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Kino-teatr and AlloCine

Hello, I would like to find out if the website https://www.kino-teatr.ru/ is considered a reliable source? As well as https://www.allocine.fr/, Thank you

RfC: Politico update?

Due to the complexity related to WP:PIA, should there be there be changes to the WP:RSP listing of Politico similar to Fox News and Newsweek?

Below are a few proposals:

• Proposal 1: Create a note of a potential bias with current listing
• Proposal 2: Create a listing similar to the current Fox News listing specifically for Israel-Palestine topics, e.g. WP:GREL Politico (American politics) and WP:MREL Politico (Israel-Palestine topics)
• Proposal 3: Create a listing similar to the current Newsweek listing for the overall reliability of Politico, e.g. WP:GREL Politico (pre-2021) and WP:MREL Politico (2021–present)

Thanks for any support or comments ahead of time!--WMrapids (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (Politico)

Comment: Opening an RfC as recent changes could pose potential issues for WP:PIA related articles that have been subject to arbitration, requiring the community to take a look at updating an existing WP:RSP listing.

Knowing how controversial WP:PIA articles are, I do not even participate in them. However, the recent acquisition of Politico by Axel Springer SE has raised concerns about the company's journalistic objectivity. Haaretz has said that a "pro-Israel policy" now exists at Politico while FAIR wrote that pro-Israel advocacy was introduced and its parent company has "No semblance of objectivity".

Currently, I made an edit recognizing this new distinction of a possible pro-Israel bias.--WMrapids (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

• These are concerns about possible bias rather than reporting on actual biased material, so I think it's too early to add such clarifications. FAIR, being a media bias watchdog, criticise everyone which does not mean we should add their every comment to the WP:RSP. As an example, should we say that the NYT is biased towards billionaires based on this? Alaexis_¿question? 06:57, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Alaexis: You are missing the point. The alleged support is not only sourced by FAIR and is more than a simple bias, it is now company policy. As Haaretz notes, Mathias Döpfner says that support for Israel, a "united Europe" and free market economics "are like a constitution, they apply to every employee of our company" and that workers who do not comply "should not work for Axel Springer, very clearly".--WMrapids (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Worth noting that Haaretz's source, the WSJ, phrases it in a slightly more nuanced manner, as "support for ... Israel's right to exist", rather than "support for Israel", with the former appearing to be much more limited than the latter. On the EU and free market economics, though two match, although the WSJ phrases the later as "support for ... a free-market economy". BilledMammal (talk) 09:12, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• If there are RS stating that politico is biased in one field, then it should be mentioned at "perennial sources". Cinadon36 07:06, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Cinadon36: Well, Haaretz, currently recognized as generally reliable, has described Politico as "pro-Israel", which is why it is currently mentioned. Are you agreeing with proposal 1?--WMrapids (talk) 07:30, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Yes @WMrapids: I am for proposal 1. Apologies for not making that clear in my previous comment. Cinadon36 07:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

    The Haaretz itself marked as biased regarding the conflict Shrike (talk) 10:26, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

• The Haaretz source references an interview in the Wall Street Journal, where Springer CEO stated that he expects "Politico staffers to adhere to Axel Springer-wide guiding principles include support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy, among others." If we are to consider them biased on any one of these topics on this basis then we must consider them biased on all - but I don't believe that this is sufficient evidence for doing so. I would also note that FAIR (1 2) was a controversial source a decade ago; I don't know if things have changed since then? BilledMammal (talk) 07:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @BilledMammal: Thanks for bringing up the background on FAIR. It looks like one of those discussions was regarding a singular opinion on FAIR's website? Since there are multiple sources involved with the description of Politico and we are not using WP:OR, should there be less issues with this? Again, this discussion was created as a collective effort to make decisions on how to describe Politico as a source (especially in the context of WP:PIA), with this decision being based on descriptions from reliable sources.--WMrapids (talk) 22:43, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bad RfC. What is your brief and neutral statement? Make the case for the change in the discussion, not in the same section that you're introducing the RfC question. This should be procedurally closed if the RfC prompt isn't cleaned up. — Mhawk10 (talk) 08:12, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • I would think the discussion should also ask whether a note should be added to the RSP entry, rather than starting with a note added and asking if we should go further - particularly as the note says "recognized as", rather than the softer terminology used in the RFC statement of "possible". BilledMammal (talk) 08:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
    • @BilledMammal: I can agree with the softer terminology and thank you for noting this. @Mhawk10:, not too familiar with RfCs and this was my best attempt of bringing up the issue at hand while trying to remain neutral, but I can move the details to this discussion section.--WMrapids (talk) 22:03, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• News Sources should not be used by encyclopedias I'm going to keep harping on this but I don't think news sources, like Politico, are relevant to an encyclopedia project. As such, on the basis of it being a news source, I'd recommend against its use on Wikipedia. Period. Simonm223 (talk) 13:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bad RfC as above. RfC isn't for general discussion. As for not using news sources, that makes no sense to me. A large number of our articles are of necessity heavily based on news sources. Doug Weller talk 16:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Doug Weller: This is not just for general discussion, this is about changing a WP:RSP listing that was already determined through a previous RfC. --WMrapids (talk) 22:31, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
    • @Doug Weller: I am very consistent in my opinion that any article that depends on newsmedia to have "reliably" sourced entries is probably subject to far too much WP:RECENTISM to be treated as encyclopedic in scope. I am sure you will recall this is far from the first time I've decried the use of newsmedia to bulk up Wikipedia's vain attempts to be a news aggregator. Simonm223 (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• Elaborate on how it is WP:BIASED but otherwise wait and see. While the current version says a "small number" of editors consider it biased, this obviously changes that and we ought to discuss it and elaborate a bit on, more specifically, the ways that the new policy biases it - it seems hard to interpret an outright policy setting rigid ideological expectations any other way. But beyond a note about potential bias, that alone isn't enough to affect a source's reliability. We should come back later once there has been time for secondary sources to discuss the actual impact that this policy had on the accuracy of their reporting before we do anything beyond elaborating on their bias. --Aquillion (talk) 05:36, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @Aquillion: Not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you implying that you support Option 1? And did you mean "reliability" instead of "notability"?--WMrapids (talk) 20:51, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

    Oops, yes, reliability. And the current version already notes bias concerns, but I suppose I'd say 'option 1 in terms of expanding that note, since clearly this makes the bias concerns more significant; it just needs a few additional words per [1] mentioning that they have potential bias stemming from a controversial statement of guiding principles that requires support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy. It's important to note that the ideological requirements to work at Politico under the new management go beyond just stuff about Israel. I'd also note that while some people say we should wait and see to even note the bias, we do have coverage indicating that the policy changes introduce bias - we need to wait and see for more information about their reliability, definitely, but when a source openly declares their bias and says that people who don't share those views shouldn't work there, there isn't really anything left to debate or to wait and see on. --Aquillion (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

• Bad RfC As per others. Also "Israel right to exist" is shared by every respectable newspaper on the right and on the left so I don't see any real bias issues --Shrike (talk) 17:19, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
• Bad RfC. Provide a statement that describes the situation in as neutral tone as is possible. This isn't optional, it's part of the RfC process. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:56, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: @Shrike: @Shibbolethink: Can you explain how the updated proposal is not neutral? This is easy to change without dismissing the proposals entirely. How else would you make a proposal more neutral when you have to raise an issue like this? Shrike, no one is arguing about Israel's "right to exist", this is about reliable sources discussing a possible pro-Israel bias, with one RS writing that "New Politico Owner Says Will Enforce pro-Israel Policy". So let's not move the goalposts on this. Notes of bias are present throughout the WP:RSP listings; an example of this would be the the WP:RSP listing for the Anti-Defamation League ("Some editors consider the ADL a biased source for Israel/Palestine related topics that should be used with caution, if at all").--WMrapids (talk) 20:40, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would want to see an overall landscape of how different sources view Politico, not just the negative criticism. That is one way I think it could be improved if it were reopened. At this point, I agree it is A) likely premature and B) not likely to achieve a lasting consensus on this issue. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:56, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

  The point is the premise of "Israel right to exist" is not sign of any bias as it supported by almost by everyone Shrike (talk) 05:37, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• This RFC is premature at this point and I believe it should be closed. If actual problems arise in the future we can revisit the issue then. Calidum 20:47, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Just to be clear, while I can understand waiting and seeing in terms of reliability (which is more about their long-term reputation), when it comes to WP:BIAS, we already have several pieces (like the WSJ) describing the statement of principles requiring support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy. If that isn't sufficient to consider a source biased, what sort of coverage are you waiting on? (ie. what would convince you, in terms of what we should wait for before running a second RFC?) Because AFAIK we have normally taken overt statements of intent from a company to cover particular topics in particular ways, coupled with secondary sourcing covering those statements, as sufficient to describe them as WP:BIASED in those areas. --Aquillion (talk) 21:10, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
    • I suppose it will come down to the question of whether these positions are "extraordinary" and indicate bias. Their full "Principles and Values" as of October 2021 are as follows:
      1. We stand up for freedom, the rule of law, democracy and a united Europe.
      2. We support the Jewish people and the right of existence of the State of Israel.
      3. We advocate the transatlantic alliance between the United States of America and Europe.
      4. We uphold the principles of a free market economy and its social responsibility.
      5. We reject political and religious extremism and all forms of racism and sexual discrimination.

    To me, none of these come across as "extraordinary", and many of them align with editorial guidelines issued by other organizations, such as the BBC on racism; it comes close in a few areas ("united Europe" and "transatlantic alliance"), but even there I don't feel the principles themselves cross the line, and so I would want to see the implications of that in practice before we rule on whether it is biased in such areas. BilledMammal (talk) 22:22, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

    While it seems unusual to me to have an explicit editorial line like that at the level of the parent company, it is not really all that much different from a newspaper stating its editorial line outright. The Guardian describes its parent as a safeguard to its “liberal values”, for example, while the opinion pages of the WSJ are run under the banner of support for “democratic self-government and the freedom of individuals to make their own economic choices.” If Politico’s news content is shifted in after its acquisition by Axel Springer; then there might be ample concerns about WP:BIASED. But, such bias does not appear to be showing up thus far. — Mhawk10 (talk) 14:26, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment Yes, we usually want RfC's to have more specific bullet points than this, but stepping back from the procedural nitty-gritty, I'd say it's pretty clear that we should note the owner's stated intent to push an ideological line. XOR'easter (talk) 17:05, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  Do they plan to do this mainly through opinion pieces, or will this affect news coverage? If it is the former, then is it really unlike the British quality press? — Mhawk10 (talk) 23:15, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose This is a misunderstanding of the policy in question and the discussion it has triggered: Axel Springer, as a German publisher founded in the immediate aftermath of the war, adopted these principles and values to signal a clear break with Nazi ideology and to align itself with center-right politics during the cold war, supporting NATO and transatlanticism in contrast to ideas of the time to triangulate between the US and the Soviet Union.

The actual statements (see above) are vague, and you won't find a single mainstream US journalist who would disagree with them. "Democracy dies in Darkness", the Washington Post prints in its masthead every weekday. Should we note that the paper has an obvious pro-democracy (or anti-darkness) bias? That the issue has come up is mostly due to Springer's inability to find a good way of denying claims that they are abandoning those principles. When they say they "expect" staff follow these principles, it is meant as a descriptive argument supporting the decision not to make them sign the document in writing. And they want to avoid the latter because the whole act is a pompous anachronism that only barely works for their German employees, where they can point at tradition to legitimize it. --K. Oblique 12:12, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I have the same concern about South China Morning Post, because it belongs to Alibaba Group, which is increasingly coming under to state control. But it's too early to call the reliability of its reporting into question. LondonIP (talk) 03:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Politico is major media source with a track record as a responsible reputable Reliable Source. Absent evidence of any actual problem, the fact that a reputable reliable major media source does not espouse the destruction of a country hardly renders its factual-reporting or opinion outside the ordinary expected range of Reliable Source coverage. I suspect that exactly no one at Politico opposes the existence of Canada. If some reporter actively opposed the existence of Canada, and that actively manifested in their work product, I would not consider it particularly shocking if that employer were to reevaluate whether their work-product was suitable for continued employment. Alsee (talk) 07:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't know how I missed this discussion earlier, but there are at least a couple of things that I need to point out, since I haven't seen someone mention them above.
  1. FAIR is itself biased.
  2. Haaretz can be biased in the PIA area, per WP:RSN.
  3. Even if Haaretz were to be interpreted as completely unbiased, WP:HEADLINE applies. The article linked above does not allege "pro-Israel" policy outside of the clickbait headline. What they allege is a policy affirming Israel's right to exist, which is different from a policy mandating biased reporting.
  4. ∴ We shouldn't accept mud-slinging, sensationalism, and scaremongering on behalf of various media outlets as an excuse to effectively delegitimize a useful source. AlexEng^(TALK) 07:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment It won't take long to figure out if there is a bias. "Right to exist" is a leading indicator. Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: Well, it may be a good idea to keep an eye on Politico, especially with the recent "Sotomayor sighting" that they published. The Guardian reports that there were possibly failures on multiple levels of their reporting regarding the story (the tipster, those who verified, those who made contact and those who issued the correction). Though it is admirable that Politico did issue corrections, it was reported that three different corrections were released in total. In summary, I agree with those who say we should wait and see and thank you to everyone who was involved in this RfC.--WMrapids (talk) 04:34, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Times of India is not that pro-government as mentioned ?

There are many articles printed and created by TOI which are not pro-government., as:

Manipur woman's Ujjwala gas connection 'taken away' for joining Congress rally

Why BJP’s choice of Karnataka CM is being questioned

Is India staring at stagflation?

Hindutva will push Covid failures to background in UP polls

BJP arm-twisted Sirsa to join party, feared arrest: Sukhbir Singh Badal

Hypernationalists hyperventing over comedy riffs on India do great disservice to the country

Why campaign against 'halal' meat reeks of bigotry

The arrest of two HW News journalists for ‘instigating communal tensions’ is among a series of steps the police has taken, along with slapping UAPA, to crack down on people who wrote about the unrest

How to win foes and get reforms through? Learn from past PMs

The lawyer-activist spent three years in jail without trial

The way India’s ‘pro-poor’ democracy works empowers middle strata of society at the expense of those who are at the bottom of the heap.

Ex-armyman Mohammad Latif — who was given a bravery award in 2005 for killing a militant with his bare hands — wants justice for his son, Amir Magray, who was killed in an encounter in Hyderpora last week

A morality tale starring MSP and you

They have dedicated cartoon series printed on their newspapers which mocks all parties, politicians, celebrities, situations.

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/1465871969614581761

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/1464425829425815555

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/1463698407772491785

https://twitter.com/CartoonistSan/status/1461524450352922626

I have read the past discussions linked at WP:TOI.

Times Of India tries to cover almost every state, and not all of their work is done by their best journalists. There are some articles, news which appear only in TOI, so it might seem they publish non-notable news. But when they give coverage to some crime in a small unknown village, some interview by some local MLA, new upcoming actor, regional film producer, they are trying to cover maximum areas.

Those who have some experience reading TOI, they know which are reliable and which are not that important articles.

The articles where the name of the journalist is present and mentioned TNN are always created properly with verification.

Some of their sub-sections are not that reliable. Like regional non-Bollywood entertainment sections of Assamese, Odiya, Bengali, Punjabi, regional TV gossips, city sections like Agra, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, and many other small cities. Even in these cases, all can't be termed as non-RS, as if the article is detailed along with the name of the journalist or interviewer being mentioned.

However, if it's related to serious crime, then they don't copy-paste from vernacular media but do their own investigation. TOI is not responsible for police', the witness' and victim's family statements, if they are found wrong due to fake complaints, wrong arrests by police. Knight Skywalker (talk) 12:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Knight Skywalker, if you want to change the entry at WP:TOI you will have to start a new RfC. Though, I am fairly I that it's not going to end up much different and could possibly get it downgraded further. I'll point out some things about the examples though, as they are not representative of TOI's usual coverage; most of these are from TOI Plus which tends to have relatively better editorial quality, a significant number of them are just op-eds from guest author, some of these aren't even "not pro-government" and one of them is from the Mumbai Mirror which is not covered by the entry. It doesn't appear too pro-government compared to some of the more blatant news outlet which have gone off the far end, but you'll still find it occasionally reproducing what the government says, without attribution and accepting it as fact, even when they might include verifiable falsehoods. Personally, I think more than its pro-government tilt, its propensity towards sensationalism and undisclosed paid news is much more problematic. The most recent discussion on it highlighted a case where they copied from Wikipedia without fact checking, which is a citogenesis concern. That said, at present it can still be used, though largely for uncontentious information, I would not recommend it for things like serious crimes. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 18:45, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• A couple of months ago I found a story in TOI that seemed to exaggerate the number of attendees at an anti-Pakistan protest in Toronto. TOI claim "over a thousand", whereas local Canadian media reported "dozens". See diffs and more explanation here.VR _talk 04:40, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  All are human end of the day: Here is an example, might help to draw parallel and give some food for good thought if wished. The Edit dif @ the article Forced marriage#United States it is attributed to one news reporter Nancie L Katz of New York Daily News.

  The earlier sentence in the article said "..Estimates are that hundreds of Pakistani girls in New York have been flown out of the New York City area to Pakistan to undergo forced marriages;.."

  In the above mentioned edit dif it has been updated by User:Vice regent (VR)"..According to Nancie L Katz, thousands of Pakistani girls have been flown out of the New York City area to Pakistan to undergo forced marriages;..", with edit summary "...source says "thousands" not "hundreds"..".

  The same reporter has used word "thousands of" like a phrase in earlier paragraph. Where crowds can not be counted any reporter gets opportunity to be subjective and guesstimate. Even on best of publications editorial boards too would have limitations. I have one academic study which accuses many prominent news publications of US and UK of bias to whom Wikipedians routinely consider reliable.

  In case of forced marriages of Pakistani girls in U.S. some one had applied own mind and rationalised figure from thousands to hundreds. Do we have a problem of labeling in black and white like, Biblical inerrancy read inerrancy of so and so and errancy of so and so. Try to establish errancy on some sources for ever, and absolve some sources for ever. Because we (Wikipedians) believe in 'application of mind by Wikipedians' as 'encyclopedist' to the least. Such Wikipedia rules itself have got status of Biblical inerrancy.

  Just simple good faith and application of mind without religious and political agendas can address the issues but some how..less said the better.

  Anyways IDK, how much this discussion platform has been succeeding in developing wise tools catering to core encyclopedic objectives and how much succeeding in indirect blanket censorships.

  Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 06:45, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

  False statements about crowd sizes aren't falsehoods, they're alternative facts. I was going to say something about how we have systemic bias because I believe we do have a lot of it against India but just blatantly lying about crowd sizes like that is pretty bad. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 07:35, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Can someone start a new RFC, only on TOI Plus, not TOI? TOI Plus articles should be considered reliable. I want to start RFC, but don't know the process. Knight Skywalker (talk) 04:29, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

RFC Only on TOI Plus. This RFC is not on TOI. TOI + only

I have seen that TOI Plus has better language, work, editing than regular WP:TOI articles. Since their websites are the same, a separate RFC should be done only for TOI + articles. Knight Skywalker (talk) 07:49, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose redeeming TOI. I will allow TOIPlus however; checked a few of their articles from Google Cache and they appear to be better than their usual rubbish. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

India: A Country Study, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress

Source: Heitzman, James; Worden, Robert, eds. (1995), India: A Country Study (PDF), Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, p. 571

Statement in source: "There was some opposition to this move within the cabinet by those who did not agree with referring the Kashmir dispute to the UN. The UN mediation process brought the war to a close on January 1, 1949. In all, 1,500 soldiers died on each side during the war."

Discussion: Talk:Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948#6000 casualties figure

Statement to be supported: Result in infobox per this edit

Summary: This is a highly partisan topic and is subject to DS. The talk page discussion started by questioning Pakistani casualties quoted as 6,000 killed, citing Globalsecurity.org and a figure of 1,500 killed. There is no consensus as to the reliability of that source but it actually cites India: A Country Study (the subject of this post). The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948 was initially fought by proxy until the ultimate engagement of both national militaries. It is unclear from the other sources cited precisely what they are reporting as casualties (ie national military casualties v total combatant casualties). The other sources are not great, in that they are largely Indian in origin. The subject edit would add the 1,500 figure to both sides. However, the reliability of the source (India: A Country Study) has since been questioned, citing WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.

Question: Is the subject source (India: A Country Study) sufficiently reliable to support the edit made to the infobox in respect to casualties.

Cinderella157 (talk) 11:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC) I have no ties to either country.

Comments (India: A Country Study)

• Not a reliable source for the purpose.
  • That being said, what is the end-game? A majority of men employed by Pakistan were irregulars supplied with arms-stashes and money; who had recorded those casualties? There is a reason why even semi-official histories (see Shuja Nawaz et al) skips mentioning casualty-counts. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• The time of the event is around late 1940's. This makes it very difficult to gather enough information on the casualty figures. Wikipedia was earlier quoting an indian figure which seems to have no official source and was not reliable enough. The 1,500 casualty figure estimate is the most neutral source on the internet neutral source at page 571 and is quoted by global security.org . It is also cited in some university work. No concensus can even be reached on global security.org not being suitable for being quoted. It has been cited in over 25,000 articles and also by Reuters and new york times as well as Washington Post which are considered reliable sources and its citation in some 25,000 articles on Google Scholar. It is only logical to quote both the 1,500 and 6000 figures as an estimate. Going by what TrangaBellam, that would mean removal of all the casualty section as this argument will even apply for the 6000 figure, which also it not a sure shot reliable source. Truthwins018 (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Not reliable for the purpose, as I already said on the article talk page. It looks to me that somebody sitting in Washington DC just made a wild guess. The Indian History of the War says the following:

During the long campaign, the Indian Army lost 76 officers, 31 JCOs and 996 Other Ranks killed, making a total of 1103. The wounded totalled 3152, including 81 officers and 107 JCOs. Apart from these casualties, it appears that the J & K State Forces lost no less than 1990 officers and men killed, died of wounds, or missing presumed killed . The small RIAF lost a total of 32 officers and men who laid down their lives for the nation during these operations. In this roll of honour, there were no less than 9 officers. The enemy casualties were definitely many times the total of Indian Army and RIAF casualties, and one estimate concluded that the enemy suffered 20,000 casualties, including 6,000 killed.

So, the Indian casualties were in excess of 3,000 and the Washington estimate misses it by a wide margin. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

The India country Study states 1500 Indian soldiers died, so it's off by 397 from the Indian History of the War. However, it's unclear whether it includes the J&K/AJK/GB/Chitral forces for either side and if it does, it would indeed be off by a wide margin. Cipher21 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

There may be some confusion of terminology. Casualty is killed+wounded. It's apples and oranges to compare 1,500 killed with over 3,000 casualty. -- GreenC 03:47, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• This source doesn't rule out that the 1,500 figure is wrong. The 6000 Pakistani casualty figure and 3000 indian casualty figure still turns out to be an indian claim. The 1,500 comes out to be a seperate estimate of casualties, not related with }}. No official pakistani casualty figures were released and thus the source cannot be ruled out. Your source only suggests thats the indian killed figure be changed to 1,500-3000 and Pakistani be kept at 1,500-6000. Truthwins018 (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
  • The question that is being discussed is whether it is reliable for the purpose. I gave evidence that proves that it is not. The best you can do is to quote it verbatim in the body. It is nor reasonable to split it up into pieces and format it in whatever way. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• For the sake of including a neutral perspective I agree with using it. Currently, the article cites Indian figures. Cipher21 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with including it, as a range. The source is widely cited by other reliable sources as noted by Truthwins018. Furthermore reliable sources are not required to cite their sources to be reliable. A research division within the Library of Congress is not faultless, I doubt any numbers are definitive, but it would require more than Wiki editors disagreeing with the numbers to exclude it from the article, particularly when given as a range. -- GreenC 03:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• Unreliable for the purpose. The source which is India: A Country Study is clearly not widely cited. The assertion that it is, is based on a different website called globalsecurity.org quoting it. The website globalsecurity.org which looks like a group blog, is the one being used as a source for an opinion in one NYT article and produces 25k+ results on google scholar (every result after the 8th is from the website itself). This is very marginal use in RS, not to mention its use is irrelevant to the actual query here. Searching for India: A Country Study itself produces similarly barebone results. The subject of the source is an overall profile of India and is not specific to the military history of the Kashmir Conflict. The topic area needs specialist academic sources, especially for things like casualty estimates. On a sidenote, looking at the infobox of the article, every single source without exception, that is cited for the casualties is similarly problematic in some respect or the other. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 08:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
• Wide citation of global security.org has already been mentioned by SpicyBiryani on the talk page of 1947-1948 indo-pak war.The founder of the website is John Pike. John Pike is one of the worlds leading expert on defence in the world and more can be read about him in the sources cited.Global security also has a reputed range of staff with wide experience in the field of defence.Global security has been cited in Reuters by an article worked upon by Reuters Staff. It has been cited in CNN . It has been cited in Washington Post here, here ,here. It has been cited by NYT [2], [3]. Some of the book citations are:

  • Fair, C. Christine. Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 ,ISBN 978 0 1998 9270 9.
  • Cordesman, Anthony H. Al-Rodhan, Khalid R. Gulf military forces in an era of asymmetric wars. Westport, Conn. : Praeger Security International ,2007.
  • Anthony H. Cordesman, Martin Kleiber, Iran's Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities: The Threat in the Northern Gulf

All the book citations may be viewed here. It has been cited in numerous books on National Security. [4]

As for the subject issue, The book does concentrate on one of the participants of the war. The killed figures are given in a seperate National Security section. We till date are not equipped with accurate figures of the casualties from the war. An indian version of figures are available. A neutral version is established from this source. It is only wise to continue with an estimated range of casualty figures which gives all the figures Truthwins018 (talk) 10:09, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• I see merit in the arguments of those who esteem the source unreliable for the purpose for which it is being used on the main page. There is hardly any correlation between the reliability of a source and the magnitude of hits it gets on a search engine. The tangible criteria are enumerated and enunciated at WP:RS and there is no indication that this source, which uses a broad-brush to coalesce the two countries' casualties under a single sentence with unwarranted brevity, measures up when the yardstick of WP:RSCONTEXT is applied. Kerberous (talk) 12:27, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• It definetely fulfils on the criteria of WP:RS. Your opinion WP:OR is irrelevant in the present criteria. The source directly cites the material and its under a seperate section of Natural security. Vaious citations of globalsecurity.org does increase its reliability especially by already considered reliable sources and none of the discussion was aimed at " magnitude of hits"Truthwins018 (talk) 14:03, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

David Price writing in Counterpunch in Edward Said

Counterpunch was deprecated in this RFC, a decision that is being discussed up above in #De-deprecate_CounterPunch. But at Edward Said, David Price is used in writing in about his finding FBI surveillance of Said. Price is the author Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists published by Duke University Press, and he is professor of anthropology and sociology at Saint Martin's University and author of a number of peer-reviewed journal articles (see his ResearchGate profile for examples). This specific Counterpunch article is also cited in academic journals, for example this article in Third World Quarterly published by Taylor & Francis discusses Price's findings at length (page 753). The citation has been removed and then tagged as unreliable. Is this article by David Price, an established expert published on specifically the topic of the US government surveillance of academics, writing in Counterpunch a reliable source for his finding the FBI surveilled Edward Said in the article Edward Said? I would like to avoid the wider discussion on deprecation being right or wrong here, and focus on if this source is reliable in this context? nableezy - 21:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't want to discuss the deprecation of this particular source (in general I think we err on the side of deprecation too much) but I'd like to note that you can use other sources for this claim, for example The Nation, which is green now: [5]. Alaexis_¿question? 21:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Price's findings are covered in the Nation as well, which references his Counterpunch article (where it says "David Price is a professor of anthropology at St. Martin’s University in Washington State. As anyone glancing through his excellent book Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists will know, Price is expert at getting secret government documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Last year, on behalf of the newsletter CounterPunch (which I co-edit), Price requested the FBI’s file on Said."). Just like the Third World Quarterly article. My question is if Price's article itself is a reliable source for Price's findings. nableezy - 21:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes. The appropriateness of his CounterPunch piece can't be seriously contested (except as an inference from the deprecation designation, i.e. by ignoring the fact that he fits the best criteria advised by WP:RS). We need the deprecation review context to avoid the time-consuming bother of repeatedly coming here to justify the inclusion of fine scholarly sources because some editors are taking deprecation as holy writ and Price is merely one recent victim of that holy war of blanket good riddancy.Nishidani (talk) 21:42, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

No, instead use the source that Alaexis provided. It seems to be an example of depreciation working in practice, where information that does not belong on the encylopedia is kept out, while information that does can be found elsewhere; if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources. BilledMammal (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

We literally have Generally Reliable sources for the specific claim. There is absolutely no necessity to add a deprecated source to an article to achieve full NPOV coverage. You don't want to accept the broad general consensus to deprecate, but you don't get to enforce your personal lack of acceptance - David Gerard (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Your edit is obscene. Generally unreliable or even deprecated does not mean blacklisted and to be removed on sight. Honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself for removing a source cited in a number of peer-reviewed works. nableezy - 21:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

It does, however, presume that the source is bad, and overcoming that is not achieved by revert-warring and personal attacks - David Gerard (talk) 21:59, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and if you had even pretended to read this section you would see evidence to overcome that presumption. You are removing things you are not even looking at, and you should be stopped. nableezy - 22:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

That you put a claimed justification is insufficient to overcome the presumption. Also, you're literally declaring an intent to be an edit warrior here - is that what you meant to do? - David Gerard (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Excuse me, what? Where did I declare any such intent? And did you even pretend to read any of the sources you just removed? Or are you going to ignore our policies, which require that each source use be examined in context. nableezy - 22:10, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Since apparently the only way to cite works published by scholars is to de-deprecate Counterpunch, and because we now have an editor in David Gerard going on an editing rampage removing unquestionably solid sources, I will start an RFC to that effect. nableezy - 21:57, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes it is a rampage that is disturbing because it is taking place while the de-deprecation review is current and not closed. No need to complicate this by opening a third venue. The gravamen of this spate of reverts while we are reviewing this, preempting the review conclusions, should be noted in the section above on de-deprecation.Nishidani (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

No, that's not how it works. The source is deprecated. As has been pointed out already, you'd need to rerun the RFC to reverse it - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:DEPS says exactly the opposite. nableezy - 22:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

If it was "unquestionable", multiple editors wouldn't be questioning it - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Where exactly is there any response to David Price writing in Counterpunch being a reliable source here? Who has questioned that? nableezy - 22:17, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

You have already admitted in this section we already have an RS for the claim that isn't Counterpunch. You don't need Counterpunch at all for this. You're just attempting to get a deprecated source in even when it's redundant - David Gerard (talk) 22:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

No, I am attempting to use the actual source here. David Price is the person who uncovered the FBI surveillance of Said. He is an expert on the topic of the US surveilling academic activists. Why would he not be cited by us when he is cited in peer-reviewed journal articles? nableezy - 22:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

And we have editors in the other discussion saying it's OK (including myself) and up there and down here saying it's not. We can't go on like that. The deprecation "policy" needs an add.Selfstudier (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

The deprecation guideline already disallows the indiscriminate removal, despite the bluster of David when he says No, that's not how it works. The source is deprecated. It actually is how it works, WP:DEPS requires each use be examined, not indiscriminately removed. nableezy - 22:28, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

As I already pointed out to you at WP:ANI - your fourth thread on literally the same dispute - DEPS is an information page, listing the results of deprecation RFCs. It specifically disclaims being even a guideline, let alone a policy. It cannot require anything whatsoever. You're citing the explanatory text for an information listing as if it's hard policy. It is not - David Gerard (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

ANI is about your editing, not about any one source. Kindly dont muddy the waters here. nableezy - 22:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Note: Nableezy has brought this particular sourcing question to a fourth thread on WP:ANI - David Gerard (talk) 23:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  No I brought your indiscriminate removal of sources, including ABOUTSELF links and sources not Counterpunch but removed because you are editing in a careless manner, to ANI. Please do not muddy the waters. Your user conduct is discussed on ANI, not any source. nableezy - 23:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Am I not understanding this here, or is there a reason why you can't simply use the secondary citations? Counterpunch's reliability is irrelevant when citing a reliable secondary source describing or summarizing something published in Counterpunch (with the obvious caveat that that means you can only base the article on what is said in that secondary source.) In fact, that's the usual way we cover significant things that are written or which occur in unreliable publications. Whether or not you can cite it via SPS, it doesn't matter, because SPS is a weak way of citing things - if a better / non-SPS source exists for the same statement, removing the weaker source is obvious irrespective of whether the weaker source would otherwise meet the threshold for usability. --Aquillion (talk) 03:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  I dont think it is a weak source here, it is specifically cited in other reliable sources, and WP:UBO would seem to say that if this specific article is treated as reliable by other reliable sources, then it is also reliable. I actually think this is a much better citation than The Nation, Cockburn is just relaying what the actual expert reported. We should cite the most authoritative source, and here it is Price. Also, the sources that cover it do so by covering Price uncovering the information from his FOI request and his writing about it in CP. The incident has weight, per its coverage in multiple sources, and the source is an established expert on this specific topic. Not even just generally anthropology and the relationship with the government and academics, but specifically on the US government surveillance of activist academics. Why wouldn't we actually cite him? nableezy - 04:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  A SPS is a weak source by definition - that's why WP:SPS says to use them cautiously. The strongest source is of course an expert published in a reliable publisher, but I would generally consider a secondary source describing the position of an expert to be a stronger source than a direct citation to the expert unless the place where the secondary source is published is noticeably weaker, even in cases where the expert was published in a RS, let alone in cases where the expert wasn't published in an RS. The secondary source adds the weight and reputation of its publisher, as well as the WP:DUE weight of the primary source receiving secondary coverage in a reputable source, while covering (and therefore reinforcing) the reputation and significance of the primary source in a way that lets us directly discuss it as part of an in-line citation without risk of synthesis. --Aquillion (talk) 04:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  I disagree that a SPS by an established expert is a weak source. The use cautiously is in relation to SPS sources as a whole, including by non-experts. But what it says is Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. They may be considered reliable, not weakly reliable, not so-so. When somebody has a history of academic expertise in a specific topic, and I dont see anybody disputing that Price is that in this specific topic, then they are the source. They are reliable. And it would honestly be silly to have in our article that David Price, writing for Counterpunch, uncovered the FBI surveillance program of Said and not cite that article. If people want to argue that SPS should not be used in general they can make that argument, but that isnt what our policy says. nableezy - 04:56, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  If I understand the situation, there are reliable secondary sources that point directly to Price's articles in Counterpunch. In most cases, when a RS goes "According to an article published in (other RS)" we should always follow the source and use the original ("other RS") article. In a case where we have a weak or non-RS as that "other RS", it is reasonable to include both the original article alongside the referring RS to provide both the original context and evidence that a reliable source trusts that work as well for this purpose. This is not always required, particularly if the original source is a clearly no-go as an acceptable source, but in this case, a Price article on Counterpunch is not going to be that critical an issue. --Masem (t) 18:50, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• David Price, as a Professor of Anthropology specialised in surveillance, is clearly exactly the kind of established subject-matter expert that WP:SPS goes out of its way to note may be considered reliable when published in other independent, reliable sources, like Price has been, in Anthropology Today and Critique of Anthropology. Unless there is specific evidence that Counterpunch doctors its op-eds/commentaries from subject-matter experts, it is rather moot whether Counterpunch is reliable, generally unreliable or deprecated, because Price is still a subject-matter expert. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

RFC: Counterpunch

Should articles published in CounterPunch be treated as WP:SPS? Nableezy 22:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

initial question was phrased Should articles written by established academic experts (as discussed in WP:SPS) writing in Counterpunch be de-deprecated and treated as WP:SPS?

Notified: [[centralized discussion]]. Selfstudier (talk) 12:40, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Removed from CENT on 24 December.Selfstudier (talk) 13:53, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes - In the above example we have an author of scholarship focused specifically on the topic of the US government surveillance of academics is writing about that topic, and whose column is covered in peer-reviewed journal articles (see cites here or this). Nobody is challenging that Counterpunch also publishes things that are not suitable as a reliable source. It however also does publish the work of numerous academic experts, and that work is being indiscriminately removed from our articles. If David Price wrote this on his geocities page it would be usable per WP:SPS. There is no reason to treat the work of an established academic expert as being less reliable due to it being on Counterpunch as opposed to it being on their personal blog. Nobody is arguing that Counterpunch articles by non-experts should be cited here. But here, we have a very real example of actual scholarship being removed from our articles. And that should be reversed. nableezy - 22:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  Further comment. It is incredibly disingenuous to claim that usable sources are covered by existing allowances here, but where such allowances are explicitly allowed to claim that an ABOUTSELF source cannot be used because if you absolutely need a deprecated source, you don't have a source. This specific case, and many others like it, involves an actual expert source, with pristine credentials, published on this specific topic in peer-reviewed works or books published by academic presses. Users are expunging sources that are themselves treated as reliable by peer-reviewed works. This article is cited by a journal article in Third World Quarterly, it is covered in The Nation. Countless other Counterpunch articles written by noted experts in their field are likewise cited. But because other articles are not written by experts that makes these scholars somehow less reliable? The fact that the only answer to why should David Price or Sara Roy or Neve Gordon or Dean Baker not be cited in Counterpunch is "because Counterpunch is deprecated" is both circular and illogical, and this board should reject this blatant appeal to emotion and association fallacy. There are crap articles on Counterpunch? Cool, dont cite those. But this is the work of an established scholar, cited by other reliable sources, and it should be able to be cited here. It is silly that people are saying that Patrick Cockburn writing in the Nation about an article in the magazine he edited is usable to relay the contents of the material in the article itself, but the article, oh dear no cant have that. nableezy - 02:36, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  The William P. Quigley appears to be a case of an editor misapplying policy, and the correct response is to correctly apply policy, rather than using it to claim that existing policy is flawed. As such, I've restored the content, although I can see an argument being made that a spouses profession is WP:UNDUE. BilledMammal (talk) 02:47, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, I tried that, however editors are using the deprecation decision (his own in fact), to claim that any usage is disallowed. I was initially trying to address one single source, one that is unquestionably reliable (written by a subject matter expert, cited by other reliable sources), but again, that was shut down on the basis of CP being deprecated. That level of circular logic is, as a matter of fact, degrading our articles. I agree with all of the people that say CP published a bunch of bullshit by unknown non-experts. And those things should not be cited. But, again, that is not all that they publish. And I still defy a single person to explain why, for example, this is not a reliable source. When people are using deprecation to remove obviously reliable sources, then I see nothing else to do but to challenge the deprecation. I posit that if people are aware that the decision to deprecate CP was not actually in keeping with what WP:DEPS says, that is that each individual source should be examined to see if it overcomes the presumption of unreliability, and saw that people are wholsale expunging sources like David Price ([6]), Sara Roy ([7]), Gabriel Kolko ([8]) Robert Fisk ([9]) and other expert sources and not antisemitic conspiracy theories and 9/11 truther articles as was reputed to be what CP was actually used around here for that they may well have said maybe deprecation is a bit much here. nableezy - 03:53, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

*No It's impossible to de-deprecate specific articles, deprecation applies to the medium the articles appear in. And Counterpunch as medium has already been deprecated for lack of editorial control and for pushing fringe articles. If the author is an established expert, it should be incredibly easy to find other actually reliable sources for the same claime. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC) EDIT: struck because the RFC question changed. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: Might I add that this is a duplicate discussion to this: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#De-deprecate_CounterPunch Whay are we discussing this here as well? Why are we discussing this on four different location? This looks more and more like forumshopping. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  Because only a new RFC can overturn the old? The closer specifically said that a new RFC is required. So here is that RFC. nableezy - 23:11, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  hmm, I think in that case you should probably rephrase this RFC to something like "Should the deprecation of Counterpunch be overturned" because right now it's a bit confusing. Mvbaron (talk) 23:13, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• No. The RFC question is bad, and should be written as "Should articles published in CounterPunch be considered self published sources?", as that appears to be the neutral version of what the opening statement is asking. However, the answer is still no - articles published in CounterPunch are not self-published sources, and per WP:SOURCES the publisher of the work affects the reliability of the work, and per the recent RFC the publisher of the work is extremely unreliable, to the point that there was a strong consensus for deprecation. Further, WP:SPS tells us to exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources and the principle would apply here; if the information is suitable, someone would have published it elsewhere, such as with the example provided, where the information is also obtainable from The Nation. BilledMammal (talk) 23:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  Sure, can change that. But I am only challenging the usage of established experts. Not non-experts. nableezy - 23:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  I understand, but since WP:SPS only allows experts to be used, you still wouldn't be challenging the usage of non-experts. BilledMammal (talk) 23:26, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  I will change it with a note now. nableezy - 23:27, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  • No, for the moment. I've considered this further, the question is still problematic; we shouldn't be decided whether CounterPunch should be "treated" like a SPS, we should be deciding if it is a self-published source. This isn't as clear as it may appear; it does have an editorial process that will affect content, but so does Medium, and there is an open question about how much control this process has over the published works, per the assertions of some editors. If it can be established that their editorial process consists of little more than accepting or rejecting works as is (no direct control), and that their method of choosing which works to publish does not encourage creators to alter their work to increase their chances of being accepted (no indirect control), then I believe it would be appropriate to classify it as a self-published source. However, this has yet to be established, and as they have editors there is the presumption of an editorial process that establishes sufficient control to prevent it from being a self-published source, and so for the moment, until evidence and arguments can be provided that it is a self-published source, my position remains no. BilledMammal (talk) 10:35, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: Previous RFC on deprecation of counterpunch can be found here: [10] --Mvbaron (talk) 23:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Archive link: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 355#RfC: CounterPunch BilledMammal (talk) 23:22, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• Yes If the same article was published on Medium or Blogspot, it would be fine to cite. In this particular example, the suggestion that CounterPunch is unreliable, but it's fine to cite a piece by an editor of CounterPunch (Alexander Cockburn) that is basically a shorter introduction to Said's article that directly advertises the full article because it's in the Nation instead is kinda absurd. Anyone writing an academic work would cite the actual article instead of a summary. RoseCherry64 (talk) 23:25, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  Since the question was edited to be less about a specific example, to clarify, I have not seen any example where the publication have significantly twisted or edited articles submitted to them, so I would treat them as more or less as self-published articles speaking for the author, and not the publication as a whole. RoseCherry64 (talk) 23:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• No - superfluous with previous RFC, where this editor asked this question specifically. Covered by existing allowances, in the remarkably few cases where it's allowed - David Gerard (talk) 23:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - to the new question: Counterpunch has editorial staff (see here: [11]) and their guideline to submission speaks about editorial control: What are the guidelines for submitting an article to CounterPunch? ... We don’t pay for web contributions, nor do the editors guarantee any response to submissions. I don't see how this is compatible with WP:SPS. Counterpunch has been deprecated in the previous RFC because of bad editorial judgements and a track record of published falsehoods. --Mvbaron (talk) 23:40, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
• Weak yes. As long as there is no evidence of misrepresenting experts' opinions, I think that it's reliable. As with other SPS, always DUE applies. The editor who wishes to add something from CP should be able to demonstrate that it's DUE. Alaexis_¿question? 06:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  It has been noted below that CP is not really a SPS since they have some editorial policy and decide what to publish. I struck through the reference to SPS, otherwise my opinion is unchanged. Alaexis_¿question? 21:30, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes. We should base our use of sources on the evidence for their reliability. Nobody has provided any evidence that CounterPunch mangles the articles written by its authors, or in fact has any involvement in the text of its articles other than deciding which articles to publish. So there is no reason to suspect that what is published is not the opinion of the author. When that author is an acknowledged area expert, the situation is almost the same as a publication on the author's blog. Indeed, it is no different to an op-ed by the expert in a mainstream newspaper. (The claim that mainstream newspapers "fact-check" op-eds is a wiki-myth.) In summary, whether we can cite an article in CounterPunch should depend only on the expertise of the author in the relevant field. Zero^talk 08:11, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• No and Bad RfC. The problem with CounterPunch is not that there is no editorial review (editors indeed do select the pieces that they want to publish before they appear on the website), but that the editorial review is awful. The publication is deliberate in pushing ideas from the fringes without doing much at all in the vein of fact-checking. Unless the author is on the editorial staff, it isn’t really self-published. We should stop trying to wikilawyer around deprecation here; if WP:DAILYMAIL had a history professor write an op-ed on a historical topic we wouldn’t dare think about citing it as a source for facts in a Wikipedia article—there is no “I really like the author” exception to deprecation. Self-published sources can also be deprecated, so this RfC isn’t even something that can change the relevant deprecation status of the source. And, substantially changing the RfC question after people have responded is a great way to irreparably taint an RfC. — Mhawk10 (talk) 12:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Drop the fatuous Daily Mail analogy. It's sand in the eyes, for a dozen reasons, most of which concern the fact that major scholars in their respective fields regularly express themselves on CounterPunch's site. Alexander Cockburn who set it up and ran it until his death, was a distinguished journalist with an excellent mainstream presence in major newspapers, not a tabloid hack.Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Two people had responded, and both had asked me to change the question. And it has not been substantially changed. nableezy - 15:58, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes I am at a loss to understand the zealotry here. An opinion by a recognized expert anywhere (not just in Counterpunch, Countercurrents say, which is similar, is also SPS as a practical matter) shouldn't be dissed, only because of where they decided to publish it. If anyone wish to contest some material, they can do that, starting at the article talk page as usual, but no indiscriminate removals.Selfstudier (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Sorry, but an article published in a magazine with editorial control is per definition not self-published (not even "as a practical matter"). BUT such pieces by experts are all fine for use with attribution. The unique situation here is just that in a previous RFC counterpunch has been deprecated. If it weren't deprecated, we could just cite Price and all the experts normally (with attribution). Mvbaron (talk) 17:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  As per link I gave (2008!) "Countercurrents should be treated as an SPS, and we should follow the CounterPunch/FPM method of looking at the author's expertise for guidance." Deprecation should not have the effect of source deletion for an expert.Selfstudier (talk) 17:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Erm, that's just the opinion of one random editor from a 2008 post... But like I said, normally expert opinions are fine to cite with attribution - but no one really knows what our policy is for deprecated sources + an expert piece. Mvbaron (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Well that is currently being decided by one editor removing every expert view and ABOUTSELF link to CP on the basis of it being deprecated. If you are of the view that expert opinions from CP may be cited then perhaps you should rethink your oppose !vote, because the effect of deprecation, as enforced by the admin who is somehow uninvolved yet edit-warring to remove ABOUTSELF links and expert opinions and voting in this RFC, is that those expert views are being expunged indiscriminately. nableezy - 18:12, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  yeah nableezy, it really is an interesting problem... I believe that the Price piece is prima facie reliable (it's even cited in the book that I just added to the Said article). But I also believe that CP is correctly deprecated. Our deprecation policy doesn't really say anything about this. I might need to change my vote, but for now I believe deprecation trumps expert pieces - simply because it should be easy to find the expert opinion elsewhere. Mvbaron (talk) 18:18, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  OK then, as I commented in the De-deprecate CounterPunch section above, I would like to clarify that and hopefully this RFC will do so (by a consensus of random editors:)Selfstudier (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes per Nableezy and Zero. Very few editors here cite Counterpunch regularly. They do so after evaluating the quality of the article referred to, and the stature among their colleagues and peers. We cannot afford to impoverish our sourcing by a blanket veto that would deprive Wikipedia of work written by several scores of eminent scholars and journalists who fail to see the problems some wikipedians worry over and who choose to use that venue. As Selfstudier says, the intelligent solution is to leave challenges to the relevant talk pages, case by case (and the cases are few and far between). Nishidani (talk) 16:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Very few editors here cite Counterpunch regularly is not a very convincing argument that the source is reliable… isn’t this a sign that editors generally have a low confidence in the publication? — Mhawk10 (talk) 23:06, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  No, it's a sign that editors are discerning and only cite what is written by established experts published academically in their field. Still hoping anybody can answer how this is not a RS. nableezy - 23:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  Very few editors here cite Counterpunch regularly. And yet, even after an alleged "rampage" of removals, we have over 1,000 pages citing it. Literally the first one I looked at was an unattributed quotation from a piece by Diana Barahona, whose only other internet presence is on the Nazi website Voltaire Net, accusing Reporters Without Borders of being disinformation agents without any evidence. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:09, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• Has anyone here read WP:DEPS? The answer is yes and we don't need an RfC to demonstrate that. Disruptive indiscriminate removals should be addressed at ANI. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Doesnt seem to be working, as those disruptive indiscriminate removals are ongoing despite attempting to address them at ANI. With the closing admin of the last RFC declaring WP:DEPS is not even a guideline and that even ABOUTSELF links are to be removed indiscriminately. nableezy - 18:35, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  I have read DEPS, but it doesn't say anything about self-publishing and it also doesn't say that we can use deprecated sources for anything else than ABOUTSELF (unless in a local consensus ofc). But maybe I missed it? Can you point me to these two points? Mvbaron (talk) 18:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  Just says V applies as usual. So round in circles.(I do think we are making too much of a meal out of "editorial control" here, the Mail is one thing, Cp quite another.Selfstudier (talk) 19:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would say that the only effect of deprecation alone is to explicitly codify the source’s pre-existing status, as already determined by Wikipedia’s sourcing requirements. It does not inherently change how they are evaluated under those requirements. Deprecated sources should not be considered to be either unique or uniquely unreliable., from the lead of WP:DEPS, and Deprecation is a status indicating that a source almost always falls below Wikipedia's standards of reliability, and that uses of the source must fall within one of the established acceptable uses. Establishing new types of acceptable use requires a demonstration that the source is uniquely reliable in those particular circumstances compared to other possible uses of the source.Deprecating a source is a weaker measure than blocking or banning it, and the terms are not comparable to each other., from the section "What deprecation is and isn't" pretty clearly establishes how deprecated sources may or may not be used. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• No - This has been discussed before. A SPS indicates that the author simply clicks a button and their article automatically gets posted. At CP, people submit their articles to the editorial staff. The staff don't indiscriminately post every articles that they receive. They actively choose articles that fit CP's ideological agenda--conspiracism, genocide denial, antisemitism, etc. (check the previous RfC for more examples and links). In other words, people go to CP to get published (FYI - CounterPunch even publishes books). Hence, this source not only fails WP:SPS but also fails every aspect of WP:RS. This is just an attempt to redefine the meaning of a SPS in order to ignore the consensus of the deprecation. If someone wants to use CP as a source (I seriously don't understand why) then stick to the expectations in WP:DEPRECATED#Acceptable uses of deprecated sources. Of course, other policies and guidelines like WP:WEIGHT, WP:FALSEBALANCE, and WP:FRINGE apply too. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 19:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

CP's ideological agenda--conspiracism, genocide denial, antisemitism, etc

Thanks. That gives the game away. Such a vapidly inane recalcitrantly contrafactual claim hardly needs rebuttal, though it should figure in any new edition of a work by the CounterPunch founders and editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, their edited volume The Politics of Anti-Semitism as one more of the endless instances of the abuse of anti-Semitic accusations in order to silence critical dissent. As for what Cockburn who ruled the roost there for most of the period your 'data' is hacked from, he wrote The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts, where conspiracy mongers are dissected and mocked. Genocide denial was its 'ideological agenda'? Odd that its Jewish writers never noticed, and mourned the passing of the greatest historian of the Holocaust on CounterPunch. This is real sleaze smearing, a simpleton's approach to analysis, and should be ignored.Nishidani (talk) 21:04, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

it only "gives the game away" that they read the extensive sourcing for that claim in the previous RFC. If you can rebut it, you should, because at present it's well-backed - David Gerard (talk) 21:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, sure. We must pay attention to others, as they ignore our comments. No one troubled to answer my detailed remarks in the RfC point by point. I'd be quite happy to pull his patchwork case apart if some effort was made to answer the point above, regarding the contrafactual fatuousness of their generalization, which only tells me Swag googled the odd piece of crap out of over 60,000 articles and came up with his short list. It is contrafactual to use the terms he used when offspring of holocaust victims or camp survivors cannot see what his skimpy screed insinuated, since they publish there. It is profoundly obscene for an anonymous wiki editor to assert that specialist Jewish scholars of that Holocaust background cannot see what our singular Wikipedian caught, just as none of the several hundred writers or scholars broadly identified as of the left contributing to it are aware, that according to a 2015 blog of far greater pretensions to comprehensive analysis ( Cited by BobfromBrockley above), that they are all being 'suckerpunched' into supporting the radical far right which is, conspiracy again, the hidden agenda apparently of Cockburn and co. Nishidani (talk) 22:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

"Gives the game away" is right on the money.Selfstudier (talk) 22:39, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

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

• (1) Jovan Byford, a Uk psychologist who has written on conspiracy theories says so.

  Actually not only does CounterPunch feature many articles debunking conspiracy theories, but has hosted an article citing Byford’s work on the topic

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

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

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

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

• (2) A Stanford researcher (Jonah G. Willihnganz) included CounterPunch on a list of prominent conspiracy sites Conspiracy Theory PWR 1 Fall Quarter 2008

Swag didn’t read his own link. Counterpunch is included in a short list, of hundreds, if not thousands, of websites, blogs, and newsgroups that promote, discuss, debunk, lament, praise, and vilify conspiracy theories.

In short another owngoal.

• (3)It has published occasional articles down to 2015 by

  (a)Israel Shamir. True. He’s totally unreliable for anything, even his own life. Most of his 20 odd contributions are on Russia.

  (b) 9/11 truther Paul Craig Roberts. This research paper frames Roberts, whose articles on CounterPunch have from memory been focused on a conservative right-wing opposition to US trade policies, in the following way:

  Leftist intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn, along with activist organizations such as the antiwar movement, have generally gone out of their way to distance themselves from the Truth Movement (Bratich, 2008; Fenster, 2008). More frequently than not, they deride Truthers as conspiracy theorists whose ideas only serve to divide the left and distract their adherents from real and pressing problems of social injustice stemming from the country’s major political and economic institutions and policies. However, there is at least some sympathy for Truthers on the left. Recently, for example, the well-known leftwing newsletter Counterpunch strayed from its traditional policy by allowing one of its most popular contributors. Stephen M. E. Marmura, Likely and Unlikely Stories: Conspiracy Theories in an Age of Propaganda International Journal of Communication 8 (2014), 2377-2395 p.2388

  The author clearly states that hosting Roberts’s article (Early doubts: The 11th anniversary of 9/11 on CounterPunch strayed from its traditional line, and from the known views of its editor A Cockburn.

  (c)Wayne Madsen. Per Sonny Bunch March of the Conspiracy Theorists CBS News 26 September 2005. The CounterPunch article it mentions by Madsen appeared in CounterPunch on 1 November 2002, Exposing Karl Rove. It is a long list of incidents where Rove is reported as using disinformation and dirty tricks in numerous election campaigns to destroy honorable people. Not a conspiracy, politics.

  (d) Mark Crispin Miller mentioned at Gabe Stutman NYU Professor Uses Tenure to Advance 9/11 Hoax Theory in The Observer 26 July 2017 as a person interviewed for CounterPunch radio, Miller attacks the loose use of ‘conspiracy theory’ to brand dissenting opinions. New York University hasn’t fired him for teaching a class to be wary of the mainstream 9/11 narrative. Why should CounterPunch be deprecated for allowing a venue for him? That’s what libertarians do, host even contrarian ideas they disagree with. Cockburn and his friend Louis Proyect attacked Miller’s 9/Trutherism belief om an article which also is critical of leftists who defend Assad.

• (4) John Feffer, Stephen Zunes Sharp Attack Unwarranted 27 June 2008 refers among many other sources, to an article by George Ciccariello-Maher, Einstein Turns in His Grave. Counterpunch 16 April 2008 which (a) argues that Gene Sharp‘s Albert Einstein Institute is partially funded by the US State Department and (b) reproduces Gene Sharp’s response to the critique, asking also Cockburn and St. Clair to publish corrections and retract those statements. Feffer and Zunes don’t tell you that. They simply say it is outrageous that CounterPunch should have published a piece which raised concerns about that institute’s independence. Ciccariello-Maher‘s evidence strikes me as flimsy, but he has his sources. Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, both at times contributors to CounterPunch, have of course defended Sharp’s integrity. That is how open democratic discourse functions – nothing argued is suppressed, but vigorously debated.
• (5) Nonsense claims documented in the, wait for it, Algemeiner. Yeah Adam Levick who? a CAMERA hack who works for a source I believe deprecated here. ‘Guardian Praises Anti-Semitic Site “Counterpunch” as Progressive. Algemeiner 25 July 2012.
• (5) The Algemeiner!

  Readers of the Algemeiner are familiar with the fact that any criticism of Israel is ‘antisemitic’. It’s trash, written by a hack whose ire was roused by an article in the Guardian praising the progressive journalism of Alexander Cockburn and his family. No, the hack argues, they are (yawn) enablers of antisemitism. It cites 10 cases many without damning links, re Gilad Atzmon, Alison Weir (the so-called blood libel accusation is based on this article in Counterpunch, which lists numerous Israeli mainstream sources on the issue of unlawful organ use;

The article asserts Counterpunch made a cause célèbre of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, No citation given where this occurred on Counterpunch. All I can find is this which examinees problems with his judicial record.

Alexander Cockburn’s Support Their Troops? 15 July 2007 is spun there for instance as an example of him acting as a cheerleader for 'mass-murdering Islamic Terrorists in Iraq'. Read the fucking article. The insinuation is crap, faked news etc.etc.etc.

Swag's proof therefore is just montage and sham, whose persuasiveness relies on editors not reading up and checking the supposed evidence, and the evidental skerricks are used to deprecate Counterpunch as antisemitic, genocidal, holocaust denying website. There are in all those diffs two to three possible cases of execrable judgement, in a record of 70,000. No doubt there are many more but the above doesn't prove it. Nishidani (talk) 22:14, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

This is a highly personalised attack (see WP:AGF) on an editor who is not even pinged. Can I take up the Paul Craig Roberts point? The passage on Counterpunch from the journal article[12] continues after the quote is cut: "the well-known leftwing newsletter Counterpunch strayed from traditional policy by allowing one of its most popular contributors, Paul Craig Roberts, to air his Truther arguments on their website... Roberts...is a regular a contributor to infowars.com as well as Counterpunch. From 2004 to 2017, Roberts, a right-winger, was one of the most published writers in CP, contributing weekly or more.[13] Our article about him says "Since retiring [i.e. in the period he wrote for CP], he has been accused of antisemitism and conspiracy theorizing by the Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Centre and others... In the 2000s Roberts wrote a newspaper column syndicated by Creators Syndicate. Later, he contributed to CounterPunch, becoming one of its most popular writers. He has been a regular guest on programs broadcast by RT (formerly known as Russia Today). As of 2008, he was part of the editorial collective of the far right website VDARE. He has been funded by the Unz Foundation and he contributes to the Unz Review. His writings are published by Veterans Today, InfoWars, PressTV and GlobalResearch, and he is frequently a guest on the podcasts, radio shows and video channels of the Council of Conservative Citizens, Max Keiser and 9/11 truther Kevin Barrett. His own website publishes the work of Israel Shamir and Diana Johnstone. In other words, not one exceptional article, but a large part of the publication's content, is authored by someone who writes almost exclusively for deprecated websites. While there may be an argument for some case by case use of CP, we should clearly proceed with the presumption of unreliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• No and Bad RFC WP:DEPS is quite clear there only small set of allowed uses of such sources. The reason why source was depreciated is exactly that to not discuss it every time if we should use it or not. We shouldn't as consensus in the last RFC has decided --Shrike (talk) 21:18, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  For the nth time, Shrike, the word is spelt 'deprecated', if you are paying attention. Nishidani (talk) 22:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  I for one think we should fully dump all of CounterPunch's dollar reserves _signed, Rosguill ^talk 00:21, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, pr User:RoseCherry64; (I am frankly at a loss why anyone should vote no here; do you believe Counterpunch falcifies David Price?) Huldra (talk) 23:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• No, and keep deprecated – Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d makes the point that as CP has an editorial board, so cannot be regarded as "self-published" any more than the Daily Mail can for its columnist's articles. Given the people that they do publish — for example, Grover "Stalin literally did nothing wrong" Furr — I'm comfortable with the deprecation consensus from a couple of months ago. Sceptre (talk) 09:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  The last time Grover Furr was published in Counterpunch was March 2017, i.e. almost 5 years ago. More importantly, Counterpunch has also published articles by scholars in which they exposed and debunked Furr's work. Ijon Tichy (talk) 14:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  E.g.Louis Proyect What Caused the Holodomor? CounterPunch 24 March 2017. What's going on here displays the worst vices of the googler who fishes for damning clickbait torn of all context. Swag's 'evidence', apparently so persuasive to speedreaders who didn't distrust the mustering of specious diffs, if you check it, collapses. We are drowning in a superficiality that clogs all logical and evidential clarity. (Even more context Proyect, who died a few months ago, was a personal friend of both Cockburn and St. Clair, who hosted his columns while often mocking his Trotskyism)Nishidani (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Sceptre, you and some others make the same mistaken reading of the question. Nobody is claiming that articles in CP are self-published. Of course they are not; CP is the publisher. The question is whether those articles should be "treated as WP:SPS", which is different. Zero^talk 11:29, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  I would think that those editors recognize that, and their response is to point out that they are not self-published, with all that is implied from that. BilledMammal (talk) 12:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  The "should we treat this as a self-published source?" question is, fundamentally, trying to lawyer out an exemption from deprecation by people who opposed its deprecation in the first place. CounterPunch is a rag, and I would question the sense of anyone choosing to publish on their website; hell, if Isaac Newton rose from the grave and published "2+2=4" on the site, I'd ask for a second opinion. Sceptre (talk) 22:54, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Hah:) Well, it may end up being RFC'd again, that's true. Afaics, the objection seems to be more the way the old cites are being removed rather than an inability to cite new material, I have never cited CP myself although there seems on inspection to be quite a number of apparently unwise people publishing stuff there. It is not entirely clear to me that experts (which are also "sources") need an exemption any more than they need one for a "merely" unreliable source. Apart from that, there appears to be no evidence that CP edits the material of those experts that do publish in it? So it being published there is practically no different than if it were actually self published on a blog, say.Selfstudier (talk) 10:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The "editorial policy" thing is bothering me a bit: Every submission to our website is checked for accuracy, libel, copyright and style before it is posted. Any posted article that is subsequently found to contain factual inaccuracies, potentially libellous material or material that violates copyright is either amended or removed as soon as we become aware of this. For editorial style, we follow the Economist Style Guide. is obviously an editorial policy but it seems to be that just deciding what will and won't publish is not an "editorial policy" worthy of the name.Selfstudier (talk) 11:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes. I wouldn't have put it like that (SPS imposes limits on how a source can be used), but am in favour of de-deprecating articles by established experts published on the site. --Andreas JN466 13:18, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  This RFC can't even do that. We'd need a close challenge or an unambiguous RFC that asks the deprecation challenge again. Mvbaron (talk) 13:21, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  I don't see any reason why this RFC can't do that, if there is a consensus for it.Selfstudier (talk) 13:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  This RFC doesn't ask the question ("de-deprecate articles by established experts published on the site"). So it can't decide it, right? Mvbaron (talk) 13:45, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  Treat as SPS amounts to the same thing imo but even if that wasn't the case, it doesn't prevent a separate/additional consensus although most often done as a "sub RFC". A slightly awkward thing here is all the pieces are kind of related to each other, SPS, expert opinion, effect of deprecation, V, RS and so on.Selfstudier (talk) 13:52, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

  The RFC did ask that, until you objected to the question. nableezy - 16:03, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, and I don't think this is at odds with the previous discussion on the source, which correctly decided that articles are not reliable/significant due to publication. The closing summary read Most, if not all, respondents concur that the site is unreliable, more akin to a blogging platform than a news site. It is agreed by all respondents that they do, however, assert some editorial discretion in who blogs there. I think this suffices as an argument that CounterPunch articles are as reliable as the author is, just like with blogs. For an expert author, that makes it (sometimes) usable. I've not seen any claims that the website inserts conspiracy theories or otherwise tampers with submissions it receives, just selectively publishes some of them. Fundamentally, we have a very real example of actual scholarship being removed from our articles. And that should be reversed, to quote nableezy at the top of the discussion. — Bilorv (talk) 11:52, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Are you saying that a blog post would somehow qualify as WP:SCHOLARSHIP? And CounterPunch published both a print newsletter and a print magazine until 2020, so I'm not exactly sure that the statement is supposed to be interpreted broadly that it has always been a blogging platform. I'm really having trouble understanding how content submitted by external authors and compiled into a print magazine by a separate editorial team who exercises discretion over what content to include could be in any way considered to be self-published. This isn't a WP:FORBESCON situation. — Mhawk10 (talk) 20:22, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

    a blog post would somehow qualify as WP:SCHOLARSHIP? That's what SPS is, essentially. You and some others are way too hung up on the publisher rather than the author Wikipedia:Frequently misinterpreted sourcing policy#Wikipedia over-focuses on publisher instead of author reputability Selfstudier (talk) 22:28, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

• No. The site doesn’t really meet the definition of a WP:SPS, and I don’t see any particular benefit to the encyclopedia in creating a blanket exception here. There’s room to debate on a case-by-case basis whether a particular author’s credentials warrant allowing a citation to CounterPunch. Brendan N. Moody 12:45, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

  Except people are not allowing case-by-case examinations of a particular author's credentials on the basis of it being deprecated. Thats the entire problem here. Treating it as a SPS would allow for that examination, nothing more. nableezy - 15:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

  So is your point that this is not actually a self-published source, but that it should be treated as such? — Mhawk10 (talk) 04:08, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, I think that has been fairly consistently my position here. My point is reliability of an article on CP should depend on the author. Like in the parent section of this RFC, where an obviously reliable source is being essentially shut down on the basis of deprecation. If we accept self-published sources by experts, the only part that should matter on an expert publishing on CP is if CP faithfully reproduced their words. And there is zero evidence that they have ever doctored a column in any way. Where we would accept an author writing on his or her blog, there is no substantive reason to not accept them writing on CP. nableezy - 04:15, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  Then why not follow the guideline in the WP:Guideline on deprecation and seek an affirmative consensus to use the source in appropriate contexts? — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:23, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  I tried that up above. People are shutting down discussion of the individual source in appropriate context on the basis of it being deprecated. Like I wrote above in the de-deprecate section, Im actually totally fine with CP being considered default unreliable so long as an examination of an individual column's reliability is conducted where needed to see if it can overcome that presumption of unreliability. Seriously, look at the parent section. The article in question is repeatedly cited as authoritative and factual in other reliable sources. The author is a noted expert on that specific topic. But it, and other literal world class scholarly experts on the topic they are writing on, are being expunged on the basis of CP being deprecated. You have people here saying deprectaed is fine because individual articles can be examined as needed, but the editors in article space disallowing any individual article to be examined. Do you think this piece is not a reliable source solely due to it being published in CP? Because that is what is being enforced here. nableezy - 17:00, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  nableezy you never tried opening an RFC at Talk:Edward Said about whether to include Price's piece... Mvbaron (talk) 17:17, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  No, I just opened an RSN thread on it in the parent section above here instead. nableezy - 17:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• No. CP is not self published. It has editors, and editorial policies. It occasionally re-published material published elsewhere, eg on blogs, but largely publishes exclusively. It occasionally publishes experts (often material they can’t get published elsewhere because fringe or because it fails other publications’ editorial standards) but it is not a site for experts to self-publish; expert contributions go through its editorial process. If the question is, “should deprecated sources be acceptable for use under the same exceptional conditions when SPSs are considered acceptable”, then that’s a very different question which should be raised at the correct forum. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:36, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  It is entirely untrue that often material they can’t get published elsewhere because fringe or because it fails other publications’ editorial standards, based on nothing at all but an editors imagination. The source under discussion up above is published on CP because the scholar wanted to publish it on CP, and the fact that the paper is cited as factual and authoritative over and over again belies the meme that CP articles are fringe or fail some other standard. It is a mantra that has been repeated without evidence, and pertinent evidence has been provided to refute it, but yet it continues to be repeated without change or evidence. nableezy - 15:38, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  It's not a different question, that is the question - "be treated as WP:SPS". This also seems as good a forum as any. Selfstudier (talk) 13:45, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment This seems to be the correct forum, afaics, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Can we decide what the heck "deprecation" means, or alternately, use a different word? is a relevant discussion just closed at ANI with a closing note that here or village pump is a better venue for it. Is it necessary to transfer it here or is the link sufficient? Selfstudier (talk) 11:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  As part of that discussion, a draft RFC for discussion was created Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deprecated_and_unreliable_sources, if anyone wants to run with that.Selfstudier (talk) 11:54, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• Just highlighting an example of "when several people say emphatically that documentation isn't clear and/or doesn't match with practice (including practice about what actions we are/aren't willing to stop), maybe it's not useful to say 'it's totally clear and it's your fault if you can't see that'". In practice, deprecated sources are simply removed the overwhelming majority of the time. We've built a structure for deprecation that saves those who want to remove a source the hassle of making the same arguments over and over, giving a lot of weight automatically to the "remove" position. The idea that deprecation doesn't actually change how we evaluate sources is not rooted in wikireality. Maybe it shouldn't, but of course it does. The whole point of these RfCs is to consolidate arguments. Because the position of removing a deprecated source is so strong by default (as it should be), any exceptions need to be carefully spelled out in the documentation. Vague wording will automatically lead to the strictest interpretation given the nature of deprecation. Presently, the "acceptable uses" section is meaningful only insofar as it carves out possible exceptions for material an author or publication write about themselves. The language of that section is inadequate for carving out any other possible exception (such as for experts writing about their area of expertise in a lousy publication). If other exceptions are desirable, it should be changed to be more explicit, even if heavily qualified. ....but an RfC about a single source isn't the way to do that. No to this, because CounterPunch is not particularly unique in this matter. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  an RfC about a single source isn't the way to do that. Is the RFC mentioned above the way to do that? This one, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deprecated and unreliable sources. Selfstudier (talk) 15:48, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  tbh, I would say that an RFC at, say, Talk:Edward Said about whether to include Price writing in CP is the way to do it. Generalizing: If the source is deprecated but there are good arguments to include a piece by an expert somewhere anyways, then use local consensus at a specific article talk page (if needed per RFC). Mvbaron (talk) 17:15, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  Tried that, and got this answer. We cant pretend that these exceptions that the people saying are not impacted by deprecation are in fact not impacted by deprecation when others are using deprecation to disallow those exceptions. nableezy - 17:18, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  Right, an automated process would work better, I'm sure. In principle, that which is to be removed is first flagged and the flag signifies autoremoval in some time period unless a specified something is done to prevent it. This in general terms per the draft RFC not about Price issue specifically which is merely symptomatic of the general problem(s). Selfstudier (talk) 18:09, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• No Ultimately, I don't see any other way to answer the specific question that is actually being posed. The idea (as paraphrased above) that it is not actually a self-published source, but that it should be treated as such is a bizarre pretzel of logic that ignores the plain meaning of all the terms involved. Rather than calling a spade a spade, it attempts to redefine one particular spade as quasi-legalistically a not-shovel for rhetorical purposes. I think Rhododendrites is right: if there's an acceptable use case for deprecated sources that the current meaning of deprecation does not include, then that case should be added — but this is not the way to do that. Indeed, to me it seems more like trying to find an exploit in policy, getting content into the encyclopedia by the analogue of privilege escalation. XOR'easter (talk) 17:23, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  Citing tweets by experts in order to dismiss a scholarly article in a peer reviewed journal is OK by you, right? Selfstudier (talk) 18:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  What does a dispute over the history of Babylonian mathematics have to do with the question of whether articles published in CounterPunch should be treated as self-published sources? If you're going to accuse me of hypocrisy, at least pick something relevant. XOR'easter (talk) 22:17, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  I never mentioned any dispute. What I was referring to was your OK'ing of tweets from experts to dismiss a paper in a journal. Presumably if Price had tweeted his opinion instead of publishing it in CP you would have been OK with that as well?Selfstudier (talk) 22:21, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  You're not answering the question. If Price had written something somewhere other than CounterPunch, how would that make CounterPunch a self-published source? It's completely tangential to the question that the RfC actually asked. XOR'easter (talk) 22:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  Nobody is saying CounterPunch is a self-published source. The question is should it be treated as though it were, where reliability of any one piece rests on the reliability of the author. nableezy - 23:35, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  I am trying to ascertain how you would have treated Price's expert opinion if he had tweeted it? Selfstudier (talk) 22:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  That would be a matter of WP:DUE, WP:SPS, and all the other relevant policies and guidelines, as considered in the specific context where citing his opinion was proposed... and you still have not answered why it would have anything to do with whether or not articles in CounterPunch are self-published sources. XOR'easter (talk) 22:39, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  I never said it did. That's the question in this RFC? "treat as SPS". What I conclude from your reply is that is strictly because the expert opinion is in CP that you say no, a bizarre pretzel of logic. We all know that already though, that's the point of having the RFC, right? Selfstudier (talk) 22:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) The question posed by the RfC is, to copy-and-paste, Should articles published in CounterPunch be treated as WP:SPS?. I'm saying no, they shouldn't. You seem to be trying for a "gotcha!" moment based on my opinion in a situation that wasn't even analogous. Surely I've said something in my years here that is actually hypocritical about this... but even that would just make me a hypocrite; it wouldn't make articles in CounterPunch self-published sources. XOR'easter (talk) 22:55, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  No gotcha, just trying to understand your position which is is basically "agree with current policy practice", right? Selfstudier (talk) 23:03, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  I believe my position is in line with current practice, yes. XOR'easter (talk) 23:12, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  Just to be completely clear about where I (and some others) are coming from, if the outcome here should be no then it is likely that we would then proceed (subsequently or in parallel) to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deprecated and unreliable sources and/or another CP RFC, given the level of opposition that has been expressed up to now, I think the matter will not easily go away.Selfstudier (talk) 22:50, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  just make a close challenge - nobody has done that even. Mvbaron (talk) 22:52, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  I tend to agree with Nableezy that there is little to be gained doing that, it needs a new one but before we do that I think we need to have an in between step that clarifies all that has occurred up until now because as a number of persons have pointed out, there is a lot of confusion around this. Selfstudier (talk) 23:01, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  The logic of those arguing for yes here seems to be that CP is not an SPS but should be treated like one because it occasionally publishes experts and their expert status trumps any problems with the publisher. If this is the case, then reliability would only be determined on the basis of authors and not publishers (any publisher could potentially publish the experts; many deprecated ones actually do). This effectively means our entire history of determining the reliability of sources via consensus should now be ignored because only the expertise of the author is relevant. That’s actually a pretty extreme position, a massive policy change. Or am I missing something? BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:38, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  seems to be that CP is not an SPS but should be treated like one Not quite, the articles by experts are to be treated as SPS, not that CP is to be treated as SPS. Also, article, author as well as publisher are all "sources" per V.Selfstudier (talk) 10:44, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  All this reminds me of months misspent in early youth teasing out theological positions in medieval philosophy (on the ontological arguments for the existence of God from St Anselm onwards). I.e. we have two policies and editors are trying to assess the relative weight of various traditions about the implications drawn about a deprecated source and WP:SPI with regard to an anomaly that has arisen: editors differ about which reading of either policy might put paid to the anomaly (i.e. excellent scholarly and professional work of encyclopedic values does appear in a formally deprecated source). Well, as with theology, you can argue till the cows come home, since the assumptions of two or more positions are dogmatically fixed, and partisans only apply logic to finesse their respective takes. Fortunately the rise of scientific method buried all that argufying by stating that the premises themselves were provisional, evidence trumps doctrine, and logic (and commonsense) should determine how we evaluate a crux. The policies we have are not perfect, they often vie in tension, and occasionally require emendment. If an anomaly in the impacts of interpretation emerges - we are throwing obviously good material out by a provisional consensus that might simply signify the aleatory outcome of random aggregations of editors who note this discussion - then we should drop the 'theology' (policy interpretations) and look at the quality our process has recently deemed suspect on 'principle'. That is the modern, scientific, commonsensical, empirical approach to problem solving. And that is the kind of thing most of this section is systematically and fussily ignoring. If over 3 score of top academics and professional investigate journalists choose CounterPunch as a venue, unaware that anomymous editors on Wikipedia rebuff it as an 'anti-Semitic, conspiracy-mongering, holocaust-denying, hate-pushing genocide-promoting' (all ballistically absurd charges in my view), then what deliberation is necessary to allow those articles to be cited here. Nishidani (talk) 11:04, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

haha your comparison is quite apt! We need more policy exegesis! :D But, let's be honest, Price at al only chose CP because they knew they couldn't or didn't want to publish such less rigorous and more blog-y pieces in an actual academic journal. Let's not pretend a column in CP is anything like a peer-reviewed article, top academic or not. --Mvbaron (talk) 17:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is pretending that, I think Nishidani is saying the expert opinion is frequently better and I agree with him. Because it's an opinion, we attribute rather than saying it in Wikivoice and honor is thereby satisfied. It's not an accident that more and more sources are blurring the line between fact and opinion.Selfstudier (talk) 17:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Thats nonsense, he published there because he is on record as believing in the site, see here. nableezy - 21:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• No and as already mentioned this RFC has no justification. There is reason for WP:DEPS and the reason is to avoid time and again pushing trashy sources back. There are plenty of reliable, neutral sources that covers all this topic's. Hatemongering, conspiracy theorists are not the standards of Wikipedia.Tritomex (talk) 21:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Nobody is proposing to use hatemongering conspiracy theorists. Maybe dont make things like that up. nableezy - 21:51, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Well, Israel Shamir a well known Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist and an outlet, like this one [14] that publishes his views is worthless and trashy.Tritomex (talk) 23:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Is anybody citing Israel Shamir? Again, nobody is proposing that hatemongering conspiracy theorists be cited. nableezy - 23:18, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  I said that an outlet that by publishing promotes the views of a racist bigot and Holocaust denier, like Israel Shamir, or whatever his real name is, lost all credentials to be used as reliable source at any field, not just on subject related to Arab_Israeli conflict. Tritomex (talk) 23:32, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Pretty sure no-one is seriously disputing that CP (the "publisher") is unreliable. That's not the question. Imagine that CP articles were treated as SPS and someone tried to cite that guy, how far you think they would get? Selfstudier (talk) 23:41, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  The next question raised has also obvious awnser. Articles published in CounterPunch are not self-published sources and cant be tranformed or declared as such for any purpose.Tritomex (talk) 11:17, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  That's why the RFC asks "...be treated as WP:SPS?" Selfstudier (talk) 11:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  CounterPunch did not 'promote' Shamir's views. It published them, mainly on Russia, occasionally down to 2015. If interviewing or publishing the views of people accused of racism indicted newspapers that do so, most Israeli papers would have trouble reporting on a considerable number of Knesset members. Arutz Sheva is not deprecated, and it hosts racists like Baruch Marzel. The POV war consists in huffing and puffing about CP because it is highly receptive to criticism of Israel , and quietly editing stuff culled from that racist rag, or from Israel Hayom and a dozen other newspapers with even less credibility than CP, or never making an issue of that double standard. Nishidani (talk) 19:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes per comments made above, and we need more recognition here that the original RSN discussion was brigaded by sockpuppets. @David Gerard, BilledMammal, and Sceptre: you each made comments above referencing the outcome of the previous RfC from September. I had a look at that today – in the three months since that RfC, six of the “deprecate” voters (one quarter of them) were outed as socks. That is an extraordinary number to be outed in such a short space of time. It is reasonable to assume that not all the involved socks in the brigade have been outed yet. So we might be talking between a third and a half of all “deprecate” voters in that RfC representing a sock brigade, plus the halo effect from their talking points being repeated as a group. Without them that RfC would have been closed as no consensus. Discouraging sockpuppetry requires ensuring their “work” has no permanence. Onceinawhile (talk) 01:46, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
  • I've requested clarification of a related matter; as things stand I believe the consensus is still strong. BilledMammal (talk) 05:33, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

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

sounds right to me --Mvbaron (talk) 10:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

RFC on apa.az use for Armenia/Nagorno-Karabakh articles

Is www.apa.az website a reliable source for Armenia/Nagorno-Karabakh related articles? --Armatura (talk) 00:19, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Examples from its publications:

• Armenia's crimes condemned in Los Angeles-VIDEO
• Armenia continues “mine terror”-ANALYSIS
• Reasons and purposes of Armenian provocations on border-ANALYSIS
• International media and journalists in crosshairs of Armenian terrorism - ANALYSIS
• Illegal visit of German MPs to Khankendi: Armenia is committed to the ideology of fascism - ANALYSIS
• Why Armenia, in a difficult situation, is resorting to provocation? - ANALYSIS
• Finally, apa.az is happy to present what happened in Khojali as Khojali genocide (no wide international consensus for this term) without quote marks and yet it is so-called “Armenian genocide” in quote marks for widely recognised genocide that only Azerbaijan and Turkey deny.

The reason why apa.az got scrutinised is this talk page discussion. --Armatura (talk) 00:23, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Comment. I am not familiar with the topic area, but the impression I got from the three examples I read is of consistently strong bias and propaganda and poor journalism. I am not sure I would consider anything published by this site as reliable on this topic, unless supported by another completely independent source from another country not involved in the conflict. They also appear to be badly translated, or written by someone with a poor command of English, which could be part of the problem. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:10, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• No. They are not used by RS and Eurasianet writes that they get instructions what to write directly from the Azerbaijani government. Alaexis_¿question? 06:59, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• No - Based on the language that the website uses, I think it's pretty safe to say that it shouldn't be considered RS. The extreme bias, COI and advocacy just speaks for itself. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 12:52, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• Depends on context. In general, Azerbaijani and Armenian sources cannot be trusted on Nagorno-Karabakh related issues, as both are engaged in propaganda due to the conflict between the two countries. But if this news agency reports simple facts as, for example, inauguration of a railway station, or construction of a school, or a visit of a country official or his public statement, I see no reason why it should not be trusted. Grandmaster 13:04, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  I agree regarding simple facts about Azerbaijan. The RfC question is however about its reporting on Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Alaexis_¿question? 15:38, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. In general, "news analysis" pieces are just opinion pieces with a different label thrown on them. Using these sorts of pieces are subject to WP:RSOPINION and the principle of due weight, but they should not be treated as news reporting. Reading through the website's news coverage in English, it seems like the site is just relatively low quality all-around. I can't say the same for its Azeri or Russian reporting, as I can't read either of those languages, so I can't comment more broadly on the site. I am seeing 580ish uses in articles on Wikipedia currently, ranging from Death of Michael Jackson and Occupy movement to Steve Cohen (politician) and 2014 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes. — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:36, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: I haven't had the time to look into this source yet, but I would note the last two examples look to be APA quoting the Azerbaijani President, and so don't speak to the reliability of the source. I will say though that the Eurasianet article suggests there are significant problems with using the APA group, as well as Trend News Agency, Axar, and Sas. BilledMammal (talk) 01:47, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Request for comment on citing Patheos

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § Request for comment on citing Patheos

 – Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Discussion (Patheos)

Background: Editor Hammersoft has argued here that Hemant Mehta, one of the top 6 columnists on Patheos, cannot be cited on Wikipedia. In the same talk page, editor Cullen328 has asserted (incorrectly) that Mehta is "affiliated with a Satanic group" and is trying to "promote a contrived controversy". I believe that Mehta is a well-written, independent columnist who writes well (and fairly neutrally) on a variety of topics. I would guess that the fact that this topic concerns religion accounts for the strong disagreements.

This query shows that Patheos is cited 911 times on Wikipedia. I'm going to hazard a guess that the vast majority of those references are to columnists that are not in the top 6. So where is the line and who gets to decide? The guidance given here, last updated in 2015, has two problems. 1) It is very vague — vague enough that an editor can exclude references to a respected, independent columnist, citing this policy; and 2) IMO, "cited together with a source that is more reliable" is an unreasonable standard — a reference is either reliable or it is not (and note: it was not hard to find articles whose only citation is to Patheos).

I believe the guidance from 6 years ago should be revisited, updated, and clarified. RoyLeban (talk) 11:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Its not an RS, so should not really be used. It is a blog, so it maybe that its use is to cite the views of an expert, who is Hemant Mehta?Slatersteven (talk) 13:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I see no evidence that anything has changed about Patheos in the past 6 years that would affect how we treat it. AFAICT, it's still a collection of blogs with little editorial oversight i.e. which are basically self published so it's not a reliable secondary source in general. When it comes to the specific individual blogs they should be treated like any self published source. They cannot be used for any claims about living persons except in cases where WP:ABOUTSELF applies. For other situations, they can only be used where the author is a subject matter expert. I don't know what the OP means by "top 6" but I guess either this is view count or number of articles published. But it's sort of moot since both cases are largely irrelevant in determining whether someone is a subject matter expert. I'm guessing the number of authors on Patheos is large enough and changes enough that it's not useful for us to analyse every single author there. But to give specific examples, I'm not sure if Hemant Mehta can really be considered a subject matter expert of anything going by a quick read of their article. However Daniel C. Peterson is potentially a subject matter expert on some aspects of Islam and the Arabic language, but possibly not on anything related to the LDS. Nil Einne (talk) 16:19, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Ahh, no I do not see any indication they are an acknowledged expert on Satanism.Slatersteven (talk) 16:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Bad RfC Patheos is a blog hosting service and as such there can be no flat answer to the RfC question. Each individual blog on Patheos requires individual reliability evaluation. We cannot say ahead of time that any Patheos blog is acceptable or unacceptable. The second RfC question isn't really even a question, it's a complaint. The stricto sensu answer is obvious: the community of editors that chooses to comment on a particular article's talk page decides. The obvious displeasure of the OP that their source was not accepted at Talk:Peace Cross makes it clear they wish the "who decides" was "not who commented there". Unfortunately, that is exactly who decides on any article talk page. Neither question is answerable through a blanket RfC on the site. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:23, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• It seems that Patheos (not Pantheos) hosts some content such as religious documents and peer reviewed articles that may be acceptable to use as references with caution. But these days, it is best known for hosting about 450 blogs on various religious topics plus atheism. The blog in question is written by Hemant Mehta, a blogger, podcaster and atheist activist whose academic background is in math education. There is no evidence that he has expertise in the naming of National Trust for Historic Preservation sites or interpretation of Supreme Court decisions. The specific blog post in question was published two weeks before the alleged renaming and is based almost entirely on a press release issued by the Satanic Temple and statements by its leader, Lucien Greaves. Accordingly, it is the furthest thing from an independent, reliable source and basing a "Naming controversy" section on this plus the primary statement from the Satanists is entirely inappropriate. There is no controversy. There is only a non-notable publicity stunt. Cullen328 (talk) 19:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• You should focus on asking about the specific citation to Pathos being used, because the answer for Pathos as a whole is going to be that as a blogging platform it is a WP:SPS. Experts there can be cited within the (very strict) restrictions of SPS, but simply being a "top blogger" on Pathos means nothing in and of itself - to demonstrate that you could cite someone via it you'd need to establish that they're a major expert in the field, that they have reliably published things on the same topic, and so on. In those situations the specific things you are citing him for matter a great deal and it would be a good idea to link to the diffs (for example, if you want to cite his blog to discuss a legal precedent or the law, he would need to be a published legal expert; and it would be absolutely unacceptable to ever cite him for something about a BLP, anything WP:EXCEPTIONAL, or anything which is unduly self-serving.) Looking at the dispute, it looks to me like you're trying to cite him for his opinion on legal matters despite his total lack of legal expertise - I would probably argue against citing him even if his opinion was published in a valid WP:RSOPINION source due to that lack of expertise, but it's definitely a no as a SPS. (Worse, it was being used to cite something as fact in the article voice! Again, we couldn't use it like that even via valid RSOPINION source, let alone a blog.) Can't you find any more reliable sources covering the ruling? --Aquillion (talk) 22:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• I have to concur with Nil Einne: "I see no evidence that anything has changed about Patheos in the past 6 years that would affect how we treat it. AFAICT, it's still a collection of blogs with little editorial oversight i.e. which are basically self published so it's not a reliable secondary source in general. When it comes to the specific individual blogs they should be treated like any self published source."
  Also concur with Eggishorn: "Patheos is a blog hosting service and as such there can be no flat answer to the RfC question. Each individual blog on Patheos requires individual reliability evaluation" – and in the context of self-published source treatment with the WP:RSSELF limitations.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• I don't know what Patheos was 6 years ago, but today it is not "a blog". "Patheos is a non-denominational, non-partisan online media company providing information and commentary from various religious and nonreligious perspectives." (from Patheos). That page says that Patheos has both columnists and bloggers, and lists Hemant Mehta as a "prominent contributor" and you can read more about Mehta on Wikipedia itself. One commenter made the false assertion that Mehta was affiliated with The Satanic Temple, when he clearly is not. So, if any columnist on Patheos is a reasonable reference, I would put Mehta toward the top of the list. Yes, others may disagree. But the current situation is that one editor can state their opinion that Mehta is not reliable and my opinion that he is both reliable and independent gets ignored. I posted this about Patheos because Hammersoft was making the argument that Patheos, pretty much as a whole, was not reliable. The 911 other references to Patheos indicate that the current situation is problematic. I'm not making that up. And apparently, the issue keeps arising. We can ignore what is an actual problem here, or we can do something about it. If as some suggest, reliability should be assessed on a case by case basis, then the guidance here should be updated to indicate that and a page should be created indicating which Patheos columnists are considered reliable. I would suggest that Mehta along with most others mentioned in the Wikipedia article should be considered reliable by default. Medium presents a similar problem, and there are more than 7,000 citations to it on Wikipedia. Extra note: Cullen328 states Mehta's article was written before the naming event. That is true with the initial version of the article, but is clear that it was updated after the event. RoyLeban (talk) 02:46, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Nobody is saying that Patheos is "a blog" but rather that it is a website that hosts about 450 separate blogs. Zero evidence has been presented that the work written by Hemant Mehta is subject to any professional editorial control or fact checking, so it is a blog that some people want to call a "column". And the blog post or "column" in question was largely based on a press release by the Satanist group and an official statement by its founder. Accordingly, it is not an independent reliable source and it would not make any difference if this "column" was published in a widely respected newspaper or magazine. It is utterly inadequate for the purpose of stating in Wikipedia's voice that there is any sort of actual "controversy" about the name of this monument. If there actually was a controversy instead of a two bit publicity stunt, then genuinely reliable independent sources with professional editorial control would have discussed it in detail and called it a controversy. Cullen328 (talk) 04:46, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  But the current situation is that one editor can state their opinion that Mehta is not reliable and my opinion that he is both reliable and independent gets ignored. Yet again, @RoyLeban:, you are ignoring the actual discussion and creating your own alternate reality. You stated your opinion and Not One Other Editor out of multiple ones here, at the article talk, at the ANI thread, or at the multiple editor talk pages you have brought this to has agreed. This five-month effort fails to understand that Wikipedia does not create notability or coverage it reflects notability through the coverage in reliable sources. You have not produced a reliable source, despite WP:FORUMSHOPPING extensively to attempt to gain agreement the ones in question qualify. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 05:10, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Whether it is one editor or ten on one side or the other, the point is that it is arbitrary and inconsistent. It just took me five seconds to find citations to articles by Hemant Mehta on these pages: Flying Spaghetti Monster, Skepticon, Sally Kern. Wikipedia says there are 54 pages with his name on them, including the page about him; I don't know how many are citations. What makes those ok and not this one? I'm not ignoring the actual discussion. I'm pointing out hypocrisy. What makes this article different from the other articles? Who decides that Mehta isn't reliable and, if he's not reliable, why are those other citations allowed? If nothing from Patheos is allowed, should we do something about the other 900 citations? And even if I'm wrong and articles about The Satanic Temple by Mehta aren't allowed while other articles by him are allowed, as well as other citations to Patheos, then Wikipedia still deserves a clearer guideline. The current one allows people to justify arbitrary decisions.

  You can disagree with me, but I honestly don't see how you disagree with the desire for greater clarity.

  And please note: the word "controversy" was mine, and not Mehta's, and it was a mistake. I used it to try to be NPOV and it was wrong. RoyLeban (talk) 05:40, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  You still seem to think that Wikipedia has some sort of central authority that determines that Mehta is universally a reliable source that is "allowed" and that an editor who objects to Mehta's blog being cited this way in this article is somehow obligated to search for and evaluate every other use of Mehta in this encyclopedia. That is not how things work in an encyclopedia of 6,430,000 articles. The fact of the matter is that your behavior, by trying to push this inappropriate content into this article, has attracted heightened scrutiny of this particular article and your increasingly disruptive I didn't hear that behavior. There is plenty of time to take care of those other articles if Mehta has been cited inappropriately there. But right now, we are discussing one article and the poor quality source that one editor (you) is bound and determined to jam into that article, despite the fact that not a single other experienced editor thinks that it is acceptable. Cullen328 (talk) 06:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  I came back because I didn't want people to think my previous comment was uncivil. I gave the final example I did because it's impossible to not think of that as a possible explanation. I certainly hear that other people don't think this citation is acceptable. What I haven't heard is why, at least not in any way that holds water. Cullen328 above says it is "poor quality" as if it is a fact. It's not. It's an opinion. Maybe even a majority opinion. But why? How is this article by Mehta different from the others? Why have people reached that conclusion here but not in other places? The answer is "because" and that's a bad thing.

  Is the problem everything on Patheos, just Hemant Mehta, or just this one article by Patheos? That's a reasonable question and the answer seems to be the last one. And, if that's the case, then we have a big problem.

  On a side note, I am not being disruptive. I haven't engaged in disruptive editing. I am simply asking the same questions over and over again and not getting an actual answer. I am going through appropriate channels, as suggested by others, and I am trying to get clarification. It saddens me that anybody would think no clarification is needed, that the problem is not the naked emperor, but the little boy who says the emperor has no clothes. RoyLeban (talk) 06:37, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  What would make a difference is academics or RS off this website using him as a go-to expert for facts. Or to have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, or to hold a high-level academic post in a respected academic institution. In other words, not just a blogger.Slatersteven (talk) 10:49, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an accepted argument as well as the fact that we don't have a universal reviewing process, so just because Patheos or the specific author is used a few dozen times on WP elsewhere doesn't make it right. --Masem (t) 13:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  On a side note, I am not being disruptive. I haven't engaged in disruptive editing., Um. Yes, @you: are and yes, you have. WP:BLUDGEON is being disruptive. Filing baseless ANI reports is being disruptive. Casting WP:ASPERSIONS is being disruptive. The persistent I don't hear that behavior you've displayed for five months in widespread fora is such a classic example of disruptive editing that it we define IDHT in a section of the Disruptive Editing behavioral guideline. I could go on and if you continue being disruptive I might. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:10, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• Like Aquillion wrote, it would be more useful to know the specific context for each instance. There may be cases where a particular article may be useful, especially in cases like WP:ABOUTSELF in a WP:BLP, perhaps sometimes for WP:PARITY on a topic if from a notable credible person. In general as others pointed out WP:BLOG applies. I've personally found Patheos to host interesting material but also a lot of inaccurate information (including about the doctrines of religious groups). —PaleoNeonate – 14:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Patheos appears to be WP:SPS Summoned by bot. There's no description of who the editors are, nor any particular description of it doing reporting or being, other than as a host for religion writers. It does not appear to bear the hallmarks of either WP:RS or WP:RSOPINION. As an outsider, it seems like this discussion (how to talk about and source the potential claims of the Satanic Temple to a monument after a first amendment ruling) has kinda gone a little too deep. Surely, if this has happened, there are other sources? Chris vLS (talk) 02:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• Blog host for SPS content. Contributors can put up blog posts themselves. Mehta's posts are just blog posts by him, and should be treated accordingly - David Gerard (talk) 09:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• Treat as WP:SPS. If a Patheos blog is written by a subject-matter expert, the blog's articles can be cited pursuant to the limitations set at WP:SPS. In the case of Hemant Mehta, I'd argue that Mehta should be considered a subject-matter expert on the topic of religion, given that his work has been published by reliable, independent publications as required under WP:SPS. feminist (talk) 04:58, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Columns at Skeptical Inquirer

Would columns at Skeptical Inquirer be considered Self-Published Sources WP:NEWSBLOGS and/or WP:QS? Updated to match discussion, see below BilledMammal (talk) 14:51, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

The standard definition of columns and columnists would suggest that they are, and while the editorial policy doesn't discuss columns specifically, it does state that "The Editor will often send manuscripts dealing with technical or controversial matters to reviewers. The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective", which suggests a general lack of editorial control that would extend to columns.

Further, if they are would Susan Gerbic (column) be considered a subject matter expert for scientific skepticism and associated topics?

This is in relation to this ongoing discussion at COIN, and is of relevance to a number of articles, including BLP's. BilledMammal (talk) 09:49, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I think Gerbic definitely has a long history of writing on the topic, but from my readings of her work I'd say she is an expert on scientific skeptic conferences and organizations in Europe and US, but not the movement as a whole. As far as I know she has no academic background on the subject (a professional photographer) and all her work is published in publications with what seems like lax editorial oversight, so I'd probably categorize her in the same way I'd do Joan Didion or Hunter S. Thompson (and other New Journalists). However, I don't think Gerbic is an expert on pseudoscience so I wouldn't use her as a source there. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:58, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

• It's not WP:SELFPUB because the content creators and and content publishers are distinct parties (except in maybe some cases when an editor publishes their own work without review, if that happens). Alexbrn (talk) 11:04, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

  WP:NOTRS also includes Questionable sources, described as those lack[ing] meaningful editorial oversight, which would fit (in my opinion) BilledMammal's quote, which then means it could be used in the same way as selfpub in WP:ABOUTSELF contexts. I do agree that Skeptical Inquirer is not an SPS, but if consensus is that they are a questionable source then there's not much difference in how it should be used on wiki. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 11:30, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

  This except in maybe some cases when an editor publishes their own work without review, if that happens is the point where things get unclear in my opinion; most columns don't have a review process like most content (although it appears that the review process at SI is generally weak), and I think that Santacruz makes a good point about treating at least the columns as a questionable source, and possibly the entire publications due to the lack of meaningful editorial oversight - I note a lot is written by actual experts, and should remain usable.

  Separately, I am wondering now if WP:NEWSBLOGS would apply to the online columns? It doesn't help us with the offline columns, but the definition appears to fit, and it does allow us to use the professionals who write such columns. BilledMammal (talk) 11:39, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

  Looking at their last four articles, for example:

  • an opinion piece
  • what seems like a historic analysis from a reputable expert
  • a movie review
  • an entertainment video

  Just thought I'd link them here in case it's useful to the discussion (hopefully the list doesn't mess with the indent formatting of the thread). Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 11:49, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

It's essentially an opinion column from one of their authors. As the submission guidelines state, the authors are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective, which shows a lack of editorial control. Perfectly acceptable for the opinions of the columnist, unacceptable for BLPs. Also, looking at the tone of the latest column, it shows even more-so that it should not be used in a BLP. Thomas John Flanagan, better known as the Manhattan Medium, the Seatbelt Psychic guy, drag queen Lady Vera Parker, and a grief vampire...[15] ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:39, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

• Is there an actual example of use on WP to consider? Alexbrn (talk) 11:48, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Many; from the COIN thread, Suzane Northrop (1) and Thomas John Flanagan (1 2). The second are also referenced to the NYT's and the Las Vegas Review Journal, but as far as I can tell neither state Gerbal's position in their own voice, so the fact that we are doing so comes entirely from Gerbal's column. BilledMammal (talk) 11:53, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

    Yeah I don't think her sting operations should be cited, especially not in the leads of BLPs. The publication does not fact check them at all nor is she an expert in the subject.Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 12:14, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

    The Skeptical Inquirer is not self-published, no. Which does not make op-eds the same as a journalistic piece. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:20, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

    Neither of those uses in the current ledes are particularly contentious. Why would they need an extremely high quality source? They aren't alleging criminal acts or anything that the subject would disagree with... I'm not sure why the use of these sources in those article ledes would be an issue. You could probably state those things without any source at all, per WP:V. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:50, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

    Versions from when the above was linked: Suzane Northrop and Thomas John Flanagan. The issues are also not limited to the lede. BilledMammal (talk) 01:01, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

No it is not an SPS, it also does not seem to be well known for making stuff up.Slatersteven (talk) 13:21, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Skeptical Inquirer is def not a SPS. Contributors (approved in advance due to their expertise) submit articles which are worked on by editors either for the printed magazine or for the website. Additionally, if necessary due to content, their legal staff does a content review to approve the article. Rp2006 (talk) 06:45, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

No, it's not an SPS. If it's an opinion column, treat it accordingly; if it's another type of column, bring evidence of its quality (or lack thereof), preferably in the context of use on Wikipedia, and we can evaluate it that way. As for Gerbic, I don't see a reason why she wouldn't be considered a reliable source on the skepticism movement (trying to distinguish between authority on "skepticism conferences" and skepticism more broadly is, frankly, bizarre). That doesn't mean that she knows everything about every science, obviously, but the skepticism movement is as much a sociological, political, rhetorical, organizational, etc. subject as science subject. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:23, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

What I meant by not an expert on the movement is that as far as I know she doesn't do much analysis of the movement in a historical sense. She doesn't break it down or try to see, for example, how it is connected to other movements (e.g. radical atheism through its overlap with speakers such as Richard Dawkins) as much as she is a good (for lack of a better term) diarist for the movement as it is now. She certainly creates valuable documentation on the evolution of its organizations, how it is attempting to maintain its relevance in an online world, etc. but she doesn't analyze it per say. I'd call her an expert on the movement if her articles were less 'check out this cool new podcast' and more academic/removed from the subject. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:53, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

"as far as I know" or wp:or, how do you know what she does, have you ever met her (let alone examined all of the work she has ever done)?Slatersteven (talk) 14:58, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Have you? However, it seems the best way to address this question would be for editors who are aware of her conducting such analysis to provide examples for us to consider. BilledMammal (talk) 15:02, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Most of her work on skepticism are either conference reports, personal stories and wiki-related analysis, or interviews. What I mean by analysis would be closer to "Insider Baseball" by Joan Didion or the type of monograph you'd see in academia. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

And stuff like this [[16]], seems fairlery in-depth to me (but it does nmentiuon an accidental sting).Slatersteven (talk) 15:10, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure dispelling the notion that mediums have powers is indicative of expertise. Hell, anyone could do that. Additionally, the publication does not fact-check anything related to the sting (from what I understand, based on their editing policy) so I wouldn't even call the sting reliable. Again, my point was her not being in-depth about the skepticism movement and the subject of the article is a drag queen medium, not a skeptic. It's also not in-depth as much as just terribly long. There's a difference between sharp, detailed analysis and just adding more and more volunteers to an "operation". Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:21, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

It is in depth enough to show she did research, and a lot mrope than just interviews and reports on conferancies. It is as in depth as most news paper reports of an incident. Nor does she have to be an experts, as that would only apply if this was an SPS, its not. As to "her not being in-depth about the skepticism movement", as she is not reporting on them, why would she need to be?Slatersteven (talk) 15:30, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

To me, this whole tangent is unnecessary. If she's an expert or not, or on what, doesn't matter. Generally, we shouldn't be allowing someone with a platform with no editorial oversight for columns, where the authors are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective to perform a sting operation and then have huge, undue amounts of negative content added to a BLP based on it. If Captain Picard had a column in Space Captains Bimonthly Journal of Space Captains and ran a sting on some other captain saying that the other captain was looking at Spacebook pages for aliens in contravention of the Prime Directive, we wouldn't include that either. If a secondary source, say Wolf-359 Times, does a story, and provides secondary coverage, then we can look into including information as it shows that it has widespread coverage, and has some editorial oversight. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:40, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

On this I note that the New York Times when they reported on one of her stings did not back her conclusions with their own voice. BilledMammal (talk) 15:58, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

It is in depth enough to show she did research, and a lot mrope than just interviews and reports on conferancies. [sic] There is no guarantee her research is actually correct. It is as in depth as most news paper reports of an incident. This is a generalization without evidence, nor does it deal with the point I made on the character of the analysis made in the article. Nor does she have to be an experts, as that would only apply if this was an SPS, its not. It does apply if it is a questionable source, which SI is in my opinion. Additionally, the question of whether she is an expert or not is the one posed by BilledMammal at the beginning of the discussion. As to "her not being in-depth about the skepticism movement", as she is not reporting on them, why would she need to be? That is the criteria I use to judge whether someone is an expert on a subject: can they write in-depth, analytical, and thoughtful pieces on a subject backed by either strong credentials, a rigorous system of peer-review by the publisher, or are they called experts (verbatim) by RS. I'm not saying it's the criteria everyone should use or the correct one (consensus will determine that and I trust the wiki process more than myself), but it is the one I use. Therefore, I don't judge Gerbic to be an expert on the skepticism movement, but I do think she is an expert on skeptic conferences and organizations in the US and Europe (I guess I'd add the Commonwealth just to have NZ in there). Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:44, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

As far as I can ascertain, the thing Gerbic is recognized for within the skeptical community is not the study of that community, or its conferences and organizations. She is recognized for her activism investigating and reporting on those she terms "grief vampires." And of course for her work with GSoW. Those two things earned her recognition, and earned her non-profit a grant from James Randi. Rp2006 (talk) 06:51, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Rp2006 I trust you on that. I think she'd definitely be an expert on GSOW (and I'd additionally give her some credit for her wide knowledge on skeptic organizations as I did above), but I'm hesitant to call her an expert on mediums (what she calls "grief vampires", a characterization which I agree with but is infinitely hard to justify using in wiki-voice). All her work on them is published through SI and a book (which as far as I understand still upcoming), a publication that does not take responsibility for the accuracy of information, she is not a trained psychologist, nor has she written (as far as I am aware) any academic works on the subject. Again, dispeling the idea that mediums have powers is not a hard thing to do nor does it require much understanding of why people still trust mediums, how the psychology of the mediee (idk what the term is) functions during a reading, etc. That is the type of questions I'd expect to be more prominent in the writings of an expert on the subject, and which I have found lacking in her writing on the subject. So while she's certainly done a bunch of work in the subject I don't think quantity is more important than quality at determining expertise.Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 08:36, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

For once we agree. Gerbic is not an expert on the psychology involved in either the people who claim to speak for the dead, nor of those fooled into believing it. She has not claimed to be. (I doubt there is such an "expert" on Earth, as this certainly has not been scientifically studied.)

However, learning about HOW the cons work and how people are deceived, and educating the public to reduce the number of people harmed, IS what she is a recognized expert at (by the skeptical community as well as the media). And that is what she writes about primarily. As for your claim "dispelling the idea that mediums have powers is not a hard thing to do." Really? Then why do upwards of 40% of Americans (and likely other humans) still believe it? Why do countless people lose their life savings to these con-artists? Are you aware of this? Do you care? We do. Rp2006 (talk) 16:46, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Many people believe in many things for irrational, emotional reasons. If humans were perfectly rational beings, things like parasocial relationships wouldn't exist. I'd appreciate if you could link some sources were Gerbic is cited as an expert in mediums. I don't doubt they might exist, but until you provide those sources my opinion is strong (if weakly held) that she is not an expert in this area. Giving mediums fake stories to get "Gotcha'!" moments does not make you an expert. Your rhetorical questions don't affect the fact you must provide proof she is an expert if there is no consensus she is. In a kingdom of opinions, fact is king. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:04, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

So are you retracting your claim that "dispelling the idea that mediums have powers is not a hard thing to do."? You clearly said that to imply there are no experts in this field, and indeed no expertise is needed because (I guess) you think anyone can do it. This is the Dunning–Kruger effect on full display. In realty, it takes a level of "expertise" gained via much experience to successfully unmask these con-artists, and to get results worthy of coverage by the NYT. In fact, I see no one else at all doing this now besides Gerbic. That is why James Randi (who used to debunk paranormal claims) awarded her a grant from the JREF before his passing. It contributes to why she was elected fellow at CSI. It is why she has been covered and consulted by media as prestigious as the NYT here and here in the rare instances they cover this topic at all. Rp2006 (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Could you or someone else please share the exact way she is characterized in the articles? NYT is paywalled to me. I disagree by the way, it's not hard to prove a medium is a scam as long as you have the time for it.Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:07, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Priceless. It's not hard to be a pilot for a commercial airline, or an astrophysicist, or an MD, as long as you have the time for it. Rp2006 (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Her work is covered, but her claims are not endorsed, while she is described as a "psychic skeptic". It wouldn't seem to endorse the claim that she is an expert in this field, just that she is a prominent sceptic of it. BilledMammal (talk) 01:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Then I don't see any reason to characterize her as an expert on mediums if the only RS describing her work on the topic does not characterize her as such. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:44, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

If you're not familiar with the history of debunking mediums and spiritualists (and how difficult it could and can be), I would highly recommend reading about it. Any competent biography of Houdini is a good place to start, but in keeping with the Skeptic movement theme I'll recommend "Houdini, His Life and Art" by James Randi. - MrOllie (talk) 22:13, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I find it precious that she just admitted that she has not read the articles in the NYT but has a strong opinion on them. Also that she does not know how to get around a paywall, that's beginning GSoW training BTW. One more thing that I should mention - when the New York Times reaches out to someone for comment on an article they are writing about a psychic, and you are the lone person asked to do so. That means that the NYT thinks of that person as an expert. When they write a full article about you in the NYT Magazine, even more so. That is considered a very big deal ACS. Belittling the work I have done over the years as "easy" and something you could do is insulting, not only to me, but to the few other experts on the subject. If you are not up on the topic, then I suggest you refrain from commenting. You do know who James Randi is, right? Sgerbic (talk) 23:21, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I am literally acting in good faith and asking someone to provide the quotes in the article that support you as an expert. Strong opinions weakly held means that if I am shown proof my opinion is wrong I am quick to admit so, but until then I maintain my positions resolutely. I am just asking for one or two sentences, and the attacks on my character or the lack of assuming good faith on my part in this discussion are both unnecessary to resolving the topic of this RSN thread. I apologize if you feel offended that I think the methodology you use is simplistic. However, that is my opinion and I shouldn't need to shy away my thoughts on your reliability just because you happen to be reading. It is your choice to read discussions regarding your expertise. If you cannot handle professional assessments without feeling personally offended I suggest you do not participate in these threads. Hope you enjoy the weekend.Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 23:35, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I think a more pertinent question would be are columns written about stings that the author ran considered a primary source for the sting? If there is no secondary sourcing about the sting, should we be inserting it into an article, especially a BLP? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:26, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

That is a better objection, but it's more about undue than RS (assuming we are talking about stings, and not (for example) investigations).Slatersteven (talk) 15:00, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Slatersteven that the question might not be usually discussed in this noticeboard but I'll still give my two cents. I'd say the columns on the stings are primary sources. As there are no secondary sources and they are published in a magazine that does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the information they should absolutely not be mentioned in a BLP or anywhere in articles. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 08:36, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

relative to something mentioned above, we have never accepted the fact that a newspaper, even the NYT, asks someone to comment on something indicates their notability; it doesn't necessarily indicate they're a RS either, since a journalist normally uses a range of familiar sources. If anything, it indicates that the newspaper is not taking responsibility for what the source is quoted as saying. (I intend this as general, not the specific situation here) DGG ( talk ) 01:43, 9 January 2022 (UTC) �

Yes, but I actually think there is a supplement somewhere that states that many multiple RSes all quoting someone as an expert is good enough to call them an expert, right? Am I misremembering that? I can't think of where it is specifically or find it, at the moment. But I thought it was buried somewhere in a supplement. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Just as a note, in the latest issue of SI they describe a breaching experiment conducted on Wikipedia [17], where the author created a fake article and left it up for 13 years, with meatpuppetry to try to retain it after it was nominated for AfD. I'm not sure to what extent it is relevant, but breaching experiments sit in an ethical gray area which tends to raise concerns. I worry about publications which uncritically publish these sorts of articles, and concerns have been raised in the past when this has happened elsewhere. - Bilby (talk) 13:14, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bilby: is the full text of that piece available anywhere? That sort of behaviour is concerning on a wider level than whether or not SI is a reliable source or not. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:58, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th:, sorry, but the full text is only available to subscribers, as far as I know. As a summary: the author claims to have requested the creation of the Eachy article in July 2006 as a breaching experiment through WP:AFC. The hoax article was created by User:Kevin, who was not aware of the hoax. It was nominated for deletion in August 2019. According to the author, "An appeal to my Fortean and skeptical colleagues then resulted in some edits to the page. In my first intervention in the article for several years, I argued that it should be kept, because I managed to find an article that bizarrely mentioned in passing Victorian accounts of the monster (Robinson 2017)." [18]. They were usuccessful and it was deleted. - Bilby (talk) 21:31, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

It might be relevant to see who edited that page. BilledMammal (talk) 22:39, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The only edit in the AfD that fits the description was this one. - Bilby (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant the article itself, in reference to this "An appeal to my Fortean and skeptical colleagues then resulted in some edits to the page" - although I think this edit is more likely, as it seems unlikely to be User:Dream Focus. BilledMammal (talk) 22:54, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

No problem. The only significant edits to the article after it was nominated for AfD were by an IP. In regard to the AfD vote, I find DreamFocus to be unlikely, but the problem is that the author is claiming to have added a reference to "Robertson 2017", which is the reference given by DreamFocus in their edit. The reference given by Tullimonstrum isn't by the same author. I guess if it isn't DreamFocus - which I hope it isn't - then the author is lying about the edit, which speaks to the reliability of the source. - Bilby (talk) 23:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Good points, particularly about the reliability. BilledMammal (talk) 23:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I second this. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 08:23, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

At https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Eachy I scratched out what I said before and voted to redirect it to another article, so it clearly not me. That was back in 2019. Only one editor still said Keep in that discussion and they edit these types of pages a lot. Special:Contributions/Tullimonstrum. Anyway, you'd have to be able to view the deleted article to see who added what sources to it, and who just quoted those in the AFD, or found them on their own by clicking the AFD search options. Dream Focus 05:09, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• I found this at https://twitter.com/CharlesPaxton4 Dec 29, 2021 Create a false fact on Wikipedia with no support. Then someone uses that fact beyond Wikipedia. Then that usage can be used to justify the Wikipedia article. People can now point to Eachy articles to justify the existence of a Wikipedia article about the Eachy.
• And his post before that was: Dec 29, 2021 Replying to @CharlesPaxton4 My article lasted just over 13 years on Wikipedia, and successfully, as you can see above created a monster tradition. See also.
• So this guy made a fake article. Dream Focus 05:21, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dream Focus: I'm really glad to hear you say that it wasn't you. However, the author states that they were the one who provided the Robertson 2017 source in the AfD, which was only used by you in your keep argument. Just to be clear, you are saying that the author of the SI article falsely claimed to have made the edit you made? If so, that suggests a significant problem with SI's reliability if it is publishing false statements about editors here. - Bilby (talk) 06:26, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Searching for "Eachy" shows the article is at https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Eachy and it says Bassenthwaite Lake as the location. Search for that location and its name and you get plenty to sort through. [19] Since the AFD was years ago I assume I just searched through that. I linked to the official Facebook page for the area it is reported in, as well as a reference to The National Cryptid Society and quoted them mentioning it as the "The Beast of Bassenthwaite Lake". Not sure how these seems even remotely suspicious to you. Whoever put the article over on the fandom didn't do the most recent version. If I was trying to save the information I would've done a full history export to it as I have done for a large number of articles to various wikias/fandoms over the years. Dream Focus 06:45, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dream Focus: All good. I'm not worried about how you found the source. I'm concerned that SI is making false statements about editors, such as claiming that the author made an edit that they didn't make, because it was made by you instead. If you are not the author of the article, which I assume is what you are saying, then the article has not been sufficiently verified by the editor, and that makes me suspicious of the source and suggests that it is unreliable, which was the main thrust of the discussion here. - Bilby (talk) 07:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm getting really lost in this thread, personally. Could someone please reply with the questions that are being asked in this thread about Skeptical Inquirer? A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 11:32, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Additional question, seeing how contentious this topic area is, I think it might be a good idea to request a closure once it is clear no more comments are forthcoming (not yet, obviously). What are y'all's opinion on this? I feel having a formal close to the discussion would help avoid later stonewalling when the results of the discussion here are applied in relevant articles. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 21:40, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

This isn't a deprecation RFC, a closure won't accomplish anything useful. MrOllie (talk) 21:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Having a consensus outlined after a discussion is helpful to point to for content disputes is highly fraught topic areas. I think it could be handy. I don't know how much consensus is going to be gleaned from this discussion though. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:49, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Even if not a strong consensus, outlining the major points or positions brought forward by the community would still be helpful. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, these columns are like WP:NEWSBLOGs in the sense that they should be used with caution because blogs may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process. The following hasn't been directly asked here, but it's probably worth noting that magazines published by advocacy-based groups like the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry generally fail WP:INDEPENDENT. Skeptical Inquirer is not a source that has no vested interest in a given Wikipedia topic and therefore is commonly expected to cover the topic from a disinterested perspective. This means that it should not be considered generally reliable. Since it's quite clearly WP:PARTISAN, it should in many cases be attributed in-text when it is used. The only, important exception is its very legitimate use per WP:PARITY (where all other possible alternative sources are equally non-independent or otherwise unreliable): in these cases it can also be used without in-text attribution. But wherever better sources are available, its use should just be avoided entirely. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:27, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Yes i would agree they should be used with caution. But some likely are subject to some fact-checking, as described above they also often send out for review. I have only, so far, seen uses that are actually uncontroversial and likely do not need a source at all, or a questionable source would even be fine (the examples given above). I would be interested to see any example uses of these blogs that are defamatory or may violate BLP and are not supported by any other sources. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• When they're opinion pieces, they're WP:RSOPINION, just like anything else. When they're not opinion (for example Steven Novella's 'Science of Medicine' column), they're reliable. - MrOllie (talk) 21:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break 1 (Columns at Skeptical Inquirer)

• I've hit some significant problems with this as a source before. Other than the recent issue where the author claimed to have made edits on WP that were actually made by someone else, (and I should mention that this is the second time it has happened in SI), we hit a number of problems with [20] on the D. Gary Young article. On multiple occasions claims in the SI article were counter to what was said in the sources they used, or at least not supported by the sources. I'm not going to regard it as automatically unreliable, but I think Apaugasma's points are pertinent: as a partisan source, it should be used with considerable caution, especially where living people are concerned. - Bilby (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• Boy do I agree with Bilby that D. Gary Young is an example of how SI is being used. And boy do I disagree with his characterization. The reason pro fringe editors want to minimize SI, is because it is often the only WP:Parity response to the one two punch of ABOUTSELF and BLP. X person says they can fly. Nobody but a skeptic is going to waist their time disproving this claim. An editor attempts to put X "falsely" claims they can fly, is told they are lacking sources and NPOV. An article in SI that says X cannot actually fly is called not WP:RS, so until and unless the NYT writes about how X cannot fly, the wikipedia page would say X can fly. And conversely and perversely, if X has also claimed that they are a two headed dragon, and an editor wanted to include this claim on their page (IRL see Rain Drop Method and D. Gary Young claiming to have made distillers that killed a man). Editors who want X to look good will keep this claim off the page by saying, "there is no good source for this silly claim. X himself cannot be citied on this" So X's business partners and followers can use wikipedia to promote the idea that X can fly while hiding the fact that X claimed to have two heads. Only skeptical publications like SI stand in the gap on FRINGE and PARITY.DolyaIskrina (talk) 15:20, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  What does this have to do with how we should judge SI's reliability? I am strongly opposed to the idea we should decide a source is reliable because we 'need' to use it to dispel fringe. You are assuming that the claim X can fly cannot be refuted without SI sourcing. I heavily disagree, as it can just be removed outright. The only way it would be justifiably kept in an article is if it is mentioned in RS, and I'm pretty sure any site that says a human can fly is most definitely not RS. Thus, it seems unnecessary to me to argue for SI's reliability based on some unnecessary hypothetical. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  We absolutely should consider what we need so that wikipedia doesn't become Goopipedia. Blogs, podcasts, youtube videos, Twitter are regularly dismissed when they should be allowed for WP:FRINGE and WP:PARITY. And SI is much better than those outlets, even if you want to cherry pick the worst moments in SI. I could compile a long list of false things printed in the New York Times. DolyaIskrina (talk) 22:17, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  DolyaIskrina I'd appreciate if you could rephrase your comment, as I'm not sure I understand two things: why youtube videos and tweets are relevant to a discussion on the reliability of SI and why the NYT is worth comparing to SI. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  Parity (and WP:MEDRS actually) allows lesser quality sources to counter fringe claims if there are no better sources to be had. Most editors don't know this and will ding YT, Twitter, blogs, etc claiming they are not "as good" as the sources that promote the fringe claim. SI, while hardly as good as the NYT, is generally better than those other Twitter type platforms (I'm talking about a ratio of quality content to bad content). And yet Twitter can actually be used for Parity. For instance, a renowned epidemiologist's Tweets about a disease are pretty good for Parity or even WP:MEDRS (though most editors don't know this). So SI has had some bad content. How much bad content? If you were to do such a comparison of good to bad with a highly regarded source like Snopes (many will argue this) or NYT (fewer but still some would argue that this is a good source) you will still find that they had wrong, retracted, never corrected or biased content. So reliability is not just determined by cherrypicking the bad content. DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:37, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  The only thing sourced only to SI is Young also founded and operated the Young Life Wellness Center, a medical clinic in Chula Vista, California, which in 1988 was ordered by a court judge to be shut down which isn't exactly what the source says. The SI source says, The district attorney’s office convinced a Superior Court judge to issue a temporary restraining order prohibiting the operators of the Chula Vista and Rosarita Beach clinics from advertising and selling misleading and deceptive health cures and to schedule a hearing for an injunction. In June 1988, the judge issued a preliminary injunction against the Youngs and Crow prohibiting operation of the Chula Vista clinic. One of the defendants told the court that the clinic already ceased operation. Everything else has better sources, except for providing the name of his non-notable second wife. Assuming that the Chula Vista clinic closure wasn't widely covered, would it really hurt the article to be missing that? Would someone read that and go "Oh, well he might have actually cured cancer. If only there was one other factoid about how the guy was an obvious quack and constantly in legal trouble, then I wouldn't think essential oils would cure cancer. COI disclosure: I put essential oils in the soap I make, but not to cure cancer. It smells good, and cedar oil helps repel some insects. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:36, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  Essential oils?! Really?! And I thought I was dealing with a rational pro-science editor, rather than a pro-fringe quack. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. /s A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:43, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  I also really really like cedar oil as part of scented waxes, but... I am sorry to say I actually think the quote you gave is a fair summary of the source. The judge really did order the clinic to be shut down. It was already shut down, but the judge did order it. Do you think we are somehow defaming the subject by including this? We could supplement with a primary source, probably. It's not a contentious statement if the judge really did order that, and it's DUE if the SI column covers it, and this guy doesn't get much coverage anyway. The SI coverage is part of how we determine DUE. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  I that using a soap with a decent amount of cedar oil in it, I pick up far fewer ticks. As far as the quote, I was more pointing out that it's the only thing sourced to SI, and although it is a summary, I think it's a bit NPOV not to mention it was already shut down. I didn't care enough to edit it, however. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  Then I would just add that fact. I agree, it is more NPOV with the fact added, as long as it isn't done in too long of prose. Given that we only have one source in an article with few sources already per WP:DUE. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 04:30, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  Wow, I read that thread you linked to with the incorrect and NPOV title D. Gary Young claiming to have made distillers that killed a man. That is the exact type of editing that is a problem. Trying to coatrack the worst things you can find that are tangentially related to someone into their article. Someone died in a work accident, no one was charged, no lawsuit was filed. Lets make sure to mention it in this guy's article. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  Not going to lie, after reading that thread DolyaIskrina, I am somewhat concerned about your use of sources. Not only are people in that thread saying that you are misrepresenting what the sources say, but your comment above strongly indicates a WP:RGW mindset within this topic area. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 16:01, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly. Bringing up your want to include WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE in the DGY page here is just another way to attempt to secure support for your WP:POVPUSHing. The issue with DGY is not about sources being reliable, but about trying to tie multiple sources together to say that he killed someone. Not sure why this is even a discussion for this noticeboard. --CNMall41 (talk) 16:56, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  The SI article quotes the OSHA report which says he designed the entire operation. One Secondary and one primary source. DolyaIskrina (talk) 22:08, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  I didn't bring DGY up. You'll have to talk to Bilby about that. DolyaIskrina (talk) 04:27, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@DolyaIskrina:, my apologies for the accusation on who brought it up. I have amended accordingly. --CNMall41 (talk) 16:30, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• Sorry for starting this whole tangent. I raised that article because there have been three instances where clear errors were in SI articles that I have encountered - two related to Wikipedia editing (edits claimed by the author were made by different people) and one was the article I linked to, in which there were problems with claims in the article not matching the source material. I didn't want this to focus on how it was used - just that there have been errors in SI articles. - Bilby (talk) 04:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bilby:, my apologies as that was meant for DolyaIskrina and I got it wrong about who started it. Reading more in-depth, I don't think there was any issue bringing it up. It just opened the door for editors of that page to bring the dispute here and conflate the issues. --CNMall41 (talk) 16:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• @ScottishFinnishRadish I agree that's a POV thread title that never should have been written. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  @DolyaIskrina: please don't call editors whom you disagree with "pro fringe" unless you have very good cause to do so (i.e., the kind of thing you could take them to ANI for if it formed a pattern). As for the substance of your comment: yes, WP:PARITY applies. If someone is notable for claiming to be able to fly, and if there are no better sources than the ones who would take such a claim (semi-)seriously (lifestyle magazines, sensationalist press, etc.), SI can be used without a second thought. Just don't reverse WP:PARITY's logic: the fact that a source like SI can be used when all other sources are of the same quality or (probably) worse does not automagically render SI reliable outside of that context. Always look for the WP:BESTSOURCES. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  I didn't know "pro-fringe" was an official accusation, I'll refrain. DolyaIskrina (talk) 22:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  I would overall agree with this comment about PARITY. We should always strive to use the best sources, but sometimes SI is all that's available. It is those times that SI (and its columns especially) is likely appropriate. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:22, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  While I agree, WP:PARITY doesn't override BLP, and PARITY doesn't say that we can use unreliable sources - more that how we determine reliability is broadened. - Bilby (talk) 02:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  @DolyaIskrina: Do you have any COI with SI, such as affiliation with GSoW? I would also mention that WP:ABOUTSELF forbids material that is unduly self-serving or an exceptional claim, so it would not support the inclusion of such a claim and can be handled without having to rely on Blogs, podcasts, youtube videos, Twitter or other unreliable sources. BilledMammal (talk) 22:55, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  @BilledMammal I would tell you that asking questions like this is likely unproductive, and I would put it on the same level as the place where @DolyaIskrina describes another user as "pro-fringe" above. Neither are very helpful contributions to the conversation and should be ommitted moving forward if at all possible.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  I think the question of whether someone has a potential COI with the source (or article, though that is not relevant here) being discussed is relevant to the conversation, though perhaps I should have taken it to the users talk page first. BilledMammal (talk) 01:27, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  Let me get specific. Donald Gary Young claims to have invented the Raindrop Technique which some other equally unreliable sources have called a dangerous technique. It's being kept off his page because editors are calling it (going from memory here) fringe, not WP:RS, implausible etc. The net result is that a popular and dangerous technique that he claims to have invented and that has been criticized by others in his industry stays off his page, and readers don't get any sort of warning about it. So this would be an example of an exceptional claim that should be included, but is expediently excluded by editors who like essential oils. So this is my "two heads" idea from my hypothetical. They keep the flying, but ding the two heads. I don't have a COI with SI, unless you count a subscription as one. DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:17, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  If it were popular enough to be notable, then it would have coverage. It's not the place of an encyclopedia to list non-notable things that may be dangerous then debunk them. Also, stop claiming editors who disagree with you are pro-fringe or "like essential oils." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:26, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  This section is way too large to edit effectively on mobile. Pretend my last comment doesn't have random capital letters and typos. Thanks BilledMammal! ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  So we can have a page that presents as a businessman someone who made a fortune off of essential oils, but we can't mention any dangerous treatments they claim to have invented unless they are proven popular enough by... whom? His own promotional material which lauds it to the heavens and even has it trade marked? Oh, no. Now we cant trust the source. This is why we need sources like SI or we are going to continue to get played in this way by well funded PR departments in the wellness industry. Welcome to Goopipedia. DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  I don't have a COI with SI, unless you count a subscription as one: Before I respond to the rest, could I clarify whether you are associated with GSoW? BilledMammal (talk) 00:27, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party? nableezy - 00:34, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  This exactly why a GSoW scope for the upcoming arb case is the wrong idea. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:38, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  I note that this isn't a fishing expedition, and so long as the question about whether membership of GSoW causes a COI with SI is open I consider it a relevant question in the context of this discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 00:40, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  Do we even know what determines "membership," particularly? Is there an iron-on badge or some such? Dumuzid (talk) 01:56, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure it's a face tattoo. I heard Mike Tyson is a member. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I believe that claim, SFR, on account on his difficulties pronouncing "thkepticth". A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Back to discussing the reliability of SI

• From my understanding, the position that seems the most reasonable to me is that:

  A) SI is not a SPS

  B) whether SI is a source of questionable reliability has not reached community consensus in favor or againt, at least numerically.

  C) the use of SI is sometimes necessary in the interest of WP:PARITY, but not strictly necessary outside of that

  D) as there is no fact-checking done by the editors, but the site often features experts, it's use can be supported under cases like WP:RSOPINION. However,

  E) using SI to quote non-experts (say, on anorexia) is best avoided and

  F) as there is no editorial fact-checking, their use in BLPs is potentially dangerous as it could introduce false information that would greatly harm a living person's reputation could be introduced in articles

  Please let me know what y'all think of this summary. I thought I'd summarize a bit to keep the conversation a bit focused. I also think having an RfC on B would be useful.A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 01:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Xi Jinping Strengthens His Grip Over Chinese Media

The Dispatch – Xi Jinping Strengthens His Grip Over Chinese Media

What are the implications of the CCP exercising increased control over Chinese media on Wikipedia coverage of Chinese topics? Does it contribute to increased systemic bias against topics local to China, and if so, how can we mitigate this? feminist (talk) 14:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and yes. It will increase problems with using Chinese sources because those Chinese sources will have an increased Systemic bias. And there is no way to mitigate this, we cannot weaken our sourcing rules to allow outright propaganda sources to be used for statements of fact.Slatersteven (talk) 14:50, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

We can mitigate it by not using sources that are under the grip of Xi Jinping. We do this to some degree, but nowhere near enough. See WP:XINHUA for example. We try to distinguish areas where China "may have a reason to use it for propaganda or disinformation." News flash: we are not omniscient. Also, see WP:SCMP. The South China Morning Post was once a terrific source, but Hong Kong's freedom is rapidly coming to an end. See Jimmy Lai.

There is also the problem of academic "research" that is under Xi's thumb. In that area, we haven't done anything. We should. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

We already have a strong systemic bias in Chinese-related topics, in the opposite direction from what you're suggesting. Ruling out Chinese sources will only make that systemic bias even worse.

Ruling out high-quality sources like Caixin, which is an excellent finance and investigative journalism outlet, would leave Wikipedia in a worse position. Caixin's reporting on China is often of a much higher quality than that of major Western outlets, and Western outlets often rely on Caixin for basic reporting. The same goes for SCMP. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I see Caixin has been gagged.[21] Being excellent is apparently not allowed. As a general matter, I agree that sources that have been banned by Beijing have a better chance of being reliable. Apple Daily is another example. Adoring nanny (talk) 06:00, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The article you linked does not indicate that there's any problem with Caixin's reporting. In fact, it says that Caixin has reported critically on issues inside China.

If we go along with what you're proposing and ban all Chinese sources, we'll lose Caixin's excellent, well informed reporting. We'll end up relying heavily on outlets that often have less informed coverage, and which have their own strong biases.

See, for example, Bloomberg's irresponsible reporting back in March 2020 on conspiracy theories about vastly inflated death tolls in China. Bloomberg took an accurate, non-sensationalist report from Caixin, mixed it with conspiracy theories from Chinese social media, and uncritically presented crazy death tolls. And it's not just Bloomberg that did this. A bunch of outlets did it too: [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]. Scientific research into both excess mortality and seroprevalence ([27] [28]) in China has debunked these conspiracy theories. Why did these outlandish conspiracy theories get such wide play in the media in the first place? Because they played to the biases that these outlets have. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The vast majority of domestic Chinese topics are mundane, which Chinese state media is still reliable for. The topics where CCP have a reason for misinformation are generally already widely covered by Western sources so we would already typically be using them instead. Jumpytoo Talk 04:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, —PaleoNeonate – 23:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The South China Morning Post is no better than the rest of Chinese propaganda media outlets and is arguably more sinister because it is tailored to a broader, more international audience. The recent decision by their *newsroom* chief to publish a bizarre video comparing press freedom in China/HK — i.e. the lack thereof — to the Assange case says a lot about the decline of HK media in general and this newspaper in particular. Normchou ^💬 01:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I would not write off the SCMP just yet. Comparing China/HK's press freedom to US press freedom is certainly bizarre, but less so in the context of the Assange case, and I think newspaper editors should be allowed to express their own opinions on Twitter. It was SCMP that reported that secret Chinese government documents put November 17 as the date of the first confirmed COVID case, even though the Chinese government claims it was December 19. Of course, I do wonder why they haven't released the Chinese government documents to the public, in the way AP have (see below). We will just have to watch them very closely. LondonIP (talk) 01:01, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

AP: Xi Jinping restricts publishing of COVID-19 data and research

According to internal documents obtained by the AP, any data or research on COVID-19 must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping. These orders affect the Chinese CDC, as well as independent scientists, both of whom have published papers in international journals, some of which are being cited to argue that contentious claims. We may need to discuss this gag order and how it effects the reliability of Chinese scholarship on COVID-19, just as we would with its reliability for Traditional Chinese medicine and The Three Ts. LondonIP (talk) 00:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

This may affect some studies but if a study is peer-reviewed, including by non-chinese scientists, then the study is as good as any other peer-reviewed study. also please do not duplicate discussions. Xoltered (talk) 08:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

No. It does not make sense to expect them to present a neutral and fact-based summary of the events but rather a pro-Chinese government view that will deflect from reality. NavjotSR (talk) 04:22, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

You provide no justification for this ridiculous view, as previously stated, peer review is a process that prevents this. Xoltered (talk) 12:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Except that peer reviewers wouldn't be able to tell if data has been completely misrepresented, so long as the data is internally consistent as if it was actually collected that way. So a paper being peer reviewed in such a case doesn't mean the data or results are inherently reliable. Silverseren^C 04:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

You do not seem to understand how peer-review works, if this was actually the case, it would be a common issue throughout science, but it is not. It would be helpful for you to think through your points and see if they immediately fall flat before making them. Xoltered (talk) 12:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• I consider this remark to be complacent. Peer review can work well, with referees taking a sufficiently broad perspective to recognise all the reasons why the data might not be representative, but it often doesn't and this should not be surprising. The Chinese government putting their thumbs on the scales in this way is something we should take into account in evaluating research that depends on data coming from China. Cf. the remarks of Michael Eisen, First, and foremost, we need to get past the antiquated idea that the singular act of publication – or publication in a particular journal – should signal for all eternity that a paper is valid, let alone important. Even when people take peer review seriously, it is still just represents the views of 2 or 3 people at a fixed point in time. To invest the judgment of these people with so much meaning is nuts. [29].— Charles Stewart (talk) 13:39, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• it would be a common issue throughout science, but it is not
• Except it is. Elizabeth Bik's entire (recent) career is based around calling out the numerous cases of bad and outright falsified data that was published and went through peer review. It happens all the time and, in most cases, the journals refuse to retract or do anything about the studies even when the falsification is pointed out. Silverseren^C 18:31, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@Thucydides411, Mx. Granger, and Novem Linguae: Also pinging some people who this was linked to by another editor Xoltered (talk) 12:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Quick tip: A good neutral way to alert both sides to discussions like these is to leave a {{Please see}} on a relevant talk page.

This is like the 5th page I've seen this "is China fudging their COVID statistics" debate overflow to, and it must be a bit exhausting for the participants to keep making the same arguments over and over. Would be nice if editors would stop WP:FORUMSHOPping this and just hold a proper RFC somewhere, such as at Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19.

In case anybody is curious, I still 100% agree with Thucydides411. He has read the scientific papers, understands them, and makes convincing arguments that they are trustworthy (e.g. international peer review, the various types of data agreeing and supporting each other), despite the Chinese government's attempts to influence the media. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

e.g. international peer review, the various types of data agreeing and supporting each other

That is a meaningless statement. Chinese researchers were already caught falsifying data and publishing in international journals and getting through peer review just fine. Over 400 papers published in a wide variety of journals and scientific fields. Here's the full list and you'll note that only about half had any sort of "expression of concern" or retraction done about them. And that's just from one paper mill. Silverseren^C 18:37, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

To paraphrase: Some scientists from country X did this bad thing, so we should disregard all research done by scientists from country X.

I'm sure everyone sees what the problem with that sort of thinking is. We're talking about peer-reviewed research in leading journals like The BMJ, The Lancet and Nature, and ruling out these sources when the authors have a certain nationality would be repugnant. I'm surprised and disappointed that we're even having this conversation. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• I think you're making a straw man. I don't think we are at the point where the evidence of interference is of the sort that would justify 'ruling out these sources when the authors have a certain nationality' although I can conceive of interference that would lead me to recommend exactly that. What I am saying and I take Silver seren to be saying as well, is that there is evidence of interference and this does justify caution. I think we should generally be a bit more cautious about trusting the imprimatur of publication in empirical fields where replication rates are not high, although that's another kettle of fish. — Charles Stewart (talk) 21:01, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. Additionally, this isn't just "some scientists", this is hundreds of scientists. As the article from Science that I linked noted, there are no common authors between these papers. They're all "independent" groups of scientists across all the hospitals in China. It encompasses most of the top level physicians who work in hospitals in the country. Furthermore, the bigger point I was making is that this directly shows that peer review in international journals doesn't mean anything at all in terms of inherent reliability of the data. Because peer review can't see through completely fabricated data, as the consistency in the data is only within itself. Saying that the data is consistent between the different papers put out from these research groups, as Thucydides411 has been using as an argument, means nothing if that data is wholesale fabricated and distributed to be consistent between them on purpose. Silverseren^C 00:41, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  It's a pretty serious claim you're making here, that the data in all these papers in leading international scientific journals is faked. That's the kind of claim you should either justify or retract. Better yet, you should call up the editors at Nature, The Lancet, The BMJ and all the other journals and tell them about your startling revelations. Once you get the journals to retract these papers, as I'm sure they will if there's any basis to your claims, then come back and let us know. Until then, however, everyone here should disregard your speculation about mass data-faking in leading scientific journals. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  UPE farms have been discovered and dealt with on Wikipedia. Does the discovery of one UPE farm invalidate our entire encyclopedia? Also, the fact that these fake papers were discovered is actually a strong argument that fake papers WOULD be caught. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:50, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, and I strongly agree, this discussion should be at one page, and not 5 different ones. Xoltered (talk) 12:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Because of this order, I would treat all such sources as having a severe conflict of interest. According to the order, people who don't comply will be "held accountable". The unfortunate fact is that for the authors, disclosure of information the CCP wants to hide would come at tremendous personal risk. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Or maybe China's zero-COVID policy worked, just like it worked for Australia, eastern Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and China isn't hiding anything. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:11, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Are you implying that the AP's document is not genuine? Or that it's not a smoking gun of hiding information? If they "aren't hiding anything", why did the WHO say China didn't release the list of early patients, Wuhan blood samples, and swabs? And why do I get a 404 at [30]? Adoring nanny (talk) 14:52, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

It sounds like 1) the Chinese government ordered its media and scientists to present information a positive light, and 2) China had an excellent response to COVID-19. Believe it or not, these two things can occur simultaneously. I understand that #2 is suspicious due to #1, but if upon examination no evidence emerges that #2 is fake (and no evidence has emerged, as Thucydides and the scientific papers he quotes indicate), then this hypothesis that #2 is fake due to #1 should be dropped. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:05, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it sounds very much like #2 is due to #1. We know from this AP report that Xi ordered these restrictions and we know from Bloomberg why he might be doing this, so we should not be naive about Chinese "scientific" publications. I made a list of sources questioning China statistics on the China Government Response page and I would like to see how scholarly sources contradict them. Can you make the list? ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Many of the citations from Chinese government response to COVID-19#Case and death count statistics likely fit your criteria. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

An "excellent response" like silencing doctors who knew by New Years' day that it could be transmitted from person to person, forbidding said doctors from wearing PPE in the early weeks, reporting a disease of "unknown cause" when they had the viral DNA sequence, delaying the release of the viral DNA sequence, going ahead with their 40,000 person gathering on Jan. 20, 2020?, without warning people that they could get the pandemic, which they were still pretending was unlikely to be spread from person to person.[31] Adoring nanny (talk) 18:22, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

China can both, make mistakes very early on in the pandemic and do a very good joh controlling the pandemic in the months after, again these statements, like the ones previously made, are not in contradiction. It's also irrelevent to this discussion, which is about if the sources are reliable, which we already explained how they are. This is why we should not have 5 different pages to discuss one thing. Xoltered (talk) 00:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

The sources are not reliable. The CCP document obtained by the AP is perfectly clear on this.[32] The order said communication and publication of research had to be orchestrated like “a game of chess” under instructions from Xi, and propaganda and public opinion teams were to “guide publication.” Adoring nanny (talk) 03:59, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Nature, The Lancet and The BMJ are some of the most highly respected and competitive scientific journals. Just blanket saying "The sources are not reliable" is unserious. You're essentially arguing that we should throw out virtually all scientific research on the infection rate and mortality in China, because Chinese scientists have done most of that research.

The scientific sources are extremely clear on the extent of infection and mortality in China during the pandemic. If the scientific sources clash with your perception, that's not a reason to rule out the sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:32, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Have you actually read the responses to what you've said Adoring nanny? This has already been addressed countless times, please stop taking the discussion in circles. Xoltered (talk) 07:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• It's worth recalling that The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent research suggesting a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Although the GMC found problems with Wakefield's work quickly and Brian Deer published evidence of fraud five years later, it took the editors another seven years before they retracted the study, waiting until after the GMC found Wakefield guilty of malpractice. We can't avoid taking account of reputation, given how the publication game works at present, but that doesn't justify having illusions about the fallibility of peer review even at the best journals and the reluctance of most editors to admit and correct errors. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:40, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

RFC: Can Chinese academic publications be considered independent on subjects censored by the Chinese government?

Editors above dispute the reliability of Chinese academic publications on subjects censored by the Chinese government. Does the community think Chinese academic publications are WP:INDEPENDENT on subjects censored by the Chinese government?

• Option 1: Yes
• Option 2: No

CutePeach (talk) 16:05, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey: Can Chinese academic publications be considered independent on subjects censored by the Chinese government?

• No since Chinese scientists are restricted by the Chinese government on what they can publish and must "coordinate" with a special task force to make sure anything they publish suits their narrative. Some Chinese scientists have even promoted Chinese traditional medicines as a treatment for COVID-19, which suits their narrative. Those who dissent face harsh punitive measures. CutePeach (talk) 16:11, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• No relative to "on subjects censored by the Chinese government." On other subjects these sources might be used. Jehochman ^Talk 16:26, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Loaded question. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Indeed an incredibly loaded question, as it implies the publications are all censored despite discussion above. CutePeach is also forumshopping by posting this same thing on multiple pages, I believe in an attempt to find editors who have not fully looked into the discussion to read the loaded question and say no. Xoltered (talk) 16:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• I can't give either a yes or no answer here. Either would be a problematic oversimplification. Many academics outside China lack the kind of integrity and willingness to put questions of career aside needed to be truly regarded as independent and many scientists in China clearly have remarkable integrity. "Independent" is too tricky a concept for this RfC question to be useful. — Charles Stewart (talk) 16:43, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• What exactly is a Chinese academic publication? Written by a Chinese person? Written by a Chinese person outside of China? Written by somebody in China? Published by a Chinese publication? This RFC question is so incredibly broad that it is meaningless. nableezy - 16:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Exactly. Withdraw RfC as embarrassing. Alexbrn (talk) 16:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• I would encourage those who view this RfC to come see where this discussion originated, COVID-19_pandemic_in_mainland_China though it has spread to 5 other places now with some editors (including the one who made this RfC) seemingly forum shopping to find somewhere which will support their view. Xoltered (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Isn't CutePeach in violation of their TBAN by launching this? Alexbrn (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    I'd support this assessment. The loaded question seems like just a way to interact with the topic of "Origins of COVID-19, broadly construed". A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:04, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    I disagree. The intention of the TBAN was to allow continued editing in the broader COVID-19 topic area. The locus of this dispute is not related to the zoonosis v. lab leak discussions that led to the TBAN. Firefangledfeathers 17:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Alexbrn Do they have TBAN regarding this? If so that is very concerning as they have been making extensive edits on numerous pages regarding this topic for quite some time now. Xoltered (talk) 17:03, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, they have an indefinite topic ban from the Origins of COVID-19, broadly construed.. [33] Jehochman ^Talk 17:05, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Xoltered they have a TBAN with Origins of COVID-19, see editor's talk page notice. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah... their !vote is a clear violation EvergreenFir (talk) 17:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I see, it seems they are not heading the warning provided with their notice. Xoltered (talk) 17:09, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, so the t-ban is on the origins of COVID-19. This is not a violation of that. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:BROADLY construed being the key. At least one admin determined this got close enough and placed a temporary ban. With the source of the sanctions revolving around a lab-leak (and subsequent cover-up by China), it's not a stretch to say "Chinese censorship of COVID" is the kind of 'edge nibbling' broadly construed topics are meant to cover. Or at least, close enough to seek clarification prior to editing on the topic, as WP:BROADLY recommends. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• Let's be absolutely clear about what CutePeach is proposing here. CutePeach is proposing that before we cite papers from leading scientific journals with peer-review and rigorous scientific editing, such as Nature, The Lancet or The BMJ, we should look at the nationalities of the authors, and if they appear to be Chinese, that we should reject them. CutePeach wants us to overrule the scientific editors (normally senior scientists in a related field) and peer reviewers (normally leading international experts in the given scientific subfield that the paper deals with), because we supposedly know better than them. It's worthwhile looking at what motivated this proposal from CutePeach. A number of editors have expressed their personal belief that China must be hiding its true death toll. When confronted with the fact that their personal belief is contradicted by a mass of scientific research into excess mortality and serology in China (and among people evacuated from China), they've gone over to arguing that we should ignore virtually all the scientific literature on the subject. Instead, they'd rather we relied on news articles published nearly two years ago that discussed conspiracy theories about massively larger death tolls (e.g., the infamous "urns" conspiracy theory from March 2020). It's getting tiring trying to explain the scientific literature on every single talk page on which the same group of editors bring this subject up, so please take a look at this for more details. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

If what is meant by "Chinese academic publications" includes Nature, The Lancet or The BMJ because the author is Chinese, then gtfo yes. nableezy - 17:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I read the proposal to mean Chinese publications, as in publications that are controlled by the Chinese government because they are located in China and subject to Chinese censorship. I agree that nationality of an author publishing in The Lancet is totally irrelevant. Jehochman ^Talk 17:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

This is what i meant when i said above "CutePeach is also forumshopping by posting this same thing on multiple pages, I believe in an attempt to find editors who have not fully looked into the discussion to read the loaded question and say no." Xoltered (talk) 17:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• No They inherently can't be. And it's a major problem. Thucydides411 above is trying to just claim that they would all be reliable no matter what because they're peer reviewed papers. But that is an inherently self-defeating claim, as all of the journals (and many others besides) have published studies with falsified data before. And sometimes it took years to find out about the falsification. What makes it more difficult in this case is that the already verifiable crackdown by the Chinese government on what sort of information gets released about Covid, including what sort of scientific data is published, means they could quite easily control the very basis of what data is collected. They could ensure any actual case numbers are not recorded properly, that any deaths are not included in the data, ect. And that sort of data collection would not be something peer reviewers in the journals would be able to determine is incorrect. Because the falsification is happening on the very collection of data level. Silverseren^C 17:28, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Claiming that peer-reviewed scientific sources are unreliable just because they might later be falsified is ridiculous, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball and what you are saying could be applied to all peer-reviewed studies as the studies in question are no different than any other peer reviewed studies and are published in reliable sources. Xoltered (talk) 17:35, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• If we have a reliable source that the results of major studies were censored, let's cite them. If reliable peer-reviewed sources publish studies, it's up to them to retract them if they're faulty, not up to us to WP:RGW. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Here are two such sources [34] [35]. The problem is we don't know which sources are being censored, and the AP report says it goes beyond censorship. Publications must be "orchestrated" like a "game of chase". ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:57, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• Loaded question, and too broad. This RFC is the culmination of the dispute "Is China fudging their COVID-19 statistics?" Recommend closing this RFC and crafting a more specific question that is directly applicable to that dispute. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Are student newspapers considered independent RS when assessing notability of fellow students at the same university?

My presumption was that they were covered under the reasoning "organizations/companies are not independent of their membership". In my opinion this is regardless of whether the newspaper is/calls itself "independent" of the university, since that applies to editorial and/or funding independence but not independence from the interests of the university nor from its student body. This seems consistent with community consensus alleged by DGG in this AfD close, and by Bearcat in numerous AfD comments, but has there been a more formal discussion anywhere? JoelleJay (talk) 19:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• See WP:RSSM BilledMammal (talk) 19:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you, I didn't think to search "student media" in wikipedia space, just "student newspapers". However, the section is mainly on whether student media is reliable; the part on whether it can be used for notability doesn't cite a prior discussion. Was it also covered in the cited reliability discussions? Or is it just considered a clear extension of the instructions at WP:INDY? JoelleJay (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• Generally speaking, it's fine to sparingly use student media, so long as WP:GNG has already been covered off by stronger sources, to source a few stray facts that you really can't find anything better for; for instance, a student media outlet might sometimes be the only source you can find for the matter of where a notable person actually attended school. But you're correct that they aren't viewed as independent sources when it comes to topics relating to the university or college they serve, and they definitely aren't enough to bring the GNG all by themselves if a topic has no non-trivial coverage in general market media — for instance, the president of a university's or college's student government or a collegiate athlete is not going to clinch inclusion in an international encyclopedia just because they can show some coverage in their school's student newspaper, and student media isn't necessarily enough in and of itself to justify a standalone article about every individual building on campus, if there's no coverage in conventional commercial media to supplement it with.
  We treat student media as acceptable for sourcing additional facts after notability has already been fulfilled by stronger sources, but not contributing anything toward the initial question of whether a topic has cleared the notability bar in the first place. Bearcat (talk) 19:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
• I'd use them very sparingly. I wouldn't use them to connote notability - David Gerard (talk) 00:28, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  SInce I was mentioned, I think Bearcat and David Gerard see it the same way I do. DGG ( talk ) 01:38, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• My opinion is that coverage in student newspapers does nothing toward establishing notability of students at the same university where they are published, because those newspapers are inherently focused toward coverage of their own university, and internal matters at the school (including its students) would not necessarily be of note to the rest of the world. In addition, I would also be reluctant to use a student newspaper as a reliable source for anything controversial. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
• I would say no for fellow students. For alumni they can be used sparingly. If a student is so exceptional that they become notable before graduation, it will surely be covered in other sources. --SVTCobra 05:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Now that it's closed, could people here perhaps address the "student media is independent" claims made in this AfD more directly? I think the confusion demonstrated here indicates more explicit instruction at RSP or RS or INDY is warranted. BilledMammal, Bearcat, David Gerard, DGG, Metropolitan90, SVTCobra. JoelleJay (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• I don't fault the closer exactly but that's the sort of outcome that discredits the entire concept of subject notability guidelines. Mackensen (talk) 21:37, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• I would place student newspapers in the same category as local small town papers. They might be reliable for specific facts, but coverage in them does not indicate notability. Perhaps we need WP:Big fish in a small pond to deal with people who get lots of local coverage, but nothing beyond that. Blueboar (talk) 21:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• My comments above cover this situation exactly. A profile of a student-athlete in a student newspaper at her own university doesn't count toward establishing her notability. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:56, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
  • An additional thought… in much of the English speaking world, university level athletics are (often) covered by at least regional news outlets. So, if a student run paper has covered a student athlete, there is a good chance that there is also at least some coverage of that athlete in non-student media. I would not necessarily expect this for other aspects of campus life (such as student dramatics or student government)… but the point is still valid: WP:BEFORE applies. Check for other sources. Blueboar (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

    Are you commenting specifically on the Dennis AfD, or just in general? JoelleJay (talk) 23:50, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

is iNaturalist a reliable source?

Although it's UGC, I think an exception is okay as it is monitored by a bunch of biologists. @Rusalkii:@Kueda, AntiCompositeNumber, Bob the Wikipedian, and Invertzoo:thoughts? Leomk0403 (Don't shout here, Shout here!) 10:41, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Note: I mean the taxon and taon changes page, the obs are definitely unreliableLeomk0403 (Don't shout here, Shout here!) 05:14, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Source for what? Evidence of a species existing in a locale? That seems appropriate. Evidence for taxonomic opinions? Not really. It's important to remember what the source is an authority of when citing it, not just whether it may be trusted. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:54, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I would be less sure, as it is partially run by citizen scientists. So we would need to know who made a claim.Slatersteven (talk) 17:38, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I looked into it briefly when AfC started getting a lot of drafts sourced to iNaturalist and ended up confused at how much oversight there was. They don't seem to have any biologists formally on staff. I would personally be inclined to trust the general range given, but trying to cite "this species has also been found in place X" on basis of a small number of observations in that area seems inappropriate. Rusalkii (talk) 19:27, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd put iNaturalist in a similar bucket as IMDb. It's a useful database, but it's not a reliable source. It's a collection of user-generated primary sources, which presents two problems. Because iNaturalist observations are user-generated, they shouldn't be considered reliable. Even if the observations were considered reliable, they're still primary sources. Most of the things we might want to say based on iNaturalist (like species range) would be improper synthesis of primary sources. Other things on iNaturalist, like taxonomy, are either user-generated or imported from other sites including Wikipedia. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:32, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with AntiComposite on this one in full: iNaturalist should not be cited as a reliable source for any claim. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 17:33, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

As a founder and co-director of iNat, I am somewhat biased, but I personally think a "research-grade" iNat observation page is a reliable primary source for claims like "species X occurs in place Y" or "species X eats species Y," or at least no less reliable than Wikipedia itself, because all iNat observations are subject to a peer-review process, like any Wikipedia page. That said, it's not clear to me whether an iNat observation meets the Wikipedia standard of a Reliable source, which seems to imply that reliability requires some kind of hierarchical quality control process, which doesn't exist on iNat (we have a peer-to-peer QC model for things like identification accuracy). I totally agree it is not a reliable source for taxonomic claims, where we actually have more of a hierarchical QC process but as a result the taxonomic information tends to be patchy in its currency and sometimes even contradictory (multiple active synonymous concepts, for example). So I guess if you were to apply Wikipedia's sourcing guidance strictly, you should not cite iNat observations because a) they're primary sources, and b) they probably don't quite meet the Wikipedia definition of "reliable", but I would also argue that for many taxa, there is no current source of information that meets both of those requirements. In those situations, would citing iNat be better than nothing? On a related topic, is it better to cite a reliable secondary source that is very hard to check (like an undigitized book out of print) vs. an unreliable primary source that is easy to check and/or correct (like an iNat observation)? And, to address some of the uncertainties above 1) there is no staff oversight of every single observation on iNat, 2) two of our staff have PhDs in biology-related fields (env. sci. & ecology/evolution) and one has a BA in biology though none are currently practicing biologists. We have a little more info about our QC process if you're interested. I also tried to summarize our internal (though ad hoc) efforts to assess identification quality on iNat. There are also several peer-reviewed papers out there investigating data quality on iNat, though they are usually taxon-specific (e.g. termites) and thus tend to ignore the fact that quality varies across taxa. Kueda (talk) 21:39, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

is it better to cite a reliable secondary source that is very hard to check (like an undigitized book out of print) vs. an unreliable primary source that is easy to check and/or correct (like an iNat observation)? Yes. Per WP:SOURCEACCESS and WP:SOURCETYPES. Wikipedia articles should (in theory) be based on the highest quality sources (books, journals, etc.), even if paywalled or undigitized, rather than easy to Google sources of lesser reliability. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Nearly always unreliable for Wikipedia purposes. The taxon pages often incorporate corresponding Wikipedia articles if they exist (WP:CIRCULAR) and/or draw from other databases. The taxon changes should in theory represent changes in other scholarly, secondary sources (with the caveat that many taxa may have different competing classifications, with no "official" or consensus status, and both iNaturalist and Wikipedia have to sometimes pick an arbitrary taxonomic scheme to ensure some level of internal consistency). The observations themselves are user-generated and primary sources even if 2 or more users agree on the species ID (making it "Research Grade"). It only takes 2 users agreeing on an identification to make it Research Grade, regardless of whether the users are PHD biologists or high school students doing a class assignment. Errant Research Grade misidentifications can persist until a third user suggests something different. There are also issues of accuracy: an observation may have incorrect date or location, off mildly or wildly. Using observations to infer the range of a species ("Species X is found here and here and here") risks WP:SYN: In the past I've seen Wikipedians misuse even published papers in a myopic way to misrepresent the range of a species (e.g. using a study on a wide ranging European beetle conducted in Poland to state "this species is found in Warsaw and Krakow": a true, but wildly incomplete and misleading statement.) --Animalparty! (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I mean, the taxonomy.Leomk0403 (Don't shout here, Shout here!) 09:43, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Museum exhibit catalogs

While these questions has arisen with regard to a couple of particular articles, they might be of general interest.

• Is an art museum "exhibit catalog" a reliable source?
• Is it a publication which can be listed as an accomplishment in an article about the author, particularly in a BLP?

Art museums exhibit catalogs range from books containing little more than reproductions of the works in the show, perhaps with an introductory essay; to books with substantial text comparable to academic publications in art history. However, they are basically self-published works, since they are really part of the promotional package for the exhibit. Often they are entirely the product of the museum director or the curator of the exhibit, which may be the same person in a small museum. The publishers for these catalogs specialize in this market, producing whatever the client wants. They may end up in libraries, but the majority are coffee table books.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 20:12, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I would say this has to be considered on a case-by-case basis. In general I would treat them as high-quality WP:ABOUTSELF things (possibly written by experts) for the reasons you mention - they have an incentive to be promotional, so we should be cautious about exceptional or glaringly self-serving claims, and shouldn't cite them for puffery or the like. But they're otherwise high-quality and can be cited for uncontroversial details about exhibits or for dry summaries of what the museum has on display. I would say that they are sufficient for the bare statement of "artist had a work in museum X" (in the same way that we accept citations to unreliable or even depreciated sources to establish the bare fact that a particular writer was published there), but not for anything more exceptional or "puffery"-style, ie. you can't use it to say that the piece is extremely important and significant, only the bare fact that it was in the museum. WP:DUE weight might also be a concern depending on the museum's significance - an artist's work being shown off in the Met is obviously noteworthy; a small-town local cultural museum might not be. --Aquillion (talk) 21:35, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I disagree that they should be treated as ABOUTSELF for the more well established museums, because they are not covering themselves they are covering the works they host. You can probably find other sources for what it says, like there are surely other published works about Portrait of a Cardinal (Raphael) than the Prado's guide, but is the Prado's guide reliable and secondary about that work? Yes. nableezy - 22:58, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, with regard to my question #1, the status of what is published in an exhibit catalog would not be as reliable as anything written by a professor of art history with no connection to the show, and for major artists or works the latter would likely be available to cite. However, occasionally an exhibit at a major museum will have a theme or be a retrospective bringing together a unique collection of works; in which case the written text may also be unique. It is very much case-by-case, but the commercial incentive to be less academically detached is there, even if the curator is a PhD art historian. Perhaps the test would be to locate the catalog in a library collection, which indicates it was published as a scholarly work rather than being an expensive souvenir.

With regard to my second question, I am referring to a particular BLP which had a long list of books published by the subject of the article, but the majority were exhibit catalogs with him as author or editor because he was the curator/director, which is not ABOUTSELF but is likely puffery.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 03:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I would assume that the majority of all art catalogs are in at least one library due to legal deposit. RoseCherry64 (talk) 08:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• The reliability of a museum catalog would have a LOT to do with the general reputation of the museum itself; I would be more likely to trust something from say the National Gallery of Art or the Victoria and Albert Museum than I would from Billy Bob's Backyard Art Jamboree. --Jayron32 00:37, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

It's hard to consider a blanket reliability of art catalogs for living artists. Some catalogs contain independent essays written by experts, some might be like quoting the official website of the artist. I would not use them for opinion on living artists work, unless it's an essay or some other piece not written by the curator but someone who would be reasonably independent. RoseCherry64 (talk) 08:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I still think that depends. For example, works of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are professional and scholarly, and would be totally fine in a BLP. World-class museums can have the same level of scholarship as world class universities (eg this from the Met is written by Vassos Karageorghis, Gloria Merker, and Joan Mertens. It is a work of scholarship, as are pretty much all of the Met's publications, including its guidebook). And some of them should be treated essentially as university presses. nableezy - 16:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

That is an excellent source and certainly one that should not be doubted due to it being published by a museum.

Don't get me wrong, I think museum publications are often of great quality and reliability, but not all of them might be sufficiently independent from the subject itself, if the subject was heavily involved in the exhibition (example: a solo exhibit of a living artists' own work), I think it should be treated as a non-independent promotional source, fine to cite for general background information but with some considerations about its neutrality. RoseCherry64 (talk) 23:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah I dont think we really disagree, I think as with most things on this board the answer is it depends. WriterArtistDC, what are the specifics here? What source and what article? nableezy - 00:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The general RS issue is citing text published in an exhibit catalog compared to the same sort of content citing an independently published book. I think the "it depends" answer has been sufficiently fleshed out above: if the museum is academically solid, then its ok. However there are museums with significant collections that are the pet projects of billionaires. Are the catalogs likely to say anything negative or controversial? With regard to the second question, the specific article is the BLP for Tobias G. Natter, which in addition to a lack of reliable sources the article has a long list of exhibit catalogs (many from the same museum) where he is credited as the author/editor. --WriterArtistDC (talk) 01:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

With regard to Tobias G. Natter, his exhibition catalogues aren't being used as reliable sources, so the question isn't really relevant. It is common practice for wikipedia articles to list the books that a writer and academics have authored or edited, and what exactly should be included in these publication lists is a matter of editorial judgement and not a question of whether or not they are reliable sources for wikipedia's purposes – so for instance we list Michael Baigent's publications because that's what he is known for, even though they are generally considered to be nonsense. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:27, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Clarifying the difference between “Deprecated” and “Generally unreliable”

I have been re-reading WP:Deprecated sources, and while it does define the upper limit of Deprecation (stating that deprecation is less than a "ban"), it does not clearly define its lower limits. So... I thought we might have some (preliminary) discussion on that. With this in mind, I want to ask some basic questions: what is the distinction between "Deprecated" and "Generally unreliable"? If there one? If so, Where do we draw the line? I am not looking for specific language (yet)... I am looking to see if we have consensus on concept. Examples of sources on each side of the line might help. Blueboar (talk) 16:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deprecated_and_unreliable_sources keeps going all round this without any real agreement, I would dearly like to know the answer to this question myself, it ought to follow from the definitions but doesn't, not really. Selfstudier (talk) 17:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

But I think you have answered Blueboar's suggestion about having "some (preliminary) discussion" on that" -- that's Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deprecated_and_unreliable_sources. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:45, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• The main practical effect of these sources is Use of these sources may generate edit filter warnings for registered users and may be automatically reverted for edits from IP addresses. Beyond that, the key point is that It primarily exists to save time by avoiding the endless discussion of the same issues, and to raise awareness among editors of the status of the sources in question. That is to say that depreciation isn't really distinct, in terms of source quality, from generally unreliable outside of perhaps establishing that the consensus that it is unreliable is a bit firmer and that cases that would justify usage are so rare as to be nearly nonexistent relative to the large volume of people attempting to use it. But the real line for depreciation isn't "very super-special unreliable" (although being on the far end of unreliable is a prerequisite), the really important point is that it kept coming up and people kept trying to use it despite a very clear consensus that it is generally extremely unreliable. Hence why the two practical implications of depreciation (the edit-filter and the permission to auto-revert additions by IPs) are mostly designed to deal with "very much generally unreliable source that people nonetheless keep trying to add in large numbers." --Aquillion (talk) 21:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

• Honestly, this sounds like we don't know the difference between how we should treat a deprecated vs unreliable source. I guess that's OK since we can't seem to define how to decide which sources should be treated as unreliable vs deprecated. So we don't know how to tell them apart or how to handle them when they are labeled for us. Something to keep in mind, for all its flaws, we have RSP now. When the DM was deprecated we didn't have RSP so I could understand repeated discussions. Now that we have this list (anointed from the heavens and all), why do we need to distinguish between deprecated and unreliable? In either case we just point to the list and say don't use it (with limited exceptions). Should we instead ask if deprecation has outlived it's usefulness? Springee (talk) 21:49, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

  Fabricators (and any other thing we decide) get blacklisted, not deprecated. Poof, problems resolved at a stroke, Price and expert opinions generally, subject usual criteria. Any "clearouts" take place at the level of gunrel (per some agreed procedure).Selfstudier (talk) 14:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• I'm running into a related issue right now, I was going to add some more content to the article on Chris Guider about his having married a fellow former Scientologist, but my source for that information is an interview his wife gave to the Daily Mail, which is deprecated. I've read the guidance at WP:DAILYMAIL and frankly it made the matter even more hazy to me. It seems to me that a person talking about themselves in an interview counts as reliable even if the interview is published by an otherwise unreliable source, and I could probably get away with using it in this case. (there are other likely sources but they are paywalled) Beeblebrox (talk) 22:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Daily Mail is likely a special case because we know they have outright altered interview responses and the like, rather than make fabrications in their original reporting. It is effectively blacklisted on BLPs for that reason. --Masem (t) 22:21, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I did a bit more searching with better keywords and managed to find the same information from a non-paywalled, non-deprecated source. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:27, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

To me, generally unreliable means that articles can be used as sources if they meet the standards for use of self-published sources. Deprecated means that they cannot, although they can be used if published in a non-deprecated source.

If, as some editors argue, there is no difference in how the sources are treated then there should not be two categories. Also, it opens Wikipedia to charges of bias, since it is expressing an opinion that has no relevance to editing.

TFD (talk) 00:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Deprecation is purge on sight and replace with something better, or remove the associated content if that can't be done, unless exceptional circumstances apply (e.g. WP:ABOUTSELF). Generally unreliable means exactly that. It's, in general, unreliable, but exceptions can certainly exist. For example, Twitter is generally unreliable, but tweets from official accounts (@NASA) are as reliable as the associated accounts are. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:18, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

So that I can better understand where the line is drawn, it would be helpful to see some discussion and examples of borderline sources that fall into the “Generally unreliable” category, but DON’T quite fall into the “deprecated” category. Blueboar (talk) 13:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

There's a discussion about CounterPunch below. Whatever the outcome, it will be a borderline decision, based on the voting. I question though whether the distinction has any useful purpose. TFD (talk) 06:54, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Somewhere in one of these deprecation discussion today was the idea that deprecation (where a source shouldn't even be used for RSOPINION) is the case where we know the source has falsified works including statements/writings/interviews from non-staff people, as in the case of the Daily Mail, so that we can't even be sure RSOPINION is applicable. Whereas for an unreliable source, it like fails common use as an RS for anything factual, but its use for RSOPINION is still fine, within the scope of UNDUE for the topic of interest. --Masem (t) 05:38, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Basically this. Deprecation is not just unreliable, it is anti-reliable. It means the source in question has either deliberately lied, or else that what they publish can be counted on to be false. An unreliable source simply provides no reason to trust it; a deprecated source has given us some concrete reason *not* to trust it. Loki (talk) 06:08, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

In which case, it might be best to simply blacklist such a source and be done with it.Selfstudier (talk) 10:59, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not entirely opposed to that but I do think that there are a handful of situations where citing a deprecated source can be appropriate, chief among them being citing it about itself. I'm not a huge fan of blacklisting sources. Loki (talk) 02:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

EP Today

EP Today (eptoday.com) is identified as a fake news site both in a Wikipedia article (Fake_news_in_India#Fake_news_against_Pakistan) and in a report (https://www.disinfo.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/20191213_InfluencingPolicymakers-with-Fake-media-outlets.pdf) by the EU Disinformation Task Force. This was discussed briefly in an earlier Reliable Sources discussion without any resolution.

I propose that eptoday be blacklisted.

Currently, EPToday is referenced in 10 articles (one being the Fake News in India wiki article). Some of the references appear to have legitimate sources, but the topics are outside my expertise, so I don't think I'm the right person to fix these references. Using the search term "insource:eptoday.com" the articles are

1. Religion in Pakistan

   The focus of Islamic principles creates a system of institutionalised discrimination that filters down into society. Moreover, the Constitution sets up the Council of Islamic Ideology, tasked with ensuring Islamic ideology is followed in governmental decisions, actions and policy making.

2. Syed Ali Shah Geelani

   After record voting percentage in Kashmir, Geelani, along with other separatists, were criticised by Indian media for misleading people of Kashmir and for not representing true sentiments of Kashmiri people.

3. Fake news in India
4. All Parties Hurriyat Conference
5. Rod Rosenstein
6. Religious discrimination in Pakistan
7. Mark Hendrick
8. Religious Minorities in Pakistan
9. Edward McMillan-Scott
10. Forced conversion of minority girls in Pakistan

rsjaffe 🗩 🖉 21:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

rsjaffe, procedurally this is somewhat of a malformed RfC (see WP:RFC) so the tag should be removed. I also think the scope needs to be broadened, there are a lot of other obscure sites like this one with similar use cases. By the way, the link to the previous discussion is at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 281 § Indian fake media outlets. Looking at it, the idea for blacklisting was brought up before but no one took it up after that. Since then the use case seems to have increased, so I'd think we should go forward with it now. Give me some time to gather a list of the most relevant sites and I'll start an RfC. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:23, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

OK. I removed the tag. rsjaffe 🗩 🖉 15:03, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

In Edward McMillan-Scott's article, it's an external link to an article he authored. At Rod Rosenstein the source was unnecessary and another could be used. I've not looked at the Indian/Pakistan related articles yet. Posting this at RSN was a good idea, as it may also result in an eventual RSP entry if discussed enough. Blacklisting would be more likely if the source was spammed. Deprecation may be possible but is unlikely at a first discussion or if it's easily manageable (there are few citations at current time). —PaleoNeonate – 00:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The external link might be a BLP violation. See the follow-up story from BBC which states, "EU Chronicle was born in May this year when EP Today, a site flagged in the previous disinformation report, was simply discontinued and renamed...A group of MEPs appear regularly in the investigation. One of them, French MEP Thierry Mariani, has written two op-eds for EU Chronicle and was also part of a controversial visit to Indian-administered Kashmir last year...Two other MEPs named in the report - Angel Dzhambazki from Bulgaria and Grzegorz Tobiszowski from Poland - denied having written op-eds that were published on EU Chronicle." So it seems uncertain whether those who have articles attributed to them have truly written them, I'd think this at least needs a secondary source for any kind of inclusion. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 15:50, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Interesting read and rather concerning. WP:ELNO has criteria 2 that may justify removing external links as well: "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting." —PaleoNeonate – 05:22, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

RFC: Should deprecation RFCs be open to all users or restricted?

The Counterpunch deprecation RFC appeared to have multiple contributors who were fresh editors/accounts. WP:RFCs have conventionally allowed all contributors, including IPs. Is this appropriate to deprecation RFCs?

• Option 1: Keep open to all contributors, as per WP:RFC.
• Option 2: Require autoconfirmed status from contributors.
• Option 3: Similar requirements to extended confirmed protection: 30 days, 500 edits.
• Option 4: something else.

- David Gerard (talk) 18:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey: Should deprecation RFCs be open to all users or restricted?

• Option 3 for ALL RfCs and AfDs. -- Valjean (talk) 18:47, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
  • This is specifically for deprecation RFCs, but the latter might be an idea - David Gerard (talk) 19:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1: If deprecation RfCs are the first type of RFC in the 20 year history of this site to require ECP to prevent disruption, I feel like that says more about deprecation RfCs than it does about non-EC editors. (That's excluding topical discussions, i.e. ARBPIA ones.) In the Jewish Chronicle RfC, the sockpuppets were all EC editors. Clearly there's some disruption going on in deprecation RfCs currently, but I don't think this sweeping restriction is a good way to manage it. And frankly there are many other issues with deprecation and its RfCs, as outlined in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deprecated and unreliable sources, that should be tackled rather than disenfranchising even more editors. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:48, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Also what is a "deprecation RfC"? Any RfC that has deprecation as a possible option, i.e. the modern standard format for RSN discussions? So an RfC started on the reliability of the BBC (i.e. clearly generally reliable) would also prohibit EC editors, since it would likely contain an option 4 option, even though no editor would seriously vote for it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:50, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3 - this is deep nuts and bolts of Wikipedia stuff. Views of fresh editors might be appropriate to the discussion, but not to the survey - David Gerard (talk) 19:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. RfCs are not a vote, so closers should evaluate consensus based on quality of arguments rather than pure vote counts. Moreover, restricting participation in discussions to autoconfirmed users goes against the founding principles of Wikipedia. – Anne drew 19:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. But obvious SPAs should be tagged and that should be considered at closing, as Wikipedia:Single-purpose account already advises. - MrOllie (talk) 19:20, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Weak option 1 - While RfCs are not votes, votes do have unconscious effects on those reading threads. I don't like the idea that editors without ample experience using sources should be able to influence the discussion on the depreciation of sources. However, I'm not entirely convinced of such a heavy restriction, at least for now.A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 19:24, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 - shocker I know, but ECP is meant to deter socking, or at least that is why it was developed. And things like the CP RFC show why that is needed, especially for any source even tangentially related, as it allows, as another editor wrote in the AC clarification request, ECP-prohibited editors from the IP area can easily skew a discussion on sourcing when it is a general review rather than a close look at what the sources are being used for, because you can argue the broad review of a newspaper isnt covered by broadly construed, but you cant do so when the topic is specifically about IP. So for discussions on sources that are largely used in affected topic areas covered by ECP that prevention of socking basis for implementing ECP holds. But for anything else it does not. Lets say I, newbie editor adding a source to an article that interests me, finds that the source is challenged here and it devolves, as sadly too many threads here do, in to a deprecation RFC. Why shouldnt I be able to participate? The only basis for ECP is to prevent throwaway socks from swaying the content, and for some topic areas it is needed. Largely it is not. nableezy - 19:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - I got your point Nableezy, but I believe an option 3 is still a correct approach under the current circumstances. That may change with time but not now. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Options 1 or 2 - My impression is that an experienced closer would take in consideration SPAs and IP addresses, although it's admitedly common for them to generate a lot of noise during discussions. 2 might mitigate it slightly without being too restrictive. This may also be unnecessary since a page can occasionally be protected when required after significant disruption. —PaleoNeonate – 01:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1, but note exceptions such as ARBPIA. Under the ARBPIA General Sanctions, non-ec editors are not allowed to participate in RfCs in the ARBPIA area. This is an Arbcom ruling that we can't change here. The same goes if there are similar Arbcom rulings in other areas. Zero^talk 01:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 - While I recommend that new users get involved in as much as they can, I doubt that a reader or a user with almost no experience regarding Wikipedia's running would have anything major - yet constructive - to say about it. Some kind of loose boundary may be appropriate for our inner workings. Liamyangll (talk to me! | My contribs!) 02:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 as per Nableezy. I understand the rationale for a change, but I think it would have negative un-intended consequences. Often discussions, including RfCs, on this noticeboard concern sources used in specialist areas, where specialist knowledge rather than experience of WP policy is useful. For example, if we were discussing Czech sources, an inexperienced, non-ECR editor who reads Czech and knows about Czech scholarship or Czech media may make a more useful contribution than an experienced ECR editor who doesn't. Excluding the former might lead to a less well informed decision, and also bake in our systemic biases. A decent closer isn't counting !votes anyway, but giving more weight to evidence-based and policy-based comments in determining consensus, so any less well-informed contributions of less experienced editors shouldn't harm the discussion. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:57, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• comment Not much more to add, often a new user will waste our time on arguments that are not policy based. This may not be an issue on normal talk pages. But here we really need policy-based arguments. I was going to go for one, but 3 will save a lot of time in explaining why an argument is flawed. But there is also the argument that a lot of experienced editors are not much better (especially where NPOV is concerned). So I am torn between 1 and 3. I guess I lean to 1 as I do not want to see cabals being able to force through what they want.Slatersteven (talk) 13:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Nope its Option 1 as I am unsure that this thread is a good example of how much better experienced editors are at behaving.Slatersteven (talk) 18:16, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 will weed out the off-site trolls who only have an interest in the supporting/opposing Counterpunch (and future ones), and no interest in its usage in the Wikipedia. ValarianB (talk) 13:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - this is an area where the quality of our discussions will improve if the editors participating are required to have a modicum of experience. Levivich 14:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - with sadness. But as said previously, I think it will improve discussions, and I hope, lessen the "deprecation-as-political-proxy-war" feeling that sometimes pervades the place. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 but also Option 4 - If we must have these general RSN RFCs then they should be open to as many commenters as possible and it is the job of the closer to weigh the !votes cast per Wikipedia:NOTAVOTE. However, it is very obvious that these general RFCs are very often simply opened to declare a source "bad", unconnected to any article-content, and this is the real problem that needs to be addressed. Editors should not be surprised that when they try to declare a source as effectively unusable, often as part of a "political proxy war" where they try to "kill" a source "with fire" (to quote a particularly prominent advocate of these general reliability RFCs), that their supporters come here to defend them. Option 4 is simply to stop having general reliability RFCs unless there is clear evidence of an actual existing article-content problem that is widespread in the encyclopaedia (e.g., the source is cited on more than a certain number of articles, for example 1000). FOARP (talk) 16:01, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 Wikipedia should not become a bubble restricted to those with certain qualifications. I strongly oppose option 3 for that reason. Unproductive comments will simply be ignored by the closer; there is very little harm in allowing ips and new accounts to participate, while openness in our processes and decisions is of the utmost importance. Zoozaz1 (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Per David, Dumuzid and Levivich._signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Having read others' arguments and reflected on it more, while I think that Option 3 is preferable to the status quo (or perhaps more accurately, the status quo ante counterpunchum), I'm swayed by arguments that it doesn't make sense to codify essentially unprecedented bureaucracy around RSN RfCs while the very definition of deprecation remains up in the air. We may well want to consider removing the deprecation option from the "standard" reliability RfC, and would suggest that if we're going to keep deprecation as a process, it only be considered in cases where a source has already been subject to multiple discussions (perhaps: multiple discussions with consensuses for general unreliability) and where it's clear that a source cannot be trusted even for basic journalistic integrity (e.g. falsifies its own contributors' work) _signed, Rosguill ^talk 13:47, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 - RFCs should be open to all, including this subset of them. An issue that one finds particularly important might drive them to create an account or chime in without one. Discussions always have and should be open to all. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 19:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3, or failing that option 2. There is too much of an indication that they're being targeted by ban-evaders and the like, especially for RFCs on sources that cover controversial areas that are themselves under ECP protection. While it's certainly true that it is not a vote, the reality is that most closers are reluctant to close an RFC against a clear numerical consensus; and many people will not even want to bother to weigh in on an RFC where the numerical consensus seems clear (the sharply different results we're seeing in the previous vs. current Counterpunch RFCs point to this effect.) Yes, we have tools to limit the impact of socking or offsite canvassing; but those require significant time and effort on the part of both contributors and closers. The ability to take overwhelming results as a general indicator is important to avoid wasted energy; if socking and meatpuppetry and the like are at a level where RFCs regularly require laser-tight attention from everyone to prevent shenangians, that's not a sustainable situation. ECP exists specifically to prevent us from wasting energy and effort in those circumstances. --Aquillion (talk) 21:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. This seems like a bad idea to me, because it basically amounts to official formalization of a process that isn't even a policy or guideline. Wikipedia:Deprecated sources is an information page. The deprecation process itself is currently under discussion regarding what it actually means, how it should work, and what the outcome of deprecation should be -- if we don't know what the heck a process should be, it hardly seems like an appropriate time to be talking about how to more effectively gatekeep it. As ProcrastinatingReader mentioned above, if deprecation RfCs are truly such a cesspit that we need to adopt some bizarre practice that isn't done for any other type of RfC on the entire project, we should at least consider that it may be the process which needs to be changed, and not the type of editor allowed to participate in it. jp×g 05:28, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1: Slatersteven says that often a new user will waste our time on arguments that are not policy based. Unfortunately, such is true of people with over 10,000 edits. ProcrastinatingReader makes a pretty compelling argument that this is not a clear/enforceable question, as "deprecation RfC" is not a particularly well-defined term: the problematic CounterPunch RfC had the same format as ones used to add uncontroversially reliable sources like The Mail & Guardian, which a non-ECP editor may plausibly be able to start. When it comes to disruption like socking at RfCs or AfDs, the problem is not in lacking rules to be able to enforce the situation, but in detection, or possibly in correct assessment of consensus by closers. It has become clear over the last few years that those who go all in with the goal of damaging Wikipedia can pass any new hurdle added (except—that we know of—adminship). — Bilorv (talk) 22:02, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  I also said ". But there is also the argument that a lot of experienced editors are not much better (especially where NPOV is concerned".Slatersteven (talk) 12:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: consensus isn't a vote, and so bad arguments by new editors shouldn't carry much weight. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 05:29, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4 A "Deprecation RFC" should be a straight yes or no open to all following a prior process discussing the source.Selfstudier (talk) 12:40, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  No, it shouldn't. See WP:NOTAVOTE. There's no good reasons why this kind of RfC should follow any other format from the usual, time-tested one. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  Well, if you define the "the usual, time-tested one" as a "Deprecation RFC", no there isn't.Selfstudier (talk) 14:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  RfCs in general (what I was referring to), at RSN or elsewhere, have a well-defined format, and like all other discussions on Wikipedia, it is expected that contributors be able to back-up their "yes" or "no" with proper arguments. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  I agree that whether it is a choice of 2 or a choice of 4, its not a vote. I am also aware of Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC questions Selfstudier (talk) 14:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 IPs are humans too, and people making bad arguments (in RfCs or anywhere else) is not a problem unique to IPs or even to inexperienced users (see this, from an admin with no less than a 100000 edits!!), nor are canvassing or sockpuppetry concerns unique to anywhere (and when they do happen, it is usually not too hard to address them). This is WP:CREEP based on seemingly one current example (and making rules to address current "problems" is rarely a good usage of time, especially if it is not truly a widespread problem) which serves no useful purpose. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. Aside from the fact that this blatantly flies in the face of Wikipedia's standard that discussions are WP:NOTAVOTE, WP:ANYONECANEDIT, and the whole ideas that editors are equal, I could very easily abuse this process against non-ECP users by just starting a 4-option discussion/RfC whenever I am disputing the quality of source with a non ECP editor, rather than making a regular posting to RSN. Presto chango their opinions don't matter as when I go back to the discussion on the talk page I can point to the "global consensus" they weren't allowed to participate in. There's a saying called "hard cases make bad law" and it's highly applicable here. If we view this in the context of Counterpunch, an extreme outlier, I can see the urge to vote for Option 3. But we're really just telling editors to fuck off from any and all 4 option RfCs on sources and that's the majority of meaningful discussions here.

I also hate this idea that "new editors shouldn't start with internal Wikipedia processes". I started editing through countervandalism and NPP and all the complicated internal policy stuff. Maybe I'm an outlier, but I'd hazard a guess that there are others like me. So what if a new editor wants to start editing by commenting at RSN or AfD? There are other ways to help this encyclopedia than content creation. If they make bad votes the closer can easily disregard them in current practice. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 02:23, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1. See my comment in the section below. Let's not get too focused on regulating a process that governs a process. Trust the judgement of the editors making discussions. An editor closing a discussion can discount arguments based on their strength. feminist (talk) 08:04, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 Closers are bright folks. They can assess the consensus and take into account SPA's and new accounts, and decide in context what weight to give their votes. If we are to exclude new editors from engaging in our central discussions, we hasten our demise. How else will we create new editors able to carry the project into the future? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:55, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. IPs and new-to-enwiki users may well have considerable expertise with esoteric or non-English sources. The closer should be able to discount or underweight comments that appear solicited or are unsupported by policy. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. Closers can appropriately weight contributions when necessary if there's a need to do so. Stifle (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 I understand the concern regarding off site sock/meat !votes but I have faith in our closers to keep that in mind. Additionally, a strong argument presented by an IP is still a strong argument and shouldn't be outright blocked even if we should discount unregistered "shows of support". Springee (talk) 14:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4. Deprecation RfCs should end. Unfortunately in 2019 RFC: Moratorium on "general reliability" RFCs did not result in any restriction, but I think more people are starting to realize they're bad, so eventually I'm hopeful we can end them. It won't happen here, but if/when it does this RfC won't matter. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:35, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4. I agree with Peter above. It's time to deprecate deprecation RfCs. This has gotten totally out of control. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 Counterpunch is an outlier because a large portion of its use on this website is in relation to PIA. The vast majority of sources are not, so putting restrictions on all source deprecation RFCs just to address a single outlier seems like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, except that the square peg is actually a sledgehammer. Many, if not all of the !votes here for option 3 are in the context of Counterpunch, either explicitly or implicitly. If socking was a serious problem at the Counterpunch RFC (which it may have been, I don't know), then surely there must be another way to address it that doesn't involve banning IPs and new users from all source discussions. Mlb96 (talk) 04:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 - leave it open. I am also of the mind that common sense and knowing when to use IAR applies to deprecated sources in certain circumstances. Atsme 💬 📧 08:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. We don't restrict participation in other RFC types, so why start here? If problems arise in future RFCs here, we have tools to address them. Calidum 17:05, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: Should deprecation RFCs be open to all users or restricted?

• I filed this because it seems a good idea to me and some others, but it's a major change in how we approach RFCs, which have long been open to all comers - David Gerard (talk) 19:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP We don't need to have a new policy that ban WP:SOCKs and WP:MEATs from specific RFCs. We already have those policies. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment Per above, "Deprecation RFC" is an undefined term. We should have a deprecation policy or at least a formal guideline before any more tinkering.Selfstudier (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I think this discussion should be listed in WP:CENT because it is a drastic change. – Anne drew 19:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Agree. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 19:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Feel free - David Gerard (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

  Added to WP:CENT. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:43, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• I should note also, there was also discussion asking to retrospectively declare that ECP applied to the CounterPunch deprecation RFC on the basis of WP:ARBPIA - David Gerard (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, discussions in topic areas covered by ECP should have ECP applied to the noticeboard discussions, including RSN RFCs. And the fact that those RFCs have such heavy socking demonstrates why. But outside of that I cant think of a basis for it. nableezy - 21:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

That gets really complicated in its own way, though, in that... to use Counterpunch as an example, say. Clearly it has taken a strident side on the ARBPIA issue, and clearly (based on, if nothing else, Icewhiz's focus) at least some of the sockpuppetry and the like was from editors whose opinion on the source was decided solely by that ARBPIA issue, which meant they were using the RFC to weigh in on an ECP topic area by proxy. At the same time, though, it's not like that's the sole defining feature of Counterpunch's coverage - people who were only vaguely familiar with the source might not realize it, and even when quickly going over secondary coverage of it it might not come up (eg. when I was searching for academic reactions to and discussions of Counterpunch, their position on Israel rarely came up directly.) There are absolutely situations where editors will eg. judge an entire source based on a handful of things related to an ECP topic area that are not necessarily actually that important in the grand scope of the source as a whole; and that is going to be tricky to apply ECP for on a case-by-case basis. Especially since (for example) Icewhiz is going to be smart enough to not mention Israel when saying why he's taking a position on a source with his latest sock, even if that's actually the only reason he's weighing in at all. Unless we already know it's him (in which case he'd just be banned), how would we prove an editor is taking a position on a source for its stance on an ECP topic? Especially if it's an editor in good standing, who we otherwise AGF about? --Aquillion (talk) 22:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I dont think it actually is that complicated. The topics covered are, on purpose, defined to be very broadly construed. But just look at the threads IW has been having 4-6 socks at a time involved in. They are sources that are widely used in the topic areas that are restricted. Those topic areas are restricted because of the pervasive socking of people like NoCal100 and Icewhiz. By opening this well its a general review and not specifically about a topic area you are getting played. If you look at many of the past discussions on CP you will find they were often focused specifically on ARBPIA topics. For example, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_181#What_is_the_verdict_of_the_2008_discussion_on_Counterpunch, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_10#CounterPunch, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_110#CounterPunch_reliability. Yes it covers other topics, obviously, but the reason you have IW and NoCal100 involved is to affect the topics that are EC-restricted. The entire point of EC, when it was first created, was to make sockpuppetry less of an issue in topic areas that have suffered sustained abusive sockpuppetry (and two NoCal100 socks being banned in one AC case is a pretty good example of that sustained issue). I dont think we need to prove anything about any users particular motivation. If the source is widely used in an ECP topic area, the noticeboard discussions should be treated as requiring EC to participate. Because we have seen, over and over, the impact of sockpuppetry has been significantly more disruptive than the positives of allowing unrestricted access. And CP, as well as the Jewish Chronicle RFC, demonstrate that better than I could ever try. That is two RFCs that IW by himself has been able to be a deciding factor in the outcome. There are a bunch of discussions on sources in the WP:APL topic area where the majority of commentators were IW socks. And I for the life of me cannot understand how users are supposedly in "good faith" making it easier for him to do so again. There is a reason "broadly construed" and not "narrowly construed" is how we determine what is or is not covered. nableezy - 16:28, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment: Just to note that GizzyCatBella has applied this policy on this page below, although we have not reached a conclusion. Editors may think this is necessary to protect the integrity of that discussion, which I guess makes it a good example to think with in informing a decision here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:08, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Thats a comment specifically about ARBPIA, and pretending like it does not fall under it is just silly. That has nothing to do with the wider question of should all RFCs be treated as such. So no, GCB did not apply this policy, GCB applied existing policy there. nableezy - 15:32, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The policy is in effect as per ArbCom ruling until conclusion is reached. (why are we trying to overturn ArbCom’s ruling again?) - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Although I support this RFC, I've unstruck the struck comment, because neither the comment nor the RFC it was made in are covered by ARBPIA. More detailed explanation in the thread. Levivich 16:23, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

That is absurd, the comment is specifically about an ARBPIA topic. Ill take this to AN. nableezy - 16:28, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Here, let me get the diff for you: Special:Diff/1065201226. I'm looking forward to reading your explanation of which of the words in that diff relate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Or are you gonna try and argue that if a non-ECP editor links to a source that mentions the conflict, they should have their entire comment struck, even if the comment doesn't mention the conflict, and it's made in an RFC that's not about the conflict? Like, you think 30/500 in ARBPIA means that a non-ECP editor can't even link to a source that mentions the conflict anywhere on Wikipedia without having the comment struck? I don't think that interpretation is gonna fly. Levivich 16:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The words Israel Shamir. The RFC largely focuses on sources in the Arab-Israeli topic area. See for example my comments about Edward Said or Uri Avnery or Zero's list of sources. The RFC is covered, and I dont want to waste another keystroke discussing with people who so blatantly stick up for obvious socks and meatpuppets. nableezy - 16:54, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

No one here is defending socks and such accusation is not productive to say the least but more general question should be discussed does CP RFC covered by the restriction or no Shrike (talk) 17:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Well besides users restoring comments by people they say no doubt is a sock then yeah maybe nobody else is defending socks. Maybe. nableezy - 17:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

"The words Israel Shamir": Are you saying it falls under ARBPIA because the word "Israel" is in his name? Because the quote was about the concept of genocide in an article about Russia, and the overwhelming majority of Shamir's CounterPunch articles are about Russia and Ukraine. This is extending the scope of ARBPIA to extraordinary lengths. Also, I was not "pretending" anything and am getting quite frustrated at the assumptions of bad faith going on here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Im going to assume that this is a serious question and not a bad attempt at trolling, but no, not because his name is Israel (wtf???). See Talk:Israel Shamir for why discussing Israel Shamir is covered under ARBPIA. The topic of Israel Shamir is in the ARBPIA topic area. nableezy - 18:21, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

If you think there is a sock report them, but do not use just your assumptions or accusations to strike users comments. Launch a wp:spi and let admins do it.Slatersteven (talk) 17:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

lol. Maybe pay attention, the reason it was struck was because it is in the ARBPIA topic area. As far as obvious sock, do you mean I should strike something? Or Levivich saying no doubt the editor is a sock? Or maybe Shrike? jfc. nableezy - 17:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I mean you do not get to decide who is a sock. There is a procedure for that.Slatersteven (talk) 17:40, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

And who said I did? nableezy - 17:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm honest about obvious socking, and you're using that against me. Had I said "can't be sure if it's a sock", you would have used that against me, also. If I disagree with you, that's "defending a sock" or "sticking up for a sock". Can't win with you. It's either agree with you, or else I'm "demanding", "abusing process", "defending socks", etc. etc., ad hominem, ad hominem, ad hominem. Levivich 18:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

This is being discussed as AN can we drop this now, and also if you have an issue with users please just report them.Slatersteven (talk) 18:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Commenters may wish to review this discussion that is likely related. --Izno (talk) 18:14, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Closed version of that Selfstudier (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  I have a hard time discerning what the consensus of arbs was in that discussion, but if it's summarized in this comment by L235: But a source that covers many things including some things that are related to an ECR topic is not covered (unless the RSN discussion substantially relates to the ECR topic). Again, this should be determined case-by-case. I think CounterPunch is such a source, and I personally don't think that the RSN discussion "substantially relates" to ARBPIA (because it's about general reliability, not about a specific use of a source in a specific article about ARBPIA). But if it's case-by-case, and this is a case, then I don't know how that ARCA helps us figure out if this RSN discussion is covered by ARBPIA? (And if it is, that's a whole separate grounds for enforcing 30/500, than the fact that a particular comment linked/quoted a particular person whose BLP is tagged with ARBPIA.) Levivich 18:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  It doesn’t help. ArbCom didn’t answer the bigger question, the problem I posed in my statement. The general statement they did give wasn’t under dispute or subject to any confusion in the first place. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:33, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Here we have an RfC discussing who can participate on a subset of RfCs which concern a relatively recently-created internal process (WP:RSP) where the implications remain difficult to understand for many editors. Frankly, it's ridiculously meta and we are better off pondering why we got to this stage altogether. Do editors use bad sources for articles out of ignorance, incompetence, or because it helps the promotion of a particular point of view? And are we starting RfCs on reliability of sources to aid editors in citations, or as a backhanded approach of making the representation of certain viewpoints more difficult? feminist (talk) 08:03, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

This whole thing got started by a desire to "kill" the Daily Mail "with fire" (in the words of one of the main drivers of the DM ban). It was always political and never really about assisting editor in decision-making about sources. You can see this most prominently in the kind of stuff that gets brought to RSN for general reliability RFCs - it's always the subject of a political dispute and has no relation to the number of times its cited on Wikipedia. Indeed often there's no content dispute indicated at all, and no reason at all why we should be applying a blanket ban to that source. FOARP (talk) 21:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• WP:CREEP applies. We already have a long-running and well-understood principle that closers can give appropriately reduced weight to contributions of new users when that is justified. Stifle (talk) 14:20, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Does Reliable source need to follow WP:NPOV

Clearly NPOV is for Wikipedia but @WikiCleanerMan is demanding that AfD participants only present sources that follow WP:NPOV. Is he justified in this ask? Venkat TL (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

You have clearly misunderstood and have not been listening at that discussion and have been refusing to do so. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 21:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

If it's to connote notability, yes - non-RSes can't connote notability - David Gerard (talk) 21:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@David Gerard you have said yes. Please point me to the section and line where it says that a reliable source need to follow WP:NPOV. I understand that promotional coverages are discarded for being paid, but why is a criticism a disqualifying feature? Criticism of books, films etc are routinely used as RS to assess notability. Are they following WP:NPOV? How can you criticize and follow NPOV? Venkat TL (talk) 21:25, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

David Gerard, these are two articles I'm claiming fail being reliable and come off as attack pieces, thus not neutral and fail the NPOV policy, 1, 2. If you take just a quick glance it's clear they can't help the article at the Afd pass notability and GNG. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 21:30, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Which AfD are you referring to? M.Bitton (talk) 21:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Both of those are opinion pieces, and no they are not reliable and no they do not support notability. nableezy - 21:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

M.Bitton, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indian American Muslim Council. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 21:42, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Sources having a point of view does not, on its own, make them reliable or unreliable. Wikipedia does not exclude publications for being biased or opinionated, this is very clearly outlined in the reliable sources guideline, which says "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject."

That said, looking at the second article, the newspaper Sunday Guardian itself is involved in the dispute which makes it non-independent. Also, I've had concerns regarding this particular paper's reliability and tried to bring it to the board in the past; see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 310#The Sunday Guardian. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 21:48, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you @Tayi Arajakate for the quote. You are the MVP Venkat TL (talk) 11:28, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, although this is basic policy which I'm honestly surprised that an editor with 20k+ edits and an admin are confused about. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 12:49, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Venkat TL, you've been editing here under this username since 2021-07-19, so I think we can forgive your apparent misunderstanding of NPOV. I misread that. It is apparently WikiCleanerMan who misunderstands NPOV. Tayi Arajakate has quoted the right part. No "source" can "follow WP:NPOV" as NPOV does not require sources to be neutral. That job is for editors. WE are supposed to edit neutrally, IOW to not censor or neuter sources. RS can be very biased and still useful. To understand how we are supposed to deal with biased RS (IOW most of them), please read my essay NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content. -- Valjean (talk) 22:18, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

By using those posts as sources violates the npov because using them does not help with notability, but also using them will most likely not have any amount of content on the article be written from a neutral point of view. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:35, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is not relevant to whether a source is reliable or not. NPOV is a requirement that WP editors, not sources, have to comply with. A source an be reliable even if it’s an opinion piece per WP:BIASED. However, having said that, it is a requirement of WP:RS that to be reliable a source has to have a “reputation for fact-checking and accuracy”. DeCausa (talk) 22:44, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

WikiCleanerMan, I don't think you have understood the policy on neutral point of view. It is defined as "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." The aim is not to ensure articles are neither overtly positive or negative, but to ensure articles are written based on what reliable sources, so if many reliable sources have a negative opinion of a subject, the article will most likely be negative. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 12:57, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

"WP:NPOV" is not a synonym for "neutral". If you read the page WP:NPOV you'll see it's impossible for a source to follow it. That's because WP:NPOV is a page that talks about editing Wikipedia, and sources don't edit Wikipedia, editors do. Thus, editors, not sources, must follow WP:NPOV. Levivich 14:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I got it and I think the matter can be considered closed. However, as a result of the user who started this discussion, we have continued to see at the Afd, users who have voted keep are not providing reliable sources to prove notability of the article in question, just anything that mentions the article subject and are claiming that's enough to provide notability. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 19:38, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• There's several other things worth mentioning. WP:BIASED allows sources that are, well, biased; however, such sources have to be used according to WP:DUE. Using too many sources that are biased in one particular way can produce a non-neutral article. Additionally, some sources are only WP:RSOPINION, and should only be cited to illustrate the author's opinions, not to introduce or argue facts. Finally, when discussing notability in particular biased sources are often given a bit less weight because they have more incentive to play up the importance of stuff that fits their biases. If the only sources that can be found covering something are from hardcore axe-grinding partisans, cheering fans, rabid haters, or other biased sources, that might indicate that it is WP:UNDUE overall and that covering it (or even just having an article for it) risks violating NPOV. --Aquillion (talk) 22:34, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Invariably, every source will have some degree of observer bias present. This is particularly true of any source that would offer an opinion, draw a conclusion or argue a thesis. How well they deal with bias is another issue but even the highest quality, academic, peer-reviewed sources are not without bias. WP:BIASED (at WP:RS) is quite explicit that biased sources that are otherwise reliable sources are not rendered unreliable because of bias. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias in sources would make a similar observation. The primary question is answered. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:34, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Deprecation RfC: CounterPunch

Should CounterPunch be deprecated?

• Option 1: Yes
• Option 2: No

RFCbefore Previous RFC

Selfstudier (talk) 22:31, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (Deprecation RfC: CounterPunch)

• Yes provided that expert authors who publish their articles in CP may be cited a la WP:SPS, else No. Selfstudier (talk) 22:49, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, per the closing statement of the previous RFC. Per my statement in an earlier discussion, I will switch my !vote if it can be established in line with the assertions of some editors that their editorial process consists of little more than accepting or rejecting works as is (no direct control), and that their method of choosing which works to publish does not encourage creators to alter their work to increase their chances of being accepted (no indirect control), but as the evidence currently suggests that these assertions are incorrect I have to support option one per WP:SOURCES, which tells us that the reliability of a work is affected by the reliability of the publisher as well as the creator. BilledMammal (talk) 23:03, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• No, because other reliable sources routinely cite CounterPunch articles when written by an established expert, and so too should we. For example:
  • Paul Craig Roberts work in CounterPunch has been routinely cited in other reliable sources, eg:
    • Cheyfitz, Eric (2017). The Disinformation Age: The Collapse of Liberal Democracy in the United States. Routledge Advances in American History. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-351-83908-2.
    • Bonner, Will; Wiggin, Addison (2009). The New Empire of Debt: The Rise and Fall of an Epic Financial Bubble. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-52871-6.
    • Wiil, U. (2011). Counterterrorism and Open Source Intelligence. Lecture Notes in Social Networks. Springer Vienna. ISBN 978-3-7091-0388-3.
  • David Price (anthropologist) work in CounterPunch has likewise been routinely cited in other reliable sources, eg:
    • Miller, Chris (2013). War on terror': The Oxford Amnesty Lectures. Oxford Amnesty Lectures. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-84779-497-0.
    • Bangstad, Sindre (2017). Anthropology of Our Times: An Edited Anthology in Public Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan US. ISBN 978-1-137-53849-9.
    • Falah, Ghazi-Walid (2008). "Geography in Ominous Intersection with Interrogation and Torture: reflections on detention in Israel". Third World Quarterly. 29 (4). Taylor & Francis: 749–766. doi:10.1080/01436590802052706. ISSN 0143-6597.
    • Brennan, Timmothy (2021). Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-374-71471-0.
  • Edward Said work in CounterPunch has been routinely cited in other reliable sources, eg:
    • Carapico, S. (2014). Political Aid and Arab Activism: Democracy Promotion, Justice, and Representation. Cambridge Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-19991-9.
    • Masalha, Nur; Isherwood, Lisa (2014). Theologies of Liberation in Palestine-Israel: Indigenous, Contextual, and Postcolonial Perspectives. Postmodern Ethics. Pickwick Publications. ISBN 978-1-61097-745-6.
    • Marrouchi, Mustapha (2012). Edward Said at the Limits. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-8572-9.
  • Noam Chomsky work in CounterPunch has been routinely cited in other reliable sources, eg:
    • Boggs, Carl (2013). Masters of War: Militarism and Blowback in the Era of American Empire. New Political Science Reader. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-72792-4.
    • Absher, Brandon (2021). The Rise of Neoliberal Philosophy: Human Capital, Profitable Knowledge, and the Love of Wisdom. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-1-7936-1599-2.

There are countless more examples of CounterPunch articles being treated as authoritative by other reliable sources. There are literal scores of world class scholars writing on CP, most days they form the majority of the columns. Beyond the named authors above, CP publishes work by Dean Baker,^[36] Charles R. Larson (scholar),^[37], Mark Weisbrot,^[38] Vijay Prashad,^[39] Neve Gordon,^[40] and a host of other noted scholars. Yes, CounterPunch has published bullshit by crackpots. They often also publish responses to that same bullshit. Yes, it published Grover Furr claiming Louis Proyect propagated "fascist lies" about the cause of the Holodomor. But that is a response to a column Proyect wrote on CP, and later rebutted, again on CP. But this was presented as though CP preferentially publishes Furr's propaganda, and not as a willingness by CP to publish all sorts of viewpoints. CP publishes a huge range of material, and some of it should not be anywhere near an encyclopedia article. But it also publishes the work of world class scholars, and it publishes material that is often times the very best possible source. David Price's uncovering of the FBI's surveillance of Edward Said is cited in every authoritative biography of Said. They all credit Price, they all cite his CP article. But we have users claiming that our biography of Said cannot include that? Deprecating CP has directly led to the degradation of our articles, the removal of authoritative scholars in their field whose work on CP is rightly cited in scores of other reliable sources. CP publishes bullshit too? Cool, dont cite that. But also dont remove sources so obviously reliable that the only reason anybody was able to present for removing it was by avoiding discussion of those sources entirely and focusing on the crap that nobody in their right mind would cite here anyway. And deprecation is being used by partisan editors who could never challenge a citation to this any other way, and it should not be permitted. If, as users argue in practice, a deprecated source may not be used under pretty much any circumstance, with users removing deprecated sources for mundane details like a person saying they are married, then CP should not be deprecated. It certainly should not be treated as though it grants some reliability to a source, but rather the reliability of any one CP article rests on the expertise of the author, and even then an author may be reliable for some topics, eg Paul Craig Roberts writing about the economy, and not for others, eg Paul Craig Roberts writing about 9/11 or really anything else. And in too many cases that is clearly reliable to deprecate, despite some users tossing out clearly reliable sources written by top quality scholars without regard for the damage they do to our articles. Also, given the extensive socking by Icewhiz and NoCal100 in the prior RFC, and the usage of this source in ARBPIA articles, and that specific examples about the source relate to the ARBPIA topic area, this should be restricted to extended-confirmed editors. nableezy - 23:05, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment This should probably be in the standard Option 1/2/3/4 format that is conventional for deprecation RFCs on RSN - David Gerard (talk) 23:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
• No I find deprecation to be too harsh. It's useful on a case on case basis, based on who is actually the author of the piece. The magazine publishes pieces by authors of varying quality, reliability and bias with no editorial control. It's not possible to make a general statement about the reliability of the publication. Some pieces are of great quality, some are reprinted with permission from other sources where the original might be in a print publication that is less accessible, but considered reliable source. And then there's a lot of pieces by amateur or otherwise unreliable authors. Deprecation should be for sources that are consistently unreliable, not inconsistently reliable. RoseCherry64 (talk) 00:23, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• No, though a warning is appropriate. CP sometimes publishes articles of poor quality and we shouldn't cite them. However, the shot-gun approach of deprecation throws out the baby with the bath-water. Editors should be able to judge an article according to the expertise and reputation of the author. It is illogical to block use of a good article on the grounds that a different article is bad. In addition, the suitability of selective citation of CP is proved by its extensive citation in academic publications. The following examples are just from what is on my laptop, without any Google searching.

list of CP citations in academic publications on Zero's computer
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Ismael Abu-Saad, Palestinian Education In Israel: The Legacy Of The Military Government, Holy Land Studies, 5.1, 2006, 21-56 cites Academic freedom in Israel is central to resolving the conflict’, Counterpunch (21 May), http://www.counterpunch.com/bendor05212005.html Miriyam Aouragh, Hasbara 2.0: Israel’s Public Diplomacy in the Digital Age, Middle East Critique, cites M. Leas (2010) Delegitimizers of Israel, Counterpunch, May. Maia Carter Hallward, Negotiating Boundaries, Narrating Checkpoints: The Case of Machsom Watch. Critique Vol. 17, No. 1, 21–40, Spring 2008, cites Jonathan Cook, ‘Watching the checkpoints: daily indignities and humiliations,’ Counterpunch, 23 February 2007, available at http://www.counterpunch.org/cook02232007.html. David Kean and Valentina Azarov, UNESCO, Palestine and Archaeology in Conflict. Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, cites Ehud Krinis, David Shulman & Neve Gordon, Facing an Imminent Threat of Expulsion, Counterpunch (June 22-24, 2007), http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/06/22/facing-an-imminent-threat-of-expulsion/ . Mona Baker, Narratives of terrorism and security: ‘accurate’ translations, suspicious frames. Critical Studies in Terrorism, 3:3 (2010) 347-364. cites Harris, L., 2003. A note on MEMRI & translations. Counterpunch. 15 Jan. Available from: http://www.counterpunch.org/harris01152003.html Bashir Bashir, The Strenths and Weaknesses of Integrative Solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. The Middle East Journal, vol 70, 2 cites Edward Said, “What Price Oslo?,” CounterPunch, March 23, 2002, www.counterpunch.org/2002/03/23/what-price-oslo/ . Neil Caplan, Oom Shmoom Revisited: Sharett and Ben-Gurion (conference paper) cites Vijay Prashad, “The United Nations Equals Zero,” Counterpunch, January 16-18, 2009, http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad01162009.html . Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora, Oxford Univ Press, cites Oren Ben-Dor, ‘The silencing of Oren Ben-Dor’, Counterpunch, 15–16 March 2008. Neil Caplan, The Israel-Palestine Conflict, Wiley-Blackwell, cites Roane Carey, "Dr. Benny and Mr. Morris: The Historian and the Tvlisted Politics of Expulsion," CounterPunch 19-20 July 2008, accessed 23 July 2008 at http:/lwww.counterpunch.orglcarey07192008.xhtml. Victoria Clark, Allies for Armageddon. Yale Univ Press, cites Greg Grandin, ‘Good Christ, Bad Christ?’, Counterpunch, 9/10.9.2006. and CP 27.07.2006, ‘John Bolton’s Dual Loyalties’ by Tom Barry. Orientalism & Conspiracy, eds. Graf, Fathi and Paul. I. B. Tauris. cites Lavie, A. (2003): “Partners in Pain, Arabs Study the Holocaust”, CounterPunch, 12 February 2003. Ronit Lentin, Traces of Racial Exception. Bloomsbury Academic. cites Neve Gordon and Mark LeVine, “After 50 years, time for a paradigm shift,” CounterPunch, June 8, 2017 Ronit Lentin, Co-memory and Melancholia. Manchester Univ Press cites Ophir, A. (2004) ‘Genocide hides behind expulsion: A Response to Benny Morris’, CounterPunch, 16 January www.counterpunch.org/ophir01162004.html

As well as that, there are several books by non-academic presses which are probably citable. Going to the internet, I won't list individual examples, but I'll note three counts: (1) The library of academic journals JStor cites CounterPunch over 1000 times. (2) The library of law journals HeinOnline cites CounterPunch over 800 times. (3) The Proquest One Academic database restricted to peer-reviewed publications has about 800 citations. In summary, the academic world does not consider CounterPunch to be a forbidden source, and neither should we. Zero^talk 02:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• No - Even the list of CounterPunch citations in academic publications presented above indicates that the source should not be deprecated. - GizzyCatBella🍁 03:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• No. It is absolutely true that people in the previous RFC identified a few articles whose views were indefensible; but a handful of bad articles do not discredit a source. A source's WP:RS status relies on their general reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. There is no indication that those articles had serious impact on Counterpunch's reputation; and plenty of reason to think that they were unfortunate anomolies. In addition to the WP:USEBYOTHERS above, see: , an in-depth look at high-quality anthropological research presented in Counterpunch and its implications for the ability to reach beyond the ivory tower; and , lists of progressive / alternative news sources for use in academia that specifically discuss and recommend it; and, for sources that simply use it, . The picture painted by this usage (which, note, largely postdates the objectionable articles that were the focus of the previous RFC) simply do not support the allegation that Counterpunch has a systematic problem that has harmed its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. It is plainly a biased source and should be attributed; it is an alternative source and that has to be taken into consideration when considering WP:DUE weight. But among such sources it is plainly treated as high-quality in a way that the discussion in the previous RFC does not take into account; and it's baffling that the previous RFC was closed with, as far as I can tell, almost nobody citing any secondary sources. No matter how shockingly wrong any individual articles might seem to us, it is simply not acceptable to take the extreme step of depreciating a source based solely on our personal reading of it, especially since we're not qualified to assess whether such articles are shocking outliers or indicative of a more systemic problem. Doing my own search, coverage of the issues the previous RFC raised seems minimal and largely from partisan / opinion-oriented sources; even there, coverage often unambiguously describes it as an outlier from an otherwise high-quality source. (I don't think that the "journal of 911 studies" is an WP:RS, but the writer is at least academically-qualified and it is one of the few sources that discusses it at all.) --Aquillion (talk) 04:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes I'm going to quote @Mikehawk10:'s evidence from the original RFC in full here:

• Option 4: CounterPunch has a history of publishing false and fabricated information, including numerous conspiracy theories, and should be deprecated.
  1. As I noted in my comments above, the site's history of publishing 9/11 conspiracy theories is widespread. A 2019 piece claimed that WTC-7 was not hit by a plane like the rest of the complex but was bombed! The bombing let to WTC-7 being destroyed from a fire that burned for 7 hours — until the building collapsed at 5:20 p.m.. A 2021 piece endorses the conspiracy theory that the CIA deliberately planted explosives in WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7 in order to ensure their collapse, citing a report by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Another article seems to endorse the belief that "Zionists" were responsible for 9/11, stating that In the Western World, Corporatism has become ‘subject’ to Zionism and in consequence Capitalist Democracy has been usurped by the power of a concentrated accumulation of resources – and this- no mere product of ‘happenstance’ – but rather part of a systemic scheme whereby the rich are to get richer and the poor to get poorer? \ When 2.3 Trillion Dollars can ‘go missing’ from an Economy and disappear down a ‘memory hole’ as part of a historical revisionism aka denial; when the very day after the gone missing is ‘announced’ and the Rabbi Dov Zakheim as Comptroller is not held to account because it ‘happens’ there is an attack on the Twin Towers (also WTC 7) and the Pentagon which becomes the focus of attention and a casus belli for war then something is seriously wrong – and psycho political abuse is in operation? Let us also not forget the ‘weapons grade anthrax’ – such the ‘memory hole’?. This isn't the only piece that reiterates the antisemitic canard to attempt to tie Jews to 9/11.
  2. On the note of the piece holding "Zionists" responsible for 9/11, there's even more antisemitic conspiracy at this publication! This 2014 piece states that It is forbidden by the censors who channel acceptable opinion to draw parallels with the Nazis’ modus operandi. But if the shoe fits … \ There is Israel’s Mengelian experimentation on caged Gazans, apart from saturation bombing, with nerve gas, depleted uranium, white phosphorous and flechette shells. More, the model of the Reichstag fire false flag has been readily replicated, not least in the 1954 Lavon Affair and, most spectacularly, in 9/11 (whence the five dancing Israelis at Liberty Park?). Practice makes perfect with false flags. Add extra-judicial murders made to order. (For those unfamiliar with "dancing Israelis", see this ADL piece.)
  3. A 2017 piece in the magazine also appears to deny the Holodomor, calling it fiction.
  4. A 2018 piece appears to deny the existence of the Xinjiang internment camps, calling it a bald and barefaced accusation... made with nary a shred of supporting evidence. The piece also denies widespread abuses against Uyghurs in the region, stating that The deluge of fake news from Western corporate media since the beginning of this year seeks to demonize the Chinese government, painting it as a gross violator of human rights, when the truth is the exact opposite. Another 2018 piece described the internment of over 1 million Muslims as wild allegations. Another piece seems to recommend The Qiao Collective's Chinese state media-filled resource compilation on the topic, as well as content from deprecated source The Grayzone.
  5. And, to add on to the above, the website has a troubled history of supporting the bogus vaccine-autism conspiracy theory.
  6. Their editorial process is also rather suspect; the magazine has failed to vet the identity of freelance journalists to the extent that it has, in recent years, published literal propaganda made by the GRU without having a clue that the person they were giving a byline to did not exist. And, on top of that, the magazine didn't know that much of the language in those propaganda pieces had been plagiarized from other sources.

Taken together, I don't think consider CounterPunch as a source to be something we can use to verify facts, except possibly in an WP:ABOUTSELF fashion. (And, even with respect to ABOUTSELF, I'd use it with caution given its issues vetting who its contributors actually are.) This publication should be deprecated as a source for facts. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 03:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The first bullet point was more than enough to more than convince me. A source that's claiming planes didn't hit the WTC on 9/11 belongs in the garbage. --RaiderAspect (talk) 09:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Has someone tried to cite it? Zero^talk 11:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, option 4. CounterPunch publishes vile material, like Israel Shamir, a Holocaust denier, who writes on CounterPunch on his definition of Genocide:

  ‘Genocide’ is a nasty invention. Just think of it: mankind lived for thousands of years, through raids of Genghis Khan and Crusades, through extermination of Native Americans, slave trade and WWI, happily butchering each other in millions, without being encumbered by the G word. This term was invented (or updated from Jewish traditional thought) by a Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, in the wake of Holocaust, in order to stress the difference between murdering Jews and killing lesser breeds. The word is quite meaningless otherwise.

  There are horrible items on CounterPunch. DoraExp (talk) 09:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)— DoraExp (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. --Shrike (talk) 12:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC) Quote --> non-extended-confirmed editors may not make edits to internal project discussions related to the topic area, even within the "Talk:" namespace. Internal project discussions include, but are not limited to, AfDs, WikiProjects, RfCs, RMs, and noticeboard discussions.[41] - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:38, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Here we go again, 16 edits.99% sockpuppet profile, as in the last RfC. Nishidani (talk) 11:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Besides the obvious sock is obvious in having three edits in the last year and showing up to a noticeboard for their first edit in 5 months, this user is not extended-confirmed and is discussing the Arab-Israeli topic area (see the big banner at Talk:Israel Shamir) and should be removed. nableezy - 14:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  This comment has nothing to do with ARBPIA, nor does this RFC fall under ARBPIA, as CounterPunch is not an ARBPIA-focused source. Mentioning Israel Shamir's writing about some non-ARBPIA topic doesn't make this an ARBPIA comment, and the fact that some parts of the Israel Shamir Wikipedia article are covered by ARBIA doesn't make every mention of the guy on any page covered by ARBPIA. Although I'm !voting in favor of ECPing these RFCs, that proposal doesn't have consensus yet, so there is no grounds to strike non-ECP !votes in this RFC. I've unstruck it. Leave it up to the closer to decide how to weigh !votes from new accounts. Levivich 16:22, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: I did not previously argue for deprecation and still hesitate to do so because it does indeed sometimes publish experts, but I believe it is worse than the sources in the standard "generally unreliable" category. I'd urge anyone joining this conversation who has not already looked at the previous RfC do so (discounting the brief !vote comments made by the socks listed at the top of it, none of whom contributed substantively to the discussion). In addition to the extensive evidence from Mikehawk10 cited above, other evidence presented included the following.
  • Publication of anti-vaxx content, for example by Richard Gale, who is a hardcore anti-vaxx activist[42] who writes regularly for GlobalResearch[DOTca/author/richard-gale] and The Defender,[43] usually with Gary Null, and by Anne McElroy Dachel[44] of anti-vaxx/pro-Ivermectin/Hydroxychloroquine blog Age of Autism.[45]
  • An active preference for publishing extreme antisemitic and conspiracy theory writers such as Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shamir and Alison Weir. (who is Israel Shamir, Counterpunch's resident intelligence correspondent? Alternately known as Jöran Jermas and Adam Ermash, Shamir is a fringe writer who has devoted his professional life to exposing the supposed criminality of "Jewish power," a paranoid anti-Semite who curates a website full of links to Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi sites, defenses of blood libel myths, and references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Ali Abunimah, Hussein Ibish, and Nigel Parry have warned their fellow Palestinian activists to avoid contact with Shamir--Reason.com 2010; Alison Weir, Israel Shamir and Gilad Atzmon] are three crypto-antisemites who have been openly circulated in the progressive world, appearing in supposedly leftist publications like CounterPunch in particular... CounterPunch...has published antisemitic writers for many years--Spencer Sunshine, Journal of Social Justice, 2019; CounterPunch keeps citing Global Research well into 2020--Emmee Bevensee, Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right , 2020 (Sunshine lists several examples here; The left-wing magazine CounterPunch has published a significant number of articles condemning Beijing’s repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. However, it has also occasionally featured pieces that deny any such thing is taking place.--CodaStory, 2020. See also Jovan Byford here.)
  • Publication of 9/11 truthers and Obama birthers Paul Craig Roberts [46], Wayne Madsen [47], and Mark Crispin Miller.[48]. On Miller: [9/11 and now Covid truther Mark Crispin Miller] said on an October 11 episode of CounterPunch Radio “...I now believe that anyone who uses that phrase [conspiracy theory] in a pejorative sense is a witting or unwitting CIA asset.”--Observer.com, 2017; On Roberts: "the well-known leftwing newsletter Counterpunch strayed from traditional policy by allowing one of its most popular contributors, Paul Craig Roberts, to air his Truther arguments on their website... Roberts...is a regular a contributor to infowars.com as well as Counterpunch.[49] From 2004 to 2017, Roberts, a right-winger, was one of the most published writers in CP, contributing weekly or more.[50] Our article about him says "Since retiring [i.e. in the period he wrote for CP], he has been accused of antisemitism and conspiracy theorizing by the Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Centre and others... In the 2000s Roberts wrote a newspaper column syndicated by Creators Syndicate. Later, he contributed to CounterPunch, becoming one of its most popular writers. He has been a regular guest on programs broadcast by RT (formerly known as Russia Today). As of 2008, he was part of the editorial collective of the far right website VDARE. He has been funded by the Unz Foundation and he contributes to the Unz Review. His writings are published by Veterans Today, InfoWars, PressTV and GlobalResearch, and he is frequently a guest on the podcasts, radio shows and video channels of the Council of Conservative Citizens, Max Keiser and 9/11 truther Kevin Barrett. His own website publishes the work of Israel Shamir and Diana Johnstone. In other words, not one exceptional article, but a large part of the publication's content, is authored by someone who writes almost exclusively for deprecated websites.
  • A 2015 analysis done by one anti-Zionist activist showed that the content by significant leftist writers such as Pilger was dwarfed by the quantity of content by white supremacists and cranks, with Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shamir and Alison Weir getting a large number of columns, and Paul Craig Roberts and Franklin Lamb being among the most published authors.[51]
  • The "experts" published by editors defending CP here include: Gareth Porter, who says that Assad isn't responsible for chemical attacks in Syria; Ray McGovern, who compared 9/11 to the Reichstag fire and said the DNC hack was an inside job; Tariq Ali, who claimed the White Helmets are actually al-Qaeda[52]; Lenni Brenner, whose work is cited by Holocaust denialists and has been called an "antisemitic hoax";[53] and Diana Johnstone, whose work denies the basic facts of the Yugoslav war and who used her Counterpunch column to say that there's no evidence that Marine Le Pen is antisemitic.
  • They published a number of Russian propaganda pieces by "Alice Donovan" who turned out to be a fake identity created by Russian intelligence. Although they eventually investigated after prodding from the Washington Post, why they were seen as a publication to be targeted in this way, the preference for that sort of content and lack of editorial oversight revealed by the incident are worth considering. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Gareth Porter is an expert on the Vietnam War. He is not an expert on the Syrian Civil War. I am not aware of Lenni Brenner being a subject matter expert regularly cited in their area of expertise, same for Diana Johnstone, making that just the latest in a series of strawmen. This is not that complicated. Dont cite people when they write outside of the area of their expertise. This effort to require some sort of purity test on topics outside of a SME's area of expertise in order to cite them within their area of expertise is not in keeping with any of our policies. nableezy - 13:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• No. Per Nableezy, Zero and Aquillion in particular. The argument for deprecation consisted in selecting a handful of googled items out of over 70,000 published on the webzine, views one can easily deplore, consists of highly misleading cherrypicking, ignoring the fact that the same magazine hosts writers who rubbish those views: numerous CP articles trash conspiracy theories. The same selective bias that vitiated the earlier RfC is being repeated here. Raider cites, for example, Mikehawk on Kremlin propaganda dismissals: the New Yorker dismissed it , but CounterPunch is deprecatable for hosting an article that held the same view. One piece is nipped for display to affirm CounterPunch denies the existence of Xinjiang internment camps, while pieces in CP affirming they exist are ignored in the arraignment; CP reported on the use of white phosphorus in Gaza? so did the New York Times; Counterpunch did not espouse 9/11 theories, though it published one or two authors for that view. Its authoritative creator and editor, Alexander Cockburn dismantled (see also here and here) such garbage as hairbrained nutter rubbish in numerous editorials. No editor opposed to deprecation argued we use such occasional nonsense from CP. To my knowledge, no one has. They argued that scores of top professionals in their fields, scholars, journalists, economists and the like do publish there and their work, evaluated on the strength of their credentials, should not be banned from Wikipedia. Bob. A word of advice. Drop the anti-Semitic insinuations. It just flies in the face of the fact that, thank God, numerous scholars and writers who happen to be Jewish publish there, which they certainly wouldn't do were CP a vehicle enabling hatred of people who have their same ethno-religious background. Evaluating everything in terms of the meme that criticism of Israel is a mask for hostility to Jews is a tiresome rhetorical trope that, in my view for one, by confusing the two, actually can enable anti-Semites, who make the same conflation. That Lenni Brenner's historical work is cited by anti-Semites - that the devil can cite scripture for his own nefarious purpose (ergo the Bible is invalidated and itself antisemitic)- is neither here nor there. Nishidani (talk) 10:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I really hope you didn't read the Israel Shamir excerpt that has been posted, because anyone who doesn't think that is wildly anti-Semitic should not be editing. --RaiderAspect (talk) 10:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

You don't note that the quote from Shamir was posted by the expected sockpuppet, i.e. DorExp with 16 edits, and that as before this discussion is being subjected to the same abuse that vitiated the former? I read anti-Semites, just as I read a lot of literature contemptuous to the point of being racist regarding Palestinians regularly hosted in mainstream Israeli newspapers. The argument Shamir makes is stupid and racist, except for one point: the word 'genocide' should have no exclusivity attached to it, or be expropriated to refer to what an enemy does. Nishidani (talk) 11:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

If antisemitism identified by non-ECR editors doesn't count as antisemitism, how about "As the Jews considered themselves being the victims of G (this is an idea deeply ingrained in the Jewish tradition, though quite foreign to Christian thought) they tried to take revenge by poisoning millions of Germans."[54] "Auschwitz gathering is an annual Canossa of Western leaders where they bewail their historic failure to protect the Jews and swear their perennial obedience to them."[55] "While the present western regime is anti-Christian and anti-Muslim, it is pro-Jewish to an extent that defies a rational explanation. France had sent thousands of soldiers and policemen to defend Jewish institutions, though this defence antagonises their neighbours."[56] "Jews almost always win when they go to the court against their denigrators. (Full disclosure: I was also sued by LICRA, the French Jewish body, while my French publisher was devastated by their legal attacks)."[57] "The US is special, as this heir to the British Empire guided by Jewish spirit is the only country ever possessing the unique, expensive and uncomfortable desire to rule the whole of planet Earth."[58] "I welcomed every conspiratorial scheme in this case, as well as in 9/11 case. Not because I believe or even prefer this or other scheme. I see it as a useful device to release minds from the holding power of mass hysteria induced by mass media. It is necessary to sow doubt in order to release minds and regain sanity."[59] "Jews came to the Ukraine a thousand years ago, perhaps from Khazaria... One of the reasons why so many people of Jewish origin do well is that the ruling ethnic groups trust the Jews and rely upon their loyalty to the powerful and lack of compassion for their Gentile neighbours."[60] "No one was persecuted or discriminated because of his ethnic origin (yes, Jews complained, but they always complain)."[61] "Historically, the liberal–Nazi alliance did not work because the old Nazis were enemies of bankers and financial capital, and therefore anti-Jewish."[62] "Jews do not mind Nazis who do not target them."[63] These are just selections from the first Shamir articles in CP I looked at. There's loads more of this. He has been one of their most prolific contributors over an eight year period. Any publication that puts this out is beyond normal "generally unreliable". BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:01, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Maybe you just mistakenly used the present tense of he has been instead of the correct past tense of he had been on accident, and maybe you mistakenly overstated how prolific Shamir was, but he has a total of 55 posts there, the last of which was 6+ years ago. Uri Avnery on the other hand has 579 posts there. Theres a reason why editors shouldnt be cherry-picking things that, most importantly, nobody in their right mind would cite here. All this in attempt to avoid the topic about things that people actually would cite. nableezy - 16:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes (weak?) - What we want of sources for this encyclopaedia are reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Based on the evidence above, this just simply isn't the case with CP. So much is even admitted by the people voting for no: Counterpunch did not espouse 9/11 theories, though it published one or two authors for that view. A publisher who publishes bullshit and doesn't retract it, just isn't a reliable source, period. The question whether CP is merely generally unreliable, or should be deprectated is an interesting one I haven't made up my mind yet. But in general CP seems to be sub-par. --Mvbaron (talk) 10:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment. So authoritative scholars and journalists in their fields are not 'reliable and independent' and don't check their facts, despite the fact that to achieve that reputation they are trained to do so and repeatedly tested by their fellow profesdsionals precisely in terms of these criteria?Nishidani (talk) 10:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

There is a reason for editorial board and peer review . Even top professionals are vetted by their peers. Shrike (talk) 10:40, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shrike.There is a certain epistemological naivity apparent in the ritual recitation of what we mean by a reliable source and fact checking. The encyclopedia does not deal only in facts: it covers significantly the interpretation of facts, esp. in articles with an historical dimension. Editorial oversight checks reportage for facts, it does not interfere generally with the contributors’ inferences from and interpretations of those facts (opinion). Facts themselves are selectively deployed: some are regarded as significant, others ignored. This is particularly evident in coverage of conflicts. It is obvious that newspapers cited for facts must optimally have editorial oversight. Editorial oversight in newspapers, monthlies or academic books, does not however regulate generally the interpretations of events provided by their contributors. At best they check the factual content. Adrian Bardon in his recent book The Truth About Denial: Bias and Self-Deception in Science, Politics, and Religion, (2019) tells us how man is hard-wired not to accept hard evidence that contradicts one’s beliefs. Newspapers in particular, a fundamental source for current events, rarely if ever check an article on conflicts for salient facts that are not mentioned by their contributors, facts whose presence would make the representation of an event far more complex than its readers might be comfortable with. The New York Times is stringently POV in its Middle East Reportage, missing much context and facts: but readers of The New York Review of Books are given a far broader coverage of the facts than the NYTs allow because area specialists write there, not journalists. Counter mainstream sources haven’t the financial muscle to hire a solid team of ‘fact checkers’ or peer-reviewers, and rely on volunteer pieces. Much of their content is just opinion (and none of us need care for that), but with webzines like CounterPunch the prestige of big names, whose professional qualifications bespeak thorough familiarity with the factual record, means deprecation runs close to a hard-wired ideological resistance to evaluating views, expert witnesses that discomfort our general outlook. WP:Due prioritizes a mainstream, quite understandably. It should not be used to make our documentation of reasoned, informed contrarian views even harder than it is. Indeed it explicitly allows for them. And editors of experience do learn to be less ideological in vetting reliability in grey areas by carefully looking at the evidence rather than refusing on principle to read closely.Nishidani (talk) 14:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes Even a bit of paper is right twice a day, that does not mean we can use it to tell the time. The fact they publish conspiracy theories as fact and holocaust denial is a serious problem.Slatersteven (talk) 10:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

They do neither.Nishidani (talk) 11:26, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I suggest you read many of the articles linked to above.Slatersteven (talk) 11:40, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I suggest that 16 years of reading CP desultorily left me amazed that of 70,000+ articles, editors with no familiarity with its background or nature could convince people that it is infested by anti-Semitic, holocaust-denying, conspiracy-mongering, genocide-denialist articles. A lesson: when you see a diff used to assert some general claim, spend a half an hour on each, examining whether an organ like the CP contains far more articles denying that claim. In every case of these rafts of diffs I examined in the previous discussion, the 'evidence' collapsed under examination. Nishidani (talk) 14:49, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

It does not have to be infested, it just to have to do it enough for it to be an issue. Does it "deny" these claims within the articles or publish them uncritically? Does it make it easy to tell the BS from actual well-researched facts? The issue is can ALL articles on it be trusted. And if not, how can we tell the difference?Slatersteven (talk) 14:54, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

That is certainly not the issue. I for one don't 'trust' any venue mainstream or otherwise, let alone CP. As for CP, the argument is, must we deprecate, for example ideologically Desmond Tutu's writing in CounterPunch, even if reliable academic sources don't, because on a number of occasions CP has hosted fringe controversialists? That is guilt by association, either a recipe for editorial laziness or the use of deprecation to limit our coverage of controversial but legitimate views. Nishidani (talk) 15:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

It is the issue for me, how can I know to trust any given article hosted there. What makes an RS is the fact that I can have confidence that any article I am reading is not likey to pedestal lies, conspiracies or racism dressed up as "questions". If I do not have that confidence its not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 15:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

You evaluate if the author is an expert in the field they are writing in, seeing if they have academic publications on the topic and how widely cited they are by other sources. The way you would with any other source. Nobody is suggesting CP confers any reliability on a column. Everybody who supports being able to use it acknowledges that it is not itself a reliable source. But we also acknowledge that it contains reliable sources, such as, again this widely cited piece by a noted scholar in the field. nableezy - 15:38, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

To add to what Nableezy wrote above, several cited scholarly books and academic journals did not feel the need to ask such a question and cited the reliable piece in question without such caveats. If there is any evidence that CP did not accurately reflect the views of its authors, that would be something and may be a reason for deprecation a la Daily Mail. As things stand, Masem's suggestion to tag "much of what it publishes are RSOPINIONS by field experts recognized by other more reliable sources, and that editors should treat such statements as attributed opinions", including "some of these opinions are towards conspiracy theories and other similar fringe views, but that's something we filter via RSOPINION and UNDUE", seems reasonable. Davide King (talk) 15:48, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment This kind of thing is interesting, the instinctive "Counterpunch? Seriously? No." edit summary used to justify the reversion of an expert opinion. Note that the reversion reverts two cites, one being Fisk publishing in CP and the identical article in the Independent. Notice also that the revert is to a version created by a now blocked sock. Ridiculous.Selfstudier (talk) 12:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• No per Aquillion, Nableezy, Zero, et al., Option 2 (experts)/Option 3 (general) — while it is undeniably true that they have published crackpots, and I personally think that is disgraceful, I do not think that is enough to warrant deprecation and its citations in academic publications presented above show why; as long as no evidence is given or showed that CounterPunch falsifies the pieces written by experts, I see no reason not to cite them, of course alongside secondary coverage in light with WP:DUE. Perhaps we may note in its entry that it has published experts and crackpots, and it should only be used and relied on for the former and not the latter. Davide King (talk) 12:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Addendum — WP:COUNTERPUNCH currently says: "Multiple examples were provided of misleading, fringe, or downright false statements published on the site." See my comment about how CounterPunch is not a straight news outlet like the Daily Maily, and Nableezy and Nishidani's comment for how this was misleading and cherry picked. "Many users agreed that the site itself leans towards favoring fringe viewpoints, and publishes such viewpoints preferentially, not indiscriminately." I am not sure the best sources actually support this; they have criticized it for publishing crackpots but they are not the issue of this CP's mess, are they? This academic article says that "the well-known leftwing newsletter Counterpunch strayed from traditional policy by allowing one of its most popular contributors, Paul Craig Roberts, to air his Truther arguments on their website ... ." I believe Masem's suggestions would make a better entry. Davide King (talk) 09:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• No, but it definitely should be tagged that much of what it publishes are RSOPINIONS by field experts recognized by other more reliable sources, and that editors should treat such statements as attributed opinions. Yes, some of these opinions are towards conspiracy theories and other similar fringe views, but that's something we filter via RSOPINION and UNDUE. Other opinions are held in respect (as opinions) by other RSes so we should not be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. --Masem (t) 13:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Unreliable or Deprecated. Neither of these options precludes using expert opinions published in it where relevant. We should defer to editors' judgement. The RfC should have used the regular 4-way template. Alaexis_¿question? 13:39, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  yeah it really should have... I can just yet another 1234 RFC coming along where we need to decide if it is a "generally unreliable" source; because this RFC doesn't settle that question. but alas we are too far into this one now. Mvbaron (talk) 13:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Several editors have stated that deprecation permits a purge of everything, expert opinions included, and have even put their opinion into practice. Had they not done so, I think we would not be here now. Selfstudier (talk) 13:54, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes if you're only going to offer me those two choices, but this should have been a regular 4-option RfC in which case I'd say Unreliable. That some works are cited by others doesn't "cancel out" the massive problems with other works by this publisher. "Generally reliable" means generally reliable and this publication isn't generally reliable, only some articles are reliable. It should be red at RSP and if the only way to make that happen is to vote for deprecation, then I'm voting for deprecation. Levivich 14:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Changing my !vote to unequivocal yes after reading more examples from my colleagues. This source is absolute trash. If an expert published in Stormfront, would we treat it as WP:SPS? If a website published that Black people were responsible for 9/11 or compared Palestinians to Nazis, would any of my colleagues ever cite to that website in an article, saying just use the non-racist parts? RT, Breitbart, The Daily Caller all occasionally get cited by RS--so what? That doesn't change our view of the deprecation of those sources. Why the hell do we need to be citing to a source that publishes racism and conspiracy theories? What is it we need from Counterpunch that we can't find in a better source? Delink all of it. Gerard was right. Levivich 13:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes The occasional antivaxxer screed, 9/11 Truther opinion, etc...poisons the well for the rest of it. If your only source for potential material to add to the Wikipedia is Counterpunch, then it isn't material worth adding. ValarianB (talk) 15:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Good grief. In an RfC one should make an effort to read and check. Anti-vaxxers promoted by Counterpunch? You mean, citing just the first half dozen articles on that topic in the last few months,

• Anthony DiMaggio Killer Disinformation: How Anti-Vaccine Propaganda Hijacked American Political Discourse Counterpunch 6 August 2021
• David Rosen Anti-Vaxxers and the Unvaccinated: False Consciousness in a Time of Pandemic Counterpunch 19 August 2021
• Daniel Warner, Anti-Vaxxers and Climate Change Deniers: Living in a Post-Fact World Counterpunch 18 October 2021
• Eve Ottenberg Anti-Vaxxers Go Berserk Counterpunch 19 November 2021
• Thomas Klikauer, Meg Young The Nazi Language of German Anti-Vaxxers Counterpunch 20 December 2021
• Thomas Klikauer, Catherine Link The Origins of Germany’s Anti-Vaxxers Counterpunch 29 December 2021

Selection bias once more in votes. Get one idiot diff, and ignore the dozens of diffs which rebut it on the same source, just as one would expect in an open webzine.Nishidani (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

It is fun to watch people using one fallacious argument after another though. nableezy - 15:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

It is equally fun to watch you denigrate, harass, and bludgeon everyone with whom you disagree with, but I shall decline to engage further than this. My opinion on the uselessness of Counterpunch remains, and there's nothing you will do about that. ValarianB (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

It may be time to let people have their say, without the badgering.Slatersteven (talk) 15:48, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Also don't appreciate having my comment being called a "idiot diff". Is that acceptable WP conduct? OK, CounterPunch publishes some true things about vaccines as well as anti-vaccine disinformation, but a reliable source is one that publishes only true things about vaccines and doesn't give a platform to dangerous anti-vaxx propaganda. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:57, 12 January 2022 (UTC) [Striking my response to "idiot diff", as it appears not to have been directed at me. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]

Based on the context, I believe Nishidani is using the word diff incorrectly to refer to CP columns. He is calling the anti-vax piece idiotic, and saying the pieces that refute that are being ignored. nableezy - 16:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Bob. Come on now. Don't personalize things. 'Idiot diff' was in context shorthand for diffs of idiotic articles. And it was certainly not directed at your diffs. You add 'a reliable source is one that publishes only true things about vaccines'. This is new to me. See WP:TRUTH. Wikipedia is programmed not to be like Pravda, which in Russian means 'truth'. If you want to know what I mean, it is the methodological error, frequent here, of using a small sample of cherrypicked exceptions to mischaracterize a source as promoting the views in those diffs. You cited the Meldungen blog above. I.e. you used an admittedly non-RS blogger's page to argue against CP's reliability. You are using there a non-RS source (blog) as though it were reliable for proving CP is non-RS. Methodologically that is unacceptable. I told you in the RfC that its author knows nothing of statistics, evidence by the fact that she concluded what all believe to be a left-wing magazine to be in fact, unknown to its contributors, readers and editors, in fact deviously an enabler of the far right which it incessantly targets. Talk about conspiracy theories! Some basic awareness of method is necessary here. Just having an opinion is not enough. Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The list of things that make something deprecable keeps growing. We should make a list. Still, 75 or so articles a week, is that about right? How many articles published by individuals have we found to be "bad", exactly? And how many of them would pass the SPS test of being published elsewhere? Selfstudier (talk) 16:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• No and also Bad RFC - "Deprecated" is not at all defined and as we have seen time and time again has no actual agreed meaning, it is therefore not actually clear what people are being asked to agreed to here. No evidence is presented here that this source is used generally here in Wikipedia such that a general RFC is appropriate. In fact I am not clear at all what the actual content dispute here is. FOARP (talk) 16:08, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, very unreliable, CounterPunch publishes experts such as chemistry professor John Scales Avery who writes that the September 11 attacks was deliberately made worse than it otherwise would have been by US government agents who planted explosives. A chhemisty professor, an expert in chemistry and exposives. CounterPunch is an open webzine where some very opinionated academics write items they can not publish anywhere else, because any sane site would reject conspiracy nonesense. Read Avery's description of 9/11 in https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/02/lies-about-how-the-attack-on-afghanistan-started/ --Ali Ali Dan (talk) 18:49, 12 January 2022 (UTC) — Ali Ali Dan (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Striked due to user being blocked indefinitely.
• No, throwing the baby out with the bathwater as a source that publishes relevant material from verifiable subject-matter experts as well as less reputable material. Mere publication in Counterpunch should not establish reliability for our purposes, but neither should it remove reliability from experts whose work is DUE in their field by dint of their expertise. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:15, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes? Or generally unreliable. Or treat as SPS. It doesn't appear there is any editorial control here, so it shouldn't be used for statements of fact. It's essentially a self-publishing platform that you need a certain amount of clout or notability to use. It's fine to cite for the opinions and statements of whoever wrote the article, which can be used in their own BLP if about themselves, or cited for someone's opinion on something, if that opinion is WP:DUE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• No I'm against all such overgeneralizations. This one even more so for the reasons discussed above. North8000 (talk) 21:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes: one of the most out-there publications of the crank left, and other editors (especially Bobfrombrockley, Mikehawk10) have shown their propensity to publish anything that conforms to the house bias, even if those contributors are not credible in any way whatsoever. Their propensity to continue to publish genocide denial and conspiracy theories casts a shadow on the entire source, and even if it's only a minority of articles, they are still publishing those articles. The RS policy requires sources to have editorial control, and I am not convinced that Counterpunch has such control, or if they do, they don't exercise it to the standards that we require of reliable sources. If this source wasn't entrenched in the perennial RIGHTGREATWRONGS arena of I/P, we wouldn't question deprecation; we've deprecated plenty of sources for publishing conspiracy theories and barely disguised state propaganda, after all. I also oppose any attempt to make carve-outs for experts; deprecation is deprecation, and we can't declare a source with editorial control an SPS because they publish something we agree with. If that was the case, what would stop someone citing the Scum if Chris Whitty decided to write an article about Covid precautions for the newspaper with the highest circulation in Britain? Sceptre (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• No (but in an ordinary RSN RfC I'd call them Option 3: generally unreliable): While they claim to have some sort of editorial process, it appears extremely likely that they in fact do not, or at least they don't really reject or correct submitted articles. This would make them a WP:SPS, and thus unreliable but not deprecatable. "Deprecated" in my view requires a source to be anti-reliable: not just that it publishes things that it hasn't verified but that it either actively and deliberately lies, or else things which it publishes can be relied upon to be false, which doesn't seem to be the case here. Loki (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes per my comments in the previous RfC. The above use-by-others argument is not very convincing. High-quality sources sometimes do cite unreliable sources for facts (e.g, Daily Mail). What's more important is determining what do reliable sources actually state about a particular source. In the last RfC, I included a quote from a study that described CP as a "an ostensibly left magazine that has given space to white nationalists and antisemites". If that's not convincing enough, let me look other sources state about CP.

• Publishing Russian Fake (and plagiarized) News As per Shelley Powers, "Donovan duped several far-left sites into publishing ‘her’ material. CounterPunch danced all around the issue in its effort to excuse it’s lax vetting. Ultimately, it accepted some blame…after first blaming the FBI. (this is not really surprising though, CP is supporter of Russia Today)
• The aforementioned Israel Shamir nonsense: "Shamir's byline is on two previous articles pillorying the Swedish women who complained about Assange. On 27 August, in Counterpunch, a small radical US publication, Shamir said Assange was framed by "spies" and "crazy feminists"...Shamir then wrote a piece of grovelling pro-Lukashenko propaganda in Counterpunch, claiming "the people were happy, fully employed, and satisfied with their government" Per Geoffrey Cain , "The notorious Holocaust denier, Israel Shamir, has been making the rounds among Cambodia watchers this week. This time, he’s praising Pol Pot in an article for the far-left magazine Counterpunch...We must admit we were swayed when Shamir provided conclusive proof that the KR genocides were either inept or out-and-out fabrications: he alerted us to the fact that the population of Cambodia has doubled since 1970. We eagerly await his next Counterpunch article, “Population of Europe has increased by a factor of six since 1939, therefore World War II never happened.”
• Falsehoods that have literally ended up on Wikipedia: "Counterpunch readers were recently informed that the Albert Einstein Institution plays “a central role in a new generation of warfare, one which has incorporated the heroic examples of past nonviolent resistance into a strategy of obfuscation and misdirection that does the work of empire.” Absolutely none of these claims is true. Yet such articles have been widely circulated on progressive websites and list serves. Such false allegations have even ended up as part of entries on the Albert Einstein Institution in SourceWatch, Wikipedia, and other reference web sites...In another article, recently posted on the Counterpunch web site, George Cicariello-Miller falsely accuses Sharp of having links with right-wing assassins and terrorists and offering training “toward the formulation of what was called ‘Operation Guarimba,’ a series of often-violent street blockades that resulted in several deaths.”
• Other falsehoods: "Even apart from being dated, the widely cited Counterpunch piece contains several inaccuracies. It misidentifies unaffiliated Education Minister Serhiy Kvit as a Svoboda member, describes national security chief Andriy Parubiy as a "co-founder of Svoboda" without mentioning his post-2004 move to moderate and even left-of-center parties, and promotes Dmitro Yarosh, head of the paramilitary group Right Sector, to deputy national security chief when in fact he sought that position but did not get it.
• Uighur genocide denial: "...Western far-left Xinjiang deniers use similar tactics. They question the motives of the U.S. government’s push against Chinese actions in Xinjiang and try to discredit researchers as well as the Uighur diaspora who speak out against the camps. They try to prove the reports are based on shoddy research while whole-heartedly accepting Chinese propaganda as fact. Some deniers write for smaller online publications such as Black Agenda Report, L.A. Progressive, Popular Resistance, and the magazine CounterPunch"

• That's just a small snippet of quotes/articles. I was unable to find any reliable sources who had something nice to say about Counterpunch (except the people who write for CP). Has anyone provided evidence from reliable third-party sources that CP is a quality, fact-driven magazine? If not, then this is a plainly a fringe source whose use should be avoided as much as possible. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 08:22, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment. Again all this greening outrage is useless. Dr. Swag Lord, I wrote in the earlier RfC your ostensible ‘evidence‘ against CounterPunch turns out under a cursory glance to be a shabby Potemkin Village charade of googled diffs which, if checked, collapses its compiler's agenda.’ You never replied. And now you are recycling that shambles with a few more bits whose gravamen collapses if checked. So once again.

• Dennis Morgan Why I Support Russia Today (and So Should You) Counterpunch 14 May 2018 So Counterpunch published one paper by a tenured professor of linguistics in defense of Russia Today. That is spun as ‘CP is supporter’ of Russia Today. Rubbish. Your inference is that of a database of 70,000 articles in CP, one advocating RT as deserving support means CP endorses it.
• Israel Shamir is an antisemitic or Jewish (if he is Jewish, which I personally doubt) self-hating nutter, no doubt. But if CP is deprecable because it once gave occasional space for his views then The Jewish journal The Tablet did an indepth interview with Israel Shamir (Will Yakowicz His Jewish Problem 1, His Jewish Problem 2. The The Tablet 17 May 2011) where this stooge was quoted at length with all of his moronic inanities, i.e. his views were set forth to a wider reading public. Does that mean we should deprecate The Tablet? No. Does the fact he was a conduit for WikiLeaks invalidate the content of Wikileaks or add one more nail to the coffining of Julian Assange. No.
• You quote Zunes’ papers again as an example of a source arguing ‘Falsehoods that have literally ended up on Wikipedia‘. Outrageously false
• Re Zunes I will just copy what I wrote when you first used it. I.e.

John Feffer, Stephen Zunes Sharp Attack Unwarranted 27 June 2008 refers among many other sources, to an article by George Ciccariello-Maher, Einstein Turns in His Grave. Counterpunch 16 April 2008 which (a) argues that Gene Sharp‘s Albert Einstein Institute is partially funded by the US State Department and (b) reproduces Gene Sharp’s response to the critique, asking also Cockburn and St. Clair to publish corrections and retract those statements. Feffer and Zunes don’t tell you that. They simply say it is outrageous that CounterPunch should have published a piece which raised concerns about that institute’s independence. Ciccariello-Maher‘s evidence strikes me as flimsy, but he has his sources. Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, both at times contributors to CounterPunch, have of course defended Sharp’s integrity. That is how open democratic discourse functions – nothing argued is suppressed, but vigorously debated.

• Other falsehoods? One article in CP got details of party attachment wrong ergo . . Well, the NYTs has posted articles written by staff supporters that the Golan Heights is in Israel, ergo?
• Cathy Young, writing for the economic libertarian Reason Free Minds Free Markets states that articles in The Guardian, by John Pilger, and in CP by Gary Leupp, ‘ Ukraine: The Sovereignty Argument, and the Real Problem of Fascism Ukraine: The Sovereignty Argument, and the Real Problem of Fascism CP 10 March 2014 get some technical details about the leaders there wrong. Pilger writes also for Counterpunch. So, is he reliable when writing the same things on the Guardian, but not reliable if he uses CP? As for Leupp, he is authoritative on Japan, perhaps also on gender issues, and the Far East generally. Has anyone used that article in CP on a topic area he has no familiarity with? No.
• You cite a two claims from a Coda Media (libertarian) and World, a Christian magazine that mentions CounterPunch as a denier of the Uyghur gulags. You take them at their word which is hostility to the ‘far-left’. I.e. you trust two pointy sources’s word. So why does counterpunch run the following articles?

Christopher Brauchli, Camps From Here to China 7 December 2018

Nick Pemberton, Does The Left Stand With Uighurs? CP 31 July 2020

Louis Proyect, Short History of Uighur Resistance 9 March 2021

J.P. Linstroth, Will Ethnocide in Western China Become Genocide? 8 March 2019

Nicky Reid, The Empire That Cried Genocide: Washington’s Exploitation of Ethnic Brutality from Rwanda to Xinjiang CP 7 January 2022

Ezra Kronfeld, China’s Persecution of the Uyghur People CP 20 September 2017

Louis Proyect, China, Saudia Arabia and the Fate of the Uyghurs CP 1 March 2019

Chandra Muzaffar, The Uighur Question: A Civil Society Solution CP January 4, 2019 (Neutral. Send a fact-finding mission)

On the other hand they hgosted Thomas Hon Wing Polin, Gerry Brown Xinjiang: The New Great Game 24 September 2018 which argued that Chinese measures are calculated to stamp out terrorism. Nonsense, but the other viewpoint is given

Julia Kassem Civil Rights Groups and Pro-war Republicans–An unholy Alliance in the Soft War Against China CP 12 April, 2019 idem

The only inference from that representative selection, if all are read together is that CP hosts a majority of articles deploring the Chinese camps (b) lends its pages to a neutral plea for an international committee to examine the contested places and verify or challenge the claims made by Uyghurs and Chinese (c) and allows 2 sceptics to outline their views. (d) Between (a) and (c) there is a common theme ignored by a large amount of the Western mainstream press consisting of the clear geopolitical interest selective US protests about Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs bears. I.e. there is a degree of hypocrisy in the US maintheming human rights abuses carried out by its major trade and imperial competitor, while maintaining a notorious silence when similar forms of ethnic violence are conducted by US allies. Counterpunch, in that regard, is quite useful in documenting the contradictions in US policy, hypermoralism re Uyghurs because China is a perceived threat, and amoralism for whatever its violent allies elsewhere do (Duarte in the Philippines for example). Note that it hadn’t a line: it gives several distinct perspectives. What so many editors are objecting to here appears to be dislike of hearing many sides to any complex narrative, esp. from a libertarian/leftist free-for-all argumentative magazine like CP. Why this discomfort with dissonance? We're hard wired to be complacent?Nishidani (talk) 18:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• I think you missed the point because no one is arguing that CP is a quality, fact-driven magazine. From what I have seen, CounterPunch is mainly an WP:OPINION outlet, and there is no evidence that they falsify their own authors' pieces. In this, as much I personally dislike it, I do not think it warrants deprecation, for they are criticism of opinion pieces written in the magazine. It does hit them, in that I would question anyone who would publish such things, but it does not warrant deprecation because WP:RSOPINION pieces by experts in their field (e.g. David Price) are routinely cited by academic and scholarly sources, and is what separate them from Stormfront; if deprecation, in practice, means that even such sources cannot ever be used, even though this is contrary to current deprecation rules, I am against this on pragmatic grounds, as it has failed.
• There is at least Adrian Chen in The New Yorker describing it as a "respected left-leaning" publication but I am not going to waste my time on this because there is already consensus it is generally unreliable, being an opinion-based magazine. As long as there is no evidence they have falsified the authors' pieces themselves, which would be proper grounds for deprecation, I see no reason not to use expert pieces alongside secondary coverage. In conclusion, I am not persuaded to change my ! by such arguments because I still find Aquillion's, Nableezy's, and Nishidani's counter-arguments strong enough, in particular that it does look like there was cherry picking and thinking CP as straight-news magazine rather than opinion magazine, when it is clearly the latter, and ignore published opinions against crackpots. They are not like the Daily Mail or Breitbart where they pretend to be fact-based, they mainly publish opinion pieces. Just today, they published an article about the nationalization of vaccine manufacturers by the author of Sex, Sin & Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York's Forbidden into America's New Normal (Skyhorse, 2015), and "Destroying Democracy: China in Hong Kong" by Mel Gurtov, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and editor-in-chief of Asian Perspective. Unless we have reliable sources calling this out, I do not think that makes those authors and scholars less reliable just because they chose to write an article for CounterPunch. In the end, unfortunately I have to agree with NSH001 below that the deprecation experiment has failed and I cannot support it. Davide King (talk) 18:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• No, certainly a reliable source for opinions per WP:RSOPINION. --Nug (talk) 06:43, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• No If an article written by an established expert and published in CounterPunch, it should be just as reliable as if it were self-published. This is unneccessary. TFD (talk) 06:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• No. I'm grateful to David Gerard for demonstrating, if unintentionally, why deprecating this "source" would be disastrous, and to Nableezy for his thorough debunking of the arguments from Bob and MikeHawk. --NSH001 (talk) 07:42, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• No. It mostly publishes opinion articles, and they may be used for what opinion articles are useful for, namely citing the opinion of the author. Gratitude to David Gerard and Nableezy, respectively, as above. --GRuban (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• No, as it is not clear that deprecated sources would be subject to WP:SPS usage, and in practice deprecation often leads to overly zealous removal. I sympathise with those who are rightly offended by much of the conspiracy theories in CounterPunch, but if we view it as a platform that has no real fact-based oversight, only one of selecting (or self-selecting) authors based on political views, then it should be clear that WP:SPS applies as much as it does on blog-hosting websites or any other way in which an expert may choose to write without peer review. That there is genuine usage for CounterPunch articles written by experts is demonstrated clearly by Zero0000, Nableezy and others. — Bilorv (talk) 22:17, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• No, per the excellent points made above by Nableezy, Aquillion, etc. Parabolist (talk) 22:35, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• No following Nableezy, Zero and Aquillion. The arguments for deprecation rely on cherry-picked lists of opinion pieces that the cherry-pickers disagree with. Not a reason for deprecation. Cambial — foliar❧ 00:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• No, mostly pr -NSH001. CP has pulished lots of expert opinion, which have been removed by David Gerard after the last RfC. Does anyone believe that CP falsifies these experts writing? Obviously not. It is true that CP also has published NRS; that can be dealt with on an individual basis. (Undisputeable WP:RS have also published untrue stuff (say, NYT and Saddam's WMD), and they have not always admitted it. Eg Luke Harding 100% false piece about Paul Manafort meeting Julian Assange is still up on The Guardian; nobody(?) wants to depreciate The Guardian for that), Huldra (talk) 21:51, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• No - I see counterpunch more as an opinion journalism hosting site than a news outlet. Some authors that publish through it are quite reliable, others are not reliable at all. That would mean that the determination should be based on the specific author, not the venue of publication. Blueboar (talk) 22:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• I wrote a long sarcastic comment and decided not to post it, but I'd like to add one more op-ed. [64] One wonders what the author meant when they said that a "violent solution" to the "(((Zionist))) question" (triple parentheses added by me to emphasize what the author really meant by that) would happen if Israel was not peacefully destroyed. It certainly cannot be a dogwhistle to Hitler's Final Solution to the Jewish Question which was done after Jews were not peacefully removed from occupied Europe & Nazi Germany. Anyways yes, deprecate this neo-Nazi anti-Semitic rag. The fact that people with Jewish-sounding names publish in it is meaningless when Alfred Rosenberg was one of the main Nazi theorists. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 03:25, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

  I know I said I wouldnt say anything else here, but that has to be responded to. Thats a pretty outrageous attack on a living person. The reference is to the Jewish question and Theodor Herzl's Der Judenstaat, in which he offers Palestine as the "Proposal of a modern solution for the Jewish question". not the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. The person you are slandering here, M. Shahid Alam, is also the author of a widely cited book called Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism. You should read it. Your Jewish sounding names bit is nearly as offensive as the rest. Im sure Norman Finkelstein Or Uri Avnery or Gideon Levy or Alan Dershowitz (yes he published there too) would appreciate being called somebody with a Jewish sounding name. nableezy - 03:41, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

  I can see bringing up the "Zionist question" and maybe even a "solution" to be innocuous, but bringing in a "violent solution" after the Jewish population fails to leave is pretty much directly comparable to the "Final Solution". And this isn't just one op-ed. This is many, many op-eds in the same magazine all using anti-Semitic dogwhistles about "zionists". How many dogwhistles do we have to see before we can admit there's a pattern in this publication? Even if we assume this individual author was completely innocuous in invoking "violent solutions" to a Zionist question that they openly admit is really an extension of the Jewish Question and totally meant an oblique reference to Theodore Herzl's "modern solution", it's very hard to believe that all these cases of op-eds are just people misinterpreting their words in an anti-Semitic manner. That there's no pattern of anti-Semitism at CounterPunch.

  And the Jewish sounding names bit is a reference to the people speculating about Israel Shamir and others being Jewish. The fact that someone has a Jewish sounding last name does not mean they cannot be an anti-Semite. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:24, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

That is not what the article says, it does not say anything about the Jewish population fails to leave, what it says is Israel cannot render justice to the Palestinians without abolishing its exclusively Jewish character, without dismantling the apartheid that grinds the Palestinians and No colonialism yet has restrained itself because the colonial masters had acquired a conscience. It was force that stopped them: countervailing force, with or without violence. That is the violence it refers to in the final sentence, a violence against colonialism and expansionism. You can disagree with calling Zionism colonialism, you can disagree with calling for it to not have an exclusively Jewish character, but you cannot make things up about what the article says in an attempt to paint a living person a racist and a neo-Nazi. That is beyond the pale, and in any normal circumstance you would be required to provide reliable sources for such slanderous attacks. This is the equivalent of reddit bros trying to solve the Boston marathon bombings, unqualified people on the internet attempting to dissect things they dont understand by cherrypicking whatever triggers their outrage meter. nableezy - 04:56, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

It's going to be incredibly hard to debate whether or not CounterPunch is dogwhistling anti-Semitism if we cannot provide examples of specific op-eds in which this dogwhistling seems to be apparent. You've said in another comment that "Theres a reason why editors shouldnt be cherry-picking things that, most importantly, nobody in their right mind would cite here", but now, when I'm choosing something other than the most blatant examples of really obvious anti-Semitism (I chose a slightly hidden example) you're accusing me of violating BLP pretty much immediately and saying I cannot use that op-ed to demonstrate my point. Pick one or the other, because I'm not seeing that here. Anyways, here's some more sources.

"What made the Jewish minorities different was that they carried a weight that far outweighed their numbers. Over the course of the nineteenth century, they had become an important, often vital, part of the financial, industrial, commercial, and intellectual elites in several of the most important Western countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States. Moreover, the most prominent members of these elites had cultivated ties with each other across national boundaries." [65]

Also written by this M. Shahid Alam person. Now, he's saying that the "Jewish elites" in many different countries had a bunch of control over the financial/commercial/etc industries and control over the intellectuals. He's also saying that these "elites" had some kind of deep connections with others across international boundaries. He says this created the background for this Zionist endeavour. What did he mean by this?

"Starting with World War II, the pro-Zionist Jews would slowly build a network of organizations, develop their rhetoric, and take leadership positions in important sectors of American civil society until they had gained the ability to define the parameters within which the United States could operate in the Middle East."[66]

What did he mean by this? These "Zionist Jews" decide to "build a network" in American civil society. Hmm...

Here's another fun op-ed where the author examines "Israeli exceptionalism" but bases it all on Jewish theology ensuring that Jews feel that they're a "master race" superior and dehumanizing others. [67] I'll link Antisemitic canard#Racism which shows that yes, the idea that the Jewish theology preaches that Jews are superior to the non-human others is an anti-semitic canard.

And here's another op-ed, where he says: "It was directed from the United States, where the Jewish community had grown to command considerable influence over the media, the Congress and the Presidency." [68]

There sure is a lot of language here. Talking about the Jewish elites working across borders, talking about how these Jewish elites had all this power in the finance industry, talking about how these Jewish elites have power in intellectual circles, talking about how these Zionist Jews were building a "network" in the United States, talking about about how these Zionist Jews feel as though they're superior to others due to their religion, and even talking about the Jewish control over the media/US government. Is this truly all just a coincidence that CounterPunch happens to publish all these pieces talking about the Jews control everything? Are we not allowed to use our judgement to even mention that this is anti-Semitism, and that CounterPunch has a long history of publishing anti-Semitism? Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 06:04, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

No, it is not incredibly difficult, what you would need to do is provide sources that say CP is dogwhistling antisemitism. As far as your latest set of cherries, those pro-Zionist Jews (you use that with scare-quotes as though you think such a thing does not exist) built and created such organizations as the American Jewish Conference, the American Zion Commonwealth, and the Jewish Federations of North America. And they all did contribute hugely to the success of the Zionist project. You keep using these scare quotes as though they betray something about the author and not yourself. Yes, when distinguishing between Zionist and non-Zionist Jews you may see somebody say "Zionist Jews". Again, you are making things up about Shahid. He does not say that Jewish theology preaches that Jews are superior to the non-human others. That is fabrication, repeated at that. nableezy - 06:18, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm using quotes to indicate direct terminologies taken from the author. One of the problems is the specific terms he is using. Saying that the theological doctrine of chosenness implies that Jews think they are a "master race"; implicitly being superior to others is part of that. Reading stuff like "The doctrine of election did not merely set the Jews apart from other nations; it also set them above other nations. Over time, this has encouraged racist tendencies". The idea that this fundamental theological doctrine to Judaism somehow "encouraged racist tendencies" is anti-Semitic. If some Jewish people happen to be racist and use their religion to justify that it's wrong; but alleging that they're racist because they were "encouraged" by the religion itself is a typical anti-Semitic canard. And again, you ignore pretty much all of the other terms. Sure, all of the organizations like the AJC or the AZC or whatever (you missed AIPAC?) you're talking about exist. But this person wasn't saying that the American Jewish Conference was founded to promote Zionism, he was complaining about how the Jewish community controls "the media, the Congress, and the Presidency". The idea that there's Jewish control over the media is a very common canard. So on and so forth. These are very common dogwhistles that are used by anti-Semites. Going out and using them makes a source unreliable in my view.

I'm not interested in drawing this out much further. At this point we're talking in circles. Neither of us is going to convince the other and we're past the post of being able to further elucidate our positions to observers through spirited debate. I guess throw in the last word because I probably won't reply to it. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 07:53, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Again, he does not say that, what he says is However, it was the theological doctrine of chosenness that would most convincingly settle the morality of Zionist claims to Palestine. and he cites This was starting point, the chief inspiration for nearly all the early Zionists. Anita Shapir writes: “One of the covert assumptions present among all the poet and the majority of Zionist thinkers and leaders was that Jews had a special right to the Land of Israel, that is, Palestine.” Ahad Ha-Am also commented that this was “a land to which our historical right is beyond doubt and has no need for farfetched proofs.” Anita Shapira, Land and power: The Zionist resort to force, 1881-1948 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992): 40-41. Again, you can disagree with his positions, but claiming some sort of racist or even more absurdly neo-Nazi intent is a BLP violation and you do need sources for such severe accusations. nableezy - 14:25, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

@Chess: I am (ethnically) Jewish and I'm behind Nableezy here on two points. The first is that, with the exception of the reference to "the Jewish question", I don't think that there's anything anti-semitic about that piece. (I think Nableezy is probably right about that being intended as a reference to a quote by Theodore Hertzl, but I still think the author shouldn't have used it, because it's far more well-known as an anti-semitic dog whistle than its use in an obscure pro-Zionist quote.) The rest of the piece distinguishes Zionism from Judaism reasonably well overall, and I don't think that an implicit call for violence against Israel, distasteful as it may be, is a call for violence against Jews in general. The second is that your own reference to "Jewish-sounding names" is itself very anti-semitic, seeing as it's attacking the Judaism of several Jews, and I'd like to request that you strike it. Loki (talk) 05:51, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

@LokiTheLiar: I just replied to Nableezy linking a bunch of other cases where the same author said a whole lot more interesting stuff. All of them in CounterPunch magazine. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 06:06, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

@Chess: Reading all your sources in more detail, I think you're mostly just cherry-picking quotes that sound bad out of context. The author repeatedly mentions Evangelical Zionists and non-Zionist Jews, and in fact goes out of his way to mention that most Jews at the time were not Zionist and did not behave as the early Zionist movement wanted them to, which sort of gives the lie to the idea that he's postulating some sort of Protocols-esque Jewish conspiracy.

One characteristic example of this cherry-picking is: [69], which you claim is an example of an antisemitic canard. You link Antisemitic canard#Racism to attempt to prove your point, apparently ignorant that critiques of the concept of chosenness are common within Judaism itself, and the very section you link links to Jews as the chosen people#ethnocentrism which goes over such criticisms in great detail. Yes, including specifically the idea that "Jews are the chosen people" is racist; that's really a very common critique among lefty Jews, to the point where the article on the concept of Jews as the chosen people goes into great detail over how Reconstructionist Judaism rejects the theological concept entirely specifically because they regard it as racist.

I would also, again, politely request that you strike your comment about "Jewish-sounding names", because it is, again, very anti-semitic. Loki (talk) 10:09, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I dont think there is even an implicit call to violence there, there is an explicit call to the West, and the US in particular, to institute non-violent pressure so as to forestall violence. nableezy - 06:17, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

And Chess, by the way, I dont even dispute that CP has published anti-semites and antisemitic columns, and I wish they had never had an association with ShahakShamir. I cant explain it besides attracted to the appeal of Wikileaks, but yes, it is certainly a mark against CP that they were ever associated with ShahakShamir. And I havent argued against that at all. But this is bs. nableezy - 06:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Nableezy. I think you are confusing two people who happen to be diametrically opposed in all dimensions: Israel Shahak with Israel Shamir, a golden apple (Sappho allusion) and something tasteless, indeed distasteful. I'm trying to resist the temptation to comment on the exchange above, triggered by an extraordinary ignorance of the tensions between Judaism and Zionism. Loki has the gist of that (thanks), but a glance at Michael Neumann, Jewish Opposition to Zionism Counterpunch 5 June 2006, not to get into the vast technical literature, would clarify much. Much of what Alam writes in his CounterPunch essays reflects a substantial vein of Jewish anti-Zionist literature (Timeline of anti-Zionism). You can hardly assault a scholar (of Arab background -is that the problem?) for familiarizing himself with extensive infra-Jewish polemics, many with a theological edge, in order to write a commendably trenchant and well-received book about these core issues. Nishidani (talk) 10:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

You right, fixed. nableezy - 14:22, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll just note: to a historian of Zionism there is nothing at all obscure about the phrase "the Jewish question" and none would associate it with Nazism without a Nazi context. Although it was often employed by antisemites, in the late 19th and early-mid 20th century "the Jewish question" was a ubiquitous phrase in Zionist circles (more than 5,000 hits in the Jewish newspapers online at the National Library of Israel). Predating Herzl, Leon Pinsker wrote in his seminal work Auto-Emancipation: "The age-old problem of the Jewish Question is causing emotions to run high today, as it has over the ages. Like the quadrature of the circle, it is an unsolved problem, but unlike it, it remains the burning question of the day." To a Zionist, the phrase represented the problem that Zionism was meant to solve, even if its exact meaning was difficult to pin down. In summary, it is a bad mistake to jump on the phrase in the context of a scholarly discussion of Zionism and impute ill motives to the author. Zero^talk 11:22, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Just as a follow-up note on Zero's point. The most influential early post-war analysis of anti-Semitism, that by Jean-Paul Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive,, published in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust (1946) uses the phrase without inverted commas. Since, in writing it, he never consulted any Jewish books, he was probably unfamiliar with its use as documented by Zero. That made no difference. For Sartre, posing a 'Jewish question' was, itself, problematic. Antisemites, in speaking of 'Jews' or venting their enmity, are, he concluded, talking only about (and revealing) themselves, and what they say has nothing to tell us of 'Jews', though it can have lethal consequences for the latter.Nishidani (talk) 10:12, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I have to agree that we do need secondary coverage, preferably scholarly and about the magazine as a whole to prove this and make it due and significant, rather than the primary sources themselves. If it was not for removing legitimate pieces written by experts in their field, especially when more reliable sources were added to prove it was due and warranted, deprecation may have been valid because, at least in theory, it can still be used in exceptional circumstances; however, I still do not think that CP hits the criteria for deprecation precisely because it can be used for more than exceptional circumstances, as for all its crackpots pieces, there is just an equal, and at this point I would say more, that are either written by experts in their fields, written by experts outside their field that are not totally fringe (contrary to others that may be) and may be fine for it as opinion (keeping in might weight), and normal opinion pieces like others in left-wing publications and opinion pieces in general. Davide King (talk) 09:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

We can find lots of reliable secondary sources, including major scholars of antisemitism, describing at as using dog whistle antisemitism or engaging in the denial and minimisation of antisemitism, including using such terms to describe the editors' own positions and those of books it has published (e.g. by Michael Neumann or Cockburn and St Clair) as well as op eds. The question is whether this is enough to deprecate. These are just opinion pieces that we shouldn't use for facts anyway and which would not likely be due as this isn't a reliable source. But if there is a consistent editorial policy to promote (or even deny) antisemitism that might push into deprecation territory. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:01, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

We should be really careful on deprecating sources where they have a stance against a topic that, broadly on Wikipedia we take one way due to broad scientific, academic, or scholarly agreement, but otherwise are not directly fabricating material or purposely leading a misinformation charges. Moreso when this is only one facet within the work's coverage. This would clearly make the source likely unreliable for citing facts (except about themselves), but not under RSOPINION, which then is guided for inclusion using UNDUE/FRINGE. That probably would make the source very unlikely to be used, but still accessible in case an opinion that is DUE is published within it. --Masem (t) 13:36, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes I think there is a consensus that the source is Generally unreliable but there is an argument that it prints sometimes experts in their fields so we can use it. And I ask myself if some expert would be printed in InfoWars can we cite it? And I say no if he chooses to print is such a source he could probably not find any other respectable outlets to print his views because it couldn't probably pass an editorial control or peer review--Shrike (talk) 12:03, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

If InfoWars changed their format and started to routinely publish respected, reliable experts (as CP does) - I would argue that we should re-evaluate our current assessment of InfoWars. Until then, however, the two are not comparable. Blueboar (talk) 15:17, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• I know that Wikipedia is not reliable but "InfoWars is an American far-right conspiracy theory and fake news website owned by Alex Jones." While they have published conspiracy theorists, I do not think "American far-left conspiracy theory and fake news online magazine" would be an accurate summary of CP according to reliable sources. InfoWars' pieces are not cited in academic publications for facts, while expert pieces in CP are. Such slippery slopes and fallacies do not help in convincing me to change my mind. Understanding Media Propaganda in the 21st Century: Manufacturing Consent Revisited and Revised (2021) is an interesting source but I do not have it and am not able to read what is the context. CP is described as "left-wing journal" and seems to be positively cited at p. 24. At p. 153, it is described as "notoriously right-wing fascist." Davide King (talk) 14:53, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

  The right wing is when Foley is commenting on https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/24/bill-gates-global-agenda-and-how-we-can-resist-his-war-on-life/ and the left wing when he comments on https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/22/90663/ and https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/14/the-ruling-classs-hatred-of-trump-is-different-than-yours/ (he refers to CP as "the same left wing outfit").Selfstudier (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• No, fits option 3, generally unreliable best of our standard RS/N options. They do publish garbage, but they have published quality material that we, as an encyclopedia, ought to be able to link to. I'd single out the many pieces of Edward Said, linked to in nableezy's opinion, which are a mixture of opinion and secondary sources, as resources we should not pass on. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:18, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• No per Aquillion, Nableezy, Nishidani et al., but especially per Davide King. The reductive tool of deprecation cannot properly handle a complex source like CP, which should better be treated as a collection of sources: each piece in CP speaks for itself and should be weighed for itself. We have sufficient tools to indivudually assess reliability of pieces published in CP on a case-by-case basis. Like Davide King, I find the fact that CP occasionally has allowed people to publish utter garbage on their agora of opinions just disgraceful. But whether we like this editorial practice or not: this fact doesn't render quality pieces in CP (written by established subject-matter experts published and cited in academic sources) worthless, or unciteable for our purposes. –Austronesier (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• yes A trashy site that promotes conspiracy theories, antisemitism, blatantly falls histoiric non senses, antivaxx theories and pseudoscientific narratives is for deprecation. Examples for how low this site can go are already given many times in this and previous RFC.Tritomex (talk) 10:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC) If any notable person writes something for disgraceful outlet and a notable secondary academic source makes reflection on that issue, it doesnt elevate the status of disgraceful outlet. We dont need to make special exceptions and give space for potencial violations of Wikipedia policy and standards.Tritomex (talk) 11:01, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

If you actually cite prior discussions, you should be familiar with them, and not distort them. The meme you repeat:'promotes conspiracy theories, antisemitism, blatantly falls histoiric non senses, antivaxx theories and pseudoscientific narratives' has, in its ostensible details, been shown to be deeply problemical, in those earlier discussions, and here. A cogent vote, per WP:CONSENSUS, relies on quality judgment and personal familiarity with the topic, not the repetition of a hostile and frail assumption.Nishidani (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Nishidani accusing me in countless occasions for different kind of unconstructive attitude sometimes like now through personal atacks and labeling my views as hostile and fraile assumptions, while you got above a clear list (by Mikehawk10, to which I would add artickles published by a racist Holocaust denier under the pseudonym of Israel Shamir) that proves my words is a violation of WP:CIVIL.Tritomex (talk) 15:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh dear. It's not a personal attack. I am outlining what best procedure calls for. So far, unlike the other, travesty of procedure, this has been a very level-headed discussion on all sides, with arguments and evidence, and counter-arguments and evidence. You used the word 'promote'. By its nature, CP doesn't 'promote' anything other than a wide variety of basically counter-mainstream views. There is zero evidence that it promotes Holocaust-denial: to the contrary.Nishidani (talk) 17:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Folks… we DO have the option of deprecating individual contributors to CP, without deprecating CP as a whole. That might resolve some of the issues here. Blueboar (talk) 16:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

  Good idea, individual contributors are also sources. Mind you, I remain unclear as to how many of these awful sources have actually been cited by anyone. Selfstudier (talk) 16:27, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

  Certainly Israel Shamir's opinions, wherever they appear, CP or elsewhere should be deprecated. His views on Russian policies constitute virtually all that he contributed to CP, and they are useless. But I don't think this would be a CPO-specific issue. Nishidani (talk) 17:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

  There are more than a dozen CP contributors who could be deprecated just on the evidence presented in this RfC. --RaiderAspect (talk) 14:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• Mark as generally unreliable, but allow usage of certain authors - Chomsky and Price are examples of probably usable writers in their specific fields of expertise, but given the sheer amount of garbage this site has been shown above to publish, we generally shouldn't be using this at all except for those very small areas where the author would meet WP:SPS and WP:DUEWEIGHT. Hog Farm _Talk 22:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• Yes I'm sorry, but any source which would knowingly publish 9/11 and ZOG conspiracy theories is on the same level as InfoWars, and this doesn't appear to have been a one-time thing. Trying to blame it on the contributor instead of the publisher is not how this works, the publisher is the one that chooses what gets published. If they're repeatedly publishing conspiracy theories, then I can't trust anything they put out, no matter who wrote it. Those expert authors should pick a more respectable venue if they want to disseminate their ideas. Mlb96 (talk) 04:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

' If they're repeatedly publishing conspiracy theories. .' Yes, of course, but they have not repeatedly done any such thing. Its founder and many contributors have, as shown, written numerous essays pulling apart a conspiratorial mindset.Nishidani (talk) 11:15, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I would strongly recommend you to strike that comment. Numerous cases of Counterpunch publishing conspiracy theories have posted in the course of this discussion. --RaiderAspect (talk) 14:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

References

References

Verlag Dr. Kovač

Does anyone know anything about Verlag Dr. Kovač? Is it a reputable publisher? This query is prompted by me seeing that MigracijeHrvata has added references to books they've published to a significant number of articles. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Looks like it might be a pay-to-publish outfit. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Convenient contribs link -> contributions

The editor in question seems to add sources from only one author, there are journal articles also added not published by that publisher. Consider warning the editor that promotional WP:CITESPAM is not allowed and if they don't stop, go to ANI. RoseCherry64 (talk) 19:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

(Sorry, didn't realize you were an admin.) RoseCherry64 (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

No problem! Yes, I did consider that too. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank You! Verlag Dr. Kovač is a renowned publisher of scientific literature from Hamburg, Germany: https://www.verlagdrkovac.de/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by MigracijeHrvata (talk • contribs) 19:58, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Dispute over unreliable sources

Currently, there is a dispute on article Battle of Peshawar (1758) where the user keeps adding unreliable sources. So I would like to have a Yes or No vote from all editors whether the source is reliable or not according to your opinion. These sources are: Book: Chhatrapati Shivaji The Maratha Warrior and His Campaign By Jeneet Sorokhaibam · 2013
and
Book: Third Battle of Panipat by Abhas Verma ISBN 9788180903397 Bharatiya Kala Prakashan

Article [70], under section "Others" shows that author Jeneet Sorokhaibam is not reliable. This is what it says:

Chhatrapati Shivaji: The Maratha Warrior and His Campaign by Jeneet Sorokhaibam (Vij Books, 2013)For example, see page 139: "Afzal Khan felt that the ensuing battle..." Copied from the 2012 version of the Wikipedia article on Afzal Khan (general).

Also author Abhas Verma is not reliable as he has no professional expertise in the historical academic area and is actually an IT professional working for a company in Bangalore, India. He stated that he is writer by choice. Also the writer is a regular user on quora as well and a blogger. Here is his profile, [71]. Also this user's/author's account was banned on quora [72] but rejoined with a new account [73].

Please provide your opinion(s) with Yes or No on the reliability, so that the dispute about the above references can be resolved? MehmoodS (talk) 23:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• No Opinion (Summoned by bot) - Unfortunately, this RFC doesn't give me any information to enable me to make an informed decision about reliability of the source. What I can see is that the poster doesn't like the source. Is there a dispute about what the article should say, or is this a case of two editors who disagree about everything? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Robert McClenon - The information is provided about both authors and how they are unreliable. One of the author, Jeneet's, unreliability is also mentioned in Wikipedia article [74]. There is no dispute over the content. Just dispute over the above two sources. I consider them unreliable whereas the other editor who is using these references, consider them reliable. That is why I just needed opinions from the information I provided above. MehmoodS (talk) 17:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Can we please not make everything in to an RFC here? This is about a specific source for a specific sentence in a specific article. You do not need an RFC for that. nableezy - 17:18, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

nableezy - I added to RFC because of the lack of response or comments. This is about two sources only which I mentioned above and their unreliability. So just needed opinion or comments. Please do take a look at the information provided above and provide your opinion. MehmoodS (talk) 17:59, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The sources are clearly not reliable, but RFCs are for more general things than this one book in this one article. Can you remove the RFC tag? nableezy - 18:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, right away. And thank you for the feedback. MehmoodS (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

These writers don't seem to be reliable historians. Use academic historians publishing in academic sources if you can. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Itsmejudith - Thank you for the feedback. MehmoodS (talk) 17:59, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

On the topic, the publisher's about us page just says "About us", there is no indication of any expertise by the author, and yes it appears to have plagiarized from Wikipedia. So yes, unreliable. nableezy - 18:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• I would agree that any source that plagiarizes from Wikipedia is unreliable. Firstly for the plagiarism, and secondly for the choice of WP as it’s source material. Blueboar (talk) 22:35, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - Just one phrase matching with wikipedia in the whole book cant be called as plagarism, it is likely by coincidence. Crashed greek (talk) 14:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

your vote is not valid as you are part of the dispute. Its for 3rd opinions to vote. MehmoodS (talk) 14:57, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

• • MehmoodS… First, this isn’t a vote. It is a discussion. Second, if participants in a dispute can not comment then that would make your initial complaint invalid as well (as you are also a participant). No, we definitely want to hear (briefly) from both sides in any dispute here, as there may be factors and nuances that we are unaware of.

IF, as Crashed Greek says, the overlap between the source and Wikipedia is just one sentence… that does put the accusation of “plagiarism” into question. Blueboar (talk) 16:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

It is more than one sentence, compare https://books.google.com/books?id=ngCqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139 (apparently in the blacklist already so cant link) with our article in 2012. Most of the section War against the Marathas is lifted from our article, word for word. nableezy - 16:19, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, if this has already been included on the spam blacklist (and it is, search for ngCqCQAAQBAJ in MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist, discussed here), getting around that restriction by linking to the Google Books India url seems somewhere on the spectrum between clueless and intentionally disruptive. nableezy - 16:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Actually, even more than that, go back a page to https://books.google.com/books?id=ngCqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA138 and youll see the rest of the section there. It is a direct copy. nableezy - 16:31, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah… I would say that is “more than one sentence”. Good to know. Blueboar (talk) 16:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Point noted Blueboar as I thought this noticeboard worked same as vote for noticeboard whether to keep or delete an article. MehmoodS (talk) 17:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Actually, we are OK with participants commenting (briefly) in deletion discussions/votes too. But no harm. Blueboar (talk) 17:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

• That is well researched Nableezy. Makes it very crisp and clear on the unreliability of these sources. MehmoodS (talk) 17:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Academic ranking sites (AcademicInfluence.com, EduRank.org, OneClass.com)

I've noticed a handful of websites in use in articles on educational institutions as well as BLPs of academics, often used to give a rank, e.g. "named one of the top 10 professors of X university in 2018" or "X college is ranked 5 in [state/province], 85 in [country] and 5859 in the world". This raises questions of WP:PROMO, WP:DUE, and reliable sources. The methodology varies from site to site, but I get the impression none are anywhere near the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking. Should any of these be considered reliable sources?

• AcademicInfluence.com is currently used in at least 18 articles. It uses an InfluenceRanking™ engine to assign a score, which it describes thusly: The InfluenceRanking engine calculates a numerical influence score for people, institutions, and disciplinary programs. It performs this calculation by drawing from Wikipedia/data, Crossref, and an ever growing of body of data reflecting academic achievement and merit. They describe the methodology in more detail here. According to the founder and president: "How do we know who is an influential person? ...Primarily, we look at Wikidata, the text associated with Wikipedia, and the abstracts, titles, references, keywords in publications found at Crossref.org." The website and some college rankings are described at College and university rankings in the United States#Academic Influence rankings, and its staff and advisory board are described here. Statements currently citing academicinfluence.com include William Lane Craig "the thirteenth most influential philosopher in the world over the previous three decades (1990-2020) and the world's fifth most influential theologian over the same period."[75][76]. Nearly all coverage I could find was press releases (or articles that strongly resemble them) touting such and such's ranking.[77][78][79][80][81][82]

• EduRank.org is currently used or mentioned in at least 26 articles. They describe their methodology here, but their staff is not displayed on the website. It seems EduRank gives a variety of ranks and metrics primarily to institutions (e.g. Concordia University, as well as ranked lists of "100 Notable alumni.

• OneClass.com is used as a reference in about 5 articles, outside of its own article. OneClass appears primarily a student note-sharing service that also offers blogs (presumably authored by college students), that are currently to discuss the rising cost of Education in Canada, what to expect at your first year at the Campus of Stony Brook University, and Ellen Spiro's place among the top ten professors at UT Austin. In apparently the only case of Wikipedia using OneClass for its primary purpose, it cites lecture notes on the work of Willie Drye.

As I see it, EduRank and OneClass are unreliable sources: WP:QUESTIONABLE at best, and the latter largely user-generated. AcademicInfluence has more transparency and web 2.0 gimmicks but nearly everywhere I see its use it appears to be WP:PUFFERY or academic boosterism at worse, or WP:UNDUE emphasis of a ranking posted on an arbitrary website launched in 2020 that uses DARPA funding, algorithms, and Wikidata/Wikipedia, that risks a potentially WP:CIRCULAR situation or SEO vortex as more Wiki presence means higher ranking. I would advocate none be used on biographies (living or dead), and Academic Influence be used with caution, if at all, in articles, even with attribution. Other thoughts? --Animalparty! (talk) 00:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't even see the questionable part of the debate, if they use wikipedia they are using "unreliable data" and can not be used.Slywriter (talk)2

I guess it could depend on how much of "and an ever growing of body of data reflecting academic achievement and merit" is also used in their algorithm, but more importantly, do any independent sources recognize or mention AcademicInfluence rankings? I'm admittedly I'm not very knowledgeable with academic metrics or collegiate rankings, other editors may have additional insight. Also, I thought it best to have an open discussion and consensus here before any largescale removals. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't see why any of these would be worth citing under, well, pretty much any circumstance. Fluff, SEO, departmental self-aggrandization, and more fluff. XOR'easter (talk) 05:02, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

There are various fairly official rankings of institutions, but even there we have to be extremely careful to be consistent and not cherry pick. Wikiproject Universities keeps a close eye. This kind of stuff is only a pain in the neck for us. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't have any questions about reliability: of course these sites are reliable for what they themselves say and their own rankings of institutions and people. But that doesn't mean that we should include them in our articles. It's incumbent on any editor who believes these should be included to convince us that these rankings are reputable e.g., used by scholars, reported by appropriate media (not press releases by highly ranked subjects). I am extremely skeptical that such arguments could be made (and I'm removed several dubious ranking systems from articles on these grounds). ElKevbo (talk) 00:07, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• Whether a ranking is used as WP:PUFFERY is a question that should be answered on an per-case basis. The mere likelihood that it will be used as such doesn't make it unreliable. On reliability, the information these sites are reporting is just their own rankings, so I concur with ElKevbo that they're reliable for themselves, but that the pertinent question is more whether they are ever WP:DUE. I suspect that the answer is probably "rarely or never", but that's not something we can do something about at this noticeboard.
  Another point: U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking isn't a very good comparison as a more "reliable" ranking source, since their methodology is highly questionable; the difference is just that they're far more popular. And when it comes to our coverage of rankings, popularity is the main factor we should be weighing—giving more weight to some than others because we like them better ("more reliable") would be inappropriate editorializing. There's a little room for emphasizing what the most reliable sources tend to say about rankings (not good things) and for giving a bit of preference to rankings that measure particular more objective things (e.g. highest salary from a government database) rather than combining a bunch of subjective methodology. But we shouldn't go any farther than that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I had this issue with Ontario Tech University (formerly UOIT) recently where likely COI editors kept trying to insert these rankings into the article. [83] It's not always boosterism is what I'm getting at. Sometimes universities will actually hire editors to puff up their articles, believe it or not. They need to get their enrollment numbers up. Personally, I'd prefer we just standardize on one ranking system for a geographical area and mandate that all universities in that area use said ranking system, to avoid for editors trying to game the system by using obscure rankings. So U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking for the US, Maclean's for Canada, so on and so forth. No rankings on weird qualitative measures, no subrankings with respect to specific programs, just one consistent ranking system. Presumably subparts of a university like law or med schools can get broken out rankings as they're separately administered a lot of the time, but I'd like to see a "one rank one article" rule. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 09:24, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

We're getting off topic from the purpose of this noticeboard, but to reply, it's unfortunately not quite as simple as that. For instance, if say, the Mormon Church published a "best colleges for Mormons" ranking, it'd probably be due for Brigham Young University to mention their ranking on it. I think the bigger thing we need to do is retitle rankings sections to "Reputation and rankings" and start including scholarly citations characterizing an institution's overall academic reputation. It's harder to do that than to just list rankings, but it's not impossible and ultimately far more useful to readers. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:33, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb: That particular hypothetical wouldn't be DUE since the LDS Church sponsors BYU, and I think we want to discourage universities from creating lists to rank themselves highly. You really think the Mormons are going to rank BYU as anything other than number 1? I'd personally find it a fascinating fact if they didn't. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 07:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Byline Times

Doubts have been raised at Talk:Great Barrington Declaration about whether this is an RS based upon claims it is "a fringe website outlet that's also come under criticism for indulging in conspiracy theories".

So is it an RS?Slatersteven (talk) 15:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Again? [84] Alexbrn (talk) 15:47, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Addendum This is specifically about using articles written by Nafeez Ahmed as a source.Slatersteven (talk) 16:12, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I raised this question on the GBD talk page above in part because the Byline Times citations are from Nafeez Ahmed as noted above. Some context: Ahmed has a long and detailed history of promoting 9/11 Truth conspiracy theories such as the controlled demolition of the twin towers, conspiracies about the hijackers still being alive, etc. Ahmed appears to have lots of fans online nonetheless who contest that he's a 9/11 Truther, but you can see it directly on his own website here with an article promoting all sorts of 9/11 conspiracy theories: [85]. As further background, Ahmed used to be a columnist for the Guardian before the Byline Times picked him up. He was fired in 2014 after he wrote a glowing profile of conspiracy theorist Robert David Steele that you can still find here: [86]. I don't want to weigh into the personal politics around this guy, but the fact that he has a clear history of conspiracy theorizing & that it led to his job at the Byline Times should be taken into consideration in evaluating the source, because he is also one of the Byline Times's most prominent columnists. FranciscoWS (talk) 16:23, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Our article on Nafeez Ahmed does not seem to reflect what you are saying? Selfstudier (talk) 16:31, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

This is like the worst potted history of someones bio I have read in a long time. Both factually inaccurate and seemingly intending to misrepresent Nafeez's positions.

Even a cursory glance would show Nafeez was fired following a very specific article about Gaza.

I would questions Francisco's POV about Nafeez regardless of Byline Times status. Koncorde (talk) 16:34, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I am unsure our article about him is an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 16:38, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

It isn't, but it contains a fair number of citations that seem to contradict what is being said here. Apart from the unsourced assertion about why the firing from the Guardian.Selfstudier (talk) 16:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

This is why I'm raising the issue of him as a RS in the talk page & here, as opposed to proposing direct edits to the articles. The links above show clear-cut examples of Ahmed promoting fringe theories on 9/11, and fringe figures such as Robert David Steele. If these are not reflected in Ahmed's WP bio, that suggests there are related issues of pro-Ahmed bias in his WP article. FranciscoWS (talk) 16:45, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

No it does not read wp:v, a source has to say it you can't infer it by reading a primary source (see wp:or). This is how you are reading his bio, you need RS backing your claims.Slatersteven (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Is the GBD article the only reason for creating your account? Selfstudier (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

This is a direct quotation from Ahmed's published work on 9/11. Regardless of what anyone thinks of him, is this a reliable mainstream viewpoint? Should its author be treated as a reliable source? "So what about 9/11 specifically? Five years on, even core elements of the official narrative taken for granted by the 9/11 Commission Report, remain absurdly unresolved. To this day, for example, the real identities of most of the alleged hijackers are unknown. In this year’s volume of the peer-reviewed journal Research in Political Economy, edited by economics professor Paul Zarembka of New York State University, Jay Kolar reviews credible reports from the BBC, CNN, and other mainstream sources around the world, confirming that “at least ten of those named on the FBI’s second and final list of 19 have turned up and been verified to be alive, with proof positive that at least one other ‘hijacker’, Ziad Jarrah, had his identity doubled, and therefore fabricated”. Kolar argues that since many of the alleged hijackers are now alive, they must have had ‘doubles’ using their identities as aliases." [https://www.nafeezahmed.net/thecuttingedge//2006/09/interrogating-911.html} — Preceding unsigned comment added by FranciscoWS (talk • contribs) 17:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

This unsigned + 2006 link adds nothing here. Byline Times seems RS on the face of it, not a "fringe website outlet", so absent some smoking gun, I would say reliable. If disputing what is said, then it ought to be possible to cite other sources with a different POV instead of trying to shoot the messenger. Selfstudier (talk) 17:18, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• Previous discussion here. I think Byline is a quite good source in general (very professional and experienced editorial team) if a little sensationalist. Care needs to be taken distinguishing news items (filed under "Fact" or "Reportage") and opinion items (filed under "Argument") which are only distinguished by colour-coding, which is a bit confusing. Even more confusingly, Ahmed's articles don't seem to be colour-coded and categorised. I'd say that he has done some useful investigatory reporting in his career, but also that he has produced a lot of highly dubious conspiracist stuff and should be used with attribution and caution. I think his Great Barrington reporting stands up, but best to be very clear about attribution, be explicit about his claimed sources, and where possible correlate with other sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:28, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

His stuff isn't conspiracist though, it's pointing out the unanswered, or subsequently found to be inaccurate stories. That he questions aspects of an official narrative where he actually demonstrates why the official narrative has gaps is not an equivalence with being a conspiracy theorist (and he has repeatedly criticised such CT's).

Meanwhile Francisco contonues to misread basic English. Specifically the quote provided here, as a basic example, shows Ahmed is quoting Kolars work as part of a body of peer reviewed research. There is nothing dubious or fringe about the points being made: genuinely the commission didn't answer the question of the identities of the hijackers - only the identities of the hijackers on the paperwork that they used. Lack of remains etc has resulted in discrepancies. Koncorde (talk) 22:29, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• I note that BT have Peter Oborne on their payroll who wrote the very valuable https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/british-journalists-have-become-part-of-johnsons-fake-news-machine/ - this doesn't really answer the original question but it positively disposes me to them. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Quite a decent source and no red-flags. This is not a venue for original research (and potentially BLP-violating comments) on Nafeez Ahmed and I feel that FranciscoWS is looking at a TBan. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:55, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Srivastava Group

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

The main websites of the network are newdelhitimes.com  , eptoday.com  , timesofgeneva.com  

I propose the following:

• Blacklisting of the above mentioned websites
• Blacklisting of other identified websites by referring them at WT:BLIST on an ad hoc basis (this will prevent the need for repeated RSN discussions for each individual website)

Tayi Arajakate _Talk 02:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Survey (Srivastava Group)

• Support as proposer. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 02:49, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Delhi Times (newspaper) for further discussion about this group. Multiple newspaper articles reported on the findings by https://www.disinfo.eu/publications/uncovered-265-coordinated-fake-local-media-outlets-serving-indian-interests/. The number of total sites is quite large. And additional information is in Fake_news_in_India#Fake_news_against_Pakistan. -- rsjaffe 🗩 🖉 03:25, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support Per nomination. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:33, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support. This is pretty easy to support. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 09:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support. No brainer. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:38, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support indeed obvious Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:55, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom as unambiguous. Chompy Ace 00:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support from everything I have seen, it's all copyright violations or fake news. --SVTCobra 01:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (Srivastava Group)

• Note I'm opening this RfC after the discussion above at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § EP Today and because there appears to be UPE attempts at legitimising these websites, see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard § New Delhi Times (newspaper). Blacklisting these websites was also previously briefly discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 281 § Indian fake media. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 02:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
• I've extracted the 260 sites listed in the map that is associated with the report. Note that there are other sites listed in the text of the report that are not in the list. Due to the length of the list, I'm placing it a subpage of my user page rather than here: List of alleged fake news sites -- rsjaffe 🗩 🖉 21:11, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Britannica: a "strong reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"?

Encyclopaedia Britannica's RSP entry currently includes the statement that it has a strong reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. My question is, is this actually true? In the 2005 Nature study comparing Britannica to Wikipedia, it was noted that the exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, with an average of three errors in each scientific article[87]. In my own experience, I have encountered many errors or out of date information in Britannica.

When I tried to remove this sentence from the RSP entry, @Headbomb: reverted me, stating that it was supported by the reputation section of the Encyclopædia Britannica Wikipedia article. Which is sourced to "Purchasing an Encyclopedia: 12 Points to Consider" by the American Library Association from 1996, "Kister's best encyclopedias : a comparative guide to general and specialized encyclopedias" by Kenneth Kister in 1992, and "Encyclopedias, Atlases & Dictionaries", by Amy Lewis and Marion Sader in 1995. None of these references include any page numbers, and I am unable to verify any of the claims.

The fact that Britannica contains numerous errors and is often out of date has long been known, going back decades. While some of the online entries are written by subject matter experts, most are anonymous, credited to "The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannia", which means that it is unclear if the article was written by subject matter experts. Some of the named entires are not by subject matter experts at all. Including sentences like "strong reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" implies that it is a good, citeable source, when ideally Wikipedia should not be citing General Encyclopedias like Britannica at all. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:10, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the Nature article is sufficient to call Britannica's reputation into question (it's really discussing it in a different context.) More generally I think that sources have to be, to an extent, evaluated in comparison to other sources of the same type and format - the whole point of that article, by my reading, is that it is using Britannica as a "gold standard" to measure Wikipedia against, so it's effectively saying that that errors are normal in encyclopedias due to their size and broad scope. This is something that has to be taken into account when citing broad reference works. I feel that rather than focusing on Britannica specifically, it might be worth tweaking WP:TERTIARY to advise a bit more caution and to make it clear that such sources are, as a category, generally a step below more focused high-quality sources. In my experience when someone starts citing an encyclopedia or a dictionary on something controversial it's almost always a sign of underlying problems, especially if the tertiary work contradicts more dedicated sources of comparable quality. Their purpose is usually to provide a vague and general overview to let the casual reader orient themselves, not to provide perfect accuracy or the most up-to-date scholarship. (Exceptions exist, of course.) --Aquillion (talk) 22:22, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you are saying. The issues I have with Britannica are really issues with non-specialist tertiary sources generally. Unfortunately, there are people who insist that Britannica is a reliable source above specialist sources, see Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources/Archive_6#Encyclopedia_Britannica. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:40, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I will agree to such a disclaimer at WP:TERTIARY. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:01, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Given some of the tripe they have published in the past (yes Murrey I am looking at you) I am unsure they should be an RS. Maybe they have changed and have peer review now (if they do muy opinion would alter) but if they do not and still just pick a currently well-known expert to create an entry it may not be all that much cop. It is only as good as who writes the article.Slatersteven (talk) 16:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

It's good that EB is not listed as "generally reliable" in RSP. The phrase about "strong reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" is puffery and could as well be expanded with "full with inconsistencies and obsolete content". Some articles in EB are wildly inconsistent and reminiscent of user-generated content, and it is often easy to see that some sections in an article have been updated in the last ten years, while other parts of the same article haven't been touched for more than 40 years. Updates are at times lede-focused, again reminding of user-generated content: I have seen articles where the further down I scroll, the more I recognize (outdated) stuff I have read as a kid in the 15th edition. –Austronesier (talk) 16:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

EB is often useful for establishing common views on topics. There are areas it is outdated, but Wikipedia can pick and choose what to exclude we are flexible that way. No single source must accepted as writ. EB at least tries to be right it's not terrible. Like any source use common sense if something is obviously outdated and don't rely entirely on tertiary sources. -- GreenC 17:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Agree, EB is valuable for assessing topic ranges, general notability and also due weight. But they would make a better job if they at least overtly indicated when an article was last updated. And as Slatersteven indicated, some articles are in effect primary, not tertiary sources (whenever an expert can write uninhibitedly presenting his own POV of a topic). –Austronesier (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I avoid using tertiary sources (as defined by Wikipedia policy) as sources. If there are errors, it is difficult to prove, since they don't provide footnotes. Take for example their article on U.S. conservatism. It says, "In matters of foreign policy, however, the Old Right, as these staunch conservatives [opponents of FDR] were known."[88] In fact they were not known as the Old Right until another group emerged decades later that called themselves the New Right. If EB used footnotes, we could trace it back to when the error was first made. One of their editors might have misread a source, but equally the source they used may h

Another problem is that tertiary sources often oversimply issues, particularly in social sciences.

So I agree that the problem is with the guideline.

TFD (talk) 14:01, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I concur with TFD that the lacks of references or footnotes (at least in the online edition) is a serious issue. It makes any statement of fact made in Britannica completely inscrutable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:22, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I think too many people make a fundamental error about the nature of reliable sources. RS ≠ Infallible. Even the best sources will occasionally get something wrong. Or some information may not be up to date. If there is doubt regarding a claim of fact in an RS, then we try to find corroborating statements from other RS. The system is imperfect. But it does work, most of the time. And IMO EB is very definitely a reliable source with an excellent track record of fact checking and overall accuracy. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Ad Orientem, wouldn't you agree that it's a lot easier to resolve errors when the sources we use themselves provide sources? In the example I gave, where EB said that conservatives in the 1930s were known as the "Old Right," it would a lot easier to disprove if they provided references and we could see that they made an error or perhaps their source did. In that case we could look at the evidence the source provided. I have come across many of these types of misinformation where the sources do not provide sources. It's hard to prove a negative. TFD (talk) 20:21, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Unquestionably it would be helpful. But it is what it is, and we have to deal with things as they are. When in doubt double check with other sources. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I’m not sure the ability to check the underlying source is always helpful - except in very obvious and very factual errors. The danger is that drifts into the WP:OR of questioning the RS’s interpretation of other sources. I’ve seen discussions where this has happened and, in practice, the outcome is an editor claiming their OR interpretation of the underlying source is superior to the RS’s interpretation…under the guise of a “factual” error by the RS. It’s better to check against other RS’s and establish were the balance of RS’s are on the issue per NPOV. DeCausa (talk) 08:15, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• The RSP entry should not be based on the WP article but from the discussions at RSN. —PaleoNeonate – 05:58, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: In my experience, this resource's coverage of folklore topics is often objectively bad. It does not appear to be a reliable source for such topics. :bloodofox: (talk) 07:15, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• I also consider Britannica to be a poor source. Not so much on actual facts but I feel it oversimplifies complex narratives and subject to be digestible to readers as secondary school pupils. I generally avoid using it, but I wont challenge it either, unless there is reasonable doubt. Cinadon36 09:42, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with removing the quoted language and also think the entire entry should be significantly shortened. It's yellow and the entry should say it's a tertiary source, reliability is varied, don't use it unless there is really nothing better out there, not for controversial BLP statements. (Typical yellow.) Levivich 16:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• While I'd like to think the good work of anonymous people on the internet qualifies WP as a reliable source, it doesn't. I also want published, verifiable back-up that supports allegations or anecdotal information alleging errors and misinformation in any reliable source, including tertiary sources like Britannica. To compare WP to reliable tertiary sources like the Encyclopedia Britannica or Britannica Academic is quite a ^[stretch], but at the same time, I'd certainly like to believe it's true despite the pragmatist in me. I also wouldn't give much credence to opinions in an article published back in 2005 regarding the blanket reliability of WP, much less Britannica. Citing sources is, in and of itself, subjective considering human nature. According to libguides, Britannica as well as some of the specialty encyclopedias are considered reliable, but when in doubt, find more sources to corroborate the material. See the indented policy section in WP:Tertiary or check with some of the university libraries as to the reliability of Britannica. Atsme 💬 📧 08:04, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment that EB has "strong reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" is way too strong... EB is a middling source at best with a reputation for a rather loose take on fact checking and not exactly a strict sense of accuracy but more a "thatle do" approach. The content written by subject matter experts is somewhat usable but most of it simply isn't. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:37, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Lakbay ng Lakan

• URL: https://lakansining.wordpress.com/

Can this be considered as a trusted source for articles on Philippine architecture and public art, like List of city and municipal halls in Metro Manila? Example of an article of Lakbay ng Lakan: https://lakansining.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/marikina-city-hall-a-vision-of-a-revitalized-city-government/. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 01:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

No. It's a blog, and I can't see that the author is an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. –Austronesier (talk) 16:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC on Next Avenue

Am wondering if the website Next Avenue can be considered a reliable source for information within a BLP. Article: Morrison Polkinghorne, url of source is here. Appears to have an editorial staff, is published by PBS, and claims to adhere to the PBS Standards and Practices (which looks like it means this source qualifies as generally reliable). I was not able to find any discussion of it in the archives. What do others think? A loose necktie (talk) 02:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Why wouldn't it be? I'm curious to know why you think this rates an RfC. Edit war? — Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 04:21, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

A previous editor of the article, Vexations had marked the source as possibly unreliable. A loose necktie (talk) 07:07, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I felt that WP:FORBES applied there. The actual source is not Forbes, they just republished https://www.nextavenue.org/cambodia-second-act-business/. It would be better to cite the original and consider whether THAT is reliable. Note that the article is part of "America's Entrepreneurs," a Next Avenue initiative made possible by the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation and EIX, the Entrepreneur Innovation Exchange. Vexations (talk) 15:21, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

That is what we are doing here. The source in the article has been changed to indicate its origin. WP:FORBES may have seemed appropriate at first glance, but that is no longer at issue. The question is, is Next Avenue reliable? Is that not what we are now discussing? A loose necktie (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

sputnikmusic

I'm having a hard time understanding the reviewer stratification of sputnikmusic. Is this site reliable? Sikonmina (talk) 08:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

It's a dubious site as the "staff" may or may not be professional writers; they are not paid by Sputnik but are simply given that status by other staff members who feel their music reviews on sputnik are "up to par". In previous discussions on Wikipedia people seem to feel that as sites such as MetaCritic accept the Staff reviews, then we should also. We are generally not short of sources for album reviews with sites like Rolling Stone, NME, The Guardian, AllMusic, Pitchfork, etc so a possible solution is to use another review source if uncertain of the status of a sputnik review. SilkTork (talk) 14:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

If this is true, then sputnikmusic isn't reliable. Anyone can write a review. Sikonmina (talk) 09:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

And to elaborate further, I see how users judge sputnikmusic to be reliable because metacritic accepts the (staff) reviews but this would be considered circular reporting if we cite metacritic or use it as a reliable source. Sikonmina (talk) 09:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Is metalstorm.net reliable? Sikonmina (talk) 12:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Both Sputnik Music and Metalstorm have been assessed as reliable sources by WikiProject Albums as shown in this list Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

My benchmark is if advertising exists on the website then the website is reliable. Metalstorm.net currently does not sell advertising so I am not sure if within the forums they sell it. It would be reliable for me. Does anyone know? Sikonmina (talk) 08:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I understand your thinking, and that would make our job easier! However, how we assess if a source is reliable is we look for some form of vetting process - so if there is evidence of an editorial staff who are assessing the work, that helps, and is also the reason why we would reject most self-published sites and blogs, even with lots of advertising, because of that lack of vetting process.

We also consider if the site is used by reliable sources, which might be why some people feel that Sputnik is reliable, as it is used by Metacritic. However, as you point out, Metacritic is itself a dubious site, and is used on Wikipedia with caution. We tend to use it for providing an aggregate score, and we do say that the score has been provided by Metacritic, so we are not using it to confirm something said in "Wikipedia voice".

However, all the wheels and subtleties of our processes for deciding if a source is reliable can lead folks to making imprecise decisions. Essentially we decide by consensus if a source is reliable; and though we have pages such as Wikipedia:Reliable sources, such pages can only provide guidance as each case is slightly different. Also, we are very good at making exceptions to guidelines or rules or even policies: WP:IAR. WikiProjects can be useful places to get guidance and information, though it's worth bearing in mind that decisions made by WikiProjects carry no weight in themselves as that is regarded as Local consensus.

Unfortunately there is sometimes no easy answer to a reliable sources question. With regards to Sputnik (I don't know Metalstorm), as I said earlier, there are enough reliable sources for you to use that you shouldn't need to use Sputnik, and if that site is the only one that is reviewing an album or artist, then that might reflect on the lack of notability of the album/artist. SilkTork (talk) 16:01, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

There's an issue of WP:REFSPAM here. Citing Metacritic violates that policy. Sikonmina (talk) 06:01, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

A local concensus at the Wikipedia Project concerned overrules the views of one editor. If there is a problem with non-staff reviews then it needs investigation rather than throwing out the entire source, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Sputnik Music has been considered reliable (albeit with caveats) for many years at WP:RSMUSIC. I'm not saying that can't change, but I'm saying we're going to want to discuss much further if we're going to overturn years of consensus and usage. Sergecross73 msg me 23:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

How confusing. You were just in an argument about jazzdisco.org being unreliable and now that sputnikmusic has been proven to be WP:UGC, you turn around and say that it is reliable? Is this some sort of game I haven't heard about? Sikonmina (talk) 06:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

With regards to metacritic, Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources#Aggregates proves it isn't reliable. Sikonmina (talk) 06:24, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Tectum Verlag

Can I trust books from this open-access publisher? I would like to draw from a chapter by Carsten Kullmann called "Of Muggles and Men: Identifying Racism in the Harry Potter Series" in hdl:20.500.12657/26013 for some work on J. K. Rowling, which is undergoing a featured article review. I think de:Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag is the same publisher and that article cites some sources that appear decent such as this one, but I don't read German so I don't know. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:49, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Heavy.com quoting IMDB

Folks, I would like some additional input on a source from heavy.com cited in Jennifer Holland. I tagged it as needing a better source and an IP reverted the addition of the {{better source}} template. WP:IMDBREF is clear about using IMDB as a source and in my opinion, any source that uses it, is by extension at least unreliable, if not indirect WP:UGC. Thank you. Toddst1 (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

They do have a published editorial policy that includes verification of published information. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

When they say IMDB reports blah blah blah, as long as it's on IMDB, it passes that editorial policy. Pretty weaselly. Toddst1 (talk) 00:36, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

That doesn't really make them unreliable, because, as you said, they're just reporting on what a source said. That said, I would never use heavy as a source because I can't trust any website that does "8 things you need to know about Juice Newton right now" articles. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:47, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Everything on that Heavy.com article that is "according to her IMDb page" is WP:FRUIT and can't be used. If Heavy.com is reporting on something else that isn't from an IMDb page, I guess it can stay. —El Millo (talk) 00:52, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The part of Jennifer Holland which is being sourced from Heavy is the relationship. Heavy did not rely on IMDB for that information (only the fact that she was a working actress at the time). Since Wikipedia is not using the potentially unreliable portion of the source, it should be irrelevant, imho. --SVTCobra 00:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Wow, that is an... unusual essay. I do not think that it remotely reflects standard practice; normally the presumption is that if an WP:RS cites a non-WP:RS, the RS has done their due diligence. Every previous discussion I've seen on the topic has concluded that it is WP:OR to try and influence article content by questioning the sources used by an RSes. Of course, in this case Heavy may not be sufficiently reliable. But if this was eg. the NYT citing IMDb, I would come down unequivocally on the side of "doesn't matter, the statement's reliability comes from the source we're citing and not their sources; questioning their sources is completely inappropriate because it means second-guessing their conclusions via original research." Without that principle, nothing would be citable because everything can ultimately be traced back to primary sources reporting on raw data and other things we would not accept as a WP:RS - you would see nonsense like "yes, the NYT says this, but their reporter just questioned some people on the street to determine what happened; those people are not WP:RSes." The very nature of a secondary RS is that they can collect data from sources we would not use directly, confirm it or be willing to stake their reputation on it, and through that process make it into something we can cite. Sometimes they screw up, and if you have a specific reason to screw up in a particular case (ie. a source that disagrees), by all means, but just saying "this RS is citing sources that aren't RS" is not a meaningful argument against using it. --Aquillion (talk) 03:47, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• I'm a bit confused about our current WP:RSP entry for Heavy, which says There is consensus that Heavy.com should not be relied upon for any serious or contentious statements, including dates of birth. My usual assumption would be that as dry facts, dates of birth (unless there's actual reason to think they're contested, or they're somehow WP:EXCEPTIONAL in terms of making someone older / younger than expected) are among the least contentious statements that can be present on a BLP and do not normally require particularly strong sourcing. If it can't be used for that, what can it be used for? --Aquillion (talk) 03:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

That's basically the question I'm asking here. Toddst1 (talk) 23:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

It looks, generally, that is always better to use another source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:39, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• I feel like maybe we should have a broader discussion about Heavy (rather than this specific usage) since the previous ones have been so brief. My immediate observations are that:

1. Reading the article, I don't think Heavy got this from IMDB anyway, the IP is right about that much.

2. It's not a terribly controversial point as long as there's no reason to think that the relationship is disputed and provided there's no untoward implications about it (and I'm not seeing any.)

3. OTOH if we discourage using Heavy to cite something as uncontroversial as birthdates, surely we can't use it for relationships, even relatively uncontroversial ones?

4. A {{better source needed}} tag doesn't really require a high bar anyway - it is entirely valid to place it on a source that is technically acceptable but which would be best replaced with something better. Even if Heavy is usable for the statement, a better source is still desirable, so it doesn't make sense to remove the tag entirely (maybe remove the bit about IMBD.)

And finally, when a dispute about the quality of a source for a particular statement comes up, it's usually worth taking the few moments necessary to search for a better source - WP:SOFIXIT applies here. More time and energy would be consumed arguing over Heavy than would be needed to find a better source. --Aquillion (talk) 06:40, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

In line with this, as WP editors we are not required to take an RS's statements made in a factual tone as actually being correct, particularly if there are other RSes that put doubt into the fact or that seems dubious. Eg: this is how we keep abreast of citogenesis. And if we are talking a BLP here, and the statement by an RS seems question in truthfulness, it is better to omit than include until other RSes come along with confirmation but without the dubious nature of the fact. --Masem (t) 06:49, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

List of under-discussed websites: do they fit RS standards?

Hello, all. I started a DYK nomination for a page I created, the page being that of Emily Goss. Both the DYK and the article itself have developed admirably since their inceptions, but the biggest roadblock now are questions about the sourcing of the article. Therefore, I come to this noticeboard to inquire about several sources, and whether or not they are reliable. The list is:

• Film Ink
• Queer Media Matters
• Fern TV
• Addicted to Horror Movies
• Dan's Papers
• Go Mag
• Arts Beat LA
• Broadway World
• Footlights.click

Since none of these are on the perennial sources list, nor on the more specific lists of Film resources or horror sources, I would like additional opinions on this so as to accommodate the passage of the DYK better. I think it's almost there, but there are these RS questions I need to get through first. Thank you. Mungo Kitsch (talk) 21:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

You have to be very careful on a biography of a living person. None of these sources look dreadful, but none are fantastic either. What you really need to do, unfortunately, is to traipse through them one by one. Is the information in any way controversial? (Find another source or leave the information out completely.) Is it an interview? (Probably all right, if it is the kind of blog/mag where an actress might do an interview.) Is it a review? (Probably all right if that is the kind of source you would expect such a review.) Is the information really notable and needed in the encyclopedia? (If it's important, why isn't it in a major arts magazine or newspaper?) Itsmejudith (talk) 15:22, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC Daily NK

Should Daily NK (website link) be considered an unreliable source? I noticed that Daily NK is used a lot in the article COVID-19 pandemic in North Korea, and noticed that it seemed to somewhat contradict the World Health Organization about Covid-19 in North Korea during April 2020, not a complete contradiction, but Daily NK reported a positive case from a dead North Korean defector, while a WHO representative reported 100% negative cases. Additionally, I could not find any other sources that confirmed North Korea is lying about cases, implying that Daily NK has not been able to show definitive evidence of anything.

Doing some more research into Daily NK, I found this article that also points to the unreliability of Daily NK and it's influence on misinformation in the Western world: Al Jazeera article.

Additionally, here are some Snopes articles, all which points to the unreliability of Daily NK: Heart surgery, Skinny jeans, Coronavirus

While it appears that Daily NK is not often being debunked, it appears that there is also no reason to particularly trust them as a reliable source. They use anonymous sources without further fact-checking (though I haven't found anything about them using defectors in particular as sources). While the number of sources that questions its reliability/call it unreliable seem a good bit limited, I have not been able to find a single source that confirms it as reliable. TheGEICOgecko (talk) 23:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: See our "media coverage of North Korea" article for some general considerations about the topic. Given what all is laid out there it would come as no surprise if all sorts of otherwise reliable media outlets failed fact checks on the subject of North Korea. In some ways it's the simple nature of the situation. It can be difficult to accurately ascertain basic information about North Korea. This has probably only been exacerbated during the pandemic: the amount of defectors (who could constitute sources about what is happening throughout the country during the COVID-19 pandemic) radically dropped in 2020. Restrictions on foreigners (who could likewise be sources in some cases) entering the country have also radically increased: they were disallowed from entering the country since at least mid-January 2020 (1)(2). Since at least early March 2020, North Korean border guards have reportedly collaborated with Chinese police to keep people from crossing the border, shooting anybody attempting to cross (1)(2). Situation has evidently persisted to this day.

Even foreign diplomats, who occasionally constitute sources about what's happening in North Korea, have been subjected to various restrictions there such as 30-day quarantines, and many left the country entirely (1). Cargo shipments by freight train between China and North Korea entirely ceased for about 17 months (between mid 2020 and January 2022) (1)(2), and humanitarian aid has even been held in quarantine for months on end (1).

This is all to say that many of the inherent sourcing problems outlined at the media coverage of North Korea article have only worsened during the pandemic due to the government's pandemic restrictions. What was already a bad reliability situation seems to have worsened significantly. Unfortunately contradictory sources are common when it comes to North Korea. This report in NK News (quoted here by The Guardian) was somewhat critical of the usage of "rumors about North Korea based on anonymous sources" in mainstream media.

With this specific instance, the Daily NK's report (which is based on an anonymous source) does not even appear very confident that this suggests COVID-19 deaths. The wording is rather flimsy (e.g. "may have been caused by the novel coronavirus", "what appears to be COVID-19 infections") and it even describes the military report as originating from "data on the number of soldiers who had died after suffering from high fevers stemming from pneumonia, tuberculosis, asthma or colds". This could be euphemism, but that's of course speculative. The WHO report about 709 negatively-tested cases is apparently from Dr. Edwin Salvador, a WHO representative residing in North Korea (1)(2), who appears to be receiving weekly reports from the country's Ministry of Public Health.

Some other context worth noting: Daily NK is described by Vox as "a South Korean outlet run by North Korean defectors". According to The Atlantic in 2011, Daily NK then received notable WP:USEBYOTHERS and reportedly was used by South Korea's National Intelligence Service as a source of information.

IMO, a lot of the above has to inform a discussion about any source on the COVID-19 pandemic in North Korea, or for that matter, a lot of North Korea reporting in general post-2020. --Chillabit (talk) 11:40, 18 January 2022 (UTC)