Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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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)

Ok! I would like to use Tadeusz Sulimirski's book — The Sarmatians (1970), as a reliable source on a number of articles related to history, and Rahul Sankrityayan as a reliable source only for history of India — after confirming from here, to avoid WP:Edit War. The use would be limited to articles related to history (practical use of WP:Balance is likely to be involved) — 117.200.50.151 (talk) 12:25, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

A quote from Tadeusz Sulimirski's book — The Sarmatians (1970), "The evidence of both the ancient authors and the archaeological remains point to a massive migration of Sacian (Sakas)/Massagetan ("great" Jat) tribes from the Syr Daria Delta (Central Asia) by the middle of the second century B.C. Some of the Syr Darian tribes; they also invaded North India." I would be using the author's conclusion on articles related to history, as I am sure that he met WP:BIO & WP:Prof, but discussing it to avoid the possibility of WP:Edit War! — 117.200.50.151 (talk) 12:40, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

After a very quick first look the first person seems to be a regular academic working in the field you want to talk about. I am wondering if there is any controversy about his theories which explains your concern? The second person at least according to his WP article is a travel writer?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:10, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

So, it's a 'YES for Tadeusz Sulimirski.

But, I request for a conclusive reply for Rahul Sankrityayan! I am not able to conclude your answer that whether he fits the criteria for WP:RS on articles related to history of India! 117.200.50.151 (talk) 13:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Though, the article @ Wikipedia clearly states that Rahul Sankrityayan has served as Professor of Indology in 1937-38 & 1947-48 @ University of Leningrad, but still I want to get the approval from here; so please give me a conclusive answer! — 117.200.59.19 (talk) 04:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

This forum is not like a court and can not give conclusive final answers, especially if only one person replies to you. It is a place to discuss what is best for WP. Anyway, you have not yet explained any real examples of edits that would use this source. Until now my questions are aimed at trying to get more information from you in order to help more forum participants comment.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Andrew, you query whether there is any controversy regarding Sulimirski's theories. Well, in the context of the Indo-Aryan migration theory, there most certainly is controversy and Sulimirski is firmly set in one camp. Worse, it is in the context of this theory that the IP appears to wish to use Sulimirski.

My take is that he can be used as a reference point but any such statement must be tempered with a clear note that his is an opinion and that it is one shared by some but by no means all of his peers. It might have been helpful if the IP had made a note of this thread on related article talk pages. - Sitush (talk) 12:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Sitush, in case you haven't read the above mentioned comments carefully, please note that I have quoted — "(practical use of WP:Balance is likely to be involved)"! — 117.200.50.104 (talk) 13:25, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I guess, that's exactly what your conclusion is — Tadeusz Sulimirski's research can well be used as a reference, but people should welcome WP:Balance, if in case it's a necessity. — 117.200.50.104 (talk) 13:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I had read them carefully, thanks. He is reliable for his opinion, and no more. My point was in relation to a comment by Andrew L, querying whether Sulimirski's opinion is controversial. It helps to be as explicit as possible regarding the background when forming queries here. As it seems that you are aware of the balance issue, I look forward to seeing your proposals for display of the alternative theories at Talk:Jat people etc. All entirely in the spirit of the policy to which you refer, of course. - Sitush (talk) 02:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Sitush, my intention to make that edit request to an article's talk page was definitely to provide the admins or reviewers a factual information, for the coverage of history of the Massagetaean invasion in India — I have actively participated in the discussion & now I would like to leave things upto the sincerity of the admins or reviewers working on that article, after a fair conclusion by Qwyrxian.

Sitush, I have been very explicit — even mentioned the book's name & even mentioned the quote from the book, that I have suggested @ edit request! But fella, can you be more specifically explicit about concerns over the reliability of Tadeusz Sulimirski?

Sitush, till there is a world wide consensus over the Origin-Antiquity-Migration of Aryans,Scythians, etc. — it's fair to proceed by blend of WP:NPOV & WP:Balance?

The scope of the use of Tadeusz Sulimirski's books is not limited limited to a single ethnic group, but the coverage has been much wider — if the admins or reviewers of the articles pages are aware of WP:POV & WP:Balance & WP:OWN & the fact that @ Wikipedia people should attempt to avoid rendering judgement themselves, and for the most part defer to the judgement of reliable sources. Respecting this platform, I would like to make a general note to people that while making edits on hot topics like Origin-Antiquity-Migration of Aryans or Scythians or Massagetae etc. — please always be prepared to welcome WP:Balance, and not enforce any source as a compelling source, even after getting approval from here. Thanks! — 117.207.56.161 (talk) 05:37, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, so there is some controversy. This does not mean we can not or should not mention an author. Could I ask editors above or anyone familiar with the debate to please give comments about if/how the authors are cited by the historical profession.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Andrew, Sitush's quoted above, "My (Sitush's) take is that he (Tadeusz Sulimirski) can be used as a reference point but any such statement must be tempered with a clear note that his is an opinion and that it is one shared by some but by no means all of his peers." — that's clearly a request for the use of WP:Balance, if in case it's a necessity, nothing more than that. And, that's fair enough!

As far as, Sitush's concern over the Indo-Aryan migration theory is — Tadeusz Sulimirski's views are shared world wide & are widely accepted. Tadeusz Sulimirski research far outweighs any other claims — he maintains that there is certainly & most definitely have been inward migrations towards India. Still, I don't mind using WP:Balance, as this is still a debated issue — but the show must go on; with a blend of WP:NPOV + WP:Balance!

Guess, we need more participants here to nail the consensus over Tadeusz Sulimirski - welcome! — 117.207.62.240 (talk) 08:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Is this debate now limited to the use of Tadeusz Sulimirski — as a compelling source or to welcome the use of WP:Balance, if in case it's a necessity? My take is that no source can be treated as a compelling source as far as Wikipedia is concerned — so can we conclude with a YES over Tadeusz Sulimirski research & look forward to Happy Editing  ! — 117.207.62.240 (talk) 08:12, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been asked to comment on this. From my investigatons, these two authors research is a little dated and has been surpased by more up to date research. Therefore the case maybe that they may fall into the case of WP:Reliable. Saying that, I am convinced that the Jatt and many other Punjabi people such as Rajput's, Kamboj's, Tarkhans etc are of Scythian origin. Thanks SH 09:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems that 117.207.62.240 asked a number of people he considers authoritative to make some sort of determination. Do you mind if I call you James instead of a number?(I'm watching "Lost" right now). James, you have received replies in this discussion that you persistently ignore. You appear to be seeking what WP does not give, encyclopedia-wide approval of an author. Presumably, if I read between the lines correctly, you would then cite this approval against any editors questioning the reliability of the author in any article. WP does not do that, generally speaking. WP is like the Ottoman Empire. All authority is handed over to the administrators. There are so many of these that the company cannot possibly police them all. If one becomes notoriously unpopular or violates the policies in a more publicised way, the Sultan chops off his or her head; that is, his priviledges are revoked and he is blocked, sometimes forever. Meanwhile he has nearly unlimited power to decide what can go in the article. That is what is wrong with WP. It is not the people's encyclopedia and is not democratic unless by chance an editor or article escapes attention. That's right. Whether any of the policies you cite are implemented wholly, partially, or not at all is a matter of arbitrary decision by supposedly independent administrators (they are not). This totalitarianism is handled at the article level, not at the policy level. I can give you a further few hints. Articles of the east are dominated by the views of the German administrators. Articles that involve Britain are firmly in the control of the British administrators. Articles on the Balkans ... shall I go on? You aren't politically naive, I hope, James. As you were told above, what anyone will be allowed to say depends on the particular context. To you I would say, you expect too much from WP. What you are discovering here is your limitations on it. Don't believe everything you read, James. I'm going now. Why don't you get a login so I do not have to call you James? So, no need to yank my chain again. I'm very busy right now. Ciao.Branigan 16:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

• I received the following request from an anonymous person on my Talk Page: "Requesting your comments (conclusive, if possible) @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Tadeusz_Sulimirski_.26_Rahul_Sankrityayan — 117.207.62.240 (talk) 09:05, 10 September 2012 (UTC)." My answer to this request is as follows: I had never heard of either of these two men until I received this request. For this reason I am not in a position to comment. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 22:18, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Sikh, for the conclusive comments — WP:RS.

I too have observed that, Botteville. [Inserted later to cease any doubt: Botteville, please note that, I have been very explicit — properly mentioned Tadeusz Sulimirski's book name & even mentioned the quote from the book & firmly stated that I would be using Tadeusz Sulimirski's conslusion in that very quote. Botteville, as far as Rahul Sankrityayan is concerned, I have firmly quoted that the use would only specifically limited to articles written on history of India. — 117.212.44.121 (talk) 07:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)]

Ok! John Hill, articles for both of them are @ Wikipedia for scrutiny anyways, in case you get some free time, please go through'em!

Tadeusz Sulimirski's firmly set in the camp that maintains — there are certainly & most definitely have been inward migrations towards India, that's a widely accepted view & far outweighs proposed Indigenous claims! I guess, I can safely say that the consensus has headed in favor of — Tadeusz Sulimirski as a source on Wikipedia! Comments from Wikipedians — welcome! — 117.207.59.62 (talk) 03:51, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

SH concludes as YES to — Rahul Sankrityayan, as a source on articles specifically related to Indian history (ONLY — as asked). Comments from Wikipedians — welcome! — 117.207.59.62 (talk) 03:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

If anyone thinks otherwise on reliability of Rahul Sankrityayan as a source on articles specifically related to Indian history — please comment! — 202.131.116.162 (talk) 11:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Consensus (so far): it's a 'YES for both — Tadeusz Sulimirski (Tadeusz Sulimirski's book — The Sarmatians (1970), on articles specifically related to history) & Rahul Sankrityayan (article specifically related to history of India, only). — 202.131.116.162 (talk) 11:35, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it isn't. It is a lot of shouting and touting by a couple of IPs. Aside from anything else, you have misread what Sikh History said: SH is well aware of how Wikipedia works and their response both acknowledges the datedness of the author and also the element that is SH's personal opinion. - Sitush (talk) 09:14, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

The response has clearly been more in favor of the use as a reference, then why it's not a YES Sitush? Have you changed your mind over Tadeusz Sulimirski (as you have commented only over him as follows — "My (Sitush's) take is that he (Tadeusz Sulimirski) can be used as a reference point but any such statement must be tempered with a clear note that his is an opinion and that it is one shared by some but by no means all of his peers.").

People can see that SH's personal opinion is WP:Reliable, if in case you haven't fully read his statement & saw only what you wanted to saw & concluding only what you are saying without any concrete stuff (that's WP:NPOV, one you're fully aware of theoratically), & he said a little dated (not even little dated or over dated or outdated, lol!). SH even further goes on to write some text in favor of the quote from the book (what more people expect a participant to do!).

I respect your rights here, but why don't you firmly declare any or both of them as unreliable with some rock solid stuff (that only you've discovered out of some where & rather than any of the guyz above), so that people can have a healthy debate with you, but if you're not even going to do that, then what's the point? Let it be a YES, or be bold to ask people to stop using Tadeusz Sulimirski as a ref on Wikipedia's articles related to history (subject's mentioned) & not to use Rahul Sankrityayan as ref on Indian history subject, fair enough fella, b'coz you're the only arguing, even after your request has been considered & it's been declared that even after getting a consensus-wise YES, the sources would not be used as a compelling source, to respect the authors of the pages as follows — WP:NPOV & WP:Balance, again firmly saying this, so please cooperate as dare to take a stand on the either side! — 202.131.116.162 (talk) 12:47, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Is this a RS? It is used in over 50 articles

I am currently online searching for an album review of an article I am working on. I came across this review and wanted to know if it is a reliable source, I then search to see if there are other articles who used this website as a source and found over 50 articles that have. Best, Jona^{talk to me} 13:02, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems like a blog or gossip-type opinion piece. For what kind of info is it cited? Tijfo098 (talk) 21:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The site does have an editorial team[1] and they appear to have been quoted in other news outlets.[2][3] To me they seem at least borderline reliable. For reviews though, it's more about selecting opinions that carry sufficient weight. For latino artists there may be weightier reviews in Spanish or Portuguese. Siawase (talk) 15:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource as a source?

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.

Asked, answered, moving on to disruption. RS/N does not host disruption. Editors may proceed to either DR/N or AN/I where appropriate

---

Some time ago, after searching for sources, I deleted the section Zhang Xianzhong#The Seven Kill Stele which had an old fact tag (as of today, 3 years old). It was restored today with no sources and I removed it again. It's been restored again, with wikisource as one source and something which says it is sourced from the "CDC forum" as the other. In fact, if you look at the talk page there are general complaints about the sourcing of this article. Dougweller (talk) 17:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Two points:

• Wikisource is an amazing resource in general. There are so many useful things there.

• You can go and edit Wikisource yourself right now and change what Isaac Newton said (maybe add something about Cheese as well..).

So Wikisource is no more reliable than Wikipedia itself, and certainly not WP:RS. It is useful as a look-up resource but not WP:RS given that it may have changed in the last day... or whoever dowloaded material there may have obtained it from a less than reliable website. Who knows where the material came from. And the volume of the material is often so large that it is not at all clear if people check all of these ancient documents there line by line. History2007 (talk) 18:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Speaking generally, I think that wikisource should be viewed with extreme suspicion as a reliable source. Several years ago there was a user here who specialized in obscure Buddhist topics. He wrote in an overwrought and incomprehensible style. Eventually he was indeffed on original research and WP:COMPETENCE grounds. At the time he was also active at wikisource, where he produced similarly florid translations of Sanskrit and Classical Tibetan works. Essentially he was creating translations of dubious quality and faithfulness to the original - translations that few people are qualified to verify - and then using them to cite his original research on wikipedia. I've had a sour taste in my mouth for wikisource since then. This sort of circular loop makes it way too easy to game our content policies. Skinwalker (talk) 18:21, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

We seem to be having a heated agreement on this one. History2007 (talk) 18:23, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I find this quite extraordinary. Why is someone questioning a source that is a well-known piece written in Qing Dynasty as a legitimate source? Hzh (talk) 18:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

You need to use a WP:Secondary source. Then all the discussion goes away. History2007 (talk) 18:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

That account is not a primary source. It was written about a hundred years later about the event. Hzh (talk) 18:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Then by itself it is old, and is still necessary to use "modern scholarship". History2007 (talk) 18:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Let me see if I can understand what you said - you cannot quote in wiki something written by ancient historians like Herodotus or Sima Qian? Hzh (talk) 19:04, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Of course you can quote that Becher wrote on Phlogiston in a historical context, but many things may have happened since then. And if your only Becher source is Wikisource that is a no-no, because Wikisource content may have been downloaded from some web site of unknown quality. So just find a 2003 book by a well known publisher and use that as a summary. History2007 (talk) 19:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

That wasn't what you said, you are now trying to shift the argument to reliability of wikisource. You claimed that only "modern scholarship" on old history is to be used. So let me try to get this right - the great majority of pages on Chinese history relies on ancient texts like Hanshu, Zizhi Tongjian or Shiji, you are saying that if you can't find sources with "modern scholarship" on those, they must be deleted? Hzh (talk) 19:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

My objection was two fold: the lack of modern scholarship and the use of Wikisource. So as a start, forget Wikisource. Then add modern scholarship that cites the 1600 or 1700 source, and add a link to a book that includes the 1700 source. A 1753 source may have been shown to be a forgery in 1983 paper or a 1755 source saying something different may have been found in 1985. History2007 (talk) 20:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I want you to state categorically if this is what you mean - ancient texts like Hanshu, Zizhi Tongjian or Shiji (or those by Roman, Greek historians, or old Muslim historians, etc.) cannot be used on wiki as a source, and that those without "modern scholarship" must be deleted? You can happily delete away thousands of pages on Chinese history if this is what you mean. The reliability of wikisource here is entirely a red herring. Show that this source used is actually incorrect.Hzh (talk) 20:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Step 1: Forget Wikisource. I will not discuss it any more.

Step 2: if you have no modern scholarship that supports a 1753 source you quote, I would tag it and if you find no modern scholarship then delete it. I would do that for physics as well as history if it is 2 pages or 200,000 pages makes no difference. You need modern scholarship that supports ancient sources, as well as a reference to the ancient sources. That is my view. Now I will stop and type no more on this. History2007 (talk) 20:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Where is the wiki guideline on this, the requirement for modern scholarship and all that? (You went from secondary source to modern scholarship without any explanation). If it is only your personal opinion, what validity does it actually have? If a person quote Herodotus with link to the quote, that is not allowable without "modern scholarship"? Do you actually think that there is "modern scholarship" on every bit of ancient history? Most of those are simply repeated verbatim without any analysis, why do you think that is somehow more valid that the actual source itself? Hzh (talk) 20:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

See here, then search for "Try to cite present scholarly consensus". Also WP:SCHOLARSHIP, etc. The whole page should be read. History2007 (talk) 21:18, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

You are evading the issue. No modern scholarship stated, certainly nothing about not using ancient texts as a source. And it says "scholarly consensus WHEN AVAILABLE, recognizing that this is OFTEN ABSENT" (indicating that it isn't actually an absolute requirement). What consensus can there be anyway when a lot of modern writers simply repeat what's written in ancient texts? It looks like a lot of what you said actually aren't in the wiki guidelines, and they are just your personal opinions. Hzh (talk) 21:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea why Hzh won't or can't provide a source, but I am not going to argue with him on my talk page which is what he is trying to do. As I said there, if it's well known, then it should be easy to find a source. Dougweller (talk) 20:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I did provide a source, but you chose to involve other people questioning wikisource's validity, without actually giving any reason why you think that source is false. Hzh (talk) 20:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Let us forget Wikisource. Just find a few good source say from 1999 to 2012 and use those. That is all. History2007 (talk) 22:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I see there are now three sources. [4] (open-lit.com), [5] (a Google book), and [6] (sourced to something that translates as a forum). I don't read Chinese and web translators aren't enough for me to see what these are. We can use foreign language sources, but they need to give at least the same information we'd expect for English sources, eg full title of a book, author, date of publication, page number, etc. Dougweller (talk) 08:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea what your point is. Look at the reference - there is the title, the author, and year of publication, page number, everything you want is there. If your complaint is that the it isn't in English, then say so. I don't think it is right for me to translate a book title, but I will do it if this is what you want.

Going back to the deletion - you claimed that you have tried to find sources but can't, now you are actually admitting that you can't read Chinese, the fact is that there are plenty of sources in Chinese, so you complaint is, in essence, if it isn't in English, it doesn't exist? China has a very long history, a lot of Chinese historical material are rarely discussed by non-Chinese scholars, so as far as you are concerned, none of them exist? I find the sheer arrogance simply astounding. There are in fact sources in English, for example here something written by John Derbyshire - see page 180-181, but John Derbyshire is a political polemicist, and I don't really want to use him as a source on history. Hzh (talk) 10:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, foreign language sources are fine but they must be reliable and fully cited (so that a Wikipedian reading that language can verify them just as we can verify an English source).

On the main topic of discussion here, our practice is well established. We can of course cite primary sources, but we as Wikipedians do not evaluate them and interpret them in modern terms. That's why citing primary sources is never enough for us. We always need modern secondary sources, and we start from them. That's one big way in which Wikipedia pages differ from academic articles, which often start from primary source material. They are doing it for us, you might say! Andrew Dalby 08:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm getting tired of Hzh's attacks on me and claims that I am saying things I'm not saying or supporting. What I originally reverted had an old fact tag and one source [7] which still doesn't appear to meet WP:RS. Hzh restored it saying it was well known, which is not a good reason to restore uncited material. And if it is well known, then there will be modern secondary sources, that's what 'well known' means. I agree we shouldn't use the material by white supremacist John Derbyshire. And yes, I'd like the book title, etc in English as well for both. We ask for translations to verify ("When citing a non-English source for information, it is not always necessary to provide a translation. However, if a question should arise as to whether the non-English original actually supports the information, relevant portions of the original and a translation should be given in a footnote, as a courtesy") so translating a book title, etc seems reasonable. Dougweller (talk) 10:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I asked you specific questions about your rationale for deletion (like whether you doubt that the poem was strongly associated with Zhang), you refused to answer them. You made points which don't make sense (like complaining that the book doesn't have author or book title when it clearly does), saying that you tried to find references when it appears that you only look for English reference (yes, you can delete half the pages on Chinese history if that is your rationale). You claimed that the Chinese website is a forum when it isn't (it actually gave a fairly good account of the poem), so it would appear that you deleted something without any clear understanding on what the sources are. You questioned whether a well-known piece in wikisource is reliable, I have found you a separate source for that piece (and if the text of the book is available on different sites that should tell you that it is in fact legitimate, and your original point about whether wikisource is legitimate or not is a red herring.) You haven't been able to support your deletion with anything apart from not knowing Chinese and can't check the content of the links given in the page, and that isn't a good reason at all. Hzh (talk) 11:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying here that histories written by ancient historians are primary sources? Then that would lead to the problem of sourcing. A lot of Chinese histories aren't discussed by Western historians, and modern Chinese historians often simply quote the ancient historical records verbatim anyway, so the only information are in fact from those ancient historical texts. Since you are saying that those should not be accepted by themselves in wiki, you will have huge problem with wiki pages on Chinese history because a large number of them are simply translations of ancient texts, even greater number contain huge chunks of the translations. Hzh (talk) 10:49, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

You were haranguing me on my talk page after I took this to RSN and expecting almost instance responses. I used Google books search to look for sources, don't blame me if it doesn't turn anything up. The translation at the bottom says "The source: CDC Forum " and you still have given no rationale as to why [8] whose actual source seems to be the section that translates as forum and looks like a forum, [9]. It doesn't appear to meet our criteria but I'm happy to listen to an argument saying it is. I'm not sure why you are saying that the source isn't a forum, have I misunderstood what it says at the bottom of the page? And again, my deletion was of unsourced material, you have added those sources since I deleted the original entry and yours, so please don't suggest that I've deleted the current version, I and others are discussing not my deletion but your sources. Our policy on primary sources of course applies no matter what the language, but that is a slightly different dispute and right now let's just try to clarify what the sources are before getting into that. Dougweller (talk) 12:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

This is the result from Google books if you search for the Seven Kill Stele in Chinese - Seven Kill Stele, that is hardly no hits. Here I find in Google Books in English reference to the Kill Stele, again, that's not nothing. If you search for Zhang Xianzhong in English you get these hits Zhang Xianzhong, and one of these you'd find description of him cutting off feet here which presumably was what you wanted the citation for. So the claim that nothing can be found on Google book is patently false. I asked you which bit was the one you had problem with, the cutting off of feet or the Seven Kill Stele but you refused to answer. Since I can easily find references to both in Google Books, the issue is certainly not with the existence of sources, whether they be in Chinese or English. The point is that I asked you for explanations, but you either refused, or gave answers that don't actually explain anything, and are actually false. Hzh (talk) 14:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm going out, but I found nothing, and please don't suggest I'm lying. A better search, or even a search from another country (odd as that might seem it seems to be the case) can turn up stuff. But I tried. If you asked me something on my talk page I might well have ignored it because it felt like you were haranguing me and I'd already told you I'd raised it here. I'll look at your searches sometime in the next 24 hours. Dougweller (talk) 17:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

That is a false narrative, I asked what the problem is in the very beginning, and if you haven't noticed, this discussion is titled "Wikisource as a source?", nothing about the questions I asked, and you never answered my questions here. Just in case that you might complain you can't see the links in Google Books, here are the only two in English on the Seven Kill Stele worth mentioning (the others are probably unrelated, but it doesn't mean that there are only two there since this is a translated term and the search result can be different if you use different translations) - 1) Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese urban reform, 1895-1937, 2) The journal of Asian studies, Volume 41 - this one doesn't display the relevant page, but this is the snippet given - "In a major research essay, Hu Shaoxi disputes the common view that Zhang Xianzhong depopulated Sichuan. Many accounts exaggerated the number killed, created a nonexistent massacre, doctored the famous stele of "seven kills," ignored ...". It's brief, but that the stele is described as "famous" in an academic article showed it is indeed something well-known. I hope this settles it, and I see no further point in continuing this discussion with you, I will just make some improvement to the page when I have the time. Hzh (talk) 21:39, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm tired of being called a liar, however you pretty it up, 'false narrative' means lie. There has been no need for all this aggression, all you were asked for is sources that meet our criteria. It was a reasonable request and per policy, no matter what you think. Dougweller (talk) 20:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Hzh, the concept of primary source is complicated in the real world, and Wikipedia uses it a bit strangely, which makes it twice as complicated. One of the reasons we use it strangely is because different academic fields have slightly different ideas about the concept, and we have to use the same rules for everything from archaeology to zoology. To answer your questions:

• All those old sources are primary sources as far as Wikipedia is concerned.
• You are permitted to use primary sources (carefully). Sometimes, in fact, the primary source is the best possible source.

You might find it useful to read WP:USEPRIMARY to get a summary of how we use these words and what the consequences are. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but it confuses more than it clarifies. In there its says that a book written 150 years after a 200 years old event is a secondary source, but the text referred to in this discussion was written about 100 years after the event, so it is not actually contemporary to something that happened. It also says historical reports are secondary sources. Unless I missed it, it doesn't say anything old are necessarily primary. For example, Sima Qian's Shiji is an account of the history of China from the thousands of years ago to his day, Sima Qian used old records and books and a variety of sources including interviews, some of these you might consider primary sources, but surely his accounts of older history are secondary? He checked his sources and assessed their accuracy and validity, analyzed, and commented on the subjects he wrote on, and that, according to the link you gave, is what is done in a secondary source, and not primary. If something old is considered primary, then the legitimate question would be - how old is old? Hzh (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Please read WP:HISTRS works purporting to be "histories" before the Rankean methodological revolution are not acceptable sources for history in almost all circumstances, and works published after the Rankean methodological revolution faded out of date. In relation to history, almost all "old" works are primary sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:21, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to press on this point, but the link doesn't say what you said. I'm quite happy to accept if historians do think historical writings by ancient historians (pre-mid 19th century?) are primary sources, but it doesn't say that in the link. Hzh (talk) 10:22, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

It's already in WP:PRIMARY as well; "Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources." IRWolfie- (talk) 13:26, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I think we have different understanding of what "historical documents" means there. Hzh (talk) 14:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, I think we are getting somewhere, it's actually in the notes: "ancient works, even if they cite earlier lost writings;", so presumably that would include Herodotus or Sima Qian. Doesn't answer the question of how old is old though, and doesn't necessarily support the previous assertion that pre-Ranke would be considered primary. Hzh (talk) 15:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Fifelfoo has a good point actually. And as a side note, given that source language has been an issue, how about asking a few of these people: Wikipedia:Translators_available#Chinese-to-English to take a look at the sources - specially if modern sources are found. There are a few people on that list. History2007 (talk) 06:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

We don't treat Sima Qian any differently than we do Herodotus. We can (with attribution of course) report what they say appropriately, but we can't use them for a statement of historical fact... [message of 12:20, 12 September 2012‎ Dougweller probably] - oops, where is signbot when you want it? Dougweller (talk) 13:14, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

A few people have effectively said the same thing now about old sources. So unless Hzh is aiming for the Nobel prize in persistence or something like that here, should just accept that and move on. History2007 (talk) 13:02, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I think you will find that there are plenty of people who will assert something to be rules in wiki, but when challenged, can't produce the evidence, which appears to be the case here. In any case, there never was any attempt to present what's written by historians (ancient or modern) as solid fact, I normally say "according to..." "it was said that...", "XYZ claimed that..." etc. Hzh (talk) 14:54, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Still waiting for you to explain how "[10] whose actual source seems to be the section that translates as forum and looks like a forum, [11]" meets our criteria as a reliable source. Dougweller (talk) 20:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and I'm still waiting for you to explain all the other things I raised, which you have steadfastly refused to answer, or make claims which turned out to be untrue, or make false narrative of what happened. If you are interested, I missed the part at the end of that article, it was published as an article by a news website, but apparently from a forum, but not the forum you claimed. Presumably they checked the content and thought it fine to be published. Now that's sorted, will you now come clean? (I thought the whole thing is settled, there are valid sources, you were mistaken, end of story, but if you want to take the discussion further, I am happy to obliged.) Hzh (talk) 23:35, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

No, on second thought, I think this is the end of discussion, given that as I already indicated a couple of times that there is nothing more to be discussed on the issue, and any further discussion will be about you or me which is neither appropriate nor worthwhile. Hzh (talk) 23:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

It is a forum, I zapped it. As for Hzh's accusations against you Dougweller, there are 3 steps: 1. shrug shoulders, 2. shrug shoulders 3. forget about it. You can not take those seriously. I would not. History2007 (talk) 22:41, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I see that you still insist it is a primary source. No matter how many people said it, they (and you) still need to give a link that says what they (or you) claim to be true. So far I can only find something on ancient work, and an 18th century piece is not ancient. Hzh (talk) 23:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

It is not just me who says that, it is all those other users, as you have noted yourself, and they have provided links. History2007 (talk) 07:21, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

We are going round in circles. As I already noted, the links don't say what they claimed they say. You have to provide evidence, there is no point in giving links that doesn't corroborate what they (or you) say. This is the end of the discussion because I don't see people providing actual evidence, just opinions. Hzh (talk) 08:38, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh for heaven's sake. This needs to end now. Here is the overview of this thread and some clarifications.

• Wikisource is an unacceptable source to use on Wikipedia for the same reason Wikipedia is an unacceptable source. Per WP:USERGENERATED which states:

"[S]elf-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated"

• Foreign language sources Foreign language sources may only be used on the English Wikipedia when no other English source is available of equal quality per WP:NOENG which states:

"Because this is the English Wikipedia, English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones, assuming English sources of equal quality and relevance are available

• When quoting a source in a different language, provide the original text and an English translation, either in the body of the article or in a footnote.
• When citing a non-English source for information, it is not always necessary to provide a translation. However, if a question should arise as to whether the non-English original actually supports the information, relevant portions of the original and a translation should be given in a footnote, as a courtesy.

Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians, but translations by Wikipedians are preferred over machine translations. When using a machine translation of source material, editors should be reasonably certain that the translation is accurate and the source is appropriate. When posting original source material, be careful not to violate copyright; see the fair-use guideline.

• Primary Sources  ::Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. Do not add unsourced material from your personal experience, because that would make Wikipedia a primary source of that material. Use extra caution when handling primary sources about living people; see WP:BLPPRIMARY, which is policy.

• Using older sources There is such a thing as community consensus when dealing with issues that may not be covered within Wikipedia policy. There is consesus on the use of older sources which states that newer sources are preferred and should be used if possible to augment the older source. [12], [13] are some of the consensus discussions. A more recent discussion took place just last month, and if you do not wish to take my word, please do the search as I feel there has been enough guidence provided. We guide, we do not instruct.--Amadscientist (talk) 10:34, 13 September 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.

Is PopCrush a reliable source?

"Government Hooker" is currently a featured article candidate, and Wikipedian Penguin (talk · contribs) has brought up concerns with two ([14])([15]) the sources used in the article. Both of these sources are from PopCrush. He has been unable to find any editorial qualifications or previous information for Amy Sciarretto, the individual responsible for writing the articles. I was originally reluctant to use a PopCrush source, as I am not fond of the website's format. It came to my attention that is was the only non-blogging site that directly verifies that the song was featured in a promotional video for the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. In addition, her review can be seen in the "reception" section of the article. I used it because reviews for the song were very limited to begin with. It is also worth nothing that various good articles use PopCrush to verify some of its information.

I originally had a question about this, but no one voiced their opinion on the reliability of the website. Can I please get some feedback on the website? I don't mean to be snappy, but I'm getting a bit impatient. —DAP388 (talk) 21:49, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any indication that this site has any sort of editorial oversight, fact checking or does corrections. From all I can see it doesn't quality as a reliable source, much less as a high quality source as required in FAs. Siawase (talk) 15:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Facebook entry on abortion issue

I'm quite sure that this diff using this Facebook entry by a nonexpert on the abortion topic is not a Reliable source. But the only other editor working on the article does not agree. (Note he has removed the other reference from an advocacy group website.) CarolMooreDC 01:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Holy. Cow. Lemme jump in and help if I can. Binksternet (talk) 01:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

My position is based on: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." The question is if Stephan Kinsella is an expert. I believe his is since he is published regarding libertarian legal issues. That said, I will attempt to rewrite the portion in question as discussed in the talk. If I can let Rothbard do his own talking, the expertise of Kinsella will be irrelevant. Dude6935 (talk) 17:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Kinsella would more clearly be accepted as an expert on the plank of abortion in Libertarianism if someone had ever quoted him on it in a reliable source. Once he's quoted or his position described in such a source then that source can be introduced. The problem with Kinsella's own blog or his Facebook posts is the problem of one hand clapping or a tree falling in the forest. Kinsella must be noticed or his opinions are not useful to us. Binksternet (talk) 18:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I will see if I can find a source referencing Kinsella on abortion. Dude6935 (talk) 23:40, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

"Because of a basic axiom of libertarianism: non criminals are to be treated in the “gentlest manner possible.” In Block, Kinsella and Whitehead (2006) we state: “She may evict this interloper from her ‘premises.’ She must do so in the gentlest manner possible, for the trespasser in this case is certainly not guilty of mens rea.”6 The point is, the fetus is not purposefully committing a trespass." http://libertarianpapers.org/articles/2010/lp-2-32.pdf

After looking at the linked paper, it appears as if you will need to attribute the quote to all three contributors: Block, Kinsella and Whitehead, not Kinsella alone. Binksternet (talk) 01:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your last statement. Doesn't the link establish Kinsella's expertise on evictionism? Isn't that the sole point of contention? Dude6935 (talk) 05:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

This new ref is here. I haven't investigated content, but that's an issue for the article talk page. Unfortunate it takes a WP:RSN to get people to take one seriously and beef up refs. CarolMooreDC 20:45, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The length of a Marathon

Over on Talk:Athletics_at_the_1908_Summer_Olympics_–_Men's_marathon#The_first_mile, there is a bit of uncertainty as to whether a certain blog could be allowed as a reference in the context of debate over the length of the 1908 Olympic Marathon in the associated article.

According to WP:RS, it is suggested that though general blogs are not considered reliable, under certain circumstances blogs run by (say) professional news outlets whose contributors are professional journalists could be considered. The blog in question is actually the blog of the U.S.A Track and Field Road-Running Technical Council. It is moderated, and I would therefore think that posts appearing on it which originate from the professionals in the field (such as Mike Sandford, Pete Reigel and others) should be OK as citations. Hell, if you can't cite professional course-measurers, whom can you cite? :-) Any comments please? Steve Hosgood (talk) 13:34, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

That is a messageboard, not even a blog. Isn't there a book out there or something that talks about Marathons and the history of them? Arzel (talk) 13:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Several books. I have a copy of "The Marathon Makers" by John Bryant, one of the most often cited sources for such stuff. This is in addition to that. "The Marathon Makers" is more about the people behind the story (the athletes and the celebrities of the day who had a hand in how it turned out), less about the nuts and bolts of course planning and measurement. Unusually, in the case of the London 1908 Olympic Marathon, the nuts and bolts are more important than they normally would be just because the claimed length of that particular marathon became fossilised as the standard marathon distance to this day. Steve Hosgood (talk) 14:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Steve, what is the statement that you wanted sourced by the blog/messageboard? Location (talk) 20:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Things like Sandford's comment "This 150 yards is in fact the "missing 150 yards" once mentioned by John Disley when he was researching the marathon start." from this item for instance. I might also add Sandford's other comment that in his (professional) opinion the first mile may be 30 m short, but certainly not Disley's suggested amount. So as you can see, it's nothing outrageous, but it's the sort of detail you're not going to get anywhere else quite frankly. Steve Hosgood (talk) 08:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Untitled Star Trek sequel

News reports are abound showing that the film will be called Star Trek into Darkness. However, as they all seem to be repeating what was reported on what is in essence a fan blog, can they be considered reliable sources? Discussion here. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:39, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I would say TrekMovie is reliable enough for us to say in the article: "Well-known fan blog TrekMovie claims the title of the film will be Star Trek Into Darkness." I would not, however, say the source was reliable enough for us to warrant an actual page move (particularly as the article has repeatedly been involved in "page move wars"). Better to wait for an official confirmation from the studio for that (which is probably imminent). -- Scjessey (talk) 16:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

A good fan blog is still a fan blog. I'm sure Paramount is capable of announcing the titles of its movies; even if the fan blog is correct at the current time it still amounts to speculation since Paramount could alter to the title at any point up to announcing it. Betty Logan (talk) 16:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, just like Revenge of the Jedi was changed into Return of the Jedi!   — Jasonasosa 06:29, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

But the source is more than just a fan blog. That is somehow downplaying the source to make it seem less reliable. Its considered a reliable news source. The site has been used countless times before on other articles, and it's downright not neutral to form this thread by calling it simply a fan blog. Precedent says that the source is reliable based on its use in other articles. JOJ ^Hutton 21:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. It really is just a fan blog. It has previously bandied around the word "confirmed" and then found to be wrong. There's no fact-checking or accountability. It's just a blog. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

[Mother Jones and Rolling Stone articles as RS sources in a BLP for a contentious claim

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.

Malformed request. Not enough information to help. RS/N should not be used to continue dispute.

---

multilevel marketing.<ref name=MJ2>{{cite news|last=Mencimer|first=Stephanie|title=Get-Rich-Quick Profiteers Love Mitt Romney, and He Loves Them Back|url=http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/mitt-romney-nu-skin-multilevel-marketing-schemes|accessdate=09/08/2012|newspaper=[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]]|date=May/June 2012}}</ref><ref name=RS1>{{cite news|last=Dickinson|first=Tim|title=Right-Wing Billionaires Behind Mitt Romney|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/right-wing-billionaires-behind-mitt-romney-20120524|accessdate=09/08/2012|newspaper=[[Rolling Stone]]|date=May 24, 2012}}</ref><ref name=motherjones/><ref name=Forbes/>

Are the first two sources "reliable sources" in the context of a BLP? My belief is that opinion articles named Get-Rich-Quick Profiteers Love Mitt Romney, and He Loves Them Back and Right-Wing Billionaires Behind Mitt Romney are opinion articles about the current political campaign and are not valid sources in a WP:BLP.

The first one is subtitled quite unsubtly Mormon country is rife with miracle-cure peddlers whose get-rich-quick schemes have boomed in the recession. One of the biggest beneficiaries of their campaign largesse? Mitt Romney. and Utahns have a joke about multilevel-marketing companies: MLM really stands for "Mormons Losing Money." which I suggest indicates that it is not an "investigative article" as one editor has claimed.

The second is subtitled They're trying to buy a presidency - and they expect a big payoff on their investment and has But now, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United that upended decades of limits on campaign donations, financing a presidential race is the exclusive domain of the kind of megadonor whose portfolios make Mitt Romney look middle-class. which also looks a teensy bit like an opinion article and not one which presents "facts".

Forbes is the only WP:RS source for that edit that I find -- it does call the firm a "pyramid selloing organization" (not to be confused with "pyramid scheme, to be sure) and does not use the term "MLM" and then paints a picture of a person who shut down the original MLM, hired chemists, got 9 patents in the field, and does not load the people at the bottom with more than a $30 cost. Thus Forbes is a valid source for the claim - but I suggest the other two do not meet the RS and BLP policy requirements. And since the claim has been disputed in print by the company, it is clear that NPOV requires balancing claims even if SPS, which the other editor seems also to dispute. I am not connected in any way at all to VanderSloot, the company or anything else here, directly or indirectly -- but I do tend to take the use of opinion articles for statements of "fact" to be a serious problem. Thanks. Collect (talk) 11:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

They're not opinion articles. They're investigative journalism. This has been explained to you in the other venues to which you have brought this issue. (In other words, have a look at WP:FORUMSHOPPING.) Nomoskedasticity (talk) 11:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Investigative journalism, over the years, has been notoriously the locus of writers cutting ethical corners for their causes. Mother Jones is not, by any standard whatsoever, a neutral source: when I went to the first article, I got a popup from the magazine asking me to make a donation to "[h]elp us fact-check the right wing... before Election Day." I submit that they have to be treated as a hostile source, albeit one that as a rule does good work. Nonetheless I would never give them a pass as a presumed reliable source.

It would help a lot if we knew for whose biography this was intended as a source. If we're talking Romney, then I would say the few raw facts of who exactly made donations to his campaign are about all that I would accept this article to corroborate. Other than that, it's something of a smear job: MLM in general and Nu Skin in particular are several steps below ethically questionable, but the connection to Romney is tenuous.

I see some problems with the Rolling Stones article as well. For example, it makes a tie between Steven Webster and the Deepwater Horizon disaster that is true on one level but which is also plainly intended to imply a responsibility which I would have to question, Webster's company having been absorbed by Transocean long before the accident. RS isn't as overtly political as MJ but this does not strike me as an entirely neutral article. But again, I need a better picture of the context before I can give a more complete answer. Mangoe (talk) 12:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Individual sources do not have to be "neutral"; in fact there's a reasonable argument that no source is ever neutral. Neutrality is important at the level of Wikipedia articles, per NPOV -- our articles should reflect the presentation of a topic in existing sources, which have different points of view. Simply put, "reliable" does not equate to "neutral". As for your dismissal of investigative journalism (on the basis of "cutting ethical corners", no less), I'd be surprised to learn that this is a widely held view here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Sources which are not neutral, however, are limited as to the scope of how they can be used. As I think should be clear, I would tend to trust MJ and RS for raw factual reporting; the analysis is another matter. Also, my more abstract problem is that there is no clear line between investigative journalism and advocacy. MJ has always straddled that border, and therefore I find in necessary to be cautious with material published there. Why don't you tell us what the context of this is and then I can give a better answer, and leave off the exaggeration of my qualms. Mangoe (talk) 13:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

"Investigative journalism, over the years, has been notoriously the locus of writers cutting ethical corners for their causes."

Lamentable perhaps, but what does that have to do with Mother Jones? At best it's irrelevant and at worst it's a veiled accusation that Mother Jones' Washington Bureau correspondent Stephanie Mencimer (the author of the article in question) was guilty of cutting ethical corners. That's a big charge. It's also completely unsubstantiated as far as I can tell. Mother Jones has an excellent reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. WPs entry says: "Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,[2] 2008,[3] and 2010.[2] In addition, Mother Jones also won the Online News Association Award for Online Topical Reporting in 2010[4] and the Utne Reader Independent Press Award for General Excellence in 2011.[5] That said, the source may lean liberal, but that does not in any way preclude citing it. Many well-respected and widely cited journalistic sources lean to the right or left; Wall Street Journal comes to mind as a good example on the other side of the political spectrum, and there are many others.

Furthermore, Mencimer's article has been cited by several other reputable sources, for example the excellent investigative piece that appeared in Harper's Magazine,[16] which is also highly respected. Not only that but she is cited in dozens of articles throughout Wikipedia.[17]

Lastly, the only detail in question -- that Melaleuca is an MLM -- is common knowledge and the company has been referred to as such by numerous reliable sources across the spectrum, including the FTC, MLM experts, journalists, and even the company's own executives. Like Nome said above, all of this has been explained to Collect already by several editors in multiple venues (i.e., multiple talk page threads and the BLP noticeboard).[18][19][20] and now he is simply forum shopping. The entire premise of Collect's thread title is flawed. The simple statement of fact that Melaleuca is an MLM is not contentious; it is more than amply supported, and Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones is clearly a WP:RS. Rhode Island Red (talk) 22:20, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

BTW, the little detail about the pop-up ad has no bearing on WP:RS or WP:NPOV in this case. Mencimer's article originally appeared in the print edition of the magazine, which doesn't contain pop up ads, and no pop-ad comes up with the direct link to the article in question. It's a red herring. Rhode Island Red (talk) 22:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Collect: "Forbes is the only WP:RS source for that edit that I find"

You know that's not true. I provided multiple sources already and you know it.[21] Playing the game of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT still? Rhode Island Red (talk)

Ugh. What article is this? What content is being cited to these two sources? And why do I get the feeling that everyone who's posted in this thread so far is involved in this dispute? Look, guys, the point of posting at RSN is to get outside advice, not to fill up this noticeboard with partisan bickering. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:01, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Understood. Just wanted to make sure that a few misstatements didn't distort the issue. Thanks for looking into it. The article in question is Frank Vandersloot and Collect was initially challenging the notion that Vandersloot's company "Melaleuca" is a MLM company. After he raising the objection, he was presented with a long list of sources that confirm the fact.[22] At least 4 other editors have looked into this since Collect raised his objection and all agree that the sources leave no room for doubt about the validity of using the MLM designation.[23] For some reason though, Collect is still insisting that Forbe's magazine is the only source that refers to Melaleuca (indirectly) as an MLM. Seems to me that the challenge about the reliability of Mother Jones is a red herring. Rhode Island Red (talk) 23:59, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

O-Kay. I have to agree with RiR, and I would add that the concurrence of Forbes and MJ pretty well cinches this. I also see a lot of other sites which monitor MLM companies, and they come to the same conclusion. I don't see a reason to exclude the MJ article on that basis. Mangoe (talk) 04:13, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Aside from the horrible formatting of this notice (Which sould contain both the claim as written and the actual reference being used in a form that can be easily accessed) this request seems to simply ask, are sources "reliable sources" in the context of a BLP? Well, why wouldn't they be? How does a BLP article change RS of a source? No, what should be asked is simply "are the claims being made referenced with RS per BLP policy?" Since there is no claim that I can find in this discussion and it does appear to be a continued dispute I am closing this as malformed and a dispute to be settled on talk page or through DR/N.--Amadscientist (talk) 04:56, 13 September 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.

Genealogy databases

Richard Tylman (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

References (added 15th Sept.):

• 1.^ Richard Tylman. Born - 1546 in United-Kingdom. Died - 1584. Genealogy Place - The Ultimate Genealogy Search Engine 2009.[24]
• 3.^ Richard Tylman of Faversham. The will of Thomas Cobb. Rootsweb genealogy.[25]
• 6.^ a b Richard Tylman (1546 - 1584) 2012 Ancestry.com. Source: Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, London, England.[26]
• 7.^ Richard Tylman and Ellen. 2012 Ancestry.com. [27]
• 8.^ a b Thomas Cobb's daughter, who married one Richard Tylman of Faversham. Cobbes Eleventh Generation. 2012 Ancestry.com.[28]
• 9.^ William Tylman, VII (1562–1613/1614). Ancestry Archive 2012.[29]
• 10.^ Richard Tylman (1569–1614). Ancestry.com 2012. [30]
• 11.^ Richard Tylman born 1569; Tylman family. Ancestry Archive, 2003 .[31]

Are the following genealogy databases reliable sources: Genealogy Place, Rootsweb, Ancestry.com, Ancestry Archive? TFD (talk) 14:17, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Ancestry.com, it seems to have been reviewed in an academic work at least once ([32]) and I see it being used as a source in a number of other works (ex. [33], [34]). I think it is reliable. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

We need links to the wikipedia page where the question arises and to the database pages that would be cited. Andrew Dalby 15:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Links to the article are at the top of this discussion thread and it links out to various online databases. TFD (talk) 15:21, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right of course, and I intended to delete my comment. Andrew Dalby 17:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• These are public databases. According to the policy, such sources are considered self-published if the content was "user-generated", except materials "originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users". Hence, if there is moderation/verification of data by database staff, the content qualifies as RS. As a practical matter, the content of biological databases (for example) is widely used in scientific research, and it can be used here. Speaking about Richard Tylman, it seems that using genealogy databases involves cross-verification of data, i.e. the different records in genealogy trees must be mutually consistent. That makes data significantly more reliable. As a side note, reliability of data in certain databases, such as Protein Data Bank, originates from credentials of individual users because authorship of every record was clearly defined. Therefore, certain user-generated databases are RS, and the policy should be corrected. My very best wishes (talk) 16:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
• User-generated sites on genealogical trees would not be RS. The others, such as ancestry.com, probably are. The main issue is ensuring the person referred to in the source is indeed the subject of the citation. If this can be established beyond reasonable doubt, I think the site can be used if there is no other source with the information. All of the above sites are useful for researching people, even if they cannot be used as sources. So I would say we should just include both links (call it convenience link if you want to). For state records, there is no link to include, and rootsweb is pretty much the only choice. Churn and change (talk) 22:33, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I would say that Ancestory.com is on the edge of being WP:RS. But as you said there is the identification issue: a big ticket item. In many mailing lists, the whole issue of "name and identity establishment" is a serious issue, and there are specific algorithms for that. I am not sure how well a Wikiuser can handle those when using that system. History2007 (talk) 22:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it depends on what aspect of Ancestry.Com is being used as a source. Is it it the innumerable & often unreferenced family trees that often co-mingle different people's information from different generations?...Then no. Is it is any unreferenced content without reliable source/s to back it up?...Then no. If it is an authored piece, written by a recognized geneaology expert that comes complete with cited references?...Then maybe.

For instance, in the case of the Tylman article, Ref#3 [35] has one line about 'The will of Thomas Cobb indicates he had a daughter, given nameunknown, who married one Richard Tylman of Faversham' but this section of rootsweb/Ancestry.Com is edited by a "M. Cobb" and provides few sources for the asserted facts. Ref#6, however, is an apparent link to published historical records...I say "apparent" simply because it is behind a subscription-only firewall. Ref#8 [36] repeats verbatim much of the same information as Ref#3. Without footnotes or inline citations, I personally find much of the information posted on Ancestry.Com, while well-meaning and possibly also well-sourced, to not be all that useful as stand-alone research though it can indeed be a useful jumping-off point for further research. Shearonink (talk) 23:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Payment requirements do not effect RS, however, these sites are really tertiary sources, aggregating information from other places and do not own any of the documents but simply host them on their site for personal research purposes. The site itself does not appear to have editorial oversite or Fact checking and would fail for those reasons. Reliability of the author may be something that could be proven I suppose and even an article being hosted could be varified...I suppose.... in theory, but using these sites would be questionable without the needed oversite.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:57, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Tertiary sources are those which aggregate and summarize secondary and primary sources; examples are obituaries and encyclopedias (WP:TERTIARY). Ancestry.com seems more a collection of primary sources (US Census records, immigration records etc) with search features. They have some sites where the search is just of these records, and other sites where the search includes user-generated content. The records themselves have been scanned and converted to ASCII/PDF text with OCR software. That introduces errors especially with old census records with close writing. The scanned image of the original source itself should be usable as a primary source, assuming it is not a search that includes user-generated content, wherever primary sources are acceptable. Churn and change (talk) 06:18, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Lets not get ahead of ourselves as "Seems to be" isn't enough clarity for use. The same is true of Google books, but we can't assume an error was made beforehand. We assume the documentation is accurate. The problem I see is that the documents are not from these sites, they arenot even hosting them in many cases but supply the search. When the documents are on the servers of these sites they are still not the actual primary source and we only use ONE source and I don't think it would be ancestry.com but the US census etc. So why use these sites as the reference? Again, eve if not user generated there seem to be some problems that cannot be justified for exclusive use when, even if the documents were found with these sites, they are not the actual source.--Amadscientist (talk) 08:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

These sites host some of the documents and link to others. For US census records, the sites host an OCR-version of the scanned records (so you see the OCR interpretation of the handwritten stuff), and link to the original scanned version. The original scanned version with the US govt. archives is in the census writer's handwriting, and often both that and the ancestry.com version together help one decode what is written than either alone. No, the issue is not the same as Google books—Google books weren't handwritten to begin with. For state records, often theirs is the only scanned copy available. The state government (at least in California) has the birth/death/marriage state-level records in paper form, and one has to go through a few hoops to access them. The secretary of state's official website, in fact, mentions rootsweb.com as the place to go for the online version. Churn and change (talk) 00:29, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The genealogy links used in the article aren't reliable sources. They're just teasers of random information to get people to sign up. We can't even be sure what exactly what they represent. For example this one, "Born on 1569 to Nycholas Tylman and Jane Benson. He passed away on 1614". We can't tell if it is derived from a primary source, we can't tell if it is derived from a secondary source, we can't even tell if it's derived from some random crappy family tree. For example, this 'ref' [37] actually shows that the info comes from an FTW file that someone uploaded to the website - someones family tree, named "Tillman Gedcom.FTW". So no, these refs aren't reliable. If you don't know exactly where your information is coming from, don't add it into Wikipedia.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 10:33, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed many times here. Ancestry.com is a big website with many types of source.

• There are user-uploaded family trees which are not moderated or edited by anyone. For the normals reasons, such sources are not normally an RS for anything.
• There are scanned books and nespapers, which can be helpful, but of course those scanned books are the sources, and in such cases ancestry.com can be mentioned as the URL or convenience link.
• There are copies or indexes of primary records such as births, baptisms, censuses, etc. Using primary sources is something to be careful about and such cases might require very specific discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:17, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
• The California Secretary of State Office officially mentions and links to "Rootsweb" from its "birth, death and marriage records" site. Unusually for a bureaucracy there are no caveats in the statement: "In addition, the genealogy website RootsWeb has recently made the statewide index to deaths, 1940 to 1997, available online." I think for such records we should be able to take "Rootsweb" as a primary source. Churn and change (talk) 00:21, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
  • To see the issue, please check the original US census record (from article George M. Stratton) here: [38] Then go to the ancestry.com OCR page: [39]. You can see why having both is much better than either alone. The handwritten version is hard to read unless one has an idea of what the writing roughly is. The OCR version provides this. The OCR version has an error (the street name isn't Buevenne, it is actually Benvenue, as the pull down menu here: [40] makes clear). Note that this isn't really WP:SYNTH, once both records are looked at together, there is no interpretation or analysis or synthesis required; the handwriting automatically becomes clear. If one has decided the primary source is acceptable for whatever reason (maybe just basic facts are being introduced), then, yes these sites should be added as a second link (call it convenience link if you want). In cases such as state records, well, if the decision is to include the primary record, then sites such as rootsweb are the only source around; the state government itself says so. And, yes, I am talking of the pure primary source sections of the sites. Churn and change (talk) 00:42, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
• I added the references above. None of the links show historical documents. TFD (talk) 01:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Genealogy databases (except for certain aspects such as the scanned newspapers to be found in ancestry.com for example) are clearly primary sources, with all the dangers that these hold. The original research and synthesis come not from the data itself, but from deciding that this is the same "George M. Stratton" or "Richard Tylman" that the bio is about. Unfortunately these errors are very, very easy to make, as I know from having used the ancestry myself, which is precisely why editorially oversight (in the form of a published reliable source) is necessary. This long, but very excellent post on another page, explains much better than I could why the use of such sources are for the most part inappropriate, except perhaps as confirmation of facts made by reliable published sources. I urge everybody to read it; amongst other things the editor explains in detail how the census records, birth/death records are frequently highly unreliable sources of who was where, when, how old they were etc, and expert knowledge beyond simply verifying the handwriting is required. As a result, it seems clear that such primary documents are rarely appropriate sources for use in WP. Slp1 (talk) 12:59, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

In the case of George M. Stratton, his name matches; the names of his daughters and son match; the place matches; and his age, wife's age and ages of daughters match. The only thing picked up his son's approximate age, and that also matches the age found in other part-reliable secondary sources. The primary source in that case augments a secondary source which is a local newspaper, which, while nonobjectionable per policy, is still not that great a source. I agree census records, just like all primary sources, should be used with caution, and probably not for more than name and age and maybe address circa that year. But to get back to the original question, I don't think the genealogical records are acceptable for the Richard Tylman article, either to argue for keeping the article or for deleting it. There is a lengthy discussion on the article's AfD. Churn and change (talk) 15:15, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The chances are that you are right about George M. Stratton, but the problem is that you may be wrong. In the course of my researches I've several times been led down completely false alleys based on names, ages/names of children etc. But to augment a reliable secondary source, it is probably okay; though as a caveat I haven't looked to see the quality of these in this case. However, I don't agree with parts of the rest of your post. As EEng pointed out in their post, and as I (and other reliable sources can confirm) not even a name or age are intrinsically reliable from these records. Neighbours sometimes gave the information to the census takers, and time and again people lie about things, including their age, to make themselves younger or older for one reason or another. And that's always assuming one can be 100% that the right individual has been identified. So, yes, I agree that these genealogical records are not reliable sources for Richard Tylman, either for notability or for content. A professional historian, knowledgeable about the period and their records, and writing in a reliable source, is needed to disentangle this information. --Slp1 (talk) 15:36, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

[The discussion on George M. Stratton I think we should transfer to that article's talk page; since the primary source is supporting a secondary source, there aren't generic policy/guideline issues to discuss.] I see two objections you are pointing out: that the census taker may have made a mistake and that people might have given wrong information. The second is the same issue as WP:SELFSOURCE which we do allow under specific circumstances (I agree it does lead to low-quality articles, nevertheless it's allowed, assuming a set of conditions holds). The first is an issue that doesn't go away with secondary or tertiary sources either. Mistakes are always possible. Secondary sources which correct primary-source mistakes probably make some of their own. I think the right way to look at it is as accumulating a mass of evidence with this as one piece. If all pieces agree, we can be surer there was no mistake. Yes, I understand that in a census record (a primary source) there is no vetting, cross-checking, peer review or editorial oversight at all, and so mistakes are more likely. But the idea behind using a primary source to back up a secondary source is to account for mistakes in either. My original posting was that when a census record is used as a primary source this way, it makes sense to link to both ancestry.com's OCR version and the original version from the US archives department website. That helps the reader and future editors. Churn and change (talk) 16:35, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

There are actually multiple issues with using these kinds of primary sources and I mentioned only two as examples, to show why and how these records may be inaccurate and can be misrepresented. That's why a reliable secondary source with fact-checking is needed: a historian or scholar who is able to analyze the document, interpret the data, draw conclusions about whether the right individual has been identified, whether there are inconsistencies or inaccuracies and how to resolve them etc. This is precisely the kind of original research and synthesis that we do not allow WP editors to do. Yes, secondary sources may make mistakes too, but the chances and implications are several degrees lower than allowing WP editors to do this. That's why secondary sources have long been by far the preferred sources on WP, and original research of this sort is forbidden. --Slp1 (talk) 16:56, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with all that (in fact, I dislike the WP:SELFSOURCE exception; even the most credible people are fallible when it comes to their own bios, at times based on their old memories; and that is without considering lying). I also agree the links above are not acceptable. The only additional point I have to make, since the original question was more general and did not have the links, is that, once a well-thought-out decision is made to include a census record as a primary source supplementing other sources, it is a good idea to include both the original archive and ancestry.com's OCR version. That holds for other primary records such as California death records too. From your postings, I assume you are neutral on that. Churn and change (talk) 20:25, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of how the genealogy search engines are built, they are also commonly used in Wikipedia for a variety of reasons including the cross-verification of data already present somewhere else. Please remember, the period in question is the Elizabethan England of the Tudor Dynasty... nobody can benefit from tampering with these records online for some abstract benefit of theirs. In this particular instance, different search engines were used expressly to confirm the bits and pieces of information about Richard Tylman (Tillman) including his family history and business dealings already mentioned in reliable third party sources, such as the PDF theses on the Faversham economic history by Paul Wilkinson, PhD, as well as the 1774 history of the town by Edward Jacob made available by the University of Wisconsin. I have no idea why the AfD nominator (who started this thread hoping to win his controversial argument elsewhere) chose to withhold the info about other references from the opening statement (above) as if the genealogy websites were the only references used in the creation of this article... The opposite is true. Generally speaking... with the rapid development of massive online databases created by libraries for free – thanks to advancements in digital technology mostly – it seems to me that an increasingly disproportionate amount of info already available to us, is actually being picked up by historians for their own academic benefit. However, I see no reason why we would want to limit the Wikipedia's ability to make use of what’s out there including the records of “Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, London, England” digitized at Ancestry.com. After all, our mandate is the collection of encyclopedic data in a continuous manner over a period of time, not some ultimate truth confirmed by the highest third-party authority out there. Poeticbent talk 19:42, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of this noticeboard is to evaluate individual sources, not all sources used in an article. The genealogical website sources used in this article are all postings by amateurs. Your first source for example gives details of Richard Tylman's birth, marriage, family and death.[41] Whether or not the Richard Tylman you found at ancestry.com is the same person as the Richard Tillman in an article is better covered at RSN. TFD (talk) 21:24, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Clarification regarding a primary source

The Complaint for Injunctive and Other Equitable Relief and Civil Monetary Penalties Under the Commodities Exchange Act, filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to the Illinois Eastern Division District Court. It is used for the BP article to state the fact the complaint was filed against BP Products North America, Inc., a subsidiary of BP plc, and its traders. The quote:

The US Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused BP Products North America (subsidiary of BP plc; former Amoco Oil Company) traders with conspiring the price of propane by seeking to corner the propane market in 2004.

The company name was replaced with "BP" with edit summary: "reverted per WP:SECONDARY... we don't prefer court documents." This is true that secondary sources talking mainly (although not entirely) about BP. However, the question is if the complaint filed to court is reliable source about the defendant name in this context. The relevant policy says "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge." By my understanding, the defendant's exact name is that kind of straightforward fact that could be verified by the court file. However, comments on this issue are appreciated. Beagel (talk) 17:01, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

You need to provide a link to the edit. Without seeing that one cannot know whether your edit is correct. In general however, we are allowed to make limited use of primary sources and this seems to one of them - providing a more accurate description of the defendant. TFD (talk)

This is not a matter for RSN. The issue is one of tone, weight and balance, not the reliability of sources: should a US court case be primarily attributed to BP, the multinational corporation, or to BP's US-based subsidiary? My take on it is that the naming of the subsidiary should be, uh, subsidiary to the main company. Here's my suggested version:

The US Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused several BP traders and BP's US-based operations (BP subsidiary BP Products North America Inc., formerly Amoco) with conspiring to fix the price of propane by seeking to corner the propane market in 2004.

As you can see it is a minor issue, one that is suitably covered at Talk:BP#Why this change from "BP traders" to "BP Products North America Inc. (former Amoco Oil Company)", (IMO a too-long header). All of the sources are being discussed; none are being thrown out entirely. Binksternet (talk) 19:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a matter of RSN. It may be a minor issue, but it is the principle issue as the edit summary "reverted per WP:SECONDARY... we don't prefer court documents." makes it clear that reliability of the court document was contested. So, it is the general question if the filed complaint is reliable source for defendant name or nor. My request has nothing to do with discussion about tone or weight and these issues should be discussed at the article's talk page, not here. Beagel (talk) 04:56, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

For an actual person, court documents are not ok. For a corporation, there is no set policy I can see. WP:BLPPRIMARY says: "Exercise caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." WP:BLPGROUP provides some guidance on whether BLP issues apply to groups; for a company like BP, I would think not. But the issues with primary sources still exist for court records. They have to be interpreted and summarized, something we are not supposed to do. They have also not been through a notability filter, unlike secondary tertiary sources. Churn and change (talk) 05:12, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. It is clear about living persons. My question is about interpredation of WP:PRIMARY statement: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge." The question is if the defendant's (corporation) exact name is that kind of straightforward fact that could be verified by the complaint filed to the court. By my understanding it is, but any comment explaining implementation of this principle is welcome. Beagel (talk) 05:23, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Smithfield Foods vs. Rolling Stone Magazine

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.

Asked, answered. RS/N does not host dispute resolution

---

The article Smithfield Foods currently contains material and quotes from Jeff Tietz sourced to this article in Rolling Stone Magazine, including the specific line "Jeff Tietz writes that the waste, a mixture of excrement, urine, blood, afterbirths and stillborn pigs, drugs and other chemicals, overflows when it rains, and the liners can be punctured by rocks." I can find no indication that Tietz is a Reliable Source for this specific topic. Furthermore, the article Tietz penned reads like something between an Op-Ed column and a deliberate attack piece. While company articles are not considered as sensitive as BLPs, we still have standards for content that apply to all articles on Wikipedia. The question for this noticeboard is whether or not Tietz and his article can be considered RS for Smithfield Foods? Thanks for your time and attention, Doc Tropics 17:07, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Reliability normally relates to the publication, rather than the author. Usually signed articles in news publications will contain opinions. Essentially the problem with the article is neutrality not sourcing, and I will look at the talk page discussion. TFD (talk) 19:13, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Such wording in any article pushes it utterly into the "opinion" category, and opinions are not "facts." Use of opinions as "fact" is a major problem on many articles. Collect (talk) 19:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

We can include opinion, provided it is attributed. In other words, the fact we are including is "XYZ says ABCD" not ABCD itself. Churn and change (talk) 19:54, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The Social Media Manager for Smithfield Foods (User:Kkirkham) has arrived at Smithfield Foods, and has asked Doc Tropics to make edits for him. Kkirkham only recently acknowledged being the Social Media Manager; before that, he said he was an employee who had come here to learn about his employer. Kirkham tried to add two bulleted lists to the top of the article to move material the company doesn't like lower down, an old trick that PR people have acknowledged using. Doc Tropics is acting at Kirkham's request, has tried to remove criticism, and has added the POV tag, also at Kirkham's request. [42] [43]

The source Doc Tropics wants to remove is a five-page investigative piece from 2006 by Jeff Tietz for Rolling Stone – "Boss Hog" – a detailed article that includes some key facts about the company, and identifies the key criticism often made against it (the article focuses on environmental pollution, but also deals with the treatment of animals and workers). It's a valuable source for the article because it clearly outlines the issues, and there are no grounds within the policies for removing it.

This particular article won the Genesis Award in 2006. The writer, Jeff Tietz, has been nominated four times for a National Magazine Award, once for the Pushcart Prize, and has once been a Livingstone Journalism Award finalist. [44] In addition to Rolling Stone, the articles that won or were nominated for awards appeared in The New Yorker and Harper's. [45] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:43, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Have there been responses to Tietz's article? Have editors made good-faith attempts to locate and include them? Churn and change (talk) 19:54, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware of Doc Tropics and Kkirkham having looked for responses. I think that is not what they are there for; the aim seems to be to remove the criticism, not add responses to it. I have more than once asked the Smithfield Foods rep to identify anything inaccurate in our article, so that I can fix it or find responses, but he hasn't done so.

I can only repeat that the Tietz piece is a valid piece of investigative journalism written by an experienced journalist, and that it highlights issues that are often highlighted about Smithfield Foods (the environmental issues in particular). We should not remove investigative journalism at the request of paid advocates or their supporters. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:27, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Wrong. We should always remove inappropriate content from articles, no matter who requests it. The goal is to produce fair and balanced articles, not to "stick it to them" because we can. A major concern at this point is that Slim Virgin is acting as custodian of the article, despite her well-known position as an animal rights activist. She has reverted every single edit I made attempting to bring more balance to the article. There is a strong appearance that SV has taken ownership of the article and insists on maintaining unbalanced negative content. In short, she is part of the problem. The only question for this board though, is the article "Boss Hog" a reliable source for the article "Smithfield foods"? So far the responses here have tended towards the negative and I am leaning towards its removal. Thanks for your time and attention. Doc Tropics 23:01, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry, but that is incorrect. The purpose of a Wikipedia article is to summarize accurately the subject. "Fair and balanced" are not standards for use. What is fair? Fair is to accurately use sources to make claims. Balance is ony towards what is mainstream in academic circles on the subject. We do not elevate every opinion or side, regardless of how small.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:04, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, let me tend toward the positive, then. Rolling Stone is a respected, award-winning, reliable, in our meaning of the word, mass media source. The cited sentence seems like a clear statement of fact, rather than opinion. The is no "I guess", or "I have heard" or "it might". I can find no justification for Collect's thesis that it must be an opinion. Since it does seem to be contentious, we should probably cite it to Rolling Stone - this is done. I fully support Slim Virgin here. --GRuban (talk) 23:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict, reply to Churn and change) It appears as though the article has been referenced by a handful of "animal rights" or "healthy living" type books [46][47], and Smithfield found it important enough to responded to it here. Given the author's credentials and the fact that the article was published in Rolling Stone and it received or was nominated for various awards, it seems reliable/important enough for at least inclusion of opinion on some details and of fact on others. Location (talk) 23:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to make clear, in response to Doc Tropics comments, that I am not an animal rights activist, or any other kind of activist (on or off Wikipedia). I'm here as a Wikipedian. I didn't write the Smithfield article. I've made just 68 edits to it in over five years. I didn't originally add Teitz as a source; it was added here, though I may have been the editor who added Tietz's description of the lagoons. I'm also not the article's "custodian," but I don't want Smithfield Foods to become that custodian either, whether directly or by proxy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:35, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

• I found one source here ("An Analysis of Pork Production in Virginia: Production vs. Protection" inside the page) which covers both Tietz's article and Smithfield's response. You could probably use that as the source (its basic conclusion seems to be Smithfield is bad for the environment but acting to restrict them would be bad for Virginia's economy). The paper, best I can see, is not published in a journal, but it has been published in a fairly notable college's main site on "Environmental Studies->Student involvement' indicating significant vetting and an editorial-check process. Incidentally seems like Smithfield's response was also published in Rolling Stone as a "Letter to the editor" in 2007. One more: Google book, p. 106. Still another, focusing on Mexican hog production, but refers to this as well: A faculty member's report I think these sources should be used instead of Rolling Stone, a magazine non-neutral for political views, and not much of an RS for environmental facts (yes, I know it has die-hard fans, so I guess I will avoid getting into that argument). Churn and change (talk) 00:09, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

• The first article you mentioned looks like an unpublished student paper. There's no need to find alternative sources to Rolling Stone. It's a reliable source and we don't remove investigative journalism just because companies don't like it. Of course they don't like it. We can add Smithfield's response if it touches on issues that we include in the article. If it doesn't we can add it to the Tietz footnote for now, and develop the article so that we cover the issues Smithfield responded to. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

• It's worth noting that I posted a request on the talk page [48] to the Smithfield rep to identify the errors in the article so they can be fixed (he says there are "many falsehoods" in it), but Doc Tropics has advised him not to respond. [49] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:58, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I am a bit concerned as to AGF on the company rep claim. Unless KKirkham proves KKirkham is who KKirkham says KKirkham is, I think we should avoid references to a Smithfield rep. Churn and change (talk) 03:41, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Discussion is off track

The concern of this noticeboard is in regards to reliable sources only. While there are certainly many things that can be discussed about the subject, much of this belongs on the talkpage or Dispute Resolution Noticeboards. A question has been asked and Slim Vigin supplied the correct answer. There are three criteria for relaible sources:

• the piece of work itself (the article, book),
• the creator of the work (the writer, journalist),
• and the publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press).

The next consideration is 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 article "Boss Hog" is not an opinion piece, but straight journalism, regardless of its strong wording. The author is a known and award winning journalist, Jeff Tietz [50]. The cited source publication is Rollingstone, which has full editorial oversite with fact checking.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:28, 13 September 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.

http://publicintelligence.net/

This was raised before at [51]. "Public Intelligence is an international, collaborative research project aimed at aggregating the collective work of independent researchers around the globe who wish to defend the public’s right to access information. We operate upon a single maxim: equal access to information is a human right. We believe that limits to the average citizen’s ability to access information have created information asymmetries which threaten to destabilize democratic rule around the world. Through the control of information, governments, religions, corporations, and a select group of individuals have been able to manipulate public perception into accepting coercive agendas which are ultimately designed to limit the sovereignty and freedom of populations worldwide." So it's an aggregator of sorts. We use it for a number of articles.[52], including List of Bilderberg participants where I think we need a better source.

Should it be used for anything? If so, how? Dougweller (talk) 05:13, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry this did not get answered for you before Doug Weller. No. This should not be used on Wikipedia as a source of any kind. Besides being a tertiary source, aggregating information from "independent researches" (yeah...Wikipedia editors are "independent researchers") it is also "an attempt to compile and defend public information using software and methods which are open source and available to the public at large". It is a self published source as defined:"This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated, including the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), Cracked.com, CBDB.com, collaboratively created websites such as wikis, and so forth, with the exception of material on such sites that is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users".--Amadscientist (talk) 05:41, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

If there is anything of value it can be traced back to its original publisher, author etc.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:44, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Genesis creation narrative

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

An editor at this page is making the claim that the author of a source must meet WP:N in order for the source to meet WP:RS. The argument is just getting silly so I figured I'd come here to put this to rest. Note that I have no opinion as to whether the source in question meets WP:RS. I just want it clarified that an author need not pass WP:N in order for the source to be considered reliable. Joefromrandb (talk) 05:05, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: I've made the argument on the Talk:Genesis creation narrative that WP:N is just as much dependent on WP:RS as WP:RS depends on WP:N. I argue that in order for a source to be meet WP:RS, there must be some indication to its WP:N, not just limited to an author passing WP:N. If an author doesn't meet WP:N, then at least the publishing house should. If neither the author or the publishing house doesn't meet WP:N, then some WP:INDEPENDENT source should meet WP:N if its going to vouch for the resource in question. This is my argument. Thanks,   — Jasonasosa 05:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

A source being produced by a notable publishing company, for example, can be useful in determining if a source is reliable. But there is no requirement in WP:RS for the author, company, or anything else to have an article here in order for the source to be suitable. Numerous reliable journals exist, for example, that do not have their own articles. VQuakr (talk) 05:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

How do you determine if a source is reliable, if there is no WP:N to support or vouch for it? Then wikipedia will be riddled with pages like: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David R. Hawkins (2nd nomination). I would really appreciate an admins input in this matter, because I'm tired of bantering with non-admins. Thanks,   — Jasonasosa 05:44, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

An admin's input carries no more weight than any other user's. I of course welcome any admin's input, but it wont come in the form of a decree that will get you (or me) what you want. "Tired of bantering with non-admins" is a troubling attitude. Again, what you're attempting is a policy change that should be discussed at WT:N, WT:RS, or both. If you get the policy changed, more power to you. In the meanwhile, you can't unilaterally decide that a source can't be used based on its author's lack of notability. Joefromrandb (talk) 05:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Are we talking about a specific source here? Otherwise this is probably NOT within the scope of RSN. — raekyt 06:02, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Jasonasosa, this is complete nonsense. There is no reason why a completely non-notable author, publisher or company cannot produce a fully reliable source. The qualifications for reliable source status have to to do with quality of the source, the editorial processes used to produce it and the reputation of the source amongst experts in the relevant field. How notable any particular person or organisation that are involved in its production is entirely irrelevant. - Nick Thorne ^talk 06:12, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I am not asking for a policy change. I'm not even saying that it is absolutely necessary for an author to meet WP:N. I'm saying that in order for a source to be reliable, it must be vouched for by someone or something that is WP:N whether it be a wp:notable publishing house, or a wp:notable wp:independent source. What is the bottom line that makes a source reliable? The WP:RS policy states "The policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability" and a part of verifying something is determining its Wikipedia:Verifiability#Notability just as much as ensuring that there is no Wikipedia:Verifiability#Original_research. Thanks,   — Jasonasosa 06:14, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Rubbish. In any case this is not the place to be having this discussion. Take it to WP:RS if you want to make this change of policy. Good luck with that. - Nick Thorne ^talk 06:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I too have suggested that numerous times. It's clear that we're dealing with a minority of one here and can move on. Jasonasosa has been told how he can proceed. I think we can all move on. Joefromrandb (talk) 06:38, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Jasonasosa, the policy on Notability says that it is notability that determines whether a subject is suitable for its own article. Notability and Reliability are not the same thing. Someone could be very notable, like Donald Trump, and very unreliable, like Donald Trump. I wouldn't use anything that guy prints as a reliable source for anything except wiping my butt. :) However, he is incredibly notable. Conversely, there may be a professor at a local community college that has spent his entire life cataloging the life cycle of the common beetle, and he has toiled in a life of academic obscurity, but he may be the world's foremost beetle entymologist, recognized by his unquestionable research and the fact that not one person has found anything worth challenging in his papers and statements. Such a person would be an imminently reliable source on beetles, but may know next to nothing about Donald Trump. Apparently when one can sing off key and talk like a hick, or tell the cops you have sent your kid into space, or happen to have been homeless and have a great voice, you are noteworthy enough for an article in Wikipedia. But that doesn't mean you are reliable as a source of good information. -- Avanu (talk) 06:48, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Good point about Donald Trump! ;)   — Jasonasosa 06:53, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

When comes down to it... I just think its funny that everyone is now running to create these articles [(John Feinberg page created today)] and [(John Sailhamer page created today)] to ensure their wp:notability. I mean if it weren't a big deal, why go through all the effort. So call it rubbish all you want, but the fact remains that WP:N plays a key role in WP:RS whether you all care to accept that or not. Thanks,   — Jasonasosa 06:53, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Jason, in the end the determination of whether someone is notable is actually a matter of editorial discretion. We have nice looking guidelines and they work 90% of the time, but the exact threshold is often just based on where people feel like drawing the line. The same is true of reliability in a source. Perez Hilton is a well-known gossip columnist. He's arrogant and petty and won't hesitate to ruin a person's life if he dislikes them. He also happens to often portray things accurately. He *could* be a RS for some things (actually because his site is the form of a blog, most of the time it is simply ignored here), but his comments are accurate mostly depending on his point of view or bias at that moment, so its really not that reliable. But you need to understand that a person's Wikipedia Notability has absolutely nothing to do with whether they are considered reliable. Nothing at all. Zero. Consider how many news stories are written by some up and coming news writer or a person just getting a start. The story gets vetted by a well-known news organization, sure, but the author is not notable at all. And in the case of my beetle lover above, he is an expert, but people aren't usually clamoring to get bug nerds on national TV. Reliability and Notability and subjective concepts and the two aren't always tied together. You'll find more problems than you solve if you insist on making Reliability dependent on Notability. -- Avanu (talk) 11:54, 14 September 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.

Fifelfoo (talk) 07:10, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Blog

Can this blog be used, only to cite the location of the filming for the music video? It is not being used to present the blogger's point of view or etc. but merely to name the location which was Brooklyn. Till 07:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:SELFSOURCE and reposted WP:SELFSOURCE inserted into Sandra Fluke

Just FYI, tendentious editor keeps re-inserting questionable material, re-arguing settled points. Resolved to delete questionable material by consensus on Talk:Rush Limbaugh–Sandra Fluke controversy, re-appears on Sandra Fluke, and even though WP:BLP, WP:RS are identical (and portable), demands re-do. Consensus also exists on that page for removal, but editor refuses to comply. Need outside and uninvolved comment from editors with expertise on WP:RS.

Controversy over WP:SELFSOURCE and probably untrue WP:BLP material being added to [Article]Sandra Fluke article. [Source]Original material was at the “meet the PILS scholars” page on Georgetown Law’s website, that posts information that students submit and update about themselves. Checked for length and copyediting, by press office, not for accuracy. The current page is [Source, original][[53]], but since Fluke is no longer a student there, no longer up. The text can be found. It is directly quoted (one version; as most self-source pages do, it changed gradually) at [Source, current][[54]] as follows

“Sandra Fluke’s professional background in domestic violence and human trafficking began with Sanctuary for Families in New York City. There, she launched the agency’s pilot Program Evaluation Initiative,” her Public Interest Law Scholars (PILS) profile explains. “While at Sanctuary, she co-founded the New York Statewide Coalition for Fair Access to Family Court, which after a twenty-year stalemate, successfully advocated for legislation granting access to civil orders of protection for unmarried victims of domestic violence, including LGBTQ victims and teens. Sandra was also a member of the Manhattan Borough President’s Taskforce on Domestic Violence and numerous other New York City and New York State coalitions that successfully advocated for policy improvements impacting victims of domestic violence.”

. Problem is, that several websites copy and paste this information, and this is being sourced as confirming it. For instance (and confirming original source)

Fluke was also a member of the Manhattan Borough President's Taskforce on Domestic Violence

is suspect.

[Incorrect name, which labels source and re-postings]First, the "Manhattan Borough President's Taskforce on Domestic Violence" is not what the group is called. If you search "Manhattan Borough President's Taskforce on Domestic Violence" you will get the puff blurb Fluke wrote for the publicity department when she entered Georgetown, and re-posts of the blurb Fluke wrote, mostly in personal tweets or far-left or far-right personal blogs. Nothing but Fluke, no references to the work the Taskforce does. If you search for "Manhattan Borough President's Domestic Violence Taskforce" or "Manhattan Borough President" "Domestic Violence Taskforce" you will find the Taskforce, its publications, news, updates, members, but (almost) no mention of Fluke (one or two attack blogs "corrected" the blurb). This obviously speaks to the lack of fact-checking on the press/alumni office blurb (which we already knew) that it did not get the name right, but also directs readers to the correct research sources. [Primary sources indicate untrue]If you look up the MBP DVTF, it has 50 members, and they don't change that much year to year. If you have a connection that interfaces with the NYPL databases, member rosters are published; a search of the ones overlapping Fluke's first job out of college do NOT include Fluke on any roster. If you can't access the public records, then pull up any of the dozen or so publications of the MBP DVTF; most are released as pdfs. Again, each has a page somewhere thanking everyone who contributed to this or that project, from members to the person who got the coffee; again, no publication from that time mentions Fluke in any way; a virtual impossiblity for someone who actually WAS a member. A number of Sanctuary for Families executives, even down to mid-level (Fluke never became any kind of key employee there, as discussed) directors WERE members, but not Fluke.

While at Sanctuary, she co-founded the New York Statewide Coalition for Fair Access to Family Court, which after a twenty-year stalemate, successfully advocated for…

is also problematic, and only sourced to the same press office self-submitted blurb, though re-posted with the rest. If she says she was involved, fine, there were lots of opportunities that involved signing petitions, but "Co-founded"? [Primary sources indicate untrue]Problem is, this was actually founded by NY State Sen George Winner, from Upstate. No mention of Fluke in any reports on this or the foundational paperwork. Multiple newspaper references to the work of the Coalition, all mention Winner and other significant promoters and participants, none mention Fluke.

Sanctuary for Families is a HUGE charity in New York, and Fluke was hired to an entry-level job (her only job) straight out of college, and she left after a few years to enter Law school. They list all their key employees, and she was never one of them, going back to 2004 (the last time one left). Sanctuary, the organization, WAS involved, as were a few of their senior executives, in both, just not Fluke. The exaggeration of “co-founded” and being a “member” may just be the kind of resume inflation one would expect of a recent graduate with little experience; she might have helped someone who helped someone and conflated her involvement (not the worst thing for an inexperienced recent graduate to do), but there is no WP:RS that any of it is true, and much in primary sources that indicate that it is not. --Anonymous209.6 (talk) 08:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's TLDR. Can you please post a one paragraph summary of what the issue is? (focused only on the questions around the reliability of sources being used/proposed for use in the article, and not all the other stuff). Nick-D (talk) 23:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

[Simple explanation] Simple. Source is a self-submitted student profile website of the press office of Georgetown Law School. Might be considered reliable for Law School (aka internal) information, if uncontroversial, but is being used as WP:RS for prior accomplishments, and those accomplishments contradict the primary sources, are therefore unlikely or extreme exaggeration. --Anonymous209.6 (talk) 03:33, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The Georgetown University student profile is only cited once in the article, to support what seems like an uncontroversial statement that "While at Georgetown University Law Center, she worked on issues that involved domestic violence and human trafficking". All the other references are to what appear to be reliable secondary sources. I'd suggest discussing this on the article's talk page in the first instance. Your POV editing ([55], [56]) of the article is of concern. Nick-D (talk) 04:12, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Please read the case carefully. As stated, the original profile no longer is online, and can't be used. As stated, the re-postings on websites aren't really secondary reliable sources, and as stated, just cut and paste from the student profile, whether they properly cite or not. The discussion on Talk is voluminous. Your unrelated-to-this-discussion comments are both wrong and inappropriate; please consider removing them, and if you do, feel free to remove this response.--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 11:21, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

[Problem of WP:SELFSOURCE being reposted]The Georgetown University student profile is dead, and cannot be used any more for anything (should really be deleted, not a source for anything now). It has been the sole source for the above information. All references being used to support inclusion of the two suspect charges now are website postings that cut and paste the original Georgetown University student profile [[57]](changed since orig posting to say "served"), [[58]]. [[59]], whereas this [[60]] and the other dead link do not support two controversial claims, though it is used to cite them (it DOES have a link, now dead, to the no longer available GT profile page)--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 11:07, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Other link being used to support the questionable assertions is dead, but should be [[61]], and has no reference to the questionable assertions, though reader comments quote a related Wikipedia article.--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 12:36, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Article in Medical Acupuncture (journal) and how it may be used in Acupuncture

I made some bold edits to Acupuncture that were reverted because the statements made "need a source that strictly complies with WP:MEDRS" (see Talk:Acupuncture#"Myofascial meridians"). I contend that:

• Medical Acupuncture is a reliable peer-reviewed medical journal. It's editorial policy is here.
• The article "Myofascial Meridians as Anatomical Evidence of Acupuncture Channels" by Peter T. Dorsher, (2009). is an analysis, comparison, and synthesis of other sources and therefore should be considered to be a secondary source. It contains no direct scientific observation.
• The textbook Anatomy Trains by Thomas W. Myers (2008), used as source in above article, is published by Elsevier Health Sciences, a leading pubisher in medical an anatomical textbooks, should be considered a reliable source.
• Dorsher (2009) meets the requirements as per WP:Medrs to allow its conclusions (such as "The strong correspondence of the distributions of the acupuncture and myofascial meridians provides an independent, anatomic line of evidence that acupuncture Principal Meridians likely exist in the myofascial layer of the human body") can be used as evidence of a physical correlate of acupuncture meridians.

I would also contend that similar statements derived from these sources could be used in Meridian (Chinese medicine) and in other articles related to this topic. - Stillwaterising (talk) 17:02, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The article doesn't turn up in Pubmed, which makes me wonder about the journal.

The primary problem here isn't whether this is a "reliable source", but whether this is giving WP:DUE weight to this one author's view. So either you can take this to WP:NPOVN, or you might find it useful to think of it this way: if you got together every single published author who had written even the smallest statement on this subject, from the most pro-anatomy author of the world through the most virulently anti-anatomy authors, and you lined them up, in order, from most to least, where would Dorsher fall in the line? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The argument here is about whether Dorsher's article constitutes a primary or a secondary source - and clearly, it's primary. It's not a comparison and synthesis of other sources, but a study ("The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the distributions of the anatomically based myofascial meridians are similar to those of the acupuncture Principal Meridians.") His method consisted in comparing acupuncture meridians with Myers' "myofascial meridians" by using some special kind of software ("With Adobe Photoshop Elements software (Adobe Systems Inc, San Jose, CA), the distributions of corresponding acupuncture meridians were applied to the same human figure outlines used in Myers’ text to allow direct side-by-side comparisons of the acupuncture and myofascial meridians"). The result of his study is that "In 8 (89%) of 9 comparisons, there was substantial overlap in the distributions of the ... myofascial meridians with those of the acupuncture Principal Meridian distributions..."

Since this is a primary source, it's not suitable for being used as evidence for the far-reaching statement that science found a physical correlate of acupuncture meridians. We have secondary sources in the article already, but they all state the opposite. --Mallexikon (talk) 01:37, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Are Medal of Honor Citations reliable?

When some national hero is awarded a Medal of Honor, an official citation is made describing the heroic acts of the hero. Maybe he/she risked his/her life to kill many enemies, or to save some friends, whatever. The question is, are the facts described on those citations reliable to be used, say, in a biography? Or do we risk in turning it into an hagiography?

The curious can read a lot of such citations in the Home Of Heroes website. --damiens.rf 18:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I have seen inflated prose on medal citations, sometimes politically motivated. No such citation should be automatically considered a reliable source. It should instead by attributed: "His/her medal citation reads..." Binksternet (talk) 19:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it is not. While the citation may be quoted, with inline citation, you need a third party source. TFD (talk) 20:12, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

listing of books that can be read.Moxy (talk) 20:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the citations are reliable, so long as they are attributed WP:INTEXT as being what the citation says. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

As noted by other editors above, the citations must be placed in context when used. However, it's worth noting that modern-day nominations for the Medal of Honor go through an in-depth fact checking process to determine whether the recipient qualified for the medal and the nature of the events, and the citation is very carefully written (the same kind of process applies to the Victoria Cross). As such, it's reasonable to assume that the citations for recent medals are accurate accounts of the individual's actions unless there is evidence that they are not (journalists and historians tend to closely examine the events around the award of high level military honours, and highlight any discrepancies or ommissions). Nick-D (talk) 23:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the facts in a citation, such as date of birth, positions held, and so on, should not need attribution, unless they are controversial. The opinions and adjectives there will need attribution. Churn and change (talk) 00:14, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Biography.com

Hi peeps, a question for you. Is Biography.com (a part of the A&E network) a reliable source for BLPs? Is this article on Elizabeth Warren[62] OK to use as a source in the Elizabeth Warren Wikipedia article? FurrySings (talk) 03:08, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Not signed by its author - which may be a problem, but A&E written material is a full step above using their programmes as sources - where some have been found to have inaccuracies. Likely good enough for non-contentious claims to be sure. Collect (talk) 11:42, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

thepeerage.com

Why is www.thepeerage.com considered a reliable source? It is researched by someone who does so as a hobby - Darryl Lundy. It has no peer review of its content. It is essentially this person's home-based website. However, it is used extensively by editors making contributions on European royalty. However, on the several occasions when I have checked its attributions for historical occurrence, it is in direct contrast to viable, peer-reviewed histories. That would most likely be because the website, www.thepeerage.com, is run by one person who is not an expert on the topic nor does he even profess to have any education in the subject that he researches. Why is it included as a secondary source for so many articles? Shouldn't it be removed as a source for these articles? Does anyone agree with this? Stevenmitchell (talk) 05:06, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Lundy does cite his sources which are reliable such as Cokayne's "The Complete Peerage", etc. By rendering virtually every single online source unreliable, there will be no further contributions on European royalty articles. Very few people will go out and spend 50 dollars on a book just to add a citation and even fewer will drive to a public library looking up information which is already freely available on the 'Net. I would suggest that editors citing Lundy's website add the source which he himself used.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

That's not a good idea: editors shouldn't cite references they haven't seen (except for where an editor in good standing can personally vouch for the reference, and even then it's not ideal). Based on what's at http://www.thepeerage.com/info.htm, this isn't a reliable source for Wikipedia's as it's author cheerfully admits to cobbling together information from various books and databases as a hobby and making educated guesses in instances where his sources were contradictory. That said, if reliable sources reference this database it's probably usable. Nick-D (talk) 07:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

"thepeerage.com" appears to be used in quite a few reliable sources per GoogleScholar - thus unless a claim is contentius, I consider it an RS - one of the very few cases where an SPS reaches that level. Collect (talk) 11:47, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Take a close look at those hits. It seems to me that most them are genealogy websites, random webpages, and things published by a mysterious 'eM Publications'. I searched GoogleBooks for that publisher and found they are selling Wikipedia articles. See also Wikipedia:Republishers#eM_Publications. I don't see how the 'thepeerage' is a 'reliable source', it's just a personal website that happens to cite it's sources. That doesn't mean we should remove it wholesale from articles - it's better than nothing.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 12:15, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The Elsevier one is not a Wikipedia article - it appears the source is widely used as RS on Wikipedia articles, especially for royal genealogies. As long as the claim is not contentious, I would accept it as a source. Collect (talk) 14:30, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, at least one of the papers (from Google scholar) which cites thepeerage.com also cites Wikipedia. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2008.07.026 So either the paper is suspect or what they are citing is so tangential to their main focus, they probably don't care. Churn and change (talk) 15:28, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Medical Hypotheses the journal that that article was published in, is explicitly not peer reviewed and isn't competent in the field of biographical history or genealogy. I wouldn't trust that article for anything. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:42, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I guess this is deviating from the topic, but their webpage at Elsevier says they have internal and external review. Their editorial board listed here has some well-known names. Not saying you are wrong (the journal does say they take what other publications won't or don't), but there is the question of what criteria to use to reject the journal. Do you want to bring this up as a separate section? Churn and change (talk) 00:42, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Given nobody's suggesting using that source, I think we can rest on our laurels of extensive past discussions unless someone has another use case. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:37, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

MicrobeWiki

The name is a red flag, but I note that the site is curated. I don't know that we have any policies governing curated wiki sites.

If it is not an acceptable reference, I see a number of articles, such as Ehrlichia canis, Micrococcus, Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus and others, which need editing.

The issue arose because an article in the DYK queue Nostoc commune, uses it as a reference, and it is being challenged.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:45, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The site is not curated; some specific pages are. "Microbial biorealm" and "Viral biorealm" are encyclopedias and hence tertiary sources. "Microbial mythology" is a secondary source, experts evaluating and interpreting primary sources, with editorial oversight. But I think reliability isn't a yes/no thing. There are degrees to it. For a DYK review, I guess the curated pages should be good enough. For an FA article, probably not. Churn and change (talk) 15:51, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

They have curated pages that qualify as sources with editorial oversight. But I have another concern. A quick comparison of mentioned Ehrlichia canis here and on MicrobeWiki shows that someone tried to closely paraphrase MicrobeWiki, frequently without knowing the subject and transformed correct phrases (from Microbewiki) to nonsense. For example, the phrase "The cell walls of E. canis is unrecognizable because of typical receptors like Toll-like receptors 2 and 4. (MicrobeWiki)" in Ehrlichia canis is wrong and does not make any sense. One would make a much better job simply by copy-paste phrases from MicrobeWiki, but I am not sure about their copyright status (see here, the materials "from other sources" on their site are images).My very best wishes (talk) 23:53, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

AllCinema.net

There are currently 625 articles using AllCinema.net as a reference.[63] However, based on a Google Translator reading their disclaimer page,[64] they do not appear to provide any gauntnesses on the integrity, accuracy, or safety of the information. The even stated that some of the information is based on hearsay (伝聞情報が含まれることから). As such, this doesn't appear to be a reliable source to cite information from. —Farix (t | c) 01:18, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Top of the Pops episode guides

Hello. I have the ability to add fully tabled episode lists for Top of the Pops to Wikipedia Here's an example from my sandbox. However! I have one problem which makes me uncertain of whether to proceed - verifiability. My source of information was copied 6 years ago from two BBC databases that no longer exist online, even in archive form. These are the BBC Progamme Catalogue and the database that once appeared on the now defunct Top of the Pops website - the site itself still works but clicking on the relevant link produces an error. While there are a few websites that give some information about random episodes and I would reference these appropriately. However, there will be literally hundreds of episodes that will not have a reference. Should I give up hope now, or should I add the lists and see if anyone else can provide sources? Currently, apart from in my sandbox, there is no information on wikipedia for the 2000+ episodes of Top of the Pops ~~Peteb16 (talk) 17:03, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Sources don't have to exist online. If a library has a reference copy of the database, then you can cite that. Videos can be their oan sources for what they include, but there has to be a possibility or someone accessing them, even if it would be difficult

Itsmejudith (talk) 21:14, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

One would assume the BBC still holds these records somewhere. The BBC Catalogue must still exist in offline form. As for videos, most of the BBCs early recordings of this show were wiped as the reuse value of the tape itself was presumed to be worth more than what was on it. Most were also broadcast live and never saw the inside of a video recorder. I will go with the former suggestion and cite the BBC Catalogue as a source. Thank you Itsmejudith! ~~ Peteb16 (talk) 21:30, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Steeler Nation Criticism

• Source: [65]
• Article: Steeler Nation#Criticism
• Item: "Whitetrash America's" and "Hillbilly"
• Please feel free to read & comment here. Thank you. Marketdiamond (talk) 14:25, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Cizmar seems marginally competent to make judgements about contemporary american sports sociology. It is an op-ed not a news piece, and should be attributed to Cizmar not his paper. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:40, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History by P.J.Cohen

I'm in huge disagreement with my fellow Croatians about this book.

Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History by Philip J. Cohen, Texas A&M University Press, Nov 1, 1996

I do not think that this book shall be ever used as a valid scholar reference. There are several roadblocks which this book does hit

• the author is not historian
• the book title is an accusation
• there are serious doubts who was the book true author
• Neutrality is a sacred Wikipedia credo

Let us start with: http://www.amazon.com/Serbias-Secret-War-Propaganda-History/product-reviews/0890967601/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/176-8108485-2189606?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Cohen's ghost-writer?, April 7, 2012 By John P. Maher (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History (Eugenia & Hugh M. Stewart '26 Series on Eastern Europe) (Paperback)

In today's New World Order we too have "brilliant outsiders" to the field of Balkan studies writing "long awaited" books. One of these is said to have produced a revolutionary account of Serbia's Secret War This is Dr Philip Cohen MD, a dermatologist. He has no credentials in Balkan studies.

"This book," as we are told by the Series Editor, Stjepan (Stipe) Mestrovic, scion of the famed Yugoslav clan, is "the second in a series on Eastern European Studies. The first was by Serbophobe Norman Cigar (no joke). Dr Cohen has, we are to believe, mastered in the brief span of a couple years, the skill of writing a reasonable facsimile of academic historians' prose and has metabolized reams of Balkan chronicles. Already in 1992 our dermatologist served as expert on the Clinton-Gore transition team. What godfather planted him there? Dr Cohen's Balkanological achievements are the more remarkable for his inability to read Serbo-Croatian. To overcome this handicap Dr Cohen "headed," one reviewer tells us, "a team of translators." Tell me, please: How does one go about "heading a team of translators", especially when one is not a translator? The identity of the translators nor is unknown as is the location of the archive in which the translations have been deposited Typographically, too, Cohen book's has over-generous margins and spacing that increase the bulk of the book by about a third over a normally produced book. School kids call it "padding".

There is a laudatory foreword from the pen of David Riesman, not a dermatologist, but Professor Emeritus of the Harvard University Department of Sociology and author of the best-seller, The Lonely Crowd. Like Dr Cohen, Professor Riesman, is unfettered by a preparation in Balkan studies Riesman even, Mestroviæ tells us, skipped sociology, for he "came to Sociology from Law ." Lawyer-sociologist-Balkanologist Riesman writes that Serbia is a country in which " illiterates could rise to leadership and even to the monarchy." That sounds like late medieval Western Europe. Dr Riesman may have had in mind the likes of Milos Obrenovic, but leaves the impression that his illiteracy was the fruit of autochthonous Serb culture, when it was really the necessary consequence of Islamic precept, the Turkish Kanun i Raya -- "Law for the Slaves." Muslim policy towards infidels was--and still is--take Sudan, for example--identical to the English Penal Laws in Ireland, but it seems to have slipped Mr Riesman's mind that 14th century Serbia's Tsar Dusan Silni stood out among contemporary West European monarchs in that Dusan "the Mighty" knew how to read and write. In a wee oversight Dr Riesman has omitted Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, from whom Goethe learnt, unlike Dr Cohen, to read Serbian. To cap it all off, "Serbia's Secret War" is not Cohen's book, but was ghost-written by someone whose native language is non-English, which any competent linguist can immediately see by key words of phrases that no English-speaker could ever have written. Could it possibly been Stjepan Mestrovic?

From: Balkan Holocausts?:Serbian and Croatian Victim Centered Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia by David Bruce Macdonald, Manchester University Press, Apr 19, 2003, p. 138

A similar view was taken by Philip J. Cohen in his controversial pro-Croatian revisionism of Serbian history.

From: Yugoslavia and Its Historians: Understanding the Balkan Wars of the 1990s by Norman Naimark, Holly Case; Stanford University Press, Feb 19, 2003 p. 222

Two studies that explore important topics, but in which censorial zeal trumps balanced scholarship, are Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide ... and Philip J Cohen, Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History ...

From: http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/084.shtml

Cohen is a hack, a ringer, a front man. He is a paid “presstitute”, a literary whore for Croatian neo-Ustasha propaganda. It is a case of a medical doctor writing “history” on the side as a hobby.

From: http://balkaninstitut.academia.edu/MiroslavSvircevic/Papers/1620686/Philip_J._Cohen_Serbias_secret_war_Propaganda_and_the_deceit_of_history_Texas_A_and_M_University_Press_1996

Even a cursory reading of Cohen's book, which heavily draws on the Croatian pamphlet of Tomislav Vukovic (alias Ljubica Stefan) and Edo Bojovic Pregled srpskog antisemitizma (An review of Serbian anti-Semitism, Zagreb 1992) reveals quite clearly that it is just another obscure piece of ideological denigration.

--Juraj Budak (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't believe you are using Carl Savich's right-wing blog serbianna.com as a basis for criticising Cohen... lol. And anonymous "customers" on Amazon? Please... Can we keep this to criticism by academics? In my research I came across a post on the blog of Dr Marko Attila Hoare (a former member of the faculty of history at Cambridge University and the author of 'Genocide and Resistance in Hitler's Bosnia' published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, which is used widely on WP articles about the Balkans). And he supports Cohen and his book, debunks the 'ghost writer' conspiracy theory and actually states he stayed with Cohen for a couple of days helping him with his manuscript. He notes he is not a professional historian but says that despite this the book is 'very good'. I have linked the blog post here [66]. And the only credible disinterested quote you have noted above is that of MacDonald, and it's a passing mention that the book is controversial. Controversial to whom? The Serbian Institute is unlikely to be able to avoid bias itself, being made up of Serbs. And I'm not Croatian.

Peacemaker67 (talk) 00:35, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The book is published by a University Press, which more or less makes it citable on Wikipedia. We don't get a neutral point of view by just citing neutral books on political topics; there are few, if any, such. We get NPOV by citing reliable, non-neutral sources, covering all views on the topic separately.

Churn and change (talk) 02:12, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Churn and change: this book was published by a well-regarded scholarly press, and so meets Wikipedia's requirements of a reliable source. If other reliable sources (including professional reviews published by newspapers, scholarly journals, etc) have criticised the book and/or provide different perspectives of events, this should be taken into account when making use of it. However, hostile Amazon.com customer reviews and comments on various websites obviously do not rule this out as a usable source. Nick-D (talk) 10:49, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Did we forget to search rs/n's archives? for as I said there: 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) eighteen days, seriously? Fifelfoo (talk) 12:24, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

EPA lawyer quotation from Daily Beast

A phrase that was deleted from the BP intro said "BP has been criticized for its political influence".  In my attempt to justify its reinsertion, I found the following quotation helpful. It's from EPA  lawyer Jeanne Pascal, who headed a 12 year investigation to see whether BP should be debarred from operating in the US based on its safety/accidents record. A quotation printed in Daily Beast/Newsweek would help support the phrase, but the reliability of this source has come under question at the talk page. (Thanks in advance.)

But Pascal quickly ran into the oil-company equivalent of “too big to fail”—and knew that her threat was essentially empty. Although this is not widely known, BP has been one of the biggest suppliers of fuel to the Pentagon If she pushed debarment too hard, Pascal was sure the Pentagon would simply invoke a national-security exception that would allow BP to continue to sell it oil. “When a major economic and political giant" tells you it has direct access to the White House, it’s very intimidating,” says Pascal.

SOURCE petrarchan47tc