Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea/Reliable sources

Is Dispatch can be counted as reliable source?

Hi everyone, I have a question regarding to the reliabbility of the news media, Dispatch, in Korea. (https://www.dispatch.co.kr/) I usually use dispatch for following korean culture and latest news, and would like to know if it can be included as a reliable source? They usually reporting news by photo taking and writing news by their own reporters, not only quoting rumors on the internet.

Sorry that I'm new to this community and would like to try participating in wikipedia for proving accurate information. Any further details I can provide for counting Dispatch as reliable source? Thanks for the help! Ianmaksh (talk) 04:30, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, it should be not.

Read a precedent case for The Sun: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_254#RfC:_The_Sun TheWandering (talk) 14:04, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Also 200,000 people signed petition to get it banned after spreading rumors about G-Dragon and others. Using Dispatch for Wikipedia is a total no. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheWandering (talk • contribs) 16:22, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I consider Dispatch to be similar to the American site TMZ. I never use it as a source for anything and usually discourage others from doing so. There are tons of other far more reliable, non-tabloid like sites and outlets that can be used to source sports, culture, music etc.-related news. In my experience on WP, most editors generally don't consider it a reliable source nor do they use it. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 21:45, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I just want to add that Allkpop is considered unreliable because the similar problems with rumors/facts. This is its description for All-Kpop in the unreliable section: "A celebrity gossip site based which publishes rumors and conjecture in addition to accurately reported facts." TheWandering (talk) 10:52, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

@Carlobunnie: What do you think about using Dispatch as sources in Lee Seunggi vs Hook cases? According to this report Dispatch was the winner of the 386th 'Reporter of the Month Award' in the economic report category hosted by the Journalists Association of Korea for 'Kang Jong-hyun's Bithumb... (Fake) Chairman's reality tracker'. So I read the article and the award is prestigious. While report about Lee Seunggi’s case don’t get an award, They were written by the same reporter. Preferwiki (talk) 00:01, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

The Lee Seung Gi's case is also reported by the reliable media like Korea Herald, not exclusively Dispatch. Plus, Lee actually spoke about it publicly. So you can't really use that case to support Dispatch.

https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20221202000585

https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20221216000540&mod=skb

https://www.straitstimes.com/life/entertainment/singer-actor-lee-seung-gi-to-end-contract-with-hook-entertainment-after-18-years TheWandering (talk) 01:22, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Also, Dispatch apparently only joined the Association last year. And for the record, the executive producer of TMZ also "won nine Emmy awards, and has received numerous other journalism awards".

"Although TMZ is cited by reliable sources, most editors consider TMZ a low-quality source and prefer more reliable sources when available. Because TMZ frequently publishes articles based on rumor and speculation without named sources, it is recommended to explicitly attribute statements to TMZ if used. When TMZ is the only source for a piece of information, consider also whether the information constitutes due or undue weight, especially when the subject is a living person."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Sources TheWandering (talk) 06:35, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Can I hear other inputs about Dispatch? It's been here for a while.

Considering the precedent against The Sun, AllKpop, and TMZ, I should say no for Dispatch.

I also would like to remind other editors about inconsistencies. Some editors might be tempted to use Dispatch if it published a beneficial news for their idols (although uncorroborated or still rumors), yet they would reject Dispatch if it published negative news about their idols.

I'd tag other active editors: @Explicit @Nkon21 @ChoHyeri TheWandering (talk) 11:00, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Dispatch does not appear at all on the list. Shouldn't this be fixed? Also, should we open another discussion about it since this one is one year old?

I have no personal opinion about the reliability of Dispatch because I don't actually know them well, but I do know, after editing a few K-pop pages, that many crucial people went to Dispatch to release exclusive interviews. So if it will be considered unreliable a disclaimer should be needed. Cinemaandpolitics (talk) 20:24, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

KMDb

The Korean Movie Database gets referenced a lot; is it a reliable source? Does anyone know about the website? I know the American IMDb isn't, per WP:IMDB. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 11:52, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

The reason why IMDb is considered not reliable is because the content there are in part or in whole user generated. Every site is considered separately when assessing for reliability. There is no indication on the KMDb website that the content there is user generated with a cursory glance. If you have evidence to suggest otherwise do share with the rest here or at WP:RSN. – robertsky (talk) 12:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Right; I just wasn't sure how its content is written. I was hoping someone was, and would be able to quickly classify the page on this RS list 211.43.120.242 (talk) 00:13, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Reformatting page

I'm moving everything to a table, in a similar style to WP:RSPSS, still WIP at time of writing. I avoided making controversial or significant changes; the list should be mostly the same. I added textual descriptions of each source, but tried to keep each one brief to avoid controversy. Please poke me if you disagree, I'm happy to stop and discuss.

Note: in the process of doing so, I removed a couple of sources from the RS list. Some of them are defunct, some I'm skeptical of their reliability so WP:BOLDly took action. Here they are:

Removed these because I'm unsure of their reliability or they're defunct:

• Newsen
• Kuki News
• My Daily
• Maxim Korea
• Osen
• Sinhan Minbo
• Star N
• Star News
• Travel Bike News

A source I added ages back but it's not strongly related enough:

• Wilson Center Digital Archive

A couple sources I'm unsure of I left on the list, but I marked them as "Needs discussion'. My methodology here for filtering sources wasn't really rigorous, but honestly the list's compilation wasn't in the first place. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 04:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Newsen and Osen have long been considered reliable by the community (at least in the time I've been part of it) so they should be restored. Honestly, I wouldn't have removed them without first finding out what the consensus on them is, as such an action could have potentially made others (particularly less experienced editors) think there was suddenly a problem concerning the usage of both of these sources (they're used prolifically across the Project after all). Outside of those two, idk which of the other sources you've listed are now defunct, but becoming defunct doesn't particularly mean a strike against a source's reliability either. To the best of my knowledge, both the Sinhan Minbo and My Daily were/are fine, as are Star N and Star News (for entertainment-related news among other things). Kuki News was a source that started being used on WP in more recent years iirc, but I can't really cmmt on its reliability as I'm not familiar with it in detail. Travel Bike is the same, though the latter and the former meet most of the proponents for reliability per WP policy. Maxim Korea might have inherited reliability, to an extent, from its parent Maxim, like Rolling Stone/Rolling Stone Korea/Rolling Stone India, but I've never used it myself so I can only say that at a glance it appears reliable for entertainment-related content. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but I do appreciate what you tried to do (though I don't think the simpler list was so terrible to the point it needed a complete overhaul). Will you overhaul the Unreliable section at some point also? There's been numerous discussions abt certain sources on that list over the years so it'd be good to have them linked and easily accessible in a centralized place. Not everyone knows to check the talk page archives (or even bothers to do that tbh). The only reason I'm not offering to help you do it is because my anxiety affects my editing (I edited this comment five times before feeling comfortable enough with the wording to post it) so I only get minimally involved with things anymore. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 23:39, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi, this is the ip that made these changes. Agree with your concerns, and I'll start acting on them. seefooddiet (talk) 04:17, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm reading into this more now, but I'm a little skeptical with the argument about status quo for keeping the sources in. I've gone through the archives for this talk page, and imo there's hardly discussion of even the most reliable sources.

When a source makes it onto our reliable sources list, we're essentially making an endorsement of its reliability. Even if a source has been widely used until now, that's not necessarily a guarantee that the source is reliable. Granted, maybe if nobody raised a red flag until now that's a good sign, but that's not necessarily how Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources is constructed. For that list, there's a burden of proof to prove reliability for membership in the list. I think in an ideal world, we'd hold the same kind of standard when constructing this list.

Granted, we're a smaller WikiProject so maybe it doesn't make sense to apply that same level of scrutiny. But I'm on the fence. No burden to reply if this is anxiety-enducing btw, I'm mostly sharing general thoughts. Functionally, I'm going to do what you asked, but I have my reservations. seefooddiet (talk) 07:40, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

You won't find discussions because there are some sources that most editors belonging to this project almost universally consider reliable, so they were added to the list without requiring discussion/extensive discussion. Project-specific discussions over acceptable/unacceptable project-specific sources don't always happen the same way discussions do on the general RSPSOURCES talk page, which is what I feel you were expecting to see here. So I'd say yes, to an extent you're holding this project's sources list to a higher degree of scrutiny than is warranted. Many discussions have also taken place on the talk pages of articles or on user talk pages, so you won't necessarily find them in the archives here either. Another thing I can see affecting your ability to get the detailed answers you're looking for is the lack of participation from other editors belonging to the project. Ik there are some who can provide far more detailed answers about Korean news sources than I possibly could, but I'm the only one who's responded to you so far.

Also, if Newsen and Osen have raised red flags for you, then you should share those specific concerns here, so that others can address them. If no one does, I can always tag a few editors I know and ask them to chime in and hopefully clear things up for you. Just keep in mind, it's also usually the burden of the one who disagrees with the current/apparent consensus to prove why they are right. The Music Project editors taught me that early on. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 18:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I may start scrutinizing the list more myself and starting discussions. Even in your first reply to me, the defense provided for a good number of the sources mentioned I'm skeptical of. Newsen and Osen I lean more receptive towards. seefooddiet (talk) 18:33, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

though I don't think the simpler list was so terrible to the point it needed a complete overhaul. It wasn't that the list is "terrible", it's that the new format has more features that I think most would agree are useful, like the languages and discussion links. I decided to overhaul the list because I've had discussions where people looked at the list and I got a sense that people didn't really fully grasp the information on it and the (lack of) rigor that went into creating it. Pointing out where discussions did and did not happen is important.

The unreliable list needs to be done too, yes, but admittedly not feeling the motivation to do it at the moment. seefooddiet (talk) 07:52, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

If I may, where did you have these discussions and with whom? -- Carlobunnie (talk) 18:33, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Frankly I don't remember which exact discussions I had. It's been months for some of these discussions; this list reformatting was just on my to-do list for a long time.

The key thing is this: do you feel that the new list format is not helpful or worse than the original? If so, I'm genuinely happy to revert, I mean it. Per my OP, I acted boldly because I didn't expect pushback. Pushback means we go back to status quo. seefooddiet (talk) 18:42, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

My issue was more with the removal of sources that shouldn't have been removed (which you and I already discussed above) than it was the attempted overhaul. I don't believe a revert is necessary, because like I said, I understand what you're trying to do. But at the same time, it was done a bit half-baked (hence why I asked if you were going to complete the other half of the page as well). With stuff like this, it's either get it right the first time, or leave it as is until the most refined version of what you're hoping to achieve is determined through discussion/consensus then implement that. That's how it usually works on RSPSOURCES. You'd have been reverted almost instantly and directed to open a discussion on the talk page lol.

Ik you said you're not really in the mood to complete it, but I think you should either convert the unreliable section into a table to match the reliable section, or merge both into one big long list, like the RSPSOURCES list. A color key to demarcate sources that definitely should not be used would be very helpful also. Then, over time, link the various discussions about each source as you find them. But don't abandon it, because it currently looks weirdly incomplete almost. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 19:04, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I conceded on the removal of sources, and added them back in.

The reformatting is indeed incremental; I was upfront about that. But I'm consistent about moving things in the right direction over time. Completing the table will come. I'll admit working incrementally is sometimes not the best (although there's minimal harm in this case; we intentionally deemphasize the unreliable sources), but it's just my editing style.

And I'm aware this isn't RSPSOURCES; I gave it less rigor specifically because there wasn't much rigor put into the process in the first place. I don't deserve to be laughed at for trying to do the right thing. seefooddiet (talk) 19:40, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Pinging you here Seefooddiet as you're the one who used that IP address, right? 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 • [𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺] 04:14, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thank you seefooddiet (talk) 04:15, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Maeil Business Newspaper

Would the Maeil Business Newspaper be considered a reliable source? lullabying (talk) 19:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is a reliable source. The newspaper is like those other Comprehensive Daily newspaper in South Korea. 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 • [𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺] 20:04, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Lullabying @98Tigerius one note, Maeil Business Newspaper has been using automatic machine translation using Naver Papago for its English, Japanese, and Chinese versions. I would only consider the Korean section reliable, related to Help:Translation#Avoid unedited machine translations. seefooddiet (talk) 08:28, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes I'm aware of that. Thanks. 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 • [𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺] 09:01, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I added it to the list with my above caveat seefooddiet (talk) 08:32, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

HanCinema

HanCinema is already currently on the reliable sources list, but seemingly didn't have much of a discussion before. Logging one here now. The site appears to have its own writing staff and doesn't appear to be WP:USERGENERATED. As long as the information on it has been reliable to peoples' experience, I suspect the site itself is reliable. seefooddiet (talk) 00:25, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

SK-backed encyclopedias

Essay on the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Encyclopedia of Korean Local Culture, and Encyclopedia of Overseas Korean Culture. These are currently on the reliable sources list; I added them myself. I've used all four of these sources to a decent degree (the first one extensively; have used it several hundred times), and am the primary author for all four of their Wikipedia articles.

They're all WP:TERTIARY sources and carry that baggage, but considering South Korea has quite stiff paywalls for information, I'd argue we should rely on these sources often. They're often some of the best/only information freely available online for many historical topics.

On reliability, in my experience most articles in these encyclopedias are fine for broad information but decline in quality when it comes to details.

• The writing can be imprecise (e.g. often speaking in present tense without dating claims, like "this restaurant is 20 years old" or "the restaurant currently can seat 30 people", while providing no indication of when the claim was written).
• Details (namely dates) sometimes contradict information in other reliable sources (I ran into this a lot while creating the articles for this list). However, this seems to happen a lot in general for Korean studies; historiography is quite young in Korea, and it's still actively working on understanding especially its modern history.
• Articles receive periodic updates, but the bulk of the articles (and especially photos) will be noticeably dated to when the encyclopedias were largely produced (1990s for the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 2010s for the later ones).
• Their budgets were seemingly often tight, and writers were reportedly expected to produce large amounts of content quickly. I often get a sense that they just left many threads hanging. I've not really encountered anything that seems egregiously "wrong" however; just little things.

For the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, I'd argue we should be wary on using it for contentious topics. For example, see Assassination of Empress Myeongseong#Japanese government involvement in the assassination (I wrote this). Some Encyclopedia of Korean Culture articles are seemingly clearly nationalistic and use emotional language. But on the other hand, other articles include information that is unflattering to Korea and seemingly nuanced and detatched.

Overall, I think they're not the best sources and should be used cautiously (as with any source), but they will often be near the best that we have for a huge number of situations, given paywalls. seefooddiet (talk) 00:48, 1 September 2024 (UTC)