Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources

Transcript of a lecture hosted on a student organization's page

• Note: Moved to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Small format question?

In the intro, The New York Times is used as an example of a reliable source (publisher). Should it be in italics if it is only being named and not given attribution for anything?

Are internet blogs masquerading as news sources really reliable sources

Are internet blogs that pretend to be new sources (Newsbusters, Huffington Post, Pajamas Media, Media Matters, Infowars, FAIR, Accuracy in Media, etc) really reliable sources?

Senior Trend (talk) 05:22, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure, for some stuff, and not for others. As with every question, it depends on what you want to say in the article. These websites, for example, are unquestionably reliable for the fact that they exist, or that they published a given sentence on a given date, or things like that. They're truly lousy sources for the fine points of Einstein's special theory of relativity, or the inner workings of an advanced mathematical proof. And for all the stuff in between those two extremes, you'd have to actually take your question to WP:RSN and pair it with a specific statement that you want to put in an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:03, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

They are certainly reliable for attributed statements of opinion ("According to the Huffington Post...") Blueboar (talk) 14:11, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

If i'm not mistaken the enumeration above is mixing rather different things. Accuracy in Media and Media Matters are media watchdogs rather than actual news "blogs", Huffington Post is a rather well known news aggregator that however employs some editors and writers as well, I'm not so sure how well thy fit with the rest of the site.

In general it rather meaningless whether somethig is a blog or website (those are format description), but it matters who/which organization/authors with what reputations run that site or blog. Sometimes the term website or blog is used synomously for arbitrary private website or blog, which of course cannot be considered as reliable sources at all. However online representation of reputable major news publishers are also websites strictly speaking and some of them employ a blog format too, but that doesn't mean their reliability is on the level of an arbitrary private website or blog.

So to assess the reliability the reputation of the author/publisher matters not the format. In addition the things apply that have been mentioned above, i.e. considering the sort of information that gets sourced and its context.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:29, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not that easy to say that about the Huffington Post. Drudge Report, WorldNetDaily, Canada Free Press, Daily Kos etc. are also well known news aggregators, yet their self published sources fail WP:RS. Considering them RS comparable to that of NYT, WSJ, etc. is a bit much considering they only exist virtually.

Senior Trend (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Senior Trend, it sounds like you didn't understand the responses you received. All of these websites are reliable sources—for some limited purposes—and all of your 'good' examples are not reliable sources—for other specific situations. For example:

The top headline at Huffington Post right now says, "Libya: Pro-Gaddafi Forces Launch New Counteroffensive As Rebels Advance Toward Tripoli". If you are writing in the article Huffington Post, and you want to include a statement that says, "Huffington Post once had a headline that said, 'Libya: Pro-Gaddafi Forces Launch New Counteroffensive As Rebels Advance Toward Tripoli'", then that website is definitely reliable for that statement.

If, instead, you are working on Special theory of relativity, and you want to include a statement that says, "According to the Huffington Post, Einstein said that special relativity explains why extraterrestrial creatures have green skin", then that webpage is not reliable for that statement.

You cannot determine reliability without knowing what statement you're trying to support with the source. Reliability can only be determined in context. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

That is an AP Story. It is not the news aggregating part that I have issues with, it is with the opinions and self-published articles from online blogs that I have issues with. Senior Trend (talk) 06:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

First you need to distinguish between opinion and news and report/describe them as such (no matter in which publication). Now if you report on some opinions then again it depends on the reputability of the author/publication not whether it is online or offline or what format is used. An editorial comment maybe judged the reputability of its author and publisher (as far as formal aspects go), those 2 however having nothing to do with a specific format (portal, website, blog). Btw the Huffington Post or similar sites are not self publishes sources. A self published sourced would be some private blog on wordpress. Note various media outlets offer something similar to self published stuff in form of letters or comments from readers which are often without direct editorial control. Those need to be treated seperate lyof course, i.e. a NYT article is not the same as an arbitrary posting in a reader's forum of the NYT.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

We had an extensive discussion about this two months ago. Generally speaking, left-wing partisans want to treat left-wing sources such as HuffPo, MoveOn.org, Daily Kos and Media Matters as "reliable," and right-wing sources such as Newsmax, Newsbusters, World Net Daily and Daily Caller as "unreliable," while right-wing partisans want the reverse. I believe that the lot of them should be excluded in their entirety, with the sole exception of the limited purpose described by WhatamIdoing (HuffPo is a reliable source for the Wikipedia article Huffington Post, for example). Unfortunately, we weren't able to achieve consensus for anything.

If it's an AP News story that's been aggregated by HuffPo, then it's available elsewhere and probably from the AP website, so we should link the AP website. Original material from such partisan sources should not be used, period. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 20:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The (US)-left-wing issue is entirely misleading, people should focus on the reputation of those sources/authors no matter their political leaning. Also this left-right issue is not specific to blogs but to any media in general (print newspapers, TV, popular literature). I.e. look ar their reputation for reliability in their general reporting and the assessment of that by 3 parties, more importantly take a critical look at the particular article you want to use as a source as even reputable publishers have badly researched or overly opinionated inaccurate articles sometimes. The biggest problem here imho is bad faith (pov pushing) by authors, rather good faith use of such blogs.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:56, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

That's what I was trying to get to. I do not think any of these sources should be used Senior Trend (talk) 06:47, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Book cover endorsements

I've removed a slew of endorsements from Chris Robinson (animation scholar), quoting praise -- at length -- by other authors. They appear to be dust jacket blurbs. My own view is that a journalistic review from an WP:RS lavishing praise is independent and worth citing, while endorsements from fellow authors, as one typically finds on book covers, or inside front pages, are not. I've tried to find a guideline that addresses book blurbs of this kind -- is there one? Thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

We have not made a separate guideline about it... but the issue of whether dust jacket endorsements are reliable has been discussed on this page in the past. As I remember, the consensus was that such material is essentially advertising, and the blurbs are not considered reliable. Blueboar (talk) 17:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, now, to be precise, book jacket copy is perfectly reliable... if the question is something close to "What are the contents of the book jacket copy?"

The non-review aspects (e.g., a paragraph summarizing the contents of the book) are probably also be reliable for certain limited factual statements (e.g., this novel traces the life of a woman named Scarlett O'Hara, the author is a proponent of sleeping on an inclined surface, etc.).

As you can see, it really depends on the context, but it's likely to be deemed a source that is too weak to support most of the statements that someone might like to make. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it is a case-by-case thing and is about WP:SPS (is the content unduly self-serving) and WP:NPOV (to what extent might it be making the article unbalanced).

We can't have a blanket ban on book-jacket endorsements, because if a book on theoretical physics has been described by Stephen Hawking as "the best book I have ever read", then this should clearly be in the article, even if the only source is a book-jacket.

I would suggest that a quote from a highly reputable source (be it an individual or a publication) is not unduly self-serving, although a quote from the author's close literary associate may be.

It should be remembered that, where the jacket just reproduces a quote that has already been published in a reliable source (eg a professional review), RS has already been achieved.--FormerIP (talk) 01:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

We should track down the review and cite that, not the blurb on the dust jacket. Blueboar (talk) 01:51, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Ideally, but in principle I think it passes RS. If the book is 80 years old, it might be hard to track down the original source. There may sometimes also be cases where it is suspected that the quote may be a partial representation, it which case more caution would be needed. Also, the question was about endorsements rather than reviews. The fictional endorsement by Stephen Hawking above may only ever have been published on the book-jacket. --FormerIP (talk) 02:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree, if we are going to mention what a third party says about a book, we need to track down the original source where they say it. We can not take what is written on the book itself at face value. It is not unheard of for unscrupulous publishers to take comments out of context or even to fabricate endorsements. Blueboar (talk) 02:14, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is usual for endorsements to be fabricated. It may happen, but much much less frequently than things are fabricated in newspapers, and we consider them reliable. Whether endorsements are noteworthy is another matter, but clearly they sometimes will be. I will grant that very very often they will not be. As far as reviews go, that's a side issue, but clearly we need to be sensible about judging how reliable the source is in terms of whether a quote may have been taken out of context. Often, though, there will be no reason to suppose this is the case. "This is a fantastic book in every respect - LA Times" would be reliable in every respect. --FormerIP (talk) 02:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it is a question of verifiability. How does one verify that the LA Times actually did say "This is a fantastic book in ever respect"? The only way is to look at the LA Times itself... not the book jacket. Blueboar (talk) 03:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Whatever it's a question of, it's not one of verifiability. There's no doubt that a book jacket, in general terms, passes V/RS. If the LA times is quoted on a book jacket, then the quote is verified. That doesn't mean it should necessarily be reproduced on WP, of course, but we have other criteria for determining that. --FormerIP (talk) 03:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

How do I, the reader, know that the LA Times actually said what the book cover claims it said? Blueboar (talk) 15:24, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Blueboar, dustcovers are not valid sources, if something has been published in a reliable source, cite that source. Every schoolchild knows: "Don't judge a book by it's cover". That this is even a subject for discussion is a sad commentary on Wikipedia. Dlabtot (talk) 06:50, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

No, book covers are used as reliable sources all the time. The question asked is more specific than that. --FormerIP (talk) 15:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Obviously we should use the contents of books as sources rather than their covers. This conversation is absurd. As is the argument that we should do something that is obviously wrong because it is done 'all the time'. Dlabtot (talk) 02:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Blueboar, you are assuming that third-party dust-jacket copy is always a quotation from an independently published source. This is not true. The book's advertising materials may be the sole publication for some comments. Such comments by third parties should be treated like they were in a foreword, as they may have been solicited by the publisher in exactly the same way.

I believe that caution is warranted, and that such blurbs ought to be handled as if they were advertising material, but the fact that such things were said is actually verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree however in practical terms there is no much difference between you and blueboar. Meaning if at all possible you should cite (and check) the original newspaper. If in exceptional cases for some reason that cannot be done, you might cite the book cover as an emergency fix, but clearly indicated that the bookcover was your source and not the original newspaper.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:03, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Ancestry.com

Is this a reliable source and if so, would it stand up to an FAC? - Neutralhomer • Talk • Coor. Online Amb'dor • 17:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It is "reliable" for saying what people have claimed about their own ancestors, but not about the material itself. It links to census and other databases, which are primary sources. It is, however, a reliable source for procedures used by genealogists. Collect (talk) 11:05, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It also has scanned and indexed books, so it is quite a diverse website which is hard to generalize about and the context is even more important than you suggest. BTW this exact question comes up routinely on WP:RSN which is perhaps the better forum for such a question. However, to say it again, context is important in order to give any opinion on this - what is being sourced etc.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:09, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

My take: Ancestry.com is an excellent resource for finding sources, but should not be used as a source itself. Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds right. Maybe another way to put it is that there are sources within this source, and it is those sources that need to be considered. Some are user contributed and basically useless for us. Some are published reference books.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:28, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Montrose Hagin birth date is wrong she was born Annie Hagin on June 12 1917

{{edit semi-protected}} Montrose Hagin birth date is wrong she was born June 12 1917 Can also supply a picture for her page.

98.151.152.132 (talk) 21:08, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Then submit another edit request on the Montrose Hagins talk page instead of here. Thanks, — Bility (talk) 23:41, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

General IRS problem, abstracted from a discusion on the IRS/N board

The following discussion is about a specific IRS problem on the IRS noticeboard that contains a lot of general IRS discussion. It is in danger of being lost when/if the specific problem is fixed, leaving no change in the guideline, or even discussion on the WP:IRS TALK page. So here is a (small) part of the discussion, abstracting out much of the (irrelevant) specifics that led to it:

CHALLENGE:

Unhappy with WP:V, you've tried to change it and, at various points have pleaded to have it (essentially) ignored. Failing that, you're here on the reliable sources noticeboard challenging the reliability of the New York Times to verify a piece of data that everyone seems to agree with (official sources, those disputing the official sources, etc.). Someone brings up WP:WAX, so now you're challenging that. What policies, guidelines and/or essays do you generally agree with, other than WP:IAR? - SummerPhD (talk) 17:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, I see you've sourced your claim about the NYT making errors to, gulp, the NYT. Presumably you either have them fessing up to screwing up on the Gerson obit or, better yet, have a reliable source for them making mistakes in the Cronkite obit... The only person disputing his cause of death is... well... I don't think even you, as you have said he died of pneumonia. Still, you're arguing that the NYT is not a reliable source for this simple piece of info that everyone seems to agree on. Why? - SummerPhD (talk) 17:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

We are really clued up on epistemology, nice of you to point that out. Ask me a question about epistemology. Some of us teach epistemology. Great to find someone interested in it. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:13, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

An obituary in The New York Times would generally meet the requirements of WP:RS. A paid death notice in the same publication may be used for non-controversial material.Jayjg ^(talk) 01:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

ANSWER:

Jayjg, did you read the above? If the NYT does not fact check parts of obituaries or death notices like cause-of-death (which they do not) but instead rely on family who has this private information to supply to the paper, then why does republication in the NYT confer ANY extra reliability on such information? That is a triumph of surface-value over substance, but it's no progress epistemologically (comment, user:Itsmejudith?). In fact, this actually detracts from whatever information-value the material has, since it tends to HIDE the original source, just as is happening in this case. See churnalism. It's one thing for WP:IRS to mention "churnalism"- apparently it's something else for WP to actually incorporate the consequences of it, into policy or even guideline (which it has not). The family tells the NYT that the guy died of pneumonia, and this is considered by WP to be RS because the NYT prints it, but when the family later decides the cause was arsenic leading to pneumonia, the editors at WP refuse to accept this, ostensibly because it comes from the family. We don't know what the NYT would have printed if the family had initially claimed death-by-arsenic, or by Martian ray-gun. My guess is that they'd have refused to print anything on the cause of death, if it was too odd-sounding. But again, that fact adds no information, if what they DID print was noncontroversial. We already know that the NYT is likely to print non-controversial causes of death, but probably wouldn't print something outrageous or even odd (death by Humboldt Squid attack in a death notice), since they can't fact-check either one. So the fact that that they print "pneumonia" adds no level of likeliness that it actually was pneumonia as an ultimate (rather than only proximate) cause, since we already know the paper has an "unusual claim" filter at this level in death notices (which is not the same as fact-checking system-- it's just a skeptic-filter).

To SummerPhD: I merely gave an example of the NYT "fessing up" to their own errors (which they didn't catch;somebody else did) as a shortcut to get around argument that maybe they actually didn't make that many errors. Perhaps you think that an error by the NYT counts only if they admit it, or that if I can't find them admitting it, it doesn't count? If so, that is wrong. There are plenty of errors the NYT makes they never "fess up" to. For example, Judith Miller's NYT "exclusive" stories on Iraq's WMDs (which helped the drumbeat toward that war) were based in no small part, but without attribution, on Ahmed Chalabi's claims, a fact that the NYT (as noted) didn't include at the time, and has never appologized for, as an "error" (any more than the US government has). In this gaff, Chalabi's claims took on the NYT's reputation, and in doing so, made the government sound like their own WMD claims had been independently verified, by being taken up as a story (without attribution to Chalabi) by a liberal newspaper. BUT, you must read about this gaff in OTHER media, who (of course) lose nothing in making the NYT look like the rumor-spreading fools that they were in this case [1]. Like the game of "telephone," but one where each player gets more and more reputation as the chain elongates, it's a mess. Example: Curveball (informant)'s claims eventually taking on the reputation for accuracy of Colin Powell, who hadn't fact-checked them, any more than anybody ELSE had.

Consider Dan Rather and CBS's defense of the authenticity of the Killian documents, which they say their experts checked. It's a separate question from the problems of churnalism per se, of whether any given news medium (or government agency, for that matter) has a "reputation for acuracy" better than it deserves. If so, who is to say, and how would one know? From some other source? And what about THEIR reputation? Without application of science, this is ALL just a game of "he-said, she-said" more or less as happens in any nasty-divorce-trial, but without any primary evidence admitted anywhere. user:Itsmejudith, can you tell us about the epistemology of he-said/she-said? It's the method WP uses for much of its material. Do you see a problem with that? In examples above (Curveball) jounalists and government have ignored even legal rules of evidence, and admitted not only hearsay, but hearsay about hearsay! And when this goes to press, it all is transformed to WP:RELIABLE and WP:VERIFIABLE. Come on.

Oh, yes, and in answer to SummerPhD asking which WP policies I do agree with, see the end of section at [2]. I think WP:MEDRS is the best standard that exists at WP:IRS, which otherwise flails around a lot. Even as journalism is decaying, and journalism even admits that it is decaying, WP at the same time has enthroned journalism as a major source of reliable truth. That is bad. SBHarris 16:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

SBH, I think that your point about supposedly reliable sources is absolutely uncontroversial. However, what can we do about the fact that all reliable sources are actually imperfect and sometimes wrong? Logically this means we can never use any sources? Or WP would have to become a research organization itself. Instead, surely the standard procedure here is that we focus on reputation for fact checking rather than trying to judge the fact checking (or truth) independently ourselves. Nearly every Wikipedian has of course drawn the line somewhere when there is clear consensus and evidence of an article or book being a bad apple from a normally reliable source, but is there any clear evidence that this particular case is one of them?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster, your questions are interesting, but where is the place to discuss them? If I complain about epistemology on the TALK page of an article, I get sent to RS/N (as happened here). If the problem is removed, we still end up with policy issues, which perhaps should be discussed at TALK page for WP:IRS. Which I can do, although those people get tired of arguing policy without specific examples in front of them. [But here the generalities are reposted anyway]

The short answer to your question is that things are all mucked up on IRS. They can't even decide if a newspaper report (front page NYT) ala Judith Miller's "reports" about Saddam's WMD's in 2002, are primary or secondary sources. One problem is that people like Miller don't give their OWN sources (in this case, it was an unreliable one) so why should we trust them? It's not as though Miller is likely to have checked out her sources with other journalists, let alone other newspapers-- that's not the way that world works. In science, however, it actually DOES work that way.

We can also see on WP:IRS that WP has no understanding of your average primary science experimental paper, published in a peer-reviewed journal, for it labels such things "primary sources." Anyone who actually has written one of these things knows that it contains many levels of information, starting with a "why we did this" section, continuing with two sections that on WP would be labeled WP:OR, and then a WP:SYNTH part where the authors interpret their findings, do a mini-review of the literature (ordinarily a secondary-source thing) and attempt to put their findings into perspective by contasting them with others, and often ending with a paragraph or two, of what in journalism would be called "Op-Ed". However, all this is is seen by multiple other (anonymous) reviewers before it gets to print, and the primary authors have a chance to correct it, also. It is NOT like a diary, published later by somebody (a classic historical primary source). Also, there is no way to compare it with anything a newspaper does. Do you see my problem? WP:RSMED (which again I didn't write, but like) does an admirable job of starting to get the epistemology of reading a scientific paper down to some kind of algorithm (it still takes quite a lot of sophisitication). However, nothing is available on WP for other fields, and certainly nothing that attempts to compare reliability in one field with another, something that happens ALL THE TIME in writing encyclopedia articles.

The answer to what to do about this for me as an editor, has been (in the past) to use my own judgement. What else can one do? However, there's no good way to settle arguments. I don't really think the problem has a good answer. But it would be good if we got the difficulties out into the open, and ADMITTED that it doesn't have a good answer. And that right now, all such problems are being handled by violating the letter of WP:SYNTH, and by argumentum ad baculum at the point of administrative-block tools, again without admitting this. There's a reason why the first steps of Alcoholics Anonymous involve admiting you have a problem, and you can't fix it. WP hasn't even gotten to Step 1 of the 12 Steps, after working a decade on it. The reason being that WP departed from the expert-review vision it initially started with when it was invented by Sanger, and then attempted to bureaucratize the dysfunctional result after that, in order to try to make the reliability problems disappear under a load of increasingly difficult to understand and jargonish policy guidelines. See my comments on the TALK page of WP:V. [3] [4] And of course, dissenters are suppressed or (eventually) leave, or are banned. I'm just waiting my own turn, though I've edited here since late 2005.SBHarris 21:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

SBH, this is indeed the right place to discuss sourcing in general. Can you briefly identify a change you would like to make to the guideline, or an issue you would like to discuss. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, there are lots of things, but here's one from the IRS page, which is echoed in WP:V: "Mainstream news sources are generally considered to be reliable. However, even the most reputable news outlets occasionally contain errors..."

The truth is that the most stories generated by "reputable news outlets" GENERALLY contain errors. If might be true that are "are generally considered reliable" but this general consideration is in error, for they shouldn't be. For example, here's a 2007 study in which 2,615 hard factual errors were found in a random sample of 1,220 stories clipped from major metropolitan papers, reporting on locally-generated events. These were stories on page 1, or in the metro, business, and the lifestyle sections. The study culled sports stories, opinion pieces, columns, and reviews and it didn't look at network news stories. Obviously many stories had more than one error and fewer than half had none. The errors were found by doing fact-checking surveys of primary news sources named in the articles, who had first-hand knowledge of the event being reported (things like age, title, spelling of names, and so on). All stuff that could have been done before publication, if the newspaper had cared, or had a policy of doing it. 69% of the stories sent for error review to the primary sources actually were reviewed and returned, so this doesn't represent much of a bias toward getting reports only from erroneous stories. Finally, the most shocking fact discovered is that only 2% of these errors were ever retracted by the papers, with the maximum rate being 5%. [5] The other 98% stand forever, as fodder for Wikipedia, under present guidelines.

The results here correspond with my own experience of news articles, in which I have never seen an article about some event of which I had first-hand knowledge, printed without some gross error. Many of these could have been fixed had journalists sent their copy to their primary sources for fact-review prior to publication, but I have found by bitter experience that not only will most journalists refuse to send their sources such copy prior to print (the most you get is they MIGHT condescend to read you a bit, over the phone). This is as a point of pride, but they often will not do it due to direct newspaper policy, for a host of legalistic reasons. Actually, I don't CARE what their reasons are, or if they can be fixed. The point is that this happens, and they cannot, or will not, fix it.

I am amazed that WP, which relies on thousands of eyes to review facts for any well-read article, would regard as more reliable, a news story that has been fact-checked by maybe one set of other eyes (not counting copy-editing), and that set is some other editor who cannot possibly be as knowlegeable about the story, as the story's subject and others who have first-hand knowledge about the event. Publication in a newspaper does not increase factual reliability; I don't really know why anybody thinks so. SBHarris 02:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Which is why we say so emphatically that we are seeking verifiability, not truth. Sources can be and are often in error, however, we still have to base our articles on sources. Do you have any change to the guideline you would like to propose? Dlabtot (talk) 02:48, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Your answer simply bolsters my argument about the widespread misunderstanding of the meaning of WP:V[6]. This whole mess of a policy is a multiheaded hydra. If I argue at WP:V, they send me to WP:IRS, then WP:RSN. And now that I'm here at WT:IRS, I get people who have totally missed the point of WP:V. Arggghhh! SBHarris 04:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

What do you think we should say about newspapers as sources, then? I do have some sympathy. If you just look at articles on Israel-Palestine issues, editors tend to use newspapers a lot because they are readily accessible. They dismiss academic works because they perceive virtually every academic to have a bias one way or the other. It has been heavily argued by some editors that there are no reliable historians of post 1945 Israel/Palestine at all. It has for a long time been accepted that current events are mainly written up from newspapers, but personally I think that as soon as the first historical articles appear they should take precedence and articles should be rewritten to incorporate the academic research. This is a hard point to get across sometimes but it is supported in WP:V and WP:IRS even as they currently stand. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Will Rogers' statement that "All I know is what I read in the papers" was meant as humor. What I just said about the issue on WP:V (which is having trouble sorting out the IRS issues) is:

Newspapers are a "first draft of history" and are as full of errror as you'd expect from the way they are produced. They can be used as cites for what people and media thought at the time an event was happening, and for sources of the facts of historical events during the (hopefully short) period in which there has been no review, but later should be replaced by better sources as they come out. The short-time use should to limited on WP, since WP is WP:NOTNEWS (even though it tries to be-- in our shinking world WP is influenced by recentism, which is error-ridden).

In some historical cases, where no other sources are ever located but the news accounts (this happens a lot in the 19th century), we have to use what we have, as a semi-reliable source is better than no information at all. Historians must deal all the time with what to do with century-old news stories that come out a day after the event, but sometimes are not fully checked with their primary sources and witnesses (a story about something a journalists personally saw is not the same as a story about something a journalist reports on a deadline secondhand); and how to compare these with coroner or trial transcripts of what people say about the same event weeks or months later, vs. what people remember years later.

In any case, all these are WP:IRS issues, and probably shouldn't even be mentioned in WP:V. WP:V might speak to the usability of blogs, but only because they are evanescent. In these days of self-publication and small and smaller publishing houses (sometimes only 3 people only work for small imprint) the only reason to deprecate blogs is that you can't be sure they won't change, not because they are "self-published." Most organizations have publications these days, and they're all self-published. "Self-published" is hard to define, and in any case, the WP:V faults for it that we mention doesn't apply to print, nor to things reliably archived and available. Those things only have RS problems due to bias and relative lack of review by others, not V problems. Any by the way, the evanscense problems apply to many on-line sources that are reviewed, but due to become (i.e., will probably be) deadlinked on WP when somebody stops hosting them. But that usually doesn't cause them to run afoul of WP:V even BEFORE they disappear, as appears to be the case for "self-published works." Yet, evanescence is given as the reason for attacking the "self-publications", sometimes as a last ditch effort after their reliablity has withstood all attacks (I was just involved in one IRS argument about this type, about the GRG which keeps gerontological records). SBHarris 16:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Maneater

http://move.themaneater.com/ I would like to know if this qualifies as an RS. It could be vital to solving a genre war. Thanks! DCcomicslover (talk) 19:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)DCcomicslover

According to the site's "about us" page, it the on-line version of a student newspaper. As such it would have limited reliability. To know more, we would have to know the specific information it was being used to support. Blueboar (talk) 20:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

http://move.themaneater.com/stories/2009/9/11/skillets-back-and-pissed/ The writer calls skillet a nu-metal band. We are looking for RS for genres. Oh and thank you for doing this so quickly. DCcomicslover (talk) 20:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)DCcomicslover

OK... classifying a band within a specific music genre is almost always a controversial issue on Wikipedia. Should we rely on this website to do so? I would say no. It isn't really a matter of reliability... but one of undue weight. Genre classification is often a matter of opinion (with different sources stating different opinions as to the proper classification), and I don't think the opinion of a student news reporter carries much weight. Especially if there is another source that classifies the band in some other way. Blueboar (talk) 20:32, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Not as a main genre but subgenres. We need to come to a conclusion on what subgenres to put. And I already have another source saying that they are metal. Written by a pro. I wouldn't use a student paper for MAIN genre. DCcomicslover (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)DCcomicslover

Again, genre/sub-genre classification of bands is usually a matter of opinion. Even the recognized industry experts disagree as to how the various genres and sub-genres are defined. Definitively placing bands in neat pigeon holes by genre is often next to impossible, and as you get to sub-genres the problems get worse. My advice... don't try. If you can get more than one reliable source to agree that the "main" genre for this band is "Metal", you are ahead of the game... be happy with that classification. You probably will not be able to define a sub-genre. Blueboar (talk) 13:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Regardless, Thats what they're doing. You do make a good point though. I might bring this up. So you wouldn't say reliable source for subgenre? DCcomicslover (talk) 15:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)DCcomicslover

I don't think the source should be used... but I don't base my exclusion on reliability. I don't think this is a reliability issue. I think Genre classifications should be phrased as being an opinion, and for a statement of opinion, you can not get more reliable than the source where the opinion was stated ... however, not every person's opinion is worth mentioning in an article (per WP:UNDUE). I don't think the opinion of some college kid is really worth mentioning. Blueboar (talk) 00:37, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

So its a weight issue. Gotcha. So perhaps I could use this as a secondary source? And yeah the thing is that We had a bunch of people changing the genres so an admin locked the page and referred it to some of us. Actually we kinda took the matter ourselves to reliably source the genres. DCcomicslover (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2011 (UTC)DCcomicslover

Some questions about recent additions to newspaper reliability

Being known as a mainstream news source does not automatically make said source reliable. Several news sources have reputations for—and have sometimes admitted to—either incomplete or biased coverage, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories. Even for reputable sources, there are various articles which may not be reliable. Having corroborating sources increases the chance the information is reliable, but beware of the practice of "churnalism", especially in print media. Prioritise sourcing to news agencies above other news sources.

I have two issues with the above:

1. Regarding the last sentence, I think it is a questionable that news agencies (AP, Reuters, and many are worse) are more reliable. They have a particular drawback in that they traditionally do not take public feedback. (Although is this now different in the internet age? Do they read comments?)

2. Regarding "[s]everal news sources have reputations for—and have sometimes admitted to—either incomplete or biased coverage, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories.", this sounds like a good description of the New York Times. (What? You thought I would say Fox News?) Yet we have to accept the NYT as reliable for a newspaper, simply because it is respected by the other newspapers and even determines what - in the U.S. - is a news story (see Bernard Goldberg, Bias for a personal account of the latter). So while in my personal opinion the paper is complete garbage, I would be the last to claim it is not a legitimate Wikipedia source (taken with some grains of salt, and with certain exceptions), and more usable as such than any other American newspaper. In other words, what is a mainstream publication is not necessarily related to its actual quality, so I think this statement is not useful and should be deleted.Mzk1 (talk) 21:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree and have removed the paragraph for further discussion. This paragraph could be used to exclude just about every news organization out there. Blueboar (talk) 00:22, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

About "public feedback": The wire services take 'public feedback' in two different ways. The first is that anyone can send comments to them. This has always been true (mailing addresses have long been published, and also available from your local newspaper), but it's on their websites now. If your comment is about a particular story, it's usually passed along to the reporter or a relevant editor.

The second is that they take feedback through any paper that reprints their stories. They are approximately as responsive to this feedback as your local newspaper is to feedback from advertisers and subscribers, because they can't stay in business if their paying customers drop them.

However, while they do take public feedback (and issue corrections, but the source of corrections is almost always "the subject" of the article rather than "the public"), they do not publish this feedback—a point that I consider irrelevant. Publishing comments from readers does not help a reporter get the facts straight. Having a fact-checker calling the sources after the reporter has drafted the story does. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

One has to be a bit careful here, though they might be occure more often in (various) newspapers descriptions like "failure of due research" or "misleading descriptions/errors" and the "admission to have published errors" do apply to all publication including most prestigious science/academic publications (remember cold fusion in Nature). In other words if one resorts to absolutes (having admitted errors or lack of due research exclude a source from usage), one ends up not being to use any reasonable source.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

The addition, as I put it, contained the phrase "has a reputation"; in essence, the NYT (and, on less political/partisan stories, Fox) would pass at it's reputable for getting things right and makes the infrequent cock-up, whereas the Daily Star, which has a reputation for absolutely shoddy coverage of everything, and at least one ex-columnist who admitted to repeatedly writing false stories to fill column inches, would fail (incidentally, said columnist was the underlying reason why I added the part, with agreement from RS/N and this talk, in the first place). How about this for a replacement?:

Being known as a mainstream news source does not automatically make said source reliable. Several news sources have reputations for either incomplete or biased coverage, a failure to do due research, and, in egregious cases, complete falsification of some stories. Even for otherwise reputable sources, there are areas of coverage where a publication may not be reliable for the aforementioned reasons. Having corroborating sources increases the chance the information is reliable, but beware of the practice of "churnalism", especially in print media. Check each source before using it.

The spirit of the rule would allow most sources to stay, but would disallow the use of the Daily Express on, say, stories relating to the European Union or Labour-controlled metropolitan councils. Sceptre ^(talk) 06:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

You realize Wikipedia is an unreliable source, right?

It seems that according to the "reliable sources" guidelines, Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source. It's barely more than a web forum where people can edit each others' work, not just respond to it. 1) The work itself is not a reliable source. 2) The authors are not (guaranteed) experts, therefore not reliable. 3) The publication itself is just a website not a reliable publisher with a staff of experts and professional fact-checkers.

I say this not to troll, but rather to point out that the guidelines are both ironic and outdated. Ironic, because, this publication has shown itself to be at least as reliable as many professional encyclopedias, almanacs, etc, yet has been at the forefront of upending the traditional system of knowledge gathering and dissemination. Outdated, because, the world has moved beyond merely the sources described as reliable. I understand the goal and sympathize, but it's outdated. Let me give an example.

I've been following an online series on the history of gianduia at dallasfood.org. The stuff is impeccably researched and footnoted. Technically it's a blog, one person's publication without peer or editorial review in any traditional sense. I added a footnote to the site in the Gianduja (chocolate) page for the proper/common Italian spelling of the word (which is actually "gianduia" not "gianduja"). I emailed the guy and encouraged him to update some of the historical information in Wikipedia that I was noticing was out of date/wrong as I was reading his articles and trying to get more context online. So he did. He made a change to the Waldensians page and footnoted it with a link to his site. Now, obviously there's no subterfuge here. There's no SEO advantage to linking to his site since Wikipedia does NO FOLLOWS. And the guy doesn't have ads on his site, either. And again, anyone who looks through the articles can see how impeccably researched it is. I don't know how he got his hands on all those Italian documents, but apparently he did. And he has photos/scans of some of them proving it.

Is he an expert in the field? I don't think so. He appears to be an obsessive hobbyist who is so interested in the issue that he's reading tons of academic sources and original sources. But he's obviously a hell of a lot more reliable than the other sources that are being used on the subject matters he's dealing with. He seems to have thoroughly debunked several common claims that appear to have been inserted into history by companies' marketing, primarily. And yet, he's not a reliable source and someone removed his footnotes and claims.

It's ludicrous and extremely ironic. I worked in the editorial department of newspapers for over a decade and I know how questionable a lot of the information that comes from them is, especially before there were digital recorders and the internet. Very few journalists have ever done the kind of research this guy is doing and yet the Dallas Morning News is a reliable source and this guy isn't. It's ass backwards and doesn't make sense for Wikipedia given the nature of its own articles and oversight.

There should be more emphasis placed on whether online content used as a source shows signs of going through the process of making itself reliable. The number one item in that regard, imo, is not a fallacious appeal to authority, such as is the basis for much traditional/mainstream media, but the evidence in the online articles themselves, such as footnoting, data, etc.