| Revision as of 01:53, 10 December 2010 editJayjg (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators134,922 edits →www.truthaboutscientology.com usage in BLPs← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 15:50, 19 January 2025 edit undoErp (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users10,385 edits →Is “Zannettou, Savvas "A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism". a reliable source for Happy Merchant: ReplyTag: Reply | ||
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| == ] == | |||
| == RfC: Bild == | |||
| There is disagreement over the reliability of ''Ambient Conflicts: History of Relations between Countries with Different Social Systems'', Yefim Chernyak, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987. Additional input would be appreciated. ] (]) 13:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{atop|result=Although I'm involved in the discussion the result seem uncontroversial, and so asking for a close at ] wouldn't be appropriate. The result is that there is no change, Bild remians '''Generally unreliable'''. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 17:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)}} | |||
| What is the reliability of the German tabloid ], including its website Bild.de? | |||
| # Generally reliable | |||
| # Additional considerations apply | |||
| # Generally unreliable | |||
| # Deprecated | |||
| ] (]) 22:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ===Responses (Bild) === | |||
| :Looks reliable to me. I am going to guess that the argument against is... it's a Communist source and therefor "unreliable" (yes?) If so, that is a false argument. The fact that a published source supports a particular POV does not make it unreliable. The trick is to make the reader aware of the source's POV and to balance it with statements based on sources that support other POVs. ] (]) 17:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3/4''' Bild is a sensational tabloid, that according to Foreign Policy magazine, , routinely violates basic journalistic ethics and is regularly sanctioned for it by German Press Council, being sanctioned by them 26 times in 2021 alone. As evidenced by this piece in Deutsche Welle their process of verification and fact checking is below the standard expected for a reliable source. For those looking for a more comprehensive account of the newspaper and its ethics, I've found this freely accessible short book (less than 100 pages, including references) in German from 2023 on the topic (which can translated using google translate's PDF translate feature) Some quotes from the book (in translation) {{tq|Driven by a special editorial culture ("We are tabloids after all") and driven by editorial decisions in which sales interests take precedence over media ethics, articles are published that hurt those affected and irritate readers.}} ... {{tq|The way celebrities are treated , who are initially favorites and then quickly become fallen angels who are pursued even in their private lives, is legendary}}... EDIT: another quote {{tq|BILD's journalism does not focus on the task of providing information, but rather on examining a suitable fact for its emotionality and framing it with commentary.}}} ] (]) 22:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :Progress is a widely known international publisher of professional and academic texts. Basic snippet analysis of the google books entry indicates that it is an academic volume. Given its era (1987) the work is unlikely to contain fundamental methodological flaws. However, like all academic works, it will represent a methodological and theoretical tradition. Read, classify according to the literature typography of the field, represent opinions contained within the work as scholarly opinions from the discrete literature group. As reliable as any other HQRS. ] (]) 03:05, 29 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *:As an addendum: here are some other examples, including a fake story about migrants committing sexual assault in 2017 , as well as taking scientists quotes out of context to further an agenda regarding COVID during the pandemic ] (]) 14:00, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::RS/N editors should be aware of ] in this context. ] (]) 04:35, 29 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3''' - per Hemiauchenia. I'll add an argument that's weaker but nevertheless entertaining and somewhat indicative, which is that Bild's infamy is so well-established that ] is a common inclusion of university German language, German literature and media studies courses. There hasn't been any argument made, however, that our current usage of Bild is so pervasive a problem that deprecation is necessary. <sub>signed, </sub>] <sup>]</sup> 22:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :RS. Only a in the West; the Russian original edition ''Вековые конфликты'' is somewhat by Russian scholarly sources. --'''<font color="#0000FF">]</font><font color=" #FFBF00">]</font>''' 13:35, 30 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3/4'''. I don't think we should cite Bild anywhere on Misplaced Pages. It's a sensationalist tabloid like the Daily Mail or National Enquirer.--] (]) 23:01, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::Quite many Russian authors have Soviet background and repeat Soviet propaganda. One has to be an expert to understand the difference between Russian nationalists, post-Soviets, independent scholars. Some writers work for FSB, Russian Army, Russian government. The Russian texts you quote are - 80 anniversary of Chernyak, Tobolsk teacher's college curriculum, a Renaissance article, nothin serious. ] (]) 10:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''3''' at least, and I wouldn't say no to '''4'''. This is one of the weakest sources in the region, though I could see it being cited for special purposes, like examples of "headlinese" that aren't in English, etc. But at this point I don't think it's even usable for ] material; if they claimed something as simple as {{var|X}} number of employees, I would strongly suspect it of being an exaggeration. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 23:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :Any Soviet and Soviet Block book was censored, both negatively - removed parts of the text, and positively - either the whole book or parts of it were designed by political leaders. Zhukov's Diary has several versions, all of them manipulated. Brezhnyev's "deeds" were created and described by many authors, including standard WWII books. So any censored text should be described as censored and quoted with extreme caution. Many Russian authors reject Soviet texts.] (]) 09:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''3''' I honestly have no idea how one could even come to approach the idea that it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, but if previous discussions haven't been enough, I suppose it's worth piling on. Sources should not be considered reliable until they prove themselves to be. ] (] • ]) 05:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::That is not quite correct. All books published in the USSR were officially censored, but for most books that involved only "negative" censorship - the censors checked for material that could be viewed as ideologically problematic or could contain some sort of sensitive security information. Relatively few books were actively "positively censored" in terms of inserting some fabricated or semi-fabricated information at the insistence of the censors or some higher level political leaders. Such "positive" censorship would only really occur for books dealing with important Soviet leaders or sometimes with some particularly sensitive ideological issues. Of course, there was always a degree of self-censorship involved, both in literary and in scholarly works. However, in post-Stalin era, particularly in the late Soviet and perestroika periods, people writing scholarly papers, even on politicized topics, generally did not engage in deliberately falsifying or misrepresenting data. Their methodological framework was often wanting and inadequate, and they had to represent their work with a particular ideological slant. But, as a general rule, they did view themselves as honest scholars engaged in pursuit of truth and they tried to exercise corresponding standards. Usually, censorship and self-censorship primarily resulted in avoiding talking about certain issues and topics that were viewed as taboo or too sensitive. E.g. in the coverage of WWII this included not talking at all about mistreatment of Soviet civilian population by the Soviet partisans operating behind the German lines; not talking about the reasons for the catastrophic start of the war for the USSR, not talking about mass rapes committed by Soviet soldiers in Europe, etc. There were some exceptions, of course, where entire fields of research were so ideologically contaminated as to be completely unreliable from the modern perspective. This would apply, for example, to all Soviet-era writings about the history of CPSU, all writings on communist/marxist philosophy, "scientific communism", etc. But in many other fields, such as medieval and ancient history, much of the stuff published in Soviet times represents first-class research. Without seeing the book ''Ambient Conflicts: History of Relations between Countries with Different Social Systems'' itself, it is hard to make any judgement on its reliability (in terms of the data being presented, if not in terms of its interpretation given in the book). But the title does sound very ideological to me. If the book comes from the school of "political science", as it existed for most of the Soviet period, I would probably regard the book as too ideologically contaminated to be reliable, even though it was published just as perestroika was beginning to gather steam. ] (]) 19:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''3/4''' Bild is a tabloid and well known for its lack of fact checking and heavy bias. The closest english speaking equivalent would be things like the Daily Mail. In my opinion broadly unusable. ] <sup>]</sup> 10:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::Any Soviet citizen was trained since kindergarden to be Soviet, so he/she didn't need any direct control to know, what is allowed, he/she could have been the source of Soviet propaganda. However almost everything in the SU was planned rather than left to individual Communists, eg. research plans in Universities, so if you have a subject "UK imperialism", you rather don't describe UK values in your text. Any book translated into foreign language was cheched additionally. BTW, has anyone checked if the English languge text is the same like the Russian one? I agree that some fields were less ideological, the book has been quoted recently in a Russian text regarding the Renessaince. ] (]) 10:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC) "honest scholars" - I don't know the SU academic world, but in a quite liberal Poland several historians worked for the political police SB. Some others wrote totally different texts after 1989. ] (]) 10:16, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''bad 2 for miscellaneous or political content, unusable for the private lives of BLP and particularly recently deceased people''' it's rather rare that they publish straightforward misinformation, particularly when considering the volume of content published. Having said that, they have a nasty habit of violating both journalistic and actual ethics (and ''allegedly'' breaking the law), so using them is probably broadly unwise. There are some rare cases where they can be useful, but as far as usable sources go, they are on the very lowest end IMO, being a tabloid in an area with an otherwise strong media environment. In addition, there doesn't seem to be a significant issue to justify depreciation. <small> Note: this applies to Bild only, other sources owned by that publisher are usually a lot more reliable, even if I personally consider much of what they believe to be rather questionable </small> ] (]) 10:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::Yes, that's my concern. Books published under totalitarian regimes discussing the views of their ideological opponents can't be assumed to be free of censorship, and better sources should be available for the material in question. ] (]) 10:17, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 2, provisionally''', since no examples of publishing falsehoods and misinformation have been provided so far in this thread and I couldn't find them in the article. See my comments in the discussion section. ]<sub>]</sub> 13:14, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::Uh... have you read any US Sovietology? The problem isn't confined to "totalitarian" regimes, in itself a problematic and US biased theoretical construction of social ordering. ] (]) 10:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 3''', I don't see the need for deprecation. Bild is tabloid journalism, and falls far short of the high quality sources that BLP calls for. It shouldn't be anywhere near anything contentious to do with a living, or recently deceased, person. When it comes to it reliability in other areas how other reliable sources view Bild is important, I suggest reading the work by Prof Lilienthal posted by Hemiauchenia. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 15:57, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Fifelfoo is right on target. Totalitarian regimes don't have a monopoly on dubious sources. Consider for instance the Cold War incorporation of US Information Agency (USIA) into the US government’s Psychological Operations Co-ordinating Committee, and its funding of a book publishing programme in the late 1950s at a cost of $100,000 annually. American readers were unaware that many of the supposedly independent books they were buying and reading were actually subsidised with their own tax money. When books condemning the "Red menace" did not meet commercial standards, USIA obligingly eliminated the publisher's risk by surreptitiously buying up sufficient copies to cover production costs. (''Saturday Evening Post'', 22 May 1967, p.12.21).The CIA considered books to “differ from all other propaganda media, primarily because one single book can significantly change the reader's attitude and action to an extent unmatched by the impact of any other single medium." (Thomas C Sorensen, ''The Word War: The story of American propaganda'', New York, Harper and Row, 1968, pp.69-70). ] (]) 16:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 4''' Tabloid journalism is generally incompatible with the Misplaced Pages project. ] (]) 19:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 3''', there even exist a German blog whose aim is mainly to publicize errors of Bild – . But see my comment in the discussion section below. --] (]) 20:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: No, the link you've provided is not the correct link to the item I cited. However, you have helpfully provided a link to a related topic that mentions specifically the British cultural journal ''Encounter''. As the linked article states: The editor was a fulltime CIA agent, and funding of the publication "came from the CIA, and few outside the CIA knew about it." ] (]) 08:32, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3''' per ActivelyDisinterested. ] ] <span style="color:#C8102E;"><small><sup>(])</sup></small></span> 05:32, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3''' so no change. Most of our current usage of it seem to be interviews which per ] would be fine. I see no evidence they’re fabricating interviews. Probably usable for mundane things like sports (they seem to cover that a lot). For any contentious anything should not be cited - but they seem to get a lot of interviews with notable people, so we can keep using that. ] (]) 20:11, 14 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 3/4''' per Hemiauchenia... tabloids in general post sensational info that is poorly fact-checked and rife with errors. ] (]) 20:32, 14 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:it's ''snowing 3'' ] (]) 21:01, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 3/4'''. Academic coverage frequently treats it as an archetypal example of a publisher of misinformation. See eg. --] (]) 16:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 3/4''': Tabloids usually fail reliability. It seems this one is no different. ] (]) 17:38, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * Option 3/4 (depending on whether anyone can make a case that there's some e.g. ABOUTSELF use we would still want them for — but I doubt we should be using them 1,800 times, as Hemiauchenia says we are at present) per Aquillion and Hemiauchenia; as RSP says, a reliable source "has a reputation for fact-checking, accuracy, and error-correction"; ''BILD'' has the opposite reputation. ] (]) 04:15, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ===Discussion (Bild) === | |||
| :::::::Correction: Ignore citation ''Saturday Evening Post'', 22 May 1967. It was included in error. The Sorensen attribution is correct. ] (]) 12:21, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Bild is currently used over 1,800 times on the English Misplaced Pages per {{duses|bild.de}}. It is already currently listed on RSP as "generally unreliable". This RfC was prompted by a discussion at ], where a user questioned the lack of participation in previous discussions. ] (]) 22:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| I asked the initial question at WT:RSP since I don't like when we classify sources based on vibes. So I'll play the role of the devil's advocate. I have very little knowledge of the German media landscape and I'm open to arguments in both directions. The sources provided by u:Hemiauchenia make two claims: | |||
| The British and American secret services, with covert British and US funding, also established an ostensibly "independent" publishing house in Munich to produce anti-Soviet literature throughout the 1950s, including books that were used to influence public opinion in America and throughout Western Europe. A certain Vladimir Porensky was employed as head of this publishing house. Porensky, a leading figure among East European fascists, had been imprisoned for war crimes in 1945 and then released just a year later with the co-operation of British intelligence. According to a declassified US State Department study, Porensky enjoyed the reputation of being a "200% Nazi". (Christopher Simpson, ''Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War,'' London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988 pp.224-5ff). ] (]) 12:33, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * {{tquote|articles are published that hurt those affected and irritate readers." ... "The way celebrities are treated , who are initially favorites and then quickly become fallen angels who are pursued even in their private lives, is legendary"}} - this should have no bearing on reliability, unless they actually published falsehoods about said celebrities | |||
| :<s>You have both the date of publication and the publisher wrong for Blowback Only 2 works, one by the fringe theorist Stan Winer, seem to mention Vladimir Porensky at all, the work you cite does not seem to mention Porensky at all. ] (]) 15:23, 5 December 2010 (UTC)</s> (Striking own comments. Google failed me; Communicat listed correct date and publisher.Apologizes to all for the error on my part.) ] (]) 14:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * In 2018 Bild fell for a hoax. Someone leaked emails supposedly between a major political party in Germany and a made-up Russian online figure. Bild published an article based on it. This is definitely a failure of their editorial process but they definitely did not do it on purpose and when this became known clarified that the whole thing was a hoax. I don't think that one such issue that happened 6 years ago should automatically lead to GUNREL status. Many other RS fell for hoaxes . ]<sub>]</sub> 13:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::Regardless, Fifelfoo's point is well taken. Reliability of a source does not imply a source is neutral in it's point of view. Fox News is a good example. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 16:20, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::My source reference to ''Blowback'' by Christopher Simpson is completely accurate. Edward321 is badly mistaken. He may be confusing the Simpson book with a completely different work of the same title -- even though the link he provides proves that the author and title as given are accurate. I don't know what's his problem. The Simpson book ''Blowback'' as already accurately cited by me, the was published in London by George Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1988, ISBN 0 297 79457 . I recommend it highly. A good companion piece would be Philip Knightley's ''The First Casualty'', London: Quartet 1987, especially the section that deals with censorship and books about Korea around the McCarthy era, p.331. ] (]) 10:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::This is a massive understatement of what Lilienthal 2023 cited by Hemiauchenia actually says. The better part of the text's 92 pages is a critique of Bild's practices in a systematic fashion, summarized in its introduction (translated): {{tq|From the perspective of critical readers, BILD is constantly chipping away at its own credibility.}} | |||
| ::::It is regretable that ] Nsk92 have taken it upon themselves to refactor this thread with needlessly argumentive postings that are in any event becoming TL;DR ] (]) 10:55, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::If that's not enough, the paper includes an 8-page bibliography of other extensive studies of der Bild. It's silly to act like what should decide this source's reliability is some "gotcha" wiki-sleuthing based on recent scandal--we have the verdict of mountains of peer-reviewed research. Make a case based on that, as others have. <sub>signed, </sub>] <sup>]</sup> 14:57, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::I'm just surprised that given the reputation of the source and all these analyses no one has come up with a examples of inaccuracies other than the 6-year old hoax. Unfortunately I don't speak German and so can't read Lilienthal's report. ]<sub>]</sub> 21:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::The linked PDF is readily readable by downloading it and then using Google translate's PDF translation feature. ] (]) 21:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::@], I've managed to translate it using Google Translate, thanks! | |||
| :::::These are the key points from the foreword | |||
| :::::# articles are published that hurt those affected and (can) irritate readers | |||
| :::::# BILD is running campaigns against political opponents – against Angela Merkel, Karl Lauterbach, Annalena Baerbock, to name just three examples | |||
| :::::# is said to have felt personally affected . Because he is co-owner of such a property in Berlin. He then prompted BILD editor-in-chief Reichelt to write extremely critical reports about Adidas and the rent freeze | |||
| :::::# A woman who says she suffered under former editor-in-chief Reichelt is suing the German media group in the USA because she felt let down by her former employer | |||
| :::::# A particularly drastic case occurred in early 2017, when the Frankfurt edition reported on sexual assaults by men with a migrant background on visitors to a prominent nightlife district - completely fabricated by people the editorial team trusted without checking. The embarrassment was great, and the retraction in the paper itself was inevitable. | |||
| :::::I think I understand the issues with it better now. Would you say that this is a reasonably complete summary or is there something else I missed? | |||
| :::::In my view #5 is most relevant for the assessment of reliability. They certainly didn't a good job as journalists but it doesn't seem like they fabricated stuff and in the end they published a retraction which is what we expect from sources. #2 and #3 show that it's clearly a very ] source. I'm still not sure it satisfies the WP:GUNREL criteria. ]<sub>]</sub> 23:08, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Actually the example you gave after your !vote about Bild's campaign against Christian Drosten is pretty convincing. ]<sub>]</sub> 23:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :I'm not really sure what is meant by {{tq|classif sources based on vibes}}, but if it means assessing the reputation of a source based on other reliable sources, that's kinda what we're required to do by policy. ] says {{tq|reputation for fact-checking and accuracy}}, as does ] multiple times. No reputation, no evidence of reliability. ] (] • ]) 00:06, 14 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * Because of Bild's outstanding importance and high circulation, politicians, celebrities and sportspeople often give Bild interviews. I consider these texts as generally reliable, in contrast to Bild's other articles. I've checked some of the {{duses|bild.de}}, most of them belong to the first category. --] (]) 20:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| {{abot}} | |||
| ==RfC: NewsNation== | |||
| ::::What is regretable in informing the redaers about the context of Soviet propaganda? The Western propaganda wasn't in any way comparable to the Soviet one, babies opposing wolves.] (]) 12:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| <!-- ] 02:33, 9 February 2025 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1739068436}} | |||
| :::::The evidently confused Edward321 and any other interested parties might find this quite helpful. ] (]) 11:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| What is the reliability of ]? | |||
| ::::There is a Soviet joke - a Soviet activist answers any critics of the Soviet system with words "But you persecute Afroamericans", this reminds me your argumentation. ] (]) 12:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| The terrible CIA financed a number of best Polish writers allowing Czesław Miłosz to get the Nobel prize rather than washing dishes.] (]) 12:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Former Nazis were used in the Soviet Union and GDR . So USA Nazis are wrong and the Soviet ones seem to be O.K.. BTW the Soviets murdered more civilians than the Nazis, why do you think than "NAzi" or "Fascist" is wrong And "Communist" O.K.?] (]) 12:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{outdent}} | |||
| It seems to me that much of this is irrelevant. Who's propaganda fung fu is better is not the issue, even if we could determine that (and I will simply point out that in the US, I would expect propaganda to be more subtle than that in under the average totalitarian regime, and thus that much harder to spot and that more dangerous), as is whose nazis were worse. Seems to me that there's not a RS issue here, but rather matters of due weight. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 12:22, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::The propaganda was only a part of the cold war, the Soviets had a better ideology, were more crazy to risk a WW to control the whole world. But Western jeans and washing powders won, at least in Europe.] (]) 12:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Yefim Chernyak was a Soviet victim himself, never free, survived several waves of terror and WWII. ] (]) 12:31, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 1: ]''' | |||
| I have some reservations about this book as HQRS but at minimum it seems fine as POV source. Schneierson appears to be a prominent author though some of his citations seem a bit spammy (getcited.org, sheesh). ] (]) 08:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 2: ]''' | |||
| * '''Option 3: ]''' | |||
| * '''Option 4: ]''' | |||
| ] (]) 19:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :I am very troubled as I review Communicat's statements above - in particular the ones from 16:04, 3 December 2010 and 12:33, 5 December 2010. Communicat appears to have taken his argument directly from Stan Winer's ''Between the Lies''. Check pages 131 & 132 of and what Communicat wrote on 3 December. These three searches show it: "American readers were unaware" , "cover production costs" , and "unmatched by the impact" . He changed the sentence order and a few words at the beginning of the first sentence, but it is a direct quote. I don't think it's a violation of copyright since it's just on a talk page, but it is disturbing. Note the "p.12.21" at the end of Communicat's citation for the ''Saturday Evening Post'' article. In Winer's book, it is footnote 21 and page 12 falls within the actually article's page numbers. | |||
| ===Survey (NewsNation)=== | |||
| :On 5 December, again he lifts almost directly from Winer . Winer, page 131-132 <blockquote>Using the talents of former Nazi collaborationists, the CIA employed as the head of its Munich publishing house one Vladimir Porensky, a leading figure among East European fascists who had been imprisoned for war crimes in 1945. Porensky had been released just a year later with the co-operation of British intelligence. According to a declassified State Department study, Porensky enjoyed the reputation of being a "200% Nazi".</blockquote> | |||
| *'''Option 2:''' Generally reliable for reporting not related to aviation, astronomy, or physics. Unreliable for reporting on these topics generally, and for UFOs specifically (including, but not limited to, shape-shifting Mantids, flying saucers, time-traveling psychonauts, human/space alien cross-breeding programs, the Majestic 12, and treaties/diplomacy with the Galactic Federation of Light). | |||
| :From Communicat,<blockquote>A certain Vladimir Porensky was employed as head of this publishing house. Porensky, a leading figure among East European fascists, had been imprisoned for war crimes in 1945 and then released just a year later with the co-operation of British intelligence. According to a declassified US State Department study, Porensky enjoyed the reputation of being a "200% Nazi".</blockquote> | |||
| **NewsNation seems to have made an overt and conscious editorial decision to lean into UFOs for ratings purposes . In many cases, these stories are masked as conventional science reporting but with a heavy "/spooky event" frame. Ross Coulthart is NewsNation's UFO beat reporter and files most of its prolific reports on the paranormal. Coulthart appears to be a true believer and uses NewsNation to engage in space alien advocacy versus conventional forms of journalism. | |||
| :I don't know if posting nearly verbatim quotes without attribution on a talk page constitutes a ], but I think it might at least constitute plagiarism. --] (]) 14:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ***In an interview on NewsNation on 13 December 2024 related to the ], Coulthart said {{xt|"... the White House is making completely false claims! The people of New Jersey are not alone"!}} . Multiple federal and state investigations, as well as independent evaluation by experts including ] and ], all concluded sightings were misidentification of routine aerial and celestial objects. | |||
| ::As I comb through Communicat's contributions to the article itself, I'm finding loads of direct cut-and-paste from Winer. From page 110, this is awfully familiar:<blockquote>In China the Western crusade against national self determination followed suit. The Commanding General of US Forces, General Albert C Wedemeyer noted that the post-war disarming of Japanese troops by the Chinese failed "to move smoothly" because fully armed Japanese forces were being employed to fight Mao Tse Tung's Chinese communists. In Truman's words: "If we told the Japanese to lay down their arms immediately and march to the seaboard, the entire country would be taken over by the communists. We therefore had to take the unusual step of using the enemy as a garrison ..."</blockquote> | |||
| ***Writing in ''The Skeptic'', Ben Harris identifies Coulthart as one of a group of UFO celebrities, describing their approach thusly: {{xt|"Drama is to the forefront; they ride their high horses, full of their own self-import, their truth, making demands of Congress – and mainstream media – who they think are ‘missing the story of a lifetime’."}} | |||
| ::We're going to have to check everything in the World War II and Aftermath of World War II articles to make sure we're not infringing on ''Between the Lies''. --] (]) 16:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ***He wrote a UFO book titled ''Plain Sight'' which ] described as a {{xT|"conspiracy narrative"}} and a {{xt|"slipshod summary"}}. | |||
| ***The Australian Skeptics gave Coulthart their "Bent Spoon Award" for {{Xt|“espousing UFO conspiracies, including unsubstantiated claims that world governments and The Vatican are hiding extraterrestrial alien bodies and spacecraft on Earth.”}} | |||
| ***The ] did a TV special on Coulthart's reporting in which they closed by asking {{xt|"Has Coutlhart gone crazy, or is he a visionary?}} while strongly implying the former. | |||
| ***The '']'' has described him as a {{Xt|"UFO truther"}} with {{xt|"little appetite for scrutiny"}}. | |||
| ***Coulthart seems to have had a leading role in promoting a debunked ] investigation into an alleged child sex ring run by British politicians. | |||
| **Beyond Coulthart, NewsNation reporters have other issues with UFOs: | |||
| ***In 2023, according to our own article on NewsNation (sourced to the ''Washington Post'': ), the channel {{xt|"was forced to issue corrections after incorrectly claiming that The Intercept had obtained leaked information regarding Grusch's mental health"}}. | |||
| ***In December 2024, reporter Rich McHugh did a stand-up near LaGuardia Airport in New Jersey and showed an aerial object that he breathlessly (literally, he's panting the whole time) said {{xt|"... was more sophisticated than I could ever imagine ... I couldn't believe what I was seeing"}}. The thing he couldn't believe he was seeing was, according to ]'s analysis, a Boeing 737 . | |||
| :] (]) 19:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' for topics outside UFOs, '''Option 3''' for UFO coverage ] (]) 20:35, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2:''' Generally reliable for broad topics. They turn loony when covering UFOs. Don't consider them for UFO coverage. <span style="background: cornsilk; padding: 3px;border:.5px solid salmon;">]]</span> 22:43, 31 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3''' their mishandling of UFO topics suggests they're more interested in sensationalism than accuracy. ] (]) 15:25, 1 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2''' per Chetsford. – ] (] <b>·</b> ]) 01:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' since I think their general reporting is reliable. Attribution may be a good alternative.] (]) 08:50, 4 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' for topics outside UFOs, '''Option 3''' for UFO coverage. Compare ]. ] (]) 08:09, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3''' why are we putting ''any'' stock in an organization known primarily for babbling about UFOs? This is a severe case of “]” syndrome. ] (]) 11:22, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' for topics outside UFOs, '''Option 3''' for UFO coverage. - ] (]) 00:00, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2''' I would go with Option 2 but their UFO coverage makes me consider Option 3. I think for anything outside of UFO-related topics they are generally reliable. Other sources should be cited. ] (]) 01:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Harry Hodgkinson's “Scanderbeg: From Ottoman Captive to Albanian Hero”, in Skanderbeg article == | |||
| ===Discussion (NewsNation)=== | |||
| Is book ''“Scanderbeg: From Ottoman Captive to Albanian Hero”'' whose main author is ] with coauthors: Bejtullah D. Destani, Westrow Cooper and David Abulafia, published by in 1999 reliable source? | |||
| *For purposes of clarification, the reliability of NewsNation has previously come up in two different RSN discussions and two different article Talk page discussions. Beyond that, however, it's repeatedly invoked to source UFO articles to the point that constant re-litigation of its reliability via edit summaries is becoming a massive time sink. ] (]) 19:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == RfC: Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu == | |||
| Please take in consideration that: | |||
| * Professor ], British academic, who has specialised in Balkan affairs, educated in Oxford, professor in the Institute of Balkan Studies, a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs...... etc.... wrote that Harry Hodgkinson “left school at the age of 16” and that “throughout his life he took up strong anti-Serb and anti-Bulgarian positions” being "intelligence officer". | |||
| * Bejtullah D. Dostani is founder and owner of | |||
| * ''"goals of the CAS are to publish books, pamphlets and to also organise conferences and seminars relating to Albania, Kosova and Albanian speaking world"'' | |||
| * Bejtullah D. Destani (founder and owner of The Centre for Albanian Studies) is written by ] described as man who "pay for the basic costs (editorial work, layout, and printing) of each book. Far from gaining financially himself, he is constantly spending his own money on these projects;" | |||
| * is link to site with biography of Westrow Cooper, another coeditor of Harry Hodgkison's Skanderbeg. He is " freelance writer and designer." | |||
| The following genealogy sources are currently considered ] at ] (A), or in repeated inquiries at ] (B and C): | |||
| * '''A: Geni.com''' | |||
| * '''B: Medieval Lands / MedLands by Charles Cawley''' | |||
| * '''C: genealogy.eu / genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav''' | |||
| :Long after being listed / labelled generally unreliable, these unreliable sources are still being (re-)added to hundreds to tens of thousands of articles. | |||
| :They should be: | |||
| * '''Option 1: listed as ]''' (change nothing to A; add B and C at ] as such) | |||
| * '''Option 2: ]''' (list them as such at ]) | |||
| * '''Option 3: ]''' (not mutually exclusive with option 1 or 2) | |||
| ] (]) 23:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| === Background (Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu) === | |||
| # '''A full citation of the source in question''': {{Citation|last=Hodgkinson|first=Harry|title=Scanderbeg: From Ottoman Captive to Albanian Hero|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=X4lpAAAAMAAJ|year=1999|publisher=Centre for Albanian Studies|isbn=9781873928134}} | |||
| * A: See "Geni.com" at ]. | |||
| # '''A link to the source in question.''': | |||
| * B: See ], in particular ], where this RfC for the 3 sources in question was prepared together with @]. The other sources discussed there fall outside the scope of this RfC. | |||
| # '''The article in which it is being used.''': ] | |||
| * C: See ] (Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley) of May 2023 (also initiated by me, with ActivelyDisinterested's assistance). ] (]) 23:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| # '''The exact statement in the article that the source is supporting.''': Please find list below. | |||
| # '''Links to relevant talk page discussion.''': ] with | |||
| === Preliminaries === | |||
| Please find below list of statements referenced with this source: | |||
| # Skanderbeg is derived from the combination of Iskender (a Turkish word derived from Alexander) and the Turkish appellative Bey (for Lord or Prince). | |||
| # Coat of arms ] of the ] family<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson2005>{{harvnb|Hodgkinson|2005|p=xix}}</ref></nowiki>]] | |||
| # ], who was a distant relation of the Byzantine ] through one of his great-grandmothers)<nowiki><ref name="Hodgkinson2005p240">{{harvnb|Hodgkinson|2005|p=240}}</ref></nowiki> | |||
| # Skanderbeg...... had absolute control over the men from his own dominions, and had to convince the other princes to follow his policies and tactics.<nowiki><ref name="Hodgkinson2005p240"/></nowiki> | |||
| # About 8,000 Turks were killed and 2,000 were captured.<nowiki><ref name="Hodgkinson2005p240"/></nowiki> | |||
| # At the same time, he besieged the towns of Durazzo (modern ]) and Lezhë which were then under Venetian rule.<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson1999p85>{{harvnb|Hodgkinson|1999|p=85}}</ref></nowiki> | |||
| # In late summer 1448, due to a lack of potable water,{{Cref2|B}} the Albanian garrison eventually surrendered the castle with the condition of safe passage through the Ottoman besieging forces, a condition which was accepted and respected by Sultan Murad II.<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson1999p102>{{harvnb|Hodgkinson|1999|p=102}}</ref></nowiki> | |||
| # Although his loss of men was minimal, Skanderbeg lost the castle of Svetigrad, which was an important stronghold that controlled the fields of Macedonia to the east.<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson1999p102/></nowiki> | |||
| # The ] was eventually broken, resulting in the death of Ballaban Pasha by an Albanian ]<nowiki><ref name="Hodgkinson2005p240"/><ref name=Noli2009p35/></nowiki> | |||
| # Skanderbeg is considered today a commanding figure not only in the national consciousness of ] but also of 15th-century European history.<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson2005pix>{{harvnb|Hodgkinson|2005|p=ix}}</ref></nowiki> | |||
| # According to archival documents, there is no doubt that Skanderbeg had already achieved a reputation as a hero in his own time.<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson2005pxii>{{harvnb|Hodgkinson|2005|p=xii}}</ref></nowiki> | |||
| # The failure of most European nations, with the exception of Naples, to give him support, along with the failure of Pope Pius II's plans to organize a promised crusade against the Turks meant that none of Skanderbeg's victories permanently hindered the Ottomans from invading the Western Balkans.<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson2005pxii/></nowiki> | |||
| # When in 1481 Sultan Mehmet II captured ], he massacred the male population, thus proving what Skanderbeg had been warning about.<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson2005pxii/></nowiki> | |||
| # Skanderbeg's main legacy was the inspiration he gave to all of those who saw in him a symbol of the struggle of Christendom against the Ottoman Empire.<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson2005pxiii>{{harvnb|Hodgkinson|2005|p=xiii}}</ref></nowiki> | |||
| # With much of the Balkans under Ottoman rule and with the Turks ], nothing could have captivated readers in the West more than an action-packed tale of heroic Christian resistance to the "Moslem hordes".<nowiki><ref name=Hodgkinson2005pxii/></nowiki> | |||
| :Probably need to add the website to the list of unreliable sources. It also uses Misplaced Pages articles which would be ]. --] 23:45, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| This is first time that I approached to WP:RS noticeboard. Therefore, besides checking reliability of this source please feel free to comment on any mistake I made in this comment on the WP:RS noticeboard. --] (]) 19:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::AD and I have decided to limit ourselves to these three sources for now in order to prevent a ]. But it could be a good follow-up. ] (]) 23:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::That reminds me: maybe I should just have three separate subsections for Survey per source? That would make the voting process much easier. The voting format I'm proposing might be confusing. ] (]) 23:51, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::PS: Done. Better now before the first vote comes in. ] (]) 23:55, 2 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Can you clarify for us why these sites are being grouped together? I'm only familiar with Geni. ] (]) 00:13, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Are you disputing that they are unreliable? If so, why? If not, why waste time with this RFC?  <span style="font-variant:small-caps; whitespace:nowrap;">] {] · ] · ] · ]}</span> 00:22, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Thank you so much for presenting this information clearly! I know this might be a frustrating answer, but I think your concerns above are concerning ] and not ]. Concerning ] this noticeboard can often (not always) give clear advice. But concerning "point of view" and "neutrality" Wikipedians generally have to find ways to work together. I say this because to me this source looks fine for use on Misplaced Pages. Source reliability is not affected by a source having a point of view. All sources may have a point of view. I note there are three authors by the way. I've read works by ] before which were about other parts of the Mediterranean. Having said that, when a source is thought to have a very strong point of view it is sometimes appropriate to present its information carefully IF it is being used to say something controversial. For example instead of "Skanderbeg had superhuman powers" you could adjust it to "according to some commentators, Skanderbeg had superhuman powers" (exaggerating for the sake of clarity). Looking through your bullet points however, most do not seem terribly controversial. If you are just asking "on principle" that a source do not be used because it is has a pro-Skanderbeg point of view, I do not think the community will agree with you. A more acceptable approach, if your aim is balance, is to go get more good sources and give the article whatever you think it is missing.--] (]) 20:03, 30 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::These are websites that previous discussions have decided are unreliable. However due to their nature they are continually readded to articles. I believe NLeeuw is looking to get them deprecated or potentially blacklisted to stop that. For a similar instance see ]. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 00:33, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Read Background: B. ] (]) 00:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::<strike>I can't really see how this survey can change anything for geni.com? I tried clicking on the links but there is a lot to read. I don't want to cause a major distraction but I also notice a remark there that Burkes and Debretts are generally reliable. That's certainly not true for old editions which many editors are tempted to use. But even for new editions, the reliability depends upon the period etc.</strike> --] (]) 11:27, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| === Survey A: Geni.com === | |||
| :::I have some concern that one of the authors of the book also is the founder of the institute that published it. That raises the question of ]. --] (]) 22:30, 30 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Deprecate'''. User-generated junk that should be flagged when introduced. ] (]) 05:50, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Andrew Lancaster, I am not "just asking "on principle" that a source do not be used because it has pro-Skanderbeg point of view". I was not trying to resolve disputes on numerous POV issues in the article by making it more balanced with disqualifying source with certain POV using opinions from this noticeboard. My main and only simple aim was to get some opinion about reliability of the source. That is what this noticeboard is for. | |||
| :'''Deprecate'''.<strike>'''Question'''. Isn't it already deprecated?</strike>--] (]) 11:28, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Regardless of my concerns and aims about POV of the article, regardless my bullet points and lack (?) of their controversy, '''I think that we should focus on policies of wikipedia'''. I believe that this source is not reliable and that using this source is violating three wikipedia policies connected with reliability of the source (WP:RS, WP:SPS and even WP:NPOV). According to WP:RS only those sources that are "published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both" may be considered reliable. According to WP:SPS " self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable.". Publisher violated NPOV by self-publishing works, and Hodgkinson's authoritativeness and neutrality were disputed by very credible expert in his obituary. | |||
| :'''Deprecate''' A user generated source that just keeps getting readded, deprecation will warn users against adding it. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 13:10, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::: I believe that violation of fundamental principles and policies of wikipedia by excessive (15 statements) using of sources that are not reliable should not be tolerated, even if Scanderbeg article was not nominated for GA. | |||
| : '''Unsure'''. Some doubt about deprecation as RSP says that primary sources uploaded to geni can be used as primary sources here. Is there a way of communicating that to users rather than giving a blanket warning? (I might be a little ignorant of how deprecation works in practice!) ] (]) 15:59, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::: If I am wrong, I will not be frustrated, but happy that I learned something new. --] (]) 22:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Deprecate'''. Really bad. Needs to go away.—] 00:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: Stephan Schulz said he could see reason to raise the issue of SPS, but no one here has yet gone beyond raising the issue. Having founded an institute that publishes something you wrote is a lead to check, but not yet conclusive. Are you saying the institute is just a vehicle for self-publication like a "vanity press"? What I understood from your first posts was that the institute is an entity with its own existence and activities. Your original concern indeed, seemed to be that you thought it showed a very strong point of view.--] (]) 14:08, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| === Survey B: Medieval Lands / MedLands by Charles Cawley === | |||
| (outdent) The book is a posthumous publication (HH died 1994, the earliest edition I can find is 1999). This suggests to me that the other authors listed may have played a significant part in assembling the book. I've found that although my local University library has a range of books on Scanderbeg dating back to 1664 it doesn't have a copy of HH's book- maybe the price tag of 40 GBP for a 240-page paperback put them off! The first page, available as a preview on Amazon, is written in purple prose not indicative of a serious historical work. I wouldn't consider it as an RS. ] (]) 04:59, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Deprecate''', per background discussion. ] (]) 05:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I don't find Hodgkinson conclusions or citations, as fringe or controversial. Practically you can find the same things on other sources related to Scanderbeg. Take the case of ] (XXth century main biographer in English literature of Scanderbeg). Noli was himself a priest but just take a look at of his work. I don't remember any scholar dealing with the topic claiming ''"Hey this Noli was a priest, therefore his work is not RS"'' ..on the contrary, his work on Scanderbeg is . Returning to Hodgkinson, his work on Scanderbeg has been also. | |||
| :'''Comment'''. I think this source has been often discussed in a superficial way, together with other sources, which does not always lead to a clear perspective. This is not like the other two. It collects a lot of useful extracts from primary sources than can be helpful for getting a grip on a topic. Although it is basically the work of one editor, this editor was assigned to do this for an organization which does make some efforts to maintain a reputation for quality. (The FMG publishes a journal, and it posts some online corrections to Keats-Rohan's reference works for the 11th and 12th century, and she has noted those helpful efforts in print.) On the other hand, Medlands does not use secondary material very much, so it is normally not going to the type of source we would use on WP on its own for anything non-obvious. I note these complications because I see that sources like Ancestry.com and Findmypast also have special notes about how they can sometimes have useful primary materials. To give a practical example of what might go wrong, what I saw in the past whenever this source was discussed, is that it was even deleted from external links sections and so on. I think this is a source that can be used for external links at the very least. I feel hesitant to say that it should NEVER EVER be used even in the main body to be honest, although I don't use it on WP.--] (]) 11:44, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| P.S. Remember that there are too few biographers of Scanderbeg in English language in XXth century, and none of the so called "great historians of XXth century" has dealt with Scanderbeg alone. When they do have to mention Scanderbeg war the mostly refer to Noli (his first biography on Scanderbeg was in 1921 and the last revision in 1960') and others. On the other side we have many Albanian scholars (Frasheri, Bicoku etc) who have written Scanderbeg biographies even after 1990 and 2000, but unfortunately they are in Albanian so practically unknown on English speakers (Apart professional historians who do know their works) ] (]) 12:33, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Deprecate''' Crawley has no academic background in history and MedLands is self-published. It is not published by FMG only hosted by them. That it contains a lot of useful information is not the same as it having a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, something it doesn't have. Deprecation isn't blacklisting, editors are warned against adding it not blocked. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 13:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Academic historical texts in Albanian can be used; translations can be arranged so that we can see if they are reflected accurately. Another possibility is to use more general historical works, even if what they say about Skanderbeg is a bit limited. For history articles we should use the work of mainstream academic historians. ] (]) 12:47, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::{{re|ActivelyDisinterested}} I see the fine print, but we know editors who need simple rules don't understand fine print in practice. The text for deprecated says "'''the source is generally prohibited'''". I'm thinking these sorts of decisions should be made if they reduce the number of useless pseudo-legal debates, and not increase them. (In reality the main principle we should always follow is that good editors will judge based on context IMHO. There are so many possible contexts, and trying to make rules to cover them all is not always a good idea.) ] (]) 13:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :: Although I do find some Hodkingson conclusions very controversial, this is not noticeboard that deals with content of the source, but relevance of the source itself. If somebody self-published work of person who died 5 years before, and who was not scholar because he ran away from school when he was 16 and later was intelligence officer famous for his anti-Serb and anti-Bulgarian positions then, (I believe and would appreciate other users comments), using such text as source on wikipedia violates WP:RS, WP:SPS and WP:NPOV, although “there are too few biographers of Scanderbeg in English language in XXth century”. --] (]) 12:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::Editors who know the fine print will be the ones using the source correctly, and will know how to handle the situation. The issue is that editors who don't know keep adding this as a reference to support content, and the many discussions on the source show they isn't support for that. Adding a warning when editors post will at least get editors to ask why they are getting the warning, and help them understand the situation. | |||
| ::: This is an odd publication. British libraries don't seem to have got it, in spite of copyright laws. Library of Congress has a copy, and credits the author, the two editors, and David Abulafia who wrote the introduction. I can't look inside (Amazon won't let me, for some reason). | |||
| :::Deprecation of this source will ''reduce'' the pointless pseudo-legal debates, by reducing the problem of the source being repeatedly readded. Editors should use their own good judgement, but as repeated discussion about this source have shown that isn't happening. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 14:01, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::The author, I gather from above, is said to have been a Balkan expert but not a scholar. Well, to write a reliable book on 15th century history you would have to be a historical scholar or very good at pasting; being a modern Balkan expert doesn't cut it. You would also have to be alive: not only did Hodgkinson die in 1994, the other books he wrote were published in 1952 and 1955 (and were strongly political). | |||
| ::::Yes in effect it would reduce the possibly of any discussion, good or bad, by effectively making the source not worth discussing, or am I misunderstanding? The fine print would be irrelevant in practice, and that is my concern in this case.--] (]) 14:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Scholarship might be added by the two editors or by Abulafia. So far as we can tell from the LoC catalogue, Abulafia didn't touch the text; what the introduction amounts to, we don't know. Was it even newly written for this book? We don't know. Bejtullah Destani (as indicated above) is the Centre for Albanian Studies, which has a friendly link with the publisher of the reprint, I. B. Tauris. Westrow Cooper is a "copywriter" (so I gather from googling him): at a guess (but this could be quite wrong) he took an unpublishable manuscript or set of notes left by Hodgkinson and made it publishable. | |||
| :::::The discussion has been against using this source for at least a decade, and deprecation doesn't stop anyone wanting to question from discussing it. Deprecation doesn't in anyway stop editors from discussing anything. What effect this will have is to warn editors when they try to add the source, anything else is as you say your misunderstanding. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 15:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Anyone with better knowledge of the book's history might correct me at many points. Without such knowledge, I wouldn't risk treating this book as a reliable source on Scanderbeg. <font face="Gill Sans"><font color="green">]</font>''']'''<font color="green">]</font></font> 13:28, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I think we both know exactly what I mean about what will happen in reality when WP goes into bot mode. I am just saying that there is a cost to rule making.--] (]) 16:11, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| {{od}}I had not realized that David Abulafia only did the intro, which is what some are asserting above, so the facts arrayed now make the source sound less authoritative. Nevertheless, if he wrote the intro then, given that we all agree this is about WP:RS and not about WP:POV, it is not for us to judge why he put his stamp of approval on the book but it sounds like something that would normally be considered a good sign here. A couple of arguments I find unconvincing above:- | |||
| :::::::Yes the cost of not having to continuously patrol for this source and have the same discussion about it's reliability again and again. | |||
| *"''one of the authors of the book also is the founder of the institute that published it. That raises the question of ].''" Raises a question, but does not answer it. I think that without further information there is no reason to equate the institute with the author as an SPS vehicle. | |||
| :::::::Separately before the two of us fill the survey section with our disagreement (mea culpa), should we move this discussion to the Discussion section? -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 16:17, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *"''to write a reliable book on 15th century history you would have to be a historical scholar or very good at pasting; being a modern Balkan expert doesn't cut it''". That would be an example of Wikipedians deciding what makes a good author, not the field. We do not get to judge like this generally. It is sometimes argued that we are allowed to be judgemental about things like qualifications when there are ] conclusions being drawn but the things being sourced do not look like red flags to me. | |||
| :'''Generally unreliable'''. I first read the definitions of the categories we are voting on. (I hope others do also.) ''Generally unreliable'' is the one which says this: {{tq|"questionable in most cases. The source may lack an editorial team, have a poor reputation for fact-checking, fail to correct errors, be self-published"}} I think that's the accurate description in this case. It also seems to match what others are arguing, and so I note with some concern that there might be misunderstandings about what "deprecate" really means on WP. How I read it, deprecation would ''only'' allow use for self-description (for example if there was a Medlands article), and otherwise it would be ''prohibited''. To repeat what I wrote elsewhere, I am not advising editors to use this website, but its collection of medieval primary sources is possibly going to be useful here and there to someone, and I don't think bots (or bot-like editors) should be sent out to "attack" without looking at context every time someone mentions it.--] (]) 14:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| I would think it relevant to check whether this book is being cited or reviewed by historians. But for now I see no reason to delete materials cited by it.--] (]) 14:08, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::Sure, it may be useful as a reference work, or as introductory material for the interested reader, but it shouldn't be cited as a "source". Just like Misplaced Pages itself isn't a "source", but a collection of sources. The "Rurik dynasty" case outlined at ] shows just how careless Cawley is in using sources, e.g. taking known problematic primary sources that he ''knows'' {{xt!|may be of little factual significance}} at face value just because he finds them "]" ({{xt!|but is reproduced by way of interest}}), and citing private emails from others as "sources" that we can't ]. Surely our readers deserve a higher standard that this. ] (]) 14:45, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| : Andrew Lancaster, thank you for your comments, but I am not sure if you find this source reliable or not since you agree that there is question about WP:SPS and propose to investigate if this work is cited and reviewed by historians, but still would not "delete materials cited by it". This is first time I wrote on this noticeboard and I may be inexperienced user that does not understand this noticeboard completely, and therefore I apologize if I will make mistake with below comment. | |||
| :::Perhaps you can explain what real disadvantages the '''Generally unreliable''' category would bring? I doubt we disagree on much here. But one idea which is guiding me is that generally speaking, I don't think we can or should try to predict every case, and write rules for everything. We should only break the basic, proven WP way of working when we really have to, and then ''only as far as we have to''. By this I mean sources should be judged according to the core content policy, in the context of specific examples, which we can't predict. So my approach here is to read the definitions of the categories we can choose from, and pick the accurate one. I think I did it correctly. Deprecation seems to be for extreme cases where we literally accept that WP editors will now sometimes beat each other with a virtual stick if anyone dares post such a source, even in an external links section. I can understand how this might be for the best when we look at Geni, however... --] (]) 15:36, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| : I think that we should focus and '''write opinion about reliability of this source''' based on informations about this source: | |||
| :'''Generally reliable''', in my experience. Furthermore, it provides footnotes to almost every claim that one can use instead of linking to the website. ]<sup>]</sup> 16:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :# coedited by ''Bejtullah Dostani'' | |||
| :'''Deprecate''' per ActivelyDisinterested.—] 00:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :# published by ''Bejtullah Dostani'' | |||
| :# in publishing company founded and solely owned by ''Bejtullah Dostani'' | |||
| :# which name is The Centre for Albanian Studies, which main aim is “to publish books, pamphlets and to also organise conferences and seminars relating to '''Albania, Kosova and Albanian speaking world'''” (click if it still does not ring the bell) | |||
| :# with costs connected with editing, printing and publishing paid by ''Bejtullah Dostani'' | |||
| :# man (Harry Hodgkinson) who was presented as main author of the book about 15th century history ran away from school when he was 16, died 5 years before this book is published, has never wrote a book on history in his life, was "intelligence officer", published 2 books on politics 42 and 39 years before he died and was described (by professor James Pettifer, British academic, who has specialised in Balkan affairs, educated in Oxford, professor in the Institute of Balkan Studies, a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, etc.) that “throughout his life he took up strong anti-Serb and anti-Bulgarian positions” | |||
| === Survey C: genealogy.eu / genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav === | |||
| :In WP:IRS it is clearly written that reliable source has three related meanings: | |||
| :'''Deprecate'''. SPS that is far too widely cited already, probably because the url looks like it's some official site. ] (]) 05:52, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :# piece of work itself | |||
| ::Which website were you looking at? If you type genealogy.eu you seem to be redirected to a completely different website which I GUESS is not the one we are meant to be discussing?--] (]) 11:49, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :# creator of the work | |||
| ::: by Marek Miroslav, which advertises itself as {{xt|genealogy.eu}} and has often been cited as such on English Misplaced Pages, even though "genealogy.eu" these days indeed redirects to a different website (https://en.filae.com/v4/genealogie/HomePage.mvc/welcome; which is outside the scope of this RfC). ] (]) 11:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :# publisher of the work | |||
| :'''Deprecate'''. Another self published source that keeps getting readded, deprecation will warn editors against doing so. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 13:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :''"All three can affect reliability"'' Is this work reliable source for Skanderbeg article in the way requested by WP:RS policy? --] (]) 16:33, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Deprecate'''. I am surprised this one is being used a lot. I have not come across it yet I think. <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 13:54, 3 January 2025 (UTC)</small> | |||
| ::Well, no I did not say I see it as a self published source. I indicated that I thought it might be a question worth raising, but I also indicated that it did not seem like one from what you've said so far. Indeed in your new post you are trying to judge the author yourself, and to remind you once more, that is not how we generally work on Misplaced Pages. What is your argument for saying the Institute which published this book is like a vanity press?--] (]) 18:44, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Comment'''. The site is useful for quick checks. In general, it's a faithful transcription of such classic sources as the ], Dworzaczek's Genealogia (Warszawa, 1958), etc. It's better to refer our readers to the published sources, of course (if one has access to them). By the way, the site has not been updated since 2005. ]<sup>]</sup> 16:30, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::: No Andrew Lancaster, you did not say that "it might be a question worth raising". You said: “Raises a question, but does not answer it.” Please forget about me, my judgement of the author, my concerns about POV of the article, my reasons for aproaching to this noticeboard, me probably being frustrated with your answers, me "just asking "on principle" that a source do not be used because it is has a pro-Skanderbeg point of view", my aims about POV of the article, my bullet points and lack (?) of their controversy, my ..... anything. Please, (for the third time) '''focus on policies of wikipedia''' and '''write opinion about reliability of this source''' in context of using in Skanderbeg article. If “that is not how we generally work on Misplaced Pages” please help me and inform me how we generally work on Misplaced Pages?--] (]) 21:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::Sure, it may be useful for quick checks, but it shouldn't be cited as a "source". ] (]) 19:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Deprecate'''. The site, from what I can tell, doesn't tell us where they get the information. For example; . --] 21:37, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::: "Vanity press" isn't the right term, I'd say. My impression from Web sources is that the Institute doesn't appear to have any existence independent of Destani: he perhaps uses it as a name under which to publish books he chooses, but surely not for reasons of vanity, more likely to forward his point of view on Albania and its neighbours. | |||
| ** This one (like most others) seems to be adapted from Paul Theroff's site . And Theroff said more than once that his main source is the ]. ]<sup>]</sup> 09:06, 4 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::As for Abulafia, the fact that he wrote an introduction (this is what the Library of Congress says, it's not an unsupported assertion) might mean that he put his stamp of approval on the book, but it might not. We would need to read his introduction to know. <font face="Gill Sans"><font color="green">]</font>''']'''<font color="green">]</font></font> 22:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| **:Well, that is neither obvious nor transparent. Plus, it could be a copyvio if they just steal or plagiarise each other's work. ] (]) 09:10, 4 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I think the best way to check is to see if this work is being cited by more clear reliable sources as if it were a reliable source. I continue to feel some caution about deletions of relatively uncontroversial materials based on the concerns of one editor whose main concern is obviously POV rather than reliability.--] (]) 07:42, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Deprecate'''. ]. Deprecation will have a positive effect. And while it's always possible that someone in the know, who's really into genealogy, has the ability of figuring out out how the operator of this website makes it have the content that it has, that's not useful for determining reliability.—] 00:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Agreed, citations in other historical work will be the crucial factor in deciding whether this book is reliable or not. <font face="Gill Sans"><font color="green">]</font>''']'''<font color="green">]</font></font> 09:34, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: Reliability is defined by WP:RS. Besides WP:RS, "reliability is often dependent upon context". Therefore it is requested to provide links to five things (name of source, link to source, article, statements and talk page discussions). Based on this, I have to state that I don't agree with you Andrew Dalby, Andrew Lancaster and Aigest. There are following main reasons: | |||
| :::::::# You were not focused on request of '''WP:RS''' and ''three related meanings of reliability of the source (work, author, publisher)''. Your opinion that this source could be accepted as reliable if there are "citations in other historical work" because you believe that it contains “relatively uncontroversial materials” does not consider all “three related meanings of reliability of the source” requested by WP:RS | |||
| :::::::# '''Context'''. Maybe most important reason for me not agreeing with three of you is that I think you were not focused on second important thing for determining reliability of the source.'''Context of the article and relevant talk page discussion'''. Instead, some users considered me and my concerns and context of my question here. I believe that if you take in consideration context of the article and relevant talk page discussions you would notice following things: article has been subject to numerous heated discussions, numerous disputes that are affecting not only certain sentences, but used perspective for writing the article, there are two groups of editors that participated in editing and discussing the article, one group reached consensus that article is "massive POV" and submitted almost hundred sources aimed to balance perspective of the article and make it NPOV and another described by some users as "editors struggling to preserve nationalistic POV of the article", almost hundred different sources were disqualified by "editors struggling to preserve nationalistic POV of the article" (many of them written by authoritative scholars for history, published by reliable publishing companies with citation list that would take hundreds of pages to be presented), ... If three of you conclude that this source is reliable, you would make '''precedent''' that could intensify conflicts and disputes, because editors from both groups could misuse this precedent in the conflict. One group to continue their “struggling to preserve nationalistic POV of the article” and another to introduce more sources that do not correspond with reliability defined by WP:RS (based on precedent you could make).'' I believe that sources that should be used in articles with so much dispute and conflicts should, at least, not have lower limits for reliability than requested by WP:RS'' | |||
| :::::::--] (]) 11:06, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Well no, this discussion would not be setting a precedent because this kind of debate happens all the time, with the Balkans coming up often. The approach I have been describing has developed partly as the least bad solution that actually works in precisely such cases. We separate reliability from neutrality, and then we say that concerning neutrality our aim is to present all points of view, not delete any unless they are both un-notable and un-sourceable. You object to a source which you think is pro-Albanian and anti-Serbian and anti-Bulgarian. The solution we keep finding works best is saying that it is better for you to find pro-Serbian and pro-Bulgarian sources to get balance, rather than trying to filter and censor. The difficulty in practice then sometimes comes with deciding how exactly to present the various sources, but that is not normally a question for this noticeboard. (But how would a pro Serbian source disagree with a pro-Albanian source concerning a coat of arms for example?) Anyway, it still seems to me that your own concerns are more to do with neutrality and point of view than with reliability.--] (]) 11:46, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::: I find your advice: “it is better for you to find pro-Serbian and pro-Bulgarian sources to get balance” directly opposed to the requirements of WP:RS and WP:NPOV that state “Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published sources” and only “when '''reputable''' sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both approaches and work for balance.” I think that your advice “it is better for you to find pro-Serbian and pro-Bulgarian sources to get balance” is like advice to extinguish fire with gasoline. I understood completely your position but I do not agree with you. --] (]) 12:36, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::: It does not sound like you do get what I mean. You emphasize the word reputable, but almost every concern you've expressed is about the principle of neutrality - not about reliability (and also not about any concrete neutrality issues). I distinguish that it seems to only be about the principle and not concrete neutrality issues because perhaps my advice does not make sense in the real case, because perhaps there is not real disagreement between pro-Albanian and pro-Serbian sources concerning, for example, a coat of arms? And so perhaps there would be no real point to "balancing" the positions being cited anyway. I am just saying that being a reliable partisan for a particular position does not make you unreliable. That is the way we split up reliability and neutrality here on Misplaced Pages.--] (]) 12:45, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::: I made mistake with emphasizing. I should emphasize reliable (the way how we here on Misplaced Pages describe it as "three related meanings of reliability of the source" (work, author, publisher).--] (]) 13:11, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| There are scholars who do use him or recommend him. | |||
| #The grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II, conqueror of Constantinople and master of an empire Author John Freely Publisher Penguin, 2009 ISBN 1590202481, 9781590202487 | |||
| #Das Sein der Dauer Volume 34 of Miscellanea mediaevalia Authors Andreas Speer, David Wirmer Editors Andreas Speer, David Wirmer Edition illustrated Publisher de Gruyter, 2008 ISBN 311020309X, 9783110203097 | |||
| #Archeologia medievale, Volume 30 Publisher All'Insegna del Giglio, 2003 ISBN 8878142255, 9788878142251 | |||
| #Civic Christianity in renaissance Italy: the Hospital of Treviso, 1400-1530 Author David Michael D'Andrea Edition illustrated, annotated Publisher University Rochester Press, 2007 ISBN 1580462391, 9781580462396 | |||
| #New Turkes: dramatizing Islam and the Ottomans in early modern England Author Matthew Dimmock Edition illustrated Publisher Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005 ISBN 0754650227, 9780754650225 | |||
| #Raumstrukturen und Grenzen in Südosteuropa Author Cay Lienau Editor Cay Lienau Publisher Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft, ISBN 3925450947, 9783925450945 | |||
| #The Rule of Law in Comparative Perspective Author Mortimer Sellers Editors Mortimer Sellers, Tadeusz Tomaszewski Publisher Springer, 2010 ISBN 9048137489, 9789048137480 | |||
| #Staatsbürger aus Widerruf: Juden und Muslime als Alteritätspartner im rumänischen und serbischen Nationscode : ethnonationale Staatsbürgerschaftskonzepte 1878-1941 Volume 41 of Balkanologische Veröffentlichungen Volume 41 of Balkanologische Veröffentichungen Osteuropa-Institut der Freien Universität Berlin Author Dietmar Müller Publisher Harrassowitz, 2005 ISBN 3447052481, 9783447052481 | |||
| ===Discussion (Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu)=== | |||
| ] (]) 09:30, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{re|ActivelyDisinterested}} my apologies also. To be clear, I respect your concern, and I think I understand it. I think we've conveyed our concerns, and laid out some pros and cons, and background principles. I'm not stressed about that. I think its a point of getting the balance right. In practical reality the three sources should not normally be used, and I see no big disagreements. I just think the difference between the two categories offered is (or should be) meaningful, and I wanted to make that clear. I am not really disagreeing with any other specific point.--] (]) 18:19, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Although I disagree I can understand you position. It's to easy to get stuck in disagreement spirals are part of RFCs. Let's see if anyone else brings any new ideas. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 19:09, 3 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :To me at least these sources seem to make the source reliable in the sense of showing that people who are published in this field treat it as reliable.--] (]) 11:46, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :I previously commented that a seperate warning for generally unreliable sources would be helpful, for ones that are problematicly readded on a regular basis would be useful. That way a warning would appear but wouldn't come with the baggage of deprecation. At the moment deprecation is the only resource available, but it is a somewhat blunt hammer. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 00:36, 4 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Exactly. Thanks for doing the legwork, Aigest. <font face="Gill Sans"><font color="green">]</font>''']'''<font color="green">]</font></font> 11:33, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| == Useage of Arabic-language sources in ] == | |||
| {{od}} | |||
| I made '''mistake''' and failed to include section of the discussion talk | |||
| of the article that shows that work of Harry Hodgkinson is used to disqualify work of ]. I am not sure if it can affect this discussion, but since it is context that is propositioned to be taken in consideration, I am providing link.--] (]) 11:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :That issue has been clarified ], but as Lancaster said, you Antid ignore the others' answers and keep insisting in the same questions. Typical ] behavior. ] (]) 21:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{od}} | |||
| OK. I do not know how to conclude this discussion, since this is first time I am participating in some discussion here. Till now we had three users that had opinion that above mentioned source is reliable: | |||
| # ] | |||
| # ] | |||
| # ] | |||
| and we had other users that did not had opinion that mentioned source is reliable: | |||
| # ] | |||
| # ] | |||
| # ] | |||
| # ] | |||
| This thread is opened at the request of @] following the dispute between me and @] in ] on the multiple issues regarding that article. | |||
| What is conclusion of this discussion? Is it too early to make conclusion that no consensus has been made?--] (]) 11:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :OK, if you want to try to get people voting, then if I had to choose I'd say keep. So I accept where you've pigeon-holed me. I say this also after noting your latest diffs, which are about a 19th century scholar whose WP article is a stub you started. I also went to the talk page debate you noted as evidence and saw yet more editors noting very similar concerns about your position and apparent lack of policy-based rationale. It is starting to look like you are going to keep asking the same questions, ignoring the answers, until someone gives the answer you want. I fail to see any major RS concern here of a type serious enough to raise concerns about the material being cited.--] (]) 20:53, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| OK. Thanks for your input, it is appreciated, and sorry about the conversation turning down unfruitful paths, since this is first time I am participating in some discussion here. Next time I will try to avoid lack of policy-based rationale. --] (]) 21:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Coming in on this late, but it seems to me the list provided shows experts in the field consider this to be a reliable source. Abulafia is not a co-author, he wrote the introduction. Cooper and Destani are not co-authors, they are editors. Almost everything listed as being sourced by this work is in no way controversial.] (]) 14:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC)<br /> | |||
| ::Too much fuss about a man who writes for passtime. Prof. Oliver Schmitt put it in a more lughable way, talking about "''british secret agents of 2nd WW (H.Hodgkinson), who did not check any archive''." Needless to say that Schmitt didn't count H.H. as a source. (in Oliver J. Schmitt: Der neue Alexander auf dem Balkan, p. 8.).--] (]) 12:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC) {{spa|Exodic2}} | |||
| I have translated the article from both the Arabic (My native language) and Portuguese (Using a translator) articles to try and include both POVs of the battle. Javext claims that the sources that I've used are completely unreliable and shouldn't be used on the article because he claims that:<br> | |||
| == Use of thenewamerican.com == | |||
| 1. The academic backgrounds of the writers of those sources are unknown (keeping in mind that they were written by Yemenis who have limited internet access), and<br> | |||
| 2. {{tq|1=Yemeni state-controlled media outlets}} wrote them (also keeping in mind that Yemen is a poor and fractured state without any budget to have "state-controlled media outlets") | |||
| Now, Javext has removed all the sources and text that they support from the article and used other sources (some of which I find no problems with using, although they provide little context compared to the other sources) and kept the sources that I've brought when I translated the Portuguese article. | |||
| Hi. In reverting an editor wanting to alter the consensus-based, well-sourced lede of the ], I've found that he's been updating references that are to , referred to here at RSN only recently as the propaganda arm of the John Birch Society. And so I've seen for how many articles this site has been used as a reference. Here are the user contributions: ]. He hasn't been putting all of them in himself - at least some have been used inadvertently by other editors. I don't want to go through and remove them, as I've just been in a minor (2RR) revert war with this particular editor. What do other people think? thenewamerican isn't RS.] (]) 05:44, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :The New American is published by the JBS. It is, of course, not a RS. --] (]) 08:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ]: This is the version of the article that has the Arabic sources and is the version that I want to keep and then expand with other sources that both I and Jav has used. <br> | |||
| :Publications of advocacy groups may meet RS, but are generally cited with attribution. For instance, the ACLU, NRA, SPLC, ADL, and EFF are often cited for their points of view on subjects where their views are notable. I don't see any reason why an established organization like the John Birch Society couldn't be cited in that fashion. ] (]) 03:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ]: This is the version that Jav wants to keep | |||
| :: heh. I really wouldn't compare the ACLU with JBS in terms of notability! I think I didn't state my request clearly: I think these uses of newamerican are not justified in terms of "the JBS" said, they are used as if it was mainstream media, like an ordinary newspaper - not as the opinion of the JBS. But as I have been reverting this user, I was reluctant to start chasing round and removing the material from articles myself.] (]) 04:16, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::No, I wouldn't use it like a mainstream newspaper, but I could see using it on topics like the anticommunist movement or places where a "hard" right-wing or producerist opinion would be warranted. ] (]) 04:25, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::But see ] - about a leftwing coalition, where it is being used to cite statements about what the group has said. Somehow I don't see it a reliable source, and it does look as though some of these links may be there more to push the organisation/publication than for any other reason. ] (]) 15:06, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::This seems to be a case of REFIMPROVE. I still think The New American is permissible, but some of the figures could be cited to the Denver Post. ] (]) 01:01, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Sources used by the version that I want to keep (I have run them through Google Translate's website translator for yall to understand): | |||
| == Questionable master's thesis? == | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * (This one doesn't want to get translated using the website translator but it gets translated if you right-click and press "Translate to English" on chrome) | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| Extra source that I want to use after the dispute is resolved: | |||
| * | |||
| ''']]''' 15:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I can't speak directly to the content dispute but none of the links you posted are wiki-appropriate sources. They're amateur essays. Please use academic publications instead. If you can't find a reliable source that supports your viewpoint, that viewpoint doesn't belong on Misplaced Pages. ] (]) 22:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| A graduate thesis is being used in the article ] (an internet slang term). Since I deleted the other sources which were clearly ] (urban dictionary, etc.), this thesis now remains as the sole source. | |||
| ::There are contemporary Arabic-language descriptions of this battle, and I would expect appropriate sources to engage with them directly. One is translated into English by R. B. Serjeant in ''The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast'' (1963), pp. 52-53, and compare note by C. F. Buckingham at ibid., pp. 171-172, citing Portuguese records. also seems to be a relevant document. ] (]) 23:08, 6 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::{{tq|1=There are contemporary Arabic-language descriptions of this battle}}<br>]?<br>{{tq|1=citing Portuguese records}}<br>That is one of the things that we were discussing in the dispute. We have enough Portuguese POV in Jav's revision. Plus did you see what the sources were citing in the revisions above ''']]''' 07:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Yes, that's why I didn't say "cite these contemporary descriptions" but "expect appropriate sources to engage with them". If you want to account for non-Portuguese perception, the way to do it is find sources that discuss contemporary Arabic descriptions, not use modern amateur essays based on nothing. ] (]) 14:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::One example of another secondary source comparing the accounts (after C. F. Buckingham) is Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (1997). ''The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama''. pp. 290-291. () ] (]) 17:06, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::GordonGlottal, why do you think that? They look to be published sources at least.--] (]) 07:34, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::The independent arabia source cites a historian's account. Does that still count as unreliable?''']]''' 15:58, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::This is definitely the strongest source, I didn't see that you'd added it. ''The Independent'' is a solid newspaper, but specialist, technical sources are a requirement for this kind of disputed claim. I don't know who Bamousa is and google just turns up mentions of his education activism and participation in a literary society—can you find out anything about him? The basic thing is that there needs to be evidence, or a source saying it that we can assume would not be saying it without evidence. If there isn't any evidence there could still be a "modern legend" section based on these sources, I think, because it is interesting how the event is being discussed. ] (]) 17:14, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::I tried searching for info about him online but there is limited info about him as Yemen doesn't have the best internet and the guy is really old to care about posting about himself online (Apparently he had been documenting the history there since the ] was a thing according to a Facebook post made by a high school that he attended).{{efn|Machine translation: Mr. Mohammed Omar Bamusa, a native of Al-Shahr and a graduate of the third class of Al-Mukalla High School for Boys (now Bin Shihab High School for Boys)<br>High School Flags<br>Tuesday, September 17, 2024<br>After years of parting, Abu Bakr Bin Shihab High School for Boys in Mukalla embraced Mr. Mohammed Omar Bamoussa, who graduated on the educational ladder for years and is now at the age of retirement. He visited the high school and in his gaze with passion and love for the past years, he climbed the stairs of the high school to the second floor to the office of the principal Mr. Saeed Ahmed Al-Amari, who welcomed him warmly and said that this visit gave us a boost and moral support, and the visit for Mr. Bamoussa was to ask about the old administrators, services and guards who were who were in the period of the sixties and seventies, but unfortunately the administration could not answer this and invites everyone who has information about them to raise it quickly, as Mr. Bamoussa has been working for years on writing a book about the beginning of education in Hadramawt since the time of the Qaitian Sultanate in the sixties and the beginning of the seventies, and he made a very important statement that the first principal of the high school is Mr. Karama Bammin from Tarim and then came after him Mr. Al-Sudani Al-Taloudi and this was a surprise for us and he confirmed this in his book that will see the light after completion of it.<br>May God prolong his life and give him health and wellness to provide us with important information about the history of education in Hadramawt.<br>The high school administration thanks Mr. Mohammed Bamoussi for this visit and this effort exerted by him for this wonderful work, and wishes the officials in the Ministry of Education, the governorate office and the local authority to adopt such people who raise the slogan of education and the slogan of Hadramawt, the land of science, knowledge and culture.}} He is cited by multiple Arabic language sources, like the Independent (ofc) and al-Ayyam Aden (linked above), and is mentioned in others . He also published a book about the city of Shihr . He was also visited by the minister of education of Yemen in 2023 {{pb}}{{talkreflist|group=lower-alpha}} ''']]''' 19:13, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Yeah basically, I don't see this as proof of anything. I've had a few other conversations on here about whether it's valid to include something based on an academic commenting to a reporter, and it just doesn't seem like a reliable genre of source. Even if Bamousa turned out to have sterling credentials. One of the problems is that the comment is often well outside the expert's field of expertise. Reporters don't want to call 1,000 different sources for each niche subject, so they rely on a small number of people who are willing to comment on almost anything, and these academics, who might be ultra-rigorous in another context, just regurgitate the same loose thinking anyone else would. Bamousa is a local retiree who is very active in the literary society and wrote a biography of a 20th-century bureaucrat/writer, but he probably doesn't know any more about 16th-century history than anyone else. If there's some proof of this narrative, it should be possible to find someone referencing it directly. Those references may exist but not be digitized, which is frustrating, but until one is found I think the page has to treat the contemporary evidence we do have as definitive.] (]) 22:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Uh huh sure, but cant we use those sources for sections on the article that aren't related to the events of the battle, like the ] ] and ] sections? After all, some information that is still in the infobox was sourced from those sources. I have also found a book about the history of the city can it be used? (Hijri dates are used in that book) ''']]''' 07:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::I don't know anything about these publications. Judging from the material itself, the authors do not possess any level of technical expertise and are not basing their judgements either on any form of evidence, or on any previously published scholarship. ] (]) 14:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I have been really busy these last few days and wasn't able to respond to Abo Yemen. Thank you for your participation in this debate. ] (]) 22:21, 7 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::@] If you're able, I think it would be a great contribution if you could copy out and translate whatever description is in , which is the only primary source I could find, and then put it in a quote box or etc. as appropriate for a primary source. I know the letter contains relevant info from but it doesn't seem to have been published anywhere and I don't read even modern Portuguese. It's probably just a few words but we may get lucky! ] (]) 00:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Hi, @]. Unfortunately I am not able to translate the letter itself, since it is very difficult to even understand which words were used, I can only go by the catalog description you gave, which translated into English looks like this: | |||
| ::::::"Number 41 - Letter from Henrique de Macedo to the King, written from Goa on October 22, 1523, states his services in India , his campaign with D. Luis to the strait, capturing Al-Shihr, and how important it would be to conquer Diu." ] (]) 15:55, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::{{tq|1=capturing Al-Shihr}}<br>hm didn't you say the goal was just to sack the city and go? ''']]''' 16:32, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::I said it was a strong possibility, considering that it was very normal for those types of Portuguese actions of piracy against Muslim coastal cities and the fact that Al-Shihr was a very common spot for the Portuguese to plunder. | |||
| ::::::::I also stated that if there was a reliable source that stated otherwise, I would accept it. ] (]) 20:56, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Well now we know that this isn't the case and the portuguese had failed to capture the city ''']]''' 05:30, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::Source? If you are going to send those Arabic amateur essays please don't even bother responding. ] (]) 15:17, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::{{outdent|8}} {{tq|1="Number 41 - Letter from Henrique de Macedo to the King, written from Goa on October 22, 1523, states his services in India, his campaign with D. Luis to the strait, '''capturing Al-Shihr''',}} (Never happened btw) {{tq|1= and how important it would be to conquer Diu."}}<br> ''']]''' 15:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::"Never happened" isn't actually a source. Just a reminder that because they captured the city doesn't mean they retained it. ] (]) 15:35, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::You cannot prove something that didn't happen. Do you have any source saying that they captured the city? ''']]''' 15:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::All of your sources said that they sacked the city, but nothing about capturing it was mentioned ''']]''' 15:44, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Yes, I do. The Portuguese captured the city and sacked it. Once again, this doesn't mean they retained it. ] (]) 18:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::capturing a city != sacking it <br>your initial sources said nothing about the Navy capturing the city but the letters say that they captured it. Something must be wrong here ''']]''' 18:45, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Once a gain they captured the city and THEN sacked it. Keep in mind that doesn't mean they kept control of it. I am not going to repeat this again. ] (]) 00:07, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Now show me where in your sources does it say that ''']]''' 06:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::You were just denying that this happened after I showed you the sources, why are you asking this now? Didn't I just give them above? ] (]) 19:19, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::{{outdent|7}} What sources about capturing a city did you show me? Those letters clearly show that the portuguese wanted to capture the city and they failed as we have no proof of them being there after the battle was over. But did they lie to whoever they sent this letter to? ''']]''' 07:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Look bro, the letter doesn't state they failed, it states the Portuguese captured the city and then sacked it. For the fourth time, this DOES NOT mean they retained control of the city. ] (]) 19:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Jacobin == | |||
| My first reaction was "Wow, somebody spent their entire grad school career browsing ] and ], and then he managed to pass it off as an MS thesis?" This reaction alone makes me biased in reviewing this reference, so I don't want to delete or modify it based on my own opinions. I thought it might be an elaborate ] attempt hosted on student webspace at the university, but it checks out as a genuine ] publication, albeit a surprising one to me. My understanding of a published student thesis is that they are acceptable on their specific topic and then should be used sparingly on other, related topics when alternatives cannot be found. In this case though, the nature of the subject makes it seem less reliable to me - whereas most theses are completed under ostensibly close supervision of the committee, it's a little hard to imagine such supervision producing content like this: | |||
| :''One example of Anonymous trolling involved sending particularly inflammatory messages to the messageboard of The Oprah Winfrey Show...The apparent misreading of the post by Oprah led to many members of Anonymous re-appropriating the clip, re-mixing the audio with music or using the image of Oprah in the episode and mixing it with other elements familiar to Anonymous such as the “Over 9000” meme and the “pedobear” meme.'' | |||
| :(The entire section is unsourced, but followed by an image macro which is also unsourced.) | |||
| Two questions, first does the questionable academic value of this thesis make it unacceptable? Obviously I don't think too much of it, considering 4chan itself and various anonymous posters are cited by post number as part of the references - though it does contain legit sources as well. However I don't want to remove it simply because of my personal thoughts on the quality. If this were a book by a reliable publisher, it would be acceptable no matter how "bad" it is, and the fact that four Ga Tech professors accepted it certainly establishes an editorial process...still, well, it's a thesis about memes. | |||
| Jacobin is currently listed as "generally reliable" under ]. ] (]) 08:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Second question, even if this ref is acceptable, is it enough on its own to establish ] for the article? The subject of the article (facepalm) actually occurs as an unsourced footnote within the thesis in question. In other words, the information came from the student's own general knowledge (presumably from browsing the aforementioned websites). Personally I think that is inadequate to establish third-party coverage, but I'm just a lowly IP and some moderators seem to disagree strongly about this so I'd like to hear what others' think. ] (]) 16:07, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :: |
:Addendum: I think {{noping|The wub}} sums up my thoughts well. {{tq|It's good that this was later corrected, but it's such a blatant error that should never have made it through a decent editorial process in the first place.}} ] (]) 02:55, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | ||
| :::Doctoral dissertations are acceptable once they are published. It is unfinished dissertations that are not allowed. See ]. | |||
| ::::And when the dissertation is published, the reliability is a function of the academic journal in which it is published, not on the fact of it being a dissertation. ] (]) 18:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Most doctoral dissertations aren't published in academic journals, but by UMI, as stated in that section I linked to. ] (]) 18:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::As far as a masters thesis, it conceivably could be used as per the above guideline as long as it has been published. MA theses--even unpublished ones--at one time were routinely cited in published papers, but they are not seen as often nowadays. ] (]) 17:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::HAs it been published?] (]) 17:59, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I don't see any indication that it has been published in any publication. Georgia Institute of Technology is listed as the publisher, but that's it. ] (]) 18:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{outdent}}] is an acceptable publisher, IMO. Looking at the thesis itself, the second page lists his committee members, all of them doctorates, so it fulfills the requirement of being vetted by the academic community. For the purpose of this article, I would say it is ]. Whether the topic is notable or not is a different question altogether. ] (]) 18:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Respectfully, I disagree. In the US, IME, a thesis is usually only a local publication, and the committee that approves it does so in the limited context of passing it as one requirement for completion of the degree. Mine sits in my uni's library, and a copy is in the department's library if the shelf hasn't gotten too full. It is far from an equivalent to publication in a peer reviewed journal. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 00:33, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Masters and doctoral theses are both published "locally", yet doctoral dissertations (also just one of several requirements for completion of the degree) are acceptable once they are published in that manner. MA theses are available in the same place PhD theses are: ] (you remember that fee you had to pay them, right?), and neither of them are published in a peer-reviewed journal unless the recipient revises it and goes through the publication process. | |||
| :::::::And as ] states, "The term 'published' is most commonly associated with text materials, either in traditional printed format or online", which means that when read in context with the rest of ] an online publication by a reliable source (in this case ]) is an acceptable source as long as it meets the rest of the criteria. The policy itself in that section states that the examples given are not exhaustive, and it also says that "Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process." I think in the context of this article, ] (an Internet slang term), this source is more than acceptable. For an article on, say, ]? No, but Misplaced Pages policies encourage us to use common sense and editorial judgement, and IMO that is what is needed here. | |||
| :::::::And again, that has no bearing on whether the topic is notable enough to have its own article. If it were up to me I'd have to say no to that question. ] (]) 01:16, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *"does the questionable academic value of this thesis make it unacceptable" Misplaced Pages editors are not practicing sociologists, cultural studies academics, or anthropologists while they are editors. We rely upon the institution (GIT, a research intensive institution) and the proof of acceptance (yup, it was accepted). However, definitionally, Masters Theses are not original scholarly contributions to knowledge. They aren't held to that standard. I would be very reluctant to allow a Masters thesis be used to establish notability. Additionally the discussion on "published" status is a bit septic. Publication covers two things, "Has the work been reviewed by an external body prior to publication, such as by editors or by peer reviewers?" Yes, it was assessed by a scholarly committe. "Is the work available for consultation?" In this case yes. Not useful for establishing the notability of facepalms, really. ] (]) 01:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :*@Tom Reedy, "you remember that fee you had to pay them, right?" No, as a matter of fact, because I didn't, and they don't have my thesis, as far as I know. I just looked for it, and can't find it via proquest. At my uni, paying that fee was required for the dissertation, but not the thesis. Please note that ] mentions dissertations, but not master theses, and notes that dissertation are cited often in other scholarly works. Theses, generally, are not. Also, I looked up the author and the title of the thesis in question on proquest, and no joy. Have you verified that the thesis has been published by UMI, and if so, can you provide a link to same? Also, if you believe the subject isn't notable, why argue for reliability of the source? If there's significant coverage in reliable sources, GNG is met. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 02:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::*Can you explain your distinction between "dissertation" and "thesis" which is not present in my academic system? ] (]) 02:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{outdent}}Why am I arguing? Because it's an interesting topic, it's not simple, and I want to find out. (IMO Wikipedians need to get back to the Socratic idea of argument instead of the in-your-face toxic idea that arguments are only to convince someone that your side is right and theirs is wrong.) Also back before a PhD was required for being a custodian plenty of respected and widely-published scholars held only an MA (also the fact that I only have an MA myself might be an unconscious motivation!). | |||
| :There are definitely issues with Jacobin, and a reevaluation of its reliability is probably going to come sooner or later. I don't think a Reddit page full of amateur pundits, who are in turn discussing another social media discussion, is going to give us anything meaningful to work with. ] (]) 08:15, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| But as I suspected, this topic has been , and . It appears to me that the consensus is that a masters theses should be avoided if there is any other source, but that on some occasions they can be used with great care when they are recognized within the field as reliable sources. I doubt this one meets that standard. As far as PhD dissertations, they are specifically allowed by ] policy. (And the difference in usage is that of geography: In the U.S. a thesis is written for an MA and a dissertation for a PhD; in the UK it's usually the opposite.) ] (]) 03:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Not a good look, but I will note that the says at the bottom: {{tpq|q=y|Correction: An earlier version of this article overstated the amount of US housing stock that Blackstone owns.}} So far as I can tell, the sentence in question is removed from the current version of the article entirely. --] (]) 08:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::That would indicate, notwithstanding snark on Twitter, the website for snark, Jacobin actually did the thing we expect of a reliable source and made a correction to an article with a factual error, identifying with a correction notice that a correction had been made. ] (]) 14:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I think this justifies a significant increase in caution towards the author at the very least. In general, an in-depth look at it's reliability is probably due, even though a Reddit discussion isn't evidence. ] (]) 08:44, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :It's strange that it was closed as 'generally reliable' in the first place, when most respondents voted either 'no consensus' or 'generally unreliable' in the last RFC. ] (]) 10:20, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :: Had a quick perusal of the r/neoliberal subreddit. It appears to be discussing one sentence in one (possibly opinion) article in Jacobin. Are you asking whether that particular article is a reliable source for that one sentence? ] (]) 10:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Just as an aside, RFCs are ] (if they were then reliability would be based on the personal opinions of those taking part). I can't speak for the closer of that RFC, but it appears those saying that Jacobin is 'general reliable' had better policy based reasons. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 14:20, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Sources making corrections, as has happened in this case, is a sign of reliability. Things that happen on social media, and reactions on social media, are mostly irrelevant. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 14:14, 8 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :The ] that supposedly found ''Jacobin'' to be reliable really is a bit of a tenuous close. A simple beancount in that RfC would lean against treating it as ], and I'm not really able to discern ''why'' the arguments for reliability were so much stronger than those in opposition that an affirmative Option 1 consensus was declared instead of a no-consensus close (at minimum). I do think that it's ripe for re-evaluation. — ] <sub>]</sub> 19:51, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :The author's behavior would be annoying if we were chatting at lunch and I personally dislike the smugness, but reliability isn't a personality contest, and as Simonm223 points out the article itself was corrected and the erroneous information removed. That's basically what we expect a reliable source to do—fix itself when an error gets pointed out. So long as the actual content produced is dependable or gets fixed to become dependable, that's reliability. Anonymous Reddit complaints trying to score Internet points aren't a compelling reason for overturning the prior RfC. Evidence of a pattern of unreliable reporting and ''failures'' to make corrections would be more persuasive. ] (] | ] | ]) 03:45, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Oppose changing the status per Simonm223 and Hydrangeans. I don't personally love Jacobin, I find their opinion pieces are hit or miss, but I haven't seen it demonstrated that they have poor editorial practices or long-standing issues with factual accuracy. It is not surprising that a reddit community consisting entirely of people from a different political leaning would dislike them, and a social media post reacting to another social media post of one author being mildly annoying doesn't meet my bar for evidence that the publication is not reliable. And as others have mentioned, making corrections when errors are pointed out is what we expect from a reliable outlet, not never making errors in the first place. <b style="font-family:Trebuchet MS">]]</b> ] 15:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::As a tangential sidenote, the "reddit community" tends to be far-left leaning, and would more inclined to agree with or love Jacobin than to criticize the outlet in any way. ] (]) 15:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Even if correct this is irrelevant. ] (]) 15:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Fair enough. As I said, "a tangential sidenote"... ] (]) 15:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Reddit is a fragmented website full of insular communities. That "r/neoliberal", a community of self described neoliberals, would criticize an outlet with a different leaning, is unsurprising and holds no weight in this discussion. We don't go off of what social media is saying when making these decisions. | |||
| :::Respectfully, I think a fresh RfC should be started ''after'' someone has something demonstrating a pattern of editorial malpractice, disregard for fact, or a worrying blurring of the lines between op-eds and normal articles leading to a failure to accurately present information. We don't derank sources just for having biases, objectivity and neutrality are two different things. | |||
| :::Anyways, I'm not opposed to ever doing an RfC, I just expect at a bare minimum that we have something to go off of so it doesn't just end up being a discussion in which editors !vote based on how they feel about the outlet until some poor soul has to sacrifice their time reading through everything to close the discussion. | |||
| :::<b style="font-family:Trebuchet MS">]]</b> ] 15:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::This has already been demonstrated by @] and others about their egregious error and then attacking those who pointed out they got things wrong. That is enough to start an RfC. If the RfC holds that they should not change, then so be it. ] (]) 15:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| I don't think reviewing this again is going to change anything much, the "worst" outcome is likely a 2, but because it often mixes news and opinion, even a 1 is going to be caveated with caution or attribute, so absent falsehoods, etc might as well let sleeping dogs lie. ] (]) 20:04, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * I think it is time for a review of the past discussion and time to bring up Jacobin for a reliability check. ] (]) 03:29, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:I don't hold Jacobin in any particular high regard but, as I mentioned above, publicly issuing a statement of correction when a factual inaccuracy is identified is the standard Misplaced Pages expects from reliable news media. So I guess my question is, aside from it having a bias that is different from the NYT / WaPo pro-capitalism consensus, what, precisely, is it that makes Jacobin less reliable? What is the basis for an RfC? ] (]) 17:36, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::What does "NYT / WaPo pro-capitalism consensus" mean? ] (]) 21:22, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * It looks like they handled this appropriately, can you explain what the issue would be? Your comment is a little light on details, its basically just spamming a reddit discussion... Maybe tell us what you think? ] (]) 17:41, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Yeah, the standard has never been "makes no mistakes". If they made a mistake and then corrected it that's exactly what we expect of a reliable source. ] (]) 16:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| A new discussion on Jacobin is long overdue, particularly per ]. It's clear that Jacobin is not reliable on all topics, and at the very least additional considerations should apply in these cases. --] (]) 23:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :A master's thesis is pretty much on the edge of RS. They might be useful to cite on subjects that are highly technical and matter-of-fact, or in pop-culture articles where sourcing is thin. But it provides only a weak claim to notability. I'd treat it almost like a primary source, OK for non-contentious facts, but not enough to establish notability. ] (]) 04:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :: I would say that while some Master's Theses are undoubtedly fine works, the oversight process at least as far as I am familiar with it in the UK context, is not strict enough for silly opinions or syntheses to be struck out in the final version. People can pass with a poor thesis that doesn't drag them down into failing. There isn't typically the formal reiterative process of ], outside independent input, followed by revisions, followed by a further submission and so on, which tips PhDs, in my view (and depending on the country) over the line in terms of RS. (Meaning I think they're useable if there is nothing better available). On the other hand, I think Masters' Theses can provide excellent bibliographies. Is there nothing in the thesis you could raid for use here? ] (]) 04:13, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::First, thanks to all users who responded, the discourse was very helpful. Personally, I don't really care if an article like ] exists or not, but I do care about what the acceptance of certain sources ''says'' about the quality of the encyclopedia as a whole. It's not my wish to personally attack the student that wrote the thesis either. (If it were my university I'd probably voice my concern regarding the acceptance of such a thesis, but it isn't, and I'm not -- after all some departments will give you a thesis for ].) | |||
| :::The real issue seems to be the context of ''how'' the thesis is used. In this case, ] cites a footnote placed in the thesis, in which the student explains the slang term for the committee faculty (who are, presumably, unaware of the term's meaning). While I'm not arguing the "truth" of this statement, I am questioning the ] since there is neither demonstration of independent research nor sources cited for the author's claim in this case. In other words, the author simply stated it ] as a point of clarification. Other types of publications could rely upon the author's own knowledge and the presumption that the author is an expert in his/her field, but '''by definition''' that is not yet the case for a student writing a thesis as a degree requirement. | |||
| :::Regarding ]'s question: The only part of the thesis which has anything to do with the article in question is aforementioned footnote, and again it was given without any explanation of where it comes from. In the article in question, there were two moderators who seemed keen on stopping the article from being deleted, despite a positive vote in the RFD - and this thesis is the only thing keeping that article alive. For me, a lowly IP, to delete the reference without some consensus on the source's acceptability would be stepping on their toes. ]. :) | |||
| :::Let me put forward as a consensus that a thesis for an M.S. degree is acceptable in some cases where (a)it is needed to support an important point, (b)no suitable alternatives can be found, and (c)the methods and results leading to the specific conclusion for which the thesis is cited are clearly stated. Because of this specific instance not meeting criterion (c), the thesis is not an acceptable source ''for this particular subject''. It seems like the takeaway from this discussion regarding the article in question, but if someone feels I'm in error please say so. ] (]) 04:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I'm a bit late with this, but see ]. Also (out of purview here), ] says, " for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability", and "Multiple sources are generally expected", with clarifying footnotes there. ] ] <small>(earlier ''Boracay Bill'')</small> 05:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I have marked some absolutely rubbish Masters theses. One problem is, what is a Masters thesis? In the UK it can be a relatively short paper done at the end of a taught course, where the grade is mainly based on an examination. I'd say that unless it has been cited multiple times in reliable sources it shouldn't be used. In this specific case, it appears that either a thesis or project work is 1/6th of the credits required for this 2 year degree. ] (]) 07:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Yes, and it looks like we might need to reword the relevant policy. I'm in the southeastern US, and my experience is that the masters thesis is primarily a demonstration of the candidate's potential to complete a doctoral dissertation. I would suggest that one requirement for use as a source under ] would be that the paper in question be published fairly widely, for example, be available via Proquest, or in multiple libraries. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 12:13, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I agree the policy needs to be made clearer, especially since this question seems to be an evergreen on the noticeboard. If I had to choose between an outright ban on using MA theses or allowing them all, right now I lean toward a ban. ] (]) 13:15, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Agree. Only rarely to be regarded as reliable sources. We can make an exception if there is evidence that the thesis has been referred to by other scholars. ] (]) 13:57, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Thanks all. It sounds like there are instances where it could be used sparingly, but in a case like this where the quality is more like an ED article than a scholarly work, it is a definite no. ] (]) 16:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Agreed. ] (]) 23:21, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| {{outdent}} | |||
| ::An RfC next would be worthwhile. ] (]) 23:23, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| For anyone interested, I have proposed a wording change in the scholarship section, see ]. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 18:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::Agreed. It's good that this was later corrected, but it's such a blatant error that should never have made it through a decent editorial process in the first place. There's even a (less serious) error in the next sentence: ] hasn't existed in 6 years. Combined with the past concerns and the borderline result of the past RfC, it's time for a discussion whether "generally reliable" is still a fair assessment. ] ] 17:20, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I'd say the idea of a masters thesis being an RS should remain a gray area, and should be decided on a case-by-case basis. ] (]) 11:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::All good points! ] (]) 17:49, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Jacobin is a far left news and analysis site, and adds opinion and commentary in their articles. I consider sites like this on the right and left not too far removed from activists, and thus should be ignored. It is popular among left leaning people on twitter, reddit, and elsewhere but we should not confuse social media popularity for it being a valid source. We should trim these low quality heavily opinionated pages and rely upon high quality sources such as Associated Press and so forth. Secondly, they aren't particularity useful as anything they're going to cover will be covered by other proper news sources. ] (]) 23:35, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :You're entitled to favor political moderation as a personal opinion, but to use this as a measure of reliability is a fallacious ], reliant on assuming that truth always lies in or comes from the 'middle' of purported 'opposites'. While Misplaced Pages articles must adhere to a ], our ] is explicit that {{tq|reliable sources are not required to be neutral}}. To use political perspective (such as the ''Jacobin'' magazine's economic leftism) as a reason for doubt reliability depends on providing evidence that the bias somehow distorts its coverage and causes inaccuracies. ] (] | ] | ]) 02:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::It does appear that, failing to find many cases where Jacobin has not corrected an identified error in one of its articles, that the people asking for a new RFC want to prosecute it for being too left-wing. ] (]) 13:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::I disagree, but an RfC should be started at this point and if there is consensus support for no change to their status then there is consensus support for no change to their status. ] (]) 20:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::], so starting one should be done for good reason. ''Jacobin'' having made ''and corrected'' an error doesn't strike me as a very good reason. ] (] | ] | ]) 00:03, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I read in the last close information presented by @] that it was in fact a problematic close which moved Jacobin from Yellow (its prior state) to Green. I mistakenly was just commenting on that, then self-reverted, but I think that we should also remember ] and not delay a necessary discussion just because it may be "time intensive" for those interested in improving the source reliability determinations that this encyclopedia relies upon. ] (]) 00:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::You're omitting the concerns above about blending of fact and opinion, which is a major aspect of what we consider reliable. Also, heavily partisan sources that engage in advocacy are usually marked as "additional considerations apply" (yellow on ]). And this isn't the only discussion that has brought up issues. You can also see the concerns raised ] and in multiple discussions where concerns have been brought up since then. ] (]) 00:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::If nothing else, it has been several years and so timewise it seems prudent to revisit those and establish a larger and more thorough ]. ] (]) 00:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::OP here, my main concern is not that it was not corrected, but that the error was published in the first place. It's good that it was finally corrected, but "a single company controlling a third of housing stock in the United States" is such a contentious claim that it should never have been published in the first place. ] (]) 03:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::That is true, and a serious knock against their reliability when the claim is that egregiously false. ] (]) 16:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::This seems like flogging a dead horse, open the RFC if desired, although as I said above, absent compelling evidence, I don't think things are going to change that much, perhaps green to yellow but it is kinda yellow already because of the well known news/opinion mixing. ] (]) 16:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Yeah. I'm usually pretty critical of news sources - including left wing ones (see, for example, the thread here about Mint Press) - and even I am not really seeing Jacobin as being any worse than any other news site that Misplaced Pages calls reliable. ] (]) ] (]) 12:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Strong bias combined with such egregiously bad fact checking is not a good look. Given the questionable close of the previous RfC a new RfC seems like a good idea. I don't see the source as moving below yellow but it's current green status is really hard to justify. Of course, this might be as much an indictment of the simplistic G/Y/R system we use at RSP as anything else. I'm sure Jacobian gets some facts right just as Fox News gets a lot of political facts right. When it comes to Jacobin the better question should be, if Jacobin is the source, should even a true fact have weight? Regardless, I think this answer here is new RfC or just add this discussion to the RSP list and move on. ] (]) 13:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Except that's not what has been demonstated. Journalists make mistakes. The standard Misplaced Pages looks for is that the outlet corrects these mistakes, ''which was demonstrated even by the original complainant.'' | |||
| ::::::::And do note that, yet again, and I have lost count of how many times I've had to mention this to people upset about Misplaced Pages giving the time of day to sources to the left of Ronald Reagan, ''bias is not a reliability issue as long as that bias does not become a locus of disinformation.'' This has not been demonstrated. Please do try to cleave to policy based justifications for reliable source assessment. ] (]) 13:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Making such an error in the first place isn't good even if they correct it after trying to publicly shame a person who pointed out the obvious error. Your prescription about left of Regean is an odd tangent. Bias doesn't inherently mean the facts will be wrong. However it does open questions of how much weight a biased source should be given, especially when dealing with subjective characterizations or according the source's analysis of facts. ] (]) 14:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::I agree with Springee that, "{{tq|I don't see the source as moving below yellow but it's current green status is really hard to justify.}}" Given the egregious nature of their attack on those who noted their mistake, even a correction shows that the publication is much more of a propaganda shop and less of an actual journalistic organization with journalistic integrity or standards. ] (]) 14:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::And therefore an RfC is beyond warranted. Who would then start that? ] (]) 14:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::If an RFC is started can I ask that it be done in a separate section. The board is overloaded at the moment due to the Heritage Foundation discussion. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 15:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::::Can you clarify what you are asking for me? There are many other RfC's ongoing beyond Heritage Foundation. ] (]) 15:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::::Sorry I didn't mean to direct the comment at you specifically. The HF RFC contains over 2/5th of all the words currently on the noticeboard, all the other RFCs are tiny in comparison. If an RFC for Jacobin is started in a new section then this prior discussion can be archived without having to weight a month, or more, for the RFC to close.<br>You can see how large each discussion is in the header on the noticeboards talk page. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 16:15, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::::::without having to "wait" I assume you meant. ;) | |||
| :::::::::::::::And this makes sense thanks. ] (]) 16:33, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::::::Lol, thinking about two discussions at the same time. Wait and weight swapped in my mind -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 16:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::{{tq|Given the egregious nature of their attack on those who noted their mistake}} — A writer being annoying on social media, then making the necessary corrections anyways, is not fundamentally different from a writer being nice on social media and then making the same corrections. We don't assess how personable the staff is. <b style="font-family:Trebuchet MS">]]</b> ] 16:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| {{outdent}} | {{outdent}} | ||
| This discussion has really dragged on, especially for something that was prompted by a reddit thread related to one sentence in what appears to be an opinion article. Are editors aware that we have whole articles on ], ] and ] etc? Have editors been following the deconstruction provided by social media users of corporate media coverage of the assault on Gaza? Are editors aware that the BBC employs Raffi Berg, a former CIA propaganda unit employee with Mossad connections, to head its Middle East desk and whose "entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel"? What about when an IDF embedded CNN reporter visited Rantisi Children’s Hospital with an IDF minder and swallowed the minder's claim about a roster of Hamas members watching over Israeli captives? The document was actually a calendar, with days of the week written in Arabic. Sorry to go off on a tangent but some perspective is needed and, in the scheme of things, a reddit thread is hardly cause for starting an RFC about reliability. ] (]) 16:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Look at the thesis in question. It's a thesis about the online group Anonymous and theories of how memes work. It only mentions the "facepalm" meme in passing, one sentence in a footnote. It certainly doesn't confer notability on the "facepalm" meme, but it might make a good ] on our article on Anonymous. I thought the thesis was pretty decent, and it cited quite a few scholarly articles on memes and RS reports about the group; it did cite a few websites as primary sources but that's what research is. | |||
| I would also say that while I don't agree with the removal of the primary sources from ], it is not notable and should be merged to a article on memes, an article on emoticons, or even an article on body language. | |||
| It's not often we would use a masters thesis as a source. I couldn't see using them for something like history or theoretical science. However, I could see using one for uncontroversial, matter-of-fact information. For example, an engineering or business graduate student writing about a weather radar or a city's water utility will have information on how these things work, which will have been checked over by a professor. I could also see using them for literary criticism in pop-culture articles. | |||
| I've proposed in the past the idea of a "weak secondary" source to encompass, along with masters theses, certain types of citizen journalism, letters to the editor, in-house newsletters, fan-oriented zines with a volunteer "editorial board" and other situations where there is some acceptance process, and the idea of using those sources only for matter-of-fact details. | |||
| It's also possible a masters' thesis could be seen as a "budding expert" SPS, especially if it was cited by other works, or seen as a primary source about the research activities of the academic department. But it normally falls just shy of RS, and when we decide whether to use a master's thesis, we need to take into account whether it's for a controversial academic claim, or whether it's for details used to augment what's already well-cited. ] (]) 11:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :I wasn't removing primary sources as such. Yes they would be considered "primary" for the most part, but each individual source had some reliability issue that wasn't complex enough to bring here (except for the thesis). Info like this entry is a textbook case of ] and needs no lengthy discussion to remove it: | |||
| :<blockquote>Double<ref>http://www.straferight.com/photopost/data/500/medium/double-facepalm.jpg</ref> and triple<ref>http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/129092786498235257.jpg</ref> facepalms have also been observed. ]s]</blockquote> | |||
| :Just wanted to clarify that. I wasn't on a hunt to take down every source, and the article can stay up if no one is motivated to re-AFD it after it was somehow undeleted. Personally I don't care about a non-notable article but I ''do'' care about what passes for a source because that affects the quality of the encyclopedia as a whole. ] (]) 10:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| == gamasutra.com == | |||
| Is this website considered reliable, especially for BLP? It appears to have user-contributed content and to publish on an "as is" basis. I'm thinking of ], for example, for which it's the only source. ] (]) 19:25, 2 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Looking at the article for ], and the website itself, I'd say it's borderline but probably okay for reliability. Notability might be a different story, and if it were a request for deletion, I'd call Gamasutra too "fringe" and vote delete. They list the email addresses of five individuals, which probably could be considered an editorial process, but there's no way to know if every article is reviewed by more than one person (as with any fringe publication). I'd say it can be used when no alternative can be found, but if it's the only article and you've made a ] to find other sources, put up a RFD. | |||
| :Not sure what else to tell you. The article for Sweeney's company, ], is horribly under-cited; otherwise, I'd say use whatever citation that article did. As it is now, they might as well say the board of directors consists of Boba Fett, Queen Elizabeth, and Captain Morgan since there's no way to check it. Misplaced Pages articles require some 3rd-party coverage beyond a single publication for that particular industry (otherwise, every published professor and corporate executive could have his/her own wiki article). If this particular game developer isn't mentioned in something more widespread than an article in a game development industry magazine, I'd say he's ]. ] (]) 04:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :At the Video Game project, Gamasutra is considered a highly reliable source - there is editorial oversight and it is the website frontend of a major game development magazine. Mind you, whether one source is enough for notability, that's a different issue, not a question of whether the website is reliable or not. --] (]) 07:52, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::Concur with Masem on reliability of the source (I subscribe to the electronic version of the magazine). I found another article using dogpile that identifies Tim Sweeney as "co-founder of Epic Games and the brains behind every iteration of the widely licensed Unreal series of 3D game engines" , so will add that to the article. --] (]) 14:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::Yeah I had a look at it again, definitely seems more reliable on the second glance. Sometimes smaller companies will just take whoever is in the office and list them as the editorial board -- a speculation which is not feasible to investigate for a Misplaced Pages source, I know. What I don't want to see is webmasters of open sites (like mobygames but less well-known) grabbing a few emails addresses in the nearby cubicals and listing them as editors in order to improve the appearance of their product. As long as there is a legit editorial process and not just individuals doing a glorified blog (the former appears the case for Gamasutra) then it should be deemed reliable. ] (]) 10:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| == Sturmkreig article about the "Russian-Holocaust" == | |||
| This article () on Sturmkreig has information that would be useful for ]. It is well cited, uses reliable sources, (also used on our article) and is frequently monitored by Sysops, which increases the reliability of the content and reduces the vandalism risk. There should not be any reason why the information there is not reliable. | |||
| --] ] 21:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :It appears to be an open wiki and hence unreliable. In addtion, the main page states that "Sturmkreig was created as a place to tell the story of the Sturmkreig Sub-Empire, a fictional network of planets created as part of the fictional history for the 403rd Army Group, and the Tiger Legion." How could a wiki devoted to a work of fiction possibly be a RS for real life? ] (]) 21:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::Editing is restricted to registered users, and the German History (nonfiction) pages are well monitored, especially this one. As for the fiction on the site, Sturmkreig was originally created as a place for information about a futuristic Germanic civilization. Later it was decided to expand into non fiction German history, which is categorized completely separately. | |||
| ::--] ] 01:33, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::With respect, I disagree. While you are correct that it appears to be "monitored", most internet forums have some form of moderation and restrict posting to registered users - ]. In fact ] is not a reliable source, nor does it claim to be, but anonymous editing is not the only reason behind this. In the Sturmkreig Wiki, as with Misplaced Pages, there is no guarantee that anything you see has been subjected to editorial process before the reader sees it. There may be a system of monitoring of the encyclopedia, just like there is here, but there is no reasonable guarantee of fact-checking before publication which is the hallmark of a reliable source. | |||
| :::Let's say registered user "CAPTAINCAPSLOCK" makes a post about the Widget Empire that is completely ] from the user's own imagination. At some point later, administrator "revertor-5" is monitoring the pages, notices the edit without proper citation, and reverts it. What if you happen to cite that information before it was reviewed by the administrator? The result is that you would be basing Misplaced Pages content on a user's imagination. Any information published through that source is not subject to an editorial fact-checking process '''before''' it is made public, and so the source is '''not''' a reliable source for either fictional or real life articles. | |||
| :::If there are reliable sources on the Sturmkreig wiki, as ] pointed out, then why not use ''those'' sources for the article? ] (]) 02:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::The website has a permanent link feature for the pages. Here's the permanent link to the current version of the page: . If a permanent link was used, and the cited information was checked first, would that be a reliable source since it wouldn't be subject to change? | |||
| ::::--] ] 02:46, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::The bibliography for the page linked is incomplete, and of little use in finding the sources cited - no page numbers, publisher etc, it cannot be WP:RS. I'd say that if the relevant citations from Beevor and Bessel can be found, use them directly. Why go through a questionable website? ] (]) 02:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::If I could use the website, I'd be able to use brief quotes from it, which could be useful in addition to the books. | |||
| ::::::--Anonymiss Madchen ] 03:23, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Yes, but you cannot do this, for exactly the same reason you can't cite Misplaced Pages itself as a source. There is ''insufficient information'' provided on the page cited to determine it's validity, even ignoring the fact that it is a ]. It cannot be used as a reliable source in itself. Find the books. If they say what the page cited says, cite the books, with the relevant details (page numbers etc). ] (]) 03:40, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Agree. Not reliable. ] (]) 17:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Obviously not reliable. "Untermenchen"? What editorial review did that pass? Einstein is ""? is mostly copied from (and attributed to) our article ]). " is a disorder that affects most of the Germanic population. Because of Autism, Germans have been able to achieve many historic, scientific, philosophical, and artistic accomplishments"? Sorry. --] (]) 17:59, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::A wiki, much like any other. Clearly fails ]. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 07:26, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::Even less reliable than a normal wiki. Here is the main page description of that wiki: ''Sturmkreig was created as a place to tell the story of the Sturmkreig Sub-Empire, a fictional network of planets created as part of the fictional history for the 403rd Army Group, and the Tiger Legion. The wiki is also for other aspects of the Sturmkreig sub-empire.'' It's a wiki for a fictional world, not the real world. --] (]) 16:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| == Court documents == | |||
| I have used this document: submitted by the ] in a legal dispute as a source of biographical detail about said plaintiff. | |||
| The source is used to cite four items of biographical detail only, and the legal dispute is not referenced to it; the four items are: | |||
| *the museums he has worked with/in | |||
| *the fact that he spent 37 years photographing butterflies in the ] | |||
| *the number of images and species he has photographed | |||
| *that he has described over 100 new species and subspecies and several new genera | |||
| It seems to me that court documents submitted by someone constitue a ], and should be considered in that context. For example if a document is submitted to a court by John Smith saying 'I, John James Smith, born January 1st 1952 in Aruba' then that is a reliable source for that biographical information for the Misplaced Pages article about that John Smith. | |||
| I have suggested that court-submitted documents are perhaps more reliable than other self-published sources - for instance an ageing popstar might claim to be 35 on his website, whereas in court he is unlikely to lie if he is in fact 43. Whether they are more reliable or not is perhaps unimportant - the issue is they should at least be considered a perfectly good ] for an article. ] (]) 20:01, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :] is pretty unequivocal about this: "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." ] (]) 20:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::I agree. But I'm not talking about 'assertions'. | |||
| ::If I make a court submission saying 'I, John James Smith, was attacked by Fred Jones', then it would clearly be wrong to cite 'Fred Jones attacked John Smith' to that submission, because it's an unproven assertion. | |||
| ::What I am talking about here is uncontroversial biographical detail - for example the fact that John Smith's middle name is James. I do not believe such things fall under the category of 'assertions', nor indeed do my examples above. | |||
| ::And right below ] it's acknowledged that it *is* ok to use primary sources in some circumstances about the subject of the source.] (]) 20:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| : No. What someone says about themselves in a court document would not be considered a reliable source. ] (]) 20:29, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::So if I write it on my webpage it's reliable about me, but if I say it about myself in a court document it's not? Would you care to explain your logic? ] (]) 20:31, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::: "''So if I write it on my webpage it's reliable about me''" No, not necessarily. As for explaining my 'logic' - I'm not using any convoluted 'logic' that needs explaining, rather, I am simply reading the simple, plain, clear-cut language of the relevant policies. ] (]) 17:49, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::(edit conflict) The policy, as written, does not differentiate in the manner you describe, in part because what to you is uncontroversial may in fact be disputed by those on the other side of the court case. The section about self-published sources that you describe does not include court documents, which, as Nomoskedasticity, are excluded as sources in BLP. If it is important information about the man, then it will have been published by a secondary source. --] (]) 20:44, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::Indeed, someone's name and date of birth may be precisely what is in dispute, as in the case of the ]. ] (]) 21:12, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Court documents are primary sources. If the case has been covered in published secondary sources, then you can use the court documents for additional detail. One exception being accusations against another person; we would need a secondary source to mention those allegations before we could pull them from a primary. | |||
| :The idea expressed above that a court document, handled by judges and attorneys and sworn under the pains and penalties of purjury, is somehow less reliable than an off-the-cuff remark made on Twitter, is a pretty bizarre one. I understand the reason for BLPPRIMARY, and I know that we don't want Wikipedians looking up things in public-record databases that may not be the same person and so forth. | |||
| :It seems to me that the crux of this is whether a secondary source reported on the case. If that's so, then we'll know this is the right person and it's a proper use of primary sources. If no secondary sources reported on the case, then we're just fishing through raw data and BLPPRIMARY applies. ] (]) 22:54, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::The general thrust of this is correct but the issue is more than just the correct identification of the person involved. Yes, a secondary source about the case is an important criteria. However, just because the case has been mentioned by a secondary source, doesn't mean that the court documents suddenly become fully usable for pretty much anything. The policy is much more cautious, noting that the ''material'' needs to have been discussed for the primary source to ''augment'' it. From BLP: ''"Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it ''may'' be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies"''.--] (]) 23:16, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :It's best to avoid court documents, per ]. And frankly, if secondary sources haven't reported on it, it's not clear that Misplaced Pages needs to list someone's middle name either. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 07:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :@Slp1, I would say that when an RS mentions the case, the filing of the case ''is'' the material. Something like "I, Mr. P, a plumber from Peoria, am seeking damages of X for torts Y and Z." should be OK to use in an article if the case is mentioned in a secondary source. Whether that extends to every exhibit in the case and the testimony of every witness is less likely and needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. | |||
| :Also, I would suggest that an individual's court filing is both ] ''and'' ]. The sorts of things that would be allowable under SPS, like basic biographical details, would still be allowed. Filing something in a court of law does not make it less reliable than filing it on Facebook. Of course, some parts of a court claim would be too contentious to meet ], and that information would have to satisfy BLPPRIMARY. ] (]) 12:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::I think we are fairly close to holding similar views in some things. A secondary source mentioning a court case would like be summarizing the reason for the case, so yes, your plumber comment would likely be useable. However, I think ] is pretty clear that we should only augment what is in the secondary sources, not trawl through the exhibits and testimony of the case for information that has not been published elsewhere. | |||
| ::As always, it is easier to deal with specific cases. The questioner above wanted to know if a filing by the subject of a BLP could be used in that person's article. As there is no secondary source mentioning the course case, it appears that the court filing fails BLP policy, so the answer is no. But even if there were a secondary source mentioning the case, we should not be using the material. In this case the very practical reason that we should not, is that the filer is literally making a case about what an eminent butterfly photographer he is (and thus why he should win the case). We need somebody else to make this point. | |||
| ::BTW, nobody has suggested that Facebook or Twitter are reliable sources. --] (]) 22:57, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| == Liberal Extremist book used as a source == | |||
| {{la|Rape during the occupation of Germany}}<br><br> | |||
| Taken by Force: Rape and American GIs in Europe during World War II. J Robert Lilly. ISBN 978-0-230-50647-3 p.12 | |||
| This book was passed off as a source at Misplaced Pages, to claim that Americans raped 11,000 German women during WWII. Based on the facts contained in ''Germany 1945'', ''Taken by Force'' is claiming that the Americans were worse than the French. Also according to ''Germany 1945'', this is completely inaccurate. This seems to be another implication that America is was not much better than the Nazis. | |||
| --r005k13 ] <sub>That is Russian for Russian.</sub> 21:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :This book, published by ], is written by an academic sociologist and qualifies as a reliable source without the slightest difficulty. Misplaced Pages ought to draw much more heavily on peer-reviewed scholarship of this sort. ] (]) 21:24, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::Agree. Let me add that I don't find the number implausible. The current rate of rape in the US is 0.3/1000. Exclude people to young, too old, and too female to contribute significantly to that rate, it's about 2/1000 for military age men. And that's in peacetime. The US had several million troops in Germany, so 11000 rapes is not outrageously more than the current peacetime rate. --] (]) 21:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::The figure sounds entirely plausible, and in no way could be seen as implying that American troops were "not much better than the Nazis". If you've got a ] that indicates the figure is incorrect, let us have it. | |||
| :::(And what the heck is a 'liberal extremist' anyway?) ] (]) 22:11, 4 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::<small>Since ], basically every academic who works in a field where reality does not agree with the perceptions of non-liberals. --] (]) 12:52, 5 December 2010 (UTC)</small> | |||
| ::::I do not in anyway think that it would make the US equivalent to the Nazis, however, there are people who are not considerate when pointing out US crimes, and they do not seem to be aware of the remaining differences between the US and the Nazis. | |||
| ::::The problem with this source is that ''Germany 1945'' gives detailed descriptions of British, US, and French occupations. According to the book, the French committed more crimes than the Americans, and the Americans committed few crimes and the only way that the Americans were "bad" occupiers was through being heavy handed administratively, although this was justified because of the situation. | |||
| ::::--anonymissmadechen ] <sub>That is Russian for Russian.</sub> 01:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :That was only one aspect. A much larger aspect was related to open questions from the last RfC and the questionable close that seemed to have moved it (correctly?) from "yellow" to "green". ] (]) 16:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I'm not at all sure what you are saying. Is ''Germany 1945'' another book on the subject? If it is, can you give us some more details so we can find it. Unless you can actually show us somewhere in Misplaced Pages where the book is being used to compare the US actions in WW2 with the Nazis, I'm not quite sure what you expect us to do anyway. ] (]) 02:31, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ==RfC: Jacobin== | |||
| :::::: I think we should mention here that we have an article on the book in question ]. Also, for the record, a book by a sociologist that has done the heavy work of going through court records and testimonies and what have you, in a narrow topic such as rape where he is an expert, is far more reliable on the specific topic of rape than an author who tries to make a broad overview of as much as possible of an occupation. | |||
| <!-- ] 17:01, 20 February 2025 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1740070870}} | |||
| {{RfC|prop|pol|media|rfcid=857ECCA}} | |||
| Which of the following best describes the reliability of '']''? | |||
| * Option 1: ] | |||
| * Option 2: ] | |||
| * Option 3: ] | |||
| * Option 4: ] | |||
| — ] <sub>]</sub> 16:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: Also, I do not want to blur the topic, but if the French allegedly were so much worse than the Americans, then why did they allow the Red-Cross to send food to their prisoners so many months before the Americans rescinded their prohibition to Red-Cross food? | |||
| :::::: For amusement you could read also this, it indicates that in some respects the Americans were deliberately "bad" occupiers. And here there is another interesting analysis--] <sup>]</sup> 02:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ===Survey: ''Jacobin''=== | |||
| :::::::Can we not get into petty arguments about who was worse than who? I don't think any of the participants in WW2 came out of it entirely smelling of roses, but that isn't what we are trying to deal with here, which is the reliability or otherwise of a cited source. ] (]) 02:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2''' I am opposed to the use of ] and think that no media outlet, no matter how reliable, should be listed higher than option 2. With that being said, I would list New York Times or the CBC in precisely the same way and I don't believe that any of the complainants have demonstrated in any way that Jacobin is less reliable, per Misplaced Pages's standards, than any other American news media outlet. I am deeply concerned that many of the complaints are about "bias" when reliability does not include a political compass test. This is not grounds to treat a source as unreliable. ] (]) 16:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2/3''', bias is one thing, getting things down right incorrect is another. As was demonstrated in the pre-discussion, the notion around the housing stock was truly an egregious error. This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts. When that happens, "Generally unreliable" or at minimum, "Additional considerations" makes sense as the guidance when using this source. I do not think further deprecation is warranted though since the reporters seem to be of a mixed quality, some are more diligent than others and the bias merging into wanton disregard for facts varies there too. The problem is, we rate sources, not just individual writers, and therefore as far as a source rating goes, "Option 2" or "Option 3" then makes the most logical sense. ] (]) 16:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:It was corrected. Your entire case is based on a single incident where a single writer made a single mistake. ''And it was fixed.'' There is absolutely no grounds for "Generally unreliable" on the basis of presented evidence. ] (]) 16:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::It was corrected only after significant outside pressure and even then the correction was weak and inaccurate. The guy who wrote the article was explicitly mocking the people who pointed out his error and accusing them of something along the lines of being corporate shills. It also wasn’t a single incident as they publish nonsense regarding Russia and Ukraine, including and up to outright conspiracy theories, pretty regularly. It simply is not a reliable source, however much one agrees with their editorial stance.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 19:29, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:::So you agree with Iljhgtn's conspiracy theory that this was the purposeful result of pushing bias not an error? ] (]) 21:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| **::::I don’t see any “conspiracy theories” from anyone here, including ] and your attempts to characterize a pretty reasonable statement (“bias that creeped” in) as such are kind of offensive and disingenuous. Can you make an argument without making false and insulting accusations against others? <small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 01:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| **:::::You misquote the editor (to your benefit), for someone so interested in errors supposedly motivated by bias that seems odd... In context its clearly stronger than that "This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts." when nothing suggests that this was the result of narrative pushing (thats how you push a narrative either, as you've pointed out although lingusitically similar its an embarrassing and obvious error). ] (]) 01:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ***::::::You literally accused another editor, without basis in fact, of pushing “conspiracy theory” as a rhetorical device on your part to discredit and debase their views. You have absolutely no room to accuse others of, according to you, “misquoting” (which I did not do). And your attempts to litigate the meaning of “narrative pushing” (of course the article was trying to push a narrative! It was an opinion piece! That’s what opinion pieces do - this one just did it with false facts) are just typically tiresome.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 01:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ***:::::::You keep dancing around... Do you really believe that the information was changed to push a narrative? (and remember that such a specific claim about a living person falls under BLP, so if the answer is yes a source needs to be provided) ] (]) 02:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ***::::::::No , I’m not. I’m simply asking you to refrain from trying to falsely characterize other people’s comments as “conspiracy theories” in a cheap attempt to delegitimize them since they’re clear nothing of the sort. Not everything you disagree with is a “conspiracy theory”. In this particular case, the article clearly had false info in it. No one has ever said that “information was changed” (as if on purpose) so please stop pretending otherwise. What was said was that “bias creeped in” which I think is a fair characterization. So please quit it with the strawman’ing.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 02:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ***:::::::::I am pretty shocked by these accusations if true, and would ask we ]. I believe @] is a good editor and contributor to these discussions normally though, so I think I must be missing something or a miscommunication may have occurred. I will give them time and space to explain if they feel explanation is warranted. I sure would appreciate it. ] (]) 17:34, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ***::::::::::Its you who needs to provide a source to substantiate your allegations against a living person. ""This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts." is a BLP violation unless a source is provided or the author drops dead. ] (]) 18:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:And what is your source for that? Nobody else is saying that this was the result of bias, the sources say that "third largest corporate owner of housing" became "owns a third of housing" which is a very understandable mistake. You appear to have constructed your own conspiracy theory around this incident. ] (]) 17:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::Im sorry but “third largest owner” turning into “owns one third of all housing stock” is NOT an “understandable mistake”. It misstates the actual fact by a factor of 500. Maybe if this was like a student in some freshmen class using AI to write a paper that would be “understandable” (and still get an F) but this is supposed to be a professional, who’s job it is to get this stuff right and this is supposed to be a serious organization that has an editorial board that does fact checking. Which they obviously didn’t do.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 19:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:::Its not math so the factor that it mistates it by is irrelevant, they are much more similar statements as written and to me (someone who works with the writing of other human beings every day) it is entirely understandable. That sort of error is made by every major and minor publication, it’s how they handle it which counts and here it was handled well. You can of course respond to this with a source which says that this is a major error, but I don't think that such a source exists (if it does I couldn't find it) ] (]) 21:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::::Whats “not math”? The difference between .0006 and .33? You sure? <small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 01:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::::And let’s see these “every major and minor publications” that make these kinds of error.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 01:25, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:::::I note the failure to provide the requested source. ] (]) 01:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| **:::::Right back at you.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 01:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| **::::::, your turn and no stonewalling now provide the source or go away. ] (]) 02:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ***::::::Lol, those are standard corrections for minor misstatements not exaggerations of something by a factor of several hundred to push a narrative and then mocking and attacking people who point out the error and then putting up a half assed note. By your standard Daily Mail and Breitbart (both unreliable) would count as RS since they too have issued corrections in the past. No, reliable publications do not make errors of this magnitude and when they publish corrections they directly address any mistakes. Breitbart, Daily Mail or Jacobin unfortunately don’t do that.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 03:08, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ***:::::::Your source that this was "exaggerations of something by a factor of several hundred to push a narrative" and not simply an error is what? ] (]) 18:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:I have to say I question your judgment in supporting option 3 "generally unreliable" over ''Jacobin'' publishing and then retracting a single erroneous sentence, and for having a bias/narrative/agenda, when you also !voted option 1 "generally reliable" for ] which routinely publishes fabricated information without retraction. Could you kindly articulate how an admittedly biased outlet with a team of fact checkers is apparently significantly worse than a think tank that churns out misinformation and disinformation ()? <b style="font-family:Trebuchet MS">]]</b> ] 20:12, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' A screenshot of a tweet documenting an already corrected error is insufficient to depreciate a reliable source. <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) </small> 16:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::There are a lot more issues about Jacobin than just a tweet, and include more recent topics after the last RfC like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. --] (]) 17:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::I do not see that in the above discussion, can you link to any discussion of this? Thank you. ] <small>(])</small> 17:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::{{ping|Gamaliel}} Mostly ] and at ]. Kind regards, | |||
| :::::Thank you for the links. I will repost once I've read through those discussions. ] <small>(])</small> 18:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2 at the very least, change current assessment'''. It might be easier to comment if editors agree or not to change the current category. My position is based on coverage that mixes opinion with facts and its use of unreliable sources, some of which have been deprecated by this noticeboard (like The Grayzone). I went into more detail about this at ] and at ]. --] (]) 16:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2''' (intext attribution) ] and ] cover most of the points here. Jacobin publishes opinions peice that should have intext attribution. This is how they are used in the large amount of ] that Jacobin also has. I may not like Jacobin very much but bias, opinion, or minor mistakes do not make a source unreliable. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 17:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' ]: "Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable." The example given was a mistake in a book review, cubsequently corrected, about how much housing stock Blackstone owned. No reasonable editor would use this review as a source for an article on housing or Blackstone and more than one would use a reliable source on U.S. housing for an article about 19th century French poetry. ] (]) 17:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1-ish''' Jacobin are clearly a biased source but they are also clearly as reliable for facts as any other major ]. When they make mistakes, they correct themselves, and that ''improves'' their reliability, it doesn't hurt it. ] (]) 17:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2: additional considerations/bad RFC''' - based on the discussion above, evidently there's some kind of social media uproar about some thing that Jacobin published and later corrected. It's poor timing to hold an RFC on reliability both when emotions are high and when it's in response to an isolated incident, both of which are true here. But ignoring that, it seems (again from the discussion above) that ''Jacobin'' published something that was egregiously incorrect, then retracted or corrected it. That's pretty much the standard we expect of reliable publications: errors are compatible with reliability, it's how the publication responds to and corrects errors that determines reliability in this context. gives ''Jacobin'' a "high" reliability score of 1.9 (out of 10, lower scores are better), which is in the ballpark of the ''New York Times'' (1.4) and ''Washington Post'' (2.1). However, they also give it a "left bias" rating of -7 (a 20-point scale with 0 as completely unbiased), which is on the edge of their extreme ratings. Editors should consider attribution, and/or balancing this source's POV against publications more to the right. ] (<sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>) 17:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2/3''' While BIAS usually covers issues like, it may not be entirely sufficient for advocacy media, which includes ''Jacobin''. While ''Jacobin'' is a fine publication and I've sourced it myself, the reality is it does not usually report Who/What/Why but almost exclusively publishes explainers and analysis pieces that have a designed structure. For instance, ''How Biden Embraced Trump’s Terror Smear Against Cuba'' is not an editorial or opinion piece, it's presented as straight news reporting in the form of an explainer article. But, as an encyclopedia, we obviously can't start injecting artistic wordsets like "terror smear" into articles. So merely saying that BIAS can cover the case of ''Jacobin'' is not sufficient. For the purposes of encyclopedia writing, there will never be anything chronicled by ''Jacobin'' that is appropriate for WP which we can't find a superior source for elsewhere. They don't do spot news, data journalism, or investigative reporting, which are the three ways we use newsgathering media to reference articles. Simply looking at the current issue, I don't see a single story that is actually reporting things. Each article is an opinion piece lightly packaged as an explainer. So, while I don't think ''Jacobin'' is "unreliable" ''per se'', I don't see any value of using it for the very scope-limited purpose of encyclopedia-writing. ] (]) 18:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| {{od}}Both ''Taken by Force: Rape and American GIs in Europe during World War II'' and ''Germany 1945'' (by which I presume book is meant) are reliable sources. If they say different things then the relevant article(s) should cover both views. If the arguments in either book have been criticizsd in other reliable sources then these views should also be covered in the relevant article(s). ] (]) 06:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' for facts and 2/inline attribution otherwise for articles that are mainly opinion. The hoohah over an article that was actually about Mark Fisher and since corrected such that it doesn't even mention Blackstone seems like a one off. ] (]) 18:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :They may both well be reliable sources, but if one is a general depiction of Germany at the relevant period, and another is a study of the particular topic in question, are they equally 'reliable sources' for the particular topic? I don't see any easy answer here. As Nick-D says, we really need to see reviews etc. I think it's worth mentioning that any statistics need careful comparison: are they from the same period, and using the same criteria? ] (]) 06:26, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * Nothing in the above discussion or that I've seen in the last year leads me to deviate from my !vote in the previous RfC which was this: '''''Option 2''': mostly a partisan opinion source usable with attribution if noteworthy, but occasionally publishes well-researched pieces by experts in their fields, on topics that might not be covered in more mainstream sources, in particular on the history of the left or on socialist theory.'' I also think that the closing of the last RfC, and in particular green flagging on RSP, did not reflect the consensus of the discussion, as I argued when this came up on this board in 2023: '' I have long been unhappy with the RSP summary of the many RSN discussions of this source, where the consensus has clearly been much more negative than the summary. It is clear that several editors have major issues with its use in specific areas (e.g. Russia/Ukraine, Venezuela) and that this should be flagged, and that it publishes content by a few conspiracy thinkers (Branko Marcetic was mentioned in the last discussion, McEvoy flagged here) and again this isn't highlighted in RSP. So I'd favour a rewrite of the RSP and possibly a change from green to yellow as a better reflection of the community consensus.'' In short: I think we need to approach it in a much more case by case basis. ] (]) 18:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Both sources are generally reliable; whether they are being used properly is a different question. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 07:23, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2''' My assessment hasn't changed from last time, jacobin publishes mostly opinion so this is largely a moot point and the rest of what they publish often contradicts itself—] 18:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::The first book was published by ], the second by ] I believe (owned by Barnes & Noble). Both are reputable publishers with a known history of fact-checking and careful editorial process. As this is the key measure of a reliable source, both sources should be considered reliable. ]. ] (]) 08:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''1 or 2''', I think that most of the time they should be used with attribution but they're generally reliable enough that I don't think we should be requiring attribution. I also question the need for a new RfC... It doesn't seem like there has been anything substantial since last time so this shouldn't have been opened. ] (]) 18:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Both books are written by experts, both are published by reasonable publishers, and, as far as I can make out, both books don't even disagree. As pointed out above, the number of rapes reported by Lilly is not extraordinary. According to the OP, ''Germany 1945'' only talks about generic "crimes", which presumably in post-war Europe would be dominated by theft, not rape. Lilly covers invasion and occupation, Bessel (at least according to to OP's description) only occupation. And so on. --] (]) 09:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Weak option 2''' per above voters (especially AD and Bob), but I won't die on that hill if the consensus ultimately feels differently. '''Strong oppose option 3''', though, for somewhat obvious reasons. ] ] <span style="color:#C8102E;"><small><sup>(])</sup></small></span> 18:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1/2''' - I don't like Jacobin. They read to me like the socialist equivalent of Christian rock. But they have an editor, publisher and corrections, and I'm reasonably sure they're not actually liars. It's an opinion outlet, like a leftist analogue of Reason. I'm not convinced coverage in Jacobin connotes notability. So I'd give them a strong "considerations apply" - attribute, not ideal for notability - ] (]) 19:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1/2''' Jacobin's fine. It's left-leaning, but it doesn't cook up facts or make shit up.  <span style="font-variant:small-caps; whitespace:nowrap;">] {] · ] · ] · ]}</span> 19:15, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3''' <s>or 4</s> They publish outright falsehoods and when they issue corrections these are weak and weaselly. The recent completely absurd claim in one of their articles that Blackstone owns 33% of US single family housing stock is an example (it’s actually 1/10 of 1%). Whether you’re sympathetic to their editorial position is irrelevant. Garbage is garbage and facts are facts and as an encyclopedia we can’t rely on click bait nonsense for sources.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 19:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''', with attribution for analysis and opinion pieces. The Blackstone mistake was bad, and the author's petulant attitude upon being corrected leaves much to be desired. But the error was corrected relatively promptly, and they have an editorial team on staff. I'm not in favor of downgrading a source based on a single mistake. However, Jacobin has an explicit editorial stance that informs nearly all of its articles, and if it's used for more than straightforward facts, it should probably be attributed as e.g. "the socialist magazine Jacobin". I'm open to changing my view if others can demonstrate a more sustained pattern of errors or falsehoods. ] (]) 20:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' (with caveats) due to the lack of developments since the last RfC which could actually change the conclusion of ''general'' reliability, as opposed to demonstrating fallibility or bias. I do have some sympathy with the {{tq|no media outlet, no matter how reliable, should be listed higher than option 2}} position articulated above, but I think that comes down to how we interpret "generally reliable" in practice. In other words, "additional considerations" ''always'' apply, in principle. The difference between option 1 and option 2 comes down to ''how likely'' we expect those "additional considerations" to be of practical relevance, and how exactly we should address them. ] (]) 20:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''', it doesn't seem anything has changed since the last RfC. Corrections and retractions is what a reliable source is expected to do and is a sign of reliability. Mistakes which are far greater than this are commonplace across the array of reliable sources (what matters is whether there are corrections or not) nor does partisanship equate to unreliability. Here the error appears to be about what's more or less a single sentence, an ancillary point or side-note in an opinion piece which has been corrected since. It should be treated no different a manner than any other openly partisan neworgs such as '']'' {{rspe|Reason}}. There is no requirement for reliable sources to be "neutral" or for the matter any standard that suggests newsorgs with an explicitly stated ideological position are any better or worse in matters of reliability than newsorgs that don't have an explicitly stated ideological position. ] and ] are quite clear. | |||
| :Though the standard disclaimers apply which are to check for whether what they publish has ] for inclusion (not an issue of reliability), use in-text attribution with their political position made apparent when quoting opinion and that the context always matters. That there is a subreddit post critical of a error that was corrected is no basis for determining reliability of sources on Misplaced Pages or starting an RfC, so this is also a '''Bad RfC'''. This discussion has been had at a much greater depth in the ] where it was shown that the magazine in question has quite significant ] and affirmatory coverage from reliable secondary source demonstrating that they generally have a "]" which doesn't needs to be rehashed. <span style="background-color:#B2BEB5;padding:2px 12px 2px 12px;font-size:10px">] <sub>]</sub></span> 20:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Option 1: Bad RfC + L + Ratio''' Creating this RfC immediately after some sort of ostensible social media outrage (ex. I nominated ] for deletion not long after the ], and people got so upset that they brigaded it via external social media) seems like a bad idea. It's been made clear in the past that ''Jacobin'' has a perspective (like literally any media outlet) but don't sacrifice factual accuracy to get there. My previous vote remains true: "While it wears its political perspective on its sleeve, it has proven itself time and again in its robust fact-checking. The issue with conservative and reactionary ] and ]] sources on the WP:RSP isn't that they have a bias – it's that they constantly express said bias through the use of provable mis- and disinformation. Jacobin does not sacrifice factual accuracy for the sake of a bias." | |||
| :I would say the same of any other outlet whose perspective coexists peacefully with actual facts. The sort of neoliberalism adopted by American news outlets which we categorize as generally reliable (correctly so) isn't some sort of default worldview that needs to be treated as sacred and less biased than any other. If we're allowed to point to a single incident, then I could just as easily (but wouldn't, because I'm acting in good faith) point to the NYT's 2002–2003 reporting about Iraq and WMDs which was so unbelievably mistaken and grounded in literally nothing that ] to falsely luring Americans into supporting ] based on lies, yet Misplaced Pages (even in the days when that story was reasonably fresh) would balk at the idea of calling them 'marginally reliable', let alone 'generally unreliable'. Meanwhile, this one is literally just a typo in a single article – a bad typo, but one anyone with a brain could understand didn't reflect reality and which was quickly corrected. Reading some of the stories on the front page right now, they report on events similar to what would be covered in a magazine like the generally reliable '']'' and contain no obvious factual errors. <b>]</b> ] 21:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 2''', mainly per u:BobFromBrockley. The Blackrock error was quickly corrected, so I don't hold it against them. Consider this quote from ] {{tquote|Anglo-conservatives sometimes fantasize about reuniting the dominions ... where workers could be exploited freely.}} A not-insignificant percentage of the content supported by Jacobin is of similar nature. ]<sub>]</sub> 21:56, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' A screenshot from Reddit detailing an error which was corrected is not reason to lower our consideration of the reliablity of the publication. ] is generally reliable, not always reliable. Admittedly the publication does contain a lot of opinion peices, however that is already covered by ] and ]. Notably, ] is similarly heavy on opinion pecies and community consensus is that it is ]. '']''<sup>]</sup> 22:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2''' Jacobin is basically the left-wing equivalent to the right-wing British Magazines Spiked and The Spectator. Like these publications, most of its content is opinion orientated, and citing less opinion-focused sources should be preferred. It's clear that the current "generally reliable" rating is suggesting to readers of RSP that Jacobin's opinionated content is usable carte blanche without caveat, which I do not think is accurate. ] (]) 22:16, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :: Some Jacobin pieces have openly pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories , as well as conspiracy theories about the Euromaidan which have not been retracted. The Green RSP rating has mistakenly led people to believe these pieces were reliable , ] ] (]) 22:20, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::You should probably read farther than the headline. ] (]) 23:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::: The pieces (which are both by staff writer Branko Marcetic) are strongly slanted, but you're perhaps right that saying they are "pushing conspiracy theories" is going a bit far. ] (]) 23:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::"The CIA bungled intel pre-9/11" is somewhat the opposite of a conspiracy theory since it ''literally attributes to incompetence what conspiracists attribute to malice''. ] (]) 14:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * (Summoned by ping in this thread) '''Bad RFC / No listing''' just as in 2021. Or '''Option 2''', it is a liberal analysis magazine, to be considered frequently as ]. See you at the next 1-day social media hysteria. ] (]) 22:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *: <small>This doesn't really matter for the purposes of the RFC, but ''Jacobin'' is not remotely liberal. It's far left, and quite anti-liberal. --] (]) 22:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC) </small> | |||
| *::For whatever far left and anti-liberal mean in the US, I guess so. It does not change my point at all. ] (]) 22:35, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:::I find it really funny when Americans see somebody holding mainstream social democratic politics and start calling them extreme. ] (]) 22:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1'''. Correcting a mistake is a sign of reliability. The normal caveats about bias/opinion and attribution apply, but not seeing enough to move it down to 2. -- ] - <sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub> 23:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' The current summary at ] acknowledges that Jacobin is biased and that editors should take care when using it, which is exactly how it should be. Bias and adherence to factual accuracy are two different things; neutrality is not objectivity and vice versa. We do not need to demote it purely for being biased. Agree with others that an RfC being started based on a Reddit thread of a screenshot of a tweet of an editor who made a mistake which was ultimately corrected is a bit silly. <b style="font-family:Trebuchet MS">]]</b> ] 23:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' as per the analysis by Selfstudier, XOR, and Tayi. <span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#4682B4 0.1em 0.1em 1.5em,#4682B4 -0.1em -0.1em 1.5em;color:#000000">]— ]</span> 23:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' ] already has certain considerations and it doesn't mean that 100% of what is published can make it to WP. Editors are expected to use their judgement. The article in question is a ]. I don't see any reason for downgrading them based on a reddit thread. ] (]) 01:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' This entire RfC appears to be politically motivated and is predicated on a correction of a sentence that mixed up "third largest" with "a third of". Many other mainline newspapers have made similar, if not worse, errors before. The question is whether corrections were made when such errors were pointed out. And the correction was made here, meeting requirements of reliability. This is likely also about an opinion article, which makes this even more pointless. ]]<sup>]</sup> 02:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Weapons of mass destruction from the New York Times? Was that ever retracted? '']''<sup>]</sup> 11:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''3'''. If you can't get a better, more disinterested outfit than ''Jacobin'' to vouch for a given fact, that's poissibly a problem. Maybe the fact just isn't important enuff to use, seeing as nobody else has seen fit to bother reporting it. | |||
| :It's not a matter of some particular instance about mistakes regarding mixing up "third largest" with "a third of" or whatever. Heck everybody does stuff like that. The ''NYTimes'' has has published more (unintentionally) misleading or plain-wrong charts than I've had hot meals. I mean, ''Nature'' finding that "among the 348 documents that we found to include the ] 'fact' that 80% of the world's biodiversity is found in the territories of indigenous peoples] are 186 peer-reviewed journal articles, including some in ], ], and ], and 19 news articles targeted at a specialist audience." Imagine that. I would guess that that's largely because "puts indigenous peoples in a good light" trumps "is true" in the ''emotional hind-brain'' of the leather-elbow-patch set. It's not a lefty thing in particular, right-wingers are just as bad I'm sure. | |||
| * I suppose, since I was the one that significantly expanded the Taken By Force article, I should put in a word here. While I certainly believe that Taken By Force is a reliable source, considering the incredibly extensive amount of reports and figures that the author had to go through to ensure that the numbers were practically irrefutable, I also believe that Germany 1945 is a reliable source. However, I would take the same stance that Stephan Schulz points out just above this comment, that the two books are not necessarily considering the same fact and figures in their numbers. Taken by Force does consider rapes during occupation, especially in England and a good amount in France, but it also considers rapes done during invasion to an incredible degree. Especially when we're talking about Germany, a majority of the rapes were committed during and by the invasion forces, not the occupying forces. Because Bessel does not consider rapes from invasion forces in Germany 1945, I do not believe the two authors' numbers are necessarily mutually exclusive. Bessel could be correct for his numbers in terms of occupying forces and Lilly could be correct for his figures that includes and adds in the invasion forces. I personally don't see the problem here. <font color="silver">]</font><font color="blue">]</font><sup>]</sup> 21:03, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :This source mentions Lilly's methodology on page 218. Lilly assumed only 5% of all rapes were reported, while other analysts assume significantly larger percentage was reported. ] (]) 14:44, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Which just strengthens my point, there're no blinders like ideological blinders, so its not so much a matter of how many fact-checkers you have as in how you maybe are presenting facts which, while individually true, are cherry picked or incomplete or out of context or one-sided or otherwise misleading. It might not even be intentional, exactly. Mind-sets are like that. Better to stick with ''Time'' or other people who are more into just blandly attracting a broad readership rather than with people who have points to make. | |||
| ::If you had provided an academic book-review that challenged Lillys methodology then that would have been interesting. As is I don't see the motive for bringing in that book-footnote, nor any real value in it. I also think you are slightly misreading that particular footnote. Where is says "other analysts estimate that approximately 50% of actual rapes are reported" there is no indication given that the author is referring to the WWII military rapes Lilly analysed, and neither is a cite given for the number. This is hardly surprising since most estimates of the current peace-time underreporting of rape is 40%-60% percent, hence this modern peace-time figure is the one being referred to in the footnote. The 5% figure instead comes from "Sexual Offences. A Report of the Cambridge Department of Criminal Science". Preface by L. Radzinowicz, LL.D. 1957. Note also the text a bit further down in the footnote you linked to re. the situation of military rapes that Lilly looked at. "it was the commanding officer - not the victim - that brought charges, a situation that would make unreported rapes more likely." Personally I would also hazard to guess that language barriers (English - French - German), and the fact of being considered an enemy with which ], might have further contributed to underreporting. Either case, if there was any doubt against Lillys methodology it would doubtless have turned up in ] by now.--] <sup>]</sup> 19:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::To put the period into context, both regarding number of rapes, and the under-reporting of them, this is a quote from Peter Schrijvers book "The GI War against Japan", p.212 " Exactly how many ]n women were raped by American troops will never be known, as the victims were either too ashamed – or too frightened – to report the crime. The estimate of one Okinawan historian for the entire three-month period of the campaign exceeds 10,000."--] <sup>]</sup> 20:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :They're big and smart enough that reporting their ''opinions'' are worthwhile, of course. "According to ''Jacobin'', consumption of oligarchs is (due to their high protein-to-fat ratio) a potential avenue for ameliorating world hunger" is fine. As long as we include the qualifier. ] (]) 04:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == A recent 2009 study == | |||
| ::{{Reply|Herostratus}} not to backseat comment but if "They're big and smart enough that reporting their opinions are worthwhile, of course. "According to Jacobin, consumption of oligarchs is (due to their high protein-to-fat ratio) a potential avenue for ameliorating world hunger" is fine." isn't that a 2? I'm in much the same boat and offered a split 1/2, my understanding is that a 3 shouldn't be used for opinion. ] (]) 18:50, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Backseat comments are totally fine. I live for them. I'm not sure about the details of our rule, but aren't ''all'' publications are completely reliable ''for their contents''? If the ''News of the World'' says "the moon is made of green cheese" we can certainly say "According to the ''News of the World'', the moon is made of green cheese" if for some reason that was useful. The ref is just so the reader can check that they did indeed print that. Similarly for any opinion or other statement. Since all entities are reliable for their own contents, I assume we are not talking at all about that. Why would we. | |||
| :::What we are talking about is: if entity X says "FBI stats say that African-American violent crime was up 50% in Los Angeles in 2024", can we say that ''in our own words'' because we can be confident that it is true because we know that entity X has a good fact-checking operation? Can we be very very sure that entity X would also point out if violent crime for ''all'' races was also up 50%? Can we be very very sure that this increase is not because the FBI started using a new definition of "violent crime", because entity X would surely point that out? Can we be very very sure that violent crime in the city of Los Angeles is steady and the increase is purely from Los Angeles County (or whatever), because entity X would surely point that out? In other words -- can we be very very sure that entity X would not cherry-pick some facts and leave out others because they are here to make points? We want to be careful about being led by the nose by these people. ] (]) 22:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| A recent was deleted from ]. See ] for the discussion. | |||
| ::::I think the thing is our due weight policy says that due weight (noteworthiness) is apportioned based on the amount of attention given in reliable sources. I take that to mean opinion in generally reliable sources is worth reporting; opinion in generally unreliable sources isn’t. ] (]) 14:35, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1''' The author's attitude certainly leaves much to be desired... but I don't think a single mistake that was quickly fixed – in a blog piece, which generally wouldn't even be cited except in very limited circumstances and with attribution per ] – is a good enough reason to downgrade their reliability. ] (]) 07:52, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2''' My opinion is unchanged from the previous RfC. It is absurd that we've opened up another RfC over a minor issue that was quickly corrected, all because a few neoliberal redditors got mad about it. I think citations to ''Jacobin'' should require attribution, but trying to tar them as unreliable over this one case is ridiculous. Log off Reddit, there is nothing worthwhile to be found there. --] (]) 09:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| This specific proposal is to restore the text. "A 2009 study to assess the prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries sustained by chiropractic students receiving and/or administering manipulation while attending a chiropractic college found the prevalence of injuries sustained was 31%, 44% of which was exacerbations of preexisting injuries. Injuries from receiving manipulation were most prevalent in the neck/shoulder at 65%, while hand/wrist injuries were most common when administering manipulations at 45%. Diversified, Gonstead, and upper cervical manipulations methods were considered to be the most related to injuries.<ref>{{Cite pmid|19243726}}</ref>" | |||
| *'''Option 2'''. I concur with other editors that this RFC should never have been opened. Please be more considerate of your fellow editors' time. ] (]) 14:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 2''' possibly Option 3. I don't see that the source is any better than it was in 2021. Per {{u|Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d}}'s previous comments and references from the 2021 RfC copied below as well as this recent incident. Yes, making a mistake and correcting it is good but when the mistake is so egreious and the author attacks people who note the error how much faith should we put in the source? Last time I also noted that per Adfont's media review (not a RS but still worth a look) this source is more biased than Breitbart! | |||
| ::{{tq| Normally, we put these extremely ideological sources in the Option 2 category (e.g., Salon {{RSP|Salon}}, Townhall {{RSP|Townhall}}). Jacobin obviously doesn't report straight news, so it (i) always needs to be attributed and (ii) check to see if it complies with ]. However, Jacobin has additional issues. Its stated political mission is to: {{tq|centralize and inject energy into the contemporary socialist movement}} . So it is more in line with an advocacy group than a news source. Also, it has pretty fringe views. ] identifies Jacobin as part of the alt-left . It's pretty fringe-y on topics concerning Venezuela , the USSR/Communism , and anti-semitism , . I would avoid using Jacobin for those topics. But if you need a socialist/Marxist opinion on something, then Jacobin is definitely a good source to use. ] (]) 21:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC) <u>Based upon Noonlcarus's comment, Jacobin does seem to frequently use deprecated/unreliable sources for facts. Some examples include Alternet {{RSP entry|AlterNet}} , Daily Kos {{RSP entry|Daily Kos}} , Raw Story {{RSP entry|The Raw Story}} , The Canary {{RSP entry|The Canary}} , and the Electronic Intifada {{RSP entry|The Electronic Intifada}} .] (]) 04:53, 20 July 2021 (UTC)</u>}} | |||
| :As I mentioned above, when a source is this biased we have to ask if that level of bias is going to have too great an impact on both the weight they give various facts thus leading to questionable conclusion and their ability to verify otherwise factual claims as we saw here. I think that puts the source deep into the use with caution territory ] (]) 18:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::And yet you rated the Heritage Foundation at 2/3 below and didn't find any problem with their extreme ideological bent, saying in their defense that deprecating the foundation {{tq|would reflect more on the biases of editors than on the true quality of the source and would again push Misplaced Pages away from the goal of collecting knowledge}}. This is a group that is regularly equated in academic best sources with fascism such as in: | |||
| ::# ''Neo-fascist trends in education: neo-liberal hybridisation and a new authoritarian order'' Díez-Gutiérrez, Enrique-Javier, Mauro-Rafael Jarquín-Ramírez, and Eva Palomo-Cermeño, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS). Sep2024, Vol. 22 Issue 2, p125-169 | |||
| ::# ''Pandemic abandonment, panoramic displays and fascist propaganda: The month the earth stood still.'' By: McLaren, Peter, Educational Philosophy & Theory, 00131857, Feb 2022, Vol. 54, Issue 2 | |||
| ::# ''THE ANTI-DEMOCRACY THINK TANK.'' By: Stewart, Katherine, New Republic, 00286583, Sep2023, Vol. 254, Issue 9 <small>(note that the think tank that they call "The West Point of American Fascism" in this article is the ] but that they refer to Heritage as participating in Claremont events.)</small> | |||
| ::#''The Road Ahead Fighting for Progress, Freedom, and Democracy,'' Weingarten, Randi, American Educator. Fall2024, Vol. 48 Issue 3, p2-9. 8p. | |||
| ::So I guess my question is one of consistency: do you believe Jacobin is more ideologically compromised than the fascist-adjacent Heritage foundation? If not why do you believe that the Heritage Foundation is more valuable to the "goal of collecting knowledge" than Jacobin? ] (]) 19:20, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::You are missing a major difference. HF isn't a media source, they are a think tank. Jacobin is a media source, not a think tank. I've argued that all think tanks should be used with great care and in particular we should generally not cite them unless an independent RS points to their work. So the question is can we cite HF when a RS mentions the views/claims/etc of HF with respect to the article topic. In that regard I'm suggesting we treat them more like a primary source vs a RS. Jacobin is different and the relevant question is can we treat them like a regular RS as we do with many other news media sources. If Jacobin publishes a claim about an article subject should we cite them? I argue they should be evaluated by the same standards we use for news media sources. By that standard it's strong bias etc means we should use it's claims and reports with caution and should question if they have weight to justify inclusion. In your post above you provided a list of texts but absent links I can't see what they say nor if their arguments are sound or crap but they don't impact the distinction I've made. ] (]) 21:09, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::The list of texts are available via Misplaced Pages library which is why I provided bibliographical information rather than links as links to material on WP library don't work. With the exception of New Republic all are academic journals. And now please answer my original question: do you believe Jacobin is more ideologically compromised than the Heritage Foundation? ] (]) 21:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::If you want to cite those sources to support an argument you should tell us what they say or at least why you think they support your position. As for your question, I already answered. It doesn't matter if the HF is more or less compromised because the purpose of each is different. When it comes to topics of automobiles Honda is more compromised than the AP but they also might be a better source if we are asking about stratified charge combustion in automobile engines. ] (]) 21:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::On this charge I will defend Springee. I don't necessarily agree with them but I'm not seeing the dissonance in their arguments, especially as they seem to be going 2/3 on both (there is not formal vote here but that seems to be the upshot of what they're saying). Their slighlty idiosyncratic argument about the purspose of the source being primary is also one which they've been making consistently for years. With all due respect I think you're being too hard on Springee. ] (]) 21:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I take the idea that a publication being openly social democratic is ''too biased to be reliable'' personally offensive. Anywhere outside the United States Jacobin would be seen as barely left of the political center. But I will concede that Springee is being consistent. And I actually agreed that think tanks should be treated as primary sources. Frankly, were Springee to be more reasonable on the "political bias" overreach, we might otherwise be agreeing. ] (]) 21:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::We may not be disagreeing at all given we both are giving them a "2". I'm arguing that their bias is too much to make them a 1. The possible 3, the same score I gave them last time, is a concern regarding things like the issue that started the recent discussion. I was about to post something about really disliking the RSP's simplistic bucketing. It's really not a good system as we really should put more effort into asking if a source is appropriate for the claims being supported and when an encyclopedia should be citing strongly biased sources in general. If we need to use such a strongly biased source is the information DUE? ] (]) 21:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::We do agree on disliking the RSP bucketing system. My personal opinion is no news media source should be treated as a blanket "generally reliable" because reliability is contextual. However I do think that Jacobin is, from a global perspective, not in any way ideologically extreme. Social democracy is a normal left-of-center political position. The extreme-right shift of US politics over the last few decades makes them seem like outliers but that's the real bias problem right there. ] (]) 22:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Jacobin is not merely social democratic; their page states they offer {{tq|socialist perspectives}} and approvingly includes quotes describing them as supporting {{tq|radical politics}} and {{tq|very explicitly on the radical left, and sort of hostile to liberal accommodationism}}. <span style="font-family:Palatino">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 22:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::I would strongly advise against getting too side-tracked by having a conversation about "social democracy" vs "democratic socialism" (same goes for any arguments over distinctions between "left" vs "liberal" in this thread). I can say from experience that these semantics rabbitholes are shockingly deep, and they're not at all necessary or helpful for this RfC. All I'll say is that these terms ''are'' commonly used as synonyms by at least some people, and the "Ideology and reception" section of ] notes {{tq|the political diversity of contributors, incorporating "everyone from social democratic liberals to avowed revolutionaries"}}, so I don't think either you or Simonm223 are wrong on this. Different people are gonna use different terms and apply different meanings to each of them. <b style="font-family:Trebuchet MS">]]</b> ] 03:23, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::{{tq|Anywhere outside the United States Jacobin would be seen as barely left of the political center.}} Where outside the United States are you talking about? The world where ]? Where ]? Is it Japan, where the conservative ] has been in power since 1955? Or China, where a media outlet that is as critical of the ] as Jacobin is of the ] would have long been banned, and their writers arrested? I think we all need a reality check here, especially if we want to represent reality in our articles. ] (]) 03:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::While I can't speak for them, I'm guessing they probably had in mind specifically other western democracies, as it's common for European countries to have a mainstream Socialist Party with an ideology listed as social democracy (to name a few: ], ], ], ], etc). | |||
| ::::::::I'm comfortable speculating this is their argument because it's one that's often repeated in American progressive-left circles. This argument is usually presented as follows: ] is viewed as the furthest left one can go in America, the things his supporters want are not radical to other developed countries (paid time off, universal healthcare, etc), therefore what is far left in America is only moderately left elsewhere. | |||
| ::::::::Not saying I entirely agree or disagree with that argument, either how Simonm223 phrased it or how I interpreted it. Just saying I think they had in mind comparable democracies, not the entire world. | |||
| ::::::::<b style="font-family:Trebuchet MS">]]</b> ] 16:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Yeah. I don't feel the need to put a million qualifiers on a comment on a WP discussion board when all I really need to say is that the United States has an abnormal political compass compared to its peers. But also there used to be lots of socialists, for instance, throughout the Middle East. American allies killed most of them. ] (]) 18:33, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::This has become a discussion about Overton windows rather than the source. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 22:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 3 or 2''' - Right-wing outlets that mix opinions in their articles, selectively choose facts to promote a political agenda, or sloppily misrepresent the truth have rightly been marked as unreliable ages ago. There is no reason to have a different standard for other political positions. And regardless of that, outlets that do that cannot be ''relied on'' (i.e. are unreliable) to present an accurate picture of the facts on a given topic, nor are their writers' opinions noteworthy in our articles. Op-eds from even mainstream papers like NYT, WaPo, etc. are routinely removed as sources; outlets like ''Jacobin'' that consist entirely of such articles should likewise not be used (and we have already done this for right-wing opinion outlets like ''Quillette''). The green checkmark at RSP misleads editors into thinking opinions and claims published in ''Jacobin'' are more noteworthy than they really are. <span style="font-family:Palatino">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 22:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1'''. Folks have said it well already so I won't belabor the point. I can't really imagine an occasion when I would cite ''Jacobin'', but I consider them roughly a left-wing equivalent of ''The Economist'' or ''Reason'' (also publications I'd be unlikely to cite –– all three of these are usually rather predictable and tend to offer shallow analysis). I wasn't sure how we list those other two so I checked RSP just now and saw that they're 1s. Yes, OTHERSTUFF is a poor argument, but I was more interested in getting a baseline on where the community draws the line between 1 and 2. With respect, I object to Crossroads' comparison to ''Quillette'', which leans heavily into platforming fringe ideas and displays little editorial oversight. (Interestingly, on a hoax published in ''Quillette'', revealing the latter's abysmal editorial practices, courtesy of ]) ] (]) 01:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Personally I don’t see Reason and Economist as equivalent, and was surprised to see Reason green flagged for the same reason that I don’t think Jacobin should be. That is, whereas Economist is mostly reporting and some opinion, both Reason and Jacobin are mostly opinion and some reporting. The Jacobin piece on the Quillette hoax looks good to me, but everything else they’ve published by that author wouldn’t be usable for facts as they’re pure op eds. I’d put the Spectator and National Review in the category as Jacobin and Reason. (Whereas Spiked and American Conservative are worse, red flag territory rather than amber.) ] (]) 15:02, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Additional considerations apply'''. As I indicated in the ] which I started, the mere fact that Jacobin thought it appropriate to publish a statement that ] "owns a third of US housing stock" indicates that they do not do adequate fact-checking before publishing articles. Therefore, one should attempt to corroborate any facts they publish with more reliable sources before relying on Jacobin to support any factual statements in articles. ] (]) 03:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1'''. Our ] is explicit that {{tq|reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective}}. I may not personally love the political perspective of ''Jacobin'', but they don't go out of their way to platform disinformation that flatly contradicts academic consensus about reality. Regarding ''Jacobin'' as unreliable on the grounds of its bias would require evidence that said bias leads it to regularly publish misinformation and untruths. I haven't seen this established.{{pb}}Moreover, the error brought up that somehow has sparked this RFC was both A) corrected in a timely manner, which is what we ''expect'' from a reliable source; and B) a case where ], as the original source was a book review of several books written by Mark Fisher. If cited, it should be cited to warrant information about Fisher or his books or the genre he wrote in, etc. The Blackstone number was {{tq|Information provided in passing}}, and we already know that such info occasionally {{tq|may not be reliable}}, and so we use our best judgment as editors, citing and reading a wide variety of sources and going to the ]. For a topic like ], looks like ''Jacobin'' is a good resource. For Blackstone and housing, try from the journal '']''. Not every source is perfect at every subject, but when a source has a known editorial staff, issues corrections to publications, and is grounded in reality, it's reliable, even if I wouldn't personally enjoy talking politics with the editor.{{pb}}Finally, when a piece published in ''Jacobin'' is an opinion piece, we can just treat it as such, ]. ''The Economist'' and ''The Wall Street Journal'' publish a lot of opinion pieces too, yet GREL they've remained. As the perennial list says of ''The Economist'', {{tq|editors should use their judgement to discern factual content—which can be generally relied upon—from analytical content, which should be used in accordance with the guideline on opinion in reliable sources}}. ] (] | ] | ]) 06:51, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 3''' or '''Option 2''', long overdue for the reasons already set out in this thread. And frankly, the idea that a magazine whose name is derived from the people who instituted the ] was ever acceptable w/o issue is offputting by itself. ] (]) 23:26, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:For the record, the that in naming the magazine, he was thinking of '']'', a book about the ], not the French. ] (] | ] | ]) 01:24, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :It looks like a decent study, but it's a primary source, so I think it's use should be avoided. Are there no secondary sources treating this issue? One would assume there are. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 22:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *::Not that that is relevant anyway when assessing reliability. '']''<sup>]</sup> 01:50, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::There are no other sources treating this issue. According to what in V policy this source should be avoided. This is the best source available. | |||
| *::''The Black Jacobins'' is named so because the author analogizes the actions of the Haitians to that of the French Jacobins. It's just adding an extra step (not to mention that the word has a known meaning on it's face, so it's mostly irrelevant.). Regardless, it's clearly derived, and it's frankly silly to even argue semantics. ] (]) 02:06, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::The ] shortcut was : "Where a topic is subject to academic research – whether it be hard science, social science or the humanities – Misplaced Pages articles should include the current status of research." was . ] (]) 22:31, 5 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *:::Just to be clear your argument about the name being relevant to reliability is literally arguing ]. Your objection doesn't make any sense. ] (]) 03:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::::I was referring to the semantics of what counts as "derived from." And no, while the name clearly doesn't ''inherently'' reflect relevance. If a source called "The KGB Times" came up on the noticeboard for reliability, it's perfectly reasonable for a person to point out "Hey, I don't think it's reliable for reasons x,y, and z, andddd the name also doesn't exactly inspire confidence." That's all I'm saying. Don't twist my statement into something it's not. ] (]) 05:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1/Keep the current RSPS summary''' I think a few people arguing for additional considerations are misremembering the current RSPS legend. ''Additional'' considerations doesn’t refer to things like weight, or bias, or that you need to attribute opinion pieces because those are all standard considerations that apply to ''all'' sources. The current RSPS summary already says (in part) {{tq|Editors should take care to adhere to the neutral point of view policy when using Jacobin as a source in articles, for example by quoting and attributing statements that present its authors' opinions, and ensuring that due weight is given to their perspective amongst others'.}} I can't find anything that indicates that's not still a perfectly good summary. ] (]) 01:10, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::We can't include every primary source that relates to chiropractic, and I feel that this one fails ]. Let's abide by the consensus at the article to stick to review articles/secondary sources, and wait and see if a secondary source mentions this topic. ] (]) 02:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1*''' Jacobin is a biased source, something that should obviously be considered by anyone thinking of sourcing them for anything contentious, but their reporting has never been an issue in terms of establishing basic factual information about a situation. One writer for a book review making a dumb statement that was corrected by the source doesn't change that. ] (]) 04:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::This is not exactly the 'current status of scientific research', QG. It's one study which is barely relevant to the section. The section is Treatment Techniques, but the article is about the risk of injury faced by chiropractic students at a chiropractic college (who are worked on by other students). Moreover, it's not only a primary study but a primary study which relies on self-reported surveys. It's pretty close to the bottom of the study barrel. You've also been somewhat inconsistent in your tolerance of primary sources at this article. Why are primary studies which are less critical of Chiropractic excluded or minimized, but this primary study deserves its own paragraph? Last, where sources are in dispute, it's customary to leave notice either at the article talk page or the talk pages of involved editors, so they can weigh in. I think you know this already, but please do so. ] (]) 02:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Option 1:''' Nothing of substance has been presented to suggest that this source is not GREL. Most of the reasons being presented for MREL appear to be about bias, but that is not of direct relevance to reliability unless it can be shown that any bias directly impinges somehow on its reliability. That it provides a perspective from a rarefied position on the political spectrum is a moot point in terms of reliability. Arguably it is good to have sources from all different positions on the political spectrum for the purposes of balance, but that is, again, irrelevant to its reliability. ] (]) 15:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ===Discussion: ''Jacobin''=== | |||
| ::::: I share DigitalC's and Ocaasi's concerns and POV on this one. We'd need secondary sources that address this issue specifically. This all borders on OR using a primary source. That doesn't mean there isn't an issue or a subject, but it needs to be dealt with in a better manner. Until secondary sources do that, we're left with the option of simply not mentioning it. -- ] (]) 03:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *Seeing as there's substantial disagreement in the pre-RfC section above, I've gone ahead and launched this RfC. — ] <sub>]</sub> 16:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Pings to {{yo|Feminist|The wub|Thebiguglyalien|Super Goku V|Simonm223|FortunateSons|Oort1|Burrobert|ActivelyDisinterested|Hydrangeans|Vanilla Wizard|Iljhgtn|Selfstudier|Horse Eye's Back|NoonIcarus|Harizotoh9|Springee}} who commented above. — ] <sub>]</sub> 16:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Additional pings to {{yo|WMrapids|David Gerard|Bobfrombrockley|Shibbolethink|Crossroads|Herostratus|Dumuzid|Aquillion|Gamaliel|Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d|BSMRD|Wugapodes|Ip says|King of Hearts|Chetsford|Tayi Arajakate|MPants at work|Jlevi|The Four Deuces|Grnrchst|Szmenderowiecki|Dlthewave|Jr8825|Thenightaway|Nvtuil|Peter Gulutzan|FormalDude|Volunteer Marek|FOARP|Sea Ane|3Kingdoms|Bilorv|blindlynx|Jurisdicta|TheTechnician27|MarioGom|Novemberjazz|Volteer1}} who commented in the ]. — ] <sub>]</sub> 16:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::I think you should also disclose that the previous RfC was initially closed by you (back then under the usernames ] and ]) and the discussions that followed at {{slink|Misplaced Pages talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/Archive 6#Jacobin (magazine)}} and {{slink|Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive340#Close review of the latest RfC about Jacobin's reliability}} led to an overturn on grounds of it being heavily flawed and ostensibly a ], followed by a re-close afterwards. Especially considering your statement in the above section questioning that (re)closure now, which also partially forms the basis for this RfC. Those discussions might also answer your question on why it was (re)closed in the manner it was. <span style="background-color:#B2BEB5;padding:2px 12px 2px 12px;font-size:10px">] <sub>]</sub></span> 20:37, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:I've tried to ping everyone from the prior RfC and from the discussion above. This was done manually: I excluded 1 vanished account and I tried to ping people by their current usernames if they have changed names since then. If I missed someone, please feel free to notify them. — ] <sub>]</sub> 16:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Per my prior comments about space constraints I've split this to its own section. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 16:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::I've just moved the RFC out of the discussion again. The RFC shouldn't be made a subsection of the prior discussion, due to ongoing issues with overloading on the noticeboard. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 19:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Comment''' Editors should bear in mind that reliability does not mean infallibility. It merely means we can use sources where applicable. In this case, the impeached article is a book review, which combines a description of a book and the reviewer's opinions. The only acceptable use of a book review - whoever wrote it and wherever it is published - is in an article about the book reviewed. | |||
| :::::: There's still the concern about too much ] given to a single research study. This is a very general article. All content aside, and all personal opinions about the content aside, is this study really so important that it must be included in the encyclopedia despite no third-party coverage? This isn't a reliability question, it's one of notability and shouldn't be decided here. ] (]) 05:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Ironically, there can be no article about the book because it lacks notability. It was only reviewed in Jacobin. We are basically working to prevent things that will never happen. Under current policy therefore this source could never be used. | |||
| :::Huh, a shortcut created six weeks ago by QuackGuru, to point to a sentence (not currently present in the policy) that he's been trying to edit-war into WP:V for about as long. I don't think that is really the best expression of the community's consensus. ] (]) 06:25, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Yes, and FWIW, a quick search undercovers a number of books that could serve as reliable sources on the general issue, although they may not say what a particular editor might wish them to say. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 12:00, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Our time would be better spent ensuring that RS policy is adhered to. | |||
| == Is IdleBrain a good source for Telugu movies == | |||
| ] (]) 17:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Can be considered reliable for Telugu movie review, news etc...A reliable news source says its a very successful site. Additionally, it has been named as the '''Best Telugu Film website''' . It has also been praised Thanks, ] (]) 10:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :This does not look like a reliable source. It is basically a SPS - a film fan website that started as a hobby and is now making some money. The cited articles don't say that it is a reliable source, they say it is popular. Big difference. ] (]) 17:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Bad RFC''' because we should not be rating things just for the sake of rating things, but since we're doing this: Jacobin is clearly an opinion outlet, not a news outlet. We shouldn't be relying on them for statements of fact for that reason alone. ] (]) 17:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == ]'s bias regarding Central and Eastern Europe == | |||
| *:Notwithstanding my !vote above I do agree this is a bad RFC because there's not ever been an example presented of Jacobin being used to source anything even remotely questionable during the RFCBefore discussion. ] (]) 18:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::Well, there was one example that generated the 2023 discussion which was Jacobin being used to source a description of the 2014 Maidan Revolution as "the far-right U.S.-backed Euromaidan protests", so that's one occasion of it being used to source something questionable. It was also by the same editor on the 9/11 attack page to source the claim that the CIA facilitated the attacks and intentionally withheld information that could have stopped the attacks. | |||
| *::That editor is now blocked (because of their conduct on this noticeboard I think?) but they used the green flag at RSP to justify their edits. ] (]) 10:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Absolutely a bad RfC, I rolled my eyes when I was pinged about this. Nothing fundamental has changed about Jacobin's editorial line or policy since the last RfC was opened four years ago. I can't believe we're hashing this out again because of a single reddit post. --] (]) 10:02, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *The Jacobin author who wrote the nonsense claim that Blackstone owns 1/3 of US housing stock literally mocked the people who tried to correct him and the correction - which itself was inaccurate and weaselly - was issued only after social media pressure. This is an outlet that very obviously does not care one bit about fact checking if it gets in the way of producing click bait pieces. It’s exactly the kind of source we should NOT be using, especially as the whole media landscape is shifting that way.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 19:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Norman Naimark is a respected historian in the USA and partially in Germany, he isn't quite popular in several other countries. Hubert Orłowski quotes E. and H.H. Hahn's critics, a summary of their 2007 article uses the word "völkisch". Norman Naimark has obtained a number of German distinctions and prizes. Compare also "Bloodlands" by T. Snyder. ] (]) 10:41, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| : |
*:They issued a correction. This is what we expect of reliable outlets. Your personal characterization of the correction as "weaselly" is your personal opinion on tone and has nothing to do with any Misplaced Pages policy. ] (]) 19:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | ||
| :::Did this correction at least state what the correct % was? Like, the correction itself tries to make it seem like a minor overstatement rather than, you know, a completely wild exaggeration that tried to take advantage of general innumeracy. “I’m a billionaire!”. “No you’re not”. “Ok that was an overstatement”. Come on. It’s quite disappointing to see how many people are fine with misinformation, weak sourcing and “alternative facts” as long as it agrees with their ideological preconceptions. Whats even more disappointing is when these are people who are claiming to be building a factual encyclopedia. Facts are facts and garbage is garbage, regardless of whether it come from the left or right.<small><span style="border:1px solid black;padding:1px;">]</span></small> 03:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::I believe this is about citations in ], particularly ]. Discussion at ] --] (]) 17:37, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Yes facts are facts and garbage is garbage but as long as we allow garbage like ''New York "Iraq has WMDs" Times'' to be treated as a reliable source I don't see why we should treat Jacobin differently. Jacobin is compliant with Misplaced Pages's requirements. If you want to talk about tightening those requirements I'd be open to the discussion at ]. ] (]) 14:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::The cited sources above, and the essays they are referencing are not the sources being disputed in that Rape/Germany article. Nothing in these cited sources say anything about "bias", whether Naimark is or isn't respected in one country and not another, nor or about his popularity or lack thereof. The cited sources concern a strong disagreement between two academics - Naimark and Hahn over an essay about a different, though certainly not totally unrelated question. So, I am left still wondering what the question is supposed to be for RSN. ] (]) 18:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Was the weapons of mass destruction bit ever retracted by New York Times? As far as I'm aware it wasn't. Perhaps we should be wasting community time and having a discussion about them? '']''<sup>]</sup> 14:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Norman Naimark is involved in "Expulsions" debate on German side, in another words he is "biased". An example From ] "Yet as the war went on, Lower Silesia also became a Polish war aim, as well as occupation of the Baltic coast west of ] as far as ] and occupation of the ]." The main Polish war aim was to survive and to regain independence in stable Europe. Poland wasn't able to achive any war aim and moving responsibilty from the US administration to a group of brige players in London is non-academic propaganda. I don't use the word "lies" because I believe that Naimark ignores elementary knowledge of Eastern Europe. Quotes from Naimark aren't accidental, the neutral part of his texts isn't interesting, the quotes are selected to support anti-Polish BDV-type propaganda. About the rapes: there are plenty texts about Polish men raping German women, Naimark is quoted even if he doesn't directly write about the rapes, why?] (]) 09:10, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Yeah my point is just that a lot of editors are establishing a double standard where Jacobin is being held to a higher standard than what Misplaced Pages generally expects from news organizations. I would like it to be measured against the same standard as anyone else. ] (]) 14:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific. Naimark appears to be a reliable source, and sometimes reliable sources have bias. Historians are known to disagree, so I see no fundamental problem with using Naimark as a source. I also see no support in the article for "Poland wasn't able to achive any war aim and moving responsibilty from the US administration to a group of brige players in London is non-academic propaganda," what is your source for that statement? Where is Naimark quoted regarding rapes, and what does that have to do with the quote you provided, ""Yet as the war went on, Lower Silesia also became a Polish war aim, as well as occupation of the Baltic coast west of ] as far as ] and occupation of the ]." <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 09:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Agreed. I'm not the biggest fan of them because there's so much oped stuff but we've never thought that reason to downgrade ]. '']''<sup>]</sup> 14:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Same here. I have no idea from any of these posts what the "Explusions" debate is; what "sides" there may be to that debate, assuming it exists, on what basis one would conclude that Naimark is on one or another "side" assuming there are sides; and why, assuming he is on one side or another, that constitutes "bias". I am completely baffled about how the quoted language from the Expulsion article sourced to Naimark is supposed to demonstrate any of the foregoing, even assuming Xx236's unreferenced assertion that Naimark is wrong about the Polish government-in-exile's war aims (realistically achievable or otherwise). I am likewise baffled as to how the two articles cited in the original post, in which Hahn disagrees with one of Naimark's essays on historical roots of ethnic cleansing in Central and Eastern Europe have anything to do with bias. But, more to the point, as Nuujinn points out, even if Naimark is "biased" as alleged, his books and articles are reliable sources, and that is the limit of RSN's scope. ] (]) 21:42, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Exactly. And that is kind of what I was getting at when I suggested the right venue for what {{noping|Volunteer Marek}} was concerned about was ]. If we allow these kinds of sources then we allow these kinds of sources. I would be happy to restrict these kinds of sources more than we do but it has to be handled at a policy level rather than via exceptions to present policy. ] (]) 14:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:This does not appear to be an outlet generally characterized as producing click bait. ] (]) 01:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :It is not the case that a book review can ''only'' be used in an article about that specific book. For example, they are frequently cited in biographies of authors, in order to demonstrate that those authors meet ]. And an article about the pedagogy of some subject could cite reviews of textbooks about that subject. ] (]) 20:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == The Heritage Foundation == | |||
| == Is there a conflict of sources? == | |||
| <!-- ] 16:01, 13 February 2025 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1739462471}} | |||
| :''This discussion has been relisted at ]''. '''<span style="font-variant:small-caps">]</span>''' 11:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{Moved discussion to|WP:Requests for comment/The Heritage Foundation|2=Due to how large the discussion has become, and size constraints on the noticeboard, this discussion has been moved to it's own page. <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 11:32, 18 January 2025 (UTC)}} | |||
| == Catholic-Hierarchy.org == | |||
| == RELIABLE SOURCE Effectiveness of alcoholics anonymous page == | |||
| '']'' is a self-published source that has been featured in two prior discussions (2016 and 2020). Multiple editors appear to consider it a reliable source specifically because it is used in other independent publications. This is a noted exception for self-published sources that can be found in WP:RS/SPS. However, users also acknowledge that it should never be used in biographies of living people. | |||
| http://en.wikipedia.org/Effectiveness_of_Alcoholics_Anonymous | |||
| Is there more discussion that should be had? Should these details be added to WP:RSPSOURCES? This source is used several thousand times on the English WP, so centralized standards for it might be desirable. ] (]) 18:47, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| This source is in question, it is unpublished, with unnamed authors, questionable math, and certainly pov | |||
| Arthur S; Tom E., Glenn C (11 October 2008). Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Recovery Outcome Rates: Contemporary Myth and Misinterpretation. Archived from the original on 2009-12-19. http://www.webcitation.org/5mA3r6hSn. Retrieved 2009-12-19. the pdf link attached here. | |||
| http://hindsfoot.org/recout01.pdf | |||
| :Is there any context, any new disagreement about the source that would warrant a new discussion? If not the RSP has ] and can be discussed on ]. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 19:23, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Basically what they are trying to do is make results that look really bad and | |||
| :{{Reply|OldPolandUpdates}} Where can that noted exception for self-published sources be found in WP:RS/SPS? ] (]) 19:33, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| make them not so bad. When you get a group of people for example: a trait lets | |||
| ::Mid-paragraph ]. ] (]) 19:37, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| say IQ. There is a gamut of people from dumb to smart. On a normal curve the | |||
| :::I think you're getting EXPERTSPS confused with used by others, that isn't there. The self publisher here is an amateur, a self described "Random Catholic Dude" ] (]) 19:38, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| smart people would be on the right side of the graph. What they are trying to do | |||
| ::::What is WP:EXPERTSPS? It redirects to ]. Do we have standards on who is/is not an expert? If ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' is not an expert source, then it is not a reliable self-published source, and this has implications for thousands of WP articles. | |||
| is only include the people on the right side and say look at what geniuses we | |||
| ::::] seems to imply that if one's material is used by reliable publications, then one might be considered an established expert. ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' is used in peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other types of articles. Some of the usage is described here: ]. Therefore, the discussion might revolve around whether ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' is used ''enough'' by external publications. | |||
| are. | |||
| ::::If you consider ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' not reliable, then would you also agree that it be depicted as such in the WP:RSPSOURCES table? ] (]) 20:17, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| The normalization factor is used wrongly to bring the total population up to 100 | |||
| :::::The standard is mid-paragraph ] "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." which does not appear to be the case here. ] (]) 22:38, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| so you can count retention. You can't do this, that 100% of the | |||
| :::::I would also note that there appears to be a consensus from 2020 that this is a SPS, see ] ] (]) 22:43, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| population is already included in the graph so you cannot multiply anythiing to | |||
| ::::::I have added the source to the WP:RSPSOURCES list. Please take a look. ] (]) 23:49, 9 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| come up with a retention rate. | |||
| :::::::From the wording you've used there ("Other editors do not consider the website to be a ] in its field.") I think you're getting EXPERTSPS confused with used by others... Its not the website which isn't a subject-matter expert, its the self publisher who isn't. The argument that "some editors have considered the website to be reliable because some of its content has been published in reliable, independent publications" is seperate from the argument about whether or not its a SPS... A SPS which is used by others still has to follow SPS rules. ] (]) 01:04, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ] (]) 20:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Can you provide the standard that you are using to determine whether someone is an expert? ] (]) 02:25, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::The standard: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, '''whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications'''." ] (]) 17:05, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::It is possible that I am misinterpreting that, and I did consider that bolded section to basically be similar to WP:USEBYOTHERS. If work that appears on ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' is published in the form of a reference in reliable sources (books, peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations, and reliable newspapers), then isn't this bolded section satisfied? What does the bolded section mean? ] (]) 22:58, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::No, there has to be works other than the self published ones and they have to predate the self published one. Generally only academics and journalists satisfy our requirements. ] (]) 01:28, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::I think we need to potentially modify WP:RSSELF so that it better delineates between USEBYOTHER and "'''whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications'''." The two prior discussions about ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' generally featured the following logic: "Work found in ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' has been published by reliable publications. As such, if the work found in ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' is the product of the author of ''CH'', then we can say that the author of ''CH'' has had their work published by reliable publications." | |||
| ::::::::::::I think the problem is the way "work" and "works" can be interpreted, especially given the dozens of formal definitions for the word "work." I would argue that the bolded section from WP:RSSELF is improved by saying: "'''whose scholarly or journalistic works in the relevant field have previously been published by reliable, independent publications'''." However, we also might want to entirely abandon the word "work" for some alternative. | |||
| ::::::::::::What do you think? ] (]) 18:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::::That would be a completely different standard which would expand the pool 10,000x. I would also note that you're the only editor I've ever seen get seriously confused by this... If its just a you problem and not an us problem why would we need to rewrite? ] (]) 18:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::::My proposed bolded section tries to incorporate your earlier comment about "journalists and academics." If such individuals are the (general) standard, then shouldn't we say that? I want to be clear that I am ''not'' advocating for the adoption of the logic flow used on the prior ''CH'' discussions. | |||
| ::::::::::::::Are you saying that using the word "works" is less restrictive than the word "work"? "Works" is probably generally interpreted as multiple discrete intellectual labors such as articles and books. "Work" could be interpreted as any effort expended in a field, well beyond just articles and books. ] (]) 19:25, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::::::I'm saying that nothing is broken here, our existing policies and guidelines are adequate even if you don't like the result of their application. ] (]) 20:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::I have modified the WP:RSPSOURCES entry to better reflect this comment. ] (]) 04:02, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::It still feels off, you're giving wayyyyyy too much weight to the group that thinks its reliable when that view isn't supported by policy and guideline. You also make the consenus that it isn't an expert SPS look like just an opinion, but we clearly have consensus that the author isn't a subject matter expert by our standards. It also isn't a general opinion that SPS can't be used for BLP, thats solid policy. This comes off more as apologism than what consenus actually is. ] (]) 17:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::I went ahead and updated the entry. Given the author's status as a "Random Catholic Dude", they cannot be a subject matter expert as defined by Misplaced Pages. And as a self-published source, it cannot be used to support claims about living persons. ] (]) 15:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::The "Random Catholic Dude" description is probably a form of ] that should not alone be used to exclude someone from "expert" status. If an MD-PhD medical school professor referred to themselves as "Some Random Hospital Dude," then we probably should not immediately exclude them from "expert" status over this form of self-depreciation. | |||
| :::::::::::Also, thank you for updating WP:RSPSOURCES. I saw that you added "limited USEBYOTHER". As Red-tailed hawk has shown elsewhere in this conversation, ''Catholic-Hierarchy.org'' has 1000+ hits on Google Scholar. Would you still consider this as limited USEBYOTHER"? We could probably justifiably update it to "significant USEBYOTHER", although this would not be enough to change the overall status of the source. ] (]) 19:49, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::::A SPS remains a SPS regardless of USEDBYOTHERS... It doesn't change the core status. The difference is that an MD-PhD medical school professor likely meets our standards, it has nothing to do with the self-deprecation. ] (]) 20:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * This is a non-expert self published source. We have established that no such "noted exception" exists. ] (]) 17:17, 10 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *If it is used by reliable secondary sources then it shouldn't be difficult to find the information from the reliable source itself. ] (]) 00:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *I came into this thinking that this was akin to those military/tank/airplane fan websites inasmuch as it was mostly compiled by one person and it's of the quality of hobbyist work. But I am seeing it get a {{URL|1=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Catholic-Hierarchy.org|2=metric ton}} of hits on Google Scholar, where it looks like it is cited in a ''ton'' of scholarly literature as a source for facts. And, in that weird way, ] considerations come into play.{{pb}}I tried to find sources that specifically analyzed this database or evaluated it in a comparative fashion to other commonly cited databases. It's a bit hard to find specific studies, since the majority of citations are just using this plainly as a source for facts (which itself says something, albeit subtly). But I did manage to find a by economic historian that compared the website against other databases of Catholic hierarchies in the section describing his research methods. What it found was quite simple, and went against my initial impression. Schulz found that, among various Catholic heirarchy databases he had assessed, there was {{tq|a high level of consistency. In case of disagreements between sources they were most often in the range of less than one or two decades – a rather small inaccuracy in relation to the duration of Church exposure up to the year 1500}}. In other words, this database is more or less as accurate as the other ones he had assessed (though, as he notes in his paper, none of the databases are ''quite'' complete).{{pb}}It might just be a weird edge case where we've got a decently reliable database that's also self-published. And that's fine, ] notes that self-published sources {{tq|are largely not acceptable as sources}}, but it <u>doesn't</u> say {{red|are always not acceptable as sources}}—as ] notes, {{tq|common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process}} when assessing issues of source reliability.{{pb}}We should follow common sense here. And, in light of the scholarly literature, the common sense thing to do is to treat it in the same way that we treat other sorts of curated databases regarding Catholic Church hierarchies. That is to say: it's ''okay''; it'll do fine for ordinary historical dates of bishop reigns etc., but when more professional sources exist we should probably use them instead.{{pb}}— ] <sub>]</sub> 02:05, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:For what it's worth, I think that Schulz's sort of meta-dataset would be immensely valuable and be the sort of thing that gets considered when I say that {{tq|when more professional sources exist we should probably use them instead}}. But, alas, the data aren't public (or, if they are, I can't quite find them). — ] <sub>]</sub> 02:07, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:The core BLP problem isn't going to go away though... At best we can say that the source is usable for dead figures but I don't see a policy or guideline path to genuine reliability (even if just on technical grounds). Theres also the general problems that come with online databases (don't count towards notability, almost never due, etc). If it isn't covered in other sources then its almost by definition a level of detail that isn't due. ] (]) 18:22, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::I would support usage within biographies of dead figures who have been shown to be notable by way of other (non-''CH'') sources. Red-tailed hawk's points are hard to ignore. ] (]) 18:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:::USEDBYOTHERS is the weakest indication of reliability, remember if thats the way we go the instructions are "If outside citation is the main indicator of reliability, particular care should be taken to adhere to other guidelines and policies, and to not unduly represent contentious or minority claims." This also means that USEDBYOTHERS can't be used as an end run around SPS. ] (]) 18:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::::Sure. But also this isn't ''just'' a UBO argument as if it were based on reading the widespread citation as implying something; it's an argument that the source has ''explicitly'' been subject to some academic study, and that study came back with a relatively positive review of its accuracy. — ] <sub>]</sub> 01:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:::::Unless it comes back with the result that its not self published it doesn't matter... Self published is self published regardless of underlying reliability. There is no way in which self published works become non-self published by being accurate, its still treated as self published. ] (]) 21:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Does this source even exists? == | |||
| :No. What you are doing is trying to argue that a graph which clearly shows attrition of 26% (from 19% to 5%) and pretend it shows attrition of 95%. A question, where is 100% on the graph? ] (]) 23:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| I saw this ''{{code|ড. মুহম্মদ আব্দুল করিম. বাংলাদেশের ইতিহাস. মগ বিতাড়ন ও চট্টগ্রাম জয়.}}'' cited on an article (here ]) but I couldn't find any source with this name anywhere on the internet, can anyone confirm if it is real or not? ] (]) 16:47, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :This looks like a classic example of ]. The site cvannot be considered a RS. - ] ] 21:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :If it is a hard copy book (or similar), it may not be on the internet. That said, a lot of library databases are in English, so have you tried searching for an English language translation? ] (]) 16:58, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Sourced removed because it was hard to find & lack of a requested quote == | |||
| :I tried google translating it from Hindi to English… not completely successful, but I suspect the author may be ]… something for you to look into. ] (]) 17:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::I've just tried it too and searched it in English but I still couldn't find anything, The only person I could find who has the same name as the author of that source is ] who is not a Historian. ] (]) 17:14, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::@] Google scholar does not mentions any book of ] with that name. ] (]) 17:21, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :The following website is using the same source but is referencing different pages in the source than the wiki article: https://www.teachers.gov.bd/blog/details/686411?page=2546&cttlbasee-smrn-rakheni-cttgramer-itihas-bujurg-umed-khann-cttgram-punruddharer-mhanayk | |||
| :It may be a physical source that is only available as a printed book. | |||
| :The following website also uses this source and is also mentioning the name "জাতীয় গ্রন্থ প্রকাশ" (Jatiya Grantha Prakash / Jatio Grantho Prokashon) for the publishing house that published the book: https://www.sachalayatan.com/shashtha_pandava/56984. And it looks like this publisher actually exists: https://www.rokomari.com/book/publisher/498/jatio-grantho-prokashon?ref=apb_pg96_p34. ] (]) 17:17, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::The author appears to be this guy: ]. That wiki article references the following website: https://www.thedailystar.net/in-focus/abdul-karims-discoveries-origins-modernity-bengali-literature-154528. This website is talking about Abdul Karim and the history of Chittagong, and given that the source Koshuri Sultan is asking about is also about Chittagong (translated by Google as "Dr. Muhammad Abdul Karim. History of Bangladesh. Expulsion of the Mughals and Conquest of Chittagong."), I think that this the Abdul Karim who authored the source in question. ] (]) 17:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Or it's this other Abdul Karim who is said to have written a two volume book by the title of "History of Bangladesh": . ] (]) 17:51, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Thank you for finding these, I appreciate your help. However we still can't verify the source.<br>This article was previously nominated for speedy deletion (under ]) but the author of that article without discussing it properly . ] (]) 18:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I think we have enough info to verify that the source exits. That last website I linked clearly mentions a book by a historian named Dr. Abdul Karim with the title "History of Bangladesh". He wrote (according to the Google translation) "about forty books and about two hundred original research articles in Bengali and English" and "taught at Dhaka University from 1951 to 1966. In 1966, he joined the newly established History Department of Chittagong University." Regarding the author of that article, the website states "Author: Teacher, Department of History, Chittagong University zahidhistory¦gmail.com". The article is not from a blog, but from a Bengali newspaper: on which we have a wiki article, see ]. This website pretty much states the same but in English and calls Karim "an authority of the field of medieval Bengal could recognise from a distance if a mosque was from the Sultani or from the Mughal period". The publication list of the Chittagong website lists several works by Dr. Abdul Karim (though it only goes back until 2005): . Doing some further digging, I even found volume 1 of the book on Amazon. The book might be available at some universities in the US: . Google Scholar does have an entry for a book on Bengal 16th-century history by the historian Abdul Karim (even if not for the particular one you are looking for), see (and the internet archive appears to have a scan of that book). The University of Asia Pacific lists even more of his books. Banglapedia (which is written by scholars) might also help in verifying the content, see for example these entries: . ] (]) 17:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Actually, appears to be the Google Scholar entry on (the 1st volume of) the book in question. The title is just not "History of Bangladesh" but "History of Bengal". Google translation probably messed up. ] (]) 17:27, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Sources for Chapel Hart == | |||
| See where a source has been removed as unverifiable. A quote was requested in June 2009 but has not been found. At ] there's a bit of discussion about this also dating back to last year. It is available in a number of UK libraries and easily available from Amazon, so I don't think that the statement that it is "only held by a very few, generally obscure, libraries" is correct. Is the issue the supposed difficulty in finding the book (the editor who removed it wrote "is there anywhere where this material is accessible by Wikiepdia's readership/editorship?" or the lack of a quote? ] (]) 21:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :]? Not notable. AfD. ] (]) 21:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::If the quotes can't be verified, AfD for lack of verifiability. --] (]) 22:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::I'd say the article fails ] miserably, regardless of the verifiability of the disputed source. ] (]) 22:37, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::It's easy (and cheap) to get hold of this book . I can see no reason for deleting a source that anyone who is not penniless can access if they want to. ] (]) 01:47, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I dare say the book is easily available. Does it pass ] though? I doubt it. ] (]) 03:03, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: The ] of a book is irrelevant to its reliability. There are probably millions of books that are perfectly valid reliable sources that aren't notable enough to have an encyclopedia article. Which I don't mean as an argument in favor of this source. And I doubt this crackpot theory deserves an article either. ] (]) 04:10, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Hi, I am currently reviewing a GA nomination for ]. I've never heard of the following sources currently being used nor can I find past discussions on them. As such, I would others' opinions on them. | |||
| ::::::It's a crackpot theory, but see - it's easy enough to source and to debunk. I'd argue against an AfD, we just need a better article. Larry Kusche's book on the Bermuda Triangle, for instance, has a short chapter debunking it. And although I don't know if it was specifically mentioned in ] it was discussed a lot by its fans, eg. , A good article would be a service. And I see no reason why Begg wouldn't be a reliable source. ] (]) 10:01, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *https://texasborderbusiness.com/chapel-hart-music-video-for-new-single-i-will-follow-premiered-by-cmt-on-friday-february-5th/ | |||
| :::::::Yes, the book series appears to be readily available, so it can be verified. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 10:18, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *https://drgnews.com/2022/09/19/darius-rucker-set-to-release-new-song-featuring-chapel-hart/ | |||
| ::::::::I've asked for it via inter-library loan. ] (]) 14:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| *https://www.southernliving.com/chapel-hart-danica-vocal-cord-surgery-6825847 | |||
| ] (]) 22:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :The Texas Border Business link (now dead but available from the Wayback Machine) is a press release, you can find the exact same wording elsewhere. So it would be reliable in a primary way, as it's from the band about the band.<br>Southern Living appears to be an established magazine, I don't see why it wouldn't be reliable.<br>The drgnews.com article appears to be another press release, as the wording is found in many other sites. Oddly though I can't access any of them, as I get blocked by cloudflare for some reason. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 22:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Question about a youtube link == | |||
| ::Thank you, I'll take this into consideration for my review. ] (]) 23:49, 11 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Southern Living tends toward puffery, and I would avoid using them for controversial claims (although they mostly avoid making controversial claims anyway). I would accept an article by them as supporting notability. ] (]) 01:11, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::My assessment: | |||
| ::* The https://texasborderbusiness.com/ source isn't labeled as a press release. Overall, the site looks like a low-quality ] that lightly repackages any information they receive that they think would interest their readers (i.e., their advertising targets). Other sites label it a press release, and I'm sure these other sites are correct. That said, even if we treat it like a press release, press releases can be reliable for the sort of simple fact this one is being used to support. | |||
| ::* The DRG News source is labeled as being from '']'', which appears to be a media outlet/country music magazine. They ''might'' be part of https://www.cumulusmedia.com | |||
| ::* ] is a reliable source. | |||
| ::] (]) 20:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == AllMovie == | |||
| I was writing on the page for the ] comic book series. The company that published that comic book posted a video on their youtube account which was the lead-in to one comic story book mentioned on the page. So I posted an external link to it. I have another editor upset because he says you can't link to youtube as a source. I'm not using this a proof of notability, just as an external link. What's the best way to post this link? Thanks ] (]) 21:39, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| : If you were posting it as an external link, it needs to follow the ] and you should post your question at the ]. ] (]) 01:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| : If the company that owns the content put up the video, it should be no problem. And an EL is not a source and doesn't have the same rules that a source does. ] (]) 11:43, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::It actually might be possible to use as a self published ref but keeping it as an external link shows some good restraint on your part. Why do you need an external link though? How about just pointing to the official site if there is one. Or in the body, use a ref from a reliable secondary source. Although there may be better options, there still could be precedent to use the EL as you are trying (you need to verify that it is ''the'' official channel). And see ] for more info (disclaimer: an essay I wrote).] (]) 11:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| is an online movie database, currently listed under ] with other ] sites as "no consensus". The site has changed significantly over the past few years, and it's my opinion that we should either separate AllMovie and mark it as unreliable or expand the description to explain why it shouldn't be used. | |||
| == Alcoholics Anonymous Board More Statistics == | |||
| ] used to be a resource with professional reviews, as a sibling site to ] and ]. At some point, the site was acquired by Netaktion (] has a ). Since then, nearly all of the previous content has been removed. The current version is basically a ] ] of Misplaced Pages and Wikidata. They include a simple "Description by Misplaced Pages" label that doesn't meet the terms of our license, and they've republished on their site several articles that I myself have written, without proper attribution. Here's an example of what '']'' looked like , , and . The ratings on the site also appear unreliable, and somehow they manage to include star ratings for many ]s. Recent discussions about AllMovie have happened at ] and ]. | |||
| RE: http://en.wikipedia.org/Alcoholics_Anonymous | |||
| Because the content and editorial practices of AllMovie are now extremely different from AllMusic, I think we should create a separate entry for it and split off any discussions of the post-acquisition version of the site. The current AllMovie site should be considered unreliable, and any archived URLs from previous iterations of AllMovie would be still evaluated under ]. ] (]) 02:25, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| On the AA page pro sentiment appears strong, information is be nixed by group consensus | |||
| much like an AA meeting. Need clarification for editing purposes. | |||
| :Good catch, and I agree with your proposal. AllMovie's blog post , dated March 24, 2024, suggests that AllMovie's transition from independent content to Misplaced Pages mirror occurred around the beginning of 2024. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 02:39, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Issues with what is reliable and what is not for wiki purposes. | |||
| :Good catch. Yes, I support this.-- ] (] | ]) 23:23, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| under the heading AA Data: | |||
| A source Loran Archer is being cited and has been quoted verbatim from the reference source here: | |||
| I'd still be careful using Allmovie as a source for things such as ]. Even if they're archived links from pre 2024 as not only did they have the wrong DOB for some actors, but they've never provided any information on how the material is obtained or verified. Which is a huge red flag when it comes to using such pages as a reliable source for BLPs. Prior to 2024, the actor bios had a fact sheet at the bottom. Now if you can find some archived pages of actor bios from TVguide.com, it had the same stuff listed under "fast facts". Which makes it look like Allmovie was web scraping that information from other sites even back then. ] (]) 04:15, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| this:http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/message/4447n | |||
| Reliable source?? | |||
| *If a site is pulling its content ''from'' Misplaced Pages, then it is not a reliable source ''for'' Misplaced Pages. Or in fewer words: ]. With sites like this we're obligated to check the sources that they provide for their content, and if we're going that far then we might as well just cite their sources and cut out the middleman. I would say ], but if they're also copying Misplaced Pages content and not properly attributing, then links to the site are ], and that puts them into blacklist territory. | |||
| When I researched Lorne Archer I discovered a review by ] that had been published earlier in a Journal. | |||
| :Also, ''never'' use a site like this to cite a living person's date of birth. I've come across far too many examples of incorrect DOBs being added to Misplaced Pages bios, then subsequently repeated by an ostensibly reliable source, then later when someone tries to correct the info here other editors keep changing it back to the wrong date with a citation to the incorrect source. Things like this have real consequences for real people in the real world. We need to do better, and it's fine not to have a date when we don't know what the ''correct'' date is. ] (<sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>) 15:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == MintPress News == | |||
| http://www.peele.net/lib/denial.html | |||
| ] was given rather short thrift at an , sending it straight to deprecation. The RFC was attended by 14 editors, 4 of which are now banned or blocked (and contributed 2 of the deprecation votes at the time), including Icewhiz. MPN is definitely strongly left-leaning and, would put it, "hyper-partisan", and this often leads to quite sensationalist headlines, but that is not strictly a reliability matter. The same tracker came out with a mixed reliability assessment of MPN. The main reliability concerns around MPN tend to revolve around the way in which it references and paraphrases other sources, which it does frequently. At the same time, it generally heavily attributes other sources, while not necessarily affirming them in its own voice. As the last commenter in the RFC noted, while they might not themselves use MPN, it was unclear if it reached the high bar sufficient to merit deprecation. I raise this largely because deprecation shouldn't be used casually, but only on those sources where the demonstration of the purveyance of misinformation is ironclad. ] (]) 11:58, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote>The second Rand report (Polich et al., 1981) responded systematically to criticisms of the original report; again, the investigators found substantial numbers of what they termed "nonproblem" drinkers. Criticism by the NCA and related groups was somewhat muted this time around, while a large number of social scientific reviews in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and the British Journal of Addiction were almost uniformly positive. The most remarkable consequence of the second report was that the Director of the NIAAA, John DeLuca, and his executive assistant, Loran Archer (neither of whom had a research background), offered their own summary of its results. This summary emphasized that abstinence ought to be the goal of all alcoholism treatment and that AA attendance offered the best prognosis for recovery, statements the report explicitly rejected (Brody, 1980</blockquote> | |||
| :As one of the participants in the {{rsnl|268|RfC: MintPress News|July 2019 RfC}}, my assessment that '']'' should be ] has not changed. I believe the evidence I listed is more than sufficient to justify deprecation. I have analyzed ''MintPress News''{{'s}} response to being deprecated, and due to its length, I will place my analysis in a separate subsection. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 17:39, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :As a non-participant in the 2019 discussion I would like to say that deprecation was the right choice and reliability issues only seem to have gotten worse since. Note that just republishing Zero Hedge would be enough to get them over the deprecation line even if all of their native work was beyond reproach (which it is not). ] (]) 18:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :You drew on Ad Fontes Media's analyses in your comment, and AFM is itself considered generally unreliable on the RSP. It's also not accurate to say "The main reliability concerns around MPN tend to revolve around the way in which it references and paraphrases other sources," as can be seen if one clicks though to read all of the RfC comments. I have no direct experience with MintPress, but a bit of searching pulls up info like "According to experts, MintPress news is a disinformation site with opaque funding streams run out of Minneapolis that aligns with the Kremlin’s view of a “multipolar world” and often promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. MintPress News has been reprinting copy from Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik since 2016" ( from the ] in 2021), and the ] article cites a number of other sources with similar claims. What's your evidence that they've become reliable? ] (]) 18:13, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Reprinting copy from other websites doesn't automatically or implicitly make any of the content that MPN produces inherently unreliable. It might seem distasteful to republish material from insalubrious sites, but as long as it is clearly labelled, reprinting is all it is. Anything from other sites that we wouldn't use we still don't use if it's syndicated elsewhere. ] (]) 18:31, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::If they regularly reprint news from unreliable sources, yes, that does contribute to their being GUNREL, as it tells us that they have no commitment to accuracy. You've also ignored the rest of the quote and the info in the references on the MintPress article. ] (]) 19:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I'm not sure the NCRI is an RS or a source worth taking cues from. There are journal pieces on the MPN page that are more reliable and insightful. ] (]) 20:24, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I'm not going to spend time convincing you that it's reliable. If you find the other sources' critiques to be reliable, then use those. The bottom line is: you question whether it should have been deprecated, but you haven't presented any convincing evidence that it should instead be assessed as generally unreliable. ] (]) 20:46, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Also, I don't believe that I've actually claimed anywhere that they've become reliable. I have merely raised questions about their deprecation. ] (]) 18:33, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Isn't that obvious from the fact that you opened this? You are currently contesting the consensus on reliability for MintPress News. The alternative would be that you are engaging in a form of "I'm just asking questions" ]-esque trolling and I think everyone is trying to AGF. ] (]) 19:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I'm questioning the deprecation. I'm not arguing it is not GUNREL. ] (]) 20:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::The deprecation looks appropriate to me, especially based on @]'s comments below. ] (]) 16:04, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::That you for clarifying, that isn't at all clear from your initial post. ] (]) 18:34, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I really don't understand the objection to deprecating the source then. Sources are not deprecated because they're more unreliable than GUNREL, the "high bar" for deprecation after something is found generally unreliable is "people think it might be a problem". ] (] • ]) 04:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :(Also not part of the original RFC) Looking at what was brought up in the RFC and at the site itself, I think the RFC had the right result. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 19:02, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I wasn't involved in last RFC, but I will vote to deprecate if you start another one. The front page is nothing but conspiracy theories, and reading through some articles it has a really strange tendency to cite Russian thinktanks and commentators who are never mentioned by any other English-language outlet. ] (]) 23:21, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :The central motivation seems for revisiting to be that {{Tq|the RFC was attended by 14 editors, 4 of which are now banned or blocked}}. People become blocked or banned all the time down the line for transgressions unrelated to particular discussions—when that happens, it does not void their prior contributions. If these users were in good standing at the time of the RfC, and weren't evading a block/ban at the time of the discussion, I don't really see why this motivates a change. And, the close seems to be a reasonable reading of the discussion. | |||
| :Has the general reputation of the source improved since 2019? If so, there could be some evidence of this that would be useful here. I haven't searched for any, but I also haven't seen it brought up in this discussion. And unless there's good evidence that the source has improved its editorial processes/fact-checking reputation in some way since the prior discussion, I don't really see a need to reassess at this time—we'd probably wind up with the same result. | |||
| :— ] <sub>]</sub> 01:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Has the reputation improved since 2019? Just looking at the post-2019 RSs cited in its own article. | |||
| ::*{{tq|The only journalists who thrive in Syria today are those who serve as mouthpieces for the Syrian and Russian regimes. Many of these mouthpieces include American-based, far-left websites such as The Grayzone and MintPress News. Idrees Ahmed, an editor at global affairs magazine New Lines, says such friendly foreign media, even if obscure and dismissed by the mainstream, has “made the job of propaganda easier for .”}} | |||
| ::*{{tq|While instances of mass amplification of state-engendered disinformation are cause for concern, equal attention should be paid to the less visible but still vociferous ‘alternative facts’ communities that exist online... These grassroots communities are particularly evident on Twitter, where they coalesce around individual personalities like right-wing activist Andy Ngo, and around platforms with uncritical pro-Kremlin and pro-Assad editorial lines, like The Grayzone and MintPress News. These personalities and associated outlets act as both producers of counterfactual theories, as well as hubs around which individuals with similar beliefs rally. The damage that these ecosystems and the theories that they spawn can inflict on digital evidence is not based on the quality of the dis/misinformation that they produce but rather on the quantity.}} | |||
| ::*{{tq| Its bestknown article—falsely claiming a chemical weapons attack in Syria had actually been perpetrated by rebel groups rather than the Assad regime—was cited as evidence by Syria, Iran, and Russia, though it turned out to have been reported by a man in Syria who at times appears to have been based in St. Petersburg and Tehran.493 When staff asked who funded their paychecks, they were told it was “retired business people.”494 The hidden nature of the funding caused some staff enough discomfort that former employees cited it as their reason for leaving Mint Press.495 Local journalists have tried and failed to figure out where Mint Press’s money comes from.49}}} | |||
| ::*{{tq|The next five domains (rt.com, mintpressnews.com, sputniknews.com, globalresearch.ca, southfront.org) are alternative media domains that spread master narratives in the Russia’s disinformation campaign.}} | |||
| ::*{{tq|Mintpress has been accused of promoting anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and also regularly pushes pro-Russian propaganda, most notably the unfounded claim that a 2013 chemical weapon attack in Syria that killed more than 1,400 people was perpetrated not by the Syrian regime but by rebel groups with weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia. Mintpress News, alongside The Grayzone, which Maté writes for, has continued to publish Russian-backed narratives that the Syrian regime has been framed for further chemical weapon attacks during the years-long war in the country. The sources of both websites’ funding are unknown.}} | |||
| ::*{{tq|Some of the American Herald Tribune’s articles did survive in other parts of the echo system. Seventeen of them had been cross-posted on the website of Mint Press News, which had similar sharing arrangements with several other “partner” websites including Project Censored, Free Speech TV, Media Roots, Shadow Proof, The Grayzone, Truthout, Common Dreams and Antiwar.com... The only time Mint Press made much impact (though for the wrong reasons) was in 2013 appeared to be based on rumors circulating in Damascus at the time, and there was no real evidence to support it... Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cited the story as evidence that the U.N.’s investigators in Ghouta had not done a thorough job.}} | |||
| ::*{{tq|Researchers at the Rutgers University Network Contagion Research Institute found his work on a number of sites they classify as disinformation, including Mint Press News, which the institute said promotes anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and which also posts copy from Russia Today and Sputnik, the Russian state-owned news agency.}} | |||
| ::*{{tq|The thirteen fake accounts identified by Facebook were promoting the ] website. To build a reputation as an alternative media (progressive and anti-Western) and attract contributors, Peace Data, created at the end of 2019, initially relayed articles from other existing protest media, such as MintPress News or World Socialist Website, or openly pro-Kremlin, Strategic Culture Foundation, The GrayZone or Russia Today.}} | |||
| ::*{{tq|On five occasions, Peace Data published articles that it listed as “partners.” Between August 11 and August 19, the website published two articles each from Citizen Truth and MintPressNews.}} | |||
| ::So, no, it's reputation hasn't improved. ] (]) 13:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *Also not a participant in the original RfC, but concur with those above that it ended with the correct result. Not seeing any conclusive evidence to the contrary, especially given Ad Fontes is itself not considered reliable per ]. ] ] <span style="color:#C8102E;"><small><sup>(])</sup></small></span> 16:00, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I wasn't a participant in the original RfC. I think the RfC should be relisted, as I don't think MPN deprecation was warranted, if anything, I'd support an "Additional considerations apply" designation. ] (]) 08:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Peele sources previously published in psychjournals. Are they a reliable source , would he be considered fringe. | |||
| === ''MintPress News''{{'s}} response to being deprecated === | |||
| In July 2019, ''MintPress News'' published {{small|()}} after discovering that they were deprecated. The response falsely claimed that all of my comments in {{rsnl|268|RfC: MintPress News|the July 2019 RfC}} were written by another editor (<ins>{{np|Jamez42}} – misspelled as</ins> {{!xt|"Jamesz42"}}), and then attacked that editor for writing {{xt|"several English-language Misplaced Pages articles on ] of ] politicians as well as on ] and ] who are aligned with Popular Will"}} in a misguided attempt to discredit the author of the RfC comments. However, since those RfC comments were written by me and not by Jamez42, all ''MintPress News'' did was demonstrate their own lack of accuracy and poor fact-checking in their response.{{pb}}One of the pieces of evidence I cited in the RfC was ''MintPress News''{{'s}} most recent "inside story" at the time, , an article that used false information to promote a ] about ]. The original ''MintPress News'' piece claimed: | |||
| ] | |||
| {{qb|align=none|Similarly, Microsoft’s that it “will not charge for using ElectionGuard and will not profit from partnering with election technology suppliers that incorporate it into their products” should also raise eyebrows. Considering that Microsoft has of predatory practices, including , its offering of ElectionGuard software free of charge is tellingly out of step for the tech giant and suggests an ulterior motive behind Microsoft’s recent philanthropic interest in "defending democracy."}} | |||
| http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/06/AR2010080602660.html t | |||
| Above, ''MintPress News'' linked the term '']'' ("increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair by some") to that described Microsoft engaging in ] ("the use of large scale undercutting to eliminate competition") with its ] software. ''MintPress News'' then used that incorrect reading to push their conspiracy theory about Microsoft's ] software. A reliable source would retract this article after discovering such a prominent flaw in the logic of their argument, but as they mentioned in their reaction piece, ''MintPress News'' doubled down by removing the reference to OneCare altogether and pretending that evidence against its conspiracy theory did not exist. In the {{small|()}}, ''MintPress News'' replaced {{!xt|"including "}} with {{xt|"including "}}, with the term ''price gouging'' now linking to another article about a different piece of software (]).{{pb}}In my RfC comments, I also noted that ''MintPress News'' republished 340 articles from {{rspe|Zero Hedge|]|d}}, a source deprecated for frequently publishing conspiracy theories and false information. Despite acknowledging this in their reaction piece, ''MintPress News'' did not take down the Zero Hedge articles from their website. Instead, ''MintPress News'' has since changed their site design to remove the counter for the Zero Hedge articles. The articles are still published on their site, and can be found in a web search using the following query: .{{pb}}Everything I have mentioned here only concerns my comments in the previous RfC and how ''MintPress News'' responded to them. Additional evidence against this publication's reliability can be found in the article '']''. Altogether, I see no reason to change ''MintPress News''{{'s}} status as a deprecated source. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 17:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC) {{small|Corrected username — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 20:26, 12 January 2025 (UTC)}} | |||
| again | |||
| He was deemed unreliable and quickly edited off. | |||
| :I'm not sure how MPN issuing a correction admitting their error on that article you mention particularly stands against them. The article also links to a piece by ] (an RSP) that ''does'' discuss price gouging. You may feel that their error undermines the entire premise of the article, but whether or not that is true, the actual necessary correction was published. That is not the usual behaviour of a deprecated source, or even many GUNREL sources. Also, one article does not a good GUNREL argument make. Even the best GREL sources put out the occasional truly atrocious piece. The bar for GUNREL, let alone deprecation, is to show that the issues are systematic and unrectified. ] (]) 18:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Reasoning for Peele not reliable cited here: | |||
| :Re: Zero Hedge, they do not masquerade any of that content as their own. On the contrary, each article has a disclaimer stating: {{tq|"Stories published in our Daily Digests section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by MintPress News. The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy."}} And as far as I can tell they have republished or syndicated nothing from ZH since 2019. The editorial detachment is key. I could name several GREL news sites that frequently publish truly psychotic opinion pieces, but which have no bearing on their reliability because of statements just like or similar to this. ] (]) 18:12, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :: MPN's response was wholly inadequate. What MPN should have done was retract its conspiracy theory article entirely, instead of deleting the evidence contradicting it and continuing to push the conspiracy theory. While Microsoft does employ a range of pricing strategies for different products in different markets, MPN intentionally ignoring all of Microsoft's situational use of ] to allege an {{!xt|"ulterior motive"}} based on Microsoft's situational use of ] is misleading. As for Zero Hedge, ''MintPress News''{{'s}} rampant republication of conspiracy theories from Zero Hedge does demonstrate general unreliability; the ] policy states that questionable sources {{xt|"include websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion"}}, which covers Zero Hedge content. The inclusion of Zero Hedge content places MPN's editorial judgment into question, as no reputable news website would publish that kind of conspiracy theory material. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 18:21, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Reprinting external content isn't MPN {{tq|"expressing views"}}. And I'm sure you've looked into the Microsoft story properly, but do you have a source labelling the MPN story as a conspiracy theory? We normally judge sources based on what other sources say about them, not purely on what we think about them. And that's still just one story. ] (]) 18:40, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::When MPN republishes hundreds of Zero Hedge articles containing conspiracy theories and false information, MPN is expressing the view that such content is suitable to be presented on their website alongside MPN's original content. This kind of poor judgment damages MPN's {{xt|"reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"}} and brings MPN's overall reliability into question. Additionally, this is exacerbated by the fact that MPN directly cites Zero Hedge articles for factual claims in MPN's original reporting (examples: ).{{pb}}As a ] website with a ] rank of , MPN is not popular enough of a publication for most of its content to receive a response from fact checkers and reliable publications. An MPN article not being fact-checked by a reliable source does not mean that the MPN article is valid, particularly when MPN acknowledges that there is evidence contradicting their article and then chooses to delete the evidence to retain the article's narrative. My comments in {{rsnl|268|RfC: MintPress News|the 2019 RfC}} also include quotes of multiple reliable sources describing the quality of MPN content in negative terms, including an excerpt of ]'s book that debunks MPN's promotion of the ]. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 20:05, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Regarding your first link , the article is relating/quoting this report from the OPCW: https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2018/07/opcw-issues-fact-finding-mission-reports-chemical-weapons-use-allegations | |||
| :::::Similarly, the rest of your links are articles about others' reporting. You say they directly cite Zero Hedge articles, but Zero Hedge seems to be just one of the sites they quote, in addition to Politico, Salon, New Yorker, Washington Post, and so on. ] (]) 14:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Each of these links shows MPN using Zero Hedge as a source for a factual claim: | |||
| ::::::* : MPN quotes Zero Hedge's claim regarding the contents of a primary source, with no additional comment regarding the quote. | |||
| ::::::* : MPN publishes Zero Hedge's claim regarding the relationship between two political entities. | |||
| ::::::* : MPN publishes Zero Hedge's claim regarding U.S. political spending. | |||
| ::::::* : MPN publishes Zero Hedge's estimate of legal fees regarding a political matter. | |||
| ::::::* : MPN publishes Zero Hedge's claim regarding the actions of politicians. | |||
| ::::::Because {{rspe|Zero Hedge|]|d}} is a source that was deprecated for repeatedly publishing ] and false information, MPN's use Zero Hedge for factual claims on numerous occasions and MPN's republication of hundreds of Zero Hedge articles both contribute to MPN being a ]. MPN using sources other than Zero Hedge does not excuse MPN's use of Zero Hedge for factual claims. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 04:18, 15 January 2025 (UTC) {{small|Fixed link to article #2 again — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 22:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)}} | |||
| :::::::<u>Article #1</u> It also links and quotes from the original report/primary source that anyone can check, it doesn't rely on Zero Hedge alone. | |||
| :::::::<u>Article #2</u> It is the same link as Article #3 | |||
| :::::::<u>Article #3</u> It cites Zero Hedge on campaign contributions, something that can be checked and verified, as those records are public. | |||
| :::::::<u>Article #4</u> But it does say "estimate", rather than treating it as an absolute and factual value, it is simply relating what ZeroHedge has estimated. The article does not rely on Zero Hedge reporting, but includes | |||
| :::::::<u>Article #5</u> It also links to the Washington Post article that Zero Hedge is using, not relying on Zero Hedge alone for the claim. | |||
| :::::::I don't think MPN is an unreliable source, it doesn't satisfy: {{tq|"have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest."}} Furthermore, it doesn't satisfy the other part of the policy: {{tq|"websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion."}} | |||
| :::::::Citing Zero Hedge once per article, for claims that can be idependently verified, among many other sources that are WP:RS isn't enough to deprecate MPN. ] (]) 08:11, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::: I've fixed the second link to match my previous comment. Citing Zero Hedge for factual claims is like citing {{rspe|Infowars|'']''|d|y}}; a publication that uncritically cites websites known primarily for publishing conspiracy theories and false information for factual claims in numerous articles, even if done once per article, damages its {{xt|"reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"}}. Trying to push for the use of a source that repeatedly republishes factual claims from conspiracy theory websites is in violation of the ].{{pb}}My comments in the {{rsnl|268|RfC: MintPress News|the 2019 RfC}} do not even mention MPN using Zero Hedge for factual claims in MPN's original articles; my comments noted MPN republishing hundreds of Zero Hedge articles, quote multiple reliable sources criticizing the MPN constant promotion of conspiracy theories, and identify MPN's use of false information to push a conspiracy theory in their most recent "inside story" at the time – all of which contributed to the consensus to deprecate MPN as a questionable source. MPN citing Zero Hedge for factual claims in MPN's original content further worsens its reliability. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 14:51, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::Article #2 cites Zero Hedge for the following: {{tq|"ZeroHedge estimated that the ensuing gerrymandering lawsuits will net Covington millions in legal fees, especially considering that Holder will be directing the filing of all such lawsuits on behalf of Democrats."}} How is that a relationship between two political parties? The article states "ZeroHedge estimated" rather than saying anything with certainty. | |||
| :::::::::Does MPN rely ''heavily'' on Zero Hedge in its original content? I don't think so, because it uses it as one of many sources. | |||
| :::::::::That is why I don't think deprecation is appropriate, rather "additional restrictions apply" as in MPN shouldn't be relied on claims that come only from ZeroHedge. ] (]) 15:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::If it were just the Zero Hedge thing I might see where you're coming from but @] demonstrated above that the outlet has a bad reputation for fact checking and accuracy all on their own. ] (]) 15:23, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::The has been copied over to the comment. MPN published: {{!xt|"However, an anonymous writer on ZeroHedge, an economic news website, noted on Nov. 30 that while Bilal Erdoğan in his tankers, 'we’ve yet to come across conclusive evidence of Bilal’s connection to .'"}} Here, MPN uses an assertion posted by {{xt|"an anonymous writer"}} from conspiracy theory website ] to make a claim about two political entities (] and ]). Doing this is like publishing {{!xt|"According to ] of '']''..."}} for a claim unrelated to Jones or ''Infowars'', which immediately throws the claim into question due to the poor reputation of the source. A source degrades its own reliability by repeatedly using another questionable source in this way for multiple topics on numerous occasions; the five linked articles are only a small sample.{{pb}}Your comment seems to be ignoring how MPN's use of Zero Hedge for factual claims is only one of many reasons that MPN was deprecated; reliable sources have shown that MPN also publishes a cornucopia of conspiracy theories that MPN created by themselves, a common characteristic of ] that become deprecated on Misplaced Pages. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 23:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Mint has a poor reputation for checking the facts so that first one is satisfied (notice how is an "or" not an and so fulfilling any of the conditions satisfies it). They also express view widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion. Did you not pay attention to any of the discussion besides the bits that were convenient for you? ] (]) 21:55, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I see the MPN response included a couple of paragraphs about me, in which almost all the things they say are demonstrably inaccurate even from the links they provide (they attribute a quote to me which is obviously not me, and seem to claim I call al-Nusra "moderate" by linking to a sandbox page here which says pretty much the opposite). I voted 3/4 in the RfC, but on the basis of this response I'd have no problem coming down in favour of 4. ] (]) 12:54, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * I don't think I was involved in the 2019 discussion - at least I don't remember being involved in it - but based on the information above it seems like Mint Press is being appropriately deprecated as a source of misinformation. I'd love to see a Misplaced Pages with a broader range of reliable left-wing sources but the key word there is ''reliable'' and this... this is clearly not. ] (]) 13:10, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Youtube Videos (Livings Persons biographies) == | |||
| <blockquote>Peele's self-published criticism of Archer and Deluca is vague, general, incomplete and seemingly out-of-context. Just what are the "honest differences", and how have the Rand researchers "called out for fudging research data"? Peele is mute on the particulars. If we had reliable and relevant sources, they would be welcomed.The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 01:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)</blockquote> | |||
| a couple of months ago i had added a source to a driver which sthe said driver had specifically states something i had added to his wikipedia at it got removed by a user due to the fact that to him it was not reliable and i was just wondering if they are reliable. i was told by other wiki users that was acceptable to use as it was the driver himself who said it in the video making it a direct source and if not i would like an explanation as the user when asked did not respond when asked and probably will not respond ] (]) 17:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Reason for Archer being considered reliable cited here: | |||
| :In general YouTube video's are not reliable, as they are self-published sources and few of them are by {{tq|"an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."}}, see ].<br>However there is an exception if the self-published work is by the subject themselves and is part of a limited set of conditions, see ]. You haven't included any details so I can't say for certain if it would be reliable in your specific situation, as it may or may not be allowed by ABOUTSELF. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 19:11, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| <blockquote>Removed primary sources and replace them with reliable secondary sources. See edit summaries for explanation of restoration and additions. Unless there is a RS to counter the validity of the Triennial Surveys, there really should be no discussion of the analysis of AA's data. This talk page is not a forum to argue about AA. or editor's opinions of AA's data unsupported by RSs. Also note that a valid self-published source is used. I've seen editors summarily dismiss any self-published source, and in this case, that would be a mistake. Finally, The talk page is the place for further discussion, not edit summaries via a revert war. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 22:20, 5 December 2010 (UTC)</blockquote> | |||
| ::Ah i see thank you | |||
| ::Even though the subject was part of the interview I believe myself it would not be reliable as it's a motorsport related podcast and even though the youtube channel also has a website which has been referenced in other articles I believe the youtube channel would not be reliable unless otherwise notified ] (]) 19:42, 12 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::It depends what the statement is. If the driver says something like 'I'm 23 years old" that's a good enough source. If the driver says "Castrol Oil is superior to every other oils out there" while also being sponsored by Castrol, then no. | |||
| :::For Youtube channel, they are as reliable as their owners/parent company. A NASA video hosted on NASA's youtube channel is as reliable as anything else produced by NASA. A rocketry video hosted by ], not so much for anything but uncontroversial statements about Bob.  <span style="font-variant:small-caps; whitespace:nowrap;">] {] · ] · ] · ]}</span> 04:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ==Sports reports - Mixed Martial Arts== | |||
| Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Alcoholics_Anonymous | |||
| A senior "editor" recently reverted some of my posts. I posted sources from https://mma.bg/ - It is a Bulgarian MMA news site. The website began in 2008 - https://mma.bg/pages/mission. The previous website was www.mmabg.com as seen here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210601000000*/www.mmabg.com. There is a lot of dicussion on ] sources when it comes to reports of UFC fights. The general rule is if the bout is listed on the official page, for example: https://www.ufc.com/event/ufc-fight-night-february-01-2025, then, we can put it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/UFC_Fight_Night:_Adesanya_vs._Imavov. But if it is not on the UFC page, we put the bouts on "Announced bouts" based on independent reports. The UFC Events page takes time to update. | |||
| The thing is an editor only accepts reports from websites other than UFC/ESPN (ESPN is the channel that broadcasts UFC), but if the UFC posts a column saying there is a new bout, I feel the report is sufficient to be put on the Misplaced Pages page, since it is merely reporting the company's scheduled bout. Only within hours, other independent news sites would use the official post from the UFC in their reports. | |||
| Also, although social media posts are not reliable, there is one journalist, Marcel Dorff, https://x.com/BigMarcel24 - who posts on his social media account reports of bouts. He has never been wrong in the past sixteen years and is a reliable source. But because he posts from his account, it is not considered reliable. It takes a day or two for another site to take his social media post to "report" it on their website. | |||
| For example, https://www.mmanews.com/features/matchmaking-bulletin/ufc-fight-bulletin/ - MMANews is considered reliable, but it links to reports of X posts that the site deemed reliable before posting it on MMANews. What are your thoughts on this? | |||
| for reference purpose only: | |||
| Previous source deemed by group consensus as reliable has already been ruled on <blockquote> http://hindsfoot.org/recout01.pdf which I verified earlier a decision was made on the source earlier on | |||
| 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| This looks like a classic example of lies, damned lies, and statistics. The site cvannot be considered a RS. - Nick Thorne talk 21:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC) </blockquote> | |||
| Basically, I would like you to review the following: | |||
| 1) MMA.BG - can it be put on https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Sources - it is a reliable MMA website in the language Bulgarian that has been reporting accurate news for 17 years<br> | |||
| Also I would like a link to a wiki board that deals with information being posted being taken out of context. | |||
| 2) The allowance of UFC/ESPN reports of bouts or injuries to be considered reliable. For example: https://x.com/ESPNKnockOut/status/1878132515854000543 - this X post is by a verified ESPN Knockout account that posted "Jake Matthews vs Francisco Prado", but I cannot use that as a source because it is from a social media post, and it is from ESPN (who is not independent from UFC because they broadcast UFC telecasts). It does not quite make sense and the senior editor's English is too poor to explain this after repeated requests for explanation, so I hope someone can explain it here for me. The editor reverted my post when it was reported here: https://wip.mma.bg/novini/mma-novini/dzheyk-matyus-sreshtu-fransisko-prado-na-ufc-312<br> | |||
| Once a decision ruled on, I assume I can safely edit. | |||
| 3) Are exceptions for X posts allowed for reputable journalists and official verified company accounts to be used as sources on Misplaced Pages? | |||
| Regards | |||
| ] (]) 01:36, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| I hope someone can help me answer this, someone with sufficient enough English like most editors on Misplaced Pages. Thank you, because it has been extremely frustrating having edits reverted with poor explanation or logic that makes no sense. Thanks! ] (]) 01:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *Jayseer, I don't really like being quoted in the way you have done so here - please link to previous disucssions, rather than lift one small part of it and place it in a different context. Secondly, the issue has not been "ruled on" as you put it. I have expressed an opinion, that is all, I have no authority to "rule" on anything. Misplaced Pages works by consensus and towards that end I am happy to contribute my opinion. But please do not ascribe to me any authority to make determinations on behalf of the ommunity. Until and unless enough other people also post on the point so that a consensus can actually be established, there is no such consensus. Certainly one opinion does not make a consensus, any more than one swallow does a summer make. - ] ] 04:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :If it's just a matter of one or two days, just wait for the official announcement.  <span style="font-variant:small-caps; whitespace:nowrap;">] {] · ] · ] · ]}</span> 10:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Private, commercial sources? == | |||
| == RfC: TheGamer == | |||
| A small edit war has erupted with a new user and discussion has been started here: | |||
| {{atop|OP has withdrawn the discussion. 💽 ] 💽 🌹 ⚧ <sup>(''']''')</sup> 21:28, 18 January 2025 (UTC)}} | |||
| <s>TheGamer seems to be either user-generated content, or slop listicles. Additionally, it seems to source it's content largely from dubious YouTube content, Reddit posts, or Twitter/X threads. However it is listed as a source in articles such as ] purely in relation to one listicle that ranks Flowey in relation to other characters. What is the reliability of this site? | |||
| * Option 1: ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * Option 2: ] | |||
| * Option 3: ] | |||
| * Option 4: ] | |||
| ]</s> | |||
| Please take a look. -- ] (]) 07:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| <span style="font-family:Kurale; color:#ff0000;">]]</span> 02:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Bad RfC'''. While begun in good faith, this RfC is malformed. The opening statement is not {{tq|neutrally worded and brief}} as our ]. I would also ask why the ] about ''TheGamer'' available at the list maintained by ] isn't considered sufficient. If this is at root a page-specific concern about ], as the opening statement causes it to appear to be, the matter can surely be handled better at ]. ] (] | ] | ]) 02:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Nevermind then. I'll delete the info on the Flowey page that provides no encyclopedic value. The reason I proposed this originally was because TheGamer's content has gotten worse and more sloppy since 2020.<span style="font-family:Kurale; color:#ff0000;">]]</span> 04:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| {{abottom}} | |||
| == GBNews can be reliable for group based child sex exploitation== | |||
| :Yes, the talkpage being linked to does not make clear what is being sourced, and from where.--] (]) 09:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Hello everyone, I am making the argument that whilst GBNews is generally speaking not a great source, it has some of the most stellar investigative reporters on group based child sex exploitation, aka rape gangs. | |||
| ::This page isn't for ] or anything related to edit warring. ] (]) 09:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| For example, Charlie Peters has written about this extensively, it is his main topic of writing for years. https://www.gbnews.com/authors/charlie-peters | |||
| :::The issue was about the reliability of the sources NorCalGirl78 wanted to include, which were from two self-published chiropractic websites. I believe Brangifer was trying to assist a new editor who was unfamiliar with sourcing policy by bringing the issue here so that she could hear some outside input. ] (]) 19:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC) ''that was me'' ] (]) 19:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| I'd genuinely argue he is even as or if not more reliable on this topic than most trusted sources. If you want an insight into why I believe that, without going into just arguing over facts and analysis which I can do in the comments below this thread, read this anecdote from him being the only reporter who bothered to show up to one of the most prolific child sex abuse cases in British history for most of the hearing https://thecritic.co.uk/why-was-i-the-only-reporter/ | |||
| The source for details about the discovery of the burial place of ] is . | |||
| Yes, GBNews is genuinely quite a sloppy publication, I'm not here to make an argument that it is not even remotely, but I think the summary ought to be changed from the first to the second. | |||
| , which needs correction to remove dependence on information from this SPS. | |||
| <blockquote><p>There is consensus that GB News is generally unreliable.</p></blockquote> | |||
| <blockquote><p>There is consensus that GB News is generally unreliable. It is reliable for specifically group based child sex exploitation.</p></blockquote> | |||
| Also | |||
| I am not sure if it is precedent to specifically name a reporter, but if that is the case then specifically naming Charlie Peters is important here. He isn't the only good reporter on child sex abuse at GBNews but I'd argue he's the best. In essence, ''I''<nowiki/>'d argue and make a fierce case that Charlie Peters of GBNews (and some other reporters), regardless of his employer, is easily one of the most qualified and leading reporters on this specific topic of group based child sex exploitation and I'd make a very long argument that articles specifically by him should be included and it would be worse not better for Misplaced Pages to include them. I am not arguing for Peters (and some other reporters) to be included for other topics at this moment, just specifically the topic of child sex abuse. | |||
| I have been searching for an independent source, such as a book or newpaper, but without any luck. All I find is duplication of this article in chiropractic sources and mirrors of Misplaced Pages. -- ] (]) 20:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| I hope I have formatted this correctly, thank you. ] ] 19:20, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| : No luck. Can we use a source like this , without independent confirmation in other sources? -- ] (]) 02:57, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Sorry but it is the source we judge, not the writer, his work say in the Telegraph can be cited, not his work for GB news. ] (]) 19:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Just to be clear here, I am not saying Peters is the only good reporter. GBNews has some good reporters and they're specifically concentrated on this. I think GBNews is generally slop but I just wanted to cite a specific reporter as an example. I think GBNews' work and information on this very narrow subject is worth considering. ] ] 19:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :This seems backwards, ] claims require exceptional sources, not exceptions for terrible ones. <sub>signed, </sub>] <sup>]</sup> 19:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :GB News is persistently and relentlessly unreliable. We cannot make exceptions for a single reporter (and I say that as someone who believes Peters to be one of the better GB News reporters, though admittedly that's a very low bar). If you showed me some evidence that Peters has investigated child abuse rings that ''weren't'' run by Asian people, I'd think again. Though of course, that's not what GB News's audience wants to hear. ] 19:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::I don't think more sensationalist reporting is going to make that page better. Let's leave GB News off it. ] (]) 19:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Again, I'm being clear here I'm only talking about one narrow subject. ] ] 19:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I was also being very specific to that one page as well. ] (]) 20:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::So you're saying that, specifically on child rape, they're sensationalists. I agree with you that their titles would do better without the incessant capitalisations but their reporting on this isn't errant in any way. ] ] 20:25, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::So you're basically just saying Peters is a racist and if I can prove he isn't racist you'll be convinced? Here he is covering a white rapist. https://www.gbnews.com/news/two-rotherham-child-abuse-victims-accidentally-left-out-court-rapist-sentencing-office-error ] ] 19:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::: I absolutely did ''not'' say that Peters was racist, so don't do that again please. I was pointing out that GB News inevitably covers Asian grooming gangs, but almost never white ones. If Peters broke that mould I ''would'' be convinced. ] 19:58, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Oh, I've just seen your userpage. That explains it. ] 19:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::> '''Sources (some are invalid and blatantly biased for wikipedia standards but summarise info well. i'll find a proper source for them.''' | |||
| :::::Not all the sources in my user page are valid at all, I've just added them to look deeper in later on to verify myself. | |||
| :::::If you're accusing me of being a right wing grifter so be it, I literally just added an article by Bindle to my user page smearing the right as racist grifters before I read this, I edited McMurdock's article and wrote how he kicked a woman four times, I try my best to be fair. I am not interested in just saying "Pakistani men rape and whites don't", that's absurd. The state has routinely failed children of rape. I'm arguing that GBNews on this topic is good. ] ] 20:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::: I suppose even Bindel can be right occasionally. That's not the point though, I followed a few of your links and saw the editorializing on Jess Phillips' page - that's not good on a BLP, whether you are a right-wing grifter or not (I have no idea if that's the case). But - no, we cannot use GB News full stop. It would be ''incredibly'' problematic if we had to define sources as reliable or not depending on which journos were producing the material, especially as their material is routinely filtered through an editorial process which we have defined as unreliable in the first place. ] 20:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::I understand. I regret making my initial point on Peters specifically because you're right that specific journalists do not save a publication. I've been trying to change the position to accomadate this, and say something more so on the lines of "Generally speaking, their covering of child sex abuse is good, can we make an exception for this topic". Is your argument here from the context of me originally saying Peters was good or is your argument here that no matter how good the journalism is on child sex abuse, the rest of the publication is too sloppy to make an exception? " But - no, we cannot use GB News full stop" | |||
| :::::::> the editorializing on Jess Phillips' page | |||
| :::::::Is this on the word 'despite'? This was talked about on the talk page, I agreed it was a mistake. ] ] 21:05, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Again, GBNews is generally slop, we can agree on that. I believe they have good journalists focusing on child rape. ] ] 20:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: We can't separate the two, that's the issue. The ''Daily Mail'' has good journalists as well, the problem in using them is the venue they publish their work in. ] 20:14, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I agree the Daily Mail is total slop as well, but if they had excellent journalism on one specific topic that would warrant an exception. That's what I'm arguing here. ] ] 20:16, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I'm not going to repeat that as you have made clear that was not your intent, but I'm not trying to strawman you. I've misinterpreted what you're saying here as you calling Peters / GBNews / their audience racist (though that is not what you are saying), I am confused on what you exactly are you trying to say with the below. May you please elaborate? | |||
| ::::"If you showed me some evidence that Peters has investigated child abuse rings that weren't run by Asian people, I'd think again. Though of course, that's not what GB News's audience wants to hear." ] ] 20:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: GB News is a right-wing channel (and, to be fair, it is transparently so); it tells its viewers what they want to hear. Much of the right-wing audience believes that child abuse is mostly committed by Asian gangs, because that's what right-wing narratives have told them, even if it's false. GB News doesn't actually ''say'' that is true, but it reinforces those ideas by focusing on such cases. ] 20:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I'm not accusing you of calling them 'racist', but what exactly would you call the behaviour your describing, if not racist. | |||
| ::::::Yes, GBNews is obviously a right wing channel. I believe you can criticise nearly all political journalistic publications that aren't state funded of pandering to their audience. CNN, the Telegraph, the Guardian, Fox, etc. I find it all a bit obnoxious. | |||
| ::::::I do however have qualms with the idea that GBNews is, how do I put this, 'filtering out or downplaying' rape gangs when they are not Pakistani / Bangladeshi? You say the majority of these perpetrators are white, I believe that is true of CSAM online but I amn't sure that's true at least on a per capita basis for rape gangs though I have collated a lot of sources which I intend to read when I have the time, as you've noted on my talk page, so I'll be better informed to answer this in the future. | |||
| ::::::In essence, your hesitance or better put refusal to add an exception to GBNews on rape gangs isn't derived from a sense that they're journalistically or factually incorrect outright but rather they have underlying narratives, ulterior motives, and bias. If I'm understanding what you are saying correctly which I'll need confirmation on as I do not wish to strawman you. ] ] 21:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: Yes, that's exactly what GB News does (though I would not go as far as saying it is "factually correct" ''all'' the time). It is, however, understandably more careful with its narratives with this subject than it is with others (although it does publish nonsense like , notably not by Peters). ] 22:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::That's an opinion piece that more falls under geopolitics. That wouldn't fall into what I, or the other user, is arguing to include. | |||
| ::::::::If we can agree that at least ''nearly all'' the time they are factually correct on this very specific subject, and the wealth of information is enormous, we can just put a warning that GBNews has something along the lines of "accusations of underlying narratives, ulterior motives, and bias" in a general sense (but is better on this subject (and thus the exception being made) as you noted and I agree), but that if possible, should be substantiated with another source, but is still acceptable on this very specific subject, even independently, especially if there are no other sources available. That's reasonable, I believe. Thoughts? ] ] 22:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::: I'm not convinced, I have to admit, and I wouldn't vote in favour of it. Though I ask, could it be any worse that allowing the ''Telegraph'', a paper which posts rabidly transphobic opinion pieces, to be used on trans-related topics (as was allowed in a recent RfC)? It's unlikely. ] 22:49, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::As long as what is written is factually true, the agenda behind it just has to be made known to the editor beforehand to caution them. We shouldn't restrain facts and deprive people of them because we deem the authors morally repugnant. ] ] 23:15, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Comment''' Whilst I agree that GB News should be approached with caution (and I wouldn't touch their climate change reporting with a barge pole), I think Charlie Peters is an exceptional reporter. I would generally trust what he has to say before, for example, ''The Guardian'' or ''The Times''. I think that by barring his reporting on GB News we are probably barring the country's most pre-eminent authority on gang-related CSE. IT's worth bearing in mind that coverage of this topic has now become highly-politicised, but Charie probbaly brings the most balanced and fact-based perspective to the coverage of the issue. We could treat his reporting on GB News on this particular issue as an instance of expert ]. If other sources are reporting the same thing then fine, bit I honestly believe we would be devaluing Misplaced Pages's coverage by excluding him. The fact remains he is not interchangeable with other journalists at other news outlets, because he brings a wealth of research and statistics to the table, and has probably interacted with grooming gang victims more then any other journalist. ] (]) 21:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:I know this sounds silly but it is refreshing hearing more knowlegable Wikipedians explain what I'm trying to articulate so eloquently. I do want to be clear however that I think GBNews' coverage on gang CSE is excellent, not just Peters. The main contention seems not to be on if it is factual, no one here seems to be disputing this, but rather if it has underlying narratives, ulterior motives, and bias. You can read my last comment here https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=1269267836 as I try to ] what another user is saying to the best of ability. ] ] 21:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Are there any third-party sources that validate the claim that GB News and Peters are the best sources on this topic? ] (] • ]) 05:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::No, I don't think so. It's a personal account, published on a web site with no apparent expertise in the subject, there are no footnotes/citations to indicate source material, and it's a primary source. <span style="text-shadow:#DDDDDD 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texthtml">--] (])</span> 09:39, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::What do you mean? How would that work? Are you asking if reputable sources cite GBNews regularly on this topic? If so, yes I've read many articles, especially the Telegraph, mentioning them if I recall correctly. ] ] 05:45, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Well, according to ],{{tq|If outside citation is the main indicator of reliability, particular care should be taken to adhere to other guidelines and policies, and to not unduly represent contentious or minority claims.}} That seems to be one way it works. Normal editorial processes are that we use secondary sources to evaluate the significant views among published reliable sources, and UBO is in most cases relatively weak validation for other claims. ] (] • ]) 07:21, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::: If you're going to start an RfC on this topic (which would be required to carve out an exception for GB News), it would be far better to present such evidence as opposed to a simple opinion of "I think it's reliable". ] 08:38, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::I'm not sure there are any sources out there that flat out stipulate that Charlie Peters is the best source for this topic, but he is increasingly becoming the "go to" source in this area. report how he "broke" the latest story about the Government declining the national inquiry into CSE in Oldham, and other news outlets have approached him to co-author their articles, presumably for his insight, such as and . ''Deadline'' profile him —it is worth bearing in mind he was a specialist in this area before working for GB News, having made a documentary about the Rotherham cover-up. Maggie Oliver—a former police detective who blew the whistle on the cover-up in Greater Manchester and now works with survivors—holds his journalism in . In reality, as NotQualified has noted, other news outlets have re-used facts first reported by Peters in their own stories, so there is no way to really avoid his core reporting. Part of the reason for this is because , so they are dependent on those that have. For the record, I do think there is a difference between the core facts as reported by Peters and the framing of these stories by GB News in its broadcasts. ] (]) 10:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::If other sources have reported on the details, then they should be used. That way editors waste less time arguing about the source. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 11:44, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::You get less depth and less nuance from news outlets which repackage his work, usually for sensationalist reasons. Peters has interviewed the survivors and their families extensively. He attended the trials and the sentencing. If other news outlets are happy to re-use his material I don't see why it should be any issue here. ] (]) 12:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Any other source is going to be less sensationalist and so less controversial. The issue is doing the simple option so as to avoid wasting time arguing over which source to use rather than something more useful. GBNews is by it's nature always going to be controversial, so using a different source for the same information is the best option. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 13:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::That is an ad hoc approach which only works for one news story at a time. Simply put, what if other sources don't. This is why it is important the exception is carved out. ] ] 17:28, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::If a single news source is the only source that picks up a detail, that probably goes to show that detail shouldn't be included (] / ]). That other news sources decide not to include certain details may well be because they do not believe the details are important, or that they are presented properly. I would say it goes to shows why there shouldn't be a exception given. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 21:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::@] this statement can be applied to any source in any discussion... ]<sub>]</sub> 21:47, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Yes, choosing the least contentious source to support a detail is always a good idea (regardless of the article). Arguing other a contentious source when others are available isn't a good use of editors time. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 21:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::The New York Times says {{tq|No British media outlet has revived the grooming scandal with the zeal of GB News, a hard-right cable news channel that went on the air in 2021, a decade after The Times’s investigation into grooming gangs.}} which does not exactly sound like a ringing endorsement. It instead sounds rather more like exactly the sort of {{tq|unduly represent contentious or minority claims}} we're supposed to take care to avoid. If a primary source has been published in multiple places, I see no compelling reason why the reliability of GB News even needs to be discussed, and it seems like nobody wants to use the secondary parts. ] (] • ]) 11:48, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Surely that's a ] issue to be determined in the context of what is being written, rather than a ] issue. ] (]) 12:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Even if it isn't a "ringing endorsement", it does sound like NYT agrees it has the largest wealth of knowledge on this issue, which is one of the reasons I'd argue it's critical to allow. If that knowledge was erroneous, I'd obviously agree it shouldn't be included, but that knowledge as discussed on this talk discussion seems to be virtually always correct. | |||
| ::::> If a primary source has been published in multiple places, | |||
| ::::And what if it isn't. Misplaced Pages as a whole suffers. ] ] 17:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::{{tqbm|And what if it isn't.}} | |||
| :::::] and ], even were it to be considered reliable. ] (] • ]) 12:33, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Other sources are reporting on Peters “breaking” the story in that he revived a myth that was taken up by Elon Musk who then intervened in uk politics and got far right grifters competing with each other for his attention, making Peters’ “reporting” noteworthy, but not reliable. ] (]) 15:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::post sources ] ] 15:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::A few examples: | |||
| :::::*FT: “How a handful of X accounts took Elon Musk ‘down the rabbit hole’ on UK politics… In the past week, Musk has also amplified posts on the grooming scandal by former prime minister Liz Truss, former Labour MP Kate Hoey, former Reform politician Ben Habib and people linked to broadcaster GB News.” | |||
| :::::*Yahoo News: “News of Philips's rejection letter was then reported by GB News on 1 January, sparking an intense debate about whether such an inquiry was needed. This was picked up by Elon Musk who began posting prolifically about the issue, levelling harsh criticism at the government and at one point calling for Philips to be jailed for rejecting the request.” | |||
| :::::*BBC: ”Debate around grooming gangs was reignited this week after it was reported that Phillips rejected Oldham Council's request for a government-led inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation in the town, in favour of a locally-led investigation. The decision was taken in October, but first reported by GB News on 1 January.” | |||
| :::::*BBC Verify: “In one post, Mr Musk alleged that "Gordon Brown committed an unforgivable crime against the British people" and shared a video clip from campaigner Maggie Oliver appearing on GB News. In the clip, Ms Oliver alleged: "Gordon Brown sent out a circular to all the police forces in the UK saying 'do not prosecute these rape gangs, these children are making a lifestyle choice'."… But BBC Verify has carried out extensive searches of Home Office circulars issued across that period and found no evidence that any document containing this advice exists.” | |||
| :::::*New Yorker: “The onslaught began on January 1st, when Musk responded to a report by GB News, a right-wing cable-news channel, which said that the country’s Labour government had rejected a national inquiry into non-recent sexual abuse in Oldham, a town just outside Manchester, in northern England. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the actual story is more complicated than that.” | |||
| :::::*NYT: “No British media outlet has revived the grooming scandal with the zeal of GB News, a hard-right cable news channel that went on the air in 2021, a decade after The Times’s investigation into grooming gangs… Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform U.K., an anti-immigrant party, has praised Mr. Peters, saying he had “really reignited this story” and demonstrated that “these barbarities have taken place in at least 50 towns.”… The cumulative effect of Mr. Musk’s inflammatory posts has been to energize Britain’s populist right.” | |||
| :::::] (]) 17:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I’m just here to say that a source being ''generally'' unreliable doesn’t mean they can’t be reliable in specific circumstances. That is, if you want to make a case that a specific subset of GB News output is reliable enough to support statements in a specific article, you can make that argument on the Talk page of the article and it doesn’t need to be carved out as a formalised exception on ]. ] (]) 17:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Absolutely agree with this, both "''generally'' reliable" and "''generally'' unreliable" are not absolutes. Either way you may be required to convince other editors (on the articles talk page) that a specific source should, or shouldn't, be used. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 11:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Considering that there is quite a lot of academic material on this subject that isn't currently being used in these articles I'm somewhat reticent to start making exceptions for generally unreliable news media organizations out of some sort of belief we are missing sources. ] (]) 17:34, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::The specifics would be a discussion for the articles talk page, but in general I'd agree. Less news and opinion sources, and more academic sources would be an improvement for many articles. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 21:37, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| If other sources do not follow though with a story, there may well be reason why, and one of those is they can't confirm them. This is what they are RS, they do try to fact-check before publication. So if a reputable publication does not report it I have to ask the question why is the only source reporting this an iffy one? ] (]) 17:31, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Thanks for this comment, this was also my interpretation when reading the thread, and surprised no-one else referenced the obvious here: If Charlie Peters is such a respectable journalist (let's assume he is for the sake of argument), then why is his work not published in respectable and reliable sources such as The Telegraph that he previously worked for? While trying to avoid a discussion on this journalist career path and choices in life, it does seem remarkably odd that there aren't reliable sources reporting his coverage indepth. This makes me suspect that it's because it's much easier to publish for GB News than it is other news orgs that do fact-checking and thorough reviews. Baring in mind, its not just WP that considers GB News as generally unreliable, there is rough consensus among UK journalism that it is a trashy tabloid-like source. So why is such a respectable journalist writing such great contributions for a trash can? Without intending to speculate much further than I already have, it could be because what he writes for GB News isn't as reliable as what he has written elsewhere. Generally if there were topics that I would say GB News was specifically unreliable for, it'd be along the lines of Reform Party coverage (it's a quasi-primary source at this point), and contentious topics such as the far-right riots, Tommy Robinson, and grooming gangs. Feel free to accuse me of a broad stroke, but I'd otherwise consider GB to be generally reliable for entertainment and culture topics (similar to NYP). ] (]) 00:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == http://www.albanianhistory.net/ == | |||
| ::Just to be clear here, it isn't just Peters, I'm arguing that generally their coverage on group based child sex exploitation is good. Peters has written under multiple papers. I do not know why he works for GBNews particularly right now but he brings spectacular journalism to it. ] ] 00:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Nah.''' If there's news that doesn't suck it'll show up elsewhere. Per {{u|CommunityNotesContributor}}, that it ''isn't'' showing up elsewhere raises an eyebrow - ] (]) 10:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *Strong disagree with OP. In fact, i’d say that the fact that the Telegraph has taken up Peters’/GBNews’ reporting might lead us to the rule that the Telegraph, is not reliable on this highly contentious topic. Example: here https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/grooming-gangs-scandal-cover-up-oldham-telford-rotherham/ Peters and a co-author claim to catalogue the “cover up” of the grooming scandal “to preserve the image of a successful multicultural society” — yet every single factual claim in their article is taken from a pre-existing primary source (a 2010 W Midlands police report, a 2013 sentencing report, the 2014 Rotherham Jay inquiry, the 2015 Rotherham Casey report, the 2019 Manchester police report, the 2022 Telford Inquiry and the 2022 national independent review) that to my mind prove that far from a cover up this has been extensively investigated and publicly addressed for well over a decade. There is no actual investigation here; they rely on the investigation done by others and use it to spin an inflammatory conspiracy theory. I think it might be time to downgrade the Telegraph not upgrade GBNews. ] (]) 15:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Regarding this article, is it usual for reliable sources to correct the content of articles without referencing a change? This was first published on , and modified by with attribution to GB News added (can verify with ): | |||
| *:* {{tq|"In Jess Phillips’s letter to the council, '''revealed by GB News''', she said she understood the strength of feeling in the town, but thought it best for another local review to take place.}} | |||
| *:* {{tq|"The state must leave no stone unturned in its efforts to root out this evil. As one victim, '''told GB News''', "..."}} | |||
| *:It's good they corrected the article with necessary attribution for unverified claims, however it took 4 days to do so, and they failed to reference such changes in the article, including the original date. Not a good look imo. ] (]) 15:58, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Ontario Bar Association and Artificallawyer == | |||
| I would like an opinion on Dr. ] page on ] : http://www.albanianhistory.net/ | |||
| Background is this discussion : This edit that I dispute : ] and this unfinished discussion ] | |||
| Please tell me what you think about this source, and if any what problems are with it. | |||
| Is this sigcov , reliable for ]? ] (]) 09:01, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| see his information here ]. | |||
| :The first link goes to a summary of a detailed software review by Friedrich Blase, the “Innovator-in-Residence” of the Ontario Bar Association. It looks like Dr. Blase, whose references writings on legal technology, might qualify as a subject matter expert, so I would be inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. The second link goes to a blog, which would not be a reliable source. ] (]) 18:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Did Howard Dean get paid to give speeches promoting the MEK? == | |||
| thanks, | |||
| mike | |||
| ] (]) 07:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Tricky...this is all ] which should be used with extreme caution, and generally dropped when challenged. The opinions of editors on ''who'' he is carries very little weight; what matters is the editorial process involved in publishing that source. First and foremost look for alternative sources - from his ], he appears to have many published books. Are any of those sources usable for the edits in question? If not, one needs to ask whether the information is ] if it can only be attributed to a website. | |||
| :Key issues here: does Dr. Elsie cite his sources for what he puts on the website, or is it only from his own memory? One could assume that he is sitting at his desk with dozens of textbooks at hand writing away, but without citation we don't know that it's still a personal website. Realistically his professional achievements carry some weight, but SPS is still SPS. I looked around, but don't see any mention of peer review or editing help on his website - that means it's all on him. No matter who authored the website, it's better to err on the side of "delete" when it comes to taking one person's word for it. Even a distinguished expert such as Dr. Elsie can make errors, and if those errors are made in a book or journal there is a fact-checking editorial process in place for that reason. When he puts it on his personal website, any accidental mistake he makes would be propagated as fact on this encyclopedia, which is the whole point of WP:IRS guidelines. ] (]) 07:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::OK, we need to unpick a bit of what is going on here. The order of events is as follows. In 1913 the Bishop of Skopje made a report to the Vatican of ill treatment of Albanians by Serbs. This source was used by "Austrian Social Democrat" Leo Freundlich in his book ''Albania's Golgotha'', published 1913. Then in recent decades, the historian Robert Elsie has used Freudlich's work in his ''Kosovo: In the Heart of the Powder Keg'' and his ''Historical dictionary of Kosovo''. Elsie has also translated the original letter and put it on his website alongside many other sources for Albanian history. The solution is to use Elsie's books, as suggested above, as reliable recent academic history. A link to the original letter, reliably translated and hosted on Elsie's website, can be included alongside as a primary source. ] (]) 09:15, 7 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::: Thank you for your advice. So the solution will be to cite the book where appropiate. thanks, mike ] (]) 22:44, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{u|Hogo-2020}} and I have bit of a dispute : can we list that Howard Dean as among the American officials who received either cash payments or some other form of compensation for making speeches promoting the ]? | |||
| == http://www.aaruk.info/ == | |||
| Sources: | |||
| *A telephone interview with ] that was published on a newsblog on ]. Smith writes that Dean "said that while he's given paid speeches for the group, his advocacy is pro bono." | |||
| *An editorial by ] in '']''. | |||
| **The editorial links to a '']'' article, which writes "Mr. Dean confirmed to the Monitor that he received payment for his appearances, but said the focus on high pay was “a diversion inspired by those with a different view.”" | |||
| *An article in '']'' which says "Dean himself has acknowledged being paid but has not disclosed specific sums". Dean's advocate responded to that article, according to Salon, saying "On the issue of the MEK, he is not a paid advocate. He was paid for a handful of speeches, but has not been paid for his advocacy." | |||
| ''']''' <sub>(Please ] on reply)</sub> 13:05, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Can I please get some opinions on the appropriateness of this site. It's currently found on the following pages, added by the website's owner or someone associated with him: | |||
| *] (reverted from this page earlier today, based on previous reversions by two IP editors) | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| Regards, <big>]</big> 01:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :@] I don’t think the reliability of any of these sources would be in question by most editors - this seems a bit more of a content dispute on the surface. ] ] <span style="color:#C8102E;"><small><sup>(])</sup></small></span> 01:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Website is not subject to editorial control; fails to meet reliability standards. ] (]) 02:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::@], well Hogo that the guardian piece is an ], the politico piece is a ] and there's no consensus for salon at ]. These are all ]-based arguments.''']''' <sub>(Please ] on reply)</sub> 03:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Agreed. Since the name of the editor adding these links is the same as the owner of the website whose links he keeps adding, it appears to be a spam and COI problem as well as a RS problem. ] (]) 02:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::The issue at hand is whether a couple of op-eds provide sufficient evidence to justify adding to Misplaced Pages that a politician was paid for making speeches. Then, there's also the question if this would be in line with ]. ] (]) 07:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Thank you both. <big>]</big> 02:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * There are two issues here, neither of which is really a ] issue directly (but they touch on how different types of sources can be used and the considerations that come with them.) First, since those are all either opinion pieces, interviews, or quotes, they would have to be ''attributed'' if used; they can't be used to state facts in the article voice - looking over the article history, it previously said {{tq|In 2012, Seymour Hersh reported names of former U.S. officials paid to speak in support of MEK, including former CIA directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss; New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Vermont Governor Howard Dean; former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Louis Freeh and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton}}. If the listed sources were all you could turn up for including Dean in that list with that sort of wording, it's not enough for that specific wording - you can't say as fact that he was paid, and cite an opinion piece from Greenwald to support that. (That said, is there a problem with citing the CS Monitor article directly? Citing it via an opinion piece by Greenwald seems weird; the Greenwald piece is a weaker source due to being opinion.) Either way, second, as is often the case when dealing with largely opinion sources published in RS / ] venues, is the ] issue - the question is then whether Greenwald etc. are noteworthy enough for their opinions about this to be in the article, or whether the sum of all of them is enough to put it over the top, or the like. --] (]) 20:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::I should add, looking at ], it feels to me like this is a result of a dispute over previous wording that probably reflected the ''broad strokes'' of what the sources support but which wasn't quite correct in terms of both the specific source it relied on and how it summarized it - finding individual sources for every person in that list, yet trying to retain it as a list whose original version was really an inaccurate paraphrase of a different source, is going to constantly run into problems like this and may produce ] issues. I would suggest discarding that list and instead reconsidering what the section should say from the top, after reviewing the best available sources individually. Why this list of people? Why those specific names? Just because they were in the Shane source, which ''doesn't'' say they were paid? I suggest going back to the drawing board, looking at the relative level of coverage for each and whether it's something we can use for fact or just attributable opinion, then deciding who to cover and how to cover them based on that. --] (]) 20:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::I think that this is solid advice. ] (]) 23:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Those are great points. It would be great if you can help discuss on that talk page.''']''' <sub>(Please ] on reply)</sub> 01:33, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::@] thanks for your input. Understand the point about CS Monitor. But my next question is this: Ben Smith, a journalist working for a reputable source like POLITICO, wouldn't just fake or distort an interview. Smith isn't stating his opinion, he's giving the results of the interview. To me Smith is a stronger source than CSM because CSM doesn't actually say where they got the info from. In either case, is the CSM source enough to state it without attribution or would it also require attribution? ''']''' <sub>(Please ] on reply)</sub> 01:23, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::: Stumbled across this. The Christian Science Monitor investigation into the MEK paying Dean and many others (which I happened to edit). https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0808/Iranian-group-s-big-money-push-to-get-off-US-terrorist-list . I don't understand the dispute here. Dean is on record in this article admitting he was taking their money.] (]) 01:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Is REAL, Journal of Almería Studies an rs for ] == | |||
| == www.truthaboutscientology.com usage in BLPs == | |||
| See. The link doesn't go to the source cited and I can't find that aource. ] ] 16:20, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Question has arisen at ] about using this as a source. Consensus in the past at Scientology-related talkpages has been that it is ''not'' an acceptable source and fails ]. As the issue is now revisited again at this particular ] talkpage, essentially using the attempted argument "]", I thought it prudent to ask the community, here at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. The diff in question is . Thank you for your time, -- ''']''' (]) 04:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Unreliable. Self-published; absence of recognised expertise; no editorial oversight. ] (]) 04:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::Cirt, can you provide links to past discussions which show the consensus you say exists about this source? Not that I doubt you, but I am fresh to this and it might be helpful for us not to go over old ground. Thanks. ] (]) 04:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::It was disputed in several locations and there was not consensus for usage of the website. Here is one example, from 2007, relating to another BLP: ]. Cheers, -- ''']''' (]) 05:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::There's no indication that the site is reliable. '''BE'''—<span style="background:black;color:white;padding:3px 8px 5px 0px;text-shadow:white 0.118em 0.118em 0.118em;font-size:100%;">—'''Critical'''</span><sub>__]</sub> 06:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Found a Spanish Misplaced Pages article on the explorer. ] ] 16:21, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Cirt, I read over the discussion you linked to and there does not appear to be consensus either to use or not use the source in BLPs. I guess your statement ''"there was not consensus for usage"'' is therefore accurate, but that seems at odds with your earlier strong statements about consensus. I note that you the use of the source in that discussion and you have subsequently added to () to show that individuals are Scientologists. I am a bit taken aback that within minutes of ''my'' adding it to an article that you created, you have removed it, started this discussion, and notified involved wikiprojects. ] (]) 06:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::I found a link to the pdf but which I don't read well. ] (]) 16:29, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :See above. There is not consensus now, there was not consensus then, and I have not added links to that website in quite some time. -- ''']''' (]) 06:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::@] @] My Spanish is at a passable level, from a first glance I’m not seeing anything outlandish/indicative of unreliability but I can take a deeper look a bit later. ] ] <span style="color:#C8102E;"><small><sup>(])</sup></small></span> 01:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Then I do not understand your sentence above which states ''"Consensus in the past at Scientology-related talkpages has been that it is not an acceptable source and fails WP:RS"''. Perhaps you can explain the apparent contradiction? If there actually is no consensus on this source, I will restore the disputed edits at ] until this discussion completes. ] (]) 06:37, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::Irrespective of past discussions, consensus above does ''not'' support the usage of the website. -- ''']''' (]) 06:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| '''Update:''' Despite above comments by myself, and {{user|Fifelfoo}} and {{user|Becritical}}, that the website fails ] and should ''not'' be used on BLP pages, {{user|Delicious carbuncle}} has gone against above consensus and violated BLP by adding back this site, see . -- ''']''' (]) 06:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :This is beginning to become farcical, Cirt. You yourself just stated that ''"There is not consensus now,..."'' but minutes later claim I am going against "consensus". I hope that a consensus is ''in due time'' reached here about the use of the source, bu until then I fail to see how it is a violation of ]. ] (]) 06:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::{{user|Delicious carbuncle}} is now reverting against consensus and adding back in a questionable source to a ] page, adding controversial info to the BLP page, from a website that violates ], where 3 editors above have consensus ''not'' to use the source, and where only one editor, {{user|Delicious carbuncle}}, has advocated repeatedly to use this source, with no explanation yet as to why. Please, undo this edit, now. -- ''']''' (]) 06:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::I have removed it, again, see . Per the 3:1 consensus, above, and per ] and ], please do not add it back. -- ''']''' (]) 06:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Cirt, I am hardly '''"advocating"''' the use of that particular source. I merely made the mistake of adding it to an article that ''you'' created. It is currently used in other BLPs. I have already provided two diffs where '''''you''''' added it to articles as recently as August of 2009. If it is fine for you to add such information to articles -- using the exact same source -- why is it suddenly a crisis if ''I'' do the same? ] (]) 07:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::{{user|Delicious carbuncle}} seems to be willfully ignoring comments ''against'' usage of the source website by the three editors, above in this subsection itself. -- ''']''' (]) 07:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Cirt, I am hopeful that this discussion will end in some kind of consensus about the use of the source. I honestly don't care what it is, but I will follow it. I am not willing, however, to be cowed by your ridiculous hyperbole about the situation. The source is currently used in other BLPs (in part because '''you''' added it), if there is a genuine BLP issue with it, I'm sure that someone other than yourself will simply remove it from the article. I don't see how this is any different from any other case here and why it can't be resolved similarly. ] (]) 07:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::I have already stated I ceased that practice myself, and support removal of the website as a source, as do two editors above, aside from yourself. -- ''']''' (]) 07:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :The journal isn't peer-reviewed, so it's not a top quality source, but it is a serious journal, in the sense it is something we would usually accept as reliable in general. The writers seem reasonable-ish. However, it's not a good enough journal that an outlandish article would become reliable. I'm reading the article now, and a couple of things strike me as a bit off, but maybe it's just because I've been drawn to it here. Will give a bit more info later today.] (]) 07:18, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Deprecate source and remove from all articles'''. I'm not sure how reliable the source posting is, but there's another problem. Internet chatter (from unreliable sources) suggests that Sorrentini may be an ex-Scientologist. Now, my problem with truthaboutscientology.com is two-fold. It doesn't appear to be updated, and it certainly isn't dated. That means what we have is the claim that Sorrentini WAS a Scientologist at the time the data was compiled, but we don't know if that's current (it doesn't seem updated) and we can't say "as of" (because the material isn't dated). If we use the source to call someone a Scientologist, we may make a false claim, since the source is not testifying to their CURRENT relationship to the Church.--] 09:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::OK, the article appears to be claiming Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado completed a crossing of the ] in 1588. Between February and March. This is an extraordinary claim, I don't think the source is good enough to state that in the article.] (]) 07:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :*Agree with Scott Mac. Maybe as an act of good faith ] can remove this source in all the various locations he placed it prior the time he says he has stopped using it. Cirt I'm sure you know better than anyone else where you have used this source. In the future, it would be nice if you did this kind of thing at the time you realize the source is no longer considered an RS. Letting non-RS sources linger in BLP entries is not good practice at all. Thanks and cheers.] (]) 17:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::And if I'd checked, I'd have found out that he made up the story although it was taken seriously 200 years later. ] ] 09:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::*NOTE -- I should have checked Cirt's edit history. He has . Now, next time please don't let such sources linger. Thanks.] (]) 17:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::The article is really odd, it is drifting towards the genre of ''x was actually Spanish/Catalan/Indian/Hungarian'' and ''the Masons hid the evidence of how they built pyramids so they could continue Akenhaton's religion''. They use a photoshop reconstruction of how a woodcut of Ferrer might have looked and suggest a Spanish conspiracy to hide the fact they had discovered the Northwest passage, so the English and Dutch couldn't use it. They also claim that "Anglosaxon scholars" now accept Ferrer's claims, but fail to cite them. Valeriano Sánchez Ramos seems to be a quite decent local historian of eastern Andalucia, whereas Alfonso Viciana Martínez-Lage is more of a general writer but has published some academic stuff. I can't quite make my mind up if this is a sort of ''folie à deux'', or whether they are publishing an academic joke.] (]) 17:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Scott, as I understand it, Sorrentini has broken from the ''Church of Scientology'', but still considers themselves a "Scientologist". I was not aware that there were schismatics in Scientology, but it seems to be possible. It is a moot point if no reliable sources are available, and I agree that the source under discussion appears not to be reliable. ] (]) 14:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::They managed to get published in Boletín de la Real Sociedad Geográfica (Tomo CLX (2023), p. 115). But still I wouldn't give it much weight unless there are other scholars that concur with them. ]<sub>]</sub> 21:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::There are, at least so far as I can remember, at least four or five groups which have broken away from the Church of Scientology while still practicing and following some of the core principles of Scientology. There is a reasonable question what to call them, as I don't think there is necessarily an easily-identifiable umbrella term (like "Christian") available for such groups and related individuals. ] (]) 19:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I'm really surprised at that, I would have to say this is covered by ]. It is hard to understand how the editorial team might have accepted for publication an article which suggests an ice-free passage existed in the winter of 1588. You need specialist ships, and often icebreakers, to do it in summer today.] (]) 07:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Fifelfoo and Becritical are correct here, there's no indication this website meets the requirements of ], and in particular it should not be used for information regarding living people. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::That someone was able to navigate the northwest passage at that time is definitely bthe type of exception claim that ] talks of. This would require multiple high quality sources, so this source alone would not be reliable for the claim. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 15:00, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == D Gershon Lewental 's personal text page == | |||
| ===BLP Problems remain in two entries=== | |||
| Perhaps this should be taken to the BLP/N, but two of the entries Cirt purged the source from (thanks for that) have BLP issues that remain. These are ] and ]. The Lee Baca entry contains a section called "Connection to Scientology" which is filled with non-notable facts about Lee that tenuously connect Lee to the Church of Scientology, like once speaking at one of their events. Harold Palmer is perhaps worse in that it contains a large section called "Scientology background" which is not completely unsourced. The previous sources for the section were comprised of the one Cirt removed and three court documents, which for a BLP are a distinct NO NO. I'm hoping Cirt can fix these issues now while we're discussing this so that a BLP/N thread does not need opening.] (]) 17:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :{{user|Griswaldo}}, I thank you very much for the above assumption of good faith, and for noting above that I have already gone and removed the website as a source across multiple pages. I was ''not'' the editor who had initially added the website as a source to all of those pages, but nevertheless have removed it. We can move discussion of the two remaining individual pages, to their respective talk pages. -- ''']''' (]) 18:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::'''Update:''' I have gone ahead and removed the poorly sourced sects in question from both pages of ] and ]. Okay? ;) -- ''']''' (]) 18:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::Fine by me. ] (]) 19:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Hi everybody. D Gershon Lewental has an article in ] with subject of "" ... and . He had a personal . Does this link text also reliable source for wikipedia ? ] (]) 19:20, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Subject's web site as a primary source of her marriage and her two kids == | |||
| :This looks like a ] case. I mean obviously his page is self-published but he does appear to be an expert in the field of Middle Eastern history. So - per the guidance at EXPERTSPS - it's likely reliable with the caveat (probably not needed for a history article) that it absolutely cannot be used for information about living people other than the author. And, of course, ] is still relevant and will likely assign greater due weight to traditionally published material. ] (]) 19:25, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ] | |||
| ::If there are secondary sources for what he says in his page, it would help. Those can be cited. ] (]) 20:46, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ==''Pirate Wires''?== | |||
| *Alabi has married to Soji Alabi, a ] and ], . They have two daughters, | |||
| '']'' as an "American media company reporting at the intersection of technology, politics, and culture." It doesn't shout "reliable source" to me (feels more like a group blog), but could somebody else take a look at this and help me determine if (a) its articles, or (b) its claims about itself should be cited in articles or BLPs, ? — '''] | ] |''' 20:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Wouldn’t this be an aboutself citation anyway? I would be more concerned about primary/OR here in that case. | |||
| :Regarding the source: they are likely to be pretty biased, but according to the page linked, they seems sufficiently reliable for this, unless someone can dig up large-scale issues I missed. Employees, proper funding etc. all seem to be fine. ] (]) 21:29, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :: So I'd be fine enough trimming it to something to the effect of {{talk quote inline|as of January 2025, his profile at the online publisher '']'' lists him as a senior editor|q=yes}}? I just wanted to make sure ''PW'' was something worth mentioning at all, or if it was more akin to 'he's the senior editor this super-serious blog' and name-dropping a site that bore no mention. — '''] | ] |''' 21:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::I’m not sure, but think being descriptive is fine for “articles about Misplaced Pages” and stuff, “critical“ is probably better coming from a specific source, even if it’s obvious. With everything else, it’s probably a question of DUE, not RS. ] (]) 22:17, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::: I'd eschew calling out any of his particular articles over others, since there's... no reason to, right? Without reliable third-party sourcing, they're no more notable or inclusion-worthy than his others. — '''] | ] |''' 22:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I think this is a case for ], but it seems like a reasonable option ] (]) 22:56, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| : Pirate Wires has a strong right wing "libertarian tech bro" bent to its coverage, unsurprising given its links to Peter Thiel. The way it frames events is often strongly slanted, sometimes to the point of being misleading. Take for instance the recent story claiming that the WMF had been taken over by "Soros-backed operatives" . I would argue that this framing is conspiratorial and hyperbolic. I think it might sometimes be usable with caution for uncontroversial facts, but more objective sources should be preferred. ] (]) 14:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :: Here's a Business Insider story on Pirate Wires that gives a good sense of its ethos . ] (]) 14:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Invoking ] to attack an organization is not a good start for Pirate Wires, a new publication that does not have much of a reputation at this point. Definitely not ], and I would avoid using this publication for ]. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 02:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I wouldn't call it a "group blog", it just has a niche audience in the tech industry. It is certainly more factually based than Fox News. The article you linked is using it problematically though. <span class="nowrap">] (]) <small>(please ] me on reply)</small></span> 14:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ] (]) 14:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Solana is the founder and operator of Pirate Wires, so maybe it's wise to consider his pieces in particular self-published. No idea the level of editorial rigour other contributors are under though. ] (]) 14:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| This (above) text, which was my edit, was deleted, along with two primary sources from the subject's own web site, by an editor. Her rationale was: "Please don't source such personal information on a living person to a personal website, no matter whose it is." She even said PLP violation. | |||
| * ''Pirate Wires'' should be considered Generally reliable. The information that they publish, though perhaps from a libertarian or right wing political slant, is generally truthful/accurate and therefore should be considered ] unless someone is able to provide substantial evidence and examples that disprove this. ] (]) 16:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:It's Mike Solana's blog. ] (]) 17:07, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Do you have an evidentiary basis for your claim? I ask because I was recently described in a Pirate Wires article as a member of a powerful pro-Hamas group, and while this was entertaining in its foolishness, the important point for RSN is that it was a factual error. The article contained many inaccuracies about various things, and it was clear that no attempt had been made to avoid errors and erroneous conclusions. So, using it for BLPs might be unwise, and the notion that it is "generally truthful/accurate" seem highly questionable. Of course, I only have one data point, so it could be an outlier, but I doubt it. ] (]) 17:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Yeah. I was not happy about Pirate Wires being used for that whole fiasco. But as for the evidence look above at the link {{U|Selfstudier}} provided in which Mike Solana says, "I am the overwhelming majority owner of pirate wires, with no board. nobody tells me what to write or cover, nor will they ever." ] (]) 17:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::When the editor in chief is also the owner and there is no editorial board for him to answer to and also he writes a lot of the content I don't know how we could describe it as anything other than a personal blog. Even if he sometimes brings in guest writers it's still quite obviously ''his personal thing.'' ] (]) 17:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::There are many other editors from what I can tell, such as Ashley Rindsberg. It is not even close to a blog. ] (]) 14:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Ashley Rindsberg, the author of the article with inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions. For Misplaced Pages's purposes, its main utility may be as a tool to identify potential disinformation vectors that could degrade the integrity of Misplaced Pages content. ] (]) 10:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::What "inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions" are you referring to? Can you cite specific examples please and quote from the source directly? Also, are there other reliable sources which then criticize PW for "inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions" or is that ] and/or your own conclusion being reached? ] (]) 17:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Considering that comment and the fact that founder ] is the chief marketing officer of ], Pirate Wires has a major ] with all of the individuals and organizations associated with Founders Fund, and is a non-] source with respect to all related topics. — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 03:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Pirate Wires is trashy far-right culture wars content. It is at best a group blog - ] (]) 10:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| === Need context before coming to RSN === | |||
| At this point, the source is used in only 7 articles in mainspace. . in general, RSN really shouldn't be used to approve sources ahead of time, editors exercise their own discretion, debate merits of source in the talk page of article, and come here if the same source is debated over and over again, or if reliability is still at issue. ] (]) 16:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| * Per <s>{{U|Slatersteven}}</s> its founder describes it as a ] - it should be treated accordingly. ] (]) 17:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:Not me. ] (]) 17:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *::Oh dear did I misread? OOPS should be per {{U|Selfstudier}} apologies. I will strike above. ] (]) 17:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *:It is not ] and its founder merely said things along the lines of "I am not bought and paid for nor a mouthpiece for any billionaire" etc. Now I do not know the veracity of that statement for sure, but I do not see that Mike Solana declared Pirate Wires to be SPS or a blog. It has numerous other independent journalists and appears to run as a full-fledged journalistic organization like any other, with their own right leaning or right-libertarian bias of course. But bias is not a reason for a source to otherwise be deprecated or considered SPS or anything else, it is just the nature of nearly every source that some bias to one direction or another is to be expected. ] (]) 14:56, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::But they don't have any indication of editorial controls, or a fact-checking process, or any of the things that an ] would have; neither is there any reason to think they have a particular {{tq|reputation for fact-checking and accuracy}}. A statement like "I am the overwhelming majority owner of pirate wires, with no board. nobody tells me what to write or cover, nor will they ever" makes it pretty clear that it's not structured the way we'd expect a RS to be structured. I'm with the editors above who describe it as a blog - there's just nothing here that even has the ''shape'' of an RS. The fact that the person who runs it sometimes also includes guest posts by other people doesn't change the fact that there's no editorial board, no source of fact-checking, and most of all no reputation. Like... what makes you think that it's a ], according to the criteria we use? Where do you feel its reliability comes from? --] (]) 20:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| === Usage in ] === | |||
| I see on many BLP articles, where that kind of marriage information and the kids are being mentioned, in the end of the Bio section. It seems to me. it's a common practice. | |||
| Is the Pirate Wires piece by ] a reliable source of claims for the ] article? Rindsberg has published other content about Misplaced Pages on Pirate Wires, including . — ''''']''' <small>]</small>'' 04:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :It's at best, usable for the attributed opinion of Rindsberg only, but even then, it's obviously polemical and partisan. There's lots of right-wing criticism of Misplaced Pages that I personally find disingenuous, but inevitably an article on "Ideological bias on Misplaced Pages" is going to have to include some partisan sourcing, but not framing it as fact is essential. I am unsure whether Pirate Wires is prominent enough a publication that it would be due to mention in any capacity. ] (]) 04:31, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| My question: Was it wrong to add this information with the confirming source from her own web site? Thanks. <sub><big>]</big></sub> ] 11:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :Sources in that article should have some leeway, as Misplaced Pages is obviously going to be criticised by such sources. But I totally agree with Hemiauchenia that framing is key. This is the opinion of a hyper partisan source, framing it as fact is wrong. Whether it should be included or not is a discussion for the articles talk page. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 11:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :We have really strict rules on biographies of living persons, but the info about her marriage doesn't reflect badly on her. Keep looking for an independent source. Don't include the children's names; it serves no purpose. ] (]) 13:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :It is more or less a group | |||
| ::This would be one of the instances in which a SPS might be used in a BLP per ] assuming that there is no question as to the authenticity of the source and no question as to its accuracy. I agree with Itsmejudith that you should omit the children's names. Also, do not link to the source in that manner. Use foonotes instead. And try to find a secondary source in preference to the SPS. ] (]) 13:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :blog that mostly publishes opinion, including eg antisemitic Soros conspiracy theories. Any Misplaced Pages editor reading their coverage of this project will immediately spot multiple falsehoods and errors, and also personal attacks on names editors based on these inaccuracies. At best on a par with Quillette. In short, not reliable for this topic, and if this topic is a guide to how robust its general reporting is it’s probably not reliable for anything. ] (]) 16:16, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::I would say that if it is not "out there", I question whether it should be used in the article. People have the right to try to keep family members out of a public life, and to a certain extent we should respect that.--] (]) 13:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{out}} | |||
| Thank you. Very helpful advices. There was an inadverdent mistake in my above statement. The editor deleted given text with I provided, from '''modernghana.com''', and editor said on the subject's talk page. Then I found artist's web site and first hand information about her husband and her two kids. I asked editor again, and editor said "Please don't source such personal information on a living person to a personal website, no matter whose it is." | |||
| == CEIC data == | |||
| I am sorry about the mix-up. Can we use Modern Ghana's article, along with these two sources from her own web site then? | |||
| I could also mention about her marriage in the footnotes section as Fladrif suggested. Thanks. <sub><big>]</big></sub> ] 15:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| I often see this site being used as a source for country-list data. They appear to be professional, but I'm not sure if they're considered a proper secondary source. They do not appear to be the same CEIC as the one owned by ], as they say they are owned by "ISI Markets". ] (]) 23:04, 14 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I think that technically it's a violation of ] since you're using it to source information about third-parties. This might be an example of where policy is out of sync with community practice. ] (]) 15:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| : |
:It looks like just a big database. I would trust the first party sources for raw data more. ] (]) 10:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | ||
| ::If in question use secondary sources.] (]) 02:16, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Fantasy Literature == | |||
| :::WP:SPS says: "''Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities...so long as...it does not involve claims about third parties.''" ] (]) 16:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| : |
I see this source around a lot and I would like to have it settled for whether it is OK to use for reviews. It looks good to me and not promotional or any of the typical sorts of issues that plague these kinds of websites, but I am not sure, and I would like to know before I use it on pages, and sometimes books are cited to this at NPP and I am unsure how I should judge it. I would judge it as decently established but it looks to me to be straddling the line between online review publication and blog. It's used on about 160 already. Anyone else have any thoughts? ] (]) 02:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | ||
| :It has the appearance of a blog. It has a sort-of staff:. I'd be hesitant to use it for ] purposes. ] (]) 09:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::This comes up fairly regularly. The children on notable people aren't themselves notable (or at least, they aren't unless for other reasons). As non-notable people, they shouldn't be named. The name of the spouse might possibly be relevant, but shouldn't be included automatically. BLP policy ''requires'' privacy for non-notable persons ] (]) 17:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::This is the terms its staff work under: | |||
| ::::::I don't think we violate someone's privacy simply by mentioning their names in an article (if the subject wanted to keep the names of her husband and children private, she would not have put those names on her web page). However, I completely agree with the notability issue... unless her husband and children are notable on their own, mentioning them by name is trivia. ] (]) 17:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::Basically they're unpaid volunteers who become voting members of the staff. They are expected to review an unspecified but regular number of books in order to maintain their membership. It isn't clear that there's much in the way of editorial oversight beyond a pledge not to plagiarize review material. Considering their concentration on volume of reviews and appearance of loose editorial standards I'd be hesitant to use this group to establish the notability of a book. ] (]) 12:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::So just for notability purposes it is unusable or is it something that should not be included on pages that are notable? ] (]) 22:03, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Not an RS. ] (]) 12:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == NASASpaceFlight.com == | |||
| :::::::I don't agree, although I'm hard-pressed to come up with a real-life example. But if I wanted to write a real biography of, for example, ], it would be extremely incomplete to not include his relationship with his father or his children. Of course, this is a bad example for a number of reasons including the fact that there are secondary sources. ] (]) 17:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| Looking to see if we can come to some consensus on 's use as a reliable source in articles related to ], specifically in its use in ] and ]. | |||
| ::::::::A personal website is ''not'' a reliable source for information about other people. Claiming to be married to a named individual ''is'' a "claim about a third party". ] (]) 17:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{out}} | |||
| Here I found a secondary source, an interview with Tope Alabi, and she reveals her husband's name as Soji Alabi, question #4, line 5: | |||
| *'''How come you chose to do gospel music?''' | |||
| Would that be sufficient, including her web site info, to mention about her producer husband and her kids? <sub><big>]</big></sub> ] 19:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :No. Her husband and kids aren't notable people, so we don't name them. Notability isn't transferable. ] (]) 20:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| At a glance, to me the site seems to be a bit fan-sitey and seems to glean a lot of information from rumour and speculation based on photos and video they've taken from the perimeter or via drones flying over SpaceX facilities. I also see no evidence on the website of any editorial oversight or fact checking policies. | |||
| ::Fusion is the future's isn't suggesting creating separate articles for her husband and children so notability has nothing to do with it. ] (]) 20:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::I believe the ] policy applies to all subject matter in articles, not just that in the titles. OTOH I would say that if a notable person has children that is probably a notable in that person's life. Note: noting that someone has children seems reasonable, but the names seem unnecessary unless the children are well-known in their own right.--] (]) 20:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ] mentions the site as a reliable source but the only criteria they give for its inclusion are that the source <br> | |||
| :::::A Quest For Knowledge, you'll find that BLP policy applies to ''any living person'' mentioned in any article, not just one about them. Unless the subject person was notable ''for'' having children (]?), they shouldn't be named. It is probably reasonable to state that the subject has children, but no more than that, unless it is significant in regard to what he or she is notable for. Sadly, A lot of BLPs currently contain trivia, but that is no reason to continue this when the policy is clear. ] (]) 20:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{tq|1="should already have a Misplaced Pages page (notable enough to be created) and have reliable sources covering them (notable enough to be mentioned)."}} which I think we can all agree is not valid signal of reliability. ] (]) 03:21, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :] calls for {{tq|"a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"}}. A Google books search appears to show ], and even use by NASA. They appear to have some editorial staff, but there's no editorial guideline I could find. Obviously the forum section wouldn't be reliable per ].<br>Given how often they are used by other sources I would think they should probably considered generally reliable. Is there any specific instances that are of concern? After all generally reliable doesn't mean always reliable. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 14:53, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::"''Unless the subject person was notable for having children (octuplets?), they shouldn't be named.''" I don't think ] says this, but I could be wrong. Can you refer me to the section that says this? Anyway, I think we need to take a step back. Are people seriously suggested that a person's spouse and children aren't important to a person's life? Granted, this article (]) is practically empty, but any decent biography should cover things like this. ] (]) 20:44, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::{{tq|1=Is there any specific instances that are of concern? After all generally reliable doesn't mean always reliable.}} Nothing in particular, mostly just looking to see if coverage of events from this source would constitute sigcov in reliable sources for the purposes of ]. ] (]) 15:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::This is probably a reliable source, but ] isn't just matter of reliability. Notability is beyond the scope of this noticeboard. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 15:11, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::{{tq|1=WP:SIGCOV isn't just matter of reliability.}} no, but coverage in an unreliable source does not count for ]. That's why I'm seeking opinions on whether this source in particular is reliable. ] (]) 15:18, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I've found their written news reporting to be generally reliable however their coverage of SpaceX in particular often comes off as promotional (you very rarely see the controversies or criticisms found in other sources reflected in their work) but that may be more self-censorship to maintain their inside access to SpaceX than objective promotion. I would not touch their forum or youtube channel with a 10 foot stick but thats surely besides the point of this discussion. ] (]) 21:11, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::{{tq|1=I would not touch their forum or youtube channel with a 10 foot stick but thats surely besides the point of this discussion.}} well, maybe not exactly besides the point. There are several citations to their YouTube channel in the articles I've mentioned (and similar articles). What in particular about their YouTube channel do you believe is less reliable than their website? ] (]) 21:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::In general I find the stuff on their Youtube channel to be much more speculative and clickbaity as well as of a generally low quality. Often its just one of their people flipping between a bunch of pictures from the day before and speculating live about what they might mean. It also doesn't appear to be subject to the same standard of editorial review, its not the same standard of writing and analysis (much of it appears unscripted and I haven't seen them make corrections after the fact). ] (]) 21:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == How restrictive is the TRT World „Turkish Government conflict of interest“ unreliability? == | |||
| ::::::::"Consider whether the inclusion of names of private living individuals who are not directly involved in an article's topic adds significant value. The presumption in favor of privacy is strong in the case of family members of articles' subjects and other loosely involved, otherwise low-profile persons.": ]. If the article is about footballer X, then footballer X is presumably notable for playing football, not for having children. Footballer X's kids may be important to him, but their names aren't important to us. ] (]) 20:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| How broad should this restriction be interpreted? For example, does it include topics such as ], ] and the current conflict in Syria? ] (]) 12:48, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::I think that ] is about people known for primarily one event. I don't think that's the case here. Also, that section is about privacy. If the person is going around doing public interviews talking about her family, then obviously they're not concerned about keep this secret. Finally, ] doesn't say 'never'. It's left up to the discretion of the editors working on each article, so you can't make blacket statements like that. I think the real problem here is that the article is so short. ] (]) 21:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :I would have thought it applies very strongly for Kurdistan and Syria, as Turkey is in open conflict in those areas. Israel might depend on the context, Turkey obviously isn't a uninterested party but it's not Iran. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 13:15, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::Attempting to pad out an article by including peripheral facts seems a little desperate. I took a quick look at the article, and it states that Tope Alabi has been involved with the Nigerian film industry. How about finding some details on that. Surely more relevant? ] (]) 21:09, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::To be clear it would be reliable for statements of the Turkish governments official views in all cases. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 13:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::::It was on instinct, really, that I gave the advice, above, not to give the children's names. But I do think it is best practice not to. For one thing, I don't think it looks very professional. For another, those kids will one day grow up and may then ask why their names were plastered over the Internet. And it really doesn't convey any necessary info. ] (]) 21:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::Of course, I‘m just asking about reliability for facts, because I saw some less than great statements, particularly in the I/P area. Thank you! ] (]) 14:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Basically agree with ActivelyDis. I think TRT World is pretty good on non-domestic issues on the whole, but not for anything Kurdish. Israel is fine. Probably not good for Syria as Turkey is a belligerent party there, although I’ve never seen it actually publish anything questionable on Syria apart from Kurdish-related stuff. ] (]) 16:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == Is “Zannettou, Savvas "A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism". a reliable source for ] == | |||
| (←) All of which is very interesting, but this is the ''Reliable sources Noticeboard''. Is there a consensus that (as I believe) a personal web site is ''not'' a reliable source for the name of someone's spouse and children? ] (]) 22:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| I can’t find evidence it’s been published. ] ] 19:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Yes, getting off-topic, sorry. I'd say that since we don't actually know it ''is'' her website (without WP:RS that says so), it can't be, regardless of any other issues. ] (]) 22:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :I'm not up for reading it right now, but it's been published, and the correct citation is: Zannettou, S., Finkelstein, J., Bradlyn, B., & Blackburn, J. (2020, May). A quantitative approach to understanding online antisemitism. In ''Proceedings of the International AAAI conference on Web and Social Media'' (Vol. 14, pp. 786-797). Google Scholar shows where it can be accessed. If it's kept, the references to it in the Notes section should change "Savvas" to something like "Zannettou et al." ] (]) 21:01, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :By any sane definition of "reliable", the subject's own statement are a reliable source for who her husband and children are. (Unless there is some reason to believe she's lying or not responsible for the site.) The issue isn't really whether we can find reliable information, i.e. information that is likely to be true. The issue is whether or not we should be including personal information that affects not only her, but also her family. That is a ] issue, and BLP generally says we limit personal information to those facts that have already publicized in secondary sources. That prohibition is not primarily about accuracy or reliability, but rather about protecting personal privacy from unreasonable intrusions. Regardless, that issue really belongs on the ], not here. ] (]) 22:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::I should add that the Zannettou et al. citations that currently exist in the article are preprints, which generally are not RSs, per ]. The other citation was also subsequently in conference proceedings. Conference proceedings might or might not be reliable sources for specific content, depends on the conference and the content. ] (]) 22:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :What's the context for this question? Where is it being cited/do you want to be able to cite it? ] (] | ] | ]) 03:40, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::@] I'm a bit confused by the question - did you look at the article? It's cited several times there and as I can't find evidence that it's been reliably published I don't think it should be used. ] ] 08:50, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Apologies, I missed another one, also apparently never published."Zannettou, Savvas, Tristan Caulfield, Jeremy Blackburn, Emiliano De Cristofaro, Michael Sirivianos, Gianluca Stringhini, and Guillermo Suarez-Tangil. "On the Origins of Memes by Fringe Web Communities." arXiv.org, September 22, 2018. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.12512." ] ] 08:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :I provided a link to the published version of that one in my second comment above. The citation is Zannettou, S., Caulfield, T., Blackburn, J., De Cristofaro, E., Sirivianos, M., Stringhini, G., & Suarez-Tangil, G. (2018, October). On the origins of memes by means of fringe web communities. In ''Proceedings of the Internet Measurement Conference 2018'' (pp. 188-202). There's an alternate citation at the top right of the copy where it says "ACM Reference Format." ] (]) 13:11, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Hmmmm...I'm not 100% sure that isn't a reliable source. They don't appear to be the website of a print publication and their "The Team" page doesn't inspire confidence. But they have been cited by other reliable sources such as Time magazine, Times Higher education, and if Google's search engine isn't lying, possibly some peer-reviewed academic journals. I'm not sure since I don't have accounts with these journals. ] (]) 22:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::@] ACM is reputable, but I seem to have forgotten that we can use published conference papers, but not papers simply presented at a conference. Sorry. ] ] 14:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::Concerning the point of principle I think a personal website, if we know it is real, CAN be a reliable source of information about that person. People (and organizations) are "expert" about themselves, but we would be careful of self-serving information for example. If there are doubts about the website really belonging to the person that is another matter.--] (]) 07:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::I'm not sure that I'm following. Both papers were published in conference proceedings. FWIW, even preprints are ] in WP's sense of this term, which is only "a source that is made available to the public in some form." Even if there are no conference proceedings, it's possible to use a conference paper that was presented, as long as the presenter has made it publicly available (e.g., via something like arxiv.org). But all of this only establishes that the paper is published and therefore verifiable, not that it's a RS for the content in question. ] (]) 14:27, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| {{out}} | |||
| ::::Sorry, I mean when is a paper submitted to a conference run by a reliable organisation an RS? When submitted? If published as part of the publication of the conference papers? ] ] 15:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| Since I started it, and after many-good advices, here is my suggestion, and let's please vote on it. Support or oppose. | |||
| ::::It is published, Conference proceedings of Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), volume 14. AAAI has been around since 1979 with respected associations. Submission to a conference is not sufficient to meet any standards. Acceptance by a reputable conference after peer review (some conference talks are invited and not peer reviewed) is a good indicator of reliability though not a guarantee (the conference paper may well be revised between acceptance and publication in a proceedings and even then might in the long run not be considered reliable). As it stands, I would say reliable for the use of Happy Merchant online unless other sources can be found undermining its reliability. ] (]) 15:50, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| *Alabi has married to Soji Alabi, a ] and ], in 2000, and they have two daughters. | |||
| :Take up the actual language at the article talk page, not here. That is not the function of this noticeboard. "Voting" is not the way things work. ] (]) 14:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::"By any sane definition of "reliable", the subject's own statement are a reliable source for who her husband and children are." Well, ] talks of "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", which seems pretty sane to me, and then goes on to say "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as: 1. the material is not unduly self-serving; 2. it does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities); ...". Now a claim to be married to a third party is certainly a claim about that party. ] (]) 17:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::My reading of the consensus here is that the names of third parties are best kept out unless there is a better source - and then of course there should be a reason as per WP:NOTE. I agree, as also already mentioned, that it not good to use such a source for self serving material. Of course if there are other sources to back things up, notability doubts, or doubts about the authenticity of the website, that is all another matter.--] (]) 19:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| == |
== ] == | ||
| <!-- ] 19:57, 5 July 2025 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1751745462}} | |||
| Should we be using articles from the Hawar News Agency, especially in relation to the (geo)political side of Rojava? This also includes articles in the scope of the Syrian civil war. It has ties to the SDF, which means there is a significant conflict of interest here; <s>I should also add that the YPG/YPD/SDF ,</s> (I pretty much exaggerated what I read here, the arguments below are convincing) which raises concern over its reliability. I want to get community consensus before I do anything, especially because the article in question (]) is related to a CTOP. 💽 ] 💽 🌹 ⚧ <sup>(''']''')</sup> 19:40, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :(Copying this response from the talk page of the ]:) Of course we have to use Hawar, simply because it is one the most prominent news sites from Syria. It ''shouldn't'' be used as the sole source for contentious issues (unless it cites claims), but for basic facts such as local election results, regional policy decisions, etc. it is one of the only sources available. It is also used as a source by academic researchers such as in ''The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics'', ''The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts'', ''Soldiers of End-Times. Assessing the Military Effectiveness of the Islamic State'', and ''Statelet of Survivors. The Making of a Semi-Autonomous Region in Northeast Syria''.<br>(The following part is new, written for RSN:) These are books written by experts on Syria, released by reputable publishers such as Oxford University Press, and they have seemingly deemed Hawar to be a partisan, but useable source. Speaking from experience as an editor who has been active in editing articles on the Syrian civil war for ten years, I would also note that Hawar was previously discussed by editors and similarily assessed, as it is fairly reliable though should be used with caution in especially problematic fields such as casualty numbers (where partisanship becomes a major problem). ] (]) 20:28, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Having read through the article you linked it doesn't show that media is heavily censored. A relevant sentence would appear to be: <br>{{tq|"In the current situation, the journalists we interviewed usually stress that, on the one hand, they enjoy relative freedom of expression. The PYD did not forcefully close those it considers as antagonistic media. Reporters can move freely in the region and cover a wide array of issues. Additionally, journalists from international or regional media are also generally allowed to operate freely. However, they also say that there is always a tension with the authorities in power and there are red lines that cannot be crossed."}}<br>As well as:<br>{{tq|"Gradually, they seem to have adopted an editorial line that is less critical, if not supportive, of the political system in Rojava. This support, according to some local journalists, is not due so much to direct imposition from the authorities, but rather to their own convictions and, even more important, to the feeling that doing otherwise would be very unpopular in a conflict-ridden context."}}<br>So it doesn't sound like they have the most freedom of media, but it appears a long way from heavily censored. Restrictions on reporting matters that could effect security are common in areas of conflict (and even outside of them).<br>Hawar News Agency has some ] and would probably be covered by ]. Issues of bias (]) and opinion (]) don't immediately make a source unreliable. In general I would agree with Applodion, reliable but caution should be taken for issue where it's bias or censorship of security matters may effect it's reporting. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 22:41, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Agree with above, helpful to understand its bias, but this means to use with caution and understanding rather than preventing use. ] (]) 00:31, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Agree with the above. If we are citing it for contentious claims, then it's better we provide attribution. Unless OP or someone else can come up with credible sources that ] the reliability of ''Hawar'', I don't see any reason to worry about its inclusion. Looking over the article, it seems most of the citations to it are for easily verifiable facts (i.e. changes in AANES leadership, recognition by the Catalan parliament, etc.), rather than anything contentious. --] (]) 10:54, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| == RfC: LionhearTV == | |||
| In ] the Times and IBTimes have been offered for the label of "left wing" for the organization. TimesOnline 10 Aug 2009 "Left-wing groups including Unite Against Fascism " and IBTimes 19 Nov 2010 "the left-wing group Unite Against Fascism (of which Prime Minister David Cameron is a supporter)". were offered for the claim. Are they RS for such a claim? ] (]) 13:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| {{Moved discussion from|Misplaced Pages talk:Tambayan Philippines/Sources#RfC: LionhearTV|2= Royiswariii, 19 January 2025 00:55 (UTC)}}<!-- ] 11:02, 21 February 2025 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1740135721}} | |||
| :The Times and IBTimes are certainly reliable sources. The sources are news stories, not editorials. The description as "left wing" is made in passing and cannot be characterized as any kind of reasoned in-depth analysis. But, when are convenient labels ever supported by reasoned in-depth analysis? All that being said, I don't see any problem with the sources being used in the manner thay are being used in the article.] (]) 14:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::They are certainly RS for this. They views on the political leanings of protest groups and parties are considerd RS.] (]) 14:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| In which case, might a disinterested admin examine the edit war going on to remove the RS sourced claim? I think one editor has broached reasonable revert levels by a goodly bit. ] (]) 16:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :::No challenge to The Times being a reliable source (and that has only been presented today for the first time by the way). The IBT has been challenged in this respect on the talk page. The issue is one of ] and the refusal of Collect and others to engage in discussion. In particular its difficult for one casual reference in a news story to overcome the support for UAF by the leader of the leading RIGHT WING party in the UK. There has been a long term edit war to label UAF as left wing. Recently this has been a concerted effort by a small group of editors, end result was a massive edit war a few pages ago and a general refusal to allow the stable version to stand while a consensus was reached. There have been a few other examples of AGF failure. It certainly needs some new eyes to take a look at it. --] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 16:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ''The Times'' is certainly reliable enough. That said, these kinds of labels are generally a bad idea, especially if there are contradicting views on this. Are there reliable sources that state UAF is ''not'' "left-wing"? ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| I want your comments about the reliability of LionhearTV, I can't determine whether it is reliable or not, on ], the Lionheartv is in the unreliable section, but, despite of that some editors still using this source in all Philippine Articles. So let's make a vote: | |||
| == Quote in News Article as a Source == | |||
| * '''Option 1: ]''' | |||
| I'd like to use this source ] as a statement that "The bags are produced in Italy" for ] in the Products section. The specific text mentioning Italy comes from a quote from the founder of the company. Is that statement properly backed up by the source? ] (]) 22:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Option 2: ]''' | |||
| * '''Option 3: ]''' | |||
| * '''Option 4: ]''' | |||
| ] ] 10:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :Yes, Vogue is a ]. Is there some reason why you might think it wouldn't be? ] (]) 22:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Deprecate'''. The Philippines has plenty of ] to choose from. If you are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find refs for something or someone and have to use this, I'd say consider against and don't add it to the article. ] (]) 13:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Perhaps I phrased my question wrong. Is the quote in the article "Our bags are all hand-made by artisans in a small Italian atelier using old-world methods." a reliable source for "The bags are produced in Italy". So I guess I'm not questioning Vogue's reliability, but more the reliability of a quote by the founder of a company in the Vogue article for a statement about the product of the company. A similar statement was removed before in the article, so I want to make sure it can be properly supported before adding it in again. ] (]) 23:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Comment''': For better understanding and context, especially for editors unfamiliar of this topic's origin: | |||
| :::Just attribute it to the source. "According to the company's founder, all its bags are produced in Italy". ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 01:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ::LionhearTV is a blog site, as described on its "About Me" page, established in 2008 and functioning primarily as a celebrity and entertainment blog. The site is operated by eMVP Digital, which also manages similar blog sites, such as and . | |||
| ::In addition to these blogs, LionhearTV organizes the , which recognize achievements in the entertainment industry. This accolade has been acknowledged by major industry players, including ] and ]. Like other awards, the RAWR Awards present physical trophies to honorees. | |||
| ::A discussion about LionhearTV’s reliability as a source took place on the ] talk page in September 2024 (see ]). The issue was subsequently raised on the Tambayan Philippines talk page (]) and the ] (]). However, these discussions did not yield a constructive consensus on whether LionhearTV can be considered a reliable source. The discussion at Tambayan deviated into a debate about ], which was unrelated to the original subject. Meanwhile, the sole respondent at the RSN inquiry commented, {{tq|It may come down to how it's used, it maybe unreliable for contentious statement or comments about living people, but reliable for basic details.|quotes=yes}} | |||
| ::At this moment, LionhearTV is listed as '''unreliable''' on ] as result of the no consensus discussion at RSN. | |||
| :<span style="border-radius:7px;background:#dc143c;padding:4px 6px 4px 6px;color:white;">]</span> (]) 13:57, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Lionheartv is one person operation. How can there be editorial discretion on that case? ] (]) 14:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :::I'm more surprised on how a single person actively manages three blog sites and one accolade, with the accolade even giving out physical trophies to its winners. Like, how is he/she funding and doing all of these? <span style="border-radius:7px;background:#dc143c;padding:4px 6px 4px 6px;color:white;">]</span> (]) 14:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::It's immaterial on how we determine ]. What could be very important that other ] missed out on that only this blog carries? If it's only this blog that carries articles about something, it's not very important. This blog is the very definition of ]. I'm surprised we're having this conversation. A blacklist is needed. ] (]) 02:35, 19 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Option 3'''. There's something about its reporting and organizational structure that is off compared to the regular newspapers. ] (]) 14:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::Though, I find it strange and concerning that reputable sources copypasted some of LionhearTV's articles: | |||
| ::# LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/12/2024-spotify-wrapped-radar-artists-hev-abi-bini-lead-the-philippine-charts/ (December 8, 2024)<br/>Sunstar: https://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/2024-spotify-wrapped-radar-artists-hev-abi-bini-lead-the-philippine-charts (December 10, 2024) | |||
| ::# LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2025/01/dylan-menor-signs-with-universal-records/ (January 11, 2025)<br/>Manila Republic: https://www.manilarepublic.com/dylan-menor-signs-with-universal-records/ (January 14, 2025) | |||
| ::These are two instances I found so far where other sources copypasted from LionhearTV. But I saw other instances where LionhearTV is the one who copypasted from other sources, such examples include: | |||
| ::# LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/12/moira-dela-torre-brings-her-new-album-im-okay-to-cinemas/ (December 30, 2024)<br/>Original: https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/music/2024/12/29/moira-dela-torre-brings-her-new-album-i-m-okay-to-cinemas-0948 (December 29, 2024) | |||
| ::# LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/06/bini-set-to-showcase-sneak-preview-of-their-new-single-cherry-on-top-in-mobile-game/ (June 27, 2024) <br/>Original: https://www.abs-cbn.com/starmagic/articles-news/bini-set-to-showcase-sneak-preview-of-their-new-single-cherry-on-top-in-mobile-game-22637 (June 24, 2024) | |||
| ::I honestly don't know about these editors, they just copying each other's works. Probably cases of ]. <span style="border-radius:7px;background:#dc143c;padding:4px 6px 4px 6px;color:white;">]</span> (]) 16:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| {{hat|Discussion about moving RFC to RSN}} | |||
| :::@], @], @], if you don't mind we can move this discussion to ] to get more opinions and votes on other experienced editors. ] ] 16:19, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::'''Support'''. ] (]) 16:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| ::::'''Support'''. Though, I suggest finishing or closing this discussion so that we don't have two running discussions that tackles the same thing. If we want to construct a consensus, we better do it in one place. Alternatively, we first seek consensus from the local level first (by finishing this discussion) before moving one level up (the RSN). <span style="border-radius:7px;background:#dc143c;padding:4px 6px 4px 6px;color:white;">]</span> (]) 16:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC) | |||
| {{hab}} | |||
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Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports.
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Additional notes:
Shortcuts- RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments.
- While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy.
- This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources.
RfC: Bild
Although I'm involved in the discussion the result seem uncontroversial, and so asking for a close at WP:CR wouldn't be appropriate. The result is that there is no change, Bild remians Generally unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
What is the reliability of the German tabloid Bild, including its website Bild.de?
- Generally reliable
- Additional considerations apply
- Generally unreliable
- Deprecated
Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Responses (Bild)
- Option 3/4 Bild is a sensational tabloid, that according to Foreign Policy magazine, archived link, routinely violates basic journalistic ethics and is regularly sanctioned for it by German Press Council, being sanctioned by them 26 times in 2021 alone. As evidenced by this piece in Deutsche Welle their process of verification and fact checking is below the standard expected for a reliable source. For those looking for a more comprehensive account of the newspaper and its ethics, I've found this freely accessible short book (less than 100 pages, including references) in German from 2023 on the topic (which can translated using google translate's PDF translate feature) Some quotes from the book (in translation)
Driven by a special editorial culture ("We are tabloids after all") and driven by editorial decisions in which sales interests take precedence over media ethics, articles are published that hurt those affected and irritate readers.
...The way celebrities are treated , who are initially favorites and then quickly become fallen angels who are pursued even in their private lives, is legendary
... EDIT: another quoteBILD's journalism does not focus on the task of providing information, but rather on examining a suitable fact for its emotionality and framing it with commentary.
} Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)- As an addendum: here are some other examples, including a fake story about migrants committing sexual assault in 2017 , as well as taking scientists quotes out of context to further an agenda regarding COVID during the pandemic Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:00, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3 - per Hemiauchenia. I'll add an argument that's weaker but nevertheless entertaining and somewhat indicative, which is that Bild's infamy is so well-established that an acclaimed book presenting a lightly-fictionalized denunciation of its practices is a common inclusion of university German language, German literature and media studies courses. There hasn't been any argument made, however, that our current usage of Bild is so pervasive a problem that deprecation is necessary. signed, Rosguill 22:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3/4. I don't think we should cite Bild anywhere on Misplaced Pages. It's a sensationalist tabloid like the Daily Mail or National Enquirer.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:01, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- 3 at least, and I wouldn't say no to 4. This is one of the weakest sources in the region, though I could see it being cited for special purposes, like examples of "headlinese" that aren't in English, etc. But at this point I don't think it's even usable for WP:ABOUTSELF material; if they claimed something as simple as X number of employees, I would strongly suspect it of being an exaggeration. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- 3 I honestly have no idea how one could even come to approach the idea that it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, but if previous discussions haven't been enough, I suppose it's worth piling on. Sources should not be considered reliable until they prove themselves to be. Alpha3031 (t • c) 05:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- 3/4 Bild is a tabloid and well known for its lack of fact checking and heavy bias. The closest english speaking equivalent would be things like the Daily Mail. In my opinion broadly unusable. Magisch 10:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- bad 2 for miscellaneous or political content, unusable for the private lives of BLP and particularly recently deceased people it's rather rare that they publish straightforward misinformation, particularly when considering the volume of content published. Having said that, they have a nasty habit of violating both journalistic and actual ethics (and allegedly breaking the law), so using them is probably broadly unwise. There are some rare cases where they can be useful, but as far as usable sources go, they are on the very lowest end IMO, being a tabloid in an area with an otherwise strong media environment. In addition, there doesn't seem to be a significant issue to justify depreciation. Note: this applies to Bild only, other sources owned by that publisher are usually a lot more reliable, even if I personally consider much of what they believe to be rather questionable FortunateSons (talk) 10:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2, provisionally, since no examples of publishing falsehoods and misinformation have been provided so far in this thread and I couldn't find them in the article. See my comments in the discussion section. Alaexis¿question? 13:14, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3, I don't see the need for deprecation. Bild is tabloid journalism, and falls far short of the high quality sources that BLP calls for. It shouldn't be anywhere near anything contentious to do with a living, or recently deceased, person. When it comes to it reliability in other areas how other reliable sources view Bild is important, I suggest reading the work by Prof Lilienthal posted by Hemiauchenia. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:57, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 4 Tabloid journalism is generally incompatible with the Misplaced Pages project. Simonm223 (talk) 19:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3, there even exist a German blog whose aim is mainly to publicize errors of Bild – Bildblog. But see my comment in the discussion section below. --Cyfal (talk) 20:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3 per ActivelyDisinterested. The Kip 05:32, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3 so no change. Most of our current usage of it seem to be interviews which per WP:ABOUTSELF would be fine. I see no evidence they’re fabricating interviews. Probably usable for mundane things like sports (they seem to cover that a lot). For any contentious anything should not be cited - but they seem to get a lot of interviews with notable people, so we can keep using that. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:11, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3/4 per Hemiauchenia... tabloids in general post sensational info that is poorly fact-checked and rife with errors. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:32, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- it's snowing 3 Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:01, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3/4. Academic coverage frequently treats it as an archetypal example of a publisher of misinformation. See eg. --Aquillion (talk) 16:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3/4: Tabloids usually fail reliability. It seems this one is no different. ToThAc (talk) 17:38, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 3/4 (depending on whether anyone can make a case that there's some e.g. ABOUTSELF use we would still want them for — but I doubt we should be using them 1,800 times, as Hemiauchenia says we are at present) per Aquillion and Hemiauchenia; as RSP says, a reliable source "has a reputation for fact-checking, accuracy, and error-correction"; BILD has the opposite reputation. -sche (talk) 04:15, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
Discussion (Bild)
Bild is currently used over 1,800 times on the English Misplaced Pages per bild.de 
. It is already currently listed on RSP as "generally unreliable". This RfC was prompted by a discussion at WT:RSP, where a user questioned the lack of participation in previous discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
I asked the initial question at WT:RSP since I don't like when we classify sources based on vibes. So I'll play the role of the devil's advocate. I have very little knowledge of the German media landscape and I'm open to arguments in both directions. The sources provided by u:Hemiauchenia make two claims:
articles are published that hurt those affected and irritate readers." ... "The way celebrities are treated , who are initially favorites and then quickly become fallen angels who are pursued even in their private lives, is legendary"
- this should have no bearing on reliability, unless they actually published falsehoods about said celebrities- In 2018 Bild fell for a hoax. Someone leaked emails supposedly between a major political party in Germany and a made-up Russian online figure. Bild published an article based on it. This is definitely a failure of their editorial process but they definitely did not do it on purpose and when this became known clarified that the whole thing was a hoax. I don't think that one such issue that happened 6 years ago should automatically lead to GUNREL status. Many other RS fell for hoaxes . Alaexis¿question? 13:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- This is a massive understatement of what Lilienthal 2023 cited by Hemiauchenia actually says. The better part of the text's 92 pages is a critique of Bild's practices in a systematic fashion, summarized in its introduction (translated):
From the perspective of critical readers, BILD is constantly chipping away at its own credibility.
- If that's not enough, the paper includes an 8-page bibliography of other extensive studies of der Bild. It's silly to act like what should decide this source's reliability is some "gotcha" wiki-sleuthing based on recent scandal--we have the verdict of mountains of peer-reviewed research. Make a case based on that, as others have. signed, Rosguill 14:57, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'm just surprised that given the reputation of the source and all these analyses no one has come up with a examples of inaccuracies other than the 6-year old hoax. Unfortunately I don't speak German and so can't read Lilienthal's report. Alaexis¿question? 21:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- The linked PDF is readily readable by downloading it and then using Google translate's PDF translation feature. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Hemiauchenia, I've managed to translate it using Google Translate, thanks!
- These are the key points from the foreword
- articles are published that hurt those affected and (can) irritate readers
- BILD is running campaigns against political opponents – against Angela Merkel, Karl Lauterbach, Annalena Baerbock, to name just three examples
- is said to have felt personally affected . Because he is co-owner of such a property in Berlin. He then prompted BILD editor-in-chief Reichelt to write extremely critical reports about Adidas and the rent freeze
- A woman who says she suffered under former editor-in-chief Reichelt is suing the German media group in the USA because she felt let down by her former employer
- A particularly drastic case occurred in early 2017, when the Frankfurt edition reported on sexual assaults by men with a migrant background on visitors to a prominent nightlife district - completely fabricated by people the editorial team trusted without checking. The embarrassment was great, and the retraction in the paper itself was inevitable.
- I think I understand the issues with it better now. Would you say that this is a reasonably complete summary or is there something else I missed?
- In my view #5 is most relevant for the assessment of reliability. They certainly didn't a good job as journalists but it doesn't seem like they fabricated stuff and in the end they published a retraction which is what we expect from sources. #2 and #3 show that it's clearly a very WP:BIASED source. I'm still not sure it satisfies the WP:GUNREL criteria. Alaexis¿question? 23:08, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Actually the example you gave after your !vote about Bild's campaign against Christian Drosten is pretty convincing. Alaexis¿question? 23:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- The linked PDF is readily readable by downloading it and then using Google translate's PDF translation feature. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'm just surprised that given the reputation of the source and all these analyses no one has come up with a examples of inaccuracies other than the 6-year old hoax. Unfortunately I don't speak German and so can't read Lilienthal's report. Alaexis¿question? 21:31, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- This is a massive understatement of what Lilienthal 2023 cited by Hemiauchenia actually says. The better part of the text's 92 pages is a critique of Bild's practices in a systematic fashion, summarized in its introduction (translated):
- I'm not really sure what is meant by
classif sources based on vibes
, but if it means assessing the reputation of a source based on other reliable sources, that's kinda what we're required to do by policy. WP:SOURCE saysreputation for fact-checking and accuracy
, as does WP:RS multiple times. No reputation, no evidence of reliability. Alpha3031 (t • c) 00:06, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- Because of Bild's outstanding importance and high circulation, politicians, celebrities and sportspeople often give Bild interviews. I consider these texts as generally reliable, in contrast to Bild's other articles. I've checked some of the bild.de , most of them belong to the first category. --Cyfal (talk) 20:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
RfC: NewsNation
What is the reliability of NewsNation?
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate
Chetsford (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
Survey (NewsNation)
- Option 2: Generally reliable for reporting not related to aviation, astronomy, or physics. Unreliable for reporting on these topics generally, and for UFOs specifically (including, but not limited to, shape-shifting Mantids, flying saucers, time-traveling psychonauts, human/space alien cross-breeding programs, the Majestic 12, and treaties/diplomacy with the Galactic Federation of Light).
- NewsNation seems to have made an overt and conscious editorial decision to lean into UFOs for ratings purposes . In many cases, these stories are masked as conventional science reporting but with a heavy "/spooky event" frame. Ross Coulthart is NewsNation's UFO beat reporter and files most of its prolific reports on the paranormal. Coulthart appears to be a true believer and uses NewsNation to engage in space alien advocacy versus conventional forms of journalism.
- In an interview on NewsNation on 13 December 2024 related to the 2024 Northeastern United States drone sightings, Coulthart said "... the White House is making completely false claims! The people of New Jersey are not alone"! . Multiple federal and state investigations, as well as independent evaluation by experts including Jamey Jacob and Mick West, all concluded sightings were misidentification of routine aerial and celestial objects.
- Writing in The Skeptic, Ben Harris identifies Coulthart as one of a group of UFO celebrities, describing their approach thusly: "Drama is to the forefront; they ride their high horses, full of their own self-import, their truth, making demands of Congress – and mainstream media – who they think are ‘missing the story of a lifetime’."
- He wrote a UFO book titled Plain Sight which Jason Colavito described as a "conspiracy narrative" and a "slipshod summary".
- The Australian Skeptics gave Coulthart their "Bent Spoon Award" for “espousing UFO conspiracies, including unsubstantiated claims that world governments and The Vatican are hiding extraterrestrial alien bodies and spacecraft on Earth.”
- The Australian Broadcasting Corporation did a TV special on Coulthart's reporting in which they closed by asking "Has Coutlhart gone crazy, or is he a visionary? while strongly implying the former.
- The Sydney Morning Herald has described him as a "UFO truther" with "little appetite for scrutiny".
- Coulthart seems to have had a leading role in promoting a debunked 60 Minutes (Australian TV program) investigation into an alleged child sex ring run by British politicians.
- Beyond Coulthart, NewsNation reporters have other issues with UFOs:
- In 2023, according to our own article on NewsNation (sourced to the Washington Post: ), the channel "was forced to issue corrections after incorrectly claiming that The Intercept had obtained leaked information regarding Grusch's mental health".
- In December 2024, reporter Rich McHugh did a stand-up near LaGuardia Airport in New Jersey and showed an aerial object that he breathlessly (literally, he's panting the whole time) said "... was more sophisticated than I could ever imagine ... I couldn't believe what I was seeing". The thing he couldn't believe he was seeing was, according to Mick West's analysis, a Boeing 737 .
- NewsNation seems to have made an overt and conscious editorial decision to lean into UFOs for ratings purposes . In many cases, these stories are masked as conventional science reporting but with a heavy "/spooky event" frame. Ross Coulthart is NewsNation's UFO beat reporter and files most of its prolific reports on the paranormal. Coulthart appears to be a true believer and uses NewsNation to engage in space alien advocacy versus conventional forms of journalism.
- Option 1 for topics outside UFOs, Option 3 for UFO coverage Personisinsterest (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2: Generally reliable for broad topics. They turn loony when covering UFOs. Don't consider them for UFO coverage. BarntToust 22:43, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3 their mishandling of UFO topics suggests they're more interested in sensationalism than accuracy. Simonm223 (talk) 15:25, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 per Chetsford. – Anne drew (talk · contribs) 01:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 since I think their general reporting is reliable. Attribution may be a good alternative. Ramos1990 (talk) 08:50, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 for topics outside UFOs, Option 3 for UFO coverage. Compare WP:ROLLINGSTONE. feminist🩸 (talk) 08:09, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 3 why are we putting any stock in an organization known primarily for babbling about UFOs? This is a severe case of “broken clock” syndrome. Dronebogus (talk) 11:22, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 for topics outside UFOs, Option 3 for UFO coverage. - Amigao (talk) 00:00, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 I would go with Option 2 but their UFO coverage makes me consider Option 3. I think for anything outside of UFO-related topics they are generally reliable. Other sources should be cited. Frankserafini87 (talk) 01:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Discussion (NewsNation)
- For purposes of clarification, the reliability of NewsNation has previously come up in two different RSN discussions and two different article Talk page discussions. Beyond that, however, it's repeatedly invoked to source UFO articles to the point that constant re-litigation of its reliability via edit summaries is becoming a massive time sink. Chetsford (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
RfC: Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu
The following genealogy sources are currently considered Generally unreliable at WP:RSP (A), or in repeated inquiries at WP:RSN (B and C):
- A: Geni.com
- B: Medieval Lands / MedLands by Charles Cawley
- C: genealogy.eu / genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav
- Long after being listed / labelled generally unreliable, these unreliable sources are still being (re-)added to hundreds to tens of thousands of articles.
- They should be:
- Option 1: listed as Generally unreliable (change nothing to A; add B and C at WP:RSP as such)
- Option 2: Deprecated (list them as such at WP:RSP)
- Option 3: Blacklisted (not mutually exclusive with option 1 or 2)
NLeeuw (talk) 23:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Background (Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu)
- A: See "Geni.com" at WP:RSPSOURCES.
- B: See Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Royalty and Nobility#Have we got lists of reliable and unreliable websites for genealogical research?, in particular subsection #genealogy.eu, where this RfC for the 3 sources in question was prepared together with @ActivelyDisinterested. The other sources discussed there fall outside the scope of this RfC.
- C: See Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 405#fmg.ac (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy) (Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley) of May 2023 (also initiated by me, with ActivelyDisinterested's assistance). NLeeuw (talk) 23:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Preliminaries
- Probably need to add the website Genealogics.org to the list of unreliable sources. It also uses Misplaced Pages articles which would be WP:CIRC. --Kansas Bear 23:45, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
- AD and I have decided to limit ourselves to these three sources for now in order to prevent a WP:TRAINWRECK. But it could be a good follow-up. NLeeuw (talk) 23:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
- That reminds me: maybe I should just have three separate subsections for Survey per source? That would make the voting process much easier. The voting format I'm proposing might be confusing. NLeeuw (talk) 23:51, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
- PS: Done. Better now before the first vote comes in. NLeeuw (talk) 23:55, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
- That reminds me: maybe I should just have three separate subsections for Survey per source? That would make the voting process much easier. The voting format I'm proposing might be confusing. NLeeuw (talk) 23:51, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
- AD and I have decided to limit ourselves to these three sources for now in order to prevent a WP:TRAINWRECK. But it could be a good follow-up. NLeeuw (talk) 23:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
Can you clarify for us why these sites are being grouped together? I'm only familiar with Geni. GordonGlottal (talk) 00:13, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Are you disputing that they are unreliable? If so, why? If not, why waste time with this RFC? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:22, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- These are websites that previous discussions have decided are unreliable. However due to their nature they are continually readded to articles. I believe NLeeuw is looking to get them deprecated or potentially blacklisted to stop that. For a similar instance see WP: Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 453#RfC: Universe Guide. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:33, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Read Background: B. NLeeuw (talk) 00:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I can't really see how this survey can change anything for geni.com? I tried clicking on the links but there is a lot to read. I don't want to cause a major distraction but I also notice a remark there that Burkes and Debretts are generally reliable. That's certainly not true for old editions which many editors are tempted to use. But even for new editions, the reliability depends upon the period etc.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
Survey A: Geni.com
- Deprecate. User-generated junk that should be flagged when introduced. JoelleJay (talk) 05:50, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate.
Question. Isn't it already deprecated?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:28, 3 January 2025 (UTC) - Deprecate A user generated source that just keeps getting readded, deprecation will warn users against adding it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:10, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Unsure. Some doubt about deprecation as RSP says that primary sources uploaded to geni can be used as primary sources here. Is there a way of communicating that to users rather than giving a blanket warning? (I might be a little ignorant of how deprecation works in practice!) BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:59, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate. Really bad. Needs to go away.—Alalch E. 00:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Survey B: Medieval Lands / MedLands by Charles Cawley
- Deprecate, per background discussion. JoelleJay (talk) 05:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Comment. I think this source has been often discussed in a superficial way, together with other sources, which does not always lead to a clear perspective. This is not like the other two. It collects a lot of useful extracts from primary sources than can be helpful for getting a grip on a topic. Although it is basically the work of one editor, this editor was assigned to do this for an organization which does make some efforts to maintain a reputation for quality. (The FMG publishes a journal, and it posts some online corrections to Keats-Rohan's reference works for the 11th and 12th century, and she has noted those helpful efforts in print.) On the other hand, Medlands does not use secondary material very much, so it is normally not going to the type of source we would use on WP on its own for anything non-obvious. I note these complications because I see that sources like Ancestry.com and Findmypast also have special notes about how they can sometimes have useful primary materials. To give a practical example of what might go wrong, what I saw in the past whenever this source was discussed, is that it was even deleted from external links sections and so on. I think this is a source that can be used for external links at the very least. I feel hesitant to say that it should NEVER EVER be used even in the main body to be honest, although I don't use it on WP.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:44, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate Crawley has no academic background in history and MedLands is self-published. It is not published by FMG only hosted by them. That it contains a lot of useful information is not the same as it having a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, something it doesn't have. Deprecation isn't blacklisting, editors are warned against adding it not blocked. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- @ActivelyDisinterested: I see the fine print, but we know editors who need simple rules don't understand fine print in practice. The text for deprecated says "the source is generally prohibited". I'm thinking these sorts of decisions should be made if they reduce the number of useless pseudo-legal debates, and not increase them. (In reality the main principle we should always follow is that good editors will judge based on context IMHO. There are so many possible contexts, and trying to make rules to cover them all is not always a good idea.) Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Editors who know the fine print will be the ones using the source correctly, and will know how to handle the situation. The issue is that editors who don't know keep adding this as a reference to support content, and the many discussions on the source show they isn't support for that. Adding a warning when editors post will at least get editors to ask why they are getting the warning, and help them understand the situation.
- Deprecation of this source will reduce the pointless pseudo-legal debates, by reducing the problem of the source being repeatedly readded. Editors should use their own good judgement, but as repeated discussion about this source have shown that isn't happening. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:01, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes in effect it would reduce the possibly of any discussion, good or bad, by effectively making the source not worth discussing, or am I misunderstanding? The fine print would be irrelevant in practice, and that is my concern in this case.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- The discussion has been against using this source for at least a decade, and deprecation doesn't stop anyone wanting to question from discussing it. Deprecation doesn't in anyway stop editors from discussing anything. What effect this will have is to warn editors when they try to add the source, anything else is as you say your misunderstanding. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think we both know exactly what I mean about what will happen in reality when WP goes into bot mode. I am just saying that there is a cost to rule making.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:11, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes the cost of not having to continuously patrol for this source and have the same discussion about it's reliability again and again.
- Separately before the two of us fill the survey section with our disagreement (mea culpa), should we move this discussion to the Discussion section? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:17, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think we both know exactly what I mean about what will happen in reality when WP goes into bot mode. I am just saying that there is a cost to rule making.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:11, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- The discussion has been against using this source for at least a decade, and deprecation doesn't stop anyone wanting to question from discussing it. Deprecation doesn't in anyway stop editors from discussing anything. What effect this will have is to warn editors when they try to add the source, anything else is as you say your misunderstanding. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes in effect it would reduce the possibly of any discussion, good or bad, by effectively making the source not worth discussing, or am I misunderstanding? The fine print would be irrelevant in practice, and that is my concern in this case.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- @ActivelyDisinterested: I see the fine print, but we know editors who need simple rules don't understand fine print in practice. The text for deprecated says "the source is generally prohibited". I'm thinking these sorts of decisions should be made if they reduce the number of useless pseudo-legal debates, and not increase them. (In reality the main principle we should always follow is that good editors will judge based on context IMHO. There are so many possible contexts, and trying to make rules to cover them all is not always a good idea.) Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Generally unreliable. I first read the definitions of the categories we are voting on. (I hope others do also.) Generally unreliable is the one which says this:
"questionable in most cases. The source may lack an editorial team, have a poor reputation for fact-checking, fail to correct errors, be self-published"
I think that's the accurate description in this case. It also seems to match what others are arguing, and so I note with some concern that there might be misunderstandings about what "deprecate" really means on WP. How I read it, deprecation would only allow use for self-description (for example if there was a Medlands article), and otherwise it would be prohibited. To repeat what I wrote elsewhere, I am not advising editors to use this website, but its collection of medieval primary sources is possibly going to be useful here and there to someone, and I don't think bots (or bot-like editors) should be sent out to "attack" without looking at context every time someone mentions it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)- Sure, it may be useful as a reference work, or as introductory material for the interested reader, but it shouldn't be cited as a "source". Just like Misplaced Pages itself isn't a "source", but a collection of sources. The "Rurik dynasty" case outlined at the May 2023 MedLands RSN shows just how careless Cawley is in using sources, e.g. taking known problematic primary sources that he knows may be of little factual significance at face value just because he finds them "interesting" (but is reproduced by way of interest), and citing private emails from others as "sources" that we can't verify. Surely our readers deserve a higher standard that this. NLeeuw (talk) 14:45, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps you can explain what real disadvantages the Generally unreliable category would bring? I doubt we disagree on much here. But one idea which is guiding me is that generally speaking, I don't think we can or should try to predict every case, and write rules for everything. We should only break the basic, proven WP way of working when we really have to, and then only as far as we have to. By this I mean sources should be judged according to the core content policy, in the context of specific examples, which we can't predict. So my approach here is to read the definitions of the categories we can choose from, and pick the accurate one. I think I did it correctly. Deprecation seems to be for extreme cases where we literally accept that WP editors will now sometimes beat each other with a virtual stick if anyone dares post such a source, even in an external links section. I can understand how this might be for the best when we look at Geni, however... --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:36, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sure, it may be useful as a reference work, or as introductory material for the interested reader, but it shouldn't be cited as a "source". Just like Misplaced Pages itself isn't a "source", but a collection of sources. The "Rurik dynasty" case outlined at the May 2023 MedLands RSN shows just how careless Cawley is in using sources, e.g. taking known problematic primary sources that he knows may be of little factual significance at face value just because he finds them "interesting" (but is reproduced by way of interest), and citing private emails from others as "sources" that we can't verify. Surely our readers deserve a higher standard that this. NLeeuw (talk) 14:45, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Generally reliable, in my experience. Furthermore, it provides footnotes to almost every claim that one can use instead of linking to the website. Ghirla 16:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate per ActivelyDisinterested.—Alalch E. 00:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Survey C: genealogy.eu / genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav
- Deprecate. SPS that is far too widely cited already, probably because the url looks like it's some official site. JoelleJay (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Which website were you looking at? If you type genealogy.eu you seem to be redirected to a completely different website which I GUESS is not the one we are meant to be discussing?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:49, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav, which advertises itself as genealogy.eu and has often been cited as such on English Misplaced Pages, even though "genealogy.eu" these days indeed redirects to a different website (https://en.filae.com/v4/genealogie/HomePage.mvc/welcome; which is outside the scope of this RfC). NLeeuw (talk) 11:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Which website were you looking at? If you type genealogy.eu you seem to be redirected to a completely different website which I GUESS is not the one we are meant to be discussing?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:49, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate. Another self published source that keeps getting readded, deprecation will warn editors against doing so. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate. I am surprised this one is being used a lot. I have not come across it yet I think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Lancaster (talk • contribs) 13:54, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Comment. The site is useful for quick checks. In general, it's a faithful transcription of such classic sources as the Europäische Stammtafeln, Dworzaczek's Genealogia (Warszawa, 1958), etc. It's better to refer our readers to the published sources, of course (if one has access to them). By the way, the site has not been updated since 2005. Ghirla 16:30, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sure, it may be useful for quick checks, but it shouldn't be cited as a "source". NLeeuw (talk) 19:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate. The site, from what I can tell, doesn't tell us where they get the information. For example; Foix. --Kansas Bear 21:37, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- This one (like most others) seems to be adapted from Paul Theroff's site here. And Theroff said more than once that his main source is the Europäische Stammtafeln. Ghirla 09:06, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
- Well, that is neither obvious nor transparent. Plus, it could be a copyvio if they just steal or plagiarise each other's work. NLeeuw (talk) 09:10, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
- This one (like most others) seems to be adapted from Paul Theroff's site here. And Theroff said more than once that his main source is the Europäische Stammtafeln. Ghirla 09:06, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate. WP:SPS. Deprecation will have a positive effect. And while it's always possible that someone in the know, who's really into genealogy, has the ability of figuring out out how the operator of this website makes it have the content that it has, that's not useful for determining reliability.—Alalch E. 00:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Discussion (Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu)
@ActivelyDisinterested: my apologies also. To be clear, I respect your concern, and I think I understand it. I think we've conveyed our concerns, and laid out some pros and cons, and background principles. I'm not stressed about that. I think its a point of getting the balance right. In practical reality the three sources should not normally be used, and I see no big disagreements. I just think the difference between the two categories offered is (or should be) meaningful, and I wanted to make that clear. I am not really disagreeing with any other specific point.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:19, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- Although I disagree I can understand you position. It's to easy to get stuck in disagreement spirals are part of RFCs. Let's see if anyone else brings any new ideas. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:09, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
- I previously commented that a seperate warning for generally unreliable sources would be helpful, for ones that are problematicly readded on a regular basis would be useful. That way a warning would appear but wouldn't come with the baggage of deprecation. At the moment deprecation is the only resource available, but it is a somewhat blunt hammer. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:36, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Useage of Arabic-language sources in Battle of Ash-Shihr (1523)
This thread is opened at the request of @Kovcszaln6 following the dispute between me and @Javext in Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Battle of Ash-Shihr (1523) on the multiple issues regarding that article.
I have translated the article from both the Arabic (My native language) and Portuguese (Using a translator) articles to try and include both POVs of the battle. Javext claims that the sources that I've used are completely unreliable and shouldn't be used on the article because he claims that:
1. The academic backgrounds of the writers of those sources are unknown (keeping in mind that they were written by Yemenis who have limited internet access), and
2. Yemeni state-controlled media outlets
wrote them (also keeping in mind that Yemen is a poor and fractured state without any budget to have "state-controlled media outlets")
Now, Javext has removed all the sources and text that they support from the article and used other sources (some of which I find no problems with using, although they provide little context compared to the other sources) and kept the sources that I've brought when I translated the Portuguese article.
Special:diff/1266430566: This is the version of the article that has the Arabic sources and is the version that I want to keep and then expand with other sources that both I and Jav has used.
Special:diff/1266448873: This is the version that Jav wants to keep
Sources used by the version that I want to keep (I have run them through Google Translate's website translator for yall to understand):
- (This one doesn't want to get translated using the website translator but it gets translated if you right-click and press "Translate to English" on chrome)
Extra source that I want to use after the dispute is resolved:
Abo Yemen✉ 15:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
- I can't speak directly to the content dispute but none of the links you posted are wiki-appropriate sources. They're amateur essays. Please use academic publications instead. If you can't find a reliable source that supports your viewpoint, that viewpoint doesn't belong on Misplaced Pages. GordonGlottal (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are contemporary Arabic-language descriptions of this battle, and I would expect appropriate sources to engage with them directly. One is translated into English by R. B. Serjeant in The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast (1963), pp. 52-53, and compare note by C. F. Buckingham at ibid., pp. 171-172, citing Portuguese records. This also seems to be a relevant document. GordonGlottal (talk) 23:08, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
There are contemporary Arabic-language descriptions of this battle
WP:AGE MATTERS?citing Portuguese records
That is one of the things that we were discussing in the dispute. We have enough Portuguese POV in Jav's revision. Plus did you see what the sources were citing in the revisions above Abo Yemen✉ 07:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)- Yes, that's why I didn't say "cite these contemporary descriptions" but "expect appropriate sources to engage with them". If you want to account for non-Portuguese perception, the way to do it is find sources that discuss contemporary Arabic descriptions, not use modern amateur essays based on nothing. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- One example of another secondary source comparing the accounts (after C. F. Buckingham) is Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (1997). The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama. pp. 290-291. (link) GordonGlottal (talk) 17:06, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, that's why I didn't say "cite these contemporary descriptions" but "expect appropriate sources to engage with them". If you want to account for non-Portuguese perception, the way to do it is find sources that discuss contemporary Arabic descriptions, not use modern amateur essays based on nothing. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- GordonGlottal, why do you think that? They look to be published sources at least.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:34, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- The independent arabia source cites a historian's account. Does that still count as unreliable?Abo Yemen✉ 15:58, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- This is definitely the strongest source, I didn't see that you'd added it. The Independent is a solid newspaper, but specialist, technical sources are a requirement for this kind of disputed claim. I don't know who Bamousa is and google just turns up mentions of his education activism and participation in a literary society—can you find out anything about him? The basic thing is that there needs to be evidence, or a source saying it that we can assume would not be saying it without evidence. If there isn't any evidence there could still be a "modern legend" section based on these sources, I think, because it is interesting how the event is being discussed. GordonGlottal (talk) 17:14, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- I tried searching for info about him online but there is limited info about him as Yemen doesn't have the best internet and the guy is really old to care about posting about himself online (Apparently he had been documenting the history there since the Quaiti Sultanate was a thing according to a Facebook post made by a high school that he attended). He is cited by multiple Arabic language sources, like the Independent (ofc) and al-Ayyam Aden (linked above), and is mentioned in others . He also published a book about the city of Shihr . He was also visited by the minister of education of Yemen in 2023
- This is definitely the strongest source, I didn't see that you'd added it. The Independent is a solid newspaper, but specialist, technical sources are a requirement for this kind of disputed claim. I don't know who Bamousa is and google just turns up mentions of his education activism and participation in a literary society—can you find out anything about him? The basic thing is that there needs to be evidence, or a source saying it that we can assume would not be saying it without evidence. If there isn't any evidence there could still be a "modern legend" section based on these sources, I think, because it is interesting how the event is being discussed. GordonGlottal (talk) 17:14, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- The independent arabia source cites a historian's account. Does that still count as unreliable?Abo Yemen✉ 15:58, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are contemporary Arabic-language descriptions of this battle, and I would expect appropriate sources to engage with them directly. One is translated into English by R. B. Serjeant in The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast (1963), pp. 52-53, and compare note by C. F. Buckingham at ibid., pp. 171-172, citing Portuguese records. This also seems to be a relevant document. GordonGlottal (talk) 23:08, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
References
- Machine translation: Mr. Mohammed Omar Bamusa, a native of Al-Shahr and a graduate of the third class of Al-Mukalla High School for Boys (now Bin Shihab High School for Boys)
High School Flags
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
After years of parting, Abu Bakr Bin Shihab High School for Boys in Mukalla embraced Mr. Mohammed Omar Bamoussa, who graduated on the educational ladder for years and is now at the age of retirement. He visited the high school and in his gaze with passion and love for the past years, he climbed the stairs of the high school to the second floor to the office of the principal Mr. Saeed Ahmed Al-Amari, who welcomed him warmly and said that this visit gave us a boost and moral support, and the visit for Mr. Bamoussa was to ask about the old administrators, services and guards who were who were in the period of the sixties and seventies, but unfortunately the administration could not answer this and invites everyone who has information about them to raise it quickly, as Mr. Bamoussa has been working for years on writing a book about the beginning of education in Hadramawt since the time of the Qaitian Sultanate in the sixties and the beginning of the seventies, and he made a very important statement that the first principal of the high school is Mr. Karama Bammin from Tarim and then came after him Mr. Al-Sudani Al-Taloudi and this was a surprise for us and he confirmed this in his book that will see the light after completion of it.
May God prolong his life and give him health and wellness to provide us with important information about the history of education in Hadramawt.
The high school administration thanks Mr. Mohammed Bamoussi for this visit and this effort exerted by him for this wonderful work, and wishes the officials in the Ministry of Education, the governorate office and the local authority to adopt such people who raise the slogan of education and the slogan of Hadramawt, the land of science, knowledge and culture.
Abo Yemen✉ 19:13, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah basically, I don't see this as proof of anything. I've had a few other conversations on here about whether it's valid to include something based on an academic commenting to a reporter, and it just doesn't seem like a reliable genre of source. Even if Bamousa turned out to have sterling credentials. One of the problems is that the comment is often well outside the expert's field of expertise. Reporters don't want to call 1,000 different sources for each niche subject, so they rely on a small number of people who are willing to comment on almost anything, and these academics, who might be ultra-rigorous in another context, just regurgitate the same loose thinking anyone else would. Bamousa is a local retiree who is very active in the literary society and wrote a biography of a 20th-century bureaucrat/writer, but he probably doesn't know any more about 16th-century history than anyone else. If there's some proof of this narrative, it should be possible to find someone referencing it directly. Those references may exist but not be digitized, which is frustrating, but until one is found I think the page has to treat the contemporary evidence we do have as definitive.GordonGlottal (talk) 22:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- Uh huh sure, but cant we use those sources for sections on the article that aren't related to the events of the battle, like the Special:diff/1266430566#Background Special:diff/1266430566#Losses and Special:diff/1266430566#Cultural significance sections? After all, some information that is still in the infobox was sourced from those sources. I have also found a book about the history of the city Internet Archive a txt version of the book that can get machine translated can it be used? (Hijri dates are used in that book) Abo Yemen✉ 07:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah basically, I don't see this as proof of anything. I've had a few other conversations on here about whether it's valid to include something based on an academic commenting to a reporter, and it just doesn't seem like a reliable genre of source. Even if Bamousa turned out to have sterling credentials. One of the problems is that the comment is often well outside the expert's field of expertise. Reporters don't want to call 1,000 different sources for each niche subject, so they rely on a small number of people who are willing to comment on almost anything, and these academics, who might be ultra-rigorous in another context, just regurgitate the same loose thinking anyone else would. Bamousa is a local retiree who is very active in the literary society and wrote a biography of a 20th-century bureaucrat/writer, but he probably doesn't know any more about 16th-century history than anyone else. If there's some proof of this narrative, it should be possible to find someone referencing it directly. Those references may exist but not be digitized, which is frustrating, but until one is found I think the page has to treat the contemporary evidence we do have as definitive.GordonGlottal (talk) 22:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know anything about these publications. Judging from the material itself, the authors do not possess any level of technical expertise and are not basing their judgements either on any form of evidence, or on any previously published scholarship. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- I have been really busy these last few days and wasn't able to respond to Abo Yemen. Thank you for your participation in this debate. Javext (talk) 22:21, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Javext If you're able, I think it would be a great contribution if you could copy out and translate whatever description is in this letter, which is the only primary source I could find, and then put it in a quote box or etc. as appropriate for a primary source. I know the letter contains relevant info from the catalog description but it doesn't seem to have been published anywhere and I don't read even modern Portuguese. It's probably just a few words but we may get lucky! GordonGlottal (talk) 00:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Hi, @GordonGlottal. Unfortunately I am not able to translate the letter itself, since it is very difficult to even understand which words were used, I can only go by the catalog description you gave, which translated into English looks like this:
- "Number 41 - Letter from Henrique de Macedo to the King, written from Goa on October 22, 1523, states his services in India , his campaign with D. Luis to the strait, capturing Al-Shihr, and how important it would be to conquer Diu." Javext (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
capturing Al-Shihr
hm didn't you say the goal was just to sack the city and go? Abo Yemen✉ 16:32, 8 January 2025 (UTC)- I said it was a strong possibility, considering that it was very normal for those types of Portuguese actions of piracy against Muslim coastal cities and the fact that Al-Shihr was a very common spot for the Portuguese to plunder.
- I also stated that if there was a reliable source that stated otherwise, I would accept it. Javext (talk) 20:56, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Well now we know that this isn't the case and the portuguese had failed to capture the city Abo Yemen✉ 05:30, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- Source? If you are going to send those Arabic amateur essays please don't even bother responding. Javext (talk) 15:17, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- Well now we know that this isn't the case and the portuguese had failed to capture the city Abo Yemen✉ 05:30, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Javext If you're able, I think it would be a great contribution if you could copy out and translate whatever description is in this letter, which is the only primary source I could find, and then put it in a quote box or etc. as appropriate for a primary source. I know the letter contains relevant info from the catalog description but it doesn't seem to have been published anywhere and I don't read even modern Portuguese. It's probably just a few words but we may get lucky! GordonGlottal (talk) 00:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- I have been really busy these last few days and wasn't able to respond to Abo Yemen. Thank you for your participation in this debate. Javext (talk) 22:21, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
-
"Number 41 - Letter from Henrique de Macedo to the King, written from Goa on October 22, 1523, states his services in India, his campaign with D. Luis to the strait, capturing Al-Shihr,
(Never happened btw)and how important it would be to conquer Diu."
Abo Yemen✉ 15:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC)- "Never happened" isn't actually a source. Just a reminder that because they captured the city doesn't mean they retained it. Javext (talk) 15:35, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- You cannot prove something that didn't happen. Do you have any source saying that they captured the city? Abo Yemen✉ 15:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- All of your sources said that they sacked the city, but nothing about capturing it was mentioned Abo Yemen✉ 15:44, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, I do. The Portuguese captured the city and sacked it. Once again, this doesn't mean they retained it. Javext (talk) 18:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- capturing a city != sacking it
your initial sources said nothing about the Navy capturing the city but the letters say that they captured it. Something must be wrong here Abo Yemen✉ 18:45, 9 January 2025 (UTC)- Once a gain they captured the city and THEN sacked it. Keep in mind that doesn't mean they kept control of it. I am not going to repeat this again. Javext (talk) 00:07, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Now show me where in your sources does it say that Abo Yemen✉ 06:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- You were just denying that this happened after I showed you the sources, why are you asking this now? Didn't I just give them above? Javext (talk) 19:19, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Now show me where in your sources does it say that Abo Yemen✉ 06:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Once a gain they captured the city and THEN sacked it. Keep in mind that doesn't mean they kept control of it. I am not going to repeat this again. Javext (talk) 00:07, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- capturing a city != sacking it
- You cannot prove something that didn't happen. Do you have any source saying that they captured the city? Abo Yemen✉ 15:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- "Never happened" isn't actually a source. Just a reminder that because they captured the city doesn't mean they retained it. Javext (talk) 15:35, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- What sources about capturing a city did you show me? Those letters clearly show that the portuguese wanted to capture the city and they failed as we have no proof of them being there after the battle was over. But did they lie to whoever they sent this letter to? Abo Yemen✉ 07:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- Look bro, the letter doesn't state they failed, it states the Portuguese captured the city and then sacked it. For the fourth time, this DOES NOT mean they retained control of the city. Javext (talk) 19:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
Jacobin
Jacobin is currently listed as "generally reliable" under WP:RSP. feminist🩸 (talk) 08:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Addendum: I think The wub sums up my thoughts well.
It's good that this was later corrected, but it's such a blatant error that should never have made it through a decent editorial process in the first place.
feminist🩸 (talk) 02:55, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are definitely issues with Jacobin, and a reevaluation of its reliability is probably going to come sooner or later. I don't think a Reddit page full of amateur pundits, who are in turn discussing another social media discussion, is going to give us anything meaningful to work with. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 08:15, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Not a good look, but I will note that the article referred to says at the bottom:
Correction: An earlier version of this article overstated the amount of US housing stock that Blackstone owns.
So far as I can tell, the sentence in question is removed from the current version of the article entirely. --Super Goku V (talk) 08:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)- That would indicate, notwithstanding snark on Twitter, the website for snark, Jacobin actually did the thing we expect of a reliable source and made a correction to an article with a factual error, identifying with a correction notice that a correction had been made. Simonm223 (talk) 14:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think this justifies a significant increase in caution towards the author at the very least. In general, an in-depth look at it's reliability is probably due, even though a Reddit discussion isn't evidence. FortunateSons (talk) 08:44, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- It's strange that it was closed as 'generally reliable' in the first place, when most respondents voted either 'no consensus' or 'generally unreliable' in the last RFC. Hi! (talk) 10:20, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Had a quick perusal of the r/neoliberal subreddit. It appears to be discussing one sentence in one (possibly opinion) article in Jacobin. Are you asking whether that particular article is a reliable source for that one sentence? Burrobert (talk) 10:30, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Just as an aside, RFCs are not votes (if they were then reliability would be based on the personal opinions of those taking part). I can't speak for the closer of that RFC, but it appears those saying that Jacobin is 'general reliable' had better policy based reasons. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:20, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sources making corrections, as has happened in this case, is a sign of reliability. Things that happen on social media, and reactions on social media, are mostly irrelevant. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:14, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- The original RfC that supposedly found Jacobin to be reliable really is a bit of a tenuous close. A simple beancount in that RfC would lean against treating it as WP:GREL, and I'm not really able to discern why the arguments for reliability were so much stronger than those in opposition that an affirmative Option 1 consensus was declared instead of a no-consensus close (at minimum). I do think that it's ripe for re-evaluation. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 19:51, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- The author's behavior would be annoying if we were chatting at lunch and I personally dislike the smugness, but reliability isn't a personality contest, and as Simonm223 points out the article itself was corrected and the erroneous information removed. That's basically what we expect a reliable source to do—fix itself when an error gets pointed out. So long as the actual content produced is dependable or gets fixed to become dependable, that's reliability. Anonymous Reddit complaints trying to score Internet points aren't a compelling reason for overturning the prior RfC. Evidence of a pattern of unreliable reporting and failures to make corrections would be more persuasive. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:45, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Oppose changing the status per Simonm223 and Hydrangeans. I don't personally love Jacobin, I find their opinion pieces are hit or miss, but I haven't seen it demonstrated that they have poor editorial practices or long-standing issues with factual accuracy. It is not surprising that a reddit community consisting entirely of people from a different political leaning would dislike them, and a social media post reacting to another social media post of one author being mildly annoying doesn't meet my bar for evidence that the publication is not reliable. And as others have mentioned, making corrections when errors are pointed out is what we expect from a reliable outlet, not never making errors in the first place. Vanilla Wizard 💙 15:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- As a tangential sidenote, the "reddit community" tends to be far-left leaning, and would more inclined to agree with or love Jacobin than to criticize the outlet in any way. Iljhgtn (talk) 15:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Even if correct this is irrelevant. Simonm223 (talk) 15:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Fair enough. As I said, "a tangential sidenote"... Iljhgtn (talk) 15:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Reddit is a fragmented website full of insular communities. That "r/neoliberal", a community of self described neoliberals, would criticize an outlet with a different leaning, is unsurprising and holds no weight in this discussion. We don't go off of what social media is saying when making these decisions.
- Respectfully, I think a fresh RfC should be started after someone has something demonstrating a pattern of editorial malpractice, disregard for fact, or a worrying blurring of the lines between op-eds and normal articles leading to a failure to accurately present information. We don't derank sources just for having biases, objectivity and neutrality are two different things.
- Anyways, I'm not opposed to ever doing an RfC, I just expect at a bare minimum that we have something to go off of so it doesn't just end up being a discussion in which editors !vote based on how they feel about the outlet until some poor soul has to sacrifice their time reading through everything to close the discussion.
- Vanilla Wizard 💙 15:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- This has already been demonstrated by @Springee and others about their egregious error and then attacking those who pointed out they got things wrong. That is enough to start an RfC. If the RfC holds that they should not change, then so be it. Iljhgtn (talk) 15:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Even if correct this is irrelevant. Simonm223 (talk) 15:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- As a tangential sidenote, the "reddit community" tends to be far-left leaning, and would more inclined to agree with or love Jacobin than to criticize the outlet in any way. Iljhgtn (talk) 15:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
I don't think reviewing this again is going to change anything much, the "worst" outcome is likely a 2, but because it often mixes news and opinion, even a 1 is going to be caveated with caution or attribute, so absent falsehoods, etc might as well let sleeping dogs lie. Selfstudier (talk) 20:04, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think it is time for a review of the past discussion and time to bring up Jacobin for a reliability check. Iljhgtn (talk) 03:29, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- I don't hold Jacobin in any particular high regard but, as I mentioned above, publicly issuing a statement of correction when a factual inaccuracy is identified is the standard Misplaced Pages expects from reliable news media. So I guess my question is, aside from it having a bias that is different from the NYT / WaPo pro-capitalism consensus, what, precisely, is it that makes Jacobin less reliable? What is the basis for an RfC? Simonm223 (talk) 17:36, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- What does "NYT / WaPo pro-capitalism consensus" mean? Iljhgtn (talk) 21:22, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- I don't hold Jacobin in any particular high regard but, as I mentioned above, publicly issuing a statement of correction when a factual inaccuracy is identified is the standard Misplaced Pages expects from reliable news media. So I guess my question is, aside from it having a bias that is different from the NYT / WaPo pro-capitalism consensus, what, precisely, is it that makes Jacobin less reliable? What is the basis for an RfC? Simonm223 (talk) 17:36, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- It looks like they handled this appropriately, can you explain what the issue would be? Your comment is a little light on details, its basically just spamming a reddit discussion... Maybe tell us what you think? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:41, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, the standard has never been "makes no mistakes". If they made a mistake and then corrected it that's exactly what we expect of a reliable source. Loki (talk) 16:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
A new discussion on Jacobin is long overdue, particularly per Misplaced Pages talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 8#Jacobin. It's clear that Jacobin is not reliable on all topics, and at the very least additional considerations should apply in these cases. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed. Iljhgtn (talk) 23:21, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- An RfC next would be worthwhile. Iljhgtn (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed. It's good that this was later corrected, but it's such a blatant error that should never have made it through a decent editorial process in the first place. There's even a (less serious) error in the next sentence: Monsanto hasn't existed in 6 years. Combined with the past concerns and the borderline result of the past RfC, it's time for a discussion whether "generally reliable" is still a fair assessment. the wub "?!" 17:20, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- All good points! Iljhgtn (talk) 17:49, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed. It's good that this was later corrected, but it's such a blatant error that should never have made it through a decent editorial process in the first place. There's even a (less serious) error in the next sentence: Monsanto hasn't existed in 6 years. Combined with the past concerns and the borderline result of the past RfC, it's time for a discussion whether "generally reliable" is still a fair assessment. the wub "?!" 17:20, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- An RfC next would be worthwhile. Iljhgtn (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
Jacobin is a far left news and analysis site, and adds opinion and commentary in their articles. I consider sites like this on the right and left not too far removed from activists, and thus should be ignored. It is popular among left leaning people on twitter, reddit, and elsewhere but we should not confuse social media popularity for it being a valid source. We should trim these low quality heavily opinionated pages and rely upon high quality sources such as Associated Press and so forth. Secondly, they aren't particularity useful as anything they're going to cover will be covered by other proper news sources. Harizotoh9 (talk) 23:35, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- You're entitled to favor political moderation as a personal opinion, but to use this as a measure of reliability is a fallacious argument to moderation, reliant on assuming that truth always lies in or comes from the 'middle' of purported 'opposites'. While Misplaced Pages articles must adhere to a neutral point of view, our guideline for reliable sourcing is explicit that
reliable sources are not required to be neutral
. To use political perspective (such as the Jacobin magazine's economic leftism) as a reason for doubt reliability depends on providing evidence that the bias somehow distorts its coverage and causes inaccuracies. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC)- It does appear that, failing to find many cases where Jacobin has not corrected an identified error in one of its articles, that the people asking for a new RFC want to prosecute it for being too left-wing. Simonm223 (talk) 13:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I disagree, but an RfC should be started at this point and if there is consensus support for no change to their status then there is consensus support for no change to their status. Iljhgtn (talk) 20:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- RfCs are time intensive, so starting one should be done for good reason. Jacobin having made and corrected an error doesn't strike me as a very good reason. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:03, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- I read in the last close information presented by @Springee that it was in fact a problematic close which moved Jacobin from Yellow (its prior state) to Green. I mistakenly was just commenting on that, then self-reverted, but I think that we should also remember WP:TIND and not delay a necessary discussion just because it may be "time intensive" for those interested in improving the source reliability determinations that this encyclopedia relies upon. Iljhgtn (talk) 00:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- RfCs are time intensive, so starting one should be done for good reason. Jacobin having made and corrected an error doesn't strike me as a very good reason. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:03, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- You're omitting the concerns above about blending of fact and opinion, which is a major aspect of what we consider reliable. Also, heavily partisan sources that engage in advocacy are usually marked as "additional considerations apply" (yellow on WP:RSP). And this isn't the only discussion that has brought up issues. You can also see the concerns raised at the RfC and in multiple discussions where concerns have been brought up since then. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:22, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- If nothing else, it has been several years and so timewise it seems prudent to revisit those and establish a larger and more thorough WP:CONSENSUS. Iljhgtn (talk) 00:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- OP here, my main concern is not that it was not corrected, but that the error was published in the first place. It's good that it was finally corrected, but "a single company controlling a third of housing stock in the United States" is such a contentious claim that it should never have been published in the first place. feminist🩸 (talk) 03:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- That is true, and a serious knock against their reliability when the claim is that egregiously false. Iljhgtn (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- This seems like flogging a dead horse, open the RFC if desired, although as I said above, absent compelling evidence, I don't think things are going to change that much, perhaps green to yellow but it is kinda yellow already because of the well known news/opinion mixing. Selfstudier (talk) 16:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah. I'm usually pretty critical of news sources - including left wing ones (see, for example, the thread here about Mint Press) - and even I am not really seeing Jacobin as being any worse than any other news site that Misplaced Pages calls reliable. Simonm223 (talk) Simonm223 (talk) 12:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Strong bias combined with such egregiously bad fact checking is not a good look. Given the questionable close of the previous RfC a new RfC seems like a good idea. I don't see the source as moving below yellow but it's current green status is really hard to justify. Of course, this might be as much an indictment of the simplistic G/Y/R system we use at RSP as anything else. I'm sure Jacobian gets some facts right just as Fox News gets a lot of political facts right. When it comes to Jacobin the better question should be, if Jacobin is the source, should even a true fact have weight? Regardless, I think this answer here is new RfC or just add this discussion to the RSP list and move on. Springee (talk) 13:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Except that's not what has been demonstated. Journalists make mistakes. The standard Misplaced Pages looks for is that the outlet corrects these mistakes, which was demonstrated even by the original complainant.
- And do note that, yet again, and I have lost count of how many times I've had to mention this to people upset about Misplaced Pages giving the time of day to sources to the left of Ronald Reagan, bias is not a reliability issue as long as that bias does not become a locus of disinformation. This has not been demonstrated. Please do try to cleave to policy based justifications for reliable source assessment. Simonm223 (talk) 13:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Making such an error in the first place isn't good even if they correct it after trying to publicly shame a person who pointed out the obvious error. Your prescription about left of Regean is an odd tangent. Bias doesn't inherently mean the facts will be wrong. However it does open questions of how much weight a biased source should be given, especially when dealing with subjective characterizations or according the source's analysis of facts. Springee (talk) 14:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with Springee that, "
I don't see the source as moving below yellow but it's current green status is really hard to justify.
" Given the egregious nature of their attack on those who noted their mistake, even a correction shows that the publication is much more of a propaganda shop and less of an actual journalistic organization with journalistic integrity or standards. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC)- And therefore an RfC is beyond warranted. Who would then start that? Iljhgtn (talk) 14:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- If an RFC is started can I ask that it be done in a separate section. The board is overloaded at the moment due to the Heritage Foundation discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Can you clarify what you are asking for me? There are many other RfC's ongoing beyond Heritage Foundation. Iljhgtn (talk) 15:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry I didn't mean to direct the comment at you specifically. The HF RFC contains over 2/5th of all the words currently on the noticeboard, all the other RFCs are tiny in comparison. If an RFC for Jacobin is started in a new section then this prior discussion can be archived without having to weight a month, or more, for the RFC to close.
You can see how large each discussion is in the header on the noticeboards talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:15, 16 January 2025 (UTC)- without having to "wait" I assume you meant. ;)
- And this makes sense thanks. Iljhgtn (talk) 16:33, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Lol, thinking about two discussions at the same time. Wait and weight swapped in my mind -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry I didn't mean to direct the comment at you specifically. The HF RFC contains over 2/5th of all the words currently on the noticeboard, all the other RFCs are tiny in comparison. If an RFC for Jacobin is started in a new section then this prior discussion can be archived without having to weight a month, or more, for the RFC to close.
- Can you clarify what you are asking for me? There are many other RfC's ongoing beyond Heritage Foundation. Iljhgtn (talk) 15:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- If an RFC is started can I ask that it be done in a separate section. The board is overloaded at the moment due to the Heritage Foundation discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Given the egregious nature of their attack on those who noted their mistake
— A writer being annoying on social media, then making the necessary corrections anyways, is not fundamentally different from a writer being nice on social media and then making the same corrections. We don't assess how personable the staff is. Vanilla Wizard 💙 16:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- And therefore an RfC is beyond warranted. Who would then start that? Iljhgtn (talk) 14:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with Springee that, "
- Making such an error in the first place isn't good even if they correct it after trying to publicly shame a person who pointed out the obvious error. Your prescription about left of Regean is an odd tangent. Bias doesn't inherently mean the facts will be wrong. However it does open questions of how much weight a biased source should be given, especially when dealing with subjective characterizations or according the source's analysis of facts. Springee (talk) 14:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Strong bias combined with such egregiously bad fact checking is not a good look. Given the questionable close of the previous RfC a new RfC seems like a good idea. I don't see the source as moving below yellow but it's current green status is really hard to justify. Of course, this might be as much an indictment of the simplistic G/Y/R system we use at RSP as anything else. I'm sure Jacobian gets some facts right just as Fox News gets a lot of political facts right. When it comes to Jacobin the better question should be, if Jacobin is the source, should even a true fact have weight? Regardless, I think this answer here is new RfC or just add this discussion to the RSP list and move on. Springee (talk) 13:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah. I'm usually pretty critical of news sources - including left wing ones (see, for example, the thread here about Mint Press) - and even I am not really seeing Jacobin as being any worse than any other news site that Misplaced Pages calls reliable. Simonm223 (talk) Simonm223 (talk) 12:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- This seems like flogging a dead horse, open the RFC if desired, although as I said above, absent compelling evidence, I don't think things are going to change that much, perhaps green to yellow but it is kinda yellow already because of the well known news/opinion mixing. Selfstudier (talk) 16:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- That is true, and a serious knock against their reliability when the claim is that egregiously false. Iljhgtn (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- I disagree, but an RfC should be started at this point and if there is consensus support for no change to their status then there is consensus support for no change to their status. Iljhgtn (talk) 20:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- It does appear that, failing to find many cases where Jacobin has not corrected an identified error in one of its articles, that the people asking for a new RFC want to prosecute it for being too left-wing. Simonm223 (talk) 13:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
This discussion has really dragged on, especially for something that was prompted by a reddit thread related to one sentence in what appears to be an opinion article. Are editors aware that we have whole articles on New York Times controversies, BBC controversies and criticism etc? Have editors been following the deconstruction provided by social media users of corporate media coverage of the assault on Gaza? Are editors aware that the BBC employs Raffi Berg, a former CIA propaganda unit employee with Mossad connections, to head its Middle East desk and whose "entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel"? What about when an IDF embedded CNN reporter visited Rantisi Children’s Hospital with an IDF minder and swallowed the minder's claim about a roster of Hamas members watching over Israeli captives? The document was actually a calendar, with days of the week written in Arabic. Sorry to go off on a tangent but some perspective is needed and, in the scheme of things, a reddit thread is hardly cause for starting an RFC about reliability. Burrobert (talk) 16:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- That was only one aspect. A much larger aspect was related to open questions from the last RfC and the questionable close that seemed to have moved it (correctly?) from "yellow" to "green". Iljhgtn (talk) 16:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
RfC: Jacobin
 |
|
Which of the following best describes the reliability of Jacobin (magazine)?
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate?
— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Survey: Jacobin
- Option 2 I am opposed to the use of WP:GREL and think that no media outlet, no matter how reliable, should be listed higher than option 2. With that being said, I would list New York Times or the CBC in precisely the same way and I don't believe that any of the complainants have demonstrated in any way that Jacobin is less reliable, per Misplaced Pages's standards, than any other American news media outlet. I am deeply concerned that many of the complaints are about "bias" when reliability does not include a political compass test. This is not grounds to treat a source as unreliable. Simonm223 (talk) 16:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2/3, bias is one thing, getting things down right incorrect is another. As was demonstrated in the pre-discussion, the notion around the housing stock was truly an egregious error. This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts. When that happens, "Generally unreliable" or at minimum, "Additional considerations" makes sense as the guidance when using this source. I do not think further deprecation is warranted though since the reporters seem to be of a mixed quality, some are more diligent than others and the bias merging into wanton disregard for facts varies there too. The problem is, we rate sources, not just individual writers, and therefore as far as a source rating goes, "Option 2" or "Option 3" then makes the most logical sense. Iljhgtn (talk) 16:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- It was corrected. Your entire case is based on a single incident where a single writer made a single mistake. And it was fixed. There is absolutely no grounds for "Generally unreliable" on the basis of presented evidence. Simonm223 (talk) 16:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- It was corrected only after significant outside pressure and even then the correction was weak and inaccurate. The guy who wrote the article was explicitly mocking the people who pointed out his error and accusing them of something along the lines of being corporate shills. It also wasn’t a single incident as they publish nonsense regarding Russia and Ukraine, including and up to outright conspiracy theories, pretty regularly. It simply is not a reliable source, however much one agrees with their editorial stance. Volunteer Marek 19:29, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- So you agree with Iljhgtn's conspiracy theory that this was the purposeful result of pushing bias not an error? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- It was corrected only after significant outside pressure and even then the correction was weak and inaccurate. The guy who wrote the article was explicitly mocking the people who pointed out his error and accusing them of something along the lines of being corporate shills. It also wasn’t a single incident as they publish nonsense regarding Russia and Ukraine, including and up to outright conspiracy theories, pretty regularly. It simply is not a reliable source, however much one agrees with their editorial stance. Volunteer Marek 19:29, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I don’t see any “conspiracy theories” from anyone here, including User:Iljhgtn and your attempts to characterize a pretty reasonable statement (“bias that creeped” in) as such are kind of offensive and disingenuous. Can you make an argument without making false and insulting accusations against others? Volunteer Marek 01:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- You misquote the editor (to your benefit), for someone so interested in errors supposedly motivated by bias that seems odd... In context its clearly stronger than that "This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts." when nothing suggests that this was the result of narrative pushing (thats how you push a narrative either, as you've pointed out although lingusitically similar its an embarrassing and obvious error). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I don’t see any “conspiracy theories” from anyone here, including User:Iljhgtn and your attempts to characterize a pretty reasonable statement (“bias that creeped” in) as such are kind of offensive and disingenuous. Can you make an argument without making false and insulting accusations against others? Volunteer Marek 01:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- You literally accused another editor, without basis in fact, of pushing “conspiracy theory” as a rhetorical device on your part to discredit and debase their views. You have absolutely no room to accuse others of, according to you, “misquoting” (which I did not do). And your attempts to litigate the meaning of “narrative pushing” (of course the article was trying to push a narrative! It was an opinion piece! That’s what opinion pieces do - this one just did it with false facts) are just typically tiresome. Volunteer Marek 01:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- You keep dancing around... Do you really believe that the information was changed to push a narrative? (and remember that such a specific claim about a living person falls under BLP, so if the answer is yes a source needs to be provided) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- No , I’m not. I’m simply asking you to refrain from trying to falsely characterize other people’s comments as “conspiracy theories” in a cheap attempt to delegitimize them since they’re clear nothing of the sort. Not everything you disagree with is a “conspiracy theory”. In this particular case, the article clearly had false info in it. No one has ever said that “information was changed” (as if on purpose) so please stop pretending otherwise. What was said was that “bias creeped in” which I think is a fair characterization. So please quit it with the strawman’ing. Volunteer Marek 02:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I am pretty shocked by these accusations if true, and would ask we WP:FOC. I believe @Horse Eye's Back is a good editor and contributor to these discussions normally though, so I think I must be missing something or a miscommunication may have occurred. I will give them time and space to explain if they feel explanation is warranted. I sure would appreciate it. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:34, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Its you who needs to provide a source to substantiate your allegations against a living person. ""This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts." is a BLP violation unless a source is provided or the author drops dead. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I am pretty shocked by these accusations if true, and would ask we WP:FOC. I believe @Horse Eye's Back is a good editor and contributor to these discussions normally though, so I think I must be missing something or a miscommunication may have occurred. I will give them time and space to explain if they feel explanation is warranted. I sure would appreciate it. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:34, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- No , I’m not. I’m simply asking you to refrain from trying to falsely characterize other people’s comments as “conspiracy theories” in a cheap attempt to delegitimize them since they’re clear nothing of the sort. Not everything you disagree with is a “conspiracy theory”. In this particular case, the article clearly had false info in it. No one has ever said that “information was changed” (as if on purpose) so please stop pretending otherwise. What was said was that “bias creeped in” which I think is a fair characterization. So please quit it with the strawman’ing. Volunteer Marek 02:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- You keep dancing around... Do you really believe that the information was changed to push a narrative? (and remember that such a specific claim about a living person falls under BLP, so if the answer is yes a source needs to be provided) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- You literally accused another editor, without basis in fact, of pushing “conspiracy theory” as a rhetorical device on your part to discredit and debase their views. You have absolutely no room to accuse others of, according to you, “misquoting” (which I did not do). And your attempts to litigate the meaning of “narrative pushing” (of course the article was trying to push a narrative! It was an opinion piece! That’s what opinion pieces do - this one just did it with false facts) are just typically tiresome. Volunteer Marek 01:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- And what is your source for that? Nobody else is saying that this was the result of bias, the sources say that "third largest corporate owner of housing" became "owns a third of housing" which is a very understandable mistake. You appear to have constructed your own conspiracy theory around this incident. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Im sorry but “third largest owner” turning into “owns one third of all housing stock” is NOT an “understandable mistake”. It misstates the actual fact by a factor of 500. Maybe if this was like a student in some freshmen class using AI to write a paper that would be “understandable” (and still get an F) but this is supposed to be a professional, who’s job it is to get this stuff right and this is supposed to be a serious organization that has an editorial board that does fact checking. Which they obviously didn’t do. Volunteer Marek 19:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Its not math so the factor that it mistates it by is irrelevant, they are much more similar statements as written and to me (someone who works with the writing of other human beings every day) it is entirely understandable. That sort of error is made by every major and minor publication, it’s how they handle it which counts and here it was handled well. You can of course respond to this with a source which says that this is a major error, but I don't think that such a source exists (if it does I couldn't find it) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Whats “not math”? The difference between .0006 and .33? You sure? Volunteer Marek 01:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- And let’s see these “every major and minor publications” that make these kinds of error. Volunteer Marek 01:25, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I note the failure to provide the requested source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Its not math so the factor that it mistates it by is irrelevant, they are much more similar statements as written and to me (someone who works with the writing of other human beings every day) it is entirely understandable. That sort of error is made by every major and minor publication, it’s how they handle it which counts and here it was handled well. You can of course respond to this with a source which says that this is a major error, but I don't think that such a source exists (if it does I couldn't find it) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Im sorry but “third largest owner” turning into “owns one third of all housing stock” is NOT an “understandable mistake”. It misstates the actual fact by a factor of 500. Maybe if this was like a student in some freshmen class using AI to write a paper that would be “understandable” (and still get an F) but this is supposed to be a professional, who’s job it is to get this stuff right and this is supposed to be a serious organization that has an editorial board that does fact checking. Which they obviously didn’t do. Volunteer Marek 19:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Right back at you. Volunteer Marek 01:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- , your turn and no stonewalling now provide the source or go away. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Right back at you. Volunteer Marek 01:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Lol, those are standard corrections for minor misstatements not exaggerations of something by a factor of several hundred to push a narrative and then mocking and attacking people who point out the error and then putting up a half assed note. By your standard Daily Mail and Breitbart (both unreliable) would count as RS since they too have issued corrections in the past. No, reliable publications do not make errors of this magnitude and when they publish corrections they directly address any mistakes. Breitbart, Daily Mail or Jacobin unfortunately don’t do that. Volunteer Marek 03:08, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Your source that this was "exaggerations of something by a factor of several hundred to push a narrative" and not simply an error is what? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Lol, those are standard corrections for minor misstatements not exaggerations of something by a factor of several hundred to push a narrative and then mocking and attacking people who point out the error and then putting up a half assed note. By your standard Daily Mail and Breitbart (both unreliable) would count as RS since they too have issued corrections in the past. No, reliable publications do not make errors of this magnitude and when they publish corrections they directly address any mistakes. Breitbart, Daily Mail or Jacobin unfortunately don’t do that. Volunteer Marek 03:08, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I have to say I question your judgment in supporting option 3 "generally unreliable" over Jacobin publishing and then retracting a single erroneous sentence, and for having a bias/narrative/agenda, when you also !voted option 1 "generally reliable" for The Heritage Foundation which routinely publishes fabricated information without retraction. Could you kindly articulate how an admittedly biased outlet with a team of fact checkers is apparently significantly worse than a think tank that churns out misinformation and disinformation (and has a team of paid staff working around the clock to target, dox, and threaten Misplaced Pages editors)? Vanilla Wizard 💙 20:12, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- It was corrected. Your entire case is based on a single incident where a single writer made a single mistake. And it was fixed. There is absolutely no grounds for "Generally unreliable" on the basis of presented evidence. Simonm223 (talk) 16:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 A screenshot of a tweet documenting an already corrected error is insufficient to depreciate a reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamaliel (talk • contribs) 16:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are a lot more issues about Jacobin than just a tweet, and include more recent topics after the last RfC like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. --NoonIcarus (talk) 17:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I do not see that in the above discussion, can you link to any discussion of this? Thank you. Gamaliel (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Gamaliel: Mostly Misplaced Pages talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 8#Jacobin and at Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 351#Rfc: Jacobin (magazine). Kind regards,
- Thank you for the links. I will repost once I've read through those discussions. Gamaliel (talk) 18:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Gamaliel: Mostly Misplaced Pages talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 8#Jacobin and at Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 351#Rfc: Jacobin (magazine). Kind regards,
- I do not see that in the above discussion, can you link to any discussion of this? Thank you. Gamaliel (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are a lot more issues about Jacobin than just a tweet, and include more recent topics after the last RfC like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. --NoonIcarus (talk) 17:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 at the very least, change current assessment. It might be easier to comment if editors agree or not to change the current category. My position is based on coverage that mixes opinion with facts and its use of unreliable sources, some of which have been deprecated by this noticeboard (like The Grayzone). I went into more detail about this at Misplaced Pages talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 8#Jacobin and at Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 351#Rfc: Jacobin (magazine). --NoonIcarus (talk) 16:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 (intext attribution) WP:RSBIAS and WP:RSOPINION cover most of the points here. Jacobin publishes opinions peice that should have intext attribution. This is how they are used in the large amount of WP:USEBYOTHERS that Jacobin also has. I may not like Jacobin very much but bias, opinion, or minor mistakes do not make a source unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 Context matters: "Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable." The example given was a mistake in a book review, cubsequently corrected, about how much housing stock Blackstone owned. No reasonable editor would use this review as a source for an article on housing or Blackstone and more than one would use a reliable source on U.S. housing for an article about 19th century French poetry. TFD (talk) 17:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1-ish Jacobin are clearly a biased source but they are also clearly as reliable for facts as any other major WP:NEWSORG. When they make mistakes, they correct themselves, and that improves their reliability, it doesn't hurt it. Loki (talk) 17:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2: additional considerations/bad RFC - based on the discussion above, evidently there's some kind of social media uproar about some thing that Jacobin published and later corrected. It's poor timing to hold an RFC on reliability both when emotions are high and when it's in response to an isolated incident, both of which are true here. But ignoring that, it seems (again from the discussion above) that Jacobin published something that was egregiously incorrect, then retracted or corrected it. That's pretty much the standard we expect of reliable publications: errors are compatible with reliability, it's how the publication responds to and corrects errors that determines reliability in this context. Media Bias/Fact Check gives Jacobin a "high" reliability score of 1.9 (out of 10, lower scores are better), which is in the ballpark of the New York Times (1.4) and Washington Post (2.1). However, they also give it a "left bias" rating of -7 (a 20-point scale with 0 as completely unbiased), which is on the edge of their extreme ratings. Editors should consider attribution, and/or balancing this source's POV against publications more to the right. Ivanvector (/Edits) 17:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2/3 While BIAS usually covers issues like, it may not be entirely sufficient for advocacy media, which includes Jacobin. While Jacobin is a fine publication and I've sourced it myself, the reality is it does not usually report Who/What/Why but almost exclusively publishes explainers and analysis pieces that have a designed structure. For instance, How Biden Embraced Trump’s Terror Smear Against Cuba is not an editorial or opinion piece, it's presented as straight news reporting in the form of an explainer article. But, as an encyclopedia, we obviously can't start injecting artistic wordsets like "terror smear" into articles. So merely saying that BIAS can cover the case of Jacobin is not sufficient. For the purposes of encyclopedia writing, there will never be anything chronicled by Jacobin that is appropriate for WP which we can't find a superior source for elsewhere. They don't do spot news, data journalism, or investigative reporting, which are the three ways we use newsgathering media to reference articles. Simply looking at the current issue, I don't see a single story that is actually reporting things. Each article is an opinion piece lightly packaged as an explainer. So, while I don't think Jacobin is "unreliable" per se, I don't see any value of using it for the very scope-limited purpose of encyclopedia-writing. Chetsford (talk) 18:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 for facts and 2/inline attribution otherwise for articles that are mainly opinion. The hoohah over an article that was actually about Mark Fisher and since corrected such that it doesn't even mention Blackstone seems like a one off. Selfstudier (talk) 18:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Nothing in the above discussion or that I've seen in the last year leads me to deviate from my !vote in the previous RfC which was this: Option 2: mostly a partisan opinion source usable with attribution if noteworthy, but occasionally publishes well-researched pieces by experts in their fields, on topics that might not be covered in more mainstream sources, in particular on the history of the left or on socialist theory. I also think that the closing of the last RfC, and in particular green flagging on RSP, did not reflect the consensus of the discussion, as I argued when this came up on this board in 2023: I have long been unhappy with the RSP summary of the many RSN discussions of this source, where the consensus has clearly been much more negative than the summary. It is clear that several editors have major issues with its use in specific areas (e.g. Russia/Ukraine, Venezuela) and that this should be flagged, and that it publishes content by a few conspiracy thinkers (Branko Marcetic was mentioned in the last discussion, McEvoy flagged here) and again this isn't highlighted in RSP. So I'd favour a rewrite of the RSP and possibly a change from green to yellow as a better reflection of the community consensus. In short: I think we need to approach it in a much more case by case basis. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 My assessment hasn't changed from last time, jacobin publishes mostly opinion so this is largely a moot point and the rest of what they publish often contradicts itself—blindlynx 18:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- 1 or 2, I think that most of the time they should be used with attribution but they're generally reliable enough that I don't think we should be requiring attribution. I also question the need for a new RfC... It doesn't seem like there has been anything substantial since last time so this shouldn't have been opened. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Weak option 2 per above voters (especially AD and Bob), but I won't die on that hill if the consensus ultimately feels differently. Strong oppose option 3, though, for somewhat obvious reasons. The Kip 18:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1/2 - I don't like Jacobin. They read to me like the socialist equivalent of Christian rock. But they have an editor, publisher and corrections, and I'm reasonably sure they're not actually liars. It's an opinion outlet, like a leftist analogue of Reason. I'm not convinced coverage in Jacobin connotes notability. So I'd give them a strong "considerations apply" - attribute, not ideal for notability - David Gerard (talk) 19:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1/2 Jacobin's fine. It's left-leaning, but it doesn't cook up facts or make shit up. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:15, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 3
or 4They publish outright falsehoods and when they issue corrections these are weak and weaselly. The recent completely absurd claim in one of their articles that Blackstone owns 33% of US single family housing stock is an example (it’s actually 1/10 of 1%). Whether you’re sympathetic to their editorial position is irrelevant. Garbage is garbage and facts are facts and as an encyclopedia we can’t rely on click bait nonsense for sources. Volunteer Marek 19:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC) - Option 1, with attribution for analysis and opinion pieces. The Blackstone mistake was bad, and the author's petulant attitude upon being corrected leaves much to be desired. But the error was corrected relatively promptly, and they have an editorial team on staff. I'm not in favor of downgrading a source based on a single mistake. However, Jacobin has an explicit editorial stance that informs nearly all of its articles, and if it's used for more than straightforward facts, it should probably be attributed as e.g. "the socialist magazine Jacobin". I'm open to changing my view if others can demonstrate a more sustained pattern of errors or falsehoods. Astaire (talk) 20:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 (with caveats) due to the lack of developments since the last RfC which could actually change the conclusion of general reliability, as opposed to demonstrating fallibility or bias. I do have some sympathy with the
no media outlet, no matter how reliable, should be listed higher than option 2
position articulated above, but I think that comes down to how we interpret "generally reliable" in practice. In other words, "additional considerations" always apply, in principle. The difference between option 1 and option 2 comes down to how likely we expect those "additional considerations" to be of practical relevance, and how exactly we should address them. XOR'easter (talk) 20:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC) - Option 1, it doesn't seem anything has changed since the last RfC. Corrections and retractions is what a reliable source is expected to do and is a sign of reliability. Mistakes which are far greater than this are commonplace across the array of reliable sources (what matters is whether there are corrections or not) nor does partisanship equate to unreliability. Here the error appears to be about what's more or less a single sentence, an ancillary point or side-note in an opinion piece which has been corrected since. It should be treated no different a manner than any other openly partisan neworgs such as Reason (RSP entry). There is no requirement for reliable sources to be "neutral" or for the matter any standard that suggests newsorgs with an explicitly stated ideological position are any better or worse in matters of reliability than newsorgs that don't have an explicitly stated ideological position. WP:NEWSORG and WP:BIASED are quite clear.
- Though the standard disclaimers apply which are to check for whether what they publish has due weight for inclusion (not an issue of reliability), use in-text attribution with their political position made apparent when quoting opinion and that the context always matters. That there is a subreddit post critical of a error that was corrected is no basis for determining reliability of sources on Misplaced Pages or starting an RfC, so this is also a Bad RfC. This discussion has been had at a much greater depth in the previous RfC where it was shown that the magazine in question has quite significant use by others and affirmatory coverage from reliable secondary source demonstrating that they generally have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" which doesn't needs to be rehashed. Tayi Arajakate Talk 20:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1: Bad RfC + L + Ratio Creating this RfC immediately after some sort of ostensible social media outrage (ex. I nominated David Joyner (business executive) for deletion not long after the Killing of Brian Thompson, and people got so upset that they brigaded it via external social media) seems like a bad idea. It's been made clear in the past that Jacobin has a perspective (like literally any media outlet) but don't sacrifice factual accuracy to get there. My previous vote remains true: "While it wears its political perspective on its sleeve, it has proven itself time and again in its robust fact-checking. The issue with conservative and reactionary sources on the WP:RSP isn't that they have a bias – it's that they constantly express said bias through the use of provable mis- and disinformation. Jacobin does not sacrifice factual accuracy for the sake of a bias."
- I would say the same of any other outlet whose perspective coexists peacefully with actual facts. The sort of neoliberalism adopted by American news outlets which we categorize as generally reliable (correctly so) isn't some sort of default worldview that needs to be treated as sacred and less biased than any other. If we're allowed to point to a single incident, then I could just as easily (but wouldn't, because I'm acting in good faith) point to the NYT's 2002–2003 reporting about Iraq and WMDs which was so unbelievably mistaken and grounded in literally nothing that we spend a paragraph attributing it to falsely luring Americans into supporting an illegal invasion based on lies, yet Misplaced Pages (even in the days when that story was reasonably fresh) would balk at the idea of calling them 'marginally reliable', let alone 'generally unreliable'. Meanwhile, this one is literally just a typo in a single article – a bad typo, but one anyone with a brain could understand didn't reflect reality and which was quickly corrected. Reading some of the stories on the front page right now, they report on events similar to what would be covered in a magazine like the generally reliable New York and contain no obvious factual errors. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 21:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2, mainly per u:BobFromBrockley. The Blackrock error was quickly corrected, so I don't hold it against them. Consider this quote from CANZUK
Anglo-conservatives sometimes fantasize about reuniting the dominions ... where workers could be exploited freely.
A not-insignificant percentage of the content supported by Jacobin is of similar nature. Alaexis¿question? 21:56, 16 January 2025 (UTC) - Option 1 A screenshot from Reddit detailing an error which was corrected is not reason to lower our consideration of the reliablity of the publication. WP:GREL is generally reliable, not always reliable. Admittedly the publication does contain a lot of opinion peices, however that is already covered by WP:RSOPINION and WP:RSEDITORIAL. Notably, The Economist is similarly heavy on opinion pecies and community consensus is that it is WP:GREL. TarnishedPath 22:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 Jacobin is basically the left-wing equivalent to the right-wing British Magazines Spiked and The Spectator. Like these publications, most of its content is opinion orientated, and citing less opinion-focused sources should be preferred. It's clear that the current "generally reliable" rating is suggesting to readers of RSP that Jacobin's opinionated content is usable carte blanche without caveat, which I do not think is accurate. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:16, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Some Jacobin pieces have openly pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories , as well as conspiracy theories about the Euromaidan which have not been retracted. The Green RSP rating has mistakenly led people to believe these pieces were reliable , Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_407#https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:20, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- You should probably read farther than the headline. Simonm223 (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- The pieces (which are both by staff writer Branko Marcetic) are strongly slanted, but you're perhaps right that saying they are "pushing conspiracy theories" is going a bit far. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- "The CIA bungled intel pre-9/11" is somewhat the opposite of a conspiracy theory since it literally attributes to incompetence what conspiracists attribute to malice. Simonm223 (talk) 14:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- The pieces (which are both by staff writer Branko Marcetic) are strongly slanted, but you're perhaps right that saying they are "pushing conspiracy theories" is going a bit far. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- You should probably read farther than the headline. Simonm223 (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Some Jacobin pieces have openly pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories , as well as conspiracy theories about the Euromaidan which have not been retracted. The Green RSP rating has mistakenly led people to believe these pieces were reliable , Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_407#https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:20, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- (Summoned by ping in this thread) Bad RFC / No listing just as in 2021. Or Option 2, it is a liberal analysis magazine, to be considered frequently as WP:RSOPINION. See you at the next 1-day social media hysteria. MarioGom (talk) 22:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- This doesn't really matter for the purposes of the RFC, but Jacobin is not remotely liberal. It's far left, and quite anti-liberal. --Trovatore (talk) 22:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- For whatever far left and anti-liberal mean in the US, I guess so. It does not change my point at all. MarioGom (talk) 22:35, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I find it really funny when Americans see somebody holding mainstream social democratic politics and start calling them extreme. Simonm223 (talk) 22:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- For whatever far left and anti-liberal mean in the US, I guess so. It does not change my point at all. MarioGom (talk) 22:35, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- This doesn't really matter for the purposes of the RFC, but Jacobin is not remotely liberal. It's far left, and quite anti-liberal. --Trovatore (talk) 22:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1. Correcting a mistake is a sign of reliability. The normal caveats about bias/opinion and attribution apply, but not seeing enough to move it down to 2. -- Patar knight - /contributions 23:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 The current summary at WP:RS/P acknowledges that Jacobin is biased and that editors should take care when using it, which is exactly how it should be. Bias and adherence to factual accuracy are two different things; neutrality is not objectivity and vice versa. We do not need to demote it purely for being biased. Agree with others that an RfC being started based on a Reddit thread of a screenshot of a tweet of an editor who made a mistake which was ultimately corrected is a bit silly. Vanilla Wizard 💙 23:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 as per the analysis by Selfstudier, XOR, and Tayi. Cambial — foliar❧ 23:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 WP:GREL already has certain considerations and it doesn't mean that 100% of what is published can make it to WP. Editors are expected to use their judgement. The article in question is a WP:NEWSBLOG. I don't see any reason for downgrading them based on a reddit thread. Lf8u2 (talk) 01:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 This entire RfC appears to be politically motivated and is predicated on a correction of a sentence that mixed up "third largest" with "a third of". Many other mainline newspapers have made similar, if not worse, errors before. The question is whether corrections were made when such errors were pointed out. And the correction was made here, meeting requirements of reliability. This is likely also about an opinion article, which makes this even more pointless. Silverseren 02:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Weapons of mass destruction from the New York Times? Was that ever retracted? TarnishedPath 11:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- 3. If you can't get a better, more disinterested outfit than Jacobin to vouch for a given fact, that's poissibly a problem. Maybe the fact just isn't important enuff to use, seeing as nobody else has seen fit to bother reporting it.
- It's not a matter of some particular instance about mistakes regarding mixing up "third largest" with "a third of" or whatever. Heck everybody does stuff like that. The NYTimes has has published more (unintentionally) misleading or plain-wrong charts than I've had hot meals. I mean, here we've got Nature finding that "among the 348 documents that we found to include the are 186 peer-reviewed journal articles, including some in BioScience, The Lancet Planetary Health, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and 19 news articles targeted at a specialist audience." Imagine that. I would guess that that's largely because "puts indigenous peoples in a good light" trumps "is true" in the emotional hind-brain of the leather-elbow-patch set. It's not a lefty thing in particular, right-wingers are just as bad I'm sure.
- Which just strengthens my point, there're no blinders like ideological blinders, so its not so much a matter of how many fact-checkers you have as in how you maybe are presenting facts which, while individually true, are cherry picked or incomplete or out of context or one-sided or otherwise misleading. It might not even be intentional, exactly. Mind-sets are like that. Better to stick with Time or other people who are more into just blandly attracting a broad readership rather than with people who have points to make.
- They're big and smart enough that reporting their opinions are worthwhile, of course. "According to Jacobin, consumption of oligarchs is (due to their high protein-to-fat ratio) a potential avenue for ameliorating world hunger" is fine. As long as we include the qualifier. Herostratus (talk) 04:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Herostratus: not to backseat comment but if "They're big and smart enough that reporting their opinions are worthwhile, of course. "According to Jacobin, consumption of oligarchs is (due to their high protein-to-fat ratio) a potential avenue for ameliorating world hunger" is fine." isn't that a 2? I'm in much the same boat and offered a split 1/2, my understanding is that a 3 shouldn't be used for opinion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Backseat comments are totally fine. I live for them. I'm not sure about the details of our rule, but aren't all publications are completely reliable for their contents? If the News of the World says "the moon is made of green cheese" we can certainly say "According to the News of the World, the moon is made of green cheese" if for some reason that was useful. The ref is just so the reader can check that they did indeed print that. Similarly for any opinion or other statement. Since all entities are reliable for their own contents, I assume we are not talking at all about that. Why would we.
- @Herostratus: not to backseat comment but if "They're big and smart enough that reporting their opinions are worthwhile, of course. "According to Jacobin, consumption of oligarchs is (due to their high protein-to-fat ratio) a potential avenue for ameliorating world hunger" is fine." isn't that a 2? I'm in much the same boat and offered a split 1/2, my understanding is that a 3 shouldn't be used for opinion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- What we are talking about is: if entity X says "FBI stats say that African-American violent crime was up 50% in Los Angeles in 2024", can we say that in our own words because we can be confident that it is true because we know that entity X has a good fact-checking operation? Can we be very very sure that entity X would also point out if violent crime for all races was also up 50%? Can we be very very sure that this increase is not because the FBI started using a new definition of "violent crime", because entity X would surely point that out? Can we be very very sure that violent crime in the city of Los Angeles is steady and the increase is purely from Los Angeles County (or whatever), because entity X would surely point that out? In other words -- can we be very very sure that entity X would not cherry-pick some facts and leave out others because they are here to make points? We want to be careful about being led by the nose by these people. Herostratus (talk) 22:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think the thing is our due weight policy says that due weight (noteworthiness) is apportioned based on the amount of attention given in reliable sources. I take that to mean opinion in generally reliable sources is worth reporting; opinion in generally unreliable sources isn’t. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:35, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- What we are talking about is: if entity X says "FBI stats say that African-American violent crime was up 50% in Los Angeles in 2024", can we say that in our own words because we can be confident that it is true because we know that entity X has a good fact-checking operation? Can we be very very sure that entity X would also point out if violent crime for all races was also up 50%? Can we be very very sure that this increase is not because the FBI started using a new definition of "violent crime", because entity X would surely point that out? Can we be very very sure that violent crime in the city of Los Angeles is steady and the increase is purely from Los Angeles County (or whatever), because entity X would surely point that out? In other words -- can we be very very sure that entity X would not cherry-pick some facts and leave out others because they are here to make points? We want to be careful about being led by the nose by these people. Herostratus (talk) 22:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1 The author's attitude certainly leaves much to be desired... but I don't think a single mistake that was quickly fixed – in a blog piece, which generally wouldn't even be cited except in very limited circumstances and with attribution per WP:NEWSBLOG – is a good enough reason to downgrade their reliability. Smallangryplanet (talk) 07:52, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 My opinion is unchanged from the previous RfC. It is absurd that we've opened up another RfC over a minor issue that was quickly corrected, all because a few neoliberal redditors got mad about it. I think citations to Jacobin should require attribution, but trying to tar them as unreliable over this one case is ridiculous. Log off Reddit, there is nothing worthwhile to be found there. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2. I concur with other editors that this RFC should never have been opened. Please be more considerate of your fellow editors' time. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 2 possibly Option 3. I don't see that the source is any better than it was in 2021. Per Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d's previous comments and references from the 2021 RfC copied below as well as this recent incident. Yes, making a mistake and correcting it is good but when the mistake is so egreious and the author attacks people who note the error how much faith should we put in the source? Last time I also noted that per Adfont's media review (not a RS but still worth a look) this source is more biased than Breitbart!
Normally, we put these extremely ideological sources in the Option 2 category (e.g., Salon (RSP entry), Townhall (RSP entry)). Jacobin obviously doesn't report straight news, so it (i) always needs to be attributed and (ii) check to see if it complies with WP:WEIGHT. However, Jacobin has additional issues. Its stated political mission is to:
centralize and inject energy into the contemporary socialist movement
. So it is more in line with an advocacy group than a news source. Also, it has pretty fringe views. James Wolcott identifies Jacobin as part of the alt-left . It's pretty fringe-y on topics concerning Venezuela , the USSR/Communism , and anti-semitism , . I would avoid using Jacobin for those topics. But if you need a socialist/Marxist opinion on something, then Jacobin is definitely a good source to use. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC) Based upon Noonlcarus's comment, Jacobin does seem to frequently use deprecated/unreliable sources for facts. Some examples include Alternet (RSP entry) , Daily Kos (RSP entry) , Raw Story (RSP entry) , The Canary (RSP entry) , and the Electronic Intifada (RSP entry) .Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 04:53, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
- As I mentioned above, when a source is this biased we have to ask if that level of bias is going to have too great an impact on both the weight they give various facts thus leading to questionable conclusion and their ability to verify otherwise factual claims as we saw here. I think that puts the source deep into the use with caution territory Springee (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- And yet you rated the Heritage Foundation at 2/3 below and didn't find any problem with their extreme ideological bent, saying in their defense that deprecating the foundation
would reflect more on the biases of editors than on the true quality of the source and would again push Misplaced Pages away from the goal of collecting knowledge
. This is a group that is regularly equated in academic best sources with fascism such as in:- Neo-fascist trends in education: neo-liberal hybridisation and a new authoritarian order Díez-Gutiérrez, Enrique-Javier, Mauro-Rafael Jarquín-Ramírez, and Eva Palomo-Cermeño, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS). Sep2024, Vol. 22 Issue 2, p125-169
- Pandemic abandonment, panoramic displays and fascist propaganda: The month the earth stood still. By: McLaren, Peter, Educational Philosophy & Theory, 00131857, Feb 2022, Vol. 54, Issue 2
- THE ANTI-DEMOCRACY THINK TANK. By: Stewart, Katherine, New Republic, 00286583, Sep2023, Vol. 254, Issue 9 (note that the think tank that they call "The West Point of American Fascism" in this article is the Claremont Institute but that they refer to Heritage as participating in Claremont events.)
- The Road Ahead Fighting for Progress, Freedom, and Democracy, Weingarten, Randi, American Educator. Fall2024, Vol. 48 Issue 3, p2-9. 8p.
- So I guess my question is one of consistency: do you believe Jacobin is more ideologically compromised than the fascist-adjacent Heritage foundation? If not why do you believe that the Heritage Foundation is more valuable to the "goal of collecting knowledge" than Jacobin? Simonm223 (talk) 19:20, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- You are missing a major difference. HF isn't a media source, they are a think tank. Jacobin is a media source, not a think tank. I've argued that all think tanks should be used with great care and in particular we should generally not cite them unless an independent RS points to their work. So the question is can we cite HF when a RS mentions the views/claims/etc of HF with respect to the article topic. In that regard I'm suggesting we treat them more like a primary source vs a RS. Jacobin is different and the relevant question is can we treat them like a regular RS as we do with many other news media sources. If Jacobin publishes a claim about an article subject should we cite them? I argue they should be evaluated by the same standards we use for news media sources. By that standard it's strong bias etc means we should use it's claims and reports with caution and should question if they have weight to justify inclusion. In your post above you provided a list of texts but absent links I can't see what they say nor if their arguments are sound or crap but they don't impact the distinction I've made. Springee (talk) 21:09, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- The list of texts are available via Misplaced Pages library which is why I provided bibliographical information rather than links as links to material on WP library don't work. With the exception of New Republic all are academic journals. And now please answer my original question: do you believe Jacobin is more ideologically compromised than the Heritage Foundation? Simonm223 (talk) 21:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- If you want to cite those sources to support an argument you should tell us what they say or at least why you think they support your position. As for your question, I already answered. It doesn't matter if the HF is more or less compromised because the purpose of each is different. When it comes to topics of automobiles Honda is more compromised than the AP but they also might be a better source if we are asking about stratified charge combustion in automobile engines. Springee (talk) 21:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- On this charge I will defend Springee. I don't necessarily agree with them but I'm not seeing the dissonance in their arguments, especially as they seem to be going 2/3 on both (there is not formal vote here but that seems to be the upshot of what they're saying). Their slighlty idiosyncratic argument about the purspose of the source being primary is also one which they've been making consistently for years. With all due respect I think you're being too hard on Springee. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I take the idea that a publication being openly social democratic is too biased to be reliable personally offensive. Anywhere outside the United States Jacobin would be seen as barely left of the political center. But I will concede that Springee is being consistent. And I actually agreed that think tanks should be treated as primary sources. Frankly, were Springee to be more reasonable on the "political bias" overreach, we might otherwise be agreeing. Simonm223 (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- We may not be disagreeing at all given we both are giving them a "2". I'm arguing that their bias is too much to make them a 1. The possible 3, the same score I gave them last time, is a concern regarding things like the issue that started the recent discussion. I was about to post something about really disliking the RSP's simplistic bucketing. It's really not a good system as we really should put more effort into asking if a source is appropriate for the claims being supported and when an encyclopedia should be citing strongly biased sources in general. If we need to use such a strongly biased source is the information DUE? Springee (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- We do agree on disliking the RSP bucketing system. My personal opinion is no news media source should be treated as a blanket "generally reliable" because reliability is contextual. However I do think that Jacobin is, from a global perspective, not in any way ideologically extreme. Social democracy is a normal left-of-center political position. The extreme-right shift of US politics over the last few decades makes them seem like outliers but that's the real bias problem right there. Simonm223 (talk) 22:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Jacobin is not merely social democratic; their About Us page states they offer
socialist perspectives
and approvingly includes quotes describing them as supportingradical politics
andvery explicitly on the radical left, and sort of hostile to liberal accommodationism
. Crossroads 22:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC)- I would strongly advise against getting too side-tracked by having a conversation about "social democracy" vs "democratic socialism" (same goes for any arguments over distinctions between "left" vs "liberal" in this thread). I can say from experience that these semantics rabbitholes are shockingly deep, and they're not at all necessary or helpful for this RfC. All I'll say is that these terms are commonly used as synonyms by at least some people, and the "Ideology and reception" section of Jacobin (magazine) notes
the political diversity of contributors, incorporating "everyone from social democratic liberals to avowed revolutionaries"
, so I don't think either you or Simonm223 are wrong on this. Different people are gonna use different terms and apply different meanings to each of them. Vanilla Wizard 💙 03:23, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- I would strongly advise against getting too side-tracked by having a conversation about "social democracy" vs "democratic socialism" (same goes for any arguments over distinctions between "left" vs "liberal" in this thread). I can say from experience that these semantics rabbitholes are shockingly deep, and they're not at all necessary or helpful for this RfC. All I'll say is that these terms are commonly used as synonyms by at least some people, and the "Ideology and reception" section of Jacobin (magazine) notes
- Jacobin is not merely social democratic; their About Us page states they offer
- We do agree on disliking the RSP bucketing system. My personal opinion is no news media source should be treated as a blanket "generally reliable" because reliability is contextual. However I do think that Jacobin is, from a global perspective, not in any way ideologically extreme. Social democracy is a normal left-of-center political position. The extreme-right shift of US politics over the last few decades makes them seem like outliers but that's the real bias problem right there. Simonm223 (talk) 22:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
Anywhere outside the United States Jacobin would be seen as barely left of the political center.
Where outside the United States are you talking about? The world where barely 20% of countries recognize same-sex marriage? Where sixteen countries have banned the burqa? Is it Japan, where the conservative Liberal Democratic Party has been in power since 1955? Or China, where a media outlet that is as critical of the Chinese Communist Party as Jacobin is of the Democratic Party would have long been banned, and their writers arrested? I think we all need a reality check here, especially if we want to represent reality in our articles. feminist🩸 (talk) 03:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)- While I can't speak for them, I'm guessing they probably had in mind specifically other western democracies, as it's common for European countries to have a mainstream Socialist Party with an ideology listed as social democracy (to name a few: Spain, Portugal, France, Albania, etc).
- I'm comfortable speculating this is their argument because it's one that's often repeated in American progressive-left circles. This argument is usually presented as follows: Bernie Sanders is viewed as the furthest left one can go in America, the things his supporters want are not radical to other developed countries (paid time off, universal healthcare, etc), therefore what is far left in America is only moderately left elsewhere.
- Not saying I entirely agree or disagree with that argument, either how Simonm223 phrased it or how I interpreted it. Just saying I think they had in mind comparable democracies, not the entire world.
- Vanilla Wizard 💙 16:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah. I don't feel the need to put a million qualifiers on a comment on a WP discussion board when all I really need to say is that the United States has an abnormal political compass compared to its peers. But also there used to be lots of socialists, for instance, throughout the Middle East. American allies killed most of them. Simonm223 (talk) 18:33, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- This has become a discussion about Overton windows rather than the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah. I don't feel the need to put a million qualifiers on a comment on a WP discussion board when all I really need to say is that the United States has an abnormal political compass compared to its peers. But also there used to be lots of socialists, for instance, throughout the Middle East. American allies killed most of them. Simonm223 (talk) 18:33, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- We may not be disagreeing at all given we both are giving them a "2". I'm arguing that their bias is too much to make them a 1. The possible 3, the same score I gave them last time, is a concern regarding things like the issue that started the recent discussion. I was about to post something about really disliking the RSP's simplistic bucketing. It's really not a good system as we really should put more effort into asking if a source is appropriate for the claims being supported and when an encyclopedia should be citing strongly biased sources in general. If we need to use such a strongly biased source is the information DUE? Springee (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I take the idea that a publication being openly social democratic is too biased to be reliable personally offensive. Anywhere outside the United States Jacobin would be seen as barely left of the political center. But I will concede that Springee is being consistent. And I actually agreed that think tanks should be treated as primary sources. Frankly, were Springee to be more reasonable on the "political bias" overreach, we might otherwise be agreeing. Simonm223 (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- The list of texts are available via Misplaced Pages library which is why I provided bibliographical information rather than links as links to material on WP library don't work. With the exception of New Republic all are academic journals. And now please answer my original question: do you believe Jacobin is more ideologically compromised than the Heritage Foundation? Simonm223 (talk) 21:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- You are missing a major difference. HF isn't a media source, they are a think tank. Jacobin is a media source, not a think tank. I've argued that all think tanks should be used with great care and in particular we should generally not cite them unless an independent RS points to their work. So the question is can we cite HF when a RS mentions the views/claims/etc of HF with respect to the article topic. In that regard I'm suggesting we treat them more like a primary source vs a RS. Jacobin is different and the relevant question is can we treat them like a regular RS as we do with many other news media sources. If Jacobin publishes a claim about an article subject should we cite them? I argue they should be evaluated by the same standards we use for news media sources. By that standard it's strong bias etc means we should use it's claims and reports with caution and should question if they have weight to justify inclusion. In your post above you provided a list of texts but absent links I can't see what they say nor if their arguments are sound or crap but they don't impact the distinction I've made. Springee (talk) 21:09, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- And yet you rated the Heritage Foundation at 2/3 below and didn't find any problem with their extreme ideological bent, saying in their defense that deprecating the foundation
- Option 3 or 2 - Right-wing outlets that mix opinions in their articles, selectively choose facts to promote a political agenda, or sloppily misrepresent the truth have rightly been marked as unreliable ages ago. There is no reason to have a different standard for other political positions. And regardless of that, outlets that do that cannot be relied on (i.e. are unreliable) to present an accurate picture of the facts on a given topic, nor are their writers' opinions noteworthy in our articles. Op-eds from even mainstream papers like NYT, WaPo, etc. are routinely removed as sources; outlets like Jacobin that consist entirely of such articles should likewise not be used (and we have already done this for right-wing opinion outlets like Quillette). The green checkmark at RSP misleads editors into thinking opinions and claims published in Jacobin are more noteworthy than they really are. Crossroads 22:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1. Folks have said it well already so I won't belabor the point. I can't really imagine an occasion when I would cite Jacobin, but I consider them roughly a left-wing equivalent of The Economist or Reason (also publications I'd be unlikely to cite –– all three of these are usually rather predictable and tend to offer shallow analysis). I wasn't sure how we list those other two so I checked RSP just now and saw that they're 1s. Yes, OTHERSTUFF is a poor argument, but I was more interested in getting a baseline on where the community draws the line between 1 and 2. With respect, I object to Crossroads' comparison to Quillette, which leans heavily into platforming fringe ideas and displays little editorial oversight. (Interestingly, here's some solid reporting by Jacobin on a hoax published in Quillette, revealing the latter's abysmal editorial practices, courtesy of this past RSN discussion.) Generalrelative (talk) 01:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Personally I don’t see Reason and Economist as equivalent, and was surprised to see Reason green flagged for the same reason that I don’t think Jacobin should be. That is, whereas Economist is mostly reporting and some opinion, both Reason and Jacobin are mostly opinion and some reporting. The Jacobin piece on the Quillette hoax looks good to me, but everything else they’ve published by that author wouldn’t be usable for facts as they’re pure op eds. I’d put the Spectator and National Review in the category as Jacobin and Reason. (Whereas Spiked and American Conservative are worse, red flag territory rather than amber.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:02, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Additional considerations apply. As I indicated in the discussion above which I started, the mere fact that Jacobin thought it appropriate to publish a statement that Blackstone Inc. "owns a third of US housing stock" indicates that they do not do adequate fact-checking before publishing articles. Therefore, one should attempt to corroborate any facts they publish with more reliable sources before relying on Jacobin to support any factual statements in articles. feminist🩸 (talk) 03:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1. Our guideline on reliable sources is explicit that
reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective
. I may not personally love the political perspective of Jacobin, but they don't go out of their way to platform disinformation that flatly contradicts academic consensus about reality. Regarding Jacobin as unreliable on the grounds of its bias would require evidence that said bias leads it to regularly publish misinformation and untruths. I haven't seen this established.Moreover, the error brought up that somehow has sparked this RFC was both A) corrected in a timely manner, which is what we expect from a reliable source; and B) a case where context matters, as the original source was a book review of several books written by Mark Fisher. If cited, it should be cited to warrant information about Fisher or his books or the genre he wrote in, etc. The Blackstone number wasInformation provided in passing
, and we already know that such info occasionallymay not be reliable
, and so we use our best judgment as editors, citing and reading a wide variety of sources and going to the best sources. For a topic like Mark Fisher, looks like Jacobin is a good resource. For Blackstone and housing, try an article from the journal Urban Studies. Not every source is perfect at every subject, but when a source has a known editorial staff, issues corrections to publications, and is grounded in reality, it's reliable, even if I wouldn't personally enjoy talking politics with the editor.Finally, when a piece published in Jacobin is an opinion piece, we can just treat it as such, per our guideline about opinion pieces in reliable sources. The Economist and The Wall Street Journal publish a lot of opinion pieces too, yet GREL they've remained. As the perennial list says of The Economist,editors should use their judgement to discern factual content—which can be generally relied upon—from analytical content, which should be used in accordance with the guideline on opinion in reliable sources
. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:51, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 3 or Option 2, long overdue for the reasons already set out in this thread. And frankly, the idea that a magazine whose name is derived from the people who instituted the Reign of Terror was ever acceptable w/o issue is offputting by itself. Just10A (talk) 23:26, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- For the record, the founder has said that in naming the magazine, he was thinking of The Black Jacobins, a book about the Haitian Revolution, not the French. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:24, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- Not that that is relevant anyway when assessing reliability. TarnishedPath 01:50, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- The Black Jacobins is named so because the author analogizes the actions of the Haitians to that of the French Jacobins. It's just adding an extra step (not to mention that the word has a known meaning on it's face, so it's mostly irrelevant.). Regardless, it's clearly derived, and it's frankly silly to even argue semantics. Just10A (talk) 02:06, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- Just to be clear your argument about the name being relevant to reliability is literally arguing semantics. Your objection doesn't make any sense. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- I was referring to the semantics of what counts as "derived from." And no, while the name clearly doesn't inherently reflect relevance. If a source called "The KGB Times" came up on the noticeboard for reliability, it's perfectly reasonable for a person to point out "Hey, I don't think it's reliable for reasons x,y, and z, andddd the name also doesn't exactly inspire confidence." That's all I'm saying. Don't twist my statement into something it's not. Just10A (talk) 05:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- Just to be clear your argument about the name being relevant to reliability is literally arguing semantics. Your objection doesn't make any sense. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- For the record, the founder has said that in naming the magazine, he was thinking of The Black Jacobins, a book about the Haitian Revolution, not the French. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:24, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1/Keep the current RSPS summary I think a few people arguing for additional considerations are misremembering the current RSPS legend. Additional considerations doesn’t refer to things like weight, or bias, or that you need to attribute opinion pieces because those are all standard considerations that apply to all sources. The current RSPS summary already says (in part)
Editors should take care to adhere to the neutral point of view policy when using Jacobin as a source in articles, for example by quoting and attributing statements that present its authors' opinions, and ensuring that due weight is given to their perspective amongst others'.
I can't find anything that indicates that's not still a perfectly good summary. CambrianCrab (talk) 01:10, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1* Jacobin is a biased source, something that should obviously be considered by anyone thinking of sourcing them for anything contentious, but their reporting has never been an issue in terms of establishing basic factual information about a situation. One writer for a book review making a dumb statement that was corrected by the source doesn't change that. BSMRD (talk) 04:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 1: Nothing of substance has been presented to suggest that this source is not GREL. Most of the reasons being presented for MREL appear to be about bias, but that is not of direct relevance to reliability unless it can be shown that any bias directly impinges somehow on its reliability. That it provides a perspective from a rarefied position on the political spectrum is a moot point in terms of reliability. Arguably it is good to have sources from all different positions on the political spectrum for the purposes of balance, but that is, again, irrelevant to its reliability. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
Discussion: Jacobin
- Seeing as there's substantial disagreement in the pre-RfC section above, I've gone ahead and launched this RfC. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Pings to @Feminist, The wub, Thebiguglyalien, Super Goku V, Simonm223, FortunateSons, Oort1, Burrobert, ActivelyDisinterested, Hydrangeans, Vanilla Wizard, Iljhgtn, Selfstudier, Horse Eye's Back, NoonIcarus, Harizotoh9, and Springee: who commented above. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Additional pings to @WMrapids, David Gerard, Bobfrombrockley, Shibbolethink, Crossroads, Herostratus, Dumuzid, Aquillion, Gamaliel, Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d, BSMRD, Wugapodes, Ip says, King of Hearts, Chetsford, Tayi Arajakate, MPants at work, Jlevi, The Four Deuces, Grnrchst, Szmenderowiecki, Dlthewave, Jr8825, Thenightaway, Nvtuil, Peter Gulutzan, FormalDude, Volunteer Marek, FOARP, Sea Ane, 3Kingdoms, Bilorv, Blindlynx, Jurisdicta, TheTechnician27, MarioGom, Novemberjazz, and Volteer1: who commented in the 2021 RfC. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think you should also disclose that the previous RfC was initially closed by you (back then under the usernames User:Mikehawk10 and User:Mhawk10) and the discussions that followed at Misplaced Pages talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/Archive 6 § Jacobin (magazine) and Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive340 § Close review of the latest RfC about Jacobin's reliability led to an overturn on grounds of it being heavily flawed and ostensibly a supervote, followed by a re-close afterwards. Especially considering your statement in the above section questioning that (re)closure now, which also partially forms the basis for this RfC. Those discussions might also answer your question on why it was (re)closed in the manner it was. Tayi Arajakate Talk 20:37, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I've tried to ping everyone from the prior RfC and from the discussion above. This was done manually: I excluded 1 vanished account and I tried to ping people by their current usernames if they have changed names since then. If I missed someone, please feel free to notify them. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Per my prior comments about space constraints I've split this to its own section. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I've just moved the RFC out of the discussion again. The RFC shouldn't be made a subsection of the prior discussion, due to ongoing issues with overloading on the noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Comment Editors should bear in mind that reliability does not mean infallibility. It merely means we can use sources where applicable. In this case, the impeached article is a book review, which combines a description of a book and the reviewer's opinions. The only acceptable use of a book review - whoever wrote it and wherever it is published - is in an article about the book reviewed.
Ironically, there can be no article about the book because it lacks notability. It was only reviewed in Jacobin. We are basically working to prevent things that will never happen. Under current policy therefore this source could never be used.
Our time would be better spent ensuring that RS policy is adhered to.
TFD (talk) 17:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Bad RFC because we should not be rating things just for the sake of rating things, but since we're doing this: Jacobin is clearly an opinion outlet, not a news outlet. We shouldn't be relying on them for statements of fact for that reason alone. FOARP (talk) 17:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Notwithstanding my !vote above I do agree this is a bad RFC because there's not ever been an example presented of Jacobin being used to source anything even remotely questionable during the RFCBefore discussion. Simonm223 (talk) 18:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Well, there was one example that generated the 2023 discussion which was Jacobin being used to source a description of the 2014 Maidan Revolution as "the far-right U.S.-backed Euromaidan protests", so that's one occasion of it being used to source something questionable. It was also used by the same editor on the 9/11 attack page to source the claim that the CIA facilitated the attacks and intentionally withheld information that could have stopped the attacks.
- That editor is now blocked (because of their conduct on this noticeboard I think?) but they used the green flag at RSP to justify their edits. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Absolutely a bad RfC, I rolled my eyes when I was pinged about this. Nothing fundamental has changed about Jacobin's editorial line or policy since the last RfC was opened four years ago. I can't believe we're hashing this out again because of a single reddit post. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:02, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Notwithstanding my !vote above I do agree this is a bad RFC because there's not ever been an example presented of Jacobin being used to source anything even remotely questionable during the RFCBefore discussion. Simonm223 (talk) 18:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- The Jacobin author who wrote the nonsense claim that Blackstone owns 1/3 of US housing stock literally mocked the people who tried to correct him and the correction - which itself was inaccurate and weaselly - was issued only after social media pressure. This is an outlet that very obviously does not care one bit about fact checking if it gets in the way of producing click bait pieces. It’s exactly the kind of source we should NOT be using, especially as the whole media landscape is shifting that way. Volunteer Marek 19:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- They issued a correction. This is what we expect of reliable outlets. Your personal characterization of the correction as "weaselly" is your personal opinion on tone and has nothing to do with any Misplaced Pages policy. Simonm223 (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Did this correction at least state what the correct % was? Like, the correction itself tries to make it seem like a minor overstatement rather than, you know, a completely wild exaggeration that tried to take advantage of general innumeracy. “I’m a billionaire!”. “No you’re not”. “Ok that was an overstatement”. Come on. It’s quite disappointing to see how many people are fine with misinformation, weak sourcing and “alternative facts” as long as it agrees with their ideological preconceptions. Whats even more disappointing is when these are people who are claiming to be building a factual encyclopedia. Facts are facts and garbage is garbage, regardless of whether it come from the left or right. Volunteer Marek 03:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes facts are facts and garbage is garbage but as long as we allow garbage like New York "Iraq has WMDs" Times to be treated as a reliable source I don't see why we should treat Jacobin differently. Jacobin is compliant with Misplaced Pages's requirements. If you want to talk about tightening those requirements I'd be open to the discussion at WP:VPP. Simonm223 (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Was the weapons of mass destruction bit ever retracted by New York Times? As far as I'm aware it wasn't. Perhaps we should be wasting community time and having a discussion about them? TarnishedPath 14:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah my point is just that a lot of editors are establishing a double standard where Jacobin is being held to a higher standard than what Misplaced Pages generally expects from news organizations. I would like it to be measured against the same standard as anyone else. Simonm223 (talk) 14:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed. I'm not the biggest fan of them because there's so much oped stuff but we've never thought that reason to downgrade The Economist. TarnishedPath 14:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Exactly. And that is kind of what I was getting at when I suggested the right venue for what Volunteer Marek was concerned about was WP:VPP. If we allow these kinds of sources then we allow these kinds of sources. I would be happy to restrict these kinds of sources more than we do but it has to be handled at a policy level rather than via exceptions to present policy. Simonm223 (talk) 14:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed. I'm not the biggest fan of them because there's so much oped stuff but we've never thought that reason to downgrade The Economist. TarnishedPath 14:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah my point is just that a lot of editors are establishing a double standard where Jacobin is being held to a higher standard than what Misplaced Pages generally expects from news organizations. I would like it to be measured against the same standard as anyone else. Simonm223 (talk) 14:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Was the weapons of mass destruction bit ever retracted by New York Times? As far as I'm aware it wasn't. Perhaps we should be wasting community time and having a discussion about them? TarnishedPath 14:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes facts are facts and garbage is garbage but as long as we allow garbage like New York "Iraq has WMDs" Times to be treated as a reliable source I don't see why we should treat Jacobin differently. Jacobin is compliant with Misplaced Pages's requirements. If you want to talk about tightening those requirements I'd be open to the discussion at WP:VPP. Simonm223 (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Did this correction at least state what the correct % was? Like, the correction itself tries to make it seem like a minor overstatement rather than, you know, a completely wild exaggeration that tried to take advantage of general innumeracy. “I’m a billionaire!”. “No you’re not”. “Ok that was an overstatement”. Come on. It’s quite disappointing to see how many people are fine with misinformation, weak sourcing and “alternative facts” as long as it agrees with their ideological preconceptions. Whats even more disappointing is when these are people who are claiming to be building a factual encyclopedia. Facts are facts and garbage is garbage, regardless of whether it come from the left or right. Volunteer Marek 03:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- This does not appear to be an outlet generally characterized as producing click bait. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- It is not the case that a book review can only be used in an article about that specific book. For example, they are frequently cited in biographies of authors, in order to demonstrate that those authors meet the relevant wiki-notability standard. And an article about the pedagogy of some subject could cite reviews of textbooks about that subject. XOR'easter (talk) 20:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
The Heritage Foundation
Moved to WP:Requests for comment/The Heritage Foundation – Due to how large the discussion has become, and size constraints on the noticeboard, this discussion has been moved to it's own page. LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:32, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
Catholic-Hierarchy.org
Catholic-Hierarchy.org is a self-published source that has been featured in two prior discussions (2016 and 2020). Multiple editors appear to consider it a reliable source specifically because it is used in other independent publications. This is a noted exception for self-published sources that can be found in WP:RS/SPS. However, users also acknowledge that it should never be used in biographies of living people.
Is there more discussion that should be had? Should these details be added to WP:RSPSOURCES? This source is used several thousand times on the English WP, so centralized standards for it might be desirable. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 18:47, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- Is there any context, any new disagreement about the source that would warrant a new discussion? If not the RSP has inclusion criteria and can be discussed on WT:RSP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:23, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- @OldPolandUpdates: Where can that noted exception for self-published sources be found in WP:RS/SPS? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:33, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- Mid-paragraph here. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 19:37, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think you're getting EXPERTSPS confused with used by others, that isn't there. The self publisher here is an amateur, a self described "Random Catholic Dude" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:38, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- What is WP:EXPERTSPS? It redirects to Misplaced Pages:Verifiability. Do we have standards on who is/is not an expert? If Catholic-Hierarchy.org is not an expert source, then it is not a reliable self-published source, and this has implications for thousands of WP articles.
- Misplaced Pages:Verifiability#Self-published_sources seems to imply that if one's material is used by reliable publications, then one might be considered an established expert. Catholic-Hierarchy.org is used in peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other types of articles. Some of the usage is described here: Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_203#catholic-hierarchy.org. Therefore, the discussion might revolve around whether Catholic-Hierarchy.org is used enough by external publications.
- If you consider Catholic-Hierarchy.org not reliable, then would you also agree that it be depicted as such in the WP:RSPSOURCES table? OldPolandUpdates (talk) 20:17, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- The standard is mid-paragraph here "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." which does not appear to be the case here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:38, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- I would also note that there appears to be a consensus from 2020 that this is a SPS, see Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 301#Catholic-Hierarchy.org Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:43, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- I have added the source to the WP:RSPSOURCES list. Please take a look. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 23:49, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- From the wording you've used there ("Other editors do not consider the website to be a subject-matter expert in its field.") I think you're getting EXPERTSPS confused with used by others... Its not the website which isn't a subject-matter expert, its the self publisher who isn't. The argument that "some editors have considered the website to be reliable because some of its content has been published in reliable, independent publications" is seperate from the argument about whether or not its a SPS... A SPS which is used by others still has to follow SPS rules. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:04, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Can you provide the standard that you are using to determine whether someone is an expert? OldPolandUpdates (talk) 02:25, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- The standard: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:05, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- It is possible that I am misinterpreting that, and I did consider that bolded section to basically be similar to WP:USEBYOTHERS. If work that appears on Catholic-Hierarchy.org is published in the form of a reference in reliable sources (books, peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations, and reliable newspapers), then isn't this bolded section satisfied? What does the bolded section mean? OldPolandUpdates (talk) 22:58, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- No, there has to be works other than the self published ones and they have to predate the self published one. Generally only academics and journalists satisfy our requirements. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:28, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think we need to potentially modify WP:RSSELF so that it better delineates between USEBYOTHER and "whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." The two prior discussions about Catholic-Hierarchy.org generally featured the following logic: "Work found in Catholic-Hierarchy.org has been published by reliable publications. As such, if the work found in Catholic-Hierarchy.org is the product of the author of CH, then we can say that the author of CH has had their work published by reliable publications."
- I think the problem is the way "work" and "works" can be interpreted, especially given the dozens of formal definitions for the word "work." I would argue that the bolded section from WP:RSSELF is improved by saying: "whose scholarly or journalistic works in the relevant field have previously been published by reliable, independent publications." However, we also might want to entirely abandon the word "work" for some alternative.
- What do you think? OldPolandUpdates (talk) 18:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- That would be a completely different standard which would expand the pool 10,000x. I would also note that you're the only editor I've ever seen get seriously confused by this... If its just a you problem and not an us problem why would we need to rewrite? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- My proposed bolded section tries to incorporate your earlier comment about "journalists and academics." If such individuals are the (general) standard, then shouldn't we say that? I want to be clear that I am not advocating for the adoption of the logic flow used on the prior CH discussions.
- Are you saying that using the word "works" is less restrictive than the word "work"? "Works" is probably generally interpreted as multiple discrete intellectual labors such as articles and books. "Work" could be interpreted as any effort expended in a field, well beyond just articles and books. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 19:25, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm saying that nothing is broken here, our existing policies and guidelines are adequate even if you don't like the result of their application. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- That would be a completely different standard which would expand the pool 10,000x. I would also note that you're the only editor I've ever seen get seriously confused by this... If its just a you problem and not an us problem why would we need to rewrite? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- No, there has to be works other than the self published ones and they have to predate the self published one. Generally only academics and journalists satisfy our requirements. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:28, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- It is possible that I am misinterpreting that, and I did consider that bolded section to basically be similar to WP:USEBYOTHERS. If work that appears on Catholic-Hierarchy.org is published in the form of a reference in reliable sources (books, peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations, and reliable newspapers), then isn't this bolded section satisfied? What does the bolded section mean? OldPolandUpdates (talk) 22:58, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- The standard: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:05, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- I have modified the WP:RSPSOURCES entry to better reflect this comment. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 04:02, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- It still feels off, you're giving wayyyyyy too much weight to the group that thinks its reliable when that view isn't supported by policy and guideline. You also make the consenus that it isn't an expert SPS look like just an opinion, but we clearly have consensus that the author isn't a subject matter expert by our standards. It also isn't a general opinion that SPS can't be used for BLP, thats solid policy. This comes off more as apologism than what consenus actually is. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- I went ahead and updated the entry. Given the author's status as a "Random Catholic Dude", they cannot be a subject matter expert as defined by Misplaced Pages. And as a self-published source, it cannot be used to support claims about living persons. Woodroar (talk) 15:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- The "Random Catholic Dude" description is probably a form of self-deprecation that should not alone be used to exclude someone from "expert" status. If an MD-PhD medical school professor referred to themselves as "Some Random Hospital Dude," then we probably should not immediately exclude them from "expert" status over this form of self-depreciation.
- Also, thank you for updating WP:RSPSOURCES. I saw that you added "limited USEBYOTHER". As Red-tailed hawk has shown elsewhere in this conversation, Catholic-Hierarchy.org has 1000+ hits on Google Scholar. Would you still consider this as limited USEBYOTHER"? We could probably justifiably update it to "significant USEBYOTHER", although this would not be enough to change the overall status of the source. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 19:49, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- A SPS remains a SPS regardless of USEDBYOTHERS... It doesn't change the core status. The difference is that an MD-PhD medical school professor likely meets our standards, it has nothing to do with the self-deprecation. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I went ahead and updated the entry. Given the author's status as a "Random Catholic Dude", they cannot be a subject matter expert as defined by Misplaced Pages. And as a self-published source, it cannot be used to support claims about living persons. Woodroar (talk) 15:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- It still feels off, you're giving wayyyyyy too much weight to the group that thinks its reliable when that view isn't supported by policy and guideline. You also make the consenus that it isn't an expert SPS look like just an opinion, but we clearly have consensus that the author isn't a subject matter expert by our standards. It also isn't a general opinion that SPS can't be used for BLP, thats solid policy. This comes off more as apologism than what consenus actually is. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- Can you provide the standard that you are using to determine whether someone is an expert? OldPolandUpdates (talk) 02:25, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- From the wording you've used there ("Other editors do not consider the website to be a subject-matter expert in its field.") I think you're getting EXPERTSPS confused with used by others... Its not the website which isn't a subject-matter expert, its the self publisher who isn't. The argument that "some editors have considered the website to be reliable because some of its content has been published in reliable, independent publications" is seperate from the argument about whether or not its a SPS... A SPS which is used by others still has to follow SPS rules. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:04, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- I have added the source to the WP:RSPSOURCES list. Please take a look. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 23:49, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think you're getting EXPERTSPS confused with used by others, that isn't there. The self publisher here is an amateur, a self described "Random Catholic Dude" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:38, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- Mid-paragraph here. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 19:37, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
- This is a non-expert self published source. We have established that no such "noted exception" exists. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:17, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
- If it is used by reliable secondary sources then it shouldn't be difficult to find the information from the reliable source itself. Shankargb (talk) 00:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- I came into this thinking that this was akin to those military/tank/airplane fan websites inasmuch as it was mostly compiled by one person and it's of the quality of hobbyist work. But I am seeing it get a metric ton of hits on Google Scholar, where it looks like it is cited in a ton of scholarly literature as a source for facts. And, in that weird way, WP:UBO considerations come into play.I tried to find sources that specifically analyzed this database or evaluated it in a comparative fashion to other commonly cited databases. It's a bit hard to find specific studies, since the majority of citations are just using this plainly as a source for facts (which itself says something, albeit subtly). But I did manage to find a working paper by economic historian Jonathan F. Schulz that compared the website against other databases of Catholic hierarchies in the section describing his research methods. What it found was quite simple, and went against my initial impression. Schulz found that, among various Catholic heirarchy databases he had assessed, there was
a high level of consistency. In case of disagreements between sources they were most often in the range of less than one or two decades – a rather small inaccuracy in relation to the duration of Church exposure up to the year 1500
. In other words, this database is more or less as accurate as the other ones he had assessed (though, as he notes in his paper, none of the databases are quite complete).It might just be a weird edge case where we've got a decently reliable database that's also self-published. And that's fine, WP:SPS notes that self-published sourcesare largely not acceptable as sources
, but it doesn't say are always not acceptable as sources—as WP:REPUTABLE notes,common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process
when assessing issues of source reliability.We should follow common sense here. And, in light of the scholarly literature, the common sense thing to do is to treat it in the same way that we treat other sorts of curated databases regarding Catholic Church hierarchies. That is to say: it's okay; it'll do fine for ordinary historical dates of bishop reigns etc., but when more professional sources exist we should probably use them instead.— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:05, 13 January 2025 (UTC)- For what it's worth, I think that Schulz's sort of meta-dataset would be immensely valuable and be the sort of thing that gets considered when I say that
when more professional sources exist we should probably use them instead
. But, alas, the data aren't public (or, if they are, I can't quite find them). — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:07, 13 January 2025 (UTC) - The core BLP problem isn't going to go away though... At best we can say that the source is usable for dead figures but I don't see a policy or guideline path to genuine reliability (even if just on technical grounds). Theres also the general problems that come with online databases (don't count towards notability, almost never due, etc). If it isn't covered in other sources then its almost by definition a level of detail that isn't due. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:22, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I would support usage within biographies of dead figures who have been shown to be notable by way of other (non-CH) sources. Red-tailed hawk's points are hard to ignore. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 18:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- USEDBYOTHERS is the weakest indication of reliability, remember if thats the way we go the instructions are "If outside citation is the main indicator of reliability, particular care should be taken to adhere to other guidelines and policies, and to not unduly represent contentious or minority claims." This also means that USEDBYOTHERS can't be used as an end run around SPS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sure. But also this isn't just a UBO argument as if it were based on reading the widespread citation as implying something; it's an argument that the source has explicitly been subject to some academic study, and that study came back with a relatively positive review of its accuracy. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Unless it comes back with the result that its not self published it doesn't matter... Self published is self published regardless of underlying reliability. There is no way in which self published works become non-self published by being accurate, its still treated as self published. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sure. But also this isn't just a UBO argument as if it were based on reading the widespread citation as implying something; it's an argument that the source has explicitly been subject to some academic study, and that study came back with a relatively positive review of its accuracy. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- USEDBYOTHERS is the weakest indication of reliability, remember if thats the way we go the instructions are "If outside citation is the main indicator of reliability, particular care should be taken to adhere to other guidelines and policies, and to not unduly represent contentious or minority claims." This also means that USEDBYOTHERS can't be used as an end run around SPS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:41, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I would support usage within biographies of dead figures who have been shown to be notable by way of other (non-CH) sources. Red-tailed hawk's points are hard to ignore. OldPolandUpdates (talk) 18:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I think that Schulz's sort of meta-dataset would be immensely valuable and be the sort of thing that gets considered when I say that
Does this source even exists?
I saw this ড. মুহম্মদ আব্দুল করিম. বাংলাদেশের ইতিহাস. মগ বিতাড়ন ও চট্টগ্রাম জয়. cited on an article (here Bengal Sultanate–Kingdom of Mrauk U War of 1512–1516) but I couldn't find any source with this name anywhere on the internet, can anyone confirm if it is real or not? Koshuri Sultan (talk) 16:47, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- If it is a hard copy book (or similar), it may not be on the internet. That said, a lot of library databases are in English, so have you tried searching for an English language translation? Blueboar (talk) 16:58, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- I tried google translating it from Hindi to English… not completely successful, but I suspect the author may be Abdul Karim (historian)… something for you to look into. Blueboar (talk) 17:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- I've just tried it too and searched it in English but I still couldn't find anything, The only person I could find who has the same name as the author of that source is Md. Abdul Karim who is not a Historian. Koshuri Sultan (talk) 17:14, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Blueboar Google scholar does not mentions any book of Abdul Karim (historian) with that name. Koshuri Sultan (talk) 17:21, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- The following website is using the same source but is referencing different pages in the source than the wiki article: https://www.teachers.gov.bd/blog/details/686411?page=2546&cttlbasee-smrn-rakheni-cttgramer-itihas-bujurg-umed-khann-cttgram-punruddharer-mhanayk
- It may be a physical source that is only available as a printed book.
- The following website also uses this source and is also mentioning the name "জাতীয় গ্রন্থ প্রকাশ" (Jatiya Grantha Prakash / Jatio Grantho Prokashon) for the publishing house that published the book: https://www.sachalayatan.com/shashtha_pandava/56984. And it looks like this publisher actually exists: https://www.rokomari.com/book/publisher/498/jatio-grantho-prokashon?ref=apb_pg96_p34. Nakonana (talk) 17:17, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- The author appears to be this guy: bn:আবদুল করিম সাহিত্যবিশারদ. That wiki article references the following website: https://www.thedailystar.net/in-focus/abdul-karims-discoveries-origins-modernity-bengali-literature-154528. This website is talking about Abdul Karim and the history of Chittagong, and given that the source Koshuri Sultan is asking about is also about Chittagong (translated by Google as "Dr. Muhammad Abdul Karim. History of Bangladesh. Expulsion of the Mughals and Conquest of Chittagong."), I think that this the Abdul Karim who authored the source in question. Nakonana (talk) 17:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- Or it's this other Abdul Karim who is said to have written a two volume book by the title of "History of Bangladesh": . Nakonana (talk) 17:51, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for finding these, I appreciate your help. However we still can't verify the source.
This article was previously nominated for speedy deletion (under WP:A11) but the author of that article without discussing it properly . Koshuri Sultan (talk) 18:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC)- I think we have enough info to verify that the source exits. That last website I linked clearly mentions a book by a historian named Dr. Abdul Karim with the title "History of Bangladesh". He wrote (according to the Google translation) "about forty books and about two hundred original research articles in Bengali and English" and "taught at Dhaka University from 1951 to 1966. In 1966, he joined the newly established History Department of Chittagong University." Regarding the author of that article, the website states "Author: Teacher, Department of History, Chittagong University zahidhistory¦gmail.com". The article is not from a blog, but from a Bengali newspaper: on which we have a wiki article, see The Daily Ittefaq. This website pretty much states the same but in English and calls Karim "an authority of the field of medieval Bengal could recognise from a distance if a mosque was from the Sultani or from the Mughal period". The publication list of the Chittagong website lists several works by Dr. Abdul Karim (though it only goes back until 2005): . Doing some further digging, I even found volume 1 of the book on Amazon. The book might be available at some universities in the US: . Google Scholar does have an entry for a book on Bengal 16th-century history by the historian Abdul Karim (even if not for the particular one you are looking for), see (and the internet archive appears to have a scan of that book). The University of Asia Pacific lists even more of his books. Banglapedia (which is written by scholars) might also help in verifying the content, see for example these entries: . Nakonana (talk) 17:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Actually, this appears to be the Google Scholar entry on (the 1st volume of) the book in question. The title is just not "History of Bangladesh" but "History of Bengal". Google translation probably messed up. Nakonana (talk) 17:27, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think we have enough info to verify that the source exits. That last website I linked clearly mentions a book by a historian named Dr. Abdul Karim with the title "History of Bangladesh". He wrote (according to the Google translation) "about forty books and about two hundred original research articles in Bengali and English" and "taught at Dhaka University from 1951 to 1966. In 1966, he joined the newly established History Department of Chittagong University." Regarding the author of that article, the website states "Author: Teacher, Department of History, Chittagong University zahidhistory¦gmail.com". The article is not from a blog, but from a Bengali newspaper: on which we have a wiki article, see The Daily Ittefaq. This website pretty much states the same but in English and calls Karim "an authority of the field of medieval Bengal could recognise from a distance if a mosque was from the Sultani or from the Mughal period". The publication list of the Chittagong website lists several works by Dr. Abdul Karim (though it only goes back until 2005): . Doing some further digging, I even found volume 1 of the book on Amazon. The book might be available at some universities in the US: . Google Scholar does have an entry for a book on Bengal 16th-century history by the historian Abdul Karim (even if not for the particular one you are looking for), see (and the internet archive appears to have a scan of that book). The University of Asia Pacific lists even more of his books. Banglapedia (which is written by scholars) might also help in verifying the content, see for example these entries: . Nakonana (talk) 17:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you for finding these, I appreciate your help. However we still can't verify the source.
- Or it's this other Abdul Karim who is said to have written a two volume book by the title of "History of Bangladesh": . Nakonana (talk) 17:51, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- The author appears to be this guy: bn:আবদুল করিম সাহিত্যবিশারদ. That wiki article references the following website: https://www.thedailystar.net/in-focus/abdul-karims-discoveries-origins-modernity-bengali-literature-154528. This website is talking about Abdul Karim and the history of Chittagong, and given that the source Koshuri Sultan is asking about is also about Chittagong (translated by Google as "Dr. Muhammad Abdul Karim. History of Bangladesh. Expulsion of the Mughals and Conquest of Chittagong."), I think that this the Abdul Karim who authored the source in question. Nakonana (talk) 17:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
Sources for Chapel Hart
Hi, I am currently reviewing a GA nomination for Chapel Hart. I've never heard of the following sources currently being used nor can I find past discussions on them. As such, I would others' opinions on them.
- https://texasborderbusiness.com/chapel-hart-music-video-for-new-single-i-will-follow-premiered-by-cmt-on-friday-february-5th/
- https://drgnews.com/2022/09/19/darius-rucker-set-to-release-new-song-featuring-chapel-hart/
- https://www.southernliving.com/chapel-hart-danica-vocal-cord-surgery-6825847
Lazman321 (talk) 22:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- The Texas Border Business link (now dead but available from the Wayback Machine) is a press release, you can find the exact same wording elsewhere. So it would be reliable in a primary way, as it's from the band about the band.
Southern Living appears to be an established magazine, I don't see why it wouldn't be reliable.
The drgnews.com article appears to be another press release, as the wording is found in many other sites. Oddly though I can't access any of them, as I get blocked by cloudflare for some reason. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)- Thank you, I'll take this into consideration for my review. Lazman321 (talk) 23:49, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
- Southern Living tends toward puffery, and I would avoid using them for controversial claims (although they mostly avoid making controversial claims anyway). I would accept an article by them as supporting notability. John M Baker (talk) 01:11, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- My assessment:
- The https://texasborderbusiness.com/ source isn't labeled as a press release. Overall, the site looks like a low-quality free newspaper that lightly repackages any information they receive that they think would interest their readers (i.e., their advertising targets). Other sites label it a press release, and I'm sure these other sites are correct. That said, even if we treat it like a press release, press releases can be reliable for the sort of simple fact this one is being used to support.
- The DRG News source is labeled as being from The Country Daily, which appears to be a media outlet/country music magazine. They might be part of https://www.cumulusmedia.com
- Southern Living is a reliable source.
- WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- My assessment:
AllMovie
AllMovie is an online movie database, currently listed under WP:ALLMUSIC with other RhythmOne sites as "no consensus". The site has changed significantly over the past few years, and it's my opinion that we should either separate AllMovie and mark it as unreliable or expand the description to explain why it shouldn't be used.
AllMovie used to be a resource with professional reviews, as a sibling site to AllMusic and AllGame. At some point, the site was acquired by Netaktion (Justia has a record of the trademark history). Since then, nearly all of the previous content has been removed. The current version is basically a noncompliant mirror of Misplaced Pages and Wikidata. They include a simple "Description by Misplaced Pages" label that doesn't meet the terms of our license, and they've republished on their site several articles that I myself have written, without proper attribution. Here's an example of what Citizen Kane looked like before, after, and now. The ratings on the site also appear unreliable, and somehow they manage to include star ratings for many lost films. Recent discussions about AllMovie have happened at Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 December 11#Template:AllMovie title and Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 442#allmovie.com now using film descriptions and actor biographies from Misplaced Pages.
Because the content and editorial practices of AllMovie are now extremely different from AllMusic, I think we should create a separate entry for it and split off any discussions of the post-acquisition version of the site. The current AllMovie site should be considered unreliable, and any archived URLs from previous iterations of AllMovie would be still evaluated under WP:ALLMUSIC. hinnk (talk) 02:25, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Good catch, and I agree with your proposal. AllMovie's blog post "An Evolving AllMovie", dated March 24, 2024, suggests that AllMovie's transition from independent content to Misplaced Pages mirror occurred around the beginning of 2024. — Newslinger talk 02:39, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Good catch. Yes, I support this.-- 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 23:23, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
I'd still be careful using Allmovie as a source for things such as WP:DOB. Even if they're archived links from pre 2024 as not only did they have the wrong DOB for some actors, but they've never provided any information on how the material is obtained or verified. Which is a huge red flag when it comes to using such pages as a reliable source for BLPs. Prior to 2024, the actor bios had a fact sheet at the bottom. Now if you can find some archived pages of actor bios from TVguide.com, it had the same stuff listed under "fast facts". Which makes it look like Allmovie was web scraping that information from other sites even back then. Kcj5062 (talk) 04:15, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- If a site is pulling its content from Misplaced Pages, then it is not a reliable source for Misplaced Pages. Or in fewer words: WP:CIRCULAR. With sites like this we're obligated to check the sources that they provide for their content, and if we're going that far then we might as well just cite their sources and cut out the middleman. I would say generally unreliable, but if they're also copying Misplaced Pages content and not properly attributing, then links to the site are contributory copyright infringement, and that puts them into blacklist territory.
- Also, never use a site like this to cite a living person's date of birth. I've come across far too many examples of incorrect DOBs being added to Misplaced Pages bios, then subsequently repeated by an ostensibly reliable source, then later when someone tries to correct the info here other editors keep changing it back to the wrong date with a citation to the incorrect source. Things like this have real consequences for real people in the real world. We need to do better, and it's fine not to have a date when we don't know what the correct date is. Ivanvector (/Edits) 15:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
MintPress News
MintPress News was given rather short thrift at an RFC in 2019, sending it straight to deprecation. The RFC was attended by 14 editors, 4 of which are now banned or blocked (and contributed 2 of the deprecation votes at the time), including Icewhiz. MPN is definitely strongly left-leaning and, as one media tracker would put it, "hyper-partisan", and this often leads to quite sensationalist headlines, but that is not strictly a reliability matter. The same tracker came out with a mixed reliability assessment of MPN. The main reliability concerns around MPN tend to revolve around the way in which it references and paraphrases other sources, which it does frequently. At the same time, it generally heavily attributes other sources, while not necessarily affirming them in its own voice. As the last commenter in the RFC noted, while they might not themselves use MPN, it was unclear if it reached the high bar sufficient to merit deprecation. I raise this largely because deprecation shouldn't be used casually, but only on those sources where the demonstration of the purveyance of misinformation is ironclad. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:58, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- As one of the participants in the July 2019 RfC, my assessment that MintPress News should be deprecated has not changed. I believe the evidence I listed is more than sufficient to justify deprecation. I have analyzed MintPress News's response to being deprecated, and due to its length, I will place my analysis in a separate subsection. — Newslinger talk 17:39, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- As a non-participant in the 2019 discussion I would like to say that deprecation was the right choice and reliability issues only seem to have gotten worse since. Note that just republishing Zero Hedge would be enough to get them over the deprecation line even if all of their native work was beyond reproach (which it is not). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- You drew on Ad Fontes Media's analyses in your comment, and AFM is itself considered generally unreliable on the RSP. It's also not accurate to say "The main reliability concerns around MPN tend to revolve around the way in which it references and paraphrases other sources," as can be seen if one clicks though to read all of the RfC comments. I have no direct experience with MintPress, but a bit of searching pulls up info like "According to experts, MintPress news is a disinformation site with opaque funding streams run out of Minneapolis that aligns with the Kremlin’s view of a “multipolar world” and often promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. MintPress News has been reprinting copy from Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik since 2016" (source from the Network Contagion Research Institute in 2021), and the MintPress article cites a number of other sources with similar claims. What's your evidence that they've become reliable? FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:13, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Reprinting copy from other websites doesn't automatically or implicitly make any of the content that MPN produces inherently unreliable. It might seem distasteful to republish material from insalubrious sites, but as long as it is clearly labelled, reprinting is all it is. Anything from other sites that we wouldn't use we still don't use if it's syndicated elsewhere. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:31, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- If they regularly reprint news from unreliable sources, yes, that does contribute to their being GUNREL, as it tells us that they have no commitment to accuracy. You've also ignored the rest of the quote and the info in the references on the MintPress article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not sure the NCRI is an RS or a source worth taking cues from. There are journal pieces on the MPN page that are more reliable and insightful. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:24, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not going to spend time convincing you that it's reliable. If you find the other sources' critiques to be reliable, then use those. The bottom line is: you question whether it should have been deprecated, but you haven't presented any convincing evidence that it should instead be assessed as generally unreliable. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:46, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not sure the NCRI is an RS or a source worth taking cues from. There are journal pieces on the MPN page that are more reliable and insightful. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:24, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- If they regularly reprint news from unreliable sources, yes, that does contribute to their being GUNREL, as it tells us that they have no commitment to accuracy. You've also ignored the rest of the quote and the info in the references on the MintPress article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Also, I don't believe that I've actually claimed anywhere that they've become reliable. I have merely raised questions about their deprecation. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Isn't that obvious from the fact that you opened this? You are currently contesting the consensus on reliability for MintPress News. The alternative would be that you are engaging in a form of "I'm just asking questions" Tucker Carlson-esque trolling and I think everyone is trying to AGF. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm questioning the deprecation. I'm not arguing it is not GUNREL. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- The deprecation looks appropriate to me, especially based on @Bobfrombrockley's comments below. Simonm223 (talk) 16:04, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- That you for clarifying, that isn't at all clear from your initial post. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:34, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I really don't understand the objection to deprecating the source then. Sources are not deprecated because they're more unreliable than GUNREL, the "high bar" for deprecation after something is found generally unreliable is "people think it might be a problem". Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm questioning the deprecation. I'm not arguing it is not GUNREL. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Isn't that obvious from the fact that you opened this? You are currently contesting the consensus on reliability for MintPress News. The alternative would be that you are engaging in a form of "I'm just asking questions" Tucker Carlson-esque trolling and I think everyone is trying to AGF. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Reprinting copy from other websites doesn't automatically or implicitly make any of the content that MPN produces inherently unreliable. It might seem distasteful to republish material from insalubrious sites, but as long as it is clearly labelled, reprinting is all it is. Anything from other sites that we wouldn't use we still don't use if it's syndicated elsewhere. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:31, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- (Also not part of the original RFC) Looking at what was brought up in the RFC and at the site itself, I think the RFC had the right result. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:02, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- I wasn't involved in last RFC, but I will vote to deprecate if you start another one. The front page is nothing but conspiracy theories, and reading through some articles it has a really strange tendency to cite Russian thinktanks and commentators who are never mentioned by any other English-language outlet. GordonGlottal (talk) 23:21, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- The central motivation seems for revisiting to be that
the RFC was attended by 14 editors, 4 of which are now banned or blocked
. People become blocked or banned all the time down the line for transgressions unrelated to particular discussions—when that happens, it does not void their prior contributions. If these users were in good standing at the time of the RfC, and weren't evading a block/ban at the time of the discussion, I don't really see why this motivates a change. And, the close seems to be a reasonable reading of the discussion. - Has the general reputation of the source improved since 2019? If so, there could be some evidence of this that would be useful here. I haven't searched for any, but I also haven't seen it brought up in this discussion. And unless there's good evidence that the source has improved its editorial processes/fact-checking reputation in some way since the prior discussion, I don't really see a need to reassess at this time—we'd probably wind up with the same result.
- — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Has the reputation improved since 2019? Just looking at the post-2019 RSs cited in its own article.
The only journalists who thrive in Syria today are those who serve as mouthpieces for the Syrian and Russian regimes. Many of these mouthpieces include American-based, far-left websites such as The Grayzone and MintPress News. Idrees Ahmed, an editor at global affairs magazine New Lines, says such friendly foreign media, even if obscure and dismissed by the mainstream, has “made the job of propaganda easier for .”
While instances of mass amplification of state-engendered disinformation are cause for concern, equal attention should be paid to the less visible but still vociferous ‘alternative facts’ communities that exist online... These grassroots communities are particularly evident on Twitter, where they coalesce around individual personalities like right-wing activist Andy Ngo, and around platforms with uncritical pro-Kremlin and pro-Assad editorial lines, like The Grayzone and MintPress News. These personalities and associated outlets act as both producers of counterfactual theories, as well as hubs around which individuals with similar beliefs rally. The damage that these ecosystems and the theories that they spawn can inflict on digital evidence is not based on the quality of the dis/misinformation that they produce but rather on the quantity.
Its bestknown article—falsely claiming a chemical weapons attack in Syria had actually been perpetrated by rebel groups rather than the Assad regime—was cited as evidence by Syria, Iran, and Russia, though it turned out to have been reported by a man in Syria who at times appears to have been based in St. Petersburg and Tehran.493 When staff asked who funded their paychecks, they were told it was “retired business people.”494 The hidden nature of the funding caused some staff enough discomfort that former employees cited it as their reason for leaving Mint Press.495 Local journalists have tried and failed to figure out where Mint Press’s money comes from.49
}The next five domains (rt.com, mintpressnews.com, sputniknews.com, globalresearch.ca, southfront.org) are alternative media domains that spread master narratives in the Russia’s disinformation campaign.
Mintpress has been accused of promoting anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and also regularly pushes pro-Russian propaganda, most notably the unfounded claim that a 2013 chemical weapon attack in Syria that killed more than 1,400 people was perpetrated not by the Syrian regime but by rebel groups with weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia. Mintpress News, alongside The Grayzone, which Maté writes for, has continued to publish Russian-backed narratives that the Syrian regime has been framed for further chemical weapon attacks during the years-long war in the country. The sources of both websites’ funding are unknown.
Some of the American Herald Tribune’s articles did survive in other parts of the echo system. Seventeen of them had been cross-posted on the website of Mint Press News, which had similar sharing arrangements with several other “partner” websites including Project Censored, Free Speech TV, Media Roots, Shadow Proof, The Grayzone, Truthout, Common Dreams and Antiwar.com... The only time Mint Press made much impact (though for the wrong reasons) was in 2013 appeared to be based on rumors circulating in Damascus at the time, and there was no real evidence to support it... Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cited the story as evidence that the U.N.’s investigators in Ghouta had not done a thorough job.
Researchers at the Rutgers University Network Contagion Research Institute found his work on a number of sites they classify as disinformation, including Mint Press News, which the institute said promotes anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and which also posts copy from Russia Today and Sputnik, the Russian state-owned news agency.
The thirteen fake accounts identified by Facebook were promoting the Peace Data website. To build a reputation as an alternative media (progressive and anti-Western) and attract contributors, Peace Data, created at the end of 2019, initially relayed articles from other existing protest media, such as MintPress News or World Socialist Website, or openly pro-Kremlin, Strategic Culture Foundation, The GrayZone or Russia Today.
On five occasions, Peace Data published articles that it listed as “partners.” Between August 11 and August 19, the website published two articles each from Citizen Truth and MintPressNews.
- So, no, it's reputation hasn't improved. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Has the reputation improved since 2019? Just looking at the post-2019 RSs cited in its own article.
- Also not a participant in the original RfC, but concur with those above that it ended with the correct result. Not seeing any conclusive evidence to the contrary, especially given Ad Fontes is itself not considered reliable per WP:RSP. The Kip 16:00, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I wasn't a participant in the original RfC. I think the RfC should be relisted, as I don't think MPN deprecation was warranted, if anything, I'd support an "Additional considerations apply" designation. TurboSuperA+ (talk) 08:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
MintPress News's response to being deprecated
In July 2019, MintPress News published an aggrieved reaction (archive) after discovering that they were deprecated. The response falsely claimed that all of my comments in the July 2019 RfC were written by another editor (Jamez42 – misspelled as "Jamesz42"), and then attacked that editor for writing "several English-language Misplaced Pages articles on the wives of Popular Will politicians as well as on protest leaders and journalists who are aligned with Popular Will" in a misguided attempt to discredit the author of the RfC comments. However, since those RfC comments were written by me and not by Jamez42, all MintPress News did was demonstrate their own lack of accuracy and poor fact-checking in their response.
One of the pieces of evidence I cited in the RfC was MintPress News's most recent "inside story" at the time, "Microsoft's ElectionGuard a Trojan Horse for a Military-Industrial Takeover of US Elections" (June 2019 archive), an article that used false information to promote a conspiracy theory about Microsoft. The original MintPress News piece claimed:
Similarly, Microsoft’s claim that it “will not charge for using ElectionGuard and will not profit from partnering with election technology suppliers that incorporate it into their products” should also raise eyebrows. Considering that Microsoft has a long history of predatory practices, including price gouging for its OneCare security software, its offering of ElectionGuard software free of charge is tellingly out of step for the tech giant and suggests an ulterior motive behind Microsoft’s recent philanthropic interest in "defending democracy."
Above, MintPress News linked the term price gouging ("increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair by some") to an article from The Guardian that described Microsoft engaging in predatory pricing ("the use of large scale undercutting to eliminate competition") with its OneCare software. MintPress News then used that incorrect reading to push their conspiracy theory about Microsoft's ElectionGuard software. A reliable source would retract this article after discovering such a prominent flaw in the logic of their argument, but as they mentioned in their reaction piece, MintPress News doubled down by removing the reference to OneCare altogether and pretending that evidence against its conspiracy theory did not exist. In the current version of the article (archive), MintPress News replaced "including price gouging for its OneCare security software" with "including price gouging", with the term price gouging now linking to another article about a different piece of software (Microsoft Office).
In my RfC comments, I also noted that MintPress News republished 340 articles from 
Zero Hedge (RSP entry), a source deprecated for frequently publishing conspiracy theories and false information. Despite acknowledging this in their reaction piece, MintPress News did not take down the Zero Hedge articles from their website. Instead, MintPress News has since changed their site design to remove the counter for the Zero Hedge articles. The articles are still published on their site, and can be found in a web search using the following query: site:mintpressnews.com "zerohedge.com".
Everything I have mentioned here only concerns my comments in the previous RfC and how MintPress News responded to them. Additional evidence against this publication's reliability can be found in the article MintPress News. Altogether, I see no reason to change MintPress News's status as a deprecated source. — Newslinger talk 17:55, 12 January 2025 (UTC) Corrected username — Newslinger talk 20:26, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how MPN issuing a correction admitting their error on that article you mention particularly stands against them. The article also links to a piece by the Verge (an RSP) that does discuss price gouging. You may feel that their error undermines the entire premise of the article, but whether or not that is true, the actual necessary correction was published. That is not the usual behaviour of a deprecated source, or even many GUNREL sources. Also, one article does not a good GUNREL argument make. Even the best GREL sources put out the occasional truly atrocious piece. The bar for GUNREL, let alone deprecation, is to show that the issues are systematic and unrectified. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Re: Zero Hedge, they do not masquerade any of that content as their own. On the contrary, each article has a disclaimer stating:
"Stories published in our Daily Digests section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by MintPress News. The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy."
And as far as I can tell they have republished or syndicated nothing from ZH since 2019. The editorial detachment is key. I could name several GREL news sites that frequently publish truly psychotic opinion pieces, but which have no bearing on their reliability because of statements just like or similar to this. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:12, 12 January 2025 (UTC)- MPN's response was wholly inadequate. What MPN should have done was retract its conspiracy theory article entirely, instead of deleting the evidence contradicting it and continuing to push the conspiracy theory. While Microsoft does employ a range of pricing strategies for different products in different markets, MPN intentionally ignoring all of Microsoft's situational use of predatory pricing to allege an "ulterior motive" based on Microsoft's situational use of price gouging is misleading. As for Zero Hedge, MintPress News's rampant republication of conspiracy theories from Zero Hedge does demonstrate general unreliability; the WP:QS policy states that questionable sources "include websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion", which covers Zero Hedge content. The inclusion of Zero Hedge content places MPN's editorial judgment into question, as no reputable news website would publish that kind of conspiracy theory material. — Newslinger talk 18:21, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Reprinting external content isn't MPN
"expressing views"
. And I'm sure you've looked into the Microsoft story properly, but do you have a source labelling the MPN story as a conspiracy theory? We normally judge sources based on what other sources say about them, not purely on what we think about them. And that's still just one story. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:40, 12 January 2025 (UTC)- When MPN republishes hundreds of Zero Hedge articles containing conspiracy theories and false information, MPN is expressing the view that such content is suitable to be presented on their website alongside MPN's original content. This kind of poor judgment damages MPN's "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and brings MPN's overall reliability into question. Additionally, this is exacerbated by the fact that MPN directly cites Zero Hedge articles for factual claims in MPN's original reporting (examples: ).As a fringe website with a Similarweb rank of #320,219 globally (#153,471 in the US), MPN is not popular enough of a publication for most of its content to receive a response from fact checkers and reliable publications. An MPN article not being fact-checked by a reliable source does not mean that the MPN article is valid, particularly when MPN acknowledges that there is evidence contradicting their article and then chooses to delete the evidence to retain the article's narrative. My comments in the 2019 RfC also include quotes of multiple reliable sources describing the quality of MPN content in negative terms, including an excerpt of Mick West's book that debunks MPN's promotion of the chemtrail conspiracy theory. — Newslinger talk 20:05, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding your first link , the article is relating/quoting this report from the OPCW: https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2018/07/opcw-issues-fact-finding-mission-reports-chemical-weapons-use-allegations
- Similarly, the rest of your links are articles about others' reporting. You say they directly cite Zero Hedge articles, but Zero Hedge seems to be just one of the sites they quote, in addition to Politico, Salon, New Yorker, Washington Post, and so on. TurboSuperA+ (talk) 14:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- Each of these links shows MPN using Zero Hedge as a source for a factual claim:
- Article #1: MPN quotes Zero Hedge's claim regarding the contents of a primary source, with no additional comment regarding the quote.
- Article #2: MPN publishes Zero Hedge's claim regarding the relationship between two political entities.
- Article #3: MPN publishes Zero Hedge's claim regarding U.S. political spending.
- Article #4: MPN publishes Zero Hedge's estimate of legal fees regarding a political matter.
- Article #5: MPN publishes Zero Hedge's claim regarding the actions of politicians.
- Because Zero Hedge (RSP entry) is a source that was deprecated for repeatedly publishing conspiracy theories and false information, MPN's use Zero Hedge for factual claims on numerous occasions and MPN's republication of hundreds of Zero Hedge articles both contribute to MPN being a questionable source. MPN using sources other than Zero Hedge does not excuse MPN's use of Zero Hedge for factual claims. — Newslinger talk 04:18, 15 January 2025 (UTC) Fixed link to article #2 again — Newslinger talk 22:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Article #1 It also links and quotes from the original report/primary source that anyone can check, it doesn't rely on Zero Hedge alone.
- Article #2 It is the same link as Article #3
- Article #3 It cites Zero Hedge on campaign contributions, something that can be checked and verified, as those records are public.
- Article #4 But it does say "estimate", rather than treating it as an absolute and factual value, it is simply relating what ZeroHedge has estimated. The article does not rely on Zero Hedge reporting, but includes
- Article #5 It also links to the Washington Post article that Zero Hedge is using, not relying on Zero Hedge alone for the claim.
- I don't think MPN is an unreliable source, it doesn't satisfy:
"have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest."
Furthermore, it doesn't satisfy the other part of the policy:"websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion."
- Citing Zero Hedge once per article, for claims that can be idependently verified, among many other sources that are WP:RS isn't enough to deprecate MPN. TurboSuperA+ (talk) 08:11, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- I've fixed the second link to match my previous comment. Citing Zero Hedge for factual claims is like citing
Infowars (RSP entry); a publication that uncritically cites websites known primarily for publishing conspiracy theories and false information for factual claims in numerous articles, even if done once per article, damages its "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Trying to push for the use of a source that repeatedly republishes factual claims from conspiracy theory websites is in violation of the guideline against the unwarranted promotion of fringe theories.My comments in the the 2019 RfC do not even mention MPN using Zero Hedge for factual claims in MPN's original articles; my comments noted MPN republishing hundreds of Zero Hedge articles, quote multiple reliable sources criticizing the MPN constant promotion of conspiracy theories, and identify MPN's use of false information to push a conspiracy theory in their most recent "inside story" at the time – all of which contributed to the consensus to deprecate MPN as a questionable source. MPN citing Zero Hedge for factual claims in MPN's original content further worsens its reliability. — Newslinger talk 14:51, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Article #2 cites Zero Hedge for the following:
"ZeroHedge estimated that the ensuing gerrymandering lawsuits will net Covington millions in legal fees, especially considering that Holder will be directing the filing of all such lawsuits on behalf of Democrats."
How is that a relationship between two political parties? The article states "ZeroHedge estimated" rather than saying anything with certainty. - Does MPN rely heavily on Zero Hedge in its original content? I don't think so, because it uses it as one of many sources.
- That is why I don't think deprecation is appropriate, rather "additional restrictions apply" as in MPN shouldn't be relied on claims that come only from ZeroHedge. TurboSuperA+ (talk) 15:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- If it were just the Zero Hedge thing I might see where you're coming from but @Bobfrombrockley demonstrated above that the outlet has a bad reputation for fact checking and accuracy all on their own. Simonm223 (talk) 15:23, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- The correct link to article #2 has been copied over to the comment. MPN published: "However, an anonymous writer on ZeroHedge, an economic news website, noted on Nov. 30 that while Bilal Erdoğan does seem to be moving Kurdish oil in his tankers, 'we’ve yet to come across conclusive evidence of Bilal’s connection to .'" Here, MPN uses an assertion posted by "an anonymous writer" from conspiracy theory website Zero Hedge to make a claim about two political entities (a son of a president and Daesh). Doing this is like publishing "According to Alex Jones of Infowars..." for a claim unrelated to Jones or Infowars, which immediately throws the claim into question due to the poor reputation of the source. A source degrades its own reliability by repeatedly using another questionable source in this way for multiple topics on numerous occasions; the five linked articles are only a small sample.Your comment seems to be ignoring how MPN's use of Zero Hedge for factual claims is only one of many reasons that MPN was deprecated; reliable sources have shown that MPN also publishes a cornucopia of conspiracy theories that MPN created by themselves, a common characteristic of questionable sources that become deprecated on Misplaced Pages. — Newslinger talk 23:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Article #2 cites Zero Hedge for the following:
- I've fixed the second link to match my previous comment. Citing Zero Hedge for factual claims is like citing
- Mint has a poor reputation for checking the facts so that first one is satisfied (notice how is an "or" not an and so fulfilling any of the conditions satisfies it). They also express view widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion. Did you not pay attention to any of the discussion besides the bits that were convenient for you? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:55, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Each of these links shows MPN using Zero Hedge as a source for a factual claim:
- When MPN republishes hundreds of Zero Hedge articles containing conspiracy theories and false information, MPN is expressing the view that such content is suitable to be presented on their website alongside MPN's original content. This kind of poor judgment damages MPN's "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and brings MPN's overall reliability into question. Additionally, this is exacerbated by the fact that MPN directly cites Zero Hedge articles for factual claims in MPN's original reporting (examples: ).As a fringe website with a Similarweb rank of #320,219 globally (#153,471 in the US), MPN is not popular enough of a publication for most of its content to receive a response from fact checkers and reliable publications. An MPN article not being fact-checked by a reliable source does not mean that the MPN article is valid, particularly when MPN acknowledges that there is evidence contradicting their article and then chooses to delete the evidence to retain the article's narrative. My comments in the 2019 RfC also include quotes of multiple reliable sources describing the quality of MPN content in negative terms, including an excerpt of Mick West's book that debunks MPN's promotion of the chemtrail conspiracy theory. — Newslinger talk 20:05, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- Reprinting external content isn't MPN
- MPN's response was wholly inadequate. What MPN should have done was retract its conspiracy theory article entirely, instead of deleting the evidence contradicting it and continuing to push the conspiracy theory. While Microsoft does employ a range of pricing strategies for different products in different markets, MPN intentionally ignoring all of Microsoft's situational use of predatory pricing to allege an "ulterior motive" based on Microsoft's situational use of price gouging is misleading. As for Zero Hedge, MintPress News's rampant republication of conspiracy theories from Zero Hedge does demonstrate general unreliability; the WP:QS policy states that questionable sources "include websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion", which covers Zero Hedge content. The inclusion of Zero Hedge content places MPN's editorial judgment into question, as no reputable news website would publish that kind of conspiracy theory material. — Newslinger talk 18:21, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- I see the MPN response included a couple of paragraphs about me, in which almost all the things they say are demonstrably inaccurate even from the links they provide (they attribute a quote to me which is obviously not me, and seem to claim I call al-Nusra "moderate" by linking to a sandbox page here which says pretty much the opposite). I voted 3/4 in the RfC, but on the basis of this response I'd have no problem coming down in favour of 4. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:54, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think I was involved in the 2019 discussion - at least I don't remember being involved in it - but based on the information above it seems like Mint Press is being appropriately deprecated as a source of misinformation. I'd love to see a Misplaced Pages with a broader range of reliable left-wing sources but the key word there is reliable and this... this is clearly not. Simonm223 (talk) 13:10, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
Youtube Videos (Livings Persons biographies)
a couple of months ago i had added a source to a driver which sthe said driver had specifically states something i had added to his wikipedia at it got removed by a user due to the fact that to him it was not reliable and i was just wondering if they are reliable. i was told by other wiki users that was acceptable to use as it was the driver himself who said it in the video making it a direct source and if not i would like an explanation as the user when asked did not respond when asked and probably will not respond Motorsportfan100 (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- In general YouTube video's are not reliable, as they are self-published sources and few of them are by
"an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."
, see WP:SPS.
However there is an exception if the self-published work is by the subject themselves and is part of a limited set of conditions, see WP:ABOUTSELF. You haven't included any details so I can't say for certain if it would be reliable in your specific situation, as it may or may not be allowed by ABOUTSELF. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:11, 12 January 2025 (UTC)- Ah i see thank you
- Even though the subject was part of the interview I believe myself it would not be reliable as it's a motorsport related podcast and even though the youtube channel also has a website which has been referenced in other articles I believe the youtube channel would not be reliable unless otherwise notified Motorsportfan100 (talk) 19:42, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
- It depends what the statement is. If the driver says something like 'I'm 23 years old" that's a good enough source. If the driver says "Castrol Oil is superior to every other oils out there" while also being sponsored by Castrol, then no.
- For Youtube channel, they are as reliable as their owners/parent company. A NASA video hosted on NASA's youtube channel is as reliable as anything else produced by NASA. A rocketry video hosted by BobLovesRockets, not so much for anything but uncontroversial statements about Bob. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Sports reports - Mixed Martial Arts
A senior "editor" recently reverted some of my posts. I posted sources from https://mma.bg/ - It is a Bulgarian MMA news site. The website began in 2008 - https://mma.bg/pages/mission. The previous website was www.mmabg.com as seen here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210601000000*/www.mmabg.com. There is a lot of dicussion on Ultimate Fighting Championship sources when it comes to reports of UFC fights. The general rule is if the bout is listed on the official page, for example: https://www.ufc.com/event/ufc-fight-night-february-01-2025, then, we can put it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/UFC_Fight_Night:_Adesanya_vs._Imavov. But if it is not on the UFC page, we put the bouts on "Announced bouts" based on independent reports. The UFC Events page takes time to update.
The thing is an editor only accepts reports from websites other than UFC/ESPN (ESPN is the channel that broadcasts UFC), but if the UFC posts a column saying there is a new bout, I feel the report is sufficient to be put on the Misplaced Pages page, since it is merely reporting the company's scheduled bout. Only within hours, other independent news sites would use the official post from the UFC in their reports.
Also, although social media posts are not reliable, there is one journalist, Marcel Dorff, https://x.com/BigMarcel24 - who posts on his social media account reports of bouts. He has never been wrong in the past sixteen years and is a reliable source. But because he posts from his account, it is not considered reliable. It takes a day or two for another site to take his social media post to "report" it on their website.
For example, https://www.mmanews.com/features/matchmaking-bulletin/ufc-fight-bulletin/ - MMANews is considered reliable, but it links to reports of X posts that the site deemed reliable before posting it on MMANews. What are your thoughts on this?
Basically, I would like you to review the following:
1) MMA.BG - can it be put on https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Sources - it is a reliable MMA website in the language Bulgarian that has been reporting accurate news for 17 years
2) The allowance of UFC/ESPN reports of bouts or injuries to be considered reliable. For example: https://x.com/ESPNKnockOut/status/1878132515854000543 - this X post is by a verified ESPN Knockout account that posted "Jake Matthews vs Francisco Prado", but I cannot use that as a source because it is from a social media post, and it is from ESPN (who is not independent from UFC because they broadcast UFC telecasts). It does not quite make sense and the senior editor's English is too poor to explain this after repeated requests for explanation, so I hope someone can explain it here for me. The editor reverted my post when it was reported here: https://wip.mma.bg/novini/mma-novini/dzheyk-matyus-sreshtu-fransisko-prado-na-ufc-312
3) Are exceptions for X posts allowed for reputable journalists and official verified company accounts to be used as sources on Misplaced Pages?
I hope someone can help me answer this, someone with sufficient enough English like most editors on Misplaced Pages. Thank you, because it has been extremely frustrating having edits reverted with poor explanation or logic that makes no sense. Thanks! Marty2Hotty (talk) 01:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- If it's just a matter of one or two days, just wait for the official announcement. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
RfC: TheGamer
OP has withdrawn the discussion. 💽 🌙Eclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ 21:28, 18 January 2025 (UTC)The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
TheGamer seems to be either user-generated content, or slop listicles. Additionally, it seems to source it's content largely from dubious YouTube content, Reddit posts, or Twitter/X threads. However it is listed as a source in articles such as Flowey purely in relation to one listicle that ranks Flowey in relation to other characters. What is the reliability of this site?
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate?
Kaynsu1 02:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Bad RfC. While begun in good faith, this RfC is malformed. The opening statement is not
neutrally worded and brief
as our information page about RfCs advises. I would also ask why the existing guidance about TheGamer available at the list maintained by WikiProject Video games isn't considered sufficient. If this is at root a page-specific concern about Flowey, as the opening statement causes it to appear to be, the matter can surely be handled better at Talk:Flowey. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
Nevermind then. I'll delete the info on the Flowey page that provides no encyclopedic value. The reason I proposed this originally was because TheGamer's content has gotten worse and more sloppy since 2020.Kaynsu1 04:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.GBNews can be reliable for group based child sex exploitation
Hello everyone, I am making the argument that whilst GBNews is generally speaking not a great source, it has some of the most stellar investigative reporters on group based child sex exploitation, aka rape gangs.
For example, Charlie Peters has written about this extensively, it is his main topic of writing for years. https://www.gbnews.com/authors/charlie-peters
I'd genuinely argue he is even as or if not more reliable on this topic than most trusted sources. If you want an insight into why I believe that, without going into just arguing over facts and analysis which I can do in the comments below this thread, read this anecdote from him being the only reporter who bothered to show up to one of the most prolific child sex abuse cases in British history for most of the hearing https://thecritic.co.uk/why-was-i-the-only-reporter/
Yes, GBNews is genuinely quite a sloppy publication, I'm not here to make an argument that it is not even remotely, but I think the summary ought to be changed from the first to the second.
There is consensus that GB News is generally unreliable.
There is consensus that GB News is generally unreliable. It is reliable for specifically group based child sex exploitation.
I am not sure if it is precedent to specifically name a reporter, but if that is the case then specifically naming Charlie Peters is important here. He isn't the only good reporter on child sex abuse at GBNews but I'd argue he's the best. In essence, I'd argue and make a fierce case that Charlie Peters of GBNews (and some other reporters), regardless of his employer, is easily one of the most qualified and leading reporters on this specific topic of group based child sex exploitation and I'd make a very long argument that articles specifically by him should be included and it would be worse not better for Misplaced Pages to include them. I am not arguing for Peters (and some other reporters) to be included for other topics at this moment, just specifically the topic of child sex abuse.
I hope I have formatted this correctly, thank you. NotQualified (talk) 19:20, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry but it is the source we judge, not the writer, his work say in the Telegraph can be cited, not his work for GB news. Slatersteven (talk) 19:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Just to be clear here, I am not saying Peters is the only good reporter. GBNews has some good reporters and they're specifically concentrated on this. I think GBNews is generally slop but I just wanted to cite a specific reporter as an example. I think GBNews' work and information on this very narrow subject is worth considering. NotQualified (talk) 19:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- This seems backwards, WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims require exceptional sources, not exceptions for terrible ones. signed, Rosguill 19:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- GB News is persistently and relentlessly unreliable. We cannot make exceptions for a single reporter (and I say that as someone who believes Peters to be one of the better GB News reporters, though admittedly that's a very low bar). If you showed me some evidence that Peters has investigated child abuse rings that weren't run by Asian people, I'd think again. Though of course, that's not what GB News's audience wants to hear. Black Kite (talk) 19:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think more sensationalist reporting is going to make that page better. Let's leave GB News off it. Simonm223 (talk) 19:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Again, I'm being clear here I'm only talking about one narrow subject. NotQualified (talk) 19:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I was also being very specific to that one page as well. Simonm223 (talk) 20:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- So you're saying that, specifically on child rape, they're sensationalists. I agree with you that their titles would do better without the incessant capitalisations but their reporting on this isn't errant in any way. NotQualified (talk) 20:25, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I was also being very specific to that one page as well. Simonm223 (talk) 20:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Again, I'm being clear here I'm only talking about one narrow subject. NotQualified (talk) 19:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- So you're basically just saying Peters is a racist and if I can prove he isn't racist you'll be convinced? Here he is covering a white rapist. https://www.gbnews.com/news/two-rotherham-child-abuse-victims-accidentally-left-out-court-rapist-sentencing-office-error NotQualified (talk) 19:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I absolutely did not say that Peters was racist, so don't do that again please. I was pointing out that GB News inevitably covers Asian grooming gangs, but almost never white ones. If Peters broke that mould I would be convinced. Black Kite (talk) 19:58, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Oh, I've just seen your userpage. That explains it. Black Kite (talk) 19:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- > Sources (some are invalid and blatantly biased for wikipedia standards but summarise info well. i'll find a proper source for them.
- Not all the sources in my user page are valid at all, I've just added them to look deeper in later on to verify myself.
- If you're accusing me of being a right wing grifter so be it, I literally just added an article by Bindle to my user page smearing the right as racist grifters before I read this, I edited McMurdock's article and wrote how he kicked a woman four times, I try my best to be fair. I am not interested in just saying "Pakistani men rape and whites don't", that's absurd. The state has routinely failed children of rape. I'm arguing that GBNews on this topic is good. NotQualified (talk) 20:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I suppose even Bindel can be right occasionally. That's not the point though, I followed a few of your links and saw the editorializing on Jess Phillips' page - that's not good on a BLP, whether you are a right-wing grifter or not (I have no idea if that's the case). But - no, we cannot use GB News full stop. It would be incredibly problematic if we had to define sources as reliable or not depending on which journos were producing the material, especially as their material is routinely filtered through an editorial process which we have defined as unreliable in the first place. Black Kite (talk) 20:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I understand. I regret making my initial point on Peters specifically because you're right that specific journalists do not save a publication. I've been trying to change the position to accomadate this, and say something more so on the lines of "Generally speaking, their covering of child sex abuse is good, can we make an exception for this topic". Is your argument here from the context of me originally saying Peters was good or is your argument here that no matter how good the journalism is on child sex abuse, the rest of the publication is too sloppy to make an exception? " But - no, we cannot use GB News full stop"
- > the editorializing on Jess Phillips' page
- Is this on the word 'despite'? This was talked about on the talk page, I agreed it was a mistake. NotQualified (talk) 21:05, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I suppose even Bindel can be right occasionally. That's not the point though, I followed a few of your links and saw the editorializing on Jess Phillips' page - that's not good on a BLP, whether you are a right-wing grifter or not (I have no idea if that's the case). But - no, we cannot use GB News full stop. It would be incredibly problematic if we had to define sources as reliable or not depending on which journos were producing the material, especially as their material is routinely filtered through an editorial process which we have defined as unreliable in the first place. Black Kite (talk) 20:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Again, GBNews is generally slop, we can agree on that. I believe they have good journalists focusing on child rape. NotQualified (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- We can't separate the two, that's the issue. The Daily Mail has good journalists as well, the problem in using them is the venue they publish their work in. Black Kite (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I agree the Daily Mail is total slop as well, but if they had excellent journalism on one specific topic that would warrant an exception. That's what I'm arguing here. NotQualified (talk) 20:16, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- We can't separate the two, that's the issue. The Daily Mail has good journalists as well, the problem in using them is the venue they publish their work in. Black Kite (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not going to repeat that as you have made clear that was not your intent, but I'm not trying to strawman you. I've misinterpreted what you're saying here as you calling Peters / GBNews / their audience racist (though that is not what you are saying), I am confused on what you exactly are you trying to say with the below. May you please elaborate?
- "If you showed me some evidence that Peters has investigated child abuse rings that weren't run by Asian people, I'd think again. Though of course, that's not what GB News's audience wants to hear." NotQualified (talk) 20:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- GB News is a right-wing channel (and, to be fair, it is transparently so); it tells its viewers what they want to hear. Much of the right-wing audience believes that child abuse is mostly committed by Asian gangs, because that's what right-wing narratives have told them, even if it's false. GB News doesn't actually say that is true, but it reinforces those ideas by focusing on such cases. Black Kite (talk) 20:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not accusing you of calling them 'racist', but what exactly would you call the behaviour your describing, if not racist.
- Yes, GBNews is obviously a right wing channel. I believe you can criticise nearly all political journalistic publications that aren't state funded of pandering to their audience. CNN, the Telegraph, the Guardian, Fox, etc. I find it all a bit obnoxious.
- I do however have qualms with the idea that GBNews is, how do I put this, 'filtering out or downplaying' rape gangs when they are not Pakistani / Bangladeshi? You say the majority of these perpetrators are white, I believe that is true of CSAM online but I amn't sure that's true at least on a per capita basis for rape gangs though I have collated a lot of sources which I intend to read when I have the time, as you've noted on my talk page, so I'll be better informed to answer this in the future.
- In essence, your hesitance or better put refusal to add an exception to GBNews on rape gangs isn't derived from a sense that they're journalistically or factually incorrect outright but rather they have underlying narratives, ulterior motives, and bias. If I'm understanding what you are saying correctly which I'll need confirmation on as I do not wish to strawman you. NotQualified (talk) 21:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, that's exactly what GB News does (though I would not go as far as saying it is "factually correct" all the time). It is, however, understandably more careful with its narratives with this subject than it is with others (although it does publish nonsense like this, notably not by Peters). Black Kite (talk) 22:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- That's an opinion piece that more falls under geopolitics. That wouldn't fall into what I, or the other user, is arguing to include.
- If we can agree that at least nearly all the time they are factually correct on this very specific subject, and the wealth of information is enormous, we can just put a warning that GBNews has something along the lines of "accusations of underlying narratives, ulterior motives, and bias" in a general sense (but is better on this subject (and thus the exception being made) as you noted and I agree), but that if possible, should be substantiated with another source, but is still acceptable on this very specific subject, even independently, especially if there are no other sources available. That's reasonable, I believe. Thoughts? NotQualified (talk) 22:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced, I have to admit, and I wouldn't vote in favour of it. Though I ask, could it be any worse that allowing the Telegraph, a paper which posts rabidly transphobic opinion pieces, to be used on trans-related topics (as was allowed in a recent RfC)? It's unlikely. Black Kite (talk) 22:49, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- As long as what is written is factually true, the agenda behind it just has to be made known to the editor beforehand to caution them. We shouldn't restrain facts and deprive people of them because we deem the authors morally repugnant. NotQualified (talk) 23:15, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced, I have to admit, and I wouldn't vote in favour of it. Though I ask, could it be any worse that allowing the Telegraph, a paper which posts rabidly transphobic opinion pieces, to be used on trans-related topics (as was allowed in a recent RfC)? It's unlikely. Black Kite (talk) 22:49, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, that's exactly what GB News does (though I would not go as far as saying it is "factually correct" all the time). It is, however, understandably more careful with its narratives with this subject than it is with others (although it does publish nonsense like this, notably not by Peters). Black Kite (talk) 22:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- GB News is a right-wing channel (and, to be fair, it is transparently so); it tells its viewers what they want to hear. Much of the right-wing audience believes that child abuse is mostly committed by Asian gangs, because that's what right-wing narratives have told them, even if it's false. GB News doesn't actually say that is true, but it reinforces those ideas by focusing on such cases. Black Kite (talk) 20:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Oh, I've just seen your userpage. That explains it. Black Kite (talk) 19:59, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I absolutely did not say that Peters was racist, so don't do that again please. I was pointing out that GB News inevitably covers Asian grooming gangs, but almost never white ones. If Peters broke that mould I would be convinced. Black Kite (talk) 19:58, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think more sensationalist reporting is going to make that page better. Let's leave GB News off it. Simonm223 (talk) 19:34, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Comment Whilst I agree that GB News should be approached with caution (and I wouldn't touch their climate change reporting with a barge pole), I think Charlie Peters is an exceptional reporter. I would generally trust what he has to say before, for example, The Guardian or The Times. I think that by barring his reporting on GB News we are probably barring the country's most pre-eminent authority on gang-related CSE. IT's worth bearing in mind that coverage of this topic has now become highly-politicised, but Charie probbaly brings the most balanced and fact-based perspective to the coverage of the issue. We could treat his reporting on GB News on this particular issue as an instance of expert WP:SPS. If other sources are reporting the same thing then fine, bit I honestly believe we would be devaluing Misplaced Pages's coverage by excluding him. The fact remains he is not interchangeable with other journalists at other news outlets, because he brings a wealth of research and statistics to the table, and has probably interacted with grooming gang victims more then any other journalist. Betty Logan (talk) 21:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- I know this sounds silly but it is refreshing hearing more knowlegable Wikipedians explain what I'm trying to articulate so eloquently. I do want to be clear however that I think GBNews' coverage on gang CSE is excellent, not just Peters. The main contention seems not to be on if it is factual, no one here seems to be disputing this, but rather if it has underlying narratives, ulterior motives, and bias. You can read my last comment here https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=1269267836 as I try to Steelman what another user is saying to the best of ability. NotQualified (talk) 21:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
- Are there any third-party sources that validate the claim that GB News and Peters are the best sources on this topic? Alpha3031 (t • c) 05:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- What do you mean? How would that work? Are you asking if reputable sources cite GBNews regularly on this topic? If so, yes I've read many articles, especially the Telegraph, mentioning them if I recall correctly. NotQualified (talk) 05:45, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- Well, according to Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources,
If outside citation is the main indicator of reliability, particular care should be taken to adhere to other guidelines and policies, and to not unduly represent contentious or minority claims.
That seems to be one way it works. Normal editorial processes are that we use secondary sources to evaluate the significant views among published reliable sources, and UBO is in most cases relatively weak validation for other claims. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:21, 14 January 2025 (UTC) - If you're going to start an RfC on this topic (which would be required to carve out an exception for GB News), it would be far better to present such evidence as opposed to a simple opinion of "I think it's reliable". Black Kite (talk) 08:38, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- Well, according to Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources,
- I'm not sure there are any sources out there that flat out stipulate that Charlie Peters is the best source for this topic, but he is increasingly becoming the "go to" source in this area. The New York Times report how he "broke" the latest story about the Government declining the national inquiry into CSE in Oldham, and other news outlets have approached him to co-author their articles, presumably for his insight, such as The Telegraph and The Spectator. Deadline profile him here—it is worth bearing in mind he was a specialist in this area before working for GB News, having made a documentary about the Rotherham cover-up. Maggie Oliver—a former police detective who blew the whistle on the cover-up in Greater Manchester and now works with survivors—holds his journalism in high regard. In reality, as NotQualified has noted, other news outlets have re-used facts first reported by Peters in their own stories, so there is no way to really avoid his core reporting. Part of the reason for this is because other news outlets have not dispatched their own reporters to cover trials and sentencing, so they are dependent on those that have. For the record, I do think there is a difference between the core facts as reported by Peters and the framing of these stories by GB News in its broadcasts. Betty Logan (talk) 10:32, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- If other sources have reported on the details, then they should be used. That way editors waste less time arguing about the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:44, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- You get less depth and less nuance from news outlets which repackage his work, usually for sensationalist reasons. Peters has interviewed the survivors and their families extensively. He attended the trials and the sentencing. If other news outlets are happy to re-use his material I don't see why it should be any issue here. Betty Logan (talk) 12:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Any other source is going to be less sensationalist and so less controversial. The issue is doing the simple option so as to avoid wasting time arguing over which source to use rather than something more useful. GBNews is by it's nature always going to be controversial, so using a different source for the same information is the best option. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- That is an ad hoc approach which only works for one news story at a time. Simply put, what if other sources don't. This is why it is important the exception is carved out. NotQualified (talk) 17:28, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- If a single news source is the only source that picks up a detail, that probably goes to show that detail shouldn't be included (WP:WEIGHT / WP:BALASP). That other news sources decide not to include certain details may well be because they do not believe the details are important, or that they are presented properly. I would say it goes to shows why there shouldn't be a exception given. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- @ActivelyDisinterested this statement can be applied to any source in any discussion... Alaexis¿question? 21:47, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, choosing the least contentious source to support a detail is always a good idea (regardless of the article). Arguing other a contentious source when others are available isn't a good use of editors time. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- You get less depth and less nuance from news outlets which repackage his work, usually for sensationalist reasons. Peters has interviewed the survivors and their families extensively. He attended the trials and the sentencing. If other news outlets are happy to re-use his material I don't see why it should be any issue here. Betty Logan (talk) 12:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- The New York Times says
No British media outlet has revived the grooming scandal with the zeal of GB News, a hard-right cable news channel that went on the air in 2021, a decade after The Times’s investigation into grooming gangs.
which does not exactly sound like a ringing endorsement. It instead sounds rather more like exactly the sort ofunduly represent contentious or minority claims
we're supposed to take care to avoid. If a primary source has been published in multiple places, I see no compelling reason why the reliability of GB News even needs to be discussed, and it seems like nobody wants to use the secondary parts. Alpha3031 (t • c) 11:48, 15 January 2025 (UTC)- Surely that's a WP:WEIGHT issue to be determined in the context of what is being written, rather than a WP:RS issue. Betty Logan (talk) 12:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Even if it isn't a "ringing endorsement", it does sound like NYT agrees it has the largest wealth of knowledge on this issue, which is one of the reasons I'd argue it's critical to allow. If that knowledge was erroneous, I'd obviously agree it shouldn't be included, but that knowledge as discussed on this talk discussion seems to be virtually always correct.
- > If a primary source has been published in multiple places,
- And what if it isn't. Misplaced Pages as a whole suffers. NotQualified (talk) 17:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
And what if it isn't.
- WP:VNOT and WP:NOTNEWS, even were it to be considered reliable. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:33, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Other sources are reporting on Peters “breaking” the story in that he revived a myth that was taken up by Elon Musk who then intervened in uk politics and got far right grifters competing with each other for his attention, making Peters’ “reporting” noteworthy, but not reliable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- post sources NotQualified (talk) 15:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- A few examples:
- FT: “How a handful of X accounts took Elon Musk ‘down the rabbit hole’ on UK politics… In the past week, Musk has also amplified posts on the grooming scandal by former prime minister Liz Truss, former Labour MP Kate Hoey, former Reform politician Ben Habib and people linked to broadcaster GB News.”
- Yahoo News: “News of Philips's rejection letter was then reported by GB News on 1 January, sparking an intense debate about whether such an inquiry was needed. This was picked up by Elon Musk who began posting prolifically about the issue, levelling harsh criticism at the government and at one point calling for Philips to be jailed for rejecting the request.”
- BBC: ”Debate around grooming gangs was reignited this week after it was reported that Phillips rejected Oldham Council's request for a government-led inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation in the town, in favour of a locally-led investigation. The decision was taken in October, but first reported by GB News on 1 January.”
- BBC Verify: “In one post, Mr Musk alleged that "Gordon Brown committed an unforgivable crime against the British people" and shared a video clip from campaigner Maggie Oliver appearing on GB News. In the clip, Ms Oliver alleged: "Gordon Brown sent out a circular to all the police forces in the UK saying 'do not prosecute these rape gangs, these children are making a lifestyle choice'."… But BBC Verify has carried out extensive searches of Home Office circulars issued across that period and found no evidence that any document containing this advice exists.”
- New Yorker: “The onslaught began on January 1st, when Musk responded to a report by GB News, a right-wing cable-news channel, which said that the country’s Labour government had rejected a national inquiry into non-recent sexual abuse in Oldham, a town just outside Manchester, in northern England. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the actual story is more complicated than that.”
- NYT: “No British media outlet has revived the grooming scandal with the zeal of GB News, a hard-right cable news channel that went on the air in 2021, a decade after The Times’s investigation into grooming gangs… Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform U.K., an anti-immigrant party, has praised Mr. Peters, saying he had “really reignited this story” and demonstrated that “these barbarities have taken place in at least 50 towns.”… The cumulative effect of Mr. Musk’s inflammatory posts has been to energize Britain’s populist right.”
- BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- A few examples:
- post sources NotQualified (talk) 15:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- If other sources have reported on the details, then they should be used. That way editors waste less time arguing about the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:44, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- What do you mean? How would that work? Are you asking if reputable sources cite GBNews regularly on this topic? If so, yes I've read many articles, especially the Telegraph, mentioning them if I recall correctly. NotQualified (talk) 05:45, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I’m just here to say that a source being generally unreliable doesn’t mean they can’t be reliable in specific circumstances. That is, if you want to make a case that a specific subset of GB News output is reliable enough to support statements in a specific article, you can make that argument on the Talk page of the article and it doesn’t need to be carved out as a formalised exception on WP:RSP. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- Absolutely agree with this, both "generally reliable" and "generally unreliable" are not absolutes. Either way you may be required to convince other editors (on the articles talk page) that a specific source should, or shouldn't, be used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Considering that there is quite a lot of academic material on this subject that isn't currently being used in these articles I'm somewhat reticent to start making exceptions for generally unreliable news media organizations out of some sort of belief we are missing sources. Simonm223 (talk) 17:34, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- The specifics would be a discussion for the articles talk page, but in general I'd agree. Less news and opinion sources, and more academic sources would be an improvement for many articles. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:37, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Considering that there is quite a lot of academic material on this subject that isn't currently being used in these articles I'm somewhat reticent to start making exceptions for generally unreliable news media organizations out of some sort of belief we are missing sources. Simonm223 (talk) 17:34, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Absolutely agree with this, both "generally reliable" and "generally unreliable" are not absolutes. Either way you may be required to convince other editors (on the articles talk page) that a specific source should, or shouldn't, be used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:49, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
If other sources do not follow though with a story, there may well be reason why, and one of those is they can't confirm them. This is what they are RS, they do try to fact-check before publication. So if a reputable publication does not report it I have to ask the question why is the only source reporting this an iffy one? Slatersteven (talk) 17:31, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for this comment, this was also my interpretation when reading the thread, and surprised no-one else referenced the obvious here: If Charlie Peters is such a respectable journalist (let's assume he is for the sake of argument), then why is his work not published in respectable and reliable sources such as The Telegraph that he previously worked for? While trying to avoid a discussion on this journalist career path and choices in life, it does seem remarkably odd that there aren't reliable sources reporting his coverage indepth. This makes me suspect that it's because it's much easier to publish for GB News than it is other news orgs that do fact-checking and thorough reviews. Baring in mind, its not just WP that considers GB News as generally unreliable, there is rough consensus among UK journalism that it is a trashy tabloid-like source. So why is such a respectable journalist writing such great contributions for a trash can? Without intending to speculate much further than I already have, it could be because what he writes for GB News isn't as reliable as what he has written elsewhere. Generally if there were topics that I would say GB News was specifically unreliable for, it'd be along the lines of Reform Party coverage (it's a quasi-primary source at this point), and contentious topics such as the far-right riots, Tommy Robinson, and grooming gangs. Feel free to accuse me of a broad stroke, but I'd otherwise consider GB to be generally reliable for entertainment and culture topics (similar to NYP). CNC (talk) 00:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Just to be clear here, it isn't just Peters, I'm arguing that generally their coverage on group based child sex exploitation is good. Peters has written under multiple papers. I do not know why he works for GBNews particularly right now but he brings spectacular journalism to it. NotQualified (talk) 00:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Nah. If there's news that doesn't suck it'll show up elsewhere. Per CommunityNotesContributor, that it isn't showing up elsewhere raises an eyebrow - David Gerard (talk) 10:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Strong disagree with OP. In fact, i’d say that the fact that the Telegraph has taken up Peters’/GBNews’ reporting might lead us to the rule that the Telegraph, is not reliable on this highly contentious topic. Example: here https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/grooming-gangs-scandal-cover-up-oldham-telford-rotherham/ Peters and a co-author claim to catalogue the “cover up” of the grooming scandal “to preserve the image of a successful multicultural society” — yet every single factual claim in their article is taken from a pre-existing primary source (a 2010 W Midlands police report, a 2013 sentencing report, the 2014 Rotherham Jay inquiry, the 2015 Rotherham Casey report, the 2019 Manchester police report, the 2022 Telford Inquiry and the 2022 national independent review) that to my mind prove that far from a cover up this has been extensively investigated and publicly addressed for well over a decade. There is no actual investigation here; they rely on the investigation done by others and use it to spin an inflammatory conspiracy theory. I think it might be time to downgrade the Telegraph not upgrade GBNews. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding this article, is it usual for reliable sources to correct the content of articles without referencing a change? This was first published on January 4th, and modified by January 8th with attribution to GB News added (can verify with copyscape):
"In Jess Phillips’s letter to the council, revealed by GB News, she said she understood the strength of feeling in the town, but thought it best for another local review to take place.
"The state must leave no stone unturned in its efforts to root out this evil. As one victim, told GB News, "..."
- It's good they corrected the article with necessary attribution for unverified claims, however it took 4 days to do so, and they failed to reference such changes in the article, including the original date. Not a good look imo. CNC (talk) 15:58, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding this article, is it usual for reliable sources to correct the content of articles without referencing a change? This was first published on January 4th, and modified by January 8th with attribution to GB News added (can verify with copyscape):
Ontario Bar Association and Artificallawyer
Is this sigcov , reliable for Draft:BRYTER? HelixUnwinding (talk) 09:01, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- The first link goes to a summary of a detailed software review by Friedrich Blase, the “Innovator-in-Residence” of the Ontario Bar Association. It looks like Dr. Blase, whose LinkedIn profile references writings on legal technology, might qualify as a subject matter expert, so I would be inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. The second link goes to a blog, which would not be a reliable source. John M Baker (talk) 18:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Did Howard Dean get paid to give speeches promoting the MEK?
Hogo-2020 and I have bit of a dispute here: can we list that Howard Dean as among the American officials who received either cash payments or some other form of compensation for making speeches promoting the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran? Sources:
- A telephone interview with Ben Smith (journalist) that was published on a newsblog on Politico. Smith writes that Dean "said that while he's given paid speeches for the group, his advocacy is pro bono."
- An editorial by Glenn Greenwald in The Guardian.
- The editorial links to a Christian Science Monitor article, which writes "Mr. Dean confirmed to the Monitor that he received payment for his appearances, but said the focus on high pay was “a diversion inspired by those with a different view.”"
- An article in Salon which says "Dean himself has acknowledged being paid but has not disclosed specific sums". Dean's advocate responded to that article, according to Salon, saying "On the issue of the MEK, he is not a paid advocate. He was paid for a handful of speeches, but has not been paid for his advocacy."
VR (Please ping on reply) 13:05, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Vice regent I don’t think the reliability of any of these sources would be in question by most editors - this seems a bit more of a content dispute on the surface. The Kip 01:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- @The Kip, well Hogo argues that the guardian piece is an WP:OPED, the politico piece is a WP:NEWSBLOG and there's no consensus for salon at WP:RSP. These are all WP:RS-based arguments.VR (Please ping on reply) 03:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- The issue at hand is whether a couple of op-eds provide sufficient evidence to justify adding to Misplaced Pages that a politician was paid for making speeches. Then, there's also the question if this would be in line with WP:DUE. Hogo-2020 (talk) 07:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- @The Kip, well Hogo argues that the guardian piece is an WP:OPED, the politico piece is a WP:NEWSBLOG and there's no consensus for salon at WP:RSP. These are all WP:RS-based arguments.VR (Please ping on reply) 03:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are two issues here, neither of which is really a WP:RS issue directly (but they touch on how different types of sources can be used and the considerations that come with them.) First, since those are all either opinion pieces, interviews, or quotes, they would have to be attributed if used; they can't be used to state facts in the article voice - looking over the article history, it previously said
In 2012, Seymour Hersh reported names of former U.S. officials paid to speak in support of MEK, including former CIA directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss; New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Vermont Governor Howard Dean; former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Louis Freeh and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton
. If the listed sources were all you could turn up for including Dean in that list with that sort of wording, it's not enough for that specific wording - you can't say as fact that he was paid, and cite an opinion piece from Greenwald to support that. (That said, is there a problem with citing the CS Monitor article directly? Citing it via an opinion piece by Greenwald seems weird; the Greenwald piece is a weaker source due to being opinion.) Either way, second, as is often the case when dealing with largely opinion sources published in RS / WP:RSOPINION venues, is the WP:DUE issue - the question is then whether Greenwald etc. are noteworthy enough for their opinions about this to be in the article, or whether the sum of all of them is enough to put it over the top, or the like. --Aquillion (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I should add, looking at the discussion, it feels to me like this is a result of a dispute over previous wording that probably reflected the broad strokes of what the sources support but which wasn't quite correct in terms of both the specific source it relied on and how it summarized it - finding individual sources for every person in that list, yet trying to retain it as a list whose original version was really an inaccurate paraphrase of a different source, is going to constantly run into problems like this and may produce WP:SYNTH issues. I would suggest discarding that list and instead reconsidering what the section should say from the top, after reviewing the best available sources individually. Why this list of people? Why those specific names? Just because they were in the Shane source, which doesn't say they were paid? I suggest going back to the drawing board, looking at the relative level of coverage for each and whether it's something we can use for fact or just attributable opinion, then deciding who to cover and how to cover them based on that. --Aquillion (talk) 20:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think that this is solid advice. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Those are great points. It would be great if you can help discuss on that talk page.VR (Please ping on reply) 01:33, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Aquillion thanks for your input. Understand the point about CS Monitor. But my next question is this: Ben Smith, a journalist working for a reputable source like POLITICO, wouldn't just fake or distort an interview. Smith isn't stating his opinion, he's giving the results of the interview. To me Smith is a stronger source than CSM because CSM doesn't actually say where they got the info from. In either case, is the CSM source enough to state it without attribution or would it also require attribution? VR (Please ping on reply) 01:23, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Stumbled across this. The Christian Science Monitor investigation into the MEK paying Dean and many others (which I happened to edit). https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0808/Iranian-group-s-big-money-push-to-get-off-US-terrorist-list . I don't understand the dispute here. Dean is on record in this article admitting he was taking their money.Dan Murphy (talk) 01:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- I should add, looking at the discussion, it feels to me like this is a result of a dispute over previous wording that probably reflected the broad strokes of what the sources support but which wasn't quite correct in terms of both the specific source it relied on and how it summarized it - finding individual sources for every person in that list, yet trying to retain it as a list whose original version was really an inaccurate paraphrase of a different source, is going to constantly run into problems like this and may produce WP:SYNTH issues. I would suggest discarding that list and instead reconsidering what the section should say from the top, after reviewing the best available sources individually. Why this list of people? Why those specific names? Just because they were in the Shane source, which doesn't say they were paid? I suggest going back to the drawing board, looking at the relative level of coverage for each and whether it's something we can use for fact or just attributable opinion, then deciding who to cover and how to cover them based on that. --Aquillion (talk) 20:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Is REAL, Journal of Almería Studies an rs for Bering Strait
See. The link doesn't go to the source cited and I can't find that aource. Doug Weller talk 16:20, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- Found a Spanish Misplaced Pages article on the explorer. Doug Weller talk 16:21, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I found a link to the pdf but the article is in Spanish which I don't read well. Simonm223 (talk) 16:29, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Simonm223 @Doug Weller My Spanish is at a passable level, from a first glance I’m not seeing anything outlandish/indicative of unreliability but I can take a deeper look a bit later. The Kip 01:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- I found a link to the pdf but the article is in Spanish which I don't read well. Simonm223 (talk) 16:29, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- The journal isn't peer-reviewed, so it's not a top quality source, but it is a serious journal, in the sense it is something we would usually accept as reliable in general. The writers seem reasonable-ish. However, it's not a good enough journal that an outlandish article would become reliable. I'm reading the article now, and a couple of things strike me as a bit off, but maybe it's just because I've been drawn to it here. Will give a bit more info later today.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:18, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- OK, the article appears to be claiming Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado completed a crossing of the Northwest Passage in 1588. Between February and March. This is an extraordinary claim, I don't think the source is good enough to state that in the article.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- And if I'd checked, I'd have found out that he made up the story although it was taken seriously 200 years later. Doug Weller talk 09:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- The article is really odd, it is drifting towards the genre of x was actually Spanish/Catalan/Indian/Hungarian and the Masons hid the evidence of how they built pyramids so they could continue Akenhaton's religion. They use a photoshop reconstruction of how a woodcut of Ferrer might have looked and suggest a Spanish conspiracy to hide the fact they had discovered the Northwest passage, so the English and Dutch couldn't use it. They also claim that "Anglosaxon scholars" now accept Ferrer's claims, but fail to cite them. Valeriano Sánchez Ramos seems to be a quite decent local historian of eastern Andalucia, whereas Alfonso Viciana Martínez-Lage is more of a general writer but has published some academic stuff. I can't quite make my mind up if this is a sort of folie à deux, or whether they are publishing an academic joke.Boynamedsue (talk) 17:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- They managed to get published in Boletín de la Real Sociedad Geográfica (Tomo CLX (2023), p. 115). But still I wouldn't give it much weight unless there are other scholars that concur with them. Alaexis¿question? 21:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm really surprised at that, I would have to say this is covered by WP:FRINGE. It is hard to understand how the editorial team might have accepted for publication an article which suggests an ice-free passage existed in the winter of 1588. You need specialist ships, and often icebreakers, to do it in summer today.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- That someone was able to navigate the northwest passage at that time is definitely bthe type of exception claim that WP:EXCEPTIONAL talks of. This would require multiple high quality sources, so this source alone would not be reliable for the claim. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:00, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm really surprised at that, I would have to say this is covered by WP:FRINGE. It is hard to understand how the editorial team might have accepted for publication an article which suggests an ice-free passage existed in the winter of 1588. You need specialist ships, and often icebreakers, to do it in summer today.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- They managed to get published in Boletín de la Real Sociedad Geográfica (Tomo CLX (2023), p. 115). But still I wouldn't give it much weight unless there are other scholars that concur with them. Alaexis¿question? 21:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- The article is really odd, it is drifting towards the genre of x was actually Spanish/Catalan/Indian/Hungarian and the Masons hid the evidence of how they built pyramids so they could continue Akenhaton's religion. They use a photoshop reconstruction of how a woodcut of Ferrer might have looked and suggest a Spanish conspiracy to hide the fact they had discovered the Northwest passage, so the English and Dutch couldn't use it. They also claim that "Anglosaxon scholars" now accept Ferrer's claims, but fail to cite them. Valeriano Sánchez Ramos seems to be a quite decent local historian of eastern Andalucia, whereas Alfonso Viciana Martínez-Lage is more of a general writer but has published some academic stuff. I can't quite make my mind up if this is a sort of folie à deux, or whether they are publishing an academic joke.Boynamedsue (talk) 17:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- And if I'd checked, I'd have found out that he made up the story although it was taken seriously 200 years later. Doug Weller talk 09:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- OK, the article appears to be claiming Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado completed a crossing of the Northwest Passage in 1588. Between February and March. This is an extraordinary claim, I don't think the source is good enough to state that in the article.Boynamedsue (talk) 07:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
D Gershon Lewental 's personal text page
Hi everybody. D Gershon Lewental has an article in Encyclopedia Iranica with subject of "QĀDESIYA, BATTLE OF" ... and academic essay. He had a personal DGLnotes. Does this link text also reliable source for wikipedia ? Hulu2024 (talk) 19:20, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- This looks like a WP:EXPERTSPS case. I mean obviously his page is self-published but he does appear to be an expert in the field of Middle Eastern history. So - per the guidance at EXPERTSPS - it's likely reliable with the caveat (probably not needed for a history article) that it absolutely cannot be used for information about living people other than the author. And, of course, WP:DUE is still relevant and will likely assign greater due weight to traditionally published material. Simonm223 (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- If there are secondary sources for what he says in his page, it would help. Those can be cited. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Pirate Wires?
Pirate Wires describes itself as an "American media company reporting at the intersection of technology, politics, and culture." It doesn't shout "reliable source" to me (feels more like a group blog), but could somebody else take a look at this and help me determine if (a) its articles, or (b) its claims about itself should be cited in articles or BLPs, as was done here? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 20:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- Wouldn’t this be an aboutself citation anyway? I would be more concerned about primary/OR here in that case.
- Regarding the source: they are likely to be pretty biased, but according to the page linked, they seems sufficiently reliable for this, unless someone can dig up large-scale issues I missed. Employees, proper funding etc. all seem to be fine. FortunateSons (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- So I'd be fine enough trimming it to something to the effect of
as of January 2025, his profile at the online publisher Pirate Wires lists him as a senior editor
? I just wanted to make sure PW was something worth mentioning at all, or if it was more akin to 'he's the senior editor this super-serious blog' and name-dropping a site that bore no mention. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC)- I’m not sure, but think being descriptive is fine for “articles about Misplaced Pages” and stuff, “critical“ is probably better coming from a specific source, even if it’s obvious. With everything else, it’s probably a question of DUE, not RS. FortunateSons (talk) 22:17, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'd eschew calling out any of his particular articles over others, since there's... no reason to, right? Without reliable third-party sourcing, they're no more notable or inclusion-worthy than his others. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 22:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I think this is a case for BRD, but it seems like a reasonable option FortunateSons (talk) 22:56, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'd eschew calling out any of his particular articles over others, since there's... no reason to, right? Without reliable third-party sourcing, they're no more notable or inclusion-worthy than his others. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 22:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- I’m not sure, but think being descriptive is fine for “articles about Misplaced Pages” and stuff, “critical“ is probably better coming from a specific source, even if it’s obvious. With everything else, it’s probably a question of DUE, not RS. FortunateSons (talk) 22:17, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- So I'd be fine enough trimming it to something to the effect of
- Pirate Wires has a strong right wing "libertarian tech bro" bent to its coverage, unsurprising given its links to Peter Thiel. The way it frames events is often strongly slanted, sometimes to the point of being misleading. Take for instance the recent story claiming that the WMF had been taken over by "Soros-backed operatives" . I would argue that this framing is conspiratorial and hyperbolic. I think it might sometimes be usable with caution for uncontroversial facts, but more objective sources should be preferred. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Here's a Business Insider story on Pirate Wires that gives a good sense of its ethos . Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Invoking George Soros conspiracy theories to attack an organization is not a good start for Pirate Wires, a new publication that does not have much of a reputation at this point. Definitely not generally reliable, and I would avoid using this publication for claims about living people. — Newslinger talk 02:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- I wouldn't call it a "group blog", it just has a niche audience in the tech industry. It is certainly more factually based than Fox News. The article you linked is using it problematically though. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 14:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Words of the founder Selfstudier (talk) 14:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Solana is the founder and operator of Pirate Wires, so maybe it's wise to consider his pieces in particular self-published. No idea the level of editorial rigour other contributors are under though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Pirate Wires should be considered Generally reliable. The information that they publish, though perhaps from a libertarian or right wing political slant, is generally truthful/accurate and therefore should be considered WP:GENREL unless someone is able to provide substantial evidence and examples that disprove this. Iljhgtn (talk) 16:35, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- It's Mike Solana's blog. Simonm223 (talk) 17:07, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Do you have an evidentiary basis for your claim? I ask because I was recently described in a Pirate Wires article as a member of a powerful pro-Hamas group, and while this was entertaining in its foolishness, the important point for RSN is that it was a factual error. The article contained many inaccuracies about various things, and it was clear that no attempt had been made to avoid errors and erroneous conclusions. So, using it for BLPs might be unwise, and the notion that it is "generally truthful/accurate" seem highly questionable. Of course, I only have one data point, so it could be an outlier, but I doubt it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah. I was not happy about Pirate Wires being used for that whole fiasco. But as for the evidence look above at the link Selfstudier provided in which Mike Solana says, "I am the overwhelming majority owner of pirate wires, with no board. nobody tells me what to write or cover, nor will they ever." Simonm223 (talk) 17:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- When the editor in chief is also the owner and there is no editorial board for him to answer to and also he writes a lot of the content I don't know how we could describe it as anything other than a personal blog. Even if he sometimes brings in guest writers it's still quite obviously his personal thing. Simonm223 (talk) 17:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are many other editors from what I can tell, such as Ashley Rindsberg. It is not even close to a blog. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Ashley Rindsberg, the author of the article with inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions. For Misplaced Pages's purposes, its main utility may be as a tool to identify potential disinformation vectors that could degrade the integrity of Misplaced Pages content. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- What "inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions" are you referring to? Can you cite specific examples please and quote from the source directly? Also, are there other reliable sources which then criticize PW for "inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions" or is that WP:OR and/or your own conclusion being reached? Iljhgtn (talk) 17:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Ashley Rindsberg, the author of the article with inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions. For Misplaced Pages's purposes, its main utility may be as a tool to identify potential disinformation vectors that could degrade the integrity of Misplaced Pages content. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- There are many other editors from what I can tell, such as Ashley Rindsberg. It is not even close to a blog. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- When the editor in chief is also the owner and there is no editorial board for him to answer to and also he writes a lot of the content I don't know how we could describe it as anything other than a personal blog. Even if he sometimes brings in guest writers it's still quite obviously his personal thing. Simonm223 (talk) 17:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah. I was not happy about Pirate Wires being used for that whole fiasco. But as for the evidence look above at the link Selfstudier provided in which Mike Solana says, "I am the overwhelming majority owner of pirate wires, with no board. nobody tells me what to write or cover, nor will they ever." Simonm223 (talk) 17:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Do you have an evidentiary basis for your claim? I ask because I was recently described in a Pirate Wires article as a member of a powerful pro-Hamas group, and while this was entertaining in its foolishness, the important point for RSN is that it was a factual error. The article contained many inaccuracies about various things, and it was clear that no attempt had been made to avoid errors and erroneous conclusions. So, using it for BLPs might be unwise, and the notion that it is "generally truthful/accurate" seem highly questionable. Of course, I only have one data point, so it could be an outlier, but I doubt it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Considering that comment and the fact that founder Mike Solana is the chief marketing officer of Founders Fund, Pirate Wires has a major conflict of interest with all of the individuals and organizations associated with Founders Fund, and is a non-independent source with respect to all related topics. — Newslinger talk 03:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Pirate Wires is trashy far-right culture wars content. It is at best a group blog - David Gerard (talk) 10:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
Need context before coming to RSN
At this point, the source is used in only 7 articles in mainspace. . in general, RSN really shouldn't be used to approve sources ahead of time, editors exercise their own discretion, debate merits of source in the talk page of article, and come here if the same source is debated over and over again, or if reliability is still at issue. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Per
Slaterstevenits founder describes it as a WP:SPS - it should be treated accordingly. Simonm223 (talk) 17:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)- Not me. Slatersteven (talk) 17:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- Oh dear did I misread? OOPS should be per Selfstudier apologies. I will strike above. Simonm223 (talk) 17:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- It is not WP:SPS and its founder merely said things along the lines of "I am not bought and paid for nor a mouthpiece for any billionaire" etc. Now I do not know the veracity of that statement for sure, but I do not see that Mike Solana declared Pirate Wires to be SPS or a blog. It has numerous other independent journalists and appears to run as a full-fledged journalistic organization like any other, with their own right leaning or right-libertarian bias of course. But bias is not a reason for a source to otherwise be deprecated or considered SPS or anything else, it is just the nature of nearly every source that some bias to one direction or another is to be expected. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:56, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- Not me. Slatersteven (talk) 17:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
- But they don't have any indication of editorial controls, or a fact-checking process, or any of the things that an WP:RS would have; neither is there any reason to think they have a particular
reputation for fact-checking and accuracy
. A statement like "I am the overwhelming majority owner of pirate wires, with no board. nobody tells me what to write or cover, nor will they ever" makes it pretty clear that it's not structured the way we'd expect a RS to be structured. I'm with the editors above who describe it as a blog - there's just nothing here that even has the shape of an RS. The fact that the person who runs it sometimes also includes guest posts by other people doesn't change the fact that there's no editorial board, no source of fact-checking, and most of all no reputation. Like... what makes you think that it's a WP:RS, according to the criteria we use? Where do you feel its reliability comes from? --Aquillion (talk) 20:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- But they don't have any indication of editorial controls, or a fact-checking process, or any of the things that an WP:RS would have; neither is there any reason to think they have a particular
Usage in Ideological bias on Misplaced Pages
Is the Pirate Wires piece "How Misplaced Pages Launders Regime Propaganda" by Ashley Rindsberg a reliable source of claims for the Ideological bias on Misplaced Pages article? Rindsberg has published other content about Misplaced Pages on Pirate Wires, including "How Soros-Backed Operatives Took Over Key Roles at Misplaced Pages". — Newslinger talk 04:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- It's at best, usable for the attributed opinion of Rindsberg only, but even then, it's obviously polemical and partisan. There's lots of right-wing criticism of Misplaced Pages that I personally find disingenuous, but inevitably an article on "Ideological bias on Misplaced Pages" is going to have to include some partisan sourcing, but not framing it as fact is essential. I am unsure whether Pirate Wires is prominent enough a publication that it would be due to mention in any capacity. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:31, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sources in that article should have some leeway, as Misplaced Pages is obviously going to be criticised by such sources. But I totally agree with Hemiauchenia that framing is key. This is the opinion of a hyper partisan source, framing it as fact is wrong. Whether it should be included or not is a discussion for the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- It is more or less a group
- blog that mostly publishes opinion, including eg antisemitic Soros conspiracy theories. Any Misplaced Pages editor reading their coverage of this project will immediately spot multiple falsehoods and errors, and also personal attacks on names editors based on these inaccuracies. At best on a par with Quillette. In short, not reliable for this topic, and if this topic is a guide to how robust its general reporting is it’s probably not reliable for anything. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:16, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
CEIC data
I often see this site being used as a source for country-list data. They appear to be professional, but I'm not sure if they're considered a proper secondary source. They do not appear to be the same CEIC as the one owned by Caixin, as they say they are owned by "ISI Markets". Wizmut (talk) 23:04, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
- It looks like just a big database. I would trust the first party sources for raw data more. EEpic (talk) 10:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- If in question use secondary sources. Ramos1990 (talk) 02:16, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
Fantasy Literature
I see this source around a lot and I would like to have it settled for whether it is OK to use for reviews. It looks good to me and not promotional or any of the typical sorts of issues that plague these kinds of websites, but I am not sure, and I would like to know before I use it on pages, and sometimes books are cited to this at NPP and I am unsure how I should judge it. I would judge it as decently established but it looks to me to be straddling the line between online review publication and blog. It's used on about 160 already. Anyone else have any thoughts? PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- It has the appearance of a blog. It has a sort-of staff:. I'd be hesitant to use it for WP:N purposes. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- This is the terms its staff work under:
- Basically they're unpaid volunteers who become voting members of the staff. They are expected to review an unspecified but regular number of books in order to maintain their membership. It isn't clear that there's much in the way of editorial oversight beyond a pledge not to plagiarize review material. Considering their concentration on volume of reviews and appearance of loose editorial standards I'd be hesitant to use this group to establish the notability of a book. Simonm223 (talk) 12:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
- So just for notability purposes it is unusable or is it something that should not be included on pages that are notable? PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:03, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Not an RS. Slatersteven (talk) 12:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
NASASpaceFlight.com
Looking to see if we can come to some consensus on NASASpaceFlight.com's use as a reliable source in articles related to SpaceX, specifically in its use in Starship flight test 8 and Starship flight test 9.
At a glance, to me the site seems to be a bit fan-sitey and seems to glean a lot of information from rumour and speculation based on photos and video they've taken from the perimeter or via drones flying over SpaceX facilities. I also see no evidence on the website of any editorial oversight or fact checking policies.
Talk:SpaceX Starship/FAQ mentions the site as a reliable source but the only criteria they give for its inclusion are that the source
"should already have a Misplaced Pages page (notable enough to be created) and have reliable sources covering them (notable enough to be mentioned)."
which I think we can all agree is not valid signal of reliability. RachelTensions (talk) 03:21, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- WP:RS calls for
"a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"
. A Google books search appears to show WP:USEBYOTHERS, and even use by NASA. They appear to have some editorial staff, but there's no editorial guideline I could find. Obviously the forum section wouldn't be reliable per WP:USERGENERATED.
Given how often they are used by other sources I would think they should probably considered generally reliable. Is there any specific instances that are of concern? After all generally reliable doesn't mean always reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:53, 17 January 2025 (UTC)Is there any specific instances that are of concern? After all generally reliable doesn't mean always reliable.
Nothing in particular, mostly just looking to see if coverage of events from this source would constitute sigcov in reliable sources for the purposes of WP:N. RachelTensions (talk) 15:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)- This is probably a reliable source, but WP:SIGCOV isn't just matter of reliability. Notability is beyond the scope of this noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:11, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
WP:SIGCOV isn't just matter of reliability.
no, but coverage in an unreliable source does not count for WP:GNG. That's why I'm seeking opinions on whether this source in particular is reliable. RachelTensions (talk) 15:18, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- This is probably a reliable source, but WP:SIGCOV isn't just matter of reliability. Notability is beyond the scope of this noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:11, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- I've found their written news reporting to be generally reliable however their coverage of SpaceX in particular often comes off as promotional (you very rarely see the controversies or criticisms found in other sources reflected in their work) but that may be more self-censorship to maintain their inside access to SpaceX than objective promotion. I would not touch their forum or youtube channel with a 10 foot stick but thats surely besides the point of this discussion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:11, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
I would not touch their forum or youtube channel with a 10 foot stick but thats surely besides the point of this discussion.
well, maybe not exactly besides the point. There are several citations to their YouTube channel in the articles I've mentioned (and similar articles). What in particular about their YouTube channel do you believe is less reliable than their website? RachelTensions (talk) 21:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)- In general I find the stuff on their Youtube channel to be much more speculative and clickbaity as well as of a generally low quality. Often its just one of their people flipping between a bunch of pictures from the day before and speculating live about what they might mean. It also doesn't appear to be subject to the same standard of editorial review, its not the same standard of writing and analysis (much of it appears unscripted and I haven't seen them make corrections after the fact). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
How restrictive is the TRT World „Turkish Government conflict of interest“ unreliability?
How broad should this restriction be interpreted? For example, does it include topics such as Kurdistan, Israel and the current conflict in Syria? FortunateSons (talk) 12:48, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- I would have thought it applies very strongly for Kurdistan and Syria, as Turkey is in open conflict in those areas. Israel might depend on the context, Turkey obviously isn't a uninterested party but it's not Iran. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:15, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- To be clear it would be reliable for statements of the Turkish governments official views in all cases. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Of course, I‘m just asking about reliability for facts, because I saw some less than great statements, particularly in the I/P area. Thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 14:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Basically agree with ActivelyDis. I think TRT World is pretty good on non-domestic issues on the whole, but not for anything Kurdish. Israel is fine. Probably not good for Syria as Turkey is a belligerent party there, although I’ve never seen it actually publish anything questionable on Syria apart from Kurdish-related stuff. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- To be clear it would be reliable for statements of the Turkish governments official views in all cases. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
Is “Zannettou, Savvas "A Quantitative Approach to Understanding Online Antisemitism". a reliable source for Happy Merchant
I can’t find evidence it’s been published. Doug Weller talk 19:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not up for reading it right now, but it's been published, and the correct citation is: Zannettou, S., Finkelstein, J., Bradlyn, B., & Blackburn, J. (2020, May). A quantitative approach to understanding online antisemitism. In Proceedings of the International AAAI conference on Web and Social Media (Vol. 14, pp. 786-797). Google Scholar shows a few places where it can be accessed. If it's kept, the references to it in the Notes section should change "Savvas" to something like "Zannettou et al." FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:01, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- I should add that the Zannettou et al. citations that currently exist in the article are preprints, which generally are not RSs, per WP:PREPRINT. The other citation was also subsequently published in conference proceedings. Conference proceedings might or might not be reliable sources for specific content, depends on the conference and the content. FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- What's the context for this question? Where is it being cited/do you want to be able to cite it? Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:40, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- @Hydrangeans I'm a bit confused by the question - did you look at the article? It's cited several times there and as I can't find evidence that it's been reliably published I don't think it should be used. Doug Weller talk 08:50, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
Apologies, I missed another one, also apparently never published."Zannettou, Savvas, Tristan Caulfield, Jeremy Blackburn, Emiliano De Cristofaro, Michael Sirivianos, Gianluca Stringhini, and Guillermo Suarez-Tangil. "On the Origins of Memes by Fringe Web Communities." arXiv.org, September 22, 2018. https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.12512." Doug Weller talk 08:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- I provided a link to the published version of that one in my second comment above. The citation is Zannettou, S., Caulfield, T., Blackburn, J., De Cristofaro, E., Sirivianos, M., Stringhini, G., & Suarez-Tangil, G. (2018, October). On the origins of memes by means of fringe web communities. In Proceedings of the Internet Measurement Conference 2018 (pp. 188-202). There's an alternate citation at the top right of the copy where it says "ACM Reference Format." FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:11, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- @FactOrOpinion ACM is reputable, but I seem to have forgotten that we can use published conference papers, but not papers simply presented at a conference. Sorry. Doug Weller talk 14:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that I'm following. Both papers were published in conference proceedings. FWIW, even preprints are published in WP's sense of this term, which is only "a source that is made available to the public in some form." Even if there are no conference proceedings, it's possible to use a conference paper that was presented, as long as the presenter has made it publicly available (e.g., via something like arxiv.org). But all of this only establishes that the paper is published and therefore verifiable, not that it's a RS for the content in question. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:27, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry, I mean when is a paper submitted to a conference run by a reliable organisation an RS? When submitted? If published as part of the publication of the conference papers? Doug Weller talk 15:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- It is published, Conference proceedings of Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), volume 14. AAAI has been around since 1979 with respected associations. Submission to a conference is not sufficient to meet any standards. Acceptance by a reputable conference after peer review (some conference talks are invited and not peer reviewed) is a good indicator of reliability though not a guarantee (the conference paper may well be revised between acceptance and publication in a proceedings and even then might in the long run not be considered reliable). As it stands, I would say reliable for the use of Happy Merchant online unless other sources can be found undermining its reliability. Erp (talk) 15:50, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that I'm following. Both papers were published in conference proceedings. FWIW, even preprints are published in WP's sense of this term, which is only "a source that is made available to the public in some form." Even if there are no conference proceedings, it's possible to use a conference paper that was presented, as long as the presenter has made it publicly available (e.g., via something like arxiv.org). But all of this only establishes that the paper is published and therefore verifiable, not that it's a RS for the content in question. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:27, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- @FactOrOpinion ACM is reputable, but I seem to have forgotten that we can use published conference papers, but not papers simply presented at a conference. Sorry. Doug Weller talk 14:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
Hawar News Agency
Should we be using articles from the Hawar News Agency, especially in relation to the (geo)political side of Rojava? This also includes articles in the scope of the Syrian civil war. It has ties to the SDF, which means there is a significant conflict of interest here; I should also add that the YPG/YPD/SDF heavily censor narratives critical of theirs, (I pretty much exaggerated what I read here, the arguments below are convincing) which raises concern over its reliability. I want to get community consensus before I do anything, especially because the article in question (Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria) is related to a CTOP. 💽 🌙Eclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ 19:40, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- (Copying this response from the talk page of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria:) Of course we have to use Hawar, simply because it is one the most prominent news sites from Syria. It shouldn't be used as the sole source for contentious issues (unless it cites claims), but for basic facts such as local election results, regional policy decisions, etc. it is one of the only sources available. It is also used as a source by academic researchers such as in The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts, Soldiers of End-Times. Assessing the Military Effectiveness of the Islamic State, and Statelet of Survivors. The Making of a Semi-Autonomous Region in Northeast Syria.
(The following part is new, written for RSN:) These are books written by experts on Syria, released by reputable publishers such as Oxford University Press, and they have seemingly deemed Hawar to be a partisan, but useable source. Speaking from experience as an editor who has been active in editing articles on the Syrian civil war for ten years, I would also note that Hawar was previously discussed by editors and similarily assessed, as it is fairly reliable though should be used with caution in especially problematic fields such as casualty numbers (where partisanship becomes a major problem). Applodion (talk) 20:28, 18 January 2025 (UTC) - Having read through the article you linked it doesn't show that media is heavily censored. A relevant sentence would appear to be:
"In the current situation, the journalists we interviewed usually stress that, on the one hand, they enjoy relative freedom of expression. The PYD did not forcefully close those it considers as antagonistic media. Reporters can move freely in the region and cover a wide array of issues. Additionally, journalists from international or regional media are also generally allowed to operate freely. However, they also say that there is always a tension with the authorities in power and there are red lines that cannot be crossed."
As well as:"Gradually, they seem to have adopted an editorial line that is less critical, if not supportive, of the political system in Rojava. This support, according to some local journalists, is not due so much to direct imposition from the authorities, but rather to their own convictions and, even more important, to the feeling that doing otherwise would be very unpopular in a conflict-ridden context."
So it doesn't sound like they have the most freedom of media, but it appears a long way from heavily censored. Restrictions on reporting matters that could effect security are common in areas of conflict (and even outside of them).
Hawar News Agency has some WP:USEBYOTHERS and would probably be covered by WP:NEWSORG. Issues of bias (WP:RSBIAS) and opinion (WP:RSOPINION) don't immediately make a source unreliable. In general I would agree with Applodion, reliable but caution should be taken for issue where it's bias or censorship of security matters may effect it's reporting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:41, 18 January 2025 (UTC) - Agree with above, helpful to understand its bias, but this means to use with caution and understanding rather than preventing use. CMD (talk) 00:31, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- Agree with the above. If we are citing it for contentious claims, then it's better we provide attribution. Unless OP or someone else can come up with credible sources that question the reliability of Hawar, I don't see any reason to worry about its inclusion. Looking over the article, it seems most of the citations to it are for easily verifiable facts (i.e. changes in AANES leadership, recognition by the Catalan parliament, etc.), rather than anything contentious. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:54, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
RfC: LionhearTV
Moved from Misplaced Pages talk:Tambayan Philippines/Sources § RfC: LionhearTV – Royiswariii, 19 January 2025 00:55 (UTC)
I want your comments about the reliability of LionhearTV, I can't determine whether it is reliable or not, on New Page Sources, the Lionheartv is in the unreliable section, but, despite of that some editors still using this source in all Philippine Articles. So let's make a vote:
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate
Royiswariii Talk! 10:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
- Deprecate. The Philippines has plenty of WP:RS to choose from. If you are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find refs for something or someone and have to use this, I'd say consider against and don't add it to the article. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Comment: For better understanding and context, especially for editors unfamiliar of this topic's origin:
- LionhearTV is a blog site, as described on its "About Me" page, established in 2008 and functioning primarily as a celebrity and entertainment blog. The site is operated by eMVP Digital, which also manages similar blog sites, such as DailyPedia and Philippine Entertainment.
- In addition to these blogs, LionhearTV organizes the RAWR Awards, which recognize achievements in the entertainment industry. This accolade has been acknowledged by major industry players, including ABS-CBN and GMA Network. Like other awards, the RAWR Awards present physical trophies to honorees.
- A discussion about LionhearTV’s reliability as a source took place on the Bini (group) talk page in September 2024 (see Talk:Bini (group)/Archive 1 § LionhearTV as a reliable source). The issue was subsequently raised on the Tambayan Philippines talk page (Misplaced Pages talk:Tambayan Philippines/Archive 52 § Lionheartv) and the WP:RSN (Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 452 § LionhearTV). However, these discussions did not yield a constructive consensus on whether LionhearTV can be considered a reliable source. The discussion at Tambayan deviated into a debate about SMNI, which was unrelated to the original subject. Meanwhile, the sole respondent at the RSN inquiry commented,
It may come down to how it's used, it maybe unreliable for contentious statement or comments about living people, but reliable for basic details.
- At this moment, LionhearTV is listed as unreliable on Misplaced Pages:New page patrol source guide#The Philippines as result of the no consensus discussion at RSN.
- AstrooKai (Talk) 13:57, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Lionheartv is one person operation. How can there be editorial discretion on that case? Howard the Duck (talk) 14:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm more surprised on how a single person actively manages three blog sites and one accolade, with the accolade even giving out physical trophies to its winners. Like, how is he/she funding and doing all of these? AstrooKai (Talk) 14:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- It's immaterial on how we determine WP:RS. What could be very important that other WP:RS missed out on that only this blog carries? If it's only this blog that carries articles about something, it's not very important. This blog is the very definition of WP:RSSELF. I'm surprised we're having this conversation. A blacklist is needed. Howard the Duck (talk) 02:35, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm more surprised on how a single person actively manages three blog sites and one accolade, with the accolade even giving out physical trophies to its winners. Like, how is he/she funding and doing all of these? AstrooKai (Talk) 14:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Lionheartv is one person operation. How can there be editorial discretion on that case? Howard the Duck (talk) 14:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Option 3. There's something about its reporting and organizational structure that is off compared to the regular newspapers. Borgenland (talk) 14:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Though, I find it strange and concerning that reputable sources copypasted some of LionhearTV's articles:
- LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/12/2024-spotify-wrapped-radar-artists-hev-abi-bini-lead-the-philippine-charts/ (December 8, 2024)
Sunstar: https://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/2024-spotify-wrapped-radar-artists-hev-abi-bini-lead-the-philippine-charts (December 10, 2024) - LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2025/01/dylan-menor-signs-with-universal-records/ (January 11, 2025)
Manila Republic: https://www.manilarepublic.com/dylan-menor-signs-with-universal-records/ (January 14, 2025)
- LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/12/2024-spotify-wrapped-radar-artists-hev-abi-bini-lead-the-philippine-charts/ (December 8, 2024)
- These are two instances I found so far where other sources copypasted from LionhearTV. But I saw other instances where LionhearTV is the one who copypasted from other sources, such examples include:
- LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/12/moira-dela-torre-brings-her-new-album-im-okay-to-cinemas/ (December 30, 2024)
Original: https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/music/2024/12/29/moira-dela-torre-brings-her-new-album-i-m-okay-to-cinemas-0948 (December 29, 2024) - LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/06/bini-set-to-showcase-sneak-preview-of-their-new-single-cherry-on-top-in-mobile-game/ (June 27, 2024)
Original: https://www.abs-cbn.com/starmagic/articles-news/bini-set-to-showcase-sneak-preview-of-their-new-single-cherry-on-top-in-mobile-game-22637 (June 24, 2024)
- LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/12/moira-dela-torre-brings-her-new-album-im-okay-to-cinemas/ (December 30, 2024)
- I honestly don't know about these editors, they just copying each other's works. Probably cases of churnalism. AstrooKai (Talk) 16:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
- Though, I find it strange and concerning that reputable sources copypasted some of LionhearTV's articles:
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