Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 379

What are the merits of https://metanumbers.com/ as an external link source for mathematics number articles?
I am curious to know whether https://metanumbers.com/ can be used as an external link for mathematics number articles? I use it fairly often on my own when looking for values such as total divisor count, aliquot sums, sums of divisors, arithmetic mean and geometric mean of n divisors, as well as euler totient values, for any given number up to 9223372036854775807 (that is the largest number stored/computed). Here is an example for the number 138: https://metanumbers.com/138. It also provides some extra base conversions (for bases 4, 5, 6, 10, 20 and 36, aside from the ones we provide on the info-box) for a given number, basic calculations (multiplications, divisions, exponentiation and nth roots), as well as basic geometric values (such as areas, surface areas, volumes, heights, diagonals, and circumferences) in elementary shapes like the circle, sphere, equilateral triangle, square, and cube. It also includes some cryptographic Hash functions for a number in question. I think it could be a nice addendum on some number page's external links, the only number that it provides that is not exact is the relative position of a number vis-a-vis its nearest prime number (even if the number inputted is prime). It has a very straightforward website layout that is well organized, and its color scheme is pleasant, in my opinion. It's a relatively new site, it went online in 2019. Thoughts? Radlrb (talk) 18:11, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * As a source, I would never use it. As an external link... not either. Anyone who needs to know properties of a given number may use a calculator or, if it's a complicated property, use the OEIS. If the property is basic enough, like primality, the guideline that we do not need to show rudimentary calculations applies. Although it's a nice website, MetaNumbers isn't in the spirit of how Wikipedia covers number articles; it's a bit too indiscriminate and is essentially just linking to a specialized calculator. Ovinus (talk) 01:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input. My only issue is that there are many regular individuals who are not mathematicians that do not know what OEIS is, and might appreciate a simple tool like this website to find other properties we wouldn't list on our numbers page. Still, maybe in the future once the website is more clear about how they calculate their information, and who exactly is the developper of the website, then we'd maybe use a website like this as an external link. Radlrb (talk) 21:59, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Almost everything on that site seems to be a pretty basic calculation, and every computer algebra program including the free SymPy can do it for the big numbers (but typically now they just pull from tables). OEIS doesn't always give long tables for everything (but they often link to them, though not always, grr), so calculation can be necessary, and verifiability for the largest numbers sometimes requires going beyond Numerical Recipes, which last time I used it was limited to  precision (32 bits at the time). For more complex stuff, or vandalism, or if people insist, the CRC would be the basic "source" for math tables I would use, though I'm not sure how much number theory it has (my copy is in a box right now as I've relied on computer algebra software and the internet for years far more than I should). I don't know – if an editor challenges you for a source for a basic calculation or table lookup then a stupid site like metanumbers is probably fine if it makes them happy. But since their site has no history like the CRC and is completely opaque about their methods – did they calculate it themselves, pull from free tables, Wolfram Alpha, etc. (any of which would be fine) – then I wouldn't cite it inline. SamuelRiv (talk) 03:34, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Although I don't think it's a "stupid site," (you probably mean simple site I imagine :) ) since there are real people behind efforts to help others see properties in numbers, I think there are better options as external links. Just wondering what some editors think about this website. Indeed, it is a bit too obscure. Also, many curious people seeking properties of numbers might not know about better programs, or even OEIS to find basic information on numbers. Thank you for your input. Radlrb (talk) 22:02, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Are any of these sources reliable?
While looking for a good source on the fact that about-to-be-Prime-Minister of Israel, Yair Lapid, is color blind (at that time I ended up using a Hebrew source, today I upgraded to an English-language one), I found a more interesting claim - that Bill Clinton is. Can any of the following sources be used for this? And can the same source also be used for the other listed people? Animal lover &#124;666&#124; 15:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) https://www.ranker.com/list/color-blind-celebrities/celebrity-lists
 * 2) https://www.improveeyesighthq.com/famous-color-blind-people.html
 * 3) https://healthresearchfunding.org/famous-people-color-blindness
 * 4) https://embracebio.wixsite.com/education/single-post/2017/09/06/colour-blindness-awareness-day


 * Ranker is a low quality content farm (e.g. the blurb for each entry is scraped from Wikipedia). Improveeyesighthq is a self-published blog (see their about page). There is no information about healthresearchfunding whatsoever, but the nature of their articles suggests that they are also a content farm. Anybody can create a personal page on wixsite and there is no information on who is behind the content on embracebio.wixsite.com. In summary: None of these sources can be used for anything, let alone BLPs. 87.115.237.229 (talk) 19:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * For Clinton and others, you could use: Sun-Sentinel & San Diego Union Tribune. WikiVirusC (talk) 19:19, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I was told on this noticeboard (the thread is at Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 378) that any off-topic claim made by an article can't be used. This means that a proper source for such a claim must come either from a list of people with color blindness, an article about the person in question, or an article about a specific event/action/product/situation where this specific person's color blindness is relevant. Animal lover &#124;666&#124; 09:35, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * https://books.google.com/books?id=v0oL8xDJ0VEC&pg=PA43 Selfstudier (talk) 09:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * While I understand the basis of that, the guideline says should find sources that focus on it where possible. Either way the section from the book above should work. WikiVirusC (talk) 10:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't necessarily think this source is any better. It's also aggregating without citing a source. It seems likely to me that someone misinterpreted a joke about his poor fashion sense or his racial outlook at some point, because if he really was it'd be in an RS. GordonGlottal (talk) 18:39, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This seems better (pg. 95) https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Encyclopedia_of_Genetic_Disorders_an.html?id=kXaMjwItP0oC GordonGlottal (talk) 18:46, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Contemporary source with similar language: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZolYAAAAYAAJ Unfortunately I don't have access to the full book to see if they cite anything. GordonGlottal (talk) 19:12, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Rosenthal and Phillips is on iArchive for rent, and they talk about the debate on p. 156, with a little bit more detail on the citation: According to Jim Lehrer of PBS, who was chosen as moderator of the debates because of his reputation for fairness and distaste for sensationalism, a system of three lights was used. Nothing is cited inline and there's no mention of Lehrer or a presidential debate in the bibliography from my search (remember, editors, that proper citations must include the citation within a citation, something like "primary, as cited in secondary"). But at that level of attribution (living people can be called right now at any time for confirmation) I think you use Rosenthal and Phillips, including the Lehrer attribution quote in the footnote, and maybe another editor will eventually be able to find the original citation one day. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:54, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Christianheadlines.com
Is christianheadlines.com a reliable source? Thoughts? It's widely used throughout our encyclopedia. Therapyisgood (talk) 21:28, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Is it? I only see it on 54 pages. That said, it looks like a personal website with no particular reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, so I'd say it doesn't pass WP:RS. --Aquillion (talk) 23:21, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not a personal website (it's part of a Christian media conglomerate), but it is a self-described blog. I don't really see evidence of strong editorial controls. It might be reliable for the viewpoints of the folks who write for it (in an WP:ABOUTSELF way), but it looks like this should be treated as a self-published source unless evidence of editorial review can be established. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 03:55, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Leaked Paul Mason - Amil Khan correspondence
There are ongoing discussions on the talk pages of Paul Mason and The Grayzone about whether to mention a recent leak of documents. The leaked documents involve Mason, Amil Khan from the intelligence group Valent Projects and Andy Pryce from the Counter Disinformation and Media Development Unit at the UK Foreign Office discussing ways to deplatform Grayzone. There has been some reluctance to include this on both pages based on the sources being put forward. The sources are as follows:

- The Hill's Rising discussed the leaks in an 11 minute segment. The discussion is hosted by Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave. Their guest is Katie Halper.

- Private Eye magazine published a non-satirical article on the leak in Issue 1575, 17 - 30 June 2022 under the title "Grayzone Layer".

- The WSWS covered the story.

- In Defence of Marxism also covered the story.

Regarding these sources, The Hill is a green tick source and the three participants in the discussion are well-known journalists and/or commentators. Wikipedia contains over 300 references to articles on the website In Defence of Marxism, although there appears to have been no prior discussion about its reliability. Wikipedia contains 140 links to articles in Private Eye but the only discussion about reliability was in 2011. The Private Eye piece seems to be from the print edition. The World Socialist Web Site is listed at the Perennial Sources noticeboard.

What do editors think about the strength of these sources in regards to mentioning the leak at Paul Mason and Grayzone? Burrobert (talk) 13:33, 27 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Private Eye might be ok, but the other 3 are definitely not reliable. The Rising segment is covered under WP:RSOPINION as an opinion piece (how other cable talk shows are handled); the WSWS and IDOM sources are obviously unreliable as they clearly take a side and thus must be treated as opinion pieces, and that is not even taking into consideration whether or not the outlets are reliable or not (which they aren't). Curbon7 (talk) 13:45, 27 June 2022 (UTC)


 * There are quite a few journalists beyond these who have talked about the leak in informal contexts, but it looks like most respectable media doesn't want to give "newspaper of record" treatment to a story that only exists because of hacking that may have the backing of the Russian state. It is not true that we can't use a source that takes sides: generally we recognise a class of sources that are partisan but are conscientious in getting their facts right. I'd put Declassified UK in this camp, who were mentioned in the leak. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 15:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Belated postscript - I had meant to conclude the above by saying I don't think we currently have the sourcing to treat this story, but my feeling is that in time we will see sufficient coverage in RSes. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 06:56, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll basically repeat what I said at Talk:The Grayzone. These aren't reliable sources for facts. As Curbon7 alluded to, Rising is an opinion talk show and doesn't have the same level of factual reliability as The Hill. @Mhawk10 was kind enough to send me a copy of the Private Eye article and...I'm not exactly sure how it gives credibility to the story. Most of article is criticizing Blumenthal and Kit Klarenberg. Since we're allegedly dealing with leaked documents from a living person, we would need some extremely high-quality sources confirming the authenticity of the leaks. WP:BLPGOSSIP comes into play here. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:27, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Rising 's Wiki page describes it as "an American daily news and opinion web series". It describes itself as "the premier source for policy and political news " and a "daily news show ". The format is similar to that of Democracy Now!. In the linked episode, the hosts Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave spend the first 1.5 minutes detailing the content of the Grayzone story including:

- that Mason created a "Putin-influence map", and "tried to get the Grayzone deplatformed"

- "The emails show [Mason] allegedly plotting with Andy Pryce of the UK Foreign Office Counter-disinformation and Media Unit”.

- "Mason also called for suspending UK libel law to smear targets".

- Soave mentions the removal by YouTube of a video posted by Blumenthal in which he and Aaron Mate discussed the leaked emails.

This part of the show is a factual recounting of the content of the Grayzone ’s story. The hosts then call in Katie Halper to discuss the revelations in more detail. This part of the show does contain some factual content such as Halper’s description of Amil Khan as "the founder of Valent Projects which is funded by USAID and its goal is to investigate disinformation". It also contains some opinion such as Halper’s statement that Khan and Mason decided to avoid confronting Grayzone on substance and instead "resort to these smear tactics".

The article in Private Eye does provided sufficient coverage of the leaked documents. For example it states:

- Last week Paul Mason announced that someone had tried to hack his encrypted email account. ... [O]n 8 June the spoils of the hack surfaced on The Grayzone.

- From "anonymously leaked emails and documents" [The Grayzone] learned that Mason wanted a "relentless deplatforming" of the Grayzone and "a kind of permanent rebuttal operation" to discredit it.

As mentioned by Charles, biased sources are still usable and there are many listed at the Perennial Sources noticeboard. Some examples are The Daily Beast (which is used six times in The Grayzone ’s Wikipage) and green tick sources such as The Intercept, Jacobin, Mother Jones, The New Republic, Reason and SPLC.

The point about Declasiffied UK is a good one. Its investigations are detailed and meticulous so it may take longer for it to publish.

My intention is to use the sources for a basic and brief statement of facts, not opinion. An example of the intended text is:

The Grayzone was given access to documents and emails hacked from Paul Mason. The leaked documents involve Mason, Amil Khan from the intelligence group Valent Projects and Andy Pryce from the UK Foreign Office's Counter Disinformation and Media Development Unit allegedly discussing ways to deplatform Grayzone. Burrobert (talk) 12:04, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Those aren't basic facts. Too many BLP issues and we should not be saying this in WP:WIKIVOICE to begin with. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:22, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Probably not a discussion for this page. The exact wording can be discussed on Paul Mason and Grayzone 's talk page. All four sources state that  Grayzone had access to documents and emails leaked from Paul Mason. All four sources state that the discussion between Mason, Amil Khan and Andy Pryce was about deplatforming Grayzone  (among other things). The word allegedly has been used in the suggested text but this could be changed to "according to ... " if editors prefer. However, best to transfer that part of the discussion to the talk pages of the two articles. Concerns about BLP issues can be discussed at the BLP noticeboard. Burrobert (talk) 13:20, 29 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The article in Grayzone has been reprinted in the Monthly Review, which is definitely RS . I would say there is no BLP problem whatsoever reporting the story in the article, though not in wikivoice, especially as Mason does not deny it. --Boynamedsue (talk) 05:29, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The Monthly Review reprinting the Grayzone, which is a deprecated source, does not make it "RS." Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 05:54, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I don't follow the logic of that statement. Are you saying that the Monthly Review isn't a reliable source? Or that anything that has been published in a deprecated source can never become reliable, even if reprinted by a reliable source?--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:39, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The latter (although I am not totally sure of the general reliability of Monthly Review for factual claims). How does reprinting a deprecated source suddenly make that source reliable? Did the other source, in this case Monthly Review, fact-check the claims made in the deprecated source? Obviously not. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 06:44, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The monthly review has been discussed here before and the consensus was that it was reliable. If a reliable publication reprints something from a non-reliable publication, then they are putting it through their own editorial processes which we deem to be acceptable. There is no basis in our processes for saying that everything published in a deprecated publication must be untrue. Once it is taken up by a trusted source, we can use it. Of course, there are the same considerations we use for every other article, in this case it is solved by attribution. The factual basis of this story is not disputed by anyone, not even Mason. It is just a question of WP:DUE at this point. Boynamedsue (talk) 08:47, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you link to a recent discussion finding MR reliable? I can only see a very old discussion of the journal, not a discussion of the website which very different. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:52, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * There is a difference between a reliable source analyzing and examining an article found in another source and a source simply hosting another source's article. In this case, Monthly Review is simply republishing/hosting an article straight from the Grayzone. They are not endorsing the reliability of the article. There is even a disclaimer at the bottom stating: Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 09:19, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * If a reliable source publishes views, it confers those views with notability. By republishing the article, they take equal legal responsibility for any factual inaccuracy, and that disclaimer does not disavow responsibility for factual inaccuracy. Now, nobody is arguing for language stating that Mason did the things he is accused of, though there is near unanimity that he did, and he doesn't even deny it himself, but an attributed statement detailing his activities is warranted. Boynamedsue (talk) 12:03, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * No. Such a website would most likely be protected by Section 230. Per Bollinger et. al.,: Section 230(c)(1) is a barrier to liability for hosting, republishing, and disseminating content furnished by third parties. Specifically, it provides: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.". Please also read WP:SYNDICATED: A syndication company may offer the same story in multiple formats...Whatever the length or format, they usually contain the same claims and are written or edited by the same person or team. Syndicated news pieces may be independent of the subject matter, but they are not independent of one another. When considering notability or due weight within an article, all of the related articles by the same publishing syndicate, no matter how widely they were sold, are treated as the same single source. All claims of reliability and due weight, in this case, rests with The Grayzone--not Monthly Review. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:26, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not a lawyer, so perhaps they don't have legal liability under US law. However, they have chosen to repeat it, without any disclaimer regarding facts, which means they lend it their own credibility. WP:SYNDICATED is not relevant here, I am not claiming that two sources exist. It is one source, but its credibility is higher because it has been reprinted by a better publication. I consider the Grayzone article to be reliable due to its publication in Monthly Review, I do not think there are two sources, one reliable and one not.--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:37, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * ...but its credibility is higher because it has been reprinted by a better publication. I consider the Grayzone article to be reliable due to its publication in Monthly Review. Sorry, this opinion is not backed up by any known policy or guideline. The WP:GRAYZONE consensus still applies which found that the site publishes false or fabricated information. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 07:42, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't see your view that once something has been published in a non-reliable source, it can never become reliable as being valid or in any way logical. You are arguing that the first place something is published defines its status forever, and that is plainly not correct.Boynamedsue (talk) 08:32, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * So if InfoWars decided to pay CNN to republish one of its articles in full, does that make the InfoWars article a reliable source now? Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 17:27, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If a news source accepts paid content without distinguishing it from its own content it is not reliable, so no. However, if CNN looked at an infowars article and decided it was worthy of publishing due to its value and importance as a piece of news, then, theoretically, yes. Your argument would state that if a blog piece was picked up by the New York Times and put on its front page, then it would not be a reliable source or notable. That is not the way it works here. --Boynamedsue (talk) 07:00, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think there may be some confusion here. If, say, a New York Times journalist wrote an original story saying: "Grayzone reported X about Paul Mason. We, at the New York Times, are able to confirm the accuracy of that account," then Grayzone's story would be verified and we are able to include it in WP, citing the New York Times. But if for some reason the New York Times simply decided to republish the Grayzone article with a disclaimer "The New York Times does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at NYTIMES.com" then the reliability rests with the original publisher. This is fairly routine. Just check some entries on WP:RSP, e.g., WP:WND: WorldNetDaily's syndicated content should be evaluated by the reliability of its original publisher. Also see: Web syndication. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:40, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * What you write here is a little straw-clutchy. Nothing on WP:RSP or WP:WND seems applicable to this case, and the specific case of WorldNetDaily is not applicable beyond that individual publication. It is the opposite of the situation we are discussing, where a the reprinter is MORE reliable than the initial publisher. I don't think there is much to be said here, I think republishing by a better source can render a source reliable, you don't.--Boynamedsue (talk) 21:21, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Where was there a consensus attained that Monthly Review is WP:GREL? I've looked through the archives and I can't find a discussion that clearly agrees with that. Meanwhile there are multiple WP:GREL sources that have pointed out its promotion of Xinjiang denialism through the republication of Qiao Collective trash. Why would we trust that stories republished by them are reliable? — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 23:48, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, there is a consensus in this discussion, the OP initially double its reliability, many voices state it is reliable, the OP then changes their mind.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:06, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That thread is from 14 years ago and I don't think the participants reached a clear consensus about the reliability of Monthly Review. They were mostly arguing if "extremist" sources are permissible or not. Also, about half of those participants are indefed. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:08, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * To echo, an informal noticeboard discussion that took place over fourteen years ago on the publication's reliability does not constitute present consensus. The WP:RS guideline has changed a bit during that time and a source's reliability for facts can be different now than it was a decade ago (see WP:NEWSWEEK and WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS). Especially since Monthly Review has had substantial and more recent problems with its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy in media it republishes, the 2008 discussion does not establish current consensus that the publication is WP:GREL. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 20:17, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

This has been previously discussed at Talk:The Grayzone. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 18:43, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Also that discussion (and presumably all references to this thread about reliability) refer to the monthly publication (hence the name), while the particular article in question is from MROnline (About MR), which has open submissions and unknown review standards (Do they fact-check? They simply say "Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful."). The one thing that's for certain is that Blumenthal himself submitted/adapted the Grayzone article for MROnline.
 * And the notion that the green check mark suddenly grants an aura of quality to all the crap that a publication associates with is nonsense, notably if they do not make their editorial practices known. Standards vary, as does scrutiny – there is some gray area in say NYT commentary/guest submissions where they have been known to fail to fact-check despite claiming they do – which is why at minimum in-line attribution is necessary, to the original source. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:56, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would suggest MR provides notability for attributing a view, I don't see any evidence of unreliability, except that it published one opinion article that specialists in a field strongly disagreed with. I personally consider it reliable, and so did the users the last time it was discussed. One contested article is not enough to render a source unreliable. The Times is considered reliable despite regularly being castigated by regulators for publishing false information. Boynamedsue (talk) 21:21, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think any of this pertains to WP:N. If you're saying that their online blog is reliable, even though it more or less provides the same disclaimer that an op-ed section would have, I don't really know what say except that op-eds and guest blog posts are rarely reliable for statements of fact owing to a lack of fact-checking in that area. That MRO published it as a guest blog post doesn't allow us to do anything except to make our weighting decision based on the reliability of The Grayzone itself, which is truly subpar. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 22:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Not reliable for BLP information and absolutely not in Wikivoice None of the sources given seem to be what would be considered reliable sources for inclusion of details in Wikivoice. If due weight considerations and discussions determine that the sources are important enough to include, then they should be included with attribution due to them being opinion pieces. But I would find due weight hard to support in this regard without higher quality sources covering the subject, particularly for the BLP article. Silver  seren C 06:12, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for participating. I'll summarise the discussion by saying that the sources mentioned are strong enough to support mentioning the leaked emails and the Grayzone 's view on their significance. Most editors agree that Wikivoice should not be used based on these sources, so any opinions should be attributed appropriately. In a few days I'll start RfC's on the pages for Paul Mason and the Grayzone. Burrobert (talk) 12:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I disagree with that summary. The consensus is clear that these are very weak sources at best and certainly to weak for contentious BLP material. My own view is that the Rising talk show cannot be used as a source for facts or in determining due weight for opinion; an MRonline report of a piece in a deprecated blog is straightforwardly unreliable; that WSWS is not reliable and certainly not for this sort of content; and that In Defence of Marxism might be reliable for facts to do with Trotskyist sectarians or Leninist theory but not for content relating to the topics involved here. Therefore Private Eye is the only potentially usable source, which doesn’t leave much to say, particularly about Mason. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:02, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll leave it up to the participants in the RfC's then. They can make up their own minds about this discussion. The reliability will of course depend on the nature of the proposed text. All sources support including the uncontroversial points that
 * - Mason's email account was hacked.
 * - the contents surfaced on the Grayzone
 * - the contents included a discussion about deplatforming the Grayzone which involved Mason, Amil Khan and Andy Pryce (we could discuss whether this point should be attributed to the Grayzone).
 * Some points from the Grayzone articles have not yet been well covered by other sources. Some of this is probably due to the threat of legal action. For example Emma Briant's role in the discussion has not been well covered so it would be best not to mention her in any proposed text. Mason's idea of astroturfing black and Asian voices to push back on black and brown critics of the Ukraine proxy war may have been mentioned in Rising but probably should also be left out. I can't find a link to the BBC's assault on Stop The War Coalition in which Mason apparently appears. We may be able to include that item once the programme is published and generates coverage. In short, any proposal should be limited to the three uncontroversial items above. Burrobert (talk) 17:38, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * "I'll summarise the discussion by saying that the sources mentioned are strong enough to support mentioning the leaked emails and the Grayzone 's view on their significance". Come on, that's a poor summary of the consensus. If you count Bob now, 6 editors in this thread agree the sources are extremely weak. Only one editor, besides the OP, agrees the sources are good enough. We are dealing with a BLP here. We need explicit consensus and robust sourcing. I'm not sure how many times I need to say this but the hacked contents of a living person's email will never be an "uncontroversial" point (even if we have super strong sources). Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:02, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not aware of any BLP policy related to leaked or hacked documents. There are many well-known examples of such documents being subject to reporting and then finding their way into Wikipedia articles. It would be worth raising the issue at the BLP Noticeboard. Burrobert (talk) 14:26, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Such private, personal matters would be covered by WP:BLPPRIVACY. I'm not saying it's forbidden for such instances finding their way into WP articles. It's just that the quality of sources would need to be pretty high and proper WP:WEIGHT and neutrality would need to be maintained. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 01:12, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm personally somewhat hesitant to apply WP:BLPPRIVACY here if it is the case that RS report in a similar manner to the way that The Grayzone did. We're not really talking about personal information here and the risk of identity theft from any of the allegedly hacked materials seems to be low. I also don't see any policy-based difference for excluding coverage based solely on the fact that materials were hacked by a hostile agent and then leaked to a blog; I don't see a clear policy-based reason to differentiate this between an insider having downloaded his emails without his permission and then handed them over to that same blog. The biggest issue (in my view) here is that no generally reliable news sources seem to have touched this story in any way that can be seen as giving it credibility. If this were actually an event with lasting significance, surely something reliable would have picked it up by now. I don't buy the arguments about legal concerns being able to explain the lack of reporting here; the United States dominates anglophone media and there are no legal means of a court exercising prior restraint on a newspaper's reporting on a foreign government's alleged contact with a left-leaning figure. The only other legal concern I can think of would be libel, but that would be evidence against including this on Wikipedia. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 04:21, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Is Cryptome a reliable source for September 11 attacks advance-knowledge conspiracy theories?
How can we be sure the content is genuine? Doug Weller talk 11:39, 4 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Sorry, the specific link is this. Doug Weller  talk 11:40, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Cryptome does not look like a good source. Alex-h (talk) 13:44, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Only checked the 4 part fox news but archive.org does retain copies (and video likely exists as well somwhere). So, while Cryptome is not a good source,it may lead to good sources. Though without further corroboration unnamed sources may be too little to meet WP:DUE. Slywriter (talk) 14:20, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * User:RickinBaltimore has reverted its use. Doug Weller  talk 15:35, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would say that Cryptome would not be a valid source. It's a aggregator of sites, and in the cause of the article here, all of the sources listed were not reliable. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Op-eds as sources for factual statements
There is a discussion at Talk:List_of_fallacies about whether three op-eds can be treated as reliable sources. The venues of publication are The Daily Bell, the Financial Post, and the (South Africa) Daily Maverick. The relevance of the authors' qualifications is also under discussion. We could do with input from RS/N denizens, especially any who are familiar with those publications. Thanks in advance for any help, MartinPoulter (talk) 20:36, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Jonathan Lamont's review at MobileSyrup
Is the following source considered reliable for factual reporting in context?


 * Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
 * Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
 * Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
 * Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated


 * Source
 * MobileSyrup


 * Article
 * GrapheneOS


 * Content
 * In 2022, Jonathan Lamont of MobileSyrup, in a review of GrapheneOS installed on a Pixel 3, after a week of use opined GrapheneOS demonstrated Android's reliance on Google. He called GrapheneOS install process "straightforward" and concluded to like GrapheneOS overall, but criticized the post-install as "often not a seamless experience like using an unmodified Pixel or an iPhone", attributing his experience to his "over-reliance on Google apps" and the absence of some "smart" features in GrapheneOS default keyboard and camera apps, in comparison to software from Google. In his initial impressions post a week prior, Lamont said after an easy install there were issues with permissions for Google's Messages app, and difficulty importing contacts; Lamont then concluded, "Anyone looking for a straightforward experience may want to avoid GrapheneOS or other privacy-oriented Android experiences since the privacy gains often come at the expense of convenience and ease of use."
 * GrapheneOS is an Android-based, open-source, privacy and security-focused mobile operating system for selected Google Pixel smartphones.

(Legal attribution: Statement from the GrapheneOS article, see its page history for attributions. CC BY-SA 3.0.)

84.250.14.116 (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Option 2: Per my review at Talk:GrapheneOS/Archive 2, Lamont's news reporting at MobileSyrup has been cited in at least one independent, generally reliable publication (Engadget) previously. Searching with DuckDuckGo web search engine, I found several other Engadget and VentureBeat articles citing MobileSyrup as a source. Additional considerations apply to factual reporting due to this source being WP:BIASED, but can be used for attributed opinions without a concern. MobileSyrup's other publications may contain promotional or sponsored "news", which editors should be wary of. The site has an editorial team, but no apparent editorial policy. 84.250.14.116 (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting. MobileSyrup looks like another "advert infested click bait" group blog site. The particular articles being cited also rely heavily on copying information from the website of the posts' subject. In the author's own words, these are "posts". (The Times of India and Origo sources are also very weak sources at best). -- Yae4 (talk) 19:39, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Option 1 has a staff page here that shows editors with journalist experience and training. Even the best sources such as CNN are infested with clickbait adverts. Atlantic306 (talk) 21:52, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Option 2/3 Option 2 for reviews and news from editors, Option 3 for other content. It has a list of staff editors, so I want to say it's marginally reliable, but there's (strangely) no editorial policy. Though, editors usually have qualifications or appear in other RS, I don't see any for Lamont, but his news articles are... not terrible (see 1), most reviews aren't that bad. But others just feel like blatant ads, or poorly written blogs (1, 2, 3). The third ref feels to me like a blog without editorial control (Scrolling through Tik Tok lately, I’ve been seeing several videos of young men dressed in suits walking around movie theatres to watch Minions: The Rise of Gru.), and the article was published partly by scrolling Tik Tok and a much better Variety article? Other news articles are poor, compare theirs on Google Pixel 6a to several ones from TechRadar 1, 2, which is generally reliable, I think this site's quality seems poor. For a news article, it doesn't seem neutral and is positive (biased?), such as this line As far as phone colours go, I’d say it’s pretty unique and the Hazel 7 Pro is easily the best Pixel colour this year. The Features are equally unreliable (see this) and are probably skewed positively. Overall, I think Option 2 for reviews and editorial news are okay, Option 3 otherwise as the site is poor. VickKiang (talk) 04:03, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Royal Central, deprecate?
I was just looking at Royal Central and I noticed that this page seems to directly copy from our Queen of Rhodesia article (and it doesn't even make sense in context with the cut and paste job). I was wondering, would something like this indicate that Royal Central is not a WP:RS that we can use?  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 19:53, 5 July 2022 (UTC)


 * This looks like a pretty clear-cut example of copying from Wikipedia. The website article's text: closely paraphrases the Wikipedia article's text:
 * The website of course does not credit Wikipedia for this information, and the inclusion of language relating to the pardon (which is described in a different section of the Wikipedia article but not at all in the Royal Central piece) indicates that the website indeed borrowed from Wikipedia. Based off of this edit, you may be the copyright holder for the text that was closely paraphrased by that website without credit. If you believe that this constitutes a violation of your copyright, WP:SLVL may be of interest to you.
 * I'm unsure if this particular piece closely paraphrases other Wikipedia articles without providing credit, but I would not be surprised. It might be worth looking into that as well before asking for a retraction/re-licensing of the piece. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 20:19, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * And, without fail, a quick look through the lead of Rhodesia shows quite a bit of close paraphrasing, so close that Earwig lights up red. I'm interested if there are additional issues with other articles/authors on the website or if this is an incident that is isolated to one article/author. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 20:24, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Milestones of a Monarch: The Rhodesia crisis (EARWIG 1, EARWIG 2) seemed to be enough to arouse suspicion in me to see if this was something that was a pattern with this journalist. I've done some more digging and it appears that the particular has repeatedly engaged in close paraphrasing from Wikipedia without attribution in her reporting on that website. I went through and checked articles written by the author against the version of the Wikipedia article that was live before the publication of her pieces. Below are a quick list of some other articles that closely paraphrase Wikipedia without attribution (with WP:EARWIG for convenience) and have been published in the past three months:
 * William at 40: The early years of a future king (EARWIG)
 * The ruler who has just been overtaken by The Queen (EARWIG)
 * Milestones of a Monarch: The visit of Pope John Paul II (EARWIG)
 * The murder of Lord Mountbatten (EARWIG)
 * Why Michael Fagan didn’t face criminal charges when he broke into Buckingham Palace (EARWIG)
 * The history of Royal Maundy Services (EARWIG)
 * This above list is in no way complete, since to create it I had to manually try and guess Wikipedia articles that the journalist may have copied from. I'm almost certain that I did not capture them all, since I'm not exactly an expert on the monarchy of the UK. But the fact that more might exist doesn't matter; there appears to be an ongoing editorial problem at this publication with respect to allowing close paraphrasing from Wikipedia to be published. And, as such, this publication may have a greater likelihood for citogenesis that a typical newspaper would. The publication is cited 301 times on Wikipedia, and that the author of the pieces identified above has been cited on Wikipedia for her reporting on the Royal family. I don't immediately have the time to go through 301 articles and check each for if citogenesis has occurred, but it seems like we should probably vet every single time the source has been used to see if we're currently being WP:CIRCULAR with this source. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 06:12, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The article in question should not be used in Wikipedia because while journalism is a reliable source for what happened yesterday, the article is describing events that occurred decades ago. This article would probably come under analysis, which is not considered reliable wherever it is published because of the lack of the same fact-checking etc. one would expect for news stories. You would find lots of problems if you fact-checked all the articles on the Wall Street Journal editorial page or MSNBC's talk shows, but that does not make their news reporting unreliable. TFD (talk) 00:52, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Opinion pages of the WSJ or MSNBC talk shows aside, do the instances of apparent close paraphrasing and copying from Wikipedia not concern you with respect to the risk of citogenesis? — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 01:25, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Not really, because we would never use this or similar articles as sources, unless they were written by experts. I think what this shows though is why Wikipedia policy never considers analysis written by non-experts to be reliable. The recommendation in this discussion page is to deprecate, which would mean that articles by experts would be excluded. TFD (talk) 02:51, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand why deprecating a publication for one author's plagiarism would be a bit of an overstep, but I do think that it might be an issue more broadly if the website were to (for example) not remove the articles after plagiarism is discovered. do you happen to have reached out to their editorial staff about this issue? — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 04:37, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I just did using the contact form on their website, but I didn't use their email for media requests. We'll see what happens.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 08:07, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Ross Shafer - university newsletter, own website
Done as much redaction as I could in a short time on this article. However, even what remains seems to heavily draw from a university newsletter as a source - not exactly RS and quite possibly biased and published without much fact-checking. The second major source is the subject's own webpage. Even now, the article remains highly self-promotional, so I additionally flagged it as an advert. I suspect if all dubious material were removed, the article text would shrink down to three paragraphs. I've checked only a sample of the bibliograpy - the books seem to exist, but the enthusiasm for them moderate. Executive summary: Much depends on what you make of the now-unavailable university newsletter. 2003:F7:1F0E:4100:98CD:167A:DD68:F0E4 (talk) 15:10, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Religious publishers
Are books published by religious publishing companies (see Category:Religious publishing companies and its subcategories) WP:RS for biblical scholarship? In the event of variation or conflict, how should religious-publisher sources be weighed as compared with non-religious academic publishers (see Category:Academic publishing companies and its subcategories)?

Prior RSN discussions in Jun 2010, Sep 2010, Nov 2010, Jan 2011, Jul 2011, Apr 2015, Nov 2018, and Feb 2021 were inconclusive (I'd sum them up in the words of the last comment in the most-recent discussion: "depends on the topic").

This is a broad question that would affect many articles, but here are some examples of articles and some of the religious publishers they cite (in addition to non-religious academic publishers):
 * Bible, in its discussion of "variants" (how much do various copies of the books of the Bible vary from one another, and do those variations matter), cites sources published by Baker Publishing Group and InterVarsity Press
 * Biblical criticism: Westminster John Knox Press
 * Textual criticism: Kregel Publications
 * Textual criticism of the New Testament: Far Eastern Bible College
 * Textual variants in the New Testament (which actually lists the textual variants themselves): Tyndale House Publishers (which was discussed in the Feb 2021 RSN thread linked above, and should not be confused with the Oxford University house of the same name, this is an American evangelical publisher)

Does it matter that a publisher is religious or not, for "stuff about the Bible" (for lack of a better way to phrase it)? If it does matter, how does it matter--how should editors treat such sources? Thanks in advance, Levivich[block] 02:45, 2 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Way too broad. There are stellar sources within that category and its subcategory (Ave Maria Press is an imprint that University of Notre Dame Press at times will use for religious studies texts), and some non-reputable ones (BJU Press is historically affiliated with Bob Jones University and doesn't really publish the sort of stuff we should be citing). Merely because a press is religious does not disqualify it as a publisher; as such, the particular publisher should be examined for its general reputation within the field.
 * The thing that you will encounter a lot of these religious presses is that there will be academic-level books, but also some that are written for a lower level or more popular audience. Within Ave Maria Press, for example, there are undergraduate textbook-level books written by world-class Notre Dame faculty but there are also high school textbooks and popular press books. It's similar to MacMillan in this respect, where the publisher is reputable and undergraduate-targeted works published by them are generally tertiary pieces of scholarship, but their high school textbooks and popular press books shouldn't be treated as if they were academic sources. WP:SOURCEDEF provides guidance here inasmuch as the piece of work itself (i.e. things particular to the specific book) and the author of the work are going to affect reliability; examining a book's target audience (undergrad/grad students vs high schoolers or the general public) and its author's credentials (i.e. are they a rando or are they a well-respected professor in the field) is going to be necessary, as reliable nonfiction publishers might well treat books with different target audiences with different editorial review rigor. But that goes for all non-fiction publishers that publish both popular press books and academic works, not just religious ones. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 04:03, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * How do you tell the difference between a reputable religious publisher and an unreputable one? For example, the publishers I listed above, how would I determine if they are good/bad? Assume for the sake of this thread the author is bona fide and writing for an academic audience, and the book is well-footnoted, etc. The only "variable" is the publisher. Levivich[block] 04:17, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's much in the same way that you'd determine a reputable secular publisher vs an unreputable secular publisher. Does the publisher have a reputation for a strong editorial review process and do they have strong editorial controls? Are they affiliated with a reputable academic or scholarly institution (such as the relationship between Ave Maria Press and the University of Notre Dame)? Do well-respected authors in the relevant field frequently choose to publish scholarly works with them? And do their scholarly publications tend to get cited in other scholarship as a source for facts?
 * If the answer to these is all of the above is "yes", then it's likely that you have a reputable publisher within the relevant field. If the answer to all of them is "no", then it's rather unlikely that you have a reputable publisher in that field. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 04:33, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. So basically evaluate it like any other source, it doesn't matter if it's religious or not? Levivich[block] 05:23, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Correct. Merely having (or not having) a religious affiliation doesn't move the needle towards being more reliable or less reliable, ceteris paribus. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 05:43, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Right, it's all about the area of discussion. Similar to reliable mainstream press being considered unreliable for medical topics. Some religious press may be reliable for religious topics but not secular, or the opposite. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:04, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * a good test for any of these publishers attached to Bible colleges or schools is to check their accreditation. Generally, if they're not accredited (such as Hyles-Anderson College), or accredited only through a Christian accreditation agency (such as Pensecola Christian College), I wouldn't consider them reliable, and I doubt others would, either.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) (&#123;&#123;ping&#125;&#125; me!) 13:16, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Whether a source is reliable always depends on what you're writing in the article. You might need to write something like "Most scholars say X, but this group says Y", in which case someone from 'this group', published by a school that is part of 'this group' is a good source.  I agree with Mhawk10:  it's basically the same as any other subject:  There is no such thing as a source that is "always reliable" or "never reliable"; you can only determine whether a source is reliable by comparing it to the material that the source is meant to support.  There are multiple factors that you evaluate for any source, and it's not necessary for every source to be perfect on every score.
 * As usual, it helps to know something about the subject and what the high-quality sources say. It might be nice to have gold-plated scholarly sources for every word, but you don't really need perfect sources when the content is ordinary, expected, mainstream views.  Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit is not really an improvement over Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.  Readers only click on the refs in 3 out of 1,000 page views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

bworldonline.com

 * Source*


 * Content: "Yet, despite the turbulent landscape, BusinessWorld, the Philippines’ oldest business newspaper founded on July 27, 1987 by the late respected journalist Raul L. Locsin, has further cemented its position as the most trusted source of news, analysis, and insights by the country’s business community.The newspaper has mostly achieved this by holding true to its purpose of serving its readers with reliable, accurate coverage of the news and issues relevant to the Philippine business landscape. - Miguel Belmonte President and chieft executive officer of BusinessWorld"

Business World has been viewed as a #1 source for business and news, the credibility and reliability of the source is very well talked through the Internet.
 * I am unsure on what's the issue for this discussion? Per the RSN guideline, Please focus your attention on the reliability of a source. This is not the place to discuss other issues, such as editor conduct. Please see dispute resolution for issues other than reliability. If you would like an assessment on Business World, that's all right, but I am unsure on what this line meant Business World has been viewed as a #1 source for business and news, the credibility and reliability of the source is very well talked through the Internet? Many thanks!

Note: Pinging the creator of this discussion per this diff. VickKiang (talk) 21:49, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of The Dicebreaker (News)
''Note: I am pinging active editors who discussed in the previous RSN on Dicebreaker, and several participants from the discussion of sources in BTG Wikiproject. Many thanks! ''

Recently, I moved this article from draftspace to mainspace, after (I believed) that it had some improvements. Unfortunately, I haven't moved a draft to mainspace before, it was also submitted for AfC, so unfortunately it displayed as an error. Apologies for this mistake and possible inconvenience. Still, as per the AfC instructions, as The draft was moved to the Article space without being formally reviewed (i.e. a manual move), and I felt that it was all right at Remove the template because the article was moved into article space by a non-reviewer, but should be in article space (i.e. it is an acceptable page). Several other editors did some ref fixing, but another editor commented that it was "not ready for mainspace", and there was a dispute on whether refs are RS (see my user page's last discussion. Per the WikiProject, Dicebreaker is reliable, IGN is also reliable according to RSP. A previous discussion had consensus that it's generally reliable, but the other editor also made insightful points, including that the news article was sourced from primary sources from the publisher, and said that it was "a commercial source" and "advertisement".

IMO the article could remain at mainspace, with four reliable refs (1, 4, 5, 6), but could you please comment if the first source is reliable? Also, the sixth ref is a magazine that hasn't be discussed before, so does it count towards GNG. Therefore, should the article be kept, or should it be draftified instead (if the latter is so, apologies for my incorrect move)? Many thanks for your time and help, and thanks for NeverTry4Me for the time and insight on improving this article! VickKiang (talk) 03:46, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Mostly not reliable: Most online media use subscription, disclosed advertisement, and AdSense or other ads for revenue. But dicebreaker.com, owned by Gamer Network Limited, neither have a subscription nor has any disclosed advertisement or any AdSense or other ads for revenue which raises the question, "How the staff are paid for their work?" To maintain a website/portal, and online media, the owner company or individual owner needs revenue generation to pay the staff as not staff works for free. So their contents are in doubt of "undisclosed promotional". - Signed by NeverTry4Me Talk 04:07, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with this. Could you explain why you believe that companies without a subscription is mostly not reliable? The editorial policies are located and are clear IMO. There are loads of sites without subscription, so do you believe all of them are unreliable? I also think that you haven't read this disclosure before forming the conclusion:

Dicebreaker’s editorial and advertising are handled by separate teams. Dicebreaker’s website and video content will never be influenced or impacted by commercial considerations. Any sponsored content will be clearly labelled as such, and produced in a way that preserves the editorial integrity of the team and other Dicebreaker content. We sometimes link to retailers such as Amazon using affiliate links, from which we may receive some money. When present in content, these links will be expressed using impartial language. Affiliate links have no influence on editorial content or coverage. All content that appears on the Dicebreaker website and on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief and strives to uphold the standards set out above. If you feel that any of our content has failed to uphold these standards, please contact the Editor-in-Chief. That they gain their income from links is a normal method in lots of websites, please read this. Many thanks! VickKiang (talk) 04:11, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Generally reliable I agree with the previous discussion, it's generally reliable for reviews and news, and count towards GNG, but should, like all sources, not be the only one used. The source has a credible editorial team, the editor in chief worked in other reliable sources. I also strongly disagree with the previous comment that a company should be considered as "undisclosed promotional" without a subscription, it's at best a speculation, see my comments above. That said, it's a good, not the best, ref, and its Features and Opinions section are subjective (and maybe marginally reliable), but otherwise it's an RS IMO. VickKiang (talk) 03:45, 8 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Per the previous discussion I agree that Dicebreaker is generally reliable, given the clear editorial policies. Nowhere on Reliable sources does it state that websites need to have a clear revenue stream to be considered reliable. Regardless, the website is clearly ad supported, so I'm not sure where NeverTry4Me is coming from. With my adblocker turned off I currently see a big advert for Sonic Origins on the front page, individual articles note that they contain affiliate links, and are broken up by further advertisements. Sam Walton (talk) 07:25, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I too agree with your view, I think the policies are fairly clear, and it's generally an RS. I think that NeverTry4Me had insightful ideas, but I don't personally agree with that point. VickKiang (talk) 07:33, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd call it generally or situationally reliable. I do agree there may be biased towards positive reviews, and it is not unlikely they are paid for them, although I think they imply in half legalese they don't do shady things like this (have you seen https://www.dicebreaker.com/editorial-policy?). I'd therefore be a bit cautious when it comes to citing 'paise' from them, although even that is fine as long as it is clearly attributed. I'd be fine for using them in other contexts, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:23, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * IMO I agree with Piotrus's argument. Citing "praise" or positive reviews requires probably at least three positive reviews, and The Dicebreaker isn't the best source- it has Features section which is middling at best, and its editor in chief is fairly qualified, and worked in Tabletop Magazine, but there are also contributor opinion pieces, which are subjective. They also focus much on best of lists, but it's good enough for its news to be reliable, reviews are all right with attribution, and I think it is generally reliable except for Opinion pieces (see here), which are marginally reliable. Thanks! VickKiang (talk) 09:53, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

jagatgururampalji.org
Source: any article from jagatgururampalji.org

I was asked to discuss this before asking the site to be added to blocklist. Majority of links from this site are written in a way to attract readers to Rampal's religious works. The articles usually follow a pattern. The users change or add a reference from this site (such as father's day or world tobacco day), the article on the site gives a brief information about that but somehow ends up directing readers to religious practice. For example, an article for Autism day gives a brief definition of the word but ends up claiming that it can be cured with 'this' religious practice. was blocked because he was spamming this site.

I haven't found a single article that can be characterised as a good refernece. All of them end up promoting their saint at the end of the article.

Some examples: 

https://news.jagatgururampalji.org/rabindranath-tagore-jayanti/#True_Spiritual_Knowledge_Is_the_Biggest_Literature

In text: With the birth anniversary of one of the renowned litterateurs Rabindranath Tagore, let us make ourselves aware about the biggest literature of True Spiritual Knowledge or Tatvgyan.... and then talking about their saint.

https://news.jagatgururampalji.org/26-11-mumbai-terrorist-attack/

In text: It is grave ignorance to fight on any issue in the world. Everything is imperishable. Human birth will be fruitful if a person performs the True Devotion of the Absolute Supreme God Kabir Saheb and ensures its place in the Eternal Abode..... and then talking about their saint.

https://news.jagatgururampalji.org/rajiv-gandhi-assassination-death/

In text: The pious soul tried to do his level best for humanity, but he did not find an enlightened saint who could have guided him for the right human life’s purpose. There are many unfortunate pious souls without achieving the right spiritual guide..... and then talking about their saint.

These are just three articles. Every single article on this site links the topic with the saint's teachings. The last one is claiming that Rajiv Gandhi had no one to guide him to his life's purpose. In my opinion, it is offensive to use an article about his death to make this claim. Kenm v2 (talk) 09:36, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

trip-suggest.com
Given the about page shows this a single person's website who is using public sourcing, which I believe includes Wikipedia for a bonus of WP:CIRCULAR, this should not be used as a source on Wikipedia. Right?

A search shows 97 pages (can't get this to work as a wikilink, sorry) currently using the source.

If others agree and have AWB or other semi-automated tool to remove the link that would be appreciated, otherwise I will have to do one by one on mobile. Doable, but time consuming. Slywriter (talk) 15:36, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Option 3 at best/Unreliable Easy, I agree entirely and would actually support deprecation perhaps, but sadly this isn't an RfC, but this is absolutely horrible ref. Probably copied and pasted from numerous (public) places, looking at the Afghanistan article (see its version and another one from Ohio State University). Looking at the article on Perth, it says, with poor grammar and "some clip posted online" (?), I don't think I've seen a worse travel site: While being here, you might want to check out Perth South . We discovered some clip posted online . Scroll down to see the most favourite one or select the video collection in the navigation. Are you curious about the possible sightsseing spots and facts in Perth ? We have collected some references on our attractions page.


 * Next, it covers a building that plagiarises WP and is circular sourcing, see the WP article: The Jubilee Building is part of the Western Australian Museum in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Designed in the Victorian Byzantine style by George Temple-Poole and supervised by his 1895 successor John Harry Grainger, it was opened in 1899. The building was originally planned as a combined library, museum and art gallery to be sited in St Georges Terrace, Perth to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. Looking at the Russian article, the UNESCO sites are copied and pasted partially, the terms and conditions says that it's okay, provided with attribution, to share and adapt content, so it's probably not a copyvio (although nowhere could I see attributed refs or links), as such, the article is useless for WP (citing directly from UNESCO is far better). The about page then has the following: Trip-Suggest.com - built and operated by me as a single person - is a free website. It uses public and free data from various sources to provide people around the globe with a solid first impression of any placae on this world, no indication of editorial policies and has a typo! IMO, this website is unreliable and perhaps worthy of deprecation, it's an example of circular sourcing, questionable use of copyrights, and no evidence of fact-checking. VickKiang (talk) 04:00, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

johnmenadue.com
The website is a public affairs site with independent contributors ran by former Australian diplomat John Menadue, but User:Horse Eye's Back said it's unreliable and removed all mentions of it. But I cannot find anything here that suggests it's actually unreliable. The source in question is by journalist Marcus Rubenstein, formerly of Seven and SBS News. Any takes? 49.180.197.4 (talk) 17:11, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Note that they describe themselves (possibly in a tongue in cheek fashion) as an "influential public policy journal" not a "public affairs site" which often leads to them being cited as a journal... It's Menadue's personal fiefdom and they are open and honest about what they publish which is blog content not journalism or scholarship "We publish informed analysis and commentary on issues that matter to Australians, with a focus on politics, public policy, foreign policy and world affairs, defence and security, the economy, media, the arts and religion." Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that most journalists aspire to being able to say "We publish informed analysis and commentary on issues that matter". That particular statement doesn't say that it's not a journalistic endeavor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:17, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The Guardian describes it as his blog, "Since 2013 he has published his blog ‘Pearls & Irritations’ at johnmenadue.com/blog." Menadue himself refers to it as "my blog" Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 18:24, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It is obviously a bit more than the average blog, but I did find that they accept user articles. I failed at finding information about editorial oversight or fact-checking. --SVTCobra 18:38, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Editorial oversight and fact-checking appear to consist of Mr Menadue reviewing the submission, although it should be noted that the most prolific contributors (among the hundreds of single submission authors) are Mr Menadue's friends so there may be more of an informal social group oversight dynamic for those. They do accept notes but its through their general contact us page and is deeply burried on the About Pearls and Irritations page "To alert us to a factual error or make a complaint, please use the contact us form." Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 18:51, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Their about page seems to indicate that (1) this started as a simple blog and (2) that they say that they edit user submissions for style, clarity and accuracy. I'm not really sure about the accuracy of that claim; another page tells a prospective contributor that we have very limited resources to edit your post. A particular article is literally a blogger referencing a "paper" that they've published on their own website with lots of language to try to promote their website's credibility. It's more of an advertisement than a news/analysis piece. And looking in a bit more, the author of that piece (Jaq James) appears to be quite sus (though Chinese state media consider her to be an academic researcher and a "Western Propaganda Analyst"). She's written four articles with them, all of which went up after The Australian reported on how her organization managed to mysteriously get information that had been stolen by Chinese government hackers. This is a bit of a red flag for me; we... don't exactly want to be citing this sort of thing as if it were somehow reliable.
 * The odd case of Jaq James aside, the articles generally read less like news reporting and more like an opinion and analysis than news reporting; I would hesitate to call it a WP:NEWSORG, and if it is one then (1) I'm skeptical of its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and (2) it doesn't make a habit of labeling its opinion/analysis pieces as being distinct from news pieces. It's certainly not an academic journal. It appears to be something something like a CounterPunch, where there is minimal editorial oversight (if any) over submissions despite claiming to provide it, though the content issues I can identify for this website are less substantial than the issues with CounterPunch itself. I'm not really sure where we'd need to cite it, though I'm fine with WP:ABOUTSELF if it helps to build up a biography's section on someone's political positions or something of that sort. But I don't think that this can be read as anything other than pure WP:SPS. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 05:22, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Appreciate your clarification Horse Eye. Can the site still be used for the opinions of some of its contributors, for instance to state that that this is sole the personal views of former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh? Also it's worth noting that Haigh has repeated his views on his personal website, and did not appear in the Chinese propaganda video at all. The other cited diplomats also made them independently of the video.--115.64.98.205 (talk) 00:32, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would think that WP:SELFPUB would apply for this blog. So, in other words, only use extremely cautiously, probably with in-text attribution and never as a source about living people. I would probably just try to find another source to support a statement unless it is an attributed opinion from a recognised expert in the field. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * In that specific case I would think that Haigh's own blog would be the preferred source. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 17:32, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:NEWSORG applies: analysis and commentary in any publication can only be considered reliable if written by an expert. In this case an expert would be someone who had published articles on the topic they were writing about in academic journals. But in that case weight would also apply, so it would only make sense to use this as a source for relatively obscure topics that receive little attention in reliable sources. TFD (talk) 00:14, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Chartmasters.org
There is a consensus that chartmasters.org is not considered a reliable source for record sales, hence it should be avoided. However, I've recently noted that there are multiple reliable sources like Wall Street Journal 1,2 Newyorker 3, Vulture 4, and Soundsblog (a supplement to Italian newspaper blogo) 5 citing the founder of chartmasters.org Guillaume Vieira as a primary source for these articles’ sales estimates. Some of these articles claim Guillaume Vieira is the greatest chart expert in the world as well. What should we do on these occasions? Should we eliminate all the articles citing the founder of chartmasters.org on the ground of the previous consensus, or is it time to review our previous consensus on chartmasters? TheWikiholic (talk) 13:43, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

MM News
Opinions sought on https://mmnews.tv, a Pakistani news website. Can't find an editorial policy on their website, just a statement at the left side of the footer reading "MM News is a subsidiary of the MM Group of Companies. It was established in 2019 with the aim of providing people of Pakistan access to unbiased information." The only MM Group of Companies I can find online for Pakistan is https://mmgoc.com.pk, which deals in agriculture and shipping. Some of the stories appear to be copied from other Pakistani news websites. The "shows" links at the right link to their YouTube channel, which has 71k subscribers. Is MM News a reliable source? Storchy (talk) 17:00, 9 July 2022 (UTC)


 * They don't get a lot of secondary coverage from my personal google results. Their top youtube vids are lighthearted animal news. At least one photo of theirs was appropriated later for a hoax. A July 2 story on Imran Khan (hot-button political stuff) is completely old-school journalism: Five Ws, the whole article is alternating grafs of direct-indirect quotes – India Today certainly doesn't do that from what I've seen (not trying to fling dirt, just saying it's not some subcontinent 'thing'). They have a "Fake News Alert" section of their site (which actually appears to select from other sections rather than being an exclusive section) – I'm not up on Pakistan's goings-on so I have no idea what some of these briefs are about, but some are straightforward – "APML rubbishes news about Musharraf’s death" looks like a clickbait headline, but it's another relatively old-school article about the APML reporting the Musharraf was dead, then saying they got it wrong and screwing up more facts, then eventually getting it right. All easily verifiable stuff without any theorizing.
 * Their "Investigations" section is where things get interesting. In a story alleging embezzlement the sources are pretty nonspecific (as often with a news outlet investigation) Even though the subhead/lead uses the phrase "embezzled in the name of ghost employees" the article body is again completely factual with no embellishment. That said, in the first body graf you have to take it at their word that their financial assessment is correctly presented – they don't specify if they researched them themselves through say financial documents or if it comes from the reports and interviews which are well-attributed in the following grafs. It's just one of things that could have been a copy editor's switch of graf order that left attribution hanging, or relatively uncontroversial or easily-verifiable details that would be better supported later, or an actual reporting error.
 * I don't want to be biased by how utterly refreshing it is to see old-school reporting. That said, their old-school articles do "make mistakes" in minor presentation from how I've been taught, but it could just be style (one indirect quote seemed to be hanging precariously loose though).
 * Having no company or editorial transparency from where I can access means I can't evaluate it on those merits. It is also a quite new outlet (est. 2019) so a lot of what they are has had no chance to be "established" yet. That more than anything makes anything from the "Investigations" section, as professional as it seems, require in-line attribution to the outlet. Otherwise I'm very impressed with how much they seem to commit to their stated "aim of providing people of Pakistan access to unbiased information", especially in Pakistan with a press freedom rank of 157 (down in 2022) and generally little competition in terms of good outlets. So given a place with few good RS to choose from, I'd say consider it locally reliable in terms of the news section and require direct attribution for investigations, until new evidence emerges. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:57, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of FANDOM News Stories
FANDOM's news stories are distinct from its fan wikis, which are written by anonymous contributors. These stories are attributed to actual FANDOM employees who go under their real names, and are hosted on the fandom.com site unlike fandom.com subdomains, which host wikis. Are these articles reliable? V ORTEX  3427 (Talk!) 07:32, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
 * While not WP:USERGENERATED like the rest of fandom, I would treat it like a blog of no particular reputation. I'm also not seeing any indication that they have any editorial controls, so they're not really usable for anything unless the author satisfies the requirements to be cited as a WP:SPS. --Aquillion (talk) 02:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Attorney statements published in WP:RS
I was referred here by the help desk. I'm currently involved in an article about a current event where an attorney for the deceased is making assertions about the details of the event. These assertions are being published in WP:RS. Some contributors are insisting that the attorneys assertions be included as long as they are not in the Wikipedia voice and attributed to the attorney, while others are contending that because the attorney didn't witness the event or have access to any new information their assertions cannot be verified and should not be included. I'm aware of WP:RS and WP:VNT I'm wondering if there are other relevant policies in this area since I expect this is something that comes up frequently. WP:NEWSOPED comes to mind but in this case the third party is not a news source.

I'm not asking for anyone to get involved in the specific content dispute (to which I am intentionally not referring) just looking for guidance on other relevant policies in this area.

Thanks for your time and consideration. --LaserLegs (talk) 16:19, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The problem is wp:blp means we have to be careful with accusations. So without knowing the details it's hard to say. But wp:v is rather clear, just because something can be verified does not mean it has to be included. Now you are correct, if an RS quotes someone it is an RS for that quote (as long as it is attributed). But issues related to RS status (such as wp:undue may affect its ability to be used.
 * So this is not really an RS question. Slatersteven (talk) 16:27, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks Slatersteven. Without submitting an RFC on the subject, is there a more appropriate place to ask? --LaserLegs (talk) 16:57, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You might try over an the Undue talk page, or WP:NPOVN, but in truth an RFC might be better. Slatersteven (talk) 16:59, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with Slatersteven. Laserlegs, I think it would have been better to alert other editors on that article's talk page and start a discussion here with specifics and/or start an RFC. I believe you that you were acting in good faith but I don't think anything productive can come of hypotheticals that are designed to represent realia. If you're in a dispute then you probably aren't capable of framing this question in a way that represents it objectively. Also if you do it this way you're heading toward unnecessary strife because no one else will have read the policies you're referred to, which might work to embarrass other editors but best practice would be trying to figure this out with them and moving forward together, which is impossible if you only ask for yourself and intentionally prevent other editors from sharing in your answers. GordonGlottal (talk) 03:12, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Salon.com let misinformation stand for over a year
See CNN's fact-check on the matter: Fact check: Liberal website changes headline that falsely said DeSantis signed a bill that forces students to register their political views:
 * The liberal website Salon has changed a headline that had falsely said a bill signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis forces Florida's students and professors to register their political views with the state... Salon published the headline in June 2021. Its revision on Wednesday, more than a year later, came after the article went viral... Salon executive editor Andrew O'Hehir said in a Thursday email that while another Salon editor had defended the initial headline back in 2021, the publication recently took another look and concluded that the headline "conveyed a misleading impression of what the Florida law actually said, and did not live up to our editorial standards."

Note that there is no new information that has come out about this matter, they changed their article only because their misinformation happened to go viral recently. Not even 2 days after the original article came out, PolitiFact put out a fact check debunking the claim: New Florida law doesn't require university students, faculty and staff to register political views. Despite their article being debunked by fact checkers almost as soon as it was published, they decided to let it stand completely untouched for more than a year, altering it only when enough outrage was drummed up about it the next year. Is a "no consensus" RSP entry really appropriate for a publication whose editors appear to find it acceptable to publish information that is known to be verifiably false? Endwise (talk) 08:08, 9 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Was the problem only with the headline (which are not considered a reliable source per WP:HEADLINES)? If you suggest to downgrade it to unreliable, I think more evidence of misinformation is needed. Alaexis¿question? 08:33, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, headlines are headlines. We wouldn't have downgraded the status of the Boston Globe for Mush from the Wimp. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:32, 11 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The Slate headline fact-check may be one of the few things of a political nature from CNN that reflects accurate & ethical reporting, despite CNN not properly tending to their own scandals and failed reporting. The end has finally come for CNN, despite our own WP:RSP failing to acknowledge the problems that have riddled CNN & a few other networks over the years. WP articles have quite frequently cited CNN & Slate as RS, and quite likely included some of that misinformation in various articles. Good luck getting it corrected. Readers are far more aware of clickbait and biased opinion journalism in today's mainstream media, and want no part of it. The outlets that don't shift to center will eventually fade away. We should be equally concerned over our own future, considering the repeated use of those failed news sources for the material we've been including in some of our articles. When the media shifts center, they will not be kind to us unless we shift, too.   Atsme  💬 📧 03:40, 11 July 2022 (UTC)


 * This is why we don't consider headlines to be usable. Unless there was an issue with the article itself then theres nothing for us to do here. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 03:46, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

zakzak.co.jp
plz look towards this Japanese website. https://www.zakzak.co.jp/ Are they reliable? I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere in wikipedia regarding its credibility. Though i found some academic books which cites this website as its source of info. Arorapriyansh333 (talk) 07:42, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Are they reliable for what? It depends on the content that they're supposed to verify. –– FormalDude   talk   15:10, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Tabloid sources for Pop Culture information
Earlier discussion (prior to archive 165) seemed to believe tabloids such as Daily Mail could be trusted in manners of pop culture and sports, but have since been entirely deprecated or suggested for total deprecation. In the context of pop culture events with verifiable information (such as TV show viewer rates and statistics) could they still be considered reliable sources? For context, I'm trying to add a source to the John Thaw section mentioning viewership of "Inspector Morse" where citation 9&10 are. Iaintnojo (talk) 07:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Can we cite the viewership numbers to another source (one that isn’t deprecated)? If so, use that.  If not, then I think you might have an argument that this is a “valid exception” to the deprecation. Blueboar (talk) 15:37, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Oxford English Dictionary
Editors are invited to comment at the following RfC: Talk:TERF. Crossroads -talk- 17:55, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Edith of Wilton
I have disagreed with at Talk:Edith of Wilton whether books by Sabine Baring-Gould and Agnes Dunbar are reliable sources. Comments from other editors would be helpful. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:45, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of brutusjournal.com
ORIGINALLY POSTED IN THE INCORRECT AREA- Moved

Disagreement regarding this edit “Ironically, the divisive leak led both parties to express outrage, Democrats for the content of the leaked draft, and Republicans out of concern regarding how a leak occurred.[114]”

[114]-https://www.brutusjournal.com/article-collection/political-takes/ryan/leaked-ruling-sparks-outrage-from-both-parties-for-two-very-different-re

Hello,

I have had an account for awhile and just recently decided to become more active again after a friend told me about the wikipedia contribution process. First, I decided to go source by source, rather than topic by topic, to add information I felt was relevant. However on my first source (brutusjournal.com) I was reverted. I understand spam must be a huge problem, but I do not see what the problem is in citing a younger source which can be came across. The information was in no was extreme, and rather than provide any dispute as to the reliability of the edits, they were simply reverted. I had the following exchange with the user responsible for the reverts:

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include, but are not limited to, links to personal websites, links to websites with which you are affiliated (whether as a link in article text, or a citation in an article), and links that attract visitors to a website or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam guideline for further explanations. Because Wikipedia uses the nofollow attribute value, its external links are disregarded by most search engines. If you feel the link should be added to the page, please discuss it on the associated talk page rather than re-adding it. [1] MrOllie (talk) 10:47, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

This link was directly related to the text being added to the website. Which specific aspect of the external links guideline does this violate? The source is reliable and cites its own sources. It appears we must defer, in situations like these, to the “assume good faith” direction and allow the text to stand unless there is a specific violation that can be shown by the reverting party. Refsjjehhgshh (talk) 10:58, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

It's a self published student journal, so not reliable. Repetitively adding links to the same unreliable site is spamming as Wikipedia defines it. 'Assume good faith' never means that common link promotion patterns are ignored. If you are here to help build an encyclopedia and not to insert links to one particular website, I suggest you find something else to cite. MrOllie (talk) 11:07, 12 July 2022 (UTC) Wikipedia’s own pages state, “Self-published works are those in which the author and publisher are the same.” The source in question is a journal that publishes various authors works. I understand the concern, and with regards to helping build the encyclopedia, that is also of concern, but it is important to differentiate a personal blog (self published source) from a student journal. The content added so far is by no means exceptional or extreme. Refsjjehhgshh (talk) 11:21, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

If you want more input, feel free to take it up at WP:RSN. You'll be told the same thing there, though. MrOllie (talk) 11:31, 12 July 2022 (UTC) Refsjjehhgshh (talk) 11:44, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * No, the student journal that Refsjjehhgshh has been spamming to Wikipedia articles isn't a reliable source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No, the student journal is not a reliable source. Additionally, all postings used on wiki have same author, so suspect a WP:COI as well. Slywriter (talk) 12:15, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Obviously not reliable. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:41, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia webpage for Phryma leptostachya
In the top right corner of web page for Phryma leptostachya (Lopseed) there is a picture of the inflorescence for Hylodesmum glutinosum [Desmodium glutinosum], Large Tick-trefoil. The picture of the inflorescence at the bottom of the page (right side) is correct for Phryma leptostachya. 99.248.93.5 (talk) 19:24, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Reliable sources
For Indian films, are Nowrunning, Indiaglitz, Filmibeat, etc. reliable or not? DareshMohan (talk) 22:02, 13 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Filmibeat is pretty worthless imo, see past discussions. Also relevant PRAXIDICAE🌈 22:08, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Is this site a reliable source?
Some of the "articles" appear to take information from a primary source(Quran). Seems very blog-like.

Imam-us Kansas Bear (talk) 20:39, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Re. Discogs
I was reading the section about Discogs on RSP, and I'm a bit confused as to when it can be used as a source. Specifically, I'm looking to add funk rock as a genre to an album's infobox, and its Discogs entry explicitly refers to it as "rock, funk". Would this be a permissible use of a link to the site? Kurtis (talk) 09:23, 15 July 2022 (UTC)


 * As it applies to your specific query, the RSP entry states that because that genre description on Discogs is user generated content (it could have been entered by anyone) you shouldn't use it as a source. Ljleppan (talk) 10:27, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Alright, thank you. I shall look elsewhere. Kurtis (talk) 21:46, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Zaborona
Is Zaborona reliable enough to establish the notability of an American-turned-Russian-propagandist operating in occupied parts of Ukraine? IntrepidContributor (talk) 09:54, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * yes, as one of the sources. (certainly now that even more sources have been added to the article with time) Mathmo Talk 16:51, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The question should be if the source is reliable for negative statements/labels about a living person. My concern is that I do not see any indication of clear editorial oversight. The website does list their values and their backstory, but I do not see any specific individuals mentions as editors, CEOs, etc. I finally found the list of people: . I'm not sure how reliable the source is, but at least it passes the basic requirements. Any negative labels should still be attributed to the source.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 17:54, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * While the outlet was subject of controversy, the New Eastern Europe says that in general, many people consider the outlet to be fine. They seem to further a rather annoying trend of inserting English-derived buzzwords into Ukrainian, though when I ignore this, I see no specific reason to think it is not generally reliable.
 * The Ukrainian version of the website features a quite clear and thorough code of conduct for its employers and they are fairly open about their financing. Some editors here have expressed doubts about outlets using funding from the US National Endowment for Democracy, but I don't really share their concerns. A sample of stories I read in Ukrainian that are not directly related to war seem to be fine, and as for war stories, I would generally prefer foreign media to Ukrainian media whenever possible, but the war reporting doesn't seem to be outside the trend for Ukrainian media in general.
 * In short, I think that WP:GREL threshold is passed.
 * Now, addressing the article. The original Ukrainian article says "З роду Ланкастерів" (i.e. he is from the Lancaster family), which, if it had been an advertisement, it would have read Від роду Ланкастерів (i.e. the Lancasters gave us this) at the very least; though the translation into English is correct, as both mean "from". Besides, a Ukrainian news outlet accepting money from a pro-Russian propagandist when the war is raging against Russia? That would be a highly unusual and very unlikely event IMHO, and I can only imagine the backlash if this were true. The article is definitely not advertising, and it doesn't read that way in the original language. It seems like a legitimate in-depth piece about that person. So I would say that the source may be used to help establish notability. The English translation looks good for me. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:34, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

PNAS Nexus journal unreliable for MEDRS?
My addition on Endemic phase of COVID-19 here was reverted as unreliable; I have limited experience with MEDRS, is the PNAS Nexus journal unreliable? Pinging for the revert. SmolBrane (talk) 22:18, 15 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't think the concern was the journal itself, but being a primary animal study and applying it to human epidemiology (see WP:MEDANIMAL for explanation why that's typically avoided). Bakkster Man (talk) 22:28, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting, I decided to add material on this due to the large amount of conventional sources, and cited the journal for accuracy. Here are the conventional sources  SmolBrane (talk) 22:48, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * All of which seem to be based on this study, see WP:MEDPOP. You want to be looking for either a source that takes this and other primary studies as a meta analysis, or provide enough caveats to fully describe the lack of certainty in the finding. The latter typically being reserved for exceptional cases where something needs to be written and no more reliable source exists (which this article arguably has). Bakkster Man (talk) 01:04, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Objections here are noted. SmolBrane (talk) 18:17, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The problem's not the journal, it's the article, which is primary. Alexbrn (talk) 03:07, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Is the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs a reliable source for archaeology?
Gezer uses the page "Gezer - A Canaanite City and Royal Solomonic City". Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs 14 times. In general I think we have to be extremely careful in using government sources for archaeology when the government might have an agenda, the Hindutva Indian government's attempts to rewrite history and archaeology being another example. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 13:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would agree that caution is needed… but that does not mean that government sources are necessarily unreliable.
 * A LOT depends on whether there are academic sources that contradict what the government sources say (and, if so, we should give significantly more weight to those academic sources). Blueboar (talk) 13:40, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * See the article Facts on the Ground about a well-known academic source. NightHeron (talk) 13:47, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Very much agree with everyone here, I think. We all know that the Israeli government is not without motive to shape claims about the country's past.  That said, I also don't think that such motivation means the source is per se unreliable.  I would agree that the Gezer article should really bring in some more traditional academic sources, but we don't need to necessarily excise government sources simply by dint of the fact that they are government sources.  Cheers and Happy Friday. Dumuzid (talk) 13:50, 15 July 2022 (UTC)ex
 * Government communications are not subject to the type of editorial controls or peer-review that we expect of typical reliable sources, so there are indeed distinct reasons why all government sources should be treated with particular skepticism and not at all assumed to be automatically reliable, except in their reflection of the government's views. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:13, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

*::@Jayron32 Why in the world would you even suggest that? I've spent too long just trying to clean it up a bit, remove copyvio, etc. It already had lots of CN tags. I'd love to add sources if I had the time and strength, but I don't and it's not a subject I know that much about. I frequently add sources to articles and object to your suggestion I don't. I did fix the url to lead to the source I raised. At the moment even editing is a bit tiring. Doug Weller talk 14:30, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Why there are that many usages is a reasonable question, I find it hard to believe there are no better sources. Selfstudier (talk) 14:00, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Has anyone here, or elsewhere, done anything to prevent you from adding your additional sources to the article in question? -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 14:24, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No. Selfstudier (talk) 14:39, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I wasn't talking to you. I was speaking to Selfstudier.  You can tell who a person is talking to in a Wikipedia discussion by observing the indent level of the response.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 14:33, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Jayron32 apologies. I wish that you always could, sometimes the software changes it. But in this case I was wrong. Doug Weller talk 14:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Selfstudier Exactly. Someone has taken that website and used it to write a lot of Gezer. I've rarely seen a worse sourced article in archaeology or Eygpptology. It used the Jewish Virtual Library, still uses the media a lot instead of archaeological sources, uses about.com, used a tourist site or two, etc. Doug Weller  talk 14:24, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * , per WP:BIASED biased sources can be reliable. I think no one would object to using academic sources instead (in a way that satisfies WP:NPOV). Is there something specific that you propose to change or remove? Alaexis¿question? 14:47, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * As it's my opinion that we should almost always use reliable archaeological sources for archaeology, I'd like to see them all replaced by archaeological sources. That will of course take time. Note also that the source is almost two decades old. Doug Weller  talk 14:50, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This doesn't sound contentious - good luck with this. Alaexis¿question? 15:15, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Alaexis not me though, as I've suggested above in the post I struck out. Hm, I've just thought, isn't it a primary source? Of course some archaeological papers are, but at least they use actual evidence and other sources, this one does not. Doug Weller  talk 15:24, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not a primary source (per WP:PRIMARY "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved.") but it doesn't really matter here. Primary sources may be reliable and secondary sources may be unreliable. Alaexis¿question? 15:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Alaexis you're right. It's just a bad secondary source. Doug Weller  talk 15:37, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Unreliable, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs raison d'être is to promote Israel internationally, and on any number of topics that have provable disseminated false information. It is not an agency with a well regarded reputation for fact checking, and any claim cited to it, if true, would be found in an actually reliable source. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 14:59, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, see related past discussions at RSN and the talk page from that discussion. A government agency, especially the foreign affairs ministry, is not a reliable source for anything other than the view of the government. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 19:34, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I would also tend to expect the Ministry of Foreign Affairs specifically to be the least reliable of all, since their job is in effect to expressly push out the international relations propaganda of choice for the government of the day. It is odd that the MFA is pumping out archaeological material when the more apt likes of the Israel Antiquities Authority exist. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:07, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It might be reliable, it might not. The question is, why are we using it? It's a really poor source for an archaeological article. The region is one of the best studied in the world, surely there must be much better sources out there. --Boynamedsue (talk) 08:08, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Also this, there should frankly be no need to seek recourse to government sources in an area of historical study in which peer-reviewed material abounds. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:09, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say it is totally unreliable (unless it is clear that the source is used for propaganda), but since the MFAs in general would normally publish that sort of material for advertising purposes, rather than to convey rigorously fact-checked information, this is a questionable source; it is even more so given that archaeology is not exactly the expertise of the MFA. There really should be much better materials; look up some peer-reviewed scholarship for archaeology, or maybe the Israel Antiquities Authority. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:43, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no conceivable topic that the Israeli, or any, foreign affairs ministry is reliable for besides the views of its government. In every statement they make there is an inherent conflict of interest. The purpose of their existence is to promote their country and government. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 21:09, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Unreliable. Archaeology is an academic subject that most certainly isn't within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' realm of expertise. M.Bitton (talk) 01:01, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Are videos by "professional" YouTubers reliable sources?
I'm referring to someone who edited the reception section on the RWBY page, saying "the video is by a professional YouTuber who is well known and verified". Here is the video link for reference. As is my understanding, YouTube videos are not, generally, reliable sources. The summary on WP:RSPSOURCES says that most videos on YouTube are "anonymous, self-published, and unverifiable, and should not be used at all" but says that "content uploaded from a verified official account, such as that of a news organization, may be treated as originating from the uploader and therefore inheriting their level of reliability" and notes that "however, many YouTube videos from unofficial accounts are copyright violations and should not be linked from Wikipedia."

Personally, I would not consider Hbomberguy to be a "news organization" and would argue his reviews fall under what TheAmazingPeanuts said in 2020, that YouTube videos are "self-published website and self-published websites are not reliable sources per WP:SPS" and in line with what was said about Wikitubia YouTube videos earlier this year. But, I've also read some people on here saying that YouTube is the media and doesn't have an influence on reliability (or unreliability) of a source.

Anyway, I'd like to hear from you all before proceeding with editing that section. Historyday01 (talk) 00:32, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * That is a good question. . YouTube is indeed the medium over which the video is transmitted, but does give me pause as a whole, save for the carve-outs you've already outlined. I guess there could be a philosophical argument to be had, though, that everything is self-published in some way...but YouTube has a lot of low quality content on it. I guess, depending on the subject and how the organization uploading etc falls into RS categories, it could be acceptable on a case-by-case basis? This is a tough one to answer. The SandDoctor  Talk 00:49, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Striking as I just ended up quoting WP:SPS. That is probably the safest thing to fall back on. -- The SandDoctor  Talk 00:51, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That's my thinking too. What's annoying is that there ARE other criticisms of RWBY which are in more reliable sources. I mean, even this article (which is by an ANN reviewer) could be seen as more reliable, or even this CBR article, perhaps. Otherwise, when you do searches like "criticism of RWBY" or "problems with RWBY" a bunch of self-published stuff comes up, nothing that would be considered reliable on here, from what I've observed from a search tonight. Historyday01 (talk) 01:04, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with the revert, nor consider Hbomberguy reliable. He is high-profile, and per the WP page received awards, but that doesn't mean that the account should be considered as a reliable "news organisation" nor is there any editorial control for it to be "verified" on YouTube, which is a self-published source. I think another point is probably WP:DUE, Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources; I agree with this edit, as the previous version Conversely, RWBY's reception has since been grown from generally positive to overwhelmingly negative based on two reviews (one probably not reliable), seems to me a POV by . This (YouTube is indeed the medium over which the video is transmitted, but does give me pause as a whole, save for the carve-outs you've already outlined. I guess there could be a philosophical argument to be had, though, that everything is self-published in some way...but YouTube has a lot of low quality content on it) is an excellent point, but even if Hbomberguy has a website instead of a channel, would it be considered an RS? IMO probably not.


 * I have some concerns for the other refs. I find CBR's listicles poor and superficial, and IMO this one is no exception, but it's probably marginally reliable and IMO is better than the current provided ref. This is probably an |opinion piece], per Q-taku is a column by Rose where she discusses anime, manga and other parts of associated pop culture and its fandom, and her take on it all as a queer feminist viewer, though the author has expertise in ANN, but even opinion columns by journalists or experts in NY Times and The Guardian are considered by RSP to need additional considerations, so to me it's also maginally reliable. So IMO the rm of the Hbomberguy mention should be done, and potentially replace with these two refs, but as they are marginally reliable at best, I think that I agree with Historyday01's edits, and that "it received generally positive reviews but also critcism for..." would be okay for now. VickKiang (talk) 23:11, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with you there. Just like there isn't any editorial control for someone to be verified on Twitter, I wouldn't think there is any for YouTube either. Google says they verify channels which are "authentic" and "complete" but there is nothing about editorial control, from what I've provided.
 * It looks like ANN only has reviewed the manga, but not the web series, as no review is listed here. They have reviewed RWBY: Ice Queendom but that's a separate series. I'm not completely sure about those links I provided anyhow an you make good points about reliability, but I'll see if I can find something else. In the meantime, I'll remove that Hbomberguy entry. I also imagine that this discussion will be useful for anyone to refer to if someone tries to add a video from YouTube and claims that it is reliable because the YouTuber is a "professional", whatever that means. Historyday01 (talk) 23:33, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed overall. The video being used as a reference is a video essay, and thus at best an WP:RSOPINION, and only if it's considered WP:DUE for the topic. And as far as the (arguably non-NPOV) statement of Conversely, RWBY's reception has since been grown from generally positive to overwhelmingly negative. I think using YouTube video essays to make such a statement of fact is always going to be a major issue. You'll almost always be able to find a YouTube video essay that makes the point you want, and viewer count doesn't equate to reliability. If used, it needs to be DUE and attributed as opinion, at least in a case like this where it's "popular YouTuber's opinion is...". This isn't a self-published piece by a credentialed subject matter expert, which might make for a different case for use under WP:RS/SPS. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:35, 8 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I would say in general, no, these are not, but it is possible in isolated cases that a person gains enough of a reputation within the community (and if that community is based on commercially-generated content, with the creators of that content), then yes, they can be considered weak reliable sources but shouldn't used for "significant" claims, like anything political. But when that happens needs to be established by the editing community for that topic area. --M asem (t) 01:28, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * +1, an example being Anthony Fantano. JBchrch   talk  13:13, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If they are a professional in the fieled it is bieng used as a source for, yes (per wp:sps) if they are not, then no. Just being a "proffesional Youtuber" is not enough to establish expertise about anything. Slatersteven (talk) 13:38, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's a strange one, because isn't a professional YouTuber an expert/professional in the field of web content (RWBY)? But in this case, I think an animated web series is best reviewed by somebody writing for a(n online) news source or respected publication that is directly paying them a fee for the piece, not a YouTuber without this professional criticism background. — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:11, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that many editors are too hesitant to use self-published sources relative to the policy, and that policy is too hesitant to source things to self-published sources even accounting for that.
 * WP:SPS has a pretty clear exception for sources self-published by experts, so in cases where the YouTube video is by an acknowledged expert we should have no problem sourcing claims to YouTube. And yet, in the past when I've tried to use Veronica Ivy's YouTube videos about philosophy of language, they've been removed, even though her papers on the same topic stay in.
 * I also think that the policy is a bit behind the times. I understand that having some sort of editorial process is what makes reliable sources reliable, but self-publishing does not mean that you lack some sort of fact-checking process for your own work. There's plenty of educational YouTube channels that have rigorous fact-checking processes. If we're going to accept a third party org's statement that they have an editorial process at face-value, I don't see why we wouldn't do the same for an educational YouTube channel. Tom Scott has a list of corrections for all his videos on his website., and usually also pins corrections under the video as well. Kurzgesagt has a video extensively outlining their research process. I don't think these channels are equivalent to the New York Times or an academic journal, but surely they're far more reliable than some random dude posting videos about chemtrails.
 * In this particular situation, I wouldn't cite that Hbomberguy essay for what it's being cited for (Conversely, RWBY's reception has since been grown from generally positive to overwhelmingly negative), but I would cite it like any other single review. Loki (talk) 04:40, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't have an an opinion about Hbomberguy or RWBY specifically, but I agree with Loki regarding the general points. YouTube is a medium not a source, and just like every medium it is not (and cannot be) reliable or unreliable itself. There are multiple categories of video, including
 * Those produced by organisations with a culture of fact checking and of citing reliable sources that would be regarded as reliable if their medium was a print magazine (SciShow for example) so should be seen as reliable sources in the same way.
 * Those produced by individuals who are subject matter experts (e.g. Rohin Francis) and these should be accepted per the provisions in WP:SPS for print works by subject matter experts.
 * Those produced by individual(s) who, while not subject matter experts, do cite the high quality sources they use and issue corrections where necessary. Especially when those who are experts in the relevant subject have reviewed the channel and publicly rate it highly. Tom Scott (presenter) is a good example here, especially as most of the videos that would be relevant involve them talking to one or more experts in some specific area and producing a story about and based on them. This is exactly what a journalist in a magazine or newspaper does, and so should be seen as equally reliable - that the reputation on the line is an individual who earns their living through their work directly or an individual who earns their living through their work indirectly (i.e. through a magazine) is not materially different in the present day.
 * Vlogs and similar that are produced by individuals, which are intended to be opinion pieces. These are the same as self-published blogs and should be treated identically - i.e. they can be used (with very limited exceptions) only for the attributed opinions of the blogger/vlogger where relevant and DUE and/or ABOUTSELF.
 * Those that purport to be reliable but which don't cite sources, cite only unreliable sources, don't reliably report the sources they cite, and similar. These are exactly as reliable (i.e. not at all) as the print sources that engage in the same activities. e.g. a video about climate change that cited only FOX News and the Daily Mail would be worthless; one that cited the IGPCC, The Guardian and Vicky Pope would be a potentially good source.
 * In conclusion, "professional YouTuber" is as useless a predictor of reliability as "professional journalist" is. Thryduulf (talk) 12:40, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't have time to trawl through the above presently, but the context drew my eye as I have become conscious of the fanzone changes to TommyInnit, and a few days ago at Joseph Quinn (actor). Wikipedia has had a problem with new media (found by keyword search engines) being the rolling force diluting the traditional press for some years (I only found the name Churnalism recently, although I knew what was happening); any moves to use Youtube is likely to provide encouragement to IPs, subjectively, as in WP:OTHERSTUFF.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 12:56, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't understand how any of that comment is relevant to anything being discussed here? "New media" is not in and of itself any more or less reliable than any other form of media, churnalism is at least if not more prevalent in written media than videos (given that it's easier to regurgitate text in text than video or text in video). I can't make head nor tail of the final part of your comment (the bit starting "any moves to use Youtube..."). Thryduulf (talk) 13:37, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Matt Hicks' role in OpenShift and accession to Red Hat CEO
Hi,

I struggle to understand how the mostly independent sources stated in Draft:Matt Hicks (engineer) are not notable despite the fact that he had been called as a foundational member of OpenShift, made big deal with ABB and got promoted as CEO of Red Hat due to his successes. Please consider helping. Comrade-yutyo (talk) 13:20, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * What we are looking for is significant coverage about the man from independent, reliable sources that isn't primarily regurgitated press releases from Red Hat. You certainly have used enough sources to established that he is now CEO of Red Hat. Where are the independent reliable sources that provide significant coverage of everything else about him? - Donald Albury 18:42, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

How do we reduce the use of unreliable sources on Wikipedia?
If you have a very big watchlist, then you're bound to see from time to time editors running AWB tasks to remove hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of citations to one or another source that has been deemed predatory or "vanity". For reasons that I imagine should be obvious to most watchers of this page, this practice has been disruptive.

Still, we need a way to keep the use of poor sourcing at low levels in the long term and avoid situations where one or two editors end up feeling like they're alone in the battle. Instead of reactively removing existing references, we could proactively try to discourage their use at the point of initial addition. Yes, that's what the blacklist does, but it doesn't work for the vast grey area of sources that are often subpar though not bad enough to be simply banned. It also occasionally encourages deceit (I've seen people leaving out the url of a predatory publisher so that they can pass the edit filter, resulting in a citation to what looks like an acceptable physical journal).

There's another way. You've noticed how these days you get a popup warning whenever you try to insert a link to a disambiguation page? Can't we have a similar warning system for sources? The popup can say "You seem to have just inserted a citation to a publication in X. X is presumed to be a predatory publisher, so should almost never be used". Or something like "X is not as reliable as it seems as it doesn't feature peer review". Or any number of similar warnings depending on the publication in question. That's obviously not going to be a silver bullet, but it should be able to make a difference. Right? – Uanfala (talk) 21:17, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * What you've just basically described is the WP:DEPRECATION system. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:31, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah! I should have known better than to traipse into one of the best-developed corners of Wikipedia and start re-inventing the wheel. But still, it seems like there could an intermediate level of warnings. With the deprecation system, it's automatic reversion for new editors and warnings on save for established ones. If we could have a "middle tier", where there's no automated actions and the warning comes at the point when text is added in the edit window (rather than during the final save), just as it's done for the new dab notifications... – Uanfala (talk) 11:14, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Editors are supposed to use the best sources available and summarize what they say. Unfortunately, there are tendentious editors who decide what an article should say, then search for sources to support it. It doesn't matter what rules there are, so long as some editors want to write articles in violation of weight and rs, we will see all kinds of obscure sources used. TFD (talk) 21:53, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This is something I've thought about in the past; it is true but also slightly tricky (which is why it has traditionally been so hard to deal with WP:TEND editing in politically-charged topics.) If we're talking about a relatively uncontroversial topic, it's expected that an editor will read the page and edit it using the knowledge in their head as a starting point; someone with some general knowledge of history, say, might come across something and say "wait, that looks wrong" or "hold up, something important is omitted here". Then they search for sources based on the knowledge of the domain, find them, and fix the problem - that's how editing is supposed to work. Under almost all circumstances, that basic internal knowledge is what pings an editor to sit up and pour over sources to make an addition or correction. But when it comes to politics, or other controversial areas, editors are going to substantially disagree over the underlying facts, so the things that make them ping and say "wait, something is wrong or missing here" are going to drastically diverge and can potentially introduce bias. WP:RS is particularly important in those areas because forcing people to stick to the best sources helps correct for the biases introduced by their pre-existing knowledge; but the issue is that "have some general idea of what the article should say, then search for sources to support it" is how most editing works in practice. And the other type of common editing, "have a source which you add to the article and add stuff from because you think it's significant and important", isn't immune to the same sort of bias stemming from what sorts of sources you read and what things from them make you sit up and say "I should add this to Wikipedia!" It isn't realistically possible for every editor to approach every article they edit by reading every part of every available high-quality source, so we need to rely on our knowledge of the domain to direct our source-searches and edits to some extent. (It is also why I think it is important to be willing to remove things that are being given WP:UNDUE weight, which is another way that bias in source-searches can express itself.) --Aquillion (talk) 02:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I largely agree with this. It's part of the dark side of Wikipedia: most edits will always be tendentious in nature, and consequently the main activity of constructive editors will always be to watch out for such edits and to revert or amend them where appropriate. That's what makes it all work; we're all janitors here. Just yesterday my partner chided me for putting so much time in something as depressing as that. I think they may be right. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 11:57, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * When I clean citations I get that exact warning at least for book publishers. Typically I tag with bcn in such cases, or something else if it's an endnote ref, because in those kinds of articles it's often difficult to tell which material is attributed to which source. As you see in the discussion above, though, sometimes there's disagreement about what level of play is "predatory" or "vanity" depending on who's asking and who's in the know, and depending on your field and region of inquiry standards can be quite depressingly low. Never mind the Sokal affair when there's a replication crisis. And of course many of the same people advocating blanket removals will cite preprints without blinking an eye. I know Arxiv/General is considered verboten but it takes minimal affiliation to not be put there. And if a pretty graphic gets posted on a prof's CC-BY blog -- who needs peer review? Point of that smalltext rant is there's a lot of obsession here about whether something can be considered reliable on its face, and the reality seems to not work this way. I see more of a problem with articles misrepresenting or misusing or not in-line citing sources than I see articles having low-quality sources (albeit that can sometimes be the root cause of the former). Of course to address that kind of thing some of the most pious RS crusaders might have to turn off their bots a moment and read an article. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:24, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * "cite preprints without blinking an eye" that mostly depends on what exactly you're citing it for. John Smith discovered superwater(Tm) [arxiv], no. Italian researchers reported in a preprint that...... that's a maybe. There's also several preprints that got accepted in reputable venues and arxiv links are just links of convenience (often in Mathematics). &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:23, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Embassy page used as stand-alone source for a contentious historical claim denied by academic sources
1. Source in question: 2. Article: Antanas Mackevičius 3. Content: diff The page www.naszapamiec.pl, ran by the Embassy of Poland located in Lithuania, claims that Antanas Mackevičius was a Pole and a Lithuanian (it is the only source claiming that, besides some Polish news sites), while all academic sources say he was only Lithuanian. Following WP:RS, the source of the embassy page should be removed, because scholarly sources are preferred on Wikipedia. However, because Marcelus will most likely engage in WP:Editwar if I do remove it, considering his previous actions on that page, I am hesitant to do so. Could someone please help resolve this dispute? Cukrakalnis (talk) 19:45, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Where is a dispute exactly? I don't deny that he was Lithuanian (because he was), but you keep removing any mention of his Polishness (which is obvious, dude literally fighted under a moto "God Save Poland"). Where is the problem excatly? I don't really have any dispute with you Marcelus (talk) 19:51, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The problem is using an unacademic source for statements that are contradicted by academic sources. If "his Polishness" really "is obvious" as you claim, why do you struggle so hard with finding academic sources saying that? WP:Verifiability, not truth states that Sources must also be appropriate and the ones you provide aren't. News articles from zw.lt, Polskie Radio 24 and this embassy page of the Polish government versus academic scholarship concerning a historical person? The latter is obviously preferred and the former should be removed as contradicting academic consensus.
 * Furthermore, saying that I don't really have any dispute with you after reporting me to WP:ANI with distorted and manipulated accusations and also engaging in various WP:EDITWARS with me for far too many times on many articles is factually incorrect. Cukrakalnis (talk) 20:10, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't have any dispute with you on this topic. Because I don't condradict anything what you are saying, Mackiewicz was Lithuanian. For unknown reason you are removing sources I am adding uner a pretence that they are contradicitng yours. I don't see any contradiction. Marcelus (talk) 20:26, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't have any dispute with you on this topic. Yes you do, otherwise why did you then WP:Editwar on Antanas Mackevičius? You edit-war against me, ergo we are engaged in a dispute. All academic sources say that Mackevičius was Lithuanian and not a Pole. Going against the academic consensus that Mackevičius was just Lithuanian instead of a Pole or 'Polish-Lithuanian' means you are going against WP:RS and are pushing your WP:POV that goes against those sources. Cukrakalnis (talk) 20:35, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't have editwar with you, you have editwar with me, constantly removing all the sources I added.Marcelus (talk) 20:40, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The WP:STABLE version of Antanas Mackevičius on March 16 clearly said he was Lithuanian. Marcelus came along on June 30 and initiated an WP:EDITWAR, calling Mackevičius 'Polish', when all academic sources call him 'Lithuanian'. This WP:Editwar continues to this day, i.e. it is practically going on for 17 days (and counting!). Plus, I did not do what Marcelus accuses me of doing, namely constantly removing all the sources I added. I removed ONLY one (the zw.lt news article) and with good justification. The other source (Polskie Radio 24) that Marcelus added remains in the article in a note. Yet another source, the academic article by Okulicz that said Mackevičius was Lithuanian ("Litwin" in the Polish language) I put that as another reference for calling Mackevičius a Lithuanian, but Marcelus kept putting it as a source for calling him "Polish", thus going against Wiki policy of WP:Verifiability. Cukrakalnis (talk) 20:57, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't iniate any edit war, you started it. I don't what is your problem with Poland and Polish culture, but it's getting worrying.Marcelus (talk) 21:05, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The embassy of Poland in Lithuania, for about the same reasons as mentioned just above, will not normally be reliable, particularly given the tendency of Eastern European nations to take credit for everything that even tangentially is related to these countries, and then making a fuss about it. The materials of the embassy obviously do not trump scholarship, and I would argue that they should not be used there. We should be careful here though, as Adam Mickiewicz, for example, was a Pole despite him having written "Litwo, Ojczyzno moja", as Mickiewicz used the term as today's Poles would say they are from Podlasie, Wielkopolska and so on. Whether that applies to Mackevičius is a question you should find in scholarship. Don't bother using the embassy's materials, and I'd ask you to stay away from Polish Radio materials from about 2016 on as well as it parrots Polish govt positions/propaganda from that period on. Znad Wilii (zw.lt) is a Polish-language outlet that receives state funds from Poland. This is somewhat better, still scholarship is much more preferred.
 * Also, I've filed an 3RR report against you both, you should have had a rest from the topic a long time ago. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:56, 16 July 2022 (UTC)


 * naszapamiec.pl (a website created by the embassy of Poland in Vilnius) is not a reliable source for such a claim. M.Bitton (talk) 00:25, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Why is that? Marcelus (talk) 06:45, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * There's a similar debate going on above about an Israeli government site, basically the consensus is that governments are not reliable sources on history. Or if they are, there are nearly always better sources to be had.--Boynamedsue (talk) 17:42, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Well to a certain point. I dont think an embassy website can be taken as the official word of the government, thats too many layers between the authority and the source. But if, for example, the US Department of State said "John Doe was an American citizen" then I would say that is a reliable source for that, as that is the preeminent authority for the citizenship status in the United States. If the US Embassy in Egypt said Mohamed Doe was an American citizen Id say meh would want that verified by the Department of State itself. But citizenship is a thing the state decides, so the state would be reliable for that. Does an embassy count for that? Id say no. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 18:46, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * First, an embassy necessarily reflects the opinions of the MFA, so ultimately of the government; and embassies will normally track the citizens of their state under the purview of the embassy. Secondly, we are not speaking about citizenship, but about nationality, and specifically the nationality of a historical person whom more than one nation claim as their own. This is the origin of most entries in the Lamest_edit_wars/Ethnic_feuds subpage, and also of tensions in IRL politics in extreme cases. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:21, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, an embassy represents the nation, I just think the degrees of separation between the website of an embassy, or a consular official, and the actual authority significant enough that we should not take an embassy website as reliable. As far as nationality vs citizenship, I suppose thats a distinction worth noting. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 03:02, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think an embassy can possibly be considered a reliable source on any event predating the establishment of that state, which is why I qualified my comment as "unreliable sources on history". They could be considered reliable primary sources on the opinion of their government on history, I think. But of course, we need to attribute in that case.--Boynamedsue (talk) 05:16, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I dont think an embassy is a reliable source ever except for the operations of that specific embassy as a primary source. I just wanted to push back, ever so slightly, on governments never being reliable. For history yeah I agree. But for questions of was X a citizen of our state? Or what is the population of Y administrative district? Yes, reliable. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 06:42, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Unsourced information repeatedly restored
has repeatedly restored this information with sources that have nothing to do with the content in question. To avoid my edit warring, I would appreciate if someone would check the source, and if you agree that it does not confirm the content, please remove it. Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 22:35, 17 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The scroll.in article indeed does not confirm any of the awards. The other two sources already do that just fine. That the web article calls the film a "cult" one may probably be mentioned in Raakh itself, but not in the table. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:14, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Does the Associated Press' commitment to accountability journalism render it generally more WP:BIASED?
In 2013, the Associated Press' executive editor described their commitment to accountability journalism. Does this commitment render the Associated Press generally more biased on topics that might reasonably fall under it? --Aquillion (talk) 01:38, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Survey (Associated Press)

 * No. Accountability journalism is well-respected tradition of journalism focused on determing the truth without regard to pleasing advertisers or political leaders; it is used by a wide number of high-quality RSes, eg. . As described here, it corrects for biases that come from advertisers or (for publicly-subsidized media) political leaders, producing more accurate reporting: The advertisers and consumers are rivals for information. The public wants to know everything about a product or service offered by an advertiser, but that advertiser may want to share only certain information about the product and about itself. Accountability journalism, also referred to as “watchdog” or “investigative” journalism, focuses on the demands of the public and will often reveal information that could be embarrassing to an advertiser or, in the case of publicly subsidized media, the political leaders who control media budgets. Or see eg., Put in even shorter-hand, access reporting tells you what the powerful said, while accountability reporting tells you what they did. Some editors have speculated that the "demands of the public" could lead to biases themselves, but there's no sourcing supporting that and even if it were true, such speculation is obviously answered by the cite above - other forms of journalism have their own biases, which accountability bias specifically corrects for, so it is absurd to suggest that accountability journalism itself could render a source more susceptible to bias overall. --Aquillion (talk) 01:38, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No, bias does not equate to unreliability. --M asem (t) 01:51, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * As laid out carefully above and below, the question this RFC is asking is whether the AP can be considered generally biased or not, not whether it is reliable or not; "reliability" and "unreliability" appear nowhere in the question - we are talking solely about whether the AP is generally biased, as you have previously indicated you feel that it is. By your "no", are you conceding that the AP is not generally biased, or at least that accountability journalism is in no way a source of bias? --Aquillion (talk) 19:43, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This response is incoherent. The RfC question is, to paraphrase a bit, "is the AP biased". This response is, to paraphrase a bit, "No it's not, because yes it is but it doesn't matter". That's a contradiction. Please answer the question that was asked and not some different question. Loki (talk) 21:58, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 * No, and WTF In what world does holding public figures and other powerful people not one of the primary purpose of journalism. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:07, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Procedural close: if Aquillion and Masem both say "no" then I would suggest that the RfC is not helpful to resolve some theoretical disagreement between them; nor do I see that an RfC serves any actionable purpose in relation to the discussion it arose from or some other dispute. — Bilorv ( talk ) 18:38, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The core question is whether people can argue that the AP must be attributed when calling people to account per WP:BIASED due to its commitment to accountability journalism. If Masem has genuinely conceded the point and agrees that the AP cannot generally be presumed biased, then we can close the RFC, but otherwise it's important to establish that given how frequently we cite the AP for matters of fact. --Aquillion (talk) 19:48, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Masem's response is self-contradictory. Reading it carefully, it means "no but actually yes", because he appears to be answering "no" to some different question that wasn't asked, while implying a yes to the actual question at hand by suggesting the AP is biased without ever actually having to say "yes it's biased". It's classic politician-speak, and ironically so since the original discussion was about how to refer to American politicians.
 * My blunt opinion here is that this suggests that Masem already knows consensus is strongly against his position, to the point where he doesn't want to have to defend it openly. So therefore, the value of this RfC is mostly in establishing that consensus against Masem's view on this explicitly, so people in similar arguments in the future will have somewhere to point to. Loki (talk) 22:18, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 * No. I don't see any commitment to accountability journalism. In her speech, Carroll "extols" it and "underscores [its] importance", but nothing more. The speech is actually pretty tame. She says that journalists should ask "How" instead of just publishing no effort stories like Rivers Flood. Governor Holds Press Conference. Opposition Seethes. Local Team Loses Another Squeaker. Etc. She then goes on to give a few examples of how her team uncovered stories by questioning the official narrative and not simply reporting what the authorities believe. Tempest in a teapot? JBchrch   talk  19:00, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No - it's always been the job of good journalism to answer who, what, where, when, why, how. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:23, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No - that speech appears to be pretty bog-standard and I'd honestly be suspicious of any journalistic outlet that doesn't ask basically qualifying questions like "how do you know this?". And because apparently this was somehow in doubt despite the question being very clear, I am saying that the AP is not (even) biased, not that it's reliable despite being biased. The question of whether it would be reliable if it was biased doesn't come up because it's not biased. Loki (talk) 22:01, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No No source covers all material equally; resources do not make that possible. No one faults ESPN from focusing on sports, and the same standard is held here.  If the AP focuses its resources on researching, investigating, and certain topics, that is not a hallmark of reliability one way or another.  Just as ESPN's bias towards using its resources to cover sports does not make it unreliable, that the AP bias towards using its resources for covering certain topics has no bearing on reliability.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 14:28, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No The Associated Press may well be the least biased news organization in the United States. Those who accuse it of widespread bias are just showing their own deep biases. Cullen328 (talk) 20:00, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Stupid answer to a stupid question First things first, my understanding is that Masem objected not to the quality of AP's reporting but to the apparent increased usage of labels seen as pejorative. What is our authority as WP users to determine that the usage of seemingly pejorative labels AP/Reuters/AFP etc. apply and believe is accurate is in fact inaccurate or requires attribution they themselves do not think is necessary? We would only have it if there existed a genuine dispute among RSs, and this is not the case. Now, Masem does not seem to dispute that AP is the golden standard of journalism, as major newswire services generally tend to be. What is our authority as WP users to resist the prevailing journalism standards as Masem proposed or set the record straight for these outlets if the outlets change their standards in a way that does not impact reliability? According to our current rules, there isn't really any. This also applies for any attempts to set straight the records of outlets that themselves have the objective of setting the record straight (which is what journalism is generally about).
 * Secondly, this is not the discussion for RSN. if the issue is editors caring too much about their bugbears and reflecting this on Wikipedia by editing more than needed about a specific topic, well that's a problem of editors and of UNDUE. If the issue is about the articles being more negative than they should be, it's an NPOVN issue. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 00:18, 17 July 2022 (UTC)


 * No - this is absurd: the AP announces it is practicing actual journalism rather than just regurgitating press releases, and this somehow makes them less reliable? It is to laugh. -- Orange Mike  &#124;  Talk  14:06, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No. Accountability journalism is largely equivalent to watchdog journalism or investigative journalism. Being biased towards the truth and accuracy is not a bias worth mentioning like "the AP (which leans towards reality) reported Joe Schmo received a bribe, while Magical Unicorn Infonet (a JoeSchmoCorp enterprise devoted to the idea that facts don't exist) denied the allegations." All media outlets have inherit biases in what they do and do not cover, otherwise news would be a noisy, unfiltered collection of all occurrences, regardless of importance (a tree fell in the woods, the bus was 10 minutes late, the mayor ate a pastrami sandwich for lunch, 20 people died in a fire...). One might say the AP is "biased" towards the English language, or its own style manual, or hiring humans instead of marmosets, or the idea that up is the opposite of down.This doens't requre in-text attribution. If there are rare occasions where it is editorially warranted to call out the AP (or any source) in particular, by all means do so. But let's not turn every article into a pedantic kindergarten show-and-tell collection of: "The Washington Post said the sky is blue, and the AP said that a plane crashed today, and according to a report by safety inspector professor Sam Bamson, plane crashes can be dangerous, and the New York Times reported that all people on board were dead." --Animalparty! (talk) 01:58, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The argument Masem was making belongs on WP:NPOV/N or WT:NPOV, not RSN. The framing of is the source more biased on RSN, where it doesnt matter, ignores the entire point of that discussion. The discussion on a dispassionate tone has nothing to do with reliability. I dont think anybody is going to answer yes here, this is a waste of time, and it should just be SNOW closed at this point. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 03:56, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Wrong venue. This is the reliable sources noticeboard, intended for evaluating the reliability of sources in context. Bias and reliability are orthogonal: a source can be biased and still reliable on a topic. I suggest a procedural close. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:47, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No, the AP is considered reliable. It's one of the major outlets. It is not partisan or systemically biased. It is not affiliated with a political movement or party. It's a major journalism outlet and it's quite unbiased as these things go. <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @ 15:30, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (Associated Press)

 * This grew out of discussion here, where the concern was raised; note that the outcome of this RFC won't really say anything about the larger question there. --Aquillion (talk) 01:38, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * And which Ive stressed there, this a.non nessecary RFC because being biased does not equate to bein unreliable. This RFC is a waste of time because obviously the AP still remains reliable. M asem (t) 01:50, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:BIASED; of course biased sources can be reliable. However, whether a source is biased can be a separate, relevant question, and I think that is what this discussion is asking. BilledMammal (talk) 01:56, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * As BilledMammal said, this RFC is about bias and not unreliablity - I recognize you are not calling it unreliable, but your argument is that the source is rendered generally biased by that statement (ie. unless I misunderstand your position, that statement is, based on your reading, something that omni-applicably renders the AP biased any time their reporting could be construed as calling anyone to account.) That's a broad, sweeping claim that affects the usage of the AP in a huge number of places across the wiki (and as you indicated there, you have comparable arguments that you'd apply to other high-quality sources, though I think answering it for the AP is sufficient for now.) That's the sort of thing that should be resolved with an RFC about the WP:RS in question, so you shouldn't say no, as you did above, unless you're conceding the point that accountability journalism is not, at least in this case, a source of bias. --Aquillion (talk) 01:57, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No being biased does not affect incorporating the AP as an RS. It might affect how we summarize what is said based on YESPOV, using attribution than wikivoice when it comes to subjective statements, but not its flat out objective factual reporting. Thats all a NPOV question. M asem (t) 02:02, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that this is a question better suited for WP:NPOVN rather than WP:RSN? I think I agree with that, given the policies I just cited. BilledMammal (talk) 02:03, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't object terribly to moving it, although moving an RFC is tricky. I would want to leave at least a notice here because I feel that discussing specific sources, including if or when they're biased, is also a matter for WP:RSN. --Aquillion (talk) 02:08, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Not even just NPOVN, it is a long standing issue boiling for years (2015 if not earlier), that has divided the community, but there is no clear way forward. The net result is basically how do we go about summarizing sources on People and topics which have fallen under more intense media scrutiny (as accountability journalism does), eg someone like Trump or Boris Johnson, while maintaining the neutrality writing goals of NPOV. No one single RFCcan solve that. M asem (t) 02:12, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If it's an issue that has been boiling since 2015, that's all the more reason to start RFCs to try and resolve at least some parts of it. I don't expect / intend for one RFC to solve everything - this RFC is intentionally narrow compared to the broader issues; I'm sure you have other reasons you consider these sources biased, which we'll have to go through one by one. But I think we might consider questions that could be asked to narrow the scope of the issue further; we can at the very least answer specific questions about whether a specific source is biased for a specific reason, so we don't constantly run into circular-back-and-forth like "we can't cite the AP for this, the AP is generally biased!", "no, it isn't, it's a high-quality reliable source and is the gold standard for neutral journalism!" and so on. A question about "is the media, as a whole, biased" (and "is academia, as a whole, biased", which would naturally be connected) isn't really useful because defining bias that broadly would render it meaningless, but when you raise specific concerns about individual sources, saying that you feel they are biased for specific reasons, that's something an RFC can answer. --Aquillion (talk) 02:25, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 * For those of us not acquainted with accountability journalism, can an editor explain why it might? BilledMammal (talk) 01:43, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Basically, if a politician appoints his son to a position, that's nepotism. Accountability journalism would push back on the narrative that Mr Politician Jr got appointed to the Very Important Position on basis of his merits alone. Basically if you have a situation that doesn't smell quite right, a journalist will dig it, ask questions, find patterns and generally investigate the situation and hold someone's feet to the flames and grill them with questions and publish their reporting. The Watergate Scandal is an example of it. Investigative reporting on the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases is another. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:08, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Darius Bowie
hi wikipedia. this would seriously mean so much to me can someone please review my submission to get my wikipedia page published. I am an established and verified standup comedian for over 10 years and would mean the world to me to have my own wikipedia page to verify and establish my blood sweat and tears. 2604:2D80:D6FC:C400:0:0:0:B91 (talk) 00:23, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * See this guide for why the article has no chance of being accepted at this time. See WP:AUTO for why the article can be a bad idea. If you don't feel like reading either of those, short version is Wikipedia articles require independent, in-depth coverage by reliable sources, they are written neutrally, the best bet is to become famous enough for someone else to write it and if it is ever written you may find it's more headache than joy. Slywriter (talk) 00:29, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Your material's all missing the heart. You can't expect to get by with a stand-up routine that's all disconnected one-liners. —<i style="color: #1E90FF;">Jéské Couriano</i>  v^&lowbar;^v  a little blue Bori 00:31, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Roasted. Yoshi24517  <sup style="color:black;font-family:'Genshin Impact'">Chat  <sub style="margin-left:-4.4ex"> Online  00:38, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * What are you doing? Piling on to an inappropriate comment? SVTCobra 00:41, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * What? You are criticizing the quality of Darius Bowies' comedy (one of the most subjective things ever) as a reason for non-inclusion? The OP can be forgiven for posting in the wrong venue and not understanding how Wikipedia works, but you ought to know better, Jéské. SVTCobra 00:39, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Look at what I linked, then look at his references. —<i style="color: #1E90FF;">Jéské Couriano</i>  v^&lowbar;^v  a little blue Bori 00:48, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree that the subject is non-notable and the article lacks sources. My problem is your comment You can't expect to get by with a stand-up routine that's all disconnected one-liners which is a direct reference to the subject's work as a comedian. From my perspective, it is an extreme form of WP:BITE and personal disrespect. SVTCobra 00:58, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If anon is truly a stand-up comic, they will have endured much worse by hecklers :-) but in all seriously, I think Jéské Couriano is just joshing gently, not biting. <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @ 06:56, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * RSN is now a venue for joshing and joking? That is certainly news to me. Seriously, nothing needed to be said after 's explanation. I am baffled by the abandonment of manners. A simple google search for "Darius Bowie" will reveal that it is a real stand-up comic. I cannot, of course, say if anon is that comic, but why belittle the comic whether anon is he or not? And what is your nonsense argument "oh, comics endure worse on stage"? What does that have to do with anything? Should we treat ballet dancers differently than boxers? I am really baffled here. Why are people applauding and defending the personal insult? SVTCobra 09:08, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comedians' stock in trade is jokes, giving and take. Even coming to this Wikipedia page and asking in the way that they did, is kind of funny, possibly a joke of sorts. The only bitey person here feels like you at the moment. Please relax. Everything is fine. Calling my argument nonsense is also missing the humor, that's why I punctuated with a :-) I'm sure if Darius Bowie is reading this, they are laughing. Regardless, I do not agree that Jéské's attempt at humor constitutes WP:BITEing a newbie. I am sure the newbie will understand that we don't just make pages unless there are WP:RS. <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @ 19:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * To clarify, their sources are missing vital bibliographical information, and are just contextless names, dates, and "pg. 1"s. Thus, their material is missing the heart, their sources are disconnected one-liners, and SVTCobra is a terrible straight man. —<i style="color: #1E90FF;">Jéské Couriano</i>  v^&lowbar;^v  a little blue Bori 20:30, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as situational anti-humor, I didn't SVT did too bad? SamuelRiv (talk) 20:47, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

sufiwiki.com
Hi fellow wikipedians. I want to cite Sufiwiki.com in one of my article on wikipedia. Just need a couple of opinions on its reliability. 203.192.225.56 (talk) 11:55, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * per Google Books it is cited by number of authors.
 * No, it just looks like a wiki with no oversight. --SVTCobra 12:20, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think just being the wiki it violates WP:RS. Per https://sufiwiki.com/help-out/ it confirms oversight. 203.192.225.56 (talk) 12:35, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * While there may be some oversight, it still falls under WP:USERGENERATED content. As such it should not be considered reliable. Blueboar (talk) 13:11, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Quoting the source: "our local Alim will look through the document and verify. He may ask the team to come back to you to clarify." This seems very informal to me. SVTCobra 16:06, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The typical reason scholars would cite a wiki in that manner (Bamotra 2021 is the only one I found) is to provide readers with a decent lay or uncommon-language summary of some background or foundational detail. Almost always you can find other citations, often by the same scholar in other works, to RS that might be less accessible, but likely usable, unlike a wiki. I don't know what kind of article you're working on, but if you look at non-English scholarship you might find better sources, and then just rely on readers to use translator software if they want verification. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:29, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, if you want extra help in this matter (I'm just assuming you may be inexperienced at WP because you don't have a username), on finding better sources or anything else, you can always reach out to other editors, particularly those at Wikiproject Islam or perhaps recent editors of articles closely related to your topic. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:55, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

LinuxNews.de - Reliable source or single-author news blog?
I am tempted to use LinuxNews.de as a source, because it has many articles of interest for Linux-related topics; however, it appears to be a one-author publication without editorial oversight. It has been used only 5 times at English wikipedia., and I found no previous RSN discussions. Any other opinions? -- Yae4 (talk) 13:51, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The author, Ferdinand Thommes, appears to have also published articles in Linux Magazine, so there's at least an argument that he's a published expert in WP:SPS terms, but that seems pretty weak. Unless there's more evidence for his expertise, I'd be inclined to be cautious. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:46, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Is Rutgers University Network Contagion Research Institute a reliable source for Mintpress News?
See Talk:MintPress News. Doug Weller talk 15:05, 19 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes. It’s an academic research institute affiliated to a major university. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:30, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No or should be attributed. While I generally agree that these institutes are good sources we should be careful and consistent in how we use them.  For example I think people would normally attribute anything that comes out of conservative institutions such as the Hoover Institute.  Additionally, we normally say peer review is a critical part of academic reliability.  Material published by a research institute that isn't reviewed by outside scholars isn't peer reviewed like a research paper is reviewed.  It might be more akin to the internal only review process applied to thesis/dissertation work (but presumably higher quality).  Such groups aren't self published the way a personal blog is self published but it doesn't have outside review or an independent editorial board.  As such it may be a notable opinion but it shouldn't be treated like a standard RS.  Attribution should address those concerns.  Springee (talk) 23:30, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yikes, that thread is a minefield. But to answer the question, I think it can be used if properly attributed. Furthermore, I don't quite know why Rutgers is being singled out. Network Contagion is a much, much larger project and has all kinds of backers, academic and otherwise. --SVTCobra 00:21, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Is Comic Book Resources a reliable source?
I have come across this source (sometimes called CBR) several times, most recently in Scott the Woz, a new article I was going to patrol. Some sources of information like this appear to be reliable, but the site appears to also accept sensationalist content like trivia such as. I searched the archives, and found inconclusive assessments on its viability as a source. Thoughts anyone? CollectiveSolidarity (talk) 02:52, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Not at all. It's a fan site at best. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:26, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually, it seems some piece are written by industry professionals, but pretty much everything I came across from CBR is sensationalist amateur writing. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:27, 18 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Option 2 for CBR (or marginally reliable/additional considerations needed). We've had this excellent discussion on BTG. I think the editorial policies are middling, and articles are okay, but the listicles poor. The about us page relies on several editors, but the managing editor only wrote 1 article, I couldn't find him writing in RS. The correction policy and fact-checking are okay, but I am concerned by this: [i]nterested In Being A Writer For CBR? We are always looking for strong passionate writers who are motivated to develop and write engaging content. We are looking for writers who can produce in-depth premium content with expert knowledge in one or more of CBR’s featured categories. So the requirements to contribute isn't clear IMO. Its listicles for me are especially superficial, such as this one, it describes Scythe Rise of Fenris (a board game expansion, I am familiar with board games and video games more than comics, so sorry) as [t]he Rise of Fenris changed everything by including an entire campaign in the box for gamers to play through, complete with secret boxes to open and huge surprises. Players were extremely pleased with expansion's modular content and it is now one of the highest-rated board game expansions to ever be released, which reminds me of Screen Rant and Game Rant covering movies based on IMDB/Letterboxd (...) scores. Another one on board games also seems poor IMO, with sensational headlines ([a]dding a twist to media adaptions, popular video games are transforming into table-top experiences sure to excite long-time fans and newcomers alike). IMO these are contrary to the disclaimer, [w]e do not post clickbait. Our headlines might be bold - but we don't throw out broad statements just to sound bold. It has to be accurate and fact-checked, I am sure there are more, better examples. Overall, I find lots of the lists possibly positively biased. Other news articles (such as this) are all right, but I don't think their "top ten" lists are useful or reliable to WP. So I think the issues are too much for this to be Option 1/generally reliable. So IMO its news articles are Option 1-2, but their listicles are poor and probably Option 2-3. Note in 2016 it was acquired by Valnet Inc, which owns marginally reliable Screen Rant, which is known to be poor for BLP-related topics and its listicles. So I think that it's probably marginally reliable. Also see here for the BTG evaluation on the ref (it might be better for comics, but I am not sure). VickKiang (talk) 06:28, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Pinging some editors who are more familiar with this ref and discussed it there. VickKiang (talk) 06:28, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think your analysis is sound. Marginally reliable with caveats discussed here. <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:02, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * One man's trivia is another man's meat. I think it's reliable for indicating the fictional facts about comic book contents. It's not something we should use in BLPs, but it should be fine for pointing out that character "x" has power "y" (yes, even in a listicle; there is nothing journalistically unique about listicles, they are just arranged in an eye-candy format). BD2412  T 06:40, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Pre-2016 content is reliable, while post-2016 content (outside reviews and articles by Brian Cronin) should be treated with care. The website was a high-quality comics-focused news source until August 2016, when its founder sold it to Valnet, and it shifted into clickbait/churnalism. So anything before the Valnet acquisition is perfectly reliable, but the only things I'd trust after the acquisition is Brian Cronin content (he's a published author, comic book expert, and one of the few original CBR writers who remains at the site) and reviews. <small style="color:red">JOE BRO  64  10:38, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * What Joe said. In its first 15 years or so, CBR won several industry awards for journalism. RE Vick's concern that he find[s] lots of the lists possibly positively biased, comics is a niche medium. There's rarely a need to run a poor review of a comic because reviews themselves are often how readers learn a comic even exists. If a comic is poor quality, it's better to just leave it in obscurity. The exception to that rule are the top sellers from Marve/DC/Image, which have an established audience. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:18, 19 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I only found the listicles to be positively biased a bit, but article are fine. Thanks! VickKiang (talk) 00:43, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * VickKiang, thanks for the mention here. I tend to agree with BD2412 T when it comes to CBR rather than JOEBRO64, as I'd say more articles are reliable rather than less, even now. I think Listicles can be reliable, if they focus on a specific character, or one specific topic. Like this recent article about Weiss Schnee in RWBY would be a reliable source about Schnee, but less about RWBY or RWBY: Ice Queendom, to give one example I think off hand. I wouldn't dismiss CBR entirely, as they have some good writers like Reuben Baron (he also writes for Anime News Network, Anime Herald, and The Mary Sue), Brian Cronin, Renaldo Matadeen, and Diane Darcy, to name a few. They also seem to cover LGBTQ topics a LOT from what I've observed, so if anything, they can be a reliable source to use on those topics, especially when it comes to summarizing tweets, allowing for CBR to be cited instead of the original tweets, which are self-published sources. I'd say VickKiang has a good analysis here, but I also would say their reliability depends on what they are being cited for, while recognizing their good correction and fact-checking policies. In terms of the contribution page on the site, I think that is just trying to pull in new writers as they have a LOT of content they are publishing each day, so it only makes sense they'd have an open call for people to write for them. Historyday01 (talk) 13:01, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you all! ( is that proper grammar?) Your takes on the matter are very helpful. I will treat the source with a grain of salt based upon these responses. CollectiveSolidarity (talk) 01:34, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Pitchfork genre categories
There is concern (brought up here) that the music website Pitchfork lists genres at the top of their album and song reviews that are used as overly broad categories for site searchability, and that those should perhaps be deprecated because of their broadness/potential inaccuracy. This is similar to the standard set for the website AllMusic (see WP:ALLMUSIC) where we only accept genres that appear within the prose of the written review, and if it clears would involve leaving a note on the Pitchfork entry at WP:RSMUSIC (and wherever else is applicable) to inform editors of this rule. QuietHere (talk) 18:57, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I think that given the issues highlighted here and in the discussion linked above, a note at WP:RSMUSIC would indeed be helpful, in my opinion. Oroborvs (talk) 19:01, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Worth noting that other websites listed on RSMUSIC also have similar categories, such as Exclaim! (e.g. the "POP AND ROCK" tag at the bottom of this review). Might need to check a lot more of those sites to see which else need this notice. QuietHere (talk) 05:25, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

historynet.com
What are the impressions of other editors about the accuracy/reliability of the historynet.com platform? The publisher of this website, World History Group, produces various history magazines, while the website itself seems to be a bit of an aggregator of material typically neither attributed to any of its print publications or even a specific author, but just staff. It appears to focus largely on a very pop culture approach to content, with pieces such as this and this. My impression is that it is more of a portal containing historical factoids and teaser material linked to pop culture references or aimed at driving the publisher's magazine subscriptions than a serious source of historical research, yet it is cited in about 800 articles. There has been one, only brief prior discussion on this, in 2014, viewable here. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:54, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * At the same time, I think most of the material that is cited on Wikipedia is content that has been syndicated from the publisher's collection of magazines, much of it semi-archival, such as this piece, used in Battle of the Boyne - not sure if this make it equivalent to the original published resource, a useful but potentially less reliable web source, or what really ... Iskandar323 (talk) 09:08, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * It's the bottom of the barrel, and I tag but don't remove it from articles unless it's part of a multi-source attribution or I easily find a reliable substitute. The basic problems begin with the general lack of citations (inline or bibliography), the typical lack of bylines, and lack of precision in wording that makes it difficult to independently verify their facts. On the other hand, something like this Rommel article has a human byline and specific dates and locations for easy cross-checking, so that is generally acceptable for mediocre and below articles. But if you want to make a decent article, you can search for the specific facts that you need from the history.net article and see if they're mentioned in an unambiguously reliable source. (Note: I am in no way a scholar of history, so any editor who is should please comment if they have a perception of this site from an academic standpoint.) SamuelRiv (talk) 15:36, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Dabashi, Hamid (2015). Persophilia: Persian Culture on the Global Scene. Harvard University Press


Is this source reliable, and, specifically, can it be used in the Legacy section of the Battle of Thermopylae? Dabashi has made remarks about the actual battle itself, as well as its "ahistorical glorification" in Western thought and in the later "colonial" mindset. Thanks, - LouisAragon (talk) 15:06, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * More specifically: These edits sourced to Dabashi were reverted on the supposed merit that Dabashi violates WP:FRINGE, WP:EXTRAORDINARY, WP:POV. - LouisAragon (talk) 15:08, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems the discussion about a source's scholarship in relation to the article's subject has only just begun on the article's talk page. You should consider engaging in the conversation there. At the very least, you attribute an awful lot of text to only two pages of a book that is not even based around the article's timeline, or is even really about history as much as it is about the present. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:26, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * "You should consider engaging in the conversation there."
 * I'm definitely going to -- it just saves a lot of time if it can be determined straight away whether the source is crap or not (in relation to the article/article's Legacy section). - LouisAragon (talk) 15:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force
For Telugu cinema, Idlebrain.com and 123telugu.com are the number one media sources that have all the information and reviews. They have English and Telugu website versions. Why is there no mention of them at WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force? DareshMohan (talk) 19:52, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Ask here - RSN is not the venue for this kind of requests. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:15, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Is the Republican Party (United States) a right-wing populist party?
There's a discussion at Talk:Right-wing populism about whether the Republican Party (United States) is in whole or part a right-wing populist party. Most of the sources I have read say that the party, particularly under Trump, has appealed to Klansmen, militiamen and other right-wing populist groups, but none claim they are a faction, let alone that the party has adopted their ideology.

I realize that some journalists use the term and there may be scattered use of the term in passing in some journal articles. However, I cannot find the claim made in any relevant textbooks.

TFD (talk) 16:01, 19 July 2022 (UTC)


 * It's expected that many textbooks won't have written about this time in history yet since it is still recent, but many journal articles do       not to mention reliable news. Here are relevant university texts:   here's a Wapo review (paywall) of another book   here's another book  ( Note: these are sources to support that Donald Trump is considered a right-wing populist, he was the leader and the dominant faction of the Republican Party for at least 2016-2020, discussing on the article talk page linked above <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @  16:55, 19 July 2022 (UTC) ) <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @  16:07, 19 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I’m not sure why this is included at the reliable sources noticeboard, but my grain of salt is that the party does have elements of populism. Since this is a controversial topic with the possibility for recentism, I’d suggest just mentioning that the party has been said by some sources to have elements of populism, but I wholeheartedly oppose calling the party populist in Wikipedia’s voice. It would take a considerable amount of time before the majority of sources call it populist, and calling it populist without generalized acceptance by reliable sources could be undue weight. But hey, that is just my take. Feel free to dispute my perception of the subject. CollectiveSolidarity (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * When I mean general acceptance, I mean an overwhelming usage of the term going at least a decade or two back in time. Not just university papers and news stories that have been created in the last 5-6 years. CollectiveSolidarity (talk) 17:40, 19 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Absolutely. It had elements of it before, but since Trump it's fully embraced the populist reality denial / personality cult of Trump. The key thing is that there's a time component to it, which may not be reflected in older sources. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:11, 19 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree with TFD's concerns here. First, the GOP is a long term thing and not something that should be defined just by the last few years.  That doesn't mean the last few years aren't important, only that if we are to claim the GOP includes X, it needs to be something that is long term.  Second, I think there are several levels that could be used here.  At one end is the "no mention", at the other is to say in Wiki voice the GOP is RWP.  The middle ranges from attributed claims of "has aspects of/similar to" to attributed "has a faction that is" to wiki-voice claims of the same to finally, wiki voice, "it is".  We can find a lot of sources that draw something between facets to a faction that is.  I think fewer sources would claim the party is.  Given the massive volume of articles and literature on "the GOP" we need to be careful about given too much weight any particular idea expressed in recent articles.  Ideally we should be using summary/survey type articles to decide the relate weights here.  I would be very careful when using negative political commentary from left leaning sources in the runup to Trump's election.  How much of that is objective vs people who were worried or looking for the facts to fit their case?  Springee (talk) 20:57, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's also probably worth looking with the benefit of hindsight and the passage of time at the Tea Party movement, as both another temporal shift in Republican politics and one also described on the page as a popular constitutional movement composed of a mixture of libertarian, right-wing populist, and conservative activism. And that kind of definition is probably going to be required for any given period of time, particularly in a two-party system with alliances between multiple groups for electoral power. Some ideologies will rise and fall over time, some subdivisions will be necessary over issues that enter or leave public consciousness (ie. slavery, abortion), etc. The trick of course is reliably sourcing them, particularly in a timely manner. Ideally, reliable news coverage giving way to academic coverage as academia processes past decades. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:11, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think this is an insightful point about how timely sources will change over time when digestive academic processes bear fruit. Further, there seems to now be an argument that nothing can be given a WP:SPADE as a name if it hasn't had time for tomes to be written about it. That is not what the policy says. Uncontested descriptions that have considerable attestation in source material may constitute a sufficient majority view for Wiki-voice, such as the idea that the Tea Party consisted of right-wing populist elements. We don't need to attribute such a description because it is a majority view that the Tea Party was RWP, even though it is not a European political party as says in his original research POV pushing. <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @  21:23, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That is an unsubstantiated claim. One would expect for example that Klaus von Beyme, who pioneered the typology of parties by ideology, would have mentioned it in his book, Rightwing Populism (2018), which "analyses right-wing populism as a topical theme of postmodern party systems in Europe and the United States." Instead he merely says that Trump (and Macron) have been accused of being right-wing populists and says that Trump could be considered an anti-populist. In fact, I cannot find the Tea Party classified as right-wing populist in any textbooks on the topic.You cannot read an op-ed in a a newspaper and assume the opinions expressed represent academic consensus. TFD (talk) 00:13, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It is simply not the case that unless something is described as something in a textbook, or the textbook that you think is authoritative on the topic, it therefore can't be described as such in Wikipedia. We will accept a mix of reliable news and journalism content, as well as academic journal articles, and books, including academic texts as well as other types of book sources. It's true that academic sources that are accepted as definitive should be accorded more weight. But that does not mean we should discount all the sources except the weightiest, most reputable, most established tomes. More recent topics are going to have a heavier mix of recent news and web-accessible journal article sources. As time goes on, articles can be improved with deeper library dives. However right now, it seems that unless your chosen textbook has written it, you do not believe it merits inclusion. <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @ 00:31, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I think we need to be wary of labeling something as large and diverse as the Republican Party based on one faction within it. Are there Right Wing Populists in the party? Sure… is that the entire party? Nope. There are also establishment centerists, small government libertarians, deficit hawks… lots of factions. Not accurate to single out any one and apply it to all. Blueboar (talk) 22:03, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I thought this page was for discussing sources and their reliability. Is the Republican Party a source? This seems to be the wrong venue for categorizing a political party. But maybe I am just crazy. --SVTCobra 22:15, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I concur. Please close the thread, if you would be so inclined, and thank you. <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @ 22:18, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I know how to do it, but it feels a little too bold. I am not exactly an RS expert. SVTCobra 00:39, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree this should have been posted on NPOVN. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:17, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a question about the reliability of a specific source that is used or proposed for use in a specific article? ElKevbo (talk) 03:18, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Vukašin Mandrapa
Hello. I wonder if it is https://www.slobodnadalmacija.hr and https://www.hkv.hr RS? With that same question for http://pemptousia.com/ and http://www.novosti.rs ,and the book is also questionable Avro Manhattan, The Vatican's Holocaust. In the book it says that there were over 700 thousand victims and on the page Wikipedia 77-100 thousand []. Please see the sources on the page [] and these are edits and page history []. I also hope that someone will help edit the page so that it is as it should be. Thank you 93.139.150.38 (talk) 04:26, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not generally familiar with this subject or region, but I can give a few recommendations. A quick glance and nobody seems to cite Avro Manhattan for scholarship, good or bad. A dispute at the article's talk page raises a few of the concerns, but Vactican's Holocaust is free to read, and while it wouldn't surprise me if it's completely unsuitable as an RS, the text itself does have in-line references, so if you want something from that book you could always just search for other scholars who cite the same primary source.


 * For the individual news websites I can't make a full judgement as the writing style does not translate well from Google into something I can accurately interpret. The first Novosti article is by historian Antun Miletić who seems to be an established expert in the field (and therefore even his self-published articles can be RS, with caution), and the academic quality of the piece in Novosti depends on whether it's an excerpt or partial summary of previous publications, or a separate monograph -- I can't tell from the translated page.


 * The 2017 Slobodna Dalmacija article is by a reporter who attributes almost everything to historian/archaeologist Ivo Rendić-Miočević. There's a brief paragraph putting down Marko Ručnov's book, and one saying Aleksandar Pražić supports the thesis. The RS to cite is thus the individual notable scholars being quoted in the article: "said Rendić-Miočević, as quoted in Slobodna Dalmacija" or something like that.


 * Interesting how the 2015 Hrvatski Tjednik article is used to support the same line as the S-D article, but in this one they also directly criticize S-D for sloppy reprinting of non-expert historians (Julia Gorin 13 March 2010). It is written by Ivo Rendić-Miočević himself, and he mainly takes aim at Milan Bulajić. Again, I'd say Rendić-Miočević is the one to whom you'd want to attribute claims in-line, and not the newspaper.


 * The Pemptousia article is blockquoting Wikipedia for almost its whole length. Good for them, frankly, that they do so with attribution, but it absolutely can't be cited.


 * Overall it seems the key part that other editors now and may in the future take issue with is the statement "There is no historical evidence of his existence", which is written in wikivoice. I think as contentious as this seems to be on a political and possibly academic level as well, it's probably worth giving that particular phrase attribution in-text: "According to Ivo Rendić-Miočević...". SamuelRiv (talk) 06:02, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply. I added "According to Ivo Rendić-Miočević " I don't want to touch these other suspicious sources, because they will return to the old way again. I would like to ask someone, if possible, to keep an eye on the page so that what I wrote is not deleted, or if possible, edit it better. Thank you very much for your answer.93.139.150.38 (talk) 07:06, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Violation of Biography of a Living Person Guidelines
David Paulides

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paulides

Someone inside wikipedia has put publications like the Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptoid, and  other debunker rags into wikipedia's group of "reliable sources." Those magazines make their money by lying and creating bias against anything they consider paranormal. They have zero respect for the truth.

wikipedia opened the door for wikipedia editors to use those magazines as sources. Using the falsehoods from these corrupt articles, wikipedia editors can discredit, cancel, and demean anyone they choose.

https://theethicalskeptic.com/2017/07/31/pseudo-skepticism-the-new-debunker/

Here's an example of the new level of poison being fed into site's like David Paulides. If he so much as mentions the word, conspiracy, ever, in a book, film, magazine, anywhere in print, these editors will make it his whole life. It's how wikipedia turned the Missing 411 into the Missing 411 Conspiracy.

One author at Skeptical Inquirer said that every time a hiker goes missing, David Paulides calls it a Missing 411 case. That's a blatant lie, but because it came from  a "reliable source," it can be added to a person's biography as if it's true.

There's three or four wikipedia editors who hover over David Paulides' bio, which I've tried to work on. They use insidious logic to twist truth into lies. Now the lies are being disseminated out to Twitter, Facebook, etc.

The biography I've tried to work on was given "protected status" because it was being "repeatedly vandalized." Translated that means that the people who are trying to change the biography into something that resembles the truth are immediately shot down by vigilent editors who preserve the lies.

If there are any adults left at wikipedia or anyone with a conscience who can help unlock that biography page or lose the protected status so it can be changed from a pack of lies into an actual biography, it would finally be the correct thing and an accomplishment. Many many well-intentioned editors before me have tried to edit the page for years and failed, nothing has changed. That something as simple as removing the slander and lies and adding a simple biography has never been accomplished just astonishes me. If I were the subject of this page I would be in the process of requesting it be deleted. ~

https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA503310504&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=01946730&p=AONE&sw=w MikiBishop (talk) 08:23, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Discussion of BLP violations belong at WP:BLPN. I'm unfamiliar with this topic, but a quick look reveals it's about Bigfoot crankery, so "skeptical" publications are likely necessary for some sane context, in line with the English Wikipedia's requirement for neutrality. Alexbrn (talk) 08:28, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Or, if insufficient critical coverage can be found, removing the mentions of fringe beliefs entirely. Solely using credulous sources (some of which may be SPS or adjacent) would be equally problematic in a BLP. Can't be NPOV if we only take the subject of the article at their word. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:20, 18 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The mention of Skeptical Inquirer brings back memories of this Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 373 SVTCobra 16:58, 17 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I think it's fair to question whether the podcast by Kyle Polich is reliable and/or should be featured as much as is, as it's likely self-published, and aside from occasional freelancing or consulting Polich doesn't seem to do much else than podcast. But I think the issue here is more of tone and balance than in reliability: skeptical sources are extolled in detail (we wouldn't write: " Blob Blonson, a journalist for The New York Times, in a June 21 1998 article titled "Blah blah blah", wrote blah blah blah..."). The article as a whole reminds me of coming from the point of view of a kid who's really into dinosaurs, and talks a whole lot about them whenever the chance arises. Only swap dinosaurs for skeptic writers and podcasters. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:13, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * There is also the issue of whether the statement "Paulides was charged with a misdemeanor count of falsely soliciting for a charity." (cited here,) assuming it even refers the same person, rises to the level of inclusion in a biography per WP:BLPCRIME and WP:PROPORTION. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:41, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * How many different David Paulideses worked at the San Jose Police Department? XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:23, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I have no idea: do you think a charge with no documented resolution must be included in a BLP? Is Wikipedia an encyclopedia or a machine dedicated to "holding all wrongdoers accountable?", regardless of severity of wrongdoing? --Animalparty! (talk) 02:27, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It isn't hard to verify that the San Jose police has had only one David Paulides. The records are public. The source is valid, it's reliable, and it's coverage of an incident in his career, encyclopedically relevant to a biography, but not more than one sentence's worth. I found other coverage of his career, local-interest pieces about routine police work, like stopping to help a motorist working under the hood of a broken-down car, and when getting in the car to assist in starting it, discovers a bag of marijuana on the seat. Routine stuff, all police officers have stories like that. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:52, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * And furthermore, the section about "Bigfoot or Sasquatch" seems to be somewhat of a tangential coatrack, going beyond aspects that Paulides is widely known for: I don't care that the Bigfoot DNA article was debunked, but reliable sources don't seem to connect it strongly to Paulides: all we have is Paulides' blog post saying his organization organized the study and "picked" Dr. Ketchum, and that he supported the results (unsurprisingly). Was Paulides a co-author of the study, or otherwise widely recognized as being associated with it? If not, much of the material about the DNA article should probably be omitted or relegated elsewhere, such as Bigfoot or some future article on Ketchum --Animalparty! (talk) 00:59, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Based on newspaper coverage I found from 2009 in NewspaperArchive, Bigfoot seems to be the primary thing he's known for, at least back then. Example source: ; unfortunately the site doesn't let me create a publicly-accessible link. The article does provide some interesting context about how he got involved in Bigfoot investigations. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:39, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying we should ignore his Bigfoot related activities, indeed they are a large part of his notability. I'm saying I don't think the single 2013 Bigfoot DNA paper that dominates the section is as significant to his career or Bigfoot activities as the Wikipedia article makes it out to be (violating WP:PROPORTION): it looks like whoever added that section really wanted to write about the Bigfoot DNA paper, and shoehorned it into Paulides' biography. It's a coatrack. --Animalparty! (talk) 09:57, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks to me that the section is dominated by coverage of Missing 411. The DNA paper gets a smaller subsection which could be trimmed a bit. Hardly a coatrack. However, that paper seems like the source of his notability (at least among the True Believers), as that paper has apparently led to him being listed as a featured speaker at multiple events spanning over a decade, such as "Sasquatch Summit" (full-page color newspaper ad in 2016), "Bigfoot Encounters in California: The Hoopa Project" (small announcement in 2008), and "Sasquatch Fest" (half-page color newspaper ads in 2021 and 2022). Clearly the bigfoot connection is what he seems known for, primarily, although I also found a large ad for the "UFO Paranormal Summit" (2018) in which he was listed as the author of Missing 411. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:40, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Are the “Basement tapes” an rs for calling the Columbine High School massacre a planned terrorist attack?
See  Doug Weller  talk 19:14, 21 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm gonna say a flat out no. <span style="color: white; font-weight: bold; background: linear-gradient(red, orange, green, blue, indigo, violet)">PRAXIDICAE🌈 19:19, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * ^^^^. <small style="border: 1px solid;padding:1px 3px;white-space:nowrap"> nableezy  - 19:38, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Related issue re use of schoolshooters.info
We use this in four relate articles but I can't find evidence it's a reliable source. The Columbine article has other dubious source, but... Doug Weller talk 16:45, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Fox News (politics and science
RfC has been retracted by OP until a better case is made in the future.

I request that Fox News should be deprecated concerning politics and science.

This month, news credibility watchdog NewsGuard (screenshot) downgraded Fox News as a whole from a Green to a Red rating. This means that NewsGuard re-considered Fox News and found that the news site generally does not adhere to basic standards of credibility and transparency. Much of the reasoning laid out for the downgrade cites a consistent pattern by Fox News of promoting falsehoods regarding events since the last Wikipedia editor review in 2020: the 2021 United States Capitol attack, the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war, covid, and American elections. FlantasyFlan (talk) 17:44, 22 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree. I think there is already an established consensus on this that Fox News is not reliable for politics. I agree it should not be reliable for any topic. <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @ 17:48, 22 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Bad Rfc. They gave MSNBC an even lower rating, funny how the OP requests to ban one and doesn't mention the other. Anyway, there's nothing here that indicates there's a current problem or dispute concerning Wikipedia citing Fox. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:09, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If there are serious concerns about the reliability of MSNBC, I don't know if that should be considered reliable either. I also am not familiar with NewsGuard, but Fox News has perennially had serious issues. <span style="font-family:Roboto Mono,Droid Sans Mono,Courier New;font-size:small;">Andrevan @ 18:16, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:AGF. Also, all of the issues I've mentioned are not only current, but have progressed significantly since the last look by the editors. FlantasyFlan (talk) 18:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Looking at the previous discussion I have to agree with "bad RFC". We need very clear options for voting. I STRONGLY recommend that you retract this before too many editors get involved and start over from scratch, giving giving multiple labeled options (including deprecation) and wider arguments, including ones which specifically note problems with the status quo. I think it's OK to hold another one but here we're heading towards another "failed RFC" close and another long wait until someone gets the process right. GordonGlottal (talk) 18:55, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the screenshot by the way, because that makes quoting and searching so much easier. The operative section is #3: "Credibility". The first two paragraphs are an endorsement, fine, and then the takedown: nearly every single paragraph is a story title beginning in a name: Hannity, Ingraham, Piro, and Tucker Tucker Tucker. Stop the freaking presses, you're telling me those guys are nutjobs??? I guess it's a good thing that "the site features separate pages for every regular Fox News program, including those hosted by primetime hosts." The third paragraph from the end of this section, I couldn't find where they mention the mix-up of news and opinion video content on a specific section of the website; the unlabeled opinion I assume refers to the lifestyle column; and as for not disclosing a (conservative) bias, I mean, that's a shared condemnation across the news industry for the past 20 years. To address the blatant opinion in a "Lifestyle" section, while that's not acceptable, I've seen those sections on reputable newspapers range in approach from being straight news-style reporting to full-on commentary. Obviously if any article begins like that it's not a straight-news source, and if it's pervasive in that section then you shouldn't use that section as you would news.
 * The tldr is that as long as you can find the separate the primetime idiots from the journalists, as NewsGuard claims you can (or at least with the exception of one video which I again must have missed), then we should continue allow the journalists whom NewsGuard appears to endorse and continue to reject the primetime hosts whom NewsGuard condemns. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:32, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Are these sources reliable and sufficient to establish notability for a book?
The book is Dust of Dreams (novel), which IMHO is a decent read if I recall it correctly. The sources are "Elistist Book Reviews" and Fantasy Book Review. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 16:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Elitist Book Reviews appears to be a group-blog type of site, couldn't find any indication that any of the participants are noted reviewers or SMEs. Fantasy Book Review gives no information about who is behind the site. I don't think either supports notability for the individual book, and would recommend redirecting it to Malazan Book of the Fallen. (Looked around and couldn't find any reputable reviews to add to the the article.) Schazjmd   (talk)  16:43, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * User:Schazjmd Two new reviews have been added. Doug Weller  talk 19:05, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Doug Weller, those are better sources, and provide the two independent reviews required by WP:NBOOK, IMO. Schazjmd   (talk)  19:25, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree. Doug Weller  talk 08:03, 23 July 2022 (UTC)