inserted in multiple articles to his commercial-content self-published webpages qfit.com and blackjackincolor.com and to blackjack-scams.com therefore do not meet the criteria for reliability of self-published sources.

TransporterMan (Third Opinion Wikipedian), Ohnoitsjamie (Administrator), and Wikieditor11920 have agreed over a span of many years that Objective3000’s self-published webpages are highly unlikely to be considered reliable sources.

TransporterMan wrote "Let me note in passing, however, that the links being removed appear to me to be very iffy as reliable sources . . . See the Wikipedia policies WP:SOURCES and, especially, WP:SPS." .

He added, "Reviews and mentions of a person's work does not constitute publication of that person's work; publication of work means having ones writings themselves published by others. The way to be certain, however, is not to take my word for it, but to post an inquiry at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard about these sources. Would you like for me to do that for you? I'm fairly certain of my analysis and the probable outcome, but I've certainly been wrong before."  Ohnoitsjamie wrote "qfit seems questionable to be used as a WP:RS here." . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aabcxyz (talk • contribs)

Aabcxyz (talk) 20:38, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This was way too long to figure out what the issue is. Please summarize. Blueboar (talk) 19:35, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * To Summarize: The owner of the self-published webpages qfit.com, blackjackincolor.com, and blackjack-scams.com, who is an editor by the name of Objective3000, does not satisfy the criteria stated in WP:RS and WP:SOURCES as an expert in the field by virtue of having been published by reliable third-party publishers. All of his work is self-published.  We have provided numerous Diffs to show that every reference to the self-published webpages were inserted by Objective3000 himself. Opinions by TransporterMan and Ohniitsjamie that the references to at least one of the self-published webpages would not survive this Noticeboard were provided.

This thread is probably worth a gander if someone is interested in this. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:48, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Objective3000 has been getting some pretty rough treatment from a few editors over at Talk:Blackjack for some edits they made some years ago. This is another instance of that argument. It looks like there is some personal history involved. - MrOllie (talk) 19:50, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Aabcxyz is one of the numerous socks of this farm. He has been attacking me on and off for ten years because I refused to help him get a book deal and I took part in an AfD that resulted in deletion of an article about himself, one of several articles mentioning him that he added. I would file an SPI, but am retired and wouldn't feel comfortable in any case. It's a slam dunk not only because of behavior, but the fact he exposed his IP in the same article just previous to these screeds. The other editor pressing this and I have had numerous clashes in AMPOL, where he is now indef TBanned. I have stated many times that folks are welcome to replace these cites. I have placed many cites in these articles from other authors. But, it's not easy to find some info in this field. Indeed, in one case I added a cite to a book that is currently on eBay for $8,600. That author is self-published as are many of the other cites in these articles. But, he is also an established expert in the field. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Well now, he's adding more simply false statements. Not a surprise. He has done this off-wiki starting ten years ago. Even weirdo, personal lies, like where I live. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:49, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Your signature made me thing your username was O3000 I would happily file a SPI report for you if this guy is really that obvious of a sock. Especially if they're attacking you just because of some things you did years ago. ― Blaze The WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#0001 13:31, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The IPs he used making the same deletions to the article just prior to continuing with this new user id (2600:1700:5651:2780:8d59:cf85:aec8:e8d8, 2600:1700:5651:2780:454e:f89a:7dc8:db3c, 2600:1700:5651:2780:413d:a521:8113:5eb4, 2600:1700:5651:2780:14a0:36c2:6431:40c2, 2600:1700:5651:2780:c9c5:8936:9b4b:8010, 2600:1700:5651:2780:9dc:ad89:3595:4600, 2600:1700:5651:2780:5418:75a0:eab1:82c4) are all from his home town. The SPI should request a CU. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:46, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly sure a CU cannot be used to connect an IP to a registered user but it could connect the IPs to each other. ― Blaze The WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#0001 14:12, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The checkuser tool ties IPs to users, and therefore users to users. It can tie him to his sock farm. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:26, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah ok. I will go ahead and create an SPI for DrIesmgolden with the IPs and the user who's attacking you. ― Blaze The Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="position:relative;right:22q">Blaze Wolf#0001 14:34, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Although I don't actually know what the user who is attacking you is because I didn't see it in the post you made. ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q">Blaze The Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="position:relative;right:22q">Blaze Wolf#0001 14:36, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * A CU has just confirmed and the user has been blocked by two admins for two reasons. Thanks for the offer. O3000, Ret. (talk) 15:28, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah no problem! Glad to know that the CU is confirmed. ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q">Blaze The Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="position:relative;right:22q">Blaze Wolf#0001 16:15, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The sources are not unusable, but Objective3000 has a clear COI. He's also made a lot of personal attacks on the relevant page--in fact, almost every comment is a personal attack, including this one. I think that it's a problem when an editor cannot remain emotionally neutral and responds to a reliability discussion--commonplace on WP--as a personal criticism. is clearly very sympathetic to Objective3000's "rough treatment," though I'm not sure that's borne out by what's going on at the talk page. I think the best solution here would be for a discussion to proceed on when and where these sources can be used without O3000 so heavily weighing in. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 21:44, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but you don't know the ten year history, much of it off-wiki. Also, the OP has posted a large number of outright falsifications here and in the original thread. This has nothing whatsoever to do with my emotions, and frankly that characterization is a PA which you should strike. As for COI, I did have my COI stated on my UP. I removed it when the OP started harassing me by telephone. It was quite unnerving to have an editor start calling me. I then removed it. I also find it odd that you would characterize my posts as attacks when the OP has been posting very lengthy attack pieces against me since the day he arrived, 2.5 months ago, on several pages including the TPs of THREE sysops. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:04, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know your history with this user; I'm referring to your interactions with me. If this person is harassing you IRL or attacking you, that should stop and I am agreement with you on that. I'm not intending to offend but frankly I read your comments to me as pretty charged most of the time and including a lot of off-topic accusations. That's my opinion. (You are also not the only one with an interest in online gambling -- or maybe you're not online :) ). Anyway, I don't agree that these sources are a scam or fraudulent, and most are very useful. But in fairness, I think there should be some caution with SELFPUB wherever they are used. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 03:19, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I have zero interest in online gambling. Don't know where that came from. My comments to you are based on your past failed complaints to admins; and the fact you have appeared on an article where you have never contributed to support an argument against someone you apparently considered a foe. But yes, I am not happy about the OP using yet another sock to continue his decade-long attacks filled with falsehoods and ridiculous accusations about my motives and character. I thought I was done with WP. O3000, Ret. (talk) 10:40, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm describing my interest in the subject, not yours. Your "comments" are personal attacks, plain and simple. I think it's time Objective3000 extract himself from discussions about the reliability of sources that they authored. These accusations against the OP should also be made in the appropriate forum. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 11:34, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Both here and at Talk:Blackjack you have been telling Objective3000 to go away and leave the discussion - that itself is uncivil. It would really be best if you would step back yourself and look at your own part in escalating this. MrOllie (talk) 11:51, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I suggested that perhaps Objective3000, as the author of these self-published pages, should allow other editors to contribute to the discussion rather than dominating the entire thread and responding aggressively to each and every post. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 18:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * And why were there so many posts to respond to? If you keep speaking with someone, you shouldn't be surprised that they respond. MrOllie (talk) 18:10, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It wasn't only to my posts, if you follow the thread. But I look forward to participation of any other user willing to discuss the central point here, which is whether these sources meet the criteria for WP:SELFPUB. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 18:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Striking double comment. 03:14, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment I think it will be much easier for others to chip in if you could concentrate on one thing only: the reliability of the sources. COI concerns can be addressed on WP:COIN. M.Bitton (talk) 21:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

You both are far more experienced than I am here. I'll study the implications of COI, but TransporterMan and Ohnoitsjamie believed that WP:RS was a problem, and I provided Diffs to their actual words. The bottom line is that the author of the websites to which he alone has placed multiple references in multiple articles, as documented by numerous Diffs above, has not acquired the requisite expert status by virtue of having his work published by third-party reliable sources. I thought that was the issue with WP:RS and WP:SOURCES. Aabcxyz (talk) 22:09, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Making false statements does not help your case. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:12, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * You should be clear about what you are calling false. Because diffs clearly demonstrate you've been involved in adding sources to the page that you authored, and have been arguing vociferously for their inclusion despite several editors raising reliability concerns. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 11:43, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * You need to stop mischaracterizing my edits. No, I have not been “arguing vociferously for their inclusion”. I have stated, over and over, that I have no problem with anyone replacing them with better sources. And, I was not the editor who reverted the sock’s removals. My arguments have been limited to false statements made about me, like yours here, and the fact that the author of these sites is a recognized expert under RS as demonstrated in the original page. That the sock continues to falsely claim that extensive studies by me published by, for example, Elsevier Academic are simply footnotes is simply false. Actually, if so many (dozens) of RS positively refer to someone, that in itself is meaningful on this page.  O3000, Ret. (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * As I see it, the discussion has you as the chief advocate for inclusion on these cites. But again, this is a frivolous point I don't care to argue. The criteria for a subject matter expert is publication in independent, reliable sources. Meaning an individual who has published books, articles, or other material in secondary sources. A reference or inclusion of a particular aspect of one's work in someone else's casts a very broad net for expert. It might be appropriate for inclusion, or it might not--that's a worthy topic of discussion. I'm not interested in the other back-and-forth. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 18:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If you are not interested in certain things, stop talking about them. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * To be clear, what I'm not interested in--and what have gone well over the line at this point--are the snark, personal attacks, and grievances/accusations of bad faith. The suitability of these sources is a perfectly fine discussion. To reiterate, we really should not allow these articles to lean so heavily on these SELFPUB sources, which I do not meet the WP:SELFPUB criteria. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 19:35, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * And yet you and the OP say nothing here about the fourteen other non-published sources used in dozens of cites in these articles. Just mine. The simple fact is that the vast, vast majority of sources on BJ from major publishers are pure crap suggesting you can easily take money from casinos with simple betting strategies. Wonder why the casinos make so many billions. The best selling books from big publishing houses are not RS. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:56, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Again, I've addressed some of the other self-published sources, and the one's I've seen are by established experts who have attained national recognition or had their works published in independent outlets. I think this is a COI problem at this point before it is an RS issue; Objective3000 refuses to allow any discussion to develop without their heavy thumb on the scale. We should not include sub-par sources because it will pacify the author who happens to be heavily involved in the creation of the page, but I think that will be most editor's initial reaction. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 04:17, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I do not control this page, my research has been published in respected independent outlets (unlike a dozen other people cited on the mentioned pages), and claiming I need pacification like a baby is a gross PA. Your charged, misleading comments and WP:IDHT behavior continue. O3000, Ret. (talk) 10:40, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The question arises, why is the author of Casino Verte software expending hours and energy defending his insertion of references to his self-published webpages, particularly qfit? I can understand such an expenditure of energy if it concerned his biography being challenged, or scurrilous comments about his wife or children. But about a few references such as to qfit?

Objective3000 has stated that his research has been published, in particular by Elsevier. In the interest of assume good faith, can Objective3000 please provide citations to the university-level textbooks, invited scholarly symposia contributions such as to the American Statistical Association or Mathematical Association of America, peer-reviewed scholarly articles, and peer-reviewed academic books published by third-party non-vanity publishers that provide Mr. W as the author?

My search of google scholar, amazon.com, database of the invited speakers to the (seventeen) University of Nevada at Las Vegas international conferences of gambling and risk taking, and the catalogues of Cardoza and Huntington publishers, the major publishers of gambling books, did not find any such credits to Mr. W. Perhaps I overlooked a source. If I did, I apologize to Objective3000. Such citations, and such citations alone, would establish under WP:RS and WP:SOURCES that Mr. W is an expert. Failing that, the references to qfit and blackjackincolor should be deleted as unreliable by a ruling administrator who is concerned about the integrity of Wikipedia. Aabcxyz (talk) 02:27, 20 September 2021 (UTC)


 * An administrator is not required to make a determination on reliability; that conclusion can be reached by members of the community. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 04:05, 20 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Without getting into some of the other issues, I would very much like to know the Elsevier citations. But even if one is an expert, it is not good practice to insert references to their own work;it looks too much like using WP for promotionalism  .  DGG ( talk ) 05:38, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * DGG, below copied from the discussion at BJ talk:
 * Arnold Snyder is acknowledged here as an expert in BJ. I contributed work to his latest book, Radical Blackjack published by Huntington Press. You will find me in the index for pages 116-121,153-158, 297, 301, and in the acknowledgements.
 * Don Schlesinger is widely acknowledged as one of the top BJ experts in the world. In Blackjack Attack, published by Huntington Press, I and my works are indexed for pages: 13, 106, 107, 134, 140-146, 152, 178, 179, 186, 189, 190, 204, 207, 209, 211. Also, the analyses on pages 214-286 and several other spots were created by me.
 * Game theorist Richard A. Epstein authored the text The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic, publisher Academic Press Elsevier. I am in the index for pages 140, 158, 239, 283, 416, 436, 437. Only three people are in the acknowledgements: Solomon W. Golomb distinguished prof at USC, Stewart N. Ethier, Professor Emeritus, Mathematics at Utah, and me. He states in the acknowledgments that I “contributed numerical solutions to several problems posed herein – problems that would otherwise have remained wholly intractable.”
 * Speaking of Prof. Ethier, among his publications is Optimal Play Mathematical Studies of Games and Gambling with William R. Eadington Publisher :‎ Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the Univ. of Nev. It contains a paper written by Prof. R. Michael Canjar which includes my analysis of Prof. Werthamer’s book on risk. I’m also mentioned in Werthamer’s book.
 * Michael Shackleford, AKA The Wizard of Odds, has been noted in this discussion as an expert. I already pointed out that he has published my work., , ,  These, and others, are studies that he requested I perform.
 * Altogether, I’m mentioned in 28 respected books, and others not so great or I haven’t read, and am a Blackjack Hall of Fame nominee. I repeat, I do not want to be in WP and request that this edit be removed once this discussion is archived. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:33, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * As for adding them, over ten years ago, I added a few before I knew the rules. After that, I simply suggested that other editors add them, which they did. Much later, I grew frustrated at the fact that these articles were long tagged as not having enough cites (a problem in this arena and the reason the BJ article lost featured article status). I did my best to find other sources and add them, but added mine when unable. These cites have implied consensus as they have lasted for years. The reason that my sites have more available info is that my main site is the first and largest (at 600 pages) BJ site on the net. Contrary to the op's claim that these are self-promotional, I have repeatedly invited others to replace them with better cites if they could find them. I have never tried to add my name to WP and have stated that I would AfD any article added about me. O3000, Ret. (talk) 11:56, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The problem is, inclusion of work by peers may not be independent, and the cites that were added go well beyond these particular mentions/acknowledgements/contributions. That's why a published book or article is the ideal for establishing expertise.
 * The pages include cites to your book (which you repeatedly note is free, which is irrelevant), website, and offshoots of your website. When I trimmed some of these and replaced them with secondary sources, it was met with complaints (by you) of "vandalism." Nor does the claim that we can only rely on WP:SELFPUB hold much water, in my view -- there seem to be adequate sources that easily meet reliability criteria without having to lower standards. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 18:26, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No, you have insisted on including a book that is considered voodoo by all BJ experts, making absurd claims like counting the number of cigarette butts in an ashtray is an indicator of whether you can win at a table. That is lowering standards. The fact that the book has a publisher does not make it a valid source. And, I have no idea what you mean by "we can only rely on WP:SELFPUB". The point of these cites is that the acknowledged experts come to me for help. And having established that someone is an expert, what they say outside of books can still be used. Look at the Las Vegas Sun article cited in the BJ article. It quotes several experts, specifically calls me a BJ expert, and includes three quotes from me that did not come from a book. They, and the quotes from other experts therein, came from phone calls to us, not some scientific journal. But, we've been over this. You just keep on repeating the same things over and over, as you have in previous discussions. And, you tell me to extract myself from discussions so others can weigh in while you continue to make such statements. Take a step back yourself. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:51, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I presume you are referring to the Jerry Patterson book, which is published by an independent outlet, is a proper secondary source, and appears to meet WP:RS. I am aware of your claim that it is "bunk," something you posted on your website, but that kind of criticism is not adequate to disregard a source. If the source has indeed been derided by experts as you claim, we can include those statements discrediting it. I have not found any in a mainstream outlet
 * You're correct that my points here are consistent with those on the talk page. I haven't adjusted my stance on this, which has always been that the sources above are not unusable, but perhaps should not be used so prolifically where secondary sources are available. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 21:37, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you really not understand this is not a binary decision, published or not? Will you include The Turner Diaries and The Anarchists' Cookbook? One of the most read books is Mein Kampf Let's use them as sources on Judaism. ALL experts consider his book bunk. There exist thousands of books published by the big five publishers that push Gambler's Fallacy. You need to know a little bit about this field before making decisions like this. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:55, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Try to format your comments correctly and not insert them between two paragraphs of mine. No one's saying we shouldn't evaluate the reliability of published sources. However, an unpublished source is subject to special scrutiny. We can discuss the Patterson book and you've made your distaste for the author clear; however, that you don't like a source doesn't immediately mean we should take your word for it and replace them with self-published books and websites, the latter of which are the focus of the discussion here. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 19:20, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:IDHT again. I did not say that I dislike Paterson’s book. I repeatedly, here and elsewhere, stated that all experts think it’s bunk. On the BJ TP, I gave examples. Three of his instructors resigned rather than teach this garbage and Olsen, who created the strategy for him, withdrew support. Arnold Snyder famously evaluated it and tore it apart. You don’t even know what the book is about and yet insist on its inclusion. As for my book, it was edited by BJ Hall of Fame member Don Schlesinger, acknowledged as one of the top BJ experts in the world and editor of many of the most respected BJ texts. He stated: "What Norm fails to tell you is that this monumental work is one of the most important, comprehensive, pieces of research ever done on the game of blackjack, and were it in normal print-book form, would be destined to become one of the all-time classics in the field. It was my pleasure to read the entire manuscript a month or two ago, and I have rarely, if ever, been so impressed with the scholarship and depth of knowledge displayed by a blackjack author." O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:59, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I heard everything you said, unfortunately, and none of it is responsive. Your old war stories don't mean a thing here. Present a reliable source that refutes the veracity of the Patterson book—not secondhand tales—and then we can make a decision. I am not here to advocate for Jerry Patterson—I am here to advocate for a reasonable process of determining reliability that isn't railroaded by one editor's strident opinions or personal interests.
 * Congratulations on the great review. That suggests subject matter expertise; though I still question whether a review by one's possible peers is independent. That's why we rely on independent publications. In any case, the works of these other experts is still preferable, and I only see using Qfit or "Modern Blackjack" as appropriate where the same information cannot be provided in an independent, secondary, non self-published secondary source. I don't view that as an unreasonable position, so spare me the next comment about how this is some malicious persecution. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I gave you a source, Radical Blackjack which goes into the gory story. Again, you keep asking for info I have already provided. It never ends. And again, again, again, you falsely claim this is just MY opinion. The original analysis was in Blackjack Forum Magazine IX #2, June 1982. Also, Blackjack Forum Magazine issue III #3, September 1983. But seriously, you know nothing at all about the book. Your sole claim as to its use as an RS is based on the fact it has a publisher. That Playboy centerfold's book that claimed vaccines caused autism is published by Penguin Group, and was a New York Times best seller. Should we use that as a source on the use of vaccines? And where did I use the term "malicious persecution"? And, are you saying peer review is somehow less valid? Enough, you have a history of WP:BLUDGEONing. I'm dizzy from following the circles. O3000, Ret. (talk) 11:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * First, we don't need a reliable source disputing Patterson's claim to have invented shuffle tracking; we need a reliable source confirming it. Anyone can write a book and claim that he invented something. They can even get it published. The claim, since it's contentious, should be removed from the article unless additional sources confirm it.
 * Second, the discussion regarding Patterson and shuffle tracking belongs on the talk page for the article rather than here.
 * Finally, the hounding of Objective3000 is really unbecoming. It seems like only two editors have a problem with him, and one of them has been banned for being a harassing sockpuppet. All the energy expended on the grudge against Objective3000 could have been spent actually improving the project instead of creating oceans of discussion that most volunteers don't have time to read. Rray (talk) 12:34, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

This has gone on far too long. Let’s examine the various non-pertinent defenses of Objective3000. Earlier in these discussions, we provided Diffs in which Objective stated that he had not and would not add any references to his self-published websites. After our 16 Diffs showed that all were inserted by himself, he now invokes diversionary defense tactic #1, I’m innocent, by virtue of ignorance of rules. Next he states he added his references because of the lack of others, but our Diffs showed he deleted references to not only Michael Shackleford but to some of the most influential authors in the field.
 * Comment

He also notes that “other editors” added references to his self-published webpages. Under the doctrine of assume good faith, could Objective3000 please provide Diffs confirming those additions, not simply the reversion of deletions by others?

The blackjack article has numerous references; it lost featured status and became a Class C article in large part because of the impenetrable English and inscrutable jargon, the description of C class rating including “contains much irrelevant material” and “considerable editing is needed to. . . solve cleanup problems.”

Finally, detailed examination of the history of blackjack, card counting, hole carding, and shuffle track show the basis for the irrelevant longevity of the references to Objective3000’s self-published websites. They have survived because Objective3000, knowing the rules, got various naive new editors, who deleted the references as self-promotion, not reliable, or commercial, banned. The causes invoked by Objective3000 included vandalism (my case), sock puppets, personal attacks, and so on.

Can Objective3000 please relate to the RS issue? What are citations by reliable non-vanity third-party publishers to Mr. W? What, specifically, is the Elsevier citation that he claims as his own? Aabcxyz (talk) 12:41, 20 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Under the criteria given by the OP, nearly all of the cites by everyone in this article fail. This is not an article on quantum Mechanics. O3000, Ret. (talk) 11:35, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

In these discussions, here and on the Blackjack talk page, Objective3000 aka O3000 (ret.) has employed what we call “diversionary defenses.” These are 1. I’m innocent, 2. Others do the same, 3. People don’t like me, 4. The prosecutor beats his wife. There is one and only one issue. To establish that Mr. W (identified as Objective3000) is an expert, allowing him to place references in Wikipedia articles to his self-published websites such as qfit.com, his works must be published by reliable third-party non-vanity publishers, such as those above. As DGG specifically requested, what is the Elsevier citation that Objective3000 claims as his third-party non-vanity published work? Aabcxyz (talk) 12:09, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is the kind of character assassination I've had to put up with from this person and his dozen socks, phone calls, and off-wiki attacks for a decade. I provided the cites 19 days ago and he continues to ignore them and spew WP:PA's. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:26, 20 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I apologize if I missed the cites that Objective3000 herein states he provided 19 days ago. I would be interested to see cites to such as peer-reviewed scholarly papers, university-level textbooks, peer-reviewed academic books, invited papers to scholarly symposia, and the like which name Mr. W as the author and which would establish him as an expert.  For the sake of clarity, I respectfully request that Objective3000 place those specific cites to the authorship of Mr. W again, including the citation in Elsevier that DGG earlier requested. Aabcxyz (talk) 13:36, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Noting for the record that I've blocked Aabcxyz for persistent targeting of Objective3000 and pretty obviously being somebody's sock, and a checkuser subsequently confirmed Aabcxyz to Sockpuppet_investigations/Drlesmgolden. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:20, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Apple cider vinegar RfC
There is an RfC on Apple cider vinegar dealing with whether the sources say there is "no evidence for any health claims" or "insufficient evidence for any health claims". MarshallKe (talk) 17:23, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Removing News of the World as a deprecated source
I don't believe that News of the World is a good source; it's clearly generally unreliable. But I don't believe there is any purpose to keeping it deprecated, as was done in 2019 (Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 279). News of the World has no functioning website and hasn't since it was closed in 2011. Even in the RfC it was mentioned that it was used a grand total of 50 times. What does deprecation actually prevent here? According to WP:DEPS, deprecation means a source is considered "generally unreliable" and is additionally added to edit filters that prevent the source from being added/warn when they are. What editors are spending their time finding dead website links from more than a decade ago to add trivia? Deprecating News of the World only serves to clog up edit filters and make them harder to maintain. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 19:06, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * pinging the three most recent editors of Edit Filter #869 (deprecated sources). From a technical standpoint, how much does the presence of this deprecated source gum up the edit filter? How much ongoing maintenance is involved? Do you support efforts to shorten the list? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 19:17, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It doesn't really matter how many sources are in filter 869. It should only contain deprecated sources, but there is no technical limitation as to how many sources it can contain. If this is a source not used much (the OP says there are 50 usages), then it can't even be adding many entries to the log. There could be good non-technical reasons to shorten the list of deprecated sources, but there is no abusefilter-related issue here off the top of my head. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:23, 22 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Um… why would having a working website matter to deprecation? Deprecation applies to old fashioned “dead tree” paper media as well as on-line media.  If you find an old printed edition of News of the World in your local library, it is still deprecated. Blueboar (talk) 20:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Because deprecation is purportedly not different from designating a source as "generally unreliable" aside from those filters. If you find a copy of News of the World, you're not supposed to add it if it's deprecated or not. I don't get what deprecating does above and beyond just designating a source as "generally unreliable" at RSP can do other than the filters/quasi-blacklist. Either way we're not supposed to use "generally unreliable" sources and generally I've seen Option 3 supported many times when a source is too "minor" to be deprecated but still obviously unreliable. I don't really think deprecating News of the World has any benefit over just saying it's generally unreliable. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 02:58, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Per the above, there's no reason to remove it from the list - David Gerard (talk) 20:16, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * (For what it's worth, I've considered whether it's worth breaking up filter 869 - at present it warns the editor that they've added a deprecated source, but doesn't tell them what source it is, and some editors have been confused by this and just saved through it when they've added multiple sources to an article. Perhaps a version that warns "You have added [name of source], please don't do that" for each source? I dunno, does this sound like a good idea?) - David Gerard (talk) 20:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Would quickly become unmanageable. We have like 45 deprecated sources or so, that'd be 45 separate filters. Much harder to track the logs too. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Sify.com and Indiaglitz
Hello! So I'm currently trying to figure out whether these 2 websites could be considered reliable sources. They are used on the article University (film) although only the first source goes to where it's supposed to (most likely because it's an archive). Looking at them they don't appear to be all that reliable but I can't really tell what is and isn't reliable all that well. ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q">Blaze The Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="position:relative;right:22q">Blaze Wolf#0001 20:06, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * They are. Indiaglitz is used on many Indian film articles. This source is good for the basic coverage - The Hindu and Times of India are better, but those are also excepted. Sify is ok for sci-fi and fantasy films, but it is used sparingly.--Filmomusico (talk) 02:44, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah ok. Well the article it's used on doesn't appear to be a sci-fi or fantasy film and the Indiaglitz links simply go to one of the many main pages of Indiaglitz. ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q">Blaze The Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="position:relative;right:22q">Blaze Wolf#0001 13:09, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Reliability question


I need to assume that this sources aren't considered reliable?: I don't see them listed at RSN.--Filmomusico (talk) 02:44, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No, those are not reliable sources. Not every source is listed on the "perennial sources" list; that just is a reference that contains ones we've debated to death and are tired of having to relitigate 1000 times.  There are billions of webpages out there, we haven't checked every one.  We trust people to be able to apply WP:RS on their own in good faith.  The sources you asked about carry no hallmarks of reliable sources, and appear to be 1-person projects.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 15:44, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Expert opinion on Quilette
Is Lawrence Krauss reliable for his attributed and quoted opinion given at Quillette.com in regard to a paper written by Daniel Mansfield re Si.427 (see also the discussion on the talk page).

The RFC for Quilette says " "..Editors note that Quillette is primarily a publication of opinion, and thus actual usage in articles will usually be a question of whether or not it is WP:DUE for an attributed opinion rather than whether it is reliable for a factual claim." Selfstudier (talk) 17:28, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Krauss is not a relevant expert on the use of mathematics in Ancient Mesopotamia, so the answer is no, regardless of the reliability of Quilette. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Krauss isn't an expert on ancient mathematics, and Quillette isn't even good for wrapping fish. So, no. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Selfstudier is being noticeably tendentious and biased here in pushing for inclusion of this low-quality source that supports one position while at the same time pushing for the exclusion of sources by established experts in ancient Mesopotamian mathematics that contradict this position. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

second.wiki
On searching on Google for content on Vinod Pande, I found a nicely written article at https://second.wiki, and what was confusing was the footer that said "Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.". The article appears to be written according to Wikipedia standards and formats, but it could not have been copied from Wikipedia because I did not find anything similar on enwiki, nor could I find a deletion history.

I looked for other mentions of second.wiki on enwiki and found that the Carl Hau article references this website extensively. I then found that second.wiki is listed as a Wikipedia mirror at WP:Mirrors and forks/STU. How can it be a mirror when it has original content that isn't found nor copied from Wikipedia? How can it be used as a source at Carl Hau when it is listed as a mirror? Can I use text varbatim on Wikipedia from the site because it's footer says "Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License"?  Jay (Talk) 04:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Is the Carl Hau page on second.wiki taken from the German Wikipedia and machine translated? The article for the individual appears to be featured on de-wiki, and the German Wikipedia closely mirrors the second.wiki article.— Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:51, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, that seems to be the case! The Vinod Pande article at second.wiki too is also a translation from the German: de:Vinod_Pande. Thanks for solving that mystery, and for adding the Unreliable sources tag at Carl Hau. So I believe we can copy the text available at second.wiki and create the enwiki page for Vinod Pande. And we should remove the second.wiki references from Carl Hau and use the ones from the German page. Pinging who created Carl Hau.  Jay (Talk) 11:12, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, my article was inspired by a documentary on TV about Hau but was mainly a translation of the German article--Stephencdickson (talk) 16:29, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The point is that the enwiki article references second.wiki which is a mirror and hence should not be used as sources.  Jay (Talk) 12:52, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Factual reliability versus use as a measure of notability
Apologies if this has been discussed before, or if this is the wrong venue (I wondered about the talk page of Reliable sources)
 * Should the categorisation at perennial sources could be enlarged to differentiate between a source's use as fact, and a source's usefulness to establish notability? This goes all the way back to the Daily Mail RfC, where the conclusion was that "...the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability, nor should it be used as a source in articles".


 * This, I think, was most unfortunate, as in the heat of discussing the reliability of the Daily Mail, there wasn't a very clear debate about whether notability and factual accuracy need the same sort of source; whether the reliability of a source for establishing notability is actually correlated to its factual accuracy. Put simply: the Daily Mail fabricates wildly, about reliably notable people and issues. A Daily Mail article is a reliable gauge that someone is notable, but you couldn't use it as evidence of their personal life.
 * So, I think we need three categories of source, not two, exemplified by: (1) The Guardian/New York Times etc. (only publishes on notable topics; is generally accurate); (2) The Daily Mail (only publishes on notable topics; is likely to be inaccurate); (3) WordPress (as a blog-host, publishes whatever users want to say about themselves; therefore is neither evidence of notability, or guaranteed to be accurate).
 * This wouldn't make a huge difference to WP in general, but it'd cover a few of those cases where you find someone who's attracted a bit of attention, including a few gutter-press articles and a couple of items in specialist magazines. At the moment they're doomed because the specialist magazine, although probably accurate, is deemed too small to be give notability, while the gutter press is deprecated. Elemimele (talk) 13:26, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No it should not, if they are not factually accurate then that must raise doubts as to their claims about a person. Now that may well (kind of pass) notability, but then I have been mentioned by the Daily Mail, am I notable?Slatersteven (talk) 13:35, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Familytreedna.com
Is Familytreedna a reliable a source? Or even a source? An user on Chuvash people claims this is a reliable source. As a ftdna user for years, I can definitely say, this is not even a source; and unfortunately ethnicity articles are overrun with this website, used as a "source". It's more like a forum. Opinions? Beshogur (talk) 20:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure we’ve already discussed this one at some point but theres so many these days its hard to tell... Like the others its a hard no, they are basically completely useless for encyclopedic purposes. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 04:43, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No definitely not. A lot of this is just a mish mash of theoreticals even if they did reveal their data sources and linking. As it is for these services, for all we know it's just a random number generator looking up data. <b style="color: Blue;">Canterbury Tail</b> <i style="color: Blue;">talk</i> 15:01, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

https://www.the7eye.org.il/ & court affidavits
Hello,

I would like to know if the7eye is allowed to be used on Wikipedia as a reference, especially on Walter Soriano page. Soriano has filed a lawsuit against the7eye and some other entities. Now, one of the reporters in one of the lawsuits, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Scottstedman, has used the7eye as a reference and made some COI edits that no one is accepting to revert despite false information.

How come the7eye can be trusted in Soriano's case? If someone has filed a case against them, then why won't they be biased? I am hopeless now.

https://www.themarker.com/law/.premium-1.8283173 = www.the7eye.org.il is one of the entities from the lawsuits. It is hardly run by 4-5 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Walter_Soriano = some background about the COI.

Please let me know if in general www.the7eye.org.il/ is an accepted source or not as well in particular regarding Soriano.

Also, are affidavits applicable to be used on Wikipedia?

Thank you SAMsohot (talk) 21:52, 25 September 2021 (UTC)


 * That description doesn't tally with the article history. The editor you mention made four edits to the article in May, in which they removed a the7eye reference, . Those are the only edits they have made to that article. As another editor said in the thread you started at the Teahouse, you do need to read WP:OUTING carefully. Thank you. --bonadea contributions talk 22:00, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Apart from whether the site is acceptable or not, please see some findings I have posted on the talk page. And the only issues are the edits made by the three editors. Two IPs & Scottstedman.SAMsohot (talk) 22:13, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Verifiability dispute on Harry Partridge
This is a dispute between me and User:101.50.250.88 which has been discussed at the article talk page.

The question is whether this source: "An Interview with XTC's Andy Partridge" by Tracy Marshall. Manifesto. May 1999. Via chalkhills.org.

Supports the addition of the following text to the article: 1. Partridge was interested in drawing and animation from an early age. 2. In an interview at the time, Andy described Harry as a "pudgy-looking kid in glasses" and expressed his hope he would work in the field of animation in the future. –– FormalDude  talk  06:59, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * To be clear, this is a reference to an article/interview originally appearing in a printed magazine that happens to have been reprinted on the website chalkhill.com, a fan site that collects all kind of things on the band XTC. The reference is not to the website but to the interview in the magazine. The ISBN of the magazine appears to have been 9771475015004. I've e-mailed the proprietor of the chalkhill.com website, John Relph (john.relph at alumni.usc.edu) to ask if he can confirm the interview did appear as he's reprinted it, and perhaps provide additional information on the magazine. Additionally, beyond the two points of contention mentioned by User:FormalDude, there's a 3rd statement I want to include and am arguing for, namely this line:
 * 3. He and his father have claimed a character of his design "nearly" appeared as a background character on the animated sitcom The Simpsons in 1999, through a connection of Andy's, but that it fell through.
 * This statement was also supported by a tweet by the subject of the article here: 101.50.250.88 (talk) 07:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The Cinemaholic
Is The Cinemaholic considered reliable? Asking per comments at Talk:Old (film)/GA1. Some Dude From North Carolina (talk) 22:38, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd say yes. They claim to perform fact-checking and "do not accept unsolicited guest articles, blogs, or posts". Additionally, the site has been cited by Screen Rant, Elle Australia and Yahoo! among others. Pamzeis (talk) 11:02, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

VOA (Voice of America)
Voice of America, similar to CGTN and Russia Today is a US government-funded channel and therefore cannot be trusted to give a neutral point of view on foreign affairs or on actions taken by the US government. Therefore I am proposing to deprecate the source at WP:DEPS. (JayPlaysStuff &#124; talk to me &#124; What I've been up to) 18:08, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * No Contrary to Russia there is a freedom of press in US and the board is editorially independent it similar to BBC in this regard --Shrike (talk) 18:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you truly believe that a state-owned news company would report negatively on the government that provides them funding? (JayPlaysStuff &#124; talk to me &#124; What I've been up to) 18:25, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * No Has it been shown to present a heavily-partisan view of news favoring the US to the same extent that led to deprecation of RT and CGTN? My impression is that it hasn't - it may be biased in favor of US's position, but it isn't seeming fabricating aspects or purposely covering up coverage as most state-owned media does. Simply being state-owned does not equate to "can't be neutral". (Otherwise we'd have to nix the BBC too). --M asem  (t) 18:14, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * this article gives an example of 'dirty journalism' done by VOA to push a pro-american agenda (JayPlaysStuff &#124; talk to me &#124; What I've been up to) 18:21, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment The user is pretty new creating 3 RFCs without any WP:RFCBEFORE rises some questions --Shrike (talk) 18:17, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I have created them as they are all funded by the U.S. government. (JayPlaysStuff &#124; talk to me &#124; What I've been up to) 18:20, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That is not a good reason to start the process. Community resources are limited and such requests are not good. I recommend that you close them. All three of them. See WP:RFCEND. Renat  19:46, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree here. More blanket RFCs for deprecation is the last thing we need for RSN. MarioGom (talk) 19:57, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment You might as well merge the three into one since it's the same thing, basically. I don't disagree that they are government mouthpieces to some extent but bias by itself isn't sufficient reason to do away with them.Selfstudier (talk) 18:28, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment VOA has been repeatedly discussed before at RSN. I think it should be used with care, in particular when reporting about countries in direct conflict with the United States. That being said, I do not support deprecating it. MarioGom (talk) 18:42, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Is VOA's board sacked and its editorial policy overturned every time the White House's principal resident changes? No it isn't. I'm afraid the nominator has failed to distinguish between a public/state broadcaster and a government broadcaster. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:53, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The level of independence you're suggesting is just not there for VOA. See the controversy around Michael Pack for starters. But still, not enough for deprecation in my opinion. MarioGom (talk) 19:07, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Michael Pack is gone and experienced editors are back. See . Renat  19:34, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure. My point is that VOA has not the level of independence to avoid Government interference. MarioGom (talk) 19:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No It is a fundamental misreading of WP:BIASED if OP's assertion that VOA cannot be trusted as a neutral source is regarded as a quality for deprecation; the guideline states that reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective (emphasis mine) . I also don't see it reasonable to deprecate ABC News (Australia), Al Jazeera, BBC News, CBC News, Deutsche Welle, France 24, NHK, PBS, Radio France Internationale, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, RTHK, SBS World News, and TASS just because they all either directly or indirectly receive substantial funding from their respective governments. Editorial control, a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, and editorial independence are key for determining a WP:NEWSORG's reliability, and neither OP nor others have presented meaningful evidence against those three criteria for VOA writ large. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 21:12, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * In short, No the bias at Voice of America does not disqualify it as a reliable source. Bias is an inherent property of all media, and the presence of bias does not disqualify a media outlet as a reliable source. Unreliability is what disqualifies a media outlet from being a reliable source; so while the choice of information presented at VoA and every other media outlet may be biased, if the facts they present meet journalistic standards, they meet WP:RS. Any use of news sources should aim to balance bias among sources to best present a neutral point of view instead of naïvely assuming lack of bias at a single source. If someone is writing an article under the presumption that a source that is reliable is therefore unbiased, they will fail at WP:NPOV. VanIsaac, MPLLcont<sub style="margin-left:-3.5ex"> WpWS 22:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
US govt-funded channel. Similar to VOA, it cannot be trusted as a neutral source on foreign affairs or US government actions. Therefore I propose to deprecate it at WP:DEPS (JayPlaysStuff &#124; talk to me &#124; What I've been up to) 18:10, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * We don't deprecate sources based on funding structure alone. Or we shouldn't. Other than that, RFE/RL has been repeatedly discussed before. MarioGom (talk) 18:43, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Concur with MarioGom's comment. If you have anything to share other than that, I'm very much happy to discuss the source, but its funding structure has been discussed at length. Same comment to the below section. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: It is a fundamental misreading of WP:BIASED if OP's assertion that it cannot be trusted as a neutral source is regarded as a quality for deprecation; the guideline states that reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective (emphasis mine) . I also don't see it reasonable to deprecate ABC News (Australia), Al Jazeera, BBC News, CBC News, Deutsche Welle, France 24, NHK, PBS, Radio France Internationale, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, RTHK, SBS World News, and TASS just because they all either directly or indirectly receive substantial funding from their respective governments. Editorial control, a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, and editorial independence are key for determining a WP:NEWSORG's reliability, and OP has not presented meaningful evidence against those for RFE/RL. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:52, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Radio Free Asia
Similar to Radio Free Europe and VOA, is funded by the US government, so it cannot be trusted to give a neutral perspective on foreign issues or actions taken by the US government. Therefore I am proposing to deprecate this source at WP:DEPS — Preceding unsigned comment added by JayPlaysStuff (talk • contribs)
 * Same as above. We don't deprecate sources based on funding structure alone. MarioGom (talk) 18:44, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Generally Reliable. Even though RFA takes U.S. government funds, the consensus among RS seems to be that RFA is a reliable news agency. Highly reputable news organizations often cite specific numbers published by RFA, and even use RFA as the sole source for their reporting, as I note below, and noted in the prior RfC on this topic that took place in March of this year.


 * Multiple RS have used RFA as their sources, including The Wall Street Journal (1, 2) and The New York Times, which has both cited it as the basis of their reporting (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and directly republished stories written by RFA. As can be noted by clicking through the links, these sources cite RFA even when China is the subject of the events depicted in the articles themselves.
 * There are reliable sources that have explicitly upheld the reliability of RFA as it pertains to issues of controversy, including the Uyghur genocide. According to The Atlantic, "from the day China’s detention campaign began in earnest, RFA’s Uighur Service—the only Uighur-language news outlet in the world that is independent of Chinese government influence—has frequently been at the tip of the spear of coverage. From the RFA offices in Washington, D.C., its team of 12 journalists has broken hundreds of stories, sometimes bearing sole witness to China’s alarming and escalating crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups in the country." The magazine regularly cites reporting from RFA as a source for news in China, even on topics of controversy (1, 2). In other times The Atlantic has reported that RFA provides "independent news to many rural Cambodians".


 * The Financial Times has also used RFA's reporting in order to write its own stories (1, 2, 3, 4).


 * The Times has used RFA's reporting to write its own stories about events in North Korea, Burma, Xinjiang (1 2 3 4 5), Chinese technological surveillance, Chinese dissidents, Tibetan riots, and more.


 * The RS that report this are not limited to those RS that are based within the United States and the United Kingdom. Al-Jazeera has also repeatedly used RFA as a source for their reporting on topics of controversy within China (1, 2, 3, 4) and Burma (1). Spain-based El País has used RFA as a basis for its reporting on the events in Xinjiang. RFA has even been cited by Argentina-based Clarín on topics involving North Korea.


 * It seems to be generally reliable based upon the fact that other generally reliable news agencies regularly cite the group, even when the topic of the stories are the subject of public controversy. And, if The New York Times feels that RFA is reliable enough to directly republish their journalism, then I don't see why we have much of a case to say that RFA is anything but generally reliable for reporting facts on the ground. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 18:18, 15 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment Please, see the last RFA RFC earlier this year before we repeat the whole thing again: . There was a quite nuanced closure there. MarioGom (talk) 20:11, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yep. That RFC's conclusion is apposite: "Radio Free Asia can be considered a reliable source, but particularly in geopolitically-charged areas, attribution of its point of view and funding by the U.S. government may be appropriate." - David Gerard (talk) 21:02, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Bad RFC - we had one of these just eight months ago, which the nominator has completely ignored - David Gerard (talk) 21:02, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Psychonomic Science
You know when a scientific journal gives you bad vibes? And then you go find an editorial which says "In order to gain speed in publishing, we  shall sacrifice  as a  regular practice the detailed editorial review usually given articles by the major scientific  journals.  Many  articles  will  be published  after only  a review  by  the  Editor."? (There was some follow-up in another editorial four years later, but that had a similar conclusion. With the concerning addition of publishing based on the "reputation and responsibility of the author(s)".)

Journal database links: Springer NLM catalog WorldCat
 * Summary of information on the databases: it ran from 1964 to 1972 and was published bi-monthly. It was run by the Psychonomic Society, and was replaced by a bunch of other journals that they still run (I think they briefly ran co-currently). Their focus is on experimental psychology.

Info on the Society: Psychonomic Society's About page. The founders were Clarence Graham, Clifford T. Morgan, S. S. Stevens of Harvard, and William S. Verplanck. Morgan was the editor of the journal and as such, author of the editorials.

I propose that the journal Psychonomic Science should be classified as generally unreliable. Especially because it has been used on articles within the domain of WP:MED and which therefore need to meet the higher standards of WP:MEDRS - for example, Neophobia and Functional specialization (brain). On top of the worrisome content of the editorials:
 * it had a habit of citing its own articles/articles from other Society journals (e.g.)
 * an author published in the journal may be published in it multiple times, even exclusively so (e.g.)
 * authors primarily citing themselves (e.g.)
 * citing the founders of the Society (e.g.)
 * publishing articles authored by the Society founders (e.g.)

Finally, their focus on experimental psychology means they are largely primary sources by WP standards. Their explicit focus was on primary studies, so they weren't publishing heaps of reviews - I genuinely didn't come across any. I just found lists of citations that they thought relevant to given topics. --Xurizuri (talk) 03:20, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There's no need to declare obviously unreliable sources unreliable in advance, as we'd be doing it forever. Or is there a specific problem on Wikipedia with this source? Alexbrn (talk) 03:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I find the examples above lacking in convincingness. More of concern is the removal of peer-review, that's the main issue here. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:37, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

World Socialist Web Site
How should we categorise the World Socialist Web Site, a socialist news website owned by the International Committee of the Fourth International? While they have a clear Troskyist slant and bias, they have also covered a range of international issues that have attracted international coverage including the 1619 Project (where they played a key role in rallying opposition), the Pike River Mine disaster in New Zealand and Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party. Are we allowed to cite the WSWS in articles? I did use a WSWS article in the Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand section. Is is safe to use articles from them if the story is covered by other more reliable and less partisan media? Just wanted to get some clarity on the issue. Andykatib 10:30, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Though they reliable for their own views per WP:ABOUTSELF. Their views are usually are WP:UNDUE and shouldn't be used unless it cited by WP:RS Shrike (talk) 10:43, 11 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It's an opinionated reliable source, and therefore can be used (with attribution when necessary) on any relevant page. It is exceptionally widely cited in academic sources, I've checked on google scholar, and I stopped looking after the 22nd page of citation results. --Boynamedsue (talk) 12:09, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Not that I necessarily disagree with that assessment, but I do vaguely recall this site having been discussed before albeit with a different conclusion. It might be worth to check the archives for older discussions.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:21, 11 September 2021 (UTC)


 * They don’t really draw a hard line between news and analysis/opinion so I would not use them without attribution, that being said they are seriously notable and will often be used by others as a representative Trotskyist viewpoint. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 14:33, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course the opinions of any newsorg are not forbidden by RS and undueness is not WP:RSN's business, but the above comments about opinions are irrelevant because the cite in the article you mention, i.e. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/09/07/nzim-s07.html, supports a fact and is recent. It doesn't look contentious, so if nobody disputes the fact on the relevant talk page, I'd say don't worry about it and the question here is unnecessary. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:48, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The difference is that the opinions of most newsorgs don’t appear in their news but in editorial or opinion pieces... You might notice that the linked article makes no such pretense, it begins with "In another attack on the basic rights of migrants...” Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 14:54, 11 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Reliable only for opinion. Some notable socialists post there and they are cited, but there is no indication of editorial oversight and fact checking. Free1Soul (talk) 16:50, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks everyone for the feedback. Will treat the WSWS as an opinionated source. Agree with 's assessment to treat it as reliable only for opinion. While they do have factual content, their ideology is first and foremost. They describe certain right wing figures and groups as fascist. They also describe other left-wing groups like the Democratic Socialists of America as "pseudo-left." Within this context, fascist and pseudo-left are opinion labels rather than factual ones. Will be very careful when using WSWS. Andykatib 21:33, 11 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I absolutely advise to avoid this source for non-WP:ABOUTSELF coverage. Opinions are like assholes, so presenting a Trotskyist viewpoint might be needed somewhere, but that's patently not the case here.
 * For the two facts you referenced (accomodation supplement not granted for temporary visa holders and the non-renewal of NZ$1M fund), here are better sources:
 * Radio New Zealand - this one for accomodation supplement
 * Radio New Zealand, Voxy.co.nz - somewhat less convincing but still better than WSWS - related to the aid to international students Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks, will check out these sources. Andykatib 23:40, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Just a question for everyone, would it be possible to have an entry for the World Socialist Web Site for the table on Reliable sources/Perennial sources. This will provide users with clarity about the WSWS' status as an opinionated source. Perhaps once we have reached a consensus on what classification to give it? Andykatib 09:12, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The WSWS are effectively a party newspaper, so the upper bar for it would be the Morning Star's "maybe reliable". In practice, it doesn't even meet that; the ICFI are pretty tiny (so we'd run into WP:FRINGE considerations regardless), and their attitude regarding both their former intellectual leader Gerry Healy, and other leftist groups, makes them incredibly suspect. Sceptre (talk) 12:42, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Possibly reliable for some niche areas such as the history of American Trotskyism, but generally a poor source and increasingly so over the years, not because of their left-wing bias, which isn't an issue, but because of their increasing amplification of conspiracy theories. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:03, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed the website's conspiratorial claims, such as this one. The website has also published several articles denying both the Uyghur Genocide and the internment camps. X-Editor (talk) 21:12, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * In a similar vein, while they have an impressive amount of USEBYOTHERS considering their background, I was unable to find any examples of use by RS for topics other than labor news, so that would be the only topic that it would potentially be ok to use them on. My impression from reading though a few polemics is that WSWS is arguably fringe even within the context of US Trotskyism, and thus it would probably be unwise to cite them for perspectives even on that topic unless there was independent coverage suggesting that their view is significant. signed,Rosguill talk 21:27, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Occasionally they might be useful on uncontroversial biographic information and cultural commentary in the arts in cases the information in the main stream media might be somewhat limited. Imho their obituaries for people in the arts and reviews of cultural works are ok, at least the ones i've seen.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:59, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, that's a decent example of potentially ok coverage as well. signed,Rosguill talk 16:25, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * What does it mean to "deny" the "Uyghur genocide"? The claim of a genocide against the Uyghurs is an extreme viewpoint that is rejected by all sorts of people, including the US State Department's legal advisors: . Making acceptance of this extreme claim into a litmus test for reliability would be absurd. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:32, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes though the whole issue depends on what definition/notion of genocide you use. (attempted/Inded) associations with the holocaust are obviously nonsensical however an argument for a "cultural" genocide seems somewhat reasonable. However imho some of the "denial" articles look pretty dubious in their own right, they read like classic hyperbolic cold war propaganda, where the agenda trumps any sober and somewhat neutral analysis of the facts at hand.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:56, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a reliable, opinionated source. Their coverage of American history has been quite prominent over the last two years, and the WSWS has actually been the primary venue in which professional historians (Gordon Wood, James McPherson, James Oakes and others) have expressed their criticism of the New York Times' 1619 Project. On American history, I think it's accurate to say that the WSWS' coverage has actually been more representative of mainstream historiography recently than that of the Times, difficult as that may be to believe. The noted historian Sean Wilentz recently wrote about this historiographical debate here: PDF link.

Articles in the WSWS are often opinionated, so attribution may be appropriate, but I've seen no evidence that it's less factually inaccurate than any other reliable political magazine. I would put the WSWS into the same category as magazines that cover current events, politics and history from an opinionated perspective, such as Jacobin, Reason, The Atlantic (which is probably closer to the dominant viewpoint among Wikipedia editors, and may therefore appear less opinionated), etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:56, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I have assembled 9 discussions of WSWS on RSN. Please see the summary in RSP and suggest any changes, if needed. The text seems to be more or less the consensus in my view. (Disclosure: I participated in the discussion in archive 341, too). Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:43, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I do not think I an not sure that "generally unreliable" summary properly summarizes the consensus. This is more like "unclear, or additional considerations apply". My very best wishes (talk) 00:57, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The problem with this source is that it is usable in quite a narrow area, while a most other areas I found that the strength of the arguments (and their support) begs for redlisting, if not deprecation (as in case with China). Therefore, on balance, it is generally unreliable. Unclear would mean "folks, it's more or less 50/50". I don't see that 50/50. Propose your own summary. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:16, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I support Szmenderowiecki’s summary as well as their evaluation of consensus as it stands. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 23:01, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * OK then, this is hard to say. My very best wishes (talk) 18:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems like an inaccurate representation of this most recent discussion, but may be more appropriate if taking prior discussions (which I haven't read through) into consideration. signed,Rosguill talk 19:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm a little puzzled here. The website is exceptionally widely used as a source by academics, that means we should also consider it reliable. It is no more opinionated than the Times, Telegraph or the Observer (all containing strong neoliberal biases) and we accept them. It seems that what people object to here is the nature of the bias (Trotskyist) rather than the actual reliability. Boynamedsue (talk) 06:24, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a very uncharitable reading, given that many users who suggested it was unreliable for facts specifically said they didn't object to its Trotskyist bias or that it is a notable example of Trotskyist opinion. I think the issue is the conspiracist content. Re USEBYOTHERS, my sense is that (like GlobalResearch) its longevity means it has built up citations over the years simply by coming up in search engine hits (it is listed by Google News for instance), but it is rarely if ever used as a source by reliable news outlets. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:07, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * News outlets are inferior to academic sources, the World Socialist Website is cited frequently by academics publishing in peer-reviewed journals and books from academic publishers. This is a higher standard than news organisations. Here are the citations for just 5 WSW sources: 1. Hollywood enlists in Bush's war drive. 2. Zimbabwe: Mugabe’s ”Operation Murambatsvina”.. 3. HIV/Aids epidemic in Rural China 4. The US backs Ethiopia's Invasion of Somalia.. 5. Mass protests against housing shortages in South Africa.


 * There are hundreds of similar citations for other articles. WP:USEBYOTHERS clearly shows this is RS, even though it does not always separate comment and opinion. It is useable for facts, but care must be taken to ensure what is actually added is fact, that can be examined on a case by case basis.


 * As for "conspiracism", I do not see evidence of that in the links shown, though I disagree with most of the opinions it gives on Xinjiang. Boynamedsue (talk) 18:45, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * "The website is exceptionally widely used as a source by academics, that means we should also consider it reliable.” Lol Boynamedsue, by that standard Inspire (magazine) or one of the Haqqani publications would be reliable because they’ve been cited as sources by just about every academic doing work on global terror. Academic use can’t be evaluated out of context and on its own doesn’t actually say anything at all about reliability. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 05:33, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Quite right, but do you really think hundreds of academics are looking to analyse the politics of 4.12 International trot sects? If you take the time to look at how they are used, they are cited evidentially, for example:


 * David Walsh's WSW article “Hollywood enlists in Bush’s war drive.” is cited in an article in academic journal Cultural Politics in the following manner: "Much has been made of the rejuvenated relationship between Hollywood and the Bush administration post-September 11th 2001 – especially after Hollywood’s top brass (including Black Hawk Down producer Jerry Bruckheimer) pledged to “commit itself to new initiatives in support of the war on terror” just a month after the attacks on New York and Washington (Walsh 2001; Carruthers 2003: 168)."
 * J.Chan's WSW article "HIV/AIDS epidemic in rural China" is cited in an article in academic journal Asia Pacific Viewpoint in the following manner: "Blood collection centres had opened in Henan and elsewhere in the early 1990s, en- couraging peasants to donate blood and blood plasma in return for payment (J. Chan, 2001).Local blood banks aggressively sought donors and many poor peasants were happy to sell."


 * For brevity, I won't include any more, but have a look yourself. It is used as RS by academics. Boynamedsue (talk) 06:28, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Both of those come from 2005. I feel there's (a) been a drift towards conspiracism at WSWS, and older content is more likely to be reliable than newer, and (b) academic citations tend to come from earlier on when there was simply less news content on the web and WSWS was one of the relatively few left-wing news sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Bobfrombrockley definitely has a point, I don’t remember them endorsing conspiracy theories in the same way back in the day. I will note however that it hasn’t been unsuccessful for them, they’ve actually managed to mainstream themselves by getting involved in public debates serving as a platform for completely non-trot voices (like in the kerfuffle over the NYT project) to express controversial opinions. If someone can find a source which gives us a clear year break or at least gives us a range in which they shifted we could probably craft a more precise consensus. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * At best used by others can suggest reliability, but it is unable to actually establish it... And it definitely can’t override publishing conspiracy theories as they have been doing as of late. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The site is basically a lot of opinion with a few news articles on niche topics. Opinion pieces are not reliable sources wherever they are published and are only noteworthy if they are reported in other sources. The source could be useful for for events that received little or no major media coverage, particularly in articles about topics that receive little coverage. TFD (talk) 21:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

https://www.the7eye.org.il/
Hello,

Can a census be reached for this blog-like website? https://www.the7eye.org.il/ It is run by only a few people and is used by COI on Walter Soriano. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SAMsohot (talk • contribs) 15:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Based on their about-page and google translate they are a former print magazine, now afaict some sort of group-blog. Possibly individual writers can be considered WP:RS for some things. If they are WP:DUE is another question.  Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)


 * There is a discussion further up the page? Selfstudier (talk) 23:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps this should be merged as a subsection — Paleo Neonate  – 06:33, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * They do have editorial board . They considered pretty respected in Israel as media critique magazine. I have no idea who is Sorino and if they had COI with them --Shrike (talk) 06:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, that's better. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:10, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Fashion Model Directory
I see this site being brought up just once before at RSN without a definite answer. Fashion Model Directory is used as sourcing for much of Clément Chabernaud, and it looks a bit IMDB-ish, but I’m really not very familiar. They say they recruit bloggers to write for the site so …? ☆ Bri (talk) 13:16, 29 September 2021 (UTC)