Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Catholic League

As it is an advocacy group, I think the Catholic League (U.S.) should only be considered a reliable source for their opinions, not for controversial statements (such as George Soros being behind anything in particular). Another editor claims that they're reliable until proven otherwise. Do I have to investigate each claim of theirs in detail before I can say whether or not they can be used? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I Agree... as an advocacy group, the Catholic League is reliable for attributed statements of opinion... but not for unattributed statements of fact. Blueboar (talk) 21:27, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Opinions can be sourced to them, not facts. Binksternet (talk) 22:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

A little off topic: Should all advocacy groups be treated this way? I have noticed editors using sources from NGOs advocating a clear agenda (albeit courageous and notable agendas) as RS for facts and not just opinion.Cptnono (talk) 06:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

A good rule of thumb: when in doubt, attribute. So, yes. Treat all advocacy groups the same way (assuming it is WP:DUE to mention what the advocacy group says at all). Blueboar (talk) 11:27, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Refinement on Blueboar: "Major advocacy groups may be treated as reliable for attributed statements of their opinions..." LeadSongDog come howl! 18:32, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't find "advocacy group" at wp:RS. Can someone show me where it is? --Kenatipo ^speak! 18:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure this should scroll off quite yet...--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Should we then treat Sierra Club and the American Automobile Association the same way we treat the Catholic League?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:17, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Subject to common sense, yes. MastCell ^Talk 19:23, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Sarek, what if the opinions of the Catholic League are controversial? and, can the Catholics for Choice article include the CL opinion that CfC is anti-Catholic sourced directly from the CL ? --Kenatipo ^speak! 13:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

If the opinion was not picked up by secondary sources then it does not rise above the background noise and become notable. Thus, if you stick with reliable secondary sources about the opinion of the Catholic League then you'll be set. Binksternet (talk) 14:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. If anyone knows what anti-Catholicism is, it's the Catholic League. If the SPLC can define "hate groups", then the CL can point out anti-Catholicism. They've been at it for almost 40 years and they're practically semi-official in the New York archdiocese. --Kenatipo ^speak! 14:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No, the definition of anti-Catholic as employed by the Catholic League is much larger than the definition used by anyone else. They are known for so naming the slightest of critics, even devout Catholics who criticize the church from within. Binksternet (talk) 14:56, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The same thing can be said for most anti-defamation organizations. Do people claim the Anti-Defamation League casts too wide a net? Do people claim the NAACP casts too wide a net? Are groups that are proclaiming x, y, and z organizations hate-groups, casting to wide a net? Statements from all of those organizations are allowed on other pages. All these groups are quoted a lot and appear on major news networks all the time, so notability is established. As long as it is being stated as opinion, Catholic League's can be allowed to. Marauder40 (talk) 18:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

In articles about the hate group designation from SPLC, secondary sources establish the fact that there was wide commentary about the designation. I expect that NAACP and ADL statements in articles would also have secondary sources establishing the statement as receiving wider notice. If the Catholic League shouts in the forest, does anyone hear? Please stick to secondary sources to make sure that the statement from the group is a notable one. Binksternet (talk) 20:43, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:Secondary does not mean independent. Most of that "wider notice" is actually in independent primary sources, not in secondary sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I noticed this discussion and would assume that the same reasoning apply to the advocacy group, Freedom From Religion Foundation's "Freethought Today". Am I correct in saying so? I look forward to your comments. With regards, Anupam^Talk 05:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I would say so. But with a caveat... A lot depends on context... to say for sure, we would need to know a) The specific statement you are supporting with the source, and b) what article you are saying it in. Blueboar 20:44, 23 July 2011

Do you think for example, that this advocacy group could give a NPOV definition of militant atheism? I look forward to your response. With regards, Anupam^Talk 02:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Sources are not required to comply with NPOV; your use of the sources must comply with NPOV.

The only way to know whether your definition of <anything> complies with NPOV is to see whether it accurately reflects the balance of reliable sources. In the simplest case, if all the sources conveniently agree on a definition, and you write a definition that matches all of them, then you have complied with NPOV. In a complicated case, if multiple apparently reliable sources give wildly divergent definitions, and you pick just one of them, then you have failed to comply with NPOV, because NPOV requires you (in that complicated case) to tell the reader that the sources disagree, not to commit a NOR violation by deciding which of the definitions is more neutral than others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Greenwood Publishing Group

American Left (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Buskey, Donald F. Democratic socialism: a global survey. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000 ISBN 0275968863[1]

• User:Kiefer.Wolfowitz says, "Busky was a national officer of SPUSA and the PA state chair of SPUSA from 1978 until his death. His book is not serious, and his publisher is a known for weak books, below the leading history publishers (e.g. Princeton, in addition to previously listed publishers)."[2]
• My view is that the book is from a reputable academic publisher that checks facts and it is therefore a reliable source for the facts it presents.
• pp. 164-165 were used as a source for "Michael Harrington broke with the Shachtmanites over support of the War in Vietnam, urging peace negotiations, although not an immediate withdrawal."

TFD (talk) 04:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

TFD first promoted Busky as being professor of political science. Then I pointed out that Busky was only an adjunct professor at some community college, who pointed out his Conflict of Interest as a SPUSA officer in his introduction.

This book is a joke, and not a serious history. Please read a few pages and decide for yourselves. For example, ask yourself whether a sectarian ideologue or a professionally competent history professor penned the sarcasm "labor is the motor of all social change".

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 06:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Compare Busky's delusion with the New York Times. There is no mention of Shachtman, but instead there is a discussion of the Vietnam War. (In fact, Shachtman died in November 1972, so his influence on the December Convention must have been supernatural!) The majority of the socialist party in 1972 favored a negotiated peace settlement and demanded an end to bombings: they also criticized the conduct of the war. Harrington's caucus called for a cease fire and immediate withdrawal. The Debs caucus was mentioned as a curiosity "a Debs caucus" by the NYT in only one article, because it was so small it received only 2/33 votes on the national committee.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 06:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Another measure of the intellectual poverty of Busky's book is its being ignored by academic journals. To see how serious accounts of democratic socialism are reviewed and cited, search for Adam Przeworski, or John D. Stephens, etc., whose rank is each somewhat higher than adjunct professor at some community college.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Your quote says the Realignment Caucus in the SP-SDF believed that "labor was the motive of all social change". Note also that Harrington's biography (Isserman, Maurice. PublicAffairs, 2000) describes the split with Shachtman at the March 1973 Socialist Party convention in similar terms in "Socialists at War". (Shachtman died in November, 1972). TFD (talk) 13:04, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Please write more carefully. I assume that you meant the March 1972 Convention?

To which page do you refer? (I have already suggested that the article include a discussion of the middle-class versus working-class political orientations of Harrington and the majority of the SP, but you have already complained that there is too much attention to this period!)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Please focus on the reliability issue, here. (Isserman is a competent but not infallible historian, and he certainly wrote no burlesque like Busky's "straw man".)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

See WP:TRUTH: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." TFD (talk) 13:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Nobody but you has said anything positive about Busky's book. Quoting irrelevant policy is a distraction. The point is that Busky's book is junk, published by a low-standards publisher and ignored by academic researchers, and full of errors and obvious biases. It is simply NOT a reliable source.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:51, 19 July 2011 (UTC) 12:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Kiefer, can you help me understand the factual problems here? Did Harrington not break with the Shachtmanites? Did he break with them for some reason other than Vietnam? Did he not urge peace negotiations? Did he support an immediate withdrawal? How many separate factual problems are here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

On this page, I would prefer to focus on the reliability of Busky, here.

Despite my reservations, however, let me answer your good-faith questions honestly and directly, however. Tonight, I don't have time. Please give me 36 hours. (1) It is erroneous to call the SP majority/SPUSA "Shachtmanites", since the leadership were from the ILGWU and the civil-rights movement. (Harrington's memoir state that the needle-workers union fought communists in battles with sticks and sometimes guns in the 1920s and 1930s, and that they therefore did not joke around with anti-anticommunism or with communists). ILGWU social democrats were not Shachtmanite, and I believe it was dominant. Further, it's not clear that "Shachtmanite" is an accurate description of Shachtman's associates after 1957, when his group joined the Socialist Party. This phrase is used mainly by opponents of Shachtman's associates. Finally, Shachtman died in 1972 before the December convention so it is weird to emphasize Shachtman. (2) Harrington was pro withdrawal, at some point in the 1960s, according to Drucker's biography of Shachtman, which states that he won longer and sterner criticisms of the Vietnam War in every convention: He led a public challenge to the Negotiations Now! position in 1972, when his resolution for a withdrawal was defeated 2:1. The SP majority was pro negotiations (which Harrington viewed as a good faith waste of time or a camouflage for supporting the war or both), but was not "pro-War". (3) At least as large an issue was the class politics of McGovern, and his followers, which helped give Presidency to the Nixon and Reagan. See Harrington's quote from his memoirs in his article Michael Harrington.

(4) "Harrington's break with the Shachtmanites"? It's not clear who broke with whom. Apparently, Harrington reversed his previous public positions where he had (toughly by all accounts) argued against the withdrawal proposal. Harrington got a lot of personal and public criticism for this reversal, according to the Isserman biography. According to Shachtman's biography by Drucker, Shachtman never spoke or wrote to Harrington after his reversal, with Shachtman stating or writing that Harrington's sin was not to acknowledge that he had publicly maintained the positions that he was now attacking right through 1972, so this was a sanctimonious and hypocritical reversal; of course, Harrington's public positions and private arguments were much more complicated than allowed by Shachtman, and Shachtman was universally regarded as brutal when in "debate mode", so I would suggest more sympathy with Harrington---who was also suffering from an anxiety disorder and probably depression, since the mid 60s. In any event, the details of Harrington and Shachtman's relationship belong in their biographies, not in a history of the left or of the SPA. \

Further, regarding Harrington and "Shachtmanites", a close associate of Harrington said that "Michael never said a word against Bayard Rustin", so it is simply false that there was a complete break with the people in SDUSA. (Kahn and Harrington referred to each other negatively, of course, with Harrington complaining about his protege's change of allegiance and Kahn mocking Harrington's personality, rather roughly but seriously, as recognized by e.g. Irving Howe.) Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:55, 22 July 2011 (UTC) 12:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I was about to ask the same thing. A source is rarely absolutely reliable for everything or absolutely unreliable for anything (with the possible exception of the News of the World). Frankly, the fact that someone was "merely" an adjunct professor isn't that bad, and being an officer of the Socialist Party USA might even be an asset for writing about the history of the Socialist Party USA. If he were writing about a controversial fact where his conflict of interest might be a problem, that would be different, but I don't see anything inherently that controversial here in the phrases TFD mentions that we should reject this source out of hand. If you disagree with the reason Harrington broke with the party, bring up a source that says the alternate reason. --GRuban (talk) 21:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

GRuban, please be more careful. There was a statement of "breaking with the Shachtmanites" which you now state as "breaking withthe party". What is this "break"? Harrington resigned in 1973.

Busky is not intellectually serious, period. I cite Drucker or Isserman or Todd Gitlin Rachelle Horowitz (on the article on Kahn), because they are serious: They recognize complexities, they try to document things, they sometimes say a good word on behalf of others in disagreements.

The phrase about the support of the war by Harrington and peace negotiations by Busky is a malicious half-truth, which might have been accurate say 68-early 72, but was false at the 1972 December convention. I give page citations to Drucker's biography of Shachtman which discusses Harrington's position on the talk page of User:Peter G Werner.

I shall write more in the next 36 hours.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:55, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't feel compelled to provide more details on my behalf; I just needed to confirm that I correctly understood that relying on this source was resulting in errors in the article, rather than it being a dispute over REFSPAM behind a basically accurate sentence.

At absolute minimum, I think that sentence must be attributed WP:INTEXT as Busky's opinion, rather than being presented as if it were a simple fact. My inclination, though, is simply to remove it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

[deleted]

I quoted the article so that you could see words like "dissident" being applied to minorities in an organization., and other biased language. Also, there is absolutely no evidence that those caucuses within the SP/SDUSA ever took any action (as a caucus) to move to DSOC or UDS/SPUSA; individuals did (apparently): If somebody would cite minutes that could be verified, I would not object to a restoration of the caucus language, rather than "members".  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I gave in-line citations to a 1973 interview with Harrington, which describes a membership for DSOC of 840, of whom 200 had been members of the SPA/SDUSA (and some no doubt, I add, continued their membership).  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Section of T4D, using Busky

This was the state of American Left, (sic., should be American left), after T4D's tlc:

In 1972, the Socialist Party was renamed Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) and now had only 1,600 members. Dissidents left to form theDemocratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) in 1973, led by Michael Harrington. The same year another faction of the SPA, including David McReynolds, formed the Socialist Party, USA which continues to run presidential candidates.

Social democratic and socialist groups

The main social democratic and socialist groups that emerged from the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation (SP-SDF) after 1972.

Social Democrats USA (SDUSA)

Main article: Social Democrats USA

The Shachtmanites, called the Realignment Caucus, in the SP-SDF argued that since organized labor supported the Democratic Party, they should join the Democratic Party and transform it into a left-wing party, with the Republicans becoming a right-wing party. Further, they argued that they should support the War in Vietnam to stop Communist expansion. In 1972, they supported Senator Henry Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination, and re-named the party Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), dropping the term "socialist". While they retained membership in the Socialist International, they supported Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election and had moved sufficiently right by 1980, that many of their members served in the Reagan administration.

This is just nonsense. (1) The SP majority/SDUSA supported a negotiated peace in Vietnam and urged a stop to the bombing. (2) The realignment caucus, which had Harrington, had an "immediate withdrawal wing", which is discussed in Isserman's biography of Harrington. (3) Busky cites no resolution or any evidence linking the organization SP majority to the Jackson campaign: I am aware that Tom Kahn and a few other individuals supported Jackson but know of no evidence that "they" (sic.) [the SP majority] supported Jackson. (4) Busky cites no organizational document suggesting that the SP majority/SDUSA had adapted Shachtman et alia's realignment strategy. (5) The party renamed itself SDUSA, by a vote of more than 2:1. (6) There is no evidence in Busky of an organizaiton support of Carter. In fact, SDUSA's leaders criticized Carter for his anti-Washington campaign, and continued to criticize him for his defense policy, for his statement that the US would have to outgrow its inordinate "fear of communism", for Andrew Young's behavior at the UN, for his terrible response to Soviet dissidents and refugees and for his failure to help Solidarity, etc. (7) Gershman served in the Reagan administration, helping on human rights at the UN. There is no evidence that "many" of their members did.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)

Main article: Socialist Party USA

Members of the Debs Caucus opposed supporting the Democrats and began working outside the Socialist Party with antiwar groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society. Many locals of the SD-SDF voted to disaffiliate. They re-organized as the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) and kept control of the old Debs Caucus paper, the Socialist Tribune, later re-named The Socialist. The SPUSA continued to run local and national candidates, although by 2000 they had only about 1,000 members. In 1972 they supported the presidential campaign of Benjamin Spock of the People's Party. Their 2000 candidate for president was David McReynolds.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Main article: Democratic Socialists of America

Although Michael Harrington, who came to lead the Coalition Caucus, agreed to work within the Democratic Party, he broke with the Shachtmanites over support of the War in Vietnam, urging peace negotiations, although not an immediate withdrawal. He led his caucus out of the SD-SDF to form theDemocratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which became a member of the Socialist International. Although this group never ran candidates for public office, it became the largest of the three groups emerging from the SD-SDF, attaining a peak membership of as many as 10,000. In 1982, it joined with the New American Movement(NAM), an antiwar group that emerged from the New Left of the 1960s, to form the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

This is nonsense. (1) Harrington (like the SP majority) favored a negotiated peace treaty, although privately he favored an immediate withdrawal by the late 1960s. He publicly called for an immediate withdrawal in 1972 (perhaps earlier), but this proposal was voted down 2:1, when the SP intensified its criticism of Nixon's war policies (especially bombing) and affirmed its support for a negotiated peace treaty. This was reported in the NYT. (2) There is no documentation of Harrington's breaking with "Shachtmanites". Drucker's biography reports that Shachtman stopped speaking or communicating with Harrington, because he viewed Harrington's reversal (without acknowledgment of its being a reversal, in Shachtman's view) hypocritical---a view that was shared, to some extent, by earlier advocates of withdrawal, according to Isserman's biography. (3) There is no evidence (in Busky) that the "Coalition" caucus ever decided to switch from SDUSA to DSOC. (It is certainly plausible that many and perhaps most members individually did.) (4) DSA has ran plenty of members for public office, including mayors of New York City, perhaps Chicago, Ithaca, etc. Most (but not all) of these members ran after winning Democratic Party primaries. It has supported independent socialists for public office, such as Bernie Sanders, outside of the Democratic Party. (5) "SD/SDF" is a partisan belittling of the Socialist Party, which had merged with a smaller social-democratic confederation in March 1972, apparently. The standard term of the SP was the Socialist Party, until it changed its name to SDUSA in December 1972.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

AGF: Please be serious

How can an editor write such a biased account, and then be welcomed here as an innocent? Show me one reliable source stating that the Socialist Party or the majority of the Socialist Party (SDUSA) endorsed Scoop Jackson! Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

If you want to take up editor conduct, there are channels for that. See that I posted again below, did so in entirely open and neutral terms, have one uninvolved post already, hoping there may be more. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:49, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Judith. I appreciate your fair comments now and before. I do not wish to pursue anything formally. However, a brief "heads up" was warranted imho, which has been done by quoting the biased account and emboldening the most biased language. The bias of the account, written by an adherent of the SPUSA apparently or at least by a naive follower of Busky's account, should be self-evident (e.g., maliciously representing individuals' as organizational "ties" or "support" with Republicans and pro-defense Democrats ). Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:14, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The Sealed Nectar

Is the Sealed Nectar a reliable source to use to give a "Muslim perspective" on Muhammad's life. I used the source in the Invasion of Banu Nadir article, as a means to give a Muslim view of the event, rather than an accurate view. Can i do this? I say its notable because it has been aknowledged by Muslims in something called the Islamic Conference on Seerah, an open competition about the biography of Muhammad , where it got first prize(according to its wiki page). An online version is (or was) hosted at the University of Arkansas website here--Misconceptions2 (talk) 21:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm the editor who questioned its reliability, and I made these points:

• The book is published by a religious publisher, not by a scholarly publisher; it's like citing a book published by Zondervan for an article on an episode in the Bible, rather than a book from a real publisher.
• The award the book won is from the Muslim World League, not from any sort of publishing or scholarly organization. The Muslim World League is a religious organization with specific social and political goals. This award thus does not add anything to the reliability of the book.
• All other considerations aside, one individual author does not constitute a "Muslim perspective."

Given the enormous scholarly corpus on the history of Islam, I do not think it's necessary to use this inferior source. The article is written almost entirely based on this source, and it simply isn't up to our standards for reliability. (As a side note, Misconceptions2, what's this nonsense about "a Muslim view, rather than an accurate view"?) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Correction, i meant give "1 Mulim perspective" , instead of the "Muslim perspective" (the latter does not exist as no one represents all Muslims). But this book has been acknowledged by Muslim World League as the best biography of Muhammad in its first "Seerah (biography) competition". So i do think its notable.Notability is the grounds i want to use this source, rather than accuracy (which many people doubt because it refers to Muhammad as a "prophet of god")--Misconceptions2 (talk) 20:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, notability is not the basis upon which we judge which sources are appropriate to use. Reliability is that basis, and this book hasn't got it, not being published by a scholarly publisher or otherwise recognized for its historical rigor. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you've already answered yourself by "1 Mulim perspective". Don't forget WP:DUE on the subject, as it will make us list tons of other views to get to a NPOV. You already know that there's enough controversial in the authorized sources about his life, so Wikipedia is not interested in hearing out-side singular views, IMO.

Oh, and the source you said is on Univ. of Arkansas' website is from a student club/community, which definitely ain't authoritative at all. ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 01:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

@AdamRce, we cant make an article all on the Modern Muslim scholars version of the event. silly. My mistake was over using the Sealed Nectar in the Invasion of Banu Nadir, i will try fix this. By the way all scholars like Watt, Muir, Stillman are critical of Muhammad, but since they are more scholarly then Mubarakpuri (author of the book in question), i will from now on, mention them more. Because Mubrakpuri always tries to spin controversial parts of Muhammad's life (making him seem innocent and peaceful whenever he can). I will use him less. --Misconceptions2 (talk) 02:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this source is fine—so long as it's handled as one source among many.

NB that zero of our content and sourcing policies say that a publishing house that specializes in religious material are less reliable than any other type of publishing house. The actual policies talk about editorial control, not the subject matter. Scholarly sources are lovely (for scholarly things), but they are not the only sources that actually meet the minimum requirements for a reliable source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

In this case, however, it's not being handled as one source among many - pretty much the entire article is built on it - and I also disagree that we should be treating popular religious publishers as equal to scholarly publishers on scholarly subjects. I did a simple Google Books search and found over half a dozen books from reliable scholarly publishers that discuss this event (in addition to mainstream houses like Penguin and Random House); not a one is cited in the article. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not solely a scholarly subject, and the non-scholarly religious perspective ought to be included. I agree that you've got a significant DUE problem—but that means that you need to change the balance, not that you get to entirely dump the source whose religious POV you dislike. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Would you agree, though, that the article's current sourcing (ie. written around this one lay source, with a few nods to other sources) is quite unsuitable? (Particularly for the main page - I came across this at T:TDYK.) I honestly haven't thought so far as removing the source entirely - but I do think the article needs to be written with predominantly scholarly sources, given the attention that scholars have devoted to it and given our usual standards for articles on historical and religious events. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

As I said: "significant DUE problem". It is a bit {{one source}}, but it's not extreme. It is worth remembering that this is nowhere near the worst such case we've ever cleaned up.

Don't filter your reliable sources on the basis of perceived POV: A religious scholar is every bit as much a scholar as a non-religious scholar, and on a subject of religious importance like this, there will be many more religious scholars publishing high-quality reliable sources than non-religious scholars. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have much experience in the field, so why don't you stick with more authoritative sources that are similar to the majority of scholars? Please avoid controversial opinions and stick to more authoritative scholars, like Ibn Ishaq's works has been republished by Oxford University in 2004, Ibn Kathir, and Al-Dhahabi as long as you don't take texture out of context (you know what I mean, due to previous actions). You can't just pick any source just because you like his opinions. We can't just list every author's opinions and also add them to the lead! ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 08:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

HowStuffWorks.com

Hi, I'm trying to determine if HowStuffWorks.com is a reliable source. While I realize that sites like WikiHow would be circular sourcing, HowStuffWorks.com seems like it should be a reliable source. It is an educational site with published content, and users cannot freely upload their own content. I believe it is a reliable source, but I want to get a second opinion before using it. Thanks. --TravisBernard (talk) 21:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

HowStuffWorks is owned by the entitity that is behind the Discovery channel. It should fall under WP:RS generally, but previous discussions of it on this noticeboard ([3][4]) mentioned some ways it might not be the best possible source. It's basically factual, but it's also made for entertainment. I'll just quote Blueboar verbatim: "it is probably not the most reliable source for specifics. Having seen the broadcasted TV show, I know that it often over simplifys things... I would expect the same from the website. So, if the source is contradicted by more reliable sources, I would go with the those instead." Siawase (talk) 22:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. --TravisBernard (talk) 17:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree: it meets the minimum standards for a reliable source. It is not, however, likely to be the single most authoritative source you could use. (On the other hand, sometimes a well-written article uses a diverse range of sources, so that there's something for every reader. You might use Howstuffworks.com for simple, basic facts, and a top-quality or scholarly source for the details.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed I'd rate the discovery channel as barely reliable. In other words you can use it as a source (temporarily), but you avoid it when possible.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

sputnikmusic

Is http://www.sputnikmusic.com/ a reliable site? The paid staff must approve any reviews published, so wouldn't those reviews count as reliable sources? The Wikipedia article for them at Sputnikmusic#Reviewer_stratification says Contributing Reviewers "are acknowledged as being good writers who generate content of a high quality." They don't just let anyone submit something. Whether you are paid as a writer, or volunteer, that shouldn't matter. A paid editorial staff still approves everything and these are professionally written reviews. Dream Focus 23:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Please see item #4 in the directions above. Every source, no matter how dubious, is reliable for something. If you want a useful answer, you need to give us more information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/28699/Grand-Belials-Key-Kosherat/ Are the reviews on their site reliable, even if not written by a paid staff member, as long as they are approved by one? This came up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kosherat Dream Focus 08:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

No, staff reviews only. We can generally assume that staff reviews have some objectivity. This isn't true of 'user' (i.e. fan) reviews. We have no evidence that these user reviews are endorsed in any way by Sputnik staff.--Michig (talk) 20:48, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

What Michig said. —Andrew_stalk 21:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

So you're asking whether a "user" review is useful for notability purposes, rather than to support material in the article? It might well be reliable for supporting a sentence in an article, but I wouldn't expect AFD to buy it as proof of notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Further call for comments, Busky on American Left

Greenwood Publishing Group (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Democratic Socialism: a Global Survey

Per the over-long sections above, is Busky's book RS for the article American left? All agree that it has a bias, therefore it would have to be attributed, and balanced with other accounts where they disagree. Is it usable at all in that article? Would appreciate having a number of uninvolved views. I was uninvolved at first but have been drawn in. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Donald F. Busky, Democratic socialism: a global survey, Praeger 2000. Preview available at Google Books. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:57, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, it looks like Praeger does have an editorial staff, but it's a general interest non-fiction publisher and not an academic press. Busky is an adjunct at a county college in New Jersey. That's not much in the way of credentials. I don't see much in the way of citations of the work in google, nor publications by Dr. Busky in peer reviewed journals. I'd be curious as to what would be supported by this work before making any judgement, but in general, I would say this appears to be a low quality source given the credentials of the author and the impact of the work, and I would assume that given the topic, there should be many better sources available. Of course, if there's a narrow specific point for which Busky is a source, that might work. In the way of disclosure, I haven't read the discussions above, the article or the talk page. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

What would be supported is detail of splits and resulting positions of American socialist parties, at the mainstream end of the spectrum. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

It is a book from an academic publisher providing an overview of social democratic parties throughout the world. If the book has not set the world on fire, it is because it does not present original theories, but merely summarizes in a neutral tone the generally accepted views of these parties. In any case, the issue of reliability is whether or not the facts may be relied upon. The suggestion that the author would be "dishonest" (Kiefer.Wolfowitz's term) about the divisions in social democracy in the U.S., which forms a small part of the book and obviously a small part of social democracy worldwide (for example social democrats form the major opposition parties in America's neighbors, Canada and Mexico, yet in the U.S., the three segments of the Socialist Party have together fewer than 5,000 members) is unsupported. And Kiefer.Wolfowitz has failed to find any rs that contradicts the facts presented in the book. If we are to disallow this source then we would have to disallow all sources that fall below its standards. TFD (talk) 07:19, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I am done enabling T4D, who is lying or in denial. The New York Times and Isserman's biography reported on Harrington's call for an immediate withdrawal of US military forces from Vietnam. Isserman's biography is not perfect, but it at least is a serious academic work (with the usual biases of biographies). T4D has cited Isserman only where he agrees with Busky, but omits the numerous places where Isserman contradicts Busky. It's time for T4D to recognize that the UFO did not arrive as Busky predicted.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

On what basis are you asserting that Praeger is an academic publisher? I see that they publish textbooks, and books on academic and professional topics, so I would agree that they have an educational slant, but I would not put them in the same class as, say, the Norton Critical editions or publications by John Hopkins and other academic presses.

I find myself disinterested in opinions of editors about other editors, that's not within the scope of the discussions here. I checked both WP:USEBYOTHERS and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Some_types_of_sources, and it is on the basis of those policies that I would suggest that this is not a very high quality source, although I would not argue that it is not reliable. I checked the statement in the article attributed to Busky, and as I had assumed, other sources are available--I found this, this, and this. So for the non-controvesial statement that that the DSOC and the NAM merged to form the DSA, it seems reliable enough. I would myself prefer using articles from peer reviewed journals for historical information, but the fact of the merger seems well supported. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I provided a reliable source for the merger:

In 1982 DSOC established the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) upon merging with the New American Movement, an organization of democratic socialists mostly from the New Left. (Isserman, p. 349: Isserman, Maurice (2001) The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington. New York: Perseus Books.)

I improved the description of NAM.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I wrote the following above, which I quote for your convenience:

"The Shachtmanites, called the Realignment Caucus, in the SP-SDF argued that since organized labor supported the Democratic Party, they should join the Democratic Party and transform it into a left-wing party, with the Republicans becoming a right-wing party. Further, they argued that they shouldsupport the War in Vietnam to stop Communist expansion. In 1972, they supported Senator Henry Jackson for the Democratic presidential nomination, and re-named the party Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), dropping the term "socialist". While they retained membership in the Socialist International, they supported Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election and had moved sufficiently right by 1980, that many of their members served in the Reagan administration." (Busky, pp. 163-165)

Comment: This is just nonsense. (1) The SP majority/SDUSA supported a negotiated peace in Vietnam and urged a stop to the bombing, as adopted in its 1972 Convention, which is reported in the NYT. (2) The realignment caucus, which had Harrington, had an "immediate withdrawal wing", which is discussed in Isserman's biography of Harrington. (3) Busky cites no resolution or any evidence linking the SP majority (as an organization) to the Jackson campaign: I am aware that Tom Kahn and a few other individuals supported Jackson but know of no evidence that "they" (sic.) [the SP majority] supported Jackson. (4) Busky cites no organizational document suggesting that the SP majority/SDUSA had adapted Shachtman et alia's realignment strategy. (5) The party renamed itself SDUSA, by a vote of more than 2:1, according to the NYT. (The "Shachtmanites" did not rename anything.)(6) There is no evidence in Busky of an organization support of Carter. In fact, SDUSA's leaders criticized Carter for his anti-Washington campaign, and continued to criticize him for his defense policy, for his statement that the US would have to outgrow its inordinate "fear of communism", for Andrew Young's behavior at the UN, for his terrible response to Soviet dissidents and refugees and for his failure to help Solidarity, etc. (7) Gershman served in the Reagan administration, apparently dealing with human rights at the UN, e.g. Cuba, etc.; there is no evidence that "many" of their members did.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Nobody objects to a statement that DSOC and NAM merged to form DSA. One presumes that Isserman reports this objective fact. There is no need to cite Busky.

Busky was a partisan hack and incompetent academic, who had difficulty writing English. Unfortunately, T4D followed Busky and wrote a wildly inaccurate and partisan history of the American left, one wishes naively.

WP does not require that bullshit from herbalists or phrenologists be reported in its medical articles, balanced with other views. WP should remove bullshit from its political articles, also.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't make a lot of sense of the above. We have had one view that Busky is RS for facts of party reorganisations, but not a very good source. Other than that, I am not sure what in the above is your own words, what is a direct citation of Busky, or what you think he is so very wrong about. Would you care to say here, in a short post, what you think is a better source for the history of the SDUSA in the relevant period? Itsmejudith (talk) 16:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Busky's book is not a reliable source, period. Use Isserman or the NYT, cited with links above, for the DSOC/NAM merger.

Why are you bring SDUSA up here? Look at the SDUSA article for discussions of SDUSA, which was usually discussed in terms of the activities of its members. There are plenty of unreliable sources about SDUSA, which are not cited.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:03, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Also, you appear to confuse the March 1972 convention of the Socialist Party of America with the December 1972 convention of the Social Democrats USA. Busky's book easily meets rs standards and if there are errors in the book (which there inevitably are in all reliable sources) then you need to present a source that explains events differently. TFD (talk) 17:06, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Read the NYT. Busky does not distinguish March and December conventions, and I would wish that this would be your last obfuscation defending your tendentious editing. You are defending a dishonest hack.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:13, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

(out) Here is another account from Robert A. Gorman (professor of political science at the University of Tennessee), Michael Harrington Speaking American (Routledge, 1992). "In November 1971, the Coalition Caucus [Harrington's group] requested a referendum of the Party on a motion demanding that the U.S. set an early date for withdrawal from Vietnam, but it was denied by the National Action Committee.... Harrington now [February 1973] completed the process of contrition begun ten years earlier.... [His] decade-long opposition to unconditional withdrawal was thus immoral and counterproductive. (pp. 5-6)[5] (my emphases). I look forward to your critique of the professor and his publisher and university. TFD (talk) 17:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Please stick to the issue, Busky, and stop trolling.

Gorman noted an evolution of Harrington's thought. In your account following Busky only represents his mid 1960s position and not an (important) position that led to the Harrington's resignation from SPA/SDUSA and founding DSOC.

You previously complained that too much attention was given to the 1960s and 1970s. Now, if you wish to expand on Harrington's evolution, you should first draft a passage and ask for feedback on the talk page of the article. Stop trolling and try to be productive.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I looked up Mitterrand in the book, to check if Busky had it right. It was a bit of a superficial overview, descriptive rather than analytical but basically right. Nothing odd, extremist or quirky, just what you would expect from a book that surveys all of democratic socialism across the world. I still don't understand the objection to this book, certainly not why it is so vehemently opposed. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Compare the treatment in Donald Sassoon's history of social democracy, which was favorably reviewed by Göran Therborn.

The subject of this controversy is the use of Busky for American Left (sic.) not about whether Busky is a dull but not incompetent account of Mitterand. An account that describes Harrington as being opposed to a withdrawal from Vietnam (with no dates), that suggests mis-pronouncing SDUSA as "Seduce-ah", that ascribes the reasoning "that labor is the motor of all social change", etc. is just not a reliable source. Have you read the discussion of American socialism in Busky, after reading a chapter in Isserman or Peter Drucker or the article here on Tom Kahn?

Have you looked at the history of Socialist Party USA and Social Democrats, USA and Socialist Party of America to see that these articles had severe ideological biases until a few months ago?

Please examine the talk page & history of T4D and see whether he is regarded as a NPOV editor on other articles.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Much of the above does not belong on this notice board. Kiefer.Wolfowitz, I think you should probably have a cup of tea and clam down, focus on the content and not bring up editor conduct here. We do not require that editors be neutral in their point of view, that is a policy that governs use of sources. One might argue that you have an agenda, and that's fine. But if you have a complaint about TFD, this is not an appropriate venue. If you believe that an article is not neutral, take it to the NPOV noticeboard.

No source is reliable for all statements--I believe there are two statements in the article sourced to Busky at the moment, and for the one statement I see brought up here, using him looks fine. The other one seems pretty mundane, are you asserting that for the two statements attributed to Busky that he is not reliable? --Nuujinn (talk) 01:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Busky is an unreliable source on American socialism, a topic which has a surfeit of sources, many of which are reliable. It would be better to cite Isserman or another reliable source on DSOC; an editor here found several reliable sources (e.g. NYT) for the DSOC/NAM merger.

I am unaware of any reliable sources for the Socialist Party USA, because it seems to have been even smaller and less influential than DSOC/DSA and SDUSA even before 2000. It may be permissible to cite Busky on SPUSA, as long as his unreliability and as long as his self-disclosed COI is noted, e.g. by quoting his self-disclosure of a COI. I shall look for an alternative description.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, many sources are reliable for all their statements. You may wish to study competent books or articles in mathematics or logic, for example. In history, Richard Pipes was careful with his sources while Isaac Deutcher was not. Peter Drucker's biography of Shachtman seems very careful. Isserman's biography of Harrington is careful and usually accurate.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

(out) Kiefer.Wolfowitz, Busky said that the Realignment Caucus in the SP-SDF believed that "labor was the motive of all social change". He did not say that he supported that belief. Do you understand the difference between explaining someone's beliefs and advocating them onself? TFD (talk) 06:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

TfD, You should review the use of "all". Burlesquing others' positions wastes others' times and distinguishes pseudoacademic charlatans from scholars. It is unusual for academic histories to suggest ridiculous mis-pronounciations of organizational names, "SDUSA, pronounced Seduce-ah", also. Stop wasting time with fallacies and distractions.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

This to-and-fro and this hostile language does nothing to encourage editors to work together to improve the articles. Can we draw a line under it now please. My reading of the passage was the same as TfD's, that Busky was reporting the views of others, not his own views. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:13, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Busky was distorting others' views, despite their being well documented. His bias is shown also in the suggestion of mispronouncing "SDUSA" and many malicious errors. Busky not a reliable source about the SPA or DSOC-DSA or SDUSUA. (Let us wish that he got some facts about the history of SPUSA correct.)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

How is SDUSA pronounced? TFD (talk) 18:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Like "SPUSA" or "DSA" or "South Dakota, USA": Namely "SD–USA". It's just the ABCs.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Not at issue here. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Consensus?

• Busky seems to be unreliable for the history of the Socialist Party of America/Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) and of Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) / Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
• Support (I further fear that Busky is unreliable or at best low quality for his discussion of parties and movements associated with social democracy/democratic socialism in Europe and the Americas (outside the USA), for which Sassoon's tome is the standard reference.) Busky seems reliable for factual statements about his own party, the Socialist Party of the United States of America (usually abbreviated as "Socialist Party, USA", SPUSA), despite his declaration of a conflict of interest as a SPUSA officer in its preface.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Is the Band Dethklok considered "Brutal Death Metal"

One of the genres listed for Dethklok listed is "brutal death metal", and the source given for it is this http://www.unratedmagazine.com/bios/_artists.cfm?band_id=1620. In the article it states "The soundtrack for season one was released, appropriately titled "The Dethalbum" and it debuted at #21 on the Billboard chart. The highest debut/chart position ever for a death metal album. This isn't a typical sugar coated High School Musical/Miley Cyrus pre-teen snot fest that routinely rules the charts, this is a brutal death metal album (even though the lyrics deal with coffee and mermaids, but who's complaining?)."

One of the editors belives that when it states "this is a brutal death metal album", that the author is specifying the genre. But I think that by "brutal death metal" the author meant a death metal album that was "brutal". We're trying to reach a consensus. Davidravenski (talk) 13:35, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

First I'd say, what's the difference, it's redundant. Second any such classification would be based on opinion because it results from subjective scrutiny. Unless the vast amount of sources who've heard it say it's either brutal, Death Metal or Brutal Death Metal, there's no point arguing it. --BETA 14:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't really understand the previous reply. My take is that "death metal" is a genre, and if Unrated magazine is a magazine that regularly reviews this kind of music, then it is a reliable source for the genre being "death metal". Is there a genre "brutal death metal"? I really doubt it. If there is, then you will find more than one band has been described in this way, by a number of sources. A band can't have a genre on its own. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

ISRAELITE.INFO

Hello Everyone, can < http://www.israelite.info/ > be used as a reference? Thanks! Sincerely:Abstruce (talk) 20:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

What for? Looking at the site, I see nothing to suggest that they would be reliable for anything but their own opinions. It appears to be a website run by some obscure group with strange (but not unique) views regarding the 'Tribes of Israel': "ETHIC believes the modern descendants of the biblical ten tribes of Israel (the house of Israel) are found mostly, but not exclusively, in the nations of modern Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, North America, Australia, New Zealand and portions of other nations". [6] Tosh, but tosh with a long history - if you are looking for a modern source to quote on this bit of nonsense, then no doubt they'll do, but otherwise, not reliable for the day of the week. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank You for Your valuable time, in answering My query. Sincerely: Abstruce (talk) 21:07, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Progressivism

Progressivism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

An editor continues to insert individuals into the Progressivism article and refuses to provide any sources.[7] His comment was "removing non-NPOV vandalism targeting my edits, nut no others. Additions sourced within the WP links they lead to". He said on the talk page, "After researching TFD's long history of standing guard on his favorite political pages, ensuring that his thinly-veiled leftist ideology gets bullied through, this incident is starting to make more sense." Despite being an IP, this is a long term editor who was previously posted unsourced edits relating to the U.S. president's nationality[8] and has argued against the description of the John Birch Society by a "liberal professor at some liberal university".[9]

TFD (talk) 06:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Aftenposten as reliable source about Israel

The above mentioned Norwegian newspaper has described one of the sites that Norway mass killer was most active on (dokument.no) as "anti Muslim and Israel friendly". The problem is that first, it's the single source I could find that describes this site as "Israel friendly"-though it can be that some users there are Israel friendly, it doesn't seem to be what defined the site (rather the site is about anti Islamic ideology and against immigration to Europe). The British Telegraph for instance called "anti Islamic"[10] or "anti Islamic and anti immigration". The Aftenposten is considered as controversial at least in its opinions about Jews [11] and about Israel [12]. So given that virtually Aftenposten is single source in defining document.no as "Israel friendly" and given that such argument would need better sources, less controversial of course, would it be safe to tell that this source is not valid to define in several of Wikipedia articles document.no as Israel friendly site?--Gilisa (talk) 09:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

That's not a question of reliability, I think, but rather a question of due weight which should be dealt with on the article's talk page. If the majority of sources characterize the site as "anti Muslim" but do not characterize the site as "Israel friendly", or if being Israel friendly doesn't not factor into the killings directly (I have no idea myself, I've been on vacation the last few days), I would suggest the latter doesn't meet due weight. www.jcpa.org and www.jpost.com might be considered controversial by some groups, and controversy does not negate reliability. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

It truly doesn't matter if the JP and JPCA org are controversial to some if the Aftenposten published one of its edition with the title that rich Jews have bought Obama, sometimes WP: spade is a spade applies. Not to mention anti Semitic caricatures that were published in this daily. The question is of specific source (i.e., Aftenposten) being adequate for Israeli or Jewish matters. The answer is no. As for pro Israeli view and the killings: no connection. The killer believed he's in crusade to save the western society, especially the European one.--Gilisa (talk) 10:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Leave the description out, at least for now. WP:RECENT applies. Aftenposten and the Daily Telegraph are both reliable mainstream newspapers, but all the media are still piecing together the relationships between the mass murderer and various ideologues and groups. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Sources

I was wondering if these sources are realiable.

Euro rivals here to show how popular a football club is.

Scottish football grounds here for information and facts. Monkeymanman (talk) 12:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Eurorivals is clearly not RS, from their site: "This chart shows the most popular clubs in the world on eurorivals.net. Clubs are ranked on a combination of total Facebook likes, and how many times each football club is viewed on eurorivals.net". Scottish Football Ground appears to be self-published by Duncan Adams and so falls under WP:SPS and shouldn't be used unless you can establish that Adams is an expert recognised or referenced in reliable 3rd-part sources. Maccy69 (talk) 12:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Is a Library of Congress entry enough to meet our RS criteria?

At Talk:Feaster an editor is claiming that this privately published work "The Robert Coleman Family from Virginia to Texas 1652 - 1965 " [13] can be used as a source. Now it's a very nice piece of work and I'm sure the families involved like it very much, but it is privately published. There's a claim that it is actually published backed by a reference in the Library of Congress Catalog but that doesn't show anything that meets our criteria. The web version says "Privately Published in 1965 by JAMES P. COLEMAN, Ackerman, Mississippi Manufactured in the United States of America by Kingsport Press, Inc., Kingsport, Tenn." [14]. Dougweller (talk) 19:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Under U.S. law all writers may register their copyrights with the United States Copyright Office, and a copy of the work is then deposited in the Library of Congress. That does not elevate it to rs. TFD (talk) 19:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Being in a library (congress or not) has nothing to do with reliability whatsoever.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

...and neither does being 'published'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

That depends what statement it is being used to support. A catalog entry should be sufficient to say that The Work With This Title was published in the year 1984 at such and such place and attributed to Anne Author. Beyond that, statements hinge on the reliability of the work, not of its catalogued metadata.LeadSongDog come howl! 21:25, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Yup. WorldCat and LOC are irrelevant; they attest merely the book's existence, but that's never what anyone comes to RSN to talk about. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It's being used as a general source for information about a family/families. at Feaster. Dougweller (talk) 06:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

And the editor arguing the point was a sock puppet now blocked, but I'm still interested in the discussion. Dougweller (talk) 06:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It is verifiable but very much a primary source. No notability of any sort is given to the contents. One of my uncles wrote a history of the family, if it had been published instead of being burnt by my grandmother only the bits a secondary source noted would be of any interest at large. Dmcq (talk) 12:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Is a report from a non-free commercial resource reliable?

Here's the citation: Forex Magnates Retail Forex Market Quarterly Report for Q1 2011 (Report). Forex Magnates. 2011.

[15]

The article in which it is being used Price action trading

The exact statement in the article that the source is supporting -

The implementation of price action analysis is difficult, requiring the gaining of experience under live market conditions. There is every reason to assume that the percentage of price action speculators who fail, give up or lose their trading capital will be similar to the percentage failure rate across all fields of speculation. According to widespread folklore / urban myth, this is 90%, although commercially available analysis of data from US brokers' 2011 regulatory disclosures puts the figure for failed accounts at around 70% in that quarter and suggests this is typical.[3]

where 3 refers to the citation above.

Links to relevant talk page discussion [16] (first to third paragraphs)

Details: the data from the brokers regulatory disclosures is newly available since the passing of a US law making it a requirement. It appears that this company forexmagnates and their website are only as old as this law. Does the company or website have to be more established than this to count as reliable? Does this appear to be a reliable source? Thanks for the help. --Ahardy66 (talk) 22:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

If it is self-published, then the answer is no. Reports about the contents of the report by third-parties would be reliable for what the report says, but the report itself is simply opinion. This looks like spam intended to entice the user to part with $250. Yworo (talk) 23:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately from the website it does look very much like spam - the website has been set up as a driver to sell, with the assumption that the usual clicheed sales patter and dumb images will help the sales. However there is actually useful information in that report - it isn't spam, despite appearances. I won't go into detail here about why the information in the report is good and useful, that would be more appropriate on the talk page for the article. What I would like to know however is what makes a (slick) commercial site reliable? There are apparently companies selling research articles on the financial sector. To quote @Sposer

if they are known in the business, and like firms such as Tabb Group, Aite, etc., are known quantities, then it is reasonable to link to their report

So what I'm asking is, how do I determine if they are "known in the business"?--Ahardy66 (talk) 08:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Concur with Yworo. Quoting Sposer is not as significant as quoting policy. White papers and similar SPS should only be used for the most uncontroversial information, as we would regard them as unreliable for anything else. If they are quoting from sources we would consider reliable, try backtracking to those sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

AlienBabeltech

Is this website - alienbabeltech.com - a reliable source that can be used for criticism of tech products? Specifically, I am concerned with an article by one of their anonymous contributors, identified only as "BFG10K, video editor", being used as a source to claim performance problems on an Nvidia chip in this article: GeForce 400 Series Jeff Song (talk) 00:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Am I a reliable source for myself?

Hypothetical 1- I've gotten noticed enough to get a Wikipedia article, I guess it doesnt matter what I've done I could be anything from a philanthropist to a full-on rapist (gotta watch Always Sunny in Philadelphia to get that joke I suppose). Now most newspapers rely on either Bloomberg or the AP for national/international stories, even the big names; lets suppose they get my age wrong. Now every single reliable source we can find shows me to be younger/older than I am. Encyclopedia's normally have birthdates, so to have it in an article about me is encyclopedic. So can I, as a veteran Wikipedia editor, who now sees someone has made an article about me, change my age/add my birthdate based on... well, because I said so, or not much better- "my Mother was THERE and she says so", or even quite a bit better- I have these things called a driver's license and a birth certificate (but those are primary sources). Could I- A) prove my identity to someone and get my word taken at face value; B) scan and give you the primary documents proving my age and those primary sources would be ok to over-ride the secondary.

Not-as-hypothetical-I'd like to, if I continue to not find it in Wikipedia, create an article on the "South Carolina Bandit" who robbed banks 2-3 years ago throughout the South and Midwest, ending in his capture in Missouri which was covered nationally and even internationally including by America's Most Wanted. Many of the secondary sources, newspapers and such, have outright wrong information. I know because I was there and witnessed his capture personally. America's Most Wanted did the best job of getting it right (partly because they were the only one's I gave an interview to). Now, I have that episode on my DVR but unless I let another editor over to my house (no, you cant), how is an episode of a tv show that doesnt do repeats as far as I know going to be verifiable? Can I use the episode as a source? And hypothetically if they got his age wrong, would I be able to use the copy of his driver's license as primary evidence to prove them wrong (see above hypothetical question; and yes I do have a copy of his driver's license, and no it's not illegal).Camelbinky (talk) 04:54, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Well you are primary source for yourself. Whether your information can be considered reliable and the primary source be used in the article depends on the exact information and its context. Also important is, that to be considered as a primary source about yourself, you still need to publish somewhere externally (your personal blog, website, face book, book, interview) or alternatively a letter to wp, that allows a reliable identification.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought that any source has to be verifiable. One question if you have got a page on wikipedia that means you are notable, so why not ask the third party sources to correct the errors? If you are notable surely they would do this?Slatersteven (talk) 13:02, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

In both the hypothetical and especially the not-so-hypothetical we'll say that the newspaper coverage occured long enough ago that no newspaper cares at this point to bother. And it is not like books that are published can go around putting out "oops! correction" notices.Camelbinky (talk) 14:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Well I susepct that there are issue here that should be rasied elsewehre.Slatersteven (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Where do you suggest, these are hypotheticals about RS's... if not the RS/N where? You do realize these are hypotheticals right?Camelbinky (talk) 15:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Until we see what the article says (and more importantly the sources) it’s hard to say. But I can see issues of notability being raised (so the notability notice board would be a good start) and Not news cropping up.Slatersteven (talk) 16:02, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

This seems similar to previous discussions:[17][18] Siawase (talk) 16:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see that being a long-standing editor on Wikipedia makes a person any more reliable as a source. ANybody can provide primary source material about their own age, it's not a contentious thing. As to witnessing a crime there's loads of studies showing how bad witnesses are. Dmcq (talk) 17:41, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Jihad

This has been a debate for a long time. Is this source] reliable to say, "According to BBC...". By the way, the link is not from BBC News, and BBC has many documentaries and interviews with scholars and individuals...etc on multiple educational subjects. ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 18:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why not. The BBC is, in general, reliable, and they put disclaimers on pages deemed less so. It's probably not the best source - there will be plenty of discussion in the academic literature - but it seems to be ok. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

This is not specifically a question about an unreliable source but of giving undue weight to a less reliable source, and thereby not keeping with WP:NPOV. The BBC source has been contested in this discussion Talk:Jihad#Rules of war according to Islamic law in disharmony with BBC's strict rules and the source that makes assertions somewhat contrary (and in my opinion very substantial) to BBC is this book that I have argued is more reliable. Davidelah (talk) 18:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Your proposed source is over 50 years old (it's a modern reprint of a 1955 edition). I really would not use this book on a topic which has seen plenty of recent coverage. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Secundary sources regarding religious topics is allowed to be very old as far as I can tell from the the guidelines WP:RSEX#Religious sources. I haven't been able to find that many books about rules of war in Islamic teachings by a Muslim author, but maybe the other user can find a book with a more modern interpretation of them, as it seem to me that the book of Majid Khadduri covers the classical rules as established through most of history. This would also be in line with the policy that we should explain the development of a religion in history. Davidelah (talk) 20:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)