Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

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

RfC: TRT World

What is the best way to describe the reliability of TRT World? --Jamez42 (talk) 07:55, 8 May 2019 (UTC) 16:25, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

@Jamez42: I've removed the "RfC:" from the section heading, since this discussion doesn't use the {{rfc}} tag. If you would like to turn this discussion into an RfC, please follow the directions at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, and then change the section heading back. — Newslinger talk 07:53, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Turkey, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television — Newslinger talk 08:04, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

It would probably help to use the four-option response format:

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail

--Sunrise (talk) 01:15, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

It will not be neutral and will be intrinsically unreliable. Media in Turkey is not classed as Free and TRT is a state-run body fully under the control of the Turkish government. [[1]] 89.242.251.96 (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

• Reliable for what it's reliable for - I think you're going to have to be more specific about this: what are you relying on TRT to show? FOARP (talk) 12:13, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

This RfC has been renewed for another 30 days due to low participation. — Newslinger talk 07:55, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

• Option 2 - reliable for statements regarding the official views of the Turkish government, not reliable for subjects with which the Turkish government could be construed to have a conflict of interest, otherwise generally reliable. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 01:25, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• (Summoned by bot)Option 2 per above. SemiHypercube 15:54, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
• Option 2 - Rosguill said it perfectly. petrarchan47คุก 07:13, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

RfC: HispanTV

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was option 3 and 4. There seems to be overwhelming consensus that HispanTV is both generally unreliable and that sometimes it even publishes outright fabrications. There was one dissenting argument, but it provided no followup. Their argument that the Iranian view counterbalances systemic bias in Western sources (which does exist — I argue, acutely), seems diminished by how monolithic Islamic regime-dominated Iranian mainstream publications are (and I would even add opportunistic). El_C 04:22, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

---

HispanTV is similar to Press TV, so this could be checked out too.

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail

Thanks.----ZiaLater (talk) 13:05, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

• Bad Question. The top of this page suggests discussing "The Wikipedia article(s) in which the source is being used" and "The exact statement(s) in the article that the source supports" -- which this RfC isn't. And there's no mention of a dispute that would justify an RfC. And this is supposed to be about applications of policy e.g. WP:RS which emphasizes context, not about overriding WP:RS and linking to an essay. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:50, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
• ​The question is fine, as editors frequently inquire about a source's general reliability on this noticeboard. However, I've removed the "RfC:" from the section's title, since this discussion doesn't use the {{rfc}} tag. If you would like to turn this discussion into an RfC, please follow the directions at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, and then change the section heading back. — Newslinger talk 21:08, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I have unarchived this section (which archived yesterday) because after doing my homework, I forgot to come back to this, and also noticed that the first bit of feedback caused a problem. I hope I have unarchived it to the right place, and will post my response shortly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:21, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
• Option 3 or 4 for both, HispanTV and Press TV: Google has a problem with them, they appear to "parrot" or "mirror" other state propaganda websites already deemed unreliable on Wikipedia (eg Telesur (TV channel)), and of more recent concern, I checked out a "documentary" from last week that was pure and classic, psychological warfare and conspiracy theory state propaganda. It is most unfortunate that the "documentary" is in Spanish, and others may not be able to appreciate the full impact—I hope anyone who speaks Spanish will view it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

  Press TV is already listed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, but is used to source BLPs; HispanTV is similar. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I went to their website last week to check on recent reporting, and found listed as a documentary on the HispanTV website a "report" on the blackouts in Venezuela:

• "Apagones en Venezuela: Nueva arma de destrucción masiva" [Blackouts in Venezuela: New massive weapon of destruction] (in Spanish). HispanTV. April 16, 2019.
• For reference, see the History and Causes sections at 2019 Venezuelan blackouts, which is well and thoroughly sourced and reflects the broad consensus of reliable sources on the History and Causes of the electricity crisis in Venezuela.

The HispanTV "documentary" promotes ideas like the United States detonated a nuclear device to cause the blackouts, and while interviewing several "engineers", offers ZERO proof for this notion. It includes zero mention of mainstream information about the years of deterioration and maintenance issues that led to the blackouts. But the blackout "documentary" is only a pretext, as content moves quickly from discussion of the blackouts to pure stuff of conspiracy theory and psychological warfare. It is really just a crude propaganda video, although presented with some level of professional videography. It used the foundational claim that the U.S. caused the blackouts to move on to other conspiracy theories about the U.S., while using classic techniques like tight photo shots to imply limited support for government opposition, and different photo shots to imply broad support for Maduro. It offers the example of plenty of food available in Venezuela by showing images of several quite overweight Chavismo supporters who do have access to food (one can speculate whether the food was provided for the purposes of the video). It offers videos of opposition supporters who appear angrily deranged juxtaposed against the portrayal of calm patriotic government supporters. I hope others will watch it: classic propaganda that should have no place on Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Google blocks both

• "Google 'disables' Press TV's YouTube account without prior warning". Press TV. April 19, 2019.
• "Google vuelve a bloquear acceso de HispanTV a YouTube" [Google again blocks HispanTV access to YouTube] (in Spanish). HispanTV. April 19, 2019.

Anti-semitism claims

And all of these state media outlets (several already indicated as unreliable on Wikipedia) parrot each other, according to this from HispanTV—content that I cannot verify because archive.org link is empty:

According to the Antisemitism in Venezuela 2013 report by the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations (CAIV) which focuses on the issue of antisemitism in Venezuela, "distorted news, omissions and false accusations" of Israel originate from Iranian media in Latin America, especially from HispanTV. Such "distorted news" is then repeated by the Russia's RT News and Cuba's Prensa Latina, and Venezuela’s state media, including SIBCI, AVN, TeleSUR, Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), Alba TV, La Radio del Sur, Radio Nacional de Venezuela (RNV), YVKE Mundial, Correo del Orinoco and Ciudad CCS.

The Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations states:

"These media reproduce accurately the numerous notes that, on a daily basis, are published by HispanTV, a media that considers and treats the State of Israel and the Jewish people as enemies ... In other words, what HispanTV publishes on a daily basis, our media repeat without editing or changing anything, transforming Israel and the Jews into hated 'infidels' ... In this manner, HispanTV and its national repeaters use diverse fallacious or distorted arguments in order to delegitimize Israel’s existence, accuse it without evidence of all the evil in the world, especially in the Middle East and even going as far as gloating when involving Latin America and using the well known anti-Semitic prejudices applied to the Jewish State ... It is obvious that HispanTV, the Spanish Iranian TV channel, jointly with similar media such as Press TV in English besides other tools, are part of the ayatollahs’ huge propaganda apparatus".

References

Press TV is used to source quite a few BLPs:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?target=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.presstv.com&title=Special%3ALinkSearch
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?target=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hispantv.com&title=Special%3ALinkSearch

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4 In short, HispanTV is a Iranian state-owned corporation. The channel has already been removed in several European contries as well as in the United States, and journalists have noted its bias and lack of objectivity. --Jamez42 (talk) 17:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
• Option 1 HispanTV and PressTV are both appropriate outlets that represent the Iranian point of view about global affairs. I believe that they are also both legitimate alternate sources of information because they report on the inaccuracies of Western outlets and are beneficial to provide a well-rounded and NPOV perspective for Wikipedia articles. -- Viva Nicolás (talk) 01:00, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
  • User:Viva Nicolás, it would be helpful if you could provide an example of one of "the inaccuracies of Western outlets" reported by either of them. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:39, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
• Option 4 It is deprecated by everyone else, which would be perhaps the biggest red flag if I hadn't just taken a look and noticed its "reports" are not merely opinion, they are wild speculation, practically fantasy, reporting as fact that "[United States RS] hasn't mentioned [wild conspiracy theory supporting Iranian state dominance and humiliating US], which is plausible, without sources, just trust us". It's just... made up. It may be an Iranian POV, though I hope and believe not all Iranians live in such fantasyland, but it's not an accurate or encyclopedic source by any stretch of (their clearly extensive) imagination. Kingsif (talk) 23:55, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
• Could someone please explain why the bot keeps archiving this RFC, and how to make that stop? SandyGeorgia (Talk)
• Between Option 3 and Option 4 - as RT (Russia) - these are Iranian propaganda outfits transmitting the regime's narrative from a country with no press freedom. The only plausible use of Iranian regime sources is to present the view/stmts of the Iranian regime itself.Icewhiz (talk) 21:46, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
• Option 4. Government run media in a country that currently ranks 170 out of 180 on the current press freedom index.[2] That alone is enough to almost grantee it's unreliable. After investigation, I see it's definitely unreliable. It runs conspiracy theories (particularly Jewish conspiracy theories), and I'm seeing a lot of "news stories" that are just repackaged wacky crap from the Russian disinformation machine. Alsee (talk) 13:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Option 2 - Context always matters, so I can not support options 3 or 4. Sure, There are likely to be few contexts in which this will be the most reliable source available, but we should allow it in contexts in which it is reliable. Blueboar (talk) 13:22, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• Option 3 or Option 4 I think Option 4 is a understandable and appropriate option and given the evidence cited above, we would certainly not be acting bold in any way if we took that step. That being said, I am also sympathetic to Blueboar's point that context matters and there could be a point where their information is necessary. However, I am not absolutely sure that that need outweighs our accuracy considerations. Tfkalk (talk) 16:31, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

As this RfC has run for 30 days, I've submitted a request for closure at WP:RFCL § Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: HispanTV. — Newslinger talk 17:33, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

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

RfC: Dexerto

Should Dexerto be added to the sourcing edit filter to strongly discourage and deprecate its use as a source on Wikipedia as per a previous discussion[3]? X-Editor (talk) 04:18, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

• Yes per previous discussion linked above. X-Editor (talk) 04:18, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
• Bad Question. Linked discussion didn't establish anything about an edit filter, and edit filters are discouraged when there is little use of the source (see WP:AF, and RfCs are usually for resolving a dispute (which doesn't exist), and WP:RSN is for discussions about use of a source in an article (which isn't stated), and "deprecate" has become a misleading term (the real effect of the filter is far beyond the dictionary meaning "not approve"). Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:56, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@Peter Gulutzan: Dexerto is used frequently as a source for Internet and YouTube related articles, so you're wrong there[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Also, If you want to complain about how the term "deprecate" has become "misleading", please don't take it out on me and take that discussion somewhere else. X-Editor (talk) 14:32, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I haven't seen via those links, perhaps I'm missing, your talk-page participations and notifications that you're taking the supposed dispute here. As for your suggestion that you aren't responsible for the words you use, well, for me, that helps establish why the question is bad. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:38, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@Peter Gulutzan: How was I saying the I'm not responsible for the words I use? I'm just saying the you should discuss whether the term "deprecate" has become misleading somewhere else and not in this RfC. As for the links, they are me getting rid of Dexerto sources. Press Control F or Command F if you use a Mac and type Dexerto and you'll see where the sources are. X-Editor (talk) 00:56, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

This RfC asks a valid question similar to the ones in more than 15 other RfCs. Complaints regarding source deprecation can be made at WT:RSN or WT:DEPS. — Newslinger talk 21:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Internet culture, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources — Newslinger talk 20:07, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

You can advertise your essay, and I can comment on bad questions in the place where they're brought up.Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:19, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

• No. It's not quite there. Not too many articles cite Dexerto, and it does good journalism cited by others. wumbolo ^^^ 22:36, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
• No It's not a good RS, but its not that it is a bad site ala Daily Mail. It has some potential uses that make it inappropriate to edit filter it out. Avoided, yes, but not to a point of outright blocking it. --Masem (t) 16:33, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• No Summoned by a bot. Not an excellent RS, but not a terrible one either. I agree that the website doesn't seem to have mal-intent, so I think outright blocking it is a stretch. Determine if it's reliable on a case by case basis Comatmebro (talk) 19:17, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Not without evidence that it is a common and serious enough issue to warrant an EditFilter. X-Editor I suggest you close this RFC as "Withdrawn". It has gotten no support, and we're not going to create endless editfilters for every website that fails WP:RS. (Note: I have barely glanced at Dexerto and I have no firm opinion on the site, other than the serious lack of indication that an editfilter would be warranted here.) Alsee (talk) 13:19, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
• No (via FRS) - Seems unnecessary for its use. StudiesWorld (talk) 11:20, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• No - No evidence presented of a need for an edit filter. This "let's categorise every source in the world for no reason" tendency needs to be stopped. FOARP (talk) 12:15, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Dbase.tube

Is dbase.tube a reliable source in this context? Is it WP:OR?

source:

dbase.tube

article:

See You Again

content:

As of May 1, 2019, [the video] has received over 4 billion views and 23.7 million likes, making it the site's third most viewed and second most liked video. It is one of 163 videos to exceed one billion views, 34 videos to exceed two billion views, seven videos to exceed three billion views and three videos to exceed four billion views.

References

Because one of my questions is whether this constitutes WP:OR, I asked the question at WP:OR/N and directed editors to respond here in a consolidated discussion. That post is here: Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Use_of_dbase_in_music_articles

--David Tornheim (talk) 23:58, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

• I would say it is not RS, it is another aggregator that does not seem to exercise any control or discrimination. I do not think it is OR, it does say over 4 billion.Slatersteven (talk) 07:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

It is reliable (I see no reason why I shouldn't trust it) but it is unlikely to be a WP:Reliable source. feminist (talk) 10:34, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject YouTube, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Internet culture — Newslinger talk 08:06, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

mylife.com

Should this website be considered a reliable source for... well, anything, ever? This is a website for user generated content, and is currently cited in 51 articles, mostly BLPs, and looks like mostly for birth dates, places of birth, and things like where someone went to college. I don't think I had ever heard of this website before, but it looks like anyone can edit, and thatthough there is some way to "take control" of a page if you are the subject, the ones I looked at that Wikipedia links to all have the "this is me - take control" link still visible, so I guess no one did? Anyway, as far as I can tell this has been the subject of only a single brief discussion previously at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_233#Instantcheckmate_and_mylife. It seems to me like it should just be scrubbed from the site. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:51, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

• No. Natureium (talk) 02:01, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

And this is such a non-question that I've started removing them already. Natureium (talk) 02:15, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

• Certainly unreliable and perhaps blacklist-worthy. As the site's FAQ says:

Why do I have a listing on MyLife.com if I never joined?

The information in your MyLife.com listing, including photographs, is gathered from a variety of pubic records and other sources similar to what you might find in a Google search.

And the "Take control" function looks to me to be akin to the mugshot scam. The site allowed me to take control of a random bio without verifying my identity, but then demanded a $6.95 monthly payment in order to allow me to make any changes (while warning me in bolded text "Items On Your Background Report Are Affecting Your Reputation"!). Abecedare (talk) 02:11, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

No, its little better then a WIKI.Slatersteven (talk) 07:38, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

• I remove them on sight because of the user-submitted content and front-page disclaimer. --Ronz (talk) 16:48, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
• Cleaned out and added to blacklist as clearly unreliable. Black Kite (talk) 10:05, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Re-posting an archived section?

I would like advice on re-posting or revisiting Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_263#HuffPost_for_paid_editing_at_Axios_(website),_NBC_News,_Caryn_Marooney,_and_other_articles. It's hard to tell what happened here. At first, there was a discussion as to whether it was appropriate to have a RSN discussion since the article had already been thoroughly discussed at ANI. Then, before a determination on that point was reached, an informal RfC !vote emerged, but without the notifications and structure of an RfC. No formal consensus was determined at the time of archiving. There is also "new" information, in the form of a review by an independent admin, User: SoWhy, on the AN closure noticeboard of the ANI discussion consensus about the HuffPo article, "The discussion brought up a number of previously discussed points but regarding the HuPo article there seems to be consensus that a) the article was written by someone who has no idea how Wikipedia works and b) the editor mentioned in said article has not violated any policies or ToU."[15]. (But the discussion was not officially "closed" because a sub-thread evolved into extensive commenting about the subject of "paid editing." Admins said closure would imply policy could be changed on an ANI sub-thread.)

• Should there be a new discussion here solely on the topic as to whether it is appropriate to have a RSN determination given the matter was already discussed extensively at ANI and there is now AN "closure" of sorts?
• Or, should the existing discussion simply be brought out of archive for more discussion and/or a consensus determination by an independent admin?
• Or, should there should a formal RfC be initiated instead of the informal one that emerged in the previous discussion? BC1278 (talk) 16:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

This question might be more appropriate for ANI, since it's one of procedure, not content. No one has responded yet here. So I have opened the same request for advice at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Re-posting_archived_RSN_discussion? and request any conversation take place there. Thanks. BC1278 (talk) 16:31, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Websnark

• Websnark.com, a blog by Eric Burns, a webcomic artist and writer. The specific material in question right now is this article on the blog: "Requiescat In Pace: John M. Ford" (2006-09-25).
  The issue here is that the source is self-published, but WP policy says that self-published sources can be used if the author is an expert "in the relevant field." The question is in which, if any, areas Burns is considered an expert. The guideline WP:Webcomic sources states that Websnark is a reliable source in the area of webcomics. The discussion currently taking place on Talk is whether Websnark/Burns can be considered a reliable source in the area of sci-fi lit generally (as the material the source supports is related to John M. Ford's novels). We (3 or 4 editors) have not been able to reach a consensus.
• John M. Ford (sci-fi author and game designer) is the article where this material is now being used and disputed, and there is a discussion on the talk page as well.
• This is the diff: [16]. The Websnark material is a retrospective discussing/reviewing the author's novels.
  --MattMauler (talk) 17:04, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

No, his expertise is (apparently) in webcomics (thus he would not even pass for print comics).Slatersteven (talk) 17:07, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Agree - and I even question whether his self-published website should be regarded as a reliable source for webcomics, as it appears that page Wikipedia:Webcomic_sources was 99% written by one editor, with no oversight or input from anyone else in the wiki community. But that is not so relevant in the course of this discussion, which centers on whether Burns' self-published material can be considered a reliable source on John M. Ford, and thus, suitable for use in his Wikipedia article. The answer is clearly no. SteamboatPhilly (talk) 19:09, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Datarabia.com a reliable source for anything?

Its website welcome page[17] gives no information about sources. It is owned by "Rick Smith"[18] who is a software developer with a Masters in Arab studies. He's also known as Richard Allen Smith,[19] We use it on a number of articles.[20] I asked about it before but the site was evidently down then. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I fail to see how this is an RS, just another website.Slatersteven (talk) 15:17, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• I would also say not RS... to the extent that it reprints (ie links to) RS news articles, better to cite the original. Blueboar (talk) 15:24, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

WP:USERG or WP:PRIMARY

• Chiaravallo, Andrew (29 October 2015). "Middletown Area Transit 35th Anniversary". courant.com. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
• Middletown Area Transit (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I am currently sorting out Middletown Area Transit, and the next step in that process is finding WP:RS. I wanted to give a background history on the subject, but obviously it is difficult to find any info about it online. I did come across the following article, however. The problem is twofold:
(1) According to the Hartford Courant's website, this press release was written by a community contributor. Since anyone can post as a community contributor, it is clearly a form of user-generated content.
(2)Yet, this specific article was billed as a "press release" and is identified as being written by the Transit district administrator. To me, that makes it some form of a primary source.

My question is: Should I treat this citation as user-generated content (and avoid its use) or as a primary source (where it can be used in the article in conjunction with proper secondary sourcing)?

I don't watch this page, so I ask you please ping any response. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:52, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it it primary. I am not sure about user generated content issue, as it is a press release.Slatersteven (talk) 08:01, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Based on the Hartford Courant's description of "community contributors", articles from contributors are "unsolicited and unpaid" and are only removed if they violate Tribune Publishing's terms of service. These contributions look very similar to articles published by Forbes.com contributors (RSP entry) and HuffPost contributors (RSP entry), which are considered generally unreliable self-published sources. — Newslinger talk 02:46, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

  However, since this article is a press release (which is self-descriptive), it can be used under WP:ABOUTSELF. Practically speaking, this is equivalent to treating it as a primary source. — Newslinger talk 02:48, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

ISJ report = RS?

Would this be ok for inclusion in the People's Mujahedin of Iran article?:

Former Vice-President of the European Parliament Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca reported that "During a conference in Paris in 2012, L' Col. Leo McCloskey who served as part of the US protection force at Camp Ashraf, revealed how [former MEK member] Ms Soltani had been recruited by Iran… as an agent of the Iranian government."

Thanks for the feedback :-) Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 20:51, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

References

While it is an RS for Roca, I see no reason to doubt the veracity of McCloskey's quote. Attribute directly to McCloskey, but watch the title: "Col. Leo McCloskey (ret.), former JIATF commander at Camp Ashraf". François Robere (talk) 11:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

That will give undue weight to a non-neutral comment. McCloskey's is a minor viewpoint that can hardly be considered as a third party (read the source) and hence its usage for describing a BLP is not recommended. --Mhhossein ^talk 06:27, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Har’el: Palmach brigade in Jerusalem, by Zvi Dror

Is this book (in Hebrew) a WP:RS for Operation Ha-Har? It has been discussed before, see this, but then brought no new "outside views".

I found this review by Tom Segev in Haaretz, note he writes "Dror takes pains to state that "Harel" is not a scholarly study", I would argue this is not a RS for the 1948 war, comments? Huldra (talk) 21:07, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

You had outside input last time around. You failed to quote the rest of the sentence by Segev - "The result is an important, very readable book" - who also praises Segev's method despite this not being geared as an academic study. The author is a proffessional and reputable, the publisher is reputable, and as you showed in the link above - it is well received. The only thing going against this book is that, yes, it is not an academic study but rather geared for a popular audience (and clearly stated so in the book). So yes - it is a reliable source. There may be better sources (e.g, something written as an academic study) - however looking at the article it looks you are generally lacking sources - some of the sources there are worse - e.g. John Bagot Glubb's 1957 memoirs which are used unattributed.Icewhiz (talk) 04:50, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Who is Zvi Dror?Slatersteven (talk) 08:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Zvi or Zvika Dror - See Hebrew Wikipedia. He was (retired now, I think, started in the 60s, mainly productive in the 80s-00s - midlife career change) - a full time writer/researcher in this publishing house and this museum (which also does research). Icewhiz (talk) 08:34, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Mmmm, I think this would need attribution.Slatersteven (talk) 08:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

At the very least. The headline from Segev really says it all: "Once a Palmachnik, always a Palmachnik". As a "memorial book" for the "Palmachnik"; sure, it is valuable. But as a WP:RS? I would, at most, place it in WP:Primary. (People directly participating in a war can hardly be expected to remain impartial,)

And Dror (according to Segev) has written about the Holocaust survivors, who were members of his kibbutz, and a biography of Yitzhak Sadeh. Unknown academic qualifications. Huldra (talk) 20:33, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Dror authored around 20 history books - focusing on the 40s and 50s - Holocaust, immigration, 1948 war, and early settlement. This is not a primary source, It is a popular audience history - and a fairly well received one (as evident by the very positive review by Segev - a proffesional historian). It is definitely a better source than Glubb's 1957 memoirs (general commanding the front). An English language, secondary source, published by an academic publisher and covering the battle in depth would be even better - do you have one? For more obscure battles in the period - these aren't always available. Lets quote Segev a bit here - "Dror is the author of one of the most important books ever written about Holocaust survivors in Israel.".... "The result is an important, very readable book" ... "There were other blunders, which Dror cautiously depicts, such". Icewhiz (talk) 20:57, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

My point is that if you have no better source than those who depopulated (or "ethically cleansed") the Palestinian villages, then you might cut it out completely. Presently, virtually all of Operation Ha-Har is sourced to this book. Look at the difference in how Az-Zakariyya became depopulated in the Operation Ha-Har article, and how it became depopulated in the Az-Zakariyya article, which is based on Walid Khalidi and Benny Morris; one would be forgiven to think that there were two different Az-Zakariyyas, or two different wars, Huldra (talk) 23:26, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Aha - so we're challenging Israeli sources generally - in that case (sarcasm) all Arab sources should be omitted due to the joint Arab attack on Israel in 1948. Certainly Khalidi should be omitted in that case, as he is promoting Palestinian entry to Israel, and a Palestinian representative in the Madrid conference (round about when he wrote the book). (end sarcasm). Dror is a decent source - the book is praised for being forthright (covering looting, prostitution, and soldiers fleeing battles). The author is respected, widely published, and the publisher is reliable. Certainly academic English language sources would be better - but that's not cause to blackball Dror prior to finding them. What you really need to do here is search for other sources covering the operation.Icewhiz (talk) 04:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Huh??? Last time I checked, Benny Morris was an Israeli, when did I challenge him? (eh, more than I challenge anyone?) Huldra (talk) 20:58, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why he couldn't be used attributed --Shrike (talk) 15:24, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Tom Segev gave a fair review of Zvi Dror's book, and he mostly praised Zvi Dror as an ideologist in the ranks of the Palmmach. His work is, perhaps, one of the best documentaries of this short operation, and as Tom Segev states: "Dror takes pains to state that 'Harel' is not a scholarly study, although he made extensive use of documents, including letters, diaries, memoirs and oral testimony from brigade veterans who are still alive. The result is an important, very readable book about people who were fighting a war that is described here as if it were an extended teenage adventure. The depictions of the battles do not interest Dror too much, and he focuses instead on the personalities and motives of the soldiers. This is an interesting and justified approach because the Palmach was a very ideological and a very political army." I see no reason why his testimony cannot be used in this important article. A writer's literary style should not be used against him, so long as he sticks to the facts, without deviating from them. The Publishing Office is a well-known and highly respected publishing company, which mainly concerns itself with publishing histories.Davidbena (talk) 16:53, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Heh, I see all the "usual suspects" are here, with 100% predictable opinions. (I greatly wish for "outside" viewpoints..) Dror, AFAIK, is not an academic, (unlike, say Benny Morris or Walid Khalidi) To quote from WP:PRIMARY: "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." Presently almost the whole of Operation Ha-Har is based on the Zvi Dror book. Huldra (talk) 20:58, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Icewhiz is a very competent and gifted editor here on Wikipedia. It is a great honor to have a person of this caliber working for this encyclopedia. As for the sources used, anyone can see that other authors are, indeed, mentioned in this article. As I recall, there would have also been an additional academic source (Heally Gross, Adullam: `veshavu banim ligevulam`, Jerusalem 2014) had her contributions to the subject matter not been deleted on grounds that she held only a BA in her field of research, instead of a PhD, and that her works were published on behalf of the Mateh Yeduda Regional Council. The next time I visit the Hebrew University Library, I will look for additional secondary sources.Davidbena (talk) 21:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Pr this: "Consensus is that the books published by this author, being self-published by a non-expert, are not generally reliable sources." Btw, the Zvi Dror book is apparently published by the Kibbutz Movement; not exactly an academic publisher last time I checked. Also, according to Tom Segev: "The copyright belongs to the association of Palmach veterans that initiated the idea for the book". This is Wikipedia, not Palmachipedia, Huldra (talk) 23:44, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the assessments made by Slatersteven and Huldra, the book is a primary source. The fact that it is meticulously researched does not negate the clear conflict of interest for the author (and publisher). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 00:12, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that was the consensus of our editors regarding the noble works of Heally Gross. Very sad, in my view. However, with respect to Dror's book, it was published by this publishing house. In Israel, it is a renowned and respected publisher. His work was also well-received by a critic, Tom Segev, whose approval of Dror's work should allay all fears as to its accuracy. As for his work being a primary source to a war that he was involved in, Wikipedia's guideline allows us to use primary sources with caution. The use of primary sources are often our only recourse to history, whenever secondary sources are scarce. This history, of course, should be attributed in the name of its reporter, for greater accuracy and balance. If it were altogether forbidden, we would end-up deleting, I would guess, 25% of our encyclopedic entries.Davidbena (talk) 00:25, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Gross is self published. Zvi Dror, however, is a widely published historian, published by a reputable publisher, and very well received in reviews.Icewhiz (talk) 03:46, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

And no - a source written by a historian in 2005 analyzing events in 1948 is not a primary source by any stretch. Gross being a low ranking conscript in 1948 (in a non-fighting role) has very little bearing on his career as a historian decades later - the book is not based on his recollections (in a low ranking staff role) - but on gathering and analyais of source material. Many WWII historians, for instance, were conscrips or lived through events in occupied Europe. Some of the material included (e.g. witness interviews), or quoted (reports) is primary - the book itself is very clearly secondary. Icewhiz (talk) 04:04, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

It is published by this publishing house, which mostly publish fiction, according to themselves. The writers academic credentials (if any) are unknown. So far, the only "outsiders" to comment here (Slatersteven and Rosguill) seem to agree that is is a primary source and needs attribution. I hope for more "outside" views, (PS and even Davidbena and Shrike seem to think that it should be used with attribution, which it isn't today) Huldra (talk) 21:57, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Many important historians lack advanced degrees, work as writers, not academics, and are reliable sources, cf. Barbara W. Tuchman, David McCullough, Edward Gibbon.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:13, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

This is a SECONDARY source. 15:13, 12 May 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by E.M.Gregory (talk • contribs)

• While checking into the question raised here, I used what I found to create Zvi Dror. His books are cited in books by reliable publishers and in academic journal articles.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:50, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
• To put this book into perspective - this a popular audience brigade history - published almost 60 years after the war, by a professional historian, who used both archives (e.g. orders, movements, etc.) and interviews (attributed in the book AFAICT). The 3-5 day battle/operation which is the subject of the article pitted this brigade (or elements thereof) on one side vs. opposing forces of approx. the same size. This was not a large battle (strategically - this was a diversion for the much larger Operation Yoav which took place on the other side of the attacked Egyptian troops) - so it is not surprising that sources are lacking. Brigade or regimental histories are certainly "lower on the totem pole" of historical sources - but in a battle of this scale, this is often what exists which is also detailed. Icewhiz (talk) 09:52, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Computer Business Review has the only surviving source for a certain niche Wikipedia article

The source is an archived web page: https://__________________/news/intel_acquires_patents_technology_from_real3d/. Replace ________ With the domain URL for Computer Business Review.

The Wikipedia article this link is to be used for: Intel740

The content in the article the source is supporting:

Intel purchased the company's (Real3D's) intellectual property, part of a series on ongoing lawsuits, but laid off the remaining skeleton staff. Some staff were picked up as contractors within Intel, while a majority were hired by ATI and moved to a new office.

The original source for the content above is now a dead link, suffering from link rot, and redirects you to a search engine instead of the actual source reference. The source given above is from Computer Business Review, written back in October 1999. I would like to request for approval as a reliable source of contribution, because this is the only surviving source of reference that can be referred to, and that it poses an interesting topic where the only surviving source is under a blacklisted domain. Maybe there exists a talk somewhere about this?

The last talk for Computer Business Review was mentioned in Archive 166, and it did not lead to any conclusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom mai78101 (talk • contribs) 01:09, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Did you look into why Computer Business Review was blacklisted? Seems to me this could be quite significant in determining whether there was concerns which may make it not an RS. In any case, while we could use the source if there are no concerns, I see zero reason why we need the source. Remembering that sources do not need to be online, the original source provided a publication, publication date and title [21], surely sufficient info to find the source. Given the age, I'm not sure whether the source was even online in the first place. The URL given appears to be more of a convenience link. Anyway sure enough with the info given, I was able to trivially find 2 online copies of the source. One is a simple archive of the probable convenience link [22] which is what I've added to our article. [23] The other is someone else's copy of it [24]. (I couldn't find much discussion of the Free Library, but I did find some mention of Farlex and it sounds like they are a major enough publisher that WP:LINKVIO concerns do not arise.) Nil Einne (talk) 01:51, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

See [25] further affirming my view that the deadlink was always rather irrelevant. The link itself is irrelevant since it's just the same as any other offline source i.e. equally acceptable to an online source. (I have no idea whether the Computergram International is actually an acceptable source.) Nil Einne (talk) 02:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

<pI had a quick look and found these discussions: MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/September 2011#cbronline MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/December 2013#cbronline.com MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/April 2015#cbronline.com MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/March 2016#cbronline.com MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/July 2016#cbronline.com MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/November 2017#cbronline.com MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/October 2018#cbronline.com (removal request). Also related: MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/July 2012#How do I view the list? MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/June 2014#naval-technology.com MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/November 2014#\bpower-technology\.com\b MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/July 2015#energy-business-review.com. It sounds like someone has been spamming the site and others by the same owners for quite a while however the owner are new and only came in the last 10-20 years, and there aren't other reasons for the blacklisting. Those are key points.

In a number of countries, including most of Western Europe which seems to be the site's target market spamming is something viewed poorly enough that there are always likely to be questions over whether the owners of any business who appear likely involved in any spamming can be trusted to make a team with the necessary fact checking and independent editorial decision-making etc to run a site which will qualify as an RS. But since it's a newer development, such concerns probably don't affect older content

So IMO the blacklisting doesn't say much about whether the site is an RS for old content.

In answer to your question about what we do, the simple answer is we use whatever RSes are suitable for our articles. AFAIK blacklisting a site is never really intended to completely stop the use of links to RSes on the site, except in cases where it would cause potential harm to our users such as a malware infected site. While having the site the only RS may help, I imagine even in cases where it's not you could get a link whitelisted on a page if it's is an RS and is helpful. (If there are multiple other RS you may be less likely to convince people to bother.)

Of course my earlier comments also come into play. It's not generally necessary to have a link for a source. Even for online sources, if there is sufficient info provided in the citation for people to find them, this is generally sufficient, a link is more for convenience. And while it is very useful to have, in some ways it's more important to have the other details since as illustrated here, it means we have a decent chance of finding the source if it disappears, much harder if it's just a link.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:31, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

• Marginally reliable. Hi Tom mai78101, the article in question, "Intel Acquires Patents, Technology From Real3D" (https://www.cbronline.com/news/intel_acquires_patents_technology_from_real3d), appears to be marginally reliable for the intended purpose. I note that there are only two people in Computer Business Review's editorial team (https://www.cbronline.com/editorial-team/), and the article was written by an anonymous "CBR Staff Writer" on 21 October 1999. In this case, assuming that the source is not replaceable, I think you could make a request for whitelisting this particular page at WT:WHITELIST. — Newslinger talk 08:15, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

  More recent articles from CBR should be considered self-published sources, as the site no longer has a substantial editorial team. — Newslinger talk 08:23, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

  According to DMacks's links below, the CBR article is indeed replaceable, and you are probably better off using one of the other sources. The Register (RSP entry) is considered generally reliable for technology. — Newslinger talk 08:44, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

• I found two other sources discussing the end of Real3D as a company:
  • Singer, Graham (April 3, 2013). "History of the Modern Graphics Processor, Part 2".
  • Smith, Tony (21 Oct 1999). "Real3D dead – Intel buys bones".

This topic is not one I know anything about, so I'll leave it to others to read and figure out what these support and whether they are RS. DMacks (talk) 08:31, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm also want to leave it to others to decide, as I'm not well-versed in making sure sources are reliable enough. Tom Mai (talk) 00:59, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Distinguishing a review from an essay

At Talk:Glyphosate#Acceptable reviews, editors are discussing this source:

"Is it time to reassess current safety standardsfor glyphosate-based herbicides?" (PDF). J Epidemiol Community Health. 71: 613–618. 2019. {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)

The question is: should editors regard this source as a literature review (as defined at WP:MEDRS), or as an editorial-like essay? What do editors here advise about that? Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:29, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

It was published as a review at PubMed. Gandydancer (talk) 23:04, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

It is obviously an opinion essay. It says in the abstract, "We conclude that current safety standards for GBHs are outdated and may fail to protect public health or the environment," which is a statement of opinion. Reviews on the other hand provide an overview of the literature and explain the opinions that other experts have reached. TFD (talk) 01:26, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I believe that this is what our medical articles guidelines call a "narrative review". Yes, it was published as an opinion essay in BMJ but they took it directly from PubMed which called it a Review [26]. Our guidelines say: Broadly speaking, reviews may be narrative or systematic (and sometimes both). Narrative reviews often set out to provide a general summary of a topic based on a survey of the literature, which can be useful when outlining a topic.

Actually reviews commonly give a statement of opinion on the outcome of their review, for example this review [27] states "Urgent action is needed to lift the veil on the presence of adjuvants in food and human bodily fluids, as well as..." Gandydancer (talk) 12:29, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

But that's another opinion piece masquerading as a review. SmartSE (talk) 16:02, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that PubMed would attempt to hoodwink its readers into believing a falsehood - after all, they are the ones that labeled it a review. Gandydancer (talk) 17:59, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: thanks for the feedback. I want to add that I'm the most interested in opinions from editors who have not been involved in the discussion, but since Gandydancer has presented her take on it, I will point out that every page of the published paper says "Essay" right at the top of the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:41, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Considering that you did not include the fact that PubMed had previously published it as a review (even though I had repeatedly brought that up on the talk page) I felt that our readers needed all of the facts when they made their decision. Gandydancer (talk) 17:59, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, I initially posted a neutrally worded request that did not include my opinion either. PubMed did not publish the article. They are a search engine for medical science articles. It would be like saying that Google published something that showed up on their search results. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:14, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, of course I am aware that PubMed gathers their articles and then serves as a data base rather than to serve as the publisher, though they do maintain certain standards. As far as I can tell the article was first published in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, is that correct? Gandydancer (talk) 19:54, 14 May 2019 (UTC) PS - found it Gandydancer (talk) 20:18, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that is the publisher, and I linked to it in my initial post. (And as I said, it is labeled there as an essay, at the top of every page.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

• It's classified by the publisher as an "essay"; PUBMED have it as a "review". So it's not clear-cut. Okay to use with attribution I'd say, but not to WP:ASSERT its content as we might do with an unambiguous/full-blown review. Alexbrn (talk) 18:34, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Alex, I did find it and IMO you give a good and reasonable way to use this information. One thing, do you have any further comments on what WP calls a "narrative review" for med-related articles? From my understanding it is my best guess that PubMed called this a review in the same way that WP refers to "narrative" reviews. Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 20:18, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Narrative reviews can make very good sources. As to PUBMED, there are a number of ways a publishing workflow can get the PUBMED "publication type" metadata item populated, and I wouldn't want to speculate. One further bit of evidence: if we look at the ToC of the January issue we see this journal can include articles that it classifies as a "Review"[28] however it does not take this option for the Glyphosate article and instead classifies is as an "Essay".[29] That the publisher explicitly does not classify it a "Review", an available option, rather weakens the case it is a review. Alexbrn (talk) 05:04, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• Here is PubMed's list of the categories of publication types that are used at their website: [30]. They don't have a category of "Essay". I think they had to choose between "Editorial" and "Review" (or "Scientific Integrity Review" or "Systematic Review"). According to our page on editorials, they are typically thought of as being written by the "staff or publisher" of the publication, not by outside authors, as the source discussed here was. And here are the Instructions for Authors at the journal where this piece was published: [31]. They have separate categories for "Essay" (the classification of this source) and "Review". They define essays as: "Manuscripts reporting analytic, interpretative or critical point of views and scientific arguments about a subject relevant for epidemiology or public health." They define reviews as: "Manuscripts reporting exhaustive, critical assessments of published literature on relevant epidemiological questions." This information may be helpful in evaluating the question here. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

To answer one of the questions above: A systematic review is a very particular thing. A narrative review (aka literature review) is any other type of review.

As to the content question, User:Alexbrn's approach sounds like a good starting point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the expert help. If I use the information from this essay/narrative review I will say that the information is the opinion of the authors and that should take care of it. Gandydancer (talk) 14:53, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I think that's a helpful result, thanks. But I want to pin down the specifics about kinds of information a bit more. It seems to me to be fine to use the source for attributed opinions about regulation, but that the source is not really an appropriate one for summarizing the science. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for bringing this up because I planned to add something similar to what was deleted with changes in wording to show that it was an opinion. Here is what I had added and which was consequently deleted: [[32]]

I'll copy it here: "Noting a 100-fold increase in the use of glyphosate-based herbicides from 1974 to 2014, the possibility that herbicide mixtures likely have effects that are not predicted by studying glyphosate alone, and that current safety assessments rely heavily on studies done over 30 years ago, a 2018 review found current safety standards to be outdated and "may fail to protect public health or the environment."

None of these statements are disputed and IMO they are connected to the author's concerns regarding current safety standards. I see no reason to omit their reasons for concern since they are not controversial but are rather part of present-day understanding of the product. Gandydancer (talk) 20:50, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

The increased use over time and the differences between pure glyphosate and mixtures that contain it are covered at length elsewhere on the page, so there is a question unrelated to sourcing, about how useful it is to repeat it. And it's a 2019 source, not 2018. But more importantly, that language says that the source is a "review" and that it "found" those things to be true. I would argue that, instead, it would be more appropriate to word it as:

Vandenberg et al. argued in 2019 that current safety standards are outdated and "may fail to protect public health or the environment."

What do uninvolved editors think about which kind of wording better reflects the source? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

It might be appropriate to include some of the reasons why they developed that view.

On the more general subject, I haven't looked into that article, but I hope that it does a reasonable job of balancing "it's probably not entirely safe" with "the realistic alternatives are also bad, and some of them are worse". ("The entire world goes vegetarian, so that we can all eat organic food" and "Nobody cares how much tilling you do next to that stream" are not realistic alternatives.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:41, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't particularly mind including their reasons. But what about calling it a "review" and saying that it "found" these conclusions, as opposed to saying that the authors "argued that" these conclusions are the case? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:28, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

That seems good to me Trypto.WhatamIdoing there seems to be a general impression that any editor that complains about a pro Monsanto bias on the Monsanto pages is opposed to GM products. I am not opposed to GM nor am I certain they are safe. (In fact I wish they'd invent that GM deer tick they've been talking about ) What I am opposed to is corporate deceit, of which there has been plenty of at Monsanto, that makes it hard for the public to make reasonable decisions. You may not be familiar with Monsanto's practices but I know that you are familiar with certain drug companies that have apparently not been honest about what the drug makers knew about untoward side effects. Just like in politics or anything else, we need accurate information to make reasonable decisions. Gandydancer (talk) 18:05, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Gandydancer. Setting aside the corporate POV issues for now, I think that we have found a good consensus on the sourcing issue, and I'm happy with going with that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:34, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I'm usually uncomfortable with words like "argued" (sounds like we're emphasizing that there's another side to it), "stated" (sounds more certain and absolute than plain old said), "noted" (sounds like it's WP:The Last Word on the subject, or an aside meant to undercut another view), and the like. I usually stick with "said" or "wrote". But my views seem to be in the minority, and I admit that it likely leads towards boring prose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I see what you mean; thanks for pointing that out. In this case, there very much is another side to it: in essence, the official views of multiple regulatory agencies around the world (the source says they all may be getting it wrong). The question behind this entire RSN discussion is whether the source is primarily stating a generally accepted fact, or a point of view. And the source is making an argument for it. I looked at WP:CLAIM, and found "commented" there, and I would be OK with that. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:08, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I looked back over the talk page discussion, and remembered that "recommended" would also be a good choice of words. Either "commented" or "recommended" would be fine with me. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I prefer recommended, as it is something (potentially) meaningful that they actually did. "Commented" has that mutter-under-the-breath feel. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. And the good news is that editors have come to agreement at the article talk page, on a version that uses "recommended" and that all of the involved editors seem to be happy with. Thank you to everyone from RSN who gave advice during this discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Will you agree to this: Noting a 100-fold increase in the use of glyphosate-based herbicides from 1974 to 2014, the possibility that herbicide mixtures likely have effects that are not predicted by studying glyphosate alone, and that current safety assessments rely heavily on studies done over 30 years ago, in 2019 "Vandenberg et al concluded that current safety standards are outdated and "may fail to protect public health or the environment." Gandydancer (talk) 13:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with including all of that information; the question is the best choice of words to use for it. I think there are multiple ways to convey it. WP:CLAIM is a good place to go to see the pluses and minuses of various word choices (including "noted"). I think it's best to discuss wording of the page (as opposed to source reliability) back at the article talk page. Interested editors will find that discussion at Talk:Glyphosate#Acceptable reviews. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:03, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Are we allowed to cite gated studies on Wikipedia?

An editor on the Brexit article is arguing that we can't cite a peer-reviewed study[33] by University of California, Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen because the editor can't personally access the study.[34] Are we not allowed to cite gated studies on Wikipedia? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 01:41, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

WP:PAYWALL. We are 100% allowed to cite studies that have restricted access to public users via subscriptions, etc. --Masem (t) 01:44, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

This so called "study" is only available from a pay per view website which charges $39.95 per view of the document. This makes the study unavailable for other editors to review. Other editors have expressed concern that the study is cumulative (Meaning the points it makes are already addressed by other sources and content). Wikipedia is not to be used for advertisement, and this includes pointing our readers to "pay per view" websites, which prevent readers and editors from ascertaining the relevance or accuracy of the content. Much of the abstract for this "study" relies on pure speculation, which cannot be verified. Octoberwoodland (talk) 01:46, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't really matter. First, that's $40 for buying unlimited access to the document and downloading a PDF. That's typical for nearly every peer-reviewed journal. We're not going to ignore those sources. --Masem (t) 01:50, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Ok. This resolves the issue. Octoberwoodland (talk) 01:51, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

So are most of these peer reviewed articles copyrighted generally? I am assuming that those which require a fee are subject to copyright, which means we are not allowed to directly quote from them unless observing the rules for quoting from copyrighted sources? Octoberwoodland (talk) 01:59, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Copyright policies of academic publishers - the answer is yes and no. some are and some are not. Also, many of them are required to transfer the copyright to the journal publisher. I got it. Octoberwoodland (talk) 02:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

We are allowed to use SMALL quotes from any copyrighted material under US fair use allowances, as long as it is properly attributed. --Masem (t) 03:03, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Here is a link to a free copy of the paper at Berkeley's website. There is no restriction against using articles behind a paywall, but sometimes you can find them posted elsewhere or go through a library. TFD (talk) 02:57, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Octoberwoodland (talk) 05:05, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

¡Hola! and Paris Match magazine

I would RfC for ¡Hola! (similar to Hello! magazine) and Paris Match as a reliable source for celebrities. Otherwise it contains Spanish and French languages alongside with Europe. --Humanist920 (talk) 02:27, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

It would be best if you followed the instructions for this noticeboard by identifying a specific reference, content, and article.

I didn't look for any independent sources that would help, but here's an initial impression from looking at their websites:

¡Hola! looks too gossipy to use in most situations, especially for notability and any biographical information that might be questionable.

Paris Match looks better, but deserves care for notability and biographical info. --Ronz (talk) 03:46, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Paris Match is pretty close to reliable journalism-wise, athough it does sometimes partake in 'light gossip' (focus on scandals, etc.)... it's the French equivalent of 'Life' magazine (or it would like to be... at one point in time, at least). 'Hola' is... let's just say that if one is going to cite them as a source, best include them as the source in the text (as it is often but (empty) opinion/heresay). Cheers. TP ✎ ✓ 18:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

@Humanist920: I've removed the "RfC:" from the section heading, since this discussion doesn't use the {{rfc}} tag. If you would like to turn this discussion into an RfC, please follow the directions at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, and then change the section heading back. — Newslinger talk 20:59, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Magazines, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spain, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject France — Newslinger talk 21:03, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Help with sources: What is COI and when does it matter?

At this CBD RfC, it was argued that:

Source is not independent (see COI disclaimer in the article): FP is responsible for the development of Cannabis-based products at Entourage Phytolab. AC received monetary compensation for consulting work performed for Entourage Phytolab. LdS works at Bedrocan.)

and

(is that really a meta-analysis in the MEDRS sense when none of the surveyed papers had an interest in pure vs. non-pure effects?)

I have a few questions:

- What are the ground rules regarding COI and MEDRS, and RS in general?

- Is there ever the case where a paper considered to have COI is included in the encyclopedia with a disclaimer of sorts, noting the COI?

- Are we expected to dig into each study included in a meta analysis for possible COI?

Thank you, petrarchan47คุก 03:29, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

For reputably-published papers, the assumption is that the publication process adequately deals with any COI so Wikipedia editors are not in a position to revisit it. The paper you cite is in a junk journal so the assumption is that this is just pay-to-publish crapola. There are may shades of grey to this but one cannot legislate WP:CLUE. Alexbrn (talk) 06:38, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping. I have nothing to add to the diff you cited. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 09:28, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
• I have found that the best way to deal with sources that may have a conflict of interest is to use in-line attribution. Tell the reader who says what. Blueboar (talk) 13:32, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks all for the responses. Where did all the editors go, by the way?

The last time I regularly edited in the MEDRS topic area was around 3.5 years ago, and much has changed. Quite frankly, what continues to emerge from my recent noticeboard queries, besides the profound lack of activity from (the dwindling pool of) editors, is the message that 'rules' regarding sourcing are all over the map; they've become, in practice, almost entirely subjective.

For instance, Alex's opinion about this journal is not supported by outside reliable sources. It is in fact contrary to what they say. Frontiers has been "whitelisted" by the authoritative body that oversees open access journals (DOAJ); the "blacklist" site (Beall's) that erroneously included Frontiers was taken offline immediately after an investigation into their practices was completed, and the blacklist site (Cabell's) that is now considered the go-to source for predatory journals did 'not' see fit to include Frontiers. Frontiers has the stamp of approval from the regulatory bodies that formally decide which journals are not "junk", COPE and OASPA.

Yet we have a few editors who are placing their own opinion above these outside sources, and this is 'not' being challenged. Years ago this would have at least sparked a lively conversation, and ultimately would not be allowed to stand.

I don't feel as though I have any grasp of what MEDRS will be acceptable, when personal opinions can override the normal processes editors use to determine RS. Therefore I do not feel as if I can contribute to WP in certain topic areas. This is unfair and not how WP is supposed to work. petrarchan47คุก 06:35, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Another problem is that a journal's reputation can change over time, too. It could be okay for a few years, poor for a few years, and then back to okay. Aside from asking some independent expert – and there's only so much of people like User:DGG to go around – it can be really quite difficult. We will get some things wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, Cabell's has a good reputation but they are not open access. I hear they can charge from $35-50K per year. petrarchan47คุก 01:23, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing Do you know whether it is possible for Wikipedia to get access to Cabell's? petrarchan47คุก 01:35, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh FSS, will you just stop beating that WP:DEADHORSE already? How many times must you be told that Frontiers does not qualify as a WP:MEDRES, doubly so when the authors of a specific paper have an obvious COI? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:31, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

We don't assess sources by what random Wikipedians say - we use outside sources. Also please don't assume bad faith here and reread what this section is about - it was Alex who completely switched subjects to bring up Frontiers again. I am simply trying to get a grasp for how we assess COI, as the RfC brought up issues new to me. petrarchan47คุก 01:23, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Source conflicts of interest are governed by WP:QS, which applies equally to medical sources. The very long footnote 9 has useful information about determining whether a COI exists, and the Columbia and New York Times resources listed there may be helpful as well. Alexbrn is incorrect here. There is no "rule" that we assume there's no COI just because the publication is generally reliable; nor is there any "rule" that we assume there's a COI just because the publication is unreliable. R2 (bleep) 23:35, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I never said there's a "rule" that "we assume there's no COI just because the publication is generally reliable", or vice-versa. So that is a straw man. Alexbrn (talk) 23:45, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Why don’t you clarify what you meant, then? Because that’s how I read your comment: For reputably-published papers, the assumption is that the publication process adequately deals with any COI so Wikipedia editors are not in a position to revisit it. R2 (bleep) 01:05, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

In the context of the OP's question, about medical sourcing, Wikipedia editors are not in a position to reject the science in a reputably-published article because they assess a contributor has a COI, when the peer-review process has already accounted for that COI. An editor might otherwise claim e.g. that "NEJM may have published this result but it's not RS because contributor X has declared a COI!" If, on the other hand, a publication is not known for having a rigorous peer-review process - or is known for having a lax or non-existent peer-review process, then the COI of contributors does become a concern for WP editors, which is in part why the source being pushed by the OP has been so roundly rejected. There are of course shades of grey for publications which fall between these extremes. Alexbrn (talk) 05:42, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

"Roundly rejected" by the same 3 people? And not all of those people have zero interest in the field of medical journals. I'm not entirely sure how you justify having a large subscription journal like Wiley as a client and simultaneously go on a tirade against Frontiers which could easily be considered competition.

"Roundly rejected" by the same 3 people who chose to follow this issue, yet they do not represent the community - as you know, at the Project Medicine NB one editor said they've 'never' seen this source rejected before. The people who didn't support your stance did not show up to the RfC, so these NBs don't necessarily represent anything "round". petrarchan47คุก 01:31, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Jeffrey Beall believed open access journals, like Frontier, exist to put subscription journals out of business, and are anti-capitolist. Here is one critique of his conspiracy theory: *; here is another from his boss *.
• "Blacklists suffer from personal biases (e.g., Beall's own anti-OA views). Quoting Beall (2013): “The open-access movement is really about anti-corporatism. OA advocates want to make collective everything and eliminate private business, except for small businesses owned by the disadvantaged. They don't like the idea of profit, even though many have a large portfolio of mutual funds in their retirement accounts that invest in for-profit companies.” Beall's erroneous views of OA were debunked by his direct supervisor just prior to his retirement (Swauger, 2017)." source

• "Clemons et al. also point out that Beall's list is curated by a single individual. And a number of journals have found themselves on the list despite a long track record of academic publishing. The Frontiers series is on the list of predatory publishers—and does have a diverse array of journal titles. But it was founded as Frontiers in Neuroscience in 2007 by two neuroscientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, has published more than 2,400 papers, and has an impact factor of 3.398. Frontiers in Pharmacology has published more than 1,600 papers since 2010 and has an impact factor of 4.418. Frontiers in Oncology has 1,560 online papers and a respected editorial board and field chief editor but doesn't have an impact factor as yet. The journal websites have a very different look and feel, as if imagining a new vision in publishing. Hard to argue these are not academic journals. Given that the number on Beall's list for 2017 exceeds 1,000, even a 5% error rate could entrap and mislabel a significant number of academic journals and, by extension, those who publish therein." source

Beall and a couple WP editors are 'not' acceptable sources for black, or Brown-listing Frontiers journals. You have already admitted you cannot blacklist them, and there is no justification for badmouthing and rejecting them based on nothing but personal opinion (Brown-listing) every chance you get. petrarchan47คุก 01:55, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Creative Crayon Publishers

This has cropped up over at David R. Hawkins, I can find little or no information about them, other then this [[35]] and this [[36]], so I am concerned this may be some vanity press outfit, or linked to the author in some way as to not be independent.Slatersteven (talk) 08:37, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Slatersteven, that definitely looks like a very small self-publishing press to me. The blurbs and the covers are definitely the work of amateurs. --valereee (talk) 13:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Reliability of a MDPI article

Durden, Stephen L. (2010). "Remote Sensing and Modeling of Cyclone Monica near Peak Intensity". Atmosphere. 1 (1): 15–33. doi:10.3390/atmos1010015.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) is used as a source for a windspeed reconstruction in Cyclone Monica. It is referenced by other articles but MDPI is known to be a dodgy publisher. I am not sure if the author is the same Stephen Durden that we have an article for, but they have some citation record in what looks like remote sensing. Do people think this is a reliable source for the information? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:30, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I hope not, that should be AFD'd. As to the rest, MDPI appears to be an academic publisher,but does seem to have a record of publishing rubbish. I am going with not reliable.Slatersteven (talk) 09:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

• MDPI = junk. Do not use for anything at all unusual. Alexbrn (talk) 09:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I would personally deem the article reliable for what we are using it for, which is to state that a study into TC Monica's intensity took place.Jason Rees (talk) 10:56, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

It's also used to support a hypothesis about Monica's intensity, which while not particularly contentious is also not totally uncontentious. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:21, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is allowed to highlight different views about a tropical cyclone's intensity, especially when we consider that 99% of tropical cyclone estimates each year are satelite based rather than based on observations from planes or weather stations.Jason Rees (talk) 20:07, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

The additional info provided by the paper backs up the assessment by the BoM (est 900-920 mb against the official 916 mb) rather than provide a contentious view. However, only a small amount of info only sourced using this ref isn't available in other refs in the article so not much is lost if it's deemed unusable. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 20:28, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

thepeerage.com

This notice is an update to previous discussions, listed here, pinging their creators:

• @Will Beback: WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_103#Self-published_royalty_websites
• @Betty Logan: WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_114#thepeerage.com
• @Wikiwayman: WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_121#thepeerage.com_(update)
• @Stevenmitchell: WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_132#thepeerage.com

More than 10,000 biographies cite or link to a self-published site that does not meet Wikipedia's requirements for reliability. The editor is not a genealogist nor is he considered a reliable source. While he does cite some reliable sources, a significant amount of it is personal correspondence, email lists, etc. The site itself says it is full of errors; I have frequently found errors or info contradictory to reliable sources. This is not a slam on Darryl Lundy who works hard to compile this, but a reminder that Wikipedia has a stricter standard. We don't accept self-published for a reason.

The first discussion in 2011 resulted in the conclusion that these sites they should not be used for living people, however, I see the site frequently cited in non-BLP articles to list descendents and heirs who are living.

My Wikipedia history proves I work extensively on these biographies, and I can tell you this biographical data is available elsewhere. The births and deaths for royals, nobilities and landed gentry are recorded extensively, to this day, by reliable sites such as Burke's and Debretts (still publishing), not to mention obituaries, and birth and death records/notices. As was pointed out before, Wikipedia editors use this site because it's more convenient to them than accessing a reliable source, whether online or at a (gasp) library. Convenience does not equal reliability.

I'm really fed up with seeing this site used as a source and it's going to take me years at this point to fix the 10,000 articles. It's time for this site to be blacklisted, with a message similar to that of the Daily Mail blacklist, to alert editors to finding a reliable source instead. —Мандичка^YO 😜 13:09, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Yep I see no reason why we are using this.Slatersteven (talk) 13:14, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I have posted a long reply to User:Wikimandia about Darryl Lundie's website at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#thepeerage.com. Lundy usually cites his sources and many of them are reliable so I think that it is OK to use his site providing it is in line citations in the WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT format to Wikipedia reliable sources. Please read my posting at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#thepeerage.com for more details. "While he does cite some reliable sources, a significant amount of it is personal correspondence, email lists, etc." this has not been my experiance I find that most of his entries for the periods I edit tends to cite

• G.E. Cokayne; et al (2000, eds) The Complete Peerage of England...
• Mosley, Charles, (2003 ed.); Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition

-- PBS (talk) 20:00, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

That's not acceptable because in his transfer of information, he can be making mistakes, such as typos for birthdays, or mistake one person for another in his interpretation of this data, such as if someone married the daughter of so-and-so, he mistakes who that person is and links to the wrong person. I have been replacing this site with reliable sources for years. The user should access these sources and cite them normally, including page numbers (REQUIRED). We already have the massive problem of almost all the articles on baronetcies cited exactly like this (copy/paste), without page numbers (indicating they probably never checked). And a significant portion of his content is emails from family members (likely to be full of mistakes) and personal research. This is a self-published site and considered unreliable by wikipedia standards. —Мандичка^YO 😜 20:10, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

User:Wikimandia,I think you summed it up well back in 2012:

OK, so if I'm starting to understand this correctly, when I come across an article that uses the website as a reference source, I should work with the authors to improve references (by going back to the original source if available) and agree to remove any dubious information that I don't believe is likely to have originated in a published work. In a small number of circumstances it may be relevant to include an external link. Wikiwayman (talk) 18:48, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

PBS (talk) 20:14, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

@PBS: I am not and have never been "Wikiwayman". I don't see how this person's comment is relevant to the discussion in any way. Thepeerage.com is not a reliable source, as I have laid out. Reliable sources ARE available and should be used instead. —Мандичка^YO 😜 20:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Apologies my mistake, no offense meant.

BTW did you look at the edit history to "exactly like this" and who added unreliable source template to the sources? I have made it clear that if Lundy cites a Wikipedia unreliable source then his site should not be used. I do not want to repeat my longer posting to you here so please read it as I made this point before. Lundy's own website includes a page number and usually a section number. Lundy does usually cite Wikipedia reliable sources to the page number. -- PBS (talk) 20:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I did a search on [PBS Lundy] in the archives and one of the archived sections returned was Archive 132 § thepeerage.com (September 2012) which was not a conversation in which I participated. In the section there was an interesting contribution by User:LeadSongDog (LSD) --who basically agrees with my position--but included an example where LSD took an article in which I had added "unreliable source" to a Lundy citation using AWB, and added the reliable sources Lundy cites, commenting in the RS conversation that "WP is perpetually a work-in-progress. Rather than see editors leaving assertions uncited, it is constructive to capture where they came from and work towards eventually checking the original publication as the article matures". -- PBS (talk) 13:25, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Peter Lemme

Independent, self-published articles of "former Boeing flight control engineer Peter Lemme"

• satcom.guru: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

The source has been sitting in MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist#satcom.guru since 27 April 2019 (*.guru urls are blacklisted).
Edit: thank you for Marc Lacoste and Beetstra for white-listing it. 11:30, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

The Seattle Times says "The expert, Peter Lemme, a Kirkland-based former Boeing flight-controls engineer who is now an avionics and satellite-communications consultant, has no direct personal knowledge of the airplane’s development or certification but he did a detailed analysis of the October crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX. He was extensively cited as an expert in The Seattle Times, and subsequently in multiple press accounts, including in The New York Times."

Articles: Boeing 737 MAX groundings, MCAS (737), Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, Lion Air Flight 610 Aron M🍁 (➕) 15:06, 14 May 2019‎

Hello guys. I'm looking for some pros and cons regarding the reliability of these aviation articles. Any opinions?  Aron M🍁 (➕)  05:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Joule / CellPress

I did find an article on the web of Joule (magazine?), what is part of the CellPress. Can this be counted as a reliable source? Thank you in advance. --Dee (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

It seems like Cell (journal) is a peer reviewed journal. From a brief glance at your links it seems reliable, but an absolute judgement call can't be made unless we know what purpose it's being used for, in what article, to support what content. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:47, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Breitbart News ... but hear me out

Hello guys. I'm well-aware of Breitbart News' blacklisting here. But I want to propose a specific use for it. I specialize in articles about the Mexican Drug War and have formally studied the topic for over a decade. One of Breitbart News' drug war writers is Ildefonso Ortiz, who is regarded as an expert in the field (specifically on the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas crime syndicates). He used to work for The Monitor (a South Texas newspaper) and was one of the leading reporters for violence in Tamaulipas, where these two criminal groups are based. The Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas generally have a strong control of the local press via "liaisons", so many local reporters "outsource" their information to Texas-based reporters (like Ortiz) to get news to the public. My ask would be this: Can I use articles written by Ortiz to write about the Gulf Cartel/Los Zetas? Other than that, I'd rather use other sources. MX (✉ • ✎) 15:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Who regards him as an expert?Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Several books have cited him specifically on the Gulf Cartel/Zetas: see here. They mention him as a "top journalist" (the book is about Los Zetas and George W. Grayson was a respected researcher in the field). MX (✉ • ✎) 16:04, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

That is one book, and lists him as a journalist, not an expert in the drug cartels. Nor does it say what he was used for, he was one of a umber of sources used for a table. This does not make him a recognized expert, it makes him a journalist.Slatersteven (talk) 16:09, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

He's mentioned as a "top journalist", but OK, point noted. Grayson also mentions him in another of his books: "I must mention Ildefonso Ortiz, an investigate reporter for the Monitor of McAllen, Texas, who courageously allows his by-line to appear in first-rate articles about the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, border atrocities, and related subjects." see here. MX (✉ • ✎) 16:13, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Another journalist who wrote a book about the Gulf Cartel mentions him: "The journalists of the Rio Grande Valley, Marcia Caltabiano Ponce, Lynn Brezosky, and Ildefonso Ortiz, who knows more about organized crime in the area than anyone I know and who I hope one day will write his own book, provided context and contacts that proved invaluable." see here. MX (✉ • ✎) 16:14, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

That a bit better, but I would point out its still only two people. If this was not Breitbart we were talking about I might agree he is RS. I am not sure its enough, if he was this good why is he not writing for a more mainstream and reliable source?Slatersteven (talk) 16:21, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

He's cited in other books too, which I can share. But the two above are my strongest examples. To answer your question, I have no idea. I guess it's b/c of the money. I also don't know how much demand there is for what he writes (like I said, some of what he writes might be "too niche" for the average American reader). No idea. But hopefully we can treat articles written by Ortiz on a case-by-case basis? MX (✉ • ✎) 16:26, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Why not just cite what he's written in "the Monitor of McAllen, Texas"? Local papers are considered RS. Good journalists don't usually write for partisan sources like Breitbart. It damages their credibility. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:30, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: I have. But he no longer works there and now everything new he writes is pretty much uncitable if he writes it on Breitbart. Even if he were to find a job in a better media outlet, the research he did at Breitbart would still be uncitable. Oh well. MX (✉ • ✎) 03:09, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Can't you access his old articles at the Monitor, or are you only interested in the new stuff he writes at Breitbart? If it's only the new stuff, start following a different journalist, because his cred is dirt now. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:24, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

If the material is actually useful and reliable, I'd expect sources besides Breitbart to pick it up. Otherwise, sorry, but the site has a well-known reputation for terrible fact-checking and outright lying when politically convenient. Given that the drug war in Mexico can be intertwined with American politics and specifically fear-mongering around immigration from Mexico and Central America, I would not trust Breitbart on this issue at all. If he's a good reporter, he should find a better outlet for his material than the Trumpist/Bannonite equivalent of Pravda. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:53, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect others to cover it in that level of detail, since most of what Ortiz writes would probably be considered too niche for other outlets. But I get what you're saying about the Mexican/American politics thing. That's my biggest concern here, but I'm trying to evaluate the journalist on his own merit. MX (✉ • ✎) 16:04, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Agree with NorthBySouthBaranof. As long as Breitbart has any degree of editorial control, it's not a reliable source. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:17, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

And the points above should be ignored? Ortiz is regarded by other journalists in the same field as reliable. I know this discussion will probably go overwhelmingly against me just because others will see "Breitbart" and not give it a chance, but Breitbart is already blacklisted and citing a single source would require to individually whitelist it. Could a case-by-case use of a source help? That's more reasonable to me. MX (✉ • ✎) 16:21, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

We do whitelist the use of single pieces of content from blacklisted sources, but normally only for use in the bio of the person doing the writing, ergo what they write about themselves, never about others. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:34, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd be one to probably find a way to allow this, but I'm not seeing the type of evidence I'd like to see to agree to this. I think it is unfair to criticize Ortiz working for BBN and immediately discrediting his work because of BBN's nature - a good journalist that has done their own fact checking is not going to change that approach. But at the same time, I would like to see what others in the news world see about Ortiz's work at BBN, and the lack of any real usable hits via GNews using "Ildefonso Ortiz -site:breitbart.com" is a sign that Ortiz may not be the fundamental expert on the war on drugs. If Ortiz' work was referenced more by other sources (and not questioning reliability of what Ortiz says), then I would be fine with this exception, but I just don't see enough here to consider that. --Masem (t) 16:28, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your thorough response. To clarify: Ortiz is well-respected specifically for his work on the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. I would not use him for the general drug war (not because he isn't reliable, but because I could probably use other sources here). Here is an article that talks about Ortiz from the view of another journalist now that Ortiz works for BBN: "Many of you reading this are probably skeptical of Breitbart Texas, which is a right-wing news site with a reputation for erratic quality; I get that, but in general I put more stock in individual reporters than in the outlet they work for, or the ideological affiliation of either, and I have a high opinion of Darby and Ortiz as border reporters. Both have extensive experience and expertise, built up over time. Both have a lot of good sources, including in law enforcement, notably. Both are aggressive and have a record of breaking news..." The Guardian also cited him while he worked for BBN in the article I shared in my first post. Not sure if that was what you were looking for. MX (✉ • ✎) 16:37, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

• The problem remains that the item was published by an unreliable source, meaning, they probably did not do the stringent fact-checking that are done by RS. Even credible authors expect their work to be subject to fact-checking, but we know from history that Breitbart does not fact check. —Мандичка^YO 😜 16:34, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

The gist of my objection, I call it the Irving conundrum. A given writer may at first be perfectly respectable (even reliable), until there is no longer anyone around to control their worst impulses. Then they publish personal opinion as researched fact.Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Reason enough to allow it. While I'm no fan of Breitbart or the Daily Mail et al, incidents like what we have here now are reason enough to exercise extreme caution about blacklisting sources, especially considering the mess stemming from 2016 forward that caused major problems for quite a few RS as demonstrated by the following reports:

• Ohio State University
• The Intercept
• Salon - “Tom Friedman's laughable prescription for Democrats, NYT and CNN spin Venezuela fables, Bannon goes full Orwell”
• Poynter
• PBS
• Investor’s Business Daily about Wikipedia article being very one-sided, [37], and [38]
• Real Clear Politics
• Washington Times - hostile coverage
• AP report
• Attkisson

And it goes on and on. The following excerpt from one of Jimbo's TP comments describes it quite well (my bold):

"I'd like to add that I don't mind a little bit of personal chit-chat here about politics, I'd like to always seek to tie it back to Wikipedia. We have chosen a very tough job: NPOV. Dislike for the President, fear about things that are happening in the world, may make it emotionally harder to remain neutral, but remain neutral we must. I happen to personally think that given the decline in quality of the media across the board (there are still fantastic journalists out there, but overall the landscape isn't great) the best way for us to help the world heal is neutrality."--Jimbo Wales

^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:44, May 14, 2019

Which says nothing about reliability of sources. Of coarse we should be neutral, that does not mean giving an idiot the same weight as a genius. Now if the argument was "we should never use any news media" I would agree, that is how to achieve better neutrality, wait until;l the experts actually deign to notice it. What I cannot accept is the idea that just because it is "right wing" it should be allowed lesser editorial controls (in this case none) in the name of Neutrality.Slatersteven (talk) 17:47, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS, WP:NEWSORG and WP:RECENTISM come close but I'm thinking you're referring only to Jimbo's comment. The point I was impressing upon more than Jimbo's comment was the list of sources pointing out the errors and omissions (which is how my former media liability insurance listed it back when I was doing field production for CNN) of RS in MSM. News sources are not infallible and are driven by the hand that feeds them - it's a survival thing - whereas academics enjoy some protection from dictates by university funders. I am more interested in what the historians and academics surmise once all the media frenzy has died down...and it will. It's the nature of the beast. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:22, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

As I said I agree it would be a good idea to ban all news media, including new media. But that is not the question being asked.Slatersteven (talk) 19:03, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Not sure I'm parsing this correctly. Are you arguing that all mainstream media sources (including those that we generally consider reliable) are unreliable and/or biased/problematic, so we should also use the sources that are broadly considered unreliable? I don't think anyone will disagree that academic sources are preferable, but news media certainly are not equivalent. (Sorry if I'm misreading you). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:18, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Even if Breitbart were not blacklisted, but was rated as "generally unreliable," the articles would not meet rs. Journalists are not experts and their articles are only reliable sources when appearing in reliable publications such as mainstream media or book publishers. When a journalist writes outside the mainstream, they do not have the same constraints such as double sourcing, documentation of investigations, fact-checking and post-publication error correction. Also, original investigations by reporters present a problem of weight. Generally I would only use information in them that had been picked up in other sources. However, the Breitbart ban does not extend to Ortiz articles published in reliable sources or where his reporting is mentioned in them. TFD (talk) 16:46, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. And trust me, I'd love to use other sources if I could (and I have when they exist). But most of the Tamaulipas local press won't write about the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas due to self-censorship, and use Ortiz and others to get their information to the public. I've refrained myself from writing at least two new articles because at least one source would be of Ortiz's making. Now, Mexican bloggers often report on the same incidents Ortiz do, but anonymously. Here is an article (unreliable b/c its a blog) that is likely run by "citizen-journalists" and reporters. Ortiz wrote about the same incident too (article titled Gulf Cartel Leaders Presumed Dead in Turf War near Texas Border, since I cannot post it here), but using his English platform. I usually cross-reference this to make sure Ortiz's work in BBN is "fact-checked". BTW, in the BBN article I shared, it mentions he worked with "J.A. Espinoza", who in The Guardian is cited as a Mexican journalist from Tamaulipas. Hope this helps. MX (✉ • ✎) 16:56, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

If other publications ignore this information then it lacks weight for inclusion in any article. Articles should "strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." And of course, even considering the reputation of the journalist, we don't know now accurate the information is. Also, since Wikipedia articles rate high on Google searches, by using this source we would be providing the information more exposure than it otherwise would have. In that case, Wikipedia could be in a role of influencing public opinion.That would be particularly embarrassing if the information turned out to be incorrect. TFD (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

It depends. In this situation in specific, it seems like the information is not covered elsewhere in the Mexican press due to censorship (see pg. 4 of CPJ here, which talks about the role of the Gulf Cartel in the local Tamaulipas press). We all know Latin America is mostly under-represented in the U.S./World news, so I'm not surprised most of these incidents do not reach the U.S. media. I'm trying to make a specific case for Ortiz's work and still treat it as a case-by-case every time we cite his work. MX (✉ • ✎) 18:18, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Not necessarily in this case, but I would take issue with "journalists are not experts". Investigative journalists can certainly be experts if their sole focus on reporting is that topic area, they have shown to have connections to authoritative sources, etc. Investigative journalists may not be the authoritative source, but more often better present and come to conclusions on information than the authoritative source. --Masem (t) 17:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Expert can mean different things. Someone could be for example an expert in flipping hamburgers. But I think in this case it means authoritative. Someone who typically has a PhD in the field, has published articles in peer-reviewed journals and whose opinions are routinely cited in learned papers and textbooks. TFD (talk) 18:07, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

• I still wouldn't use Breitbart, even if one of their journalists used to work for a real newspaper. Unfortunately, his work is tainted by their lack of editorial quality. His work published outside of Breitbart is probably OK, but him writing for Breitbart does not fix the problems with it as a source. Simply put: he hitched his wagon to the wrong horse. --Jayron32 16:54, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
• Question... if this guy had self-published his reports (say in a blog) would his reputation be enough for us to accept them under the WP:EXPERT clause of SELFPUB? If so, this may be a valid WP:IAR situation. The actual publisher does not matter, because we would accept it even if self published. Blueboar (talk) 17:49, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Excellent question Blueboar. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:25, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

• Well, assuming we can trust the Breitbart editorial staff enough not to make harmful edits or drop-ins. - MrOllie (talk) 18:22, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I do not think anyone has produced evidence they alter their own staff stories.Slatersteven (talk) 18:24, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

In fact, I think there's consensus that Ortiz is / could be considered "reliable". The question is all about Breitbart and fact-checking at this point. I don't see harm in treating his articles on a case-by-case. Many others in his field (as shown above) have lauded at his work and reliability. MX (✉ • ✎) 18:29, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

If Ortiz were self-publishing, absolutely we could use his work, as he's a noted subject matter expert, or I'm assuming that everything written about him here is accurate. But that's not the case here. He's not self-publishing, he's publishing under Breitbart's brand and under their editorial influence, which means that there is at least an open question as to how much he has had to temper his normally reliable expert opinion to meet the extreme bias of the publisher. I think you make a good case for evaluating normally blacklisted sources on a case-by-case basis in this manner, but I think that Breitbart is right out. In my opinion it doesn't even matter whether or not or to what degree this editorial influence actually exists, just the possibility that it might makes anything published by Breitbart suspect, and thus a poor source with respect to reliability.

Reliability is a spectrum, of course, but you're talking about using something published by "the platform of the alt-right" to describe criminal activity in Mexico in the "build the wall" era. I just can't think of any way Wikipedia can claim NPOV based on that kind of source. If you can find other more reliable publications using Ortiz's work or repeating his statements/opinions, I think there would be no problem with that. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:46, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I do not think that being a journalist makes one an expert in terms of SELFPUB, otherwise op-eds would almost all be reliable sources. TFD (talk) 01:16, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

"Op-eds" are where you stick outsiders. "Just plain 'eds'" are where the journalists write. And... depending upon the subject matter, any of those authors really could be experts. You don't need a PhD to be an expert on something, especially if your "thing" is rather narrow or non-academic. I work with people who are recognized within their field as the world's leading experts on some aspects of the systems we're all using. It's true that some of them do have advanced degrees, but what makes them experts isn't academic credentials. Our WP:SPS rules do not mention academic degrees or limit that status to peer-reviewed publications. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

The Daily Mail also has/had widely acclaimed theatre and film review teams despite otherwise being flagrantly a populist tabloid. So it wouldn't be the first time we throw the baby out with the bathwate because "right-wing bad". --Pudeo (talk) 18:59, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Not reliable. I agree with Wikimandia and TFD's reasoning. Reliability is first and foremost about the reputation of the publication and its editorial staff. As unintuitive as it might seem, the reputation of the author is secondary. R2 (bleep) 23:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Slatersteven wrote "As I said I agree it would be a good idea to ban all news media, including new media". If that was to be done then for example there would be no possibility of using the "London Gazette" (or other Newspapers of record) as an authoritative source. It would also mean that Wikipedia articles such as Eritrean–Ethiopian War (1998–2000) could not have been written until years after it was. The article was created in 2005 and by the end of that year was an unusual article (for the time) for carrying so many citations, nearly all of them citations to news reports. It would mean that articles on those found guilty of genocide and war crimes at the Hague, would not have the conviction added to their biographies until some academic journal published something on it -- possibly years afterwards, unless the article relied on the primary source of the trial transcript (or court press press-release) which are currently considered to be less desirable than using a new report as a secondary source (see for example List of Bosnian genocide prosecutions). -- PBS (talk) 12:23, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeas that is what it would mean, it would also mean we would not have to update articles on terrorist attacks or scandals every time a new story is published in the press. We do not have to rush in and write up a story to get a scoop, we are an encyclopedia, not a news paper.Slatersteven (talk) 12:31, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I think the use of news media to create timely articles like Eritrean–Ethiopian War and the List of Bosnian genocide prosecutions outweigh the bother of "hav[ing] to update articles on terrorist attacks or scandals every time a new story is published in the press".

People come to Wikipedia articles to look for details about things they are interested in, which can often be events in the news/current affairs, this often includes birth, marriage and death of people mentioned in the news-media. Are you seriously stating that Wikipedia ought not not mention these events in Wikipedia articles, unless the events have been published in a non-news-media, non-pimary, reliable source? -- PBS (talk) 13:04, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Given how often they get many of these things wrong, no. We do not need to rush in and have timely stories. Anymore then a real encyclopedia does.Slatersteven (talk) 13:32, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

It is not a matter of timely "stories" but timely facts within articles. Take for example the article mentioned previously the "Eritrean–Ethiopian War" (1998–2000) where should facts in that article be found? I ask because before 2006 there were next to no publication other than news articles. The only book that existed was "Brothers at War: Making Sense of the Eritrean- Ethiopian War" by Tekeste Negash (Oxford: James Currey, 2000). If one looks at for example "Dealing With Conflict in Africa: The United Nations and Regional Organizations" edited by J. Boulden (Springer, 4 December 2003) then the notes on the journal article by W. Ofuatey-Kodjoe called "Ethiopia-Eritrea war" also relies on news reports similar to those used in the Wikipedia article see pages 179 ff. The Negash article is not very detailed on the actions in the war (military history), but is predominantly an analysis of the political/cultural causes of the war, and political efforts by third parties to end the war. -- PBS (talk) 15:28, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

This deraill has gone on too long and is not about the thread.Slatersteven (talk) 15:29, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Wide Open Country

Hello everyone. Would the following source be reliable enough for use on the When You Get a Little Lonely article? I would ideally like to take the article through the FAC process in the future. The site does have some signs of editorial oversight, and the article in question is written by one of its "contributors". I am uncertain about it (more so leaning on the side of unreliable), but I would like to get further feedback on this. Thank you in advance! Aoba47 (talk) 19:49, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm unable to find what a "contributor" means in that context, but given the author profile, it may be submitted work. I'd be very cautious to use it, if at all. --Ronz (talk) 21:04, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. It is a little weird that the term “contributor” is not clearly defined by the site. The source is not absolutely necessary for the article in question. It would have just been used to expand on existing information so I will opt not to use it. Thank you for the response! Aoba47 (talk) 21:25, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Is research by undergraduate student posted in university website a reliable source?

"Anna Polishchuk, a student of Milani at Stanford University who made a research on Hoover Institution's documents containing the correspondence for the first time, states that the Soviets denied the request for money but offered limited support."

Nikoo.Amini (talk) 20:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

We have to judge it on a case-by-case basis. In this instance, I'd advise against using this "research paper" because the research paper in question does not appear to be publicly available. It's only summarized on the university website. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Probably not - BA student discussing her paper in an interview - per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. If the paper (I looked, did not find) gets published as a conference paper or peer reviewed journal - then yes (in that case her status would not matter that much, and it would probably have Milani as a co-author anyway). All that being said - her testimony of what appears in the primary source (the Soviet response) is quote probably correct - I have little reason to doubt this.Icewhiz (talk) 21:04, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree it should be a case-by-case basis. Often college newspapers have high standards equal if not surpassing local newspaper standards, but their journalists and editors just last the experience of professionals. I would think that college newspaper articles would be fine for biographical information, for example, on a student athlete or professor who are notable enough to have WP bios. I would be more skeptical in using it as a source for larger, more controversial issues, in which case a better source should be sought out. —Мандичка^YO 😜 21:37, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd say that it would only become a reliable source if it were published in a professionally peer-reviewed outlet. Although the faculty advisor is assumed to have already reviewed it, that's not an independent review. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

It is only a translation of the microfilm available in the archives. The student knew Russian and the professor assigned her the task of translation. Not much of a research to worry about reliability.Kazemita1 (talk) 01:13, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I would say it is a reliable source, but like a local newspaper, there is no reason to use it for anything beyond its area of concentration. TFD (talk) 00:27, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't think this qualifies as a local newspaper - The Stanford Daily would. AFAICT - "Stanford News" is essentially PR releases by Stanford - their For journalists page - I'm unable to find anyone who ran with this story - so in this case we have a PR release that no one "bit on" - it also seems to be based on what Polishchuk says of her article. All this being said - the original WP:PRIMARY document (in Russian?) is probably available somewhere reliable - and would pass WP:V better than the PR item (or the student paper).Icewhiz (talk) 09:59, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Essentially, you are saying if the student posted her translation online we could use it as a primary source. Or simpler, if she posted the image of the Russian letter along with a small explanation under the image it would be acceptable as a primary source. Kazemita1 (talk) 11:08, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

The Soviet original, which quite possibly might be available in a reputable archive online (and if not - surely offline), would be a primary source, yes, and if in a reputable archive - a reliable primary source (for the existence and contents of the letter itself). Icewhiz (talk) 11:11, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

The question then is whether it is a far stretch to take Stanford news's words for the existence of such a letter. I personally think it is not a far reach. Specially, given the work was done under supervision of Abbas Milani.Kazemita1 (talk) 11:20, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I didn't say it was a local paper - it isn't - I said it was like a local paper in that there is no reason to use it for anything beyond its area of concentration. That area of concentration is what's going on among students at Stanford, and could be used as source for articles that discuss that topic. When's homecoming, who's running for student council, what are the fraternities and sororities doing. TFD (talk) 15:40, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

References

I was under the impression that unless it had actually been published in (say) a journal or other organ with editorial oversight no it would not be RS.Slatersteven (talk) 12:13, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

The student paper, yes. The WP:PRIMARY document - if it is available in an archive with a reputation (e.g. court transcripts, release of archives of state correspondence (from a reputable agency not known for fabrication)) - would be pass WP:V for its existence and contents of the document. Information solely sourced to a primary source may however be WP:UNDUE. Icewhiz (talk) 15:26, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• In such cases, I would use two footnotes at minimum. We, of course, would want readers to find the research done directly. Using a research paper as a footnoted source is a good thing. We want to do that. However, using a primary source like this as the only sourceis a bad thing. I would expect at least one more footnote, to a reliable secondary source that establishes context and proves relevance. We want readers to BOTH have access to the paper you are referencing directly, but we ALSO want readers to have access to the evidence that the research matters and is relevant to the subject at hand. --Jayron32 15:45, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

"News Analysis" Pieces and WP:RS

WP:RS says this: Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. Does "analysis" here include so-called "news analysis" pieces? For example, here's the sort of piece I have in mind: [39]. Here's another one from NYT: [40]. It seems to me that these pieces contain a lot of factual content, but they also include a good bit of opinion. For my part, I think it makes sense to treat these pieces with care, since they seem to blend opinion and fact in this way. Anyway, an editor suggested to me that there was already a broad consensus on this, and that such pieces are regarded as reliable for statements of fact. I could not find that consensus in the archives, but I may have missed it. Shinealittlelight (talk) 01:19, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

These sources are almost always better when phrased with inline attribution. Telling the reader who says what is never wrong. Blueboar (talk) 01:53, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

If the part you want to quote is controversial or disputed, then attribute it. If it's the purely factual part, then just state it, because attribution makes facts appear to just be opinions which can be ignored. Just don't make facts appear to be opinions or vice versa. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:29, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Two questions about this. First, do you say that "analysis" in the policy does not refer to the pieces I linked? Second, how do you propose to determine whether a particular claim in such a piece is a fact (vs. an opinion)? (These questions are sincere--I'm not asking them as covert arguments!) Shinealittlelight (talk) 03:40, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I'll answer the second part first. Check multiple RS to see if the "fact" is actually a fact. Use fact checkers liberally. Sometimes you'll have to wait a few days for more evidence to accumulate. Never use unreliable and fringe sources for this. In fact, don't read them, as they will confuse you. Don't believe people and leaders who are known to lie all the time.

The "assessment" of the news should remain factual, IOW an opinion can be factual, but if it's political spin or personal opinion, then be more careful. Use attribution in such cases. If the writer's assessment is counterfactual, don't use it at all. They are not a source you'll want to use. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

If there is a "particular claim" in one of those sources you're wondering about, feel free to ask on my talk page. Maybe we can figure it out together. Being very specific is helpful. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:56, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Safest is to use "opinion pieces" for opinions, cited, used and attributed as such. Op-eds, for example are not vetted by anyone else on a newspaper, and frequently, the use of adjectives is not found in actual sources. Collect (talk) 11:47, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

But are "news analysis" pieces like the two I linked to be counted as "opinion pieces"? Shinealittlelight (talk) 12:07, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

No as (presumably) as they are published under the auspices of the newspapers they reflect the editorial standards of those rags. Opp-edds are a special case because the newspaper makes it clear "we had nothing to do with this".Slatersteven (talk) 15:16, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• The number of sources one finds information in is usually an indication of how to reference something. If something only appears in this so-called "news analysis", and no other source mentions it, I would be very deliberate about saying "So-and-so, writing in the New York Times, states that" so the reader knows exactly where it is coming from. If many different sources have the information (such that it is more generally available), then it is OK to just footnote. --Jayron32 15:21, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Should have added that myself, but I would say the same applied to any news story, or indeed any other source.Slatersteven (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

@Jayron32: and @Slatersteven: this is very useful. Would either of you say that several "news analysis" pieces from different venues expressing similar opinion-ish claims would allow for unattributed citation, or would you want to see corroboration in straight news reports? My own sense is that, since these pieces are analyzing the news, any factual content should appear, well, in the news that they are analyzing! So my preference is to always cite the news sources for factual claims, and then attribute the "analysis" part to these sources. Then you can easily tell which parts are factual content, and which parts should be treated as opinion under the quoted policy, by looking at the underlying straight news reports. Shinealittlelight (talk) 17:45, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Your preference is correct. Cite the news part without attribution, and attribute the opinion part. -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:56, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I concur with BullRangifer. If something is widely reported, there's no need to directly attribute it. One other thing to consider here; is that the analysis you are citing needs to be relevant and itself notable enough to bear reference to. Just about anyone can write just about anything they want. Some of them even get published in major publications. Before we include it in a Wikipedia article, we need to establish that it is relevant to the narrative the article is trying to tell. That, of course, requires consensus among various editors. One can challenge any particular analysis as WP:FRINGE or irrelevant, or whatever, even if it is referenced; being referenced to a reliable source is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for inclusion. You also need to establish that its inclusion does not give undue credence to a particular point of view, for example. If no one raises any issues, your probably fine. But if someone objects talk it out on the talk page and seek outside opinions on the relevance of the text. --Jayron32 18:00, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Wait, but BullRangifer, what I'm saying is this. Suppose you have five news reports that say "event e happened". Then you have a "news analysis" piece by author X that says "event e happened, and it happened because of reason R". Then my view is that we cite the five news reports, and not the "news analysis" piece, to support the factual claim that event e happened without attribution, but then we cite the "news analysis" piece (assuming it's due, reliable, etc.) to say that "according to X, this was because of reason R". If we followed this approach, we'd never cite "news analysis" without attribution; we'd always cite the underlying news reports instead. I think you don't agree with this approach. I'm not sure why, though. Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:05, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't disagree with that approach as it is certainly an extremely cautious approach. Depending on the circumstances I might do one or the other. I'm just not very pedantic about this. If it was controversial I would be. I would just try to make sure the opinion was attributed, regardless of the source. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Shinealittlelight, you ask: "are "news analysis" pieces like the two I linked to be counted as "opinion pieces"?" Good question. There is some truth to that, but a real (not just the label on the article) news analysis article will still contain the factual news, whereas a purely opinion article may only mention it in passing, so you would treat them differently. The labels of "analysis" and "opinion" don't always describe the exact content. It can vary from article to article, even with the same author, but the label stays the same. Keep in mind that there are no absolutes here, so deal with each on a case-by-case basis. Other editors will also weigh in when you try to use a source, so take that into consideration.

There is a rather long sliding scale (see below about the Media Bias Chart) from "Original fact reporting" to the extremely partisan opinions which twist facts and end up being counterfactual, fake news, and conspiracy theories. With the latter, the dots of fact are real, but the connections between them can be unrelated to reality.

Analysis pieces are getting into the opinion area. If the analysis is controversial, it's better to treat it as opinion and attribute it. "When in doubt, attribute."

Most sources have some bias (the ones without are pretty boring), and our NPOV policy allows the use of biased sources. Opinions are part of the reality we are required to document. If their bias is so strong that it starts to affect their factuality, then don't use them for facts, but treat them as attributed opinion, or, if they are so biased that they become counterfactual, don't use them at all. That's the area where Hannity, Limbaugh, Ingraham, Solomon, Carter, Bongino, and most of the hosts at Fox News often dwell, and explains why we steer clear of them here. The real journalists at Fox News (Shep Smith and Chris Wallace) often scold the other hosts for their deceptive opinions, and the counterfactual pro-Trump spin doctors don't like that.

If you follow the principles in the Media Bias Chart you'll be on better ground. Study it often and stick with the sources within the green and yellow boxes. Treat the ones at the extreme left, right, and bottom of those boxes with caution. Don't use or read the sources in the orange and red boxes at all, not even outside of Wikipedia. (Only do it for careful research.) They'll poison your mind. Notice the descriptions on the left and right sides of the chart. The top starts with "Original fact reporting" and ends at the bottom with "Contains inaccurate/fabricated info".

That chart is the best one around. It's created by a non-partisan team which evaluates an enormous amount of data, and the chart gets revised occasionally, since some sources will start chasing stories down a rabbit hole of conspiracy, and that will get them downrated and reclassified. Fox News started out much higher, but as it has become more partisan and devoted to one single mission, to protect Trump, truth be damned, its accuracy has suffered greatly and it has been downrated. Other sources have also changed position. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:18, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: Thanks for the reply. Let me make sure I understand your view on the specific question I'm asking, since you said a lot here. You're saying that the quoted policy applies to the controversial portions of "news analysis" pieces in reliable venues (e.g., WaPo and NYT), and that one must determine which parts of such pieces are controversial by building a consensus, case-by-case, on the relevant talk page. And you add that we should err in the direction of attributing if the consensus is impossible. Does that sound like a fair summary of what you're saying? Shinealittlelight (talk) 17:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's a fair summary because I suspect you are making a more specific application, whereas I was addressing broad principles. Two different, but overlapping matters. -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:59, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I was trying to state the general principles you were endorsing. Perhaps I didn't quite understand you correctly. I don't see where I was misunderstanding, though. Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:08, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I am not saying that you misunderstood me. I may not have been addressing your exact concerns, and that may explain any confusion on my part, and maybe yours. Don't try to squeeze too much orange juice out of my comments, as they may be made from mandarins. It's not a big deal. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:44, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I would say, yes if several (by that I take it to mean organs, not writers) say something we do not need to attribute it. If however the claim is a contentious one we should say "but according to some.." or some such thing.Slatersteven (talk) 17:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Ok, so that brings you somewhat in line with BullRangifer, who also advocates distinguishing the controversial from non-controversial parts and treating only the controversial parts as opinion. What would you say about the approach I endorsed, where we always look to the underlying news reports for the factual content, assuming that what can't be sourced in those reports is the "analysis" that should be attributed? Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this line of thinking. If the factual parts of an analysis are supported by non-analysis reporting, then there is no need to cite the analysis... we can cite the non-analysis reporting instead. The analytical parts, however, are opinion (perhaps expert opinion, but opinion never the less)... and thus should be attributed. Blueboar (talk) 18:43, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

This is exactly the view I support. Nicely stated. Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

In case this wasn't clear, I meant I support Blueboar's view, not BullRangifer's. Sorry, BullRangifer. I still don't understand why this approach is not favored by the rest of you. It seems like the most careful approach that is least likely to lead to POV pushing. Shinealittlelight (talk) 21:01, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm surprised that this hasn't come up more often. See [41], [42], and [43] to see how this developed.

User:Blueboar, do you remember the conversations leading up to this? It looks like it happened as a result of Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Archive 33#PROPOSAL: Ban Fox News as a source of information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• This discussion is a continuation of Talk:Spygate (conspiracy theory)#"What’s the evidence for ‘spying’ on Trump’s campaign?" WaPo article. However, Shinealittlelight never said anything on the article talk page about this discussion. Grr. R2 (bleep) 23:43, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Just a couple of comments up from your notice on that page, I said, and I quote: I've opened a discussion of this at RSN if anyone would like to weigh in. Did you not see that? Grr indeed! lol. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:14, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

You're right. Apologies. R2 (bleep) 00:31, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I hereby strike my retaliatory growl. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

• I think participants could benefit from a better understanding of how these "News Analysis" pieces work. The differences among various types of stories is described by The New York Times in its Readers' Guide. (I linked to an archived version because the current version is behind a paywall.) "News Analysis" pieces are not editorials and they are not op-eds. They are edited by the newsroom staff, like standard news reporting, they include "thorough reporting," and they are "subject to the same requirements of factual accuracy." The difference between "News Analysis" and standard news is that News Analysis "draws heavily on the expertise of the writer. The article helps the reader understand underlying causes or possible consequences of a news event, but does not reflect the writer's personal opinion." We can draw from this what some editors have noted here, which reflects our typical practice with these sources. Factual reporting is reliable and can generally be cited without attribution. Conclusions that seem subjective or value-laden can be cited but only with attribution. Attribution should be to The New York Times, not to the author, since these conclusions reflect the editorial judgment of the Times, not the personal opinion of the author.

I haven't managed to find an explanation of The Washington Post's "Analysis" pieces, but I think it's similar. From my personal reading experience I suspect the Post gives its analysis writers just a touch more leeway than the Times gives its writers. But the principles and how they apply to WP are the same. R2 (bleep) 00:09, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

• I found The Washington Post's description of its "Analysis" pieces on its Policies and Standards page. It's less clear than the Times, but the Post treats "Analysis" as opinion content and describes it as "Interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based on past events." I'd tentatively say that Post Analysis pieces are citable only with attribution to their authors (since they're opinion pieces). Factual content that can only be found in a Post Analysis piece should be treated with caution. R2 (bleep) 00:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I have a few questions for you about this, Ahrtoodeetoo.

First, do you think the policy I've quoted, which uses the word "analysis," does or does not refer to these sorts of pieces? And, if it doesn't refer to them, do you at least think the policy as it is currently worded is misleading or should be changed?

Second, is there any other policy that is currently written that can be cited as support for the view you're describing, where editors are required in a case-by-case way to determine which parts of such pieces are "value laden" or "subjective" or "contentious" or ... well, lots of words can and have been used here, and it isn't very clear what word we should use--anyway, is there such a policy?

Third, it seems like you're suggesting that we should treat each source's pieces according to their "reader guide" (or analogous document). This seems to me very impractical, and that seems to me to count against your approach.

Fourth, why do you oppose the view Blueboar and I have laid out?

Fifth, your view of NYT "news analysis" seems to stray from the NYTs own description of these pieces. They say that opinion does not occur in them at all, right? Do you disagree with their characterization? Or is it that the parts you call "subjective" or "value-laden" are not "opinion"? I'm not clear on what you think here. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:40, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

This isn’t a debate society. R2 (bleep) 01:02, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Huh. I thought that this is a place to reason together about what sources are reliable. That's what I was doing. Shinealittlelight (talk) 19:03, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm not going to answer your 5 questions but I am willing to provide the following response.

I've seen a thread through your understanding of WP:RS that I'll submit is misplaced. Namely, when a publication uses a particular word that appears in WP:RS (such as "opinion" or "analysis"), that doesn't mean that the publication means it in the same way we do in our guideline. This is evidenced by the fact that, as I demonstrated, an "analysis" piece means something different when it comes from The New York Times than when it comes from The Washington Post.

Why does this matter? Because when these publications label their pieces as "Opinion," that doesn't mean that every sentence in those pieces is an opinion, and therefore it doesn't mean that WP:RSOPINION automagically applies to every sentence. (I'll bet that you've read more than a few statements of fact on the the op-ed page of a newspaper sometime in your life.) Similarly, when these publication label their pieces as "Analysis," that doesn't mean that every sentence in those pieces is analysis, and therefore it doesn't mean that that sentence of WP:NEWSORG automagically applies.

WP:RS doesn't explain the difference between fact and opinion. For that, you can consult a dictionary, or perhaps an elementary school learning tool. (As an aside, here's a relevant article.) R2 (bleep) 23:17, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I think it's rude of you to direct me to that material for children. Your proposal is incoherent, unworkable, and inferior to the proposal that Blueboar and I have made. That's the force of the questions I asked that you didn't answer. Your point that because the policy says that opinion and analysis pieces are "rarely" appropriate sources for statements of fact is well taken. That implies that there's a strong, but not total, presumption against using them as sources for such statements. Since this isn't a debate society, perhaps we should conclude this exchange. Shinealittlelight (talk) 23:47, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend. My point is that the distinction between fact and opinion is one we learn as children and doesn't require an explanation in our guidelines. My "proposal" isn't a proposal but is simply common practice, though it's certainly not universal. It's perfectly coherent and workable, but I'm not suggesting that you must adhere to it. R2 (bleep) 00:16, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Apology accepted. Unfortunately, you are right that it is common practice to use these pieces for statements of fact, and in my view this is out of step with the plain language of the policy, according to which they should only "rarely" be used for that purpose. It certainly is incoherent to suggest that NYT reader guide is authoritative, while also maintaining both (i) that this guide says that "analysis" pieces are free of opinion, and (ii) that there is nevertheless opinion in these pieces. That's what you seem to have said, so it's hard to follow. Also, it is certainly unworkable to require each RS to be assessed according to a corresponding reader guide, so that for example NYT "analysis" pieces get treated differently than WaPo "analysis" pieces. That's going to be a total mess, and it is not common practice at this point as far as I can tell. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

All I did was look at the publications’ editorial practices. That is perfectly workable, coherent, and common. People here do it ‘’all the time’’, and it’s perfectly consistent with the guideline. It’s certainly not forbidden by the guideline. If you disagree, I suppose you could raise the issue at WT:RS. R2 (bleep) 01:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Before you two get much further along in this, I'd like to remind you more clearly that this language was added to the guideline in the context of television shows (i.e., not the newspapers you're looking at), and specifically about one called Hannity, whose article says that it does political and legal "analysis". If you want to know what editors actually intended to limit, it's whatever that show does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:51, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks WhatamIdoing. I have nothing else to say about R2's view. It looks to me as if participants in the old discussion decided that Hannity does news analysis, and so they decided to state a policy on news analysis. If we're now suggesting that the policy was rewritten too broadly, and should not say that news analysis is only rarely appropriate support for statements of fact, which is what it now says, then we should revisit the policy. But my view is that the policy is well written as it stands, and that news analysis, whether it's in a written form in NYT or a television format elsewhere, should be used only rarely for unattributed statements of fact. Shinealittlelight (talk) 12:34, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Airline website for fleet figures

Is this a reliable source for Iberia (airline)#Fleet? Jetstreamer appears to prefer using {{fact}} over citing this source. feminist (talk) 13:15, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I would say it depends. For a major carrier where there is nothing to be gained by telling porkies yes. But for one plane wonders no, as it can be seen as deliberately (and possible dishonestly) promotional.Slatersteven (talk) 15:18, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Iberia is absolutely a major carrier. feminist (talk) 01:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Usable under WP:ABOUTSELF/WP:PRIMARY, assuming that Iberia's fleet composition is uncontroversial. — Newslinger talk 01:29, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Mondoweiss again

At Killing of Aisha al-Rabi, of the 4 sequential reverts (here,here,herea and here)two removed at sight two articles from Mondoweiss as though it were established wisdom that this website is not RS. The RSN noticeboard has discussed this repeatedly, and no such judgement has been registered. To the contrary.

The two articles removed are by a Bethlehem based journalist who also writes for Al Jazeera, Yumna Patel, and an Israeli musician, translator, and journalist Janathan Ofir, who writes for Mondoweiss.

• (a) Yumna Patel, 'Israel arrests five settlers in connection with October killing of Aisha al-Rabi,' Mondoweiss 7 January 2019
• (c) Jonathan Ofir, Jewish stones are better than Palestinian stones Mondoweiss 24 January 2019

Jonathan Ofir on Mondoweiss was approved of at this board as RS for a specific incident. Nishidani (talk) 15:48, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Seems RS to me, at least as much as any other news website. I will not comment on the rest, as it is bring out my Sarky nature.Slatersteven (talk) 15:55, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• Mondoweiss is a small website - it is mainly opinion (as is evident in the title "Jewish stones are better than Palestinian stones") - and engages in advocacy as part of Center for Economic Research and Social Change. The site itself focuses almost solely on Israel/Palestine and advocates the particular viewpoint of its founders. It is rather obscure - fairly little viewed (similarweb traffice rankings - #138,978). It does not have a reputation for factual accuracy. Per their about - they were founded as a "personal blog" and have become a "resource for the movement for justice for Palestinians", furthermore they "provide news and analysis unavailable through the mainstream media". There's definitely no reason to use this website (with items by Jonathan Ofir - "Israeli musician, conductor and blogger / writer based in Denmark.") for topics that have coverage in actual main stream media. Icewhiz (talk) 16:16, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

  One might also note coverage such as: “Mondoweiss” is a hate site (UPDATED), Washington Post, David Bernstein, 2015, [44], Mondoweiss Launches Anti-Semitic Attack on New Editor-in-Chief of ‘The Atlantic, Tablet - and note that they generally do not have reporters on the ground anywhere, but aggregate news from other sources and repackage with their own commentary on top.Icewhiz (talk) 16:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• If you assert something is not RS and go ahead and systematically remove articles cited from it, you must be confident that the RSN board has determined that beyond equivocation. You know that it hasn't done so. To the contrary it has often affirmed that articles may be cited from, depending on context. See all recent discussions (one of which you cherrypicked from above. All recent discussions are nuanced, not dogmatic, and as frequently as not, allow material from Mondoweiss.
• September 2016 (note that discussion was disturbed by a NoCal sockpuppet, Epson Salts
• here Dealing with the use of Miriyam Aouragh’s review of Gilbert Achcar’s book, again disturbed by the sockpuppet Epson Salts, (as was an earlier discussion by Ashtul who wanted an incompetent negative criticism of the book retained.
• February 2017
• idem here March 2017
• You repeatedly asserted Norman Finkelstein could not be cited from Mondoweiss here June 2918, and the verdict was you were wrong. In such cases, independent editors have challenged the repeated assertion it is just an SPI, a blog, a hate site. There is absolutely nothing with using an American Jewish run website covering the Palestinian side of the I/P conflict to redress the systemic bias of mainstream (non)reportage of the area.Nishidani (talk) 17:15, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• RSes reporting on Mondoweiss disagree. RSN never had consensus to use this site - outside of specific circumstances of using their translation of Arabic or Hebrew reporting in a RS. For the particular topic of al-Rabi - there is no lack of mainstream media reporting in English.Icewhiz (talk) 17:22, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

False. To cite just those who gave their considered views on each Mondoweiss issue and who have no horse in the I/P race, and are therefore neutral, SageRad, Rhoark, Only in death does duty end, Drmies, Kmhkmh, Snooganssnoogans and K.e.coffman all gave balanced reasons for accepting that Mondoweiss could be used.Nishidani (talk) 19:37, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Untrue, the discussion on Finkelstein here had every single uninvolved user agree that it was fine to use. Please dont make things up. nableezy - 17:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

The consensus for use of mondoweiss was for use as convenience link for translation. WP:ONUS for this site was never met. --Shrike (talk) 17:29, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Please, pray tell, where is this consensus? The discussion on the Finkelstein source seems to have a consensus that it was reliable. nableezy - 17:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Nope. It was deemed reliable for the attributed opinion of Finkelstein. For attributed opinion - the bar is very low, and has little to do with the editorial oversight of the website.Icewhiz (talk) 18:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

That is unequivocally not true. Verging on purposely misleading. Every single uninvolved person agreed, here, that it was a perfectly fine source. Comments such as He is RS, he is a noted commentator and recognized expert, Perfectly useable. Even if it was self published it would be useable., Reliable: a scholar & a recognised expert in the field;, gives the lie to the claim that it was not found reliable, and not as an opinion, full stop. nableezy - 20:15, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

That discussion was on Finkelstein specifically, as an expert, and not on Mondoweiss. Several editors, including yourself, invoked "WP:RS#Exceptions: Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert..." - the discussion there had little to nothing to do with Mondoweiss's editorial controls or lack thereof. Icewhiz (talk) 05:29, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

We are not discussing only Finkelstein. You stated that Mondoweiss is not RS, period, and I showed several cases where precedent disagreed with you, in the face indeed of a relatively recent case where you argued against it with the very same arguments given here, and your view was given the thumbs down. I'll try to get a diff where someone was warned about going through articles and systematically elided all sourcing to Mondoweiss, a POV cen sorship push that was frowned on.Nishidani (talk) 06:18, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Depends on the author. If the author is an expert then the source is fine, if the author is not then Id say find another source. So for the piece by Yumna Patel Id say fine to use, the one by the musician probably not. nableezy - 17:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

That he is a musician by profession is neither here nor there. He is cited because he translates and comments on much of what the Israeli press tells its own public, but not the outside world. That is why respectable academic works cite Ofir (here,here and here, for example.Nishidani (talk) 19:43, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Patel is not an expert. She is a freelance, and there is little reason to use a piece by her published in a website with little editorial controls or reputation.Icewhiz (talk) 18:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

On a question of coherence and policy compliance, Icewhiz. Above you asserted that a BLP figure Philip Weiss, runs an antisemitic hate-site. Just a few moments ago, the most brilliant and dedicated I/P wikipedian in its history was weirdly banned for 3 months, and part of the 'evidence' you provided maintained she had committed a BLP violation by implicitly referring to an unnamed person as having engaged in ethnic cleansing in 1948. I.e. here and here. Why is it okay for you to run up an argument that an outstanding editor should be banned because of a putative BLP violation, and, the next day, assert a personal right to make, what in your terms, is a BLP violation of the kind you apparently deplore. The only difference is, surely, that Zvi Dror is a historian of a Palmach group that engaged in ethnic cleansing (not to be smeared), whereas Philip Weiss runs a website critical of Israel's occupation (targetable for smearing). Because admins never read widely, if at all, in the topic area, they are totally unfamiliar with the change-tactics-and-policy-priorities-according-to-POV aims, and get their impressions of a dangerous 'battleground mentality' from a few trivial diffs out of tens of thousands, but this is such an egregious example of switching views from page to page, and of not tolerating in other editors what you appear to arrogate to yourself as a personal right, that I'd like an explanation, since it bears on the quality of your judgment in editing Wikipedia in the way the diffs above illustrate. Nishidani (talk) 19:20, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I asserted no such thing, and said nothing on Weiss. I linked to reputable sources that make various assertions: “Mondoweiss” is a hate site (UPDATED), Washington Post, David Bernstein, 2015, [45], Mondoweiss Launches Anti-Semitic Attack on New Editor-in-Chief of ‘The Atlantic, Tablet. Icewhiz (talk) 19:38, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Who runs the antisemitric hate-site (utter rubbish) which, by your cherrypicked smears, you put over as being such? Philip Weiss. Nudge nudge, wink wink.Nishidani (talk) 19:48, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Take it up with the editors of the Washington Post, etc.. And lest we overlook the real BLP issue here - Mondoweiss is being suggested as a source for information on relatively unknown minor, standing trial, who as of yet has not been convicted. We have a big WP:BLPCRIME issue in the article - and we should be using mainstream sources.Icewhiz (talk) 19:51, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Silly. You can, with a will, find any newspaper/journal/scholar commenting negatively on Israeli occupation policies branded as an 'anti-Semitic' or as an 'anti-Semitic hate site/venue'. No editor can prove anything by citing that rubbish, which is pure polemical smearing. But if a Wikipedia editor cites smears, whatever the source, in an evidence brief, the citation in context means that editor underwrites this kind of innuendo. That is what you did, otherwise what was the point in insinuating that?

Again, you advocate 'we should be using mainstream sources' but that is not your practice. When 238-Gdn, after you'd just edited, introduced Arutz Sheva, a notoriously non-mainstream settler POV-pushing website, you did not remove it. (In the past you have even argued that it is a 'mainstream' organ of settlers, hence usable, remember?). You only removed Mondoweiss when I removed Arutz Sheva (tit for tat?) because, as I showed, it falsified by suppression of court evidence the news reported, and is notoriously unreliable. In other words, you let Arutz Sheva stand, and only moved on Mondoweiss when the former was properly removed as distorting reportage, something neither of the Mondoweiss articles have been shown to do.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• Can generally be used with attribution, per past discussions. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:21, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

  K.e.coffman, What pass discussions?The only thing that found it can be used as convenience link nothing more. Shrike (talk) 14:08, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Kalpana Mohan Page

Hi, My request could you please confirm osianama.com site can be used as reliable citations for adding a movie name on a Wikipedia Page Movie name: Pyar Ki Jeet (1962) https://www.osianama.com/film-titles/pyar-ki-jeet-1962?classification=FILM%20TITLE&cdt=Film%20Title

About the Osianama Archive & Library are two cultural fields - Indian & World Cinema AND Modern & Contemporary Asian Fine & Popular Arts & Crafts, which include thousands of very rare and significant artworks, antiquarian books, memorabilia and documents, systematically collected over decades so as to create a meaningful knowledge-base. Thanks in advance. Yashkkaryan (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2019 (UTC)Yash Aryan

References

SitePoint for Grav (CMS)

Is the SitePoint article "Building Faster Websites with Grav, a Modern Flat-file CMS" written by Ivaylo Gerchev (a non-staff contributor) a reliable source for Grav (CMS)? Specifically, does this source count toward Grav's notability?

SitePoint is a blog and publisher of technical content targeted to web developers. Their blog contains articles from both staff writers and non-staff contributors. The author's status is not disclosed on the article page, but staff writers indicate their role at SitePoint in the biography, which is linked from their name. SitePoint's "Write for Us" page and Author Documentation detail their publishing process and editorial standards for their blog articles written by non-staff contributors. SitePoint's team, which includes 5 editors, is listed here. — Newslinger talk 22:45, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Software, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Software/Free and open-source software task force, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Websites — Newslinger talk 22:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

John Solomon

1. Sources.

• Solomon, John (May 14, 2019). "State Department's red flag on Steele went to a senior FBI man well before FISA warrant". The Hill.
• Solomon, John (May 7, 2019). "Steele's stunning pre-FISA confession: Informant needed to air Trump dirt before election". The Hill.
• Solomon, John (May 9, 2019). "FBI's Steele story falls apart: False intel and media contacts were flagged before FISA". The Hill.

2. Article. Spygate (conspiracy theory)

3. Content. Wookian has proposed adding content described as follows: The content would be a brief summary of how the FBI used the Steele Dossier in their FISA application(s) for Carter Page, even though State Dept had previously become aware of inaccuracies and partisan motivation of Christopher Steele, and had actually reached out to Strzok's team about the interview. As Solomon documents, the State Dept secretary who met with Steele and then wrote to the FBI discovered that Steele wanted to get his material out before the election to damage Trump (partisan motivation), and that he claimed there was illicit activity at the Russian embassy in Miami - when no such embassy even exists.

R2 (bleep) 23:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• Not reliable. The sources are clearly marked as opinion and state: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL These factors indicate that The Hill editorial staff has not applied the same level of scrutiny that it does for its newsroom pieces. John Solomon, the author of these sources, also has a pretty bad reputation in journalistic sources, being excoriated repeatedly by the highly esteemed CJR ([46]) and Erik Wemple (ex: [47]). I could go on. R2 (bleep) 23:43, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Even worse than i thought. Solomon is a "contributor" to The Hill. Here's the application form to become a contributor. There's already consensus here that articles written by Hill contributors should be treated as self-published. See WP:RSP. R2 (bleep) 00:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Not reliable. The sources are clearly marked as "opinion". Furthermore, they're all authored by John Solomon, a partisan who has a long history of manufacturing fake controversies that all coincidentally insinuate wrong-doing by Democrats. So, no, they shouldn't be used. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
• Not reliable. He's shown at left among these clowns. soibangla (talk) 00:01, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Reliable for attributed opinion. But not for statements of fact. Special care is required, since his pieces are usually presented as investigative reports, when in fact they are marked as opinion, and he is an opinion contributor to The Hill. The view that his opinions are "manufacturing fake controversies" is itself a political opinion. The fact that that his work is marked as "opinion" and "not the view of the hill" does not show that these pieces are treated any differently than other opinion pieces in reliable sources. They should be used in accordance with the standard RS opinion policy. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:50, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Shinealittlelight, what opinion content are you referring to? Are you suggesting that all of the source content can be used as long as it’s attributed? R2 (bleep) 02:58, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Ahrtoodeetoo, I'm saying that the content is reliable for attributed opinion. Reliability isn't the only criterion for being used in an article. See WP:ONUS and WP: EXCEPTIONAL, etc. And I'm also saying that the arguments given above (namely: that he was pictured standing with some people that some of us dislike, that some of us disagree with his opinions, or that The Hill has stated that his opinions are not necessarily theirs, or that his non-opinion journalism has been criticized) are obviously not good reasons to treat this differently than we treat any RS opinion. Shinealittlelight (talk) 11:14, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my question. My question is how to apply your understanding of WP:V to the specific content in question. Of course Wookian hasn’t drafted any language, but they said they want to add “a brief summary of how the FBI used the Steele Dossier.” That sounds like factual content, not opinion, so your comments on attributable opinion don’t seem applicable. R2 (bleep) 14:59, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I would not object just on the basis of unreliability to using Solomon's work with attribution. Using it in this specific context might face other objections that are not relevant on the reliable sources noticeboard. I'm not commenting on that. I think it's important to register, however, that Solomon's work is RS opinion, and that the arguments to the contrary above are very weak, even if his work is not usable in the context in question for some other reason. The current consensus, as noted on the summary page, is that opinion contributors at The Hill do not have appropriate editorial oversight. I'm unaware of any good evidence for this, and I think it should be changed. As far as I can tell, these opinion pieces in the Hill should be treated as RS opinion. Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm just trying to understand your position. So you're saying that everything in these sources should be treated as "RS opinion" rather than as factual reporting, and therefore citable with attribution (other policies aside), because The Hill has marked them as opinion? R2 (bleep) 15:52, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, with two additional remarks: first, "other policies aside" is really important there--obviously opinion pieces in the Hill might be fringe or not prominent enough or irrelevant or undue or whatever. Second, it isn't just because the Hill has marked them as opinion; it's because The Hill is a reliable source, and so I'm deferring to the judgment of the editors at that publication. Shinealittlelight (talk) 16:10, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

"Manufacturing fake controversies" is right. Solomon's history of "journalism" is full of instances where he publishes stories that insinuate a controversy for a Democrat (always Democrats) by omitting basic information and crucial context that make clear that there is no controversy. The stories always fall apart under the slightest of scrutiny from reliable sources. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:36, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

As I said above, the fact that his non-opinion journalism has been criticized does not seem to bear on whether his opinion pieces at the Hill are correctly regarded as reliable with attribution. Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:43, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

This is not "criticism". The "stories" he publishes are just straight-up misleading and/or false. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:45, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

He's been criticized. That's a perfectly appropriate word. Shinealittlelight (talk) 16:14, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Not reliable - We already know that The Hill contributors are essentially unedited opinion columns, and there doesn't appear to be any evidence that Solomon himself has a reputation for journalistic credibility; to the contrary, he's apparently viewed within the profession as a partisan hack (as per above sources). NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:49, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

  So what? We cite partisan hacks all the time, if they have something noteworthy to say. Attributed of course. — JFG ^talk 06:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Not reliable – We include attributed opinions now and again. But, the source has to have some credibility. Article John Solomon (political commentator) uses cites to show quite the opposite. Opinions from someone with no evidence of credibility have no weight, unless it’s in an article about them. O3000 (talk) 16:02, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Reliable for his own views – Can be used with attribution, just like any opinion source. — JFG ^talk 06:06, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

References

Xconomy and HealthLeaders for eMix

Are the following sources reliable for eMix?

• DR Systems Spins Off eMix to Provide Online Exchange for Medical Images from Xconomy
• Facilities Use Cloud Computing to Share Radiology Images from HealthLeaders (healthleadersmedia.com)

Specifically, do these sources count toward eMix's notability?

Xconomy is a "Business, life sciences, and technology news" site. HealthLeaders is a website and print magazine operated by Simplify Compliance, a healthcare consulting company. — Newslinger talk 23:58, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Radiology task force, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Technology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Software — Newslinger talk 00:05, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Both unreliable. Neither outlet shows any evidence of a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy. Xconomy is a solid organization but they're much better known for their events than for their publications, as refelcted by the coverage in other reliable sources. Similarly I couldn't find any reliable sources cited HealthLeaders. R2 (bleep) 00:37, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Reliable Business news reporting like this doesn't really have that high of a bar as it shouldn't be used for science or health stuff; also, in a world of shuttering old journalism and lots of new cheap journalism, these are relatively old. YMMV based on whether one leans deletionist or inclusionist. UPDATE: every source cited in eMix is from 2010 and it seems to have gone nowhere, so doesn't seem notable just from these. II | (t - c) 06:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

census2011.co.in

https://www.census2011.co.in is a website that repackages Indian census data in a more usable way. It was discussed here last year as a part of a large batch of similar sites. Nothing specific to this website was said there, so I'm bringing this up for discussion again. How reliable is this website? I've been reluctant to use it (better to go straight for the official source that it's based on), but I've checked it against that on a few occasions and it has been correct. Obviously this doesn't guarantee anything, but how likely are errors to have arisen? I've used it sometimes out of sheer convenience: you know, when what is at stake is a bit of data in an obscure village article, you'd prefer to verify that instantly, rather than, say, wait for the official website to come back online after yet another outage and then expend time and effort to manually wade through the tables.

What I'm looking for is some agreement on what to do with citations to this website. I think what we choose to do should be proportionate to the confidence we have in its (un)reliability. I see several alternatives:

• Do nothing
• Explicitly discourage use, but stop at that
• Discourage use, and then replace all instances with a citation to the official statistics
• Discourage use, and then tag with {{better source}}
• Remove all uses and replace with {{cn}}

Sitush appears to have taken up the last option and is applying it a large number of articles, which is partly what prompted this post. Pinging also Utcursch, usernamekiran and Winged Blades of Godric. – Uanfala (talk) 11:11, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

It is listed at WP:BLACKLIST. - Sitush (talk) 11:14, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not on the blacklist, but there is a proposal to add it there. – Uanfala (talk) 11:28, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Weird. I did close the section asserting that the multitude of discussed sources are unreliable and I fail to see about why I needed to make specific determinations. The official data is available over multiple websites, very easily and thus, I am hell against enabling spamming of such links. Nuke them (the last option) is my call. IIRC, the links are blacklisted. ∯WBG^converse 11:42, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. These are pretty much spam sites (try without adblock): they should be blacklisted, and should be replaced with District Census Hand Books or another decent source. utcursch | talk 12:14, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I've been wondering about the reliability of this myself. Take Bhatodi, census2011.com says the population is 657, but onefivenine, which also claims to be using the 2011 census data, says it's 512. I tried searching the official government website, but couldn't get the village info to pull up at all that way. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:24, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

That said, I really dislike the practice of completely removing unreliable sources and then tagging as if the material never had a source at all. I much prefer using tags like {{better source}} or {{unreliable source?}} to indicate that the material came from a bad source as I think there's an important distinction between "this came from this junky website" and "I pulled this out of my head". ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:28, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

The links are for different villages: the first one is in Rajasthan, the second one in Maharashtra. The correct census2011.co.in page for the Maharashtran village [48] gives the same population as onefivenine. – Uanfala (talk) 20:00, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

We should not be driving visits to adsense accumulators, though I realise that this is by no means always possible. Many of the articles do in fact have the official census data link somewhere. - Sitush (talk) 06:07, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I too dislike it that the website features ads, but that's a different question from its reliability as a source. – Uanfala (talk) 13:08, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

• The source in question seems to have dubious or no editorial oversight, and there seem to be no certain way to know about the credentials of the owner(s)/contributer(s) of it. It has obviously lifted the census data from the copyrighted official site of 2011 Census of India, without giving any attribution to it. So there are obvious concerns of copyvio as well. In short, it doesn't meet this project's WP:RS standard. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:14, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Anna-Lynne Williams sources

Are sources like this generally considered reliable and notability supporting for creative artists/musicians or are these something credible only to those in the alternative music scene? I'm not too familiar with source evaluations for musicians so I wanted a second input.

https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/5737
https://thesteinbergprinciple.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/interview-anna-lynne-williams/
http://stereosubversion.com/interviews/anomie-belle
Graywalls (talk) 13:21, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider these reliable sources, for musicians or anything else. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 07:28, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Salem-News; Salem-News.com

Salem-News, (NOT the reputable Massachusetts newspaper, The Salem News, salemnews.com), and (NOT the defunct Oregon alt Weekly Salem Weekly salemweeklynews.com). The one I'm asking about is Salem-News.com, [[Salem-News. The Salem-News bills itself as "Serving Oregon and the Pacific Northwest with Local, National and Worldwide News. The publisher is listed as Bonnie King, about whom I have found only that she is an Oregon activist who promoted RestoreHemp (a legalizaton campaign) on YouTube. Unusually for a local paper, the Salem-News has a "Cannabis" section. The other sections listed are innocuous-sounding stuff like "Road Report," "Weather", "Sports," and "Staff/". click [49] and the picture changes. This Oregon newspaper has correspondents all over the world, including 4 in Iran, 4 in Palestine, 16 in California. The list is not professionally edited: Vittorio Arrigoni is listed, although he died in 2008; "Kourosh Ziabari"'s name appears twice, reducing the number of correspondents in Iran to 3. Here's the search of his name on Wikipedia [50], and his Twitter page [51], which lists affiliations with 4 different publications, NONE of them the Salem-News. Foreign correspondents and journalists routinely list their affiliation on Twitter. I searched spot-checked the twitter pages of several writers listed s staff (many are not professional journalists, but, rather, are employed in other professions and many are described as activists,) and did not find any who mentioned the Salem-News. (Writers checked on twitter include Gilad Atzmon, Mazin Qumsiyeh) and Mamoon Alabbasi, whose twitter page [52], liss him as writing for The Arab Weekly. My suspicion is that this is less a newspaper than an aggregator of material published elsewhere, much of it unreliable propaganda for extremist and fringe points of view. At least one writer, "Dr. Alan Ned Sabrosky Ph.D. - (Professor, National & World Politics, Salem-News.com Contributor) is known as a conspiracy theorist and a writer for the propaganda and conspiracy theory website Veterans Today. Also, I cannot find any SECONDARY coverage or this local newspaper. I have created quite a few articles on local U.S. newspapers, and have sourced others that turn up at AfD (cf. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Jackson Herald). In my experience, it is just about always possible to source a local paper published in the U.S. Even newish ones , defunct ones, and small ethnic papers. The fact that I cannot find anything about this paper makes me seriously doubt its reliability as a source. E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:55, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Given she writes at least some of the content herself, not an RS. If it is worthy of inclusion it will appear somewhere else.Slatersteven (talk) 17:59, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

"possible to source a local paper published in the U.S. Even newish ones" a mere presence of independent sources isn't an indication of notability. It must meet the reliable and significant threshold. A reliable evidence of existence of subject organization/publication isn't a valid excuse for inclusion, because, per WP:NORG, a simple existence isn't notability, thus simply proving it exists is inadequate. Graywalls (talk) 19:31, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Not remotely reliable. This is worse than an aggregator. This isn't a local newspaper - it is a website. I think it is known for conspiracy promotion - but I can't find that. However, if you run down their staff - staff - you'll get Kenneth O'Keefe (see SPLC), Gilad Atzmon (see HopeNotHate), and quite a few other red flags. They are also promoting the book of Robert O’Dowd (who seems to be on staff) - BETRAYAL: Toxic Exposure of U.S. Marines, Murder and Government Cover-Up - see Amazon jacket - [53] - whose character is quite clear. The site should probably be blacklisted. Icewhiz (talk) 20:29, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• I support a blacklisting of the site. This discussion has identified several individuals known for promoting bad facts, hate mongering, and conspiracy theories. I have remove it form the page (Joe Meadors) where I found it used as a source.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:16, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Problem. keying "Salem-News" into the Wikipedia search bar takes you to the reputable Massachusetts newspaper The Salem News, which could mislead our readers .E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:19, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Not a reliable source. Support blacklisting (and general cleaning up of these sources throughout Wikipedia). Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 07:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

RfC: IMDb

Should IMDb (Internet Movie Database) be added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList, which tells User:XLinkBot to automatically revert edits containing citations of IMDb in <ref> tags by unregistered users and accounts under 7 days old? This behavior is subject to additional limitations described at User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList. — Newslinger talk 18:08, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Yes. Most of IMDb is user-generated and unusable for Wikipedia articles, as established by 12 previous discussions on this noticeboard. Despite this, many less experienced editors continue to cite IMDb inappropriately, which introduces violations of the verifiability and living persons policies into articles on a regular basis. Adding IMDb to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList would slow the addition of these inappropriate citations.

  New editors and unregistered users who add a reference to IMDb would be reverted by User:XLinkBot, as seen in Special:Diff/897360391 for Discogs. XLinkBot would then send the user a talk page warning that looks like Special:Diff/897360410. The warning tells the user to undo the bot's revert if they believe the edit was appropriate.

  The RevertReferencesList is currently used to reduce inappropriate citations to Discogs (RSP entry) and Crunchbase (RSP entry). External links to IMDb, which are encouraged in WP:ELP § IMDb, are not affected by this proposed measure. This RfC is the continuation of a discussion at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist § IMDB. — Newslinger talk 18:08, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Yes I did not know such a thing existed, given this is a user generated content site Yes, yes we should.Slatersteven (talk) 18:12, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Absolutely - It has been well established that IMDB is not a reliable source and, like Wikipedia, virtually anyone can edit it. DarkKnight2149 18:16, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Enthusiastic f yeah it's not even that "virtually" anyone can edit it - anyone can edit it and to remove false content (lord knows I've tried, repeatedly) is next to impossible. And also maybe an AWB bot run would be nice to remove it from any existing articles as a reference and replace it with CN.Praxidicae (talk) 18:17, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
  • @Praxidicae: I've had similar experiences. For some reason, the site allows to people to post information without proof, but it's policy you have to prove that it's not true in order for it to be removed. What kind of an information base is that? In one particular instance, someone posted their non-factual subjective opinion of a movie in the "Trivia" section but put an obligatory "It's considered..." in front of it. I tried to have it removed on those grounds, but the change was denied because of their backwards "proof" policy :/ DarkKnight2149 07:07, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
    • Oh, I can do better than that! I once contacted IMDb, with proof, that one series in their listing contained a fictitious episode that did not exist, and it was still rejected because "EpGuides (another site that doesn't have perfect trackrecord) agrees with IMDb's current info". So even if you give them proof, IMDb still won't fix wrong stuff! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 12:24, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
• Yes If anything I would support reverting anything by non-extended confirmed and/or notification about why this is a bad reference for anyone. It is a great external link so I wouldn't support blacklist but anything we can do to discourage/prevent its use as a serious reference should be done. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:19, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Reliability — Newslinger talk 18:20, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Yes – IMDb is not a reliable source for anything, which is frequently a source of confusion for new editors. This is a great idea. – bradv🍁 18:20, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Yes, I would support this, for all the reasons outlined. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:04, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Yes Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:09, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Yes, provided it doesn't affect IMDb-affiliated places such as Box Office Mojo. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 19:41, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

• Yes Please ~ as per everyone above i think, inc. Newslinger, bradv and Barkeep49. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 19:56, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Yes - It would save editors the effort of reverting such poor sources on TV/Movie pages. Esuka (talk) 20:40, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• Yes anyone can edit IMDb, having the reliability of a personal blog. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 07:22, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
• Yes - I didn't know that imdb was mostly user-generated and used it with impunity when I first started doing edits. It would have been useful to have some sort of alert about this, in the same way that you are informed about various vanity publishing houses. Also, an additional question - Is the use of imdb discouraged in citing any sort of information or just some? Can it be used, for example, in stubs about obscure films to source the year the film was launched or its length, or even the film's very existence, when a better source isn't available? PraiseVivec (talk) 12:39, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

  ​Wikipedia:Citing IMDb states that it's okay to use IMDb for writing credits that are directly supplied by the Writers Guild of America and for MPAA ratings reasons that are directly supplied by the Motion Picture Association of America. For released films, citing running times is "disputed", and IMDb would definitely not count toward a film's notability. — Newslinger talk 17:23, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks for the clarification. Well, maybe the Wikipedia:Citing IMDb page should be linked in the alert received by users that are trying to use imdb as a resource. PraiseVivec (talk) 17:28, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

  ​I should also mention WikiProject Film's guidance on questionable sources, which discourages the use of IMDb in general, but says that it can be a good tool to help editors find more reliable sources to cite. I don't think it's possible to customize the warning message at the moment, but an entry can be added to User:XLinkBot/Reversion reasons (which is linked to from User:XLinkBot) to explain this to editors. — Newslinger talk 17:54, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Surely there are other sources for this information?Slatersteven (talk) 17:32, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I've checked several featured articles of recent films, and it looks like the MPAA rating is usually not included in a film's article unless it was mentioned by reliable sources. The credits can reference official listings published by film companies, TV companies, or other distributors. It's also acceptable omit a citation for the credits, which implies that the credits were sourced from the film itself as a primary source, much like the track listing in album articles. — Newslinger talk 18:05, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

So we lose nothing by the above suggestion, and avoid any wiklaywering about "butitsreliableforthisism".Slatersteven (talk) 18:09, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it would be best to avoid citing IMDb completely. — Newslinger talk 18:10, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

• Yes of course, and, yes, again per all^^^ ——SerialNumber54129 12:23, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. If IMDb is so bad, why is it cited by The New York Times [54]? wumbolo ^^^ 12:02, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

• One should note that the New York Times no longer "fact checks" its own articles, as the era of old-time newspapers has faded. That it used sources Wikipedia declines to use does not suddenly make such sources reliable. What it does do is make the "guaranteed reliable sources" no longer able to be guaranteed. They even abolished the Public Editor position with its head saying our followers on social media and our readers across the internet have come together to collectively serve as a modern watchdog. Anyone care to defend that statement? Collect (talk) 12:16, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Because we are not discussing it. Moreover I can write for IMDB, I cannot write for the NYT.Slatersteven (talk) 13:28, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Amy Sequenzia

Several citations are WP:SELFPUB: the subject's (or, more probably, the subject's facilitator's) own blog on Ollibean. Is that a reliable source? --Hob Gadling (talk) 02:23, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Tough one, officially these are her words (and thus RS if attributed). But there are serious doubts about who actually does the communicating when using the various facilitated communication methods (well as far as the scientific community is concerned I can find no doubts they all seem to say its the facilitator). Thus it can be said the source for this is a tad unreliable. But we really would need a source saying her words are not her own, rather then them saying there is a serious flaw in the practice (after all she could be the one case where it does work). It might be best to say something like "Sequenzia has said using facilitated communication".Slatersteven (talk) 17:31, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

And I have now talked myself round into thinking that as FC is a discredited fringe medical practice any claims made as a result of it are not reliable. So not, unless it can be shown these are her words nothing she writes can (to my mind) be considered reliable even for what they say.Slatersteven (talk) 18:04, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold?

For the past few weeks the page Polish Jews has seen back and forth reverts over the inclusion of this source (bibliographical entry). It's a book collecting essays by a number of historians (mostly Polish) or Polish expats, ex. Chodakiewicz himself, Piotr Gontarczyk, Peter Stachura, John Radzilowski, Waldemar Chrostowski) on Polish Jewish history. It has been challenged mostly by User:Icewhiz who pointed out (and who'll likely elaborate on his criticism shortly) that: 1) one of the two co-editors for this, Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, has been described by some sources as right-wing activist (my counter: he is nonetheless a professor at some American institutions, his works are cited and reviewed in international academia). The other co-editor for this is relatively uncontroversial Polish scholar Wojciech Muszyński 2) the book seems to have received two relatively negative academic reviews (seen in the paragraph describing this book at MJC bio page; another review [55] has been claimed to be negative as well, but I don't have a copy of it and Icewhiz did not reply to my request to share his copy of it that was posted on the Talk:Polish Jews; I'll also note that this particular review by Krzywiec might be in turn criticized in the letter to the editor published here). The only positive review I've found is non-acdemic in Polish-langage popular history Histmag web magazine/portal. My reply to the relatively negative reviews found is that while the book has been described as having an agenda (likely, right wing and Polish nationalistic), it is nonetheless cited and engaged with by other scholars as part of an academic discourse, and the reviews, while pointing out that bias, are themselves also likely biased, and the do not suggest that this is some Holocaust denial revisionist crap - just a biased, but not unreliable, collection of essays. 3) Finally, Icewhiz has pointed that the book is published by Leopold Press, a small printing press associated with the Institute of World Politics, and that Leopold Press is run by Chodakiewicz, thus raising an issue of potential self-publishing. My reply to this is that it's a minor, but still, academic press, and that while there is some minor COI here, we have no proof that peer review or such were not done. (Polish edition of the book was released by a minor publishing house the facto that I can't find much about, so it's not a great sign, I'll admit). Overall, however, my view is that the book is not self-published (a number of reverts just argued 'removing SPS' and such) and that it can be cited, as long as the author of a particular essay is clearly attributed for any statement that may be seen as controversial or extraordinary. Further comments appreciated. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:56, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Not remotely reliable. A few points:

1. To treat this as a RS means we can label, as fact, multiple mainstream academia BLPs and whole academic disciplines as "Neo-Stalinist" - as this is stated as a fact in the book (in a whole chapter devoted to this topic- pages 239-257).
2. The Facto is a very small and obscure Publishing house in Poland. It does not generally publish academic texts as is quite evident in book depository - even just judging by the cover art - starting with the ugly cover art of our book here, going through a book on a soccer star, and to top it all off - this one with nude (to be precise - they do have shoes and socks) people dancing (uncensored - includes breast shot).
3. Even The Institute of World Politics, a very-very small (~150 students, and new - founded in 90s) marginal institution which is a recruiting pool for the CIA (IWP offers mainly m.sc programs in statecraft and national security - and is a short drive from Langley) - did not publish this - they actually have Institute Of World Politics Press - which I'm not sure would qualify as a RS for academic publishing - but that's separate matter - did not publish.
4. The book was self-published in English by Leopolis Press. As Leopolis Press states (hosted on kosciuszkochair.com (more in a bit)) - "The holder of the Kościuszko Chair at IWP, Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, is the Publisher of Leopolis Press.". A search in worldcat brings up approx. 5 books "published" under this label - a significant chunk of them with Chodakiewicz listed as an author.
5. Another editor of the volume was per his LinkedIn a m.sc student at IWP at the time of publishing. Presently he is at Federation for American Immigration Reform - which is classified by the SPLC as a hate group with ties to "white supremacist hate groups".[56][57]
6. There is no indication that this book was peer-reviewed in a reputable manner (reputable reviewers, reputable editors).
7. Lest we grow too enamored with the "Kościuszko Chair" - it itself is a subject of controversy. The chair, founded in 1998, was originally at the University of Virginia. After UVA declined to give Chodakiewicz (received his PhD in 2001, worked in 2001-3 in UVA under the auspices of the chair but did not hold it) an academic position, and wanted to appoint an esteemed scholar to the chair, the donor behind the chair balked and UVA itself pulled its support (didn't provide matching funds). The chair then left UVA, and moved to the very new and small IWP (this was coupled with a fund-raising drive for the require 2 million dollars to fully fund the chair - which I'm not sure was completed (some sources refer to this as partially funded)) - see this paper or this description at am-pol.pl - the donor. Chodakiewicz was then appointed to the chair in IWP.
8. Chodakiewicz - has been mired in controvesy since the beginning of his academic career - there's no need to take my word here - as Chodakiewicz himself, in 2019 published in Tygodnik Solidarność about his struggles with "neo-Stalinists" - starting from his time as a PhD student, going through his short stint at UVA (where there were calls by "neo-stalinists" to get him fired), and persisting through his career. Chodakiewicz, however, notes that (google-translate): "In the Polish People's Republic, under Soviet occupation, my family taught me not to be afraid, I will not be afraid in the USA. For now, they do not put in jail, like my father, even for Solidarity, or grandparents for AK and PSL. I have neo-Stalinists and other leftists and, in general, the forces of evil in the nose in every latitude".
9. In Reliable sources, Chodakiewicz is described as a far-right activist. His has been profiled extensively by the SPLC in 2009, and 2017. As noted in these sources, Chodakiewicz regularly writes in far-right Polish publications (in Polish) - e.g. "Chodakiewicz is a frequent contributor to several Polish publications, such as the weekly Najwyzszy Czas! (The Time is Now!). That's the magazine of the Real Politics Union party, a fringe, pro-life, anti-gay marriage, pro-property rights, anti-income tax group. It often uses anti-Semitic stereotypes on its pages, according to a Tel Aviv University global "Anti-Semitism Survey." It was in this magazine, in November 2007, that he wrote critically about gays. "If everything is equal, if there is no difference, for example, between Christianity and cannibalism, then — according to the argument of those who have an interest in it — homosexuals should be treated as a norm, so they should have equal rights. In reality it is not about equal rights, but about special privileges. The biological norm is about prolonging the species. A deviation from the norm can not be a norm.". Najwyzszy Czas! is noted by others to have published convicted Holocaust denier Dariusz Ratajczak frequently. He has written that Obama was "Muslim, a radical, and a friend and protégé of communists", Speaking at a far-right rally in Poland, he said: "We want a Catholic Poland, not a Bolshevik one, not multicultural or gay!" Per the SPLC he has also written on the White genocide conspiracy theory.
10. To a large extent, he has stopped publishing academically in English. Coverage of him in an academic context has not been favorable. One of his more recent books on Intermarium (advocating the "return" of a large Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth) was described as "there are conspiracies everywhere in this book, but the author offers no names, no institutions, no objectives, and no strategies". His views on Jews - "Chodakiewicz's work represents the most extreme spectrum in what is considered the contemporary mainstream ethno-nationalist school of history writing, "Chodakiewicz is perhaps the first historian in the postcommunist period who consistently casts Polish-Jewish relations in terms of conflict and uses conflication as an explanation and justfication of anti-Jewish violence in modern Poland"
11. This has not been treated as an academic work by anyone. It has been treated as a controversy (due to the very far out claims in the book - both in relation to Jews, and in other contexts - in particular the statement of fact that “neo-Stalinism” has certainly been dominant in the American social sciences since the 1960s.. Due to the extremeness of the claims - two academics wrote scathing reviews, and the work has been studied as a topic - a controversy - in a journal article.
12. Many of the authors in the book do not have an academic reputation at all. The author of the chapter Piortus wants to use is noted in the journal article covering the controversy as "It seems that it is not a coincidence that [Barbara] Gorczycka-Muszyńska has the same surname as another author and editor of the collection" (and I was unable, as Krzywiec was unable, to find any publications from her in an academic context), another author - Tania C. Mastrapa - runs "Mastrapa Consultants – a company, which according to her short biography, restitutes property on Cuba" and authored a chapter comparing Cuban property to the situation post-war Poland (the author of the journal article deemed fit to sarcastically quote this from the book - "The situation in Cuba is in a way similar to the situation of humiliated wives in the past. It often happened that the husband, who constrained his wife, did not let her study, work outside home or drive a car. Her role was to work, obviously for free, for the sake of the family. She was not allowed to participate in making budget decisions or any other decisions for the money belonged to the husband. Such a woman lived devoid of respect and dignity. In turn the husband wanted her ..... Similarly to that endangered husband who wants to criticize his wife and does not want to give her personal freedom, the Castro regime does not want its property (i.e. the Cubans) to be free […]. When the Cubans recover their freedom they will become lawful owners of real estate and moveable property (read academic much?! Should we place this in, say, Cuba?).
13. There are red flags on most notable and semi-notable authors of these essays as well - these could be enumerated, though are probably irrelevant unless we are discussing there chapters. I will note that one author (of two separate chapters) - Mark Paul - is published under a pseudonym according to Chodakiewicz himself who notes that Paul is anonymous "Mainly because he does not want (yes, it's a man) to meet my fate. Mark Paul has a dependent family, home and professional life".[58] How many academic works publish anonymous authors? No sane academic publisher would carry this. It bears mentioning we discussed Paul previously on RSN: RSN 241 and in this RfC (published also on RSN) decided to exclude Paul based on reliability concerns.

Even when academically published by a reputable publishing house (mainly in his early career, seems lately - not so much) - Chodakiewicz is a highly questionable source due to scathing reviews and coverage of Chodakiewicz's academic writings by others (in actual WP:RSes - to a large extent, when cited, Chodakiewicz is cited as an example of the extreme viewpoint). When Chodakiewicz is self-published in English (Leopolis being the definition of self-publishing) or in obscure (or in some case - not obscure but far-right media) Polish language outlets - there's no way to consider him remotely as a RS - if we were - then most of US academia (including historians, of course) are "neo-Stalinists" (a whole chapter in the work in question here), Obama is a "Muslim, a radical, and a friend and protégé of communists"", Gays - are well - all sorts of things, and so forth and so on. Icewhiz (talk) 07:51, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

References

A sources bias is not an issue that affects RS, being unreliable is. Is there any evidence of factual errors? |I will add we do not need to use English language sources, and that as long as it was published (in it native tongue) by a reputable (size is not an issue) publishing house SPS is a red herring.Slatersteven (talk) 08:32, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The Polish publishing house is not reputable. The English is self-published. The book states as a fact that “neo-Stalinism” has certainly been dominant in the American social sciences since the 1960s. (going on to describe how this persists to this day - including naming multiple historians as "neo-stalinists") - does this sound factually accurate? The journal article by Krzywiec covering the controversy enumerates a long list of issues, and notes in summary that "There is something farcical about the conception of a crusade against the modern world professed by a few researchers from a marginal research centre,10 which is a recruitment pool of the CIA.11 But could this McCarthyism drenched in the East European “sauce” with the whole peculiar, local color; this “information depositary,” as Chodakiewicz and Muszyński state in the introduction, worthy of 1930s right-wing political leaflets and then slightly filtered through the 2011 Poland political correctness, survive anywhere else abroad?" "This collection is more like the material for a seminar of linguists or even scholars of rhetoric and propaganda. The book will not be good nourishment for readers interested in the Holocaust and its third phase, i.e. the basic topics of the essays by Jan Tomasz Gross and Irena Grudzińska-Gross.. I'll also note that, as the review states, the book is very light on facts or research of any kind - it is for the most part polemic essays from a moral standpoint, and not historical writing. One of the authors is a priest (himself a topic of study in this field, the chapter is titled "Moral Dilemmas in Turbulent Times" - described as a "pseudo-theological lecture"). We generally presume sources are unreliable unless proven otherwise - red flags around this self-published work abound.Icewhiz (talk) 08:53, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Danusha Goska (lamenting on how this book is a poor response to "Brute Polak" - a topic on which she has studied and had published in Academic Studies Press - Goska, Danusha Veronica. Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture. Academic Studies Press, 2010.[59]):

1. English errors: "This book has more errors in basic English than any other scholarly book I have read ... The Brute Polak stereotype communicates that Poles are inept, uneducated, chauvinists. The many errors in this text could be used, in the wrong hands, to support that stereotype.
2. Stalinist accusations:: "As readers will suspect, these errors are reflective of larger problems. Most grievously, ‘Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold?’ accuses several prominent Polish-studies scholars of Stalinism" ... "Squandering Polonia's energies in fruitless witch-hunts, using paranoia to turn one Polish-American on another, prevents Polonia from uniting and responding strategically to the Brute Polak stereotype."
3. factual errors: "Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold? repeatedly identifies Princeton professor Jan Tomasz Gross as the source of the Brute Polak stereotype. This is factually incorrect, and it disserves Polonia. Gross' oeuvre includes a previous work, Revolution from Abroad, that educates the reader about the little-known Soviet occupation of Poland. Too, the Brute Polak stereotype existed before Jan Tomasz Gross was born" ... "Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold? implies that Jews and leftists are responsible for the Brute Polak stereotype ..... Nothing could be further from the truth. Almost one hundred years ago, Madison Grant and Kenneth L. Roberts were just two of many anti-Communist and arch-Nordic Americans who disseminated immensely influential depictions of Brute Polaks.
4. qualifications of authors: "Only two of the fourteen authors are PhDs currently employed at universities. The selections do not follow the paradigm of scholarly articles: they do not advance a single thesis and then attempt to prove that thesis through original, peer-reviewed research. Rather, the articles ramble; they are replete with rhetorical questions. Necessary citations are absent. The index is woefully inadequate. The authors comment on stereotypes in popular American culture, yet none are scholars of stereotypes or of American culture, and none cite previous research on stereotypes of Poles in America.".
5. Denial of the Kielce pogrom: "The book works very hard to produce the impression that Poles have ‘hearts of Gold’ and that they weren't all that antisemitic before World War Two broke out, and that during the war Poles, for the most part, helped Jews. Perhaps the nadir of this aspect of the book is when the 1946 Kielce Pogrom is referred to using scare quotes that suggest either that the pogrom never happened, or that it was not really a pogrom (320). Ethical Poles have acknowledged since 1946 that the Kielce Pogrom happened, that it was carried out by Poles, and that patriotic Poles will resist the kind of anti-Semitism that produced it."

So yes - there are a few errors. Icewhiz (talk) 09:13, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

1. Poor copyediting is not an academic-level error (of reasoning).
2. "Stalinist accusation" is an opinion. Just like some sources have criticized the academics who published in this book for being right-wing or such, the criticism of a single scholar who in his essay published in this book accused some of his opponents of being neo-stalinists is an opinion. If you disagree with either (or support it), it your opinion, and does not make it a factual error.
3. First, I will note that we are not discussing the Brute Polak stereotype here (or in any other place). Anyway. One scholar in the book has made a claim that Brute Polak stereotype has been created by Gross. Another that you cite disagrees. Clearly, it's a matter of academic debate who is right, and we don't get to decide whether this is factual error or not. IF we were using this book as a source for Brute Polak topic, I would fully support noting that another scholar explicitly disagrees with the claim presented in it. But neither, likely, is the final word or authority on this.
4. "Only two of the fourteen authors are PhDs currently employed at universities" claim is in itself debatable and dubious. At the very list, AFAIK now Chodakiewicz, Stachura, Radzilowski and Chrostowski are "PhDs currently employed at universities", and based on their age, I'd be surprised if they weren't in 2011. So on the subject of factual error, I'd point that the review you are using to debunk this book is itself a good candidate for debunking and finding factual errors in it. Further, some scholars can be employed at research institutes, not universities, and yet still be quite reliable (ex Piotr Gontarczyk who works at the Institute of National Remembrance). I haven't looked at the full list of authors for that book, but as I said on talk earlier, we should attribute opinions to individual scholars. If some of them are less reliable than others (ex. the mysterious Mark Paul, who may be a pseudonym of a group, hard to be sure...), we can agree not to cite them. Lastly, one scholar's judgement on who is an expert on a given field is also an opinion. To claim that none of the authors have expertise on the field of stereotypes is rather unfair. Radzilowski for example co-authored/edited the James Ciment; John Radzilowski (17 March 2015). American Immigration: An Encyclopedia of Political, Social, and Cultural Change: An Encyclopedia of Political, Social, and Cultural Change. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-47716-7. which discusses some stereotypes. And to quote from this academic article "Historians Thaddeus Radzilowski and John Radzilowski also have discussed the anti-working-class content in derogatory anti-Polish stereotypes". So yeah, factual errors abound - but while they may exist in the book, they are also hardly absent in the review you cite. Lastly. The reviewer author who makes this claim about the book problem being its inclusion of authors who are not PhDs employed at universities was not always a PhD employed at university either. From [60]: "Danusha V. Goska: is the daughter of Eastern European immigrants. She has published on Eastern European and other matters in a variety of popular and scholarly journals. She holds an MA from UC Berkeley and a PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington. She now cleans houses for a living." (no, seriously, this seems how she describes herself in mid-2000s, since those academic blurbs are submitted by paper authors themselves). Through from early 2010s she is a adjunct professor William Paterson University (in the Women's and Gender Studies department [61]). Let's leave aside the inderdisciplinary issues in the fields (I have no problem with someone from the 'Women's and Gender Studies' publishing on seemingly irrelevant topics of Polish-Jewish history or offering opinions on Polish research into the Holocaust), but when we talk about minor scholars, Goska's resume is hardly more impressive than that of the individuals she criticizes. Chodakiewicz himself is also an adjunct ([62]) at another minor school (through I think his college is less reputable than her university). But Radzilowski at Alaska-SW, whom she criticizes so much in her review, is an Associate Professor, so [63] so if we were to go by rank, well, there's that. And Chrostowski, for example, is a full professor (highest rank) in Poland: [64]. Rank is not everything, but since you brought such criticism up, well.
5. Opinion again. And again generalizing an possible error/bias from a single chapter to the entire book (are ALL of the essays using those quotes?). And even the review you are quoting doesn't say that anyone publishing in it is denying that the Kielce pogrom events occurred, it's your own negative view of the source that makes you accuse the authors of "Kielce pogrom denial". Without reading the source text, and considering the errors/bias present in the review, I would hardly agree with the view that the book is 'denying' that the Kielce pogrom happened, by the virtue of that presumably in at least one place it tales about the event using quotations marks. Through, in all honestly, considering the book bias, it may well be that some of the authors there are trying some form of reframing of the event. How to frame and describe this event, including issues such as anti-semitism in Poland, Soviet involvement in that, etc. is still very much an issue being debated by scholars, and it's not Holocaust denial or anti-semitism to question the use of the word pogrom in some circumstances. Not that I am saying I have ever seen a convincing argument that Kielce pogrom shouldn't be called a pogrom, but I wouldn't outright reject a paper which would try to make such an argument without reading it beforehand. But in any case, I don't think anyone is suggesting we should start questioning the usage of the word pogrom in Kielce context on Wikipedia, using this or any other source, so it's again is a straw men argument. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:47, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The origins of "Brute Polack" may be of some debate - but saying this started with Gross is clearly false - it dates more than a 100 years back. Goska, having literally written the book on the topic, is qualified to say this claim in the self published book is an outright falsehood. "Stalinist accusation" is not an opinion - there is a whole chapter in this self published book on this. As for PHDs in universities... IWP is not a university by any stretch of any definition. Chrostowski is a highly criticized priest (in relation to his comments on Jews), was he in a Catholic University in 2011? He definitely is not an authority outside of bible studies. Jewish-Polish relations are a topic written extensively by top tier scholars - we should not be even discussing a source of this highly dubious nature, which is not academic by any stretch.Icewhiz (talk) 12:18, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Icewhiz summarized the issues with Chod. and this book well. I've only a few notes:

1. Chod. is not "described by some sources as right-wing" - he is described by virtually all leading sources as a nationalist or as supporting nationalist themes, with some explicitly stating that he's an antisemite (see summary at BLPNB)
2. Despite the generic "big" names ("Institute of World Politics"...), the two institutions where he teaches are relatively minor. The story of how he got there (see Icewhiz's comments) tells you how just sweeping his rejection in mainstream academia is.
3. @Slatersteven: Profound bias is an issue of reliability, as in the simplest terms - you can't trust the source to give you the truth. Other than that see Goska's review, parts of which Icewhiz cites above.

François Robere (talk) 09:54, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

If only Goska didn't clearly have an ax of her own to grind... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:47, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Against whom? François Robere (talk) 11:07, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm failing to see WHAT this source is attempting to be used for - the exact information. I tried looking on the talk page but it was the usual mess of accusations/edit warring/long posts with little actual content relating to the article. Please, someone post the exact information that this source is being proposed to be used for. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:02, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh ffs. WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT is not a sufficient reason to declare a source not-RS. A source may be biased and still be reliable. If there are concerns about bias, then we just make sure to attribute. This is an academic source and easily qualifies for reliability. This is, like, RS101. The notion that it's not reliable is ridiculous and reflection of Icewhiz's WP:TENDENTIOUS approach to editing in this area, nothing more.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:04, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to repeat myself... "I'm failing to see WHAT this source is attempting to be used for - the exact information. I tried looking on the talk page but it was the usual mess of accusations/edit warring/long posts with little actual content relating to the article. Please, someone post the exact information that this source is being proposed to be used for." ... would the various parties stop discussing each other and answer the question... briefly and succiently. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:29, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

There is a large number of sources as well as versions being discussed. However the WP:STABLE version is from 12 March. This diff from 11 May is one of the versions being edit warred. It replaces content sources to peer reviewed journal articles, Cambridge University Press, Palgrave, Oxford University Press - some of the sources widely cited and well received in reviews:

The Polish government enacted legislation on "abandoned property", placing severe limitations on inheritance not present in pre-war inheritance law which allowed inheritance by second-degree relatives, limiting restitution to the original owners or direct heirs. The unprecedented rate of extermination of Polish Jews in conjunction with the fact that only Jewish property was officially confiscated by the Nazis suggests "abandoned property" was equivalent to "Jewish property". Polish officials did not conceal this, the formulators of the law argued that it was necessary to prevent wealth concentration in the hands of "unproductive and parasite factors". The initial 1945 decrees were superseded by a 1946 law, with a claims deadline of 31 December 1947 (later extended to 31 December 1948) after which property devolved to the Polish state. Even if Jews regained de-jure control, when it was occupied by Poles additional lengthy proceedings were required. The majority of Jewish claimants could not afford the restitution process without financial help due to the filing costs, legal fees, and inheritance tax. Many surviving Polish Jews in the USSR were repatriated only after the end of the claims deadline in 1948, and Polish officials blocked return of Jews from DP camps. While it is hard to estimate how many Jews got property back, the number was extremely small.

References

with various other content - some of which is sourced to Polish language microhistories (those I've attempted to verify - e.g. Talk:History of the Jews in Poland#Krzyżanowski and Talk:History of the Jews in Poland#Skibińska actually have opposite conclusions) and some of which is sourced to Hearts of gold (which I did not attempt to verify - as this non-academic text self-published by a SPLC designated individual is not remotely reliable) - the bits sourced from Heats of gold read:

Successive restitution laws on “abandoned property” of March 2, 1945, May 6, 1945 and March 8, 1946, which remained in effect until the end of 1948, allowed property owners who had been dispossessed during the war or, if deceased, their relatives, whether residing in Poland or outside the country, to reclaim privately owned property that was not subject to nationalization by way of a simplified, expedited and far less expensive procedure than the regular civil procedures. Until remaining abandoned properties became nationalized at the end of 1955, such persons, as well as more distant relatives, could claim property of deceased owners under the regular civil procedures.

Although municipal court rulings did not confer immediate ownership on someone who was not a dispossessed owner, successful claimants were able to sell the properties immediately following revendication.

@Ealdgyth: - see above. Some of the text source to Hearts of Gold is not incorrect in and of itself (e.g. the dates of decrees) - what is missing is more in the way of ommission (e.g. the simplified procedure only was opened to "direct-line" heirs (e.g. sons - not cousins), granted only a court order of "possession" and not "ownership" - such possession not being backed up with eviction of the invaders in the property, the violence/murders and threat thereof that compelled those who got such orders (most - per Skibińska for instance, who notes that those in possession of the Jewish houses were at times involved in murdering the occupants - did not even try for fear of violence) to sell immediately the property to the invaders occupying in the house (at a very low price), expenses for the initial decree were not high in and of themselves - the followup procedures to actually gain ownership (as opposed to "possession") and evict the invaders - were very expensive. The low rate of actual return of properties.Icewhiz (talk) 19:31, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

References

Okay. So. It's not:

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz; Wojciech Jerzy Muszyński; Paweł Styrna (2012). Golden Harvest Or Hearts of Gold?: Studies on the Fate of Wartime Poles and Jews. Leopolis Press. pp. 225–230. ISBN 978-0-9824888-1-2.

which is being cited. I got a copy of the book through Kindle Unlimited and the pages 225-230 are actually:

Barbara Gorczycka-Muszyńska (2012). "Whose Tenements? A Legal Analysis of the Status of Former Jewish Property in Light of Postwar Polish Law". In Marek Jan Chodakiewicz; Wojciech Jerzy Muszyński; Paweł Styrna (eds.). Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold? Studies on the Wartime Fate of Poles and Jews. Washington, DC: Leopolis Press. pp. 223–231. ISBN 978-0-9824888-1-2.

This is actually pretty damn important because much of the verbiage above about Chodakiewicz doesn't actually mean much when the author of the piece is someone else and Chodakiewicz is just the editor. A Google scholar search for Barbara Gorczycka-Muszyńska shows just two mentions - one a review of Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold, and one in Polish which appears to just be the same author of the English review doing a review in a Polish-language journal. There do not appear to be any works indexed in Google Scholar which cite this particular essay. From this review it appears Gorczycka-Muszynska is a judge? Although - given the other titles of articles in the sidebar on the International Research Center ("Insiders Outsiders:Dilemas of EAst Europen Jewy;An Exotic Rarity: A Jewish Scholar Accepts Collective Jewish Accountability for the Crimes of the ZYDOKOMUNA (Judeo-Bolshevism)" or "Jews and modern capitalism by Werner Sombart;Jewish Economic Successes, Jewish Habits, Accusations of Cheating, and the Jewish Intellect" ... and I note that ALL of the articles I sampled on that site were written by one person... which doesn't exactly give one confidence in the site or it's research skills (hopefully they are better than their English language skills)). Being a judge and the lack of other scholars citing this study, does tend to make it a bit undue, whether or not it's reliable. Generally, judges aren't the best historians. I also did a bit of digging in my own library - and uncovered:

Dariusz Stola (2008). "The Polish Debate on the Holocaust and the Restitution of Property". In Martin Dean; Constantin Goschler; Philipp Ther (eds.). Robbery and Restitution: The Conflict over Jewish Property in Europe. New York: Berghahn Books and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. pp. 240–258. ISBN 978-1-84545-593-4. - (a google scholar search shows this cited 6 times)

which appears to have a different view of the situation. Stola points out that first - the claimants to property had to prove "they were the only surviving person entitled to inherit, which was no easy task when no official death records were available" (page 245). Aslo noted is the fact that the expedited procedures only applied to spouses/siblings/grandparents/parents/children/grandchildren - other relatives were not eligible for these expedited procedures. Stola also points out that these expeditated procedures only gave the claimant "possession" of the property, not actual title to the property. Stola also points out several instances where the government made it clear that it desired to avoid the concentration of wealth in a few hands, including foreigners. (p. 244). So it's clear that at the very least, Gorczycka-Muszynska would need attribution, as its not the only interpretation of the situation out there. Given the lack of citations to the work, it very well may be undue to even use it with attribution, as it does not appear to have made much impact in the scholarly corpus. In general, I find that the publisher for Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold is definitely not a hgih level scholarly press - World Cat only shows 5 works put out by it. From this, it appears to have been a small press started by a now-deceased professor, and it now is controlled by the Kościuszko Chair at the Institute of World Politics. While it's not strictly speaking a self-published source, it's definitely not showing any signs of being something along the lines of Cambridge University Press, or even something like the University of Virginia Press. Taking everything together - this particular essay doesn't seem utterly unreliable but it's not exactly highly cited either - there should be better sources out there for such a contentious topic (which, Stola, at least, makes clear is a highly complex and very politicized issue that needs careful research and discussion - not bald statements favoring any one side). Ealdgyth - Talk 21:47, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

@Ealdgyth: Stola (as several other mainstream scholars in mainstream presses - e.g. Shattered Spaces) is a good source. You missed that Chodakiewicz is also the publisher as Leopolis (indeed set up by the relatives of a deceased professor to publish his memoirs shortly after his death, but afterwards taken over by Chodakiewicz) states: "The holder of the Kościuszko Chair at IWP, Dr. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, is the Publisher of Leopolis Press.". The judge, AFAICT, never published anything else in an academic context (Also noted by the journal article (on Golden Hearts) that says she has the same surname as an editor of this piece).Icewhiz (talk) 04:53, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Also - in terms of politics - while this an issue for the Polish far right, which recently held one of the largest antisemitic rallies in recent times over Jewish property - see AP - there is no political disagreement over this outside of Poland (Terezin being signed by 47 countries, mostly implemented outside of Poland). In published mainstream academia there are no substantial disagreement on what happened in 1944-50 in Poland.Icewhiz (talk) 05:48, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Terazin declaration is a non binding political statement,it has no legal power to be "implemented" and in fact several countries have withdrawn from it.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 21:04, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

As to Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold, this seems a reliable publication, perhaps not of highest statues of recognition, but written by notable and reliable scholarly authorts.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 21:04, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Which req. of WP:SCHOLARSHIP does it satisfy? François Robere (talk) 01:52, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• @Ealdgyth: Thanks for looking into this. I wasn't able to get my own copy of the book, but as I suggested on talk, we should discuss the authors of specific chapters rather then editors indeed. I generaly concur with you that a judge with no record of previous scholalry research is not the best source, through we have to consider that her essay is published 3 years later than Stola's. Overall I am leaning to the view that this topic should be split of into a subarticle. In it, I think she can be cited, if attributed. Would you concur? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:27, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Were there any major changes in the legal status of Jewish property etc. between 2008 and 2011? François Robere (talk) 11:27, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the view that Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold?: Studies of the Fate of Wartime Poles and Jews, edited by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Wojciech Jerzy Muszynski & Pawel Styrna (Leopolis Press, 2012) is an academic source and easily qualifies for reliability. The notion that it is a self-published book or an unreliable source is baseless. It’s an English language version of a book that was published by The Facto, a Warsaw publishing house (http://thefacto.pl/), in March 2011 under the title Złote serca, czy złote żniwa?: Studia nad wojennymi losami Polaków i Żydów. The book in question is a collection of essays by 14 authors. In addition to Chodakiewicz (Institute of World Politics), the authors include professional historians and academics such as Waledmar Chrostowski (Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University), Piotr Gontarczyk (IPN--Institute of National Remembrance), Wojciech Muszynski (IPN), John Radzilowski (University of Alaska), Peter Stachura (University of Stirling), Teresa Preker (University of Warsaw). Clearly the authors and publishers are not the same for either the Polish or English language versions, so the book is not self-published. The collection of authors mentioned, their academic and professional credentials, as well as their numerous publications, all clearly indicate that this book meets the test of reliable source. They are by no means fringe or extremist. The fact that some reviewers have criticized the content is immaterial.

In particular, my edit referred to Barbara Gorczycka-Muszynska’s article “Whose Tenements? A Legal Analysis of the Status of Former Jewish Property in Light of Postwar Polish Law,” found in Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold (at p. 223–231), which deals with the content of postwar legislation on abandoned property. Her treatment is not inconsistent with historians such as Alina Skibinska (Klucze i kasa) and Anna Cichopek-Gajraj (Beyond Violence), it is simply clearer, fuller, more accurate, and much more authoritative. Why? Because, as the book notes, she is a retired judge so she is far better placed to discuss Polish legislation than historians. Gorczycka-Muszynska was a member of the Warsaw Province Administrative Court. She was decorated in 2012 by Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Polonia_Restituta) for her “outstanding services for the administration of justice, for shaping the principles of a democratic state of law and legal culture” (za wybitne zasługi dla wymiaru sprawiedliwości, za kształtowanie zasad demokratycznego państwa prawa i kultury prawnej). https://www.prezydent.pl/archiwum-bronislawa-komorowskiego/aktualnosci/ordery-i-odznaczenia/art,1152,odznaczenia-i-nominacje-sedziowskie.html The ugly innuendos being hurled at her, based on speculation as to whether she’s related to Wojciech Muszynski, are both irrelevant and highly distasteful. They are the lowest form of “smeer” tactics – totally inexcusable.

While trashing Gorczycka-Muszynska, although no factual error has been found in her article, Icewhiz is strenuously championing Laurence Weinbaum, whose essay has been thoroughly undermined in the Talk page of the History of Jews in Poland. Laurence Weinbaum is not a reliable, objective source. His essay in the book The Plunder of Jewish Property during the Holocaust (New York University Press, 2000), is dated and refers to no sources in his brief treatment of postwar property (p. 101). Weinbaum managed to make the following serious errors in just ten lines. Unclaimed “abandoned” property was nationalized not at the end of 1948, as he claims, but at the end of 1955 (Gorczycka-Muszynska, Golden Harvest, p. 228; Cichopek-Gajraj, Beyond Violence, p. 73.) The claim that “the Polish authorities blocked the return of Jews from DP camps” in contradicted by leading Holocaust historians. (Yehuda Bauer estimates that about 15,000 Jews returned to Poland from camps in Germany. See The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of the European Jews, volume 9 (Westport, CT, 1989), p. 527.) There was no new succession law enacted on October 8, 1947, as Weinbaum claims. Intestate succession (under the law of March 8, 1946) was not “restricted to father, mother, descendants and the surviving spouse,” as he claims, but also included siblings and grandparents. As for Jewish returnees from the Soviet Union, Weinbaum failed to notice that many of them settled in the territories acquired from Germany and “receive[ed] material compensation on the same basis as Polish resettlers from the East.” (Dariusz Stola, Robbery and Restitution, Berghahn Books & United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2007, p. 244). Not surprisingly, neither the latter book, Robbery and Restitution, nor Cichopek-Gajraj’s Beyond Violence, nor Meng’s Shattered Spaces, refer to Weinbaum’s article (based on a Google search). Moreover, Weinbaum is not an independent historian. He is the mouthpiece of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), for whom he works as a research and editorial officer. The WJC is a decidedly Jewish nationalist organization with an aggressive restitution agenda. Israel Singer, the Secretary General of the WJC at the time, who wrote the preface to this book, declared that Poland would be “publicly attacked and humiliated” unless it gave into Jewish restitution demands. Avi Beker, the editor of this book, is the Director of International Affairs of the WJC and Executive Director of the Israel Office. It’s clearly a POV effort.

Icewhiz’s claim that his text/edit is a “stable version” is patently untrue. Wikipedia states: "The term "stable version" is a concept that refers to the most recent version of an article that was not affected by an active content dispute or edit war." Icewhiz introduced his text on March 12, 2019 after reverting my text of February 22, 2019, which was restored by others in the interim. There is no consensus for his text. Moreover, Icewhiz’s text relies on publications that do not look into actual court records and outcomes of property claims (Michael Meng, Shattered Spaces), or publications that refer to selected court records but do not undertake a systematic investigation of the records of any one town (Cichopek-Gajraj, Beyond Violence), and then make sweeping generalizations that the in-depth investigations of court records do not support. A scholarly consensus has emerged among historians who have actually carried out in-depth research into court records -- Krzysztof Urbański, Grzegorz Miernik, Stanisław Meducki, Adam Kopciowski, Sebastian Piątkowski, Mariusz Bechta, Alina Skibińska, Łukasz Krzyżanowski -- that large quantities of property were returned to Jews in 1945-1948 throughout Poland. The historians that claim otherwise (like Meng and Cichopek-Gajraj) appear to be aware of this body of highly reliable scholarship. In particular, the findings of the eight historians I mentioned thoroughly discredit Meng’s speculative claim based on no research into this matter that such properties were “extremely few.”

This is not the first time that Icewhiz and others have ganged up to remove references to books and authors that don’t fit their own POV agenda. Icewhiz & K.e.coffman concocted a similar attempt to discredit a major book, Sowjetische Partisanen: Mythos und Wirklichkeit, by historian Bogdan Musial, published by a renowned German publishing house (Ferdinand Schöningh) and hailed by Yehuda Bauer as “a most important contribution” to the history of the war, the Soviet partisans, and Polish-Jewish partisan relations in Belorussia Yad Vashem Studies (vol. 38, no. 2). The book was removed from the “Bielski Brothers” article as allegedly “fringe” (!) and “SPS” (self-published sources) (!):

• 06:16, 28 May 2018‎ Icewhiz talk contribs‎ 20,929 bytes +137‎ Highly questionable fringe SPS.
• 02:29, 1 June 2018‎ K.e.coffman talk contribs‎ 19,592 bytes -659‎ Pls see Talk:Bielski_partisans#"Further_reading"
• 07:16, 1 June 2018‎ Icewhiz talk contribs‎ 19,592 bytes -659‎ Undid revision 843878281 by GizzyCatBella (talk) No consensus to include this non-English fringe work

Icewhiz has also been caught in a flagrant misrepresentation in the Talk page of the History of Jews in Poland, claiming that the following linked source supported Laurence Weinbaum’s claim that the Polish authorities blocked the return of Jews from Germany -- “Icewhiz (talk) 05:59, 24 April 2019 (UTC): “The "grossly discrimanatory" Polish act was criticized by US president Truman,"displaced+person"+camps+Germany+Jews&dq=poland+blocked+"displaced+person"+camps+Germany+Jews&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNqsvnhO3hAhWjAmMBHbQRBPI4FBDoATADegQIARAS.” That text says no such thing. President Truman was criticizing certain provisions of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. So, with all due respect, what credibility does Icewhiz have in this regard?

The degree of desperation to discredit Chodakiewicz is apparent in Icewhiz's resorting to the Southern Poverty Law Center, itself a thoroughly discredited and corrupt organization. Niall Fergusson called it a “phoney civil rights organisation.” Mark Thiessen wrote an article in the Washington Post aptly titled “The Southern Poverty Law Center has lost all credibility” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-southern-poverty-law-center-has-lost-all-credibility/2018/06/21/22ab7d60-756d-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a9889d037724).

Furthermore, SPLC has no historical credentials, so its views regarding a historian’s writings are worth zero. Suffice it to point out that Chodakiewicz’s monograph, The Massacre in Jedwabne, is one of very few publications of hundreds on Jedwabne that is cited and relied on by Peter Longerich, a leading German Holocaust historian, in his Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (Oxford University Press, 2010).Tatzref (talk) 16:29, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

BBC

A BBC correspondent interviewed people of both sides and wrote this article about MEK. My question is whether this assertion is supported by the BBC article. As can be seen by user discussions here, editors are divided about the conclusions made by the BBC correspondent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.38.113.56 (talk • contribs) 06:40, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The discussion is not about whether the BBC article is reliable (BBC is a reliable source), but whether describing confessions of sexual fantasies constitutes "sexual abuse", so more of a NPOV problem. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 07:19, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes it does support it, other then (as above) this is not sexual abuse.Slatersteven (talk) 07:57, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Report made by consulting firm

When drafting an article for a South American salt lake, Salar de Hombre Muerto, I saw this source. It's apparently written by a consulting firm with the help of geologists and mining experts for a mining company. Can such a source be used to write about things like geology or geography of a water body? These particular water bodies are usually poorly documented, so it's probably the only substantial source for this topic. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:45, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

No. Even if you could find evidence that the consulting firm had a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, it still has a conflict of interest since it prepared the report on behalf of an interested party. R2 (bleep) 23:29, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Is Toronto Sun a reliable source?

(Originally posted at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources, moved here because of course.) Over at Talk:Muslim Association of Canada, another editor and I are having a polite discussion (see "Director Jamal Badawi") on content in the article. I have a citation from the Toronto Sun, a popular daily newspaper in Canada. I believe the newspaper is considered a broadsheet rather than a tabloid, but note that I personally do not consider it as trustworthy as, say, The Globe and Mail, Canada's newspaper of record. The citation is an op-ed, not a "regular article". I believe this is a guest editorial. I wish to use this to establish a contentious point about a living person, so WP:BLP applies. Specifically, I wish to use this citation to establish Dr. Jamal Badawi has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and/or was part of the Muslim Brotherhood's Shura Council. I believe, but could be mistaken, that the Toronto Sun would normally qualify as a WP:RS. I believe, but could be mistaken, that an op-ed in that newspaper would normally qualify as a WP:RS. Both of those things may be true but WP:BLP may mean this particular citation is insufficient for the information I'm trying to cite, about a living person. The anonymous editor is concerned that this citation is insufficient. The anonymous editor also brings up WP:NEWSORG.

• Source
• Article
• To support: "Badawi denied any links to the Muslim Brotherhood,[18] (existing citation) but in 1992, Badawi's name was listed in a Muslim Brotherhood directory listing him as being on the Shura Council.

Thanks for your time and clarifications. --Yamla (talk) 21:23, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The Sun is normally reliable for news reporting but as you have stated, you're pulling from an op-ed. Now, I doubt the Sun would allow a completely bogus op-ed fly that was pulling facts of out thin air, but we still should expect that the fact checking on an op-ed piece is not as strong as a staff writer's work. At absolute minimum, you are going to need to attribute the claim to the ope-ed writer. But there is fair enough issue that if that's the only source that mentions this that it might UNDUE w.r.t. BLP. --Masem (t) 21:29, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not wading into the question whether the Sun is or is not reliable, I'll point out that this is an opinion piece and it's not clear what sort of editorial oversight Tom Quiggin gets when writing pieces like that. I can assume that there have not been any corrections or retractions to the piece that is now three months old so it does not seem to be problematic. However, a piece by The Globe or even CBC news would be preferred. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:33, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The citation is not reliable. Per News organizations, "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." Otherwise the Toronto Sun is a reliable publisher. Note the article says, "Special to Postmedia Network," which is the parent body that owns the Toronto Sun and includes many prestigious broadsheets, such as the National Post. TFD (talk) 23:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Another concern I have with using this citation is that there is actually no mention of the main subject of the article in question, the Muslim Association of Canada. Would it a be a violation of WP:NOR to use two separate sources and argue for a connection thusly: op-ed A to say that Organization X is linked to Person Y, then cite op-ed B to say that Person Y is linked to Organization Z, and so the Wikipedia article argues that Organization X is linked to Organization Z? 2601:243:903:3F5B:254F:CE78:74E5:1209 (talk) 23:45, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

• In addition to the sourcing issues mentioned above, note that the source article mentions "North American Muslim Brotherhood" (not the Muslim Brotherhood per se) and it is not clear if that refers to an actual organization by that exact name, or is a generic stand-in for "a front group, in North America, for the Muslim Brotherhood." The pdf of the directory is unclear on that matter. This distinction is important because Quiggan has declared several organizations to be such front groups and his expertise to do so has been questioned. See, for example, this Mclean article, which says in part, However, Quiggin’s various research conclusions and work with the obscure TSEC Network have been vehemently criticized by acknowledged security and terrorism experts..

(TL;DR)  don't use the source for such purpose even with attribution. Abecedare (talk) 00:04, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone! --Yamla (talk) 16:11, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition

The full text of the dictionary can be found here, and it's public domain. I've been looking to use this source for etymology purposes in cities that have been mentioned in the bible. Alex.osheter (talk) 07:54, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Given its age, and the fact he was not an etymologist I would say this might not be all that reliable.Slatersteven (talk) 08:51, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

BPI

Not wholly sure what to do here this [[65]] seems to be being used on a number of music articles, as is. Not a link to the specific album, just the search engine page. I am not sure this is acceptable.Slatersteven (talk) 14:34, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't think the website by itself can be used as RS to confirm information that isn't published there. So I'd say not reliable. Ok I now found that some album information can be verified through the website's search engine. The British Phonographic Industry does seem like a legit site, but I'm not sure what the policy here is for industry-specific search engines. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 15:19, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

The problem is they are only being linked to (well were, that may in some cases being sorted now) that search page, not any hits.Slatersteven (talk) 15:26, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that was also my reaction when I went to the site. It's a URL issue it seems: if search results produced specific URLs, then we would probably consider the site a RS (unless there is a guideline against such search engines specifically?). Some information that's been added to articles, however, is not verified on the search engine. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 15:43, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Karol Markowicz writing for TIME

Is the following a reliable new article, or is it an opinion piece per News organizations?

"America Shouldn't Tolerate 'Biden Being Biden'" by Karol Markowicz, Time Magazine, February 18, 2015. Time says, "Karol Markowicz is a writer in New York City. She has worked on GOP campaigns in four states."

The article is one of three sources used to support the statement, "There have been multiple photographs of Biden engaged in what commentators considered to be inappropriate proximity to women and children, including kissing and or touching" in Joe Biden#Allegations of inappropriate physical contact.

News organizations says, "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."

TFD (talk) 14:47, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. This is not an exceptional claim. There are dozens of photographs and videos of Biden exhibiting the behavior in question. There are dozens of reliable sources reporting on that behavior (vox, time, slate, salon, npr, politico, usatoday, guardian, wapo, nyt, etc). But beyond that, your argument is nonsense anyway, since what is written in our article is an opinion considered to be inappropriate, in which case opinion articles are entirely valid to show that pov. Markowicz is an example of one person who has that opinion, of which again, there are dozens, on both sides of the isle. If you want to swap out that source for a different source, backing the same content, I would have no objection, but pretending that this is somehow weakly sourced is just posing. ResultingConstant (talk) 16:32, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

The phrase, quoted above from WP:NEWSORG, is correct. But the op-ed piece in question appeared in Time, which has appropriate fact-checking standards, and the article, itself, has links to videos that show the behavior described. Therefore, the incidents reported on are well-substantiated and the article is "reliable for statements of fact". HopsonRoad (talk) 17:10, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Can you please provide a source saying that Time uses fact-checking for opinion pieces? TFD (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

• ‘’’Not reliable.’’’ Karol Markowicz is a political operative, not a journalist. R2 (bleep) 21:12, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@The Four Deuces: What is the fact that in dispute? That he did the actions? That he was photographed/videoed doing the actions? Those are covered by dozens of RS. Whats left is the "fact" that people have "opinions" about those actions, and opinion pieces are perfectly valid to source the fact that those opinions exist, as seen by the very policy you are citing. are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author ResultingConstant (talk) 21:15, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

ResultingConstant, we already have two reliable sources for the statement, news reports in Vox and Huffpost. In dispute is whether the issue arose in the current presidential campaign or in 2016 and therefore where it should be mentioned in the article. I think it arose as an issue in 2020 and the fact that a GOP operative wrote about it in the 2016 cycle does not mean it was an issue then, since it was not covered in news reporting. TFD (talk) 21:25, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

The_Four_Deuces The answer is both. While it obviously has greatly increased relevance and coverage in the 2020 cycle (and therefore very relevant to the election coverage in the article), it was covered by numerous sources earlier. Mother Jones, Npr,nbc, and other sources all covered this in 2015. [66][67][68][69][70] ResultingConstant (talk) 21:54, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation 2019 – phase 2

The Wikimedia Foundation has invited the various Wikimedia communities, including the English Wikipedia, to participate in a consultation on improving communication methods within the Wikimedia projects.

Phase 2 of the consultation has now begun; as such, a request for comment has been created at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 2. All users are invited to express their views. Individual WikiProjects, user groups and other communities may also consider creating their own requests for comment; instructions are at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Participant group sign-up. (To keep discussion in one place, please don't reply to this comment.) Jc86035 (talk) 14:48, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Steven Novella

If this [[71]] an RS for this passage

According to skeptic Steven Novella, a professor at Yale University School of Medicine, Sequenzia's writings under FC are unusually eloquent for a nonverbal autistic individual. He additionally stated that there is no given explanation for how she spontaneously learned to read and write at an advanced level when she was eight years old. Novella also said that he would have to personally meet her understand better.

As can be seen the inclusion of this has been marked as OR.Slatersteven (talk) 09:43, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Neurologica is Steven Novella's blog. It's on a high level, and is obviously reliable for statements specifically ascribed to Novella. This is about Amy Sequenzia, and I've removed the OR tag. Bishonen | talk 10:59, 19 May 2019 (UTC).