Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 354

RfC: Business Insider culture reporting
Which of the following best describes the reliability of Insider for its original culture reporting?

Note this is section specific in efforts to try and find some narrow consensus as all previous discussions focusing on the sites as a whole have ended "no consensus". -- The SandDoctor Talk 05:32, 28 August 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

Survey (BI)

 * Option 1 at least anecdotally, I've used the site and found the writing to be pretty good on culture topics. That doesn't mean every article is suitable for Wikipedia per other rules and guidelines, like NOTNEWS. For example this article might be suitable in gaslighting or influencer.  It's journalism that quotes academic experts.  --  Green  C  06:09, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input, . NOTNEWS and other policies/guidelines are always a consideration, regardless of the source. -- The SandDoctor Talk 06:39, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1 I have yet to see anything from Business Insider Culture that would not qualify as a WP:RS. –– FormalDude  talk  08:08, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1 but I'm willing to change my view if someone can offer a counterexample showing unreliable culture reporting. I haven't seen one yet; the reporting appears to be objective and factual, although somewhat gossipy and therefore somewhat unsuitable in my view (but then I tend to avoid pop culture articles anyway). ~Anachronist (talk) 13:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1, after going back and forth between 1 and 2 a few times. I often come across culture articles of theirs that are useful and as reliable as other sources, particularly other internet-focused sources like The Daily Dot and The Daily Beast . I wouldn't necessarily weight them hugely for notability, and I might be careful when it comes to BLP-sensitive claims—it sometimes seems a bit sensationalist/tabloidy. However, even in articles like this, I've not really seen fact-checking concerns. I don't like that they've not addressed a correction I requested on this article that, in the first sentence, misspells the person the interview is about (it's "Thorn", not "Thorne"). However, I am yet to get a correction acknowledged by newspapers of record or indeed any source, even in cases of simple misspellings. — Bilorv ( talk ) 13:29, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If it's unreliable for BLPs and not very usable for notability, surely that's an option 2 - David Gerard (talk) 20:17, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Utility in notability is not related to reliability, whilst WP:GREL is about Generally reliable in its areas of expertise—this allows for a certain amount of areas of non-expertise (for instance, The New York Times is not a MEDRS per WP:MEDPOP) and for cases where the source is not going to be reliable even within its areas of expertise. I think it would be consistent to go for either options 1 or 2, but I opted for 1 because I don't think the issues are severe enough to lump it in with much worse "marginally reliable" listings. — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:08, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 2 - doesn't lie that I know of, but questionable when used as evidence of notability. The considerations in the previous RFC Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_324 still apply - they're notorious for space-filling clickbait and churnalism. If you're looking for endorsement of BI as WP:DUE, this is not the board for that - David Gerard (talk) 19:20, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * This is specifically for original reporting though, which would seemingly exclude churnalism per its definition? I am aware of WP:DUE and how this isn't the board for that and that wasn't the question asked. -- The SandDoctor Talk 19:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That would still be Option 2 in a guideline, because the sort of detailed and specific per-article source assessment you're looking at wouldn't be covered by a broad guideline. "Option 1" is clearly not correct, per the serious issues noted by multiple editors in the previous RFC. If you're not in fact trying for WP:DUE, then you've failed to make clear what precisely you're trying to push through here, and precisely which editing conflict you had in mind - David Gerard (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * What I had in mind for this was like how Fox News is split 3 ways at RSP. I figured there might be an ability to possibly gain consensus one way or the other per section, but apparently not. -- The SandDoctor Talk 00:51, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Rolling Stone was also just split this way. -- The SandDoctor Talk 03:41, 24 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Option 2. BI split into three different editorial teams: business, news, and lifestyle . BI Culture would fall under lifestyle. In reality, I don't any evidence in RS that truly differentiates the various BI brands, so I would default to the previous RfC that showed a history of clickbait, bad editorial practices, and some factual errors. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 2 - There are a lot of churnalized clickbait. Sea Ane (talk) 20:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1. We should stay neutral regarding the issue of "clickbait", as it's subjective and not all that helpful in determining fact-checking standards. The New York Times publishes headlines that could be considered clickbait. And I see that coming up frequently as a bit of an emotional, knee-jerk reason to discredit this publication. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 23:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd add to this that headlines are not reliable, the body of articles is what we're talking about, so if "clickbait" is just in the headline then it doesn't matter much (though it would be strange to encounter, say, a publication with exceptional fact checking in its articles but lies in its headlines). — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:08, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1. As earlier said here, yes https://www.insider.com/culture is RS for culture - I think maybe pop culture more than respected for opinions on music or paintings.  In particular the coverage seems largely delving into TikTok and other social media items, and is good reportage of current events and reasoned explanations.  Items like “beaning” or breaking your schools soap dispenser are not highbrow topics, and may not be available elsewhere — and they do good coverage.  They seem to have good editorial control and reporters on staff. e.g. Charlotte Colombo covered  The history of Only fans.  Or Madison Hall and the Insider survey the influencer index.  Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:01, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 2. There's too much PR n it for it to be really reliable as a matter of course,  just as most publications on popular culture.  DGG ( talk ) 05:32, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you have any examples or is this more of just a gut feeling? Polygon (website) is considered RS for pop culture topics, how is this significantly different? -- The SandDoctor Talk 03:14, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 2 per David Gerard.  Spy-cicle💥   Talk? 04:16, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1. Generally okay for culture (headlines to be avoided though). Alexbrn (talk) 05:42, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 2: It's often a useful source, but the amount of PR and churnalism they publish makes it hard to label this as generally reliable. MarioGom (talk) 20:03, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Churnalism would seemingly be n/a given the wording of the question and seems to come up without recent solid systemic examples as a sort of thought-terminating cliché. Do you have any recent examples or is this more of just a gut feeling? The concerns I have seen don't involve this section, were corrected as you'd expect from a site with editorial control, or are often years old (publications can change over time, see WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS); we have also proven previously with other publications that sections can be individually assessed. Polygon (website) is considered RS for pop culture topics, how is this significantly different? -- The SandDoctor Talk 22:09, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * My assessment is based on overall Business Insider editorial practices. But I think you're right that this section does not seem to suffer from the problems that are somewhat frequent on sections related to business (which also vary depending on the country/language edition of Business Insider). I could not find examples of native advertising, recycled press releases, etc, in the culture section. MarioGom (talk) 16:10, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, . Thank you also for striking. Would you be willing to change your !vote then for this RfC to option 1 given that it is specific for the section and you haven’t found any problems (and that it isn’t a publication wide RfC)? —-TheSandDoctor (mobile) (talk) 20:09, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1: I note that in the previous RfC's discussions, a key reason for the "no consensus" result was the question about how functional the editorial oversight was. Here, User:Markbassett has presented assertions that this specific section of BI does have suitable editorial oversight, an assertion that no other editor has disputed, and while I cannot speak to the quality of the editorial oversight in this case, I note that according to the BI contact page, "Life" does have separate editorial oversight. Should specific objections be raised to the editorial oversight of this team, then I would be willing to reconsider my position, but until then I believe Option 1 is appropriate. Summoned by the bot; unclear to which RfC, and so drew the short straw BilledMammal (talk) 11:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1 as the writing is pretty good and evidence above shows they have good editorial oversight in this section. --Kathy262 (talk) 20:02, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Option 1, oversight in this section is good.--PRL Dreams (talk) 10:57, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (BI)

 * Which???. This needs clarification - the title and link is for BusinessInsider.com but the Question is for Insider.com ?  Also ‘culture reporting’ seems to mean ‘content at insider.com’ as a subsection and not ‘used as RS for facts about Culture events’. Can that be confirmed or otherwise clarified ?  Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:31, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * They both are effectively the same entity in that they have been changed to have the same name. I just named this section as such as editors will probably have more familiarity under that title. Regarding the second point, I am not sure that there is a difference? -- The SandDoctor Talk 14:57, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * User:TheSandDoctor The way it is worded asks if https://www.insider.com/culture is RS for culture - I think maybe pop culture more than respected for opinions on music or paintings. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe that to be implied as anything entertainment related (music, film, tv, etc.) would presumably be filed under "entertainment", but it is too late to update the question at this time as there have already been comments based on its current wording. -- The SandDoctor Talk 18:33, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Moved to "discussion" as this isn't really a !vote thread. -- The SandDoctor Talk 18:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Does Noah Carl writing in The Critic (British magazine) establish notability?
A review by Noah Carl, writing in The Critic (British magazine), is used in the article Russell Warne to help back up a summary of one of Warne's books. I am concerned that the Warne article may fail WP:PROF and WP:GNG, so evaluating whether this source counts as coverage in a reliable, independent source will help me decide whether to launch an AfD. There are only a few other sources which could conceivably be called coverage of this individual.

Carl and Warne are certainly both part of a tight network of fringe racial hereditarians who argue that there is a genetic basis for observed differences in IQ test performance between racial groups (if you're skeptical that this view is fringe, see this recent RfC), but I am unaware of any specific evidence that they are personally close. It's also worth noting that Carl is now an independent researcher since being sacked from his university position for "poor scholarship" and "selective use of data and unsound statistical methods which have been used to legitimise racist stereotypes".

The Critic is described as "conservatively inclined", which certainly wouldn't be a problem if the author were reliable and independent. In this case, however, I'm not sure that is the case.

Thoughts? Generalrelative (talk) 19:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The description of The Critic in its article - and it's of extremely dubious notability - reads like euphemisms for "crank". I would say that a fringe race scientist writing about another fringe race scientist in a fringe publication of questionable notability is WP:UNDUE and verges on promotional usage of Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 23:23, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, how on earth are Intelligence and Mankind Quarterly not on WP:CITEWATCH - David Gerard (talk) 23:27, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * they are on it. Look under "Pseudo-scholarship" for Mankind Quarterly (unless there's another publication called Intelligence and Mankind Quarterly, but I haven't heard of that before). An individual listing could be made also, if there's a need for it. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:37, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ah thank you, I keep forgetting the hidden sections :-) Intelligence probably survives by being one of Elsevier's more dubious moments - David Gerard (talk) 23:40, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If you mean "Intelligence (journal)", our article writes "the "journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field" but has allowed its reputation "to be used to launder or legitimate racist pseudo-science"." It could be added as a borderline source. Or we could simply have add new category "Category:Race and intelligence controversy", which would act as a sort of catch-all. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:15, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Added as a new 'unreliable field' category here. It will likely need some cleanup after the initial listing tomorrow, but give me 2-3 days and things should make sense after that. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:43, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for doing that! Super helpful indeed. Generalrelative (talk) 15:30, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it'll be that helpful, but I guess we'll see. I think the main issue will be that if it includes journals like Intelligence, the signal-to-noise (i.e. crap vs good citations) ratio will be pretty small, since Intelligence does not mainly publish bad scholarship. Do note that all the CiteWatch will do is compile publications involved in the controversy in some way, not only bad papers of dubious scholarly value involved in the controversy. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:56, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I hear that. However I still think it will be useful to those of us who are active in keeping race pseudoscience out of less high-profile articles. It's really a constant struggle, even after the emergence of a strong consensus on the topic at the main article Race and intelligence (here's an example we happen to be dealing with right now). So any additional tools we can use to monitor the situation are very much appreciated. Generalrelative (talk) 17:02, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * If this new "unreliable field" category is going to be added at CiteWatch, we should be clear about what it will have to include. There are around 18 academic journals that Wikipedia editors have decided are sometimes inadmissible due to their sometimes being used "to launder or legitimate racist pseudo-science". I provided a complete list (as of about four months ago) here, along with diffs of the judgment that had been made to reject these sources in each case. I encourage others to look at the diffs provided there, and verify that this list of rejected sources is accurate. If this category is going to be added, it will have to be handled in a consistent way for all of the journals and books about which Wikipedia editors have made this judgment.


 * Past discussions have not made it clear whether the broader Wikipedia community supports this basis for rejecting sources that otherwise satisfy WP:RS, because all of the past noticeboard discussions about it have been shut down before they could reach any conclusion (the discussion I've linked above being one such example). But now that a new discussion has been opened about this same question, we can try discussing it again.


 * As should be clear from my comments in the earlier discussion, I'm opposed to this interpretation of RS policy, but either way this judgment will require a consensus of more editors than just the four of us. I'd like to hear the views of other uninvolved people. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 14:31, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Contrary to what Ferahgo claims, no discussions have been improperly "shut down". The RfC that Ferahgo links to was shut down by an admin because Ferahgo's RfC statement was lengthy, confusing, and tendentious, in violation of WP:RfC, which says that the RfC statement should be neutrally worded, short and simple. Ever since the 2020 RfC on race and intelligence (see ) reached a consensus (sustained on appeal) that the claim of genetic differences in intelligence between different races is a fringe POV, a small number of editors have been pressing to relitigate the matter. Ferahgo's malformed RfC was an example. After Ferahgo's abortive RfC, in order to resolve the matter I started a simple, neutrally worded RfC on the R&I talk-page (see ). It ended in a snow-close reaffirming the consensus that racial hereditarianism is a fringe POV. Both RfCs on race and intelligence had extensive participation by many editors -- about 50 in 2020 and 35 in 2021. Ferahgo's claim that the unreliability of sources that promote racial hereditarian theories of intelligence has to be relitigated is without merit. NightHeron (talk) 15:13, 15 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I would also add that the list which Ferahgo linked to should be read with a critical eye. For instance, she appears to imply that Nature Neuroscience was deemed unreliable by some overzealous editor. When one examines the context, however, it's clear that the letter –– not a "paper" as Ferahgo stated –– was removed from the Bibliography section of Race and intelligence because it does not directly relate to the topic. Indeed, the authors of the letter make clear that they are concerned specifically with “interindividual variation” rather than between-group differences (the fallacious leap from the one to the other is a common move for racial pseudo-scientists). Implying that this letter relates to the topic of race & intelligence by including it in the Bibliography constitutes a weaselly form of WP:SYNTH. Generalrelative (talk) 15:29, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * In older versions of the article, the Posthuma Nature Neuroscience source had been cited as additional support for the material that was removed in this edit (as it relates directly to the point made by Hunt's book, which does specifically discuss race). Both the Hunt and Posthuma material had been in the article for about a decade, and then when the Hunt material was removed, the Posthuma source was removed a few months later. If this source had been removed in a different context, a case could be made that it was removed due to not being directly about race, but the actual context in which it was removed suggests that wasn't the reason.


 * Let's also please not forget the discussion here, in which a discussion was underway about opening a new RFC to examine the question of whether the removal / exclusion of all these sources was compatible with RS policy. The subsequent RFC on the article's talk page was opened with the stated intention, as explained here and here, of pre-empting the planned RFC about sourcing from occurring. (See also this summary of the issue by Stonkaments). The community has never been given the opportunity to make a decision about the sourcing question, although I don't know whether this discussion is the correct place to try to resolve it.


 * in light of your comment above, that this category will only be a list of publications involved in the controversy in some way, do you feel this is an appropriate place to have the discussion about whether the decision to remove and exclude these sources from articles is supported by policy? I'm not seeking to derail this discussion, and if this question isn't relevant to what will be included in that category, I'll continue waiting for a time and place when this matter can be appropriately resolved. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 20:20, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This would be the place to discuss the removal of those sources from Wikipedia. WT:CITEWATCH would be the place to discuss removal from the listing. That said a) the results aren't even up yet b) no one is proposing anything of the sort, save for the discredited Mankind Quarterly and other similar garbage publications.&#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:23, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. Now we can, hopefully, finally get some opinions from uninvolved editors about the source removal issue. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:36, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Results are live at WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Questionable1. Note that Intelligence Journal really was Intelligence Bulletin, I've cleaned up the articles, but the compilation will reflect the old dump. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:00, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the original question: Russell Warne has been deleted at AFD - David Gerard (talk) 15:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Intelligence (academic journal)
David Gerard recently made these edits at Intelligence (journal), which I reverted. Per this and this edit summary, this is inappropriate. '''Not only does it misrepresent at least one of the sources cited, but it is using non-academic sources, two of which have a known political bias, to condemn an academic journal. That is entirely contrary to WP:SOURCETYPES.''' Aren't journalistic sources banned from race and intelligence? Is it the position of editors fighting pseudoscientific racism that all study of human intelligence is illegitimate? If so, that is an extreme position that is itself WP:FRINGE and completely out of step with cognitive psychology, psychiatry, and so on. If that is what people are fighting for, then it is time for a new RfC. That previous RfC never, ever justified that. This journal overwhelmingly publishes mainstream topics. I fear that some editors have become overzealous. Crossroads -talk- 01:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is more suitable for WP:NPOVN than here I feel. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:37, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Is it the position of editors fighting pseudoscientific racism that all study of human intelligence is illegitimate? I'm not aware of anyone who has made this claim. But in any case, as Headbomb has suggested, if you're concerned about WP:NPOV then WP:NPOVN would be the proper forum to raise your concerns. Generalrelative (talk) 01:42, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, FYI, the reliability of the journal Intelligence for R&I topics was discussed explicitly at the recent RfC. If you're curious, see the exchange with Mikehawk10. Again, no one has, to my knowledge, ever advocated for anything like the kind of position which Crossroads has expressed concern over. Generalrelative (talk) 02:01, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to hear that, although I think some of what was said in that discussion goes too far based on the sourcing I've seen. Outside of that one area of race-and-intelligence that sources have commented on, I see no reason to treat it as anything other than an ordinary psychology journal. Of course, WP:PRIMARY and WP:MEDRS still apply in all cases. Even then, if they published something that was against the position that race differences in IQ test scores are genetic, like something about the Flynn effect, that should be usable, since it goes against that bias. I brought up the matter here since I think the edit was inspired by this discussion and I am concerned that both it and what was being said here may be part of an effort to condemn the journal entirely. And, Headbomb, I don't entirely understand the meaning of its listing in CITEWATCH, but being listed there is part of my concern. I understand a 'caution regarding X POV' listing, but not a 'remove on sight' listing. Crossroads -talk- 03:14, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Cool, that was my understanding of the consensus among editors who discussed the journal at the RfC. I'm not sure what you saw there as going beyond what you stated, but in any case we don't disagree on the proper approach to using this source. And of course Headbomb can speak for themself, but note what they stated above: I'm not sure it'll be that helpful, but I guess we'll see. I think the main issue will be that if it includes journals like Intelligence, the signal-to-noise (i.e. crap vs good citations) ratio will be pretty small, since Intelligence does not mainly publish bad scholarship. Do note that all the CiteWatch will do is compile publications involved in the controversy in some way, not only bad papers of dubious scholarly value involved in the controversy. Generalrelative (talk) 03:27, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Is it the position of editors fighting pseudoscientific racism that all study of human intelligence is illegitimate? I don't know about editors specifically making this claim, but it does seem to be a rather common sentiment on the progressive left. This article provides a good overview. Economist William Darity, for example, said: "There will be no reason to pursue these types of research programs at all, and they can be rendered to the same location as Holocaust denial research." Meanwhile, philosopher Peter Singer said: "If you ignore these things that contribute to inequality, or pretend they don’t exist, you make it more difficult to achieve the kind of society that you value....There’s a politically correct left that’s still not open to these things."
 * Given this (well-documented) tendency to dismiss research that challenges one's views, we should be extra careful to judge sources as objectively as possible. We need to make sure we aren't selectively excluding sources simply because they align with one political view or another. Stonkaments (talk) 17:54, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is an attempt to relitigate the previous discussion. No, we don't need to add scientific racism for false balance - David Gerard (talk) 22:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Singer has been almost universally derided for those comments... The most basic critique being that Holocaust denial research wouldn’t be the equivalent, Holocaust research would be. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Singer didn't mention Holocaust denial as far as I know. The problem clearly meant is that some people who lean towards all-nurture viewpoints, like Darity, are making the extreme leap to the idea that any research on how biology affects how individuals develop psychologically is equivalent to Holocaust denial in fringiness. This is extreme and itself fringe; it goes against the well-established findings on how genetics impact mental development in pathological cases like schizophrenia, as well as the fact that it is a mainstream area of research, as shown in this Nature editorial. Crossroads -talk- 00:11, 23 September 2021 (UTC
 * At this point you're clearly not talking about Intelligence as a source, but instead appear to be attempting to relitigate the RFC by making general complaints about a field of study rather than anything that's RSN material - David Gerard (talk) 13:41, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I made that edit to Intelligence (journal) because, per WP:LEDE, the lead paragraph did not adequately summarise the contents of the article and the balance of views on the subject. It is remarkable that an Elsevier journal has such fame in the wider world - as I cited to RSes, that were already in the article - for race and intelligence pseudoscience, and leaving this multiply-RS-cited remarkable fact out of the first paragraph was clearly and obviously incorrect by Wikipedia policy and practice. That Intelligence is published by a respectable scientific publisher makes it more noteworthy, not less. It is whitewashing to fail to note such an important fact about the journal right there in the lead summary.
 * BTW, you're supposed to ping editors when you talk about them - David Gerard (talk) 22:14, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Intelligence (journal) is so short, there is no distinct "lead" that necessitates repeating that. The next paragraph was not a separate heading and makes the actual point accurately. The text you added absolutely did not "adequately summarise the contents of the article and the balance of views on the subject." All three sources were misrepresented by making it seem they think of it only as disreputable racism, even though all of them note that the journal is otherwise respected. I didn't ping you here since you are already part of this discussion. I know I dislike unnecessary pings to discussions I am already part of. Crossroads -talk- 03:27, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Per the comments by Headbomb and Ferahgo in the section above, I think we should have a discussion about the broader practice of rejecting otherwise high-quality academic sources in relation to this topic. There is currently a discussion at Talk:Race and intelligence about rejecting In the Know by Russell Warne as a source, which was published by Cambridge University Press. A previous discussion at this noticeboard found Cambridge University Press to be a reliable source with respect to the topic of race and intelligence.

This edit blanked five paragraphs of text cited to mostly high-quality academic sources, including some controversial figures such as Jensen, but mostly material cited to respected figures such as James Flynn (academic), Earl B. Hunt, Ulric Neisser and Donald T. Campbell. The link posted by Ferahgo above contains a few dozen examples of edits like that, but that one was one of the more severe cases. Until now, it has never been possible to have a community-wide discussion about this practice, but maybe we can have that discussion now.

Both of you have been involved in the related discussion on the article's talk page, so I think you should be aware of this discussion as well. Gardenofaleph (talk) 21:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)


 * You and a very small number of other editors have been repeatedly trying to relitigate the RfC of 2020 at FTN (reaffirmed in the RfC of 2021 at the R&I talk-page) that reached a strong consensus that racial hereditarianism is a fringe POV. Your argument about Cambridge University Press is without merit, since several otherwise reputable presses on occasion publish fringe material (also true of Elsevier). The question of reliability vs unreliability cannot be determined for an entire publishing house.
 * By the way, you are violating WP:CANVASS by selectively pinging two editors (Ekpyros and Alaexis) who share your POV and inviting them to join this discussion. NightHeron (talk) 22:03, 17 September 2021 (UTC)


 * BTW, Elsevier is not such an imprimatur of quality either - remember their history of pseudojournals assembled as marketing exercises - David Gerard (talk) 22:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * And Elsevier published Homeopathy for years... XOR&#39;easter (talk) 14:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * NightHeron, I only pinged those two editors because the other two main participants in that discussion, yourself and Generalrelative, are commenting here already.


 * I feel that you have misled the community about what classifying the hereditarian hypothesis as a fringe theory would mean in practice. In your original RFC, Insertcleverphrase accused you of "trying to shut down sources that have a specific viewpoint, regardless of where they are from, or where they are published." In response, you denied that this was the intention of your RFC. But then after the RFC was over, you and Generalrelative went ahead and removed nearly all such sources from the articles, with the justification that "The issue of the admissibility of sources claiming a genetic link between race and intelligence was settled at the Fringe theories RfC last year." In the edit I linked in my previous comment, this even included removing sources such as Neisser and Flynn, which disagree with the hereditarian viewpoint but still include detailed discussions about it.


 * If the community had been told honestly that this is what the "fringe" classification would mean, instead of your denying it would mean that, would they have reached the same conclusion to classify it as a fringe theory? Who knows? Thus far you've managed to prevent the community from having a meaningful discussion about this new approach to sourcing, so we've never been able to determine the answer. Gardenofaleph (talk) 23:51, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , Well, there was a second RFC which reaffirmed all that and which took place after the editing you're concerned about. Some editors may be unhappy with the results of that community wide meaningful discussion, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. MrOllie (talk) 00:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * A strong consensus came out of two RfCs and several other discussions over the last two years that racialist theories about intelligence are fringe, and therefore subject to WP:FRINGE. A small number of editors have simply refused to accept this. Per WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV, we have to avoid FALSEBALANCE and UNDUE citation of sources that promote those fringe theories. Contrary to what you say, such sources are extensively cited in R&I, but in a context that makes it clear that their POV is rejected by scientific consensus. The current version of R&I contains many references to works by such famous proponents of racial hereditarianism as Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton, in addition to works by their less famous more recent adherents. Several editors worked on revising R&I in accordance with the consensus at the 2020 RfC; we were not censoring anything, but merely complying with WP:PROFRINGE and WP:UNDUE in removing some references or revising the text that cited them. There were continual objections from opponents of the RfC consensus, which were debated at length on the talk-page. A few of those editors have persisted since then in trying to relitigate those issues and reintroduce sources that were found, after thorough discussion, to be unreliable and/or undue. Their forum-shopping and POV-pushing around race and intelligence have turned this topic into a time sink. NightHeron (talk) 01:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It should also be noted that the comment you quote about the [in]admissibility of sources claiming a genetic link between race and intelligence was made in the context of a discussion of sources for scientific consensus. Sources by Jensen, Rushton, Richard Lynn, and the like, despite their claims of being scientific, are unreliable for describing what mainstream science says. They are, however, reliable for describing what the authors believe and so are cited many times in Race and intelligence, Scientific racism, and related articles in order to give an accurate summary of the fringe POV. NightHeron (talk) 22:07, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The summary you're giving here is simply not consistent with the pattern or removals from the articles. Quoting Generalrelative again, "Rindermann's work is seen as unreliable for any content on Wikipedia related to race and intelligence". This judgment is contrary to the existing consensus at this noticeboard, which found Rindermann to be "[an] appropriate expert in the human intelligence field." 100% of the references to sources with Rindermann as an author have been removed from the race and intelligence article. (There is one paper from him still included in the bibliography, but it is cited nowhere in the article itself.) Aside from Rindermann's book from Cambridge University Press, the removals also included a paper by Rindermann from PLOS One, which is a mainstream journal.


 * Rushton and Jensen have been dead for nearly a decade, so while I guess it's a good thing they haven't been completely been purged from the article, they have very little relation to current research about race and intelligence. The current research about this topic is being conducted by people such as Haier, Warne, Rindermann, Nijenhuis, Woodley, etc. All of these current researchers have been completely excluded or purged from the article, regardless of how high-quality the journals or academic publishers where their work is published. Arguing about whether or not all these removals were justified or not is one thing, but we need to avoid this sort of revisionism about your edits that you've already extensively discussed and defended at the time. Gardenofaleph (talk) 03:02, 20 September 2021 (UTC)


 * You are confidently incorrect, as the kids say. Go back and check the diff you presented purporting to quote me. Not a huge mistake in another context, but rather ironic when you're accusing NightHeron of having misled the community. (By the way, how exactly are you alleging he misled the community? Your argument seems to be premised on the idea that the community is unaware of how WP:FRINGE works, and that NightHeron somehow hid this knowledge from everyone until it was too late. That can't be right, can it?) Now you've piled on by stating that NightHeron's summary above was simply not consistent with the pattern or removals from the articles and described it as revisionism, but failed to provide any reasons why an uninvolved observer might think so. Instead you're just repeating the same allegations over and over. I know this might sound like a radical idea, but perhaps just stop? There is clearly no appetite among the community to relitigate this in your favor. Generalrelative (talk) 04:21, 20 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Note too that, in the statement you falsely attributed to me, you left out the part where prefaced by saying My understanding of these discussions is that... When people go out of their way to be humble or circumspect, the least you can do is acknowledge that. Generalrelative (talk) 04:25, 20 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It's interesting that my comment at Talk:Steve Sailer from February was linked. Earlier today I looked up that study again to make sure it was as bizarre as I remembered. It was. The survey is informative.
 * Rindermann chose to publish a survey that extolled Steve Sailer and Anatoly Karlin (an anti-science blogger, open white ethnonationalist, and climate change denier) as reputable sources of information on science. I'm still at a loss for words about how weird this is. Rindermann even helpfully throws in editorializing about how it is "unfortunate" that another blogger on The Unz Review couldn't have also been included. That blogger is James Thompson, who is, of course, also part of the Richard Lynn/Mankind Quarterly group.
 * That study also cites OpenPsych, Richard Lynn, an article by Boghossian about the grievance studies affair, and a 2015 tweet from Steven Pinker. It's a trip.
 * It's so transparently self-indulgent that I don't think anyone at Elsevier is paying any attention. Assuming they ever were. On various talk pages, I've seen some comments defending Intelligence because it is "peer reviewed". The problem here is that the pool of peers presumably includes the kind of people who would respond to a survey from a journal which has gone completely off the rails. It's the icing on the cake that they would also use that survey to share how much they trust alt-right bloggers for their science info.
 * It's also noteworthy that this was published in 2020, after the journal had stopped listing Lynn and Meisenberg on the editorial board. There was talk that maybe this was the journal's attempt at cleaning up it's image problem, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so... This "study", more than anything, killed off the benefit of the doubt I was willing to extend to Intelligence.
 * Presumably some legitimate scholarship will still come out of the journal, but it will be inherently less legitimate due to being folded in with fluff about "race realist" bloggers. Grayfell (talk) 05:57, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Your comment included the words There are also serious red flags over David Becker and Thomas R.Coyle publishing history. Becker I understand. But what did you mean about Coyle? Sesquivalent (talk) 07:44, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * More than some. . Using the data on its most cited articles,, I see in the top 10 articles only 1 which might be related to race in the sense of being published by someone who has also published about race and intelligence.  The second ten has one of the same nature, not on race, but by a person who has to some extent also published on race.  That gives 90% content which there is no reason to suspect, even if one thinks that studying what are socially called racial differences is illegitimate. "Why do angry people overestimate their intelligence? Neuroticism as a suppressor of the association between Trait-Anger and subjectively assessed intelligence" -- this is supposed to be racist? and this: "Cats (Felis silvestris catus)read human gaze for referential information" ?  Almost all their content is like that.   DGG ( talk ) 06:37, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe the topic of discussion here is reliability of Intelligence for topics in the race and intelligence area, which seems to be the area for which it is best known. I would have no objection to citing Intelligence in an article on cats, since as far as I'm aware the editors of the journal have no history of promoting pseudoscience about cats. NightHeron (talk) 10:16, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That gives 90% content which there is no reason to suspect Any other publication discussed on RSN having 10% of its content being pseudoscientific conspiracy theories would be a slam-dunk for complete deprecation. You're not making clear why Intelligence should be any exception - David Gerard (talk) 12:52, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * We routinely mark various publications with a 'reliability depends on topic' note. This journal apparently published fringe/nonsense on a particular topic, on a particular subject, for a particular period of time. It's received high praised as one of the most prestigious journals in the area of intelligence research, even from its critics. That should be enough to treat it with a scalpel, not a hammer. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:30, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I also support the scalpel approach. Addressing David Gerard's point: DGG's rough count included articles "which might be related to race", not articles which are definitively problematic. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:26, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This study is also in the Scopus "top-10", with 20 cites. The study doesn't mention race, but does mention that being of non-Danish ethnicity correlates with having a low IQ. In another context, in another journal, I would give this study the benefit of the doubt, but this isn't another journal. Who gets to make the call that this is "definitively" problematic? This is a walled garden and the 'high score' with Scopus shows this. The study is cited multiple times times in Mankind Quarterly, once in OpenPsych, twice in Intelligence itself, and twice in Personality and Individual Differences which has a similar reputation to Intelligence.
 * If we're going to use the most-cited articles as representative, it needs to be done consistently. This is a walled garden, and articles doing the citing are often within this same fringe sub-group of a sub-group. Also more frequently cited than the cat behavior one is this article which sure seems to me to be definitively problematic. Does being more cited make this one a better example? If not, why mention the "most cited" thing at all? Let's not be selective. If nothing else, being highly cited is meaningless without this kind of context. Grayfell (talk) 01:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I second Grayfell’s point about this ecosystem being a walled garden with just the veneer of academic respectability. I don’t think we need to go through and figure out which articles are "problematic," I think its safe to assume that if it was published here and not in a respected/legitimate journal then theres something "problematic" about it. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 14:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)


 * how is it "entirely contrary" to WP:SOURCETYPES? The language used there seems to be purposefully non-absolute... Academic sources are “usually” the most reliable, not “always” the most reliable. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Many things, such as entertainment and current events, are not covered in academic sources. So, "usually", but not always available or uniformly better in every case. It's still pretty clearly contrary to the spirit of WP:SOURCETYPES to consider an entire academic journal unreliable just because a few news media sources say something negative. But even then, opponents of the journal can't have their cake and eat it too - all of those sources likewise call it a respected journal with the exception of race issues:
 * Researchers with extreme views on race number relatively few but, having languished on the margins of their fields for many years, they are now managing to push their ideas into the mainstream, including into respectable scientific journals....Both Meisenberg and Lynn also serve on the editorial board of Intelligence, a psychology journal also published by Elsevier. The Guardian (note that since this article Lynn and Meisenberg are no longer on the editorial board - but the author is clearly calling it a respectable scientific journal)
 * The ISIR is home to many great scientists, and its journal Intelligence is one of the most respected in its field....Journals and universities that allow their reputations to be used to launder or legitimate racist pseudo-science bear responsibility when that pseudo-science is used for political ends. New Statesman
 * Intelligence, a more respected psychology journal that’s published by the major publishing company Elsevier, also occasionally included papers with pseudoscientific findings about intelligence differences between races. Smithsonian Magazine
 * It's clear that we have no sourced basis for considering it unreliable outside of race issues. It is that topic - race and intelligence - that is the walled garden. Any claims beyond that are unsourced opinion. Crossroads -talk- 21:19, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If we're going to discuss this "walled garden" allegation, we should be clear about what it includes, because this allegation has been used to reject far, far more sources than just Intelligence, Personality and Individual Difference, and poor-quality sources such as Mankind Quarterly (which fails WP:RS anyway, regardless of whether it's a walled garden). Sources rejected with this justification have included those published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, Human Nature,  PLOS One, Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences , and at least two books from Cambridge University Press.   I could give diffs of the rejection/removal of each of these sources, but I don't think it's controversial to say that these papers and books I've linked to have all been rejected for this reason... as one example, here is Grayfell's "walled garden" explanation for rejecting the Human Nature source, and the rejection of one of the books from Cambridge University Press has recently been discussed on the article's talk page.


 * As far as I know, aside from a few newspaper and magazine articles criticizing Intelligence (and aside from sources like Mankind Quarterly, which everyone agrees is unreliable), there are no sources that say these journals or academic publishers apply a lower standard of scrutiny than any other publications that meet the criteria of WP:SCHOLARSHIP. There also is no provision of RS policy, or any other policy, that supports rejecting sources for this reason. The policy linked above says, "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses." WP:Walled garden is an essay about a group of Wikipedia articles that all link to one another but to none outside the group, and this essay has nothing to do with judgments about whether a source is reliable or not.


 * The only other time this justification for rejecting sources has been discussed at the RS noticeboard was in this discussion about books from Cambridge University Press, and in that case the broader community rejected this argument. But that discussion clearly has not stopped sources from many different journals and academic publishers continuing to be rejected for this reason, so maybe now we can have a discussion about whether this overall basis for rejecting sources is supported by policy. Gardenofaleph (talk) 22:00, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The closing of the discussion that Gardenofaleph refers to did not support the indiscriminate use of any book published by Cambridge University Press. The closer wrote: The remaining concern was that the views of Rindermann and Hunt may be Fringe. The discussion indicated that there is a lack of sources supporting or opposing the notion that the views in these books are fringe, though when a viewpoint does not have wide support, we do treat it as fringe, and do not give it undue weight. That is, we can give the views of Rindermann and Hunt, sourced to their books published by the Cambridge University Press, but take care not to promote their views as widely accepted unless/until sources can be found which indicate their views are widely accepted. That closing (in February 2020) was superseded by the RfC at WP:FTN on Race and Intelligence that closed in April 2020 (and was reaffirmed by another RfC in 2021) that held unequivocally that the belief that there's evidence of genetic superiority of certain races to other races in intelligence is a fringe viewpoint, rejected by mainstream science. NightHeron (talk) 23:39, 21 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I have two specific concerns with Intelligence:
 * Is a source which publishes pseudoscience in one of it's main areas still trusted for overlapping topics? It seems to me that this journal's reputation is mentioned in sources as context for why it's so noteworthy that the journal publishes pseudoscience. Otherwise, why even discuss these journals at all? From this context, the journal's supposed prestige is not mentioned as a defense of the journal, instead it is an indirect critique of those academics who are either oblivious to, or choose to ignore, these serious issues. I don't find this oblique criticism to be a compelling defense of this journal's reputation.
 * Many articles in this journal are superficially unrelated to race, but are are still used/misused to support racist ideas. I gave one example, but many, many more can be found. If we're going to stop citing Intelligence for "race and intelligence" we also have to stop citing it for "population and intelligence" and "nation and intelligence" and "school system and intelligence" and at that point just "human intelligence". Again, the journal's name is just "intelligence" so I guess cat behavior is about all that's left. Grayfell (talk) 02:11, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * And yet the sources speak of the journal as well-respected outside of that narrow topic. Why they do so does not change the fact that they do so. The vast majority of the journal's output is about individual intelligence, or if it does speak of group differences, is not about pushing a racial hereditarian POV. For example, is the Flynn effect pseudoscience? I certainly don't think so, and I don't think anyone else does either, since Race and intelligence speaks prominently of it to explain the observed group differences in IQ test scores as plausibly explained by environmental differences between socially constructed racial groups. Much of that research was published in Intelligence. In no way does problems about a small crop of racial hereditarian research reflect on all its human intelligence research. As for "used/misused to support racist ideas", that is very broad and can be applied to almost anything. People have misused all sorts of papers to promote racism, ones where the authors implied no such thing, so by that overly broad logic we have to deprecate every journal that published "used/misused" papers. Crossroads -talk- 03:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * "And yet the sources speak of the journal as well-respected outside of that narrow topic.” can you be specific? If those sources have been shared I haven’t seen them. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 03:26, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * See my 21:19, 21 September 2021 (UTC) comment. It was in reply to you a short distance above. I quoted 3 media sources. Crossroads -talk- 03:43, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I note you haven't given evidence that Intelligence is respected as a scientific source. And - as you've already had pointed out to you - its reliability as a scientific source for Wikipedia's purposes was strongly questioned in Talk:Race_and_intelligence/Archive_103. Your claim that its other articles deserve a carveout as scientific sources for Wikipedia's purposes seems not to be well founded. And, as I pointed out, any other source that was 10% pseudoscientific conspiracy theories would be a slam-dunk for deprecation, and you really haven't made a case that this one shouldn't be. We really just do not take sources with that level of unusable trash, and then say that the rest of the curate's egg is perfectly good - David Gerard (talk) 07:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The sources I quoted are specifically and clearly talking about its status in psychological science. I have no idea what you are trying to distinguish it from, but sourcs don't support that. The 10% number is not accurate as stated higher above. Regarding that RfC you linked, I already stated above that Outside of that one area of race-and-intelligence that sources have commented on, I see no reason to treat it as anything other than an ordinary psychology journal, to which Generalrelative replied about that RfC, that was my understanding of the consensus among editors who discussed the journal at the RfC. Academic publishing doesn't work like the news media - journals sometimes publish ideas or hypotheses that are marginal or fringe to show them to the wider academic community for critique, etc., plus there is academic freedom. This applies to every subject, but this one is particularly hot-button. This isn't like the Daily Mail not being trusted to report events accurately. And frankly, unless you are proposing to gut the anti-racial-hereditarian material at race and intelligence, Flynn effect, etc., much of which is cited to Intelligence, I don't see a reason to keep debating this. We don't do guilt-by-association or over-the-top "purity testing" demands beyond what sources say, nor do we cherry-pick what we want to hear from the sources on the topic. Crossroads -talk- 15:39, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * None of the media sources you quoted in your 21:19 comment said that they were well-respected and certainly none said that it was well-respected outside of that narrow topic. Newstateman comes close, but what you’re arguing appears to go beyond what the sources are saying. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

To restate my point, the three sources we have for this journal's positive reputation are also sources pointing out its problem with scientific racism. The scientific racism is not incidental to the journal. It is the only reason these three sources are talking about the journal at all. This context is not hidden or arcane, it's specifically provided by these sources. Grayfell (talk) 19:39, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm at a loss as to what to say further, to the point that it almost feels like people are not reading the sources I laid out, unlikely as that is. None of this negates what those sources say clearly about what is respected and what the journal's clearly specified problem area is. I can't make a few editors see what I clearly read in the sources. I asked earlier, "Is it the position of editors fighting pseudoscientific racism that all study of human intelligence is illegitimate?", and Generalrelative assured me that no one has made that claim; but since people seem to want to take down the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research, the overwhelming majority of whose papers are not about race, I remain concerned. Crossroads -talk- 00:11, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Hm, I really didn't want to get involved here again but this doesn't seem quite right. First off, when you asked your question about whether anyone was arguing that all study of human intelligence was illegitimate I replied I'm not aware of anyone who has made this claim. I did not and would not assure you that no one has made the claim because I don't imagine myself to be omniscient. Now some folks have begun arguing that the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research is largely unreliable, making claims that go beyond the discussion at the RfC which I linked to above. That may be concerning to you but they are not in so doing necessarily attacking all research into intelligence as illegitimate. Research on intelligence continues to be published in top-tier journals like Nature, Science and the various journals of the American Psychological Association. As I stated below, I'm not willing at this time to stake out a position on how reliable a source Intelligence is beyond the narrow topic of race & intelligence, but those who are arguing for a broad unreliability are not thereby arguing that all research into human intelligence is illegitimate. If someone does want to pop in here and argue that, so be it, but I have not seen such an argument yet. Generalrelative (talk) 00:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to imply you were omniscient or even 'should' know what others think, though I get that my phrasing was unusual; but my point is that concerns remain for me that there may be overzealousness on the part of some on this topic. Crossroads -talk- 00:43, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks. And I probably shouldn't have been so defensive about it. I understand and respect your point. Generalrelative (talk) 00:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I am discussing my problems with one journal. The question about "all study of human intelligence" doesn't seem appropriate to me, which is why I did not answer it. I could point to academic work on this topic that I think is reliable in various context, but that's not the point of this discussion, is it?
 * The journal's status as the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research doesn't inherently make it reliable. It's not the only society, nor the only journal, on psychometrics, individual difference, etc. This society is not the sole representative of its field, and as far as I know, it never has been.
 * To put it another way, that society is not inherently reliable just because it has some members who perform legitimate research, even if some of it is published in Intelligence. These respected members don't cancel-out the pseudoscientists. It looks like the journal treats them all the same, so why shouldn't we? Many of these pseudoscientists are still active in the field of intelligence research, and this activity isn't confined to work which is explicitly about race. Intelligence doesn't, apparently, exercise sufficient editorial oversight for race and intelligence, but it's very tricky to pin-down which articles this actually applies to. For several reasons, I think this is by design, at least partly. This behavior therefor reflects on the entire journal.
 * If "race" is the issue which attracts independent scrutiny, we should be willing to use that scrutiny the same as we would any other attention. To insist that this journal's failures do not reflect on any other area seems strange, and would be to Wikipedia's detriment. Grayfell (talk) 00:13, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * And that independent scrutiny every time has confined their negative statements to content about race, and almost always makes a positive statement about the journal outside of that. It is not at all tricky to pin down the tiny minority of articles and researchers this applies to. There is a world of difference between how sources talk about Intelligence and Mankind Quarterly, so there is no basis to treat the former as the latter (as always unreliable). Crossroads -talk- 04:23, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, Mankind is worse. That doesn't make Intelligence acceptable.
 * Saying "It is not at all tricky..." is not supported by these sources. Sometimes it is obvious, but sometimes it isn't, which is exactly why sources are commenting on it. Per sources, the outlet is superficially respectable, so the question sources are asking is why does an otherwise respectable journal keep publishing pseudoscience? You may personally think it's always obvious which are good and which are bad, but I don't accept that. As I've tried to explain, some articles appear reliable but this doesn't always hold up to scrutiny.
 * Further: why does the outlet keep publishing this crap in the first place? Why does an outlet with a history of pseudoscience get a free pass for articles which are only indirectly about race? They published their more outlandishly articles knowing they would get outside scrutiny. How much attention are they giving to articles which don't get even that minimum level of scrutiny?
 * One possibility is that Intelligence gives both race and non-race related article roughly equal attention. This attention isn't sufficient to prevent naked pseudoscience from slipping past. Therefor, nothing in the journal gets the benefit of the doubt
 * Another option is that Intelligence has a different standard for race-related articles. If so, the journal does not, and cannot, make this distinction clear. Any article that relates to group differences, broadly construed, would therefor be less trustworthy. Grayfell (talk) 21:59, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a third option you aren't mentioning: that Intelligence publishes these papers because they aren't meaningfully different from what's published by other respectable journals or academic publishers such as Perspective on Psychological Science, Human Nature, or Cambridge University Press, as in the examples I gave in my comment above. Intelligence gets more attention than these other journals and publishers because it is a journal specifically about intelligence, so papers presenting the hereditarian perspective about race and intelligence inevitably are published there more often than in these other journals. But in terms of the content of the papers, there is no meaningful difference between the hereditarian papers published in Intelligence and those published in any of these other places.


 * In addition to your rejecting of the Human Nature source in the example linked above, you've also removed similar material that was published in two other journals: the Journal of Biosocial Science and Mens Sana Monographs. So I know that you're aware that in this respect there is nothing particularly unique or unusual about Intelligence or the papers published there. It's disingenuous of you to suggest that there is, unless you intend to argue that ALL of that these journals and publishers fail WP:RS. Gardenofaleph (talk) 03:08, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * First of all, please do not accuse other editors of being "disingenuous", which violates WP:NPA. Second, your point is invalid, because Intelligence (journal) is the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research, which is the principal organization that promotes the hereditarian POV on intelligence and prominently includes promoters of scientific racism. The journal is largely controlled by people with a strong POV on racial hereditarianism, whereas the other journals you mention presumably are not. NightHeron (talk) 09:52, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Without staking out a position on the current debate, I'd just like to note that there is one more source I recently added to the article Intelligence (journal) stating that Intelligence serves as a vehicle for scientific racism: Andrew S. Winston, "Scientific Racism and North American Psychology", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology . Here's the quote: Despite careful, scholarly criticism in every era since the early 1900s, scientific racism in psychology has proven remarkably resilient. Although Arthur Jensen and Philippe Rushton both died in 2012, a small but very active community of researchers continue to pursue questions of race in relation to intelligence, brain size, crime, sexuality, reproduction, and dysgenics, with new work appearing in Personality and Individual Differences, Intelligence, and other journals. This international community is led by Richard Lynn, who for a number of years served simultaneously on the editorial boards of Intelligence and Mankind Quarterly, and as president of the Pioneer Fund. . . . The interlacing of scientific psychology with racial politics has now lasted over 100 years. The community of race scientists had sufficient funding, access to journals, dedication, and shared understanding to carry on a project that most psychologists had considered moribund by the 1960s. Note that the source does not take a position on whether being a vehicle for scientific racism is the primary thing the journal Intelligence is known for, just that this journal is a crucial part of the story of the persistence of scientific racism in psychology through to the present day. I don't see anyone disagreeing with this assessment here but I wanted to make sure that with the discussion of sources this one too was given consideration. Generalrelative (talk) 22:58, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I think this has the same implications as the sources already shown; it is basically saying the same thing about this small bunch of researchers and how they got their ideas out there. Crossroads -talk- 00:14, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with this assessment. The only real thing it adds is that it's not a journalistic source. Not sure about the peer-review standards of the Oxford Research Encyclopedias, but at the very least it's one more ref to add to the pile. Generalrelative (talk) 00:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Citation needed on Noah Carl
The question is loaded with tendentious uncited material that is probably false.
 * Carl and Warne are certainly both part of a tight network of fringe racial hereditarians -- almost certainly false.

There is no indication Carl is a hereditarian at all. He is a quantitative social scientist, not a psychometrician, behavior geneticist, psychologist or geneticist. So not from any of the fields involved in research on intelligence, its possible genetic correlates, or genetic differences by race. He has no papers on anything genetic.

I looked into him a while ago during, you guessed it, Wikipedia talk page controversies on these matters and did not see any place where he takes any position on race-and-intelligence hereditarianism except the standard academic freedom arguments that it's an open question and legitimate area of research and (even if those statements were not true) that it should not lead to vilification campaigns against those who publish about it. Well-known non- or anti-hereditarians such as Stephen Pinker, James Flynn, Stephen Ceci say much the same thing and are not classified as "fringe racial hereditarians" for it.

Carl was an editor or reviewer of one of Kirkegaard's OpenPsych journals. Must be hereditarian, right? Actually there were 3-4 such journals, and Carl was connected to the one for quantitative social science (no apparent connection to hereditarianism) and as of the time I checked his publications and (I think) reviews were not hereditarian-related. He cosigned an article with most of the OpenPsych affiliates defending the aforementioned freedom-of-research position, but there was no place online where one can discover what, if anything, he believes about race differences in intelligence.

Ah, but Carl published in MANKIND QUARTERLY! Case closed! Yeah, but just like James Flynn in the same journal, it was an anti-hereditarian paper. Carl found some data disconfirming a pet hereditarian idea that regional IQ increases with distance from the equator.

Yes, but he wrote a paper with EMIL KIRKEGAARD!!! Not on hereditarianism, though. It was a social science paper on stereotype accuracy in Denmark.

It might be fair to class Carl with people like Cofnas, Anomaly, and Winegard; social scientists who defend a similar (in fact considerably stronger) position on freedom to research hereditarianism. Some of them may have put forth an opinion on the likelihood of race differences but Carl has not.


 * Carl is now an independent researcher since being sacked from his university position

Carl received a large settlement when he sued the university for illegally firing him, and his independence may reflect financial independence resulting from that, not an inability to get another position. The university fired him as a virtue signal under political pressure and literally paid the price.


 * for "poor scholarship" and "selective use of data and unsound statistical methods which have been used to legitimise racist stereotypes"

These sound bites are conveniently quoted without a reference to any source where they can be checked. There is a long report from the university committee that investigated Carl. Having read it, my recollection is that they did not deign to name any specific problem with Carl's research (data, methods, conclusions). The sound bites may come from a shorter press release which contains general unverifiable denunciations for media (and student protestor) consumption. The papers by Carl that I looked at seemed to be standard social science. No apparent problem of poor scholarship, and in any case the papers being nebulously associated with racism had nothing to do with hereditarianism. Sesquivalent (talk) 08:39, 21 September 2021 (UTC)


 * You're questioning the content of the Wikipedia article. As a content issue, that should go to that article's talk page - David Gerard (talk) 15:43, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that this RSN posting is inviting a rejection of Carl as RS based on false information, and some correction here is therefore in order. It is also relevant to the whole "walled garden" talk page theory being aired here. Sesquivalent (talk) 16:18, 21 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The cites in the article seem high enough quality to validate it being stated in wiki voice there, and just as statements here. Fundamentally you're trying to relitigate the article, and the place to do that is on the article talk page - David Gerard (talk) 16:20, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The opposite is true. There is a cluster of articles, including Noah Carl, based on a couple of garbage sources written by involved parties.  That this material stays in those articles is partly due to obscurity of the subject, and mainly due to WP:OWNership and edit-warring by a handful of well known (within Wikipedia) accounts.  The time scale to make any difference to that article is too long to have any bearing on this discussion --- everything will be wikilawyered down to molecules.  Here, we can use all available information rather than taking the article as gospel and sole authority. Sesquivalent (talk) 16:45, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Surely you mean all available reliable information not all available information? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:58, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The available (but false) information in the question did not cite any sources, reliable or otherwise. The information I provided can for the most part be checked -- you can easily find the abstract of Carl's paper in MQ, the entirety of his papers and activity in OpenPsych, and with possibly a bit more work, the documents from his investigation.  What apparently cannot be found anywhere is any instance of him being a "fringe racial hereditarian", which is kinda important as it's the essential premise of the question. Sesquivalent (talk) 17:15, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll respond to a few of the above points now and if necessary will continue later. A few gross errors in the above: 1) These sound bites are conveniently quoted without a reference to any source where they can be checked. It's actually pretty easy to check by clicking through Noah Carl. You will see there that it is a quotation from the Master of St Edmund's College, i.e. Carl's former employer. I suppose this counts as a shorter press release which contains general unverifiable denunciations for media (and student protestor) consumption, but so what? It's certainly a reliable source for the position of St Edmund's College on Carl's termination.

2) Carl received a large settlement when he sued the university for illegally firing him, and his independence may reflect financial independence resulting from that, not an inability to get another position. Citation needed. The article states that Carl withdrew his claim; the case was settled by a confidential agreement between both parties. Instead, it appears that Carl raised $100,000 online through cultural grievance publicity. Do you have a citation for your claim otherwise? Or were you simply wrong to make this assumption?

3) Update: Sesquivalent's original heading read "Citation needed. Noah Carl is not a hereditarian." David Gerard has kindly reworded it for neutrality. Generalrelative (talk) 18:02, 21 September 2021 (UTC) Per WP:TALKHEADPOV, A heading on an article talk page should indicate what the topic is, but not communicate a specific view about it. Presumably this applies to noticeboards too, no? If so, Sesquivalent's heading here is a clear violation on the guideline and should be changed, either by herself or another editor.

4) Anyone familiar with Sesquivalent's editing behavior will recognize her charge of wikilawyering as projection. Edit warring has been used disproportionately by opponents of the existing consensus on race and intelligence, not those of us who support it. No one who looks at the history of these pages could possibly come away with any other conclusion. And the charge of OWNership falls flat given the overwhelming nature of the consensus that supports what we do.

For my part, I'll admit that I may have been in error to assert that Carl is specifically a "hereditarian" and will be happy to substitute "advocate for scientific racism" if that is amenable to Sesquivalent. We will have no trouble providing ample sources to support that. Generalrelative (talk) 17:25, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it's not worth debating whether Carl is a fringe racial hereditarian, because his support of such hereditarians and close association with them is enough to answer this particular RSN question. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:31, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree. Glad to hear I'm not alone on that. Generalrelative (talk) 17:55, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * To clarify, you think that anyone who supports "hereditarians" or has close associations with them should not be considered a reliable source? Stonkaments (talk) 18:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The issue of close association is one of independence from the author rather than reliability. Carl's dismissal for poor scholarship and promotion of racism, on the other hand, speaks to his lack of reliability. Generalrelative (talk) 18:43, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Reiterating the request in the section heading—is there any citation for the claim that he was dismissed for "promotion of racism" ("poor scholarship" is so vague as to be practically meaningless)? The exact statement that St Edumnds made was: "There was  a  serious risk that Dr Carl’s appointment could lead, directly or indirectly, to the College being used as a platform to promote views that could incite racial or religious hatred". It sounds to me more like Carl was a victim of the PC police/"cancel culture"; the Varsity article says there were months of protests, and "more than 1,400 academics and students signed an open letter calling for the termination of Carl’s research fellowship". Stonkaments (talk) 19:00, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is verging into using RSN as a forum for your personal political views, take the comments about PC police etc elsewhere. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:04, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Huh? This isn't about my personal political views; it's about unsupported accusations that Carl was dismissed for promoting racism, and the alternate explanation (that is well-documented in the article). It's relevant here to the extent those accusations are being used to discredit Carl's reliability. Stonkaments (talk) 19:16, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I don’t see the term "PC police” used by any of the sources, where do you see it used? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:18, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The Spectator says Carl was fired "after being targeted by a left-wing outrage mob". Quilette says: "Dr Carl has been dismissed not because his research is fraudulent or inaccurate, but because there’s a risk it could lead indirectly to bad actors promoting views that could incite racial or religious hatred. It matters not whether the scholarship is true; the critical thing is whether it upsets people." I can strike "PC police" and replace with outrage mob if you would prefer? But I believe it captures the same sentiment.
 * Now, where do the sources say that Carl was dismissed for "promotion of racism"? Stonkaments (talk) 19:30, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Quilette is unreliable and that Spectator article is an opinion piece so you err in attributing that opinion to the Spectator. Do you have any reliable non-opinion pieces? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Here's an editorial from The Times supporting the same argument ("Mr Carl argues that he is the latest victim of an authoritarian leftism...The circumstances of Mr Carl’s dismissal suggest that he makes a fair point. St Edmund’s College, his employer, caved in to a campaign aimed at running him out of town.") It doesn't get much more reliable/mainstream than that for an opinion piece, and why would you expect there to be a non-opinion piece that takes a stance on this? Stonkaments (talk) 19:43, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I asked for a reliable non-opinion piece, an editorial does not fit that request. Are you saying that such a source does not exist? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:52, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Correct—as I mentioned, it isn't reasonable to expect a non-opinion piece to make this sort of interpretation and take a stance on the matter. Journalists generally convey the facts, whereas opinion pieces give their interpretation of the facts. May I ask, what's your point? Stonkaments (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If you aren’t in fact talking about facts or sources which support those facts then you are using this as a forum, thats the point. Your own personal interpretation of the issue is not appropriate to share. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 20:09, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I am indeed talking about facts—namely, the fact that multiple prominent opinion pieces denounced Carl's dismissal, vs zero support for the claim that Carl was dismissed for "promotion of racism". Stonkaments (talk) 20:21, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source for that fact? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 20:25, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with Horse Eye's Back, and will just point out for those who have not taken the time to look themselves that the answer to Stonkaments' query is there any citation for the claim that he was dismissed for "promotion of racism" is given in lead of Noah Carl. Here are two such sources referenced there:, . I sincerely hope this clears things up. But in any case I will not be engaging further with this self-evidently specious line of discussion. Generalrelative (talk) 19:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Those sources only mention complaints and allegations of racism (with no supporting details). And no support for the claim that St Edmunds cited "promotion of racism" as a reason for Carl's dismissal. Stonkaments (talk) 19:50, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The school's statement is proof enough for me, though I wouldn't use it as such if we were writing an article. I don't much feel like debating the point. The substance of GR's main "reliable, independent source" question doesn't hinge much on the specific phrase "promotion of racism". Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:55, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is entirely tendentious argument concerning the Noah Carl article with facts that have been trivially cited already, and is nothing to do with RSN matters. Could someone not involved please cap this subsection? - David Gerard (talk) 23:53, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

ancient-origins.net is surely an unreliable source

 * Domain ancient-origins.net: search insource (http & https) - domain usage report (track discussions) • [ advanced search]

Which should probably be deprecated. Uses:. See for instance on giants in ancient America. This section on "ancient technology". Not all of its content is woowoo, but it happily hosts nonsense so nothing on it is reliably published. Doug Weller talk 12:32, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Deprecate It is self-declared fringe-promoting:
 * If there's any peer-reviewed academic research and evidence highlighted by them that's worthy of inclusion here, we will have the RS to cite anyway. –Austronesier (talk) 13:11, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If there's any peer-reviewed academic research and evidence highlighted by them that's worthy of inclusion here, we will have the RS to cite anyway. –Austronesier (talk) 13:11, 16 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Not an RS Deprecate.Slatersteven (talk) 13:49, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I mean, we shouldn't have to formally deprecate something so obviously unreliable, but if it would be useful to have this written down then sure. Girth Summit  (blether)  16:06, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If the OP is correct it is used a hell of a lot, a good reason to depricate.Slatersteven (talk) 17:00, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, but I should remind the OP that, under the WP:SOFIXIT principle, there's no need to ask permission to remove obviously unreliable sources. They can just remove them.  You don't need permission to make Wikipedia better.  -- Jayron 32 17:25, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * obviously that would be me, and of course I know I don't need permission. However, that wouldn't completely fix the problem as I know that it would continue to be added. As points out, it would be useful to have this in writing.  Doug Weller  talk 16:13, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I would agree, yes we can remove it, but this is one of those sites that will forever be being added, and argued the toss over.Slatersteven (talk) 16:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I guess, but you're presuming that the people who would end up adding such a site would check WP:RSP first. I have never, since the Big Bang, seen a single person do that, and I expect not, until the heat death of the universe, expect one to ever do so.  But if it makes you feel better, I won't stand in the way.  Removing them when you find them is the useful task.  The rest of this is just painting the bikeshed over and over.  -- Jayron 32 16:27, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I know they do not, but we can then go "depricated source", and make it clear it is against RS to add it. When they argue "Ahh but prove its not an RS" we can then point to RSP and say end of debate.Slatersteven (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * When something like this is done, it definitely does need to be added to WP:RSP. I may be the first person to do so (thought I suspect I'm not), but when links to Ancient Origins were pulled from two articles I was following, that was the first place I went to check its reliability status. That it's been nuked without first being listed there is a problem especially since looking at it on an article-by-article basis, not everything published there is problematic. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 11:43, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I've been removing links to AO for years whenever I ran across them. Because they publish articles about giants, ancient aliens, and other assorted conspiracy theories and pseudoarchaeology. Their business model is to sprinkle 30% insane bullshit into 70% generally real archaeology, see fact check for media bias rated "conspiracy-pseudoscience". I just stepped up what I have always done once I noticed this conversation. Because that source should never have been used here. Nothing they publish can be trusted, even though some of it is factually accurate, because it is all sprinkled with woo. He  iro  14:39, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Not an RS, Deprecate with extreme prejudice. If they said water was wet I'd check to make sure it still was.  He  iro  16:20, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, per that very long list linked above, I think every example in article space should be rooted out and nuked (I jsut did a few dozen, but good lord there are over 500 of them, possibly thousands). I also wouldn't mind the entire site being added to the blacklist. Their entire business model is fringe and spam, there is no conceivable article on this entire website (Wikipedia) that would benefit from a citation to this "source".  He  iro  16:51, 17 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I think I may have found them all. There ended up being fewer than I initially thought, around 100 in article space, not counting numerous archives and talk pages which I left untouched.  He  iro  04:57, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I just took a look at Pachacamac. It was used twice there, once in addition to a clearly reliable source, and the other time a couple of sentences before that source despite the fact that it was in the reliable source. Clearly spam. Doug Weller  talk 16:23, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Deprecate. I wouldn't bother saying so, except the horrifying degree to which it's actually used as a cite. Shall we do the formal RFC? - David Gerard (talk) 17:44, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It looks like if we went for an RFC it would be a snow close as te only "objection" is "its not an RS no need to depricate just remove it".Slatersteven (talk) 17:51, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This is snowing, no need for formal closure; I'm heading right off to the blacklist page. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:30, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Deprecate as it's clearly willing to print anything that will get clicks. The caveat is that it often churnalises press releases on bona fide scientific results, which is probably why it's used in so many articles. Instead of "nuking" it as has already started to do, it would be better to look for better sources that say the same thing, or tag it with better source needed rather than replacing it with citation needed. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 06:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Added to spam blacklist by . As for 's point, dealing with the remaining uses and figuring out how to replace the churnalism is best left to editorial discretion. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs)  14:27, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Added to WP:UPSD as a blacklisted entry too, this should facilitate cleanup. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:16, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment I have implemented what I read as the consensus in this thread by blacklisting the link. However, my decision was questioned by user:Peter Gulutzan as being out-of-process. It may be worth some further discussion and an independent closure of this thread. If that decides that we should not blacklist I will revert the blacklisting (but as the situation stands now, I see no reason why to revert). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:23, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This site has been an ongoing issue, see MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/October 2018, in another convo on this very subject in which you also took place. I'm sure they all blur together after 3 years and probably do not remember it, but we need a solution that stops this sites articles from being added as references and as external links. If there is another way to do that, I'm open to listening. But it sounds like the alternatives were tried in 2018 and we still have AO as references and external links in several hundred articles. He  iro  10:04, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * the alternative is an edit filter (either in warn mode - which does not stop anything; or in block mode -functionally not different from the blacklist though you can give a custom message). XLinkBot is a deterrent, but often hardly sufficient (and normally restricted to IPs/new editors). Note, the user DacONJA mentioned in the 2018 spam blacklist thread may actually be another incarnation of user:Ancientoriginsnet .. the spam factor may be larger than I initially thought - I'll try a datadump. Dirk Beetstra T  C 10:17, 21 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Dirk Beetstra claims this thread proves a consensus for blacklisting. I claim that's incorrect but irrelevant anyway. The conversation is here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:07, 21 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty annoyed that you say there that this thread wasn't started about blacklisting but about reliability. I made it clear in the title of the thread that its unreliability was a given, and my first words suggested it be deprecated. It's my experience that in some but not all cases this means by blacklisting. I should have made that clearer, I admit. Doug Weller  talk 12:25, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * A non-neutral heading is incompatible with WP:TALKHEADPOV. "This page is for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context." Which people on this thread realized that you were proposing to add ancient-origins.net to the spam blacklist, despite our guidelines? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:33, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * a better question is: how many realize that we, often, do things completely in contrast with our written rules because it improves the quality of Wikipedia? --Dirk Beetstra T  C 17:56, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I see now that WP:TALKHEADPOV applies for "article" talk pages so struck it. Is it okay to say that you're acknowledging that this particular action was against our written rules? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * no, it is not against our written rules, it is directly in line with our 5 pillars. Dirk Beetstra T C 07:45, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I guess you might mean WP:5P5 and you earlier pointed at WP:IAR so that immunizes you from my references to guidelines and prior practice. I asked Doug Weller earlier "Which people on this thread realized that you were proposing to add ancient-origins.net to the spam blacklist, despite our guidelines?", perhaps I should have pinged asking for a yes|no answer from Austronosier Slatersteven Girth Summit Jayron32 Carter (Tcr25) Heiro David Gerard Joe. But discussion whether it belongs there is appropriate on the spam blacklist talk page. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:07, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Since you pinged me, here's my answer: Sure, blacklist it, it's shit. As I said before, WP:SOFIXIT applies, and it applies to adding shit sites to the blacklist as well.  -- Jayron 32 14:15, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If you had bothered to read the comments above you would see that I did realize it meant blacklist. And so apparently did the editor who actually took it to the blacklist. And it has been blacklisted for how many days now 3, 4? And since then 2 other editors have chimed in to agree explicitly with the blacklist. No one disagrees with the assessment that it needs to be deprecated and blacklisted except for you. You keep trying to split hairs on policy guidelines and multiple editors so far have pointed out to you that your interpretation is incorrect. And I stated all of this on your query at the blacklist thread you keep linking to yesterday.  He  iro  14:22, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I read all the comments, yours included "I also wouldn't mind the entire site being added to the blacklist." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 23:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I found this thread after links to AO were dropped from two articles I follow. I understand why some editors want to see it blacklisted; it does wander into some beyond speculative territory. That said, it also publishes reliable information (albeit usually sourceable to other, more consistent places). I don't see evidence that AO is spamming WP with links; more that editors find the information they want to source at AO and the article in question is generally reliable so they use that as the link. Whether it's blacklisted or not, my point was that it should be listed at WP:RSP not just nuked and blacklisted silently. Make it clear to people what the concern and rationale are. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 14:24, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * But did you realize that Doug Weller was proposing to add ancient-origins.net to the spam blacklist ? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 23:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Peter, Dougweller says that is what he intended, multiple other editors agree it should be done (whether or not they understood he meant that at first is immaterial), it has been done, no one else seems to agree with your rational for undoing it or for not doing it in the first place. Do you have a rational for why this website should not be deprecated and why it should not be added to the blacklist to keep it from being returned to the roughly 250 articles which used it as a citation or an external link? Or are you arguing that because the conversation took place here and not 100% at the other board it is somehow invalid and has to be reversed on those grounds? Because, if so, IMO, that is nonsense.
 * Carter, it was not "nuked and blacklisted silently", anyone with an internet connection can see the deliberation. You have been literally participating in it. If you want to take the time to add it to WP:RSP, please feel free. But AO needs to be deprecated and removed from WP articles because they publish pseudoscientific nonsense mixed with actual facts, with no disclaimer when they do so, with the woo presented right along with the actual facts on an equal footing. Until they were outed, the owner and authors published under pseudonyms to protect their other business interests from being associated with the publishing of woo, see here. Many of the articles I removed were cited to the author "April Holloway", the pseudonym used by an AO author mentioned in that article. Anything factual they publish will be available in reliable sources that we can use, we should be using them and not AO.  He  iro  03:02, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Any one can see the discussion only after searching for it. When I found it, it was after the discussion was complete and the action taken. Again, I don't have a problem, per se, with the decision but I do think it needs to be listed at WP:RSP (which it still isn't). If there's a process reason it's not listed there, then that's either an indication of a problem with the action or the process. List it on WP:RSP and my concern goes away. (And don't feel I should add it there because I wasn't involved in the discussion, just caught up in its aftermath.) —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 11:58, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * no, 5P, so also 1 and 2 are applicable here. IAR does not immunize me from anything, there are 9 people here that want this site gone and not re-added since it all gives more work.  There is a consensus to invoke IAR.  Their comments indicate that we have a consensus to ignore the rules and do something to fully stop adding this.  I just executed that consensus.  If I would have blacklisted that site on personal evaluation I would have invoked IAR personally (MY argument would have been that I thought that blacklisting AO would make Wikipedia better), and we would, maybe, have a discussion whether I would be right in that (and maybe revert my action if there was a discussion that stated that maybe it is reliable and should regularly be used).  Your only argument here is that since the rules don’t prescribe it, it should not be done, and that is simply not how we work here.  My action on WT:SBL is simply nothing else than reading through an AfD and deciding to close it as delete.  I read the, at that time unanimous, consensus that Wikipedia is better of with not being able to use AO. Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:49, 24 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Deprecate and blacklist. Publishes arrant nonsense; does not belong in any shape or form. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:25, 22 September 2021 (UTC) (Edit: appears to have been blacklisted since the OP, and I cannot therefore link to the most egregious examples; however, there is sufficient evidence for my comment above). Vanamonde (Talk) 18:25, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Just looking at their "Who we are" page ( here, if any wants to C&P it, https://www.ancient-origins.net/we-005254 ) would be clue enough. It's like a "Whos Who" of modern pseudoarchaeology and all around nuttery. Listed in their "experts" list are: Graham Hancock (Atlantis king), Sam Osmanagich (Bosnian pyramids anyone?), Brien Foerster (him, lol), Andrew Collins (not the 7 or 8 same name people we have articles on, this guy), Clyde Winters (yeah, this guy), and more!!!! Jeez, if you posted this at Fringe theories/Noticeboard, heads would explode, lol.  He  iro  04:46, 24 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Deprecate and blacklist- AO is a completely garbage source, and it lacks a reputation of fact-checking and accuracy that would allow us to use the occasional "good" content even if we did have a good way to distinguish it. –dlthewave ☎ 12:52, 24 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with what's been said in favour of the blacklisting action that resulted from the earlier comments on this thread, but see that my objections have been unpersuasive. I'll say no more here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Image use
Article: Hijabophobia

Content: File:Matthias Laurenz Gräff - "Liebende Eltern".jpg

A user has removed the image from the page claiming there should be a reliable source saying the depicted work has links to the Hijabophobia. Is it so? -- M h hossein   talk 13:32, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes. Renat  16:47, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Julian Assange kidnapping plans
The below content was removed from Julian Assange in, with the suggestion that it is "weakly sourced" and "UNDUE", and removed a second time. I'm placing the RfC here with a note at NPOVN. The sources are as follows:

Should the article Julian Assange include the following information, sourced to The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times and Yahoo News:

According to former intelligence officials, following the Vault 7 leaks senior officials in the CIA discussed plans to either kidnap Assange from the embassy or assassinate him, going so far as to request "sketches" or "options" for doing so. No plans were approved, partly because White House lawyers raised concerns about the legality of such an operation. Some officials, interviewed as part of an investigation by Yahoo News, stated that they were sufficiently concerned about the proposals that they alerted staffers and members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Cambial foliage❧ 23:29, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

!Voting
* Include In addition to the cited RS,   several other mainstream reliable sources have published articles about the investigation:     The argument that the available sourcing is weak does not bear scrutiny. This is clearly highly relevant to Assange's biography and represents encyclopaedic content. Following the initial report, several news organisations have reported on the story and sought comment from the agencies/governments involved. Cambial foliage❧</b> 23:29, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

* Include (reasons pretty well the same as Cambial Yellowing above) Prunesqualor   billets_doux  07:50, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Other discussion
Why was this RfC started here and not in the Julian Assange article's talk page? M.Bitton (talk) 23:21, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The removing edit summary referred to the content as "weakly sourced" (as well as UNDUE). This is the noticeboard to discuss the strength or reliability of a source or sources. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><i style="color:#999900">Cambial </i><b style="color:#218000">foliage❧</b> 23:24, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a difference between discussing the sources and starting a RfC about the inclusion of some content (which is subject to consensus). M.Bitton (talk) 23:32, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The preamble addresses this. Both reliability of sources and npov have been cited as a reason for removal. There cannot be a separate rfc for each aspect, so that noticeboard has been notified as has the article talk. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><i style="color:#999900">Cambial </i><b style="color:#218000">foliage❧</b> 23:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Some of the sources like The Guardian are reliable. If the material is DUE is another matter and this should indeed normally be discussed at the article's talk page.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 23:44, 28 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Have you tried discussing the issue with and other page watchers before launching the RfC, per WP:RFCBEFORE? If not, I suggest you withdraw this RfC, try to do that, and then if necessary reopen the RfC at Talk:Julian Assange.  JBchrch   talk  23:55, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I first added the removed content to Julian Assange, and I support waiting for consensus to restore it. I cannot speak for the editor who called it "weakly sourced," yet being familiar with the discussion (which only just started 8 hours ago), I believe the issue is not the reliability of any particular source, but with the fact that all sources to date rehash a single, 2-day-old Yahoo! News story and provide no original reporting. If we include this content under such circumstances, we must trust not multiple sources but one source that, no matter how reliable it may generally be, has not in this instance been independently corroborated. That is its weakness, and since the item relates such explosive accusations about living people—in particular, then-President Donald Trump and then-CIA director Mike Pompeo—we have genuine cause for concern. Basketcase2022 (talk) 00:03, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * As with almost any investigative news story one could name over the past century, this was broken by one news organization before others. Other papers have subsequently picked up on the story and sought their own commentary from the involved parties. As the text above contains content about neither Pompeo nor Trump the concern expressed about claimed "accusations" towards those individuals is misplaced. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><i style="color:#999900">Cambial </i><b style="color:#218000">foliage❧</b> 01:52, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Approving restoration of content sourced to either the 2-day-old Yahoo! News story or other uncorroborated reports based on it opens the floodgate for adding that story's other sensationalistic elements, such as their scandalous allegations against Trump and Pompeo. To expect otherwise is naïve. Is that really what we want to do? Basketcase2022 (talk) 02:17, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * whatever we do, let’s not rely on a tiresomely obvious logical fallacy in doing so. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><i style="color:#999900">Cambial </i><b style="color:#218000">foliage❧</b> 07:45, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Update: Since the disputed content, still based on this single source, has now been restored, I look forward to seeing how it plays out. Naturally I hope for the best. Basketcase2022 (talk) 12:45, 29 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Bad RfC Are you asking us to evaluate whether specific content is due in the article? There are several other considerations beyond reliability here. This board is not the correct place for this RfC. I imagine that this would be best handled on the article talk page if you would like an RfC, or on the NPOV noticeboard if you’d like more unstructured discussion. RSN is a place for evaluating a particular source's reliability, not the inclusion of specific content. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:34, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

THis is not an RS issue, as it is a wp:undue issue.Slatersteven (talk) 09:58, 29 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't think there should be an RfC on this either here or at UNDUE. It is a conduct issue and personally I'm fed up of lists of WP:TLAs edit comments reverting any changes they don't like instead of being specific or doing something else constructive. NadVolum (talk) 14:06, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Then take it to wp:ani, this is about sources, not users.Slatersteven (talk) 09:16, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I only see a single source in the first diff, why does the opening statement suggest that the edit summary from that diff applied to all four sources provided? That seems to be either a mistake or deeply and profoundly misleading. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 05:49, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * All four sources had been identified and linked to on article talk in a section devoted to that aspect of the article before that edit was made. All were in the article when it was removed at the second diff. So it’s neither a mistake nor misleading. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><i style="color:#999900">Cambial </i><b style="color:#218000">foliage❧</b> 06:42, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * But the justification for the second revert wasn’t the same as the first, it was "No consensus for inclusion” which is an entirely different argument from an entirely different editor. If there isn’t a mistake to correct there then yeah, thats disturbingly misleading... Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:30, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Apparently you were the only one disturbed or misled. If you can indicate what I wrote that you think is inaccurate, and it is inaccurate, I'll edit it. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><i style="color:#999900">Cambial </i><b style="color:#218000">foliage❧</b> 16:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * You need to make it clear that there are two distinct versions of “The below content” (one with the single source and one with the four sources) and you need to include the fact that the second edit was not on reliability or due weight grounds. At the very least you need to add "The sources when it was reverted the second time are as follows” and note that the additional three sources hadn’t been challenged at all on reliability grounds the way Yahoo! News had and as such aren’t really part of the question you’ve brought here. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:41, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That's what you think I should do, not what you think is inaccurate. Consider the question repeated. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><i style="color:#999900">Cambial </i><b style="color:#218000">foliage❧</b> 16:48, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * You say "The below content” when there are actually two different “below contents” (one with the single source and one with the four sources). You imply that both edits are on reliability and due weight grounds, but that is inaccurate as the second edit is on consensus grounds. You say that the reliability of those four sources has been questioned but it hasn’t been (at least not in the diffs provided here), only Yahoo! News’s reliability has been questioned. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:53, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Fighter Pilots, RADAR operators, Civilian Pilots, Amateur Astronomers, Astronomers, Missile Operators, AWACS and Military High Commands
With reference to this conversation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pentagon_UFO_videos#Issues_with_NPOV_on_this_page, can we establish how reliable these actors are?Chantern15 (talk) 00:18, 27 September 2021 (UTC)chantern15
 * It's impossible to establish how accurate the claims are of such a wide swath of people. I know pilots I would trust with my life and pilots I wouldn't trust with a ham sandwich. Buffs (talk) 05:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There are no personages whose statements are automatically assumed by Wikipedia to be accurate, authoritative, and notable. It all depends on context and sourcing. Things published on a blog, heard on a podcast, quoted secondhand in a single news story, etc. are treated differently on Wikipedia than a widely-reported statement of military policy from the Joint Chiefs Of Staff, for example. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:17, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Basically, what was said above. One would need more context to make sense of the question.  Sully Sullenberger may well be a reliable source for what landing on a river is like, but he may well NOT be a reliable source for, say, airline food preparation or software glitches.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your responses. My thoughts would be, when looking at UFO reports, more specifically, the 1-9% (Uruguayan report unexplained 2%, Blue Book, excellent data and unexplained ~7%, of course unclear how much of the 2% of the 2100 sightings in the Uruguayan report was excellent data, hence I have written 1-9%) which have excellent data but are unexplained, i.e. what one could call "True UFOs", how reliable would the reports of such observers be? For example missile operators in Montana (Rtd. Captain Robert Salas at Malmstrom AFB) reported that an UFO, or a group of UFOs over decades interfered (shut down missiles for ex., a no-go state) with nuclear missiles while they were in silos. So, with the mentioned examples, how reliable would we consider such reports from such individuals? I know that this is a broad net to cast, but if one of these people said, "I had solid RADAR-visual contact/s", "Or one of my subordinates did", how would or should Wikipedia weigh such statements?Chantern15 (talk) 00:20, 29 September 2021 (UTC)chantern15
 * We're getting closer to contextualization, but for me, we're still not there. Was this said to, say, National Geographic?  Or the Washington Post?  Or was it said in passing in a private conversation?  Such reports will largely, in my experience, be inescapably tied to the medium in which they are found.  If you have a specific example, feel free to let us know.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 00:41, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm giving an internal link from Wikipedia, but this case is probably a good representation of what I am talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington,_D.C._UFO_incidentChantern15 (talk) 03:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC)chantern15
 * an UFO, or a group of UFOs over decades interfered (shut down missiles for ex., a no-go state) with nuclear missiles while they were in silos. If true, this would be the most important story of the century with serious, extensive coverage in all major newspapers and media with accompanying statements from the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senate Intelligence Committee, the Pentagon, etc. Yet it can only be found buried in the dark corners of UFOlogy or treated in passing as an anecdotal curiosity by some regional and national media, hence WP:EXTRAORDINARY, WP:SENSATIONAL and WP:FRINGE apply. - LuckyLouie (talk) 01:55, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I have links for what I mentioned here: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/09/ufo-science-classes-us-students, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/arts/television/project-blue-book-history-true-story.html, https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/airmen-govt-clean-ufos/story?id=11738715, https://theconversation.com/are-we-alone-the-question-is-worthy-of-serious-scientific-study-98843, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/20/us/ufo-sightings-history-scn-trnd/index.html, https://www.fox61.com/article/news/local/outreach/awareness-months/aliens-flying-discs-and-sightings-oh-my-a-short-history-of-ufos-in-america/520-f8c16e40-f61c-4903-8554-aa16c5feab7b, https://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/27/ufos-showed-interest-in-nukes-ex-air-force-personnel-say/, https://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s3023532.htm, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-air-force-personnel-ufos-deactivated-nukes/, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/01/19/what-were-those-mysterious-craft/1b9d1f3d-dddb-4a92-87b3-0143aa5d7a3e/, https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/washington-post-live/wplive/uaps-have-taken-us-nuclear-capabilities-offline-says-former-aatip-director/2021/06/08/26d751bb-4116-4e48-93e7-6c89568ff30a_video.html, https://www.wired.com/2010/09/tinfoil-tuesdays-ufos-neutered-nukes-air-force-officers-claim/, https://www.nicap.org/babylon/missile_incidents.htm, http://www.cufon.org/cufon/malmstrom/malm1.htm, https://www.military.com/video/nuclear-bombs/nuclear-weapons/ufo-disarms-nuclear-missiles/946264668001, https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2017/02/26/mansch-montana-ufo-sighting-still-resonates/98452858/, https://www.nbcnews.com/science/cosmic-log/aliens-land-headlines-flna6c10403785, https://www.the-sun.com/news/3125848/ufos-shut-down-nukes-us-base/, https://www.livescience.com/10146-ufos-disarm-nuclear-weapons.html, https://www.vice.com/en/article/kwkp79/a-bunch-of-alien-lovers-held-a-fake-congressional-hearing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOt-vuGjq98 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzdYD10u168. Unfortunately no senate intelligence hearings, but I don't know what goes on the classified ones, whether they may or may not have discussed this.Chantern15 (talk) 03:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC)chantern15
 * Hard to tell from the ref bombing above, but I think you may be referring to one of the "UFO disclosure" publicity events/mock hearings held at the National Press Club over the years by UFO conspiracy believers. If so, the 2010 one could be briefly mentioned here if it already isn't. Regarding how reliable 'retired military people' are and how much weight should Wikipedia give them, "military, so reliable" isn't a thing here on Wikipedia, so we can only reflect how our non-sensational sources covered any statements made by them at these publicity events, i.e. as extraordinary claims. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:20, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that Wikipedia itself has catalogued this incident here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book#Post-Blue_Book_U.S.A.F._UFO_activities and mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AList_of_UFO-related_hoaxes#Possible_COI_issues, 9th reference. The book source in the post-blue book usaf activities, should probably be a reliable source for this not being a hoax and being a genuine ufo sighting? Blum, Howard, Out There: The Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials, Simon and Schuster, 1990Chantern15 (talk) 00:11, 1 October 2021 (UTC)chantern15

Is https://www.newsclick.in/ reliable source?
Is this website reliable for wikipedia articles? There is no neutrality in this website. The website propagates a leftist view which lack neutrality. About us in this website dictates as follows " NewsClick’s aim has always been to report, in depth, on news and views ignored by corporate media, whose agenda is dictated by the rich and powerful in the country." These lines emotes the behavior of the website which has some agenda itself. The editor's leftist views are witnessed from this website "https://cpim.org/tags/prabir-purkayastha" which is a political party in India. How can a sympathizer of a political party can be neutral? The reliability of this website is in question. Need discussion on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Universalrahu (talk • contribs) 01:06, 1 October 2021 (UTC)


 * From Reliable sources: "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." Neutrality and 'reliability' are two different things. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:33, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Please check universalrahu's edits he is removing everything by saying POV in a casteist film. He is asking this now to remove some content which is criticism of caste pride.2409:4072:6C9F:42AA:7B21:32FD:F907:DBC4 (talk) 04:49, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

German website(possibly selling archival material?)
I stumbled upon this website being used as a reference;
 * 

Specifically this part;
 * 

used in Elisabeth of Romania. Thoughts? --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:37, 1 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The website is a state archive, so the source is almost certainly authentic. It is however a primary source, and over 100 years old, so I'd suspect that WP:OR may be involved. What is it being cited for? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:57, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The problem here is probably less the citation itself (as this is the relevant finding aid of the State Archive of Sigmaringen) and more the weight this part of her archives is given. I, personally, would either strive to give a more complete overview of the current locations of her papers, or delete this sentence altogether. HHill (talk) 08:30, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Can you ever add cn tags to texts from century old encyclopedias?
As examples, the Jewish and Catholic Encyclopedias. I recall adding some cn tags to an article that was almost all from the Jewish Encyclopedia, only to have them all removed on the grounds the JE is a reliable source. Sadly I can't recall the article. This applies of course to other very old tertiary sources. I can see where maybe a reference to old scholarship in such an encyclopedia could be an rs, but even then I would be concerned that opinions may have changed, there might have been new discoveries, etc. Doug Weller  talk 11:10, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I would have said no, as they are cited, the RS tag would be the one if you think they are not an RS. I would also say that without good reason (I.E. an RS contradicting it) there is no reason to assume they are not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 11:17, 29 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I would say “cn” is the wrong tag. The text is cited. The issue is that the cited source is likely out of date, and needs to be replaced with something more modern. We need a different tag for indicating that. Not sure which one, however. Blueboar (talk) 12:01, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * better source needed ? JBchrch   talk  12:30, 29 September 2021 (UTC)


 * In general, I would say that if a source is from the Enlightenment or later I would consider it sufficiently reliable for use for all but the most exceptional claims, but care does have to be taken, and if they are contradicted by more modern sources then the more modern source should be given greater weight of consideration.
 * I will note that this doesn't always apply; sometimes we require more modern sources, such as in Medicine, and other times we can use ancient sources, such as Euclid's Elements in Mathematics (although I might question their use, as these reliable sources have been extensively covered by more modern source). To a certain extent this is a judgement call, and you have to consider how fast a field changes, and the methodology used at the time the source was produced.
 * To address your specific question, I would say to assume those encyclopaedias provide accurate information unless you can find reason to believe otherwise for the specific information cited.
 * I will also mention that I vaguely recall reading a policy or essay that aligns with much of what I wrote, but I cannot find it at the present time. BilledMammal (talk) 12:08, 29 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Possibly a better tag would be Better source needed, and noting your reason in talk - David Gerard (talk) 12:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems fair to tag statements in such articles with something like that, since it's not clear at a glance which uncited statements happen to be taken from the old encyclopedia mentioned at the end of the article and which weren't. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:35, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe Obsolete source, depending on what you're looking at? --Chillabit (talk) 07:29, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * We should avoid using century old encyclopedias as sources where possible, especially for scientific topics where knowledge has considerably advanced since then. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:19, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The Enlightenment! I generally use the 1980s as a good cutoff! Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 05:57, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * In general, I would consider the 1980's as a far too late cut-off; for instance, I am currently writing an article on the 1948 Modus Vivendi between Britain, Canada, and the United States, and to do so I am heavily relying on an excellent 1974 work by Margaret Gowing, as one of the few sources that cover this important agreement (its implications were broad, but the "hook" of it would be that it involved Britain giving up her veto on the use of nuclear weapons by the United States), though supplemented by more modern sources, as well as a '62 work by Richard Hewlett and a '76 work by Peterson et al.
 * With that said, I am a bit of a romantic for old books†, and am probably a little too predisposed towards allowing their use. While tracts from the Enlightenment are from a period where the methodology starts to become recognizable to modern academics, on reflection I would change my above statement back to "post-Enlightenment", and suggest that while Enlightenment works should not be blacklisted, they should only be used carefully and with attribution, for matters that more modern sources have not commented on.
 * Interestingly, I'm not even the worst on this matter; I recently came across an article uncritically using Josephus as a reference (and worse, a bad translation of Josephus) for some truly extraordinary claims!
 * † My current reading material is a second edition (1924) of "A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages" by Charles Oman, and while a decent portion of the work has been superseded, and there are aspects that would not be seen in more modern works, both in terms of moral judgements and terminology, it remains usable with sufficient caution - although I would question why a more modern edition, such as the 1974 revised edition, was not used instead. Incidentally, I think I will add that work to my backlist of articles to write - it is easily notable enough.
 * BilledMammal (talk) 07:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The cutoff really depends on the topic. It should be the period when the consensus for the current view on the particular topic was formed. Anything that is based on sources predating that period, there should be an in-text attribution à la "according to...". If long pieces of text solely depend on such a source, a better source needed-tag is appropriate. –Austronesier (talk) 07:36, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That puts it very well; thank you. BilledMammal (talk) 08:58, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm also thinking that at times we might want to add another opinion for NPOV purposes, and then would have to rewrite some of the text to directly attribute it rather than indirectly through the template. I'll also note that I think it's important to differentiate between encyclopedias and ordinary texts. Doug Weller  talk 09:37, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I think there's plenty of old-as-hell sources that are perfectly (and uncontroversially) usable. Fox Island (Detroit River), for example, is a GA I wrote which cites an 1850 article about an 1820 property sale. I can't think of any reason to claim that as apocryphal. Obviously, textbooks about surgical procedures or electrical engineering from the time will be found wanting, but it's not as though information simply "goes bad" (and, of course, an 1850 textbook about surgical procedures would be an excellent source for how surgery was performed in 1850). jp×g 10:12, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * my question was specifically about encyclopedias, tertiary sources, I don't disagree with you about secondary sources. Doug Weller  talk 06:31, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes they are usable but common sense is needed that in some topics they are more likely to be out of date than others.Spudlace (talk) 05:21, 1 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I think you may be looking for Obsolete source. Platonk (talk) 06:09, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I haven't been aware of the template until this discussion. I think it is very useful – but rarely used:. –Austronesier (talk) 19:53, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

RfC at Julian Assange
Fresh eyes would be helpful at the Julian Assange article -- a troubled page frequented by various self-described fans of Assange, opponents of the US, and disparagers of mainstream media. There is an RfC here regarding a Yahoo News article relating to Assange. Prior discussion of the issue is found here in a long thread that gives some background on the issue and the preceding edit war. who commented here previously.<b style="color: #0011FF;"> SPECIFICO</b> talk 22:04, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Specifico has once again given his tendentious and misleading hot take on well-sourced content he apparently dislikes. Contrary to the above, and as already described on this noticeboard in an earlier post, the article content is sourced from outlets like The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Intercept,The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, BBC News, and The Hill alongside the extensive article from Yahoo News. Specifico's determination to rid the article of any content critical of the actions of the UK and US governments, regardless of the institution from which the criticism comes, has evidently got the better of him. The quite flagrant canvassing is not appreciated. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000"><i style="color:#999900">Cambial </i><b style="color:#218000">foliage❧</b> 22:49, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

THis is not neutrally worded, and all editors need to lay off trying to dismiss other user's opinions on the grounds of bias. Nor am I sure this is even an RS issue.Slatersteven (talk) 09:54, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Just to let people know, I pinged, and  to the RfC directly on the talk page since they were not pinged here. I felt it fairest to ensure all participants of that closed RfC were pinged especially PaleoNeonate who's exclusion was I assume a mistake. But it doesn't make sense to me to ping someone to a discussion telling them to go somewhere else. Nil Einne (talk) 23:53, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Can we ban think tanks as legitimate sources in wikipedia?
Hope I'm posting this in the correct place. Could we ban think tanks as legitimate sources in wikipedia? Think tanks are rarely neutral and are usually just used to push the agenda and even misinformation on behalf of their funders. Take Wikipedia own article on think tanks for example. Under "Advocacy by think tanks" It gives an example of Philip Morris using a think tank to dispute the link between second hand smoke and cancer. From the article:

"In some cases, corporate interests[35] and political groups have found it useful to create policy institutes, advocacy organizations, and think tanks. For example, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition was formed in the mid-1990s to dispute research finding an association between second-hand smoke and cancer.[36] According to an internal memorandum from Philip Morris Companies referring to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), "The credibility of the EPA is defeatable, but not on the basis of ETS [environmental tobacco smoke] alone,... It must be part of a larger mosaic that concentrates all the EPA's enemies against it at one time."[37]

According to the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, both left-wing and right-wing policy institutes are often quoted and rarely identified as such. The result is that think tank "experts" are sometimes depicted as neutral sources without any ideological predispositions when, in fact, they represent a particular perspective.[38][39] In the United States, think tank publications on education are subjected to expert review by the National Education Policy Center's "Think Twice" think tank review project.[40]"

This article on prescription drug prices (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescription_drug_prices_in_the_United_States) is a clear example of misinformation on wikipedia due to think tank sources. The article claims that "One major reason for high prescription drug prices in the United States relative to other countries is the inability of government-granted monopolies in the U.S. health care sector to use their bargaining power to negotiate lower prices and that the US payer ends up subsidizing the world's R&D spending on drugs" and uses the think tank itif as a source. If you look at who funds the itif here: https://itif.org/our-supporters You can see they are funded by many large Pharma companies such as Pfizer who have a clear financial interest in spreading such misinformation.

PLEASE ban think tanks as legitimate sources on wikipedia. These sources are allowing disinformation making it's way into the articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.146.29.240 (talk • contribs) 21:08, 3 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I have converted your reference to WP's page on Think tanks into a clickable link, I hope that's okay? The key sentences from that article are "Think tanks range from those associated with highly academic or scholarly activities to those that are overtly ideological and pushing for particular policy, with widely differing quality of research among them. Later generations of think tanks have tended to be more ideologically-oriented." An outright ban on quoting from think-tanks might not be appropriate because of those few that are academic and scholarly, but I think you are quite right, we should treat think-tanks with a great deal of suspicion, because of their tendency to be ideological and biased. In a way, it's a bit like newspapers. We disregard the Daily Mail, but we trust the Guardian. But the bias of think-tanks is rarely as well-known. So I have some sympathy with your position! Think tanks can also be a reliable source for the point of view of their funders and founders. For example, the European Research Group (which is a sort-of think-tank) in the UK isn't a reliable source for information or research on Europe; it's a reliable source for the opinions of the virulently anti-European, and could be used as such, in a balanced article, set against the opposing views of a think-tank of extreme Europhiles. Elemimele (talk) 20:16, 3 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Wikipedia editors are not children, and they are smart enough to make nuanced and granular decisions. Accordingly, blanket bans of that nature are almost always a sub-par way of addressing problems. To your point: while most think thanks are unreliable in most circumstances, there are some articles that could not be written without material from the Council on Foreign Relations, and some publications by the Brookings Institution are the most thorough and neutral accounts on certain issues. As always, reliability depends on the context, the author, and the claim to be supported. JBchrch   talk  20:27, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. First, a reliable source doesn't have to be "neutral". Second, your example from the article on U.S. drug prices doesn't make sense. The sentence cites two other sources in addition to ITIF, namely, a review article in JAMA and a report of the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. I don't see the logic of your claim that this sentence, which complains of high drug prices, is in the financial self-interest of Pfizer. The sentence is poorly written, but it's not poorly sourced. Think tanks as sources need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and whether they're RS or not depends on which think tank it is and what it's being cited for. NightHeron (talk) 20:28, 3 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose. It makes no sense to blanketly ban think tanks. As mentions, there is useful information sourced to think tanks that helps us to build more substantial articles. Many think tanks are WP:BIASED, but this doesn’t mean that they are unreliable. As noted on WP:RSP, Cato Institute is reliable for describing libertarianism in the United States even if it has a libertarian bias. And, the use of biased sources is generally fine, provided that the sources are weighted properly so as to maintain a neutral point of view. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 20:56, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Opposed - Except for truly fringe viewpoints, the way to deal with any bias that a think tank may have is to use in-text attribution, not a ban. Tell the reader who says what. Please read WP:NPOV. Blueboar (talk) 22:08, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose a broad ban; while some uses of think tanks are inappropriate or require avoiding wikivoice, not all will. I will also note that there was a fairly comprehensive discussion of this topic here back in May that might interest those reading this. Vahurzpu (talk) 22:19, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. Some thinktanks are much better than others, some are much worse, and almost all would be reliable for some claims in some instances. Should be taken on a case by case basis. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:38, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose This proposal is painting think tanks with too broad a brush. There are some very good think tanks that we should be able to use as sources, and some very bad ones that should be deprecated, and everything in between.  A judgement needs to be made about each think tank on a case by case basis about whether it can be used a source for facts and/or a source representing a particular ideology. - GretLomborg (talk) 21:16, 4 October 2021 (UTC)


 * weak oppose I would like to see some good think tank example first. Brooklyn looks alright. On the support see:https://theintercept.com/2021/09/15/pentagon-funding-think-tanks/ Greatder (talk) 12:18, 5 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose I can see the concern but why would we ban think tanks in general but where does this logically lead?  Why then wouldn't we ban activist organizations of all types?  In many ways a group like the ACLU is similar to a think tank.  They investigate things that are of interest to the organization's focus and they come at problems with a POV.  Their POV may be altruistic in a way that we don't expect of say a think tank funded by a timber logging organization or a for profit hospital organization.  At the same time these organizations can provide good content/data aggregation/analysis of proposed policies etc. Springee (talk) 12:38, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

The Irish Times
Hello everyone, I wanted to inquire about whether or not The Irish Times is a generally reliable source. When I checked the Perennial Sources list, I didn't see it appear anywhere, and as a result I wasn't able to find a definitive answer for its reliability. At a glance I saw it was used in over 18,000 pages, and certainly an outlet like this wouldn't have appeared so often on Wikipedia articles without someone eventually questioning it. However, I couldn't find any actual discussions on the source's reliability in detail (or at least any one I could find without spending an entire day wading through every one of them). So this leads me to believe The Irish Times is either "a stellar source" that never "needed to be talked about because it was so obvious," or that "the source is so obviously poor it never merited discussion." But seeing as how it's been cited over 18,000 times as aforementioned, this leads me to believe it falls in the former category. Personally, I think it's reliable but I'm still somewhat of a novice in determining the reliability of sources. What are your thoughts? PantheonRadiance (talk) 02:17, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * A lot of back and forth about its political alignment on its Talk Page. Might be helpful. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 02:22, 4 October 2021 (UTC)


 * That's not how RSP works - things are on there because there's discussion of them, it was never intended as a catalogue of all the things. Do you have a specific issue of discussion in mind? - David Gerard (talk) 06:43, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * That's why I wanted to discuss the IT here in the first place, because most of the previous threads I saw which involved the source only trivially talked about its reliability, if at all. It was unclear to me what Wikipedia thought about the source as a whole however, so I asked here in hopes to generate an actual discussion on it. In terms of a specific issue, that’s a bit harder for me to identify mainly because the source has been used in a plethora of articles ranging from various topics, such as current events, politics, economy, pop culture, BLPs and so on. So I was thinking more along the lines of whether or not the source is generally reliable for all sorts of topics, akin to The New York Times. PantheonRadiance (talk) 18:35, 4 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I've read it a number of times and it certainly seemed a straightforward reliable news type newspaper to me and it has wide coverage. It is available in Britain as well as Ireland. NadVolum (talk) 13:37, 4 October 2021 (UTC)


 * As far as I am aware its accuracy has never really been called into doubt.Slatersteven (talk) 13:38, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh okay, thanks. I was hoping that the outlet seemed reliable too. PantheonRadiance (talk) 18:35, 4 October 2021 (UTC)


 * It's reliable in the sense most broadsheet newspapers are (Guardian, Times, Washington Post) full of undeclared biases, but they try to avoid publishing things that are factually incorrect. You can use it without attribution for almost anything unless it is contradicted by better academic sources. Its biases are in favour of liberal (i.e. "free market") economics and against radical political change, so right to centre-right on economics. It has a pro-nationalist perspective in terms of all-Ireland politics. Nowadays it is socially liberal in Irish terms, less so in the past. But I'm a raging Communist and I use it, so I'd say its biases seldom cause problems.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:45, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Dispute about a sentence in Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin
This sentence is in dispute -

"The book prompted a counter-publication by the group which included ad hominem of Abrahamian"

This is what the source used for this statement is saying -

"It must be emphasised from the outset that information about the MeK is politically highly charged and commonly provokes a reaction by either the organisation or the Iranian Government. Virtually every publication about the MeK is followed by a counter-publication..." [Footnote]: "Often ad hominem discrediting their authors: … Abrahamian, above n 1, was followed by a critique by the MeK-affiliated Association of Committed Professors of Iranian Universities: Association of Committed Professors of Iranian Universities, Facts and Myths on the People’s Mojahedin of Iran: Examples of the Lies, Distortions and Fabrications in Ervand Abrahamian’s The Iranian Mojahedin (Association of Committed Professors of Iranian Universities, 1990)." Is "the MeK-affiliated Association of Committed Professors of Iranian Universities" the same as saying the "MeK" itself? Is the content in the article synthesizing a conclusion that the author did not give, or does the content match the source? (I am pinging who is the one I'm having this dispute with). Ypatch (talk) 05:55, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The authors say yes to this question. I have pointed this out. Pahlevun (talk) 10:40, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Is this WP:CIRCULAR
This book is being discussed on Talk:Bakarkhani. The book was published on Mar 2, 2020 and the description of 'Bakarkhani' there is quite similar to earlier versions of the article dated 11 April 2019 and earlier. Is that a reliable source or an example of circular reference? Note that I have taken a position at the talk page arguing against the book. Za-ari-masen (talk) 21:08, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It is a reliable source and not a case of circular reference. User:Worldbruce has provided excellent arguments in Talk:Bakarkhani, which I fully support. –Austronesier (talk) 07:56, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Is 24smi.org reliable? (Russian website)
This 24smi.org article is used as a source in Svetlana Krivonogikh's article. 24smi.org looks like a tabloid gossip website to me, so I removed it but another user added it back in saying it was reliable. Is it really considered reliable in Russia? I cannot find any information about it but I am not Russian. (In Krivonogikh's article, it it used as a citation for her patronymic, Alexandrovna. When the other user reincluded it, they added another source from istories.media (ru:Важные истории) to back this up, so I am not disputing that Alexandrovna is her patronymic.) Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 20:56, 6 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Yeah, "another user" is me. I speak Russian and I edit mainly Russia-related articles so I know when this source can be used and when not. And I would not recommend others to blindly use it if they are not sure. If you want to remove 24smi - do it, I don't care. Renat  21:28, 6 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I've never heard of them before but I haven't found any concerns raised about their reliability. For such a trivial matter as the patronymic they should be okay. Alaexis¿question? 21:11, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Page describing the organisation and activities of a provincial sporting federation
I would like to create an article decribing our provincial climbing federation in the Western Cape South AFrica. Are there special considerations that I should be aware of. I created a link to the federation facebook page which elicited a warning? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChrisNaude (talk • contribs)


 * A Facebook page isn't a reliable source. Also, if it's your organisation, you have a conflict of interest and shouldn't create/edit the article directly. ClaudineChionh (talk) 10:13, 9 October 2021 (UTC)


 * First and foremost, you will need to establish that the federation is WP:notable… for that, you will need external sources that talk about the federation in reasonable detail. These sources need to be unconnected with the federation itself. While you can cite the official webpage (or similar) for specific details, you need more than that to establish notability. Blueboar (talk) 12:09, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Was murderpedia blacklisted?
I found this discussion in the archives that pretty unequivocally indicated that we'd blacklist murderpedia.org for copyright issues, SPS, and circular references back to Wikipedia. However, I'm not finding it listed anywhere in our deprecated sources. Am I just bad at looking, or did this never get executed?&#32;-- Fyrael (talk) 15:42, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The result of the discussion i.e. black listing did happen, see MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. Feel free to add it to the perennial sources list. I don't know what the norms are here but don't think it matters much. I assume we don't list every blacklisted site there. Do we list every site which was discussed at RSN? Or just sites people feel are commonly used enough and/or likely to be confused as usable source that they may be an issue? Remembering that ultimately if it's on the blacklist, listing on RSPS doesn't matter much to the usage of the source. Blacklisting means people can't link to it except by asking for it to be whitelisted for some specific usage which means they would likely need to find out why it was blacklisted. The main problem would people check out RSPS and don't Murderpedia so write an edit citing Murderpedia perhaps with significant new content added, then try to submit and find they can't due to a blacklist site and get annoyed/demoralised. Well I guess a small number might remove the link while still citing Murderpedia or just without a source even though they wouldn't have tried to make an edit if they saw Murderpedia on RSPS, but IMO any editor who does that needs to seriously consider how they edit. I'd say a bigger issue is that we need to work on removing the many usages that still exist. Nil Einne (talk) 12:56, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Those usage can easily be found with this search. WP:UPSD will help locate them within an article too. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:32, 9 October 2021 (UTC)