Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. Additional notes: RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments. While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy. This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources. Start a new discussion

Unofficial Steve Earle web site

This self titled Original Unofficial Steve Earl Site is being cited in a number of places in the BLP for Steve Earle. Is it a reliable source for his discography? collaborations? TV and movie appearances etc.? Biographical information? It appears that it may be a personal web site with no editorial oversight but I am not sure. Any thoughts? Thanks for your input.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 17:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This actually gets at why I think Wikipedia's appearance of proper sourcing is problematic and an illusion. You are questioning unofficial Steve Earle (USE) site, but were rewriting the article to conform to a CMT bio which takes much of its content from the bio on the same exact site. You have ignored my criticism of the sources you are using. Note the CMT bio is equally unreferenced, has no author, and has a great many sentences and phrases taken from the USE site (which is copywritten and lists it authors). Longtime fans of Earle know this as an old site with some of the most accurate, though in some cases outdated as it is less active, information on Earle. It is written by two people who know subject well and have clearly read the biographies and interviews. Clint and Lisa, the authors, have worked directly with the Earle management on many occasions, especially when there was no official site and this was the Steve Earle site, though fan published. That said, I know that is my personal knowledge and judgement. Would I accept it as a reference for an academic paper? No, but I wouldn't accept Wikipeda, either, for these exact reasons. USE may not be reliable, but the bios you have been using are no more reliable. Just because there may be an editor, or a writer is labeled a journalist, does not mean there is any real oversight or quality control. I think this is probably particularly true of entertainment bios, like those at CMT or AllMusic, which get copied and plagiarized from source to source. (Though at least Allmusic has an identified author, which gives weight over the CMT bio.) One defense of the USE site is that, unlike a great many fan sites, it does have references (including an extensive archive of interviews), though not in-line citations, and the authors are clearly identified. What constitutes a published source on the web? I think that the extensive nature of the site does give it some weight and appearance of authority beyond a typical fan site.

Also, are you willing to do the work to find the same information and cite it to make sure the Wiki article adequately covers the subject? The Grammy site would give you the nominations, but you have to dig. (On a completely different note, I would say collaboration lists and use in other media lists are problematic for a prolific artist like Earle. It can't help being partial and incomplete. Better to trim to most significant.) I am same person you have been conversing with! 65.185.126.6 (talk) 22:07, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Not reliable, as there is no indication that Clint Harris or Lisa Kempe exercise any fact checking. It is a SPS website. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:41, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

If this is judged unreliable, than so is the CMT site. I see no evidence of fact checking there, either, and in fact know some information is incorrect based on more thorough writing on Earle. 65.185.126.6 (talk) 18:24, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The 'Original Unofficial Steve Earl Site' is not a reliable source because there is absolutely no indication that it is reputable or fact checked by uninvolved individuals. CMT has a reputation, so we trust that they have done more than just copy and paste from some random 'unofficial' website. --Onorem♠Dil 18:30, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

"Other Stuff Exists" is not a valid argument. If you would like to start a section on CMT's reliability with a specific article for a specific claim in a specific encyclopaedia entry, please do so. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

CMT has a poor reputation for journalism among music writers I know; it is a entertainment channel. On what basis do you say it is trustworthy? What evidence do they show of fact-checking or authorship (of their bios, not the attributed articles)? Many of their bios are simply taken from artist sites, which is not unusual among promoters, but is not good journalism. By the way, the bio on the unofficial site has been posted on that site for at least 12 years, before CMT started posting bios, and has often been pirated when it was the only Earle site and no official site exists. In any case, it is not perfect (mostly because it relies heavily on one source and is dated) and am not really arguing for the unofficial site, though I in fact largely trust it. What I am arguing that Wikipedia editors often show poor judgement in referencing, and that CMT should not be preferred over more extensive interviews and published bios. I know that people try to make it a reliable site, but this is why Wikipedia is not trusted. 65.185.126.6 (talk) 21:08, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the consensus here that the Original Unofficial Steve Earle Site is not a reliable source per WP:RS so I will remove it from the article. Thanks everyone for your participation.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 14:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Thomson Reuters

Is the following Thomson Reuters page:

http://thomsonreuters.com/content/press_room/healthcare/tr_announces_top_health_systems

A reliable source for the claims made at Prime Healthcare Services#Awards and Recognition? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:01, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

No. It is a press release. The actual report mentioned in the press release, Thomson Reuters 15 Top Health Systems 2012, may actually be reliable for that. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:37, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The press release is from Thomson Reuters, not from Prime Healthcare Services. Why is not reliable for stating that PHS was indeed in the Top 15 list? — Frankie (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

21st century lexicon

Would the 21st century lexicon ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/indigo%20child ) be a reliable source for this diff in Indigo children article? The attribution of an "important spiritual impact" is common for the concept in question across multiple primary sources (like published books and interviews with the authors who introduced the term into broad usage). The 21st century lexicon summarizes and defines it in a compact form, while being not a primary source. Thanks in advance. -- Nazar (talk) 13:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Dictionaries are inherently tertiary sources and not useful for much at all in a Wikipedia article. Thus - not a reliable source for the use to which it is being put. Collect (talk) 16:06, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree, I would say a dictionary would only be useful for non-contentious summaries, if someone is contending it, it's probably too contentious. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:11, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The appropriate source for appropriate spiritual impact would be peak professionals in various religions with reputations for publishing; theologians, sociologists of religion, historians of religion; etc. Dictionaries are not appropriate sources for the impact of spiritual concepts. (Unless they're Scholarly Dictionaries of the Sociology of Religion etc.) Fifelfoo (talk) 01:33, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It's, however, not about the actual "spiritual impact", assessed by independent professionals, but rather about the definition of a New Age concept, one of the core features of which concept being the belief about important spiritual impact exerted upon surroundings. And that belief is addressed in various sources on the subject: primary, secondary ect. While the dictionary in question summarizes it as a prominent feature of the concept. -- Nazar (talk) 08:02, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

And the definition of New Age concepts that make scientifically testable claims should be (and in this article are) addressed by scientific sources, rather than one that repeats the claims at face value without getting into evidence for or against the concept (especially if added for the purpose of advocacy for those claims). Ian.thomson (talk) 11:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the claim of having "important spiritual impact" is hardly scientifically testable. Beating down the newbies who clearly try to make their first edits with best intentions is not an advisable practice. And an encyclopedic article should pay attention in first place to illuminating the subject in question (which includes its neutral definition and versatile exposure), and not give the prominent weight to the skeptics' opinions about "how terribly pseudo-scientific it is". But, as usually, I humbly respect the opinion of majority of editors in this collective project, however defective it may appear. -- Nazar (talk) 15:39, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It is a claim that falls squarely within the remit of the social sciences' broadly accepted claims to produce knowledge. And internet dictionaries are not part of the social science knowledge creation process. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:41, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how a dictionary definition can be a reliable source for an obviously controversial statement - especially in an article that falls under the auspices of WP:FRINGE. I'll repeat what I said on Talk:Indigo children when this question first came up:

• Firstly: the dictionary definition is at best a tertiary source - it would be a pretty poor choice for referencing such a statement in the lede. However, the way it's being used here is as a way to back up the fact that the dictionary really did say that - which makes it a fully acceptable source for a completely unacceptable statement (and, arguably, an egregious copyvio). If we were to remove the mention that this is the definition in that dictionary (as we must) - then using it as a reference becomes incorrect.
• Secondly: this is quite possibly the only mainstream dictionary to define the term. If I go to Dictionary.com and search for (let's say) "elephant" - I get definitions from six different dictionaries. The fact that only ONE of the many dictionaries that dictionary.com searches had a definition at all suggests that we're giving undue weight to the fact that there even is a dictionary definition. Rather, our experience here on this article's talk page is that multiple references show that there truly isn't a single definition that even a fraction of the Indigo children promoters would agree with. Using a single dictionary in this way is a rather serious bias.
• Thirdly: the lede is supposed to summarize the remainder of the article. Since there is no discussion of the 21st Century lexicon's definition anywhere in the article, this sentence is not allowed in the lede because it's not summarizing anything.
• Fourthly: the main article has an entire section explaining the claimed characteristics of indigo's - much of it backed up by primary and secondary sources. The dictionary definition: "a term used for a powerful, intelligent, independent child who is believed to have an important spiritual impact" doesn't entirely jibe with our better-referenced claims - "an important spiritual impact" is hardly a valid summary of our findings from primary and secondary sources: "exhibit a strong innate sub-conscious spirituality from early childhood (which, however, does not necessarily imply a direct interest in spiritual or religious areas)"...so again, this dictionary definition isn't a summary of what is stated in the main article. The dictionary also states the these children really are "powerful, intelligent, independent" - which is a claim that's not backed up by WP:RS.

SteveBaker (talk) 19:56, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Unreliable tertiary source making controversial assertion; not a reliable source by any means. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:05, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

genealogy.com

I have a questions regarding a reference used at Jorge Otero Barreto. The reference is from geneology.com and am wondering if this is considered a reliable source. I believe that the addition is done in good faith given my notability concerns of the subject of that article, and thus am bring it up here (for the sake of the quality of the article) to ensure it meets our RS requirements.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 14:51, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

1. I suggest all "home-made genealogy sites" are intrinsically not WP:RS sources. 2. The ancestry.com link specifically is from a person who made the genealogy, hence is SPS at best, and really, really unuseful at worst. 3. Using online genealogy sources, I found that I am a descendent of Muhammed, Minerva and Thor. I suggest this result is sufficient to show my opinion of using such sources on any articles at all, and especially not any referring to living persons. Collect (talk) 16:03, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Per Collect. The lack of editorial supervision over these sources means that they should not be used (except regarding themselves, for example, citing ancestry.com on the article ancestry.com). Most edits adding these are in good faith by people unfamiliar with our sourcing policies. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:29, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Collect and Fifelfoo, but as per various discussions about ancestry.com, I think genealogy.com also have some scanned copies of third party publications, such as old books? I think it is not relevant to this case, but the normal advice about such works is to cite the third party work itself. In such cases it can be acceptable I think to "convenience link" to such a website, like we do with google books. The internet has a lot of self-published genealogy, and most of it can not be used on Wikipedia. To be used it generally needs to be shown that there is fact checking and a reputation for accuracy.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:06, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Southern Poverty Law Center

Is the Southern Poverty Law Center a reliable source for: [1]. (all relevant info is in the reference. See the linked article about SPLC. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

All of my relevant answer is in the archives. If you can't be bothered copying and pasting to here, why should you expect readers here to be bothered answering? Fifelfoo (talk) 21:46, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Despite archives of the discussions it is getting brought up in numerous articles by members of wikiproject conservatism. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The SPLC has opinions. It is citable for its opinions clearly labelled as such. Anything further delves into the question as to whether that organization has a particular point of view, and if when it finds others with different poits of view it moght represent them in a less than NPOV manner. Collect (talk) 21:54, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

You haven't given a reason why you think it is unreliable. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

How does the SPLC qualify as a RS? They are not a news organization with fact checking. Are their findings and research peer reviewed? They seem to be in a unique position compared to most RS used here. Are there examples of similar sources that fall into neither the two standard categories?  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  23:08, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Egad, are we here again? The SPLC does a ton of fact checking and is widely quoted as a factual source. The linked addition to the American Vision page was perfectly legitimate. Binksternet (talk) 23:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not being obtuse, but do you have any references to their fact checking policies? That would settle a lot of these issues (at least for me).  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  23:54, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I suggest looking through their staff [2], for example here is there editor-in chief [3]. Newspapers aren't peer reviewed by the way. Editorial oversight isn't peer review. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. Yes, newspapers aren't subject to peer review, but they (should) be subject to fact checking and retractions. Newspaper opinion pieces are frequently NOT subjected to fact checking (George Will's column is a good example of that). With that aside, it appears to me that SPLC is operating using similar principles of that of newspapers. In general I wouldn't object to them being used as a RS, though in more contentious claims (not in this RS query) I would prefer additional sources that have a proven record with respect to fact-checking and retractions to be used as well.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  14:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

• Let's try this again, at American Vision, a group designated by the SPLC as a hate group and run by Gary Demar, the contested passage is -

Demar has said that not all homosexuals would be executed under a “reconstructed government", but that he did believe that the occasional execution of “sodomites” would serve society well because “the law that requires the death penalty for homosexual acts effectively drives the perversion of homosexuality underground, back into the closet.” He also said a “long-term goal” should be “the execution of abortionists and their parents.”(18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda Evelyn Schlatter, Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Winter 2010, Issue Number: 140.)

Is SPLC a reliable source for this purpose? Insomesia (talk) 00:56, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is appropriate. The SPLC is the best judge of this sort. If we doubted them (which we don't), we could independently check some of the quotes ourselves by looking for bits of them online. For instance, the SPLC reference says DeMar wrote "Homosexuals aren’t content with only having the bedroom" in April 2010. DeMar blogged that phrase in April 2010, according to another blog. The problem with americanvision.org is that the Wayback Machine does not archive it because its website tells the archive bots to stay away, by the wording of robots.txt, a file on the website. To know what DeMar wrote on a particular day, you would have to have been looking at it. SPLC has people who do this and document the site. Binksternet (talk) 01:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Per Binksternet. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:25, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Insomesia (talk) 01:37, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Who is to say that "we" don't doubt them. (And, we're here again, because the previous consensus is that SPLC is reliable for their opinions, and certain editors want to revisit that.) As I said on one of the talk pages, there's no (reliable) evidence that they are reliable for anything other than their own opnions. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:38, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It appears I was wrong. There's no recent consensus, but consensus in 2010 is that they have sufficient fact-checking to be considered reliable, but not WP:BLP-reliable, for statements which are clearly facts (which are the statements covered here); there's no consensus as to whether their statements about opinions can be used, except for their own opinions. However, these statements are about a living person, so it does require revisiting the matter. I don't think they could possibly be considered BLP-reliable. I think the prior consensus should also be revisited, as there's no evidence to support the claim that they do sufficient fact-checking, but reviewing the prior consensus is not necessary to determine that SPLC is not BLP-reliable, even for (theoretically) verifiable facts. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:57, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

They are definitely BLP reliable and their statements should be attributed and treated with care just like any other sources used on a BLP. Use common sense and on a case-by-case basis. Generally they are reliable. Insomesia (talk) 02:15, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Arthur, it may have slipped your mind, but there's no doubt that the quotes we're getting from the SPLC are correct. After all, they're directly from the subject's book, and we have it in its entirety right here. All we're relying on from the SPLC is its selection of these quotes, as we wouldn't want to be guilty of WP:OR. To be fair, the SPLC is a sufficiently reliable source that we don't actually need the book, but we do have it. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 05:34, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

We clearly cannot use them for a selction of quotes. We can select quotes on our own, but that is not something that a biased reliable source can be used for. For this article, we need to use the book as a source, rather than SPLC. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

You are making an absolute statement when there is a continuum at work here. We can use the SPLC as a guide, or not, depending on our purpose. The attention given to the particular quotes by SPLC makes those quotes rise higher in significance, so they are more likely to meet our needs. We could choose other quotes, perhaps ones vetted by another third party observer, but we are not required to stay away from the ones that SPLC noticed. The fact that an outside group pulled certain quotes from the American Vision Rulers of the Nation book gives us the benefit of making sure the text is not overly self-serving to American Vision. Binksternet (talk) 22:10, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

SPLC examined by RSN and by outside experts

SPLC has repeated come up on this noticeboard because of the hot responses they get from their strong statements, not because their fact-checking is flawed. It's hard for new editors to understand how highly respected the SPLC is in US universities, law enforcement and government. SPLC is, if anything, more highly respected by scholars outside of the US. Here are the past RSN discussions:

• RSN:Southern Poverty Law Center, October 2008. SPLC is a reliable source per Squidfryerchef, LegitimateAndEvenCompelling and SlamDiego.
• RSN:Southern Poverty Law Center, January 2009. SPLC is a reliable source per ScienceApologist, Moni3 and Verbal.
• RSN:Southern Poverty Law Center (again) & Rousas John Rushdoony, November 2009. SPLC a reliable source per Dougweller, The Four Deuces, RightCowLeftCoast, John Carter, Jayjg, Verbal, Jmabel, Blueboar, Squidfryerchef and Hipocrite. Fact-checking ability challenged by CaroleMooreDC, with scholarly sources.
• RSN:Southern Poverty Law Center, July 2012. SPLC is a reliable source per Nableezy, Slatersteven, Whatamidoing and Skinwalker.
• RSN:Is an SPLC intelligence report a reliable source for information about the men's rights movement?, July 2012. SPLC is a reliable source per Itsmejudith and Binksternet.

Here are some scholarly thoughts about SPLC:

• Jessie Daniels, PhD, CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College: Cyber Racism. "...it has established a Klanwatch/Militia Task Force, which provides accurate information and analysis..."
• Cengage Learning textbook: Brooks/Cole Empowerment Series: Human Behavior in the Social Environment. Official US government statistics are not completely accurate but SPLC is not questioned.
• DIANE Publishing textbook: Racial And Ethnic Tensions In American Communities. SPLC's Danny Welch was invited to make a presentation to the US Commission on Civil Rights in February 1991 about "hate incidents", speaking on his own from a panel of other notables from the US Dept of Justice, B'nai B'rith and the FBI.
• Russell Sage Foundation: Making Hate a Crime, relied on SPLC for information on hate crime statutes.
• Criminologist Mark S. Hamm, PhD: American Skinheads: The Criminology and Control of Hate Crime, all data collected about American skinheads has some flaws, including data from the FBI, the SPLC, the ADL, etc. However, the flaws are not such that "sociological sense" cannot be obtained from the data. Binksternet (talk) 04:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Some of those descriptions of the RSN archives are false. There's no consensus in the July 2012 threads, except that the SPLC Intelligence Report is an RS. And there's a 2010 thread which finds the SPLC is not a BLP-RS. But check for yourself. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:37, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Can you be more explicit about what you think is false? Also, you haven't addressed the scholarly thoughts which do appear to agree that it is reliable. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:10, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, the first one listed immediately dives off into a tangent and never addresses the question; the second case starts off with the observation that the first one didn't go anywhere. Mangoe (talk) 13:10, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not my field of scholarship, but if you're interpreting the books correctly, and those books are reliable sources which state the SPLC is reliable (some clearly do so only in specific fields, not including what we're trying to use them for), then it meets WP:SPS, but still cannot be used for BLP statements. It's being used in American Vision to support DeMar's (apparently opinions, but they're probably also) statements. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:43, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking back at the 5 previous RSN threads, only the third is on point, and the only consensus seems to be that their magazine is reliable, they are reliable for their own notable opinions, and they may be reliable for facts about their subjects. The allegations made by the subject in the 2nd thread suggest that they remove false statements only when pointed out. If the site is archived by the wayback machine, we can check the history of the page. If it progessed as the subject suggested, that site is clearly not reliable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:02, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

That's nonsense! You would have a group continue in an error if it was pointed out to them? Of course not. Even printed newspapers print corrections. Online newspapers update stories when mistakes are found.

The RSN discussions above are all in agreement that the SPLC cannot be classed as categorically unreliable, which is much of the point I wanted to make. The SPLC has various degrees of trustworthiness; its journal is the highest level. Nevertheless, the online entries are no less reliable than newspaper reports. Per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, we can quote them with attribution on any article, biography or not. They are a scholarly group akin to a foundation or a think tank. Binksternet (talk) 22:19, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Not quite true. They are a political group, with opinions found to be notable at RS/N. Cited as opinions. They have not been found to be a reliable source for facts about anything or anyone in general - and that has been rehashed many times here. The concept behing WP:RS is "fact-checking" at the start - not "they correct mistakes". There is nothing to suggest "editorial fact-checking" for the SPLC as a publication, and sufficient examples of errors to warrant a belief that they do not check "facts." Nevertheless their "opinions" are widely noted, and can be used in Wikipedia articles. Again - cited as opinions. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:56, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

They are not a political group, they are a legal group. 184.88.216.155 (talk) 13:54, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

You'll get no traction with "political group". Binksternet (talk) 17:20, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Tightening the focus here

The issue, quite specifically, is whether the SPLC's identification of a set of conservative advocacy organizations as "hate groups" trumps the objections of conservatives to this identification. The intent is to put this identification in the lede of each of these "family values" groups and suppress mention at that point of conservative objection. If you want to subject yourself to the argument, it's going on in Talk:Family Research Council, but it's not the only article affected.

I'm reasonably willing to take the SPLC as a reporter of what people said, but that's not the authority that's being claimed here. It's their analysis that is at stake, and for that, they are the primary source. In general there's not much controversy over their tracking of hypernationalist and racist groups. They are also widely relied upon in examination of hate crimes, but that's not relevant to the topic at hand because nobody is seriously accusing these groups of committing or abetting criminal acts. It's easy enough, though, to find objection to the essential categorization of opposition to homosexual marriage as hate speech. There's an obvious political division between those who accept their analysis, and those who don't; it's bloody well obvious in the discussion. My personal view is that the designation has enough traction in media sources to be mentioned, but that the controversy needs to be admitted to up front. But at any rate in discussing their "reliability", we are really evaluating their authority on this particular point, not a general view of the organization. Mangoe (talk) 13:10, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

You misstate the SPLC position. You say:

It's easy enough, though, to find objection to the essential categorization of opposition to homosexual marriage as hate speech.

In fact, the SPLC categorization is based on the following:

Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 13:23, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't so much of a misstatement as it was an oversimplication in the cause of not making an awkward and elongated sentence. I don't see that the difference in grounds eliminates the reliance on their authority, as one still has the calculation that "saying things that are false" (modulo disputes over whether they are false) equals "hate". One could apply Hanlon's razor to the falsehoods and get a different conclusion, after all. Let me say again that I personally don't see an issue with recording SPLC's condemnation prominently; the issue at present is over suppressing or burying that their position is reciprocally condemned by various conservatives. I question whether anyone here's approval of their reasoning is grounds for overriding a fairly prominent mention of conservative counterreaction. Mangoe (talk) 15:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Query: Has the SPLC ever described or listed a progressive advocacy group as a "hate group" at any point? Which ones? Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:34, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't lump the FRC and American Vision in with the Klan and skinheads. SPLC has a political axe to grind, and this is how they do it. – Confession0791 ^talk 16:41, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Can you think of any that should be included? The SPLC lists three "black separatist" groups as hate groups.[4] These groups would be "progressive" except for their hate. Also, some hate groups (anti-immigration, anti-Muslim) have progressive supporters. Eugene McCarthy supported FAIR. TFD (talk) 16:59, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The SPLC is certainly a reliable source for whom the SPLC classifies as hate groups. The real issue is WP:WEIGHT - how important is it that the SPLC has called an organization a hate group. But that is not a topic for discussion at this noticeboard. And yes, the SPLC is also a reliable source for facts, as has been shown above by the many reliable sources that attest to their reliability. TFD (talk) 17:10, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Most of the ideologies listed relate to bigotry of one kind of another, and are neither conservative nor progressive[5]. I don't think anyone really considers, neo-nazism, holocaust denial, skinheads, black separatism, or racism in general as conservative movements. aprock (talk) 17:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

In general I think in the USA the black separatists would be counted as leftist and the skinheads as neutral evil, but the others mentioned are generally associated with political conservatism, and it's certainly common enough to accuse conservatives of appealing to those movements. Mangoe (talk) 19:38, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

So what you're saying here is that hate groups are not confined to one political stripe. This makes it hard to claim that the SPLC is just a political group that insults groups they don't like.

1. Is the SPLC a reliable source for what the SPLC says? Yes, obviously.
2. Is it a reliable source for the content of direct quotes by others? Yes, they're not going to misquote Demar. Their track record on quotes is better than some newspapers'.
3. Is it a reliable source for selecting and synthesizing these quotes? Yes, because it must do so in order to explain why it designates AV a hate group. In general, yes, because they're talking about their field of expertise, and they're respected for it by academics and law enforcement.
4. Do organizations disagree with being called hate groups? Always or almost always. Does even the KKK admit to being a hate group?
5. Does this mean there's always controversy about hate group designation? Looks like it.
6. Is being an SPLC-designated hate group notable? Highly so, to the point that it always belongs in the lead.
7. Is controversy over this designation notable? For the FRC and some others. Definitely belongs in the article, with due weight.
8. Do we need to stop grinding our teeth and start editing? I certainly think so. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 20:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

More claims of unreliability: Illinois Family Institute (IFI)

In it's Hatewatch, the SPLC states the designation (about Illinois Family Institute) was based on the association with Paul Cameron, a researcher who has been disassociated from professional organizations American Psychological Association, the Nebraska Psychological Association, and the Canadian Psychological Association, the later for "consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism."

Is this text reliable sourced? I've also notified BLPN as the editors at Talk:Illinois_Family_Institute have claimed BLP issues IRWolfie- (talk) 09:30, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

The original source from where the above was generated
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
IFI official Laurie Higgins has angrily disputed the hate-group label, which was mainly based on the posting on IFI’s website of a laudatory story about the discredited work of anti-gay “researcher” Paul Cameron, a man who has been thrown out of two professional associations because, as one said, he “consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism.” IFI’s story on Cameron — “New Study Shows that Homosexuals Live 20 Fewer Years” — was preceded by what amounted to a full-throated endorsement of Cameron from then-IFI Executive Director Peter LaBarbera. (“Paul Cameron’s work has been targeted for ridicule by homosexual activists, and he’s been demonized by the left,” LaBarbera wrote, “but this should not discount his findings.”) Higgins wrote angrily that SPLC’s listing was based on a single article, posted in 2005, and that she would not remove it because it showed how “flimsy” SPLC’s characterization of IFI was. As the SPLC noted years ago, the Cameron “study” cited by IFI was based on obituaries in gay newspapers and has been completely discredited. It was published in what IFI characterized as “the scientific journal, Psychological Reports” — actually a vanity publication that charges “researchers” a mere $27.50 a page to publish their work. Interestingly, it was another version of the Cameron study on gay longevity — the subject of the piece published by IFI — that was referenced in the video IFI put up this week. But now Higgins has apparently decided that IFI should avoid repeating the Cameron defamations, and thus the scrubbing of the video it published. The film also apparently managed to get something else wrong — if you believe IFI’s story on Cameron, that is. That article says that the Centers for Disease Control found that “9% of heterosexuals who died of AIDS were at least 65 years of age.” In the video — until it was scrubbed by IFI — the claim was that only 9% of homosexual men live past the age of 65. Needless to say, those are entirely different statements. The Illinois Family Institute Again Cites Discredited Research, Briefly

I've included the above quote that was used to develop the proposed content. The full read and other articles seem to support these statements. I removed a lot of the original wording in from the proposed text due to BLP concerns. Insomesia (talk) 13:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Babylon Bank

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

WP:IDHT IP Fifelfoo (talk) 23:18, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

---

Hi All,

I posted a link to more information about the trading financials of the Babylon Bank - and another editor thought it was not appropriate.

Is this link okay: http://www.baghdadinvest.com/Babylon_Bank.html On the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_Bank

I have read the wikipedia rules and I understand the addition of links is suitable on the basis there is not many as it undervalues the page. The page currently has 1, I was adding 1 more.

Please advise. Though I get the impression, you guys are bored and need to exert some sort of "power" haha

Regards. 80.39.19.147 (talk) 20:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I am the editor who flagged this link and suggested 80 take it here. I felt that it was unduly promotional to the Baghdad Invest company. 80 also added this link to about five other pages, so I thought there was a high risk of spam.

Additionally, I think another editor should teach 80 about civility. But don't let that affect your judgment as to the outcome of this discussion. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 21:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I apreciate your response Jp. However, you are misinformed. I was not adding the same link to many diffrent pages. I was adding diffrent links to diffrent pages.

Example: Warka Bank http://www.baghdadinvest.com/Al_Warka_Investment_Bank.html Example: Babylon Bank http://www.baghdadinvest.com/Babylon_Bank.html Example: Bank of Baghdad http://www.baghdadinvest.com/Bank_of_Baghdad.html

I am surprised at his move as I have an understand that wikipedia is in the business of sharing content. I am not interested in self promotion. I am interested in adding worthy links, eg there is only 1 link on Babylon Bank page so surely 1 more is better?!!!

Regards. 80.39.19.147 (talk) 21:21, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Not reliable, no indication of appropriate levels of fact checking. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:49, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

So does that mean I am able to place the link? The data came directly from the Iraq Stock Exchange.

If a source is not reliable, then no, you aren't able to link to it as proof of a fact. The "data" did not come directly from the Iraq stock exchange, the "data" comes from, as you note, Baghdad Invest. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:41, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually I am able to... An example: http://www.baghdadinvest.com/Babylon_Bank.html and it is direct from here http://www.isx-iq.net/isxportal/portal/companyGuide.html?companyCode=BBAY Reliable or not?. 80.39.19.147 (talk) 23:03, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

No, baghdadinvest.com is not reliable, it doesn't matter where you believe they got their data from. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:24, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I just wrote where I got it from and provided a link!!!!! Are you not looking?????? Seriously? 83.41.4.176 (talk) 15:11, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Cornell yearbook

This question concerns a part of the infobox of the article Leo Frank regarding his height. The change would only affect the footnote for the 5'6" height. The proposed change would add to the footnote a comment regarding a height of 5'8" along with the Cornell yearbook source.

Height           5'6" ^[1]

---

Notes

1. ^ Oney 2003 p. 10. Lindemann 1991 p. 244.

  (5'8" according to Cornell University Class of 1906. The Senior Class Book. pp. 344–5, student #177.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link))

Is the Cornell yearbook a reliable source for this information? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Other editors currently involved in a related discussion, which is a continuation of a previous discussion, are Carmelmount and Tom (North Shoreman). --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Please include a full citation indicating the publisher as displayed on the bibliographic information page. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:39, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The original book does not have a bibliographic information page. Here are links to info regarding it's online publication[6][7] and a page near the beginning of the online publication.[8] (Please note that you can navigate to any pages of the yearbook from any pages that are linked from this and my previous message. For example, here's a link to the beginning of the online publication[9] from which you can go to any page of the yearbook by using the appropriate buttons at the bottom of that webpage.) --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:01, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I looked further and found a hard copy reproduction of the original at Amazon.com where the publisher of the reproduction is listed as Nabu Press.[10] --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for looking. As we can see from Page 1, the title page, the book is published by the Cornell University class of 1906 themselves, edited as indicated later. I would suggest that it is reliable for the height of an individual known to the editorial board. I'd suggest that there's no WEIGHT behind this, nor is there any Notability given by the document. So I would question anyone including the height of the individual unless another source actually drew our attention WEIGHTily to his height. (Nabu Press is a reprinter.) Fifelfoo (talk) 22:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Not reliable per Tom (North Shoreman) below regarding Original Research from Primary Sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:21, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The trial and lynching of Leo Frank were national news at the time and historians and popular writers have continued to write about and analyze the case. The two sources for the height listed in the Info Box are both highly important sources on the subject -- Oney's footnotes show that he consulted a vast amount of primary and secondary sources while Lindemann, writing a different type of book, relied on analyzing the most important secondary sources. Nobody has been able to find ANY reference to a different height in any reliable secondary source.

The yearbook is a primary source with no explanation of how it determined height. Using a primary source, especially when reliable secondary sources are available, is the exception rather than the rule. It is not a reliable source for its apparent purpose -- to propose an alternative height. A two inch differential is insignificant in and of itself and COULD be simply the result of wearing shoes or boots in one of the measurements or a short person deciding to add a couple inches out of vanity. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 23:02, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I could join in this content dispute brought here by Tom, but there is the following instruction at the top of this page, "This is not the place for content disputes, which should be directed to the article talk page..." (Perhaps the section title here was misleading, and thus I am changing it to "Cornell yearbook" to be in line with the titles of other sections here which are referring to sources.)

So instead of joining in a content dispute discussion, let me renew my request for comments by editors at this noticeboard regarding whether or not the Cornell yearbook is a reliable source for the height of Leo Frank, according to Wikipedia policy. --Bob K31416 (talk) 07:55, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

We don't argue reliable sources in a content free environment. From the guideline:

Context matters

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context.

The issue is whether a college yearbook, a primary source created before Leo Frank was famous, should be offered as an alternative source to the reliable sources already cited. The fact that nobody has shown that any reliable secondary source has used this primary source or used the same content (i.e. height of 5-8) provides valuable CONTEXT for this discussion. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 12:25, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The excerpt you quoted is referring to the context of the article rather than the context of your content dispute discussion. Tom, you and I can make our arguments about the content at the article talk page, if we so choose. I think it would be better if we waited and read the fresh opinions of editors here, without trying to influence them, if we want useful new information about whether or not the Cornell yearbook is a reliable source according to Wikipedia policy, which might be useful when taken back to the article talk page. Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:23, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking over the article, I see no reason why the information has to be included at all, given that there are conflicting sources. It doesn't seem germane to the case, so my inclination would be to omit any statement as to his height. Mangoe (talk) 13:18, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I would like to add that there is a second reliable source of Leo Frank demographic information from the United States National Archive, Leo Frank's official passport (1907, 1908) that supports his height at 5'8" and weight of 145lbs. The document can be found on ancestry.com (with a free sign up) and it is mirrored on The Internet Archive. Steve Oney and Albert Lindemann provide no sources or references for Leo Frank's height at 5'6" and weight of 130lbs. Carmelmount (talk) 14:39, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Same problem with your second primary source as the first one. As far as Oney and Lindemann, there is no doubt that they are reliable sources. Whether they cite a footnote for any given content depends in large part whether the info. is considered to be common knowledge or not. This is from Princeton University guidelines:

Facts, Information, and Data. Often you’ll want to use facts or information to support your own argument. If the information is found exclusively in a particular source, you must clearly acknowledge that source. For example, if you use data from a scientific experiment conducted and reported by a researcher, you must cite your source, probably a scientific journal or a website. Or if you use a piece of information discovered by another scholar in the course of his or her own research, you must cite your source. But if the fact or information is generally known and accepted — for example, that Woodrow Wilson served as president of both Princeton University and the United States, or that Avogadro’s number is 6.02 x 1023 — you do not need to cite a source.

There is no controversy anywhere but on wikipedia as to Frank's height. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:07, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

He's not notable as an athlete; why the heck do we even need to include the stats?????? Mangoe (talk) 16:24, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I just made your suggestion on the article's talk page.[11] --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Tom, Neither Steve Oney or Albert Lindemann provide references or sources to Leo Frank's height, but there are two reliable sources that do have information on LF height, passport and yearbook. Carmelmount (talk) 03:47, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Update: Leo Frank's height has been removed from the article,[12] per Mangoe's suggestion, and there is consensus there for the edit.[13] --Bob K31416 (talk) 08:54, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Report on the Counterjihad movement by the Swedish Expo foundation

Hi. I would like to get a review of this report by the Swedish think-tank Expo (which also runs the Expo_(magazine)). In my opinion it seems to be a well-founded analysis of the counterjihad movement, but I'm worried that it's affiliation with a foundation that has a stated mission would make it a likely target for attack. benjamil ^talk/_edits 22:39, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to user this same opportunity to raise the question on using Expo as a source at Sweden Democrats (a parliamentary political party in Sweden). That was discussed at the article's talk page here, but I don't agree with the persons who replied it that anyone questioning the neutrality of the source is "only a far-right extremeist". Expo runs an anti-Sweden Democrats campaign, quite provocatively with domain http://www.sverigedemokraterna.de/ To me it seems like Expo does some good human rights activism but it also has sections that are politically highly active, and atleast using it as source on a political party that they declare to oppose is a conflict of interests. So in my opinion, Expo can be used as a source certainly if the magazine is quoting an expert and thus the expert is the author, some of their projects too but specific political entitities like SD are out of the question because they're itself involved in it. --Pudeo' 16:55, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley (2)

SeeWikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 115#Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley

Jeanne boleyn would like to revisit the discussion Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_115#Medieval_Lands_by_Charles_Cawley regarding the opinion that this Cawley, Charles (3 June 2011). "Earls of Kent {1352}-1408, Holand". [http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/Intro.htm Medieval Lands]. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help); Unknown parameter |publiser= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help) (Contents) amateur website is not a reliable source. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Seeing as most editors are amateurs and not academics with unlimited access to university libraries, etc., we are pretty much restricted to online sources. Medieval Lands is probably at the moment one of the few websites that does cite primary sources, and removing it as a reliable source pretty much debars me from further editing on historical biographies of which I've created more than 100. Thanks Wikipedia, I'm sure this decision is one of the most astute yet in the ongoing process to drive away established editors from the project. --Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:25, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• Bad luck—if you wish to conduct work outside of Wikipedia then go ahead, but by using unreliable sources you have tainted the parts of the project you've touched. The Resource Exchange project within Wikipedia and the public libraries system can support valid editing. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Well if Fifelfoo says so it must be true. This place is unbelievable. "Tainted the project" have I with over 300 articles including two GAs? Piss off with your pathetic arrogance, Fifelfoo. You can only flash a big pair behind the security of a computer screen.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:42, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Please don't make personal attacks regarding my sexual apparatus. Please do not use unreliable sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:18, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I find this a little over-done Fifelfoo. This is a webpage that basically collates information from primary sources that are indeed hard to find online, and it is hosted by a journal. It is not a personal webpage. It not a top level academic journal perhaps, but still medieval genealogy is not really an academic subject (or perhaps we could characterize it as an area where academia itself uses sub-optimal sourcing). In any case fact checking and reputation for it do exist here to some level, and collating primary sources is not necessarily something that we can much better sources for. The source might not be ideal, but I find the way it is being discussed rather silly. Has anyone actually disputed anything cited from it, or found anything controversial? If so then I think a sense of balance should be kept. Some sourcing is better than no sourcing. We are not dealing with a personal website here, nor anything which is flashing any other red lights? It is also not true that there are lots of good alternatives. We are talking about medieval primary sources. It seems strange to be talking about "tainting" and treating this source in the same way that some really bad sources get treated.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:03, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Andrew you say it is hosted by a journal. What is the journal how frequently is it published? What is the quality of that journal -- who publishes it, does it have a review board, does it carry adverts (and is its circulation reviewed by third pary), would it be purchased by the History departments of Universities etc? -- PBS (talk) 09:45, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Foundations, is the journal of the Foundation of Medieval Genealogy. They have a review process and no adds. They are funded by memberships. I think one of the objections to them is that many members are not professional academic historians. (But I believe it gets a few.) OTOH, there is no such thing as an academic genealogist.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

"There may be one" (© Lewis Carroll). Andrew Dalby 12:24, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Is it the job of wikipedia to publish original genealogies? Fifelfoo (talk) 08:23, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course not. This source is now being attacked for any use at all, without reference to context, and as I said, I think some of this is getting silly. For example look at your question: if we cite a real third party source, we are not being original on Wikipedia. We can question the reliability of a source, but simply equating the use a borderline source as original research is not showing a constructive attitude?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Fifelfoo, Cawley cites his primary sources which are mainly charters, calendar rolls, etc. It is not anything like Genealogy.com or TudorPlace. Can you point out any factual errors Cawley has made in his work?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

[Edit conflict:] Medieval Lands is extremely useful when one is starting articles on medieval people: as regards their parents, marriages and children it usually provides the best synthesis we can immediately find, as well as a very good collection of original sources, usually quoted verbatim. Thank heaven it exists. Over on Vicipaedia yesterday, when I was beginning articles about related people with links to Hélinand of Froidmont and Philip II of France, I don't think I could have pinned them all down without Medieval Lands.

We're stumbling over the differences between starting an article, bringing it up to current Wikipedia norms, and perfecting it.

To bring it up to current Wikipedia norms, we need "reliable sources" in our current terms. We therefore have to deprecate Medieval Lands, which won't count as a reliable source till we happen to find some scholarly articles that cite it, and which itself does not make a point of citing modern secondary sources. But we mustn't forget that we used Medieval Lands to start the article: therefore we must continue to cite it (at least in External Links) otherwise we would be plagiarizing.

To perfect an article, above current Wikipedia norms, we will need to cite the primary sources, as proper research encyclopedias do. When we move on to that stage, we will need Medieval Lands still to be there -- and still to be in our references or external links -- because that's when we'll really need it! Andrew Dalby 09:04, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Copying the text from Cawley in anything but a quote would be a copyright violation. If his sources are replaced with new sources, there is no reason to keep any reference to his work. Plagiarism rules such as you suggest apply to Cawley, only apply to PD articles from which we directly copy text or an unusual article structure (see the guideline WP:Plagiarism for details) -- PBS (talk) 10:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

That guideline is confusingly written: if you're reading it to say that the concept of plagiarism only applies to PD material, it has misled you. Yes, I agree that copyright violation could be involved as well. But as long as Wikipedia acknowledges Medieval Lands (in some way) in cases where our articles are significantly derived from it, and so long as Charles Cawley is happy about this (which I believe he is) the problems don't arise :) Andrew Dalby 12:13, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I do not think that the project is tainted by the use of Charles Cawley as a source, but usage of this source must be in the form of WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. Charles Cawley in some of his biographical entries cites his sources, and those are often reliable sources. Although In some articles that I have seen, some of his speculation is mentioned, and in others used as as an attributed inline authority, (which he clearly is not) and I think all such usage should be removed.

I searched on http://fmg.ac which returned 100 of articles and have tagged all such usage unless the sources Cawley has used have also been cited (WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT).

Yesterday I realised that there were also a number of articles which cite Cawley without including a link to his website (EG Marie, Duchess of Auvergne). There are no other citations in that article, and I have marked those Cawley citations as: ^{[self-published source][better source needed]}. I do not think that can be construed as damaging the project particularly as the focus in recent years has been quality and not quantity. I would suggest that improving citations in those articles I have marked will improve the project more than adding additional information to articles with Cawley as the sole source for that information.

Looking at the citations in Marie, Duchess of Auvergne (there are three but only two to specific Cawley pages). Capet and Bourbon, (the third does not include a page so it probably means refer to the previous that is Capet. Using Google search for Marie of Berry on the site:fmg.ac returns two pages containing "MARIE de Berry" Capet and Burgundy Duchy, Dukes The former has an entry MARIE de Berry (1370-Lyon Jun 1434, bur Priory of Souvigny). Using that entry how can we confidently says that she was born in 1370? The death is probably derived from the primary source cited ("footnote 798") but even that is not clearly stated. For the rest of the entry there is no other citation. Compare that with this footnote from Joscelin of Louvain. I don't think anyone would have a problem with using Cawley when he is used that way (WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT).

I have also been through the articles that use "Marek, Miroslav. "A listing of the House of Orléans". Genealogy.EU. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)" as a cited source marking them in a similar way. The problem with that source is that Marek does not cite his sources.

I am currently going through citations to Darryl Lundy's The Peerage. Lundy usually cite his sources, but they frequently are not included in Wikpedia citations (see for example the article BLP article Pippa Middleton) There are also problem where Lundy is not cited and his source is cited, (See here and now) a breach of WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT -- The reason I could be confident that it was taken from Lundy's website is because when the editor copied Lundy's citation he or she left in Lundy's comment "Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage."

As I have been going through articles that cite Cawley and Marek, many of those articles also cite other genealogical cites such as:

• http://roglo.eu/roglo
• http://genealogics.org/index.php which has its own wikipedia template {{Genealogics name}}

Often the pages that use these four websites contain no notable biographical details and are nothing but genealogical entries (birth marriages children and deaths) of minor Continental European nobility of people for whom little notable historical details are available on the web (even in foreign languages because web transliteration is behind English sources), but there are reliable sources available for at least the genealogical information such as Europäische Stammtafeln). The advantage about similar British nobles is that, thanks to the availability of Victorian volumes on line, there are more reliable sources available and usually enough details on line to make a judgement if the person is historically significant enough to warrant a biographical article. A first useful step in deciding if these Continental European biographies should be kept is to mark the sources used as unreliable if they are unreliable. If no reliable sources are added to the articles after a reasonable period of time then they can be put up for AfD under not notable. Hopefully it will not come to this, and many of these articles will be improved over the coming months by adding biographical details about the subject from reliable sources.

Having said that I do realise that there is a real problem with historical bias. Often the only historical record we have for women who played a notable part in the societies in which they lived is only through their marriages and children as that is all that was recorded at the time. I think that is an issue that should be discussed on the talk page and at possible AfD's and weighed into the balance when discussing whether a biographical article on a woman should be included in Wikipedia.

One final though. Since the {{Rayment}} templates were marked as unreliable, I have noticed that editors have started to replace the citations that use Rayment with more reliable sources. Hopefully marking theses other as unreliable will result in the same benefits to the project. --PBS (talk) 09:30, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you PBS for getting this away from allegations of tainting the project, and looking at real examples where things can be improved. Sourcing is context relative, as Fifelfoo himself often repeats.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree, as PBS implies, that Medieval Lands offers a particularly useful start for articles about medieval women. Not only their marriage and family but their philanthropy too: Cawley cites all those charters etc. I've used it in exactly that way (Hawise of Monmouth, Rohese of Monmouth). Andrew Dalby 12:20, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, I'll just stick to writing about Northern Irish paramilitaries and the Troubles as I get more positive feedback in those fields than I do on historical bios. Being accused of "tainting the project" is my exit cue, so I really no longer care about what constitutes reliable sources for historical bios.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:34, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I would like to pick up on one point that Andrew made "OTOH, there is no such thing as an academic genealogist". Up to now professional genealogists can beset be seen as producing stud books for those in society who were willing to pay for such information. I suspect that social network analysis tools (such as the police use to analyse criminal networks via their phone usage) will be let loose on the genealogy and the subject will become much more prominent as an academic discipline because of the insights it will give into the possible reasons why certain families supported others politically for reasons that up to now have been overlooked (it will also throw up lots of possible incorrect associations that litter current genealogical compilations). The closest analogy I can think of is how genetic research has had, and is having, a profound effect on historians interpretations of poorly documented historical migrations. However this is speculation does not get us any further in this particular thread about the usage of Cawley as as a reliable source. -- PBS (talk) 14:13, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Let me also point out that including or excluding Cawley's work as a RS will not offset the academics' disdain for Wikipedia's historical articles seeing as we're all amateurs, Cawley or no Cawley, so....--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Quite true. Incidentally, although I'd love to find some academic praise of Cawley's work, I'm not aware of any academic criticism of it either. Just no mention at all as yet (so far as I know). Yet some use it, just as some use Wikipedia ... On the other hand, Christian Settipani, whose early medieval genealogies I wouldn't touch with a bargepole, has an academic foothold with Katharine Keats-Rohan. You can't trust the academics these days. Life ain't what it used to be Andrew Dalby 08:11, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I am still waiting to be told why there is a problem using Cawley's website when he provides a long list of his sources of which there has never been an academic dispute. This move is just simply counter-productive and an attempt to inject an exclusive country club ambience into the project. There may as well be a banner reading "Amateurs not welcome".--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:19, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

See above use his site, but only where you can cite the reliable sources he has used. This is nothing to do with his abilities good bad or indifferent (because we are not in the position to judge that), it is because his site fails WP:V. Looking at the example I gave above, what part of Marie, Duchess of Auvergne (a previously unreferenced article article to which you made large changes and added the 3 Cawley citation) can be supported by Cawley using his secondary sources (WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT)? -- PBS (talk) 09:28, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I guess if you say it fails WP:V you may be right, PBS, but I must say I'm not sure which clause it fails.

Marie, Duchess of Auvergne lacked a precise link to the entry at Medlands, so I've added one under external links. Odd that we provided an accurate link to Familypedia (an open wiki site) and not this, but ... Wikipedia is a work in progress, as they say. Andrew Dalby 13:31, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

To me, this looks like an overreaction by Fifelfoo and PBS. Cawley is most certainly not a self-published source—he is hosted by the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. They list his Medieval Lands as one of their "well-regarded" projects. Thus the concerns about WP:V are satisfactorily answered. The tagging should be reversed, saying that Cawley is a "self-published source" and that a "better source [is] needed". Binksternet (talk) 15:01, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. There are several ways to measure reliability , and Cawley's pages do not meet any of them apart from publishing and even that is up for debate as his project's home page includes the sentence "The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy is pleased to host these pages on behalf of the author, Charles Cawley" -- host not publish. -- PBS (talk) 15:55, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

My professional website is hosted by my internet service provider; I pay them. Cawley's work is hosted by the FMG as a project of FMG. That's very different. Binksternet (talk) 17:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, it's not a self-published source. It's easy to correct our mistake there: we can simply remove that part of the "warning" from our Medlands template.

Medlands remains fine to cite in external links -- one of the best possible candidates, for medieval biographies, since it always adds the genealogical depth that we don't have, as well as a mass of useful references to primary and secondary sources.

The other part of the "warning" is still valid when Medlands is cited in a footnote. It is still true that we want a "better source". The Medlands site does not currently meet our reliability standard because, so far as we know, there is no published reaction to it in academic history writing: it isn't (yet) part of the literature. That could change in the future, and if it changes in Medlands' favour, we would then remove the second part of the "warning" as well. Andrew Dalby 09:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:Verify credibility (with the failed=y) set is an alternative to "self published" and/or "better source needed". Andrew if we go back to the Marie, Duchess of Auvergne which part of the article do you think Crawley can be used as a source? I have edited the article and added what I think can and can't be reliably cited. As you will see from my edit AFAICT most of what Cawley's text does not cite reliable sources. For example it may well be a fact that Marie married only three times. But that is an inference that Cawley draws from his research because he has found three marriage contracts. If he were a reliable source then his opinion expressed in his text could be used for three marriages as a fact. But as it is there is no reliable source backing up that information which is stated as a fact in the Wikipedia article. Or take another case Cowley states that Marie is the daughter of JEAN de France and JEANNE d'Armagnac (marriage contract cited) but only one source is cited for one of the children (not Marie). For the brief historical facts (as opposed to genealogical facts) about both Marie and her husbands (eg "Appointed Connétable de France 31 Dec 1392 by Charles VI King of France") Cawley cites no sources, so these will have to be found in reliable secondary sources. If this biographical entry is typical of his sort of work then citing his sources, highlights where citing him without qualification adds potentially unreliable information into Wikiepdia. If he were an established published historian then the need to cite his sources would be unnecessary (although often helpful to a reader for further research).-- PBS (talk) 11:32, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, personally I don't agree with the current orthodoxy "if we've decided it's reliable, it doesn't have to cite any sources" -- but that's just an aside, not relevant here. OK, I've had a good look at Cawley on Marie, and a good look at Wikipedia on Marie, and I think you've taken a lot of trouble over it and done the best we can till we find the better sources we need. My formulation on his sources for Marie and her siblings would be just slightly different from your hidden notes (visible at the diff you have linked above) but it's so difficult to pick the relevant sources out that you could be absolutely right, as you certainly are on her children -- i.e. no sources at all. And that's before we've asked how Marie and Philippe managed all that procreation in less than four exciting years ... Something odd there, you know.

My suspicion is that Cawley has used a recent secondary source (Kerrebrouck, cited at his note 800) for this whole family. If so, clearly, that is a source that we would want to consult and cite a.s.a.p. in preference to him. You say "If this biographical entry is typical of his sort of work" -- well, it isn't (I'd say), but, on the other hand, this is not a unique case.

And yet, PBS, look beyond. He's really useful. The more obscure the family, the more primary sources he has cited and the more useful he is. I'd still say what I think I said above. Where we've used him to build an article he should, at least, remain cited under external links. Where he occurs in footnotes he should be tagged "Better source needed": I think that phrasing is exactly right.

Two problems, though: the mess that the page has become and the repetitive tagging that makes us look like apes calling an intelligent life form "unreliable". It isn't so -- we're not apes -- but that's how we make ourselves look. All the efforts Wikipedia once put into the design of its templates has been thrown out on this page. Three links to the same footnote in the lead, and eight more links to the same footnote below, all in a very short text. Nine citations of Medlands, three tags calling it an unreliable source (pots and kettles?), three calling it a self-published source (mistake), three saying it was retrieved in September 2012 (useless), and three saying better source needed (true, but boringly repetitive you'll admit). And still not a suspicion of doubt about the one reference to "Familypedia". Somehow Wikipedia has to do better than this! Andrew Dalby 17:34, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

This looks like destructive criticism, sorry, I don't normally and wouldn't have done it this time unless you asked! If it would help I'd be happy to rework the referencing on that page to show you what I mean. I am meanwhile starting the Latin page to see afresh what might be done from online sources. Andrew Dalby 08:08, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I do not see it as destructive criticism. Usually I would have moved some of the hidden inline comments to the talk page which means that the number of ref tags for footnote one would have been reduced. But some of the text probably needs to be removed such as "married three times" because it is speculation based on an unreliable source. The problem with removing the unreliable source tags (what ever they are) on the three general references, is that if only one of the Cawley citations contains such a tag, then readers may infer that the others are reliable.

The access dates are needed, because when Cawley reworks his pages the tags to section often fail (and help with locating archives of the page); but also because "date=" has to be set for the warning templates to keep the bots happy. One could separate out the two and have "accessdate=" and "date=", but that seemed like a waist of time to me as they would usually be the same, so I combined them (but that is easy to change if you do not like it).

There are just over 800 pages which cite Cawley of which about a dozen do not have the warning on all his templated entires. Here are three examples: Adolf of Nassau (1362-1420) and Richilde, Countess of Hainaut because Cawley's source are included, and Leonardo III Tocco which has a warning in the References section but not on the inline citations.

The reason that the Familypedia does not get a tag (nor did Cawley when included as an external reference) is that they are not cited sources, so they are not covered by WP:V and so don't need tags.

I suggest that you do rework the page Marie, Duchess of Auvergne and lets see what comes of it.-- PBS (talk) 11:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks PBS, I'll have a stab at it later today. About Familypedia: yes, I understand that, but a reader unfamiliar with Wikipedia's RS rules won't understand it. That reader would infer that Familypedia is more reliable than Medlands. That's why labelling Medlands "unreliable source" and not labelling Familypedia similarly is unacceptable. We have to look at it from the reader's point of view.

I agree with you about the hidden comments: one of the things I was already going to do if you agreed was to put them on the talk page. Those doubts and queries need to be visible to interested readers. About the access dates, on the other hand -- we shouldn't pester a reader with useless information just to keep bots happy. We're writing for people. So, if the access dates have to be there, they have to be hidden.

I can't see anything speculative about the statement "She was married three times". We have three marriages, backed by three cited marriage contracts, don't we? And they are common knowledge, all over the Web, aren't they? Are you yourself challenging one of those marriages? Why? -- (Added later: I can reassure you, anyway. This really-reliably-authored and reliably-published 2000 book goes into detail on all three marriages. (Don't know if you can see it from where you are?) They really happened.)

Anyway, let's move to the article :) Andrew Dalby 12:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I have alter the template to use {{Verify credibility}} rather than {{self-published source}}. I agree that most of this conversation about this specific template can be now be continued on talk:Marie, Duchess of Auvergne because I think we are further from agreement on what is an adequately cited article than I thought we were and it is not directly relevant to the conversation about this specific source. But there is one point about the use of information derived from Cawley own synthesis that I think is relevant to this thread. Andrew you write "We have three marriages, backed by three cited marriage contracts, don't we?" Yes but that does not mean that there were just three marriages, there could have been more. If a Wikiepdia article were to find three reliable sources and draw that inference that she was married three times, it would be a breach of WP:SYN to make such a statement. Information in a Wikipedia article can not be derived from an unreliable source, so to make the statement that there were three marriages needs a reliable source. As Cawley list three marriages derived from primary (and therefore reliable sources) one can list those marriages but one can not say she was "married three times" one can only say that she was "married at least three times" or simply let the facts speak for themselves and just list the marriages without stating a number. If of course there is a reliable source that says three marriages then the number can be included in the article with a supporting inline citation to the reliable source. -- PBS (talk) 17:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I would prefer to write "She was married at least three times". Wikipedia will never attract academics and historians to the project. These people would likely rely heavily on their own research and often publish this themselves. Seeing as that would be deemed OR, most-if not all-would be reluctant to cite from a source (however credible by Wikipedia standards) that they themselves consider erroneous.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, yes, we might, although it sort of half-implies that there could have been a fourth ... In fact the family is well known and well-documented, and I don't think there's a chance of that being so, so it would be a mistake to imply it ... But, still, if it gets over PBS's problem, no objection! Andrew Dalby 06:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

How about "We have documentation for three marriages. There is no evidence for any others"?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, OK, Jeanne, but if Wikipedia followed PBS's logic, lead paragraphs could never be written at all. If we have three documented marriages enumerated in the body of the article, and they are among the important features of her life, and we have no earthly reason to suppose there could be any more, it's right and sensible and unexceptionable to write in the lead paragraph "She was married three times". Lead paragraphs summarise the salient facts, and footnoting them is deprecated. PBS's argument on this is wrong all through. Andrew Dalby 17:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I think others may have had about enough of this and it's time to sum up. If I'm wrong about that, or if my summary is wrong, tell me so or ignore me :)

A template has been added to several hundred pages as a vehicle for links to "Medieval Lands". The template includes one or two warnings ([unreliable source] and [better source needed]) and the edit summaries say "Charles Cawley is not a reliable source. See RS Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley". The warnings are POV, the summary is POV, and the template makes a mess of pages especially when it occurs more than once on a short page (see e.g. [14] with its nine warnings). I don't know but this may have been the reason why Jeanne raised the issue again.

Well, that's a good thing, then, (a) because I don't recall any RS consensus to add all those warnings and summaries, and (b) I don't think there is a firm consensus here any more about how we should treat "Medieval Lands".

I suggest that we advise

1. keeping the templates, which are handy;
2. adding the note "better source needed" against footnote references to Medlands. Reason: it is currently true that in our practice Medlands doesn't count as a "reliable source" and it is true in our practice that we want better sources;
3. removing the other warnings. Reasons: too many warnings and repetitions make Wikipedia look unprofessional; calling a serious website, the result of a massive amount of careful work, "unreliable" is false, rude, and the worst possible acknowledgement to an author from whom Wikipedia has drawn great quantities of information;
4. adding the One-source headnote (with something like the wording I gave it at this edit) on any page on which Medlands alone is cited in footnotes and references. Reason: "reliability is questioned" is true -- see above :) -- and NPOV.

Might there be consensus for that, or something like it? Andrew Dalby 18:23, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Louis T. McFadden

There is reason to doubt some of the material on the Louis T McFadden page is from an un-biased source. The actual vigor with which that article attempts to place a label on McFadden is clearly fodder for the neutral point of view forum but the single source used to label McFadden is biased. The Mcfadden page sites numerous articles form a single source which cites itself. The source is biased and the items in the article are placed there with prejudice and mailice. There is a reference from a 'reporter' named Drew Pearson whose wikipedia page states in the opening sentence that Pearson often made claims with no proof - yet wikipedia considers Pearson's yellow press to be encyclopedic enough to appear in the biography of an individual who served as Chairman of the US House Committee on Banking and Currency for eleven years. I am not about to claim that McFadden may not have made some comments that offended individuals of the Jewish faith. I will remind you that in the 1930's and 20's discrimination against many of the Jewish faith was not uncommon, rather quite common. I will claim however that the article on McFadden is heavily biased by the single source of the JTA. It is impossible to look at the article and see the single self citing source attempting so vehemently to condemn McFadden with a label one cannot believe that this is not baised and malicious and done with prejudice to hang a certain label on McFadden and therefore marginalse his work. Having the single source of the JTA relentlessly quoted is done for a single reason. Only substantiating the biased claims of the JTA with JTA citations fails on scholarly and news organizations points 142.68.89.59 (talk) 14:57, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Drew Pearson is a notoriously unreliable source. Mention of allegations he made should be utterly dependent on their impact at the time (e.g. his attacks on James Forrestal). I cannot offer an opinion as to the reliability of the JTA at the time, and I agree that it would be nice if other sources could be found testifying to McFadden's views. Mangoe (talk) 19:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Pearson is quoted per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, so we are not so worried about whether he was accurate. Certainly it is a fact that McFadden was mentioned in Pearson's column that day. I have corrected the Pearson quote to say that Pearson was noticing McFadden being quoted by the fascist Silver Shirts. User:Binksternet

The phrasing is better but I am having some trouble with the section as to whether it is reporting a controversy of the time, or it is documenting McFadden's sins after the fact. If it is the latter, Pearson is an inappropriate source. If the former, he is appropriate only if he was a participant in the controversy. Mangoe (talk) 20:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I've found a scholarly source on this so it isn't as though we have to rely on contemporary news reports. See Jenkins, Philip (1997). Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania, 1925-1950. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 117–120. for an extensive section discussing his antisemitic career. Mangoe (talk) 20:34, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

it is very obvious that the powers that be at wikipedia have an antisemetic ( whatever that means - the term is thrown about so liberally these days that it is pretty much meaningless as it targets anyone that is even slightly critical of Israel ) axe to grind and it is very important to wikipedia to label McFadden as such ddespite the rampant ant-jewish sentiments of the day. You should at least review the article and check the spelling. The attempts to validate Pearson's comments pretty much put the argument on ice that wiki is biased. There is no editing war because wiki is an autocracy142.176.239.2 (talk) 21:31, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, McFadden stood out from the crowd in his day. He was not holding a median position. Binksternet (talk) 23:04, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd put Henry Ford up there with him - he was pretty bad though, using the House floor at times to "express" his viewpoint. There was at least one previous discussion about JTA here. There have been a couple of editors trying to seriously white-wash the McFadden article. Ravensfire (talk) 18:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

A question of identifying primary sources

Several users insist on removing the {Primary sources} tag from Brownie (Dungeons & Dragons). I am not really sure what the basis of their position is. All of the TSR/Wizards of the Coast publications are from the company that produces and owns the trademark for D&D and are therefore obviously primary sources. The other sources listed are:

1) something by Paizo Publishing, the owner of the Pathfinder game trademark - this source is used to verify that in a Pathfinder game sourcebook there is a critter called the "brownie". Hence the document is being used to verify that the document has the word "brownie" on it.

2) something by Necromancer Games which is used to verify that a critter called a brownie appears in the book published by Necromancer games. Hence the document is being used to verify that the document has the word "brownie" on it.

3) something by Avalanche Press which is used as proof that the Avalanche press book contains a critter called the brownie. Hence the document is being used to verify that the document has the word "brownie" on it.

The only potentially non-primary source is the White Dwarf magazine appearance. The publisher of White Dwarf had been the licensed publisher of D&D materials in the UK up until the year before this article appeared and so it is potentially a third party source. However, it would be a farsical claim to suggest that the two sentences cited to that source counter suggest in any way that the content of the article does not meet the criteria flagged as problematic with the tag: "This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject". -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:36, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

If the topic is limited to the Dungeons and Dragons game, then all three of the sourcebooks are non-primary, since they're not published by TSR or Wizards of the Coast. Is that the question you were actually asking? Jclemens (talk) 22:18, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The question is: whether the tag describing the article as relying on primary sources is appropriately placed. Is the content of the article relying on 1) books being used in a primary source manner ie simply to verify their own content/existance of certain words on their pages 2) sources closely affiliated with of the creator and owner of the D&D franchise /associated licenses. -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Jclemens, that they are published by someone other than TSR/WotC says that they are independent, not secondary. Both are required for sources satisfying WP:GNG, but they are different things. Whether a source is secondary or primary is something that is going to vary from source to source, and I will remind you that WP:PSTS acknowledges that a given source can fill multiple roles.
I don't agree that Paizo or other parties using the OGL are necessarily "closely affiliated" with WotC/TSR, but as discussed elsewhere, some companies like Kenzer had relationships with WotC that would compromise editorial independence per WP:IS. - Sangrolu (talk) 14:47, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I still don't understand how sources that have specific licencing agreements with WotC and bear the mention "This product requires the use of the Dungeons and Dragons® Player’s Handbook Revised, published by Wizards of the Coast®" could be "independent" of the D&D franchise and of WotC. Independence does not only mean "editorial independence", but also "no conflict of interest". Avalanche Press and Necromancer games both having direct financial interest and direct participation in the D&D franchise itself, there's no way they can be independent.Folken de Fanel (talk) 18:57, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Anyone the least bit familiar with OGL would have to conclude that they're independent of TSR/WotC. The entire point is "We won't sue you for writing compatible materials provided you require people to buy our book. Beyond that, we have no editorial control, and don't care that you exist." WotC only wrote up the licensing agreement, but never actually talks with, meets with, or interacts with OGL licensees in any way. My uncle (who has never even seen a D&D book, much less talked with a WotC employee) could publish an OGL product right now. The OGL license is not a discussed business deal with individual companies but a promise by WotC to not sue people who write or sell fan creations as long as WotC products are advertised. OGL products are not even "independent," but fan creations, and should be treated as nothing more than fan faction unless they are notable on other grounds (see Pathfinder). Ian.thomson (talk) 14:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks and manuals

We've had several discussions and AfD on Dungeons & Dragons that have been going nowhere. The main point of disagreement is the nature of sources used on articles about fictional D&D creatures like Adherer, are they primary/secondary, affiliated/independent ? I've come here to have the matter evaluated by fresh and uninvolved eyes.

To contextualize: Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop Role-playing game, played using core rulebooks which are official manuals detailing storyline and gameplay mecanics, published by TSR/Wizards of the Coast the creators and copyright holders of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise. These manuals or "sourcebooks"/"handbooks" , as they represent the game itself, are primary sources, I think we can all agree on that.

Now, there is disagreement whether other manuals used in D&D are primary/secondary, affilated/independent. There are two different types of manuals:

• Manuals which are commercially published supplements/extensions to the D&D game, providing original fiction and game mecanics intented for use in a D&D gaming session. Though not from the official D&D publishers, these books are published under certain licencing agreements that allow them to use material (story and gameplay) from the official D&D game, and to be sold as part of the D&D franchise (they bear the mention "This product requires the use of the Dungeons and Dragons® Player’s Handbook Revised, published by Wizards of the Coast®"). An example would be Tome of Horrors published by Necromancer Games (see an official preview in pdf).
  • My view is that as these books provide original fiction and rules for D&D, and as such don't provide "analytic or evaltive claim" (as secondary sources do), they fully participate, at primary level, in the building of D&D as a game and so I see them as primary sources not "independent of the subject" (per WP:GNG). Other users have expressed the view that since they are not from the official D&D publishers these manuals are secondary and independent.
• The second example is official core rulebooks, thus primary sources, from other tabletop role-playing games which are not D&D. Some can develop their own gaming mecanism, some others can reuse story and mecanics from D&D (again through specific licencing agreements) while still being completely different intellectual properties from different creators. See for example Pathfinder Roleplaying Game from Paizo.
  • Some contributors use these official manuals to argue that when these feature a fictional creature that also appears in D&D, then the manuals from other games are secondary independent sources, because there is no official affiliation with the D&D franchise. They also say that the appearance of the creatures in other games is a proof of notability. Again they argue that merely not being from D&D makes it a secondary source, despite not providing any analysis. My view, however, is that since these manuals are primary sources for their own games, they use the fictional creature to build their own fiction and their own mecanics, and don't provide any analytic or evaluative comments on the creature as it appeared in D&D, since they are not commentary books but primary sources for games (which I think is not "significant coverage" either per WP:GNG). I think being a secondary sources requires more than just "not being D&D". As such, they are not independent from the fictional creatures they feature, and since they are not D&D they just don't deal with the creature from the D&D franchise (thus don't deal "directly with the subject" per WP:GNG).

Thanks for helping us on this. We've had AfDs on D&D fictional creatures in the past and some on-going, including one last month Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Death watch beetle (Dungeons & Dragons) which outcome was the redirection of all articles nominated per consensus that the various manuals (both D&D extensions and other games), the only sources found, were primary/affiliated. Now that other AfDs have started, a user disatisfied with this outcome claims it was "not policy-based" and that "a lot of editors disagree", I think this is a good opportinuity to see which interpretation on sources is policy-compliant, and maybe to reach a wider consensus that won't be easily dismissed (note that the previous AfD had 21 participants, yet that didn't seem to be enough for some).Folken de Fanel (talk) 22:46, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

• This has also been brought up here before. - SudoGhost 22:52, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

• Personally, I feel that a rigid black-and-white distinction between "primary" and "secondary" can sometimes be unhelpful - there are grey areas - but these sources are very much on the primary side of the spectrum as far as I'm concerned. Now, it's often reasonable to use primary sources for uncontroversial claims, but I don't see how these articles pass the GNG if none of the sources are independent. (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝuʎɐɹqoq 08:25, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
• I think that the issue of independence requires careful attention to the actual publishing situation. I do not think that most OGL publishers lack "editorial independence" per WP:IS, though some companies like Kenzer had licensing arrangements that gave WotC an editorial approval role that would compromise "editorial independence".

The contention here regarding Primary or Secondary is that it assumed that these books only contain in-universe text that provides little significant coverage apart from the creature stats. In reality, many products go beyond this, discussing perceptions and uses of various game items from a game-play (vice in-universe) perspective. So I think saying all these sources are necessarily primary (or strictly primary) fails to give them adequate attention.

The problem I have with many of the articles and why I frequently vote for merging or deletion is that despite having sources I consider credible, many of the articles lack any semblance of significant coverage from those sources. Simply saying that a creature appeared in a certain book isn't worthy of a stand alone article; at best, it's a line entry in a list article. - Sangrolu (talk) 14:47, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The issue of independence does not only reside in "editorial independence", per WP:GNG, "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject or its creator" [...] "Works produced by the subject, or those with a strong connection to them, are unlikely to be strong evidence of notability. See also: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest for handling of such situations." Per WP:IS: "a source that has no significant connection to the subject and therefore describes it from a disinterested perspective. Independent sources have editorial independence (advertisers do not dictate content) and no conflicts of interest (no potential for personal, financial, or political gain from the publication).

Can anyone demonstrate that sources that state "This product requires the use of the Dungeons and Dragons® Player’s Handbook Revised, published by Wizards of the Coast®" have "no strong connexion" and "no affiliation" to the subject, which is D&D ? That they describe D&D in a disinterested perspective and no potential from financial gain by being tied to the D&D franchise ? I agree with all that you said, except I don't see how these sources could be seen as independent.Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:06, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I do not see use of the D20 STL as constituting a "strong connection" to Wizards. These folks are not on Wizards' payroll and their works don't go to Wizards for approval. I'll assume we agree that editorial independence is met, so I'll move on to the discussion of disinterested perspective. WP:IS says "no potential for personal, financial, or political gain from the publication"; that's referring to the original work, not the source (reviews that are very typically uses as WP:RS are usually published with financial gain of the publisher in mind!) The way OGL (which are sometimes STL) products are done is to take an existing product that has already been published and use/expand on material therein. Indeed, they may be citing a product that is out of print! It's not like they are promoting the product that is about to come out, and in some cases the OGL product may be intended to replace or supplant the given product or correct its perceived deficiencies. I don't think use of the D20 STL implicitly constitutes a conflict of interest.
Even if the consensus were to judge the presence of this text to constitute a conflict of interest, many products (especially newer ones, and the D20 STL is not available any more) use the OGL but not the STL. For example, the much debated Tome of Horrors has a new print that lacks the logo and D&D text entirely. - Sangrolu (talk) 13:38, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Publishing something under a particular product licensing agreement automatically makes that content "closely associated" and non-independent from the material under that particular product licensing agreement about that product. "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject or its creator." As per my response to jclemens on the D&D project page the fact that the publishers in the gaming world are "incestuous and tightly integrated corporate coverage designed to maximize profitability while retaining intellectual property rights" or ITICCDMPRIPR indicates that we must be even more vigilant than usual.-- The Red Pen of Doom 14:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

As I state above, the OGL/STL is not so much an agreement by WotC with individual businesses, but a blanket promise to not sue compatible fan creations provided they do not infringe on WotC's rights or income. It's no different than Stephanie Meyer not suing people who write Twilight fan fiction: we don't discuss the fan fiction unless it becomes notable on its own. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how Tome of Horrors could have editorial independence since they state in introduction that they "worked closely with WotC". And the fact that they "require the use" of official D&D products shouldn't be brushed away as just "not infringing on WotC's right" because these are the implications of such a mention:

• If someone new to RPGs buys Tome of Horrors and sees the mention "this product requires...", isn't the buyer effectively going to buy D&D products out of concern he wouldn't be able to use ToH on its own, hereby making it promotional ?
• Doesn't that mean that the product is directly marketed to players as a product affiliated to D&D, and thus effectively relying on D&D and its customers to exist, and so having direct financial gain in being identified as a full part of the D&D experience ? D&D reviews aren't part of the D&D experience and aren't essencial components of a D&D session, ToH is, so please no more irrelevant comparisons.

There is also the issue of independence excluding "works produced by those affiliated with the subject or its creator". The subject is a creature in D&D. ToH provides the creature for D&D (ie it provides original fiction and gaming mecanism for D&D that didn't exist before). How would ToH not be affiliated with the creature it effectively makes available to D&D ? ToH are effectively the original authors/makers of the 3rd Ed. version of the creatures they deal with in the book. Independence with the subject ? How so ?? Folken de Fanel (talk) 16:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• The financial reward which TSR received for publishing these works was the same as any publisher. The concept of editorial independence which is being promoted here is absurd because it would tend to exclude all commercial publishers which would include most publishers of textbooks and journals. An author who writes a maths text book has a financial interest in the work and the publisher of that textbook does too so this state of affairs is quite normal. What we seek to exclude for this purpose is two special cases:

1. Vanity presses, in which the author pays to have the work published rather than expecting an income
2. Self-promotion, such as an autobiography in which the author is writing about himself

Neither of these cases apply to the main D&D works such as the Monster Manual which were written by paid authors and published in an ordinary commercial way. The fact that the content formed part of a larger body of work is little different from a textbook about calculus being part of a series of works about mathematics. Warden (talk) 17:03, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• The complainants here obviously have no idea what licensing really is. Licensing like the OGL is a way for everyone to feel secure about their intellectual property rights. It's just like the CC-BY-SA or GFDL licenses that govern our contributions to Wikipedia. The OGL essentially says "We agree not to sue you, you agree that this intellectual property remains ours, and we all happily make games compatible with each other" If anything, it's more akin to a standards document than anything else. Again, the complainants have no idea what a license really is if they are asserting that the OGL creates a financial entanglement between a publisher of D&D compatible products and WotC. Jclemens (talk) 07:17, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
  • That is about the relationship between one publisher and the other; that is a completely different topic than the relationship between a publisher and the content they publish. If I write a D&D rulebook, that's not an independent source for D&D, it doesn't matter if you gave me permission or not. If I wrote a book or article about D&D, that would be different, but these are not books about D&D, they are D&D. Rulebooks created for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game are not independent of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, otherwise what would be a non-independent source? - SudoGhost 07:31, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Agree with SudoGhost's comment, wikilawyering on OGL doesn't explain away the fact that D&D rulebooks still "require the use of" official D&D rulebooks, and legal explanations aside, that's because such books contain material for a specific gaming system without including the necessary core rules and mecanics to this system that would make the material work on its own. That makes it fully dependent on D&D.
      Also, everyone is reminded that WP:GNG requires sources to be "secondary", and a secondary source make "evaluative or analytic claims about primary sources". I may not agree on everything Sangrolu wrote, but he was spot-on on one thing: however people may claim sourcebooks like ToH to be secondary independent, no one has been able to extract a single analytical or evaluative comment from these books, for use in articles. There's not a single line in the creature sections of ToH that would explicitely refer to "D&D" as an external/seperate instance, and that could be taken as comentary on D&D without the use of original reseearch. That's because these sourcebooks either integral reproduction of D&D material without comment, or original content for D&D that doesn't provide any commentary. Sangrolu was a bit reluctant to acknowledge it (yet he is fully aware of it), but that makes them primary and affiliated sources. Please forget OGL and answer the real questions.Folken de Fanel (talk) 09:32, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

The OGL is seriously only WotC promising not to sue people who write stuff for D&D. There are a lot of shitty products on RPGnow and other websites published under the OGL that no one in their right mind would begin to think that WotC would have encouraged. This is not wikilawyering, this is assessing things as they are.

Here is the original text for the OGL. Point 5 affirms that the material contributed is the author's and that WotC has nothing to do with it. Point 7 tells authors to keep their hands off of WotC's current property because the author is not connected to WotC. In other words, OGL products are, as far as WotC is concerned, completely independent of their product D&D, ergo it is independent of D&D, even if it is compatible with it and requires the use of WotC's rule books. To enter into an OGL deal, all you have to do is just distribute (usually self-publish) material that complies with that license.

The intro to ToH says that Necromancer games checked with WotC to make sure they were not using any monsters that WotC was ever planning on using. This is not work by, an endorsement from, or approval from WotC; this is not WotC entering into a deal for Necromancer games to work for them, this is simply Necromancer games making absolutely sure that they were complying with the OGL. 'Publish whatever you want, as long as it doesn't steal from us and still makes people buy our books' (the OGL in as few words as possible) is not a direct business deal. To imply that WotC was involved beyond confirming "we're not using that" is either a complete misrepresentation or misunderstanding. ToH never say that WotC gave Necromancer games any input into how to design the monsters, or that they condoned, agreed with, or approved of Necromancer game's results beyond saying "we're not planning on using that, so you can use it in an OGL product." No evidence that Necromancer games is an authority on the subject has been provided, either.

The Sathar has d8 racial HD and starts with two racial levels. It's class skills are jump, swim, knowledge (arcana), and craft (baskets). They have 4 + Int mod skill points per level. They have great cleave as a racial bonus feat, even if they do not meet the prerequisites. They are gargantuan-sized creatures. Their only attack is a psionic blast with a range of 50,000 feet dealing 36d4 damage, will save (DC 10) for double damage. -- There, I just distributed material completely compatible with the OGL (WotC decided to not include the Sathar in D20 Future). Do we get to include this complete misrepresentation of the Sathar in the Star Frontiers article once I shoot an email to a WotC employee saying 'y'all aren't using the Sathar, right?' It's later OGL material discussing prior TSR material. This is the problem with including OGL material in articles, and why OGL creations should be treated as fan-works and nothing more. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:16, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Since we don't have a Copyvio noticeboard

I've noted what looks like rather close paraphrasing between The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on Jurgen Habermas [15] and ours. There are at least a couple of sentences in the biography section that are copypasted.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:07, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

We do see Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations -- PBS (talk) 09:33, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:10, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The situation with this article seems to be resolved, but for future reference I'll point out that WP:SCV is bot-populated. The closest thing to a noticeboard for copyvio would be listing it at WP:CP, generally with {{subst:copyvio}} although a variety of other templates will cause it to end up there eventually. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:20, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Blog Reliability questioned

• Link: http://everythinginmusic.com/artists/fall-out-boy
• Article: Fall Out Boy Former members section and in the infobox.
• Statement: "Brandon Hamm – guitar (2001)"
• My argument: the source is a blog made by an open source blogging tool called [WordPress]], severely reducing its reliability. It has been cited in an attempt to support Brandon Hamm's inclusion as a former member on the Fall Out Boy page, which a user added alongside a shaky self-published source made by Hamm himself in the comments of an online newspaper website. There has been an RFC on the contentious issue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fall_Out_Boy#RFC_on_Brandon_Hamm with a general sentiment of excluding Hamm from the page. Hamm's involvement in the band has not been verified by any reliable sources and has not contributed to any released material, making the grounds of his membership very contentious. However, the said user has just added the also-shaky everythinginmusicsource.com source in an attempt to keep Hamm on the page. While I'm on this issue, the original source used for Hamm's membership is this http://blogs.suntimes.com/music/2008/05/background_reading_on_the_prom_1.html#comment-314099. I feel that the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP policy is not being taken into account by the user supporting Hamm's involvement due to the sources being weak and unreliable for such a large membership claim. Noreplyhaha (talk) 10:14, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

cortandfatboy

Hello, I recently created a page for cortandfatboy, a Portland-based podcast (talk page) and it was deleted for being a recreation of a previously deleted article. Unbeknownst to me, a prior version was created in 2011 and it was nixed due to an alleged lack of reliable sources. Over the past year, the show has been featured in a cover story in the Portland Mercury, a weekly newspaper, and on the blog of the Oregonian, the state's biggest/most widely read publication. I think the sources are there to warrant an article. If at all possible, I would greatly appreciate it if anyone here would be willing to look over the article's citations and tell me if they're up to par. Cheers... Multnomahblues (talk) 12:20, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

arXiv paper

At User:Toshio Yamaguchi/Wieferich prime I am preparing some content that I later want to include in the article Wieferich prime. At the section User:Toshio Yamaguchi/Wieferich prime#Connection with Sophie Germain primes I wrote a short passage about the connection of Wieferich primes with Sophie Germain primes. My question is, is the source I used, namely this paper on arXiv an acceptable source for the statements it cites? -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 14:48, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

PS: If you reply, please place

==Talkback Reliable sources/Noticeboard==
{{Talkback|Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard|arXiv paper|ts=~~~~~}}
~~~~

on my talkpage. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 23:27, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Toshio. The WP article on Reliable Source Examples has a good discussion on the circumstances in which it may be appropriate to cite Arxiv.

As a suggestion, if, in light of the guidelines suggested in that article, it's not entirely clear that this Arxiv paper qualifies as a reliable source, you may wish to contextualize the statements made by that source. For example (assuming that this paper hasn't been published elsewhere in a peer-reviewed journal), you could write something along the lines of "Luis H. Gallardo writes in a paper published on Arxiv that...." That way it's clear to readers that the claim isn't necessarily based on material that has gone through the sort of rigorous peer-review required for it to appear in a published mathematical journal. Best wishes! --Mike Agricola (talk) 21:07, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Mike for your reply. I already searched on the web and was unable to find an indication that this paper has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Your suggestion sounds good. That way it would be clear who made that statement and that the source was perhaps not independently checked by others. I searched here and found no indication that this paper has been cited by other papers, unfortunately.... -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 22:58, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

geteducated.com

• Specificially this page in List of unaccredited institutions of higher education List_of_unrecognized_accreditation_associations_of_higher_learning

Hi. :) This is, of course, a "list of unaccredited institutions of higher education". There are several institutions which are sourced only to this website (and a few which are supplemented with a link to this website) -- as of this writing, it is reference 15. The Wikimedia Foundation has received a letter challenging the accuracy of this information, but, of course, they do not handle content issues and are thus not in position to make this call. I searched the board for prior discussions about geteducated, but only found one off-topic on its notability.

The Wikimedia Foundation recognizes that the community is the expert on what sources are or are not usable and are hoping that you will review it to see if it is reliable in this context, taking any action you may deem appropriate if you decide it is not. They trust and respect your review and resulting decision and will communicate to the correspondent the result of any discussion.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:41, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Just FYI: I checked List of unaccredited institutions of higher education, and that page is not referenced there. It is referenced in List_of_unrecognized_accreditation_associations_of_higher_learning. jfeise (talk) 19:01, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Ack! Thank you. I can't believe I linked the wrong one. :/ --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• [EC] Because it's a commercial website in the business of selling advertising, I wouldn't necessarily rate GetEducated.com as the highest-quality of reliable sources, but I think it's reliable as a source of information on unaccredited institutions and non-recognized accreditation bodies.

One particularly strong factor in its favor is that the website is recommended as a resource by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation. Articles about the website have twice been deleted via AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Geteducated.com and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GetEducated.com; although those discussions did not find the website to be notable, they uncovered quite a few instances of reliable sources mentioning the website. Those mentions lend it some credibility as an information source.

The GetEducated website itself has several attributes that indicate reliability. It identifies who stands behind the information[16]; it has a complete set of contact information[17] (this is very much unlike most of the entities listed at List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations and List of unaccredited institutions of higher education, which typically either list no geographic location, operate from an obscure and remote place such as Vanuatu, or use a physical address that turns out to be a Mailboxes Etc. outlet); it provides thorough documentation of the basis for the information provided on its reports for individual institutions (this is an example of a report for a fully accredited school; here's an example of a report for an unaccredited school); and the information it reports is conservatively worded.

The Geteducated database of online schools is much smaller than the lists on Wikipedia and the list at http://www.geteducated.com/diploma-mills-police/college-degree-mills/204-fake-agencies-for-college-accreditation is shorter than the list in the Wikipedia article List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations. These comparisons give me confidence that they didn't copy from us (this is important, as some ostensibly reliable vendors of information on diploma mills and accreditation mills appear to have copied from us). I have observed that the GetEducated lists have grown slowly over the last few years, which is consistent with what would happen if they researched every entry individually, as they say they do. --Orlady (talk) 19:35, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

• I would not consider geteducated.com to be a RS. They have a vested interest in guiding people to one school or another. Just because they might be (currently) correct doesn't mean they are reliable. If I say "The United States has 50 states" on my blog, it doesn't make it a RS for geography. FWIW, I'd support deleting that list article.....what a mess. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:45, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

• I recently reverted an edit by a new user whose only edit was to delete an entry from the list of unrecognized accreditation organizations that was sourced to geteducated.com. The entity whose listing I restored was IAO. That organization's website shows a credible set of contact information and lot of accreditation activity worldwide, but it does not give any suggestion that IAO has recognition as an accreditor from any legitimate government authority. We would not include it on the Wikipedia list solely on the basis of lack of evidence of recognition (inclusion in the list requires a reliably sourced indication that the entity definitely does not have recognition as an accreditor), but I can't find a basis for questioning/challenging its listing as "unrecognized or fake" at geteducated.com. --Orlady (talk) 20:04, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Firishta

Can Firishta, the historian of the 16/17 centuries be considered a reliable source for the history of the Khokhar community? I don't mean cites of his opinions but rather cites of him as fact. - Sitush (talk) 20:52, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

specifics pls. what article? what claim? have other more recent scholars made claims counter to him? if so who and based on what evidence and what is the scholarly opinion of the sources that contradict him? how "controversial" are the claims that are being attributed to him? have the claims been specifically challenged by an editor?

In general, a scholar from that long ago, it would probably be best practice to attribute claims. Even if outplaced by more recent scholarship, it could be good content to keep and present to show the historical evolution of the views and interpretations. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:37, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, TRoD, and yes, I am familiar with the outcomes and procedures of this noticeboard. I linked to the article. The claim is everything related to the history of the community, apparently up to Firishta's own time. Treating him as being some sort of ultimate source.

I was trying to keep it neutral but, since you appear to insist, then yes, I challenge the usage for factual statements. This is an Indic caste article, it is subject to general sanctions and it is an area in which (a) a lot of puffery goes on; (b) most stuff from centuries ago is either ignored by modern authorities or is deprecated; and (c) I have much experience. You can forget the evolution of historical views and interpretations because that is an issue for an article concerning the historiography of India etc (which would be interesting, to be sure).

I really did not want to say any of this because it moves the query from one that is neutral to one that is clearly biased. But you did ask, sorry. I must admit to getting a bit fed up with the pussyfooting around this subject area and it is all pushing me that much closer to jacking it all in. The odd bad day is becoming the odd bad week and it simply is not worth my effort, especially when it almost invariably ends up as I anticipated and, if you can forgive my ownership, in "my favour". My apologies for the rant: I do appreciate the input and the request for clarification but this type of issue is old news here. I feel like a hamster on a wheel. - Sitush (talk) 00:04, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Obviously "Treating him as being some sort of ultimate source" is "NO" :-)

I had just quickly glanced at the articles but as you have pointed out the views of 16/17th scholars are clearly no longer considered as valued for anything other than examples of historical views regarding caste issues. -- The Red Pen of Doom 00:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Per HISTRS and the fact he was born, lived, wrote and died before Ranke this is not reliable for any claim. Quote—at most—as a primary source per WP:HISTRS regarding using primary sources for illustration, ie only where a modern historiography of history quotes Firishta on a point. and only where that point is WEIGHTy to the article. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Peabody Institute

71.230.50.24 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is persistently inserting information pertaining to student complaints about Peabody Institute, repeatedly claiming that Facebook and a blog are verifiable sources: [18].

I would like a third opinion as to whether or not this information should be included.

69.251.42.0 (talk) 21:12, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Facebook and blogs are only ever "reliable" sources in the most limited of circumstances such as when they are used to support non controversial content solely about the verified owner of the Facebook account / blog. (ie John Doe's blog being used to verify a claim such as "Doe was inspired to write the song X after seeing a beautiful sunrise") or when they are the verified account of a known expert who has been previously published and the blog postings/content are in the same topical area for which the person was published see WP:SPS. In this case, nope, not usable in the least. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:19, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

This is more a notability issue. If it makes the papers or the evening news, it can be included, but a bunch of people grousing on Facebook or in a blog isn't notable. Mangoe (talk) 16:56, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Student complaints on social media and blogs are not reliable enough for Wikipedia. Complaints must appear in newspapers or similar. Binksternet (talk) 17:24, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

InsideScanlations.com

The original discussion for this website I started is located here, but did not receive much discussion. The content I want to use it for is for the Scanlation article on potentially for related articles. I want to use the website's history of scanlation, information on the process, and interviews with scanlation groups and industry publishers and want to know if the website would be a qualify as a reliable source for that purpose. Thanks for the help. AngelFire3423 (talk) 04:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you already provided enough information that the site can be used for routine information about its community. DGG ( talk ) 18:28, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Philip Cohen's 'Serbia's Secret War: propaganda and the deceit of history' as a WP:RS on Yugoslavia in WW2 in general

This is a bad penny that just keeps on turning up heads, so I thought I would try to put it to the community for an opinion. There are those who edit 'Yugoslavia in WW2' articles who question whether the subject book is a WP:RS on that general subject. The general theme of these objections is that Cohen was apparently a dentist (if he was, he may still be one, I don't know), and therefore it is not a. reliable, or b. he's an amateur and it could only be a tertiary source at best. Here is the Google Books link to the book in question [19]. The book is published by Texas A&M University Press, is part of a series on East European Studies edited by Stjepan Meštrović, and has a foreword by the late David Riesman, who was at that time the Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University. Cohen uses footnotes from other secondary WP:RS on the subject such as Tomasevich, Milazzo, Roberts etc, but the work is extensively footnoted, and Riesman concludes inter alia 'this volume will be useful to scholars specialising in the history and current politics and policies in the Balkans and Serbia in particular.' On this occasion it just happens to be the Ante Pavelic article where it has been challenged, but it has been challenged on other 'Yugoslavia in WW2' articles before. I ask for a community view on this book as a WP:RS on the subject of 'Yugoslavia in WW2' generally, because I think that would suffice for the moment. If there is a more specific challenge to a specific part of the book for a specific article, I will of course bring it back here. Regards, Peacemaker67 (talk) 05:09, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

doi: 10.1093/hgs/14.2.300 is an appropriate review in an appropriate scholarly journal. They note he has not historical postgraduate training. I think this paragraph is sufficient, "An objective and thorough history of the World-War-II Serbian puppet state under Milan Nedic certainly is needed, but Serbia's Secret War is not it. This is not an exhaustive study, nor did I find it unbiased. The tone is set at the outset in the "Series Editors Statement," where Stejpan G. Mestrovic indicates that "respected Western fact-gathering organizations have concluded that the overwhelming majority of atrocities and one hundred percent of the genocide in the current Balkan War [Bosnian Civil War?] were committed by Serbs" (p. xiii). I find, and I think many readers will perceive the same, that the intent of this book is to punish Serbia and the Serbs for their alleged past and current crimes against the non-Serbs of the region. No falsifications of history appear in its pages, but several dubious historiographical practices are employed in its condemnation of the Serbs." "Nowhere in Serbia's Secret War is there any discussion either by Mestrovic or Cohen of the intellectual validity of the transference of a past epoch (e.g., World War II) onto the present as this book largely does. Without such a dialogue, however, this book or any other like it, may degenerate into unreasonable conspiratorial history. Historiography, especially that of the modern Balkans, is well populated with studies exemplifying such trends by people who have an axe to grind; these works contribute little to our understanding of complex past events and their impact upon the present. Although it habitually is, history should not be employed as a weapon. Serbia's Secret War addresses several important historical topics, but does so poorly and incompletely. One can see it as part of the current popular-historical and journalistic literature that seeks to demonize and condemn rather than to chronicle and elucidate fairly. It is to be hoped that its shortcomings will stimulate others to try harder and to do better." The criticism levelled that this is pre-Rankean history is so methodologically harsh that I would call it a condemnation. I would say that it is unreliable, and refer readers to WP:HISTRS regarding appropriate sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:43, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Always informative, Fifelfoo. Is there some way we can record this for posterity other than in these archives? Peacemaker67 (talk) 06:18, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

G'day again Fifelfoo et al. This one also relates to Cohen (in a different article), so I thought I'd bring it here for a view given the above. There is an issue in the Pavle Đurišić article revolving around the awarding of an Iron Cross to the man, but also some details of his involvement with the Serbian Volunteer Corps and a promotion. The principal source for this is in Cohen, p. 45, where he states

"After the capitulation of Italy in 1943, Đurišić established closer ties with Dimitrije Ljotić, whose Serbian Volunteer Corps provided weapons, food, typewriters, and other supplies. Nedic promoted Đurišić to the rank of lieutenant colonel and appointed him assistant commander of the Serbian Volunteer Corps, and, on 11 October 1944, Adolf Hitler awarded Đurišić the Iron Cross".

This paragraph is footnoted by Cohen to a US Archives microfilm of the entitlement document (which I have not seen, but which is purportedly the image on the article page), and three books, one (1949) by Bosko Kostic, Ljotić's personal secretary, one (1971) by Ratko Parezanin another of Ljotić's people (head of his party education department), and one (1984) by Mladen Stefanovic which is a history of Ljotić's party, the Zbor.

The other related issue is that Cohen produces the same information about the Iron Cross in his 1997 book "The World War II and contemporary Chetniks: their historico-political continuity and implications for stability in the Balkans" p. 34, and I was wondering if you had access to a review of that book to help with an assessment of its reliability? Peacemaker67 (talk) 11:26, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Allegation of abuse of sources in Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia

Discussion by editors previously involved in this discussion elsewhere

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Discussion unrelated to RS/N's purpose of evaluating source reliability. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

---

G'day all, There has been an ongoing dispute regarding the title of the subject article (which is not the subject of this post, it obviously needs to be dealt with elsewhere). As part of this discussion, several editors have claimed that I have been abusing the sources I have used for the official name of the territory in question. I have used several sources here, so for completeness I will lay out all of them, along with the exact statement in the article that I am using the sources to support. I would appreciate a few more eyes on this to make sure I am not too close to the issue.

1. Sources.

a. Bond, Brian; Roy, Ian (1977). War and society: a yearbook of military history, Volume 1. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-85664-404-7. p. 230 here [20].

b. Deroc, Milan (1988). British Special Operations explored: Yugoslavia in turmoil, 1941-1943, and the British response Volume 242 of East European monographs. East European Monographs, University of Michigan. ISBN 978-0-88033-139-5. p. 232 here [21]

c. Hehn, Paul N. (1971). "Serbia, Croatia and Germany 1941-1945: Civil War and Revolution in the Balkans". Canadian Slavonic Papers. 13 (4). University of Alberta: 344–373. Retrieved 8 April 2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |editorlink= (help) here [22]

d. Kroener, Bernhard (2000). Germany and the Second World War: Volume V: Organization and Mobilization of the German Sphere of Power (Part 1: Wartime Administration, Economy, and Manpower Resources, 1939-1941). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822887-5. p. 86 here [23].

e. Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (2002). Serbia: the History behind the Name. London: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 978-1-85065-476-6. p. 141 here [24]

f. United Kingdom Naval Intelligence Division (1944). Jugoslavia: History, peoples, and administration. Michigan: University of Michigan. p. 380 here [25]

g. Kerner, Robert Joseph (1949). Yugoslavia. University of California Press. p. 358 here [26]

2. Content.

The above sources are used to support the following content.

'Official name of the occupied territory translated from German: Gebiet des Militärbefehlshaber Serbiens' - which is contained in a note to the bolded article title in the lead.

I would greatly appreciate a view whether any or all of these sources can be used to support that content, and/or suggestions on what if any modifications should be made.

Regards, Peacemaker67 (talk) 06:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is source abuse. Peacemaker67 is try to promote name “Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia” in Wikipedia and he have only one source in English that support this name - Hehn, Paul N. (1971). All other sources here do not use name “Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia” and Peacemaker67 list them in pages to create false impression that name that he promote in Wikipedia have support from more sources. Name that he promote have support from only one source in English and that source is 40 years old and no other source support that. Nemambrata (talk) 15:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Having read the (heated) discussions on the articles talk page, it seems that the current title only appears in one RS, and the context it appears is as a translation of the official Nazi-Germany name of the territory, not as the actual name of the territory in English. It appears that there is no-one & nothing other than this article which uses the articles current title for the subject 92.15.79.29 (talk) 16:19, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

With respect, Nemambrata has made their opinion known on the article talk page, I am asking for a community view from a few well known experienced editors who have dealt with many situations like this. I think it is always good to get wider views. Immediately above this post I inquired about the reliability of Cohen, received a response and then modified my view in an article as a result. This shows I am willing to accept the view of the wider community. I hope you would do the same. However, the allegations by Nemambrata that I have been forging sources, which is a personal attack on my integrity, and which has been used on the talk page of the article will be reported shortly. All I am asking for here is a fair and disinterested assessment of each of the sources I have used for the content I believe it supports. Regards, Peacemaker67 (talk) 21:03, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I've commented recently on the talk page but not prior to the other day and am not a regular on that page or the topic more generally. I don't know if it's a problem with the links as presented, differences between Google results in different countries or something else, but about half of those sources do not seem - at least when I open them - to provide any evidence in support of the content. The first three and the last seemed to offer the terminology, either in German, English or both; the others not. My own Google books search for the phrase brings up only four results, with only one of those actually picking out the precise phrase. That said, I'm not sure lots of sources are needed to demonstrate what an official name for the area/administration might have been, and to verify a brief note about it in the page or the page footnotes, unless in itself it's a controversial point (as noted, there is a separate but related dispute about what the title of the article should be, which is where numbers and common use, as well as issues around clarity and consistency with similar articles, would come into play). N-HH talk/edits 21:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::::Well, German works verify the German official name so asking for sources that use a translation like Area/Territory of Military Commander in Serbia is rather inane. There's not much to abuse in the first place when the issue revolves around a straightforward translation.--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 21:36, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Ooo, it is very clear that this name is wrong and unsupported! We should override any problems in order to fix this construct and wrong title for this article, which was pushed without agreement anyway! --WhiteWriter^speaks 21:33, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Look, filling up this notice board by the same editors (WW and Nemambrata) that have made their views clear on the talk page is unhelpful and probably repels disinterested experienced editors that are actively involved on this noticeboard. If you have something to add to the actual discussion of whether these sources support the listed content, please try to stay on topic. The title issue is related, but this request is not a content dispute. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (talk) 21:52, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion by editors not previously involved in the discussion of the sourcing issue alone

If you have previously been involved in discussing the name of the article in question, please do not comment further on RS/N. Feel free to discuss the results of the RS/N discussion of sources on your article talk page. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Are the sources reliable for the territory being discussed being "Gebiet des Militärbefehlshaber Serbiens" and that a reasonable translation of this title being the territory of the military commander in Serbia?

Bond and Roy (1977). This text is miscited as it appears to be a chapter in an edited collection. As the text is miscited it is unable to be reliable as the basis of scholarly reliability cannot be adequately determined from the text as cited. Was this actually read before being used? Because miscitation (and miscitation in the manner of a Google Books snippet search) is indicative that the text was not read in full prior to use.

Deroc (1988). While I am very familiar with this monograph series, I am unable to view sufficient context to determine text reliability.

Hehn (1971). Text supports the claim that the territory was officially known by the Germans as "Gebiet des Militärbefehlshaber Serbiens" it does not support the translation of this title being the commonly known name of the area in English but it does support the idea that "Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia" is a valid translation used by scholars of "Gebiet des Militärbefehlshaber Serbiens"

Kroener (2000). Map I.II.6 lacks adequate context to support the claim. pp194–196 supports the claim that the area is known in English to scholars as "the territory of the military commander" when discussing 1941 occupation policies.

Pavlowitch, Stevan K. (2002). adequately supports "The territory of the Military Commander, Serbia" as being a term used by this scholar at least to reflect on the German occupation

United Kingdom Naval Intelligence Division (1944). Out of date, inappropriate specialist.

Kerner, Robert Joseph (1949). Out of date in the rapidly moving field of Balkan studies and Balkan history.

None of this indicates what the common name amongst scholars in English is, or what the common English referent is for the territory directly occupied by Germans containing a large Serbian population in WWII. None of this indicates if the most common name is an English translation, or a German loan word. This indicates that in three reliable scholarly sources, scholars are aware of the german Gebiet des Militärbefehlshaber Serbiens, and that this is a Territory controlled by a Military Commander in or of Serbia. Regarding your name dispute, I suggest mediation on an appropriate forum and a close friendly discussion of title naming policy. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

G'day again Fifelfoo, and thanks for trying to keep this on WP:RSN matters. Let me make it clear that, given this is the WP:RSN, I naturally did not ask for an opinion about whether it is the WP:COMMONNAME, or whether these sources support the translation of this title being the commonly known name of the area in English. In fact, I have never suggested that was the case, or that they do. However, if you interpreted my question more widely, or assumed that I was making that suggestion, I am sorry for the miscommunication. Essentially all I asked is whether these sources support the idea that "Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia" is a valid translation used by scholars of "Gebiet des Militärbefehlshaber Serbiens". Cutting through to the issue in question, your answer, I believe, is yes in the case of Hehn, although you did not address the issue of the 'official name' included in my question. I believe you have also answered that Kroener supports the claim that the area is known in English to scholars as "the territory of the military commander" when discussing 1941 occupation policies, and that Pavlowitch supports "The territory of the Military Commander, Serbia" as being a term used by this scholar at least to reflect on the German occupation. I have a couple of supplementaries if you don't mind?

• What I asked is whether the sources can actually be used to support the content 'Official name of the occupied territory translated from German: Gebiet des Militärbefehlshaber Serbiens'. Are you saying that Hehn can be used to do this, taking into account your issues with the apparent miscitation of Bond & Roy, lack of context for Deroc, and older references? Can any of the other sources be used for that purpose?
• On what basis do you discount the older sources, and how old do they have to be? Is Lemkin, for example, published in 1944, no longer in date? What criteria have you used for that opinion?
• What does 'inappropriate specialist' mean?
• Why have you dropped the capitalisation of 'Territory' from Pavlowitch and 'Serbia' from Kroener in your response?

Thanks again, Peacemaker67 (talk) 07:11, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Not sure why my comment has been boxed off above. I have not commented previously on the sourcing issue per se at all, and my response above was entirely focused on the precise question here, not on the article title issue. I have discussed - briefly and for the first time only the other day - the title issue, but I do not see that this renders my observations about sources redundant or that I should be subject to a "do not comment here" instruction. N-HH talk/edits 08:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

ditto to NN-Hs' statement 92.15.79.29 (talk) 17:27, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Dr. David C.F. Wright/www.wrightmusic.net

Does anyone know whether Dr. David C.F. Wright and the bios on his site www.wrightmusic.net are reliable ? I've not heard of him. A number of his biographies are being used as sources. I stumbled across him while looking at the Reginald Smith Brindle article. The ext link used to link to one of his bios but that has apparently been removed from the site. The original Smith Brindle bio is available at www.wrightmusic.net here. It cites no sources, none of his articles cite sources, and the article seems rather personal. I'll also note that according to his own bio on his site here, Wright has exposed "the lies of Richard Dawkins.....the nonsense of evolution", which doesn't fill me with confidence. So, any thoughts on whether he qualifies as an RS at least for music bios (not the modern evolutionary synthesis) ? Sean.hoyland - talk 19:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

the only content i found published by a David C F Wright in google scholar is regarding finances and while I did not find any books published by him in a quick search of googlebooks, he seems to appear as a contributor about Elizabeth Lutyens in a couple of journals [27] -- The Red Pen of Doom 19:52, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

since anything in the external link section needs to be an active and reliably active link WP:ELNO i have removed the dead link from Reginald Smith Brindle. If the other links to the pageWrights site are also to dead pages (perhaps removed in anticipation of a book publication after spamming them to Wikipedia?) the links can/should be removed as well. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:14, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Not to be confused with another Dr David Wright, of Washington University in St. Louis, who is also a musician, composer and arranger, but (unlike David C.F. Wright) he writes and teaches mathematics, e.g. ISBN 9780821848739. Also unlike D.C.F.W. he is a barbershop harmony hall of fame arranger, rather than a classical musician. LeadSongDog come howl! 22:10, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Network Marketing Insider

Can "Network Marketing Insider" be relied on as a source to review a network marketing company? For example, would it be legitimate to use the following as a source for the MonaVie article...http://www.networkmarketing247.com/monavie/monavie-review-one-of-the-good-guys/?Tonyhammond (talk) 00:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

This is a blog, written by one person with no editorial review. The individual writing is also very straightforward about their favor towards network marketing in the "about" section of that web site, so this source is neither neutral nor reliable. VQuakr (talk) 02:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Understand the comment about editorial review, but why would being in favor of network marketing suggest that he is not a good evaluator of network marketing companies. As an investor, I would prefer an analyst with experience in the field to tell me whether a company is a good company or not, and I wouldn't hire a blacksmith to tell me about the cut and color of a diamond.Tonyhammond (talk) 02:34, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles aren't written as advice to investors. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

On the same topic, would the Better Business Bureau be considered a reliable source?Tonyhammond (talk) 02:37, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

You have repeatedly been told that it isn't for what you are trying to cite it for, per "BBB accreditation does not mean that the business' products or services have been evaluated or endorsed by BBB, or that BBB has made a determination as to the business' product quality or competency in performing services". [28] AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you have repeatedly made that statement, and I have repeatedly shown you that BBB's own website and FAQ which clearly states it DOES evaluate businesses. just because you make a statement repeatedly, that does not make it true. I was not citing it as a reference to the products and services, but as a reference about the honesty and integrity of the company. Is there some reason you refuse to believe that the BBB can be a credible, independent, reliable resource when so many consumers would disagree with you? If you check out WP:Better Business Bureau you would see that even WP's own article on the BBB considers it a reliable source, and I quote, "The BBB serves as a trusted intermediary between consumers and businesses, handling nearly 1 million consumer disputes against businesses in 2012[6]. The BBB also alerts the public to scams, reviews advertising, and assists when donating to charity." You are arguing against that properly sourced and cited statement.Tonyhammond (talk) 03:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Who says that? I certainly haven't considered the BBB a "trusted intermediary between consumers and businesses" since 20/20 exposed their ratings as fraudulent. Checks article for source. Oh, the BBB considers themselves trustworthy, and it looks like they've been editing their own Wikipedia article too. No thanks, I think it's be WP:UNDUE weight to tarnish a company's reputation by mentioning their association with the BBB. Kilopi (talk) 03:55, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Yup - I've just come to the same conclusion - another article needing cleaning up... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Sourcing of Golden Joystick Award

On Talk:Golden Joystick Award, a user with a declared COI wants to include the statement that "It is organised by Future plc, publishers of magazines such as Computer and Video Games and Official Nintendo Magazine" replacing a previous statement about the organizer. After being asked for independent sources, this user has provided a link to the Professional Publishers Association (http://www.ppa.co.uk/news/industry/future-publishing-announces-29th-annual-golden-joystick-awards/). This looks like a press release to me. Does the PPA have sufficient editorial independence and fact checking to accept it as a reliable source for the factual statement that this award is "organised by Future plc"? This ought not to be a highly controversial statement, I would think. The COI user has also provided links to Future's own sites. Advice would be welcome. DES ^(talk) 12:08, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

PPA is a reliable UK organisation. The item however is a PR -based notices. Even generally reliable professional magazines run them as sources of industry news, giving enough attribution to indicate where the material came from. This item words it clearly enough: "Future Publishing has announced..." "Future said..." and then it quotes directly the head of that publishing group. Many generally reliable newspapers do similarly, but the sloppier ones sometimes omit the attribution. DGG ( talk ) 18:24, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Amnesty International

Would this site which provides a detailed study on the the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project [29] be acceptable to use as a reference? Thanks! Gandydancer (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, excellent source for the relevant article. If you find contradictory views, sourced perhaps to national government or company statements, include them too. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is easy enough to find contradictory information put out by BP, the major operator, but I am having trouble finding local reactions to the pipeline. I'm sure that there is plenty of local news in other languages, Russian for instance. Would foreign language news sources be appropriate to use in this situation? Gandydancer (talk) 12:47, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

India-Forums

Does anyone know if any part of India-Forums can be considered a reliable source? This site describes itself as "an established television discussion forum" and "an online youth networking site", but there are also a lot of non-forum articles on the site. Many are simply reprints of production companies' press releases, or user-submitted content. The remainder I'm not sure about; it looks mostly like celebrity gossip to me, and I have no idea if there's any independent editorial oversight. We have a lot of links to this site, many (most?) of which have been added to various Indian TV articles by sockpuppets and anonymous IPs; it's also the source of a disturbing number of copy-and-paste copyright violations:

• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2008 November 30
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2008 October 16
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 August 24
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 December 19
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 March 7
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 May 2
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2010 May 5
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 August 20
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 August 23
• Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations/2010-03-07
• Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations/2010-05-02
• Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations/2010-05-05
• Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations/2010-12-19
• Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations/2012-08-23

And the above are just the ones people have bothered to report with the full URL spelled out; there are many more where different link text is used, and for fresh cases most editors just revert on sight. Is there any reason this site shouldn't be on XLinkBot's revert list? —Psychonaut (talk) 15:55, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

no its not a reliable source. i would support a blacklisting. -- The Red Pen of Doom 11:58, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm… apparently this site has formerly been the subject of investigation for spam; see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/india-forums.com. I can't find any record as to whether it was ever blacklisted before (and if not, why not, and if so, why it was ever removed from the blacklist). But if there are no circumstances under which it can serve as a reference or useful external link, maybe adding it to the spam blacklist would be a better option. —Psychonaut (talk) 12:40, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

India-forums.info is blacklisted, india-forums.com isn't. The 'whois' information for each domain doesn't suggest a relationship, though. ~Amatulić (talk) 14:34, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

TuneFind

Hey peoples. Does any know if this can be considered a reliable source for the article Nightswimming (Awake). Cheers, TBrandley 01:19, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

there does not appear to be any editorial oversight, so no not a reliable source. if you are just looking to verify that a certain song was used, the shows credits are about as reliable as you can get for that. -- The Red Pen of Doom 14:57, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Filmtracks.com

Is Filmtracks.com a reliable source? I would like to use it for the music section in Sense and Sensibility. It is solely run by Christian Clemmensen, who explains his background here. I came across it randomly; thoughts would be appreciated. Ruby 2010/2013 05:40, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem with a privately run site is that authorship and editorial review are not independent, so its credentials need to be established. Do you know if it is used as a source of information by other reliable sources? For instance, if Entertainment Weekly or Variety referenced it in their articles that would go a long way in determining its validity. Alternatively, if the guy who runs it is independently published in this field he may qualify under WP:SPS. Betty Logan (talk) 06:13, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I came across this from Entertainment Weekly. I may not need his review after all, but I'd still like to know everyone's thoughts for future reference. Ruby 2010/2013 06:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

TV.com

There are some "List of _______ episodes" articles that I would like to create at some point for various TV shows (most of them 1950s-60s era) but I anticipate that the only secondary sources I'll be able to find that actually list them will most likely be sites like TV.com. I know IMDb isn't a reliable source, but has the issue of TV.com every come up? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 09:13, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Look through these results. Insomesia (talk) 10:20, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

TV.com is user generated content, so no it is not a reliable secondary source. -- The Red Pen of Doom 12:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

That's what I was expecting. So my next annoying question is, what will happen if I just compile a list and create it without much or any sourcing? I've seen several lists of episodes here and there that seem to do that without anyone having challenged it (presumably the primary source -- in this case the show itself -- is presumed to be reliable enough to implicitly act as a source for material about itself). It's not as though I would be making stuff up, but would that be likely to be challenged? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

If you don't have a source, how are you going to compile a list? Or are you proposing to use an unreliable source, and not cite it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:16, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind that this is all hypothetical, as I haven't even looked into this much. But my basic idea was that I would use something like the back of a DVD case to compile the list with episode titles, basic rundowns of the plot, etc. I would think that would be unquestionably reliable, but it's also primary, so RS policy would rather I go to a secondary source to verify it. In my mind, though, it's not potentially controversial. It is not, as WP:V would put it, "material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged", so by the strictest interpretation of policy, I don't actually have to cite a source at all. Of course, I would prefer to cite a source, so in this as-of-yet hypothetical scenario, I suppose I would cite the primary source rather than no source at all; particularly since people seem to be particularly insistent about sourcing for even non-controversial things these days. If I wanted to list, for example, original broadcast dates, though, which are an integral part of most episode lists, I would probably have to turn to a site like TV.com. Even still, I don't think that's controversial, so per WP:V, would there actually be a problem with me not citing a source? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Citing official production credits and materials does not seem to be a bad idea, at least for non-exceptional claims. You might try official listing at Netflix if they list episode credits or wherever else you can verify the content. And providing the citations shows you are making good faith content edits. A primary source is better than no source and I doubt the content would be contested, but if it is TV Guide or some other media might have the information. TV.com could perhaps guide you to other more reliable sources that could be used. Insomesia (talk) 01:21, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

weather2travel

There's a bit of a dispute over whether weather2travel is a reliable source for sunshine data (and sea temperature data) in the Istanbul article. Here is the edit in context. (Note that the source gives sunshine data rounded to the nearest whole number and the article converts that to monthly data.) Any additional opinions on the reliability of this source would be appreciated. -- tariqabjotu 15:00, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't consider the weather2travel website a reliable one since it is tourist website that promotes travelling to that destination (kinda spammy). These links are not necessary for including in an encyclopedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ssbbplayer (talk • contribs) 20:52, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The weather2travel is one of the projects by Global Support Limited (Worldwide Weather, Climate & Geography Experts). Global Support Limited, based at Pinewood Studios in the UK, have combined their extensive knowledge of the world's climate and geography to create a number of unique online resources - including for the film, television, commercials industry, consumer websites for the travel and tourism industry the overseas property investment market and other. This is not "hobby" page or blog. The weather2travel.com are reliable source. Subtropical-man (talk) 08:24, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

From terms of use, point 10 (bold is mine)

"Disclaimer: No warranties, promises and /or representations of any kind express or implied, are given as to the nature, standard, suitability, availability or otherwise of the services offered on the Weather2Travel.com website or as to the accuracy and completeness of the information contained on the website which are provided "as is". The information given on the website or in any communication which we might send you in accordance with our Privacy Policy (including geographical and climatological information) is indicative only and is not intended to be representations on which users should rely."

I think that this ends the story. Alex2006 (talk) 10:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

its a commercial site with a primary purpose to make money for clients. there are governmental and academic organizations that track weather information whose purpose is purely to provide accurate weather info. we should be using those. -- The Red Pen of Doom 19:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

npdata.be

Non-Profit Data http://www.npdata.be , is used in several articles e.g. Belgium, Brussels, Demographics of Belgium, Islam in Belgium and Greek diaspora to support facts concerning the number or percentage of immigrants. It's in Dutch, which I don't understand too well, nor do I know if whatever sources the site uses are reliable. The site appears to contain almost only articles about crime and immigrants, which might indicate a right-wing bias, and at least some of the references were added by a now banned user with a strong anti-immigration POV.Sjö (talk) 18:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Astrology & Horoscope articles

Is there a Wikipedia administrator who knows about psuedoscience or any project about psuodoscience I can talk to, because I am trying to keep collaboration and factual information with the Western astrology and Chinese Zodiac signs. What I am trying to think is making two new articles to redirect where all the signs and information are in one article. An article for the list and facts of Western astrology and one for the Chinese zodiac, and other horoscopes. There are repeats of sabatage deletions from among IP and confirmed users who believe it is useless, when from earlier users it was stated as reliable as facts. In truth I am just stating the facts, the article doesn't mean it is true, it's only stating mythological details, such as a person born in the year of Ra, it is only stating folkore. I would really like to make two articles where I can redirect each sign and paste in to the articles for Western astrology and Chinese Zodiac. Edit also on WP:Help desk.--GoShow (...............) 18:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

See WP:POVFORK (and WP:NPA). AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:03, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

There are two directly relevant WikiProjects, WikiProject Pseudoscience and WikiProject Rational Skepticism. I'm not sure what exactly you're proposing to do, but there is already a separate page for lists of astrological signs at astrological sign if that's what you mean. - Cal Engime (talk) 21:55, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Australian Greens

I am seeking to add a Political Position in the infobox of the Australian Greens. The party is the fourth largest in Australia. It holds 1 out of 150 seats in the Australian House of Representatives. The other seats are held by the Liberal Party of Australia, the Australian Labor Party, and the National Party of Australia. Each of these contains a political position. The Greens have various policies that would fit into the Left-wing politics category. These include gay marriage, a 40% pollution cut by 2020, voluntary euthanasia, opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan war, abolition of the Monarchy of Australia, cuts in funding for private schools, free University education for all, free health and dental care for all, compulsury student unionism, abolition of private health insurance rebate, increase access to abortion, increased public housing, no mandatory detention of asylum seekers who arrive by boat, an end to the Pacific Solution, end the Northern Territory emergency response, increased multicultural programmes, gay adoption, establish intersex as a gender, increased restrictions on the media; particulary News Limited, increased social security, a stronger line on Israel-Palestine, increase overseas aid and increased rights for unions. These policies are all available on www.greens.org.au/policies. Some are available in the Wikipedia article.

The Wikipedia article on Left-wing politics notes 'In politics, the Left, left-wing, and leftists are people or views which generally support social change to create a more egalitarian society. They usually involve a concern for those in society who are disadvantaged relative to others and an assumption that there are unjustified inequalities'. This describes the Greens perfectly. The page also says 'the term (left-wing) was applied to a number of revolutionary movements...including green politics'. The Greens are clearly to the left of Labor, which is described as 'centre-left'.

I also note that other Green parties around the world, affiliated to Global Greens such as Green Party of England and Wales, Green Party of the United States, Scottish Greens, Wales Green Party and Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand are described on their articles as 'left-wing'. One particular user has reacted to my proposal quite vigorously. Others have expressed support, others opposition. I am having some trouble with my sources, with one user in particular questioning their reliability. The sources are: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/sys_gov.html

Act Now http://www.actnow.com.au/Opinion/Whats_the_difference_between_left_and_right_wing.aspx

Oz Parties http://ldp.org.au/quiz/ozparties.html

Sky News http://www.skynews.com.au/politics/article.aspx?id=785779

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3812920.html

Article by Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4156564.html

http://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-199/feature-tad-tietze/

More reliable sources I think:

Encyclopedia of World Constititions Page 54 http://books.google.com.au/books?id=M3A-xgf1yM4C&pg=PR23&lpg=PR23&dq=encyclopedia+of+world+constitutions&source=bl&ots=YdnwQpZEuo&sig=nziEolioj7GZIhu_oiEwdpN3mJs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=e7FCUL2BCYyZiAeBlYHoCg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=encyclopedia%20of%20world%20constitutions&f=false

Left Turn by Antony Loewenstein http://books.google.com.au/books?id=M3A-xgf1yM4C&pg=PR23&lpg=PR23&dq=encyclopedia+of+world+constitutions&source=bl&ots=YdnwQpZEuo&sig=nziEolioj7GZIhu_oiEwdpN3mJs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=e7FCUL2BCYyZiAeBlYHoCg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=encyclopedia%20of%20world%20constitutions&f=false

Endame for the West in Afghanistan study http://books.google.com.au/books?id=YZCpm7n4JoIC&pg=PT24&lpg=PT24&dq=australian+greens+left-wing&source=bl&ots=yVzH-p--S4&sig=iYYk2CRmwGpXO-noLdbvkY0eMVw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=prFCUNKeE42XiQf4mIHQDQ&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=australian%20greens%20left-wing&f=false

The Death of Social Democracy by Ashley Lavelle http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Death_of_Social_Democracy.html?id=e-V-2PYJWVkC&redir_esc=y

Ideas and Actions in the Green Movement http://books.google.com.au/books?id=4zJcjo9fofsC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=australian+greens+left-wing&source=bl&ots=F9dNFD_Ouj&sig=9lHoKPnVudRDGy9S0rJgSjpRDhc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=prFCUNKeE42XiQf4mIHQDQ&ved=0CGMQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=australian%20greens%20left-wing&f=false

Could some people comment on the reliability of these sources. That would be of much help. Welshboyau11 (talk) 02:49, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Please see also the discussion/custard pie fight at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Australian Greens AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:09, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Here is another source: a Greens magazine http://wa.greens.org.au/system/files/private/GI%20webaugust2012.pdf where the party is described as 'Clearly left-wing'. Welshboyau11 (talk) 04:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

This argument is not really about sources. The sources listed above, along with others, can clearly be used to support a section in the article that deals with the political position of the Australian Greens. However, this editor, who is now forum shopping, wants to just add the two words "left wing" to an infobox. Many editors think that a more nuanced approach should be taken and not add anything to the infobox. The political position of this political party is not simple. This is not an issue about sources, but about editorial judgement. --Bduke (Discussion) 05:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I have also proposed that this be written in the article 'The Australian Greens are considered to be to the left of the Australian political spectrum, although they reject this terminology' Welshboyau11 (talk) 05:13, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

"The left" is so broad that it could mean anything. Most of those disagreeing with you aren't disagreeing with your fundamental idea that the Greens are to the left of the other two major political parties, or that the Greens are not somehow "above politics" or a "new politics" as they themselves claim, but they are simply saying the situation is far more complex. And I'd actually contend that what the party say about themselves is interesting, but irrelevant. Go to a party conference for any party (major or minor), write down what they say about themselves and compare it to the weight of published material on them and one will often find disagreement. I'm aware of a fair bit of the scholarly opinion on the political spectrum and since the end of the Cold War, "left" and "right" have loosened in meaning. Witness, for example, the supposedly "far right" parties such as One Nation, National Front, BNP and so on (and there have been fights of a similar nature on those articles too), but then look at their policies and map them and you'll find they're silent on some issues, far left on others (especially economic) and right to far right on others (especially on immigration and cultural policy). The new Katter Australian Party managed to capture votes off the Greens at the 2012 Queensland election to occupy 3rd spot by being firmly left-wing on economics and relaxed on many social issues (while taking a right-wing stance on one or two, but nothing like One Nation). Most of the sources you've thrown up about this don't actually deal with these issues - there are academic papers for and against the position, as well as debate within the media. Simplifying that debate to two words in an infobox doesn't do it justice. Orderinchaos 09:18, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

No party has a simple political position. But readers come to Wikipedia seeking information, and when we put information into an infobox, we don't do anything more than provide the skeleton of a summary. It is standard for most political party articles here to give an indication of political stance in the lede and info box, backed up by deeper and more detailed content within the article. The Australian Greens sit within the global Green movement, to be sure, but in Australia, they have policy positions on many social issues, and it is bizarre to see anybody trying to avoid describing their stance on social issues as anything but left wing. If editors want to wage ideological warfare, rather than provide good, well-sourced information to those seeking it, then perhaps they could find useful outlets elsewhere? --Pete (talk) 05:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Good points, but the main discussion is going on at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Australian_Greens.You probably should post this there Welshboyau11 (talk) 05:22, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Domestic violence in Pakistan

Is this source Gosselin, Denise Kindschi (2009). Heavy Hands: An Introduction to the Crime of Intimate and Family Violence (4th ed.). Prentice Hall. p. 13. ISBN 978-0136139034. which cites a Human Rights Watch study RS for this content "According to a study carried out by Human Rights Watch it is estimated that between 70 and 90 percent of women in Pakistan have suffered some form of abuse" Facts, not fiction (talk) 12:36, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

This editor should be banned from writing about Pakistan, per the standing ARbCom sanctions on Pakistan--India. Look at his history, e.g. at Rape in Pakistan and at DYK. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that is the way to comment on the source issue, I don't like what this guy wrote so topic ban him. get real. Facts, not fiction (talk) 12:54, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

No. What is relevant is that you have recently returned from a block for tendentious editing regarding Pakistan ("which continued despite a stream of requests to stop") and you have violated your 1RR restriction. To treat you as a sweet-hearted editor who happened to mis-cite an article (and this happened to put a negative spin on Pakistan) would be denial. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Note: DarknessShines is not currently under a 1RR restriction. --regentspark (comment) 14:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

<- I assume the Gosselin's source is HRW's "Crime or Custom? Violence Against Women in Pakistan" report from 1999 although I can't tell from Google books. The HRW reports states "Estimates of the percentage of women who experience spousal abuse alone range from 70 to upwards of 90 percent" on page 1 (and again on page 35) of the report. The sources for those figures are given in footnote 42 on page 35 of the report. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:22, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

@Sean The book "Heavy Hands: An Introduction to the Crime of Family Violence" mentions its source being "Human Rights Watch, 2006" for the statement cited in this article. I am unable (up till now) to find such a report by HRW in 2006 which says so. --SMS ^Talk 16:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

• @DS It seems that you haven't seen the cited HRW report yourself, if you have kindly share with others too so we can assess this source in a better way. Besides in this type of cases you need to say where you got it (in the reference). --SMS ^Talk 16:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

SMS, what does it say about the source exactly ? I can't see enough in snippet view although on page 27 I can see something about an HRW 2006 report starting "Forms of violence...". It might be a section from a world report. I think the article can report what Human Rights Watch said in 1999 about the various estimates by other organizations without using Gosselin as long as it's attributed to HRW and made clear that it's a 1999 report. More recent data may be available and preferable I guess and editors who aren't too busy with a propaganda war against Pakistan and Pakistanis should probably go look for it. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems HRW had a campaign titled "Forms of Violence Against Women in Pakistan" but the link seems to be unrecoverable (see [30]). There is an interesting article in the Pakistan Journal of Criminology, Volume 2, No. 2, April 2010, pp. 93 - 110, "Violence Against Women in Pakistan: Constraints in Data Collection" that might be a useful. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You can see the relevant text of the book in two snippet views (see these: 1, 2). On page 27, the detail of the source "Human Rights Watch 2006" is given: "Human Rights Watch, 2006, "Forms of Violence against Women in Pakistan." Retrieved July 13, 2008, from http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/pakistan/forms.htm. "(again you can see it in two snippet views: 3, 4). May be you are right that this report of 2006 just reiterated findings of the 1999 report but I still suggest finding the new one. --SMS ^Talk 17:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't look like the 2006 campaign document "Forms of Violence Against Women in Pakistan" is online anywhere. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

What I think needs to be cited for the statement is the publication in the report, online or not. It is relevant that another author has accepted it sufficiently to use it in a published textbook, so that can be cited also. DGG ( talk ) 18:16, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with you. The statement this source needs to support is an exceptional claim .i.e. about 70-90% (56-72 milion) women in Pakistan are abused. There was another statement in the article, that was also nominated as a hook for DYK: "that 97% of women interviewed in a study claim to have suffered some form of domestic violence in Pakistan" and that was also cited from a similar reliable source, which further cited it from a survey which revealed that it was done on convenient sampling. So my point is that we should at least know how this exceptional figure was found and what process was used to find it. --SMS ^Talk 21:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Government website

I would like to know:

• If the official website of a country's federal government (in this case, that of Somalia) is considered a reliable source on who is serving as that country's President/overall leader during a brief period of political transition.
• If somaligov.net is the official website of the Somali federal government (formerly referred to as the Transitional Federal Government or TFG).

During the civil war in Somalia, various bogus websites have gone up (some quite amusing) and gone down, so there's a bit of confusion here. Robert Young Pelton's Somalia Report recently discussed this issue and linked to somaligov.net as the official Somali government website: "The TFG site is officially here."

Various other bodies also cite somaligov.net as their official Somali federal government contact, including the Africa Mining Projects/Afrimine and the defence and security specialist IHS Jane's in its Jane's International Defence Directory. Middayexpress (talk) 13:56, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like the real question in this case is how to identify the "real" government website? It does not seem useful, therefore, to frame this question in a general way about all government websites.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is how I meant to frame it. That Somalia Report piece that actually discusses the issue surrounding the various Somali government websites indicates that the official one is somaligov.net. There doesn't appear to be any other reliable source which discusses the issue at all. As far as I'm aware, this is the only one, and that's what it indicates. Middayexpress (talk) 14:26, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I am sure I have read something in the media about this, possibly in the Economist?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

"The Great War Slandered" by Dyukov

This is a book about WW II by Russian revisionist historian Dyukov. The book was described here. According to preface of the book in Russian, the purpose of the book is to refute mainstream "Western" historians who are described as "enemies" conducting "Goebbels propaganda". ("Наши враги — и внешние, и внутренние — покушаются на самое святое — на народную память о Великой Отечественной войне. ... Вторя геббельсовской пропаганде, псевдоисторики внушают нам...Эта книга — отповедь клеветникам, опровержение самых грязных, самых лживых мифов о Великой Отечественной войне, распространяемых врагами России." Google translation: Our enemies - external or internal - encroach on the most sacred - on people's memory of the Great Patriotic War. ... Echoing the Goebbels propaganda, pseudo-historians inspire us ... This book - a rebuke to the slanderers, the refutation of the most sordid, the false myths about the Great Patriotic War, distributed by enemies of Russia.). There is currently a discussion here about using a chapter from this book in Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Does "The Great War Slandered" qualify as RS about WW II? My very best wishes (talk) 20:04, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

• • P.S. A historian (Dyukov), who claims that during Stalin's deportations in 1941 "quite possibly not a single person died" [31] (Не исключено, что во время депортации вообще не умер ни один человек) goes against all reliable sources, eyewitnesses, and serious historians who described conditions of these deportations. BTW, he has no PhD degree if I understand correctly. My very best wishes (talk) 03:19, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Understand correctly from what?

If you don't like what he says, it does not mean that he is not reliable...

However, it is not even about him; he is the editor of the book, not the author of the actual referenced text that you question in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria article. -YMB29 (talk) 03:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Why are you deliberately being misleading?

It says nothing about "mainstream Western historians."

The authors of the book most of all are concerned with refuting Russian amateur historians, such as Rezun, Solonin and Sokolov, as well as historians and writers from the Baltic States. -YMB29 (talk) 01:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The revision of history is most actively taking place in the Baltic States and Poland. (Наиболее активно ревизия истории проводится в прибалтийских республиках и Польше.)

In the countries of "old" Europe attempts at anti-Russian revisions of WWII history are less common than in the Baltic States and Poland. While in Eastern Europe special research institutions are created for this purpose, such as the Estonian Presidential Commission of Historians, the Lithuanian Center of Resistance and Genocide, the Polish National Memorial Institute, the Liberation Movement Research Center in L'vov, and numerous museums of occupation, in "old" Europe the revision of history is limited to the local media. (В странах «старой» Европы попытки антироссийской ревизии истории Второй мировой войны носят менее регулярный характер, чем в Польше и Прибалтике. Если в странах Восточной Европы для этих целей создаются специализированные «исследовательские структуры» вроде Комиссии историков при президенте Эстонии, литовского «Центра сопротивления и геноцида», польского «Института национальной памяти», львовского «Центра изучения освободительного движения» и многочисленных «музеев оккупации», то в «старой» Европе ревизия истории ведется силами местных СМИ.)

So nothing about "mainstream Western historians." -YMB29 (talk) 02:59, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The claim that the author is a revisionist attacking Western scholarship appears to be false - he is defending Western scholarship. Also, we do not determine the reliability of sources by performing our own fact-checking. Even the most reliable sources have errors. Nor would we deem books unreliable because the views expressed were critical of accepted opinion.

Incidentally when you bring books to the board, you should say who published them, which in this case was Penguin, and also Dyukov was the editor not the author of the book. While that may be a minor point it shows you probably have not read the book.

TFD (talk) 04:15, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

After reading couple of chapters from the book it is obvious that book is not defending Western scholarship. It is explicitly defending the Soviet perspective of the matters, not Western. That is not to say that the book would be unreliable or other such. Furthermore book seems to be aimed against the studies, or opinions as case might be, critical to the Soviet Union that have been made after the Soviet Union broke down - again, as per earlier statement neither are those (anti-Soviet or anti-Russian) claims unreliable because of what they criticize - there is clear lack of objectivity on both sides. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

So you can read Russian now? It is not defending the Soviet perspective, nor is it refuting the Western one. -YMB29 (talk) 17:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Apart from the minor detail that according to the books own introduction its goal is to "protect our past". In other words per definition to defend Soviet/Russian perspective. That however was not the point i was making, what i referred was that regardless of possible POV issues or other bias related to such material the book is not in itself a unreliable source. Just that care must be taken when representing such views to maintain NPOV on the articles - exact same applies to the material "from the other side" of course. Claims such as "he is defending Western scholarship" does not really help the case at all. - Wanderer602 (talk) 18:04, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Excuse the comparison but if Dyukov is seriously denying deaths during Stalin's population transfers, wouldn't that make him about as reliable as David Irving? Machinarium (talk) 11:12, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Side remark: on this noticeboard we need to focus on whether the author and his publications would be considered reliable and accurate by people in his field. Authors who are reliable and notable enough can still be used in appropriate ways as sources, even if their point of view is quite controversial. (In order to get the right balance, controversial sources should sometimes be used with a suitable attribution in order to let our readers know that there are other opinions. But that is not normally all that difficult.) I am sure David Irving's opinions are mentioned in Wikipedia in many places, because he is very notable, but his opinion is not only "POV" but also not widely considered accurate, and for that reason his opinions are not cited by us in any way that might mislead our readers into thinking that they are mainstream. I have no idea whether this Russian author is anywhere near that level of controversy (I doubt it), but just want to make sure that we focus on the right criteria.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:31, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

His views certainly aren't mainstream, the population transfers have been widely recognized as crimes against humanity. Judging from the mans wiki article he also contends that the deported people were 'Nazi collaborators', even though the majority of the deportees were women and children. I think if Dyukov is cited somewhere there should at least be a mention that he is controversial. Machinarium (talk) 11:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

He is controversial in the Baltics mostly. He denies the amount of deaths for the Estonian deportations. I think he bases this on actual study of archival data.

I don't know exactly what he writes or how controversial he really is. Again, he is not the author of the disputed text. -YMB29 (talk) 17:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I find the "defending Western scholarship" to be a most remarkable claim here, indeed. The author appears to be in a "time warp" at best, and the artice, while his views may be cited as an extreme minority, I suppose, should give no more weight to his "interesting views" that it does to the views of others who deny that Stalin was anything less than a saint. And when we have strong reliable sources showing that a source has errors, that does not mean we perpetuate the errors as "fact" - the opinions are citable only as opinion, and shuld not be given in Wikipedia's voice as "fact." Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

• The preface of the book is about the entire book, not only about the chapter written by Dyukov. According to preface, the purpose of the book is to refute "enemies" of their country, "foreign and domestic". This is very definition of an advocacy/propaganda source. This has nothing to do with scientific research. Please read Moreschi. My very best wishes (talk) 12:31, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No, that is what you like to think... As I said above, it is written mostly by real historians who are refuting new historiographies, mostly from the former USSR (not the West), that are often formed by amateur historians. -YMB29 (talk) 17:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Speaking about the chapter by Asmolov [32], this certainly sounds like writings by a publicist. One of his ideas: the political regime in North Korea was less oppressive than in South Korea. My very best wishes (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Asmolov is a historian with a Candidate of Sciences degree (PhD), specializing in the Far East, so drop your accusations. -YMB29 (talk) 17:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The claim by Asmolov that political regime in South Korea (apparently in 1950s) was more oppressive than that of North Korea is certainly not mainstream history. The claim by Dyukov that no one possibly died during Stalin's deportation is also not mainstream history. Perhaps for that reason the Russian/Soviet degree of Candidate of Sciences in humanities/history/social sciences is usually not accepted as PhD in US universities. My very best wishes (talk) 18:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No, did you even read the article about that degree?

Why are you being misleading again? Dyukov was talking about the Estonian deportation only.

I don't think you are qualified to determine what is mainstream or not... -YMB29 (talk) 19:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Michael Shermer's criticism of Dawkins' portrayal of religion

In the current established version of Richard Dawkins article there is a passage describing RD's view on religion being a virus. I am proposing in this edit to add Michael Shermer's criticism on this specific topic. On top of Shermer's original book, I found a secondary source that cites the very criticism by Shermer. The question is whether these two sources together bare enough reliability for the added content.--216.31.219.19 (talk) 08:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

There are probably over a thousand writers who have commented on Dawkins and his stance regarding religion, so whether a particular source is "reliable" is only a tiny part of deciding whether a particular comment on Dawkins is WP:DUE for inclusion in Richard Dawkins. Unless the author commenting is very notable, there seems to be no need to include their opinion unless it has received significant coverage in secondary sources (which would show that people other than editors at Wikipedia believe the author's views are significant). Johnuniq (talk) 10:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

True, there are many authors who criticized Dawkins, but this one Michael Shermer is notable due to being a promenant atheist just like Dawkins himself. and yes there are famous secondary sources citing the very comment by Shermer: The Dawkins Delusion, by McGrath

--216.31.219.19 (talk) 13:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The sentence being added does not say much does it? So why bother inserting it? Just saying that a criticism of something is unjust is the same as saying you think the criticism is wrong. If you just want to say that Dawkins' description is controversial even amongst atheists, say that? Anyway I do not think this is really an RSN issue. (It maybe looks like one because of the efforts being made to mention one specific person who disagrees with Dawkins.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be no issue in reliability of the source. So you know, it was a group decision to post it here. As for the non-RSN concern you mentioned I guess I can propose a longer quote from Shermer:

"Skeptic atheist Michael Shermer describes this portrayal of religion by Dawkins unjust. According to him 'for every one of these grand tragedies there are ten thousand acts of personal kindness and social good that go largely unreported in the history books or on the evening news. Religion, like all social institutions of such historical depth and cultural impact cannot be reduced to be an unambiguous good or evil.' "

--216.31.219.19 (talk) 15:29, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

RSN isn't the correct venue for deciding due weight. The weight is dubious at best. The secondary source has dubious reliability for interpreting what shermer meant; it aims for a different position than Dawkins does. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Again, it was not my call only to post it here. That aside, this secondary source is merely quoting Shermer on his comment on Dawkin's portrayal of religion.216.31.219.19 (talk) 15:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Tadeusz Sulimirski & Rahul Sankrityayan

Hi, I wish to know that whether Tadeusz Sulimirski & Rahul Sankrityayan meet the criteria of being recognized as WP:RS? Please give a conclusive answer! Articles for both of them are @ Wikipedia for scrutiny! — 117.212.46.55 (talk) 10:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Reliability is relative to what the sources are going to be used for. So please define the proposed use.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:45, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

CSICOP

An editor is edit warring to remove an attributed quote to CSICOP saying it is not reliable. See [33]:

Kendrick Frazier, editor of Skeptical Inquirer and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry fellow has suggested that:

"The JSE, while presented as neutral and objective, appears to hold a hidden agenda. They seem to be interested in promoting fringe topics as real mysteries and they tend to ignore most evidence to the contrary. They publish 'scholarly' articles promoting the reality of dowsing, neo-astrology, ESP, and psychokinesis. Most of the prominent and active members are strong believers in the reality of such phenomena." Source: CSICOP Responds to the Recent UFO Report Sponsored by the Society for Scientific Exploration

Can regulars please give their opinions on whether this statement is reliably sourced. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)