Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Colin Heaton's biography of Hans-Joachim Marseille

The source in question is Heaton, Colin; Lewis, Anne-Marie (2012). The Star of Africa: The Story of Hans Marseille, the Rogue Luftwaffe Ace. London, UK: Zenith Press. ISBN 978-0-7603-4393-7.

It is used several times for lengthy paragraphs in Hans-Joachim Marseille#Marseille and Nazism to make the case that Marseille was "openly anti-Nazi". I have argued at Talk:Hans-Joachim Marseille#Evidence for Marseille's "anti-Nazi" stand that these passages in Heaton's bio are almost exclusively based upon personal reminiscences by former comrades and Nazi persona like Karl Wolff, Artur Axmann, Hans Baur and Leni Riefenstahl, which are renowned for being talkative about the Nazi era and being apologetic at that. Their stories are not supported by other sources, but in fact appear to be very unlikely, if not impossible. Heaton's gives dates which contradict themselves and commits obvious errors. The stories he relates about Corporal Mathew Letulu [sic!], i.e. Mathew P. Letuku, contradict much better documented secondary literature. Apart from interviews, possibly conducted by himself, which is difficult to tell given the rudimentary nature of the footnotes, Heaton relies almost exclusively on two biographies, one by military pulp writer Franz Kurowski, the other a "tribute" by some Robert Tate. Based upon this evidence Heaton draws far reaching conclusions, namely that "Marseille was perhaps the most openly anti-Nazi warrior in the Third Reich." (p. 4) Given its focus upon oral evidence, collected somewhat 40 (?) years after the events, its poor editing and obvious errors, I consider that biography to be an unreliable source that should not be used excessively (and it is used for many more dubious claims) in a GA in the English Wikipedia, because it is misleading.--Assayer (talk) 20:14, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you that this source is very weak for an article on a Nazi era figure. I wouldn't have a problem with it being mentioned as "some biographies say", i.e. carefully attributed. It seems to be overused at the moment. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:26, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

It seems to be usable only as evidence for what unreliable sources say, and I'd use it only when it is explicitly described as unreliable. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:38, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Nothing but opinions from an agenda-driven Wikipedia editor. Assayer wants Heaton off Wikipedia. He has failed to show Heaton unreliable. Those are the facts that matter.

I am also concerned with the comments from Itsmejudith. What do you know about the literature of aerial warfare in World War II? And how could you say that about a book you've never read?

I'd encourage people to have a look at the talk page of Hans-Joachim Marseille - where the complainant makes accusation and assertion with no evidence. Dapi89 (talk) 11:12, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

See WP:HISTRS. Popular books by non-historians are not reliable for the history of WW2. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• You are miss quoting what is a guideline; see section: What is historical scholarship. The question as to the book for evaluation is whether it is considered WP:RS or not; I do not know this work and therefore cannot offer an opinion. Kierzek (talk) 18:46, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, biographical works by academic historians on members of the Wehrmacht or SS below the rank of general can be numbered on the fingers of one hand, so WP:HISTRS is useless and we must fall back upon the traditional methods of evaluating a book and its author like use of primary sources, use of puffery or biased language, etc. All that requires actually reading the book more thoroughly than a Google snippet can allow. I've never read Heaton so I really don't know if I'd consider him RS or not. Personally, I'd be most interested to see what Wübbe has to say.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:19, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

He doesnt have a biography here, but from what I can google online he probably passes muster as a reliable source. Ex-military, ex-history professor, current historian and consultant for TV/Film on WW2. He is qualified in the area, has been published on the subject as well as earning a living from it for a significant time. If the only thing being held against him requires second-guessing him, thats not how WP:V works and is bordering on original research. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

As to the argument that Heaton is "qualified in the area": According to Heaton's own CV on his own commercial website he holds a BA and two MA degrees in history, was consultant and adjunct professor to the online American Military University and guest historian for a single episode of a History channel programme. That's not very impressive. What is more, I looked for reviews of his works and could not find much. It seems, however, that Heaton regularly uses "oral testimony" from people involved. That is stressed by Stephen M. Miller in a recent review of Heaton's Four-War Boer for the Journal of African History (2016), commenting that the information of the interviews are not substantiated in the text or in the notes ("unfortunately") and Horst Boog, reviewing Heaton's Night Fighters (which is his MA thesis at Temple Univ.) for the Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift (2010). Boog also points to numerous errors, for example Heaton's estimate of 1.2 million civillian German bomb victims. (The highest estimate is actually 635,000 victims, recent research (Richard Overy) estimates 353,000 victims.) I might add that by now I am challenging the reliability of the book for a certain, controversial characterization of Jochen Marseille. Thus one does not need to read the whole book (which I did), because I refer to a couple of pages which are cited at length in the article, I point to the sources and how they are used and I point to the language.--Assayer (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The above is a combination of original research which we dont do and actual genuine concerns. If multiple reliable sources have cast doubt on his credibility (critical reviews, peers countering his claims etc) then that does shed doubt on his useability in an article. Could you make a list of the sources critical of him/his book? Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I've looked. Nothing. I did say earlier in this thread, this claim of unreliability is just an opinion of one editor. This type of personal attack on sources has been made across multiple threads and articles with the same old result. Heaton qualifies as reliable. Dapi89 (talk) 13:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to add that you could find critical reviews about facets of any one of these academics work, even Overy and Miller. Using the differentials in casualty figures, which vary among all academics is a weak argument (never mind what the latest, supposedly new, research has to say, which doesn't automatically make it accurate anyway). And can you define victims? Anyone who suffered a gash from an air attack can be considered a victim. Such vague descriptions are unhelpful. Opinions are also unhelpful. Assayer is well aware of what is required here. Does this editor have reviews that are directly critical or not? Dapi89 (talk) 13:28, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Only in death: Could you please elaborate where you draw the line between OR and "genuine concerns"? Neither do I use unpublished sources nor do I come to a conclusion on my own. I simply hold what Heaton says against what other published sources say. Isn't that what User:Sturmvogel 66 asks for, if we don't have biographical works by academic historians at hand? How else could we evaluate the reliability of a publication, that is ignored by historiographical works? Please do also take into account how the material sourced to Heaton's biography is presented in the article, namely as factual accounts. Of course this is what Heaton does in his work: He weaves lengthy quotations of various anecdotes related to him through interviews into a coherent narrative. These anecdotes are not supported by third party sources and Heaton does not discuss their reliability. Thus many of the information can only be traced to oral testimony. Do we have to accept that as reliable, simply because Heaton does?

@Dapi89: Although I chose to ignore your continuous personal attacks I have to say that remarks like "Anyone who suffered a gash from an air attack can be considered a victim" are highly inappropriate. And the literature on aerial warfare in World War II is not that "vague".--Assayer (talk) 17:29, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not an attack it is an observation on your behaviour. Those comments are entirely appropriate unless you feel the wounded don't count. I didn't say it was vague. I said you're vague. All this is hot air. You're trying to use discrepancies and differentials in accounts and figures, and unbelievably spelling differences (!!), to try and have an author discredited. OR is being kind. You're views are personal and tendentious. You're a polemist. End of story. Dapi89 (talk) 20:16, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

If Horst Boog, one of the most respected German authorities on aerial warfare during WW II, devotes a whole paragraph of his review to a list of errors, concluding that there were even more errors, then this does not add to an author's reliability as a source. I take notice that this biography is predominantly cosidered to be a "very weak" source, to say the least. One editor questioned the applicability of WP:HISTRS in cases such as this, while yet another considered the evaluation of certain claims against the background of other published sources as OR. The contradictions between these different approaches were not resolved. One editor rather commented on me than on the content, so that my evidence remains unchallenged. Maybe, as a piece of WP:FANCRUFT, the article in question is fittingly based upon anecdotes told by veterans and former Nazis. I find it troubling, however, that this is a GA by Wikipedia standards and short of FA status only because of the prose, not because of dubious content or unreliable sources.--Assayer (talk) 21:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I've previously raised concerns about Heaton on the Talk page (Talk:Hans-Joachim Marseille#Unreliable sources tag) as a WP:QS source, due to problematic POV he exhibited in one of his articles. He has called an action of a German commander an "act of humanity". A "daring raid" or "skillful military ruse" would be okay, but "an act of humanity"? That is just bizarre. (See: Talk:2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich#Heaton. Comment from another editor was: "Heaton removed as biased pov and non WP:RS").

A related question, does Heaton indeed cite Franz Kurowski in his work? If yes, how extensively? K.e.coffman (talk) 03:53, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

"the applicability of WP:HISTRS" Assayer, what applicability? The link leads to Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history), which is an essay, neither policy, nor guideline. Per Wikipedia:Essays: "Essays have no official status, and do not speak for the Wikipedia community as they may be created without approval. Following the instructions or advice given in an essay is optional. There are currently about 2,000 essays on a wide range of Wikipedia related topics."

And this particular essay does not discount works of popular history: "Where scholarly works are unavailable, the highest quality commercial or popular works should be used." Dimadick (talk) 07:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dimadick: I did not bring WP:HISTRS up, but User:Itsmejudith. I did find that comment more helpful than others, though, because it provided at least some kind of guidance. I did not argue, however, that "highest quality commercial or popular works" should never be used. In general the comments during this discussion were contradictory. But how would you determine the quality of sources?

@K.e.coffman: Heaton considers Kurowski's bio of Marseille to be "very good" (p. xiv). Given the number of Heaton's footnotes I would say about a third of them refer to Kurowski. I did not check every footnote, what and how much material he borrowed. Heaton's main source are his interviews. In chapter 4 "Learning the Ropes", for example, there are 21 references, six refer to Kurowski, the rest refer to interviews.--Assayer (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dimadick: Does the editor consider Heaton to be high quality commercial / popular work? K.e.coffman (talk) 16:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

If you mean me, I am not particularly convinced of Heaton's quality. I just noted that the discussion was using an essay to ban popular history works. Dimadick (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:57, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Assayer and K.e.coffman have used Wikipedia to attack sources about any German serviceman who served in World War II if it dares to complement their personal bravery or service record. Coffman has opposed the advancement of these articles, namely the Knight's Cross lists and has deleted hundreds of articles about these recipients. It should come as no surprise that their singular agenda here is to degrade and delete portions of the article that doesn't fit with their opinions. Assayer in particular has scoured the internet for anything he can find that is critical of Heaton. The tiny and weak tidbits of those academic(s) (just the one?) that are critical of small aspects of his work is nowhere near enough to decry Heaton. Virtually nothing else.

This attack on Heaton should be treated for what it is: OR and opinion by a pair of anonymous internet users. And they don't get to decide who is admitted to Wikipedia and who isn't. I'm glad at least one other editor can see that. Dapi89 (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dapi89: "at least one other editor can see that" -- Which other editor is that? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:00, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I found a review of Heaton's book on Marseille from Aviation History. Mar 2013, Vol. 23 Issue 4, p62-62. 1/2p.. It reads in part:

• "Writing the biography of a 22-year-old, most of whose life remains undocumented, isn't easy. The only way to turn it into a book is lots of photographs (Kurowski's method) or this husband-and-wife team's choice, spending way too many pages reciting the exact details of 158 aerial combats…which in turn requires suspension of disbelief on the part of readers. How, exactly, did the authors know which rudder Marseille kicked and what the airspeed read, whether he pulled full flaps or skidded to avoid a pursuer's rounds, just what Marseille saw through his windscreen and exactly when he saw it?"

K.e.coffman (talk) 06:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Which editor do you think? Or do you ignore posts you don't like?

So? If K.e.Coffman knew anything about Marseille, he'd know that through interviews with his commanding officers, and pilots in his units, Heaton is able to understand how he approached air combat. Marseille shared his knowledge with all those around him. I've seen interviews with Korner and Neumann that explicitly discuss Marseille's unorthodox tactics, some of which are sourced in the article. Simple really. Dapi89 (talk) 10:55, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps K.e.Coffman needs to remember (if he knew, which I doubt), that 109 of the 158 claims filed by Marseille are recorded which included many combat reports with short but vivid descriptions of how he engaged the enemy in successful combats. Dapi89 (talk) 11:00, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Editor Dapi89 state that criticism of Heaton was "nothing but opinions from an agenda-driven Wikipedia editor". I have provided a 3rd party review of Heaton's work on Marseille, which points out that the work is close to being historical fiction in its depictions of the areal battles ("requires suspension of disbelief on the part of readers"). Is this review also wrong? K.e.coffman (talk) 20:52, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

That says what exactly!? I repeat; the reviewer and it's number one wikipedia fan don't seem to understand that actions, tactics and the subject's point of view are quite easy to record.

And even if this reviewer had something insightful and factually accurate to say, using it to attack and remove another source from Wikipedia shows the agenda driven nature of the attacking editor. It shows K.e.Coffman, you're not interested in researching the subject for its own sake, but scratching around for dirt you can throw at Heaton. It is absurd to contemplate labelling Heaton unreliable because he receives some form of criticism from someone who likely is not an authority on Marseille. Heaton is.

It should be obvious the reviewer, whoever they maybe, is too ignorant to be entertained. Dapi89 (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dapi89: please see: WP:no personal attacks.

The review is of the work under discussion, it's by "Wilkinson, Stephan" from the Aviation History magazine. Unless the magazine is not reputable, I don't see how a 3rd party review can be dismissed on the grounds that (in the opinion of one editor) it's been shared by "agenda-driven" contributor to "scratch around for dirt [to] throw at Heaton". K.e.coffman (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

It isn't an attack. It's an observation. Understand the difference. I've lost count of the number of editors that have said the same thing.

Once more, you are using a non-expert source to attack the credibility of biographer. That is OR and Tendentious. You can see why a score or more of editors regard you as agenda driven. You've spent the last few months doing this type of thing. Your efforts to destroy the article on German personnel won't be tolerated without exceptionally good reason. Dapi89 (talk) 07:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Summary on Heaton

Summarising, as the discussion has been long and involved:

• this source is very weak for an article on a Nazi era figure via Itsmejudith
• It seems to be usable only as evidence for what unreliable sources say, and I'd use it only when it is explicitly described as unreliable via Richard Keatinge
• He doesnt have a biography here, but from what I can google online he probably passes muster as a reliable source. Ex-military, ex-history professor, current historian and consultant for TV/Film on WW2 via Only in death
• I've never read Heaton so I really don't know if I'd consider him RS or not via Sturmvogel 66
• I am not particularly convinced of Heaton's quality via Dimadick

K.e.coffman (talk) 02:36, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

How many times do you have to be told, that you don't get to decide whether a source is reliable. Neither does anybody else, unless they can provide good cause.

The personal opinions of Wikipedia editors are useless. Dapi89 (talk) 21:36, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@Only in death: I was able to clarify that evaluation of sources is not original research; please see this discussion: Wikipedia talk:No original research#Evaluation of sources. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

You were not evaluating a source. You don't like it. You made a decision it had to go, then scoured the internet for anything that would support your pre-existing prejudices against sources that write about German military personnel and that don't label them Nazis or falsifiers of their own records. Using anonymous reviews, from non-experts to ban sources about which they offer only the very slightest of criticism is tendentious AND OR. Dapi89 (talk) 13:18, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Please visit Wikipedia talk:No original research#Evaluation of sources and engage with the editors there. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:11, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't need to. You're behaviour encompasses more than OR, also Tendentious and selective editing. Dapi89 (talk) 12:48, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

The above comment incorrectly identifies historian Horst Boog as a "non-expert". He was the pre-eminent expert on the Luftwaffe operations during World War II, having contributed to three volumes of the seminal series Germany and the Second World War.

General note: this is a noticeboard to discuss reliability of sources, not user behaviour. For the latter, please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:55, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• This discussion has been going on for more than a month now. It is fair to say that no consensus has developed that this source is unreliable. Let's close this discussion per WP:DROPTHESTICK. --Nug (talk) 09:52, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• I do not see it this way.

• Three editors expressed concerns about the source (see above).
• The nom expressed concerns.
• I've not considered Heaton to be reliable since encountering content cited to him at SS Division Das Reich.
• One editor stated that Heaton is probably RS and expressed concerns over OR in evaluating the source, but have not come back to the discussion.
• One editor has expressed an opinion that Heaton is RS, but did not offer any proof.

Thus, the rough consensus seems clear to me that Heaton is not a suitable source for the claims in the article. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:10, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Daily Mail RfC

Should we prohibit the use of The Daily Mail as a source? I envisage something just short of blacklisting, whereby its introduction to an article could be accepted only upon there being a demonstrable need to use it instead of other sources. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 13:44, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• Support prohibition Looking through the archives and talkpages across WP reveals a clear consensus not to use it at all. Many, many editors (and Jimmy Wales) have said over the years that the Mail is not a relaible source in any area. A list of reasons why would be enormous, it doesn't need reiterating, the paper is trash, pure and simple. There may be rare exceptions where a reference may be useful, perhaps when a Mail story is itself the subject – cases could be presented here for discussion. There is little chance anything of encyclopedic value would be lost from such a move, and everything to be gained, not least an end to continual Mail-related arguments. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 13:44, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no justification for the blanket banning of a mass-circulation newspaper as a source. There will be cases where it is a suitable rs source. The problem with the "Mail-related arguments" mentioned, if the latest example here [1] is typical, is just with editors not knowing what appropriate sources to use. Should the Daily Mail be used to support a claim related to astronomy? Well duh, obviously not! The proposer seems to have a longterm pov agenda here, in an earlier comment he actually compared the Daily Mail to Völkischer Beobachter and has been busy compiling [2]. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:16, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  We obviously shouldn't use it for anything science related, it is de facto prohibited from BLPs and BLP-related articles, and politics would seem out of bounds given their continual lies and misrepresentation in this area. Even their photography can't be relied upon (sorry, Martin). In what scenario would the Mail be an irreplaceable source? They regularly publish sexualized photos of children. A coroner blamed them in the death of a transexual they had hounded. How on earth is dailymail.co.uk (current front-page headline: "Patrick Swayze was a 'flirt' and Ariana Grande hung out with 'snobby entitled rich girls': Former classmates of A-listers reveal what they were REALLY like at school - but who were the meanest?") a suitable source for an encyclopedia? --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 16:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Is anyone proposing to use those articles for Wikipedia citations and article content? Making over-the-top hypotheticals and comparisons and very dubious allegations are not convincing. 99.999% of the content on the Daily Mail that could be in some way be Wikipedia notable will also be source-able in more appropriate sources, so I do not see a problem that needs to be addressed in this way. The problem is editors not using appropriate sources. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• The Mail should be on the citation blacklist. There's no area of news where it is actually reliable. It can be relied on to accurately report celebrity gossip, but in that case the gossip itself is frequently false and the Mail doesn't check it. Their coverage of medical, science and political topics is a byword for deliberate inaccuracy. It is pretty close to a fake news source in some areas. Also: this: [3]. Guy (Help!) 16:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  That link is absolutely hilarious.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:56, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Hipsters with access to a guitar, freshly-bought artisan-brown T-shirts, an A3 color laser printer, and a slightly lighter brown blank wall make formidable satirists (or at least they seem to think they do). I suggest we derail their brown revolution by providing a suitable framed poster to stick on that blank wall. Something hipster ironic - like a reprinted wood-cut on rice-paper Bolshevik propaganda poster perhaps? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Very funny link, Guy! DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:19, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, a gem. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  A Grammy worthy example of songwriting if I've ever seen one. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 06:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Maybe not a Grammy (it's weak musically) but certainly worthy of a Tubey. I say a 72-to-1 thumbs-up ratio with 2.2 million views constitutes a consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  Hilarious. And I notice that Tiptoethrutheminefield conspicuously says nothing about the actual content. --Calton | Talk 11:04, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  There is nothing to say about the actual content because two smug hipsters with a guitar and freshly-bought artisan-brown T-shirts do not a RS make. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition As others have said it is a byword for the worst kinds of yellow journalism, it is (in effect) a fake news organ. Just because a lot of people buy it (or even by it) does not mean it is a reliable source for anything other then it's own views.Slatersteven (talk) 16:54, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Only very limited circumstances. I've defended the use of the Mail in the past for uncontroversial stuff like sport news, but actually the paper has got much worse and I can't think of many circumstances when it would be the best source or even acceptable. Definitely never for international news or science. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Seems to me that if we restrict it's use to anything uncontroversial we are (in effect) prohibiting it anyway.Slatersteven (talk) 17:08, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition It's just a mouthpiece for Paul Dacre & I remove it on sight. JRPG (talk) 17:49, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition unless directly relevant to the article - Anything found in the Daily Mail which can't be found in a more reliable, trustworthy source probably shouldn't be in Wikipedia at all. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:59, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition (within reason) if it can't be found anywhere else reliable, then it probably isn't reliable anyway.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:53, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I find the Mail to be just as ok as other large outlet news/trendycr@p places, and anyway there are bigger outlets (read: Wired, TTAC) to fry than Mail.L3X1 (talk) 22:13, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose prohibition, but there are very few circumstances in which we should rely on tabloid journalism. Exceptions include when BLP subjects have a byline in one of those newspapers, so long as they're not disparaging third parties. I can't see a reason to single out the Daily Mail; there are others just as bad and worse. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:43, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  I agree. We should put it on the reference revert list (so good-faith additions of refs are reverted and can be discussed individually) but not blacklist it, and we should strongly consider doing the same for other tabloids, especially the Express and the Sun. Guy (Help!) 23:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, I'd support that. I've come across a few BLPs at FAC that rely on these tabloids, and the nominators get upset when asked to remove them, so a broader solution would help. It would also be good to add something more detailed to WP:BLPSOURCES. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  @JzG: where is this reference revert list, please? DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:50, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• e/c Comment I am totally fed up with seeing this subject come up. Many, many readers are not aware of the disdain with which the Mail is viewed by some editors and then when they try to use it as a source, they are treated as if they are stupid or deliberately trying to get around PAG's. I know this from personal experience when in the distant past I tried to use the Daily Mail as a source - a sharp learning curve ensued. I agree with comments that if it is not in other newspapers, then it should probably not be in Wikipedia at all. However, I also agree with SlimVirgin above that there are others just as bad, and worse. This means we need to be looking at a number of papers. On occasions, I have been editing and used a website source. However, when trying to save the article, Wikipedia automatically rejects it because it has been blacklisted. Can we not set up a similar system for those newspapers we consider to be unreliable sources? DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
• Follow up: For those who wish to stop short of blacklisting, maybe we could flash up a warning message that the source is widely considered to be unreliable and the saving editor should reconsider its inclusion and use other sources instead. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:35, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

  The fact that there may be others as bad does not justify using the Mail. And my proposal, with which I think SV agrees, is to use the citation revert list, as we do for predatory journals. Guy (Help!) 01:06, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  I think DrChrissy has a good idea. A warning message whenever anyone puts 'dailymail.co.uk' or 'The Daily Mail' between a pair of <ref> tags would be a great idea. I get uneasy about fully blacklisting any source (it's the sort of thing that adds fuel to the fire of every editor who whines about WP being censored), and would rather see a more educational than legalistic approach taken.

  I also agree that there are many other sources just as bad, and possibly even worse. I think getting something going that would create a list of these sources and generate a message when folks try to use them is the way to go. Hell, I'm a coder myself, and I'd be happy to work on it. I don't think it's a big project, but I'm not sure where to get started with something like this, beyond maybe taking it to the village pump or the main page talk to get enough editors behind it to impress the WMF or the en.wp staff. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 06:40, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  An edit filter could do that. Guy (Help!) 17:47, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  It honestly never occurred to me that we have edit filters. Sometimes I like to eat glue. Ooh! SHINY!!! <wanders off> MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 23:41, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition I thought it was considered unreliable before I saw this RfC. The worst kind of tabloid spam journalism. Laurdecl ^talk 10:56, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Editors are supposed to always use judgment when choosing sources. Usually the broadsheets are better than the tabloids but there are circumstances when tabloids provide better coverage such as sports and crime. And if we exclude the Mail, there are a lot of other publications of lower quality that would still be considered reliable. TFD (talk) 12:18, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Kill it. Kill it with fire. Under NO circumstances should the Daily Mail be used for anything, ever. They have proven themselves to be willing to make up fake quotes and to create doctored pictures, and nothing they say or do is to be trusted. Even in the cases that some of the editors in this discussion believe to be OK (sports scores, for example), if it really happened then the Daily Mail won't be the only source and if the Daily Mail is the only source, it probably didn't happen. Relevant links:[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] --Guy Macon (talk) 20:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support with reasonable exceptions It should never ever be used for any support for factual content, but there are cases where the DM itself is part of the story, so referencing relevant articles by the DM that are a part of that story is reasonable. And there may be appropriate editorial content where we would attribute those opinions to the author that can be included. Outright blacklisting is probably not appropriate but its use absolutely must be kept away from any type of factual claims. --MASEM (t) 20:53, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition with the usual reasonable exceptions as outlined or mentioned by Masem, NorthBySouthBaranof (these would be rare: i.e., IAR exceptions). Neutrality^talk 23:14, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition though noting that common sense also applies.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:15, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment By coincidence, I have just noted a recent edit to the Cheetah article used the Daily Mail as a source for the maximum speed of cheetahs. I tagged this with "Better source needed" and an editor replaced this with the scientific sources. However, the problem here is that we have gone from a secondary source to a primary source. Many editors object to this, but new or inexperienced editors will see this as good editing until they understand this secondary source is considered non-RS. I am not for one second suggesting the Daily Mail should be allowed for this, but this is a matter of educating editors or simply prohibiting those sources considered non-RS. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:30, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• support this RfC is kind of beating a dead horse as the community has rejected this source pretty much every time it comes here. so much time has been wasted explaining people not to use this. It has no place in WP where our mission it to summarize accepted knowledge. so yes kill it with fire Jytdog (talk) 02:54, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support with reasonable exceptions per Masem. For news items if it isn't covered in a broadsheet newspaper then it probably isn't significant anyway, but for references to specific opinions or perspectives it may be useful. ----Snowded ^TALK 03:10, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• support It is unnecessary to allow for the unlikely scenario that the Daily Mail would both a trustworthy and the only available source. That other tabloids exist that are just as bad doesn't mean we should keep the Daily Mail: It means we should blacklist those too. Mduvekot (talk) 04:25, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Bashing the Mail is fun, and it doesn't look as if anyone disagrees much that it is best avoided, but that there will possibly be rare occasions when it will be a good source, given the context (eg, as noted, something about the paper itself). But that's the point: identifying appropriate sources is all about context, and there are plenty of rubbish websites out there that should rarely or never be used, and plenty of occasions when even broadsheet reporting isn't worth much for an encyclopedia. And even if we accept the idea of effectively banning certain sources – which is fraught with problems itself – this is being done back to front by singling out one newspaper for blacklisting, rather than establishing the principle of a blacklist and then working out what to include in it. I don't see how existing general principles don't broadly deal with the problem – and are there really endless cases of people insisting on using it, such that we need this draconian intervention, aimed at this one paper? N-HH talk/edits 11:34, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  Unfortunately existing general principles don't deal with the problem. Questioning the use of DM regularly comes up; people argue it's not a tabloid, or refer to its status as the biggest online news service, etc. I can't tell you how much bullshit I've had to remove from articles, especially after searching for dailymail.co.uk incategory:"Living people", John, who has done sterling work in this area, could elaborate. Ideally, yes, each edit should be examined in context, and banning a source outright is something of a blunt instrument -- but in this case I think the benefits of something like an edit-filter will heavily outweigh the negatives, there are simply too many articles to keep an eye on (~800,000 BLPs!). I would support a filter for other unreliable sources too, and I agree that it is a somewhat back-to-front process, but I really think the DM is a special case. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 21:56, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  What are you suggesting when you talk about an edit filter. Does this prevent the entire edit, or does it just filter out the source? By the way, if this goes ahead (and I think it should) there are plenty of other sources that should be considered - the Daily Mail is just a precedent. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:39, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  I don't really know which options are available or appropriate, I guess a separate discussion regarding this will be necessary pending the outcome of the RfC. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 23:04, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. The DM does occasionally get exclusive interviews with well-known people and gives direct quotes of what they say. It's hard to believe these stories and quotes would ever be fabricated or published without the express permission of the person concerned. So a full-on ban would deny this material. Just sayin' Martinevans123 (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  That would be a natural assumption, but this is yet another area in which their standards are pretty low, eg. "Daily Mail Accused of Fake Interview by Paul Pogba, French Soccer Player, May Sue" and "The Inquisitr, Daily Mail Admit Roger Moore Quotes Fake" or "Andrea Pirlo slams Daily Mail on Instagram for making up interview trolling Man United" --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 01:05, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Oh dear. That hardly inspires confidence. Maybe a price worth paying then. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:15, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Another example, from Daily Mail censured for fictional story about Amanda Knox verdict in The Guardian:

  "The Mail's website reported that Knox has lost her appeal against her conviction for murdering Meredith Kercher when, in fact, she had been successful. [...] These included quotes attributed to the prosecutors apparently reacting to the guilty verdict, and the description of the reaction in the courtroom to the news, stating that Knox 'sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears'. It further stated that the family of Meredith Kercher 'remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family'. The newspaper apologised for the mistake. It said that it was standard practice in such high-profile cases for two alternative stories (plus supporting quotes) to be prepared in advance"

  So we now know that it is standard practice for The Daily Mail to fabricate direct quotes. Add that to the many examples of photoshopped images and the conclusion is inescapable; we cannot trust anything written in The Daily Mail. --Guy Macon (talk)

• Support more or less as per the terms in the opening statement, that it still (very occasionally) be allowed when there is some sort of need for that content. I have no clear idea what that might be, other than maybe a few useful celebrity interview exclusive comments, or matters regarding lawsuits, or something like that. John Carter (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Request There has been talk here of a "blacklist" and a "reference revert list". Please could someone direct me to this/these. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  There is no such thing, another indication of flaws inherent in this RfC. I think "support" opinions for an non-existent thing can safely be dismissed - they are not based on Wikipedia guidelines but on personal animosity towards the source. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  I don't know about a "reference revert list," but Wikipedia:Spam blacklist is I think the blacklist being referred to. John Carter (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for this John. It appears that this blacklist only applies to URLs. I may be getting ahead of the subject here but I suspect what is needed is an easily accessible page which lists newspapers (perhaps also magazines) where consensus has been reached that they are generally considered unreliable and consensus should be sought (on here perhaps) if they are to be used. Perhaps this could be called Grey-listed popular press sources? DrChrissy ^(talk) 00:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  We have one for video games. --Izno (talk) 00:30, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for this. It is interesting to note that in the table of Unreliable Sources toward the bottom - one of the sources is Wikipedia itself! DrChrissy ^(talk) 01:09, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  I know that Wikipedia is an unreliable source because I looked it up on Wikipedia. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 03:21, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  There's also a (less detailed) list at Wikipedia:List of companies engaged in the self-publishing business, many of which give no indication in their books that said book has been self-published. On academic subjects, we also refer to Beall's list. The Daily Mail, would belong, if anywhere, in a totally new kind of list. It actually wouldn't be a bad idea to make a well-annotated list like for videogames, and list the various publishers that have come up here with a note to their consensus outcome and links to every discussion. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:29, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  We don't even have a list that says The Onion isn't a reliable source.[13] That being said, if you look at the recent "fake news" meme you will find that it has been used to label things that are not actually fake news (a fake news site is one that knowingly spreads fabricated content), but rather unpopular editorial content combined with low quality sourcing. See the RfC at Talk:List of fake news websites#Request for Comment - Removal of Infowars from this list also see this:[14] We need to strictly limit any such list to avoid it being used as a club to suppress unpopular opinions. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:50, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Infowars is identified by reliable independent sources as a fake news site, based on its tendency to publish things with absolutely no care as to whether they are objectively true or not. It's not our job to second-guess the sources which call it fake news, see WP:NOR. Guy (Help!) 12:18, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  '"You have yet to produce any quality sources, let alone a majority of reliable sources, which actually state that InfoWars intentionally publishes hoax stories. WP:SYNTH expressly forbids drawing conclusions based on an editor's own personal conclusions not actually stated by the sources." -- posted by User:A Quest For Knowledge on 12:28, 18 December 2016 (UTC) on Talk:List of fake news websites.

  CNN is also identified as fake news sources by a reliable independent source[15][16][17] Seriously, please read this editorial[18] and give careful consideration to the possibility that the "fake news" label is being used to try to silence opposing views. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

  Come on, did you even read those first three sources? The first one doesn't go anywhere near an accusation that CNN is fake news. The second one only accuses CNN of "stooping to the same level as fake news sites" on one specific story, and the third is merely reporting that Trump has accused CNN of being fake news. Anyway, as for InfoWars, there are grades of fake news. There are obviously the purest of fake news sites that publish deliberately false stories for either clicks, luls, or godknowswhat. Then you have things like InfoWars and NaturalNews, which no one can prove are deliberately dishonest, but whose writers are utterly paranoid and have no bullshit filters. Plenty of reliable sources will refer to them as "fake news" all the same, just as publishing false and defamatory statements with malicious disregard for the truth is legally considered the same as intentionally lying, at least in the US. We should clarify these things where possible, but you know as well as everyone else here that "fakenews" on Wikipedia is what reliable sources say is "fakenews". Someguy1221 (talk) 01:53, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support Because the current position is that its not reliable for much (except itself) and for those things it could be used for, better sources are available, and if the only source is the daily mail, its not worth covering. An easy-to-direct discussion where we can point people who ask 'Should I use the Daily Mail' with the answer 'no' would make everything a lot simpler. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:17, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - there are some things for which it's useful, despite all that's been said above. Occsaionally it accurately rakes muck that nobody else has turned over. If the proposer could be a little clearer about how we might demonstrate need to use it in those rare cases where the DM can be considered reliable, I might well change my mind. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  Editors attempting to add DM as a ref (and any others deemed suitable for a "greylist") could be directed here, or if that runs the risk of swamping the RSN, a new board. Alternatively, any such edits could be flagged in a similar way to pending changes, needing the nod from a reviewer (if that's possible?) I'm afraid I don't know how the edit filters work, so am not sure exactly what options are available/feasible. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 17:31, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Noting that this has been discussed a few dozen times now. Neither the DM nor any other news source is absolutely reliable on articles concerning celebrities. IMO, Wikipedia would be best off declining to republish "celebrity gossip" in the first place. More to the point, the DM has not been shown to be unreliable in other matters, although its headlines may misstate the content of articles, this is also true of every single newspaper known to man. I suggest, in fact, that "headlines" not be allowed as a source for what an article states, and only be allowed to illustrate what the headline stated and cited as such. Collect (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  Agree about headlines, but the DM has been shown to be unreliable in other matters many, many times, far more than other publications. Remember the Amanda Knox guilty verdict? [19] --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 16:29, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  Re: The oft-repeated claim that the DM is specifically evil, read [20] for information about all major media and their use of press releases. In fact, moreover, other than in the area of celebrity gossip (where no paper should be trusted in the first place), the DM's record is akin to the record of The Guardian and other broadsheets. Collect (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  Sorry but that's utter bollocks.

  Press Complaints Commission records over a ten-year period: Successful complaints against Fleet Street publications: average = 43, Daily Mail = 153. Let us not forget that Paul Dacre was a member of the "toothless" PCC for a decade, and that they rejected over 90% of cases without investigation. Nick Davies (2011). Flat Earth News.

  Independent Press Standards Organisation from 2014 to 2015: Mail 11 breaches, Guardian 0 breaches; reparations by Mail 34 times, Guardian 0 times. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 04:23, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

  IPSO 2016: Daily Mail was the worst publication, with a total of 17 sanctions for inaccuracy. The Sun followed with 14, the Daily Express with 12. The Independent and Guardian had none. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 09:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  Sweet. But I guess most readers of The Sun don't know how to complain. Or, if they did, just think it's 100% true. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:07, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  Not so sweet. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 10:41, 14 January 2017 (UTC) "the 2014 World Cup will always be remembered as the Milkybar penis"

  I think Robin Jacobs, 31, should upload the image for the pareidolia article. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:47, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  IPSO does not regulate the Independent or the Guardian. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:00, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• Or treat it like any other fake news site, how do we deal with those normally?17:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slatersteven (talk • contribs)

  [21] as an example.Slatersteven (talk) 16:33, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. The problem isn't that it is wrong or even that they might have a rogue journalist from time to time (even the NY Times have been caught out this way), the problem is that their editorial decisions seemingly contribute to the deception. They had the Amanda Knox story ready to go with fake quotes and reactions, and there was also the time that George Clooney took them to task over fake quotes. It simply can't be trusted. Betty Logan (talk) 05:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Context matters, and that's up to the editors covering the particular issue. Whether it's a "well-established news outlet" matters, and it is. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:09, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Sort of support. As I've said previously, the problem with Daily Mail appears to be their habit of taking ludicrous sources at face value, often publishing entire articles based on a single anonymous tweet or blog post. They appear to be not as willfully gullible as say, the National Enquirer, but it doesn't come close to what we normally consider reliable. However, it's probably the case that much of their content is factually accurate, especially on non-controversial subjects. I suspect this is a case of, "what is good is not unique; what is unique is not good." Basically, if something is covered in the Daily Mail and is true, we can probably find a better source for it. If something is only covered by the Daily Mail, it's probably not true. So I would support a more complicated prohibition, that the Daily Mail should not be a source for anything controversial, and where it is a source for anything else, it should be replaced as soon as possible by a better source. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:58, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. The time has come. It is already rightly unacceptable for BLPs. Lousy record for making things up, in some well-attested cases to the detriment of living people. In a world where fake news is a thing, we should avoid knowingly using material sourced from its proven purveyors. Opposers have highlighted that most of it is true, but that which is true and genuinely noteworthy will have been covered by better sources. Something only covered in the DM, which it is vital for us to cover on Wikipedia; other than its comments about itself I have not seen an example given and could not imagine such an example. I challenge opposers to come up with one. --John (talk) 00:27, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition There should always be a better source for anything than the Daily Mail. Nick-D (talk) 01:11, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. The reliability of a Daily Mail should be judged on a case-by-case basis. Most material is uncontroversial and mistakes occur no more often than in other publications. A user should not have to hunt around for the same fact to be found in a different source because the Daily Mail is disliked by certain editors. ¡Bozzio! 05:37, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
  • User:Bozzio, do you have evidence that mistakes occur no more often than in other publications? It doesn't match my information or the figures cited by Hillbillyholiday. --John (talk) 14:23, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition -- if a particular sources of content can only be cited to DM than it's not worth including in an encyclopedia anyway. If it were important, it would be covered by better sources. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:40, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support without hesitation. This is long overdue given how notorious Daily Mail is for inaccuracies, and I would also have no reservations on blacklisting it, especially after seeing flat out absurd claims like "using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer". Snuggums (talk / edits) 15:05, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, but is anyone suggesting using that piece? Everyone supporting the proposal is telling us what most of us already know: the Mail is generally not going to be a good source, either because it reports on things that would not be of interest to an encyclopedia in the first place or because much of what it reports is dubious, possibly to a greater degree than other papers. The actual question is whether a blanket ban on the Mail – and the Mail alone, as currently mooted – is needed to solve that problem, and whether it sets a dangerous precedent for people to push for "bans" on news sources they don't like for other reasons. Yes it's currently used quite a bit on WP, but I'm not aware of a widespread problem of people insisting on using it when it's removed or challenged. And, for example, are people suggesting it be banned from this page? N-HH talk/edits 15:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  The Daily Mail should be banned from that page most of all. There are plenty of reliable secondary sources[22] that describe the actions of TDM in that case, and we should use those sources rather than trusting what the known liars at TDM say happened. Again I say, kill it. Kill it with fire. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:27, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  What, the Guardian editorial that commends the Mail's "bold journalism" (yes, in that instance)? Of course secondary sources on the Mail's role would be useful too, but my point was that a total ban would disallow even sourcing the Mail headline/front page directly to the Mail. It's a bit surreal to suggest that a Mail story is not good evidence for what that story said, or that the Mail would not accurately report what its own editor said about its actions in that case. And anyway that isn't the only such case, nor was that brief rhetorical question my main point, which was a broader one about efficacy, process and practical effect, which you haven't addressed at all. And I'm not sure constantly repeating "kill it with fire" helps rational debate. N-HH talk/edits 18:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  We have many, many sources that are banned, and all of them are by nature of being banned banned from being sources for their own headlines. Your argument can be used to argue against banning any source, no matter how bad. There will always be some contrived situation where it would be convenient to use the banned source Just This Once, but that doesn't stop us from banning sources. Nor do we want to allow individual editors to decide whether maybe this time The Daily Mail isn't lying. You want us to allow a source that has been shown to fabricate direct quotes and photos, and your arguments can be used to argue against banning any source. I stand by my "kill it with fire" comment. Wikipedia editors are grown-ups and do not need to be protected from a colorful turn of phrase. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  I'm not aware of any sources which are specifically, by name, "banned" currently or any list detailing them. And I do think individual editors can make judgments in context, not about whether a newspaper is lying in any individual instance (although obvious errors can be demonstrated by reference to other sources), but about whether certain sources might sometimes be appropriate for the material in question. Indeed, that's the basis of current policy, which is again part of my point: what is being attempted here is a rewrite of that policy, but relying on people's – entirely legitimate – concerns about one paper, which is far from the worst one out there (National Enquirer? Daily Express?) to spearhead it. It's all back to front. And as I suggested, yes, let's have grown-up discourse. N-HH talk/edits 09:38, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose prohibition The paper carried useful material at the time of World War I (though even then considerable caution is required) and it would be very sad to lose pictures such in St Paul's Survives which require attribution. Maybe something about requiring need would work but I'd want to see the wording to decide. Don't we effectively require need for challenged material anyway? With historical newspapers very different considerations are needed always. Thincat (talk) 20:33, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
  • That's a very important point, Thincat, and one so far wholly overlooked here, I think. Would it be feasible, or even possible, to provide some kind of year-based restriction/ regulation? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
  • That "heavily retouched" photo wouldn't necessarily be affected as the DM is part of the story there. There will always be exceptional cases when using the DM is necessary/desirable -- editors can demonstrate need here, and as long as their edits gain approval by consensus in the usual way, there's no problem; I really don't think it will come up too often. An edit-filter would, I assume, look for any new additions to WP which contain dailymail.com and thus pick up the more recent "stories". These are a real problem, and given the immense online presence of the DM, something that regularly comes up. A default position of the DM is barred as an unreliable source with the onus on the editor to justify its use would prevent a great deal of misinformation/lies/inaccuracies from creeping in, and would benefit those editors who currently have to make the same old arguments on talkpages across the project. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 22:34, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Yes, it would save, or at least reduce, a lot of repetitive removal. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Be very careful: few newspapers of combatant countries are solid in wartime. For the DM in WWI, consider the effect and circumstances of William Beach Thomas. - Sitush (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Be very careful also: The photo was taken in December 1940 which was actually part of World War II (1939-45) not World War I (1914-18). Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition per JzG. The Daily Mail is demonstrably unreliable in comparison to other publications. Obviously there are exceptions, as Thincat demonstrates, but the presumption should be that DM isn't a reliable source. An edit filter would be a good solution. Mackensen (talk) 00:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment There is an elephant in the room here. Despite comments by some editors, it appears there is currently no blacklist, greylist or edit filter that would prevent an editor using the DM or warning them about its use. I have no doubt whatsoever that if this precedent is set, editors will be suggesting other newspapers (nobody has mentioned the Daily Star yet!). How will these be decided? An RFC for each newspaper suggested? I have tried in the past to fathom how editors reach their decisions on deciding whether a newspaper is RS or not, but all I have been met with is "It depends on the case". I am not opposing the formation of grey/blacklist/edit filter, rather the opposite: I believe editors should be made aware immediately that consensus is that a source should not be used. Currently, this is opaque and has led to massive time sinks and a certain degree of animosity from some editors. DrChrissy ^(talk) 00:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  @DrChrissy: The blacklist is at MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist and adding a new entry there is trivial. Creating an edit filter to look for the addition of Daily Mail references also wouldn't be difficult. Sam Walton (talk) 08:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for this Sam, but this spam-list appears to only restrict URLs. As far as I know, there is no blacklist of physical newspapers, so, I could cite using the {{cite news }} template "The Daily Mail" but receive no feedback on this except from vigilant editors. DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:21, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Daily Mail gives coverage to many international news outside Europe and America. Daily Mail is not a good source in content dispute. But Daily Mail is good to prove notability of a subject. Daily Mail covers news stories which are not getting coverage in other English Media. We can use Daily Mail to establish notability of a politician, celebrity from Eastern Europe, Asia. Sometimes Daily Mail gives coverage to very ordinary things, but due to this they give coverage to many important Asian news, North African news and East-European news (where English is not official language). Marvellous Spider-Man 03:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  "Daily Mail is not a good source in content dispute" is just another way of saying "not a good source for content on Wikipedia", which is the whole point of this RfC. Sure, you can use it demonstrate notability, but that's usually only necessary at AfD. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 03:10, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Daily Mail can be used for articles outside USA and UK as these two countries has many reliable sources in English. The RFC doesn't say that we can use it for Romanian/Algerian/Latvian/Ukrainian/Turkish/Russian/Chinese/Japanese/Brazilian articles. Marvellous Spider-Man 03:38, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  If you are talking about the English Wikipedia, yes it does. The phrase "should we prohibit the use of The Daily Mail as a source?" is quite clear. If this RfC passes, The Daily Mail will not be allowed as a source on Russian or Japanese articles on the English Wikipedia. If you are talking about the Russian or Japanese Wikipedias, no decision made on the English Wikipedia is binding on those other Wikipedias. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Then, I oppose this RFC, as per my first statement. Daily Mail is very inclusive and has no WP:GEOBIAS. Marvellous Spider-Man 05:07, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose. The Daily Mail, as hated as it is, is a very mixed bag. It can contain wonderful information such as accurate and informative interviews of highly respected people like Lord Puttnam (yes, I've seen that; can find the link if you need it), informative and detailed film and television articles, detailed information on various openings, galas, and so on. Many of these items are exclusives, so we can't blacklist the publication. It also has an excellent (theatre, film, etc.) review team. We just have to keep in mind that it often stoops to tabloid scandal-mongering (and ridiculous political opinions). I think any intelligent editor can tell the difference. So with this publication it has to always be on a case-by-case basis. It's a middle-market newspaper, so we cannot avoid it or blacklist it. I'd say it's not to be used as a source for politics, science, medicine. But as a source for entertainment updates it is often helpful and often contains accurate information that is not available anywhere else. If it is contradicted by a more reliable source, it should not be used. Nothing negative, contentious, or potentially libelous or in any way scandalous should be sourced to the DM (unless it is a direct quote from an interview). Softlavender (talk) 06:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose and educate Strong support not to use it for BLPs, but I see no issue on using it to report on "news". However, any editor who uses it as a source should be reminded that better sources can be found and those should be used instead (should, not must). I challenge anyone to find a notable news story in the DM that isn't covered in better sources elsewhere. Lugnuts ^{Precious bodily fluids} 08:20, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Strong oppose The DM falls on a spectrum of news quality and it is far from the worst; singling it out for prohibition is not the solution here. It is hard not to suspect that it is being singled out because it combines a strong right-wing bias with a very large circulation. I see several editors above citing statistics regarding complaints and corrections as though this was a reason for prohibiting its use; but WP:NEWSORG gives the very fact that a complaints process exists and corrections are published as a reason to consider the source reliable. It should certainly be considered WP:BIASED, but then so should every news organisation that takes an editorial stance. This is already policy. Outright banning established, regulated, large-circulation newspapers from use on enwiki would be a terrible precedent to set, especially for having "ridiculous political opinions," as one editor has put it a few lines above. GoldenRing (talk) 10:56, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • And, for those citing statistics above, do we really think that, for a daily newspaper, averaging somewhere near 15 upheld complaints in a year is sufficient to ban the whole output of that organisation as a source? GoldenRing (talk) 11:04, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes. The volume of upheld complaints is symptomatic of the Mail's deference to editorial ideology over factual accuracy. It is legendary for the inaccuracy of its articles on medicine and science, especially. Guy (Help!) 13:34, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  Here are more examples: 10 Egregiously False Stories In The ‘Daily Mail’.

  Also, see this quote:

  "You probably know the Daily Mail as a race-baiting tabloid that once supported the Nazis. But it has another, secret identity it tries to keep hidden at all costs. The Daily Mail is possibly the biggest news media troll in history. Thanks to American outlets thinking it’s a respectable news source, the Daily Mail has managed to get the media to print more hoax stories than everyone else on this list combined. In 2014, a New York–based correspondent simply made up a story about Beijing installing giant TV screens so smog-choked residents could watch fake sunrises. Time, CBS, and the Huffington Post all ran with it, despite it being clear nonsense. In 2012, the Daily Mail made up another story about a Polish dentist pulling all her boyfriend’s teeth after he cheated on her. That one fooled most of the Internet, plus MSNBC, the LA Times, and the Daily Telegraph. In 2015, the Daily Mail ran a story that was picked up by other tabloids about a guy on welfare who was too busy working out to get a job. The guy turned out to be an actor. Go digging, and you’ll find more examples of the Daily Mail flooding the media with more fake stories than we can comfortably list here. Like that time it convinced Fox News a transgender kid was harassing girls in a school bathroom. Or that time it totally made up a poll and the Huffington Post believed it. Okay, we’re calling it now: The Daily Mail is officially the greatest media troll in the world." (source)

  --Guy Macon (talk) 14:13, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Any sources that demonstrates a willingness to make shit up just to sell papers does not meet our definition of reliable source. If there are other newspapers that do this they should not be used either. Bradv 14:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support A bunch of people have made "but sometimes there's no other source" comments; well, in those cases, then, there's no legitimate source at all, and the material shouldn't be believed, much less used in Wikipedia. We waste too much time on the DM, and we aren't going to lose anything worthwhile by utterly excluding it as a source. Mangoe (talk) 14:58, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support? "Prohibit" seems like an imprecise word in the context of wikiguidelines, especially when combined with "just short of blacklisting". In general I like the idea of making "formal" that there is consensus that one should almost never use a given source, to avoid having those discussions or pointing to a smattering of RSN threads, often with unclear outcomes. Like others, I would oppose blacklisting this, but support an edit filter and certainly support the notion that this should almost never be used in articles. That seems like it would largely support this? But I see people opposing who have the same opinion. This makes me think what probably needs to happen is a more specific question within technical parameters (e.g. once an edit filter is established, an RfC to add this [and others] to it). Fun fact: in 2014, as listed in User:Emijrp/External Links Ranking, Daily Mail was our 86th most used external link, with more than 26,000 uses just in the article space. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:37, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support its classification as a non-reliable source; it simply cannot be trusted. GiantSnowman 18:47, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support except in the exceptional circumstance of where something appearing in the Mail is itself the topic ("after he was accused by the Daily Mail of…"). Any legitimate story will also be found in a genuine newspaper; anything only appearing in the Mail can usually safely be assumed to be made up. (FWIW, as I write this the Mail front page is currently informing the world that "Astronauts on board the International Space Station are hiding evidence of aliens".) ‑ Iridescent 18:54, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Read the second sentence: "At least that's the latest wild claim made by a group of UFO hunters ..." Context matters, eh? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:28, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Yes, I noticed that too. It is repeated in the caption. So we are faced with the Daily Mail reporting that a group (easily debunked - [23]) is making a "wild claim", but it is not the newspaper itself making the claim. Is the Daily Mail a RS for this statement? DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Never use for a BLP or anything contentious. A minority of the Mail's reporting (notably its sports, which is award winning) is absolutely fine, but its news reporting is on the level of the Sunday Sport (or for our American cousins, the National Enquirer); not only does it misrepresent stories, but it makes them up completely. Black Kite (talk) 19:05, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as Tiptoethrutheminefield "There is no justification for the blanket banning of a mass-circulation newspaper as a source. There will be cases where it is a suitable rs source. " The Mail is editorially heavily biased, but that's not the same thing as unreliable for reporting of simple objective facts. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • If you say so. Pop us up a wee list, will you? Of things it is essential to cover on Wikipedia, for which there is no other source but the Mail. --John (talk) 19:23, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    • You've already seen one -- brought to BLPN, closed by admin User:Number_57 with the closing sentence "There was clearly no consensus to blacklist the Daily Mail, as consensus was that the DM was an acceptable source for the material in question." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:28, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
      • I reread that and I am not seeing the list. Perhaps you could copy and paste it here when you do. Thanks. --John (talk) 07:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

        • A tumbleweed (Lechenaultia divaricata)

        • I meant you'd already seen one case. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:56, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• OK I note I see a consensus above from basically everyone (no matter their ivote) that there needs to be guidance or restriction on this source (I say guidance because it's not fair to expect the rest of the English speaking world to know much about DM), given that, given the evidenced problems with DM, and given the policy standard for using sources is information that is "challenged or likely to be challenged," then explicitly putting everyone on notice, that the default is never use this source, unless you can convince (and are convinced) a rare exception should be made is the way to go - the proposal says "demonstrable need" - so, ok. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:45, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • 'Oppose' does not mean 'Support', there's no such consensus. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:28, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Actually, there is - many of the people opposing a blanket ban on the source do say that there are some circumstances under which the source is not reliable and should not be used. And obviously the people who think it should be banned would agree. The lack of consensus at the moment appears to be the degree of guidance and/or restriction needed. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:55, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
      • It's a dreadful source, and anyone who thinks otherwise should not be editing an encyclopedia. What we are arguing here is whether it should be outright banned or whether it can occasionally be used. --John (talk) 07:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per Andy Dingley above. Awful and biased as the Mail often is, there is also much that may be uncontentious. For example, take e.g. an article that I did some editing on a long time ago, on Mary Marquis, a Scottish newsreader of the '70s and '80s, who is still a much cherished and remembered figure in Scotland. The article contains multiple citations to an 1998 interview / profile piece from the Mail -- all of which, I would submit, are entirely uncontroversial; and (I submit) contribute valuably to giving a rounded-out account of her. Of course there are reasons why one should very often be cautious of the Mail, but IMO a blanket ban is not the way. I would add that, although people like to throw around the word "Tabloid", there can be a distinction between the connotations of that word on different sides of the Atlantic, and I wouldn't throw the Record or the Mirror or the Standard or Metro into the same class as eg the National Enquirer. Jheald (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • And you know that they didn't fabricate the entire interview (as they have done in other cases) ... how? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:48, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  • @Guy Macon: Given that I strongly suspect that this edit (diff) may well have been by her husband, I suspect the rest of the text is reasonably sound. It seems highly unlikely that such an interview would be fabricated -- she wasn't in the news at the time, nor particularly newsworthy, so why bother? Jheald (talk) 23:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Why bother getting an actual interview? Surely it is easier and cheaper to simply make up some quotes rather than bothering to interview someone. It would seem reasonable to assume that The Daily Mail choose the cheaper, faster option. Once we have established that The Daily mail fabricates such material on a regular basis, the burden of proof is on the editor who decides that they aren't lying in one particular case, and "I suspect (but do not know for sure) that the quote is sound" isn't quite good enough. Was there any other source for the quotes, or were they only in The Daily Mail? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:09, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  • @Guy Macon: It was an interview, with somebody who had already been retired for 10 years. Not a press release, not a cuttings piece, not a news story. Why would you expect anybody else to have replicated the quotes of a random human-interest piece that happened to appear in the Mail ?

  And, BTW, what's your evidence that the Mail routinely fakes interviews with random retired celebrities reflecting on their lives (ie not Amanda Knox, not crusading news stories, not shock stories from foreign websites), just people as human beings for the human interest? Jheald (talk) 12:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  They regularly fabricate quotes and interviews -- one would think that would rule them out as a reliable source -- but if that's not specific enough, here's an entirely fake interview with a random retired celebrity reflecting on his life. (bonus points for also being a copyright violation.) --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 13:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  Anyone can get hoaxed, even the New York Times. It seems to me that there is a difference between what is gossipy or sensationalist, which eg WP:BLPSOURCES rightly warns against, and what is more mundane or routine. Extraordinary claims rightly demand extraordinary sources (which the Mail definitely is not); but less extraordinary claims rather less so. For myself, I think User:softlavender wrote a lot of sense above, noting that the Mail can be quite a mixed bag, including (as they put it) a strong team of critics, "accurate and informative interviews of highly respected people like Lord Puttnam, informative and detailed film and television articles, detailed information on various openings, galas, and so on", and that many of these items are exclusives.... I think an intelligent editor can tell the difference. So with this publication it has to always be on a case-by-case basis." Jheald (talk) 07:03, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Andy Dingly. No need to blacklist a whole publication because of a few opinion pieces that may not be to some tastes. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 22:45, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Opinion pieces? Where did anyone mention opinion pieces? The problem is not opinion pieces, the problem is that they routinely make stuff up. --John (talk) 07:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: The paper has been around since 1896. Its bad reputation in the first few years of the 21st century speak nothing about the reliability of more than a hundred years of volumes. Clearly a blanket ban is unjustified (per Thincat). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: Existing policy is enough. If it is worth adding to a Wikipedia article, it will have appeared in better sources than the Mail and other red top British tabloids. I am not an anti-tabloid snob like some of the people here, and the broadsheets are not perfect either. However, the Mail should be off limits for anything BLP related. This discussion is reminiscent of this tweet by Gavin Phillipson, who is also a member of IMPRESS. I can be hacked off by the Daily Mail sometimes, but not enough to want to ban it outright.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:03, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support The Mail lacks sufficient editorial oversight. I regularly see spelling and grammatical errors on their front page, let alone the dubious content of the actual stories.LM2000 (talk) 09:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  God, no, not spelling and grammatical errors! Someone better start a new RfC about the Grauniad... GoldenRing (talk) 11:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  When The Guardian starts printing patent BS on a regular basis, while also failing to check their spelling, an RfC may be appropriate.LM2000 (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• Note The "bad examples" are all pretty much either "headline complaints" or "celebrity gossip" issues. One should actually read the "actual complaints" made to press groups rather than use them as "paint by numbers" proof that the DM is unreliable. I cited an actual research study above which showed that every single newspaper uses "press releases" instead of actual journalism on science articles, and, to that extent, not a single paper is actually "reliable." As for "grammatical and spelling errors", note that even the New York Times has them, as it has no paid proof-readers whatsoever. And I iterate that I know of zero "reliable sources" for "celebrity gossip" at all. Collect (talk) 14:00, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition. To claim that "The "bad examples" are all pretty much either "headline complaints" or "celebrity gossip" issues" is not true, I'm afraid. These are the lies, damned lies and the even more damned lies from outside the "headline complaints" or "celebrity gossip" issues". It's a trashy paper that cannot and should not be trusted on too many subjects for us to allow any use on any subject. These DM-lies are from "actual complaints", by the way. Take a spin over a Google search of ("Daily Mail" "factual inaccuracy") and ignoring all the websites that we wouldn't generally regard as reliable, and there are still too many sources to justify the use of the DM. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 14:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition. This is a good example of the sort of thing the Daily Mail is currently publishing. I rest my case. -- The Anome (talk) 18:31, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment the article above describes it as "the latest wild claim made by a group of UFO hunters." Silly season stuff perhaps, but not in the same league as BLP violations, or "World War 2 Bomber Found On Moon" which the Sunday Sport really did expect its readers to take seriously.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:50, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition (...And I never thought I would say that!). I was leaning towards supporting with exceptions; but I am not convinced that there are any exceptions we could make that would not be available in more reliable sources. After all, if the DM was the only source for an item, we instinctively wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. O Fortuna!^{...Imperatrix mundi.} 10:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. If you have an actually reliable source confirming something in the Mail, why aren't you using that? If it's just the Mail, you're doing it wrong or it's probably too ridiculously trivial to include anyways. Maybe there are exceptions, but there had better be VERY strong arguments for ANY use of the Mail. Wikipedia isn't losing much, if anything at all, by a blanket jettisoning of this crappy source. --Calton | Talk 11:04, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment and note to closer Well said, Calton. Although the claim has been made repeatedly, in spite of asking several times I still haven't seen where any of the opposers have actually given examples of what a DM article could best be used for on Wikipedia, other than as a primary source on its own statements. If this is still the case at the time of closure, I recommend discounting those opposes. After all, we are here for facts, not opinions. --John (talk) 13:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. Make no mistake, The Daily Mail is a bad source. But in the realm of mass media, most sources of the junk food news variety seem very bad. And these can be published by supposedly reliable news outlets. I would much rather see this more firmly clarified in policy. The Daily Mail is a bad source, and everybody knows it. But other outlets, even "reliable" news outlets, are also guilty of publishing the same kind of churnalism as the DM. (For example, I've seen the DM quoted in a broadsheet source, which editors really ought to know better than to do.) So, if we find ourselves in a position of needing to ban the DM because it's so bad, the problem is not the DM as a source, the problem is our guidelines that are apparently lax enough to allow this to be used in the first place. Also, from the discussion above it appears as thought DM is reliable for some things, and not others. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS might require clarification; the vagueness of that guideline bothers me. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Each case has to be judged on its merits because all sources are prone to error. The Daily Mail seems fairly average as journalism goes and should not be singled out when there are many worse sources. The following specific points demonstrate this. Andrew D. (talk) 13:50, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  1. The Daily Mail is somewhat unusual for a UK paper as it was the first newspaper specifically aimed at women and is read by more women than men. For example, the word suffragette was first coined in the pages of the Daily Mail and so is naturally cited by the Oxford English Dictionary.
  2. When the singer Lynsey de Paul died, there was some confusion about her exact age. The Daily Mail was one of the few news sources which got this right.
  3. I started our article about churnalism and this can be found in most news media now. One interesting case was a project which deliberately planted fake stories to see whether they would be circulated. The Daily Mail didn't fall for this when many other news media did. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Davidson (talk • contribs)

  • I am not sure that inventing a word over a century ago makes this a reliable source, nor do I think it germane what the target market was 120 years ago. - The Bounder (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with a historical perspective and so recentism should be avoided. The Daily Mail has had some particular interests over the years which may make it a good source for certain periods. For example, it started the Ideal Home Exhibition which was influential in changing households in the UK. And it supported early aviation with prizes and coverage. Andrew D. (talk) 16:03, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  • That is an different point to the one you raised earlier, so thank you for your clarification. (Although starting a sales exhibition is, again, no guarantee of being a reliable source). - The Bounder (talk) 16:07, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Does citing any of those require a link to the daily mail website? Because the daily mail website is what we are talking about banning here, not citations to material that was published long before computers existed. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  • The Daily Mail was a newspaper for most of its history. Its website is a new thing with a different editorial team. And there are other publications like Metro and the Mail on Sunday. The proposal seems unclear. Andrew D. (talk) 16:14, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Is it clearer if we change it from "Should we prohibit the use of The Daily Mail as a source?" to "Should we prohibit the use of DailyMail.com as a source?" --John (talk) 16:22, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

  • It would be clearer but it's not clear if that was the original proposal. Some people here seem to be Americans who may only be familiar with the website but the orginal proposer seems to be British and so have meant the newspaper proper. It's a muddle. Such issues are best sorted out on a case-by-case basis as is our usual practise. Andrew D. (talk) 19:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

• And just in today [24].Slatersteven (talk) 16:30, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Related: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Daily Mail RfC --Guy Macon (talk) 21:10, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• "Support prohibition': Although Daily Mail isn't always incorrect, many of its stories are dubious, do not have proper journalistsic standards and are meant for sensationalization. Although not everything is false, it still cannot be regarded as trustworthy or reliabile because of what it does. MonsterHunter32 (talk) 22:02, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition with the exception mentioned in the proposal (and possibly with a restricted date range; I am sure it is a useful source for some things in the past). The Daily Mail of today contains too many (probably deliberate) factual errors to be used as a source. —Kusma (t·c) 11:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Note that many of the examples cited here and elsewhere on Wikipedia are either of "celebrity gossip" for which I find no sources actually reliable, and "headline claims" again for which no source should be asserted. Note that the article with the headline "Is Nasa hiding aliens? Astronaut covers up evidence of mystery flashing lights moving past the space station, UFO hunters claim" is specifically about "wild claims" by "a group of UFO hunters" and is not a claim that NASA is hiding anything at all, and specifically is not the claim made above by a colleague here. The actual article clearly states: At least that's the latest wild claim made by a group of UFO hunters who believe they have spotted strange flashing lights near the ISS. In short, the DM is accurate on the topic. When giving "examples" it behooves us all to use accurate examples, lest Wikipedia be viewed, itself, as the laughingstock. I suggest any closer deprecate !votes made with clearly errant "examples" or which are clearly based on political or other opinions, and not on the use of one of the world's most-read journals. Collect (talk) 13:12, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

• .... I suggest any closer deprecate !votes made with clearly errant "examples" or which are clearly based on political or other opinions Huh, you mean like the statement where you made the blatantly false statement the DM's record is akin to the record of The Guardian and other broadsheets? --Calton | Talk 22:39, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

And when you quote others, kindly quote them accurately. As you elided the rest of my statement so cavalierly, I suggest you seek employment as a journalist. [25] lists the salient facts, and you manage to elide my clear statement

In fact, moreover, other than in the area of celebrity gossip (where no paper should be trusted in the first place),

and the elision of that part of the sentence might appear to neutral parties to excise a key part of my position. Did you actually read the scholarly study about blind use of press releases, by the way? Collect (talk) 13:32, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

...except that that by no means are the false stories all related to celebrity gossip. There's the slew of fiction about the hordes of Eastern European immigrants invading Britain (including a story with twenty-six falsehoods in it which was even discribed as nonsense by the Conservative government), the one where they said Israel was opening dams to flood the Gaza Strip and get rid of Palestinians (the Mail showing it hasn't dropped its WWII anti-semitism), the one that said women working full-time caused autism in their children, the one about semen being an anti-depressant, the one about the giant hedgehog ... etc. You do realise that the Mail does this purely for clickbait for its website, don't you? Black Kite (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid Black Kite is right, Collect. As I said at AN, your mistake seems to be to buy in to the Mail's world-view in which any newsworthy person is treated as a "celebrity" about whom lies can be told, with the expectation that most will not sue. Wikipedia cannot afford to follow this line for ethical and possibly legal reasons. --John (talk) 20:03, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Black Kite gave no URLs but I think I see some of the articles. The "Gaza flood" story was corrected, now it's Gaza Floods: Dispelling the myth about Israeli 'dams'. The "autism" story is merely a report of what a theorist said. The "giant hedgehog" story is clearly about a sculpture. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:56, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition with edit filter, with exceptions for when it is actually indispensable. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
  to reply to me 13:54, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Hope is today's featured article. I read through this just now as it is an interesting and topical article. At the end, notice that it cites the Daily Mail. Andrew D. (talk) 14:02, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
  • "according to an unverified report in the Daily Mail". In any case the DM is a primary source there and the statement is also supported by a secondary source, so it doesn't really matter if the DM citation is removed. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
    to reply to me 14:09, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support It's not a good source, and it won't be useful in the vast majority of cases, so it shouldn't be used. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support - This publication has a poor reputation as many others have already shown. In the rare event that they are the only source that covers something of encyclopedia value, unrelated to living people, exceptions can be made. As a side note, I think we should have a subpage that lists sources that should be avoided such as The Daily Mail, Breitbart, and WND.- MrX 17:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support, anything that actually cites it will probably be removed anyway, so banning the source itself is a easy solution. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 16:06, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support rational prohibition According to the Daily Mail, this is an oppose vote. --AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 02:42, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support as it is not a reliable source. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:43, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - There's worse sources out there!, On the whole DM is okay and should be used where necessary. –Davey2010^Talk 19:35, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose total blacklisting References are used to verify facts, and perhaps the Mail is not reliable for this. However, they are also used to demonstrate notability. I would use a Mail reference as a second source for a fact that was also verified by another source. For example: I work on a lot of articles about musical groups. Often quite a bit of information can be verified by articles in local press or online music magazines, but coverage in a national paper carries more weight when deciding if a band meets notability requirements.—Anne Delong (talk) 05:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Anne Delong. Marvellous Spider-Man 03:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources should be verifiable, so if as you say, the facts in the daily mail are not verifiable, then they are not a reliable source. Only reliable sources can be used to establish notability, per WP:GNG. Therefore the daily mail is not a reliable source nor can it be used to establish notability, so this oppose seems to be misguided. I would also note that in practice I would never consider the daily mail to be a source that establishes GNG over at AfC, or when patrolling new pages.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  04:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

You don't consider, but I consider it as a reliable source. We are opposing "total" blacklisting. Daily Mail is very reliable source for entertainment and sports. Daily Mail haters can keep Daily Mail out of Science, Religion, Race, Astronomy, Economics, British politics and American politics related articles. Marvellous Spider-Man 05:26, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

The Daily mail has printed a large number of factual inaccuracies, in some cases blatant lies in 'entertainment' articles, so I don't think they should ever be considered a reliable source there (a quick scan of this RfC will reveal several of the best examples). As for sports, while their reporting in this area seems relatively verifiable, very rarely does the Daily Mail ever report anything that is not also covered in other, more reliable, sports sources. Therefore they are not essential for this category, and it should not be the reason they are not blacklisted.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

And Wikipedia also has many notable hoax articles. Do we need factual and scientific accuracy for tooth fairy, dragons, wizards, bigfoot articles? If Daily Mail is used in these articles about mythical and urban legends, what is so wrong about it? Marvellous Spider-Man 05:30, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Not sure what you are asking here, factual and scientific accuracy is always essential for all articles, as is not applying undue WP:WEIGHT to extraordinary claims. I do not see how the Daily Mail's coverage can help anything with regards to fringe, pseudoscience, myth or hoax articles. On the contrary, as an editor in many fringe areas of the wiki I, and many others, delete Daily Mail citations on sight.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I edit a lot of articles about musicians, novelists, actors and other artists. Their notability is often determined by the amount of discussion and review of their work. A lot of this is opinion. Is there evidence that the professional reviewers at the Daily Mail don't write actual opinions? If not, I don't see why, for instance, a review can't be cited to show positive or negative "reception", for example. A blacklisting would mean that citations to the paper would be physically blocked; the even obvious facts such as "she was featured in a full page article in the Daily Mail" couldn't be cited. These limited uses should be allowed.—Anne Delong (talk) 14:30, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition -- because this will improve the encyclopedia. Any losses are outweighed by gains. It's more of a problem to include a crappy claim (sourced to the Mail) than it is to leave something out. Moreover, the likelihood of leaving something out simply because of a probation on the Mail seems quite low -- if it's worth including, then we'll likely find other sources. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. I share the opinion that the Daily Mail is not remotely trustworthy in many respects - certainly not in a lot of its news and politics coverage. But I think a blanket prohibition on citing it is overkill. For one thing, its financial coverage is often very good, and I'm also told it does sports just fine too (I never read about sports so I wouldn't know myself). Then there's the thing about notability - even if a DM story might not be good enough to support a factual claim on its own, it can be useful for adding to the sources that demonstrate notability. I think we do fine as we are, judging each use of a DM source in its own context, and I see no need to change that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:43, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I've said it before, I'll say it again, how can the Daily Mail establish notability if it isn't considered a reliable source? The two are mutually exclusive. Moreover, if it is not trustworthy, then surely far less damage is done by banning it than by allowing it, especially as the areas you pointed out. Even where the DM are mostly reliable, we have plenty of good reliable coverage elsewhere and these areas are not even the primary areas of interest for the Daily Mail (they cannot be considered to be experts on financial matters, nor is this their primary focus).  InsertCleverPhraseHere  18:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Re" "Even where the DM are mostly reliable, we have plenty of good reliable coverage elsewhere", I would add that those very few times when we have no reliable coverage elsewhere are almost always the times when The Daily Mail decided to simply make things up. If there is a better source, use that source. If there isn't a better source, then the rational assumption is that it didn't happen the way The Daily Mail said it happened. Remember, The Daily Mail doesn't just fabricate things to make a point. Sometimes they fabricate things because they are too lazy to get the facts and because to a Daily Mail reporter there are never any negative consequences to telling lies. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere:I've said it before, I'll say it again, how can the Daily Mail establish notability if it isn't considered a reliable source? To be perfectly fair, I could point to a number of conspiracy theories that have never received much coverage in reliable sources, but their widespread attribution in popular-yet-unreliable sources demonstrates their notability. As a general rule, I would say an unreliable source can still be used to establish notability, though with far (FAR) less weight than a reliable source. And only when said unreliable source is fairly popular, like the Daily Mail. I'm not going to argue this point, though. I wouldn't hold it to be unreasonable for an editor to insist that only reliable sources can evince notability, it's just not my interpretation, and it's one to which there are exceptions on WP. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:53, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants Far be it from me to insist that editorial judgement isn't necessary, I've seen plenty of AfD discussion similar to what you've been talking about, where a cobbled together group of -ish sources are used to demonstrate notability. I've even agreed in some cases. There is always room for a little WP:IAR. However I must point out that my comments above are in line with WP:GNG. According to WP policy, only reliable, independent, sources demonstrate notability. There are good reasons why these restrictions exist, and in the case of the Daily Mail, they apply rather aptly in my opinion.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

InsertcleverphrasehereYou may be exactly right about the policy pages. I've never spent much time reading those particular ones (on notability), because discussions of notability are so hairy anyways, and can go either way, with both sides accusing the other of clear policy violations. Generally, I've only ever read them to verify that what an editor put in quote marks as coming from that page actually did (it shocks me how often it doesn't...) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:22, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Oppose. The Daily Mail is reliable for general news. They are under much tougher libel laws in the UK than US papers, so they do check their facts. SW3 5DL (talk) 21:48, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

It is exactly their reputation for not fact checking that is the problem. I don't know much about libel laws in Britain, but the consequences can't be that strict given the stuff that the DM has printed, and gotten away with (here are 10, with a surprisingly varied list of subject matter --note that i found this in 5 seconds, there are FAR, FAR more. ). I find this Oppose to be rather odd, as if he/she has not read the above section, as it is clear that the DM has the opposite reputation from the one implied in this comment.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:57, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Honestly the more I look the more their behavior disgusts me. in this story they got sued, but they just keep continuing to print false made up shit. The libel laws might mean they get sued, but they make money from the carnage anyway so what do they care for the truth? Blacklist it already, at a certain point we need to have some professional integrity.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

• Tepid support. I do fully support the idea the the Daily Mail is not a reliable source for anything because it does not have a reputation for fact checking. If there is something that would maybe considered from the Daily Mail for sourcing, mention of that content should be found in a different source. Otherwise, it isn't of sufficient weight. Regardless of blacklist or not, this RfC should be closed with this idea either way. I'm hesitant to blacklist a source in general, especially since anyone should be able to link to this RfC's close to demonstrate it's not a reliable, end of story, but I haven't seen an example above that would indicate blacklisting would harm anything either. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:33, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• Question: Wire-service stories. As well as its own internally rewritten stories, Mail Online also carries a lot of wire stories verbatim, often from AP, and often at greater, more complete length than other sites -- see eg its "wires" main page, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/index.html . Such stories can be distinguished by the "Wires" strap at the top, the lack of a comments section at the bottom, and perspectives that can often seem somewhat at variance to the Mail's usual obsessions / imposed editorial lines. Is there any objection to continuing to use wire-service reports, identified as such, that happen to be being distributed via the Mail site -- since the reporting for such stories will be AP's, rather than the Mail's own? Jheald (talk) 06:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Wire stories are, by their very nature, generally available in other publications. It's back to the point of 'if it's a reliable and newsworthy piece of information, someone else will also have published it'. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 07:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Remember the Murder of Meredith Kercher? Remember the dramatic end to the court case? Let us recall with the aid of a Daily Mail article.

  As Knox realized the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.

  A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.

  Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'.

  Sources: PoliticalScrapbook, Guardian, Journalism.co.uk

  What a colourful bit of reporting. Makes you feel like you are right there in the courtroom, watching Knox be carted off to jail. It makes you feel the stoic suffering of the Kercher family too. Exactly the sort of human interest one would wish to inject into a courtroom story.

  Just one minor problem. It didn't happen. Knox wasn't found guilty. All that colour reporting was made up. The quotes were made up. This wasn't just a prepared background story they published by accident. This was an article purporting to present direct on-the-ground reporting and quotes from involved parties. With this record, why should anyone trust a word they say on anything? —Tom Morris (talk) 15:40, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Five years ago MailOnline had a false post re Knox for slightly over a minute before correcting, their explanation and apology is here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Good job missing the point entirely. The point isn't that they accidentally published the wrong story or how fast they fixed the error. Lots of newspapers make mistakes, and the correction was very fast indeed. The point is that they admitted[26] to making up direct quotes and eyewitness reports. The point is that the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint[27] against the Daily Mail (and upheld it again in adjudication), saying "the article had sought to present contemporaneous reporting of events (describing, in colourful terms, how individuals had physically behaved) which simply had not taken place. This was clearly not acceptable.". and "it is vitally important that descriptions of events, especially trials, are published in a manner which complies with the Editors' Code. Describing reactions and behaviour that have not taken place, in a factual manner as if they had, must always raise a breach of Clause 1 of the Code."[28] --Guy Macon (talk) 17:29, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Oppose. This is ridiculous that you even consider to ban such a large newspaper. It reminds me of a witch hunt or collective responsibility (good articles banned by default, because someone else did something wrong earlier). Someone reverted DM as a source, even though DM was the only source, which actually bothered to interview the authors of the paper, therefore it was a better source than all other sources. There was nothing wrong with that DM article the only reason for removal was actually this discussion here. That can't be right. Musashi miyamoto (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

That removal was me, you've steadfastly ignored me in the past when I informed you that the DM is not appropriate for fringe articles. The problem is that the DM has outright fabricated interviews before, and it is impossible to verify if they have done so again. The issue is one of verifiablity; facts found only in the Daily Mail are not verifiable, therefore they can't be used as a sole source for content, especially contentious content like the instance you are talking about.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  18:48, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

It is not "impossible to verify if they have done so again". It is easily verifiable in this case, just ask the authors of the paper, if DM interviewed them and if they confirm that the quotes in DM are true. Their e-mail addresses are in the paper. Also, please note that other massmedia often quote DM, so if they do it why shouldn't we? They should know better after all. Journalism is their profession. Musashi miyamoto (talk) 22:08, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

That would effectively be original research. The reason why we rely on published *reliable* sources is precisely to avoid doing that sort of leg-work. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:36, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

If you cant trust a source to print truthfully, and have to contact the authors to verify that the haven't lied *this time*, then the source is of no use at all. Also, the act of verifying with the authors directly can't be used on wikipedia as it would constitute original research (and now we have to take your word for it--and so-on ad nauseum). Reliable sources must have a reputation for reliability (within reason, everybody makes small errors from time to time), if they don't, they are no use at all to an encyclopedia. The DM has shown a reckless disregard for truth.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:38, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Besides, I did ask the authors of the paper if DM interviewed them and if they confirm that the quotes in DM are true. They said no. Either that or I am lying through my teeth to make a point. What is Truth? If only we had some sort of policy where you didn't have to trust me to not tell lies... --Guy Macon (talk) 00:17, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

As for other media outlets quoting the DM, many have been caught out by doing this, republishing false stories. As a result, the republishing of DM stories is now rare, except in cases where the other sources are either just as unscrupulous as the DM, or else where the other authors have done the legwork necessary to verify that the quotes are true themselves.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:42, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support, but allow on a case-by-case basis. The default should be to exclude it instead of include it. Some people have argued that it is reliable for sports or entertainment reporting, and they can make their case on the article talk pages. For everything else, it appears to be wildly unreliable. Editors, including people on this page, shouldn't have to re-litigate the issue endlessly. Felsic2 (talk) 02:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Guilty until proven innocent. We should begin with a straightforward recognition of policy as codified in WP:V; i.e., the Mail does not have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Nevertheless it is possible for things to be true even if the Mail prints them. Thus while we should presume that the Mail is an inappropriate source, there may be specific circumstances where it would be appropriate to cite the Mail. The burden of proof will lie on editors wishing to use material cited to the Mail. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:42, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Time and time again the DM shows that it absolutely does not have a reputation for accuracy. If there is a demonstrable need to cite it, that can be argued on a case by case basis, but for the most part I think it's time we put our foot down and admitted that the DM simply isn't reliable. Sam Walton (talk) 11:16, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support The DM has been caught misrepresenting and outright fabricating stories far too many times to be considered reliable for anything. Capeo (talk) 17:39, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support prohibition Editors are entrusted with the responsibility of uphold the integrity of Wikipedia by presenting appropriate trusted citations for article content.--Moxy (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support The Daily Mail like the National Enquirer is not a source suitable for an encylopedia. It is the worst kind of sensationalist, gutter journalism imaginable. After the result in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union just last year the Mail infamously attacked the judges as enemies of the people and pejoratively referred to one of the judges as "openly gay". This is a publication that publishes hoaxes about solar panels made from human hair, falls for parody Steve Jobs Twitter accounts, falsely accused Nicholas Cage of tax evasion ; had to apologise for lying about George Clooney and his in-laws, steals and republishes stories hours later under false by-lines and has a permanent obsession with Kim Kardashian's backside. It has no legitimate place here and it demeans our work. AusLondonder (talk) 02:34, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support This should be obvious, so there is some dismay at seeing this discussed. Blacklist it. Anything that they accidentally get right can always be sourced from a reliable source. First Light (talk) 10:28, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
• Very conditional support: if the implementation is an edit filter set on "warn", and as a temporary measure pending further discussion. (This is a next-best solution given that I am coming late to the battle.)

The DM, or at least its current editorial process, is crap and I see no circumstance whatsoever where they would be a reliable independent source. While this is IMO already covered by existing policy, it would make sense to adopt an automatic process to catch violations in new edits because it is easy to implement (match the URL string) and the false-positive rate will be extremely low. (Side note: the quality of the mainstream press is some areas (e.g. science news) is extremely low as well, but the key words are in some areas, whereas the DM is unreliable everywhere)

However, the technical implementation of the RfC will be either an edit filter or a spam blacklist entry, both of which are philosophically different from an "unreliable source" block. The former targets vandalism, the latter targets promotional edits / SEO attempts / etc.

What I would like to see is an RfC establishing the use of WP:EDITFILTER (or whatever other mechanism is chosen) as an "unreliable source filter", with details of how to add a source, how edits are logged/rejected etc.; then adding the DM to it (along with others, methinks). I doubt the second step will meet any opposition, but the first one could attract both opposition on philosophical grounds and technical remarks. Of course, it is far too late to debate that here, but technical questions will not go away - best-case scenario, they are debated in a second RfC where the focus on the DM obscures the full picture, worse-case a developer guesses what to do once asked by admins to "implement the RfC". Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:53, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support prohibition due to the long run of problems with it. The publisher lost its reputation as reliable source. I don't think encyclopedia will suffer without it. There are plenty of other sources around. It would be a very dangerous situation indeed if DM hold a monopoly on some piece of info. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:09, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
• It's complicated. I oppose a blanket prohibition, because there are some realms where the Daily Mail is perfectly fine as a source. Non-tabloid reporting of sports, for instance; it tends to contain some good human interest type stories about sportspeople. Also, older articles from before the paper went to shit. It should never be used to source controversial claims, though. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 09:01, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Impact assessment ?

It's increasingly common for real-world legislatures to be required to consider impact assessments when considering new regulations or legislation. In that spirit, do we have an idea of an impact assessment for the proposal under discussion? How many citations do we have in all to the Mail at the moment, and quantitatively what sort of things are those references for? Jheald (talk) 06:39, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

There are just under 12,000 links to the Daily Mail. Not all of them are links to footnotes but then not all footnotes for the DM are linked to the article. So my guess it is in the thousands, and mostly source non-controversial facts. I have no idea how much of this can be replaced. The DM provides detailed coverage of crime, celebrities and sports which may not be in other sources. Also, we need to establish what sources are acceptable. It would be wasteful to change all the references to the Daily Express, which is almost identical to the DM and find it is banned as well. TFD (talk) 07:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

The DM should not be used for coverage of crime or celebrities, period, they have been known to outright fabricate facts/quotes/even whole interviews. As for sports, any coverage they have made will invariably also be covered in other sources, unless it is gossip claptrap which has no business being on wikipedia. There will be some adjustment, but almost all of it will be for the better.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  08:34, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Can you name any source at all which is reliable for "celebrity gossip" in the current universe? Note also that most of the complaints are about the content of headlines, and not about the content of articles otherwise. As I have iterated, on science and medical stories, every single newspaper studied relies on press releases, and errors are invariably found in those press releases. No major newspapers even have proofreaders any more. Ruling out the DM for using those same press releases is thus inane. Headlines are not part of an actual article, and the fact is that Guardian headlines are just as apt as DM headlines to be inaccurate. And note finally that blacklisting one source will absolutely result in blacklisting many sources, and one ought to anticipate the furor over dealing with politicized sources on the I-P conflicts, etc. Better to not open that can of worms, in my considered opinion. Collect (talk) 15:51, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

"Note also that most of the complaints are about the content of headlines, and not about the content of articles otherwise." I'm afraid that is just not true. Many (most?) of the examples given in this thread are about the content, not their titles. You've made this claim more than once, and it's been dismissed more than once. – The Bounder (talk) 18:33, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

And Collect is, again, confused about how newspaper jobs and how newspapers work. Daily newspapers don't employ proofreaders; that function is covered by copy editors. This confusion isn't as bad as his absolute howler, his breathless claim that the New York Times had laid off all of their factcheckers: daily newspapers don't have factcheckers. I ran that last B.S. claim past an actual New York Times reporter, and he agreed that it was, in fact, B.S. I have no idea what his hand-waving about "press releases" is supposed to mean, unless he's attempting to confuse reprinted press releases with actually reported stories. --Calton | Talk 11:31, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support The Daily Mail is untrustworthy even by tabloid standards. Revolting rag and not one that any entity claiming to be an encyclopaedia should be citing for anything other than what the DM says about itself. Spartaz ^Humbug! 09:32, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

• I assess the impact of The Daily Mail on Wikipedia to be 100% bad. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:01, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
• If I had the power to revoke someone's ability to publish, DailyMail would be it. It is entirely unreliable. Anything that isn't fake would be backed by other sources. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:04, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• "The Mail's editorial model depends on little more than dishonesty, theft of copyrighted material, and sensationalism so absurd that it crosses into fabrication. Yes, most outlets regularly aggregate other publications' work in the quest for readership and material, and yes, papers throughout history have strived for the grabbiest headlines facts will allow. But what DailyMail.com does goes beyond anything practiced by anything else calling itself a newspaper. In a little more than a year of working in the Mail's New York newsroom, I saw basic journalism standards and ethics casually and routinely ignored. I saw other publications' work lifted wholesale. I watched editors at the most highly trafficked English-language online newspaper in the world publish information they knew to be inaccurate." ---Source: My Year Ripping Off the Web With the Daily Mail Online --Guy Macon (talk) 07:30, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Not necessarily to dispute what is said there, but Gawker is not exactly a paragon of journalistic integrity either. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:33, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

See Daily Mail's price for Gawker settlement: Words, not money "The lengthy statement to be added includes the Daily Mail's refutation of King's claim that the company depends on "dishonesty, theft of copyright material', and the publication of material we 'know to be inaccurate'." It goes on to say King worked "sporadic shifts at DailyMail.com" and "threatened a woman editor with violence and had to be repeatedly reminded about the need for proper attribution in his work."" The reporter who emitted the scandalous claims turns out to have rather clayish feet. Collect (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Seriously? If he didn't have "feet of clay" he would have quit in less than an hour. Only a sleazeball is able to say what it is like working for The Daily Mail because only a sleazeball is willing to work for The Daily Mail. Besides, I don't believe what The Daily Mail says about an ex-employee any more than I believe what they wrote about George Clooney[29] or Melania Trump.[30]

If you seriously doubt the truth of what he wrote, how do you explain this? What it’s like to fall victim to the Mail Online’s aggregation machine

We need to ban The daily Mail not just because it knowingly lies, but also because anything published by the daily mail has a good chance of being a copyright violation. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:53, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, clearly it turns out that the Gawker story was so wrong that it had to be pulled--wait, it's still there, just with the addition of The Mail's "Letter to the Editor"-style response and the original writer's rebuttal. Gee, not as damning as you're trying to imply. --Calton | Talk 11:37, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Further to "fake news" allegations: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38790254 Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:56, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

The results so far

We are now 7 days away from the normal 30-day RfC closing.

So far it looks like we have 46 support !votes and 24 oppose !votes. (My rough count; a more careful count should be made checking for dupes)

There were 7 !votes in the last 5 days (all suppport) and zero !votes in the last 2 days.

(Crossposted to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Daily Mail RfC). --Guy Macon (talk) 17:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Have any of the "supports" cited Wikipedia policy or precedent to support their proposed blanket ban of a major mass-circulation print and online newspaper? In contrast, many of the "oppose" opinions do cite policy to support their position. I think it would have been better for the proposer to have gone and had a private fume about the Daily Mail on their own time and not wasted everyone's time here (both supporters and opposers) by proposing something that is, basically, unenforceable and against Wikipedia policy. Reading the ridiculous tirades by those with an over-obsession about the Daily Mail has provided some amusement though: like the proposer comparing it to the house newspaper of the Nazi party and the above vote summarizer claiming "only a sleazeball is willing to work for The Daily Mail". Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:35, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I stand by my assertion that only a sleazeball is willing to work for The Daily Mail. I also assert that only a sleazeball scientist is willing to become a house scientist for one of the tobacco companies and author studies about smoking being safe,[31][32][33] and that only a sleazeball medical doctor (I am looking at you, Dr. Oz) touts homeopathic remedies.[34][35][36] Res ipsa loquitur -- the thing speaks for itself.

As for Wikipedia policy, the policy that the supporters cite is Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, specifically "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts", "Sources that publish fake news are not reliable for facts or opinion", "[A good source] engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy". this page is filled with dozens of specific examples of The Daily Mail failing these criteria. And many of the oppose !votes agree that TDM has a poor reputation for checking the facts.

You claim that "many of the 'oppose' opinions do cite policy to support their position". Please list those policies. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:16, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Point of order: It should be noted that the addition of Sources that publish fake news are not reliable for facts or opinion is recent and is currently being discussed on the relevant talk. TimothyJosephWood 23:25, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't realize that. I struck that part of my response; I only want to cite long-established and non-contentious policies here. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:20, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

@Tiptoethrutheminefield I am a bit confused, I don't see Oppose vote!s citing policy above. I've just had a read through the entire section above and have not found a single instance of someone citing policy in an oppose vote above (I might have missed something of course). On the contrary, nearly everyone admits that the Mail's reputation for fact checking is terrible, admit that they often print false material and then go on to argue that we should somehow try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most say that while some of the Mail's publications are terrible, some are good and worthwhile. However, if we are going to be honest, nearly everyone here, (oppose or support) agrees that the reputation for fact checking is terrible, and there are many instances cited above that show blatant printing of known false information or outright fabrication of interviews that did not happen. Given these facts, how can we suppose that editors are to know if the DM is being honest this time? How do you know that the interview that was cited actually happened and that the DM didn't fabricate it as they have done before? The short answer is that we can't, that is why WP policy doesn't allow sources that have a reputation for printing false information, and have a reputation for not checking their facts before printing. If nearly everyone, oppose or support, is in agreement that they don't check their facts and are inaccurate, the answer is simple, they are not a reliable source and should not be used on Wikipedia.

How restricting the DM on wiki actually works is a different story. We can add it to the blacklist, so that sources containing their URL can't be added, or we could simply note it on one of the policy pages as being a non-reliable source, and then citations can be removed on a case by case basis. That's up to the closers, and likely a future RfC, but I think it is clear given the discussion above that nearly everyone is in agreement on the fact that the DM is not reliable in many cases, even most of those opposing an outright ban.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:52, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think we will be seeing that list of policies cited by oppose !voters any time soon. They appear to be homeopathic policies... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 08:24, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I specifically cited policies, as well as actual studies of newspaper usage of press releases. That the people who call the DM the "Daily Heil" seem to feel personal animus is sufficient to ban a journal is, I fear, not supported by actual published studies. I also note that the very same people who ask that it be banned have done so repeatedly in the past, and that the upshot has always been that no newspaper is a "reliable source" for celebrity gossip, and that the headlines for every newspaper are designed to get readers, and only the body of the article is what counts. I also note that actual data is superior to anecdotal hatred of any source, and that my position is the same for many other unpopular journals of all ilks. Collect (talk) 12:47, 1 February 2017 UTC)

When I said "Oppose" I quoted the WP:IRS guideline. Now you're quoting a different section re reputation. I expect that any big entity has a bad reputation in some quarters; these are some reasons I say that The Daily Mail has a good reputation in some other quarters: according to peers, to other reliable sources, and to Wikipedia. (1) British Press Awards has declared it National Newspaper Of The Year at least six times; to take a recent year for an example (2014) its journalists were recognized as Young Journalist Of The Year, Sports Journalist Of The Year, Interviewer Of The Year Pop, Columnist Of The Year Pop. The Mail On Sunday and the web site have been winners too, but maybe the ban proposal isn't about them (there's some "muddle" about what the ban proposal is about). (2) I checked the Wikipedia entries of current Mail columnists -- Baz Bamigboye Craig_Brown_(satirist) Alex Brummer Stephen Glover Max Hastings Dominic Lawson Quentin Letts Richard Littlejohn Jan Moir Bel Mooney Andrew Pierce Amanda Platell Martin Samuel Tom Utley Sarah Vine -- and saw a few had been accused of something (distasteful, hatchet job, hypocrisy, plagiarism) but not that their reputation in general was poor. As for op-ed columnists: reality-TV judge Simon Cowell + former communist Claire Fox + Google/Alphabet executive Eric Schmidt + politician David Cameron etc. are controversial, but to some of us that's still okay. This is relevant because the proposal would ban even attributed opinions, though of course there's some muddle about that too. (3) from a source with a better reputation than gawker (a New Yorker article): "The Mail pours money into its product, triple-commissioning features and flooding doorsteps with reporters when its competitors are content, or compelled, to rely on wire reports.", (and quoting a former editor of The Independent) "Even if a story has been somewhere else, you’ll find it the next day in the Mail, done bigger, very often done better ...". (4) Quoting WP:IRS again: "One signal that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy is the publication of corrections." As we've seen above, the Mail does that, so some of the supporters' weak anecdotes are actually evidence for the opposers. (5) those 12,000 cites indicate what many editors think, maybe they'd rather outnumber the 46 !votes for "support". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Rai al-Youm

The source is an article from Rai al-Youm here. It's being used to support these statements in 1982 Iranian diplomats kidnapping:

According to the Rai al-Youm on-line newspaper, 'Abdeh Raji', known as 'Captain', and 'Biar Rizq', known as 'Akram', were involved in the abduction.

The abducted individuals were reportedly poisoned under the supervision of Elie Hobeika, a then Phalangist, in Karantina for 20 days and were moved to the prison of Adonis.

Later in 2016, according to what the London-based Rai al-Youm referred to as an accurate intelligence report, a recently released Greek prisoner from Israeli jails informed the Iranian embassy in Athens that he had seen the four abducted individuals alive in Israeli jails. Ahmad Habibollah Abu Hesham, known as a "spiritual father" of prisoners of Israeli jails, had made a similar comment that Motavesellian and the others were alive in Atlit detainee camp after visiting and inspecting prisoners in Israeli jails. He died in what Rai al-Youm claimed was a "made up accident by Israel."

Elie Hobeika verified the abduction of the diplomats and their handing over to Israel by Geagea's group

What our Wikipedia article refers to as a London-based online newspaper looks to me like a propaganda website run by an expat. I don't speak Arabic but I don't get the impression there's any real fact checking or editorial oversight involved. The article is a GA nominee so I need an answer for the source's appropriateness. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:27, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

I also don't speak arabic so i'm going only on what google translate gives me. From the get-go it seems pretty POV, so unless it's absolutely critical for GAN, and you think it will stand up there, then I would remove it. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:45, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@Iazyges: The source is used to reflect a rather important point. On the reliability, the mentioned newspaper is used as a source on other occasions by reliable sources such as the Washington institute for Near East Policy ([37], [38]), Defend Democracy Press, Middle East Eye, New York Times, Jerusalem Post and etc. Moreover, the quoted material is reflected by other sources such as [39], [40] and [41]. Finally, we know that per WP:BIASED, "... reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." Moreover, the mentioned part is well attributed to the source for maintaining the overall NPOV. --Mhhossein ^talk 22:01, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Abdel Bari Atwan is the editor-in-chief of Rai al-Youm, meaning that the paper has an editorial board. The fact that the source is referred to by other reliable sources adds weight. Besides the sources I mentioned in my previous comments, see how MEMRI has based his article on the report by Rai al-Youm. You can also see that the website is described as "the Arab world’s first Huffington Post–style outlet." --Mhhossein ^talk 06:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• @Doug Weller: Could I have your opinion on this? You can consider my comments, too. Thanks. Mhhossein ^talk 08:35, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Masem's view is respected, too. --Mhhossein ^talk 19:57, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

If we have this specific article from this source of question at least being used as a source in works we do consider as RSes, then it seems reasonable we can source it to, but use attribution claims, as the quoted text above as done; I would definitely include the quoting RSes that use the article as part of our references to support it. One question I would ask would be if the English translation was done by an editor, or was done through one of the sources using the text like MEMRI. If we have the latter then it might be very worthwhile to frame this as "According to a report by Rai al-Youm, translated to English by MEMRI..." this "double-buffers" us from any chance of incorrect information (eg the claims being made by the people identified). It's okay if its not, though we do need to be sure the translation is right. --MASEM (t) 20:10, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Analysis of location of Ai

This is the source I'm talking about -- http://www.biblearchaeology.org/file.axd?file=The+Search+for+Joshuas+Ai.pdf --- it's a paper that was published to the journal of Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, a peer-reviewed journal. It has been cited multiple times in scholarly material, such as the 2014 book 'The Authors of the Deuteronomic History' by Brian Neil Peterson, page 94. It is also cited in the scholarly work 'The Israelite conquest : history or myth? : an achaeological evaluation of the Israelite conquest during the periods of Joshua and the Judges' -- in page 159. It is cited in this paper --- http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/0334435515Z.00000000044. These are a few examples to show it has been cited a number of times in many scholarly works -- all the sources that cite it can be found here in Google Scholar https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?cites=13627279837402623804&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en --- the author of the paper in question is Bryant Wood who has a PhD in Syro-Palestinian Archaeology and was the excavation director for the ancient site Khirbet el-Maqatir, which is a site that is part of the main discussion in the source that I'm asking evaluation for. In other words, the author of the paper is a PhD in the field, the paper is peer-reviewed and published into a respected archaeological and academic journal, and it has been cited many times in scholarly material. I think this easily qualifies WP:IRS. Any thoughts on agreeing or disagreeing?Korvex (talk) 04:16, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

The edit itself, which Korvex doesn't challenge, is "although most archaeologists support the identification of Ai with et-Tell, there is some disagreement. Bryant Wood has identified it with Khirbet el-Maqatir but this has not gained acceptance."

The paper in question, by Creationist archaeologist Bryant Wood, is in fact cited in those two sources. He wants to add a link to the literalist website with which Wood is associated, containing a copy of the paper. Wood was indeed excavation director of a dig funded and organised by the biblical literalist grolup Associates for Biblical Research[42] where Wood is its research director. I'd say that in this article and similar ones we should never use Wood on his own. The question is whether to use the link. Is it required to link to the original source where your sources already cite it? Doug Weller talk 06:40, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

We should accept the judgment of the editors of the journal about the reliability of the article rather than second-guess them. The journal would not for example allow a creationist to present the world was created 6,000 years ago as a fact or even as a credible theory. However it seems here that the issue is not reliable sourcing but what weight to provide to an opinion expressed by the author which is not dependant on creationism. In that case, we need a secondary source that explains the weight that view has in order to include it. And if it has no weight, it should not be included. The fact the paper has been cited merely means that other others find its facts reliable, not that they endorse its opinions. TFD (talk) 06:58, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

@TFD: I'm afraid you have been misled as it isn't a journal at all. Zero^talk 07:12, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Some corrections:
(1) Critical Issues in Early Israelite History is not a journal at all. It was published as a supplement of the Bulletin for Biblical Research, a publication of the Institute for Biblical Research, which "offer[s] to evangelical biblical scholars and Ph.D. students a venue for creative, reflective and serious biblical scholarship". I.e., it publishes articles by people who pass the right ideological test. The volume is the outcome of a weekend conference and I can't find any evidence of peer review.
(2) The paper http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/0334435515Z.00000000044 by a famous Israeli archaeologist definitely does not cite it, regardless of what Google scholar says. In fact it doesn't cite any of the 12 authors of Critical Issues for any their work.
(3) "The Israelite conquest : history or myth?" which Korvex strangely does not provide a URL for, is a Masters thesis, so not even citable itself.
(4) Assistant professor of Old Testament Brian Neil Peterson works with the Associates for Biblical Research (Bryant Wood's outfit), so he is hardly a supportive example.
Altogether the case for this source is very weak. Zero^talk 07:07, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

References

Actually, this link -- http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/5727/thesis_kennedy_t.pdf?sequence=1 absolutely DOES cite the paper in question, in page 159. This is an exact quote from the paper;

"The final site to be evaluated as a possible candidate for Ai is the only one of these sites at which excavations are presently being conducted. The site of Khirbet elMaqatir is located approximately 1 kilometer west of et-Tell and approximately 1.5 kilometers southeast of Beitin, near the town of Deir Dibwan. The site occupies about 2.5 to 3 acres, but the Late Bronze Age settlement may be slightly smaller (Kennedy 2011: 17; Wood 2008: 230)."

As you can see, the citation at the very end of the quote I provided cites a paper from 2011 that was written by himself (Titus Kennedy) -- in fact it's citing the very paper we're talking about. The second citation is from "Wood 2008: 230" -- Bryant Wood's only publication in 2008 with a 230th page that talks about Khirbet el-Maqatir is in fact 'The Search for Joshua's Ai' by Bryant Wood, the very source in question for reliability. The citation is abysmally clear. Zero strangely says its not citable because it's a thesis, although the Wikipedia website has its very own page on how to cite a thesis -- Template:Cite thesis. The paper is also clearly peer-reviewed, as peer-review is simply various experts reviewing a paper before publication, and the editors of the paper 'The Search For Joshua's Ai' are listed clearly on the top of it -- Richard S. Hess, Gerald A. Klingbeil, and Paul J. Ray Jr. These guys are good scholars. So the paper is in fact peer-reviewed and has been cited in several scholarly papers as shown. There are more papers and scholarly books that cite it that I haven't mentioned yet, and an example would include the book of Phillippe Guillaume's titled 'Land, Credit and Crisis: Agrarian Finance in the Hebrew Bible' -- I can't find the exact page where the book cites 'The Search for Joshua's Ai', although I can clearly see its in the bibliography. As for the 'creationism' Doug talks about -- I've already been over this with Doug and that is absolutely irrelevant as creationism has nothing to do with the source at hand, and the fact that Wood believes in creationism is just about as relevant to this issue as Newton's belief in alchemy is with the reliability of his work on gravity. Doug, your attempt to dismiss anything because the authors pertain to a worldview that is absolutely irrelevant to the reliability of the paper in question or even the field we're discussing of archaeology is a pure Ad hominem. Wood is in fact a PhD archaeologist with a good amount of published work in the field and the excavation director of Khirbet el-Maqatir. Just imagine if an Atheist academic was barred from publishing in a peer-reviewed journal because he believes the universe randomly arose, there would be an outcry and accusations of bigotry all over the place, rightfully so. So the only conclusion I see here is that the paper is a scholarly and peer-reviewed paper written by a scholar in the field that has been cited in numerous scholarly works. If a peer-reviewed scholarly book can reliably cite the paper in question, then why can't a Wikipedia page?Korvex (talk) 23:41, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid that you have a very poor knowledge of both Wikipedia policy and academic publishing. Templates are just macros for convenient formatting of text and they don't establish policy. To see the policy on Masters' theses, read [[WP:RS]: "Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence." Also, having editors is quite different from having peer-reviewers. Guillaume does indeed cite Wood, for one sentence: "Maybe ancient Bethel was sited elsewhere, at el-Bireh rather than Beitin, and Beitin was Beth-Aven" (p227). Finally, scientists have religious beliefs or lack of beliefs like everyone else, but it doesn't mean that anything goes. Seeking to understand the universe in terms of physical laws is the overwhelming mainstream position for both believing and non-believing scientists. Ignoring physical evidence and believing in the physically impossible, such as a universal flood or an earth only a few thousand years old, is beyond the pale. Claiming that having such beliefs isn't relevant to someone's status as an archaeologist is simply preposterous. Zero^talk 00:59, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• edited books are dicey sources - sometimes some of the chapters can be reliable, but so much depends on the agenda of the publisher and the book editors or editor (who is often the person who invites authors to submit chapters). Seeing where this one comes from - a semi-scholarly organization with a very clear theological agenda, we should not use this source for something as controversial as archeology related to the Bible, unless it with attribution and appropriate framing - but it is even better to use mainstream sources in order to give content originating in such sources appropriate WEIGHT. Jytdog (talk) 01:44, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Phactual

Would the website Phactual be considered as an RS for reference to a US legal case? this Is the one more specifically. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:08, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

You're kidding, right? Let's start with "Wiener v United States (1958)." The blurb refers Chief Justice Frankfurter. Felix Frankfurter was never Chief Justice of the United States. In 1958, the Chief Justice was Earl Warren--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 21:48, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Can The Independent online newspaper still be considered a Reliable Source?

I am currently involved in a dispute with another editor, which is (in part) about the RSness of The Independent newspaper, and in particular about this article's claim "In just one weekend, the website has posted false statistics about rising crime, when crime has actually gone down over the last eight years." which is misleading and wrong. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/alternative-facts-white-house-website-donald-trump-fake-crimes-statistics-lgbt-climate-change-pages-a7540841.html. You are welcome to weigh in on our discussion, but I want to raise a more general point - can the Independent be considered a Reliable Source any more? Their standards have plummeted and they're basically a clickbait operation now, a shadow of the newspaper they used to be.

Evidence:

• CEO admitting standards need to be raised "He also said that the website’s lightweight editorial approach, criticised by some of its own staff as a “click-bait operation”, would be re-focused to better match the quality tone of the print edition." I can't see any evidence this has happened - the print edition closed and the web-only version has remained poor quality clickbait. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/12/independent-and-independent-on-sunday-closures-confirmed
• Chief editor admits the Johann Hari scandal "severely damaged" the paper's reputation. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jan/10/independent-editor-johann-hari-scandal It's been suggested that Hari's creative approach to the truth had been an open secret for years at the newspaper. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/guy-walters/2011/07/johann-hari-independent-prize
• Hari's dodgy articles are still up on their website without any mention of the scandal (try looking at the NYT for some of Jayson Blair's articles - each one has a very thorough note explaining that his work is not to be relied on and which bits were fabricated. That's what an RS does.) NPalgan2 (talk) 19:53, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Who says, now, that they are a click-bait operation? Doug Weller talk 21:04, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Under a year is not recent enough for you? The decline in quality and clickbaitification of the Indy is a common criticism see http://www.adnews.com.au/opinion/death-of-print-the-independent-s-demise-teaches-us-what-not-to-do http://www.statepress.com/article/2016/10/spopinion-critique-of-modern-media https://theconversation.com/four-reasons-why-listicles-and-clickbait-are-killing-real-journalism-67406 https://www.marketingweek.com/2015/10/29/mark-ritson-i-was-right-about-the-i-newspaper-it-leaves-the-independent-in-worse-shape NPalgan2 (talk) 21:17, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

You say "still". This source is from October 2015. This one is recent, but isn't enough to say we can't use the Independent. This is also more recent, but is just using an Independent article as an example of problems with modern journalism: "Clickbait titles and eye-catching headlines are often used by modern journalists for the purpose of drawing immediate attention to their work." And I can't find where you told User:Volunteer Marek about this discussion. Doug Weller talk 12:13, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

It's true that lots of newspapers have dropped standards and become more clickbaity, but it's incontrovertible - almost WP:SKYBLUE that the Indy has plummeted much further than any other anglosphere 'quality' newspaper. Look at this ludicrous "story" in the SCIENCE section - it's cannibalized from quotes Sky News, one of Forbes's worthless bloggers and the *Daily Mail*! Seriously, the Guardian and Telegraph and The Age have their problems, but they wouldn't have published this. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/donald-trump-body-language-inauguration-day-psychology-alpha-male-a7539256.html NPalgan2 (talk) 17:31, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

The Independent online edition is clickbaity, and in some cases takes liberties with the facts that would advise caution. For example: http://www.independent.ie/life/family/mothers-babies/my-sonthe-genius-29295077.html: as well as attempting (and, according to some, succeeding) to disprove Einstein's Theory of Relativity. That's an egregious error that should never have made it through fact-checking. However, I see this as an across the board issue with online media. Sometimes it's reliable, sometimes it isn't. I'd put The Independent in the same basket as the Daily Mail. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:47, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

That last link is from the Irish Independent, a different newspaper. More broadly, while newspapers are generally useful and legitimate sources, WP probably relies far too much on media reporting as a whole, which is often cursory and slanted in its coverage, something which broadsheets are as guilty of as tabloids and online versions. But equally (see the discussion re the Mail above) there seems to be a trend to approach this issue the wrong way round, with people wanting to declare entire publications "not reliable" by citing individual bits of reporting that have been shown to be inaccurate. The RS policy doesn't work like that. It doesn't mean everything a publication reports is indisputably objective or correct, or that anything it says has to be included in a WP article. A newspaper – indeed even an esteemed acadamic journal – can make errors and still be broadly "reliable"; a newspaper can generally be "reliable" in a WP sense but include material that should never be referenced in an encyclopedia entry. Reliability is assessed by the paper's broader processes and structures; and whether a particular thing it reports is good content for here needs to be assessed in context, case by case. N-HH talk/edits 19:11, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree there is a cline, and that different parts of the same newspaper can have different standards, and that even respected academic journals publish garbage studies sometimes. But WP is don't cite 'tabloids'. And the Indy is getting pretty close to tabloid-standard. NPalgan2 (talk) 20:21, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

This is an excellent point. Maybe there are some things that we can cite tabloids and similar media for (see above proposal regarding the Daily Mail), and some things we do not. It would be good to get some clarity about what's what. (E.g., "celebrity gossip"? sports results? weather events? police blotter reporting? art installations?) Sławomir Biały (talk) 20:44, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

There isn't any doubt that the The Independent online newspaper now has little in common with its former printed edition beyond its name - its standards have plummeted to the extent that it has lost much of the high and hard-won stature its print predecessor rightly held. But I think a source can only be said to be reliable or not reliable for particular claims or for particular content, it can almost never be given a "reliable source for everything" cachet or a "never reliable for anything" blanket ban. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:51, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but the editor I was talking to seemed unaware of what has happened to the Indy, so I thought a discussion here that could be referenced later would be useful. NPalgan2 (talk) 19:26, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Just in case anyone ever gets confused, this discussion is not about the I (newspaper) which is no longer related to the Independent. Doug Weller talk 17:12, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Should we use the anonymous "Consortium Against Terrorist Finance" as a source

I'm concerned about using this anonymous group[43] as a source for anything. It's used in multiple articles[44] including BLPs such as Mansour Mohamed Abdul Fattah al-Moslah. Looking at GNews I see two uses of it. I can't see how it qualifies as a reliable source at all. Doug Weller talk 11:59, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I can find nearly nothing on the group. The website looks professionally done, but the "About" document is information-free. As you, I only found two references to the group in Google News, one in French, one in Italian. There are four hits on Google Book (all in German), of which none looks promising (a novel, a 1983 book by Ruhollah Khomeini and two popular books from 2002 and 2009 that do not actually seen to contain the phrase). Google Scholar finds nothing for the full phrase. So I see no reason to accept it as a source, let alone a BLP source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:00, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

• No - They are a self-proclaimed "group of experts with decades of experience in the U.S. Government, academia, intelligence community, and a wide variety of businesses", or maybe they're not. There are too many red flags including their anonymity, no evidence of editorial oversight, no reputation for fact checking, and lack of WP:USEBYOTHERS.- MrX 13:26, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Summary for Policymakers

User:Cohler has proposed that the Summary for Policymakers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC AR5) is not a reliable source, because "it is a summary and therefore can lead to misinterpretations" as stated here (be aware User:Cohler signs as TheClarinetGuy). I do not see any indication in Wikipedia:Verifiability that summaries are inherently unreliable. Note also that in this case that the summary is written by a subset of the authors of the longer report. Am I perhaps missing something? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:44, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

My point was and is as I stated back at Talk:Global warming#Phrasing_for_the_conclusions, the principle of best evidence in a scientific matter would always dictate that you go to the actual language of the scientific report and not to a summary written specifically for the benefit of non-scientific policy makers. And I might add, this is especially the case when there is any difference in the wording or phrasing, which can very easily change meaning. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 18:54, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Furthermore, the SPM is a "line by line" politically reviewed and approved document (see IPCC fact sheet here), so common sense would dictate that scientific claims be sourced to the scientific studies they come from and not to politically reviewed and approved summaries. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 19:00, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

The summary for policymakers is simultaneously reviewed by experts and government representatives - that seems very sensible to me and as a good source for something accessible to be put in the lead rather than the primary results from the scientists. Dmcq (talk) 22:08, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

A document by competent authors that presents a compact summary of a larger scientific work is an excellent source. It's a lot better to have experts summarise the field than to have random Wikipedians do the summarising. If the SPM is in direct conflict with the full report and this is either obvious or noted by other reliable sources, we can handle this as any case of conflicting sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:09, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Applying your reasoning, ClarinetGuy (aka Cohler), the IPCC reports are not reliable either because they are themselves summaries of the state of the science, as expressed in the many references cited at the end of each chapter in the assessment reports. Fortunately we don't have to grapple with that absurd implication because you went astray when you started looking for "the best evidence in a scientific matter". Since we don't do science, that's not our goalpost. IPCC is a science-AND-intragovernmental outfit, thus the SPM is every bit as WP:RS as the full reports, and which we use can be guided by the specific context. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:11, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, the bottom line here, is that Dmcq has inserted the statement "and their best estimate is that all of it, is..." into the article here and that is a patently false statement supported by nothing either in the summary or the report itself other than Dmcq's misreading of a graph and ignoring the explicit, bold-faced findings of the IPCC listed repeatedly in the summary, the synthesis report, the working group, which all say "more than half". "More than half" and "all of it" are very different statements. The IPCC never said the latter. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 04:00, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

To quote from the IPCC AR5 SPM, page 17, section D3, last sentence of the first bullet point under the coloured box: "The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period" and the next bullet point quantifies the other contributions as "likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C" from natural forcings and "likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C" from internal variability. So I can see how one might arrive at Dmcq's statement even without the misreading of a graph. Also, this result is not particularly surprising - Berkeley Earth's Richard Muller made the same claim independently in 2012 ("Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases") [45]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:30, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

It's a fair summary for a non-specialist audience (i.e. Wikipedia readers). Guy (Help!) 09:46, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@ClarinetGuy (aka Cohler) Sounds like you're changing goalposts, always a red flag. At article talk you said SPM does not meet our standards that define reliable sources for wikipedia purposes, which can be read at WP:Reliable sources. In your "bottom line" comment in this thread you're not challenging that at all. Instead you're challenging the way it is being used. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:29, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

• Unless there is a credible reason why the summary in this case does not reflect the full report, I dont see the problem. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I have discussed extensively at Talk:Global warming why the summary does not accurately reflect the main report. Citing multiple examples. Here for example you can see that the main report consistently uses the phrase "more than half" whereever it refers to this finding of the IPCC, not the word "dominant" as is used in the summary for policy makers. And "dominant" has different connotations and interpretations than "more than half". --TheClarinetGuy _talk 23:37, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I do not find that a credible argument. The summary accurately reflects the body of the report. If your argument is based on the premise that the definition of 'dominant' can sometimes be used to mean different things *other than the obvious use to which it has been used in the summary* then its really a non-starter. Anything more than half can be generally be described as dominant. The point of a summary is to summarise - not to be technically accurate - as that is the point of the full report. Ultimately your argument appears to be we should be referencing the full report and using the technical definitions therein, rather than the more accessible summary. That is not however a reliable source issue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:52, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

So you have and I've repeatedly pointed out to you that the technical language from the underlying reports is unsuitable for the lead of the article. The body of the article is where things like 95% probability should go if at all. The statements are accurate and they closely follow a reliable source which has been heavily vetted and checked by both the subjects experts and people who know how to explain things to people in general. And in particular your objection on the basis of reliable source is completely wrong. This noticeboard shouldn't be bothered by this any more. Dmcq (talk) 01:04, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

More to the point, Cohler is no longer discussing our standards that define a WP:Reliable source. He's only making an argument based on his own WP:Original research, which he asserts after his personal comparison between the IPCC summary report and the underlying WG1 report... which of course is a summary of the professional scientific lit overall. At any case, he's abandoned the "not reliable" argument, apparently. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:44, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

It is certainly not WP:OR to point out that "more than half" does not mean the same thing as dominant (Merriam Webster here) and "more than half" is hardly "technical language". What is your source for asserting that "more than half" is considered technical language? Stephan Schulz noted above "If the SPM is in direct conflict with the full report and this is either obvious or noted by other reliable sources, we can handle this as any case of conflicting sources". IMO I think it's pretty obvious that "dominant" is in conflict with "more than half" based on the commonly understood definitions of those words as I have cited here with Webster. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 16:19, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I think it's pretty obvious that the two are not in conflict at all. "More than half" allows any proportion from 50.00001% to 100%. "Dominant influence" typically means the influence is more important than other influences combined. The two statements are perfectly cromulent together. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:59, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I would further note that the non-technical language "more than half" has been consistently used by the IPCC since the Third Assessment Report (2001) which stated, "Human-emitted greenhouse gases are likely (67-90% chance) responsible for more than half of Earth’s temperature increase since 1951", then IPCC AR4 (2007) stated, "Human-emitted greenhouse gases are very likely (at least 90% chance) responsible for more than half of Earth’s temperature increase since 1951" and finally IPCC AR5 (2013) stated "Human-emitted greenhouse gases are extremely likely (at least 95% chance) responsible for more than half of Earth’s temperature increase since 1951." If the scientists who wrote those reports wanted to say "dominant" they could have, but they didn't. They chose the simple, unambiguous, non-technical "more than half". Words have meaning. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 16:34, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to close thread

I propose this thread be closed pursuant to WP:MULTI. At article talk Cohler is asserting all of these arguments, but has abandoned claims that the IPCC Summary for PolicyMakers does not qualify as a WP:Reliable sources. Instead, we're now rehashing arguments about how and if it should be used in terms of WEIGHT, etc. Since its no longer a question of reliability, we should consolidate the multiple venues into just a single venue.... at article talk. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:42, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Vox.com and Huffington Post at Smith & Wesson M&P15

• Production increased almost ten times from 2006 to 2008, and tripled in the following year. From 4,600 in 2006, sales grew to over 100,000 per year by 2010.

References

My understanding is that sources are not automatically rejected for simple facts just because they have some POV on a topic, and that secondary sources are preferable to primary sources. However @Springee: and @Niteshift36: seem to be arguing that if there's a consensus to leave criminal usage out of an article then none of the sources can mention the criminal usage either. If so, that would seriously skew the neutrality of an article because almost all articles in mainstream sources, both academic and journalistic, discuss this rifle in the context of its criminal use. In the process, they mention other facts about it, including its sales. Sales figures are a common thing to report for a commercial product. To reduce the quality of an article in order to enforce a POV policy on sources is misguided, in my opinion. Amy I wrong? What the right way to interpret WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR in this case? Felsic2 (talk) 02:12, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• This doesn't even represent the discussion at the talk page. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:20, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we do not automatically reject sources because they are biased. NPOV applies to what is written in Wikipedia articles, not what's written in the sources. A consensus to leave criminal usage out of an article would not preclude the use of sources mentioning criminal usage from being used for other information.- MrX 02:48, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• Sources aren't solely being rejected because they are biased. In fact, no source has been removed from the article at this point. The topic was merely brought up for discussion on the talk page and the discussion has been relatively short. As stated, this is being misrepresented. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:01, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• I agree with the Niteshift36. This isn't a RS issue though better sources are available. Rather it's using a strong POV source to WP:COATRACK rejected content via links to sources vs direct inclusion in the article. Felsic2 has been trying to insert material into the article against both consensus and guidelines established by WikiProject Firearms. The innocuous production volume data can be sourced to neutral, reliable sources (the source cited by the Huffington Post, Vox didn't list a source). Felsic2 has argued against using such references in lieu of two sources with very strong POVs and largely containing content that was rejected by consensus. Thus we have coatracking where the coat the content of the linked articles and the hook is the otherwise innocuous production data. Bringing it up here is a red herring as the issue isn't if the source is reliable (lacking a better source I think we would accept it) but if such linking is another form of coatracking and getting around consensus. Springee (talk) 02:50, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Actually, NPOV does extend to the content of what possibly biased but otherwise normally reliable sources might say. What changes is making sure that biased statements are evaluated within WP:UNDUE among all other reliable sources, and that the biased statement is presented as a claim with attribution and not in WP's voice. That bias doesn't immediately eliminate the source, but it may make the material from that single article inappropriate to include if it a single voice outweighed by otherviews, but that's a point for consensus-based discussion. --MASEM (t) 03:11, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

@Springee: That's a rather strained interpretation of coatracking. Is there actually a consensus not to use sources that mention criminal use? - MrX 03:17, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

The consensus is to not discuss crimes in the article. Using strong POV sources to provide minor facts is certainly a way to include articles that would otherwise be outright rejected as out of scope for the article. It's not blatant coatracking but given how easily we could used substitute sources (already added to the talk page) one has to question why we are even here. There is a talk page consensus against discussing crimes as part of this article. That consensus is supported by a larger consensus discussed at Project Firearms regarding when crimes should be discussed. When asked why we shouldn't just change the references Felsic2 avoided the question, claimed it's a RS issue and started the discussion here. Springee (talk) 03:45, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• This is an ongoing issue with firearms articles where firearms enthusiasts like to remove/gloss over/ignore their illegal/criminal use. See any discussion about a high profile shooting where the gun is a major subject of the news (AR's etc). Local consensus almost *always* comes down to 'dont mention on the gun article its the spree-killers/militia/pirates weapon of choice' /cynic Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:36, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Springee, adding sources that discuss crimes is not the same as added text to the article that discuss crime. Your opinion of how references can be used is simply not grounded in any Wikipedia policy that I'm aware of.- MrX 13:17, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I would argue that it's well within the spirit of the concerns that lead to the coatrack essay. WP:OFFTOPIC and WP:TROJAN might also apply. Certainly in this context I think it is clear Felsic2's intent was not simply to provide production figures. Regardless, this RS question is a red herring since no one objected to the sources as unable to reliably source the material in question. I think we can agree they are sufficient though other sources exist. Springee (talk)

In case I didn't state my objection clearly enough, I think we should use secondary sources, such as Vox and HUffPost, instead of primary sources, like raw data from the ATF. As for my intent, it was simply to add production figures. Rather than citing essays of dubious relevance, let's keep the discussion grounded in actual policies and guidelines. Felsic2 (talk) 16:05, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• The company (Smith & Wesson) is a primary source. The government agency (BATFE) is a secondary source. HP/Vox are third party sources. Granted, we usually prefer third party sources, there are times were a secondary source fits quite well. In the case you haven't explained, the facts in question can be obtained from a secondary source (the US government), without POV commentary found in the third party sources being used. This proposed substitution would not remove any information from the article or diminish it, merely provide a more neutral source. That's it. Niteshift36 (talk) 16:59, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
  • @Niteshift36: That's a bit confusing. I'd say that HP/VOX are secondary sources by our criteria, and WP:TERTIARY says "Policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source." A typical example of a tertiary source is an encyclopedia, and at times these should even be avoided. This is of course a terminology issue here, but I think worth clarifying. Doug Weller talk 17:25, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• I'd call them third party, but that's really not the primary issue. The issue is not whether or not HP is reliable or not. The question is really why a govt source that has no POV can't be used instead. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:17, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

You avoided answering the question when I asked. Given you want to cite production numbers there should be no issues with citing them from the ATF (a more reliable source than your articles) vs an article that doesn't state where it's numbers came from and another that says it got the numbers from the ATF. We can cut out the middle man. It's insulting to others to claim your only intent is to provide production figures. Consider that a link to the ATF data would provide information for all years vs just a select few. Springee (talk) 16:33, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't like your accusatory tone. Please avoid discussing intent and stick to discussing sources and policies. Felsic2 (talk) 17:00, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

To me, we have the question "can 'hard facts' like production numbers be sourced to secondary sources that are clearly biased in tone?" There's a lot of issues at play, but to summarize this:

• For any commercial product (guns included), production numbers are essential encyclopedic information. It is highly desirable, if not required, to include these if the source for the numbers can be meet WP:V. This is similar to reporting the population of a city; not including it when it is possible makes the article look bare.
• We have a primary source (BATFE) and two secondary sources for production numbers. Even if we lacked the secondary sources, we would still be able to present BATFE's numbers to satisfy the essential encyclopedic quantity.

So using the BATFE's numbers directly should be fine, and we don't have to include the secondary sources. Now if we were talking about a non-essential figure, such as the number of crimes that a certain gun was used in, even if still sourceable by the BATFE, this is where the presence of secondary sources is required, to tell us that, as a transformative source, why that figure was important and to put it into perspective. And that's where if there's a source bias, that could be a problem to include, since many biased sources will play with statistics to get the point they want to prove. That's where the evaluation of the opinion using those statistics for inclusion under UNDUE/FRINGE may be necessary. If a gun is widely criticized as being too frequently used in crime, then we can use these sources to justify that. If these are the only two sources in the world that consider the gun being used too often, and no one else addresses that, then perhaps this is too FRINGE-y to include. --MASEM (t) 18:32, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree with that reasoning.- MrX 18:44, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, the vast majority of mainstream sources discuss this rifle's use in two of the largest mass shootings in modern American history. It could be argued that those incidents are what makes this rifle notable, as it's otherwise an unremarkable product.

Separately, the issue of biased sources cuts both ways. Currently, the sources in the article have an arguably "pro-gun" bias. If we exclude sources with one bias and allow those with the opposite bias, then there may be issues with the neutrality of the article. Felsic2 (talk) 18:50, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that is a separate issue about article content vs reliable sources. I think the RS question here has been address by Masem. Springee (talk) 19:20, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• Aside from the fact that that comment has nothing to do with reliable sourcing, what you just stated is really not an accurate picture of the extensive discussion that has gone on for months, discussion that has amounted to you saying one thing and every other experienced editor disagreeing with you. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:22, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Addressing the "pro-gun" bias, on the current page, I see two classes of information: specifications (the bulk of it), and the "official users". Both are going to be, arguably "pro-gun" sourced, but here, specifications are like production numbers and are essential information (to me, and speaking to that as the farthest from a gun enthusist you can be) - to not include these would make the article bare. So these can be sourced by the manufacturer or any source that is recognized for reliable reporting of these numbers even if they hold a general favorable bias. (but I can hardly see how specifications can be twisted that much). The "official users" though is similar to the crime numbers, in that this is far from essential information, and it does add a POV to this ("Oh, this legal agencies use this gun, therefore it must be okay"). Same type of balance questions will come into play here if this information should be included or not and how the source is biased or not. --MASEM (t) 00:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• I don't really see it, but I'd have no objection to removing the official users section. FWIW, that section appears in many, many firearms, aircraft and ships articles. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:55, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Vessel News / vesselnews.io

Is this reliable? http://vesselnews.io/shock-video-black-lives-matter-activist-says-need-start-killing-people

Benjamin (talk) 03:32, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Not for factual information, no. Probably not for opinions either. It's a partisan website that is not a news site, but, in their own words, "a lighting bolt for exposing the leftist agenda, who seek to steal our freedom of speech, right to bear arms and refuse to call by name the enemies of our way of life–Radical. Islamic. Terrorists." And it's a one-man operation. In other words, a personal website masquerading as....something. First Light (talk) 10:19, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

First Light Even though there's a video of actual events? What is the possibility that those events didn't actually take place, that the video is somehow faked? Benjamin (talk) 13:44, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

A random and probably nameless BLM protester says some sh*t while holding a megaphone at a rally? Really? That's notable? And no, I wouldn't trust this website to tell the truth about when/what/where that video was shot, even if it were notable enough to include an article here, which it isn't. First Light (talk) 13:49, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

KOA Newsradio is likely an RS source, however. Collect (talk) 14:12, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

There you go. Whether it's notable, and for what, is another question for another noticeboard, or for the article talk page where you are thinking of including this. First Light (talk) 14:41, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

KOA News Radio simply repeated material from The Daily Caller, and The Daily Caller got it from someone called "BurgerVanDreamz who is streaming this from England". Also, User:Benjaminikuta started forum shopping[46][47] before he even got an answer.--Guy Macon (talk) 15:12, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think I act improperly, do I? I asked two different questions on two different noticeboards that just happened to involve the same source. Thank you for helping me improve. Benjamin (talk) 15:29, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

You need to tell us what you want to use the source as a reference for (and in which article) if you hope to get a useful response. The source looks to be very poor quality though. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:33, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Could a source be reliable in some contexts but not in others? I guess the obvious context would be Black Lives Matter. Where else would it be relevant? Benjamin (talk) 15:39, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• No. Hyper-partisan websites are almost never accepted as a reliable source. Adding to that, it is not really even a political news site, it looks more like a glorified blog. Web videos are rarely accepted as reliable sources, YouTube being the obvious example. If we don't accept that we are certainly not going to go with this. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:17, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Could the video be faked, or what? Benjamin (talk) 17:01, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

It's maybe not faked, which still doesn't meet standards here. Partisan sources can do more than fake a video. Does a reliable source state that this was really a BLM event? Does a reliable source state that this person was part of the event, rather than a random person with a megaphone? Even if she was part of the event, was she speaking on behalf of BLM? What is the name of the person? Is she notable in the BLM movement? You see, there are so many things wrong with this video according to WP policies. It's also a primary source, until a truly mainstream reliable source reports on the event, who this is, etc.. Even then, is the event or she notable? Probably not. You really hit it out of the park with this one :-0, touching ever single base along the way: non-reliable source, non-notable, primary source, and maybe a touch of WP:BLP. Home run! First Light (talk) 03:04, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

No, not for that video's content - or for opinions about its content. An non-RS source commenting on an unnamed individual with unspecified connections to BLM (beyond being at their rally) voicing their personal extremist opinions makes for nothing usable for Wikipedia content. Of course, based on the way Wikipedia seems to be working these days, if it were the other way around - an unnamed individual with unspecified connections to Trump (beyond being at a supporters rally) voicing their personal extremist opinions - then it would be considered a verbatim repeating of Donald Trump's policy position and the position of everyone who voted for him! Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:20, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Not even reliable for the video. What's the possibility that this video was faked? Who knows. But I don't know who the woman is, where, when or to whom she was speaking or what connection if any she has with BLM or any other group. Even if it were reliable, you would need to show relevance. Some guy who likes Donald Trump on Facebook just killed 6 people in Quebec City. Is that reflective of the typical Trump supporter? TFD (talk) 18:29, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure there will be Wikipedia editors who will be claiming it is reflective, and content on it should be included in some Trump election aftermath article for that reason. I recall we had Mike Tyson and his conviction mentioned in a Donald Trump article for no other reason than Tyson is a convicted rapist and Trump had some business sporting interests in boxing and Tyson seemingly is a Trump supporter. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:23, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Can we stay on topic please? No one is (or should be) talking about trump here. Fyddlestix (talk) 20:26, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Not reliable for any purpose on Wikipedia, simply put. Even if it is a real person being their real self at a real BLM event. It's my consistent observation that about 1% of humans are certifiably insane. It is a common and boring tactic of sensationalist and ideologically motivated "reporters" to seek out the craziest person in a crowd of any size, then post that online, and hope people take it as representative. Given my observation, this is quite easy to do. It's just another reason we need to rely on secondary sources and apply due weight with care. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:14, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Are there any merits in these article as RS?

Source:

• Temple Arson Report by Inspector General of Police Keshava Menon submitted to the Government of Kerala
• Goerge, Anjali. "Sabarimala temple in the ‘secular’ world". MyInd. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
• Organizer. "Hindu unity in Kerala through Ayyappa Exposing the atheist plot on Sabarimala". Organizer. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
• K.P. NAYAR. "In Kerala's social lab, a Modi formula". Telegraph India. Retrieved 1 February 2017.

Article:

• Shabarimala

Content:

In 1950, the temple was suspected to be set on fire by radical Christian extremists which destroyed the entire temple and had to be reconstructed.

Is there any merit in the aforementioned sources? I had a dispute with a editor who questions reliability of these sources. Advice ? Crawford88 (talk) 07:18, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Surely better sources could be found, if this is true? The first source is a Primary Source (WP:PRIMARY). Second one seems like an opinion piece on a website that is not news-oriented. The Organizer is certainly a partisan site, and not a news site, so it wouldn't be factual or impratial. Last one is a commentary/musing on the history of the area, which only says that "It was suspected that a group was behind the arson...", without getting specific. This is based only on a cursory look at the sources. Others may find some merit in one or more of them. For controversial information, better sources need to be found. Alternatively, if there is a reliable third-party source stating that a notable government official (for example) suspected that the fire was set by Christian extremists, that could be pointed out. To just say "it was suspected..." is quite weaselly (WP:Weasel). First Light (talk) 08:13, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Some more context. For a while the OP defeneded a photocopy of the report on Scribd and called it a secondary source. They then found the first source, the report of the police inspector, was kept confidential for years as mentioned in the 4th source[48] which says it was suspected that "a group" was behind the arson but doesn't say who was in the group. The second source, Myindmakers, describes itself as a "platform of ideas"[49] and states:"Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. MyIndMakers is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of MyindMakers and it does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same." The Organiser, is a publication by the right-wing Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and again fails our criteria as a source. The interview there is with the right-wing Hindu nationlist Kummanam Rajasekharan who seems to think there is an atheist plot involving Muslims and Christians and who states as fact that it was Christians who burned the temple. I've explained all of this to the OP at Talk:Sabarimala. Doug Weller talk 16:43, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Research to consider when deciding whether Youtube videos are reliable sources

The following shows how easy it has become to fake a Youtube video using an ordinary PC.

• http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/thies2016face.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmajJTcpNk

I can only assume that someone with a lot more money and a lot more time can do a much more realistic fake. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:20, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't see the relevance to Youtube specifically as a source - anonymous Youtube videos would not be acceptable anyway, nor would videos containing copyright violating material. It's a pretty obvious fake technically - though I suppose that technology will improve. But faked video footage even from supposed RS sources is nothing new - the BBC has used video game footage and presented it as actual real battlefield footage and even once had a video game insignia presented as the symbol of NATO. And there was the infamous tail-wagging-dog "why don't you move a little to the right, the real skinny ones only, over to behind that bit of fencing that's still upright, stick in your stomachs and look miserable, real concentration-camp-like-miserable, that's great, just like that, ...darn it, the fence is the wrong way around, never mind, nobody will notice". Other examples include "the most staged photo opportunity since Iwo Jima". Any editor here can insert fake content already and give that content fake references. On obscure articles it is easy for that fake content to remain for years. I found this example recently, and corrected it [50]. The deterrent for this would be a ban on the inserters, but that can't be done for IP address editors. The best defense against fakery of all sorts is to have a knowledge of the subject and a commitment to its accurate reporting. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:06, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Reliability of s:The Imperial Gazetteer of India (cont'd)

restoring the post, as there was no conclusion.

Hello all,

It seems the editor User:Sitush feels that the source s:The Imperial Gazetteer of India is biased, or as he says "unreliable". I have found a similar discussion with this editor from a few months ago, where the previous opposition made a few good points (albeit in a crude manner), and cannot find any valid rebuttals by Sitush in that thread before it was derailed. I note that at least one editor asked why the source was unreliable and did not get a reasonable response.

I also note that many of the sources discussed, including the one provided by Sitush himself in the discussion above, all are in general agreement with the text that is being cited in the article Phulkian sardars (Bhati Rao of Jaisalmar was a Rajput [forget the golden fort part for now], and this was the branch responsible for the Sidhu Jats). Since it does seem that Sitush is of a religious denomination that may have some conflict with the legitimate content that is supported by British sources, in no small part due to the history and evolution of British rule in India, I am asking if others can objectively contest whether the Imperial Gazetteer of India is unreliable.

It seems this is a good source used for many articles involving India, and provides us with some confidence that there is corroboration of claims from a non-ethnic source. Is this wrong? I note this source is also on wikisource. Surely the editor has erred? Also, it seems William Wilson Hunter (the visionary behind this compendium) isn't somebody whose life work we dismiss with blanket arguments like "Raj sources not reliable"? I have not seen anything from the opposition that provides strong counter claims to what is provided in the multitude of sources supporting the content he disputes.

Some articles I've found that this source is used in:

• Richard Burn (indologist)
• North≤western Provinces
• Great Famine of 1876-78
• Agra Province
• Imperial Service Troops
• Presidencies and provinces of British India
• Saiyid Khurd

(etc)

It really does seem this is a good quality source that the opposition does not like due to the content, and not the source.

edit: Hello everyone. It seems User:Sitush and User:Bishonen are ignoring Wikipedia ettiquette, where item (3) on What is Wikisource? article clearly states wikisource provides wp:RS, thus refuting alleged bias claimed by these editors. Can we please get some action on this matter? It seems Bishonen was involved previously as well, and as an administrator he is ignoring the established criteria of Wikisource. I also find it very curious that Bishonen called following protocol 'disruptive editing'. I will be posting htis on the administrator's noticeboard as wel. Thank you.

• Wikipedia:Wikisource identifies three categories of sources it holds. It says that, of the many things Wikisource contains, some are reliable sources. And if you head to the original full page of which that is just a summary, here, and from there to here, you'll see that Wikisource contains a lot of sources in various categories. So a source contained in Wikisource might be a (1), might be a (2) might be a (3), or might be something else which is not included in that brief summary. It does not say that everything held by Wikisource is a (3) and that everything held in Wikisource is a reliable source. Also, "reliable source" is not a yes/no option, and what are reliable sources for some things are not reliable for others - they need to be individually assessed in the context in which they are to be used. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, well, nothing stated in that source is disputed by the others in the previous RSN discussion. The source originally used by User:Sitush (given here) to argue that the original content was invalid (on the basis of "Raj source"), was self-contradicting because the "non-Raj" source said the same things as the sources used previously (which are now also supported by the s:Imperial Gazetteer of India, which was not used in the prior discussion).

I also find it curious that User:Bishonen attacked my english here, when he deemed the previous editor's concerns over Sitush's ethnicity as a personal attack even though it seemed more about conflicts of interest.

Such a conflict is apparent here, where User:Sitush and User:Bishonen claim the sources are not reliable, yet have been supported by a multitude of references.

User:SageRad suggested that criticising others' English comprehension was a personal attack, and the previous editor was banned as a result. As an administrator who was intimately involved in the previous situation, User:Bishonen should know better than to use the same tactics as the previous editor, especially when others deemed it as a personal attack (I do not, but a violation is a violation).

Is this not a double standard, where the perpetrators are now behaving in the same manner as their previous opposition? Sitush wastes no time attacking other authors, and I have yet to see any body of work that he has produced that validates his stance. He seemingly disregards any source that is British, even though for this specific tribe (Phulkian), the most reliable of sources would be British (given their alliance as early as 1803&endash;predating the cis-Sutlej states by two years)

I think what you need to decide is whether you want to use this noticeboard to try to get a consensus on the reliability of this source for the context in which you want to use it, or whether you want to use it to attack two other editors. The former is what this board is for. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:27, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello User:Boing! said Zebedee, thank you for engaging.

I disagree that I am attacking anyone. I think if anyone is being attacked, it was User:Bishonen attacking my english comprehension (as the other editor did towards Sitush, resulting in him being banned) instead of demonstrating the insufficiency of the source.

• Now I will get back on point regarding reliability of the sources.

It is simple, really. One day, User:Sitush decided to delete legitimate content using "Raj sources unreliable" (a recurring theme if you inspect his edit history). Someone obviously took offense to that, as it is an attack on the reliability of the documentation of their family history.

As stated above, User:Sitush was originally challenged on this point (re: what made the cited content unreliable) by User:SageRad, and he did not muster an acceptable response, which presumably frustrated the (now banned) editor into asking about his english comprehension.

I think it is being charitable to say that Sitush's response to User:SageRad was arrogant, as it attacked prominent authors (among them James Mill, who fathered one of the greatest liberal philosophers of our time John Stuart Mill), but never answered the original question about what made the content of the source insufficient.

• Was the (now banned) editor's response arrogant, as well? Sure, but it seems they correctly point out that the source Sitush provided to demonstrate the (removed) source's purported unreliability actually contradicted his point, as it contained support for the content that he removed

I find it hard to believe that the British would sacrifice the high quality of s:The Imperial Gazetteer of India (evidenced by its archival as a wikisource) by exercising bias (and thus being "unreliable") on this specific matter, especially after reading the source User:Sitush provides as evidence for the unreliability.

Secondly, I want to say, as the previous (now banned) editor also did, that this entire fiasco does feel like an embodiment of the history cited in s:The Imperial Gazetteer of India is on display here. Simply put, there were a select group of people who were fortunate enough to be allied with the British:

But the British Government, established at Delhi since 1803,

intervened with an offer of protection to all the CIS-SUTLEJ STATES;
and Dhanna Singh gladly availed himself of the promised aid, being

one of the first chieftains to accept British protection and control.

To suggest that the Phulkian sardars' alliance with the British did not result in the majority of their history also being told by the British isn't reasonable. This alliance resulted in the Phulkians fighting Muslims, Hindus, and even Sikhs! (see below)

This clan did not like Maharaja Ranjit Singh (an alleged Sikh), and were suspicious of his plans after his friendliness with Muslims (whose history of griefing Gurus was still fresh at that time).

Thus, it is not a personal attack to show concern for removed content that is rigorously and multiply-sourced when the opposing editors are (likely) of faiths who are still sensitive about the events that occurred during the times documented by the s:The Imperial Gazetteer of India.

Lastly, and at the risk of belabouring the main point: the content unjustifiably removed by Sitush has multiple sources (the most recent of which is a wikisource).

After analysing the source provided by Sitush provided in the previous RSN, it is difficult to fathom that multiple "Raj sources" are all incorrect on this matter when they are consistent with what he originally provided.

In light of this, how can a reasonable person not infer the editing behaviour surrounding this content as a "Sitush knows [the] best [legitimate sources]" attitude? I feel I have taken a measured response that addresses the faulty criticism levelled by Sitush against s:The Imperial Gazzetteer of India.

This is not an attack on Sitush or Bishonen. Rather, it is an assessment of former & latter's behaviour on the earlier and current RSN respectively.

This response is simple Baconian induction of what they've provided.

I believe what was added originally was impartial and stuck to reliable sources, which are only disputed by those of religious denominations that were at conflict with the British (and consequently, the Phulkians) at the time.

I felt that what was added yesterday only emphasised the correctness of the content originally removed by Sitush and Bishonen approximately three months ago. Thank you for your time— Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.76.118.151 (talk) 16:36, January 22, 2017

References

• In general 'historical' sources are unreliable in some areas due to the changing culture, further research, distance and time from events giving a more accurate and broader view, classified documents may have been released etc etc. For historical India, most contemporary sources have been superseded by newer ones. A historical source may be accurate for the opinion at the time, but not necessarily for facts (in fact more than likely to be not, given the historic bias in most publications). This is why RSN requires three things: Article, reference, content supported by reference. Please provide these three with a short explanation of why you think the source is reliable for the content. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• The OP has been blocked for three months. - Sitush (talk) 11:26, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• They've been using a number of IPs, only one of which is blocked as a proxy. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:00, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello User:Only in death. I believe all three have been provided above, and while I respect your decision to not read it all (for whatever reason), I can only do so much I'm essentially repeating the above..

• Article: Phulkian sardars
• Reference: s:The Imperial Gazzetteer of India
• Content supported by references, using the article modified by Sitush on December 2015 (commentary: if it was so "unreliable", why did Sitush not remove it all in December 2015, instead of inexplicably deleting it entirely in September 2016 when someone added a source?) :

1. Rawal Jaisal's descendents were of Sikh origin, and were Sidhu Brars: Here are four separate sources (note, again, s:The Imperial Gazetteer of India is a wikisource).

I feel it is completely reasonable to hold User:Sitush and User:Bishonen accountable for their deliberate misinformation. I have shown four separate sources supporting the claims that Sitush left alone after his massive December 2015 edit, which he inexplicably deleted entirely in September 2015 after a single source was provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.109.239.64 (talk • contribs)

Accusing User:Sitush and User:Bishonen of deliberate misinformation is another personal attack, and I have already warned you about that. So you are now blocked, and you will be blocked for longer should you repeat it when your short block expires. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:41, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

References

• I would be highly unlikely to trust those sources for statements of fact about geneology, descent, or any other ethnic/race/caste/dynastic related facts - given the time period and biases (cultural as well as literal). Personally I would also exclude the information if they were the only sources available and look for better more modern ones to replace it with. If none are found, I would think a bit harder about if this material is worth including at all. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:26, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

• Again, it is your job to provide EVIDENCE that these claims are wrong. You clearly ignored the part above that clearly states that the family/genealogy in question would likely only be documented by a "raj source" given the alliance made. I've provided four solid sources that you, like Sitush and Bishonen, have claimed are biased without any basis.

• Also want to add the fact that Sitush made the reversion no less than a minute after the revision was made, which I believe was insufficient time for him to process and analyse the sources rigorously. Even for the most initiated scholars on this matter, it would take them longer than a minute to interpret the claims before reverting. This further suggests that User:Sitush had no interest in doing that, as again it does not fit his narrative. I've now seen him refuse to participate in this discussion and use an abusive administrator User:Bishonen to avoid accountability for his actions.

Regarding User:Only in death's "support" for Sitush (if one wants to interpret it as that), I've answered this time and time again and it continues to be ignored due to the inconvenience. this "tribe" was allied with the "Raj" as early as the late 1700s, thereby making the documentation and discussion of their history almost exclusively Raj. The continued ignorance around this fact is astounding (as is User:Bishonen's personal attack that got the previous editor banned, and yet he goes unpunished [arguably "lifted" the idea from the original opposing editor]).