Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 365

David Price writing in Counterpunch in Edward Said
Counterpunch was deprecated in this RFC, a decision that is being discussed up above in. But at Edward Said, David Price is used in writing in about his finding FBI surveillance of Said. Price is the author Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists published by Duke University Press, and he is professor of anthropology and sociology at Saint Martin's University and author of a number of peer-reviewed journal articles (see his ResearchGate profile for examples). This specific Counterpunch article is also cited in academic journals, for example this article in Third World Quarterly published by Taylor & Francis discusses Price's findings at length (page 753). The citation has been removed and then tagged as unreliable. Is this article by David Price, an established expert published on specifically the topic of the US government surveillance of academics, writing in Counterpunch a reliable source for his finding the FBI surveilled Edward Said in the article Edward Said? I would like to avoid the wider discussion on deprecation being right or wrong here, and focus on if this source is reliable in this context?  nableezy  - 21:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't want to discuss the deprecation of this particular source (in general I think we err on the side of deprecation too much) but I'd like to note that you can use other sources for this claim, for example The Nation, which is green now: . Alaexis¿question? 21:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, Price's findings are covered in the Nation as well, which references his Counterpunch article (where it says "David Price is a professor of anthropology at St. Martin’s University in Washington State. As anyone glancing through his excellent book Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists will know, Price is expert at getting secret government documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Last year, on behalf of the newsletter CounterPunch (which I co-edit), Price requested the FBI’s file on Said."). Just like the Third World Quarterly article. My question is if Price's article itself is a reliable source for Price's findings.  nableezy  - 21:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. The appropriateness of his CounterPunch piece can't be seriously contested (except as an inference from the deprecation designation, i.e. by ignoring the fact that he fits the best criteria advised by WP:RS). We need the deprecation review context to avoid the time-consuming bother of repeatedly coming here to justify the inclusion of fine scholarly sources because some editors are taking deprecation as holy writ and Price is merely one recent victim of that holy war of blanket good riddancy.Nishidani (talk) 21:42, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No, instead use the source that Alaexis provided. It seems to be an example of depreciation working in practice, where information that does not belong on the encylopedia is kept out, while information that does can be found elsewhere; if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources. BilledMammal (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

We literally have Generally Reliable sources for the specific claim. There is absolutely no necessity to add a deprecated source to an article to achieve full NPOV coverage. You don't want to accept the broad general consensus to deprecate, but you don't get to enforce your personal lack of acceptance - David Gerard (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Your edit is obscene. Generally unreliable or even deprecated does not mean blacklisted and to be removed on sight. Honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself for removing a source cited in a number of peer-reviewed works.  nableezy  - 21:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It does, however, presume that the source is bad, and overcoming that is not achieved by revert-warring and personal attacks - David Gerard (talk) 21:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, and if you had even pretended to read this section you would see evidence to overcome that presumption. You are removing things you are not even looking at, and you should be stopped.  nableezy  - 22:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That you put a claimed justification is insufficient to overcome the presumption. Also, you're literally declaring an intent to be an edit warrior here - is that what you meant to do? - David Gerard (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, what? Where did I declare any such intent? And did you even pretend to read any of the sources you just removed? Or are you going to ignore our policies, which require that each source use be examined in context.  nableezy  - 22:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Since apparently the only way to cite works published by scholars is to de-deprecate Counterpunch, and because we now have an editor in David Gerard going on an editing rampage removing unquestionably solid sources, I will start an RFC to that effect.  nableezy  - 21:57, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes it is a rampage that is disturbing because it is taking place while the de-deprecation review is current and not closed. No need to complicate this by opening a third venue. The gravamen of this spate of reverts while we are reviewing this, preempting the review conclusions, should be noted in the section above on de-deprecation.Nishidani (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No, that's not how it works. The source is deprecated. As has been pointed out already, you'd need to rerun the RFC to reverse it - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:DEPS says exactly the opposite.  nableezy  - 22:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If it was "unquestionable", multiple editors wouldn't be questioning it - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Where exactly is there any response to David Price writing in Counterpunch being a reliable source here? Who has questioned that?  nableezy  - 22:17, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You have already admitted in this section we already have an RS for the claim that isn't Counterpunch. You don't need Counterpunch at all for this. You're just attempting to get a deprecated source in even when it's redundant - David Gerard (talk) 22:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I am attempting to use the actual source here. David Price is the person who uncovered the FBI surveillance of Said. He is an expert on the topic of the US surveilling academic activists. Why would he not be cited by us when he is cited in peer-reviewed journal articles?  nableezy  - 22:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * And we have editors in the other discussion saying it's OK (including myself) and up there and down here saying it's not. We can't go on like that. The deprecation "policy" needs an add.Selfstudier (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The deprecation guideline already disallows the indiscriminate removal, despite the bluster of David when he says No, that's not how it works. The source is deprecated. It actually is how it works, WP:DEPS requires each use be examined, not indiscriminately removed.  nableezy  - 22:28, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * As I already pointed out to you at WP:ANI - your fourth thread on literally the same dispute - DEPS is an information page, listing the results of deprecation RFCs. It specifically disclaims being even a guideline, let alone a policy. It cannot require anything whatsoever. You're citing the explanatory text for an information listing as if it's hard policy. It is not - David Gerard (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * ANI is about your editing, not about any one source. Kindly dont muddy the waters here.  nableezy  - 22:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Note: Nableezy has brought this particular sourcing question to a fourth thread on WP:ANI - David Gerard (talk) 23:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No I brought your indiscriminate removal of sources, including ABOUTSELF links and sources not Counterpunch but removed because you are editing in a careless manner, to ANI. Please do not muddy the waters. Your user conduct is discussed on ANI, not any source.  nableezy  - 23:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Am I not understanding this here, or is there a reason why you can't simply use the secondary citations? Counterpunch's reliability is irrelevant when citing a reliable secondary source describing or summarizing something published in Counterpunch (with the obvious caveat that that means you can only base the article on what is said in that secondary source.) In fact, that's the usual way we cover significant things that are written or which occur in unreliable publications. Whether or not you can cite it via SPS, it doesn't matter, because SPS is a weak way of citing things - if a better / non-SPS source exists for the same statement, removing the weaker source is obvious irrespective of whether the weaker source would otherwise meet the threshold for usability. --Aquillion (talk) 03:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I dont think it is a weak source here, it is specifically cited in other reliable sources, and WP:UBO would seem to say that if this specific article is treated as reliable by other reliable sources, then it is also reliable. I actually think this is a much better citation than The Nation, Cockburn is just relaying what the actual expert reported. We should cite the most authoritative source, and here it is Price. Also, the sources that cover it do so by covering Price uncovering the information from his FOI request and his writing about it in CP. The incident has weight, per its coverage in multiple sources, and the source is an established expert on this specific topic. Not even just generally anthropology and the relationship with the government and academics, but specifically on the US government surveillance of activist academics. Why wouldn't we actually cite him?  nableezy  - 04:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * A SPS is a weak source by definition - that's why WP:SPS says to use them cautiously. The strongest source is of course an expert published in a reliable publisher, but I would generally consider a secondary source describing the position of an expert to be a stronger source than a direct citation to the expert unless the place where the secondary source is published is noticeably weaker, even in cases where the expert was published in a RS, let alone in cases where the expert wasn't published in an RS. The secondary source adds the weight and reputation of its publisher, as well as the WP:DUE weight of the primary source receiving secondary coverage in a reputable source, while covering (and therefore reinforcing) the reputation and significance of the primary source in a way that lets us directly discuss it as part of an in-line citation without risk of synthesis. --Aquillion (talk) 04:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree that a SPS by an established expert is a weak source. The use cautiously is in relation to SPS sources as a whole, including by non-experts. But what it says is Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. They may be considered reliable, not weakly reliable, not so-so. When somebody has a history of academic expertise in a specific topic, and I dont see anybody disputing that Price is that in this specific topic, then they are the source. They are reliable. And it would honestly be silly to have in our article that David Price, writing for Counterpunch, uncovered the FBI surveillance program of Said and not cite that article. If people want to argue that SPS should not be used in general they can make that argument, but that isnt what our policy says.  nableezy  - 04:56, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If I understand the situation, there are reliable secondary sources that point directly to Price's articles in Counterpunch. In most cases, when a RS goes "According to an article published in (other RS)" we should always follow the source and use the original ("other RS") article. In a case where we have a weak or non-RS as that "other RS", it is reasonable to include both the original article alongside the referring RS to provide both the original context and evidence that a reliable source trusts that work as well for this purpose. This is not always required, particularly if the original source is a clearly no-go as an acceptable source, but in this case, a Price article on Counterpunch is not going to be that critical an issue. --M asem (t) 18:50, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * David Price, as a Professor of Anthropology specialised in surveillance, is clearly exactly the kind of established subject-matter expert that WP:SPS goes out of its way to note may be considered reliable when published in other independent, reliable sources, like Price has been, in Anthropology Today and Critique of Anthropology. Unless there is specific evidence that Counterpunch doctors its op-eds/commentaries from subject-matter experts, it is rather moot whether Counterpunch is reliable, generally unreliable or deprecated, because Price is still a subject-matter expert. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

RFC: Counterpunch
Should articles published in CounterPunch be treated as WP:SPS? Nableezy 22:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC) initial question was phrased Should articles written by established academic experts (as discussed in WP:SPS) writing in Counterpunch be de-deprecated and treated as WP:SPS?

Notified: centralized discussion]]. Selfstudier (talk) 12:40, 23 December 2021 (UTC) Removed from CENT on 24 December.Selfstudier (talk) 13:53, 4 January 2022 (UTC) *No It's impossible to de-deprecate specific articles, deprecation applies to the medium the articles appear in. And Counterpunch as medium has already been deprecated for lack of editorial control and for pushing fringe articles. If the author is an established expert, it should be incredibly easy to find other actually reliable sources for the same claime. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC) EDIT: struck because the RFC question changed. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes - In the above example we have an author of scholarship focused specifically on the topic of the US government surveillance of academics is writing about that topic, and whose column is covered in peer-reviewed journal articles (see cites here or this). Nobody is challenging that Counterpunch also publishes things that are not suitable as a reliable source. It however also does publish the work of numerous academic experts, and that work is being indiscriminately removed from our articles. If David Price wrote this on his geocities page it would be usable per WP:SPS. There is no reason to treat the work of an established academic expert as being less reliable due to it being on Counterpunch as opposed to it being on their personal blog. Nobody is arguing that Counterpunch articles by non-experts should be cited here. But here, we have a very real example of actual scholarship being removed from our articles. And that should be reversed.  nableezy  - 22:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Further comment. It is incredibly disingenuous to claim that usable sources are covered by existing allowances here, but where such allowances are explicitly allowed to claim that an ABOUTSELF source cannot be used because if you absolutely need a deprecated source, you don't have a source. This specific case, and many others like it, involves an actual expert source, with pristine credentials, published on this specific topic in peer-reviewed works or books published by academic presses. Users are expunging sources that are themselves treated as reliable by peer-reviewed works. This article is cited by a journal article in Third World Quarterly, it is covered in The Nation. Countless other Counterpunch articles written by noted experts in their field are likewise cited. But because other articles are not written by experts that makes these scholars somehow less reliable? The fact that the only answer to why should David Price or Sara Roy or Neve Gordon or Dean Baker not be cited in Counterpunch is "because Counterpunch is deprecated" is both circular and illogical, and this board should reject this blatant appeal to emotion and association fallacy. There are crap articles on Counterpunch? Cool, dont cite those. But this is the work of an established scholar, cited by other reliable sources, and it should be able to be cited here. It is silly that people are saying that Patrick Cockburn writing in the Nation about an article in the magazine he edited is usable to relay the contents of the material in the article itself, but the article, oh dear no cant have that.  nableezy  - 02:36, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The William P. Quigley appears to be a case of an editor misapplying policy, and the correct response is to correctly apply policy, rather than using it to claim that existing policy is flawed. As such, I've restored the content, although I can see an argument being made that a spouses profession is WP:UNDUE. BilledMammal (talk) 02:47, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I tried that, however editors are using the deprecation decision (his own in fact), to claim that any usage is disallowed. I was initially trying to address one single source, one that is unquestionably reliable (written by a subject matter expert, cited by other reliable sources), but again, that was shut down on the basis of CP being deprecated. That level of circular logic is, as a matter of fact, degrading our articles. I agree with all of the people that say CP published a bunch of bullshit by unknown non-experts. And those things should not be cited. But, again, that is not all that they publish. And I still defy a single person to explain why, for example, this is not a reliable source. When people are using deprecation to remove obviously reliable sources, then I see nothing else to do but to challenge the deprecation. I posit that if people are aware that the decision to deprecate CP was not actually in keeping with what WP:DEPS says, that is that each individual source should be examined to see if it overcomes the presumption of unreliability, and saw that people are wholsale expunging sources like David Price, Sara Roy , Gabriel Kolko Robert Fisk  and other expert sources and not antisemitic conspiracy theories and 9/11 truther articles as was reputed to be what CP was actually used around here for that they may well have said maybe deprecation is a bit much here. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 03:53, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: Might I add that this is a duplicate discussion to this: Reliable_sources/Noticeboard Whay are we discussing this here as well? Why are we discussing this on four different location? This looks more and more like forumshopping. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Because only a new RFC can overturn the old? The closer specifically said that a new RFC is required. So here is that RFC. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 23:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * hmm, I think in that case you should probably rephrase this RFC to something like "Should the deprecation of Counterpunch be overturned" because right now it's a bit confusing. Mvbaron (talk) 23:13, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No. The RFC question is bad, and should be written as "Should articles published in CounterPunch be considered self published sources?", as that appears to be the neutral version of what the opening statement is asking. However, the answer is still no - articles published in CounterPunch are not self-published sources, and per WP:SOURCES the publisher of the work affects the reliability of the work, and per the recent RFC the publisher of the work is extremely unreliable, to the point that there was a strong consensus for deprecation. Further, WP:SPS tells us to exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources and the principle would apply here; if the information is suitable, someone would have published it elsewhere, such as with the example provided, where the information is also obtainable from The Nation. BilledMammal (talk) 23:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, can change that. But I am only challenging the usage of established experts. Not non-experts. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 23:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I understand, but since WP:SPS only allows experts to be used, you still wouldn't be challenging the usage of non-experts. BilledMammal (talk) 23:26, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I will change it with a note now. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 23:27, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No, for the moment. I've considered this further, the question is still problematic; we shouldn't be decided whether CounterPunch should be "treated" like a SPS, we should be deciding if it is a self-published source. This isn't as clear as it may appear; it does have an editorial process that will affect content, but so does Medium, and there is an open question about how much control this process has over the published works, per the assertions of some editors. If it can be established that their editorial process consists of little more than accepting or rejecting works as is (no direct control), and that their method of choosing which works to publish does not encourage creators to alter their work to increase their chances of being accepted (no indirect control), then I believe it would be appropriate to classify it as a self-published source. However, this has yet to be established, and as they have editors there is the presumption of an editorial process that establishes sufficient control to prevent it from being a self-published source, and so for the moment, until evidence and arguments can be provided that it is a self-published source, my position remains no. BilledMammal (talk) 10:35, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment:  Previous RFC on deprecation of counterpunch can be found here: --Mvbaron (talk) 23:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Archive link: Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 355 BilledMammal (talk) 23:22, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes If the same article was published on Medium or Blogspot, it would be fine to cite. In this particular example, the suggestion that CounterPunch is unreliable, but it's fine to cite a piece by an editor of CounterPunch (Alexander Cockburn) that is basically a shorter introduction to Said's article that directly advertises the full article because it's in the Nation instead is kinda absurd. Anyone writing an academic work would cite the actual article instead of a summary. RoseCherry64 (talk) 23:25, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Since the question was edited to be less about a specific example, to clarify, I have not seen any example where the publication have significantly twisted or edited articles submitted to them, so I would treat them as more or less as self-published articles speaking for the author, and not the publication as a whole. RoseCherry64 (talk) 23:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No - superfluous with previous RFC, where this editor asked this question specifically. Covered by existing allowances, in the remarkably few cases where it's allowed - David Gerard (talk) 23:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No - to the new question: Counterpunch has editorial staff (see here: ) and their guideline to submission speaks about editorial control: What are the guidelines for submitting an article to CounterPunch? ... We don’t pay for web contributions, nor do the editors guarantee any response to submissions. I don't see how this is compatible with WP:SPS. Counterpunch has been deprecated in the previous RFC because of bad editorial judgements and a track record of published falsehoods. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:40, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak yes. As long as there is no evidence of misrepresenting experts' opinions, I think that it's reliable. As with other SPS, always DUE applies. The editor who wishes to add something from CP should be able to demonstrate that it's DUE. Alaexis¿question? 06:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It has been noted below that CP is not really a SPS since they have some editorial policy and decide what to publish. I struck through the reference to SPS, otherwise my opinion is unchanged. Alaexis¿question? 21:30, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. We should base our use of sources on the evidence for their reliability. Nobody has provided any evidence that CounterPunch mangles the articles written by its authors, or in fact has any involvement in the text of its articles other than deciding which articles to publish. So there is no reason to suspect that what is published is not the opinion of the author. When that author is an acknowledged area expert, the situation is almost the same as a publication on the author's blog. Indeed, it is no different to an op-ed by the expert in a mainstream newspaper. (The claim that mainstream newspapers "fact-check" op-eds is a wiki-myth.) In summary, whether we can cite an article in CounterPunch should depend only on the expertise of the author in the relevant field. Zerotalk 08:11, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No and Bad RfC. The problem with CounterPunch is not that there is no editorial review (editors indeed do select the pieces that they want to publish before they appear on the website), but that the editorial review is awful. The publication is deliberate in pushing ideas from the fringes without doing much at all in the vein of fact-checking. Unless the author is on the editorial staff, it isn’t really self-published. We should stop trying to wikilawyer around deprecation here; if WP:DAILYMAIL had a history professor write an op-ed on a historical topic we wouldn’t dare think about citing it as a source for facts in a Wikipedia article—there is no “I really like the author” exception to deprecation. Self-published sources can also be deprecated, so this RfC isn’t even something that can change the relevant deprecation status of the source. And, substantially changing the RfC question after people have responded is a great way to irreparably taint an RfC. — Mhawk10 (talk) 12:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Drop the fatuous Daily Mail analogy. It's sand in the eyes, for a dozen reasons, most of which concern the fact that major scholars in their respective fields regularly express themselves on CounterPunch's site. Alexander Cockburn who set it up and ran it until his death, was a distinguished journalist with an excellent mainstream presence in major newspapers, not a tabloid hack.Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Two people had responded, and both had asked me to change the question. And it has not been substantially changed. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 15:58, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes I am at a loss to understand the zealotry here. An opinion by a recognized expert anywhere (not just in Counterpunch, Countercurrents say, which is similar, is also SPS as a practical matter) shouldn't be dissed, only because of where they decided to publish it. If anyone wish to contest some material, they can do that, starting at the article talk page as usual, but no indiscriminate removals.Selfstudier (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but an article published in a magazine with editorial control is per definition not self-published (not even "as a practical matter"). BUT such pieces by experts are all fine for use with attribution. The unique situation here is just that in a previous RFC counterpunch has been deprecated. If it weren't deprecated, we could just cite Price and all the experts normally (with attribution). Mvbaron (talk) 17:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * As per link I gave (2008!) "Countercurrents should be treated as an SPS, and we should follow the CounterPunch/FPM method of looking at the author's expertise for guidance." Deprecation should not have the effect of source deletion for an expert.Selfstudier (talk) 17:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Erm, that's just the opinion of one random editor from a 2008 post... But like I said, normally expert opinions are fine to cite with attribution - but no one really knows what our policy is for deprecated sources + an expert piece. Mvbaron (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well that is currently being decided by one editor removing every expert view and ABOUTSELF link to CP on the basis of it being deprecated. If you are of the view that expert opinions from CP may be cited then perhaps you should rethink your oppose !vote, because the effect of deprecation, as enforced by the admin who is somehow uninvolved yet edit-warring to remove ABOUTSELF links and expert opinions and voting in this RFC, is that those expert views are being expunged indiscriminately. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 18:12, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * yeah nableezy, it really is an interesting problem... I believe that the Price piece is prima facie reliable (it's even cited in the book that I just added to the Said article). But I also believe that CP is correctly deprecated. Our deprecation policy doesn't really say anything about this. I might need to change my vote, but for now I believe deprecation trumps expert pieces - simply because it should be easy to find the expert opinion elsewhere. Mvbaron (talk) 18:18, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * OK then, as I commented in the De-deprecate CounterPunch section above, I would like to clarify that and hopefully this RFC will do so (by a consensus of random editors:)Selfstudier (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes per Nableezy and Zero. Very few editors here cite Counterpunch regularly. They do so after evaluating the quality of the article referred to, and the stature among their colleagues and peers. We cannot afford to impoverish our sourcing by a blanket veto that would deprive Wikipedia of work written by several scores of eminent scholars and journalists who fail to see the problems some wikipedians worry over and who choose to use that venue. As Selfstudier says, the intelligent solution is to leave challenges to the relevant talk pages, case by case (and the cases are few and far between). Nishidani (talk) 16:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Very few editors here cite Counterpunch regularly is not a very convincing argument that the source is reliable… isn’t this a sign that editors generally have a low confidence in the publication? — Mhawk10 (talk) 23:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No, it's a sign that editors are discerning and only cite what is written by established experts published academically in their field. Still hoping anybody can answer how this is not a RS. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 23:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Very few editors here cite Counterpunch regularly. And yet, even after an alleged "rampage" of removals, we have over 1,000 pages citing it. Literally the first one I looked at was an unattributed quotation from a piece by Diana Barahona, whose only other internet presence is on the Nazi website Voltaire Net, accusing Reporters Without Borders of being disinformation agents without any evidence. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:09, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Has anyone here read WP:DEPS? The answer is yes and we don't need an RfC to demonstrate that. Disruptive indiscriminate removals should be addressed at ANI. signed,Rosguill talk 18:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Doesnt seem to be working, as those disruptive indiscriminate removals are ongoing despite attempting to address them at ANI. With the closing admin of the last RFC declaring WP:DEPS is not even a guideline and that even ABOUTSELF links are to be removed indiscriminately. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 18:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I have read DEPS, but it doesn't say anything about self-publishing and it also doesn't say that we can use deprecated sources for anything else than ABOUTSELF (unless in a local consensus ofc). But maybe I missed it? Can you point me to these two points? Mvbaron (talk) 18:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Just says V applies as usual. So round in circles.(I do think we are making too much of a meal out of "editorial control" here, the Mail is one thing, Cp quite another.Selfstudier (talk) 19:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I would say that the only effect of deprecation alone is to explicitly codify the source’s pre-existing status, as already determined by Wikipedia’s sourcing requirements. It does not inherently change how they are evaluated under those requirements. Deprecated sources should not be considered to be either unique or uniquely unreliable., from the lead of WP:DEPS, and Deprecation is a status indicating that a source almost always falls below Wikipedia's standards of reliability, and that uses of the source must fall within one of the established acceptable uses. Establishing new types of acceptable use requires a demonstration that the source is uniquely reliable in those particular circumstances compared to other possible uses of the source.Deprecating a source is a weaker measure than blocking or banning it, and the terms are not comparable to each other., from the section "What deprecation is and isn't" pretty clearly establishes how deprecated sources may or may not be used. signed,Rosguill talk 21:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No - This has been discussed before.  A SPS indicates that the author simply clicks a button and their article automatically gets posted. At CP, people submit their articles to the editorial staff. The staff don't indiscriminately post every articles that they receive. They actively choose articles that fit CP's ideological agenda--conspiracism, genocide denial, antisemitism, etc. (check the previous RfC for more examples and links). In other words, people go to CP to get published (FYI - CounterPunch even publishes books). Hence, this source not only fails WP:SPS but also fails every aspect of WP:RS. This is just an attempt to redefine the meaning of a SPS in order to ignore the consensus of the deprecation. If someone wants to use CP as a source (I seriously don't understand why) then stick to the expectations in WP:DEPRECATED. Of course, other policies and guidelines like WP:WEIGHT, WP:FALSEBALANCE, and WP:FRINGE apply too. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 19:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * "CP's ideological agenda--conspiracism, genocide denial, antisemitism, etc"
 * Thanks. That gives the game away. Such a vapidly inane recalcitrantly contrafactual claim hardly needs rebuttal, though it should figure in any new edition of a work by the CounterPunch founders and editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, their edited volume The Politics of Anti-Semitism as one more of the endless instances of the abuse of anti-Semitic accusations in order to silence critical dissent. As for what Cockburn who ruled the roost there for most of the period your 'data' is hacked from, he wrote The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts, where conspiracy mongers are dissected and mocked. Genocide denial was its 'ideological agenda'? Odd that its Jewish writers never noticed, and mourned the passing of the greatest historian of the Holocaust on CounterPunch. This is real sleaze smearing, a simpleton's approach to analysis, and should be ignored.Nishidani (talk) 21:04, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * it only "gives the game away" that they read the extensive sourcing for that claim in the previous RFC. If you can rebut it, you should, because at present it's well-backed - David Gerard (talk) 21:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, sure. We must pay attention to others, as they ignore our comments. No one troubled to answer my detailed remarks in the RfC point by point. I'd be quite happy to pull his patchwork case apart if some effort was made to answer the point above, regarding the contrafactual fatuousness of their generalization, which only tells me Swag googled the odd piece of crap out of over 60,000 articles and came up with his short list. It is contrafactual to use the terms he used when offspring of holocaust victims or camp survivors cannot see what his skimpy screed insinuated, since they publish there. It is profoundly obscene for an anonymous wiki editor to assert that specialist Jewish scholars of that Holocaust background cannot see what our singular Wikipedian  caught, just as none of the several hundred writers or  scholars   broadly identified as of the left contributing to it are aware, that according to a 2015 blog of far greater pretensions to comprehensive analysis ( Cited by BobfromBrockley above), that they are all being 'suckerpunched' into supporting the radical far right which is, conspiracy again, the hidden agenda apparently of Cockburn and co. Nishidani (talk) 22:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * "Gives the game away" is right on the money.Selfstudier (talk) 22:39, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Swag’s swag re Counterpunch was a shabby Potemkin Village charade of googled diffs which, if checked, collapses its compiler's agenda. It was so poorly shaped that I never troubled to reply. I thought it wasn't worth the effort and that most editors could see through it. Nope.In the earlier RfC many voters were influenced by Swag's evidence. Over 2 decades, extrapolating from figures given Jeffrey St.Clair in 2015, CounterPunch has published over 70,000 articles. Swag's case consisted of the following skerricks and tidbits:


 * (1) Jovan Byford, a Uk psychologist who has written on conspiracy theories says so.
 * Actually not only does CounterPunch feature many articles debunking conspiracy theories, but has hosted an article citing Byford’s work on the topic

"As Jovan Byford notes in a https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230349216worthy and comprehensive study of the phenomenon: ‘conspiracy theorists, by definition, deal with imperfect evidence: they are concerned with matters that are inherently secret and which the most powerful forces in the world are working hard to suppress. Conspiracy theories can, therefore, never offer incontrovertible proof’. Tony McKenna Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory CounterPunch 27 September 2019"


 * If you actually trouble yourself to check Jovan Byford, Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction, Springer 2011 978-0-230-27279-8 p.148 he writes

"It is therefore enough to glance at any contemporary conspiracy theory purporting to explain 9/11, the origins of HIV and AIDS, the New World Order, or the machinations of ‘the Lo0bby’, to realise that post-modern tongue-in-cheek playfulness and the ‘self-reflexive’ ironic tones are few and far between. On the contrary, the ideological single-mindedness of the conspiracy tradition, whether expounded on Russia Today, in yet another best-seller from Jim Marrs or on the pages of CounterPunch remains firmly entrenched in the realm where tales of clashes between civilisations, the implementation of truth, and battles between moral extremes are elaborated without even the smallest dose of post-modern irony.’"


 * That is not an argument buttressed by any evidence. It is a throw-away line, which fails to address the consistent dismissal of conspiracy theories in CounterPunch’s record, cites no evidence from the mag and essentially redefines conspiracy as rigid viewpoints lacking post-modernist irony.  Really? Most political statements about one’s party’s adversaries  are conspiratorial by that definition. Useless as tits on a bull.


 * (2) A Stanford researcher (Jonah G. Willihnganz) included CounterPunch on a list of prominent conspiracy sites Conspiracy Theory PWR 1 Fall Quarter 2008
 * Swag didn’t read his own link. Counterpunch is included in a short list, of hundreds, if not thousands, of websites, blogs, and newsgroups that promote, discuss, debunk, lament, praise, and vilify conspiracy theories.
 * In short another owngoal.


 * (3)It has published occasional articles down to 2015 by
 * (a)Israel Shamir. True. He’s totally unreliable for anything, even his own life. Most of his 20 odd contributions are on Russia.
 * (b) 9/11 truther Paul Craig Roberts. This research paper frames Roberts, whose articles on CounterPunch have from memory been focused on a conservative right-wing opposition to US trade policies, in the following way:
 * "Leftist intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn, along with activist organizations such as the antiwar movement, have generally gone out of their way to distance themselves from the Truth Movement (Bratich, 2008; Fenster, 2008). More frequently than not, they deride Truthers as conspiracy theorists whose ideas only serve to divide the left and distract their adherents from real and pressing problems of social injustice stemming from the country’s major political and economic institutions and policies. However, there is at least some sympathy for Truthers on the left. Recently, for example, the well-known leftwing newsletter Counterpunch strayed from its traditional policy by allowing one of its most popular contributors. Stephen M. E. Marmura, Likely and Unlikely Stories: Conspiracy Theories in an Age of Propaganda International Journal of Communication  8 (2014), 2377-2395 p.2388"
 * The author clearly states that hosting Roberts’s article (Early doubts: The 11th anniversary of 9/11 on CounterPunch strayed from its traditional line, and from the known views of its editor A Cockburn.
 * (c)Wayne Madsen. Per Sonny Bunch March of the Conspiracy Theorists CBS News 26 September 2005. The CounterPunch article it mentions by Madsen appeared in CounterPunch  on  1 November 2002, Exposing Karl Rove. It is a long list of incidents where Rove is reported as using disinformation and dirty tricks in numerous election campaigns to destroy honorable people. Not a conspiracy, politics.
 * (d) Mark Crispin Miller mentioned at Gabe Stutman  NYU Professor Uses Tenure to Advance 9/11 Hoax Theory in The Observer 26 July 2017 as a person interviewed for CounterPunch radio, Miller attacks the loose use of ‘conspiracy theory’ to brand dissenting opinions. New York University hasn’t fired him for teaching a class to be wary of the mainstream 9/11 narrative. Why should CounterPunch be deprecated for allowing a venue for him?  That’s what libertarians do, host even contrarian ideas they disagree with. Cockburn and his friend Louis Proyect attacked Miller’s 9/Trutherism belief om an article which also is critical of leftists who defend Assad.
 * (4) John Feffer, Stephen Zunes	 Sharp Attack Unwarranted 27 June 2008 refers among many other sources, to an article by George  Ciccariello-Maher, Einstein Turns in His Grave. Counterpunch  16 April 2008 which (a) argues that Gene Sharp‘s Albert Einstein Institute is partially funded by the US State Department and (b) reproduces Gene Sharp’s response to the critique, asking also Cockburn and St. Clair to publish corrections and retract those statements. Feffer and Zunes don’t tell you that. They simply say it is outrageous that CounterPunch should have published a piece which raised concerns about that institute’s independence. Ciccariello-Maher‘s evidence strikes me as flimsy, but he has his sources. Howard  Zinn  and Noam Chomsky, both at times contributors to CounterPunch, have of course defended Sharp’s integrity. That is how open democratic discourse functions – nothing argued is suppressed, but vigorously debated.
 * (5) Nonsense claims documented in the, wait for it, Algemeiner. Yeah Adam Levick who? a CAMERA hack who works for a source I believe deprecated here. ‘Guardian Praises Anti-Semitic Site “Counterpunch” as Progressive. Algemeiner 25 July 2012.
 * (5) The Algemeiner!
 * Readers of the Algemeiner are familiar with the fact that any criticism of Israel is ‘antisemitic’. It’s trash, written by a hack whose ire was roused by an article in the Guardian praising  the progressive journalism of Alexander Cockburn and his family. No, the hack argues, they are (yawn) enablers of antisemitism. It cites 10 cases many without damning links, re Gilad Atzmon, Alison Weir (the so-called blood libel accusation is based on this article in Counterpunch, which lists numerous Israeli mainstream sources on the issue of unlawful organ use;
 * The article asserts Counterpunch made a cause célèbre of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, No citation given where this occurred on Counterpunch. All I can find is this which examinees problems with his judicial record.
 * Alexander Cockburn’s Support Their Troops? 15 July 2007  is spun there for instance as an example of him acting as a cheerleader for 'mass-murdering Islamic Terrorists in Iraq'. Read the fucking article. The insinuation is crap, faked news etc.etc.etc.
 * Swag's proof therefore is just montage and sham, whose persuasiveness relies on editors not reading up and checking the supposed evidence, and the evidental skerricks are used to deprecate Counterpunch as antisemitic, genocidal, holocaust denying website. There are in all those diffs two to three possible cases of execrable judgement, in a record of 70,000. No doubt there are many more but the above doesn't prove it. Nishidani (talk) 22:14, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a highly personalised attack (see WP:AGF) on an editor who is not even pinged. Can I take up the Paul Craig Roberts point? The passage on Counterpunch from the journal article continues after the quote is cut: "the well-known leftwing newsletter Counterpunch strayed from traditional policy by allowing one of its most popular contributors, Paul Craig Roberts, to air his Truther arguments on their website... Roberts...is a regular a contributor to infowars.com as well as Counterpunch. From 2004 to 2017, Roberts, a right-winger, was one of the most published writers in CP, contributing weekly or more. Our article about him says "Since retiring [i.e. in the period he wrote for CP], he has been accused of antisemitism and conspiracy theorizing by the Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Centre and others... In the 2000s Roberts wrote a newspaper column syndicated by Creators Syndicate. Later, he contributed to CounterPunch, becoming one of its most popular writers. He has been a regular guest on programs broadcast by RT (formerly known as Russia Today). As of 2008, he was part of the editorial collective of the far right website VDARE. He has been funded by the Unz Foundation and he contributes to the Unz Review. His writings are published by Veterans Today, InfoWars, PressTV and GlobalResearch, and he is frequently a guest on the podcasts, radio shows and video channels of the Council of Conservative Citizens, Max Keiser and 9/11 truther Kevin Barrett. His own website publishes the work of Israel Shamir and Diana Johnstone. In other words, not one exceptional article, but a large part of the publication's content, is authored by someone who writes almost exclusively for deprecated websites. While there may be an argument for some case by case use of CP, we should clearly proceed with the presumption of unreliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)


 * No and Bad RFC WP:DEPS is quite clear there only small set of allowed uses of such sources. The reason why source was depreciated is exactly that to not discuss it every time if we should use it or not. We shouldn't as consensus in the last RFC has decided --Shrike (talk) 21:18, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * For the nth time, Shrike, the word is spelt 'deprecated', if you are paying attention. Nishidani (talk) 22:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I for one think we should fully dump all of CounterPunch's dollar reserves signed,Rosguill talk 00:21, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, pr User:RoseCherry64; (I am frankly at a loss why anyone should vote no here; do you believe Counterpunch falcifies David Price?) Huldra (talk) 23:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No, and keep deprecated – makes the point that as CP has an editorial board, so cannot be regarded as "self-published" any more than the Daily Mail can for its columnist's articles. Given the people that they do publish — for example, Grover "Stalin literally did nothing wrong" Furr — I'm comfortable with the deprecation consensus from a couple of months ago. Sceptre (talk) 09:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The last time Grover Furr was published in Counterpunch was March 2017, i.e. almost 5 years ago. More importantly, Counterpunch has also published articles by scholars in which they exposed and debunked Furr's work. Ijon Tichy  (talk) 14:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * E.g.Louis Proyect What Caused the Holodomor?  CounterPunch 24 March  2017. What's going on here displays the worst vices of the googler who fishes for damning clickbait torn of all context. Swag's 'evidence', apparently so persuasive to speedreaders who didn't distrust the mustering of specious diffs, if you check it, collapses. We are drowning in a superficiality that clogs all logical and evidential clarity. (Even more context Proyect, who died a few months ago, was a personal friend of both Cockburn and St. Clair, who hosted his columns while often mocking his Trotskyism)Nishidani (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Sceptre, you and some others make the same mistaken reading of the question. Nobody is claiming that articles in CP are self-published. Of course they are not; CP is the publisher. The question is whether those articles should be "treated as WP:SPS", which is different. Zerotalk 11:29, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I would think that those editors recognize that, and their response is to point out that they are not self-published, with all that is implied from that. BilledMammal (talk) 12:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The "should we treat this as a self-published source?" question is, fundamentally, trying to lawyer out an exemption from deprecation by people who opposed its deprecation in the first place. CounterPunch is a rag, and I would question the sense of anyone choosing to publish on their website; hell, if Isaac Newton rose from the grave and published "2+2=4" on the site, I'd ask for a second opinion. Sceptre (talk) 22:54, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Hah:) Well, it may end up being RFC'd again, that's true. Afaics, the objection seems to be more the way the old cites are being removed rather than an inability to cite new material, I have never cited CP myself although there seems on inspection to be quite a number of apparently unwise people publishing stuff there. It is not entirely clear to me that experts (which are also "sources") need an exemption any more than they need one for a "merely" unreliable source. Apart from that, there appears to be no evidence that CP edits the material of those experts that do publish in it? So it being published there is practically no different than if it were actually self published on a blog, say.Selfstudier (talk) 10:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The "editorial policy" thing is bothering me a bit: Every submission to our website is checked for accuracy, libel, copyright and style before it is posted. Any posted article that is subsequently found to contain factual inaccuracies, potentially libellous material or material that violates copyright is either amended or removed as soon as we become aware of this. For editorial style, we follow the Economist Style Guide. is obviously an editorial policy but it seems to be that just deciding what will and won't publish is not an "editorial policy" worthy of the name.Selfstudier (talk) 11:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

haha your comparison is quite apt! We need more policy exegesis! :D But, let's be honest, Price at al only chose CP because they knew they couldn't or didn't want to publish such less rigorous and more blog-y pieces in an actual academic journal. Let's not pretend a column in CP is anything like a peer-reviewed article, top academic or not. --Mvbaron (talk) 17:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. I wouldn't have put it like that (SPS imposes limits on how a source can be used), but am in favour of de-deprecating articles by established experts published on the site. --Andreas  JN 466 13:18, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This RFC can't even do that. We'd need a close challenge or an unambiguous RFC that asks the deprecation challenge again. Mvbaron (talk) 13:21, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason why this RFC can't do that, if there is a consensus for it.Selfstudier (talk) 13:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This RFC doesn't ask the question ("de-deprecate articles by established experts published on the site"). So it can't decide it, right? Mvbaron (talk) 13:45, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Treat as SPS amounts to the same thing imo but even if that wasn't the case, it doesn't prevent a separate/additional consensus although most often done as a "sub RFC". A slightly awkward thing here is all the pieces are kind of related to each other, SPS, expert opinion, effect of deprecation, V, RS and so on.Selfstudier (talk) 13:52, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The RFC did ask that, until you objected to the question. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 16:03, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, and I don't think this is at odds with the previous discussion on the source, which correctly decided that articles are not reliable/significant due to publication. The closing summary read Most, if not all, respondents concur that the site is unreliable, more akin to a blogging platform than a news site. It is agreed by all respondents that they do, however, assert some editorial discretion in who blogs there. I think this suffices as an argument that CounterPunch articles are as reliable as the author is, just like with blogs. For an expert author, that makes it (sometimes) usable. I've not seen any claims that the website inserts conspiracy theories or otherwise tampers with submissions it receives, just selectively publishes some of them. Fundamentally, we have a very real example of actual scholarship being removed from our articles. And that should be reversed, to quote nableezy at the top of the discussion. — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:52, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that a blog post would somehow qualify as WP:SCHOLARSHIP? And CounterPunch published both a print newsletter and a print magazine until 2020, so I'm not exactly sure that the statement is supposed to be interpreted broadly that it has always been a blogging platform. I'm really having trouble understanding how content submitted by external authors and compiled into a print magazine by a separate editorial team who exercises discretion over what content to include could be in any way considered to be self-published. This isn't a WP:FORBESCON situation. — Mhawk10 (talk) 20:22, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * a blog post would somehow qualify as WP:SCHOLARSHIP? That's what SPS is, essentially. You and some others are way too hung up on the publisher rather than the author Frequently misinterpreted sourcing policy Selfstudier (talk) 22:28, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No. The site doesn’t really meet the definition of a WP:SPS, and I don’t see any particular benefit to the encyclopedia in creating a blanket exception here. There’s room to debate on a case-by-case basis whether a particular author’s credentials warrant allowing a citation to CounterPunch. Brendan N. Moody 12:45, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Except people are not allowing case-by-case examinations of a particular author's credentials on the basis of it being deprecated. Thats the entire problem here. Treating it as a SPS would allow for that examination, nothing more. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 15:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * So is your point that this is not actually a self-published source, but that it should be treated as such? — Mhawk10 (talk) 04:08, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think that has been fairly consistently my position here. My point is reliability of an article on CP should depend on the author. Like in the parent section of this RFC, where an obviously reliable source is being essentially shut down on the basis of deprecation. If we accept self-published sources by experts, the only part that should matter on an expert publishing on CP is if CP faithfully reproduced their words. And there is zero evidence that they have ever doctored a column in any way. Where we would accept an author writing on his or her blog, there is no substantive reason to not accept them writing on CP. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 04:15, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Then why not follow the guideline in the WP:Guideline on deprecation and seek an affirmative consensus to use the source in appropriate contexts? — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:23, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I tried that up above. People are shutting down discussion of the individual source in appropriate context on the basis of it being deprecated. Like I wrote above in the de-deprecate section, Im actually totally fine with CP being considered default unreliable so long as an examination of an individual column's reliability is conducted where needed to see if it can overcome that presumption of unreliability. Seriously, look at the parent section. The article in question is repeatedly cited as authoritative and factual in other reliable sources. The author is a noted expert on that specific topic. But it, and other literal world class scholarly experts on the topic they are writing on, are being expunged on the basis of CP being deprecated. You have people here saying deprectaed is fine because individual articles can be examined as needed, but the editors in article space disallowing any individual article to be examined. Do you think this piece is not a reliable source solely due to it being published in CP? Because that is what is being enforced here. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 17:00, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * you never tried opening an RFC at Talk:Edward Said about whether to include Price's piece... Mvbaron (talk) 17:17, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I just opened an RSN thread on it in the parent section above here instead. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 17:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No. CP is not self published. It has editors, and editorial policies. It occasionally re-published material published elsewhere, eg on blogs, but largely publishes exclusively. It occasionally publishes experts (often material they can’t get published elsewhere because fringe or because it fails other publications’ editorial standards) but it is not a site for experts to self-publish; expert contributions go through its editorial process. If the question is, “should deprecated sources be acceptable for use under the same exceptional conditions when SPSs are considered acceptable”, then that’s a very different question which should be raised at the correct forum. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:36, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It is entirely untrue that often material they can’t get published elsewhere because fringe or because it fails other publications’ editorial standards, based on nothing at all but an editors imagination. The source under discussion up above is published on CP because the scholar wanted to publish it on CP, and the fact that the paper is cited as factual and authoritative over and over again belies the meme that CP articles are fringe or fail some other standard. It is a mantra that has been repeated without evidence, and pertinent evidence has been provided to refute it, but yet it continues to be repeated without change or evidence. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 15:38, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not a different question, that is the question - "be treated as WP:SPS". This also seems as good a forum as any. Selfstudier (talk) 13:45, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment This seems to be the correct forum, afaics, Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents is a relevant discussion just closed at ANI with a closing note that here or village pump is a better venue for it. Is it necessary to transfer it here or is the link sufficient? Selfstudier (talk) 11:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * As part of that discussion, a draft RFC for discussion was created Requests_for_comment/Deprecated_and_unreliable_sources, if anyone wants to run with that.Selfstudier (talk) 11:54, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Just highlighting an example of "when several people say emphatically that documentation isn't clear and/or doesn't match with practice (including practice about what actions we are/aren't willing to stop), maybe it's not useful to say 'it's totally clear and it's your fault if you can't see that'". In practice, deprecated sources are simply removed the overwhelming majority of the time. We've built a structure for deprecation that saves those who want to remove a source the hassle of making the same arguments over and over, giving a lot of weight automatically to the "remove" position. The idea that deprecation doesn't actually change how we evaluate sources is not rooted in wikireality. Maybe it shouldn't, but of course it does. The whole point of these RfCs is to consolidate arguments. Because the position of removing a deprecated source is so strong by default (as it should be), any exceptions need to be carefully spelled out in the documentation. Vague wording will automatically lead to the strictest interpretation given the nature of deprecation. Presently, the "acceptable uses" section is meaningful only insofar as it carves out possible exceptions for material an author or publication write about themselves. The language of that section is inadequate for carving out any other possible exception (such as for experts writing about their area of expertise in a lousy publication). If other exceptions are desirable, it should be changed to be more explicit, even if heavily qualified. ....but an RfC about a single source isn't the way to do that. No to this, because CounterPunch is not particularly unique in this matter. &mdash;  Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk \\ 15:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * an RfC about a single source isn't the way to do that. Is the RFC mentioned above the way to do that? This one, Requests for comment/Deprecated and unreliable sources. Selfstudier (talk) 15:48, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * tbh, I would say that an RFC at, say, Talk:Edward Said about whether to include Price writing in CP is the way to do it. Generalizing: If the source is deprecated but there are good arguments to include a piece by an expert somewhere anyways, then use local consensus at a specific article talk page (if needed per RFC). Mvbaron (talk) 17:15, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Tried that, and got this answer. We cant pretend that these exceptions that the people saying are not impacted by deprecation are in fact not impacted by deprecation when others are using deprecation to disallow those exceptions. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 17:18, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Right, an automated process would work better, I'm sure. In principle, that which is to be removed is first flagged and the flag signifies autoremoval in some time period unless a specified something is done to prevent it. This in general terms per the draft RFC not about Price issue specifically which is merely symptomatic of the general problem(s). Selfstudier (talk) 18:09, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No Ultimately, I don't see any other way to answer the specific question that is actually being posed. The idea (as paraphrased above) that it is not actually a self-published source, but that it should be treated as such is a bizarre pretzel of logic that ignores the plain meaning of all the terms involved. Rather than calling a spade a spade, it attempts to redefine one particular spade as quasi-legalistically a not-shovel for rhetorical purposes. I think is right: if there's an acceptable use case for deprecated sources that the current meaning of deprecation does not include, then that case should be added — but this is not the way to do that. Indeed, to me it seems more like trying to find an exploit in policy, getting content into the encyclopedia by the analogue of privilege escalation. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:23, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Citing tweets by experts in order to dismiss a scholarly article in a peer reviewed journal is OK by you, right? Selfstudier (talk) 18:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * What does a dispute over the history of Babylonian mathematics have to do with the question of whether articles published in CounterPunch should be treated as self-published sources? If you're going to accuse me of hypocrisy, at least pick something relevant. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:17, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I never mentioned any dispute. What I was referring to was your OK'ing of tweets from experts to dismiss a paper in a journal. Presumably if Price had tweeted his opinion instead of publishing it in CP you would have been OK with that as well?Selfstudier (talk) 22:21, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You're not answering the question. If Price had written something somewhere other than CounterPunch, how would that make CounterPunch a self-published source? It's completely tangential to the question that the RfC actually asked. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Nobody is saying CounterPunch is a self-published source. The question is should it be treated as though it were, where reliability of any one piece rests on the reliability of the author. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 23:35, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I am trying to ascertain how you would have treated Price's expert opinion if he had tweeted it? Selfstudier (talk) 22:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That would be a matter of WP:DUE, WP:SPS, and all the other relevant policies and guidelines, as considered in the specific context where citing his opinion was proposed... and you still have not answered why it would have anything to do with whether or not articles in CounterPunch are self-published sources. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:39, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I never said it did. That's the question in this RFC? "treat as SPS". What I conclude from your reply is that is strictly because the expert opinion is in CP that you say no, a bizarre pretzel of logic. We all know that already though, that's the point of having the RFC, right? Selfstudier (talk) 22:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The question posed by the RfC is, to copy-and-paste, Should articles published in CounterPunch be treated as WP:SPS?. I'm saying no, they shouldn't. You seem to be trying for a "gotcha!" moment based on my opinion in a situation that wasn't even analogous. Surely I've said something in my years here that is actually hypocritical about this... but even that would just make me a hypocrite; it wouldn't make articles in CounterPunch self-published sources. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 22:55, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No gotcha, just trying to understand your position which is is basically "agree with current policy practice", right? Selfstudier (talk) 23:03, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe my position is in line with current practice, yes. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 23:12, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Just to be completely clear about where I (and some others) are coming from, if the outcome here should be no then it is likely that we would then proceed (subsequently or in parallel) to Requests for comment/Deprecated and unreliable sources and/or another CP RFC, given the level of opposition that has been expressed up to now, I think the matter will not easily go away.Selfstudier (talk) 22:50, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * just make a close challenge - nobody has done that even. Mvbaron (talk) 22:52, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Nableezy that there is little to be gained doing that, it needs a new one but before we do that I think we need to have an in between step that clarifies all that has occurred up until now because as a number of persons have pointed out, there is a lot of confusion around this. Selfstudier (talk) 23:01, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The logic of those arguing for yes here seems to be that CP is not an SPS but should be treated like one because it occasionally publishes experts and their expert status trumps any problems with the publisher. If this is the case, then reliability would only be determined on the basis of authors and not publishers (any publisher could potentially publish the experts; many deprecated ones actually do). This effectively means our entire history of determining the reliability of sources via consensus should now be ignored because only the expertise of the author is relevant. That’s actually a pretty extreme position, a massive policy change. Or am I missing something? BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:38, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * seems to be that CP is not an SPS but should be treated like one Not quite, the articles by experts are to be treated as SPS, not that CP is to be treated as SPS. Also, article, author as well as publisher are all "sources" per V.Selfstudier (talk) 10:44, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * All this reminds me of months misspent in early youth teasing out theological positions in medieval philosophy (on the ontological arguments for the existence of God from St Anselm onwards). I.e. we have two policies and editors are trying to assess the relative weight of various traditions about the implications drawn about a deprecated source and WP:SPI with regard to an anomaly that has arisen: editors differ about which reading of either policy might put paid to the anomaly (i.e. excellent scholarly and professional work of encyclopedic values does appear in a formally deprecated source). Well, as with theology, you can argue till the cows come home, since the assumptions of two or more positions are dogmatically fixed, and partisans only apply logic to finesse their respective takes. Fortunately the rise of scientific method buried all that argufying by stating that the premises themselves were provisional, evidence trumps doctrine, and logic (and commonsense) should determine how we evaluate a crux. The policies we have are not perfect, they often vie in tension, and occasionally require emendment. If an anomaly in the impacts of interpretation emerges - we are throwing obviously good material out by a provisional consensus that might simply signify the aleatory outcome of random aggregations of editors who note this discussion - then we should drop the 'theology' (policy interpretations) and look at the quality our process has recently deemed suspect on 'principle'. That is the modern, scientific, commonsensical, empirical approach to problem solving. And that is the kind of thing most of this section is systematically and fussily ignoring. If over 3 score of top academics and professional investigate journalists choose CounterPunch as a venue, unaware that anomymous editors on Wikipedia rebuff it as an 'anti-Semitic, conspiracy-mongering, holocaust-denying, hate-pushing genocide-promoting' (all ballistically absurd charges in my view), then what deliberation is necessary to allow those articles to be cited here. Nishidani (talk) 11:04, 29 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't think anyone is pretending that, I think Nishidani is saying the expert opinion is frequently better and I agree with him. Because it's an opinion, we attribute rather than saying it in Wikivoice and honor is thereby satisfied. It's not an accident that more and more sources are blurring the line between fact and opinion.Selfstudier (talk) 17:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thats nonsense, he published there because he is on record as believing in the site, see here. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 21:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)


 * No and as already mentioned this RFC has no justification. There is reason for  WP:DEPS and the reason is to avoid time and again pushing trashy sources back. There are plenty of reliable, neutral sources that covers all this topic's. Hatemongering, conspiracy theorists are not the standards of Wikipedia.Tritomex (talk) 21:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Nobody is proposing to use hatemongering conspiracy theorists. Maybe dont make things like that up. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 21:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, Israel Shamir a well known Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist and an outlet, like this one   that publishes his views is worthless and  trashy.Tritomex (talk) 23:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Is anybody citing Israel Shamir? Again, nobody is proposing that hatemongering conspiracy theorists be cited. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 23:18, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I said that an outlet that by publishing promotes the views of a racist bigot and Holocaust denier, like Israel Shamir, or whatever his real name is, lost all credentials to be used as reliable source at any field, not just on subject related to Arab_Israeli conflict. Tritomex (talk) 23:32, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure no-one is seriously disputing that CP (the "publisher") is unreliable. That's not the question. Imagine that CP articles were treated as SPS and someone tried to cite that guy, how far you think they would get? Selfstudier (talk) 23:41, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The next question raised has also obvious awnser. Articles published in CounterPunch are not self-published sources and cant be tranformed or declared as such for any purpose.Tritomex (talk) 11:17, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That's why the RFC asks "...be treated as WP:SPS?" Selfstudier (talk) 11:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * CounterPunch did not 'promote' Shamir's views. It published them, mainly on Russia, occasionally down to 2015. If interviewing or publishing the views of people accused of racism indicted newspapers that do so, most Israeli papers would have trouble reporting on a considerable number of Knesset members. Arutz Sheva is not deprecated, and it hosts racists like Baruch Marzel. The POV war consists in huffing and puffing about CP because it is highly receptive to criticism of Israel, and quietly editing stuff culled from that racist rag, or from Israel Hayom and a dozen other newspapers with even less credibility than CP, or never making an issue of that double standard. Nishidani (talk) 19:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes per comments made above, and we need more recognition here that the original RSN discussion was brigaded by sockpuppets. you each made comments above referencing the outcome of the previous RfC from September. I had a look at that today – in the three months since that RfC, six of the “deprecate” voters (one quarter of them) were outed as socks. That is an extraordinary number to be outed in such a short space of time. It is reasonable to assume that not all the involved socks in the brigade have been outed yet. So we might be talking between a third and a half of all “deprecate” voters in that RfC representing a sock brigade, plus the halo effect from their talking points being repeated as a group. Without them that RfC would have been closed as no consensus. Discouraging sockpuppetry requires ensuring their “work” has no permanence. Onceinawhile (talk) 01:46, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I've requested clarification of a related matter; as things stand I believe the consensus is still strong. BilledMammal (talk) 05:33, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment: I note this discussion is currently at 11-11, i.e. no consensus. It should now pause while the Deprecation RfC plays out below, so I am commenting here to keep it from auto-archiving. If the Deprecation RfC reaches a consensus for "No", this RfC becomes irrelevant. But I presume if the RfC reaches a consensus for "Yes", we'd need to return to this discussion to see if we can reach consensus that CounterPunch should be treated differently from other deprecated sources. Have I got that right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobfrombrockley (talk • contribs) 09:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * sounds right to me --Mvbaron (talk) 10:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)


 * No per previous RFC which concluded it should be deprecated. AllOtherNamesWereTaken (talk) 19:19, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade by Susan Wise Bauer
Is The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade by Susan Wise Bauer a reliable source. The book was published by W. W. Norton, and its homepage does not indicate that it publishes peer-reviewed books. I understand the author is not a professional historian. She writes popular books mainly about education. Borsoka (talk) 16:52, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * History books do not receive peer reviews as such. At the level of detail an article like Middle Ages can go into, the book is probably reliable, but more specialized sources would be better. Johnbod (talk) 16:57, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It's a popular history from a responsible publisher. I'd say it's an RS, though perhaps not for more controversial topics.  Having listened to the audiobook, I daresay there's precious little controversial material in it.  Cheers! Dumuzid (talk) 16:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, at least there's a lot of it - the last citation used covers up to p. 431, for the year 840. The material cited to it is pretty basic facty stuff. Johnbod (talk) 17:04, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I largely agree with Johnbod & Dumuzid, I think. Norton aren't a primarily academic publisher (though I think e.g. the Norton Critical Editions tend to get proper academics to write their supplementary materials?), but they are well-known and respected. Added to that Bauer isn't a subject-matter expert, and I wouldn't want to cite her for anything too controversial, and suspect that better sources are probably available, but for basic facty stuff I don't think it's likely to be a major problem.  Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 20:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your answers. There are hundreds of reliable academic sources about the medieval period which are ignored in the Middle Ages article. Are we sure that a book written by an author who "isn't a subject-matter expert" and published by a primarily non-academic publisher adds value to an article about Middle Ages? Borsoka (talk) 02:45, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Generally I agree with you – if you have a better source to hand, absolutely replace it. But by the standards of questionable sources used on wikipedia, I'm not super worried about it – I wouldn't revert an edit to an article purely for using it as a source, or scour the literature to find out whether any given claim sourced to it is nonsense just on general principle. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:46, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Not entirely, no. You should suggest better sources (in English). For most of these basic factual statements, no change in the text is likely to be necessary. Johnbod (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Use it to understand the basic facts, but then use a better source to back it up. Just like college students use Wikipedia. JBchrch   talk  22:19, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with everyone here, and just wanted to briefly chime in again. In my opinion, the work is a well-written surface-level overview that can be enjoyed even by someone with a fair degree of familiarity with the subject (like me).  One of the reasons I am comfortable saying it is a reliable source (if not in the highest tier) is something I alluded to earlier: the author is cognizant of her remit and does not (to my memory) exceed it.  That is, while she sometimes makes mention of more controversial theories, the structure of the book is almost entirely an uncontroversial recitation of basic fact.  So, this leaves me where everyone else seems to be -- if a cite can be replaced with a more academic source, it's probably best to do so.  But when cited to establish basic facts and chronology, there's no reason to be overly concerned.  Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 14:23, 25 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Same as the above; I wouldn't go removing it, though Wikipedia articles that do use it may be better served by adding sources to more reliable texts, as an overview work, it is not unreliable enough to stricken from Wikipedia. Should we add better sources?  Always.  Should we remove this one?  No.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 17:42, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes just to be clear, that something is a "reliable source" does not make it useable for everything in every instance, but for general information on the topic, this Norton book is reliable enough to consider use, and in general not to remove.  But arguably better not original and due research is still welcome. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:27, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes W. W. Norton is a respected publisher and many of their books are used as academic textbooks. They would be very unlikely to be publish unreliable information given their reputation. Chris (talk) 15:58, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Barstool Sports
Is Barstool Sports reliable for entertainment/film/pop culture news? I am bringing it up as no one else has before. ― <b style="background:#000;color:#f07b3a;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Kaleeb18</b>Talk<sub style="position:relative;right:20q;margin-right:-15px;">Caleb 03:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I would doubt it. Has anyone tried to cite it as a reliable source? Calidum  03:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * No. It's like Gawker, but with a Boston dudebro bent. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:53, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * And, unlike some old Gawker or Gizmodo Media sites, they don't seem to do any in-depth reporting with editorial oversight to provide an exception to their general unreliability as a self-pub blog/podcast. Bakkster Man (talk) 14:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Generally, no. It doesn't have any form of proper quality or editorial control and has a long history of promoting misinformation on a number of subjects, even within entertainment fields. Silver  seren C 14:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I see ― <b style="background:#000;color:#f07b3a;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Kaleeb18</b>Talk<sub style="position:relative;right:20q;margin-right:-15px;">Caleb 14:23, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Is a preprint quoted in an article by someone not a DNA specialist ok as a source for DNA?
The text I'm concerned about is "Also, Gourdine et al conducted short tandem repeat's (STR's) analysis of samples from royal mummies of the Eighteenth Dynasty and Nineteenth Dynasty, including Rameses III, which determined the genomes had a 41.7% to 93.9% affilitation with sub-Saharan African populations.

"Gourdine et al", quoted in the source above, is the preprint at, the link is in the text of the article as you can see if you read it. Also of some concern is that the author of the article in African American Archaeological Review turns out to be a pharmacology and infectious disease specialist. Pinging User:WikiUser4020 who I think has been adding this is good faith. Doug Weller talk 08:17, 26 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The journal is African Archaeological Review to be correct. A preprint is essentially a scientific paper prior to public server. The author is an academic and his work has been published in a peer-review journal. Keita and Bard are also referenced in the wider article despite their backgrounds as historians/bio-anthropologists. The issue is the unbalanced weight of work. Serological evidence from Paoli and Diop were edited out, despite being peer-reviewed evidence due to the view that this evidence was out of date. Yet, the opposing view permits blood group evidence from 1981 from Paoli which links ancient and modern Egyptians without reference to the fact the latter has shared blood group linkages with West African populations in a separate study conducted by the same author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiUser4020 (talk • contribs)


 * Sorry, no idea how "American" got there. The problem is that the preprint after several years hasn't been published and is not peer reviewed. The authors may have decided not to publish it for various reasons, including discovering problems with the data or methodology. Crawford being an academic in one field does not make him a reliable source in a different field.  Doug Weller  talk 09:25, 26 January 2022 (UTC)


 * As for WP:PREPRINTS, preprints aren't reliable sources for anything. Plus, one can only wonder why is an infectious disease specialist allowed to write an ancient history article, moreover using as sources scholars who were/are frequently accused of pseudo-historicism like Cheikh Anta Diop and Martin Bernal, the latter more likely to be entirely WP:FRINGE. Lone-078 (talk) 09:49, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yep, per PREPRINT, this can't be used. Not a reliable source. And bizarre that it hasn't been published in 4 years, and was only edited in 2019. This smacks of something very possibly wrong with the methodology that peer reviewers really didn't like. At the very least, they could get it published in a really crappy journal! But preprints are even worse than PRIMARY sources. So we really need a secondary source citing a legitimate primary source. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 11:29, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Dio wrote the initial Chapter on UNESCO History of Africa, an authoritative text on African historiography and was noted for his "painstakingly contributions"(General History of Africa II,pp55) in comparison to other scholars The consensus among Egyptologists, anthropologists and historians have reinforced his findings based on archaeological, linguistic, climatic, historical and cultural evidence.WikiUser4020 (talk) 10:18, 26 January 2022 (UTC)Critics accusing him of pseudo-historicism have themselves been criticised of misrepresenting his work.


 * The text is still in Ramesses III, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Egyptian race controversy (which is a mess with a lot of stuff not about the controversy itself but material that belongs in the articles discussing Egypt's population and DNA). Let's not get off-topic arguing about Diop (and this "consensus" is based on original research, ie not on an agreement among all those people about Diop). The issue still is that it's a preprint. Doug Weller  talk 11:02, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Another problem is that such DNA studies are controversial as well as often misinterpreted, not only prone to confirmation bias but also quote mined from to support particular positions. Unless reputable secondary sources put them in context, their use on Wikipedia tends to result in original research or potentially flawed conclusions; accumulating them in an article fails to meet the objectives of a tertiary source like Wikipedia: presenting a concise summary of the history of prominent views and the current scientific consensus (if any)...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 12:07, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:PREPRINTS is very clear about this: we can only use preprints as an OA resource for papers that were subsequently peer-reviewed and published . Otherwise, WP:SPS applies. We also have a consensus against using genetic primary research papers in such contexts as mentioned above, even if they have gone through peer-review and are published in respectable journals. Such sources are constantly misread or cherry-picked especially when ethnonationalist, pan-ethnic or other identity-related POVs come into play. –Austronesier (talk) 16:57, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Yet, Gourdine et al are referenced in the article in the Ancient Egypt race debate ?. In relation to the consensus, I can provide several sources. This consensus is mirrored among Egyptologists such as Frank Yurco who see the Nile Valley peoples as "basically a homogeneous African population [that] had lived in the Nile Valley from ancient to modern times." Similarly authoritative anthropologists such as Nancy Lovell outlined in the 1999 Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt outlined ”There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa. The distribution of population characteristics seems to follow a clinal pattern from south to north, which may be explained by natural selection as well as gene flow between neighboring populations. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas" . All racist, competiting hypothesis including the Dynastic and Hamitic hypothesis have been discredited in the historiography and the consensus is that Ancient Egypt emerged from a Sudanic-Sahran context WikiUser4020 (talk) 21:40, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that this discussion highlights the need for an official policy statement on genetics sources, as expressed in my recent RfC. Hunan201p (talk) 14:57, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "All racist, competiting hypothesis including the Dynastic and Hamitic hypothesis have been discredited in the historiography" is from a 1966 source. I'm afraid that doesn't work for me.  Doug Weller  talk 17:59, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

No serious academic work would discount peer-reviewed evidence, irrespective of publication dates. This reflects your judgement rather than the quality of evidence provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiUser4020 (talk • contribs)


 * Per WP:PREPRIMT, it would require exceptional circumstances to use this source, which there aren't. TFD (talk) 22:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC)


 * can you clarify what you mean by No serious academic work would discount peer-reviewed evidence, irrespective of publication dates. The point about the Gourdine Preprint is that it wasn’t peer reviewed. DeCausa (talk) 22:55, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

That was directed at Doug Weller’s latter comments about the academic consensus on African historiography. On a separate note, the Gourdine references have been removed for the current time.
 * In that case, if it’s accepted that the Gourdine paper is not a reliable source, this thread has no further purpose?


 * So you think that a 1966 work can be used to reflect academic consensus? Besides the fact that it's not clearcut that the source backs the text - I think it's too much of a stretch. Please explain why you think such an old source is appropriate and give quotes backing the text. I've read it. You brought up some new sources, so the thread is still appropriate. And please sign your posts. Doug Weller  talk 07:44, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

WikiUser4020 (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2022 (UTC)The work and context of W. MacGaffey summarises the shifting trends and concepts of race in African historigography. He clearly outlines:

p4: In reference to the Hamitic hypothesis promulgated by Charles Seligman as "Hamitic is to be rejected as a racial label"

P4: He acknowledges that Diop's position was "very nearly right" that the “term Mediterranean is an anthropologists euphemism for the term Negroid”

P16: These hypothesis have based in racialist rather than historicial thinking. “Certain authors speak of the Brown race. This concept is without scientific evidence, and must be regarded as a myth with specific ideological function related to the colonial situation”.

Toby Wilkinson in his 1999 work, Early Dyanstic Egypt notes that "change in perception" among scholarship from the "discredited Dynastic race theory" and its view of a "master race" to "recognition of indigenous roots".

This view is echoed by authoritative Egypologist, Frank Yurco that a "The peoples of Egypt, the Sudan, and much of East African Ethiopia and Somalia are now generally regarded as a Nilotic continuity"

I have provided extensive evidence and sources from Egyptologists, historians and anthropologists about the current consensus about Ancient Egypt as emerging from localised, homogenous African context and the discredited racist hypothesis. This thread should be closed as the Gourdine references have been removed for "the current time". — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiUser4020 (talk • contribs)


 * I know one of them discusses Diop but without full backing. In fact McGaffey clearly states that Diop's attempt to explain why Egyptian civilization didn't spread all over Africa by claiming that tall Negroes didn't arrive in West Africa until 500 BC is unlikely. My post asking about Dio's chapter in the UNESCO volume seems not to have been saved. But I see you said "Dio wrote the initial Chapter on UNESCO History of Africa, an authoritative text on African historiograph". His chapter is clearly not a reliable source, do you understand why? I think it should be mentioned in his article with comments. I assume you've read it his chapter in the UNESCO volume and know what the problems are? And please, again, sign!  Doug Weller  talk 13:46, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The post is in relation to Diop which was mentioned in a separate talk section and can be discussed there. McGaffey contests one aspect of Diop's theories. However, his core theories that early humankind began in East Africa and it was likely that people were black skinned and people populated other continents by moving either through the Sahara or the Nile Valley is correlated with a range of evidence. How are his contributions "clearly not a reliable source" ?. UNESCO is an authoritative, publication featuring a range of scholars and he was on the science committee. The historical, anthropological, archaoelogical evidence and geographic which Diop provides has a wealth of supporting, secondary evidence. Can you provide specific sources refuting the arguments presented in Chapter I of UNESCO History of Africa since you have not listed any range of sources ?14:13, 28 January 2022 (UTC)WikiUser4020 (talk).


 * I don't need to do that. I can just quote a review of the volume that says of his chapter that the volume "is marred by a shrill chapter by Cheikh Anta Diop arguing once again his idiosyncratic view of the bases of ancient Egyptian civilization. (The editor, G. Mokhtar, takes the unusual step of warning the reader that Diop's views are not accepted by all experts in the field - surely still something of an understatement - and of printing the lengthy report of a symposium on the matter." The review is by Ivor Wilks in the The International Journal of African Historical Studies. On page 51 you can see "»NOTE BY THE EDITOR OF THE VOLUME The opinions expressed by Professor Cheikh Anta Diop in this chapter are those which he presented and developed at the Unesco symposium on 'The peopling of ancient Egypt' which was held in Cairo in 1974. A summary of the proceedings of this symposium will be found at the end of this chapter. The arguments put forward in this chapter have not been accepted by all the experts interested in the problem (cf. Introduction, above). Gamal Mokhtar " But you surely knew that?  Doug Weller  talk 15:11, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

are these sources fine?
hello, im trying to find reliable sources for this heated dicussion []... i added my source findings regarding in the article itself [] but (if not against policies, ill post them here as well)

here are the sources to prove my argument that this topic COULD be worthy of WP:NMUSICIAN / WP:NACTOR. (i will use google translate because the topic is regarding Indonesian manner as i understand not everyone speaks Indonesian) - any thought ?


 * https://correcto-id.translate.goog/beranda/read/47957/biografi-dan-profil-lengkap-agama-dan-umur-sarah-azhari-yang-kecantikannya-bikin-gagal-fokus?_x_tr_sl=id&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
 * https://www-kapanlagi-com.translate.goog/sarah-azhari/profil/?_x_tr_sl=id&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
 * https://palembang-tribunnews-com.translate.goog/2021/10/06/profil-sarah-azhari-wajahnya-tetap-menawan-di-usia-40-an-kini-hijrah-ke-la-amerika-serikat?_x_tr_sl=id&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
 * https://hits-grid-id.translate.goog/read/482704423/biodata-lengkap-sarah-azhari-model-seksi-era-2000an-yang-dinikahi-anak-pejabat?page=all&_x_tr_sl=id&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
 * https://hot-detik-com.translate.goog/celeb/d-5812161/sarah-azhari-masih-eksis-meliuk-seksi-di-dance-to-survive?_x_tr_sl=id&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=sc
 * https://celebrity-okezone-com.translate.goog/read/2021/11/11/33/2500468/biodata-dan-agama-ayu-azhari-artis-seksi-yang-pernah-alami-kasus-penyebaran-foto-bugil-di-internet?_x_tr_sl=id&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=sc thank you Amoeba69th (talk) 23:45, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Any thoughts? Yes. 'Profiles' and 'biographies' that look like either paid promotion or just tabloid fluff do nothing to establish notability. And you should probably read WP:BADGER. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:58, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks I did read it, and apologized already for sounding aggressive and gave my reasoning on the talk page. Amoeba69th (talk) 00:13, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

AccuWeather and The Weather Channel
Since I didn't see AccuWeather (accuweather.com) and The Weather Channel (weather.com) on the perennial sources page, are these weather-related sources reliable so you could add them to that page? These website sources are mainly about weather forecasts with generally accurate temperature measures for every location and news from posts of significant weather and even natural disaster events. -- Allen (talk / ctrb) 17:28, 24 January 2022 (UTC)


 * WP:RSP is for sources that are frequently discussed. It's meant to be a reference guide for sources that can be contentious. As far as I can tell I don't see a point to adding them to RSP if there's no actual dispute. That being said, maybe there is an argument for adding AccuWeather as a yellow entry given that they publish long-term forecasts based on what meteorologists generally agree is bs.  I'd say we should declare their forecasts for more than 7 days out as unreliable, given that their long-term forecasting abilities are questionable. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 22:11, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * , you might ask at WP:WikiProject Weather to see what their views of those two sites are. Schazjmd   (talk)  22:23, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * – in general, I think we probably shouldn't be including weather forecasts on Wikipedia at all, whether they are speculative long-term forecasts or more reliable short-term ones by the respected organisations like the Met Office or National Weather Service. If the predicted movements of really major weather systems (like, Hurricane Katrina major) are being discussed in reliable sources outside of just weather forecasts, that might be acceptable, but in general it seems dangerously close to WP:CRYSTAL and WP:NOTNEWS Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:38, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Personally, I don't edit in weather related subjects that often, so I'm unaware whether or not these sources would ever need to be cited or how typical including weather forecasts are. I more or less got the info about AccuWeather's long term forecasting from our Wikipedia article on them and not my own in depth research/knowledge. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 02:31, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I can come up with zero use for any weather forecasts at Wikipedia (written in Wikipedia's voice), but insofar as those organization have actual historical weather data available (i.e. what the weather actually was like), if we need to use it, I find them perfectly reliable for such uses. Like the above, these are not contentious, often-discussed sources, and don't need an entry at WP:RSP.  Under most circumstances, unless there is some actual challenge, most people are expected to be able to apply the criteria at WP:RS themselves and don't need prior approval to use sources.  In terms of what these would be used for at Wikipedia, there's nothing contentious about them. -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 17:39, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Regarding historical weather data, I don’t see why they would be anything but reliable—is there any source that calls into question the accuracy of their historical data? I don’t find it convincing that we would slap a yellow label on a site because of its weather forecasts being wrong. I agree with that long-term weather forecasts are not reliable, but also with  that this is not really within the realm of use cases I would think we would ever see from either of these websites. — Mhawk10 (talk) 13:37, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Principality of Wales research
This book : -, written in 1730 is specific for the era of the Principality of Wales spanning the centuries of 1216 - 1542. There is very little information available regarding the historical era of the Principality of Wales in the UK, and this book seems to be the missing work in completing the article which I've specified. Any consensus regarding the authenticity of the book and whether it is a reliable source please ?? Cltjames (talk) 17:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * @Cltjames It's not per se forbidden, see WP:OLDSOURCES, but obviously it's not optimal, you should try hard to find something more recent. I'd say use carefully, and with in-text attribution, like according to the 1730 The history of the principality of Wales. : In three parts by Robert Burton etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:49, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't agree that there is little on this time period. For example there is a scholarly book The Principality of Wales in the Later Middle Ages. The Structure and Personnel of Government. Vol. i: South Wales, 1277-1536. by Ralph A. Griffiths. Search in Books and Scholar shows plenty of sources. Zerotalk 05:11, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * It's not a reliable source, 1730 is too far into the past to be considered. The discipline of history was not near enough to its modern form yet and more modern sources will definitely exist. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:51, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * btw, my advice on researching this topic would be to consult any good general history of Wales. The Prince of Wales was simply a title and lands bestowed on the eldest son of the English king, Wales during this period is covered in History of Wales, Wales in the Late Middle Ages. Its political institutions are already covered in the article, and could easily be sourced from general Welsh history sources.Boynamedsue (talk) 08:05, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Per Zero, there’s modern scholarship on the subject as well general histories of Wales which well cover the subject. Reaching back to 1730 is unnecessary. But in any event, 1730 is too far back to be usable as a reliable source, obviously. You only need to look at the first sentence of the book: It is recorded in History that after the Universal Flood, the isles of the Gentiles were divided by the Posterity of Japhet…. I may be out on a limb but that may not be what we expect from a reliable source… DeCausa (talk) 08:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The issue with the Principality is there isn't much to read about this time period, for instance, South Wales was not in the Principality. I have done enough research to know there not many books available on this time period and literally this book seems the perfect fit (you just have to observe the relevance of the title - Principality of Wales). So we have the issue of WP:OLDSOURCES, however the author and it's authenticity is not in question, which makes it a reliable source surely ? Cltjames (talk) 12:42, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Have you actually looked at the book? It’s not usable. It isn’t even about the feudal Principality, which the article is about. It’s using the name “romantically” to just mean Wales, and it starts from the “flood”! It’s a collection, as would be expected from an early 18th century “history”, of antiquarian tales…Brutus, Arthur etc. “The author and ts authenticity is not in question”. Isn’t it? Who is he? I’m not sure why you say South Wales wasn’t in the principality. Griffiths work mentioned by Zero, The Structure and Personnel of Government. Vol. i: South Wales, 1277-1536 is about the two shires in the South that were within the principality: Cardigan and Camarthen. Griffiths was going to do an equivalent volume on the Principality’s remaining 3 shires which were in the North, but unfortunately never got round to it. There’s a great deal on the Principality in modern scholarship which you seem to have missed. DeCausa (talk) 13:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I'd have to concur with DeCausa. The book in question isn't about the Principality of Wales and it is not by any standard a reliable source. There is some history in it, but it isn't history. Boynamedsue (talk) 14:35, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Out of curiosity I’ve done a bit of digging on “Robert Burton” and it seems he didn’t exist (“the author and its authenticity is not in question”). It’s a pseudonym for a London bookseller called Nathaniel Crouch who repackaged other works he found and sold them under this name, like an 18th century Reader's Digest, apparently. DeCausa (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Dun & Bradstreet
I see no RS policy regarding Dun & Bradstreet (a database of information about corporations, such as revenue, # of employees, etc.) though I see that it's used to source facts about companies (see infobox for this company). It is clearly a large database with the appearence of institutional "credibility", but I'm not clear on how the information is sourced, other than it appears companies can claim their page and add info, and other data is sourced from "third parties", and revenue estimates. But that would seem to align it with something like ZoomInfo, which I'm pretty sure is not RS, as it's a scraper, and also allows orgs to add info, I believe. Is there any precedent for this source? Here's an example of company info on the site. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 19:31, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * What exactly do you want to use and in which context? Things like revenue come from (public) companies' financial statements. In general, D&B is a well-known company and their data is used by many financial and non-financial institutions. Using D&B proprietary ratings and estimates is not a question of their reliability - we know for sure that if it's published on their site it's their estimate - but due weight. Alaexis¿question? 19:54, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree with what you're saying. The reason I brought it here is because I was researching revenue and number of employees for an edit request, and saw it listed at D&B however, the company (Accuride) is not a public company, and thus I have no idea where the figures come from. I assume they are self-reported, but according to the COI account that made the request, the figures were not public. Essentially, the edit request was to remove the info that was in the infobox, and in doing that, I attempted to track down the potential source of the unsourced info, and came across D&B as one potential source. But my decidion was to remove the info (as requested) because D&B did not disclose where this supposedly private data came from. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 21:08, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No idea where D&B get their information, but they are certainly a reliable source for such figures--as such, we don't need to know where the information comes from, at least in my view. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:11, 26 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I would be extremely hesitant to use Dun & Bradstreet. When I've tried to use D&B to research companies in the past (for my day job, not Wikipedia), I've found their information to be outdated and unreliable.  It might still be useful for their target audience, credit managers, who are using it as just one source of information in reaching a credit decision, but I have trouble thinking of a situation where I would want to cite them for Wikipedia.  John M Baker (talk) 23:47, 26 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The database consists of self-reported information, so it comes under Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves. I would assume it to be accurate unless there is evidence to the contrary. Bear in mind that accounting is not an exact science and auditors do not guarantee the accuracy of financial statements. A great number of blue chip companies in the U.S. have turned out to be worthless. All we can provide is the information available. TFD (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The problem with this approach, which otherwise sounds appealing, is that companies often fail to update their D&B information, so it often is information that was true, or claimed to be true, in the indeterminate past. John M Baker (talk) 01:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * This is absolutely true, and I have had this experience as well; I still think that it's such a widely used source that we can use it with attribution. But, as ever, happy to go with consensus.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 01:53, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Seconded. D&B is as close to an authority on the figures they house as currently exists, and has been for decades; if a company is going to update records outside of official filings or their website, it's most likely to be with their D&B profile. The accuracy of other sources that state 'y had x employees as of date z' typically have questionable accuracy and frequently refer to out of date data anyway. When an employee count (or other noncontroversial figure) is not listed with a year, it should be assumed by readers to not necessarily be up to date. Star Garnet (talk) 23:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * IME it often has outdated information. In the UK it gets information from Companies House (which itself isn't an RS) upon registration, but apparently doesn't regularly update. To double check, I just looked up a UK company and even the basic info on D&B has been out of sync with the latest updates on Companies House for years. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:40, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Websites used as sources, Battle of Montgisard

 * Thoughtco.com appears to be written by Kennedy Hickman. He cites no sources for his article. Reliable source??

AND,


 * Historyonthisday.com, unauthored, no references. Reliable source? --Kansas Bear (talk) 13:48, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Historyonthisday.com says it is written by 'amateur historians', so not RS. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:51, 30 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The Thoughtco.com article seems to cite some sources (bottom of the page). And there seems to have been some prior discussion of Thoughtco on WP:RS/N, though it is rather inconclusive. Personally, I'd be wary of citing the article in question for anything controversial. And looking at the article in question (Battle of Montgisard), I've got to agree with comments on the talk page that there seems to be a whole lot of questionable content. If websites like these are the best we can come up with for some rather astonishing casualty figures, we should be looking for much better ones. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:51, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Dozens of scraper-plagiarism websites







 * - The subdomain 'celebs.mhepo.com' uses the boilerplate, but other uses of this domain may need more investigation
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - The subdomain 'celebs.mhepo.com' uses the boilerplate, but other uses of this domain may need more investigation
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results
 * - Domain may or may not be expired, but still listed in search results

I have found a collection of websites which steal content from other websites and then use some kind of automated process to change them enough to make them appear original to search engines. All of these websites are connected by the same boilerplate in their "about" pages, with only superficial changes. None of these appear reliable. While looking into this, I found this news story from Monterey County Weekly about this group.

These are cited hundreds of times on Wikipedia. I haven't look at all of them, but so far, every source I've seen has been plagiarized from some other website. Only some of those original sources are reliable. Some are press releases, and some are tabloids like the Daily or niche blogs. Most (but not all) appear to include a link to the original story at the end, but they do not indicate that the story was a barely paraphrased copy of that story. They also do not credit these stories to the original authors.

Even the ones which come from reliable outlets have been modified in ways which makes them unreliable. As an example I've already fixed, one of these sites copied a story about runner Michał Rozmys losing his right shoe in mid-race and still finishing. This was changed to him losing his right leg in mid race and still finishing. What an athlete! That's indicative of the total lack of quality. This is more than plagiarism, it's just bad.

I posted an explanation of this to Wikiproject Spam. There, recommended that I post this to  Meta:Talk:Spam blacklist since some of these websites are being cited at other Wikipedias. in turn said that this needed consensus here, as these sites have been added as references by experienced editors and admins. Many editors have added these in good faith, but that's exactly the problem. Every experienced editor has mistakenly cited a bad sources, and these websites are designed to trick people.

As I said The Daily Mail seems like a popular source, as do sites with a paywall such as Financial Times. It's obvious why they are being cited on Wikipedia, but it doesn't change the problem. I cannot confidently say these are legally WP:ELNEVER copyright violations, but they sure look like it to me. Regardless, they are plagiarism, and they should all be removed. To prevent further confusion, they should also be blacklisted. Grayfell (talk) 00:47, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I have blacklisted these on meta: scraper sites with plagiarized (copyvio?) material, likely properly marketed (SEOd) to appear high in google searches as to outperform the original source (and hence unknowing editors, including admins, are likely to use them), and possible spammed to Wikipedia (yes, we have nofollow, but that is easily solved with proper webbugs). Dirk Beetstra T C 12:33, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * has reverted the blacklisting of these sites. Spam blacklist/About says Domains hosting copyright violations, or other legally problematic may be blacklisted on a case-by-case basis, provided there is strong justification and consensus to do so exists. Since Billinghurst has reverted, perhaps they will explain more clearly, here on this board, why this is necessary and why the justification is not strong enough.


 * This is not the first time these kinds of malicious spam sources have been discussed here. Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 357 is the most recent time I am aware of. As far as I can tell, nobody is defending these sources on their own merits. How could they? They plagiarize other outlets without attribution, and modify the content to avoid detection. This process also introduces significant errors. These sites act as a laundering service to allow editors to cite unreliable sources, including sources which are already deprecated. This is not a good thing! Further, as these sites closely paraphrase copyrighted content for non-archival purposes, there is little legal justification for these websites even existing. Grayfell (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Content might also contain harmful disinformation eg. support conspiracy theories, culture war memes, practical jokes ("left leg"), or embarrass political enemies. It would be great to see this given a classification ("usurped sources" ie. WP:USURPSOURCE per WP:USURP dab), and a tracking page where the domains can be listed, a description of the problem, links to previous discussions and history of actions taken. It will be ongoing indefinitely, presumably. --  Green  C  03:08, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I've been slowly cleaning these up, but I've only made a dent. I haven't noticed any signs that these are being intentionally used for harmful purposes, but its so sloppy and weird that it would be easy to abuse. If there's a name for this phenomenon, I haven't found it. If nothing else, having a simple wikilink to explain this would make writing edit summaries much easier. Grayfell (talk) 04:15, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Example. Do you want help? I have a bot that does this. It won't get them all, due to free form cites outside ref pairs or bundled cites but could get the bulk of them. I ran a search, the domains exist in (up to) 177 articles. --  Green  C  05:02, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I would appreciate the help. That example is one, but a more typical one might be this one where I replace the plagiarized source with the original. (I don't know if fightnews.com is reliable, but it cannot be any worse than a source which mangles and plagiarizes it for SEO manipulation.)
 * Unusually, this particular collection of spam sites often includes links to the real source at the end, so manually checking has been very helpful. They don't always include a link, but there's always been some sign of where they got the article. I've been using these links to replace or evaluate each reference case-by-case. I think it might be better to just get rid of them and clean up afterward, so a checking a log generated by a bot would be fantastic.
 * Also, it might be better to have a wikilink or similar in place for these edits before mass-removing them. That way editors who see a CN tag will have some clue what the problem is when they're looking for replacements. Grayfell (talk) 06:16, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * OK we now have WP:USURPSOURCE feel free to modify as you like. I'll start on the bot slow, a dz or so pages so you can check them out. Will use the USURPSOURCE page for tracking bot activity and logging. -- Green  C  15:52, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources
I want to add stronger warnings against the use of predatory journals / explanations for why those should not be cited on Wikipedia. Others disagree. Please comment. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:51, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea. I can't imagine why anyone would disagree with having an explicit stance against predatory journals. Either Wikipedia clearly takes a stance for reliable sources, or it doesn't. Editors can't speak WP:WEASEL in the Wikipedia, so why should the content guideline? Hunan201p (talk) 08:30, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * you might want to say that there rather than here, since that's where the discussion is. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Extensive use of a primary source from Cryptologic Quarterly, an internal NSA document, on Gulf of Tonkin incident
Our article on the Gulf of Tonkin incident makes use of extensive cites to a single primary source, - Cryptologic Quarterly, an internal publication distributed by the NSA for use within the US government (available today via FOIA requests, but not intended to be published outside the government.) It seems obvious to me that this source, as a primary source within the US government that can clearly be presumed to be WP:BIASED when it comes to US government policy, shouldn't be cited without attribution and shouldn't be relied on extensively; yet the majority of key facts in that article are cited to it, in the article voice, with no attribution or in-text indication as to the fact that this comes directly from the NSA. I attempted to tag this issue a while back but recently noticed it was reverted; since the article is low-traffic I figured it made more sense to raise the issue here. It is certainly true that some of these statements are uncontroversial in the sense that they can be cited elsewhere, but the precise tone and framing we get from the source matters, and we clearly cannot use internal NSA sources (which are clearly primary documents) without attribution in this context - if it is uncontroversial, that means that secondary sources are available, and they ought to be used, for which tagging citations as primary so people know to correct the problem in the future is an obvious first step. Note that I am not saying that Cryptologic Quarterly is entirely unreliable (it seems decent as far as plainly-biased primary sources go), but it obviously cannot be used in the fashion, and to the extent, that it is being used in that article - when discussing the actions of the US government, it can only be used with attribution, and ought to be used more sparingly to reflect the NSA's attributed position, never to establish facts in the article voice. Yet the article currently cites it twenty-two times, largely as a sole, unattributed source for statements of fact. --Aquillion (talk) 07:26, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support attribution in all instances of its use on the article for anything beyond the most trivial details. This is a context where this particular source cannot be taken at face value. <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">foliar❧</b> 08:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not a "primary source" in the same way the Pentagon Papers aren't a primary source about the Vietnam War despite the creator (US Government) being involved in it. A corporate author that was involved in the events doesn't mean the person who's actually writing the work is drawing on their own personal experiences. While the source is likely to be biased in favour of the US government (and I would agree with attributing it, but I believe in attribution in general wherever possible), it is still very clearly a secondary source on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The author is synthesizing the facts and providing their own original analysis of what occurred, providing in-depth inline citations to the sources that they used in creating the piece. The quote in particular that you've provided demonstrates this excellently, as the author is providing "for the first time ever" the assessment that individuals in the US Navy cherry-picked accurate signals intelligence to mislead the Johnson administration about the incident, while discounting the theory that there was a conspiracy within the Johnson administration to create entirely falsified signals intelligence to lie about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 15:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Per the above, this is NOT a primary source. A primary source would be, say, a video of the incident, or the ships logs from that day, or the transcripts of the communications that occured as the incident was happening.  What makes a primary source primary is that it is of the event itself and does not provide meaningful analysis.  It is the raw data of the thing, not the after-the-fact analysis of the thing.  This is clearly a secondary source as it is an after-the-fact analysis of the event.  As a not-entirely-neutral source, it may be worth citing with attribution (i.e. say "According to the NSA... before quoting or paraphrasing), but it is NOT a primary source.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 17:46, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * In agreement. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Dhaka Post is a bogus news portal, they publish news without fact checking
Dhaka Post has published multiple articles a few weeks ago regarding a high school student winning some SARK awards. But fact checking team exposed that it all were a hoax. Read in details here.

This website should not be used as reference in wiki articles, it is a bogus online news portal that publishes promo content that are straight made up garbage.-- Tame (talk) 08:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Is Opencorporates a reliable/legitimate source?
Would it be appropriate to use in articles about organizations or individuals?

https://opencorporates.com/


 * It looks like they gather data from official records, such as state corporate filings. So it provides access to primary sources that can be easy to misinterpret. In addition, to the extent that those records are suitable sources for us, it usually would be preferable to cite to the original source, rather than to opencorporates.com. It may occasionally be suitable to use, but only with great caution. John M Baker (talk) 02:09, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Do not really think Open Corporates requires anymore of a greater caution than the source it is pulling the data from itself. The project is based on openly available corporate registration data that too directly from government records and has been used as ubiquitous corporate relationship mapping tool. It is very useful in cases where govt. reg. data cannot directly be linked. The only policy that would/should apply to it is WP:PRIMARY. Gotitbro (talk) 12:24, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the sources themselves should be used only with great caution. They are extremely easy to misunderstand. John M Baker (talk) 15:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Heterodox Academy
Not quite sure where else to post this -- an IP over on this page has been adding information about a podcast associated with the subject, with some cites, although about which I have qualms. They have now added cites to college syllabi -- which causes more qualms. This is not a case where the IP is wildly wrong, but if people wanted to go have a look and weigh in (and my qualms might well be unwarranted), I would appreciate it. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * At a glance, it looks like the dispute is largely over someone trying to use ListenNotes as a source. Their pages on individual podcasts are WP:USERGENERATED (I'm definitely seeing an edit button there.) The statistics seem to be automated somehow but given that the site itself plainly isn't an WP:RS I don't think it's a usable source for them. They just describe their Listen Score vaguely as a mathematical model and there is no indication that anyone else cares about it. I would classify it as remove-on-sight. --Aquillion (talk) 23:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty dubious. I can find and  from Chartable.com. Doesn't back the listennotes claim..  Doug Weller  talk 15:48, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Chartable and Listennotes provide different information. Listennotes shows the lifetime ranking of a podcast, so a podcast could be in the top 1% in lifetime rankings without being in the top 300 this month. For a podcast to be in the top 300, it has be somewhere in the top .0001%, which is also different from top 1%.70.251.211.77 (talk) 13:45, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * And that doesn't solve the problem of Listennotes reliability. I can't find anything about that, but I did find how to improve your ranking."To boost your podcast's ranking in the search results, Wenbin suggests focussing on quality content, creating show notes, and posting audio transcripts." Doug Weller  talk 14:26, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * As I pointed out on the Heterodox Academy talk page, the impression I get from comparing Listennotes's use in articles vs talk pages is that it gets removed whenever it's discussed.
 * Given the number of podcasts it claims to have in their database, I'd assume that automation and user submission are the primary ways that any information is placed in their database.
 * WP:RS states: Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I don't see how Listennotes could have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" for anything beyond their numbers, which are being questioned above. Some of the numbers may be reliable, but that doesn't mean other information is, or that numbers from Listennotes give due weight to any other information (a topic of WP:POV, not WP:RS). --Hipal (talk) 16:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

insidethegames.biz
Is insidethegames.biz a reliable source for sports related content? Xoltered (talk) 21:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I do not think so but i would like to see what other editors think. Xoltered (talk) 21:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Generally reliable, they're a major international source for sports (particularly large international events) with a reputation for accuracy and fact checking. Here on wikipedia they are one of our most widely used sports sources with usage on thousands of pages. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Their current usage on wikipedia has no bearing on whether they are reliable. Xoltered (talk) 21:46, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Very true, but their status as a major international source for sports and their reputation for accuracy and fact checking have a considerable amount of bearing on whether or not they are reliable. Care to explain why you think they aren't reliable? There isn't actually any justification, argument, or reasoning in your opening statement. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 21:49, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Heroic Hollywood
Is Heroic Hollywood reliable? Heroic Hollywood is an entertainment/film news website. They have been cited/mentioned by The Washington Post, Variety, and Grantland. I cant tell if their staff has any editorial experiance, but it is definitely not a self-published source. Here is the past conversation on it, but it gives you basically nothing. ― <b style="background:#000;color:#f07b3a;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Kaleeb18</b>Talk<sub style="position:relative;right:20q;margin-right:-15px;">Caleb 01:48, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Rfc for deprecation of pre-print repositories
There has been much discussion about pre-print repositories, such as bioRxiv, here at RSN. Several times, people have come here asking if they are reliable sources, and in each instance, most people seem to agree that they are not:

Example 1 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Is_a_preprint_quoted_in_an_article_by_someone_not_a_DNA_specialist_ok_as_a_source_for_DNA? 2]

Despite the widespread acknowledgement among elite editors that we should rely on peer-reviewed secondary sources, citations of bioRxiv content remain hugely popular, particularly at articles relating to human ethnicity or human genetic origins. Most of these articles are patrolled by smart people, who simply aren't noticing the problem.

By no means is it my intention to single out bioRxiv. I have nothing against them or their mission, and there are definitely other pre-print repositories just like them which are also cited on Wikipedia. Websites like preprints.org, thesiscommons, peerj.com, and the osf.io repository should be considered here as well.

The only point I am trying to make is that these types of sources evidently fail WP:RS, yet are widespread on Wikipedia. It looks to me like deprecation is a viable solution, so I'd like to hear all of your thoughts. Hunan201p (talk) 01:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment - Deprecation is too much. Preprints should normally be treated as self-published sources, so generally unreliable, but we do not generally go to the effort of deprecating self-published sources. However, there is nothing misleading about the editorial controls at the major preprint servers, which is what I take to be the property distinguishing generally unreliable sources from deprecated sources: they will tell you what versions were archived with them on which dates, and so on. Furthermore, there are many special cases: a preprint may be the only accessible form of an article that passed peer review; several journals, such as eLife are experimenting with post-publication peer review and I would like our rules to have some flexibility to adapt to changes in the literature; and some fields, such as verified mathematics, where correctness is not what gets articles past peer review but interest of the question. To the extent there is a problem, it is handled by our existing rules, and singling out preprints in this way has problems attached. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 03:54, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Although pre-prints are sometimes the only accessible sources of published articles thst passed review, these pre-prints also occasionally contain information that was omitted from the reviewed articles. That's a huge red flag. The difference between a pre-print and a published study can be significant. -- Hunan201p (talk) 14:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment. For biomedicine, I'd probably support deprecation due to how much can change during revisions and how topical material can be, plus they're basically excluded by MEDRS anyway. But in pure math preprints on the arXiv are cited all the time since it's understood papers can take literal years to get published. And some people exclusively publish there. For the most part I would say WP:DUE would cover whether a preprint (or published article) should be referenced; if a result hasn't garnered independent scholarly attention then it doesn't matter where it is or isn't published. JoelleJay (talk) 07:50, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. I fully agree with the issue, but I think we should rather make the necessary amendments to WP:PREPRINT. The problem with the current wording of WP:PREPRINT that it gives the impression that authorship by a subject-matter expert heals everything (there has not even been a link to WP:SPS; I have fixed this). We should explicitly mention that any non-peer-reviewed source even by subject-matter experts is useless if it hasn't been cited yet in a sufficient number of secondary peer-reviewed academic sources (and by then, 99.9% of all former preprints will have appeared in print). And naturally, most hastily added references to new preprints will not fulfill this criterion. And yes, sadly enough these preprint references often stay here for years, even after the source has appeared in print and proven to be widely accepted. Barring the practice of recentist low-quality edits based on preprints (by whatever policy) will be immensely helpful to reach a higher standard, especially in articles relating to human ethnicity or human genetic origins.
 * And oh, here's example 3 for you: Talk:Corded_Ware_culture. –Austronesier (talk) 12:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Amending WP:PREPRINT sounds like a great idea. It would also bypass the need to discriminate between the peer reviewed papers hosted by the repositories, as mentioned below. -- Hunan201p (talk) 13:55, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose I agree that preprints are usually not WP:RS. It is further true that these sites contain a lot of preprints. However, that's not a reason to deprecate. The sites have a lot of published work too. Furthermore, these sites may be the easiest way to access and link to the published work.
 * Lastly, sometimes preprints do acquire enough WP:USEBYOTHERS that they gain some degree of reliability, even though they are still not academic sources. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:25, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Providing open-access links is preferred, but we can do that in the form of a convenience link without referencing to a preprint service. If we reference to a preprint service, it's harder to verify whether the work was peer-reviewed and published. So from that point of view, it is not that unreasonable to expect references to published work. Cheers, Pyrite Pro  (talk) 14:06, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Strongest possible oppose, deprecation would be an overreaction. Preprints are entirely fine for non-controversial routine information, per WP:SPS. Sure, Wikipedia cannot establish "X was discovered in 2020" based on a preprint paper, but it could be used to write "A team of researchers claimed to have discovered X". Other considerations like WP:DUE will apply, too, but a blanket ban on preprints is a no go. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:04, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * See also the advice in WP:VANPRED. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:07, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. As others have said - they are generally not ideal sources for a number of reasons (they don't usually count as published by the definition we use because, well, they haven't been published yet) and therefore would have to be used with extreme caution, but they are capable of being extremely high-quality WP:SPSes written by established academic experts. Additionally, the usage and history of an individual preprint varies in a way that requires looking at them individually. Deprecation is wild overkill - we don't depreciate entire categories of sources at all anyway. There's no such entry for eg. WP:USERGENERATED sources, and most individual ones are listed as unreliable rather than deprecated. --Aquillion (talk) 21:16, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * BTW, it's deprecate, not depreciate. Minor typo, yes, but pet peeve of mine. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose I don't see the logic here.  Are we suggesting these sources are altering or otherwise changing the unpublished works?  If a university lab website puts of an unpublished paper their lab has completed would we suggest deprecating the lab web page?  If the argument is we need to treat these papers as self published because they haven't gone through peer review that would make sense.  Deprecation should really be restricted for cases where we cannot trust the information on the site is what it claims to be.  In this case that would mean we can't trust that an unpublished paper by X, Y and Z was actually written by X, Y and Z or is "as uploaded" by X, Y and Z. Adding these repositories to RSP may make sense if editors are frequently confusing peer reviewed scholarship with these papers (pre-peer reviewed or worse, rejected papers) Springee (talk) 14:56, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Neither the identification of a problem nor a solution is compelling. Referencing a preprint is obviously appropriate some of the time. Also the opener should read WP:RFCOPEN -- this RfC lacks a brief, neutral statement. --JBL (talk) 19:40, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Srivastava Group
Srivastava Group is a holding company registered in India which was found to be operating a disinformation network with at least 265 identified fake news websites. The websites either use bought out domains of defunct news publishers, domains pretending to be associated with newspapers that don't exist (e.g timesofgeneva.com) or misleading domains which are pretending to be websites of mainstream newspapers (e.g timesoflosangeles.com). To provide more credibility to their websites and to inflate their content, they also plagiarise from other news publishers in violation of copyright. Read these articles for additional context; BBC 1 BBC 2 CBC Quint 1 Quint 2 (Primary sources: EU Disinfo Lab, Interactive Map)

The main websites of the network are, ,

I propose the following: Tayi Arajakate Talk 02:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Blacklisting of the above mentioned websites
 * Blacklisting of other identified websites by referring them at WT:BLIST on an ad hoc basis (this will prevent the need for repeated RSN discussions for each individual website)

Survey (Srivastava Group)

 * Support as proposer. Tayi Arajakate  Talk 02:49, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support See Articles for deletion/New Delhi Times (newspaper) for further discussion about this group. Multiple newspaper articles reported on the findings by https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/uncovered-265-coordinated-fake-local-media-outlets-serving-indian-interests/. The number of total sites is quite large. And additional information is in Fake_news_in_India. -- <b style="color:white">rsjaffe</b> <b style="color:white">🗩</b> <b style="color:white">🖉</b> 03:25, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support Per nomination. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:33, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. This is pretty easy to support. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 09:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. No brainer. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:38, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support indeed obvious Eggishorn  (talk) (contrib) 16:55, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom as unambiguous. Chompy Ace 00:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support from everything I have seen, it's all copyright violations or fake news. --SVTCobra 01:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support - Considering how the suggested sources describe it. — Paleo  Neonate  – 03:56, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. hemantha (brief) 15:58, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (Srivastava Group)

 * Note I'm opening this RfC after the discussion above at and because there appears to be UPE attempts at legitimising these websites, see . Blacklisting these websites was also previously briefly discussed at .  Tayi Arajakate  Talk 02:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I've extracted the 260 sites listed in the map that is associated with the report. Note that there are other sites listed in the text of the report that are not in the list. Due to the length of the list, I'm placing it a subpage of my user page rather than here: List of alleged fake news sites -- <b style="color:white">rsjaffe</b> <b style="color:white">🗩</b> <b style="color:white">🖉</b> 21:11, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I've copied the list below, so it is still available after this is all archived, in a collapsed list, now that I know how to use that format. <b style="color:white">rsjaffe</b> <b style="color:white">🗩</b> <b style="color:white">🖉</b> 18:09, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note Since it's snowing, I've added all three above as blacklisted in WP:UPSD. I'll update if this closes with a different outcome. If someone has a list of all domains they used, please let me know and I'll update the script accordingly. (Edit: Nevermind, just saw rsjaffe's list) &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:11, 20 January 2022 (UTC)



Kotchoubey.com
Is this site reliable or not? The site is supposedly maintained by an descendant of an aristocratic Russian family, i landed on that site after searching sources about an Ethiopian Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam time in Russia, where he was adopted by the kotchoubey/volkonsky family &

This website contains far more in depth information about his time in Russia than in any other sources i have seen. My concern is whether the site is reliable and can be used in the article?

Other reliable sources are very short about his time in Russia;, ,  Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 02:18, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * , it looks like a self-published site and the author is not an expert. However, the interview with Tekle published there comes originally from the 1965 documentary film Burnt by the Sun (Обожжённые солнцем) - not to be confused with Mikhalkov's much more famous Burnt by the Sun (Утомлённые солнцем) - which can probably be considered a reliable source in this case. Alaexis¿question? 08:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for responding! The interview was the first thing what made me doubt in favor of the site's reliablity, gratitude for mentioning it's origin. There is so much info and details in the supposed biography, i'm going to mail - Alexander Kotchoubey - to see whether he can point to online Russian sources, since i couldn't find them in English. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 12:39, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Official policy regarding genetics sources
Wikipedia does not currently have any language in existing policy or guidelines that addresses human genetic information, or more broadly, the origin of species and ethnic groups.

This is puzzling, because there are lots of articles about genetics and human ancestry on Wikipedia, and most articles about human ethnic groups contain "genetics" sections. And this content often generates edit wars and lengthly talk page battles.

As an example, see an archive of Talk:Recent African origin of modern humans. Sections 6, 8, 9, and 10 were created by people who claimed to have "debunked" the Out-of-Africa theory. One user cites a New York Post article with a sensationalist headline: "Humans Came From Europe Not Africa". In these talk page discussions, the respectable users went to great lengths to communicate against these trolls, including exhausting quotations of other sources to debunk the sensationalist source.

This is sad. Respectable editors should not have to waste time going through the minutia of the material to write summaries for the cranks.

The closest substitute for a policy or guideline that specifically mentions genetics is found at WP:SCIRS. It contains the following statement (from Respect primary sources):

The above text was added to WP:SCIRS as a result of this RfC. However, there's a caveat. WP:SCIRS is still an essay - it's not a policy or guideline. This is despite the fact that it has existed for over 10 years, with continuous improvements and relevance, as demonstrated by the above RfC. See also -- the very high linkage to WP:SCIRS across the Wiki itself.

Consequently, whenever someone references WP:SCIRS, a user will sometimes retort that that WP:SCIRS is 'just an essay', and that we do not, therefore, have to respect the statements regarding genetics sources -- even though they clearly reflect a consensus. Thus, with WP:SCIRS still stuck in its current status as an essay, the utility of the statement rests on shaky ground - despite being more necessary than ever.

Thus, I propose that we insert the consensus about genetics information in explicit language in to a a Wikipedia policy page. This could be accomplished by two actions:


 * 1) Upgrade WP:SCIRS to official policy; or,
 * 2) Orphan the WP:SCIRS statement to WP:MEDRS or similar page.

I understand this is a big proposal, but it is by no means a new one. There has been much talk of upgrading WP:SCIRS to official status for years. As always, I appreciate your time and input. Hunan201p (talk) 14:54, 27 January 2022 (UTC)


 * There are cranks writing aqbout many different issues, I don't see why this topic merits a special guideline. MEDRS was brought in because of the harm that could be caused to readers who relied on false and misleading information in articles. But there is a trade-off. It limits the sources to ones that are often inaccessible to editors and readers, and usually rules out the inclusion of new information.
 * Take for example Dragon Man (Homo longi). Scientists have conducted DNA research on its skull, which came to attention in 2018. Should we report their preliminary finds, even if we don't have MEDRS compliant sources? I don't see a problem with reporting what scientists say, even though their findings are preliminary. Also, even if the genetics information gets reported in reliable secondary sources, it may still fail MEDRS if the writers are not geneticists. They may be for example anthropologists who rely on expert research by geneticists.
 * There are already many policies and guidelines against entering unreliable information.
 * TFD (talk) 15:22, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * My thoughts: see WP:SBST. Wikipedia's main policy objective is to provide content with reliable, high quality sources. It is not to provide by-the-hour information, which is a task better suited to Wikinews.
 * Correcting the crisis of low-quality genetics sources on Wikipedia, which can range from pre-print papers to Tweets, is a much more urgent priority than providing around-the-clock updates about whatever pet-theory pops up in the news or on forums. Hunan201p (talk) 16:08, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure pre-print papers and tweets are already considered unreliable under existing policy. I don't see why we need another policy to explain this. We really don't need a science specific policy statement to tell people that synthesizing primary sources is wrong and that due weight should be given to secondary sources. This is encompassed at WP:DUE and WP:SYNTH and endless other policies. In my opinion just make the page WP:SUPPLEMENTAL since that's what WP:SCIRS really is. Then it's a pseudoPAG and everyone is happy. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 16:36, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment. However, I would like to point out that we do have science-specific policy statements about this. See WP:MEDPRI. Policy pages like this are needed because certain sciences, particularly bioscience, are affected by the reproducibility crisis. And, as also noted at WP:MEDPRI, "... findings are often touted in the popular press as soon as primary research is reported, before the scientific community has analyzed and commented on the results."
 * I really believe another viable solution may be to orphan the genetics RfC statement to WP:MEDRS, because many people will argue that MEDRS only applies to medicine.
 * My concern is not so much that WP:SCIRS isn't policy, it's that an important consensus is in limbo as long as it's attached to an essay only. Hunan201p (talk) 17:01, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll note that neither WP:MEDRS nor WP:BMI explicitly state their purpose as limiting harm from people taking medical advice from Wikipedia. Even WP:WHYMEDRS (an essay) doesn't give it top billing. The more direct concern has to do with primary studies on these topics most often not reflecting the mainstream accepted knowledge, and thus unreliable for an encyclopedia. The consensus around human genetics seems to fit within that same general category: primary studies on human genetics do not accurately reflect current knowledge. Whether their use results in bad medical advice or bad racial/ethnic stereotyping matters less than their not being WP:RS (particularly WP:SCHOLARSHIP), and seems a reasonable suggestion that elevation to policy would be appropriate here.
 * I'll add, WikiProject Medicine should probably be consulted as well if the target is MEDRS rather than SCHOLARSHIP. Personally, I think adding examples to WP:SCHOLARSHIP where secondary sources are required (not just recommended) might be a cleaner solution. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:03, 27 January 2022 (UTC)


 * MEDRS became a guideline as a result of an RfC where it was argued that it was necessary in order to protect readers from misleading and false medical information they might rely upon. It's caused its fair share of tendentious editing too, as some editors try to expand its scope beyond its intended purpose.
 * Certainly in medicine there are primary studies that cannot be replicated, but that is true of other fields as well and therefore there are policies to deal with them.
 * If you want to add new policies and guidelines, you need to explain why you think the existing ones are insufficient. Give us an example of a false or misleading statement that is reliably sourced and does not violate weight.
 * The real problem is that many people edit in bad faith and should be banned.
 * TFD (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The argument for including the genetics RfC statement in Wiki policy is explained in the RfC itself. The RfC was the first step, policy is now the second step.
 * Banning people is not a viable solution, because we've tried it since day 1, and it hasn't worked.
 * Here is a table of Wikipedia sockpuppet activity supplied to me by Tamzin, an SPI clerk. Year after year, sockpuppet activity has increased, even as Wikipedia's active userbase declined.
 * {| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed"

!Year!!Sockblocks (23 Dec. onward)||35
 * 2004
 * 2004
 * 2005||3336
 * 2006||13237
 * 2007||20482
 * 2008||28487
 * 2009||25457
 * 2010||26384
 * 2011||24257
 * 2012||21689
 * 2013||21983
 * 2014||22631
 * 2015||29768
 * 2016||35668
 * 2017||38451
 * 2018||37020
 * 2019||34222
 * 2020||34055
 * 2021||45479
 * }
 * Banning people has been like trying to stop a roach infestation with a BB gun. You can never stop the problem by picking them off one-by-one. Wikipedia must increase its content standards. Hunan201p (talk) 19:05, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You can't eliminate roaches from existence. They exist and fester as long as there's a food supply to feed on. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 19:27, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That's true, but I think you'll agree that this is no excuse to not call pest control when a house is literally crawling with roaches. Improving content standards, e.g., WP:SCHOLARSHIP, is like our roach bomb. - Hunan201p (talk) 06:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If we're going to keep stretching this simile/metaphor to the breaking point, improving content standards is preventative and is trying to stop the roaches from getting inside in the first place. Calling pest control is reactive and is designed to kill the roaches already inside. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 07:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It sounds like your disagreement is purely about WP:MEDRS being the destination. Are you in agreement some other home in WP:PAGs would be appropriate for this consensus on sourcing? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:12, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 2016||35668
 * 2017||38451
 * 2018||37020
 * 2019||34222
 * 2020||34055
 * 2021||45479
 * }
 * Banning people has been like trying to stop a roach infestation with a BB gun. You can never stop the problem by picking them off one-by-one. Wikipedia must increase its content standards. Hunan201p (talk) 19:05, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You can't eliminate roaches from existence. They exist and fester as long as there's a food supply to feed on. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 19:27, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That's true, but I think you'll agree that this is no excuse to not call pest control when a house is literally crawling with roaches. Improving content standards, e.g., WP:SCHOLARSHIP, is like our roach bomb. - Hunan201p (talk) 06:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If we're going to keep stretching this simile/metaphor to the breaking point, improving content standards is preventative and is trying to stop the roaches from getting inside in the first place. Calling pest control is reactive and is designed to kill the roaches already inside. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 07:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It sounds like your disagreement is purely about WP:MEDRS being the destination. Are you in agreement some other home in WP:PAGs would be appropriate for this consensus on sourcing? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:12, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Banning people has been like trying to stop a roach infestation with a BB gun. You can never stop the problem by picking them off one-by-one. Wikipedia must increase its content standards. Hunan201p (talk) 19:05, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You can't eliminate roaches from existence. They exist and fester as long as there's a food supply to feed on. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 19:27, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That's true, but I think you'll agree that this is no excuse to not call pest control when a house is literally crawling with roaches. Improving content standards, e.g., WP:SCHOLARSHIP, is like our roach bomb. - Hunan201p (talk) 06:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If we're going to keep stretching this simile/metaphor to the breaking point, improving content standards is preventative and is trying to stop the roaches from getting inside in the first place. Calling pest control is reactive and is designed to kill the roaches already inside. Chess (talk) (please use&#32; on reply) 07:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It sounds like your disagreement is purely about WP:MEDRS being the destination. Are you in agreement some other home in WP:PAGs would be appropriate for this consensus on sourcing? Bakkster Man (talk) 19:12, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Although it may not show in the current version, MEDRS used to begin, "Wikipedia's articles are not meant to provide medical advice. Nevertheless, they are widely used among those seeking health information. For this reason, all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge." That's the only reason why the guideline was created.

Bakkster Man, If editors are not following current policy, I don't see how a new guideline would fix it. All it would do would be to provide ammunition for tendentious editors. You could sum up Wikipedia policy very briefly: use the best sources and summarize them accurately. We now have dozens of pages of explanations. So if someone tries to use a book on racial theory written in 1900, I can find a specific sentence that explains why it should not be used. But anyone with common sense, acting in good faith and knowledgable about the topic wouldn't do that anyway. We don't need yet another guideline to explain this to them.

As for you comment that Wikipedia is not a newspaper, we already have a policy for that so don't need a guideline specific to genetics. But articles are created and updated for important events. Joe Biden's article for example was edited to say that he was president as soon as he was sworn in. If we had a MEDRS like guideline, some editors would be arguing not to say that until reliable secondary sources say he was actually the president.

Also, MEDRS is only a guideline. Guidelines are routinely ignored when editors agree they don't apply, because "Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply."

TFD (talk) 19:46, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Obviously, some topics needs higher standards for reliability than others. As noted at WP:MEDPRI, bioscience information has a low reproducibility rate. However, something like Biden's Presidential election result, is not so impoverished. By the time Biden was sworn in, multiple high-quality, third-party sources had already inicated that he was president-elect. Presidential elections are a subject where the high quality sources come in quickly and most tend to support eachother. Genetics is not. - Hunan201p (talk) 06:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you've got a good idea and that WP:SCHOLARSHIP is the path of least resistance. - Hunan201p (talk) 06:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * My main concern about the use of genetics is editors cherry-picking data from the main text of the article to use to proved some sort of point or just to add to an article. Eg. there's a study comparing two Egyptian mummies where they are linked together by their haplogroup. I've seen several editors use that to argue that the mummies must come from a sub-Saharan population, although the research was not designed to find a relationship with populations nor does the source mention sub-Saharan. Doug Weller  talk 10:52, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and this isn't the first time you and I have been embroiled in such a dispute. This happens constantly on Wikipedia and it would be best if we could orphan the WP:SCIRS quote to something official in order to set precedent for future disputes -- because it apparently still isn't clear to ethnocentric cranks that you can't use primary sources for genetics articles.
 * As of now, citing WP:SCIRS is always met with retorts of "it's just an essay" despite the fact that this it has been consensus for years. We can't afford to have people duking it out with an uneding barrage of cranks on hundreds of different pages without any kind of standards. - Hunan201p (talk) 12:48, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * , there is already a policy (no synthesis) that says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." Using high quality sources doesn't address that.
 * If there is a significant problem in genetics related articles, the best approach would be to bring them under Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, place a notice on each affected article, provide notices to each involved editor and take violations to AE.
 * TFD (talk) 15:12, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That would of course require an ARBCOM case, which I think is unlikely. You are right that there is a policy, I'm simply supporting the idea of a specific guideline based on policy. Doug Weller  talk 15:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I mentioned this below, but if there are a bunch of people advocating something that is clearly and unambiguously fringe, holding an RFC to establish that it is fringe could help. After that WP:PROFRINGE applies to anyone who is plainly editing to advocate it. This approach was reasonably successful on Fascism and Race and intelligence, which were plagued by people advancing fringe views for a long time. --Aquillion (talk) 06:21, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Yeah. MEDRS is dangerous precisely because it's so powerful; like WP:BLP, that force is necessary in certain areas but we have to be very careful with it.  With that said, it's worth pointing out that WP:FRINGE still applies, and on the whole WP:SCIRS is the logical implication of FRINGE.  If a source is saying something about genetics that goes against the clear consensus of high-quality reliable sources, then that's fringe and ought to be treated as such.  And if a particular fringe view on genetics is being constantly pressed in multiple articles, a general RFC to establish that it is fringe (like we had with race and intelligence or with people who disagree that fascism is right-wing) could be called for in order to avoid redundant discussions. In the example in question, it seems easy enough to hold an RFC on the out-of-africa theory and the dissent from it in order to establish that the dissent is largely fringe, after which discussions could be closed more quickly. Basically, we have more narrowly-targeted solutions than just applying something as heavy as MEDRS to an entire topic area. --Aquillion (talk) 06:21, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Genetics is part of Biomedicine. So, for any WP:Biomedical information in the genetics realm, WP:MEDRS would apply. Regular considerations like WP:EXCEPTIONAL may also be applicable. Alexbrn (talk) 07:26, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Ötzi the Iceman's Y chromosome haplogroup cannot "reasonably be perceived as relating to human health", in and of itself. The suggestion that we prohibit primary sources from being used in our archaeogenetics articles on the basis of WP:MEDRS is quite a stretch, and will do immense harm, not good, at least in my opinion. Most of the trouble in this area is caused by false summaries of primary sources, whether due to malice or lack of competence, or just good ol' OR in the form of SYNTH, both of which are already excluded from Wikipedia.  Tewdar  (talk) 15:40, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Here, for example, is a perfect example of the sort of SYNTH that we see on these articles all the time, added by one u|Hunan201p, who seems to believe that, if "Corded Ware remains have blue eyes", so 'should' Western Steppe Herders! Sounds reasonable enough, doesn't it? 🤔  Tewdar  (talk) 18:10, 29 January 2022 (UTC) - addendum: I should probably point out that, despite this edit being based on two secondary (archaeology) sources, this is flagrant synthesis that conflates Western Steppe Herders, people of the Yamnaya culture, and people of the Corded Ware culture. This is not a primary vs secondary sources issue. This is a case of basic reading (mis)comprehension, and failure to accurately summarize the source, which actually doesn't require any particular specialist knowledge.   Tewdar  (talk) 12:31, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Is that editor’s requests for other editors to comment canvassing? Doug Weller  talk 18:28, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * erm... what? Provisional 'no', but I'm not really sure what you're asking...  Tewdar  (talk) 18:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Wait, are you suggesting that Hunan201p canvassed me to come here? 😂😂😂😂😂😂 He only asked me because Austronesier told him to invite people who might disagree with him! Which I do, of course. Surely that can't be what you mean?  Tewdar  (talk) 19:25, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No I wasn't and that never occurred to me, and I guess that suggestion covers my question. Doug Weller  talk 19:35, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That doesn't mean that other users are not being canvassed, however...  Tewdar  (talk) 20:07, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * True. Doug Weller  talk 20:09, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The history of the human species is really more an archaeological issue than a biomedical one, and doesn't fit into any of Biomedical information ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:49, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Really? What about this: "Information that is not typically biomedical may still require high-quality sourcing if the context may lead the reader to draw a conclusion about biomedical information, as can occur with content about human biochemistry or about medical research in animals."? -- Hunan201p (talk) 15:04, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * eh.... if the humans in question are mostly dead, then I don't think this argument holds up. I'm typically very expansive about what I personally consider BMI, but I don't think this qualifies, if the "human health" in question is mostly about dead people from many thousands of years ago who arguably were not "modern humans". Perhaps MEDRS applies only where it is interpreted to affect the health of living humans. Such as the shrinking Y chromosome hypothesis. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 15:47, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Right. Applying MEDRS to typical food and drink makes more sense than applying it to archaeology/anthropology. The effects of a drinking a martini has more relevance to present-day human health than how modern humans came to be. Not to mention, as a practical matter, afaik info on archaeology/anthropology usually isn't published in medical journals. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:52, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No, this doesn't just apply to archaic humans. It applies to genetic information about living human groups as well, including their links to ancient historical populations. However, even the archaic human DNA stuff can have indisputable biomedical relevance. See the Neanderthal article which describes how Neanderthal ancestry in modern humans is related to viral immunity, hair and skin texture, skin color, genetic fitness, etc. -- Hunan201p (talk) 17:47, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Explain to us how e.g. this paper is supposed to carry any biomedical information... –Austronesier (talk) 18:44, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * How does the genetic information about living human groups' connections to ancient populations have to do with the health of living humans? If we are talking about a specific mutation or haplogroup being more or less likely to have X, Y, or Z disease, then that specific fact about modern humans may be BMI, but everything else related to this is not. And this would not apply to vague notions like "immunity", "fitness", and "skin texture [or color]". Such things are far too vague to be characterized as a "disease." They are several steps removed. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 19:16, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Wow, learned some great stuff about how Neanderthal genes contribute to modern human body fat distribution from the linked reference. Thank goodness no one has decided to remove all the primary sources from that article. Yet.  Tewdar  (talk) 19:25, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, WP:MEDPRI exists because of the nature of primary biomedical sources being frequently conflicting. It does not exist because primary sources are misleading people about drugs or disease; it's there because of the reproducibility crisis itself, which points to the unreliability of primary biomedical research.
 * Hence while something might not be biomedical in nature, if the research is still conducted using biomedical science, it is arguable that it should be treated the same as biomedical information. From my perspective.
 * You have a point that this paper does not contain biomedical information. But primary genetics research is created using biomedical science and technology, in a clinical setting, which seems to be prone to generating conflicting research. Much of the primary research even uses medical ethics like informed consent to obtain DNA from living people, which is food for thought. - Hunan201p (talk) 21:45, 30 January 2022 (UTC)


 * If anyone paid any attention to the WP:SCIRS statement that primary sources describing genetic or genomic research into human ancestry, ancient populations, ethnicity, race, and the like, should not be used to generate content about those subjects, or the suggestion that archaeogenetics articles should be subject to WP:MEDRS, then a lot of articles would be almost empty. Western Steppe Herders, for example (which is far from perfect, but not awful either, and reasonably free from kooky claims and SYNTH) is highly dependent on primary sources. The secondary sources that are used include articles written by archaeologists (not MEDRS) and a book by David Reich, a large part of which is about his own primary research, and a couple of review articles. If we remove primary sources from this article, we wouldn't have an article. The WP:SCIRS advice is universally ignored in our archaeogenetics articles, and I would actually support the removal of the section quoted above that was added as a result of a poorly-attended RfC. We have enough WP:RULES to handle any WP:CONTROVERSY as it is, without adding more. What exactly is the motivation for starting this discussion, ?   Tewdar  (talk) 11:03, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * My motivation is exactly this: reduce original research and synthesis by promoting secondary sources rather than primaries. I shouldn't have to explain that. It's what everyone in that RfC said. It's consistent with the WP:SCHOLARSHIP guideline. Genetics attracts a lot of malicious editors who promote their favorite primary sources and ideas over more comprehensive secondary sources.
 * Western Steppe Herders would not have to be deleted with a new guideline. At most, we might give it a trim. And that's not a bad thing. There are enough secondary sources available to maintain an article that sufficiently explains the Western Steppe Herders. However, how long and detailed does this article really need to be? It's a mid-class importance article, about an aDNA abstract population, at 49,000 bytes.
 * Wikimedia pays millions of dollars per year to host this tertiary source. We shouldn't WP:HOARD this much info from primary sources for articles about dead people and the molecular going-ons of different human ethnic groups. Some of these articles are so large they take 10-15 seconds to load for some users. -- Hunan201p (talk) 12:05, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You are aware that there is something in between indiscriminate hoarding of primary sources and categorically not using them at all? It's called good encyclopedic writing. –Austronesier (talk) 12:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course. That's what the WP:RS guideline says to do, for most subjects in general. But genetics is another issue. It is bioscience, the primary sources often conflict, and I'd argue that the efforts of various racist and ethnonationalist groups to propagandize the genetic ancestry research, as noted by Frieman and others, merit a WP:MEDRS-related guideline. - Hunan201p (talk) 12:44, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If we apply WP:MEDRS to the WSH article, we probably only have one or two sources left. The secondary sources in this field often misreport the findings of the primary study they discuss, which would leave us, if your proposal gains consensus support (which I really hope it doesn't) in the absurd position of being compelled to cite secondary sources, which we know to be wrong, and being unable to provide correct information from a misrepresented primary source. This cannot be a good thing.  Tewdar  (talk) 12:57, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * What you are describing is outside the bounds of Wikipedia's editing policy. It's not our job to pick and choose which sources are accurate and which are not, and we explicity cannot use primary sources for this purpose (AEIS).
 * See AEIS. Wikipedia is often WP:NOTRIGHT.
 * Anyway, I disagree that there are only one or two primary sources in Western Steppe Herders. There are a few more than that, but regardless there are others that can be added. The article would be trimmed a bit but that's okay; the tertiary source shouldn't be more comprehensive than the secondary sources will allow. Hunan201p (talk) 13:52, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree, the tertiary source shouldn't be more comprehensive than the secondary sources as well as the primary sources (selected and used in accordance with WP:SCHOLARSHIP) will allow. –Austronesier (talk) 18:38, 30 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Genetics is a wide field, and the main issue raised by the OP is about archeogenetics. Archeogenetics is part of Anthropology, and as such occasionally discusses biomedical features such as eye/hair color or lactose intolerance. Arguably, we can apply WP:MEDRS to these findings even though it appears to be out of the intent of that policy. For the most part, however, archeogenetics is "blind" to the biological realizations of the genome. The primary objective is study the vertical and horizontal ancestral connections between "populations" (temporally and spatially confined groups of specimens that are genetically relatively homogenous; sometimes just represented by one individual) with statistical methods. Apart form the few exceptions I have mentioned, generally no WP:biomedical information information is extracted.
 * Archeogenetics is a powerful tool (some would say: the key) for our understanding of prehistory, but its results are complex and require competence to be read properly. Often its results are cited at face value as facts (e.g. "population A is an admixture of xx% from population B and yy% from population B"). Everything in archeogenetics, however, is based on simplified best-fit models, whether it is broad sample-based trees for hundreds of populations (without admixture), or broad admixture analysis for hundreds of populations (without any temporal depth), or complex admixture models of selected samples which have to model gene flow as discrete events, even though the reality is obviously more complex.
 * As a result, archeogenetic research is constantly misread out of sheer incompetence, or misinterpreted and cherry-picked for ethno-nationalist or racialist agendas. This happens all to often in WP, and of course also in all those amateur websites which also have been discussed in RSN.
 * So will WP:SCIRS and the rigid reduction of the range of citable sources will bring the remedy? I don't think so. Secondary sources can also be misread and misused; "policy-enforcing" cleanups can be done in a biased and selective way by purging only those primary sources that run against one's POV. One of the most prolific and shameless LTAs in this topic area regularly cites secondary sources (without even noticing that they are review articles and presenting them as new findings!) and reads any kind of shit into them that isn't there. Policies like WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE are much more powerful, provided we have a base of competent and responsible editors willing to tackle the issue. And there's the rub: don't leave us alone playing whack-a-mole with LTAs and actively editing POV-pushers. Look e.g. at the trainwreck of a CIR-fest in Ainu people, and you'll see what I mean. –Austronesier (talk) 11:50, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * thank you for this clear explanation of the issues. Alice Roberts gives an example concerning a 2018 paper that we use in various articles, eg Bronze Age Britain. This raised a big fuss in the media when it came out, with comments such as ‘Ancient-genome study finds Bronze Age “Beaker culture” invaded Britain’, and another asked, ‘Did Dutch hordes kill off the early Britons who started Stonehenge?’ Nonsense of course, and here's where the "archaeo" bit comes in which shows no increase in violence during this period. She also mentions the issue about using genetic data for ethno-nationalist or racialist agendas. No "rule" about which sources are automatically reliable will solves these problems, and I agree that the policies we have need to be used more in these areas but a lack of competent editors with enough time is a problem.  Doug Weller  talk 13:07, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a nice example. There's hardly an archeogenetic paper that has stirred up so much rubbish like this one, but at the same time, it has had a high impact in the broader field of prehistory, with 400+ citations. Yes, it's a primary source. We can't blame the pearls for the swine. –Austronesier (talk) 21:47, 30 January 2022 (UTC)


 * It is clear that there is no consensus to amend, upgrade, or create policy or guidelines related to this discussion. While many editors agree that we have a serious problem on the Wiki, most of them also agree that existing tools are sufficient to inprove it. Important questions about the validity of the WP:SCIRS statement remain unanswered, and in the meantime, our communication has stalled. I thank all of you for the time and energy you have spared for this discussion, and I hope that, if nothing else, it has stoked your vigilance and imagination. Have a great day. - Hunan201p (talk) 12:40, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * In the course of writing a "how to write about math and physics on Wikipedia" pamphlet, which of course included advice about good sourcing practices, I came to the conclusion that just cloning and tweaking WP:MEDRS, as WP:SCIRS tried to do, isn't really the way to go about it. The scope is much more broad, and the harms we are trying to avoid are different. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:34, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment on citing Patheos
Can Patheos be cited on Wikipedia? Who decides which columnists on Patheos may be cited? (This topic was last visited in 2015.) RoyLeban (talk) 11:12, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (Patheos)

 * Background: Editor Hammersoft has argued here that Hemant Mehta, one of the top 6 columnists on Patheos, cannot be cited on Wikipedia. In the same talk page, editor Cullen328 has asserted (incorrectly) that Mehta is "affiliated with a Satanic group" and is trying to "promote a contrived controversy". I believe that Mehta is a well-written, independent columnist who writes well (and fairly neutrally) on a variety of topics. I would guess that the fact that this topic concerns religion accounts for the strong disagreements.
 * This query shows that Patheos is cited 911 times on Wikipedia. I'm going to hazard a guess that the vast majority of those references are to columnists that are not in the top 6. So where is the line and who gets to decide? The guidance given here, last updated in 2015, has two problems. 1) It is very vague — vague enough that an editor can exclude references to a respected, independent columnist, citing this policy; and 2) IMO, "cited together with a source that is more reliable" is an unreasonable standard — a reference is either reliable or it is not (and note: it was not hard to find articles whose only citation is to Patheos).
 * I believe the guidance from 6 years ago should be revisited, updated, and clarified. RoyLeban (talk) 11:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Its not an RS, so should not really be used. It is a blog, so it maybe that its use is to cite the views of an expert, who is Hemant Mehta?Slatersteven (talk) 13:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I see no evidence that anything has changed about Patheos in the past 6 years that would affect how we treat it. AFAICT, it's still a collection of blogs with little editorial oversight i.e. which are basically self published so it's not a reliable secondary source in general. When it comes to the specific individual blogs they should be treated like any self published source. They cannot be used for any claims about living persons except in cases where WP:ABOUTSELF applies. For other situations, they can only be used where the author is a subject matter expert. I don't know what the OP means by "top 6" but I guess either this is view count or number of articles published. But it's sort of moot since both cases are largely irrelevant in determining whether someone is a subject matter expert. I'm guessing the number of authors on Patheos is large enough and changes enough that it's not useful for us to analyse every single author there. But to give specific examples, I'm not sure if Hemant Mehta can really be considered a subject matter expert of anything going by a quick read of their article. However Daniel C. Peterson is potentially a subject matter expert on some aspects of Islam and the Arabic language, but possibly not on anything related to the LDS. Nil Einne (talk) 16:19, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ahh, no I do not see any indication they are an acknowledged expert on Satanism.Slatersteven (talk) 16:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Also concur with Eggishorn: "Patheos is a blog hosting service and as such there can be no flat answer to the RfC question. Each individual blog on Patheos requires individual reliability evaluation" – and in the context of self-published source treatment with the WP:RSSELF limitations. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Bad RfC Patheos is a blog hosting service and as such there can be no flat answer to the RfC question. Each individual blog on Patheos requires individual reliability evaluation. We cannot say ahead of time that any Patheos blog is acceptable or unacceptable. The second RfC question isn't really even a question, it's a complaint. The stricto sensu answer is obvious: the community of editors that chooses to comment on a particular article's talk page decides. The obvious displeasure of the OP that their source was not accepted at Talk:Peace Cross makes it clear they wish the "who decides" was "not who commented there". Unfortunately, that is exactly who decides on any article talk page. Neither question is answerable through a blanket RfC on the site. Eggishorn  (talk) (contrib) 18:23, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems that Patheos (not Pantheos) hosts some content such as religious documents and peer reviewed articles that may be acceptable to use as references with caution. But these days, it is best known for hosting about 450 blogs on various religious topics plus atheism. The blog in question is written by Hemant Mehta, a blogger, podcaster and atheist activist whose academic background is in math education. There is no evidence that he has expertise in the naming of National Trust for Historic Preservation sites or interpretation of Supreme Court decisions. The specific blog post in question was published two weeks before the alleged renaming and is based almost entirely on a press release issued by the Satanic Temple and statements by its leader, Lucien Greaves. Accordingly, it is the furthest thing from an independent, reliable source and basing a "Naming controversy" section on this plus the primary statement from the Satanists is entirely inappropriate. There is no controversy. There is only a non-notable publicity stunt. Cullen328 (talk) 19:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You should focus on asking about the specific citation to Pathos being used, because the answer for Pathos as a whole is going to be that as a blogging platform it is a WP:SPS. Experts there can be cited within the (very strict) restrictions of SPS, but simply being a "top blogger" on Pathos means nothing in and of itself - to demonstrate that you could cite someone via it you'd need to establish that they're a major expert in the field, that they have reliably published things on the same topic, and so on. In those situations the specific things you are citing him for matter a great deal and it would be a good idea to link to the diffs (for example, if you want to cite his blog to discuss a legal precedent or the law, he would need to be a published legal expert; and it would be absolutely unacceptable to ever cite him for something about a BLP, anything WP:EXCEPTIONAL, or anything which is unduly self-serving.) Looking at the dispute, it looks to me like you're trying to cite him for his opinion on legal matters despite his total lack of legal expertise - I would probably argue against citing him even if his opinion was published in a valid WP:RSOPINION source due to that lack of expertise, but it's definitely a no as a SPS. (Worse, it was being used to cite something as fact in the article voice! Again, we couldn't use it like that even via valid RSOPINION source, let alone a blog.) Can't you find any more reliable sources covering the ruling? --Aquillion (talk) 22:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I have to concur with Nil Einne: "I see no evidence that anything has changed about Patheos in the past 6 years that would affect how we treat it. AFAICT, it's still a collection of blogs with little editorial oversight i.e. which are basically self published so it's not a reliable secondary source in general. When it comes to the specific individual blogs they should be treated like any self published source."
 * I don't know what Patheos was 6 years ago, but today it is not "a blog". "Patheos is a non-denominational, non-partisan online media company providing information and commentary from various religious and nonreligious perspectives." (from Patheos). That page says that Patheos has both columnists and bloggers, and lists Hemant Mehta as a "prominent contributor" and you can read more about Mehta on Wikipedia itself. One commenter made the false assertion that Mehta was affiliated with The Satanic Temple, when he clearly is not. So, if any columnist on Patheos is a reasonable reference, I would put Mehta toward the top of the list. Yes, others may disagree. But the current situation is that one editor can state their opinion that Mehta is not reliable and my opinion that he is both reliable and independent gets ignored. I posted this about Patheos because Hammersoft was making the argument that Patheos, pretty much as a whole, was not reliable. The 911 other references to Patheos indicate that the current situation is problematic. I'm not making that up. And apparently, the issue keeps arising. We can ignore what is an actual problem here, or we can do something about it. If as some suggest, reliability should be assessed on a case by case basis, then the guidance here should be updated to indicate that and a page should be created indicating which Patheos columnists are considered reliable. I would suggest that Mehta along with most others mentioned in the Wikipedia article should be considered reliable by default. Medium presents a similar problem, and there are more than 7,000 citations to it on Wikipedia. Extra note: Cullen328 states Mehta's article was written before the naming event. That is true with the initial version of the article, but is clear that it was updated after the event. RoyLeban (talk) 02:46, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Nobody is saying that Patheos is "a blog" but rather that it is a website that hosts about 450 separate blogs. Zero evidence has been presented that the work written by Hemant Mehta is subject to any professional editorial control or fact checking, so it is a blog that some people want to call a "column". And the blog post or "column" in question was largely based on a press release by the Satanist group and an official statement by its founder. Accordingly, it is not an independent reliable source and it would not make any difference if this "column" was published in a widely respected newspaper or magazine. It is utterly inadequate for the purpose of stating in Wikipedia's voice that there is any sort of actual "controversy" about the name of this monument. If there actually was a controversy instead of a two bit publicity stunt, then genuinely reliable independent sources with professional editorial control would have discussed it in detail and called it a controversy. Cullen328 (talk) 04:46, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * But the current situation is that one editor can state their opinion that Mehta is not reliable and my opinion that he is both reliable and independent gets ignored. Yet again,, you are ignoring the actual discussion and creating your own alternate reality. You stated your opinion and Not One Other Editor out of multiple ones here, at the article talk, at the ANI thread, or at the multiple editor talk pages you have brought this to has agreed. This five-month effort fails to understand that Wikipedia does not create notability or coverage it reflects notability through the coverage in reliable sources. You have not produced a reliable source, despite WP:FORUMSHOPPING extensively to attempt to gain agreement the ones in question qualify. Eggishorn  (talk) (contrib) 05:10, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Whether it is one editor or ten on one side or the other, the point is that it is arbitrary and inconsistent. It just took me five seconds to find citations to articles by Hemant Mehta on these pages: Flying Spaghetti Monster, Skepticon, Sally Kern. Wikipedia says there are 54 pages with his name on them, including the page about him; I don't know how many are citations. What makes those ok and not this one? I'm not ignoring the actual discussion. I'm pointing out hypocrisy. What makes this article different from the other articles? Who decides that Mehta isn't reliable and, if he's not reliable, why are those other citations allowed? If nothing from Patheos is allowed, should we do something about the other 900 citations? And even if I'm wrong and articles about The Satanic Temple by Mehta aren't allowed while other articles by him are allowed, as well as other citations to Patheos, then Wikipedia still deserves a clearer guideline. The current one allows people to justify arbitrary decisions.
 * You can disagree with me, but I honestly don't see how you disagree with the desire for greater clarity.
 * And please note: the word "controversy" was mine, and not Mehta's, and it was a mistake. I used it to try to be NPOV and it was wrong. RoyLeban (talk) 05:40, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You still seem to think that Wikipedia has some sort of central authority that determines that Mehta is universally a reliable source that is "allowed" and that an editor who objects to Mehta's blog being cited this way in this article is somehow obligated to search for and evaluate every other use of Mehta in this encyclopedia. That is not how things work in an encyclopedia of 6,430,000 articles. The fact of the matter is that your behavior, by trying to push this inappropriate content into this article, has attracted heightened scrutiny of this particular article and your increasingly disruptive I didn't hear that behavior. There is plenty of time to take care of those other articles if Mehta has been cited inappropriately there. But right now, we are discussing one article and the poor quality source that one editor (you) is bound and determined to jam into that article, despite the fact that not a single other experienced editor thinks that it is acceptable. Cullen328 (talk) 06:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I came back because I didn't want people to think my previous comment was uncivil. I gave the final example I did because it's impossible to not think of that as a possible explanation. I certainly hear that other people don't think this citation is acceptable. What I haven't heard is why, at least not in any way that holds water. Cullen328 above says it is "poor quality" as if it is a fact. It's not. It's an opinion. Maybe even a majority opinion. But why? How is this article by Mehta different from the others? Why have people reached that conclusion here but not in other places? The answer is "because" and that's a bad thing.
 * Is the problem everything on Patheos, just Hemant Mehta, or just this one article by Patheos? That's a reasonable question and the answer seems to be the last one. And, if that's the case, then we have a big problem.
 * On a side note, I am not being disruptive. I haven't engaged in disruptive editing. I am simply asking the same questions over and over again and not getting an actual answer. I am going through appropriate channels, as suggested by others, and I am trying to get clarification. It saddens me that anybody would think no clarification is needed, that the problem is not the naked emperor, but the little boy who says the emperor has no clothes. RoyLeban (talk) 06:37, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * What would make a difference is academics or RS off this website using him as a go-to expert for facts. Or to have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, or to hold a high-level academic post in a respected academic institution. In other words, not just a blogger.Slatersteven (talk) 10:49, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an accepted argument as well as the fact that we don't have a universal reviewing process, so just because Patheos or the specific author is used a few dozen times on WP elsewhere doesn't make it right. --M asem (t) 13:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * On a side note, I am not being disruptive. I haven't engaged in disruptive editing., Um. Yes, are and yes, you have. WP:BLUDGEON is being disruptive. Filing baseless ANI reports is being disruptive.  WP:ASPERSIONS is being disruptive. The persistent I don't hear that behavior you've displayed for five months in widespread fora is such a classic example of disruptive editing that it we define IDHT in a section of the Disruptive Editing behavioral guideline.  I could go on and if you continue being disruptive I might.  Eggishorn  (talk) (contrib) 16:10, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Like Aquillion wrote, it would be more useful to know the specific context for each instance. There may be cases where a particular article may be useful, especially in cases like WP:ABOUTSELF in a WP:BLP, perhaps sometimes for WP:PARITY on a topic if from a notable credible person.  In general as others pointed out WP:BLOG applies.  I've personally found Patheos to host interesting material but also a lot of inaccurate information (including about the doctrines of religious groups).  — Paleo  Neonate  – 14:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Patheos appears to be WP:SPS Summoned by bot. There's no description of who the editors are, nor any particular description of it doing reporting or being, other than as a host for religion writers. It does not appear to bear the hallmarks of either WP:RS or WP:RSOPINION. As an outsider, it seems like this discussion (how to talk about and source the potential claims of the Satanic Temple to a monument after a first amendment ruling) has kinda gone a little too deep. Surely, if this has happened, there are other sources? Chris vLS (talk) 02:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Blog host for SPS content. Contributors can put up blog posts themselves. Mehta's posts are just blog posts by him, and should be treated accordingly - David Gerard (talk) 09:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Treat as WP:SPS. If a Patheos blog is written by a subject-matter expert, the blog's articles can be cited pursuant to the limitations set at WP:SPS. In the case of Hemant Mehta, I'd argue that Mehta should be considered a subject-matter expert on the topic of religion, given that his work has been published by reliable, independent publications as required under WP:SPS. feminist (talk) 04:58, 9 January 2022 (UTC)