Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources

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Clarification of Reliable Sources

Could someone clear up the threshold for a reliable source related to paranormal topics not studied by science or ignored by science at the moment. There is presently a discussion at EVP about the authenticity of Dr. Fontana, a pyschologist who has also studied EVP, as a source for history related material about that subject. One editor insists that Dr. Fontana is not a historian or a professor of science history and thereby can't be used by RS standards. My review of the policy is that since Dr. Fontana has studied the phenomena for years, his book on the topic would be a reliable source if it is well research; for material in the article. Maybe some outside input would help from those who are presently engaged with this policy talk page. We seem at an impasse as to what the proper interpretation of RS should be. --Northmeister 14:37, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it is quite simple. You can attribute the views of that author to him, providing his views are published by a reputable publishing house, and his views are significant enough to be described. One does not have to be a professor to be cited in Wikipedia articles, in fact, some professors would not be citable if their views are not significant or notable to be cited. It all depends on the context in which a source is used. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 14:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The man is a psychologist and is being used as a source for a topic of scientific history unrelated to psychology. The sentence currently says "Concerted research on technical means of communication grew rapidly in the latter part of the 20th century (Fontana, p. 366)." (then it's cited again via inline citation for some reason). Should we say "According to David Fontana concerted research on technical means of communication grew rapidly in the latter part of the 20th century."? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 14:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

That would work. You can always think of the reader: Does that viewpoint improves the understanding of the subject? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Jossi for your advice. I would find that acceptable as well. --Northmeister 15:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this actually above that particular sentence--how can it possibly be controversial? DGG (talk) 05:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

One issue that wikipedia should address is whether to consider academia, esp. the social sciences as non-NPOV given the overwhelmingly left representation of faculty in the social science community, and the not-so-secret political agendas of many which are worked into scholarly publications. Check into the "Sokal affair" of the mid-90s, wherein a scientist submitted pure nonsense about the laws of physics being meaningless patriarchal constructs, filled his paper with leftist ideology without the slightest evidence for any of it and was able to get it published in a "reputable" peer-reviewed social science journal. He did it to prove what was going on, and that peer-review in the field no longer served to maintain scholarly, neutral (non-political bias) inquiry. This is only one example. Once these publications are published, they are treated as though they were "fact" and their authors as credible experts. Disagreement is suppressed, and therefore is rarely published in academic journals regardless of the amount of evidence offered. In short, if published articles/references with a political bias are cited, the wikipedia article should be labeled as non-NPOV, and/or other sources with differing opinions should be cited to offer alternate views. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.173.82.81 (talk) 16:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Third-party sources

The references to "third party" sources were just removed with a comment that this attribute has no meaning outside of BLP. However, I think the meaning of "third party" is very clear. A third-party source is material created by a party that is not the subject of the article. We deliberately considered that unreliable for all articles and not just BLP, right? If so, the change is inappropriate.

I'm reverting pending discussion. Also, I'm going to try to edit some of the text here to clear up the confusion. I think the editor is thinking of a "source" as a publisher or publication, as opposed to a piece of material. Wikidemo 12:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Some time ago we made a language clarification in the first paragraph of "what is a reliable source" that by "source" we mean a work used to obtain / verify material in an article, as opposed to the author of that work or the publication in which it appears or its publisher. When we call the work's author or the work's publication a "source" as well, that is just shorthand. The shorthand is causing confusion I've tried to tease out the distinction between works, authors, and publications here, a somewhat overdue project. There is no attempt to change the meaning of the guideline, but rather to use the terminology consistently in order to avoid confusion. Wikidemo 12:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your clarification on Third-Party... however, the word "source" is used in this guideline to mean more than just the piece of material... it also is used to discribe the person creating the work (see the line about the mathematics professor, for example) and, to a lesser extent the location of the work (on an extremist website, or in a peer reviewed journal for examples). All three meanings can affect the reliability of a source. I have added an intro paragraph to try to explain this... but I am sure the wording could be better phrased. Blueboar 12:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any fundamental problems with the revisions as they stand now relating to "third party", if the meaning is understood as described by Wikidemo above. Previous to the revisions, however, there were links from "third party" to the "PSTS" model of WP:NOR, which is highly controversial and under intense revision right now. There is a constituency out there that wants to ban or restrict the use of primary sources in Wikipedia, but this article shouldn't get into that. It should be clear that when we say "reliable, third party source", we are not meaning "reliable secondary source". COGDEN 18:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I removed the links for the reason you mentioned. The text said "third party sources", which means to me a piece that was not written by the subject of the article. Yet it linked to the PSTS section, which isn't directly related to that. I don't have any strong opinion on the substance of the guideline in this regard, I'm just trying to make sure it's clear. There seemed to be a conflict between what the policy says, and what it happens to link to, and I figured that the actual words of the policy are more likely to be what people intended than the links. Wikidemo 22:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Why not just replace "third party" with "independent", for clarity? Vassyana 05:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

yes--and third party implies a controversy, which is not always the case with RS questions-- I think "independent" is better all around. DGG (talk) 12:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I like that idea. Note that it does imply a slight change - "third party" means anyone but the subject of the article or their alter-ego (e.g. their company, the company's CEO, etc). "Independent" implies anyone without a conflict of interest, a slightly stronger exclusion. Let's mull over that for a few days and if nobody makes a strong reasonable ojbection, consider it a consensus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemo (talk • contribs) 13:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It's been a week, and things have been quiet as a mouse on this thread. Should we change the language, or should we solicit extra input on the village pump and wait a few more days? Vassyana 19:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

"Independent" is a reasonably good descriptor. I can't think of anything better. I don't think there's any need to go to village pump, since this doesn't actually change anything substantive, and shouldn't be controversial. COGDEN 20:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Nazi and Soviet sources

This is discussed to some extent above, however, it continues to come up in numerous places. Reposted from another discussion...

The problem is that both Nazi and particularly Soviet materials, and particularly (yes, had to use the word twice) with respect to the Baltics and Eastern Europe, is that there is so much propaganda, from the Nazis saying how well the locals are supporting the eradication of Jews even before the Nazis arrived (they weren't) to the Soviets reporting the Nazis killed 300,000 in Latvia [alone] (total fabrication) that it's simply better to stick to reputable sources. To contend that the Nazis, for example, as "meticulous" Germans never falsified reports is not supported by the facts.

  If reputable scholarship mentions a (corroborated) Nazi or Soviet source, that's fine. But to suggest that Wikipedia editors have the academic wherewithal to properly discriminate between fact and fiction in Nazi and Soviet sources is sheer hubris that will doom our collective efforts to failure.

We should never use Nazi or Soviet sources directly, and certainly not where they have anything even remotely to do with politics and history, other than to report what those sources say (as opposed to representing what they say as fact). This includes any newly discovered "archives"--if Stalin erased people in photographs, why would anyone assume the archives contain the "truth" as opposed to also being subject to the same erasures, etc.? Stalin was, if nothing else, meticulous about his propaganda.

  Using any Nazi and Soviet sources directly and drawing conclusions in articles, even if those conclusions are completely accurate, is WP:OR. Is it possible to agree on this point? (re-signed) —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I should mention that I myself have used a Soviet source in Rainis--sifted based on my own "knowledge" of Rainis. Conforming to my proposal, that source would be applicable only through confirmation in a scholarly (non-Soviet) source, else it would need to be deleted. Losing some facts in this article, as a specific example, is a small price to pay to avoid inserting Soviet fabrications elsewhere. (Even with Rainis, a nationalist literary figure morphed into a Soviet hero, there are Soviet sourced "facts" to avoid.) —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's an interesting suggestion to dismiss scholars Aron Gurevich who, according to the University of Chicago Press publisher, "has long been considered one of the world's leading medievalists and a pioneer in the field of historical anthropology"[1] or Boris Piotrovsky whose Classical works on Urartu [2] and Scythia remain the leading publications on the subject to this day because Vecrumba considers all Soviet scientists to be "Propagandists". Luckily, historians who write books don't think so. --Irpen 04:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

and not just on controversial subjects. Any individual scholar or book can be challenged for reliability in the usual way, and a frankly political work from a frankly Soviet publisher will if properly cited carry its own warning. Butas a general rule, it makes no sense whatsoever. DGG (talk) 12:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Peters, the problem is not using Nazi or Soviet sources... the problem is misuing them by drawing conclusions from them. That is where there is a violation of WP:NOR. Wikipedia editors should never draw conclusions from sources, but should instead report on the conclusions contained in those sources. Now, some sources may contain conclusions that are obvious propoganda and (of course) that affects the sources reliability. Others sources may have more subtle problems that only someone very familiar with the topic will be awair of. It may be that such a source is unreliable, but the determination of this must be hashed out on an article by article basis, not as a blanket statement in Wikipedia Policies and guidelines. I would agree that most sources that came out of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia are suspect, and probably not reliable... but not all. There was serious scholarship that took place under both regiemes. The hard part is knowing which is unreliable propaganda and which is serious scholarship. Blueboar 12:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, I'm not surprised you have attempted to paint my suggestion as an uninformed, ill-advised attempt to deny valuable scholarship. You ignore that your compatriots who maintain allegations of Baltic occupation are "politically" motivated insist the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is factual in its accounting of history. You instead paint my suggestion as, who am I to ban great scholarship? Did I actually say "All Soviet SCIENTISTS are propagandists?" For someone who rails against people putting words into your mouth, you do it freely to others, and with a good dose of indignation ("luckily" there are people who know better?).

   With that unpleasantry aside, the individuals you cite are perfect examples. Their scholarship and works, through the respect and acknowledgment they have gained on the part of numerous reputable scholars, would count as being corroborated. An eminently simple gating factor.

   To Blueboar's point and to the crux of the matter, unless a Soviet source, particularly on geopolitics or done under government sponsorship, is assumed false until proven factual, we will continue to have individuals insist that the Great Soviet Encyclopedia et aliter are a sufficient source, no other source needed, for factual accountings of history. My suggestion does nothing to prevent reputable sources originating in the Soviet era from being fully utilized for encyclopedic purposes. It does put the burden of proof on the editor proposing to use a Soviet era source to produce corroboration of that source in reputable non-Soviet scholarship. Otherwise you will have editors continuing to contend that lies in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia be reported as valid Soviet conclusions of equal value to reputable non-Soviet scholarship painting a completely different picture--and that the "facts" in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia are not to be disputed, just presented like any other "opinion", all "opinions" being equally valid. That is, as long as you properly attribute a lie, you can report it like any other sourced material--leaving it to the reader's judgement whether it is valid. An encyclopedia should have a slighly higher standard of verifiability, don't you think? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no, I don't think so. WP:V (the guiding policy that WP:RS is under) says it quite clearly: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." It is not up to us to say whether the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is true or not. Under our guidelines it counts as a reliable source. Having said that... it is a biased source, expressing things from a Soviet viewpoint. It does have to be taken with a grain of salt. The best way to indicate this is through direct text attribution ("according to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, such and such is the case") as well as citation. In keeping with WP:NPOV we may not eliminate the GSE by fiat. However, also in keeping with NPOV, to the extent that information from the GSE is contradicted by non-Soviet sources, we should also discuss what those sources say and cite them. In short... while the GSE can not be excluded as being unreliable, we can (and should) certainly include information from other reliable sources to raise questions in the readers mind as to it's accuracy.Blueboar 15:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Under the same pretext any sources from the Baltics should be excluded also because there are many state-sponsored researches containing bias and falsifications of history.--Dojarca 15:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Neither should be excluded... when sources disagree, we include all viewpoints (properly cited) and discuss the differences in a neutral manner. It is not Wikipedia's job to determine which is "correct" and which is not. This is really a NPOV debate and not an RS debate. Blueboar 15:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Just make absolutely sure to attribute the text to these sources. Let the user take these sources in their context, and avoid making any assertions of fact from these. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:42, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Dojarca, you personally contend the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (no further corroborations produced) as factual and Baltic sources (reputably cited in non-Baltic scholarship) as nationalist POV. "Viewpoints" refer to differing interpretations of the same base of facts. Those should be discussed neutrally, as indicated. "Versions"--which is what we are dealing with here--refer to different sets of purported facts being represented, not verifiable, at odds with another set of reputably verifiable facts. The issue is that editors contend their "viewpoint" must be represented NPOV when, in fact, it is their "version" (otherwise factually unsubstantiated by any reputable source) which they are contending be represented as a "viewpoint", that is, based on facts. The last time I checked the "V" in NPOV referred to "V"iewpoints, not "V"ersions. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Even when two sources disagree as to the "Facts"... both versions of the facts should be represented. Once again, it is not our job as Wikipedia editors to determine which set of "Facts" are true.Blueboar 20:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, then Wikipedia is doomed to portray all "versions" of "facts" as equal. And, arguably, there is not even a concept of what even constitutes a "fact." I quite appreciate that WP is not a truth-maker. Nevertheless, there must be some standard for reputable sources. The question is, what constitutes a reputable, reliable source: does that include ones which have no other corroboration in fact and are disputed by reputable scholarship, or not?

If the Great Soviet Encyclopedia maintains the moon is made of cheese, do we simply report it, regardless of the "fact" that no cheese has been found there? No, on WP we need not produce corroborating sources, we can merely denounce the "moon rockers" and say their "facts" are politically motivated.

I don't mean to be harsh, but even Soviet photographs lie (not all of course). Is there to be no WP:CRUCIBLE to be applied to any source? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

There are no "facts" as far as Wikipedia is concerned. We only report what sources say about a subject, and we attribute significant viewpoints to those that hold them. That's it. If you do not like this, you can edit other wikis in which these constrains do not exist, such as Wikiinfo. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Jossi, your suggestion ("if you do not like this...") is not at all helpful. Wikipedia is the #1 source returned for every Eastern European country et al. If Wikipedia wishes to retain the dedication and contributions of motivated, informed editors--who are here precisely because of WP's #1 ranking--then there must be governance over quality that is defined, is measurable, and is enforceable.
  I quote: "Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight." I would argue, based on reputable sources saying so, that the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (sticking to that theme) does not meet those criteria with regards to historiography. No, let me rephrase that. Under WP guidelines, is one allowed to make the case, based on reputable reliable scholarly sources saying so, that the Great Soviet Encyclopedia should be considered an unreliable source regarding historical facts (facts not in quotes)?
  If there are no "facts", what does "reliable" refer to? Are we really prepared to re-phrase fact-checking above as "fact"-checking? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Peters, you once again miss the point... Wikipedia has a few longstanding fundamental policies, and what you are talking about is directly related to one of them, in this case WP:NPOV, which clearly tells us that when two sources disagree as to the facts (no quotation marks this time), it is our job to simply note that disagreement. We present what both sources say... Source A says X. Source B, however, disagrees and says Y. That is never going to change. It is why Wikipedia is #1. It isn't biased towards any one view point... you get all the facts here, not just those you agree with.Blueboar 13:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

But Blueboar, the key point is that we present non-fringe, reliable viewpoints. Just as we are not presenting anti-Semitic nazi viewpoint as a 'neutral counterpart to modern Western thought' (for example), we should acknowledge that the party line and marxist bias in much of Soviet research disqualifies it in some regards from being a 'mainstream, reliable viewpoint'.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Great, except that you leave for you to decide which source is reliable and which isn't. In your opinion all Soviet research is lies, damn lies and communist marxist propaganda and so called "rest of the world" (mainly US and EU, but not for example China or Middle East) is all truth honesty verifiability great great unbiased research! Your understanding of democracy and scientific verifiability is weird to say the least. -- Borism 09:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest reading Soviet historiography article. Soviet publications suffered from numerous problems. That however doesn't mean that there wasn't valuable research done in some areas; in history the rule of thumb holds that the further one goes from 20th century, the better the Soviet research was - but even so much of it was influenced by often irrelevant but "politically correct" Marxist ideology. I don't think we should "ban" Soviet works - but I do agree that we should have a warning that Soviet-era works are less reliable than Western academia works, and should be treated with caution.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:02, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Blueboar, I think you miss my point, which is that Soviet accounts are discredited unreliable sources where the history of Eastern Europe is concerned, their factual misrepresentations of the entire 20th century being the primary problem area. I fail to see the editorial imperative to mix discredited sources with reputable scholarly sources and then represent the resulting utterly confusing mélange as "NPOV" informative. By your suggestion, any article on Eastern Europe not representing the Great Soviet Encyclopedia view as equally valid to non-Soviet sourced scholarship gets tagged as POV--which is exactly the mess all the Eastern European articles are in today.

   You say to represent all viewpoints. That is fine. The Russian viewpoint is, for example, scrupulously noted where it follows historical (pre-perestroika) Soviet lines (with no speculation as to motives)--and, I must point out, that not a single reputable source has been brought by any editor to WP to substantiate the factual basis for the Soviet version (not "view") differing from non-Soviet scholarship. But, again, please explain to me exactly where we lost "reliable" along the way to achieving "NPOV"? Viewpoints are based on the same (reputable, verifiable) data, different interpretations. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 23:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The articles on Eastern European topics surely deserve the tag because you and your friends constantly remove any sources that do not fit with your POV. Modern sources from Baltic states and Poland are intentionally fabricated to serve political purposes (which was shown multiple times) but nobody calls to remove them. We believe these sources useful to represent their point of view. You and your friends want only to create a situation where sources from Baltics places in priviledged position and Soviet sources labelled incorrect by definition.--Dojarca 00:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Dojarca, care to give an example where Polish and Baltic sources go against international/Western sources? I do believe I've asked that previously from you, but as far as I remember you ignored that request, nor have I seen any of "which was shown multiple times". We have a plenty of sources from Soviet Union, that go against the sources from rest of the world, I do believe I've given about half a dozen examples already for you. -- Sander Säde 06:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

So according to your logic if Soviet (state sponsored) source is contradicted by multiple "rest of the world" (mainly so called "western world", e.g. US an EU, but not for example China) (state sponsored) sources it makes latter sources more valid? Your understanding of democracy and scientific verification is weird to say the least. Your point of view is very limited in this case and shouldn't be a subject of wikipedia, but state sponsored propaganda. -- Borism 09:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstood me completely. My point was about Dojarca's logic, as he has repeatedly advocated to discard Baltic and Polish sources, as - according to him - there are state-sponsored institutes in Poland and Baltic states, which fabricate history. Since he has claimed that three times now, it would be really nice to see some kind of example of those fabrications and how they contradict non-Polish/Baltic Western sources. -- Sander Säde 09:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, regarding Borism's: "So according to your logic if Soviet (state sponsored) source is contradicted by multiple "rest of the world" (mainly so called "western world", e.g. US an EU, but not for example China) (state sponsored) sources it makes latter sources more valid?", I want to make it clear, we are not talking about viewpoint/interpretation. For example, that the Latvian Riflemen defended the Kremlin and Bolshevism, that is a fact. Interpretations and attributions of motivations/interpretations are then viewpoints and can be "sourced" by Western sources, Latvian sources, Soviet sources, discussing that fact. What we are talking about regarding unreliability of Soviet sources is the absence of a basis in fact of Soviet historical contentions, contentions which have continued beyond the demise of the Soviet Union. I will go back to my old saw that Dojarca knows well. The Russian Duma issued a proclamation to "remind deputies of the Latvian Saeima that Latvia's being a part of the Soviet Union was grounded by fact and by law from the international juridical point of view" (reported in Pravda, November 19, 1999). So, legal according to all treaties and obligations in effect, legal according to the constitution of Latvia, legal according to the constitution of the USSR. And therefore, for that reason, no "occupation" (you can't occupy what belongs to you, etc. etc. etc.). I have been asking for months for any reputable factual basis supporting the Duma proclamation--i.e., something that examines the Russian position and in any way discusses how that position might be based on verified facts. No one has produced any sources. No one has produced any facts. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia et al. in portraying this alleged "legality" merely states its legality. It is only through endless repetition that the Soviet position has taken on the mantle of reliability, not through any basis whatsoever in fact. Ergo, the Soviet position is not reliably sourced: not because it is a different "interpretation" of specific verified facts, but because it is not based on verified facts in the first place. The Soviet "version" (not "viewpoint") of history already gets mention despite its demonstrated unreliability in reputable scholarship and, indeed, abject lack of basis in verified facts.PētersV 14:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

So you are proposing that sources should be sourced as well? I'm afraid that you're not getting far with such proposition - in such case you should disregard most articles about modern history and politics (which are based mostly on newspaper articles)

Also, you're seeking truth (in particular case whether Latvia was occupied or not from legal point of view (which of course differs depending on jurisdiction)). Wikipedia is not about truth, it is about verifiability. Verifiability is based on sources. If there are contradicting sources, you leave both, not delete ones that are based on lies in your opinion. Wikipedia reader then can decide herself which is her truth. You can stay true to you beliefs. What is problem with that (besides that you don't like that people have alternative truths)? -- Borism 18:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Look, this is quite simple folks... You can place the GSE in context by commenting that its version of events are influenced by Soviet ideology (I am sure you can find a source that says this)... but NPOV demands that both versions be presented, whether "true" or not. This debate is similar to those that go on at the tons of articles cited to the 1918 Catholic Encyclopedia... which was definitely a biased source, and frequently got its facts wrong, but is, to this day, a valuable resource for presenting how the Church viewed things at the time (and in some cases, how it still views things). The same is true for the GSE. It may be inaccurate or skewed in its bias, but it is a reliable source for the Soviet version of events. I would probably not rely on it as a sole source, but in conjunction with, and juxtaposed by western and baltic sources it is certainly acceptable. All it takes is attribution (as in "According to the GSE..." Having said this (again)...I respectlfully ask that you take the argument to the various article talk pages... you have had a similar answer from several editors who work on this page regularly, and your continued bickering on the topic is getting a bit tiresome. Blueboar 18:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

But, Blueboar, there is one thing to consider. You say - correct me if I misunderstand you - that Soviet point of view is as legitimate as Western. On what is that assumption based? As Soviet historiography or Suppressed research in the Soviet Union show, significant parts of Soviet point of view were corrupted by party line and Marxism. Of course, I agree with you, that to show Soviet POV GSE is as good as CE to show the Catholic POV. However this is not the point. Nobody (I hope) is suggesting to ban all Soviet sources. What the concerned editors are suggesting, however, is that it should be made clear that on average and particularly in areas outlined in Soviet historiography and Suppressed research in the Soviet Union articles, Soviet sources are less reliable than Western works.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Aren't Westenn works corrupted with anti-Communism, or (for example) Conservatism? This is a motion to portray Soviet sources as incorrect only because they are Soviet. It think if is an attempt to invent political censorship in Wikipedia. --Dojarca 07:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

My dear Dojarca, all that has been asked is what factual basis Soviet accounts have for their contentions/version. Plenty of factual basis has been provided for non-Soviet sources (you being one of the editors who keeps insisting on asking for more). None has been provided for Soviet sources regarding the Soviet version of Baltic/Eastern European history. To Blueboar, I have said repeatedly I am happy to (and I believe it is important to) detail the Soviet account so that readers can be informed. But it is not reliable, it is not an equally valid "viewpoint." The Soviet Union is dead. I was unaware that the purpose of WP was to keep the propaganda of a dead repressive totalitarian state alive--which is essentially what you are suggesting--I should content myself with the situation and stop being tiresome.

   And finally again to Dojarca, I myself have used Soviet sources. You, Irpen, et al. paint this as a biased move to summarily dismiss everything Soviet as a lie. It is not. Again, I only ask for factual basis. If that is impossible to be provided, I cannot see how anyone can contend Soviet versions of history are reliable.PētersV 20:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I apologize that I'm apparently just a dumb Latvian and that the best America has to offer in higher education has not ameliorated my inborn intellectual circumstance. I am more befuddled than ever after re-reading I think it's Borism's question above: "So you are proposing that sources should be sourced as well?"

You see, I was under the impression that the very definition of a "reliable source" was that the "source was sourced" and found to be verifiable based on confirmed facts/highly regarded in reputable scholarly circles/etc.

Accordingly, allow me to put forth two options regarding historical accounts in the GSE et al.:

1. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia and similar Soviet accounts are to be treated as reliable sources; those accounts to be represented as factually verifiable.
    
2. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia and similar Soviet accounts are to be treated as unreliable sources; its accounts to be represented as not factually verifiable; note that there are those who continue to espouse GSE et al. accounts as "correct" as their personal opinions or official positions (no motivations ascribed).

WP indicates what's a reliable source and what isn't and how to determine same. Let's have it. Either way, the GSE goes on the list with regard to historical accounts: reliable or unreliable. No more "Wikipedia doesn't decide the truth" induced limbo. Every source can be discussed as to its reliability. Every source can and is sourced in turn to validate its use as a "reliable source". But sources known for lying (Soviet accounts of history) are off limits in discussing reliability?

"WP doesn't determine the truth" is not applicable. WP offers specific guidelines on how to determine whether a source is reliable. Let's apply them and get this over with, either way. PētersV 23:09, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought here. Aren't encyclopedias usually compilations of the work of multiple authors? In which case, it might be worth considering whether the authors of individual articles are considered to be reliable sources in their field. I wouldn't trust Soviet historians, for instance, but Soviet scientists had a pretty good reputation. -- ChrisO 00:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Certainly there was much variation. But don't forget how wide was the Suppressed research in the Soviet Union.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  00:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Let's be clear... the GSE is biased, it does portray history from a particlular POV, it is even inaccurate on some issues... BUT IT IS A RELIABLE SOURCE by our rules. End of discussion. Blueboar 01:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

In other words, citing RS as it is currently written, you are saying: Great Soviet Encyclopedia is "a published work regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand" (and since its an encyclopedia, the subject at hand can be anything). GSE has "an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight" and "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Excuse me? GSE quite obviously fails the above; have you ever read any of its masterpieces? Try [3]. Gerovitch notes ([4]) that is served a normative, not descriptive purpose. See also Britannica Entry. Of course, as Duff notes, [5] it is a useful source for some areas - but you cannot say its as reliable as an average Western Encyclopedia. GSE is obviously a "Publications with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight should only be used in articles about the authors or publishers themselves. Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the author or publisher has made about third parties."-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  02:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

"BUT IT IS A RELIABLE SOURCE by our rules." I (and I am sure others) await Blueboar's analysis which takes us all through the sequence of steps by which "we" aka Wikipedia logically and with intellectual integrity arrived at the affirmation that the GSE et al. conform to WP rules/requirements for a reliable source. PētersV 02:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I am amused to note that the [link provided by Piotrus above explicitly describes the GSE as 'biased', but the two excerpts from the GSE provided in it appear to be accurate in terms of the facts, and the editorialising surrounding the Soviet contribution to the 'Great Patriotic War' seems to be a perfectly useful statement of the Soviet view of their own contribution. I don't see how that quote invalidates any of the points that an RS is supposed to satisfy. I'd have to agree with Blueboar that our requirements for an RS do not exclude the GSE. Relata refero 19:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, I must point out that I'm afraid Piotrus misquotes Gerovitch: what SG actually says is that the GSE served not only a descriptive but also a normative purpose, the purpose being to delineate what was acceptable knowledge. That is not the same thing as omnipresent bias in presentation, but rather bias in selection. Relata refero 19:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

As I've said, I have no issue with representing the Soviet "contribution to the 'Great Patriotic War'". However, where it comes to specific facts, as in Latvia freely, willingly, can leave the USSR any time it wants joining + Russian Duma proclamations indicating joining the Soviet Union legally according to international law... that is a "version" which is completely unsubstantiated and refuted in reputable scholarship. The discussion is whether the GSE is reliable in encyclopedic detail = reliable source, NOT whether it presents a useful portayal of the Soviet POV (of which it is a reliable source, not to be confused with a "reliable source.") How does abject failure of basis in fact (e.g., detailed "free" Latvian election results were accidentally released 24 hours early and printed in the news in London) have no bearing on GSE et al. being unreliable? This is completely not a conversation about "bias" in interpretation of verified factual events, e.g., Soviet troops crossed border XYZ at ABC, pick "invasion" or "liberation." It is about contentions by/in the GSE et al. which have exactly 0% basis in fact and have been thoroughly debunked by all reputable scholarship. Please explain how the GSE et al. meet RS under those circumstances.

  Do not confuse two completely different issues, that is: "POV" over reliably verified fact versus a "version" of events proven completely false (outright lie) by reputable scholarship, or suggest that they are one and the same. They are not. PētersV 21:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Crux of GSE issue

Perhaps I am somehow failing to be clear about the GSE et al. issue:

• "BIAS" is a point-of-view interpretation of a reputably verified fact.
• "LIE" is contending something reputably proven to have no basis in fact.

Historical accounts in the GSE et al. (and indeed, in all Soviet propaganda) expertly blend both bias and lies. One needs reputable sources to be able to tell bias apart from lies when interpreting the GSE et al. Therefore, the GSE et al. cannot possibly be a reliable source in and of itself. Or is it being suggested that a source which contains outright fabrications is merely guilty of enthusiasm in its bias and is therefore a reliable source nonetheless? —PētersV 21:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, but we are not in a place where individual editors are able to make these distinctions. If the GSE claims that the Soviet constitution indicates that Latvia was able to leave at any time, that is relevant encyclopaedic material, however true. It should naturally be followed by a quote from recent scholarship indicating that that 'right' was never exercised, nor even attempted to be exercised. (Your claim that this has been 'debunked' is difficult to comprehend. The soviet constitution itself provided that right, I think, and confirmation can be found for it. Likewise, confirmation can be found for the many reasons why the Constitution itself was not generally followed when it came to relations between Russia and the other republics. That is how an article should be written, not leaving out the complexity of the situation altogether.)

If a claim appears in the GSE which has not been 'debunked' or corroborated by post-1991 scholarship, I nevertheless believe that nothing in our rules allows us to exclude it purely on the grounds that it is in the GSE. (A rule of this nature would exclude considerable very useful anthropological and scientific information, and be untenable.) I would suggest that under such circumstances, you invite disagreeing editors to very seriously consider why this claim is undiscussed elsewhere and thus whether it is, seriously speaking, worth including at all.

I respect your efforts to keep WP free of "outright fabrication", but if we have learnt one thing from Judy Miller and Michael R. Gordon, it is that even sources with a reputation for fact-checking cannot occasionally escape including fabrication of one sort or another in their pages. WP thus works on the basis of broad rules, rather than examples of fabrication such as you provide. Relata refero 04:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I am tired, but let me try to repharse this entire discussion very simply. GSE (as an example of an average Soviet source) is less reliable than an average Western source (lets say, Britannica). Perhaps it is not completly unreliable, but we should make it clear that it is less reliable than most other sources. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It is 'less' reliable than the average modern peer-reviewed journal article, but 'more' reliable than, for example, the 1911 Britannica. I hope that clarifies the point that such distinctions must be made on a case-specific basis. Relata refero 07:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I am tired too, the conversation is only around HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS as presented by the GSE et al., not about the GSE as a whole. It's silly to say, for example, the GSE describes atomic structure better than the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, therefore, the GSE is generally more reliable. The "reliability" of the 1911 EB is bounded by the scientific and historic knowledge of its time. In its time, it was a reliable source. To compare that to the GSE's manufacturing historical "facts" with no basis in reliably verified fact is disingenuous to say the least.

So, to Relata refero's point, we are already talking the case by case basis, that case being historical representation. The "case by case" discussions suggested (re: my specific instance et al.) have been held and the GSE is still touted as inviolable in this regard. To Relata refero's contention of relative reliability, I rather doubt the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (knowingly) presents manufactured information, having no basis in verifiable fact, regarding history. I would take the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (I have an original volume with some articles in areas of interest to me) regarding history any day over an encyclopedia produced in service of a regime that regularly erased political leaders from pictures, rewrote history on a daily basis, and declared that history served politics. This declaration and demonstrations that history is manufactured to serve political purposes raises absolutely no concerns on anyone's part regarding the systemic reliability of the GSE et al. regarding "history"? I'm sorry, but the 1911 EB is totally irrelevant to this conversation in a comparison regarding the reliability being discsused.PētersV 14:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps posing it differently might help. Packed away somewhere I have the GSE's account (translated into English) of American history. If the GSE is deemed a reliable historical source, there are many items regarding U.S. history in Wikipedia which will require correction, minimally, the addition of the reliably sourced GSE POV. Furthermore, since the GSE is specifically more reliable than the 1911 EB, we'll need to replace any 1911 EB referenced content with GSE referenced content where EB vs. GSE accounts are in conflict, since the GSE is more reliable. PētersV 15:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Peters, no one is arguing that the GSE is more reliable than the 1911 EB, so please do not confuse the issue with silly arguments. When making evaluations on the reliability or unreliability of a source, we have to look at the source in its entirety, and not just what it says about a specific fact. And Taken in its entirety, the GSE has to be considered a reliable source. It is the product of numerous well regarded Russian scholars. Much of their scholarship in it is highly regarded. The GSE can not be simply written off as being unreliable. That said, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you that some of the individual facts it asserts are the product of governmental/party dictates, and it may contain fabrications. I think you are absolutely correct in saying that some of its facts need to be questioned or qualified. But that does not make it an unreliable source by Wikipedia's Policies and guidelines.

So what do we, as Wikipedia editors, do when we suspect that a fact is a fabrication? Several of our Core Policies give an answer... The first thing you can do is raise the issue on the talk page of an article that discusses this fact. If there is consensus that this fact should not be relied on, then there is no problem simply omitting it. Consensus rules. However, when (as in this case) there is no consensus we look to what the policy says... WP:V states: "The criteria for inclusion is verification not truth"... Which means that it does not matter if the GSE is lieing or not... as long as we can verify that it says the what it is reported to have said. WP:NPOV tells us to present both sides of the debate and place them in context through attribution. In other words, we leave the "truthfullness" of the statement out of the equation, and simply report on what the various sources say. We can include qualifing remarks that tell the reader that the fact being asserted is not accepted by the majority of other scholars, and we can word things so as to not give the questionable fact udue weight. In the example you have been talking about we can say something along the lines of:

• "According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the Soviet Constitution stated that Latvia could leave at any time <citation>, The majority of Western and Baltic scholars, however, strongly disagree with this assertion. For example: Noted scholar X discusses the issue in depth in his book, title of book, and concludes that Latvia was not free to leave <citation>; and noted scholar Y is quoted as saying: 'quote from Y'<citation>."

The one thing our Policies do not let us do is completely discount and ignore the disputed source. To put it another way... what the GSE says on any given topic may or may not be a premeditated lie... but the fact that it says it is verifiable, and this should be reported. You then qualify things by reporting on what other sources say. This is Policy in Wikipedia. You may not like this policy, but you do have to follow it. Blueboar 17:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Aren't we confusing verifiability with reliability here? Of course GSE can be verified with itself. But that doesn't make it as reliable as modern Britannica, for example. In any case, to end this - since I do think we are reaching some form of understanding - what do you think about a note that would state, more or less, that obsolete sources (ex. pre-first half of the 20th century) or ones from publishers with obvious bias / methodology problems (ex. Soviet) should be, by a rule of thumb, considered less reliable than modern Western academic sources?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

No, I am not confusing reliability with verifiability... they work in tandem on Wikipedia. However, Verifiability takes precidence since both it is a Policy, while RS is simply a guideline that explains one aspect of the policy. In the case of citing the GSE, we also have to apply WP:NPOV. Basically, what I am trying to say is that I agree that one should not simply state "Latvia could leave at any time" as a statement of fact cited to the GSE... but we can and should say "According to the GSE, Latvia could leave at any time." Phrased this way (with attribution) it becomes a statement of opinion and not a statement of fact. The GSE is certainly reliable in that context (even when what it says is a demonstratable fabrication). As for including a statement about old, or state sponcered encyclopedias... no, I don't think we should do that. In some cases such sources are the best resource there is. In other cases, a more modern source is best... it is a judgement call that should be made at the local article level and not by fiat in our guidelines and policies. Blueboar 21:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, since we are writing modern encyclopedia, we should not talk about 1911EB reliability in 1911, but today - and today it is certainly rather unreliable, more or less just as GSE. As I noted in previous discussions, we should have a note on the old sources being unreliable (I can even provide a Wales interview criticizing 1911EB if it is not linked somewhere above). But for the same token we should note that more modern sources - Soviet ones - are as unreliable, even if they are newer.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

"To compare that (the 1911 EB) to the GSE's manufacturing historical "facts" with no basis in reliably verified fact is disingenuous to say the least." On the contrary. The GSE is actually considerably more accurate and unbiased on matters dealing with the history of Asia and Africa in the nineteenth century, for example, than the 1911 EB. If you think that this is a small matter, let me inform you that vast parts of the historical articles in those areas were - and are - heavily dependent on articles in the 1911 EB that contain various racially and culturally supremacist inaccuracies, and yet no editors in the area have attempted to rewrite this policy to indicate that that the encyclopaedia itself is unreliable per se, merely removing from relevant articles the more excessive editorialising.

Let me make this crystal clear: No policy permits us to make any blanket prohibition on using the GSE; and writing an addendum to this policy gerrymandered to exclude the GSE and such sources would be problematic, and unnecessary given that we already privilege modern academic sources. I take strong exception to the phrase Piotrus uses: "modern Western academic sources"; we cannot permit the privileging certain geographical areas in this manner. We are concerned with the source's review procedures here, not its geographical origin.

As for the philosophical point about the Soviet system and the rewriting of history, I'm afraid that the "modern Western academic" world we are so happy to cite would claim that all narratives are useful, so no help there.... again, I am not being glib: claims of 'reliably verified fact', such as X crossed Y border are very different from claims of interpretation, such as X was a major cause for Y, or that A 'could not do' B; according to many active historians today, the latter depends upon the 'chosen narrative'. This is not a minority viewpoint; every major history department's recent hires in non-European world history have been heavily biased towards groups such as the subalterns.

To sum up: no help here. If the official Soviet perspective seems relevant to a particular point, the GSE cannot be ruled out as a source. For history articles where it is in a clear minority of opinions, the reader will be able to make up his or her own mind. Relata refero 20:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Since there's no help here, how is it proposed to deal with situations where, regarding some specific situation or event:

1. GSE says "A", no reputable basis for "A" (or often, no basis at all, just the statement)
2. Numerous western references reliably sourced pointing to verified facts/events say "B"
3. Pro-GSE editors say "A" and "B" must be represented equally, noting source; GSE account "A" is not to be disputed as unreliable based on facts or lack thereof (proposed in arbitrations by pro-GSE historical rendition editors)

Please feel free to respond on my talk page as I'm sure the topic has been pretty much exhausted here. PētersV 01:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Modern Britannica

Modern Britannica says in an article about Stalin that he was paranoid. There was no reputable medical research to confirm Stalin suffered from paranoia. Does it mean we should exclude Britannica as well?--Dojarca 23:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmmmm, there is this, "Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin—A Study in Personality's Impact on History" (Excerpted from a draft of a book written with Renato Alarcon and Edward Foulks on Personality Disorders and Culture), which says about Stalin, "How could a man so paranoid that he had murdered many of his closest allies and former friends ally himself with ..." and "... inconsistent with his paranoid personality features until one also considers his deep sociopathy."

This identifies Edward Foulks as "Edward Foulks, M.D., Ph.D., the Sellars-Polchow Professor of Psychiatry and associate dean for graduate medical education at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans." this prominently mentions both Renato Alarcon and Edward Foulks as, apparently, respected persons in the world of Clinical Psychiatry.

The foregoing might be difficult/clumsy to cite as supporting sources regarding whether or not Stalin was clinically paranoid, but my guess is that citeable sources beyond Britannica probably do exist. However, does not Britannica have a reputation as a reliable source (quoting this project page) "with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight"? -- Boracay Bill 01:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As you quote: "How could a man so paranoid that he had murdered many of his closest allies and former friends ally himself with a dictator whose very rise to power was on a platform of anti-Semitism and anticommunism?" This is a question, not a statement. Work you cite is indeed raising a question whether he was paranoid, but I don't see an answer there. Frankly, I'm not too optimistic about power of psychohistory to psychoanalyze person who is dead for more than half a century and whose attributed actions are largely a collection of many peoples' and organizations' collective actions, not his singlehanded decisions as is popularly thought. -- Borism 11:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If there is a question as to the factual accuracy of the EB, then restate it as a statement of opinion, with attribution. Blueboar 14:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I think there are enough examples at Britannica#Criticisms, but I guess the point is not banning this or that encyclopedia but avoidance of such politically opinionated debates in the future for NPOV sake. -- Borism 19:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

"controversial, derogatory, or otherwise unverifiable statements"

I posted the following to WT:BLP:

My attention was drawn to this by a change made to WP:RS in order to bring language there more into line with language here. The language here seems to me to be illogical, though. Are controversial statements necessarily unverifiable? Are derogatory statements necessarily unverifiable? I think not. -- Boracay Bill 23:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If I have my Wikipedia history right, the change to BLP happened a month or two ago, where we loosened up the rules a bit regarding self-published sources. Keep in mind that we already have WP:RS, WP:V, etc. that assesses how reliable a source is and tells us not to use some of them. So the BLP statement is just an extra prohibition on top of that. It seemed strange to automatically exclude self-published sources, as opposed to any other sources, from BLP if the material was neutral. BLP is supposed to be about taking extra steps to avoid committing libel, and perhaps to avoid hurting people or turning into a partisan fighting grounds over current events. Further restricting the range of sources allowed in BLP cases where the material presented is neutral didn't seem to serve any purpose. What's left is a narrower proposition on the specific kind of self-published material that's considered problematic. Hence the list of three types - controversial, derogatory, or otherwise unverifiable. It's supposed to be an either/or. I agree with you that the word "otherwise" is out of place though. Perhaps a slightly sloppy wording in an attempt to make it sound like we have a non-exclusive "or". But we should address that in BLP, not here. This is supposed to be merely a quotation of the policy there. Wikidemo 01:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It was a compromise made by a committee. :-). I'd be all for improving the phrasing if we can keep the meaning... and I guess should discuss that there. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikitruth as a reliable source

Wikitruth appears to be a notable website, but is it a reliable source? I remember reading somewhere that even Conservapedia could constitute a reliable source. If the same could be said about Wikitruth, then we have yet another reason why the Brian Peppers article should never have been deleted, as they actually cover the deletion of the Brian Peppers article...--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 18:57, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I mean, Wikitruth is used as a source in the Wikitruth article, so why not for Brian Peppers? I don't think Jimbo would take well to this idea, but I may indeed ask him on his talk page, and hope for a response.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 18:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

See WP:SPS. These self-published sources can only be used in article(s) about themselves and under certain caveats. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:08, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Someone recently defended the use of Wikitruth (or a similar site, I don't recall) because it is not an open wiki, per WP:SPS:

• Articles and posts on Wikipedia or other open wikis should never be used as third-party sources.

Perhaps we should rethink that exemption. Are there any closed wikis we'd use as a reliable source? If all closed wikis are self-published then it should be removed due to the implication that they are allowed. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Good point. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be sufficient to say:

• Articles and posts on Wikipedia or other open wikis should never be used as third-party sources.

While some wikis may be more reliable than others, I can't imagine any that wouldn't be considered self-published. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Without wanting to suport Wikitruth as generally reliable source, I don't think we should change the guideline like that. A wiki is just a publishing platform, unenecessarily institutionalizing a prejudice against a particular form of software isn't ideal. Removing the open doesn't autmoatically make closed wikis reliable sources, the rest of the guideline still applies. If somewhere good authors and editorial process do end up creating a wiki with a real reputation for reliability, it would be a shame to have people have to fight to use it as a source just becasue historically wikis have been used for more informal infromation gathering. I think it would be better to change the focus from wikis and put it on the fact that sources that can be easily changed by non-experts are not reliable. -- SiobhanHansa 23:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

While your point is valid, I'm not sure how we'd translate that into policy language without a major re-write. Most (if not all) wikis are self-published, in most cases there's no way of assessing the reliability of the author of any particular passage, and in all cases the material is subject to constant revision. Can you give an example of a closed wiki that we should regard as reliable and stable? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head. But I think it is fairer to look at from the other perspective - if the only thing you can say against a source's reliability is that it is published on a particular sort of software, then you probably shouldn't be trying to keep it out. All sources need to be evaluated in regards to the particular situation - the fact there is discussion about tightening the guideline because people can't already tell that Wikitruth is virtually always inappropriate scares me. If that's the case we do need a major re-write. The question should be "what makes it reliable?" - not "does it break one of a list of narrow prohibitions?" I'm getting too far off topic. What I should be writing is - why isn't this bit of the guideline already sufficient? -- SiobhanHansa 00:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that specifying "open wikis" leaves the implication that closed wikis are acceptable. If there aren't any closed wiki that we'd want to accept then we don't need to make the distinction. We should avoid the confusion by simply saying that wikis are not allowed, which is consistent with the overall exclusion of self-published, unstable sources. Recall, too, that the actual policy is at WP:SPS, part of WP:V. WP:RS simply provides additional guidance. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the mention of "open wikis". All the language we need is available at WP:SPS. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I've made the parallel change to WP:V, and have posted a note at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Open wikis about it. Since I'm going camping (really!) I won't be able to address comments there until my return. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

That change to WP:V has been reverted. Please note that (1) this project page is a guideline article, (2) WP:V is a policy article. (3) there is a discussion regarding this currently in progress on WT:V. -- Boracay Bill 23:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Will here. Even if an organization closed a wiki down and claimed there was editorial oversight, if anyone within the group can edit it at any time, is there really editorial oversight? I don't think so. The editorial oversight we're looking for is that someone writes it, an editor reads it and then stands by that work when its published. I can't possibly imagine a scenario where one would WANT to use wiki software and have it set up in a way that would be considered reliable.--Crossmr 13:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

This strikes me as being overly paranoid. Any website, maintained by any technology can be edited at any time by anyone with write permission to the content. Just because you can't think of a closed wiki you'd consider reliable doesn't mean it can't exist. The point is self-published sources shouldn't (in general) be used. The technology used for self-publishing doesn't matter. Could be blog. Could be wiki. Could be privately maintained website. Could be self-published book. Open wikis are a technology allowing self-publishing. Closed wikis may or may not be. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:35, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Using biased sources in articles on Wikipedia

I was curious- I have read the standards set forth by Wikipedia regarding extremist sources, but I really did not see anything regarding biased sources. One day last week I happened to go to History of Israel for a glance and saw that almost every source was from the POV of someone from the country itself, which to me doesn't give it a good worldview at all. What is the clear use of sources in this manner? I didn't bother to say anything there because it is not in my interest to get into a fiery debate, so I took my question here where it can be answered without much rancor. Thanks! Monsieurdl 16:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Arguably this is an issue for WP:NPOV though clearly these issues are interconnected. It is an important general point in that you can use these sources to avoid being accused of original research, but it is difficult to write a genuinely neutral article using extremist viewpoints. There isn't a good criteria of reliable sources, and when you have vague statements such as mainstream newspapers being reliable sources when their content is so varied, then it is not surprising that there are issues.

Most sensible people know what a reliable source is, especially compared with other sources, but trying to write a set of criteria to disqualify sources is a big problem, especially when there are those who want to push a viewpoint. Spenny 17:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

If you think a specific source is overly biased, raise the issue on the talk page of the article in question. Perhaps the statement being sourced can be rephrased and given a text attribution, so that readers can be made awair of who the author is and how his view point might be biased. I don't think we can make generalizations on this issue. You can not just say that because an author comes from Israel, they have an automatic bias. As bias generally relates to reliability... I don't think bias makes something completely unreliable. For example, I might question the use of an ovbiously biased source as support for a statement of fact, but as support for a statement of opinion, it is probably quite reliable. If a source is obviously POV, find a reliable source with a different POV and compare and contrast what they have to say. Blueboar 17:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't going to go into it on that page because it just isn't worth it to me to get into that kind of a heated debate when it isn't normally a page I go on. I just used it as an example because it just sounded funny to me that those sources would be used. The article needs work anyways, but I'll stick to ancient times for now :P Monsieurdl 11:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

"Anti-religious"

I read the following: "Organizations and individuals that are widely acknowledged as extremist, whether of a political, religious or anti-religious, racist, or other nature..."

By anti-religious do you mean opposed to one religion, all religions or both. For example would a source that is vehemently anti-Jewish, but pro-Christian, be considered "anti-religious"?Bless sins 04:38, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I would venture to guess any statement by extremist groups or persons that uses any religious references, whether pro or anti. I mean, it doesn't matter in what context or what subject- extremist is extremist. I'd automatically prefer another source anyways. Monsieurdl 11:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

To answer the question... yes, a vehimently Anti-Jewish, but Pro-Christian extremist group would count... probably as both an extremist religious group (the pro-Christian side of their extremism) and as an extremist anti-religious group (the Anti-Jewish side of their extremism). As Monsieurdl says, Extremist is Extremist. The intent is to be inclusive of all extremist groups, of what ever nature. Blueboar 16:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Language of sources

I'm sure this has been discussed but I can't find it: What is the general attitude toward foreign-language sources for uncontroversial facts? For example, the vast majority of sources for Klaas-Jan Huntelaar are in Dutch, but they don't appear to be for claims that are likely to be disputed. However, they don't really meet the "verifiability" requirement because English-language readers cannot verify. --Bloodzombie 14:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

This is commented on in the WP:Verifiability policy. English language references are preferred but foreign language sources are not disallowed. I think that there is a presumption that if the claims were contentious it should be feasible to get hold of someone familiar with the language to assist in verification. Verification is not instant, and it is perfectly reasonable to quote sources that are not readily available on line, which also causes issues of verification. Spenny 14:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense. Thank you. --Bloodzombie 14:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

What about the application of foreign-language sources for the establishment of notability? This issue has been raised in several AfDs where few English-language sources exist (and has also been raised on the WP:N talk page). --jonny-mt^(t)_(c)Tell me what you think! 05:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Guideline getting too rigid

I am just comparing this page to what was here six months ago and it appears this guideline is becoming much less flexible than it was. If you read it now, it gives the impression that only academic sources are genuine reliable sources and that everything else, even what appears in quality newspapers, should be regarded with suspicion. There is no longer even a word about internet sites, except in regards to self-published blogs and so on.

If you took the current page literally, you would probably have to delete 90% of the content of Wikipedia, since it seems the only sources that qualify as reliable now are scholarly ones or (much less so) what appears in quality established newspapers. This is unacceptable to me and I don't believe it is the intention of the guideline to be so strict. IMO there needs to be a rethink about the direction this page is heading. Gatoclass 14:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Pop theories given precedence over modern academic views

There are some WP articles where old discredited ideas are given precedence over modern academic views. I would like to blow these away and replace them with the current ideas. But I have encountered people who insist on featuring the old discredited ideas and will only agree to a brief mention that they are "disputed". I can't find any WP policy to support my position (except maybe "common sense"). I think there should be an article explaining the difference between peer reviewed academic journals and WP's bizarre notions of "Neutrality", etc. Fourtildas 06:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Good luck; my experience is that you'll need it. (Not that I'm bitter or anything.) Raymond Arritt 06:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Find a reliable source of your own that not only announces the new theory, but says that the old theory is discredited, a non-serious pop theory, etc. Based on that, say so in the article or move the discredited theory to a section on historical views, or simply mention it on the talk page and delete it. Unless your field is very obscure, or the "modern" academic view is brand new or shaky, there will be some record of how the modern view came to predominate. Cite that record. If you have sources strong enough under the circumstances, they should trump the other sources. Try working it out on the talk page and if that doesn't work use the mediation processes. That's what I would do. If you're right you can win these things. Like science, Wikipedia favors the patient and the persistent. Wikidemo 10:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Biology, Ecology and Medicine

Seems I’ve found a hot bed of contention here in Talk of Reliable Sources, and I’m glad I did; it seems I’m not the only one. On to my take on it:

Consider the sciences of biology and ecology for a moment. Analyses in these fields, and in medicine also, are often expressed as “seems to be“, “seems likely”, “may be” “possibly” and such as that. This is done for good reason. The subject is life, at least in part, and life is dynamic, ever-changing. And for contrast consider ... Oh, the melting point of iron. The melting point of iron, to my knowledge, does not change.

An academic pursuit of absolute definition, as “reliable” can suggest, in some things seems fine but in other not practical. I don’t know how to otherwise express this; sometimes, as in the life sciences, absolute definition is not practical.

It seems to me we have a choice of adopt two sets of criteria or trying to subject every subject, observation and article to one. The difference between the two seems not to be of different items in the sets but more one of emphasis of such items. The observations and methods of observation differ in different fields of study; reliable then should have different meanings. I see no alternative to this other than ceasing to class and even think of biology, ecology and medicine as sciences. listenin 02:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be addressing the degree of absoluteness of claims in those fields, which has little to nothing to do with reliability. A heavily qualified but broadly known theory about brain function has no distinction in and of itself from the laws of thermodynamics. The ideas themselves are not reliable or unreliable. The publications that contain those claims are reliable or unreliable. For example, if both were contained in reputable textbooks published by Oxford University Press, both would be equally reliable. Vassyana 21:47, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Back to the starting point, it seems, a full circle. A specific source, though, does not indicate reliability. You're assuming that Oxford University Press or whatever source is reliable; you didn't actually qualify the assumption. Seems your discourse is more the realm of what is original research and why is it proscribed at Wikipedia than it is exploring “reliable source”.

Reliable and Source are two ideas, and together make a third. It seems much of the debate on this page is over “source”, which may be the easier of the two to address. I hold to the observation that reliable should have two ( or more ) meanings dependent upon the context in which it is applied.

A third meaning of reliable may be found in interviews, where an article may be comprised largely of perception and emphasis and little actual fact. Even consensus derived through the highly exalted democratic process is still opinion. I propose that we not seek finality between us but see if the debates continue; that is what may uphold the observation, the "theory", that reliable should have two ( and perhaps more ) acceptable meanings as unresolved conflict would indicate that one meaning is not enough. -- listenin (talk) 20:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Are book publishers reliable sources anymore?

Consider this excerpt from Publishers Say Fact-Checking Is Too Costly, By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2006:

Indeed, many members of the publishing industry have rallied around Ms. [Nan] Talese and Random House, saying that they would have published "A Million Little Pieces" as well and could have been duped just as easily. Unlike journalists, publishers have never seen it as their purview to verify that the information in nonfiction books is true. Editors and publishers say the profit-margins in publishing don't allow for hiring fact-checkers. Instead, they rely on authors to be honest, and on their legal staffs to avoid libels suits. "An author brings a manuscript saying it represents the truth, and that relationship is one of trust," says Ms. Talese.

There is an expectation by many editors that books, especially academic press books, are peer-reviewed and fact-checked, like respected professional journals are supposed to be, but it appears that there has been a distinct collapse of such standards due largely to rising costs. For these reasons I propose to qualify the statements in the main article about this. Jon Roland 19:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It would behoove you to more completely read the article. It notes that a number of measures are being considered to help reduce such problems. Additionally, the article states this type of problem is not universal to non-fiction, but rather especially problematic in memoirs because of a lack of the "adversarial" editorial process that is common in other non-fiction fields. I sincerely hope that Wikipedia is not that reliant on memoirs. If it was, that's a failing of editorial judgment and common sense, not a failing of the rules. Guidelines provide just that ... guidelines. We're expected to use our reason on a case-by-case basis, because even the most comprehensive policy cannot possibly cover every exception and circumstance. Vassyana 21:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I did read the entire article, but "measures are being considered" is not an answer to the point that editors should not presume a book from a "respectable" publisher such as an academic press is always to be considered more reliable than one from a less "respectable" publisher, such as a newspaper. What is happening is that the editors of major newspapers are often doing a better job of fact-checking, at least their lead articles, than academic publishers are for their books. But none of these issue some kind of warning label "fact-checked by ..." or "not fact-checked". It is also becoming more common for scholars in obscure fields to use low-volume, on-demand publishers for writings too long for a journal and not popular enough for a book publisher who has to sell enough copies to earn back its investment. Editors need to put more weight on the reputation of authors than of publishers. Jon Roland 23:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't follow the logic. diff. In the first sentence, Jon Roland talks of 'an academic press'. Of this I imagine Oxford University Press, etc.. Then in the third sentence Jon Roland talks of 'on-demand publishers' Edwin Mellen Press There are questions about reliability of Mellen. Sorry there is a big difference between on-demand publishers and the academic press. -- SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Paper doesn't have the magical ability to turn truthiness into truth. Printed works can be just as unreliable as personal blogs. - Jehochman ^Talk 22:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes they can, but academic publishers set higher standards as to the sort of material they will consider for publication in the first place, so as a general rule I think they can still be considered more reliable than run-of-the-mill commercial publishers. Gatoclass (talk) 01:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

To clarify Gatoclass's statement, I think we need to look at the process rather than the material. Academic publishers do have higher standards because they have prepublication peer review and there is an extensive tradition of publishing book reviews of other professors' works in many academic fields. Many journals have half the pages filled with substantive research and the other half filled with book reviews of recently published books. So there is a constant filtering process going on. Either garbage doesn't get published, or if it does get published, it is quickly attacked in print by four or five other professors looking to build their own careers by climbing over the corpses of their peers. The academic world is very ruthless (everyone is trying to (1) get tenure and then (2) get famous). Of course, there are silly exceptions in certain very specialized fields that lead to scandals like the Sokal Hoax, but that involved a journal with no peer review. --Coolcaesar (talk) 02:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews Interviews as Reliable Sources

I have been conducting a variety of interviews with people on Wikinews. A few have been Republican Presidential candidates Senator Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo; ACLU President Nadine Strossen; writers Gay Talese and Augusten Burroughs; musicians Natasha Khan and Bang Camaro; the High Priest of the Church of Satan; Al Sharpton; PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk; journalist Craig Unger; et. al. The interviews are recorded and transcribed on the Wikimedia sister project Wikinews. I typically use Wikipedia pages as sources and ask information gleaned from them (in addition to other research). After a few weeks they are archived and unable to be edited. Links to the interviews are forwarded to the interviewees (indeed, Tom Tancredo featured our interview on his blog). Are these reliable sources? --David Shankbone 20:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course they are. They are reliable sources for the people interviewed. But interviewees' views on third parties are not reliable sources for those third parties. But you know what I think, so this will be my last comment here. See also Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Paul_Wolfowitz.E2.80.8E Cool Hand Luke 21:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

As much as I absolutely despise wikitabloidnews, and as much as I absolutely despise some of the vomitous filth that spews from some of these subjects, (Craig Unger's rantings come to mind), as long as they are accurate transcriptions of the interview they should be reliable once they are locked down from editing. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 21:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

How can they be used, though? Let's take Craig Unger out of the equation. I put Sam Brownback's interview on the traditional marriage page. If a box is inappropriate (since it was only one aspect of the interview) is quoting from it appropriate in that article, since he is a notable person who is known for his anti-gay marriage views? --David Shankbone 21:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that there is some mechanism in place to ensure that these are indeed accurate transcriptions (i.e. that we aren't simply taking someone's word for it) then I'm fine with the content being used as a source for the author's views. I'm not comfortable with them being treated in the same preferential way as Wikinews news content which attempts to achieve a NPOV. Christopher Parham (talk)

Okay. They aren't designed to be a critical analysis of a notable person's views, but a recordation of their views. So instead of Wikinews templates, the preference is for inline citation? "Sam Brownback said...{cite}"? --David Shankbone 21:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

yes, subject to normal considerations about whether the view is worth mentioning in the given context. For most people you could probably find much better sources, however; e.g. the views of an author are best sourced to their own works where at all possible. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Got it and roger "whether the view is worth mentioning". These interviews were completely a new undertaking on my part so I was unsure how they could or should be used on Wikipedia. Do you see a problem with the Dalai Lama's representative's interview included as a "See also" on Gedhun Choekyi Nyima where we discuss his situation at length? --David Shankbone 22:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I think two issues are being confused here - the reliability of Wikinews and that of any given interview. Wikinews can be assumed to be a reliable account of the interview, but we should link to interviews with some caution - be they by Wikinews or Time magazine. Interviews of the article subject will usually be a good reference or external link. Those of a third party raise different questions. The interview is effectively hearsay - it is evidence that the interviewee believes certain things, not that those things are true. If the subject of the interview - person X's accusations about person Y are notable and discussed in the article, then the article will be a good reference. But we wouldn't cite every interview of everyone who has critcised George W Bush in his article. Trying to resolve this question in the abstract seems the wrong approach - the inclusion of any given interview will be a matter of editorial discretion. But generally it is the suitabilty of the interview itself (not where it is hosted or who asked the questions) that is the key matter. How much did the interviewee know about the subject he was discussing? Have his claims been denied? Have they been reported in reliable sources? How relevant are they in the article? etc. Another way to look at this might be, if the subject had written and published an article instead of giving an interview, would that article be a reliable source/ valid external link. WjBscribe 22:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Scribe, that helps. --David Shankbone 22:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

WJBscribe makes a good point; if this same interview happened to be in a reliable source. Which brings us to the question of whether or not these interviews in themselves are reliable. I'm leaning towards allowing them, but we have to be careful about what making sure that nothing is skewed to create POV. However, the same can be said of other references, and other interviews. Wizardman 01:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

To me the reliability of wikinews interviews comes down to one basic question, do we know who conducted the interview? In an interview by Time Magazine or some other reliable source, we usually know who the interviewer is, they have a byline... in cases when a byline is not given, we at least know that he or she is backed by real live people (the editors of the magazine) that are accountable for the material. In otherwords, there is a known person behind the text that appears in the source. I don't know if this true with Wikinews. Do the interviewers use their real names, or do they post their material by anonimous User IDs? Is there an actual known person who is accountable if they misquote the subject (or worse make something up)? Blueboar 03:37, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Convenience links?

I have boldly deleted the section on convenience links because I don't think they're commonly used. In fact I had never even heard of them until I got to this page. The Wikipedia:Convenience links essay page was almost completely moribund until a slight flurry of activity in the past couple weeks. Looking at that page it seems counter to the way nearly everybody categorizes hyperlinks as either wikilinks, citation links, or external links. Convenience links seem to be a flavor of external links, but perhaps ones that would not quite fit the WP:EL limitation that we only link to material that would not be suitable for inclusion in articles. I don't think we should encourage a style fork by expanding the number of kinds of links r the number of different sections on the bottom of the page. Also, encouraging these links might tend to turn articles into link lists, which we try to avoid.Wikidemo (talk) 00:14, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I've had people whine about a link to a 404 page because it was not a convenience link to a source. Sometimes the links are for historical purposes, as they might be useful for (perhaps later) accessing the information. So sometimes they're inconvenience links because you can't tell they are 404 until you click on them. SEWilco (talk) 00:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Convenience links are links to content available on a site that would not otherwise qualify as a reliable source. These may be copies of court judgments hosted on POV activists' sites, copies of out-of-print books hosted with the consent of the copyright holder, etc. There have been recurrent arguments over the years about linking to sites that would not be deemed reputable for anything but the hosted third-party information -- here is one that I was involved in just a short while ago. Convenience links, I am sure, are used in many places; often, people do not buy a book or journal, but quote from excerpts they have seen on a website (unfortunately). Hence I think the section is very much needed. I would also like the section to make clear that if various sites are available, the most reputable one should be used. For example, if a historical document concerning slavery is available on several sites, among them a white supremacist's website as well as the website of a university's History Department, then our guidelines should state clearly that the site used for the convenience link should be the one that is most in line with NPOV and RS. Otherwise you get Wikipedia linking to all sorts of extremist sites just because they host a document considered useful in a particular context; that should not happen, if there is a more balanced site available that offers the same content. I'll reinstate the section for now. Jayen466 00:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

That is, by definition, a subset of "external links", in which case WP:EL is the appropriate guideline page, not this essay, and WP:RS has nothing to say about them at all. The notion of "convenience links" as distinct from "external links" seems to have died down and I don't think it's something we should revive. Wikidemo (talk) 01:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC) Nevermind. I just reread the section in isolation from the essay.....standing by itself that section makes sense. I think the essay confused me. Nevertheless, perhaps convenience links is more a matter of citation style than reliability of sources, in which case might we want to ship that section off to WP:CITE? Wikidemo (talk) 01:04, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

You know, I think you may have a point. This sort of thing usually is a citation/reference issue, and the para might well be better housed there. Let's first see though if there are any objections. -- Jayen466 01:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree with moving it. It more clearly relates to the form of citation than to the reliability per se. Marskell (talk) 08:46, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Convenience links have there own reliability issues however. A transcription of an original document (say the US constitution) may be a reliable source but hosted on a site that is not reliable. If we are citing the document, the reliability of the hosting site becomes a secondary issue. Alternatively, a site that meets our reliability criteria may host a version of the document that is not a "true and accurate copy" of the original (it may contain additional editorial commentary or only provide selected parts of the original), thus making it unreliable. Shouldn't these issues be discussed in our guideline? Blueboar (talk) 16:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Until very recently, we had a link to an essay at the top of this section which discusses these aspects in more detail. -- Jayen466 16:33, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for new section

As I said a week or two ago, I'm concerned by what I see as a growing degree of inflexibility in this guideline.

Partly to counter that, but also to better reflect current Wikipedia practices, I would like to propose a new section for this guideline, along the following lines:

Enthusiast websites

There are many sources on the internet maintained by amateur enthusiasts of a particular topic. While such sources cannot automatically be assumed to be reliable, they may be used in cases where:

(a) the material on the website is itself appropriately cited to sources which would meet the definition of "reliable" as outlined by the other sections on this guideline page.
(b) the material consists of non-controversial facts. Opinions presented at the website may also be replicated on Wikipedia, but only if they are direct quotations from reliable sources, not merely summaries or syntheses of those opinions by the website operator himself;
(c) the presentation of the material could generally be regarded as conforming to all the usual Wiki policies on content such as WP:SYNTH, WP:NPOV and so on;

Such websites should however never be considered as definitive references. They may only be used in situations where no better references are immediately available, and users should always strive to confirm the material presented at such websites from the original sources quoted by the website rather than relying on the websites themselves.

The logic behind this clause is as follows. If these people had decided to post their material directly to Wikipedia instead of maintaining their own website, their contributions would be accepted since they attribute the material to appropriate reliable sources - indeed their expertise would probably be highly valued here. To put it another way, almost all Wiki editors are amateur enthusiasts, so why should we exclude the work of other enthusiasts - many of whom obviously have obviously done a great deal of research in their particular field of interest - just because they choose to post on their own website rather than directly to Wikipedia?

The other reason for adding a new section along these lines is that this only conforms with current Wikipedia practice, and I think it's better we formalize the use of such material rather than leave it in the no-mans-land in which it currently resides. Gatoclass (talk) 02:14, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

This is already covered in WP:SPS and I do not see any reason to lower the standards in this guideline. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:42, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not really clear at WP:SPS what an "established expert" is, so I think some clarification is needed. What I posted above is only meant to be a rough draft to illustrate the point, not a definitive version, but I agree the original proposal was a bit wishy-washy so I've tightened it up with an additional clause. Gatoclass (talk) 03:29, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the pop cult exception rears its head. Oppose. Particularly the first point. That something is hard to obtain elsewhere is not a good rationale for lowering standards. That little nugget has bedeviled attempts to reform P&Gs. The above would be badly misused. Marskell (talk) 08:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

This is pretty similar to the convenience link issue in the discussion above, isn't it? Beyond that, I don't quite like the sound of this either, sorry. -- Jayen466 09:24, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Pop cult exception? What the heck is that?

The sites I am talking about are sites like Achtung Panzer!, an extremely thoroughly researched site used extensively as a resource in articles about World War II German tanks, or the Destroyer History website, or DANFS Online - used as a reference on literally hundreds, if not thousands of Wiki web pages, or Matthew White's Historical Atlas website, again used as a reference on a great many Wiki pages.

These are all excellent resources of reliable information, they represent thousands of hours of dedicated research that few if any Wikipedians are ever likely to match or even approach, and they are extensively referenced all over the project. And yet as the policy pages are currently written there is little if any formal support for the use of such resources. I'm simply arguing for formalizing in policy what already exists as a de facto practice - and a justifiable one in my view.

So whether you happen to like my rough draft proposal above or not, I think this is an issue that deserves to be taken seriously. Gatoclass (talk) 11:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, grabbing your second link, I think Destroyer History already meets policy. It cites its own sources, which is critical, and it's "an on-line museum prepared in collaboration with shipmates, organizations, active duty naval officers and others," suggesting editorial oversight. Note that policy doesn't explicitly bar such sites; it provides a general framework to judge them. And this has been taken seriously before. The question is always: will this cause greater harm by allowing people to include weak fan sites? Quite probably, yes. Marskell (talk) 11:40, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that, and I understand that any such addition to the guideline would need to be carefully worded in order for that not to occur. And I certainly don't think my current proposal is well enough crafted to avoid such abuse. Still, I think in theory at least it out to be possible to come up with a phrasing that does not encourage such abuse.

As to whether or not current policy already supports the use of the type of websites I've mentioned, it seems to me that policy as it is currently written implies that only academics can be regarded as experts on a subject, and that the policy pages actually give little if any support to the use of such websites. So if nothing else, I think the guideline needs to be tweaked a bit. Gatoclass (talk) 12:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Isn't is about time...

... that we merge this into WP:V? There is nothing here that is not discussed already in other policy pages, besides the exceptional claims section which can be merged into V. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 14:56, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed 110% and then some. Brimba (talk) 14:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

We tripped over eachother, Jossi. I just typed the longest post of my life on this very topic. Marskell (talk) 15:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I'm 120% if it's not clear. Marskell (talk) 15:26, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Wikidemo (talk) 17:24, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The Death of WP:RS?

(With a title so grand, this just has to be long.)

I argued on V that this guideline should be systematically audited: remove redundant material and move material that should actually be in policy to policy. That appears to be happening to some extent, as with the thread two up re convenience links. Thinking this through the following might happen:

• Cut the 'What is a reliable source?' section because we don't need two canonical descriptions of reliable sources and the one on V is superior; a few critical lines from here could be moved there.
• Collapse 'Why use reliable sources?' into two or three sentences and also move it; the policy itself should be making the observation about plagiarism and copyright.
• Move the exceptional claims description (the only really novel thing here) to V as well, as again this should probably be a policy advisement if we're to have it at all.
• Move convenience links to WP:CITE as the section more logically belongs there.

(Note if we did all this, V would still be a tidy page under 10k readable prose.)

And what would we be left with? Nothing. At best, 3k readable prose and the death of WP:RS. Perhaps that would be a good thing. This page has been in two states since its inception: bloated and unmanageable in '05 and '06, and skeletal and of little use in '07. And the irony is that this page never needed to exist. It was a fork of V to begin with.

How much has RS really helped people? How many canonical points of Wikipedia principle (e.g. "verifiability, not truth") has it produced? In my experience, it's been V that ultimately decides sourcing disputes and it's been V that has produced the principles that guide our sourcing. Not just "not truth," but burden of evidence, "challenged or likely to be challenged," and the canonical list of reliable sources (the second paragraph here). (Credit where it's due, we can thank SlimVirgin for much of this.)

Of course the words 'reliable sources' are of enormous value. But I've often thought people are so attached to the words they don't pause to consider whether the actual content of this guideline has much affect. If typing WP:RS took you to a section on V would the encyclopedia be worse off? Or might instead the encyclopedia be strengthened? Jimbo has noted that "Reliable sources, too, is quite different from NOR and V, although arguably a subset of Verifiability." It's not arguable, but obvious: the very definition of verifiability is, for Wikipedia's purposes, dependent on the definition of reliable sources. Not a subset, but totally enmeshed on a most basic conceptual level.

Two qualifiers:

• This is not a rehashing of ATT. The central plank of ATT was the V + NOR merger and the rename; clearly that's not going to happen. RS was the secondary concern (though its merging enjoyed more support). If RS forked from V organically, I don't see why we can't merge it back organically.
• I realize editors (Jossi, not least) have put an enormous amount of time into RS. (I've actually practically never edited here—never wanted to because the page is different every time I look at it.) But I wonder if the people who have edited it heavily have been motivated less by real fondness for the content than by a desire to keep a semblance of stability.

Lastly, I can anticipate the first argument: "but we need this for examples, extended descriptions, etc." Do we? If you believe, as this editor does, that policy should cover all the general points of concern and leave specific solutions to be derived on article talk, then no we don't need this page. We don't need a guideline saying "Do not use YouTube". We need a policy page saying "articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and whether we should use YouTube etc. should be perfectly obvious. Of course there'll still be debates at the margins—but I don't believe the existence of RS has in any way decreased such debates.

OK, I'll stop there. Marskell (talk) 15:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Most definitively not the death of WP:RS, as the concept of "reliable sources" is fundamental to the project. But yes, this page has been a swinging pendulum, saying nothing new or saying way too much which was inconsistent with established policies depending on the day you looked at it. No harm will be done by redirecting WP:RS to WP:V#Sources, which is the policy on sources. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

To often WP:RS has acted as a pretender to the throne, to the point that editors get confused as to W:RS’s true place is the scheme of things, and therein comes most of the problems. Remerging WP:RS into WP:V would eliminate a lot of problems. As Marskell noted, most of what this page is “suppose” to do, should logically take place on individual article talk pages, rather than having one all-include page that is "suppose" to nuance all issues. Brimba (talk) 16:28, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with jossi above about the state of the page, but I'm not certain I agree with all of your arguments, Marskell. At the risk of being the first to present your anticipated counterargument, I think guidelines are still necessary to avoid repeating the same discussions over and over again. Of course the people writing on this talk page all know (or should know) that YouTube is not reliable, but what about the newbies who saw something cool in a YouTube video and want to add it to an article? A lack of relatively clear-cut guidelines means that editors are doomed to rehashing the same points over and over again as we try to convince every newcomer that yes, this is Wikipedia policy and no, YouTube/MySpace/your mom's blog cannot be used to back up your claims.

That being said, a redirect to WP:V with an expansion of the reliable sources section would be most welcome, as V is the logical place for them to be. After all, what is verifiability but the state of being confirmed by reliable sources? This would also help solve the problem of having two definitions of reliable sources that do not always match up (e.g. WP:V notes foreign-language sources while WP:RS is mute on the subject).

So redirect? Yes. Cut out everything and leave editors to hash out the details on individual article talk pages? An emphatic no. --jonny-mt^(t)_(c)Tell me what you think! 16:40, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The solution is much more simple, two lists, one of definite RS's (ie the BBC) and one of sites that arn't RS's (ie MySpace) then we only need to argue about those not on these lists then put them on the appropriate list. Then people can easily know what is and isn't an RS. ^{(Hypnosadist)} 16:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

We have Wikipedia:Reliable sources/examples that can be used or re-purposed after cleanup. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes Jossi, certainly not the death of "reliable sources"—as a concept. The concept is fundamental to what Wikipedia has become, which is part of the point: it's so fundamental that the split to two pages doesn't make sense. V is, in many ways, the main policy the encyclopedia has, and the definition of V is inseparable from the definition of reliable sources. As Jonny says "what is verifiability but the state of being confirmed by reliable sources?"

To respond to Jonny more directly, I'll rephrase: policy application must be deductive. Because we cannot, in any stable way, legislate for every possibility, we need good general rules in policy that allow people to deduce what to do on a given article. I understand the newbie point, but don't agree that a merge will create a problem. You say to the newbie "listen, editorial oversight is a main point, as described on the verifiability policy; policies can't tell us what to do with every specific source, but the policy tells me here that we should not include this YouTube link because there's no editorial oversight." That is, you deduce from the general rule what to do in the specific case. Admittedly some sources (YouTube is probably the best example) come up so much, that a specific FAQ would be helpful. I can imagine a refocused examples page after a merge. But I don't see anything to speak against a merge. Marskell (talk) 19:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

A new practice re:Sources?

Hello all, there is some discussion over at [Talk:Giovanni_di_Stefano]] about sources, their reliability, and application. I thought I'd bring this here, where editors familiar with the policy and practice may be able to shed some light and help us move forward over there.

There is a new practice emerging - which may ultimately require mention in this policy. Summarised by Fred as "Don't link to sources which imply information we lack a good source for" - in other words an otherwise reliable source which implies an unsourced statement cannot be considered reliable (my analysis).

To illustrate - use of this source has led to page and talk page deletion - it has been considered not suitable in the strongest possible terms.

Discussion of this matter has intense legal ramifications, and all editors would be wise to read the talk page fully before commenting. The importance of this matter to our sourcing policy stands, in my opinion. Privatemusings (talk) 21:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)