Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Is Designers & Dragons a RS for: (a) games and game companies, (b) BLPs?

Recently the question arose as to whether or not Designers & Dragons [1], a book on fantasy role-play games, is a WP:RS for (a) games and game companies, (b) WP:BLPs.

• Publisher: The book's publisher is Evil Hat, a fantasy game and t-shirt company located somewhere in the United States (no physical address is given on its website and I was unable to locate it via a reverse EIN search either). [2]
• Author: The book's author is Shannon Applecline. A bio purporting to be that of Applecline is here: [3].
• Reception: The book has been cited in about two-dozen master's degree theses and undergraduate term papers. [4] A check of JSTOR and Google News finds no scholarly journals or mainstream media which have reviewed it. It is cited once each in Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons from Bloomsbury and Dragons in the Stacks: A Teen Librarian's GUide to Tabletop Role-Playing from ABC-CLIO.

Is this source RS for (a) games and game companies, (b) BLPs? Chetsford (talk) 01:03, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

---

• Undecided on "A", No on "B" - I'm undecided leaning towards "RS" for games and game companies. However, I don't believe this could surmount the high threshold required to source a BLP. Neither the publisher nor author have any non-fiction credits other than this book and the author has no known educational credentials, or wider journalistic / academic reputation, that would qualify him to conduct original historical or biographical research. I have been unable to find any physical presence for the publisher by which it could be held legally responsible for what it publishes, as it appears not to disclose its physical address and even a reverse EIN search turns up blank. With the exception of undergraduate papers and master theses (which are not, themselves, RS) instances of the book being cited by reliable sources are light and there's no examples of it being used to cite a biographical statement in a RS (only product descriptions). Chetsford (talk) 01:03, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Given the lack of information on the publisher, and low profile of the author, I would say the book is not a reliable source, period. - Donald Albury 02:25, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I agree with Donald Albury, for the reasons stated. Not reliable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:54, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
      • Being published by a game company I would suspect it fails the editorial control/reputation for fact checking and accuracy criteria. On the other hand several volumes have been published so that is enough to establish a reputation. On yet another hand, I see no evidence of other reliable sources making use of it, which is really the only proxy we have for its reputation and acceptance. Based on that I do not think it could be considered a reliable source for anything until we can get a better handle on its editorial control and fact checking. Jbh ^Talk 05:44, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
        • Designers & Dragons is cited by many/all of the authoritative scholarly sources in the field (as WP:SECONDARY reminds us to check whether "the source has entered mainstream academic discourse"). Most recently, Designers & Dragons is cited extensively and with evident approbation in Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations, the new academic text, published by Routledge, which for now is the leading text in the field. I can produce earlier citations of Designers & Dragons, but SCHOLARSHIP seems to be easily met by its role in unquestionably reliable sources, and SCHOKARSHIP is, as I understand it, the "gold standard for both BIO and CORP sources. Newimpartial (talk) 11:16, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
          • What you say appears to be incorrect. It is listed in several chapter's bibliographies and as 'Further reading' but I see nothing directly cited to the work. Without that it is impossible to know what it was used for. So, yes, it was consulted but I see no indication in that work that it was used for historical information about gaming companies which is the matter at hand here.
            This paper used it for some historical information on D&D, TSR. Jbh ^Talk 12:52, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
            • The above statement appears to be misleading. The Routledge text employs chapter bibliographies rather than individual citations, based on its intended use in universities. Most of the chapter references are either primary sources or academic/theoretical sources. The repeated references to Designers & Dragons in the bibliographies give it pride of place as a secondary source in the field, as having "entered mainstream scholarly discourse". Newimpartial (talk) 13:15, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
              • That is an … erm … interesting … source analysis. I will however disagree. We can not infer anything other than several authors looked at the work. In particular there is no indication that the work was used for the history of game companies, which is what we are examining it for here, or is any way considered generally authoritative purpose by the academic community.
                My concern is that the publisher has no history of academic, or even non-fiction, publishing. Therefore I do not accept, without evidence, that the editorial standards they have for publishing games are adequate, particularly in terms of fact checking and accuracy, for an authoritative "academic" work.
                I just looked at the Amazon free sample of the work and it is no more than a narrative history. I see no citations for facts nor any indications that it is reliable beyond a single person's observations and musings. It is effectively an oral history – a good work but essentially a primary source. Jbh ^Talk 17:34, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
• Yes it is for A and B - and a note that the user who opposed has been trying to argue for mass deletion of pages that rely on it as a reliable source. Simonm223 (talk) 11:28, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Given it is published by a games company, I would say no. There are issues if primary source and even SPS here. OK maybe they might be OK for historical information, about people or products that have no connection to the company. But outside that I would say they are not interdependent enough to be an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 11:37, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Agreed that each edition of Designers & Dragons is not RS for the publisher at the time, which is the one issue of independence. Also agreed that its relevance is for historical/factual information, not really for analysis.Newimpartial (talk) 11:49, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• I believe it meets all three criteria. To clarify on the part of the publisher, there have been two editions of the book, published by two separate game publishers who I believe are fully independent from each other and are headquartered in different countries. The first edition of the book was published as a single volume in 2011 by British game company Mongoose Publishing. The second edition was greatly expanded and published in 2014 in four volumes by US game company Evil Hat Productions. The first edition consists of roughly 50-60 chapters, with each chapter consisting of a history of one game company that was known for producing role-playing games, including discussing the people who have been a part of that company, and games that the company is known for. The text is written as partial oral history and partial commentary on decisions made by the companies. The second edition expands on the information in the first edition by adding more than 20 additional chapters on other companies, and expanding on the information featured in most of the chapters from the first edition; most of the text is reproduced identically from the first edition. Shannon Appelcline himself has been a game designer/writer, and he currently runs RPGnet and publishes articles there - most of the information from the first edition of Designers & Dragons was and still is on RPGnet, written for fans of the website before Mongoose agreed to publish it as a book. I would say his design experience and research qualifies him as an expert in the field. The credits of the book list a few dozen industry professionals that he consulted for information to write the book with. Important individuals in the field are discussed in detail in the book, including in some cases talking somewhat about their earlier lives and schooling, personal lives, and careers before and after getting into the gaming field. BOZ (talk) 13:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Appelcline does not cite his sources inline in the text, but at the end of the Mongoose edition, he provides a bibliography of sources "built from thousands of primary sources including interviews, design notes, reviews, news articles, press releases, catalogues, forum postings and other non-fiction articles. It was also built with the assistance of hundreds of readers, fact-checkers and scanners." He lists over 30 magazines and similar publications ("a solid collection of RPG magazines dating back through the ‘80s and ’90, before the age of the internet made it easy for publishers to get information out to fans"), more than a dozen non-fiction books about the industry ("Any number of RPG books was consulted, primarily for insight into that game or its publisher. The following non-fiction sources were also used. Secondary sources like the Role-Playing Bibles tended to be used for date confirmation and references to primary sources, not for analysis.") several web resources ("The web proved an invaluable resource, particularly for companies in existence from the late ‘90s onward [and] a few of the web sites that I visited multiple times over the course of the project") and he lists several dozen fact checkers, most of whom worked for one or more of the companies he wrote about ("Whenever I finished an article, I tried to get one or more people associated with the company in question to comment on it. In one or two cases where I did not have sufficient company feedback, I got some help from fans as well. These people helped to make this book considerably more accurate and informative thanks to both corrections and insight generously given. Some were kind enough to comment on multiple editions of these articles over the years."). BOZ (talk) 18:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Which means his assertions are untraceable and uncheckable. The reliability of the source then comes down to, in my opinion, the reputation of the publisher, which for reasons I have previously mentioned, is inadequate. The deficiencies of documentation and publisher could be offset if the author had a reputation for, or training in historiography. He does not.

There is no doubt the author put great time and effort into his work but, for the reasons I have stated, I do not believe it meets the Wikipedia's standards to be considered a reliable source for company histories or BLP. Jbh ^Talk 19:03, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• Please see instructions at the top. What article and what material is this being used to reference? Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:35, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi Only in death does duty end, sorry. It's used quite extensively in BLPs so I can't provide an exhaustive list, however, here are a few examples:

• M. Alexander Jurkat - used to cite entire article including professional licenses (attorney), bankruptcy, inspirations / favorite things, and employment history [5]
• John Harshman - used to cite educational credentials and place of residence [6]
• Fred Hicks - used to cite the entire article, including the BLP's employment history, employment status, favorite things, friendships, and inspirations. [7]
• Andria Hayday - used to cite date the BLP's employer terminated them [8]
• Jack Herman - used to cite most of article, including the BLP's legal disputes and details of his business contracts with other people [9]
• Shane Lacy Hensley - used to cite most of article, including place of birth, childhood hobbies, and detailed employment history
• Dale Henson - used to cite entire article [10]

Chetsford (talk) 16:36, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• Not reliable for company histories nor for BLP per my arguments above. The publisher is not an established publisher of non-fiction works and therefore can not be assumed to have adequate editorial controls for fact checking and accuracy. What I have seen of the work (Amazon sample) it is written as an oral history and provides no backstop for facts presented beyond the assertion of its author. Jbh ^Talk 17:45, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
• Reliable for both Each of the four volumes provides a Bibliography citing the sources used. Many of the sources are, in turn, other publications such as magazines. There is also a fifth volume entitled "Designers & Dragons The Platinum Appendix" that also lists all the references used. For me, the books meet the criteria of a reliable source. The books have been published and are available to purchase in hard copy form, and they're available and stocked in book stores. In addition, the author is identified and the publisher identified. The books have been cited in academic sources and has been acknowledged in lots of other sources as a comprehensive history. For example, The Oxonian Review which has an editorial board.— Preceding unsigned comment added by HighKing (talk • contribs) 20:42, 19 August 2018 (UTC (UTC)
• Reliable for Games/Companies, unsure for BLP Designers and Dragons is extremely heavily used and referenced inside the RPG industry and generally hailed as the pre-eminent source for RPG histories. Shannon Appelcline is regarded as the premier historian of RPGs. The first edition was published by Mongoose Publishing and the second edition multi volume set was published by Evil Hat. Note that the author does not work for either of those companies, it was just the means of publishing. The work is generally referenced (not as specifically and heavily as Wikipedia but all sources are listed), but as for many communities the outside oversight is minor as it is for every smaller subject area. Most company information is heavily cross referenced to people who worked for those companies and additional third party sources about the companies. As for BLP I'd be a little more unsure but considering the number of people interviewed for the work and since Shannon used most major players in the industry, I'd say it's as reliable a source for BLPs of the prominent people in the RPG industry as any, but I'm open to an argument against it. Canterbury Tail talk 21:28, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Addition I would also like to add that since it covers all aspects of the tabletop RPG industry, it should NOT be used for notability determination, just fact checking and claim supports like any other text on an industry. The fact that a game is included in it doesn't make that game/company notable as it goes into details on a lot of obscure RPGs. Canterbury Tail talk 15:17, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Borderline, reliable for non-extraordinary claims about game companies but not for BLPs. Per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, the guideline governing the type of source it purports to be, since the publisher is not academic we ascertain reliability by citation patterns. As discussed above, it is cited only in sources that are themselves marginal—theses and tiny start-up journals—with the exception of the Routledge collection, which is edited by an associate professor and a PhD in Media Studies. In this, it's cited only a half-dozen times, albeit usually for substantial points of fact, and chapter 4, Tabletop Role-Playing Games, names it as one of two sources on which "the historical arc traced here draws in large measure upon". Balancing the fact that this is only one publication (and mostly one chapter) with the fact that precious little has been published in this field, I would cautiously say that this source seems reliable for unsurprising claims about its field, but that it hasn't been vetted widely or frequently enough to rely on it for BLP information. FourViolas (talk) 23:44, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
• Based on the description from HighKing, I'd have to say it counts as a RS for all purposes. That said, if there is an extraordinary claim I'd want a second independent source (though I feel that way about nearly all sources, some things like Nature or the WSJ I'd accept as a single source for all but the most outrageous of claims). Hobit (talk) 02:28, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Marginal at best, not suitable for BLPs or for establishing notability. The first edition was published by a game company, the second via Kickstarter. This appears to be an "in-universe", hobbyist work -- slightly better than self-published. Okay to use for non-controversial details once notability of the subjects is established via other means, but I don't see evidence of fact-checking or accuracy. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:34, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Reliable for both I'm not seeing any evidence that the source is erroneous. We have numerous BLPs for people like footballers and pornstars which are supported by weak sources and, in general, we commonly use books and newspapers as sources even though these often contain errors and bias. All I'm seeing here is a case of prejudice against the field. Andrew D. (talk) 07:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment it should be noted that the primary Wikiproject for RPGs, Wikiproject Dungeons & Dragons, has determined it to be a reliable secondary source for their purposes. Not sure what that says. Canterbury Tail talk 11:31, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it was added to the Resources list by User:JEB215 in 2015. The page was built by User:Drilnoth in 2008 using available sources at that time; Designers & Dragons and several other books were not written yet and so were added later. BOZ (talk) 11:52, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment on Notability A couple of editors have commented that Designers & Dragons may be an independent, reliable source for article content but not for WP:N. I believe this line of thinking reflects a misunderstanding about what WP Notability is: per policy, it is not supposed to be a measure of the importance of a topic, or of its encyclopaedicity (which is covered by WP:NOT), but simply a question of whether there are adequate sources to treat a topic; if there are not enough sources, it is not notable, but if there are enough sources, it is. (There may be some deletionists who disagree with this criterion, but the policy and guidelines are actually pretty clear). Of course, not all sources topics require their own articles, and some are best dealt with in sections of longer articles, but these are questions of encyclopaedicity rather than Notability.

So if Designers & Dragons is a reliable, independent source - which is certainly how the SCHOLARSHIP in the field treats it - then it is evidence of Notability based on the significance of the mention, same as any other RS. I do of course agree that no extraordinary claims should be based on the text in question, nor do I trust it's theoretical or analytical judgements very far, but it's factual accuracy is excellent. And the argument that boils down to "it covers so many games that none of them can be very important" simply runs contrary to what WP:N actually means; for example, the listing of very, very diagnoses in the DSM doesn't make any of them less Notable for WP. Newimpartial (talk) 15:45, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

which is certainly how the SCHOLARSHIP in the field treats it While I certainly understand the spirit of your perspective, I would dispute that there can be scholarship in a field that is not a scholarly field. This is not a comment on the value or import of role-playing games, however, I don't believe their design or manufacture is a scholarly field. Scholarship "within the field" might be a reasonable touchpoint for the academic disciplines, however, I don't see evidence that role-playing games is an academic discipline. This is not to say that any entertainment topic is un-scholarly. Film, for instance, is both a topic of entertainment and a topic of scholarship (the latter evidenced through the presence of indexed journals about film, a large number of university professorships studying film, and a general recognition of the viability of the field of film studies). However, I appreciate we may have to agree to disagree. Chetsford (talk) 15:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Is that why you didn't include the new Routledge text in your "reception" section of the RSN notice: because of your OR decision that it was not in a scholarly field? You should inform Routledge, then, and you might want to tell the publishers of the game studies journals, as well. Newimpartial (talk)

the publishers of the game studies journals I'm not familiar with any scholarly journals about RPGs. This may be a personal failure on my part; could you cite some so I could better acquaint myself and consider modifying my !vote appropriately? Chetsford (talk) 16:40, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I am not aware of any journals that are confined to RPGs, but the RPG form is certainly discussed within the burgeoning scholarship on game studies (or Ludology) in general. Newimpartial (talk) 16:58, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Maybe you could share some of those journals then? Chetsford (talk) 17:10, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

The obvious specialty journal for you to start with would be http://analoggamestudies.org . Newimpartial (talk) 17:23, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I've checked SCOPUS and EBSCO and it doesn't appear to be indexed. Chetsford (talk) 17:29, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

That would explain why it didn't show up in the Google Scholar results. :) Newimpartial (talk) 18:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

So this is not an indexed journal? To my original query of the latter evidenced through the presence of indexed journals did you have any examples of indexed journals? The question as to whether roleplaying games is an academic field comes down to several factors listed above, including are there scholarly journals? If there are, I'm hoping you can help us identify them. Keeping in mind that simply starting a website and calling it "journal" does not make it a scholarly journal in the spirit of WP:NJOURNAL. Chetsford (talk) 19:17, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Please don't move goalposts. I was answering your direct question, "I'm not familiar with any scholarly journals about RPGs. This may be a personal failure on my part; could you cite some...?" I was not answering your oblique reference to indexed film journals, nor was I offering an opinion on the specifics of any journal's editorial process. (I trust that WP editors can read websites and make their own decisions about editorial oversight.) RPGs are included in the overall field or ludology, specifically in the less lucrative part of that field dealing with "analog games". I have no interest in proceeding any further down this rabbit hole, none of which explains your non-inclusion of the Routledge text in your filing here at RSN. Newimpartial (talk) 19:33, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Is roleplay gaming an academic discipline? Sorry, I assumed when I said "scholarly journals" it was evident, vis a vis my previous comment the latter evidenced through the presence of indexed journals, what it was I was looking for (i.e. not just any publication or website including the word "journal" in their name but scholarly journals). If I expressed myself imperfectly, I apologize. In any case, Analog Game Studies would objectively not meet our WP:NJOURNAL criteria since we have set-forth that "the only reasonably accurate way of finding citations to journals are via bibliographic databases and citation indices". Therefore, IMO, on the basis of there being no scholarly journals on role-playing games, no or very few academics at accredited universities researching roleplaying games, no learned society dedicated to the topic of roleplaying games, and roleplaying games are not listed in the Classification of Instructional Programs [11] or the Joint Academic Coding System [12] I would maintain the position that roleplaying games are not an academic discipline. I appreciate we may have to agree to disagree. Chetsford (talk) 19:57, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Regarding BLP sourcing: I should have made it clearer above, but when Appelcline lists his "fact-checkers", these were not just random people who happened to work at the company. Many of the people written about in the book – not anywhere near all, but many – were among the 120-or-so fact-checkers listed. My understanding of how the material for the book came to be is that Appelcline would write an article about one company and the games and people associated with it by reading interviews, news articles, non-fiction books about the industry, magazine articles, websites, etc, and compile the information together based on that, and send the article to one or more people who were significant to that company in some way for feedback and to act as a fact-checker. Let's say he were writing about "Happy Fun Time Games" which was started by John Smith; he would send the article to Smith and I imagine he might get a response something like: "I actually started HFTG in my basement in 1985 while I was at Blah University in Colorado with my friend Jim Johnson who was working as a lawyer in Tennessee at the time. He left the company in 1994 to go back to BlahBlah Law school, so I hired Robert Thompson to take his place after he was let go from Goofy Games, and he left in 2002 to go into photography in Georgia. Johnson sued us and won for licensing rights in 2003. I took time off from the company from 2004-2006 to play golf, and then I came back. Other than that, it looks like you got everything right, so great work!" He would then publish the article online, and after a while there were a few dozen such articles online, so Mongoose agreed to publish these articles as a book, and the editor in the credits is Charlotte Law, and that is how Designers & Dragons came to be. The question then is, since we have people approving of what was written about them and about people they know, does that make the source more or less reliable? I suppose some people will argue that no one knows you and your friends better than yourself, while other people will say that giving input that way just gives people the opportunity to lie about themselves and people they know, so me asking this may or may not put us closer to a consensus. BOZ (talk) 14:48, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

  This thread is likely to be closed in the near future, and it may be difficult to determine the consensus here as so many differing opinions have been offerred. Wikipedia policy is determined partly by consensus discussion of what should and should not happen, and partly by practice of what does happen. Chetsford has put a lot of effort into arguing that while Designers & Dragons could possibly be used as a reliable source under the right circumstances, that a subject's inclusion in this book should not be taken as an indicator of notability, and he even tried for some reason to have it documented as such and as one of the perennial source discussions despite this being the first and only discussion of the source on a noticeboard that I am aware of. So as far as documenting practice, this noticeboard discussion came out of Chetsford nominating almost 20 tabletop gaming-related (mostly RPG, but not all) articles for AFD. Of those, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fantasy Imperium, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zen and the Art of Mayhem, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Double Cross (role-playing game) have been closed as delete, and as a few similar articles are also likely to be – but please note that none of them were sourced to Designers & Dragons (or sourced at all, for that matter). Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Doctor Who Roleplaying Game and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angus Abranson were both sourced to Designers & Dragons, and both were closed as Keep. Five more pending AFDs are also on articles sourced to Designers & Dragons, and from a look at each of them it seems likely to me at this point that they will all close as either Keep or Merge. Merge is not Delete, and does allow for some of the sourced content to be moved to another article. Since policy on Wikipedia reflects practice in part, I am urging whoever closes this discussion to not explicitly rule that Designers & Dragons does not contribute to notability. If you cannot find that it in fact does contribute to notability, then please leave it as an open question for now. BOZ (talk) 14:06, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the above that there is no consensus it is RS, nor is there a consensus it is not insofar as BLPs are concerned. I would say there is probably a consensus it is RS for non-biographical facts. Just in point of clarification of my nominations regarding RPGs, I've nominated 19, of which 4 have been deleted, 4 kept, 2 merged, and 9 are either open or have had to be relisted. I'm not sure which involved Designers & Dragons. Chetsford (talk) 02:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I explained here already regarding which of your AFDs involved Designers & Dragons as a source, but if my explanation was not clear – three were closed as Keep, one as Merge, and three remain to be closed but are unlikely to be closed as delete unless there is a last-minute push in that direction. That is not enough evidence on its own to say that the book definitely does contribute to notability, but my point here is that it does show some practice-based evidence that it may contribute to notability, thus my request to the closer that the book should not be ruled as clearly a non-contributor to notability, and thus leaving that an open question at worst. The majority of your recent game-related AFDs do not involve this source, so I was not discussing them here, as this discussion is about just one source, and not about your success rate which you keep touting as some important metric. But since you brought it up, on your chart, lets just say that four of the seven "red" unsuccessful nomination results on the current version of the chart involved Designers & Dragons as a source, while none of the "green" successful nomination results involved said book as a source. So, let's just say that your success rate when it comes to articles sourced by this book is… underwhelming at best. BOZ (talk) 03:17, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it appears we agree that there is a consensus it's fine for articles about games and game companies and no consensus as to whether it is or is not RS for BLPs. Since the Keep/Delete decision in each AfD was not based solely on the status of Designers & Dragons but rather on an holistic evaluation of all the sources in the article, as well as arguments for the subject's inherent notability on the basis of various awards, this centralized discussion in which Designers & Dragons is the exclusive subject of analysis is probably a better judge of the community's opinion. In any case, I think discussions at RSN usually just fade away 9 times out of 10 rather than being formally closed. Best - Chetsford (talk) 03:34, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Just adding that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hillfolk was closed as Keep as well, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cthulhu Britannica as merge. The three remaining AFDs involving Designers & Dragons as a source have been relisted, and as noted above, at this time look more likely to be Keep or Merge rather than delete. BOZ (talk) 11:32, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

  Just adding for the record that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cubicle 7 was closed as No consensus (delete 3; keep 10). BOZ (talk) 11:41, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

  Likewise, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dominic McDowall-Thomas was closed as no consensus. The last AFD in question was relisted for a second time earlier this week, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D6 Fantasy, with most respondents split between either Keep or Merge/redirect, and only the nominator and one other arguing to delete. So, to reiterate, with all the AFD results noted above going "merge" at worst, and most as keep or no consensus (aka, default keep), I will again dispute the notion that the community should consider Designers & Dragons to be not a RS or contribute to notability. It was not the only source in question on those articles, so it alone does not determine notability, but the failure to get a single delete result among the 7 articles that used this source tell me that the community does consider it enough of a RS that contributes to notability (along with other sources) that consensus could not be found to delete any of those 7 articles. BOZ (talk) 11:47, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• Most certainly reliable. No idea why this is not considered a reliable source. It is every bit as reliable as any other source compiled by a specialist historian of a subject. The fact its publisher is a games company is neither here nor there. Inclusion in it does not make a game, product, company or individual inherently notable, of course, but as a source for facts on the tabletop RPG industry it is certainly a reliable source. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:18, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Appears Reliable. I found this source popping up in some scholarly ghits and I've found no evidence of negative claims against it, so, at least for now, I have no reason to doubt its general reliability. Certainly it's an appropriate source for WP:GNG. Praemonitus (talk) 21:22, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
• Yes for A and B. First referring to Evil Hat as "T-shirt company" is akin to calling Microsoft a "company that sells mice and keyboards". It is an attempt to weaken the status of a publisher. No one that has any familiarity with Evil Hat would call them a T-Shirt company. They sell books and games and happen to have branded t-shirts. Secondly, the scholarship of these books (there are now five) rests in the hands of the author, Shannon Appelcline who is also the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and historian for DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. While he has no page himself he is mentioned in over 900 Wikipedia pages. Third. The book was originally published by Mongoose Publishing and is based on his articles at RPGNet. Web Warlock (talk) 15:11, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
• Yes for both, with the caveat that it's a book about the history of RPGs, not about people's biographies outside RPGs. It's a respected series in multiple volumes. It's a genre piece, but so is, say, a book on history of Physics. BOZ seems to know quite a bit about it. --GRuban (talk) 15:45, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
• Closure requested at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 05:03, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the discussion is closed. (I am adding this because discussions frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.)

  Cunard (talk) 05:03, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Prelim tally

Since the above discussion is becoming more detailed than anticipated, for ease of overview (but not to replace or substitute for the above discussion as per WP:NOTAVOTE), I have created the following summary table of the position of individual editors as a GF attempt to represent an interpretation of their opinions. Please feel free to edit or modify it directly if I have misrepresented you (edit - or remove yourself entirely if you do not want your opinion presented in summary format or to add yourself if you're not represented but contributed above). Chetsford (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Editor	Reliable for Games or Game Companies?	Reliable for BLPs?
Chetsford	Maybe	No
Jbhunley	No	No
Cullen328	No	No
Donald Albury	No	No
BOZ	Yes	Yes
Simonm223	Yes (non-extraordinary claims)	Yes
Newimpartial	Yes	Yes
HighKing	Yes	Yes
Slatersteven	No (except on rare occasions)	No (except on rare occasions)
Canterbury Tail	Yes (facts but not notability)	Maybe
FourViolas	Yes (non-extraordinary claims)	No
Hobit	Yes	Yes
K.e.coffman	Maybe (facts but not notability)	No
Andrew Davidson	Yes	Yes
Necrothesp	Yes	Yes
Reyk	Maybe (non-controversial facts, but not notability)	No
Praemonitus	Yes	Yes
Webwarlock	Yes	Yes
GRuban	Yes	Yes

Thanks - you might want to put a "ping" next to each of their names or something to give them a chance to make sure they agree with your interpretation. BOZ (talk) 18:54, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Excellent point - done. Chetsford (talk) 18:57, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

That's fine but I should note that I agree with FourViolas' qualification that it be used mostly for non-extraordinary claims. Simonm223 (talk) 12:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I did in fact say no, I just accepted there might be rare occasions when it might have not been "not RS". But these do not outweigh my overall concerns about its neutrality and independence.Slatersteven (talk) 08:08, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Slatersteven - I apologize and have amended accordingly. If I've still got it wrong, please feel free to edit it as you see fit. Sorry again. Chetsford (talk) 14:24, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Krikey! Unreliable for anything, and hell no for BLPs. btw writing something about a company and sending it to a company founder, and taking his or her recollections as a "fact check" is about as amateur hour as it gets; doing that is called "PR' not "journalism" much less scholarly research. I imagine there will be decent scholarship done on this stuff one day. Jytdog (talk) 09:30, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Is Evolve Politics an unreliable/unsuitable source?

Several editors have removed references by Evolve Politics [13] on pages such as Jeremy Corbyn and Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party claiming that it is an unreliable source such as here. I regard this as groundless as the site is a member of IMPRESS, a UK government approved press regulator. I would be interested to hear opinions as to whether it is or is not an admissible as a source in these contexts. G-13114 (talk) 09:33, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Being a member of IMPRESS is probably by itself an indication of non-reliability (just by looking at the list of publications that are members). The more notable regulator in the UK is Independent Press Standards Organisation - however being regulated by a UK press regulator is not an indication of reliability - The Sun, and Daily Mail are cases in point.Icewhiz (talk) 09:52, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

But those publications have multiple IPSO rulings against them, the Daily Mail especially so [14]. The fact that EP have submitted themselves to an independent arbiter with powers to sanction them for any inaccuracies shows that they take journalism seriously. G-13114 (talk) 10:04, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

It shows evolvepolitics.com is purporting to be a newspaper (as opposed to a partisan blog which is what it appears to be from looking at the site and the editorial process) - which is a fairly easy claim. as for amount of complaints, nobody reads evolvepolitics - per Alexa's ranking it is ranked 213,498 globally and 8,477 in the UK. the Daily Mail, Alexa's ranking in contrast is 140 globally and 55 in the UK (and this is in additional to their print circulation, which evolvepolitics.com does not have). So with a nearly non-existent (and very partisan) readership, it is not surprising there aren't any complaints (or are there? didn't really check). It is easy to say evolvepolitics.com does not have much of a reputation (positive of negative) at all.Icewhiz (talk) 10:52, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Tend to agree, what we need is to see what their reputation is As far as I can tell no worse then most other press RS..Slatersteven (talk) 09:53, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Trouble is, as they're only three years old, they're probably too young to have gained much of a reputation either way. G-13114 (talk) 10:04, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

True, which means we have no valid reason to reject them.Slatersteven (talk) 10:06, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Agreed - Evolve Politics looks like a WP:RS to me based on the evidence presented in this thread. Simonm223 (talk) 13:39, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

We don't presume sources are reliable - the assumption is the obverse - we require a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy per WP:RS - this website doesn't have such a reputation.Icewhiz (talk) 13:48, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Being member of IMPRESS is not a reason to consider that source is reliable also there is a issue of WP:UNDUE --Shrike (talk) 14:10, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

But on the other hand there's also the issue of WP:BIASED. G-13114 (talk) 13:23, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Also I didn't found any proof of editorial control it seems too as every author is independent its kind of WP:SPS platform --Shrike (talk) 14:14, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Not that much different from many newspapers or journals where writers have a degree of independence in what they write really. G-13114 (talk) 13:23, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Precisely. Worth noting that Evolve Politics provides money based on how many clicks an article gets, like The Canary. Lends itself to issues regarding tabloidisation, clickbait and sensationalism. (All of this & more is mentioned here). I would argue this would make it unsuitable on Wikipedia, especially in BLPs. --Bangalamania (talk) 19:54, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Both of which are symptoms of organisations which are forced to operate with very limited resources. So wikipedia can only use sources which are well resourced? Well that would certainly limit the bredth of opinion allowable to be expressed on wikipedia articles wouldn't it? The fact that both have voluntarily signed up to a press regulator indicates that they take accuracy in journalism seriously, and cannot be dismissed as 'fake news' sites even if they sometimes make mistakes. G-13114 (talk) 19:12, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree. On the current frontpage, apart from the promoted ads that look like articles (typical of clickbait and fake news sites), all but 4 of the dozens of articles are by one author, Tom D Rogers, whose Twitter account describes him as the "Senior editor" but who has no other profile that I could see on the web apart from a couple of articles on the conspiracy website GlobalResearch.

Second, as it claims not to exercise editorial control over content, it is basically a platform for bloggers, of the same status as an SPS. I can't recall any other reliable source refering to Evolve as a source, which is a good sign of a RS, and a quick google search seems to confirm that. Here are what other sources say about it: Press Gazette: its founder, a university student, left to work in PR;[15] Press Gazette: Impress fined it for making a false claim;[16] Press Gazette: "Evolve writes its stories with an unashamedly left-wing bias" and "Left-wing news website Evolve Politics has joined press regulator Impress to silence critics who claimed it had been peddling fake news";[17] The Guardian: "run by just two people in Nottingham and Peterborough" and "Critics say [its business model] creates a strong incentive to exaggerate or even falsify stories, but Turner insisted the site’s editors were careful to fact-check contributions";[18] New Statesman: "fiercely partisan website" and The Canary's "payment method, also used by Evolve Politics – a slightly less sensational news site – is derided by some for creating a financial incentive to write “clickbait”"[19] and "hyper-partisan"[20]. The Sun, though itself not a RS, highlighted the fact that it quoted a 9/11 Truther as a chemical weapons expert.[21] So, all in all, I'd say no, not a reliable source. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Surely most of the objections you're raising here could be said about many other sources like the Spectator etc, e.g. partisan, and operating as a collection of writers. It's certainly true to say that it is a fairly low budget operation, with very limited resources. But then it that is a reason for disqualifying it then we are biasing our coverage in favour of outfits which have resources, and therefore likely to have a slanted POV. The fact that EP has voluntarily signed up to a press regulator indicates that they take accuracy in journalism seriously, and cannot be dismissed as 'fake news' even if they make some mistakes, which is probably inevitable when they are a low budget operation. G-13114 (talk) 19:09, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

As for the biased argument. Well in this context we could take on board what is said at WP:BIASED which is:

"Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject."

So in other words, in this context as the "mainstream" media is so overwhelmingly biased against Jeremy Corbyn and the left in general, and outlets like EP and The Canary are some of the few outlets which take a pro-Corbyn stance, we could argue that it is necessary to include their views in order to reliably present all of the viewpoints? Certainly it cannot be reasonably argued that a Corbynite viewpoint is a fringe point of view as the Labour Party under his leadership won 40% of the vote at last year's general election. It can however be argued that this vast swathe of pro-Corbyn opinion is not represented by the mainstream media, and in order to reliably represent the views of a large chunk of public opinion, we need to include outlets like EP.

We should also bear in mind WP:CONTEXTMATTERS which states:

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.

So in the the context of the particular claim being supported by EP which was disputed here I fail to see how this is an inaccurate source for the claim being made. It is a legitimate analysis of source material from a reputable polling company. So in this case what exactly is the objection to this particular claim being made apart from WP:IDONTLIKEIT? G-13114 (talk) 20:27, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

EDIT: I came back to see if anyone had put in any arguments against my points above, but nobody has. G-13114 (talk) 12:56, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Step 1 is to consider whether or not something is a reliable source. Step 2 is consider, in relation to NPOV (& BIASED, etc), whether or not to use a reliable source in a particular context. You've jumped to step 2 before an answer to step 1 has been determined. On reliability, if almost all of it is written by one person, who's also the 'editor', then self-published is a problem, as mentioned by others above. It looks like a blog (it even describes each piece as a "post") pretending to be a news source. On the specific point of a yougov poll: if it's of any importance, finding a proper source shouldn't be hard. EddieHugh (talk) 22:37, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

This poll and the comparison between 2015 and 2017 is of considerable importance in the present political environment. However, YouGov sometimes merely publish streams of data that are subsequently analysed, presented and published by the client. In this case the Campaign against Anti-Semitism, a pro-Israeli, anti-Corbyn political lobbying group, notorious for pushing As claims. Presenting data favourable to Corbyn in such a manner would undermine their raison d'être. Now normally this would be picked up by a mainstream organisation, but like many positive stories about AS and Corbyn (he is also a prolific signer of Early Day motions on anti-semitism even before he became leader) it hasn't. We are purely reliant on blogs such as Evolve Politics to inform us. So has anyone a practical suggestion other than endorsing Evolve Politics or similar blogs to solve this issue? (Andromedean (talk))

EddieHugh, unfortunately it is a problem as User:Andromedean has said, the mainstream media are overwhelmingly biased against Jeremy Corbyn and refuse to cover anything which might portray him in a positive light, left wing sites like Evolve are the only ones giving coverage to the other side of the story, so if we are not to include them as sources then it is more or less impossible for wikipedia to give impartial coverage to the issue. The fact that YouGov polls have found that rates of antisemitism among Labour supporters have fallen in the last few years is highly significant to the debate, and not to include it would skew the neutrality of the article. On your other point about being self published, the site says [22] that it has around 20 writers contributing to the site, so it certainly isn't a one man band, and as has been stated it is a member of a government approved press regulator IMPRESS, which should under any normal circumstances qualify it. G-13114 (talk) 12:48, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't supposed to "give impartial coverage" to any issue. It's supposed to give an impartial account of what reliable sources state. In an ideal world, these would be the same thing. But here we are in the real world. And the Wikipedia world: one of the five pillars begins with, "We strive for articles in an impartial tone that document and explain major points of view, giving due weight with respect to their prominence." And that's prominent in reliable sources. EddieHugh (talk) 14:12, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

But no-one has demonstrated the case that it is unreliable. As for your claim that it is a blog not a news site, the Press Gazette refers to it as a "Left-wing news site", and I think their opinion counts for more than yours. Also as people above have said, what matters is its reputation. Well in the cases where Evolve Politics has been mentioned by outside sources, [23][24][25] I can find nearly all of them describing it as "partisan" but none of them have made any reference to it being unreliable. So barring the subjective opinion of certain wikipedia editors, is there any outside reliable source which states that EP has a reputation for being an unreliable source? If not then I cannot see that a case has been made for it not being considered a RS. G-13114 (talk) 14:13, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

University of Chicago Press

• Boyer, John W. R. (2015). The University of Chicago: A History. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226242651.
• University of Chicago Law School (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

A number of editors have expressed concern over this source, published by the University of Chicago Press, cited as a reference for information added to University of Chicago Law School. The author, John Boyer, is six-term Dean of the College of the University of Chicago, a Distinguished Service Professor of History, and is a noted expert on the history of academic institutions; the book is based on 17 years of his own work and is also extensively footnoted and referenced. The information for which the source is used as a reference is basic details of the law school's history, facts such as "John D. Rockefeller financed the cost of the new building at $250,000, and its cornerstone was laid by President Theodore Roosevelt."

The argument against its use is essentially WP:SELFPUB - that a publisher associated with the University of Chicago cannot be considered independent of a law school affiliated with the same college, and also probably that its author, Dean of a separate school under the same banner, cannot be considered independent. Personally I believe that the Press should be considered editorially independent in general, and even if not then Boyer is certainly an expert on the subject to a degree that overrides self-publication.

But I'm not myself any kind of expert on source selection, so I'd appreciate some outside input. Thanks. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:16, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Reliable: author and publisher, have reputation for fact checking and accuracy, and are certainly not going to sacrifice it, here. It's not selfpub in the least. It is also "independent" of the subject (the subject is history, the author did not personally participate in history they are writing about, nor did the editors), but even if someone wanted to argue that, non-independent sources are allowed RS in articles. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:35, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Concur. Recognized expert, reputable press more than offset the fact that it's published by the university's own press.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:52, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree too. We consider most university presses (and University of Chicago Press would not be an exception) as reliable. We generally see them as independent from authors tenured at the same university (there might be an exception if the professor was also involved in the press in an extraordinary fashion - but that would be a very rare exception).Icewhiz (talk) 14:55, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Almost concur, this would pass the self published test, but I think there could be an issue with COI. If I were to write a history of the Slater family (but ended it the year before I was born) it would still not be independent of the subject. But (as I said) even taking that into account it passes all tests for being reliable.Slatersteven (talk) 14:58, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Just fine for for simple facts without attribution. Please don't use it for any kind of extraordinary claim as that would be badly sourced PROMO. If the content is about some controversy in which the school was involved, this source should be attributed. Jytdog (talk) 21:06, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Reliable, as used. In a source of this type, there might be smoothing over or omissions of rows, difficulties and scandals from recent decades (especially if they never became public), but actual facts given are no doubt accurate. Johnbod (talk) 17:02, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

sciencebasedmedicine.org

Is this an SPS for the purposes of WP:BLPSPS? Yes? No? Depends on the article and who wrote it? On one hand SBM has an editorial board, on the other hand SBM describes itself as a blog and says referencing is not alway required[26]. What about articles written by Gorski himself? Here is an example from the article Ben Swann where an SBM article written by Gorski is used as the only source for potentially controversial material about a living person "Swann has propagated conspiracy theories about the discredited view that vaccines can cause autism.

I have recently seen different editors say SBM is not an SPS[27], that it is not an "ordinary" SPS[28] and even an editor contradicting themselves[29][30][31]

Searching noticeboards turns up more controversies about use of SBM as a source[32] [33] [34] [35] [36] but I am not aware of any consensus on weather SBM is an SPS.

References

Tornado chaser (talk) 21:39, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog:@MPants at work:@JzG: Pinging editors whose diffs I cite. Tornado chaser (talk) 21:42, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh yeah. Definitely RS. Gorski and Novella are impeccably credentialed, they have recruited other published experts in their fields to write for it, it's possessed of an editorial staff, has a reputation for fact-checking and correcting errors, and is widely cite by other publications as reliable. It's a generally reliable source in the most general sense, not even just an expert blog. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:51, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Is it really "potentially controversial" when his videos about that exact conspiracy theory still exist online? --tronvillain (talk) 22:36, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Also, the relevant portion of WP:RS is probably "Content from a collaboratively created website may be acceptable if the content was authored by, and is credited to, credentialed members of the site's editorial staff." --tronvillain (talk) 22:55, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

SBM may meet the requirements of WP:RS, but does it count as self-published under the stricter requirements of WP:BLPSPS, which prohibits ALL use of SPS, even expert SPS, as sources for information about living people? Tornado chaser (talk) 23:28, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

It's an online magazine, with a full staff including editors and writers and an editorial board just like Time or Rolling Stone, so no. Just because the founders still frequently write for it doesn't make it self published, and even if you want to argue that their writings are, they're still inarguably qualified experts whose writings on the topic have been previously published, and thus still RSes for claims of fact. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:45, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• You should probably read Science-Based Medicine and the sources there, if you want to understand what it is.

Yes there are a few discussions there where altmed POV pushers come to a board and moan. They have never found consensus to reject it, in the way that it is widely used. The Greger thread for example, is one of several filed by Greger fans at several boards, and was finally worked through via the very well attended RfC at the Greger article which found SBM, used as it was used, just fine. The same thing goes on with Quackwatch.

By the way Tornado chaser, please read Talk:Vani_Hari/Archive_2#flu_shots for an example of that SYN problem I mentioned to you - that is entirely typical when people do what you tried to recommend at WT:BLP (as they should do). Please note the actual sourcing and content at Vani_Hari#Promotion_of_pseudoscience. This is a problem the community has already solved in practice many, many, many times.

This posting is frankly absurd, since as you know due to your participation there, we have been discussing a proposal to eventually post as an RfC to address BLPSPS. Jytdog (talk) 00:46, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Your proposal at the BLP talk page has been controversial, there is no guaranty any RfC will pass, and we must follow current policy until/unless an RfC to change it passes. Current policy prohibits the use of self-published sources as sources of information about living people, at least when the content sourced to the SPS is stated in wikipedia's voice. You have used the fact that SBM is an SPS as an argument for changing BLP[37][38], but reverted me when I tried to remove it at Ben Swann per BLPSPS, saying that it's "not a blog per se"[39], do you consider SBM an SPS or not? If SBM is not an SPS then it can't count as an example of a need to change policy, if it is an SPS, then why did you restore it at Ben Swann? Rather than making my post "absurd" the discussion at BLP is all the more reason to determine if SBM is an SPS or not, given that you have been using the fact that SBM is an SPS as an argument in that discussion.

As for the Greger article, the content cited to SBM there was ok because it was attributed to GorskiHall, not stated in wikipedia's voice, like it is at Ben Swann. Tornado chaser (talk) 02:10, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I know exactly how these sources are used. The source at Greger is Hall, not Gorski, btw. This is the living consensus of the community; the writing needs to catch up. That is what is under discussion at WT:BLP. There are people there (including you at some points diff, diff, diff, and i am now bored so will not find more)) saying that BLPSPS says that any use of not-by-the-subject SPS is not OK in with respect to a BLP. Jytdog (talk) 02:41, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

as to what it is, again read Science-Based Medicine. Jytdog (talk) 02:44, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

i have been describing the strange animal that SBM is. It is not "some blog"; it actually has peer review and a publishing process for some pieces. It has aspects of a blog so when people describe it as a SPS there is a "hook". It is widely recognized in the real world as a strong source for what it covers. I think it should be used that way in WP for what it covers; I recognize that with BLPSPS as it is, some people will demand it be used only with attribution or try to remove it altogether. Use with attribution is good enough for me; what I want to eliminate is the timewasting arguments where people say "no not-by-the-subject-SPS ever" which is a dead letter in the actual life of the editing community, when it comes to this sort of thing. Jytdog (talk) 02:51, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

by the way we have the same boring argument about Quackwatch to the extent that a box has been created about it -- SBM is used the same way:

-- Jytdog (talk) 03:04, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog:@MPants at work: I get that SBM is reliable in general, but we have higher standards for BLP than normal RS, my question is about whether SBM is an SPS or not, "It is not "some blog"; it actually has peer review and a publishing process for some pieces." "some pieces" what about the other pieces? How does one determine what SBM articles are self-published, and what ones go through the publishing process.

I do not interpret BLPSPS in its current form to prohibit some use of attributed third-party SPS in BLP articles, so when I said "no third-party SPS ever in BLP" I was referring to third party SPS used as sources of things stated in wikipedia's voice, but I see how that was less than clear. Tornado chaser (talk) 03:30, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Little of what you have written about this has made sense to me and I am not interested in engaging with you further. You will !vote on the RfC when it comes, as you will. Jytdog (talk) 03:40, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Because SBM is a generally reliable source, I would treat it exactly like any other generally reliable source for BLP claims. If it's a contentious claim that is disputed in other RSes, then it absolutely requires attribution, and must be weighed carefully. So for example, if they called Lee Smolin a crackpot for his work on Loop quantum gravity (I know it's outside their field, but it's my go-to example of a legitimate, academic fringe theory), I would not include that unless several other RSes also called him a crackpot, and even then, I would prefer one much more on point, and would even still absolutely attribute that claim. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• Fans of pseudoscience have always hated SBM. We have consistently found it to be RS, because it has an editorial board, fact checking, credentialled writers, and these writers soecialise in the field of critiquing pseudoscience. Its partly a matter of WP:BALANCE, offsettign uncritical sources about bullshit with reality-based and generally fully referenced critique. Note also that most SBM writers have their own separate non-RS blogs and the distinction between the writing in both sources is obvious.

Quackery fans also hate Quackwatch. Again, this has repeatedly been found to pass RS based in part on the fact that RS also consider it RS. It is cired as a resource by respected third parties. Obviously fans of homeopathy, acupuncture, reiki, chiropractic, antivax and the sundry other forms of health fraud will not rest until every reality-based critique is purged. Lets not be part of that. Guy (Help!) 07:25, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Most of the responses to this thread say that SBM meets RS, which I always thought it did, the question I posted here was is SBM, or some of its articles, self-published? This question is distinct from whether it is RS, and has not been clearly answered. Are SBM or some of its articles SPS, or do they all undergo a sufficient publishing process to call them non-SPS? Tornado chaser (talk) 17:14, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Whether it's an SPS or not, it doesn't include the claim that appears in the WP article Swann has propagated conspiracy theories about the discredited view that vaccines can cause autism The SBM article isn't even about Swann. It mentions him only once in passing Indeed, antivaccinationists seemed most displeased when the “CDC whistleblower” documents were released to the public by Carey and other bloggers because examination failed to find evidence of a coverup, no matter how much antivaccine-sympathetic journalists like Ben Swann tried to make them. You can plainly see these two claims are very different. --38.122.25.42 (talk) 20:02, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

This is a separate issue, and should be discussed at Talk:Ben Swann. Tornado chaser (talk) 20:15, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

IMO it does not count as self-published because there is an editorial board. Self-published means no independent review or scrutiny of content, basically, which is the problem with predatory journals and vanity presses. You can't "pay to play" on SBM, and posting even one false article without prompt correction or retraction would be a major deal. Guy (Help!) 09:31, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

So the articles written by Gorski himself still are not self published? Tornado chaser (talk) 13:25, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

No, any more than an article written by Fiona Godlee in the BMJ would be. Guy (Help!) 14:02, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Articles by him on his own Respectful Insolence would be an expert SPS, but those on SBM wouldn't. --tronvillain (talk) 14:24, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Sources for Islam

Are these two sources reliable for Islam-related information?

• IslamWeb
  • "In this site, there is a committee of specialists that is responsible for preparing, checking and approving the Fatwa. This committee comprises a group of licentiate graduates from the Islamic University, Al-Imaam Muhammad Bin Sa’oud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia, and graduates who studied Islamic sciences from scholars at Mosques and other Islamic educational institues in Yemen and Mauritania. This special committee is headed by Dr. ‘Abdullaah Al-Faqeeh, specialist in Jurisprudence and Arabic language." Source
• MuslimMatters.org. Scholar Yasir Qadhi is part of the team and serves as an advisor. Source

– Batreeq ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

It depends on what Islam-related information they are supposed to support and which articles in the sources are used. Bear in mind that - just like Christianity and Judaism - no group of scholars speaks for all adherents of the religion. Also, where possible you should use English-language sources, not that they are more reliable, but because it makes it easier for readers to follow the sources to learn more about the subject. TFD (talk) 20:55, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: My apologies. I intended to link to the English version of the first site. My main question is whether or not the two websites meet the conditions of WP:RS? – Batreeq ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:07, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. But my answer is the same. It depends on what they are supposed to support and which articles are used. However I cannot see where that might be the case since these sources appear to be mostly opinion pieces and state religious views as facts. TFD (talk) 23:27, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: Would it be acceptable to mention a religious ruling and cite those sources? – Batreeq ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 03:16, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Do you have a specific example in mind? As the edit notice and the box at the top of the board say, this page is for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context, and you should include the article(s) in which the source is being used (or, in this case, the articles in which the source would be used). -165.234.252.11 (talk) 17:20, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

The Anarchist Coloring Book

File:Elephantmary.jpg, used in Mary (elephant), is sourced to The Anarchist Coloring Book. The article makes a credible claim that photo was retouched, but it is unclear whether the ACB version was. Is The Anarchist Coloring Book a reliable source for the image? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:02, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

(...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 10:13, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I suspect it is because many of us have not heard of it, and cannot find out much about it. So that makes me suspect it is not.Slatersteven (talk) 10:22, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

• Based on the web design alone, I'm gonna go with Nope. (Seriously; it's just a blog. Not an RS.)

I also want to point out that the source given at the end of the "retouched" claim in the article doesn't verify the claim that it was retouched. Even the "disputed by Argosy" claim is highly tenuous: it states merely that the photo was once rejected as a fake when submitted for publication. We have no idea the hows or why's of that, so we can't attribute it to a firmly help position on the authenticity of the photo as the article does. I advise removing that whole sentence. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:16, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Breitbart

Should Breitbart be deprecated as a source in the same was as WP:DAILYMAIL and other partisan sites with a poor reputation for factual accuracy? Fact checkers find large numbers of Breitbart stories to be misleading, false or both and the site admits to pushing fake news.[40] Guy (Help!) 12:40, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Opinions (Breitbart)

• Support as nominator. We have something over 2,500 links to Breitbart, many of them as sources in articles. I think that Breitbart is not a reliable source. Sometimes it's being used as a source for what Breitbart says, in which case it is not independent. It's my view that we should not source anything to Breitbart other than strictly factual and uncontroversial facts about Breitbart on the articles related to Breitbart and its people - if a claim is not covered in more reliable sources then it's not significant and probably WP:UNDUE, if it is, we should use them instead. Guy (Help!) 12:40, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Absolutely. Every second spent removing content which can only be sourced to Breitbart is well spent. Do not allow using Breitbart for RSOPINION. (see my comment in the Discussion section)wumbolo ^^^ 12:46, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Mixed - Obviously biased, but quite reliable for attributed statements of opinion (viewpoint) - less reliable for statements of unattributed statements of fact. Context matters. Blueboar (talk) 13:11, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. The site does not admit to promoting fake news (the link provided - [41] - has this in the title, but the contents are editorial discretion of what not to cover). Breitbart is indeed highly biased, and certainly is questionable, however despite some factual errors in reporting caught by fact checkers (which have caught more mainstream outlets as well) - they generally do have editorial controls and do not promote fake news. They are certainly fine for sourcing attributed opinions of their writers (who may be notable/due is some limited cases). They are definitely rank low on the reliability scale, but they are not the Daily Mail.Icewhiz (talk) 13:24, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• The site does not admit to promoting fake news Seriously? You're using THAT as a criteria? --Calton | Talk 12:38, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are lots of news sites that have biases, we accept them using criteria like whether they're a "well-established news outlet", and context. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:54, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• Biases aren't the issue here. --Calton | Talk 12:38, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Anyone can say they're not. But the supposed sources for e.g. that Breitbart admits to faking news happen not to show that's what Breitbart said, only that if their bias is the other way then they'll derive that. Incidentally among the complaints from surprised editors about the Daily Mail close, one of the closers said: 'I think the biggest issue would be that the RfC was not listed on "Centralized discussions".' Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:20, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Anyone can say they're not. Of course. And they're saying that BECAUSE BIAS ISN'T THE ISSUE. Seriously, have you read a single word written here? --Calton | Talk 03:26, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support Only use Brietbart as a source for attributed opinions, never for claims of fact. Tornado chaser (talk) 14:04, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support being biased is not the issue (addendum: but skewing coverage for political purposes is part of it), but not fact checking is. for any facts of import there should be other sources Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:14, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

  Replying to the addendum, how is skewing coverage for political purposes a part of fact checking problems? The New York Times is no stranger to skewing coverage for political purposes, but it's still one of the best fact checking organizations we have (if not the best). wumbolo ^^^ 14:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support. Breitbart is complete and utter trash. It can not be trusted for statements of fact, and should be given as much weight as random wordpress blogs and pure fake news websites. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - Longstanding reputation for publishing utter falsehoods, fabrications and blatant distortions about living people it opposes, and having no meaningful fact-checking structure in place whatsoever. The Reliable sources guideline specifically states: Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Breitbart has the opposite of "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Completely inappropriate for Wikipedia. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:45, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

While an article needs to be based on sources with a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, we have more leeway when supporting specific statements within an article. Biased sources and sources with poor fact checking reputations can be used as a PRIMARY source for supporting statements of opinion and viewpoint. We have to attribute such statements so the reader understands that such statements ARE opinion (and not accepted fact), but the have their place. Blueboar (talk) 15:35, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Breitbart can't be used as a primary source, because they have on at least one occasion fabricated a byline, so we can't know where a quote originated. (see my comment in the Discussion below) wumbolo ^^^ 16:03, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Sure we do... the quote originated with Breitbart itself. Blueboar (talk) 17:35, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

There is one instance (known) of a fabricated byline - and they retracted it hours later saying it was an internal joke that slipped past editorial controls... Which actually demonstrates they do retract mistakes. (Not to mention multiple other RSes that run April 1st gags... Or fabricated items). Icewhiz (talk) 18:06, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support per talk page discussion here: Talk:Everipedia#Breitbart is not an RS 344917661X (talk) 18:03, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support One of the more notorious peddlers of fake news.Slatersteven (talk) 18:13, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• support and thank you. There is nothing at that site that is useful for generating content aimed to summarize accepted knowledge. Jytdog (talk) 19:53, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support. The sooner the better! :bloodofox: (talk) 22:18, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Mostly Support Breitbart is not a reliable source for most topics. However I would grant a rare exception in cases where they are talking about themselves. In such circumstances I think it could be cited provided it's done in a manner that does not suggest in wiki-voice that we are affirming the veracity of whatever they are claiming. In other words whatever claim of fact is being presented would be worded in a manner that leaves it to the reader to draw their own conclusions. But in general I would prefer we stayed away from them altogether. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:40, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

After digging into this a little more, I think we can just say no to Breitbart. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:05, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support Breitbart has a long history of producing hoaxes and disinformation. Ktrimi991 (talk) 23:14, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - At issue is a couple things, I think. One is whether Breitbart should be considered a reliable source for statements of fact, generally speaking. The answer to that is clearly no. The other question is the extent to which Breitbart would bring enough WP:WEIGHT to include attributed opinions expressed therein. Again I would say no, but only generally. For this latter kind of usage, I think weight would be determined by coverage of those opinions in other sources, in which case it's probably better to just cite those other sources. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:56, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support: makes sense & looks like it's heading to a "snow" support. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:04, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Breitbart seems atually worse than the Daily Mail to me--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - among the worst of the fake news spewers. The only time we should ever link to them is to provide references for things said on their website in articles about this site itself or its contributors. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:38, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose as a blanket ban, but should be 100% clear that is only is for meeting RSOPINION and not any RS for facts. While Breitbart may have little reliability in fact-based reporting, they still publish opinions without any apparent problems as we'd have with Daily Mail. So we shouldn't be treating it as a fully DM-style ban but strictly that it should only be used for opinions of its authors under RSOPINION. --Masem (t) 04:50, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support for the same reason as the Daily Mail. If you cant distinguish fake from real, its out as a RS. It might be OK to cite as an RSOPINION source when the author is a source worth quoting, or when they are talking about themselves; so oppose a blanket ban. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 05:01, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - no exceptions Its a rare occurrence when a trash source like Breibart picks up on something notable, which is not covered elsewhere by a mainstream source. Even sourced material on the actual subject of Breibart should only be considered noteworthy if reported elsewhere. Edaham (talk) 05:06, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support The oppose arguments given here (only 2 of the 3 opposes actually gave a cogent argument) are entirely unconvincing and simply melt in the face of the numerous lies Breitbart has been caught publishing. We forgive mistakes, even when they arise out of a source's bias. But Breitbart full on lies. That's just not something we can work with. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 06:24, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - far right wing propaganda, not news. Reyk _YO! 07:55, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I would agree that Breitbart is more propaganda than news... but as a primary source for statements of what the viewpoint of the right wing is (what it thinks and says on political issues), it is appropriate and reliable. That appropriate use may only apply in limited situations, but they still exists. Hell, there are even situations when it is appropriate to cite Mein Kamph, and Breitbart is far more “mainstream” than Mein Kamph is. Blueboar (talk) 11:15, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

User:Blueboar I have to contest your phrasing, "what the viewpoint of the right wing is "... Breitbart has shifting agendas and I don't know if has represented any one consistent viewpoint. It seems to be more a chaos agent than anyone's voice. And i don't know exactly what you mean by "right wing" but there are some on the right who call it the trash that it is.... Jytdog (talk) 17:57, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

But broadly, most RSes call Breitbart "right wing". It may not represent the part of the right that are more centralist (or that were probably centralist before the center shifted left over the last few years) hence those opinion pieces about it; that's also a question of how far right that these RSes put it (some calling it "far right") But more often than not, if an RS is documenting some reaction that they need to find a right-wing source for it, Breitbart seems to be the go-to if they can't find what they want from Fox. (Mind you, this CNN suggests a number of other reasons). --Masem (t) 13:57, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support - Recognized as generally unreliable, for divisive propaganda and instances of fabricated information. Also easy to find reliable sources about it. —PaleoNeonate – 12:01, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Given their track record, I'm not even sure we can use them for statements about themselves. And not even within shouting distance of reliable or even truthful. --Calton | Talk 12:38, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support even as a source of opinion, unless it is a response to something about them. As it stands, we have to keep getting into discussions with editors that think it’s RS. O3000 (talk) 12:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - This "source" is already de facto banned for almost every purpose because of their poor reputation. Why not make it official?- MrX 🖋 20:16, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - Breitbart has far too much history of fabrication, and of attempting to create news from non-issues. Let's not link to it at all here. Simonm223 (talk) 13:50, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support subject to the standards exceptions for sourcing non-controversial things about itself (WP:SELFPUB) and as a source for opinions of those who write opinion pieces for it (WP:PRIMARY). ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:08, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support generally unreliable like most agenda driven news sources. --regentspark (comment) 17:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support propaganda, not news. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 13:46, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support or rather "Does anybody think it's usable as a source to begin with?" --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:44, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support Because of well-covered issues with fact-checking. On the issue primary sourcing: as others have noted, even using Breitbart as a primary source probably raises due weight issues. It's worth noting that the site, at least as of late last year, had an article tag for "black crime". That is indicative of a pattern of sensationalism and racist panic-mongering that renders it highly suspect even as a primary source. It's 2018 and the media environment is pretty diverse. If Breitbart is the only source saying something, it suggests that a lot of other sources have seen it and decided that is outrageous or unfounded. Nblund ^talk 01:11, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support source of propaganda & fake news.-- Darwin ^Ahoy! 23:20, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support. It absolutely should not be used, due to its reputation of poor fact checking (if not creating outright falsehoods) and sensationalism/propagandism. I don't think it's really accepted as a source anyway, but wouldn't hurt to make it official. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:35, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support banning Breitbart and anyone who tries to use it as a source. This should have been done at the same time as the Daily Mail ban. Gamaliel (talk) 23:56, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support: it is well established that Breitbart is not a reliable source, except as a primary source for statements about what Breitbart said and the like. I'm glad we're finally having an RFC to establish clear consensus. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:48, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support, for the reasons the reasons Guy mentions. -sche (talk) 00:57, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: I did not !vote in the Daily Mail RfC, but if I had, I would have opposed its ban as well. The basic point is simple, and laid out in WP:RSCONTEXT: "context matters". Breitbart is very much in the style of a tabloid (like The Daily Mail). Its use is already discouraged on Wikipedia, because anyone with half a brain knows that tabloids engage in sensationalism (this is different from deliberately lying). This kind of wholesale ban is not necessary, because this informal method is sufficient, and a formal ban would be bad. I'll give two instances of how the Daily Mail ban was bad, just based on my own experience.

  The first case is on the page George Galloway. The page is under full-protection; administrator John removed a Daily Mail reference with the edit summary WP:DAILYMAIL. The text in question referred to Galloway's interview with Saddam Hussein. During that interview, by Galloway's account, Hussein offered Galloway some Quality Street chocolate, as a small point emphasizing Hussein's (and Iraq's) supposed Anglophile nature. As far as I can see, absolutely nobody doubts that Galloway did actually meet with Hussein, and nobody thinks that Galloway made up the anecdote (you can find a ton of secondary coverage of this anecdote). Yet, this admin felt free (through full protection) to wholesale remove the only published primary text of the interview, as well as the anecdote, simply because it was published in The Daily Mail. I don't necessarily blame the admin here: I blame the Daily Mail RfC.

  Next is Charlie Gard case, where SlimVirgin used a quote from the Daily Mail to flesh out a certain aspect of the case. My reasoning as to why she was right to do so is given here (ignore the side-drama about COI). The point is, again, that context matters for reliability. Absolutely nobody claimed that the Daily Mail had simply made up something (which would be stupid of them to do, given that it's public record and several other outlets reported it as well). The use of the Daily Mail was because tabloids are naturally more interested in this kind of stuff, and so go into more detail. In this case, the Mail (and the The Sun) published a longer quote (which was abbreviated in the other sources). But the proscription against The Daily Mail hobbled discussion, because people took a categorical stand that it is never "reliable".

  As I see it, this kind of formal ban on Breitbart has no upside, and only downside. And the Daily Mail precedent is terrible. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:31, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support per Kingsindian above, and thanks for the ping. The existing ban on the Daily Mail is needed to protect our readers from well-meaning editors who misunderstand sources. The rationale for the ban, "the Daily Mail’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism, and flat-out fabrication" makes it unusable, and I think this applies here as well. --John (talk) 07:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: Per WP:RSCONTEXT in complete agreement with Kingsindian. With the only additional comments that when a statement is supported by secondary RS the use of a "banned" or less reliable source to provide further background information to a user (should they choose to read sources) does provide more context to the user themselves. I support the consensus that Breitbart is not generally (almost never) a RS. However, I strongly oppose the idea of banning the source from the encyclopedia entirely no matter the context even when used in conjunction with other sources to support a well attributed statement, as has been done with the Daily Mail. Additionally, there are times when cited a source such as Breitbart with in text attribution has been used to help convey more "sides" of a story and avoid the appearance of POV and to cover material directly related to Breitbart, as Guy has said. A ban on the use of Breitbart (or other sources) as a source may ultimately lead to the deletion of such content. Endercase (talk) 15:52, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Discussion (Breitbart)

• Breitbart fabricated a byline, later claiming it was a joke. [42] [43] wumbolo ^^^ 13:39, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Breitbart falsely claimed an undocumented immigrant started the Tubbs Fire.
• Breitbart intentionally falsified and skewed coverage of Roy Moore and the women who accused him of sexual abuse. "I think that's the playbook here," he added. "And I think it's part of the reason why it was so important for Breitbart to continue our coverage of the way we covered it ... and for Steve in particular to hold the line -- it's not just about Judge Moore, it is not even just about establishment, anti-establishment. It's about what's coming next for President Trump."

Our article on Breitbart News is literally filled with discussion of the ways they've repeatedly and unashamedly distorted the truth in service of ideological goals. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:51, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

The header of this RfC violates the RfC guidelines, in particular guideline 3, which states that the RfC header should be short and neutral. In what universe is that header "neutral"? It's arguing for a position. I understand that Wikipedia practice is often confused on this point: for instance, headers for WP:RMs are allowed to be non-neutral. Still, the guideline is perfectly clear here.

I suggest that JzG modify the header as follows: "Should Breitbart be deprecated as a source in the same way as WP:DAILYMAIL"? Then move the rest of text to a "support" !vote at the top of the survey section. That's the normal way in which I start RfCs. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

So you want me to ask for a source to be deprecated without stating the objective basis for the request? That doesn't make a lot of sense. Guy (Help!) 12:47, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

The purpose of an RfC header is to ask for people's opinion on a topic, not provide your own. You are free to add your own opinion along with everyone else. See this for an example. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Correct. And my opinion is in "opinions". These are the facts. Breitbart is a partisan site with a poor reputation for factual accuracy, fact checkers find large numbers of Breitbart stories to be misleading, false or both and the site admits to pushing fake news (see Editor Admits Breitbart Publishes Fake News). Guy (Help!) 18:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

It's very simple. The RfC header is required to be neutral. This one isn't: it's taking a position. It doesn't matter what you think the source says. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:31, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Our standards of neutrality are, you might have noticed, based on reality, not an imaginary state in which all viewpoints are considered equally valid. It is an objective fact that Breitbart is a "...partisan sites with a poor reputation for factual accuracy," and thus the question posed in the RfC is demonstrably neutral. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:54, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Here's the definition of neutral: not supporting or helping either side in a conflict, disagreement, etc.; impartial.. The RfC header is not the place to argue for a position. It's the place to present the question (namely: should Breitbart be banned as a source). I can't imagine that people don't understand how to start an RfC. Then I can only assume that this obtuseness is on purpose. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:36, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't see anything in that definition about obfuscating relevant facts in order to present a false balance between an obviously right and an obviously wrong choice. Have you ever been to WP:NPOV? You should swing by some time. We explicitly don't use that definition in our articles, why you think we should use it on an RfC is beyond me. You might also want to swing by WP:NPA before you cast more aspersions on an admin. Finally, if you think there's even the slightest chance that the wording of this RfC has any impact on the outcome, you should head on over to WP:REALLIFE. And probably stay there. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:51, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

What is the "false balance" about simply asking a question, without any injection of argument? The RfC header is not about NPOV at all; it's about asking comments on the question. You are wilfully ignoring this simple point.

I'll make the following proposition. Find a sample of 10 uninvolved Wikipedians, show them the wording of the RfC I proposed, and the wording which currently exists, and ask them which one better follows the RfC guidelines. Care to bet on the outcome? Say $5, to a charity of your choice. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Factual accuracy is not a "side". HTH, HAND. Guy (Help!) 18:22, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

There's plenty to say about John's patronizing comment above, but the simplest one would be to point out that the reference removed was to The Mail on Sunday, not The Daily Mail. They are sister publications, but have different editorial staffs. For instance, the former supporter Remain, while the latter supported Brexit. Most people on Wikipedia, in my experience, don't even know the difference, and moreover, don't care.

Ignorance is no sin (I am ignorant of many things). But ignorance mixed with arrogance (like editing a page through full protection) and the force of a formal ban is a very bad idea. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:47, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Occupy Democrats

Politifact rates most checked claims by Occupy Democrats as false and very few as unambiguously true: [44]. Should Occupy Democrats be deprecated as a source in the same was as WP:DAILYMAIL and other partisan sites with a poor reputation for factual accuracy? Guy (Help!) 12:40, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Opinions

• Support as nominator. "Our mission is to Occupy Democrats on November 2018 AND BEYOND by voting in a LANDSLIDE of progressive Democratic candidates dedicated to rolling back President Trump’s extremist agenda." This is my aim too, but it does not mark them out as a reliable source for anything. It's a political activist movement, not even a formally constituted political party, and there is little or no accountability for what is said in Occupy's name or Most links are now removed (by me and others, over a long period), and few of these removals have been challenged. It's my view that we should not source anything to Occupy other than strictly factual and uncontroversial facts about Occupy on the articles related to Occupy and related people - if a claim is not covered in more reliable sources then it's not significant and probably WP:UNDUE, if it is, we should use them instead. Guy (Help!) 12:40, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose there is very little evidence that this organization is unreliable. Most reliable sources have had more controversies and retractions. This should go through a more lengthy RSN discussion in order to better judge the reliability. wumbolo ^^^ 12:50, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Mixed - Reliability depends on context. As with other advocacy sites, this would be reliable for attributed statements of opinion (viewpoint), but not reliable for unattributed statements of fact. Blueboar (talk) 13:06, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support I suppose we may have to have this discussion so that this can be blacklisted..clearly under WP:SELFPUB and having the opposite of a reputation for fact checking an accuracy. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:07, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support Beyond notorious reputation, their about page states they are "political organization and information website that provides a counterbalance to the Republican Tea Party. It has grown into the largest and most active community of Democratic voters in the world" - with the exception of stating they are an "information website", there is no specification of an editorial board or any process what so ever of vetting their publications. The rest of the about page makes it clear they are an advocacy platform (for electing a slate of newly-energized progressives to Congress).Icewhiz (talk) 14:29, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose The issue wit the Daily Myth was accuracy, not bias. Is there any actual evidence they are not accurate?Slatersteven (talk) 18:00, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - Doesn't appears to have a substantial reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; I can't imagine that we don't have a better source for anything published here - and if one cannot be found, that's probably a good sign it shouldn't be in the encyclopedia. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:41, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - I wouldn't use it, I'd probably remove it if I saw it being used, but it's not up to DailyMail standards of bad, so a blanket ban is too much. Volunteer Marek 22:31, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support per the linked ref provided by the OP. This is clearly not a reliable source for anything whatsoever. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:35, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support, tentatively. As I wrote below, this isn't one that I've had much cause to look at in the past, so I'm just doing some digging now.

The Atlantic: "The content plastered across these pages includes standard-issue clickbait ... and hyperbolic headlines ... But these feeds are also studded with straightforwardly fake news."

Buzzfeed News: "a fifth of its posts were false or misleading, according to our analysis."

problems on Politifact

and there are a bunch of stories about its problematic content: CNN, Snopes...

Based on this sort of thing, I'm inclined to agree with those arguing that this is not going to be a reliable source for anything but attributed opinion, and that it probably shouldn't carry much weight with that. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:12, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support for the same reasons as Brietbart, DM and others. When Media Bias Fact Check says that it Promotes left-wing propaganda without regard to sourcing, my hackles are up. Once again it might be OK to cite as an WP:RSOPINION source when the author is a source worth quoting, or when they are talking about themselves; so oppose a blanket ban. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 05:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support. The site doesn't claim to have an editorial board or process. The organization is a biased or opinionated source, as its stated mission is "to Occupy Democrats on November 2018 AND BEYOND by voting in a LANDSLIDE of progressive Democratic candidates dedicated to rolling back President Trump’s extremist agenda". The copyright year in the footer is 2017. The site is relatively unpopular, with an Alexa rank of 733,620. I don't see any indication that this source is any more reliable than a personal blog. — Newslinger talk 06:29, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think these reasons alone are sufficient justification to deprecate the site, but the analyses posted by Rhododendrites certainly are. A 20% defect rate is not acceptable. — Newslinger talk 08:13, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• support just more partisan noise making.Jytdog (talk) 09:16, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Rhododendrites's links, subject to the standard exceptions such as non-controversial facts about itself. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:13, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support unlike the Daily Star discussion elsewhere, I'd say this is not a reliable source and should be depricated per Rhododendrite's link and with the same exceptions as Patar knight. Simonm223 (talk) 14:18, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support as above. Hrodvarsson (talk) 00:23, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support I can't find any instance where the site broke any news, hired any journalists, or did any original reporting in a conventional sense. It looks like an ideologically motivated content mill. It's possible that they will follow the Huffington Post or Buzzfeed trajectory and start doing actual reporting in the future, at which point the issue might merit revisiting. But for now, anything "original" they report isn't reliable, and anything reliable that they report is already covered by a better source. Nblund ^talk 01:32, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
• It's not as bad as the DM, but Support anyways because fuck unreliable sources. The fewer we use the better. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support. If this is the best source we can find for a claim, that claim shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. (With the usual caveat that it can still be used as a primary source for statements about what Occupy Democrats says.) —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:00, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
• Only allow in certain contexts I wouldn't use it, and it's obviously for opinion (and a partisan one rather than a genuine ideological one). However, we don't completely blacklist the Daily Wire (which I'd argue gushes with POV-charged falsehoods even more than the Daily Mail) on the basis that there are circumstances where - without using it in Wikipedia's voice - it can be used to quote an opinion. As for whether or not we should allow this to be a source, absolutely not, support noting that this is not a source. Brendon the Wizard ✉️ ✨ 11:47, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

• Can't say I have much experience with this one, but it's the same as the one we have an article about, right? In that case, why wouldn't it already be caught in WP:RSSELF as being a Facebook page? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:51, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
  • This RfC appears to be about their domain (http://occupydemocrats.com/), not their Facebook page. — Newslinger talk 08:16, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
    • Ah. I would facepalm if so many of the sources didn't specifically talk about it as a facebook page. Regardless, the material seems the same. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
      • I have a pretty strong body of knowledge of leftist media sources, and some of my views are controversial (TeleSur should be a reliable source for Latin American news, the People's Daily is about as accurate for Chinese domestic news as the BBC, the Daily Star in the UK is a perfectly legitimate newspaper) and yeah, Occupy Democrats is not good. It's just a partisan shouting page; there's no attempt toward accuracy here. Simonm223 (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Is this an RS?

Would Jimmy Wales himself answering a question on Quora be considered a reliable source? Here's a link to the source:[45] The reason I want to use this as a source is because he said on Quora that he is a centrist and gradualist and there is no mention of him being either of those things on his Wikipedia article and I'm not sure if he has revealed that information anywhere else. 344917661X (talk) 15:01, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Not reliable as a secondary source for saying that Jimbo IS centerist and gradualist... but (assuming we can verify his Quara account) it might be reliable as a PRIMARY source for stating that he once SAID that he is centerist and gradualist (per WP:ABOUTSELF). Blueboar (talk) 15:44, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

The account is verified since the picture of him on his Quora account has a check next to it and Jimmy's user page links to his quora account in the see also section, which is the one I got my source from. 344917661X (talk) 17:57, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

It is an RS for what he said.Slatersteven (talk) 18:02, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Slatersteven and Blueboar. It can be used only for what Jimbo said. Ktrimi991 (talk) 23:11, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Agree, this is RS for the statement "he said he is a centrist and gradualist", but not for the statement "he is a centrist and gradualist". Tornado chaser (talk) 23:18, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I put this in his political views section on his article, is this okay? "In May 2017, he said on Quora that he is a Centrist and a Gradualist and believes "that slow step-by-step change is better and more sustainable and allows us to test new things with a minimum of difficult disruption in society."" I also put a citation next to the sentence in the article. 344917661X (talk) 23:44, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it is very good. Ktrimi991 (talk) 00:05, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Yep looks good.Slatersteven (talk) 08:43, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Should be "wrote on Quora" as being rather more clear. Collect (talk) 13:44, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Primary genetics studies

• Note -- this was archived in this diff, and in the same edit as this note, I have de-archived it. Jytdog (talk) 19:33, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Are primary genetics studies covered by WP:MEDRS? Stuff that is published in journals like the European Journal of Human Genetics or a primary study like this (available through PubMed) [46]? Seraphim System ^(talk) 03:20, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• I'm not an expert on WP:Biomedical information, but I would use that particular study with extreme caution, given that it's authored by current 23andMe employees and is promoting that company's questionable methodologies more or less uncritically. In general, my opinion is that science-and-race research is so complicated and so often bitterly controversial [47] that WP:SCIRS and its instructions for finding scientific consensus in authoritative secondary sources should be followed strictly. FourViolas (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Primary studies generally fail MEDRS, and shouldn't be used to support any assertion about biomedical information. What's the context? Girth Summit (talk) 12:28, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Please follow the guidelines of this board and tell what the source is used for --Shrike (talk) 12:49, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Generally, primary sources are only reliable for verifying quotations or descriptive statements about the source itself... ie if we quote a primary source or closely paraphrase what it says (with attribution in our text), we can cite the source itself for verification (ie to show that the source does indeed say what we say it does). HOWEVER... that does not answer the question of whether we should quote or mention the source in the first place. To answer that, we must apply other policies such as WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Context matters. Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• "Are primary genetics studies covered by WP:MEDRS?" Yes. The guideline states "For biomedical content, primary sources should generally not be used. This is because primary biomedical literature is exploratory and often not reliable, and any given primary source may be contradicted by another." Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Agree with User:Axl, should not be used generally. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:03, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• agree w/ both editors(Axl, Doc James) above--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:56, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
• There has been lots of discussion about genetic studies especially with regard to ancestry
  • arbcom case from 2010 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence
  • other discussions...
  • 2009 Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard/Archive_9#Analyzing_charts
  • 2010 Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_21#Origin_of_the_Albanians#Genetic_studies
  • 2012 Wikipedia:Geopolitical,_ethnic,_and_religious_conflicts_noticeboard/Archive_3#Dravidians:_Caucasoids_or_Australoids?
  • 2013 Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_143#"Gene_Expression"_column_in_Discover_magazine
  • 2013 Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_155#Is_an_abstract_of_an_unpubished_paper_referring_to_a_conference_delivery_a_reliable_source?_Subject_Khazars_and_genetics
  • 2013 Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Genetic_studies_on_Jews
  • 2015 Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard/Archive_32#Mexicans_of_European_Descent
  • 2015 Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_182#Secondary_vs_primary_sources_for_population_genetics_in_Mexicans_of_European_descent
  • 2015 Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources/Archive_50#Using_data_from_academic_papers_on_genetics
  • 2016 major RfC with too-broad a question; no consensus. But the issue of sourcing was discussed.
    • Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups/Archive_15#RfC:_Should_sections_on_genetics_be_removed_from_pages_on_ethnic_groups?

• In my view, especially on these contentious topics of genetics and ancestry or ethnicity or race or whatever, we should more or less forbid use of primary sources and require secondary sources. None of those are biomedical information in my view and are really WP:SCIRS topics. Genetics and disease is the most pure WP:Biomedical information topic, I would argue that we should treat genetics and intelligence or any other phenotype as biomedical information as well -- those are the ones where WP:MEDRS clearly comes in.
• The community would probably benefit from an RfC on this. Jytdog (talk) 01:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• I've been thinking about this exact issue recently. A major problem is that for a lot of these "genetic ancestry of group X" topics, there simply aren't any good secondary sources. Entire articles are built out of primary sources, and even some of the more well studied areas that do have secondary sources, large portions of those articles are still built from primary sources. Getting stricter on this would wipe out many articles completely, and drastically shrink others. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:58, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• exactly :) Use of primary sources + controversial topic --> neverending strife for the community + content of dubious quality for readers (since it is hard to use primary sources appropriately) Jytdog (talk) 03:41, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• I would like to run an RfC on this, stating something like:

Should the following be added to Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(natural_sciences)#Respect_primary_sources?

However, primary sources describing genetic or genomic research into human ancestry, ancient populations, ethnicity, race should not be used to generate content about those subjects, which are controversial. High quality secondary sources as described above should be used instead. Genetic studies of human anatomy or phenotypes like intelligence should be sourced per WP:MEDRS.

Thoughts or tweaks? Is SCIRS the best place to put this? Jytdog (talk) 19:49, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Not sure, but I wanted to note that a lot of our articles are sourced to the International Society of Genetic Genealogy's Journal of Genetic Genealogy. See this link for some insight into it. Doug Weller talk 15:17, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Gadzooks, we should not be using that. That will go. 23:39, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• Last call! I've pinged a couple of projects to get their input. Jytdog (talk) 23:39, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • This is about genetic research, right? Well then, I would say (as a member of both WikiProject:Paleontology and WikiProject:Cats) that while using genetic research- it generally comes up as relating to subspecies/species/genera/etc. classifications- is very controversial. A high quality, respectable secondary source and/or a consensus in the scientific community should also be obtained. And when it comes to paleontology, genetic research is considered highly unreliable (thus, high-quality secondary sources AND scientific consensus should be obtained). Just my two cents, though.--SilverTiger12 (talk) 01:02, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Personally I'd say that this is already well covered by the policy on using reliable secondary scientific sources (review articles in decent journals), and whenever biomedical aspects are involved, also by MEDRS. That's two very powerful and central policies already. We don't need more, just to enforce the existing rules will be sufficient. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:51, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

User:Chiswick Chap I have been following up on the OP because this is a problem. People argue, and fiercely, to use these under SCIRS and plain old PRIMARY, each of which gives license to use primary sources. Primary sources are used extensively for the ethnic/population history things, see for example DNA history of Egypt, Archaeogenetics of the Near East, Jews#Genetic_studies and of course Genetic studies on Jews, and see the many pages you get with a search on Genetic studies of... Do you see what I mean? Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC on Morningstar - The People's Daily

RfC on Morning Star (British newspaper) which may interest the community at Talk:Jeremy Corbyn#RfC on use of Morning Star as a source.Icewhiz (talk) 07:18, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Scroll, OpIndia, The Wire, The Quint, The Print, DailyO, postcardnews, rightlog etc.

https://scroll.in, http://www.opindia.com/, https://thewire.in, https://www.thequint.com/, https://theprint.in/, https://www.dailyo.in/, https://postcard.news/, https://rightlog.in/, http://insistposthindi.in/ , https://www.nationalheraldindia.com and https://www.altnews.in/ etc. should not be considered reliable sources as all of them have either pro or anti-government biases. They are not mainstream media, All of them are web based news sites with the main news consumers limited to internet users and more specifically social media users. Altnews is a private company managed by a team of people who claim to verify news by in-house Techniques and methodology... I find this questionable..moreover the neutrality of Altnews founder has been questioned for biases [48], [49]. .

It was started here and then discussed to some length here ... Basically I Am looking for some generalized guidelines for barring all these websites from using as reliable sources because it will save much trouble in insertion of POV pushing material in politically sensitive BLPs and Articles related to India. Thanks ----Adamstraw99 (talk) 20:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Requesting procedural close of the thread above, since a bunch of sites all deserving an independent look have been clubbed together. Some of them are proven propaganda sites and some of them are reliable fact checking sites. with such a diverse spectrum of sites, No Generalized guideline can be passed as the nominator has requested. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:42, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

(+1) to what DBigXray states.Too diverse for any realistic discussion but I will keep a watch. ∯WBG^converse 12:53, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

@DBigXray:, Most of these sites are proven propaganda sites and de-recognizing them will surely save much trouble ahead. I think you mean 'Altnews' when you say 'some of them are reliable fact checking sites' ... So, I am ready to remove it from this list if you are so sure about it...But scrutiny of all these sites is very necessary to prevent very likely POV pushing and edit-warring in political/politically sensitive articles related to India in future. in RS arena these sites will surely cause trouble and ultimately all of them will end-up here tomorrow.. So lets try to settle this once and for all in the interest of community and neutral editing. Thanks for understanding --Adamstraw99 (talk) 21:10, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I think a detailed discussion is needed and this should be not be closed. DBigXray is right in stating that each of these sources are indeed different and need to be looked at individually (and not as as group or clubbed together). The discussion topic might not be phrased correctly but a real issue exists. IMO, the issue is that India, like the US, has seen the rise of multiple news media websites which do not necessarily publish paper media or have news channels but are plain websites. They come in all hues and flavors very similar to Breitbart, Wonkette, New York Post, AlterNet, American Conservative, Huffington post (I have picked from left and right varying them on their views from the US Media to provide a frame of reference to other non-Indian editors). There has been a detailed discussion on a good deal of these (US-based) websites and what is acceptable and what is not. Unfortunately, such a detailed discussion has not occurred for the Indian news-ecosystem and is required. Currently, different editors consider different sources to be valid/invalid based on their personal perceptions/likes/dislikes which at times may/may not be marred by their political beliefs. In my view, we need to evaluate these different websites or atleast measure them with the same yard-stick to ensure that there is a some form of guideline. In the earlier talk page discussion I had pointed to MediaBiastFactCheck [50] as an independent metric that can be considered. I would like to hear the views of other editors here about tackling this issue. Adamgerber80 (talk) 21:08, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

@Adamstraw99: If we are going to assess them then we are going to assess them all (not as a group but individually). The level of assessment is to be determined via a discussion or how to determine what is acceptable. IMO, the focus should not be on what is in the "list" and what is not but the evaluation criteria for their inclusion as a WP:RS. Adamgerber80 (talk) 21:17, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

@Adamgerber80: yes, I Agree with you. Something needs to be done about these websites and you described it perfectly when you said - "Unfortunately, such a detailed discussion has not occurred for the Indian news-ecosystem and is required"... Thanks --Adamstraw99 (talk) 21:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong in using The Quint, The Print and The Wire for satisfying WP:V. The Print is WP:RS as long as you avoid the op-eds. I don't think The Wire is suitable for determining WP:NPOV as it attempts to fill a perceived void in mainstream journalism. Scroll and DailyO are opinion heavy websites and dispassionate fact-based reporting is hard to come by. National Herald is Indian National Congress's mouthpiece in all but name, and should be treated as such. OpIndia is definitely not reliable and unusable for WP:V too. It also allows user-submitted content and their editorial control is questionable at best. No opinion on the rest. —Gazoth (talk) 22:48, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I think Scroll should be considered RS on grounds of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Same with DailyO. Kailash29792 (talk) 04:21, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@Gazoth and Kailash29792: Thank you for your inputs. However, this is the very issue we are trying to solve. Both of you made comments on what should be considered in what situation. I do not have an opinion with your assessments or about their correctness. My issue is how did you decide that. As far as I can tell this was completely ad-hoc which is not ideal. A common metric is required to judge them. This does not mean that we will approve all of them or disapprove all of them. The common metric is required to determine what we can and we cannot use as WP:RS. The other option is we evaluate each one of them individually like this forum as done before but this will get tedious (but I am fine with it). I am also going to ping @Kautilya3 and SshibumXZ: other editors who edit in this area and may or may not have something to add here. I know that Kautilya3 and I have had a discussion on this topic in the past and were not necessarily on the same page. Adamgerber80 (talk) 03:38, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

@Adamgerber80: We have to evaluate them individually. It is impossible to find an unbiased metric that fits our requirements. I saw that you have suggested MediaBiastFactCheck, but it is too US focused. For example, it puts Republic as left-centre, the same as The Wire, just because of a single article that criticises Trump. They do note that the publication is right-leaning for national news, but the fact that it got pushed to the very end reflects the high priority given to reporting of US news. —Gazoth (talk) 11:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: This is not central to this discussion but I spent some time to look back at what caused this whole discussion. If I guess it correctly it was the use of Altnews as a source to state that Republic TV was reporting fake news (or something on those lines). I am not arguing on the validity of that argument but its removal was warranted. This would be like someone using CNN to call Fox New false or vice versa which is problematic given that we know both of them sit on the opposite sides of the political spectrum. And even if you were to argue that Altnews is not on the other end, that still does not make it the authority on that subject. Just my 2 cents. Adamgerber80 (talk) 03:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks Adamgerber80 for the ping, as far as these sources go, I would like to resonate some of Gazoth's views in that The Print should be considered a reliable source, but its op-eds should be properly attributed (to the editor), whereas The Quint and The Wire can be used for verifiability, but not to establish notability. OpIndia, DailyO, Rightlog.in, Scroll and altnews.in are partisan, opinion-heavy (in some way) websites with little-to-no editorial oversight (a few even allow user-submitted content), and ergo, shouldn't be considered reliable sources, nor should the be used to verify claims; if the aforementioned sites are used however, their views should be properly attributed. I am in a bit of a pickle regarding the National Herald, though, on one hand, as has been already noted by a fair few Wikipedians that it is clearly an Indian National Congress mouthpiece and shouldn't be considered a reliable source. But on the other, WP:NEWSORG dictates that established news organisations are generally considered reliable. What I'd suggest is to follow the Fox News method, meaning that the National Herald should be classified a partisan news organisation with editors being advised to exercise caution when citing it and to properly attribute its editorial stance and opinion.
  Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 11:57, 6 September 2018 (UTC); edited 15:06, 8 September 2018 (UTC).

Sidenote — I agree with Adamgerber80 in that, although this is a very wide discussion, it should not be closed and each site should be assessed individually, not in a grouped and generalised manner. Also, I have changed the section heading; feel free to revert.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 11:57, 6 September 2018 (UTC); edited 15:06, 8 September 2018 (UTC).

The credibility or reliability of media's  should not be based  on wether they support or criticise the government.Majority of the medias are working by criticizing the government all over the world.Adamstraw99 I've read you wrote those media's should not be considered reliable sources as all of them have either pro or anti-government biases. If this is the criteria to prove the reliability how can we use  Republic TV, Times Now, Zee News and ABP News as reliable sources (I find they all about pro government). Even if they are mainstream media's they were caught many times fabricating news  twisting facts and spreading fake news to help the  government and ruling party.And  most of these medias has been caught by cobra post on their sting operation that these news medias admitting themself they get paid by the govt or the people who related to government or the ruling party. The journalist and owners of these  media outlets have direct connection with the Government or ruling party. Where non of these media outlets such as the wire, the quint, dailyo altnews have no direct or indirect connection with either opposition or the ruling party  .Most of them are independent reputed journalist/Fact checker working with the money raised from the public.  These media outlets can be considered as a reliable secondary source per wiki standards. They provide accurate sources for their work as is expected from a reliable media and widely cited enough in other medias. Their sources are properly referenced and meet WP:V. As far as my concern I never find not even single article that is fake or data incorrect but I've find many of the data by the mainstream media especially the ones that I mentioned above in my first paragraph are fake in these days. As long as AltNews is used to back up a data fact, I am ok with using it as a reliable source.When it comes to the wire their explosive articles have been subject to much controversy and challenged it in courts but they stayed with all their data points no matter what, and the courts agreed with their claims that their facts were not made up and based on documentary evidence. There is nothing wrong in using The Quint, The Print and The Wire for satisfying WP:V. Scroll and DailyO should be considered RS on grounds of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.  Op India ,postcardnews,and rightlog, are heavily biased propaganda sites owned by RSS-BJP using fake data points ,this has been exposed many times.And facebook had to remove the facebok page of postcardnews recently.--Akhiljaxxn (talk)

17:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

@Akhiljaxxn:, thanks for joining the discussion, but I think I should clarify here that my main concern here is not about these sources being pro or anti-govt. , criticism of govt. is always welcome the world over... I Am concerned about the creation of anti or pro government narrative using pro or anti-government propaganda, so propaganda is my primary concern because things cited in any article based on these websites as RS will bring battleground behavior and edit wars which will surely bring POV activities in many articles AS I Am sure propaganda articles will escalate in all these websites as we approach April-May 2019... other main concern is all these are web portals managed by a group of team who write blog like articles on daily basis, They are not mainstream media so not as RS as other established media like Times of India, ANI etc. .. If we accept them as reliable sources then riding on this numerous web portals will come up causing more atrocities in Wikipedia articles... A real problem exists as some of the editors have pointed out in this discussion... Some are clear offenders like Postcardnews, which is a Shameless Naked serial news faker and so notorious that nobody is even mentioning it here in this discussion... I See only one problem in Altnews which is they are cherry-picking the cases and are very selective in reporting, Picking stories painting only one side or community bad and ignoring others in selecting news materials to fact-check is a biased approached in my opinion... @Winged Blades of Godric: had told me on my talk-page that they will give me some instances of the "multiple mainstream media" where altnews is being "heavily mentioned" as a reliable source but I Am still waiting for their response... If that happens then I will remove Altnews from this list... and @DBigXray:, don't worry 'गेहूं के साथ घुन नहीं पिसेगा' (since you used that sentence on my TP ) Thanks everybody for joining in... ---Adamstraw99 (talk) 19:16, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• I'll leave my detailed perspectives on each of the sources and a reply to Adamberger80's apt query, shortly.∯WBG^converse 17:58, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

@Gazoth, SshibumXZ, and Akhiljaxxn: I quit taking The Print seriously after found this substandard opinion piece written by a known Pakistani propagandist. --Saqib (talk) 10:21, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

@Saqib: It is clearly labelled as an opinion piece and the final sentence discloses his COI by noting that he is a volunteer in Imran Khan's party. I don't see anything wrong with providing a platform for politicians to air their views, regardless of their nationality. If you notice any issues with their articles not tagged as an opinion piece, do highlight them. —Gazoth (talk) 10:31, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

@Saqib: yeah, that does look a bit concerning, however, we can still use this by attributing the writer's point of view, hence—although certainly of a little concern—this shouldn't disqualify The Print from being a reliable source.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 14:54, 8 September 2018 (UTC); edited 15:06, 8 September 2018 (UTC).

It will be better to evaluate mentioned portals individually. Here @Adamstraw99 has given many portal are together. So that the discussion will be having limitation and it will be difficult to go for a judgment. This is my opinion. ---[[User:Akbarali]] ([[Talk:Akbarali|Talk]]) (talk) 19:03, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

@Akbarali: I formatted your edit a bit. Hope you don't mind.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 14:54, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment--To begin with, it was un-wise to start a single thread with so many diversified sources and it was probably better to tackle each of them head-on.Anyways, now the thread has attracted enough comments (in it's entirety), I will offer my views for each of the source mentioned in this source:--

• Republic TV and Times Now
  • Passes WP:RS per WP:NEWSORG.
  • Right-wing-media and it's (probably) beyond doubt.The former has been set up by a BJP-top-brass.
  • IMO, is parallel to Fox News and shall be treated as such.
    • Controversial statements (as to anything tangentially connected to politics, nationalism et al) are best not sourced to news-reports by either of them and if sourced, maintain WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.

• Zee News and ABP News

• Passes WP:RS per WP:NEWSORG.
• No idea as to biases.

• Scroll.in and The Wire

• Left-wing-media and it's again (probably) beyond doubt.
• Quite a lot of opinionated reporting but objective reporting is equally abundant.

• Passes WP:RS per WP:NEWSORG (esp. for mundane topics).WP:V shall be well-satisfied by their reports.
• Controversial statements (as to anything tangentially connected to politics, nationalism et al) are best not sourced to news-reports by them and if sourced, maintain WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.Same for their opinion-pieces.

• DailyO.in

• Near-entirely opinion-heavy website. Dispassionate objective fact-based reporting without resorting to commentaries is near-absent.

• Fails WP:RS comprehensively.

• National Herald

• Dynasty-paper. An Indian National Congress mouthpiece, in all practicalities.But, objective reporting on a variety of issues is done.

• Passes WP:RS per WP:NEWSORG.

• Controversial statements (as to anything tangentially connected to politics, nationalism et al) are best not sourced to news-reports by them and if sourced, maintain WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.

• The Print

• Established and edited by reputed journalists, passes WP:RS.
• Quite a lot of opinion pieces but objective reporting is equally abundant.

• Slightly Left-biased but as long as you avoid the opinion pieces, quite-well-enough as a RS.If the opinion pieces are used, please abide by WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.

• Post-card News

• Right-wing-mouthpiece, as a glaze over their reports will confirm.
• Nothing about editorial standards or people involved can be located except that they have been established for countering the lies of Mainstream Media.Fails WP:NEWSORG.

• Self-describes to be a pro-Modi and pro-nationalist website.

• Basically, a fake-news-site.See this and this report.

• Fails WP:RS and by a mile.

• Rightlog.in

• The name of the website and a glaze of the reports emphasize their extreme right-wing-bias.

• Nothing about editorial policies et al.Fails WP:NEWSORG.

• Fails WP:RS and by a mile.

• InsistpostHindi.in

• Self-describes to be a 2 years old Digital Marketing Company who has been managing Social Media accounts for several companies and individuals, handling Campaigns and Promotions for the brands. Our primary focus is in to building the Digital Identity of the client and help them promote in the Digital Media.

• Fails WP:RS and by a mile.

• Altnews.in

• One-man-website but has been covered as a fake-news-buster multiple times by reputable-media-outlets across the spectrum.

• Loads of evidence of significant coverage might be seen at the references provided in our entry about the portal.
• See this piece over Hindustan Times which covers Prateek and AltNews in it's entirety.Also, this news article at financialExpress quotes pratik several times as an authority on fake-news-debunking.Yet another HT piece narrating the debunking of a particular website as a fake-news-provider by Altnews.A Wire piece about pratik and Altnews.Even BBC is quoting it in it's news report, which further vouches for it's reliability.I cannot locate the exact piece but came across one in TOI which devoted nearly half-a-page to AltNews and the rise of fake-news in India.Also, see this show hosted by NDTVand featured Altnews and the boom of fake-news.

• Overall, it's beyond doubt that the site is damn reliable and passes the scrutiny of WP:RS.Barring some right-wing-propaganda sites, not a single reputable media-outlet has criticized his methods or proved him to be wrong in his deductions and/or assertions.

• And, I additionally believe, that given it's coverage across the spectrum, it can be easily used as a tool to pinpoint news-outlets as propagators of fake-news without getting into the debate of Pratik's political leanings.Sort of similar to the usage of Retraction Watch.

∯WBG^converse 11:10, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

NICAP website as a source

Article in question: Nash-Fortenberry UFO sighting Source in question: [[51]]

This article was raised at WP:FTN as being poorly cited. The main details of the event are sourced to the NICAP website; there are then two sources cited suggesting possible non-extra-terrestrial explanations for the event. I'm concerned about using NICAP as a source in the first place - it does have some sort of editorial team, but their A-Team page doesn't fill me with confidence as to the level of critical editorial oversight. GirthSummit _(blether) 20:44, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

NICAP has been criticized for producing reports without scientific value. For instance, check this. NICAP was involved in conflicts with the CIA, and its goal was to "serve as a sober forum for UFO reporting, inquiry, investigation, and speculation". IMO, NICAP should not be used as a scientific source. Ktrimi991 (talk) 21:44, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Discogs

Is this source reliable for citing albums and soundtracks? I think it is because it shows information directly as seen on the album covers (it even shows the scanned pictures of the front and back covers of albums). But Aoba47‎ was the first to say it is not RS, and I have no idea why. --Kailash29792 (talk) 04:26, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

It's not reliable, check Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_171#www.discogs.com. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 09:11, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

So it's basically like saying not to cite a social media scanning of an official document, but I can still cite the document as it appears on that social media site without adding the social media link, right? Because now I'm at a state of dilemma regarding the use of this link in Mullum Malarum, a FAC. --Kailash29792 (talk) 06:32, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, you can certainly cite the liner notes, but you don't need a link to Discogs - people can find it themselves if they need to verify. Information on Discogs that isn't in the liner notes would still need some kind of reliable source. --tronvillain (talk) 14:05, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Using unpublished work?

I was wondering, what's the stance on unpublished work as a source? For example, if it's a journal article and the content won't change but the citation might, what's our stance on this? I figure that in cases where the content may change the answer is that we can't, since we don't know how it'll be written. ReaderofthePack (｡◕‿◕｡) 18:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

An unpublished source is one that is not available to the public. For example, if a technical company had an internal technical journal that only employees could read, that would be an unpublished source. Unpublished sources are unacceptable. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:03, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Are you referring to pre-publication copies of papers? Some authors are circulating copies of papers that have been submitted to journals, but not yet published. Such papers have probably not completed a peer-review or been edited by the journal, and so do not fall under the umbrella of the journal as a reliable source. - Donald Albury 20:32, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Is Excalibur a reliable source?

Excalibur is a university newspaper (York University). Would it be fine to use this source to cite groups and actions taken during the 2018 York University strike (which is the same university of topic)? SprayCanToothpick (talk) 21:39, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

• @SprayCanToothpick: what material do you propose to cite to it? --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:02, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • @K.e.coffman: A student group and student actions during the university strike (https://excal.on.ca/new-group-gives-voice-to-students/), were removed under the claim that Excalibur wasn't a reliable source.
    A third opinion (WP:3O) was called in who analyzed the source and concluded that it was reliable, "...I do not find any WP:UNDUE problems here. They are a minor player, and the article says so. The source appears to be reliable..." Thus it was restored. Despite this, the group and all information citing Excalibur was removed from the article again, claiming that it was unreliable and coat-racking because it's a university newspaper rather than a large news corporation.
    What are your thoughts on Excalibur as a reliable source for citing groups and student actions during the York University strike article? SprayCanToothpick (talk) 04:15, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
    • I see. I think this content would be fine to cite to the student paper:

On the Friday of March 2, the newly founded Students Against Strike organized a small walk-out demonstration and demanded that undergraduate students deserved their own platform in the conflict between York University Administration and CUPE 3903.[6]

But not add Students Against Strike[6] and Stephan Martin Chung (Founder)[6] to the infobox. This appears to be a minor element of the story, and the addition SAS to the infobox is not warranted. Please see this version of the page that includes SAS. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• I agree, thanks for your analysis of the source and your input! SprayCanToothpick (talk) 04:49, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

More input and analysis on Excalibur is welcome and encouraged, thanks. SprayCanToothpick (talk) 07:53, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Incels' race

Bringing this here to get some outside opinions, since the talk page section doesn't seem to be getting many eyes and consensus isn't really forming. Thylacoop5 wishes to introduce an article from The Daily Telegraph:

Tait, Amelia. "Rise of the women haters: Inside the dark world of the British 'incels'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 31 August 2018. ... popular incel website, Incels.me ... an internal survey of 300 members on Incels.me found that half are white and most are in their teens and 20s – just 9.9 per cent are over 30. The same survey showed that 40 per cent live in Europe.

My concern is that this article is challenging the other sources by quoting an informal, unscientific poll with 300 respondents on an incel forum called incels.me (NSFW: would not recommend visiting it—the discussions there are pretty extreme and the advertisements pornographic—separately discussing that it's probably not wise to mention this forum in-article). The suggested addition (diff) would add and an internal survey on an incel website showing that 40% reside in Europe. and According to an internal survey of 300 on a leading incel website, incels are evenly divided between persons of color and whites. (fixed per comment below) GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:01, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

References

Currently, the article on the Incel subculture refers to them as "mostly white". This has been the subject of some disagreement in the past from people who do not believe that is accurate, but with three sources supporting it it's stayed in the article for a while. Unfortunately the vast majority of sources available on incels are media articles, aside from one demographic study from 2001 with a small sample size (mentioned below), and another academic study published in the Journal of Sex that doesn't mention racial demographics. Aside from the Daily Telegraph article mentioned above, I haven't seen other reliable sources referring to the communities as anything other than mostly white.

The existing sources are:

• Washington Post: "these are primarily heterosexual white men" (direct quote from associate professor of sociology Ross Haenfler) and "The respondents were mostly white, young men" (from a 2001 Georgia State University study surveying 82 people)
• Houston Press: "mostly white, straight and cis men" (no clear source mentioned)
• CityNews: "It is mostly young white men between the ages of 19 and 30" (direct quote from sociology professor Judith Taylor)

Any input would be appreciated. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:09, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with GW; informal polls on private forums are not viable sources. Including this would degrade our quality; we might as well be a page on geocities.--Jorm (talk) 23:16, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

GW, I struck the suggested addition since that's not what I sought to add; that was a compromise edit. The edit I sought to add was this one. As a secondary choice, I'm also okay with this addition. Thylacoop5 (talk) 23:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Thylacoop5 I've edited my comment to show the correct diff. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:03, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Its worth noting that some sources describe incels as secretive. If they are so secretive, how would Taylor or Haenfler know their race? Which methodology did they use? Judith Taylor gets rebutted at CBC (4.20 min. mark). Also since visible minority concepts such as JBW (mentioned in incel article) are common, and since white equivalents to JBW don't exist, this high visible minority figure seems plausible to me. In fact, most other internal forum polls (easily searchable online) on racial figures show whites as a minority, usually ranging from 35% to 48% or so. It seems clear to me that the Haenfler/HoustonPress/CityNews figures were mere guesswork. Furthermore, internet demographics in 2001 and those in 2018 are very different. How are we going to cite figures dating to the internet's infancy to probe an online community in 2018? That makes zero sense.Thylacoop5 (talk) 00:50, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

There's another poll going right now on the same site that (currently) says incels are 67.6% white. How do you not see that these polls are unreliable, compared to professors, etc.? GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:46, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

whites 38.1%, whites 39%, whites 45.7%, whites 53.6%, whites 20%, whites 31.1%, whites 36.7%, 56.5%, 32% or 68.9%. The only polls I left out were those with unclear categories and those under 5 replies. I stopped looking after 6 page returns. Thylacoop5 (talk) 01:30, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

You can't possibly look at the sway in those numbers and think "oh, this is scientific and accurate, and should be touted!" I know you can't, because your IQ is clearly high enough to know how to write solid paragraphs.--Jorm (talk) 01:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

So they're anywhere between 20% white and 68.9% white, depending on which poll you look at. How in hell is this supposed to be authoritative with a range like that? Not to mention that the options presented in these polls include "Curry", "Rice", "Kebab", "High tier white", and "Low tier white"? User-generated polls on an incel forum with racial slurs as poll options and a huge disparity in results depending on which one you look at is more accurate than sociologists with Ph.D.s or (admittedly outdated) academic research? That's insane. Hopefully with recent attention on incel communities, a quality demographic study will be published in the next year or two and we can use that. In the meantime, we need to go with the quality sources that are available rather than racist polls of whoever happened to be online at the time. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:40, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

You guys seem to be shifting towards a binary approach. That's not what I proposed. My proposal was adding the polling figure alongside the professor figure. Can't we mention both? Thylacoop5 (talk) 01:51, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

The poll isn't reliable; the professor is. So, no. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

No. We cannot. "100% of doctors say that vaccines don't cause autism, but let's give column inches to this group of crackpots who think otherwise!" It is not our job to lie or distort the facts based on the desires of a subculture.--Jorm (talk) 01:56, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Judith Taylor's research focuses on feminist activism, neighbourhood community organizing, and social change making within public institutions. She is an associate professor of sociology and gave an assertion that most incels on incel forums were white. In the CBC video Thyacloops linked above with the 4:20 timestamp another expert on social movements, except as they intersect with race, disagreed that it was primarily a white phenomena. There's nothing about being an associate professor that makes determining skin color easier, as if that could be compared to a doctor's opinion on the efficacy of vaccines. I don't see any reason to think that with the polls from the incel forum that this is a mostly white phenomena unless someone here could give a reason as to why it would be in incels self-interest to identify as white or not as white to rig 10+ polls. Rodger was half-asian. Minassian was Armenian. I'm sure everyone has their problems with incels, but insinuiating it's a neo-nazi or white nationalist or white entitlement thing is really only something a feminist would do. Willwill0415 (talk) 04:09, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I undid this edit because your comments about "something only a feminist would do" are serious fucking bullshit and express a great deal of bad faith on your part. GW reverted me, saying that we should allow people to see you as you want to express yourself. I'm going to go with that, but I'm also going to say: That's a chickenshit thing to say. That's just bad faith, and I'm calling you on it.--Jorm (talk) 04:18, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I've reinstated this, since if you want to portray yourself as anti-feminist, so be it. You are asking how a professor of sociology, e.g. someone who studies culture, subculture, and social interaction, could possibly speak knowledgeably about... a subculture. That is, her area of study. If a Ph.D. studying subcultures and social phenomena isn't sufficient for you, what is?? You have named two incels who are people of color. The article is not claiming every single incel is white, it's claiming they are mostly white. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:22, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Also, to be clear to both @Willwill0415 and Thylacoop5: Judith Taylor is not "rebutted" in that video. Jamil Jivani says, "I don't agree with the need to focus on white men in this case, because I think there's enough examples of men from other communities also exhibiting violence and rage that I'm not sure it's racially specific..." Him saying that there are sufficient examples of non-white male incels being violent is not the "gotcha" you two seem to think it is; it does not in any way rebut the overall demographic makeup of incel communities nor does it refute Taylor's assertion. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:42, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

That's a good point, this isn't something I'm going to talk a whole bunch over, at least as far as the intro to the incel article, because the articles except the Telegraph favor the forums being mostly a white phenomenon. It's just not an accurate though. Maybe at some point there will be an updated Donnolly-type study for these younger age, more modern-internet-era, diverse (except for gender) forums. It doesn't appear judith taylor or the other associate professor did anything but provide an unsubstantiated common buzzphrase. There's also no self-interest for incels to rig a poll about their whiteness in my opinion, especially that many times. My impression was that if there was a conflict between sources to include both sources to let the reader make up their minds. The main argument against letting the reader make up their minds so far is so that users aren't redirect to incels.me... Which seems like a political motive. I don't care if the article mentions incels.me, it could just say a popular forum like the Telegraph article does. But it's not really that important, I don't see why one thyacloop edit referencing a reliable source should spark this much backlash. His edit has a bit of informative value. Willwill0415 (talk) 05:07, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

When you say "It's just not an accurate though," you are expressing your opinion on the racial makeup of incel forums. So far no reliable sources have been identified that dispute incel forums being mostly white. The NPOV policy states we handle conflicting sources by representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic (emphasis mine). Since there appears to be consensus that this source is not reliable, it should not be included. Also, this is not "backlash", this is simply discussing whether a source is reliable or not. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:31, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the commenters above me. That comment is incredibly ignorant and remarkably partisan. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Wrong. It should be obvious to anybody that a self-selected group of respondents to a poll on some website is more credible than the assessment of an academic who has studied the topic.</sarcasm off>, just in case it's necessary. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:32, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• Unreliable. Informal polling on a private site is WP:UNDUE in the article. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:00, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

What about the part about Europe? Is that also undue? Thylacoop5 (talk) 02:11, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• More reliable sources exist so UNDUE That said, if those sources did not exist, and only this RS reporting on the informal poll gave a population idea of the group, then that would be appropriate as long as it was attributed in prose properly, and that if a more reliable poll came up, that should then be removed. To further be clear, if we knew that informal poll existed but no RS even noted it, then that would be wholly unusable. Content from unreliable sources filtered through reliable sources is fine to use barring all other policy and content factors. --Masem (t) 02:06, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

What about the part about Europe. Is that also undue? Thylacoop5 (talk) 02:11, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, even if that's a facet that the other three sources don't discuss. The immediate availability of those other RSes make anything from that survey UNDUE. --Masem (t) 02:40, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

There are other sources in the article discussing nationality, we don't have to revert to a terrible source like this poll to get information on that either. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:04, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

• Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick. These are unbelievably Undue, because they're incredibly unreliable. This should be a complete non-starter. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

An informal survey shouldn't be treated as a reliable source for statistical information regardless of the context around it. Simonm223 (talk) 12:42, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

That's what I'm saying. You can't take any sort of website poll and form a reasonable conclusion based on the results of it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:06, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

just a reminder that half of the sources are using the 2001 Donnolly study as the source of incels being mostly white, and a good possibility everyone else is just piggy backing off that study if one were to email the writers and ask. It's the only academic study they can draw from anyway. The same study GorillaWarfare and others told me not to use for anything due to "small sample size" is the same study they are now using to defend this "mostly white" thing. Also @gorilla, how do you know a new demographic study is happening? Willwill0415 (talk) 22:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

That is speculation on your part. As for the 2001 source, the article citing it is considerably more recent and also quotes a sociologist. I didn't say that a new demographic study is happening, just that I hope one is. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:53, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

When numerous reliable sources all cite a primary source we find questionable... Well, that answers the question for us. See WP:IRS. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:18, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

RFC on inclusion of cast template box

Should the article; Desperate Measures (musical) include a template box for the separate casts or is prose enough? Please help form a consensus at Talk:Desperate Measures (musical)#RFC on inclusion of cast template box. Thank you.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:35, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

@Mark Miller: Are you sure you meant to advertise this at the reliable sources noticeboard? Your RFC doesn't seem to have anything to do with reliable sourcing. --Izno (talk) 02:53, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Part of the dispute is the use of the template to push wording not found in the reliable sources, but it wasn't neutral to say that in the RFC statement. At issue is the use of the term "Original Off-Broadway" when there are two separate "original" Off-Broadway productions and the sources themselves seem to be avoiding the terms. However, please feel free to remove this thread if you still feel doesn't have enough relevance to the noticeboard. Thanks!--Mark Miller (talk) 03:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

From the page notice:

Before posting, please be sure to include any of the following information that is available:

1. Source. The book or web page being used as the source.

• If it's a book, please include author, title, publisher, page number, etc.
• If it's an online source, please link to it. For example: [http://www.website.com/webpage.html].

2. Article. The Wikipedia article(s) in which it is being used. For example: [[Article name]].

3. Content. The exact statement(s) or other content in the article that the source is supporting. Please supply a WP:DIFF or put the content inside block quotes. For example: <blockquote>text</blockquote>. Many sources are reliable for statement "X" but unreliable for statement "Y".

Literally the only thing you have provided from that list, even now, is the name of the article, along with the essentially the same vague text you used at three other unrelated noticeboards. It's clear that not only does this have nothing to do with reliable sources, you were well aware of that when you posted this. --Calton | Talk 06:30, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Seeking guidance on the recency of reliable sources in the AR-15 style rifle page

A question has arisen about whether it's appropriate to source information with regard to mass shooting trends from a formerly reliable source which is four years out of date. Mass Shootings in America: Moving Beyond Newtown by James Allan Fox and Monica DeLateur was published in January 2013. At the time of its publication it was unquestionably a reliable source; Fox and DeLateur are widely seen as experts in this field of study. But with five of the ten deadliest shootings having happened after the publication of this article the question has arisen whether it is still reliable for describing trends in firearm-type usage during mass shootings. Compounding this problem, more recent sources for similar information are hard to come by with the exception of a journalistic primary source (Mother Jones,) which Fox previously critiqued for its selection criteria. The question, ultimately is, Should Mass Shootings in America: Moving Beyond Newtown be used as a reliable source for current firearm-type usage questions related to mass shootings? We're not seeking guidance for a specific wording so much as how and to what extent to incorporate information from a dated RS into a discussion of current trends. Simonm223 (talk) 16:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Wrong venue, more a NPOV/n issue. The source is obviously reliable up until the time it was written, but does not reflect 2013-8. How much weight to give to recent events (or shootings at all with this type) and the media/activist focus on a specific gun type - is not a RS question.Icewhiz (talk) 17:29, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

We actually discussed venue on page talk before posting here; and decided RS/N was the venue because the question was one of reliability in a specific context, not a POV question. There's widespread agreement across POVs that it is reliable for trends up to 2013, and no agreement with regard to reliability for current trends. There are four involved editors, and four different opinions about how to proceed over the question of reliability of the source in this context. (Well three and I'm sitting on the fence, which I why I'm the one bringing this forward.) Simonm223 (talk) 17:42, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

What is a RS question is whether you have a valid recent RS that covers trends through 2018 - it is the credentials of the newer source that should be examined. Mother Jones doea not sound great (news org, and one with skin in the gun debate) - but who wrote the piece? Are they citing relevant experts? A link would help. What other recent sources are supporting newer trends?Icewhiz (talk) 17:51, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I have to mirror Icewhiz here, is there a newer stronger source that disputes the findings of experts in a published book? PackMecEng (talk) 17:54, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

The Mother Jones source is... complicated. It is based on a 2014 dataset that Fox (the same Fox as in the other source) helped compile; but he went on to criticize MJ for using a definition of Mass Shooting that he saw as overly restrictive. Fox's research and the MJ source remain tied until 2014 and then MJ just kept adding to it with very little disclosure as to process other than "we're updating this when new shootings happen." So far nobody has tracked down a better source; a problem is that the majority of the mass shootings in the world, aside from in active war zones, are in the United States, and the United States is just absolutely terrible at recording these in any sort of systemic way. Simonm223 (talk) 18:18, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I would avoid it - iffy reliability of source, iffy relevance (or length of sectikn) to article, and you have to attribute to MJ + mention Fox's critique of their methodology, and it isn't as if MJ is saying something all that groundbreaking vs. the original study (at least from what I understood reading through). Considering this is a "hot" topic there is bound to be a newer academic study.Icewhiz (talk) 18:38, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

First the Dr. James Fox study is dated Dec 18 2013 [52] and there would also appear January 2014 is cited [53], [54], [55] in numerous sources.

"whether it's appropriate to source information with regard to mass shooting trends" on what grounds does anything actually support the denial claim? I assume you are referring to the fact "handguns are the weapon of choice in mass shootings" surely you are not claiming this is a invalid trend or not quantifiable. Besides the 2014 study in support we have a book published in 2016 [56], handguns weapon of choice by a large margin, we also have research from USA Today published 2017 and 2018 wth the help from Stanford University showing a limitled role of AR use in mass shootings [57], [58] 4 uses in the last 3 years. There is the fact also that Stanford this year has stated that it is to time consuming to keep up with any further tracking of this data and lead to a link of MJ for further tracking.

"But with five of the ten deadliest shootings having happened after the publication" this is not a valid argument of denial (it is not about body count), it is simply five uses of the rifle. Man if we only had a way to see how many handguns have been used to date compared to AR's or even rifles in general. Oh wait we do know how many handguns and rifles used because the 1982-2018 MJ [59] compiled data of mass shootings is easy to filter and understand. Also we have a book by Fox published Jan 29, 2018 [60]

"a formerly reliable source" Can you provide any proof that theory is correct? What proof do you have that says it is outdated? This content is supported by highly respected experts and studies, The denial view appears just opinionated assumptions and baseless assertions. There has not even been one policy or reliable source presented that supports the vality of that argument. There has not been anything shown that the data would be outdated, Just the claim of the numerical date not being 2018, but we do have sources from 2016, 2018 supporting the data.

"which Fox previously critiqued for its selection criteria" Mother Jones is a antigun leaning publication we all know that. It is why I felt it would be a good source to provide neutrality, showing my aim was not based on any bias and to show the correlation of Fox with MJ. The Fox critique was on them presenting "a rising tide of carnage using actual numbers, making the argument that the rise in incidents parallels the increases in the number of guns in the U.S". His influence on that publication was to keep the data honest (which was reported). Exactly how does any of this dispute inclusion? There complied data is cited as much as the Fox study. The content is not just about one Fox study, it is supported with many sources over many years including 2018. -72bikers (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

It would appear perhaps inadvertently Simon has made misleading statement here, this is not conducive to a legitimate conclusion. -72bikers (talk) 20:52, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

As Icewhiz, I think correctly stated this is a NPOV question. Being this is not just about one source, it is about denial of content. That experts and studies show the weapon of choice in mass shootings is not the AR-15 but it is semiauto handguns overwhelmingly. There has been only one small mentioned with oddly a 2013 source allowed that kinda reads confusingly with were it is placed " 25% of the weapons used in mass shootings were assault weapons". There has been a lot of controversy at this article with the claim AR-15 "widely characterized as the weapon of choice for perpetrators of these crimes" this is only stated in the media by news reporter, they used no studies or compiled data nor expert input. Even the clarifier "by the media" is denied.-72bikers (talk) 22:25, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Lets not drag other issues into this.Slatersteven (talk) 10:57, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

A previously reliable source is not likely to become unreliable in the short term (on the order of decades), the question is whether out of date information is UNDUE in light of newer RSes with updated information.

However, over long periods of time, as we get towards centuries, a previously RS can no longer be an RS if the work is based on ideas, theories, and/or data that has been disproven or the like. For example, I would not use a 19th century chemistry textbook to discuss modern chemistry principles (though if one is talking on the history of chemistry, it is just fine).

I would also add that this is applying to more academic type works. The time spans are much shorter when we're talking newspaper-type content. Eg, if we're sourcing data on a topic from an article 4-5 years ago, I would look for any more recent data to make sure we're not using that work in an UNDUE manner. --Masem (t) 00:25, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Also (I have to say this) Fox in fact criticized the Mother Jones source, because of skewed inclusion criteria. This is because there is no clear cut definition of what is a mass shooting, you can look at 4 different sources and get 4 different numbers. In this situation only vague assertions are really possible, not exact figures (and no 25% may not be accurate it depends on what you include). The issue is not reliability for historical data, but RS for up to date current data (which is how it was worded), as when it was made clear that it was a 2013 source (in text) it was undone.Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the concern is that a 2013 source is being treated as reliable for making statements about trends that occurred after it was written compounded by the fact that annecdotal evidence suggests a shift in the trend. Nobody is disputing that the source is reliable for information from 2013 or earlier. Simonm223 (talk) 11:58, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure we have evidence of a shift in trends related to the information in the article. In reply to Slatersteven's comment about disagreement between sources, I would ask, if this were a late 2018 paper (or if the data were updated to include through this year) what concerns would apply? Anyway, I was hoping we would get more outside voices since I think those of us who are involved already know where we stand. Springee (talk) 12:27, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

If this were a 2018 paper I would have no objection to its use as an RS in this context at all. Simonm223 (talk) 12:31, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

But also agree we need outside voices on this one. Simonm223 (talk) 12:31, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

None, as it would be about current trends, not trends 5 years ago (from an purely RS perspective, there would be other concerns, just not RS ones). As to why it may not reflect current trends, Since it was published nearly 50% of the mass shootings post the publication of the study have used Semi-auto rifles. That is a very major jump from 25%, thus there is an increase in frequency of use. But this is not an RS issue, but it does illustrate why this study is not reliable for current trends.Slatersteven (talk) 12:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

What source says 50% between 2013 and 2018? Also, I think we need to be clear that these are not trends rather data representing a snapshot in time. Springee (talk) 13:39, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

According to the much vaunted Mother Jones sources between Jan 2014 and June 2018 there were 33 mass shootings 14 (what 48%?) with semi-auto rifles. This year, there were (so far) 6 (we can add another not in the mother Jones source, again why "historical data" is not good for up to date analysis, so 7) of which 4 used Semi-auto rifles (more then 50%). Thus yes, the trend look upwards.Slatersteven (talk) 13:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

SS please do not attempt to skew the facts and claim trends it is data. Please do not try and state facts and not provide a source. You have just now made false claims. Mass shooting are when a gunman kills at least four victims. This is what the FBI and experts such as criminologist (Fox) define it by. This was also addressed above with Fox argue that the magazine’s ground rules for determining what to include So your numbers are way off from what the Fox 2018 book, book published 2016, and USA Toady with Stanford University as well as others. In the last 35 years 13 AR-15 uses in mass shootings and in the last 3 years only 4 uses. You have not shown a source that states AR use is on the rise. The book from 2016 62% and the book by Fox published this year 2018 says handguns up to 70% use.-72bikers (talk) 16:58, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

So are you saying that the Mother Jones source is not reliable? Are you saying that using the Mother Jones source to claims "X percentage of mass shootings" is OR?Slatersteven (talk) 10:33, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I can't follow what you're trying to say here at all. We're not talking about a book published in 2018 and, in fact, a 2018 source from Fox would solve this problem if it's being used properly. Can you please provide a ref? Simonm223 (talk) 17:08, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

The source is on the AR talk page also above in my first post as well as here[61]. There is more than one 2014 study that corelates the weapon of choice is handguns provided here and on the AR talk page, as well as more not shown. I did not believe citation overkill was necessary when providing experts and RS's. So if you actually read the discussions perhaps you would be better informed.

As far as SS arguing inclusion criteria, you would have to look at (AR's) "they have come to be widely characterized as the weapon of choice for perpetrators of these crimes." Unlike the handgun fact that is expert supported, this is not accredited to any source, whether that be study, expert, or described criteria for inclusion. It was something just stated by journalist in the media. -72bikers (talk) 18:53, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

The source from that book you're referring to is, in turn, citing a 2015 study which means it's still no good for discussions of post-2015 trends. Still that book looks like it could be useful for the article in other ways. Simonm223 (talk) 19:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Also this link looks like a list of some incidents, not an analysis of frequency of use, I hope we are not seeing "it says x were used as opposed to y thus Z is true".Slatersteven (talk) 10:36, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

One of the reasons there's been so much press coverage of and debate over AR-15s is that in the last few years they've been used in multiple very high-profile and deadly mass shootings. That's why so many articles refer to AR-15s as the "weapon of choice" for mass shooters, and why the debate on (re-)banning such rifles has come back into focus. So regardless of whether it's reliable, any source on mass shootings that doesn't cover the last few years simply isn't very useful or pertinent for this article. Waleswatcher (talk) 20:47, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

PoliticsWeb.co.za

How reliable is this website for issues regarding South Africa? An article from here has recently been added to the page Racism in the UK Conservative Party to supposedly contextualise Thatcher's comments about the ANC being a "typical terrorist organisation". I have no idea about the reliability of the website; the particular source which was cited seemed to be a WP:BLOG or WP:SPS of some sort. Thoughts? --Bangalamania (talk) 20:43, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

P.S. there is some discussion on the talk page regarding the additions, if that's relevant here. --Bangalamania (talk) 20:43, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

zapatopi.net

I find it concerning that this website—notorious for Internet hoaxes such as the Pacific Northwest tree octopus and dutifully informing us of the TRUTH about Black Helicopters (as Guy Macon loves to remind us)—is cited as a source anywhere on Wikipedia. Nonetheless, it is, including in Featured articles such as Sun (cite note 185, permanent link). Yes, Zapato is Lord Kelvin's humble servant, being a devout Kelvinist with an "MA in Psychothermodynamics from Kelvinic University", but sourcing our citation of a work by Kelvin to a paper hosted by the owner of Zapato Productions Intradimensional seems problematic to me to say the least.

My immediate concern is whether the "papers" are even authentic, given how even the religious have been known to indulge in apocrypha. Beyond that is the fact that we are directing our readers to a source whose primary readership comprises dissidents of the Illuminati's rule, literal tinfoil hat proponents, those who have realized that Belgium doesn't exist, and Guy Macon. That is very concerning.

Should anything be done about this, such as by replacing all the current instances with better sources? My point in bring this up is not to seek permission to do so (I don't need it), but rather to discuss the propriety of ever citing anything sourced from this website outside of the exceptional case of information pertaining to it (such as in the article about hoax octopodes above). According to this noticeboard's archives, this source has never been discussed (except by Guy Macon), so now's better than never. Afterward, perhaps add it to WP:RSP? Thanks. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 22:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Please note that pretty much all of my citations to this source are to [ https://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters/ ] -- the reliability of which is obvious once you put on one of these: [ https://zapatopi.net/afdb/ ]. But now that it has been pointed out to me, I plan on citing [ https://zapatopi.net/belgium/ ] where appropriate. Also note that that pretty much all of my citations to [ https://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters/ ] are on the fringe theories noticeboard, used in the context of discussions about fringe theories. Finally, I have never cited zapatopi.net in any article or suggested that it should be cited in any article. Clearly Wikipedia isn't ready for the TRUTH about black helicopters...  :)  

That being said, the reliability of [ https://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/ ] for use as a citation in articles is worth discussing. That page clearly states "Note: I cannot verify that these copies are error free; use a primary source if accuracy is needed". That statement is reason enough to go through Wikipedia and replace all zapatopi citations to Lord Kelvin's papers with better sources. For example, doing a web search on "there is a universal tendency to its dissipation, which produces gradual augmentation and diffusion of heat" brings up several likely candidates for citations to On the Age of the Sun’s Heat.

Finally, please note that Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources uses the word "article" or "articles" 48 times, twice in the first sentence. In my opinion, that answers the question of whether zapatopi.net should be banned "as a source anywhere on Wikipedia" (emphasis in the original). Context matters. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:15, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification, Guy Macon, and I apologize if my initial statements suggested otherwise. I probably should have stated so myself. Beyond the levity of the situation, however, I also pinged you because you—as one of the propagators of THE TRUTH—are the only Wikimedian I know who is even familiar with this website and consequently you may know something I'm missing (such as these papers perhaps being a content mirror of elsewhere, though that still wouldn't resolve most of my concerns). Moreover, it has been your advocacy mentioning of that TRUTH which originally exposed me to it, which ultimately led me to check its usage in the mainspace (only to, surprisingly, find it used as a source) after suggesting that TRUTH to a friend to use as a source for any report they write in aviation class earlier today. On a related note, I advised them to author any aviation report strictly in ornithological terms and I firmly stand by that decision.

I might as well clarify myself that my statement about it being used "as a source anywhere on Wikipedia" was with the implication that I was talking about the mainspace; I should have explicated that, however, since the context was probably insufficient to make that implication tacit. I have no interest in challenging your desire and dissemination of THE TRUTH, so I'm definitely not looking for any blanket ban of the site in all namespaces (or any, really), especially not when it's being used to bring some fun to the fringe. I tend to be the contextualist, anyway, so I have no complaints about considering the context.

Somehow, there has been implicit consensus even in Featured articles that citing purported Kelvin papers hosted on the website is acceptable. Hopefully, explicit consensus can be reached here to document why that's not a good idea, if only to avoid THE TRUTH propagating any further beyond the talk pages. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 02:54, 7 September 2018 (UTC); added sentence at 03:05, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I rather like your idea of the ornithological aviation report. I think Wikipedia should switch to IP over Avian Carriers. "During the last 20 years, the information density of storage media and thus the bandwidth of an avian carrier has increased 3 times as fast as the bandwidth of the Internet. IPoAC may achieve bandwidth peaks of orders of magnitude more than the Internet..."

Getting back to the Kelvin papers I definitely think that all citations to them should be replaced with better sources. "...Collected from various sources, mostly on the Internet..." doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about the documents being error-free. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

• Wait... The tree octopus was a hoax? FUCK YOU GUYS THAT'S MY SPIRIT ANIMAL!!! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I sometimes feel that many Wikipedians don't respect the FSNEP-community. That's Fairie, Sprite, Nymph, Elf and Pixie. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:33, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I met a a nymph once. She made no effort to seduce me, beyond giving me a kiss on the cheek and a hug after signing an autograph for me. Mythology had apparently misled me. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:47, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Routledge Handbooks and Oxford Research Encyclopedias

I'm working on a new Spanish article for Democracy promotion (to be used later to improve the English one). At the moment, I'm building the bibliography and extracting the most important facts from them. However, I did not select yet the main sources that the article will rely more on. I have currently three groups of sources:

• Authors that are affiliated with democracy promotion organizations and have published articles in indexed journals (often journals run by the very same organizations, such as the Journal of Democracy) and have a high number of citations.
• Authors that are fierce critics of the whole democracy promotion concept and have also published on indexed journals and have a high number of citations (usually less than the previous category, with few exceptions).
• Chapters of Routledge Handbooks and entries of Oxford Research Encyclopedias, by authors that, apparently, might be more independent.

So my question is, how reliable are Routledge Handbooks and Oxford Research Encyclopedias? When prioritizing my bibliography, does it make sense to use these as reference works that can guide and prioritize the main substance of the article, while using additional references to the first two groups, whenever they are often cited by the third group? Thank you. --MarioGom (talk) 08:42, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Encyclopedias that are not self-published or user-generated are generally good tertiary sources, which are useful to have a broad idea of the topic and its important aspects. Secondary sources are usually preferred but tertiary sources are often a good guide to find such sources and to determine the balance/weight of subtopics, etc. (WP:TERTIARY). —PaleoNeonate – 09:25, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

See WP:TERTIARY for an explanation of how tertiary sources can be used. Note too that these sources probably also be used as secondary sources. Also, even biased sources can be helpful in establishing weight, if they are peer-reviewed, because the writers often summarize the weight of opinion in reliable sources. For example, an author may write, "While theory x is generally accepted, I will argue for theory y." Unlike in polemical writing, theory x must be accurately described. TFD (talk) 15:41, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Routledge and Oxford University Press are both highly reputable academic publishers, which is of course no guarantee of total impartiality in controversial matters. But there ought to be at least a balance of opposing views in books of this "reference" type. Johnbod (talk) 16:12, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Routledge Handbooks are more like edited volumes rather than encyclopedias (example) and they are probably closer to top quality secondary sources rather than tertiary sources because they mostly assess (primary) academic research. Handbook style publications may eventually become out-of-date, but they are usually excellent reflections of the state-of-research at the time of publication. The Annual Review of Political Science is a similar potential source that might also be useful for this purpose. Nblund ^talk 16:27, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate, TFD, Johnbod, Nblund: Thank you all for your input! --MarioGom (talk) 08:41, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Awardsandwinners

I've been noticing an increasing number of occurrences of awards and winners being used from everything to BLP's to sourcing award claims. There is no indication anywhere to me that this is a reliable source and appears only to be refspam that has been going on for years. There is no editorial control, no about, no contact (404) and their disclaimer makes it seem like anyone can edit it, though I've been unable to do so directly. There are 500 occurrences, mostly in main space. I'm actually shocked this hasn't been brought up (or blacklisted, for that matter.) I also see no evidence that it's a reliable source or widely used source except within their own social media. CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 16:15, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately COIBot couldn't provide more information (result), although I could track one addition by one of the socks of this prolific case... —PaleoNeonate – 09:54, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Request article review: Levonorgestrel

Our article on Levonorgestrel is likely to be in the news in the next few days, based upon this news story:[62]

I would like to request a review of the article and its sourcing to make sure that everything is accurate.

When it comes to medical topics, an electronics engineer like myself is pretty much lost (I have this mental picture of a non-engineer M.D. trying to "fix" our Cockcroft–Walton generator or Hall effect articles...), but the following quote from a citation in the article seems to my untrained eye be in conflict with WP:MEDRS, even though the source seems otherwise reliable.

'"In 2002, a judicial review ruled that pregnancy begins at implantation, not fertilisation"

As I said, I have zero expertise here and am making no suggestions for specific changes. Its just that the above quote looks more political than medical to me. I just think medical questions should be answered through research, not judges and juries. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:24, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

theattic.space

Past discussions about this website on other noticeboards (example) appear to have been focusing mainly (or only) on copyright. Leaving that aside, I believe that it might not be suitable as a reference, because it appears to be a personal review blog.

Example article that appears to be using theattic.space as a reference for potential original research: Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do (permanent link)

Example diff: Special:Diff/728646914/858622425

More information about the link:

• Special:LinkSearch/https://*.theattic.space/
• meta:User:COIBot/LinkReports/theattic.space

Would it be reasonable to ask user(s) to avoid using the link as a reference, and should it be replaced by "citation needed"? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:01, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I may be wrong but its author does appear to be a "proper" writer, not just another blogger.Slatersteven (talk) 15:04, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks - yes, I do see this too. However, I still wonder if a "proper" writer's personal blog can really be used as a reliable source in this way. In the example diff, it seems to be used as an unnecessary indirect reference to other, actually reliable sources. I wonder why one would not reference these instead, and if this might be a circumvention of the policy on original research, specifically the WP:PRIMARY part: "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:15, 8 September 2018 (UTC)