Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

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

Can we please adapt the Daily Mail consensus to reflect a position on Mail on Sunday?

The applicability of the Daily Mail ban to the Mail on Sunday has bee raised multiple times, and yet many editors are labouring under the impression that it does. These are the facts (briefly):

1. The Daily Mail (including its website) was proscribed in 2017 in an RFC: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_220#Daily_Mail_RfC. There was no mention of Mail on Sunday being subject to this ban.
2. This ban was reaffirmed the following year: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_255#2nd_RfC:_The_Daily_Mail. Again, there is no mention of the Mail on Sunday.
3. The examples brought forward that led to the ban came from The Daily Mail or Mailonline, not the Mail on Sunday from what I can see.
4. Mail on Sunday is not just a sunday edition of The Daily Mail, it is editorially independent i.e. different editors, different writers. Occasionally they even adopt opposing positions (such as on Brexit). They are different newspapers but with a common ownership.
5. Mailonline publishes content from The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and its own stuff.

The question of the Mail on Sunday has been raised on several occasions:

1. At Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_278#Does_WP:Dailymail_apply_to_the_Mail_on_Sunday the prevailing opinion (summarised by Andy Dingley) is that the ban does not cover the Mail on Sunday namely because it is not stated to apply.
2. At Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_280#Daily_Mail_(sigh,_yes,_again) Newslinger also notes that Mail on Sunday is unaffected by the ban.
3. At Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_311#Clarification:_Does_Daily_Mail_RfC_apply_to_the_Mail_on_Sunday? we have a discussion that explicitly tackles this question, but does not explicitly answer it. Mazca observes that the two publications are editorially independent. He also comments that there is an argument that MoS shares many of the same reliability issues as its sister publication, and that the ban that applies to the online platform acts as a "de facto barrier" to MoS.
4. We now have a situation with David Gerard purging Mail on Sunday references from Wikipedia: see [1], [2], [3] just for a few examples. There are dozens more.

I certainly don't dispute that an argument exists that the Mail on Sunday shares the same reliability issues as its sister publication, as noted by Mazca, but the key word here is argument. The case has not been successfully prosecuted, which must surely mean that the ban does not apply to the MoS if we accept the prevailing opinion they are editorially independent publications. I also don't dispute Mazca's statement that the proscription of the online platform (that houses some MoS content) acts as a de facto barrier. It is statement of fact. If we can't cite Mailonline then the print version of the newspaper must be consulted directly. But Mazca does not state whether the Daily Mail ban explicitly applies to the Mail on Sunday or not. It is certainly being interpreted as such by David Gerard.

I am pinging in all the editors who closed the two Daily Mail RFCs: @Yunshui, Primefac, Sunrise, Jo-Jo Eumerus, Tazerdadog, Vanamonde93, and Ymblanter:.

I appreciate everybody is tired of debating these damn newspapers but can we PLEASE reach a point where the Daily Mail ban either explicitly states it applies to the Mail on Sunday or explicitly states that it does NOT apply to the Mail on Sunday?? If the ban is to encompass the Mail on Sunday then we should proceed with replacing the sources in an orderly fashion. Ripping out content (which is probably 99% good) is not constructive and detrimental to building an encyclopedia. Betty Logan (talk) 09:56, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

As the asker of the clarification request, I understood the result of the discussion as: “MOS is not included in the DM RfCs, but may suffer from the same issues. A new RfC will be required to come to a determination on its status.” Obvious question is: what until then? If it’s got the same reliability issues, we wouldn’t want it being used on wiki, and I doubt there’s much community energy for an RfC on this niche case. I think it’s thus appropriate to treat it with questionable reliability, but not as explicitly deprecated. But I don’t care enough either way. Someone like Newslinger may be better placed to answer the procedural issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:27, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your concerns. I have seen David Gerard's newest approach to the Daily Mail topic. He has now proceeded to strip anything published by the DMG Media company in the past two week. He his now removing the Mail on Sunday, Irish Daily Mail, and Irish Mail on Sunday. The reliable source noticeboard needs to deal with this topic, since numerous long term editors, who have spent years on this project, are being insulted left and right by this automated process. Since, the reliable source noticeboard is what is providing the cover for these actions, the board needs to be very precise about the decisions it is taking. And as far as the Mail on Sunday, no it is not included under the Daily Mail deprecation. Many of us editors who create the content obviously have access to outside newspaper databases and do not need to use the website www.dailymail.co.uk --Guest2625 (talk) 11:02, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

This seems like an overly procedural argument. If they have the same reliability, why the need for endless debates on it? According to WP:RS, part of the core content policy, unreliable sources should not be used (with narrow exceptions, but that's not what we're dealing with here). (t · c) buidhe 11:36, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Also note that there is no assumption that a source is reliable, the WP:ONUS is on those seeking to restore disputed content is to show that the source is reliable. So I ask, what is the evidence that Mail on Sunday, Irish Daily Mail, etc. are reliable sources? (t · c) buidhe 11:38, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Have we not just had this very discussion?Slatersteven (talk) 12:30, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

The prohibition on citing dailymail.co.uk in practice provides a significant de facto barrier to using the Mail on Sunday as a source is what the last discussion said, and your laughable content (which is probably 99% good) flies in the face of reality.

numerous long term editors, who have spent years on this project, are being insulted left and right by this automated process I'd say that the Wikipedia readers are being insulted by the numerous long-term editors using shitty sources, and I know whose side I'm on. --Calton | Talk 12:49, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Citing dailymail.co.uk is indeed a barrier to citing the Mail on Sunday. But it is a technical barrier. In the same way if Wikipedia were only to insist on hardcopy citations. It is misguided to suggest that the MoS is not reliable purely because some of its content is reproduced at MailOnline. On the other hand, it may be reasonable to suggest that it is not reliable because it is plagued by the same problems as Daily Mail. In fairness I am putting a simple question to the administrators who closed the two Daily Mail RFCs: does the consensus also apply to the Mail on Sunday? Some of you may consider this overly procedural. Maybe it is, but I wouldn't be asking if an editor were not deleting vast amounts of content on entirely procedural grounds. Betty Logan (talk) 13:32, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

If anybody in that discussion had made that "barrier" argument, it would have been countered, just as Betty Logan has done, by saying there is a print edition. But nobody did make that argument, or anything remotely similar to it, so "barrier" is not a reflection of consensus, it is merely the closer's opinion. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:18, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that the MoS is a reliable source for anything? Reassuringly, the Sunday Mail doesn't seem to be subject to the restrictions, but as it's a tabloid I wouldn't tend to think of it as a RS. . . dave souza, talk 14:43, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Betty Logan has neglected to link the cause of the present discussion: she used this unreliable tabloid source to reinsert controversial claims about living people, sourced only to this unreliable tabloid, at List of snooker players investigated for match-fixing - apparently in the belief that using this trash source is acceptable as long as it isn't specifically deprecated.

I mentioned this in talk, Betty Logan blindly put the content back after without responding to the material having been challenged (thus not meeting WP:BURDEN, and then claimed the question I raised in talk was about WP:DAILYMAIL rather than her deliberately edit-warring in a reference to an unreliable source when making claims about living people.

I would suggest that even if the MoS is not covered by WP:DAILYMAIL - and not a word of either RFC's conclusion supports it being excluded, and nor does the result of the discussion, which concluded a carve-out would likely need a fresh RFC - that this is WP:POINTy behaviour, and material concerning living persons is absolutely not the place to be doing that - David Gerard (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

My primary concern is your interpretation of the RFC consensus. I have raised this same issue with you prior to this latest incident: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_299#dailymail.co.uk_reversion:_eyes_wanted. Your contribution history shows you were engaged in a purge of the Mail on Sunday and justifying it using the Daily Mail RFC. I don't see any attempts to locate an alternative source or raise the issue on the talk page. Removing content in this manner is destructive. Betty Logan (talk) 17:18, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

If you ever think unreliable tabloids are a suitable source for material about living people, you have greatly misunderstood Wikipedia sourcing, and what constitutes "destructive". You appear both unable and unwilling to back up the content you want to edit-war back in, under WP:BURDEN - David Gerard (talk) 17:39, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

You keep calling it "unreliable" but I have not seen any evidence for that position. During the Daily Mail RFC examples were presented of The Daily Mail or its website fabricating stories. Are you able to provide such examples of the MoS doing so? THis IPSI report (page 18) shows that in terms of upheld complaints it is comparable to other other publications in its category. The Sunday Times had more complaints upheld than MoS but I don't see you objecting to that title. It is fairly obvious to me that your actions are motiviated by an agenda against The Daily Mail rather than any objective assessment of MoS's reliability. Betty Logan (talk) 08:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Speaking as a closer rather than someone who had an a priori opinion on the source; no, the DM RfCs do not extend to the Mail on Sunday, and citing the DM proscription as a reason to remove the Mail on Sunday source isn't appropriate. Conversely, just because it isn't proscribed by the DM RfC does not make the Mail on Sunday a reliable source by default, and the spirit of WP:BURDEN still applies to any content that it is used for, in that the person seeking to include that content needs to demonstrate verifiability. To be honest, for contentious material sourced to the news media, I would want multiple corroborating sources always, unless the first source is of unimpeachable quality. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:02, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

  I've already spoken (and answered) this exact question, but to (again) reiterate, I'm with Vanamonde on this: the RFC related to the Daily Mail and the Daily Mail only. The fact that they share a website is problematic, but if a reference is for the Mail on Sunday then it is inherently not a reference for the Daily Mail. Primefac (talk) 17:59, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

  Agree with Vanamonde and Primefac above - The Mail on Sunday was not covered in the RFCs, and it can be argued seriously (and probably correctly) that it is a fundamentally different source. Therefore the DM RFC does not cover the Mail on Sunday. If you think that the Mail on Sunday is a bad source that should be deprecated or otherwise restricted, you are free to open a fresh RFC to find consensus on that. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:45, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

  I still stand by my comment at User talk:Primefac/Archive 29#The Daily Mail RfC, Again, i.e no unless MoS is part of DM the RfC on the latter does not apply. That's a separate question than whether it's a good idea to use MoS as a reference for something. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:00, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Mail on Sunday

What is the reliability of The Mail on Sunday?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Responses (Mail on Sunday)

• Option 4 The content on mailonline (at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/mailonsunday/index.html) seems to be no different and inseparable from the rest of the outlet, Peter Hitchens has reported favourably on the Douma chemical attack leaks, which are discredited by most mainstream sources. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Even for news stories, there's no separate subdomain for MoS stories and the bylines say "for Mailonline", the only way you'd be able to definitively know whether it was a MoS story would be by checking the actual physical newspaper, which wikipedians aren't going to be citing anyway. The TV&Showbiz section which editors find to be the most problematic is displayed right with the news on the MoS section. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:53, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

The MoS has its own separate domain, https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/, but it's only been cited 11 times per mailonsunday.co.uk  , and provides no separation from the TV&Showbiz section https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/tvshowbiz/index.html, which appears to be the same as the rest of the mailonline, and the website functions as more of a mirror than anything else. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:58, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

As I write this on a weekday, The content of mailonsunday.co.uk is identical to that of dailymail.co.uk, making it for all intents and purposes a mirror of MailOnline, and so therefore mailonsunday.co.uk should be added to the deprecated domains list regardless of the outcome of the RfC. If the Mail on Sunday is not deprecated, it should be allowed to be cited as a print reference only. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:18, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 I regard Mail on Sunday reliable for the following reasons:

1. It has editorial oversight. independent from The Daily Mail and the website.
2. It has been established that the DM ban does not apply to MoS.
3. During the Daily Mail RFC, examples of the DM fabricating stories were presented. I do not recall any from the MoS.
4. Other reliable sources reference it.
5. The number of complaints upheld by IPSI report (page 18) is comparable to other publications in its category that are generally regarded as reliable sources. The Sunday Times, for example, had more complaints upheld than MoS.
6. MailOnline (which is already proscribed) is a separate entity. It houses content from The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday but also publishes its own content. This does not confer unreliability on the MoS. This is nothing more than a technical barrier and the print edition can be cited directly.

It may get things wrong occasionally but no more than other comparable titles. No evidence of it fabricating stories has been presented and an objective measure shows that its level of accurate reporting is comparable to other titles deemed reliable. The arguments presented in the above discussion invariably boil down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT and a misunderstanding of the relationship between the Sunday and daily editions and the website. Betty Logan (talk) 09:31, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

There's a couple of lists now of egregious fabrication - please address these (with more case by case specifics than "I feel like it's no worse than others"), even a little bit of this sort of thing seems a massive red flag that would rule it out as being treated as an ordinary WP:NEWSORG - David Gerard (talk) 12:34, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

There are no lists of fabricated stories, just lists of stories that were proven to be factually inaccurate. For example, the story about a "Muslim" gang attacking a van was not fabricated. The incident happened! The MOS was forced to adjust the article because the religion of the perpetrators was based on conjecture. The story about climate change that was prcolaimed "fake news" wasn't fabricated if you look at the article, it was simply inaccurate. Again, the level of complaints upheld against it is not significantly different to other titles, such as The Sunday Times. Betty Logan (talk) 13:33, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

They've been provided right here in this discussion - fabrication of claims, extensive fabrication of quotes, etc - but if you want to pretend they don't exist and think "lalala I can't hear you" and "but whatabout that other paper we're not discussing" is a refutation, you can certainly stay with that. If you want to discuss the Sunday Times, you should start an RFC on that. (And if you didn't actually want to discuss the Sunday Times, then your discussion of it so far is indistinguishable from throwing up chaff.) - David Gerard (talk) 13:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, the meat of Betty's argument isn't so much that there isn't any incorrect information, just that there isn't any more incorrect information than papers we tend to consider reliable. They aren't saying they 'feel like it's no worse than others' but that there's empirical evidence that it isn't. Bringing up other papers we consider reliable isn't irrelevant. The problem is that the empirical evidence presented is extremely flimsy: the IPSO report is on the number of articles which received complaints, not how accurate they are. The report itself says "newspapers with the highest circulation [...] received the most complaints." It doesn't tell us anything. I was unable to find any empirical reports on the reliability of the Mail on Sunday specifically (if there were any I imagine there'd be no discussion), and all fact-checking websites treat it alongside the Daily Mail. Wikipedia seems to be alone in considering it separately. I think the false information already presented is egregious enough to warrant Option 4 and if other sources we consider reliable have done the same we should stop considering them reliable too. Iesbian (talk) 18:36, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

You're making this seem a lot more reasonable than it is. An outlet that bases significant information on conjecture is not reliable. Other outlets we consider reliable don't do that. Iesbian (talk) 18:42, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 - it's the same trash from the same sewer, and it always has been - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. Obviously. Examples of false stories published specifically in the Mail on Sunday: In all cases, they only ever published corrections months later when forced to by the Independent Press Standards Organisation. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 10:56, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

These are not fabricated stories. They are stories containing inaccuracies. Statistically speaking, the MOS on average contains no more inaccuracies than something like The Sunday Times. It had two complaints upheld in 2018: https://www.ipso.co.uk/media/1823/ipso-annual-report-2018.pdf#page=10. Should we proscribe The Sunday Times as well because five complaints were upheld over the same period? Betty Logan (talk) 13:38, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

The false claims are central to the story in every example I've given. IPSO only deals with cases that get referred to them by members of the public and the inaccuracies they investigate can vary in severity which is why we're looking at specific examples. If you can find similarly many examples of egregious journalism in The Times, we can have a discussion about them as well. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 17:49, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

False or misrepresentative claims usually are central to inaccurate stories. I am not defending these articles. I am pleased the beautician won her case! But are any of your examples more egregious than this sequence of Times stories: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43887481. It is worth noting that of the 69 stories that received complaints only two were ultimately upheld. The remainder were either not taken up, resolved through other means, or IPSO found in favor of the MoS. I take on board your point that the IPSO cases are just a sample and not a comprehensive vetting of MoS's output, but that is true of the other publications they have ranked too. I think these examples would carry more weight if this were a discussion about a class of sources i.e. a discussion about raising the bar on what constitutes a reliable source. But this is not about raising the bar; it is about purging one particular source that sampled evidence shows is not disproportionately worse than rival titles in the market. Betty Logan (talk) 23:53, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 The above is enough for me to say 4, rather then 2 or 3.Slatersteven (talk) 11:10, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 Complete trash, per ReconditeRodent and others. This is lipstick on the Daily Mail. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:22, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 – these are not just "stories containing inaccuracies", on the global warming "pause" it made allegations of malpractice while ignoring evidence, and as noted above was eventually forced to publish online the IPSO finding that instead it had based the article on misrepresenting a blog post. Similar misreporting appeared in the MoS in 2012. . . dave souza, talk 17:38, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

References

• Option 4: There are dozens of examples of Mail on Sunday fabrications, but I will list just one, featured in Vogue: Meghan Markle Responds to a Set of Tabloid Rumors --Guy Macon (talk) 20:22, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Bad RfC. The list from dave souza above looks like 11 transgressions until you notice that 7 are about the same David Rose article in 2017. The list from David Gerard below is over-the-top with its accusations, e.g. being in fifth place for complaints just ahead of The Guardian doesn't show anything as others have already indicated, and there were no "fabricated claims of anti-Semitism" (the Mail on Sunday did not say Mr Livingstone was anti-Semitic), etc. But the lists do show that Mail on Sunday publishes corrections, and (see WP:RS) "publication of corrections" is a good signal. They are sometimes forced by IPSO but that is a good thing too, the British newspapers that refuse to join IPSO are the contemptible ones if that's what matters. Mail on Sunday is a "well-established news outlet" so WP:NEWSORG tells us it "is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact", so voting to censor it is a demand to violate WP:RS. Option 4 should not have been proposed. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 01:22, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Here is the article Peter Gulutzan is referring to: Ken Livingstone stokes new Labour anti-Semitism row after dismissing problem as 'lies and smears peddled by ghastly Blairites'. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:43, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Bad counting. Peter Gulutzan at 01:22, 13 September 2020 wrote "The list from dave souza above looks like 11 transgressions until you notice that 7 are about the same David Rose article in 2017" The list was started with 7 items by ReconditeRodent at 10:56, 12 September 2020, and I added four items, two of which were articles covering the same incorrect article by David Rose already covered in item 3 on the list, and mentioned along with other incorrect articles of his in item 4 on the list. I'd already researched it independently, so added my items and tried to indicate two were on the same topic, but evidently not clear enough. In total, the list of 11 items covers 12 transgressions, that is 12 separate articles published by the MoS, some of them repeating false claims by David Rose. Appreciate it's a bit complicated, so miscounting is understandable if rather careless. Hope the following list helps to clarify things. . . dave souza, talk 18:27, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

list for clarification:

1. 31 August 2014, ‘The Mail on Sunday’ featured an article by David Rose which claimed that the rate of decline in Arctic sea ice extent had slowed.

2. MoS accusation "Muslim" gangs 25 July 2015, corrected to just a "gang of youths" 18 September 2015

3. 4–5 February 2017 MoS alleged "World leaders duped by manipulated global warming data", 18 September 2017 MoS forced to publish IPSO correction

4. as 3., plus two subsequent articles on February 12 and February 19 repeated the claims, 22 April 2018 page 2 of MoS print edition concede incorrect, "Corrections to these articles have been published online."
Article also noted IPSO complaints upheld against two other articles.

5. MoS 29 September 2018 "Number 10 probes Remain MPs’ ‘foreign collusion'"

6. MoS June 2019 false claim about "Labour's tax plans", IPSO ruled inaccurate in November, publication of the correction delayed until after the election.

7. MoS December 2017 "rogue beauticians" story, IPSO upheld complaint but correction on wrong page, June 2019, Associated Newspapers agreed to pay damages.

8 article and correction as 3

9 article and correction as 3

10 MoS 29 January 2012 "no warming in last 15 years", refuted by Met Office

11 MoS 14 October 2012 second article claiming "no warming in last 15 years", refuted by Met Office

dave souza, talk 18:27, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

References

• Option 2 - depends on context and whether the discussion is conflating items. The article says this the largest WEIGHT such publication so seems a bit much to exclude it, and seems in the category of popular press so I’m thinking it reasonable to cite for that context and folks are trying to consider it outside the context it would/should be used. Seems obviously “Generally” reliable in the sense of usually having the criteria of editorial control and publication norms and accessibility, and the bulk of stories factual correctness is not in particular question. I don’t think anyone here has put it as the category of 3 generally self-published or blog or sponsored pieces. Category 4 seems excessive - false or fabricated doesn’t seem a correct characterization if people are having to go back to 2012 and 2014 for cases to discuss. Also, much of the discussion above seems to be confusing https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/ and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/mailonsunday/ with https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ or that none of these are actually The Mail on Sunday. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:09, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
• Categorise the same as the Daily Mail: there's no substantial difference between the two paper's journalistic values and fact-checking processes, and hence this RfC should not be able to override the stronger, more global consensus to deprecate the Daily Mail. As a second resort, if we are to categorise the Mail on Sunday differently then we must categorise it as option 4 per the compelling evidence presented by ReconditeRodent and David Gerard that it is established practice at the paper to lie and suppress corrections wherever legally possible. — Bilorv (talk) 21:43, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 – 2 - Requires scrutiny but a respected paper that has done much serious reporting unavailable elsewhere. The majority of advocates for "deprecating" the MoS are the same "it's the Daily Mail" line even though it in fact has its own website i.e. Mail on Sunday and a totally separate editorial staff. Ownership by the same company has little if any relevance. Basing your vote on carefully ignoring the facts seems unreasonable to me. Cambial Yellowing❧ 07:02, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4, same or substantially the same editorial policy and authors. Stifle (talk) 12:18, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

This is an incorrect statement. It has been stated multiple times that the Mail on Sunday is its own independent newspaper. This means it has its own staff, journalists, and editorial board. Please read the Mail on Sunday wikipedia article to inform yourself about the newspaper. These are the "authors" as you call them of the Mail on Sunday:

Peter Hitchens

Rachel Johnson

Olly Smith

James Forsyth

Robert Waugh

Piers Morgan

Craig Brown

Tom Parker Bowles

Chris Evans

Ruth Sunderland

Sebastian O Kelly

Liz Jones

Sally Brompton

Sarah Stacey

Mimi Spencer

Jeff Prestridge

John Rees

Ellie Cannon

Jane Clarke

Katie Nicholl

Oliver Holt

Stuart Broad

Patrick Collins

Glenn Hoddle

Michael Owen

Nick Harris

Andrew Pierce

You have also chosen option 4, which means that you are stating that these journalists as a group are involved in writing "false or fabricated information". You have provided no proof of your statement. --Guest2625 (talk) 12:33, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 The Mail on Sunday has a completely separate editorial oversight, staff, office and so on. They are completely different newspapers that compete with each other, but simply have a similar name. I do, however, see the risk of their content being hosted on the MailOnline/DailyMail.com, as they do not have their own website. In which situation I would endorse Option 2 with the condition that the Mail on Sunday remains a reliable source but that the print edition must be the one cited, with online links unacceptable. Ortolan57 (talk) 18:38, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
  • It's hard to see how it's an option 1 given its cited record of fabrication - surely this should be addressed in an opinion worth taking into consideration - David Gerard (talk) 21:11, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4, just as completely divorced from the truth as the regular Daily Mail, despite being nominally seperate. They clearly have the exact same record of lying constantly. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:05, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 No evidence that this source is any more reliable than the regular DM, and considerable evidence to the contrary. Remember, the onus is on those who are arguing the source can be used to demonstrate that it actually has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy per WP:RS. (t · c) buidhe 08:11, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 or 4 Although the MoS may not be in Breitbart/National Enquirer territory it is clearly generally unreliable as per above comments. A note on comparisons of complaints: if we look at the nature and scale of the inaccuracies in the MoS presented in the lists above and below, and not just how many there were in a given year, it is clear that most of them are serious and relate to central news stories not just marginal human interest stories (major inaccuracies about electoral candidates not corrected until after election, major mischaracterisations of data about climate change) and also that they fit into a pattern of repeating false allegations as part of an ideological campaign (e.g. around climate change, where false statements were repeated despite earlier corrections) or systematically misrepresenting religion/ethnicity (e.g. to generate clickbait buzz by plugging into anti-Muslim panic), and not simple mistakes such as mistyping the number of arrests at the Appleby fair. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:45, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 since not proof has been offered to show the Sunday edition of the mail any more reliable than the daily --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 14:19, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 I wouldn't want anything on Wikipedia based solely on a MoS article, it is too unreliable. If it is valid information it will also appear in more reliable papers like the the Guardian or the Telegraph. Boynamedsue (talk) 14:09, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Putting aside the paper's politics, all wikipedians should recognise that newspapers should never be our first choice for sourcing content and we should prefer neutral academic sources. Use of newspaper sources should usually be a last resort and guided by exercising good judgement. Large parts of what the Mail on Sunday (and the Daily Mail) content are reliable and well-written and were the same content published elsewhere we wouldn't even question it - such as this for example [4]. This pogrom of Daily Mail content has already seen sources being blindly removed even when for our purposes they would be reliably sourced and well-written and it's often to the detriment of articles - and anyone who questions this is shouted down. Editors should be allowed to exercise judgment on a case by case basis, I am firmly opposed to blanket pronouncements such as this related to mainstream media. WCM_email 16:32, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
  • So you're fine with the list of blatant fabrications? - David Gerard (talk) 17:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Apparently you're fine with the "fabrications" of the newspapers you judge to be reliable? Please quit this obviously disingenuous and facetious line of argument - the output of a media outlet should be judged as a whole and not based on cherry-picked examples. FOARP (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

The argument "but whatabout these other newspapers that aren't the topic here" isn't regarded as a useful argument on RSN. If you want to discuss those, you should start an RFC about them, listing their fabrications. This discussion is about the Mail on Sunday - David Gerard (talk) 17:50, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Responding to "but the MoS is not less reliable than the Sunday Times according to the metric that you've chosen to ban it" with "then you should start an RFC on banning the Sunday Times" is clearly not an argument made in good faith. We all know that the outcome of such an RFC would be a snow-close for "Option 1" and a possible trip to ANI for whoever chose to waste everyone's time by proposing it. FOARP (talk) 12:11, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

David you clearly chose not to read my comment, so I will reply to your strawman with emphasis added. "all wikipedians should recognise that newspapers should never be our first choice for sourcing content and we should prefer neutral academic sources. Use of newspaper sources should usually be a last resort and guided by exercising good judgement. .... Editors should be allowed to exercise judgment on a case by case basis. You appear obsessed by the Daily Mail and removing any reference to it, often to the detriment of article quality and blind to the reliability of the article. You would remove this for example and are you suggesting that an opinion sourced to David Attenborough becomes unreliable simply because it is published in the DM? WCM_email 16:12, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 As per Curry above and the fact that MOS has a separate editor. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 06:22, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

  @The C of E: Seeing as you were opposed to the deprecation of the Daily Mail itself (arguing that there was "no need to blacklist a whole publication because of a few opinion pieces that may not be to some tastes") and then argued just two years later that the ban should be lifted because they had "changed", what possible relevance could The Mail on Sunday's editorial independence have? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 04:49, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

This argument essentially boils down to trying to exclude anyone who was in the (substantial) minority in the DM Ban RFC from ever having a say in any future issue related to banning media. FOARP (talk) 12:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I question who this IP is @FOARP: given he seems to have only started editing this year so how can he know about whom said what back when? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:30, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't recall having participated in a previous RfC on the use of the Daily Mail as a source. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm merely questioning the particular argument being used here. Given what The C of E has said in the past, supporting option 1 is consistent, but given their premises, I can't see what relevance the publication's editorial independence could have. Perhaps The C of E can clarify.

But I don't see how what I'm saying would exclude anyone who participated in the past RfCs from having a say here. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

It is a clear attempt to daisy-chain RFCs. "But you didn't agree with the concept of these RFCs so you can't vote Option 1 in this RFC" the argument goes, resulting in a more extreme and less balanced result. FOARP (talk) 12:46, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 (preferred) because it shares DM staff, history of fabrications, and has the same website as the Daily Mail, complete with "sidebar of shame" and its obsession with objectifying (see also "all grown up"). Failing that, then go with print edition only as no worse than the average tabloid, but still best not to use because tabloid. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:45, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
  • FWIW, not really seeing why the print edition should be presumed less deprecable than the online version - is there a convincing reason? - David Gerard (talk) 11:49, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, convincing? Not sure: depends who you're trying to convince (and obviously here I exclude Brian K Horton and his hosiery drawer). The bar to inclusion means that most of the churnalism on the website doesn't make it into print. The print edition is exactly as biased, and has undoubtedly printed some egregious bollocks, but the level of oversight is at least marginally higher. But you'll note that is my second choice, because my strong preference is to exclude altogether. You cannot trust anything you read on the Mail websites, and that fatally undermines any claim to journalistic integrity for any of its output IMO. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:58, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

fair - I'll certainly agree that if there was an Option 4½, Mail Online would warrant it - David Gerard (talk) 12:26, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Bad RFC (or Option 1 if the RFC still goes ahead) - These "let's ban media outlets we don't like" have no link to any actual issue in an article on Wikipedia. They always turn into a forum-style discussion on the perceived good-ness or not of the source itself rather than its reliability in relation to any subject matter. Editors should be free to decide what sources they use through consensus on a case-by-case basis, rather than these pointless blanket bans. Comparisons to reliable sources with exactly the same failings that the news outlet to be deprecated displays are always batted away with "why don't you start an RFC on banning the New York Times then?" (or similar facetiousness). The outcome is pre-determined as soon as the typically right-wing nature of the publication to be banned is highlighted. Rampant double-standards abound especially between UK and US publications. FOARP (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

  Seeing as your issue is with the writ-large deprecation of sources generally, isn't that an argument better suited to WT:RS to have Wikipedia:Reliable sources § Deprecated sources amended? I don't see how it's relevant here when we're trying to apply the existing guidelines. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 05:06, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Since I oppose these blanket bans of regulated media with well-established editorial teams based in countries with robust freedom of speech, then I also oppose banning the MoS and hence am voting on those grounds. FOARP (talk) 12:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

hence am voting on those grounds These discussions are not votes; so you appear to be declaring that your statement here is explicitly not about the MoS as a source, and hence meaningless in the discussion. The process of deprecation was itself ratified in an RFC; if you want to remove it, then you would need to run an RFC to do so - David Gerard (talk) 14:45, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

You're trying to make any opposition to this steady banning of sources invalid ab initio. Sorry, doesn't work that way. I note you haven't answered my point below about your deletion campaign deleting even WP:ABOUTSELF statements by the MoS (explicitly allowed even under the DM 2017 RFC close) which is a prime example of how this isn't about content, or what has been specifically decided in RFCs, but about getting something you can use to justify a mass-deletion campaign against a publication you dislike. FOARP (talk) 15:26, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Your other question is you whatabouting the issue - this is a discussion of the Mail On Sunday, not of me. If you have a point to make about the Mail On Sunday, it needs to be a point about the Mail On Sunday. If you can't make a point about the quality of the Mail On Sunday as a source - and you've just said above that you're not making a point about the Mail On Sunday, you're trying to reverse the idea of deprecation of sources, which is an action that's been ratified at RFC. You can keep on trying to flail about to distract from the point, but if you're not addressing the question then you're just making noise. You don't even understand that this isn't a vote, so I can't say that you are even proceeding in bad faith, but you don't appear to be proceeding competently - David Gerard (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

1. It's not 'whatabouting' the issue. You're trying to referee the discussion, which given the magnitude of your involvement is totally inappropriate. If you fail to understand this, then that would render you patently unqualified to have any weight be given to your statements regarding reliability (since that would mean that you lack a fundamental understanding of what reliability even is).

2. Comparisons with other sources are NOT irrelevant to this discussion, and telling editors to 'go start an RFC about The Times' or whatever is flat out disruptive. GENERAL RELIABILITY is RELATIVE. We should not be applying different sets of standards to sources we don't like than the sources we like. Furthermore, your 'suggestion' is a non sequitur, and is clearly in bad faith, because every one of us knows that will NEVER happen. Firejuggler86 (talk) 23:28, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Agree with FOARP. It's unfortunate because blanket bans will come back to haunt us in the future for a number of reasons. This is not to say there are not problems with sources, but every source article should be evaluated and never site banned. -- GreenC 16:12, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 As per ReconditeRodent. Autarch (talk) 15:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 per others, they make corrections and the volume of problems is not severe. -- GreenC 16:12, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 - generally reliable newspaper. The Mail on Sunday had a relatively low number of complaints based on the ipso statistics. The number of complaints was similar to its competitor the Sunday Times. It’s a respected newspaper that has a number of notable contributors. Other newspapers quote it. The paper is conservative leaning so care is required on political topics. --Guest2625 (talk) 05:48, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3, prefer 4 I kept being surprised that this was still being employed as a source following the Daily Mail deprecation. Tabloids are bad sources, and this is on the bottom layer of tabloids, sharing staff and large amounts of content (and apparently its philosophy and veracity) with the Daily Mail. The above examples of fabrication and evasion require some pretty dedicated scampering to ignore. We are an encyclopedia and must be able to exclude material that has a high chance of being misrepresented or made up. If an item is of wider impact, we can use one of many other sources; if it is MoS exclusive, we run the risk of it having been blown up into some chimaera in order to add another five points to the headline size. Do not need. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:29, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. The list of issues above is persuasive. The reason why full depreciation rather than unreliability is called is twofold. First, the "errors" highlighted above are all in one direction and all reflect the biases of the Mail's owners (its "errors" are inevitably stuff that eg. downplays global warming, paints Muslims or Labour in a bad light, bolsters the Tories, and so on); this, combined with the tendency to slow-walk corrections or neglect them entirely, suggests that, regardless of the (still uncited?) claims of editorial independence, it is subject to the same forces, in the same way, that make the Daily Mail itself unreliable. Bias is acceptable in a source, and occasional errors are not an issue; but repeated errors, in the same direction, which consistently reflect the biases of the owner suggest a systematic problem that makes it hard to justify using them as a source - there is simply every reason to think that their overriding goal is to advance their owners' political agenda at the expense of fact-checking or accuracy. Second, they fit the same criteria that made depreciation of the original Daily Mail necessary in that they are clearly not reliable due to the above, yet a vocal minority of editors insists that it can be used - and not merely that it can be used, but that it is somehow an exemplary source (note how the opinions here split between overwhelming numbers of people favoring depreciation and people saying it is generally reliable, with so little in-between.) That is the sort of situation that requires a decisive conclusion, since it is plain some people will continue to try and use it as a source everywhere unless there is an unambiguous decision saying they can't. Finally, in case it comes up - given that this discussion focuses on the parallels between the Mail and the Mail on Sunday and how those seem to stem from its ownership, I would suggest that whatever decision we reach here ought to apply to any outlets owned by Daily Mail and General Trust, at least by default (Metro, the other major paper they own, is already listed as generally unreliable.) It is clear from these discussions and the examples above that the root problem is the owners and not the individual editorial boards. --Aquillion (talk) 21:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

To deprecate a whole media publishing group is very problematic. It's merely indicative of the slippery slope that Wikipedia is heading down with its whole deprecation process. The next thing to appear on this board will be an attempt to ban the Rupert Murdoch publishing group. The problem with this board and its perennial sources list is that it has a legitimacy problem. Were all the editors individually notified on their talk page who will be directly affected by this upcoming Mail on Sunday decision? If not, this local group decision has a legitimacy problem. And a vague RFC advert in the wiki-jungle doesn't cut it. Those editors who used the source have a right to defend their decision. And, the only way to defend your decision is to be notified. I know for a fact that a group of editors who are in the middle of a content dispute over the Mail on Sunday have not been notified. This is very problematic.

It's not complicated for me. The complaint statistics of the the Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday are the same. The Sunday Times has also made a number of significant corrections. All this information was provided below. What the Sunday Times does better is that it has a more sophisticated writing style, since it targets the professional upper class. The Mail on Sunday is targeted towards the middle class. Option 2 I certainly can understand, since this is similar to how many American editors view Fox (which has some parallels to the politics and biases of the Mail on Sunday). Even option 3 would be understandable for people who cannot bear any publication which makes an error. But option 4 would mean the newspaper is worse than a self-published source. It would mean the highest selling Sunday newspaper, which won newspaper of the year in 2019 and has a number of notable writers, cannot be even used for its review of a theatre play which is gross and absurd. Fortunately, what is happening with the British media market on this board cannot be done to the American media market which has a much larger and more diverse pool of Wikipedia editors who use it. --Guest2625 (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Whole heartedly agree with this view. That the editors who have actually used the MoS as a source have not been notified is a legitimacy issue with this RFC. That they are excluded is an inevitable product of this RFC being completely divorced from actual content issues with articles. Engaging with the actual use of the MoS on Wiki would mean acknowledging that a lot of the present use (which is not high) is simply WP:ABOUTSELF (e.g., the edit by David Gerard linked above where he deleted even the mere mention that a book had been MoS book of the week, claiming that this was justified by the DM ban which explicitly allows "about-self" use), or completely uncontroversial. The double standard between UK and US media outlets, let alone between UK outlets and those of China or Iran, is as palpable as it is absurd. Responding to clear evidence that the MoS has had no more complaints upheld against it than the Sunday Times with "well then you should start an RFC to ban the Sunday Times" is not arguing in good faith. FOARP (talk) 12:41, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 - I would think that because The Mail on Sunday is just the weekend branding of Daily Mail that it'd fall under the existing restrictions there, but nonetheless, they still seem to have a desperate use of trigger words, sensationalism, low-quality fact checking and having been the source most sanctioned by UK regulators (source which says "The Daily Mail is used here to include the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday...") three years in a row (source). ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 01:59, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

It has been explained multiple times that the Mail on Sunday, Metro, i (originally a sister newspaper of The Independent), and also Daily Mail are all separate newspapers. This means that the newspapers have separate staff, journalists, and editorial boards. These different newspapers are published by DMG Media which itself is owned by the media company DMGT. It is normal for media companies to own multiple titles. See for instance Rupert Murdoch's News Corp which owns Dow Jones & Company (publisher of 'of the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and Barron's), News UK (publisher of The Sun and The Times), and book publisher HarperCollins.

Also it is not clear why you provided links to two blogs about the IPSO statistics, when below is the complete IPSO table for 2018. The table clearly shows that the Mail on Sunday did not rank poorly. Please uncollapse the green bar below that says table and trust your own eyes. The only thing I do want to quote from one of your blogs is the following:"Sunday Times Forced to Admit to Fake Antisemitism Smears". That sounds like a major faux pas that the Mail on Sunday's competitor made, just like that little faux pas that the New Statesman made in regards to the Roger Scruton interview that we just discussed on this reliable source board. It is unfortunate that generally reliable sources sometimes make faux pas. --Guest2625 (talk) 10:27, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@Guest2625: Would you be able to link to the discussion that ended in a consensus that the staff etc are different and that there's absolutely no commonality between the two? I think you'll also notice that the source I provided is from 2019, not 2018. Associated Newspapers Limited, which owns Metro, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Mail Online, even says in their annual report that Mail Online shares editorial content, lawyers, and replies to complaints to IPSO on behalf of Mail on Sunday. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 06:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on the Mail on Sunday explains that it is its own newspaper. It is stated there that the newspaper has its own staff and editor. The blog you provided is from 2019; however, it's referencing the IPSO complaint statistics from 2018. This is a quote from the blog:[5] "In terms of total number of sanctions, the top seven reached 90 between them across 2018. This is slightly better than 2017’s total of 115, but up on the 62 offences committed in 2016." As you'll note the blog's most recent numbers are the 2018 IPSO statistics, which are provided in clear detail in the table below from the 2018 IPSO report on page 18. So for clarification again, the chief editor of the Mail on Sunday, as stated in the Wikipedia article, is Ted Verity and these are the current writers for the newspaper:

Peter Hitchens

Rachel Johnson

Olly Smith

James Forsyth

Robert Waugh

Piers Morgan

Craig Brown

Tom Parker Bowles

Chris Evans

Ruth Sunderland

Sebastian O Kelly

Liz Jones

Sally Brompton

Sarah Stacey

Mimi Spencer

Jeff Prestridge

John Rees

Ellie Cannon

Jane Clarke

Katie Nicholl

Oliver Holt

Stuart Broad

Patrick Collins

Glenn Hoddle

Michael Owen

Nick Harris

Andrew Pierce

Since the owners of the Mail on Sunday have multiple papers, it would not be surprising, if they used the same legal staff for the different papers. I read the Associated Newspapers Limited 2019 annual report hereand here, but I wasn't able to find your statement about sharing editorial content and complaint reply in the report. Could you provide me with a link to the annual report that you read and the relevant page number. --Guest2625 (talk) 08:33, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 How much confidence can really be taken from a debate where even basic pertinent details, such as whether or not the Sunday edition has a separate editorial staf , cannot seemingly be settled a priori? I note too, the complete lack of impeccable sources like the Columbia Journalism Review. These have been used when debating the reliability of Fox and the New York Post in this foraaa , so their absence here, given the claims that basically cast the MoS as a step change worse, rings alarm bells as far as the potential for bias goes. Jack B Williamson (talk) 18:32, 3 October 2020 (UTC) — Jack B Williamson (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  The Columbia Journalism Review is a US based outlet and generally doesn't cover the UK press so the lack of coverage by that outlet is irrelevant. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:43, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  I have struck the contribution from the boring sockpuppet. --JBL (talk) 21:22, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 I think generally news media shouldn’t be considered reliable by it self. Citing facts from news is not how it works in the real world. You need to also consider other sources. A body of news sources together give weight, but it is still in the news. I read newspapers and enjoy, but that is mostly because I think. The narrative that we need to fact check the media is a construction. This RfC I think is created to ease some admin work, and that is perfectly OK. They already banned publications that can easily be mistaken, because of the architecture of the web address. I understand it’s a mess. I don’t like the options. I think option 1 and 4 are divisive provocations for the trenches. And option 2 and 3 are vague. What does even option 3 mean? Mysteriumen•♪Ⓜ ^•♪talk _{♪• look} 22:41, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
  • If, as you say, you don't in fact understand the question, it's not clear this helps form an informed consensus - David Gerard (talk) 06:39, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 It is clear that the Mail on Sunday, while technically independent editorially, shares ownership and agenda with the Daily Mail. While this alone is not enough to deprecate the paper, it is relevant because the Mail on Sunday also appears to share the bad habits of fabricating claims about living people and publishing lies, bad information and untrustworthy speculation. I am sure that they often publish good and true information, but I am also sure that they publish outright false information which, I believe, they often know to be untrue. For the use of the MoS as a source on Wikipedia, they surely therefore have to be considered unreliable and deprecated. It would be inconsistent to come to any other conclusion. I think it is also important to acknowledge that the Daily Mail as well as the MoS make their 'mistakes' in a very particular direction, which is aimed propping up the Conservative party (and perhaps occasionally offshoots of it) and putting down Labour as well as any right-wing movement which may become a threat to the Conservative party. Downfall Vision (talk) 13:30, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 per Aquillion and others. Glee^anon 06:46, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 – Notwithstanding ReconditeRodent's links, which would be reason enough by themselves, the Mail on Sunday should still be excluded due to its association with the Daily Mail. Even if it were more reliable than its parent newsletter, the fact that it's owned by the same company will inherently detract from its credibility as a source. Kurtis ^(talk) 08:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

This argument about deprecating a source because of company ownership makes no sense. Rupert Murdoch's News UK owns The Sun and The Times. Do you feel that The Times should be deprecated because Wikipedia has deprecated The Sun? This is the argument that you are making. --Guest2625 (talk) 08:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

This argument actually makes complete sense in my opinion. Perhaps an unconventional view, but I would argue that indeed The Times should be viewed with suspicion given its shared ownership with a deprecated source and perhaps should be seen as unreliable based on that fact alone. It is not that The Times should be deprecated because The Sun has been deprecated, but that The Times should be viewed with suspicion based entirely on its strong association with a deprecated source. I think we should set the precedent that when media outlets share ownership, they should be viewed to share reputation. Rupert Murdoch and his media empire obviously do not take issue with their papers printing falsehoods, so why should we trust them? In the same vein, the MoS shouldn't be deprecated only because of its association with the Daily Mail, but it should be viewed as unreliable based on that fact alone. Separately, the MoS should be deprecated because it has be shown to have published multiple falsehoods and lies. I think Wikipedia could benefit from a more suspicious outlook on news media in general. Downfall Vision (talk) 11:42, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, this is the argument under which the MoS is basically getting taken down: guilt by association. Stating that THE newspaper of record - The Times - should be banned, basically just because it's British and leans to the right politically. FOARP (talk) 11:41, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I probably should have made this clear from the start, but I was referring more to the fact that there is significant overlap between the editorial control over the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. Murdoch does own the Times, but he makes it clear that he has no control over the stories they print. Kurtis ^(talk) 22:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 There is nothing in there that you can't find through a more reliable source in the UK. There is no loss to wikipedia to not having this as "source". Albertaont (talk) 04:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 or 4, it is the same publisher as the Daily Mail. There are better sources in the UK. Vici Vidi (talk) 05:35, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3; pushing 4 Daily Mail and MoS may share the same publisher but IIRC editorial staff are different Nightfury 10:21, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 the Mail on Sunday may technically have different editorial staff but clearly has very similar outlooks on how a paper should behave. The editorial oversight does not appear to be 'meaningful' and the opinions often seem to be on the fringes of British politics. On the other hand, where it is worth citing viewpoints from columnists especially where they are part of a significant minority it should be considered reliable for their opinions. For example, Hitchens is a experienced foreign commentator who has won the Orwell Prize and as such his views on Syria may be worth mentioning. El komodos drago (talk to me) 13:14, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 I agree with most of the other voters. It's owned by the same company that owns Daily Mail. Although their editorial stuff is different, it looks like it has the same quality and the tendentious writing Daily Mail has.Lordpermaximum (talk) 18:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4: This needs to be the end of it. No more Daily Mail discussions. It's not an acceptable source, ever, and anything in its domain is unreliable as well. Toa Nidhiki05 20:55, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

That people keep raising this topic is not, at all, a logical reason to block a source that is not the Daily Mail nor managed by the same people. It will also not end the discussion because the people who keep raising this topic can not stop raising it - they simply move the goal-posts. Hence the recent discussion on the DM in the past being an RS because banning the DM of recent decades wasn't enough for them. Additionally, saying "we should ban this source to stop discussions about banning it" is essentially a WP:BLACKMAIL position.

The only thing that will end these discussion is requiring an actual link to an actual issue with the actual content of an actual article that is actually on Wiki, since none of these discussion are related to article-content and none would go forward if it were a requirement. FOARP (talk) 10:47, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not even remotely a blackmail position, for starters, it isn't threat and it isn't tied to the outcome of the RFC. It is perfectly fair for editors to be left with a bad taste in their mouth from past Daily Mail discussions, not least because it published an article slamming the editors that !voted for its removal the first time. El komodos drago (talk to me) 20:28, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 This is a bad/malformed RfC. Judge each reference on its own merits seems to be the best option of those presented. Mike Peel (talk) 18:47, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Mail on Sunday)

• I am tired of discussing the Daily Mail as much as anyone else, so hopefully after this there will be no more need for any RfC's on the topic. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Please specify that this covers all editions at all URLs for all purposes - otherwise someone will be along making excuses as they already do with the DM: "oh, the Shetlands edition has some different staff", "but you didn't specifically mention articles on trainspotting", "but I like this guy", "but exceptions exist so I'm claiming this as an exception", etc., etc., etc - David Gerard (talk) 12:40, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

If the Mos and Daily Mail are both deprecated, it automatically covers all DM domains. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:34, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Including This is Money? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

This Is Money is in its own words the "financial website and money section of the MailOnline", so is covered by WP:DAILYMAIL - David Gerard (talk) 22:11, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

In fact, I see that you already asked this precise question before, and that was the answer then too, so it's entirely unclear why you're asking again - David Gerard (talk) 22:12, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

That was one response from you that was not mentioned in the closing statement. I am open to hearing from other editors. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:21, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Here's about half an hour's quickest casual search. I'm sure if I put actual effort in, the list would be far longer. If anyone has their own lists of the MoS's mission to spread nonsense that we absolutely cannot trust as a source for encyclopedic content, please post them.

• A pile of distorted and fabricated claims about the EU: [6]
• Fabricated front-page claims of "foreign collusion" by Remain MPs [7]
• Fifth in the list for PCC complaints, 2013 [8]
• Fabrication about claimed BMA guidelines for doctors [9]
• Capital gains tax fabrication, IPSO rules as "serious breach" [10]
• Fabricated claims of anti-Semitism [11]
• Defamatory attack on individual [12]
• IPSO: "significantly misleading" [13]
• Fabrication of quotes in interview (the MoS cannot be trusted for quotes any more than the DM) [14]

The MoS is lying rubbish just as much as the DM is, it just pretends not to be. A trash-tier tabloid that tells gullible readers it's a newspaper of record - David Gerard (talk) 10:38, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Some of those are not the best sources but I find (5) and (8) to be particularly alarming at a glance. Would you/someone mind digging up if the paper version, ie not MailOnline, has the same issues? And can we clarify if we’ve got this issue just in politics-related reporting or in other topics as well? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:56, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

No idea if it's in the paper version, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't distinguish on that - some of the above are paper version specifically. Nor on politics, e.g. the irresponsible lies about the beautician - David Gerard (talk) 12:33, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

David observe how I presented the errors made by the Sunday Times. Now look at the way you presented the errors made by the Mail on Sunday. I have used completely neutral language. I merely stated these are some errors made by the Sunday Times. And then quoted the completely neutral ruling of the IPSO committe. You on the other hand have used completely loaded language. Do you think that me or anyone else could not also use such loaded and over-the-top language that you are using? Your language is reaching for the reader's senses, my language is intended to reach for the reader's mind. I believe it is better when we are trying to find the truth through debate that we use the language of reason. --Guest2625 (talk) 02:12, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I haven't studied yet the different sources that David Gerard has provided for his case, but I did look at Betty Logan's table which is quite rigorous and not prone to cherry picked examples. I provided a copy of the IPSO table below.

Table

IPSO Annual Report 2018 No. of articles complained about No. of Rejected complaints in remit Rejected Not pursued by complainant Resolved by IPSO mediation Resolved directly with publication Upheld Not upheld 1 MailOnline 503 213 135 5 16 34 9 14 2 Daily Mail 313 129 112 2 4 6 1 4 3 thesun.co.uk 178 88 53 1 6 22 2 4 4 The Sun 155 96 59 3 3 17 6 8 5 The Times 124 92 68 3 5 6 2 8 6 mirror.co.uk 102 48 25 1 2 13 4 3 7 The Daily Telegraph 78 58 37 7 2 4 1 7 8 Metro.co.uk 75 37 27 1 2 7 0 0 9 express.co.uk 71 50 28 1 4 12 5 0 10 The Mail on Sunday 69 37 27 2 2 2 2 2 11 The Sunday Times 58 52 33 2 5 2 5 5 12 Daily Express 48 30 21 2 0 1 3 3 13 Daily Mirror 40 20 13 0 1 2 2 2 14 dailyrecord.co.uk 36 22 16 0 1 1 0 4 15 Daily Record 34 22 15 1 1 2 2 1 16 The Argus (Brighton) 29 7 5 0 0 1 0 1 17 Metro 28 16 13 1 0 1 1 0 18 The Spectator 25 18 15 0 0 0 2 1 19 walesonline.co.uk 25 10 7 0 0 2 0 1 20 Telegraph.co.uk 24 9 9 0 0 0 0 0

The results are quite informative. --Guest2625 (talk) 14:10, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but MailOnline includes the MoS's online content, and we aren't citing the physical newspapers. Using single digit "Upheld" is a weak metric for reliability. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

We have in fact cited the physical newspapers quite a lot - most content before 2000 isn't on dailymail.co.uk, for example - and I'd have expected the RFCs covered those - David Gerard (talk) 14:33, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

That's getting into "was the Mail more reliable historically" territory, which was discussed in the last RfC. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for table, but I don’t get it. There’s plenty of reliably sourced examples above of unreliable reporting by MOS, so why are numbers relative in table (which should be quite complete) so low? Are reports in MailOnline including problems with MOS (“paper edition”)? To clarify (as I don’t get their structure personally), is MailOnline actually the digital version (ie, word for word) of the paper newspapers? Or is it separate reporting? Further, are all stories in the MOS available word for word on MailOnline, and all MOS stories on MailOnline word for word the ones in the paper edition? And there’s no stories on MailOnline credited to MOS which don’t appear in the paper edition? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Because IPSO complaints are not the be-all and end-all of whether a source should be deprecated in Wikipedia, and IPSO is widely regarded as a captured regulator. I don't know how many stories from MoS make it into one of print and paper but not the other, but either would count as MoS - David Gerard (talk) 22:15, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Sure but I just expected the number to be higher, or at least the number of filed complaints to be higher (in table, it's comparable to The Sunday Times, which doesn't seem right). I think any reliability of the paper copy is relevant though. If it's just MailOnline (which is covered under existing RfCs anyway) it shouldn't be a big issue and this RfC is moot. If the paper copy has reliability issues too, then the RfC is important. So if there's a distinction of content, really this RfC should be focused on if the paper version is equally as crappy. I've never read a copy of the MOS (tabloids with gossip covers aren't quite my thing) so I'm not saying if it's reliable or not, just that the focus should be on the paper component (if it differs). At a skim, looks like a couple of the links by dave souza above are content also included in the paper copy, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:30, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• I'm confused David. In your above critique, two of your points use IPSO to criticize the Mail on Sunday. Now after the IPSO table for 2018 is presented, you state that "IPSO complaints are not the be-all and end-all of whether a source should be deprecated". This is truly some ironman logic. --Guest2625 (talk) 06:47, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Since, some people are advocating for deprecating/banning the Mail on Sunday, I thought it would be useful to provide a sampling of some notable journalists and writers who write or have written for the Mail on Sunday.
Some notable Mail on Sunday writers:

• Peter Hitchens
• Liz Jones
• Piers Morgan
• Tom Parker Bowles
• Chris Evans
• David Mellor
• Dan Hodges
• Anna Mikhailova
• Derek Draper
• John Junor
• Julie Burchill
• Austin Mitchell
• Norman Tebbit
• Suzanne Moore
• Rachel Johnson
• Frank Barrett

It would be a loss to the neutrality of Wikipedia if editors were not able to mention the opinion of some of these notable writers from the right-leaning Mail on Sunday, which is the highest selling Sunday newspaper in Britain. It's hard for me to believe that the Quillete or Iranian Press TV, which both received option 3 from this board, are of better quality than the Mail on Sunday. I cannot see how the Mail on Sunday is equivalent to Breitbart News or the National Enquirer, which received option 4 from this board. Wikipedia which is neutral does its readers a disservice by not allowing the opinions of conservative British commentators to be voiced. --Guest2625 (talk) 06:23, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

These are opinion pieces, not quality journalism about facts, and as such are subject to the care needed when using any opinion pieces. Wikipedia:Deprecated sources#Acceptable uses of deprecated sources states that "Deprecated sources can normally be cited as a primary source when the source itself is the subject of discussion, such as to describe its own viewpoint." If the viewpoint of these commentators is valuable, they can be "voiced" subject to the conditions in WP:ABOUTSELF. It's not a blanket ban. . . dave souza, talk 03:49, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

As a side note: it is not ok to cherry pick corrections to build one's case, when there is a very clean and precise comparative table available with complaint and accuracy data. I believe many of the above editors are not aware at how problematic their method of analysis is. I believe the best way for me to show the problem with cherry picking reported errors is to provide cherry picked counter examples of how its competitor the Sunday Times has made similar reporting errors. This is a counter list of reporting errors by the Sunday Times. The table above is the proper way to compare the complaints and accuracy of the different newspapers supervised by the IPSO committee. I'll note that the Guardian is not monitored by anyone, or for that matter, any other newspaper in the English-speaking world. --Guest2625 (talk) 11:32, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Your note that the Guardian is not monitored by anyone, or for that matter, any other newspaper in the English-speaking world is incorrect. See Independent Press Standards Organisation#Membership: "Several of the broadsheet newspapers, including the Financial Times, The Independent and The Guardian, have declined to take part in IPSO. The Financial Times and The Guardian have established their own independent complaints systems instead." The latter has long had a "readers’ editor – who is appointed, and can only be dismissed, by the Scott Trust – [and] can comment on issues and concerns raised by the public. There has also been an external ombudsman to whom the readers’ editor can refer substantial grievances, or matters concerning the Guardian’s journalistic integrity." That includes a feature of corrections and clarifications, not waiting for months or a year for IPSO judgment on public complaints.[15][16] . . dave souza, talk 04:07, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes. You are correct. I made a slight mistake. I meant to say that no other set of English-speaking newspapers is monitored by an outside regulatory agency. Most newspapers have procedures in place to deal with corrections, and many bigger newspapers have a newspaper ombudsman who deals with questions of journalism ethics and standards. The position is independent of the control of the newspapers's chief-editor and perhaps owner. Frankly, I think wikipedia should think about getting a centralized corrections "ombudsmen" who the reader could easily deal with in order to ask for corrections. For many wikipedia readers the talk page and how to ask for corrections is a mystery. --Guest2625 (talk) 07:17, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

The Fox RFC was also full of people going "but whatabout this other paper that isn't the subject of discussion". If you and Betty Logan want to start an RFC on the Sunday Times, that should be its own discussion. If you don't, then you need to discuss the MoS - whataboutery about other papers really isn't an argument. And nor is going "this is numbers, therefore they are the end of the discussion" - David Gerard (talk) 15:58, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Good point David. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Bad point. Clearly the number of corrections/complaints are relevant if you're using them in this RFC as a ban-rationale. Clearly it's relevant if the MoS receives no more complaints/corrections than sources that are recognised as reliable sources. It is simply facile logic to say "but those reliable newspapers aren't under discussion - you should open an RFC on blocking those reliable sources" because everyone knows that an RFC on the reliability of the Sunday Times would be snow-closed and the nominator would be at risk of a ban for wasting everyone's time. FOARP (talk) 13:52, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Sources
References

Most of the information appears to be anecdotal. The New York Times and other mainstream media pushed the false narrative that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, deliberately helping to start a war that foreseeably would kill hundreds of thousands of people, displace millions and cost trillions of dollars. That is more serious than the MOS publishing defamatory information about a beautician that they retracted after an IPSO complaint. The fact that IPSO upheld 9 complaints against them in one year is not statistically significant considering that they publish 52-53 issues each year. That works out to 1 error every six weeks, which is subsequently retracted. We don't expect that news media is 100% correct in reporting. We expect a small error rate and that the most significant errors will be corrected on a timely basis. The New York Times for example publishes error corrections every day. The MOS of course is not in the same league, but its accuracy rate is close to 100%. TFD (talk) 03:20, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Regrettably, this RfC conflates the Mail's website and the printed Mail on Sunday newspaper.

While I have no time for the company's owners, nor their outlets' politics, I recognise that, like most newspapers, the reliability of its coverage varies. Large parts of the content of the Mail on Sunday - especially outside the spin of its political columnists - are both reliable (in the Wikipedia sense) and well-written; some of it by guest contributors whose relatability we would not doubt if published in another newspaper (most recently, for example, David Attenborough). Sadly, I've seen too many cases of the DM being blindly removed as a source even where its coverage is both reliable and unique, leaving statements unsupported or, worse, substituting source which do not support the valid statements made. This RfC, if it passes, will see the same happen to the Mail on Sunday. Wikipedia editors should - and should be allowed to - exercise judgment on a case by case basis, just like other adults. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:51, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

• I'd like to respond to the point that the proposers "are tired" of arguing about the Daily Mail and newspapers related to it in some way: there was absolutely no reason at all given here to propose this ban now. The reason why people keep arguing about the Mail is because you keep opening these RFCs - there is no other reason, especially no actual content-related reason, why it is still being discussed. In this entire crusade against the DM, not a single issue with an actual article has been discussed. The impression is of a group of people for whom the DM ban was their greatest moment and as such they wish to revisit it again and again. FOARP (talk) 08:15, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
  • In this entire crusade against the DM, not a single issue with an actual article has been discussed. If you read the discussion above -probably a useful step if you're going to weigh in on a discussion - you will see that your statement here is trivially incorrect - David Gerard (talk) 09:25, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

David, where is an actual issue with an actual article actually referenced in this entire farago? You deleting MoS references from articles is not an "issue with an article". You need to show that people are relying on MoS as a source and that this is causing actual problems (eg., it is being used to push fringe or incorrect views above and beyond what may happen with reliable sources), not "people are occasionally relying on MoS as a source and the problem is I keep deleting it because this is what I choose to prioritise". FOARP (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

PS - David, whilst we're at it, please explain this edit. Even if you think the DM ban applies to MoS why are you deleting statements from the MoS about what the MoS book of the week is - i.e., a situation where the MoS is talking about itself, a scenario which is explicitly allowed for by the DM 2017 RFC close ("the Daily Mail may be used in rare cases in an about-self fashion")? To me it doesn't look like the problem is with people citing the MoS here. FOARP (talk) 16:06, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Closure?

Is there any particular reason that this specific debate is lingering on this board, stale to the point of mouldy, and long overdue a summation? HangTenBangTen (talk) 13:24, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I believe the traditional thing to do is go to the admin's notice board and make a request. If someone does this can they please make it just a request for closure without all the palaver about how this is a contentious subject and how the closing Admin will need a "thick skin" or to be "flame proof" that some people like to put in? Admins don't need to be told how to do their job. FOARP (talk) 13:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure is the place to list this. Woody (talk) 13:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

HYPR sources, are they good enough to start an article?

Hello, I have a couple sources and I don't know if they are considered reliable independent and sig coverage, I tried to create the article through AfC but it got deleted. I am not happy with the explanation. These are the sources I would like to know if they meet WP:NCORP, thanks to everyone :). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kriptocurrency (talk • contribs)

Sources

Ivan (Jovan) Radonjic letter to Queen Catherine 2

Hello, there is an ongoing long discussion without concensus on Vasojevic talk page [17] about the letter send by Radonjic (2 letters in 1788. and 1789.) to Queen Catherine 2 , is it reliable source and does it goes under WP:AGE MATTERS since there is also reference of the letter from an autor from 1900. Thank you. User:Cobalton (talk) 15:24, 20.September 2020 (UTC)

Indymedia

Hi I think we need to have a proper discussion about using Indymedia as a source. I'll try to give a breakdown of the situation as I see it. The Independent Media Center (also known as Indymedia, IMC) was an early use of the internet by left-wing anti-globalisation activists in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There was a boom and bust, as corporate social media took on all the facets of the new phenomenon of open publishing, a newswire, a website accessed for free from anywhere etc etc Hundreds of indymedia websites sprang up for different local collectives and most have folded, although some continue eg indymedia NL and indymedia Ireland and many sites are archived. So when I am talking Indymedia, I am talking about many different, mostly city-based news networks, mainly from the 1990s and 2000s.

Indymedia is therefore is proudly self-published and do not worry I will not attempt to argue otherwise. However, I will argue that in specific circumstances, indymedia is a useful and reliable source. Not least because of the specific point made by WP:SOCIALMEDIA but also for other reasons. Wikipedia has changed a lot since the 2000s regarding referencing and verifiability and that is of course great. We need to be sure we are correct, especially regarding BLP issues. Yes if it appeared in indymedia, it probably is in other sources too if it was notable (and some things are, some things aren't), but many of these other sources are lost or paywalled. The 1990s and 2000s are a bit of a deadzone for social movement history since many websites have expired and gone without archives, before the advent of the wayback machine and other means of archiving stuff. So when writing about many of the marginal (and not so marginal) historical events, then I would argue the indymedia service can be useful with specific caveats.

Indymedia is currently listed on perennial sources as "generally unreliable" with the blurb: "The Independent Media Center is an open publishing network. Editors express low confidence in Indymedia's reputation for fact-checking, and consider Indymedia a self-published source." I would dispute that and prefer to see a warning for "No consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply" and a link to this discussion, or whatever else people decide. There have been previous discussions and I can link to them here (two are linked at perennial soources) already. I am struggling to see any sort of consensus formed there at all. 17, 23, 275. 23 and 275 are mentioned on perennial sources.

As a final point, indymedia articles are used judiciously in academic literature and we shouldn't forget that either. I find it strange to contemplate all use of indymedia on wikipedia being deleted when academics will use it with discretion. Here's a quickly compiled list of articles which reference indymedia from my recently read pile, just to illustrate my point. I'm not talking about pieces ABOUT indymedia, I'm talking about academics using indymedia as a source on social movement history.

• "Autonomy in the city?" in City Stuart Hodkinson & Paul Chatterton http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccit20
• "When cops “go native”: policing revolution through sexual infiltration and panopticonism in Critical Studies on Terrorism Michael Loadenthal https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17539153.2013.877670
• "Neoliberalism out of joint: Activists and inactivists in London’s social centres" in Subjectivity Peter Conlin doi:10.1057/sub.2014.8
• Truijen, K. (2019) Architecture of Appropriation – On Squatting as Spatial Practice ISBN|9789083015200
• Mudu & Chattopadhay Migration, Squatting and Radical Autonomy (Routledge) 9781138942127

If it helps to clarify, let's end with a specific example:

• I have a discussion with Graywalls at Talk:Dutch_squatting_ban#Sourcing where they want to delete an indymedia source about banners being put on buildings as being "disreputable", i want to keep it alongside a mainstream media article since it's the only available photographic evidence of the banners. I think it makes wikipedia a better encyclopedia to have that link. The source is not being used to say anything controversial, it only evidences the specific event, which is notable as attested by the newspaper article from Volkskrant. In short I see no good reason to remove it and no consensus here to do so. I think it's clear by now I think indymedia is a useful and reliable source under a limited context. Thanks for any opinions. Mujinga (talk) 11:16, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Ping to @Graywalls: as promised. Mujinga (talk) 11:17, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Everything is primary source at first. Scholars, journalists and academics all use their direct interview, blog sites, anecdotal evidence and all in their research; but this doesn't mean we should use it. Also, adding contents at our own discretion based on POV fringe source goes against the idea of WP:NPOV and due weight. I saw a dog do its business inside a Walmart a while back and this is the sort of thing that would find itself on people's blogs. Even if you were to attribute it "according to John Doe, a dog did its business in Walmart and he went on as if nothing happened", introducing contents from a blog is an undue coverage of absolutely non-notable thing. Graywalls (talk) 12:41, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Generally unreliable. Indymedia is self-published, and does not exhibit sufficient editorial control to be considered a reliable source. Journalists and academics use all kinds of data sources, including sources that would be considered unreliable on Wikipedia, as primary sources for research. In contrast, original research is prohibited in Wikipedia articles, and we are not able to use Indymedia on Wikipedia the same way that journalists and academics can in their work. — Newslinger talk 14:07, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable per Newslinger: academics also cite Breitbart and InfoWars, does that make those sources reliable? However, being generally unreliable doesn't prevent it from being cited alongside reliable sources when it contains primary source evidence, such as photographs, where editors have determined that this is useful. (t · c) buidhe 00:08, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

  even that's being extremely generous. I couldn't remember which article it was, but there was a Wikipedia article with the incorrect type of a bird or something and went unnoticed for a long time. When you cite dubious source, you exponentially increase the risk of having pictures that do not depict the stated caption. POV sources also often selectively photograph and publish things to push their agenda. The times when questionable sources, such as but not limited to Independent Media Center (Indymedia.org and many other domains), infowars.org, wordpress.org should be very very rare. An example of special circumstance they're useful. A credible media comments on something that was on Indymedia, for example, some criminal incident. Due to copyright reasons, they're not able to post the whole thing in verbatim, but if the news story includes a link, then posting that link alongside would be acceptable, IMO. Graywalls (talk) 00:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable to me this does not seem to be a reliable source. Consistency appears to be key here. If we allow this self published sources to be legitimated as a reliable source, then there is nothing stopping one from legitimating other self published sources as well. That does not seem to me to be a can of worms that we would want to open. Fortliberty (talk) 23:15, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable It is essentially user generated contents. Using something there isn't a whole lot different from putting things on Wikipedia directly without reference as you could put whatever you want on there, then reference to it as if it was legitimately published. "What will happen with your contribution: Anyone can publish on Indymedia through the links to the forms under 'publish yourself!' to use. All contributions appear almost immediately on the website. The collective tries to read through most of those contributions. The collective can leave the contributions on the basis of the criteria, delete them or move them to another category." (Google translation of https://www.indymedia.nl/node/16) Graywalls (talk) 02:43, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Comment thanks for the replies that are coherent, Graywalls you are doing yourself no favours talking about dogshit. I feel my point is being misread slightly since I am not disputing that indymedia is self-published. I am talking about how many social movement actors published manifestos, listings and so on at indymedia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This means that as other sources are lost / disappear / get paywalled, indymedia will become a useful source for wikipedia since it will be all we have as a record of projects and groups, and this is what makes it different to the given example of Breitbart and Infowars. That's why I brought up academics using it, but I should have realised that would have got us sidetracked into a primary sources discussion which was not my intention. I suppose I'm happy for indymedia to stay marked as generally unreliable and I can see an emerging consensus for that, as long as we have the caveat of WP:SELFSOURCE, referred to by "The source may still be used for uncontroversial self-descriptions, and self-published or user-generated content authored by established subject-matter experts is also acceptable". This allays my fears of all indymedia links being wiped from wikipedia. Regarding my specific example, I only see an answer from Buidhe so far, although I note Graywalls has already deleted it referencing this discussion which seems odd, since I see no consensus for its deletion here. Mujinga (talk) 10:39, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable as self-published, possibly useful for attributed statements. If a group used it to publish their manifesto, then it would be a primary source for that. Or for the opinion of notable contributors.--Hippeus (talk) 11:07, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Comment @Mujinga:, the reference to the dog thing was an example that just came to mind, because I saw it happen not long ago. It's one of those things people tend to post on social media about. This was an example of something that's undue to add onto the store's article. This could have been any other example. For instance, first hand account details of something that happened at an establishment that has a Wikipedia page, but was not covered by mainsteram media. Anyone can post about such thing wordpress, Twitter, Indymedia and my point here is that contents from such citizen journalism do not belong in Wikipedia pages. Such contents being present in squatting was the main point of contention. There already was a consensus without this discussion being created. Sources do not get listed as generally unreliable in RSP list without a consensus. It is better to not have information than have a mountain of information from unreliable sources. Graywalls (talk) 16:04, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• Copyright violation So, just as Scribd, another issue with Independent Media Center is that they sometimes host copyright violations, such as entire books, as in this one which I removed, Special:Diff/982713865. This isn't just a a snap shot of a page or two of a relevant part. A PDF of an entire copyrighted book. Sometimes they're user written posts, sometimes they're copyright violating news paper article copy and paste. Graywalls (talk) 21:32, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Indymedia as self-published source

I can see an emerging consensus for that, as long as we have the caveat of WP:SELFSOURCE, referred to by "The source may still be used for uncontroversial self-descriptions, and self-published or user-generated content authored by established subject-matter experts is also acceptable".

Before this goes into the archive, it should be clarified that there is no such consensus. What editors said above is that self-published sources can be used on the condition that they attribute authorship but the nature of Indymedia is that authorship is rarely attributed nevertheless authenticated. Indymedia is marked as unreliable in the above discussion particularly because it does not, as a publication, have an editorial process to confirm the details or authorship of its posts. As an encyclopedia, a tertiary source, we only report that which has been reliably stated in reliable, secondary sources. Primary sources are only used to fill out necessary, uncontroversial details that for some reason were excluded from the topic's general, reliable source coverage. But if we need to rely on a primary source to source, e.g., a manifesto, then editors should question why we're mentioning the manifesto at all, since it wasn't covered by reliable sources, especially if the manifesto cannot be attributed by a reputable source to the individual/group. Academics are welcome to discern for themselves whether a primary source is authentic, but that task is outside of our purview. As a tertiary source, we rely on the judgment of such secondary sources and the editorial process that reviews their work in journals to decide how to cover a topic. We specifically avoid the whole authenticity discussion by relying on the reputation of the publisher to decide what to include in an encyclopedia article. The whole point of this discussion and WP:SELFSOURCE is that Indymedia should be cited only under the rarest conditions, not regularly, and not certainly not carte blanche. czar 17:59, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable The consensus here is that Indymedia is unreliable.PatrickGuinness (talk) 13:21, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Sherdog.com

http://sherdog.com

Is it reliable?

I found it completely unreliable and unverifiable. It has no about page. The website in question's person (mixed martial artist) profiles are all over the place, seems outdated and and have huge discrepancies between other reputable sources such as the sport organizations themselves, UFC, Bellator, One or their media partners like ESPN, CBS, Fox, BT Sport, Independent or even the Athletic Comissions that organize competitions. But nearly all of the Mixed Martial Arts-related content have sherdog.com as the main source instead of the reputable sources that were mentioned above. A few editors seem to enforce it as the sole reliable source for thousands of biographies of living persons and their infoboxes. Even more various reputable sources that contain high-quality recorded footages or images or statistics or commission reports are disregarded in favour of sherdog.com. Conor McGregor's Height section of the Talk:Conor_McGregor page have a rather more detailed discussion about its reliability.

The site is reliable. I guess Sherdog is "self-published" but it has a very good reputation among mma fans. Likely, like many data-heavy sites, it introduces minor errors in its data to discourage scraping and republishing. Ofc, not all stats are equally reliable; for a top fighter like McGregor, you can expect most data to be accurate, but not for a no-name fighter that fights in a regional league somewhere. Regarding the height, why can't you use a range? E.g 5 ft 8 in to 5 ft 11 in ImTheIP (talk) 01:35, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Like you said, it's self-published. It has no about page. The data provided by the site tend to conflict other reputable sources' content although other reputable sources tend to share similiarity between them. Some of those reputable sources that I mentioned are ESPN, Fox, UFC, BoxRec, Independent, NSAC, BT sport, CBS, Independent. As an example, in McGregor and Alvarez's cases, those reputable sources' listings are also defintely closer to what other video footages and images provide. Sherdog.com on the other hand doesn't seem consistent or reliable. Especially considering they don't update fighter profile pages for decades, even after public becomes certain that data in most of those pages are clearly wrong. After an MMA competition where everyone can compare physical attributes for example. The most obvious example is the McGregor vs Alvarez match. As for using a range for height, weight etc., what should we do for a person that has 7 different listings for each attribute? Implementing height, weight, reach etc. ranges like 5'6 to 6'0 or 70 kg to 80 kg or 160lbs to 190lbs for every single person that has Wikipedia page would not be ideal and appropiate.Lordpermaximum (talk) 02:11, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

If it's self published it has no business being on BLPs per WP:BLPSPS. Nil Einne (talk) 08:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

We've reached a consensus to disregard Sherdog as a reliable source and use the reliable, independent and secondary sources, such as The Independent and CBS in the case of Conor McGregor's height, in the Talk:Conor_McGregor page. The consensus was only for the height of Conor McGregor but I think it was a very lengthy and detailed discussion with a lot of sources which had the participation of 7 editors, one being an administrator, so that sherdog.com should be considered unreliable site-wide. Nil Einne also agreed to consider sherdog.com unreliable here and I also want to inform another administrator Woody who also found self-published sherdog.com which has no about page unreliable in the Talk:Dan_Henderson page after another lengthy discussion.

Does anyone including ImTheIp who found sherdog.com reliable here previously before the achievement of consensus for Conor McGregor's height, has any objections to sherdog.com being considered an unreliable source?Lordpermaximum (talk) 10:36, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I just learned thanks to Nil Einne that there's a strict policy to avoid any self-published source on BLPs per WP:BLPSPS. Not only sherdog.com is an unreliable source, it cannot be used at all on BLPs because of the policy in question. This seals it.Lordpermaximum (talk) 11:07, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I've an objection to finding it unreliable just yet - the previous discussion (11 years ago, IIRC) that found it to be reliable was flawed because it was literally three or four editors deciding it, after one asked the question, over a very short space of time, and that led MMA editors being able to declare "It's a reliable source, as agreed by WP:RS/N!". I understand your desire to move quickly on this, but there's no rush. And yes, I know that can be frustrating... I've learnt patience after having people stall decisions by creating 30-day Requests for Comment over issues that are obviously only going to go one way, but hey, patience is a virtue!

As to the substantive issue: lack of bona fides for sherdog, such as an 'about' page, and it's demonstrable lack of accuracy (whether deliberate or not) would preclude it from being a reliable source where other, more reliable, sources exist. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:05, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course Sherdog is a reliable source. I don't know where 'it's (sic) demonstrable lack of accuracy' has been shown or proven. Occasionally, sources differ slightly on things like height. It's hardly a crisis. In fact, Sherdog's just as likely right and the others wrong as vice versa. After all, it's the largest dedicated MMA database in the world. Before editors jump aboard here could we please consider that the vast majority of less high-profile fighters won't have a listing elsewhere. I would ask Lordpermaximum please to chill out a bit and stop saying things like 'We've reached a consensus' after two comments and 'that seals it' after three. Sherdog has not been shown to be unreliable at all. It's also a source that contains accurate method of finishes, provides a reliable and verifiable source of nicknames (more of an issue than you might think). Its strengths are massive and the fact that some other sources disagree on stuff that none of us knows anyway (not that it'd make any difference if we did) is no reason to conclude that it's wrong. In the McGregor example, if you Google 'Conor McGregor height' is says 5'8. Since Sherdog is also the source used for all infoboxes on MMA fighter pages, it might have been nice to inform editors that this discussion is taking place. I have neither the time nor inclination to comment further as I'd rather edit. There are lots of editors who edit MMA page regularly and their contribution should be sought. I have made my thoughts clear simply won't read and reply to another series of WP:BLUDGEON posts.NEDOCHAN (talk) 16:16, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

My dear NEDOCHAN, Google lists Conor McGregor's height as 5'9" now thanks to our consensus, like I told you before that it would. Have a good day.Perm 20:50, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

More of than not, Google takes its profile information from English wikipedia so that's where Google took it from. The change in Conor McGregor's Wikipedia profile will soon reflect on Google also. We'll try to reach at least a rough consensus here as I don't see any reason why we shouldn't expand the consensus we've reached for Conor McGregor. Also NEDOCHAN, I remind you and others to stop using sherdog.com as a source on any BLP as it looks there's a mass violation of biographies of living persons (BLP) policy per WP:BLPSPS. It literally involves thousands of pages. I'll report it in WP:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard, pretty soon. I'll RfC for deprecation of sherdog.com next as it requires immediate action because there's mass violation of BLP policy which is taken very seriously.Lordpermaximum (talk) 17:16, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Please don't ping me. You have absolutely no right to start telling another editor what source they can and cannot use.NEDOCHAN (talk) 17:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Sherdog is not self-published. Their "contact us" page is their "about us" page.[18] Morbidthoughts (talk) 17:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

As per WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works, "if the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same.". Sherdog.com is a clear example of that, it has no about page, you can't volunteer to be an editor and it's not clear who's producing the content since there's no author sign in their articles, pages etc.Lordpermaximum (talk) 19:25, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

No, it is clear from that link I gave that they have an editorial staff, radio staff, and writers (contributors). Their publisher is Evolve Media. There is no requirement that their editors be volunteers. Their news articles do have authors.[19] It may be an ugly site, but you didn't do your due diligence in looking up this stuff. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:08, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Having authors doesn't mean it's not self-published. Please read the quote from the policy again. Sherdog.com is a clear-cut example of a self-published site. Although the violation of BLPs is important, our main topic here is the reliability of Sherdog.com. We don't even know where they get their info from and according to archive.org, they very rarely update the profiles of fighters if at all which makes it outdated also.Lordpermaximum (talk) 21:09, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand that the concept that the authors cannot publish an article without the approval of the editorial staff. The editorial staff is also not the publisher which is the company itself. Your reliance on WP:USINGSPS is misplaced since it is neither policy or guideline, and your arguments for strict adherence to that quote would render newspaper reporters to be SPS if their employer is the newspaper.[20] Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

One instance of a fighter's height not matching what CBS and The Independent lists does not make sherdog unreliable. More often than not, sherdog lists the correct information. There isn't one individual authority that measures all fighters; they're measured by different people (networks or promotions) using different methods (a wavy measuring tape or stadiometer) at different times in different places. Common sense says there will always be discrepancies in such cases. Sherdog is as reliable as a sporting database can be when there is no single source to pool all its stats from. As for the site being self published, says who? I think the fact that their news section is filled with articles by multiple journalists says otherwise. – ².O.^Boxing 19:24, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm a total outsider to this topic, but Sherdog is obviously not self-published, and it seems likely to be reliable:

• it's published by Evolve Media, which has over a hundred employees per their LinkedIn page
• they have a seven person editorial team and a twenty-two person team of contributors

Gbear605 (talk) 21:13, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You and a couple others only cofirm the quote in WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works: "if the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same." What are we even debating here?Lordpermaximum (talk) 21:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Lordpermaximum, you're misapplying your quote - by your definition, all news agencies are self-publishing. Gbear605 (talk) 23:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not my quote. It's a direct quote from WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 23:56, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

"This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." That's the quote you need to focus on. Morbidthoughts (talk) 00:07, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

No doubt Lordpermaximum will still claim they are self-published because their website doesn't have an "About" page, even though it does. FDW777 (talk) 21:15, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You should focus on the content and comment on the reliability of sherdog.com instead of reading my mind. About page is just an anecdote.

Sherdog.com is "completely unreliable" because it's self-published, they don't share how they get their information, their information usually contradicts other well-known reliable sites such as UFC, ESPN, Fox, Independent, CBS and those sources agree eachother and sherdog.com's "contact page" is the definition of ameteurish.Lordpermaximum (talk) 21:47, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You should focus on what you're being told, instead of saying what you think. Repeating the same mistake over and over again doesn't stop it being a mistake. There is zero to little support for your position, see WP:BLUDGEON. FDW777 (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Please be civil and relax. In the mean time, check Proof_by_assertion, WP:RS and WP:V. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 22:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You should in turn checkout, WP:FORCEDINTERPRET and WP:STONEWALL Morbidthoughts (talk) 00:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable. I suggest Lordpermaximum reads WP:SPS, since none of them apply to Sherdog. FDW777 (talk) 21:15, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Sherdog.com

What is the reliability of Sherdog.com?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Reliable, in the absense of generally reliable sources
• Option 3: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 4: Generally unreliable
• Option 5: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

Lordpermaximum (talk) 23:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

User Notifications about the RfC:

• Cassiopeia who voted for option 1, mentioned and pinged 21 other editors at WT:MMA#Reliability of Sherdog, and wanted those editors to ping other editors about this RfC. So far from that list only Gsfelipe94 joined the RfC and they voted for option 1.
• FDW77 who voted for option 1, opened a section at WT:MMA and informed other editors of the RfC.
• I voted for option 4, informed 4 of those who hadn't already participated in the RfC that were involved with the height discussions at Talk:Conor_McGregor which eventually reached consensus that I agreed with and had lead to this RfC as an expansion of the consensus. Out of those I invited, Cassiopeia voted for option 1, Bastun and Hunterb212 voted for option 2 or 3, GirthSummit hasn't voted yet. I also informed an administrator, Woody, who was involved with similar discussions at Talk:Dan_Henderson and voted for option 2 or 3. I also opened sections about the RfC at WT:BOXING, WT:SPORTS, and WT:WPBIO.

Please report invites, pings, mentions of any kind and newly opened sections that inform other editors about this RfC, so we can list them here in the spirit of transparency.Lordpermaximum (talk) 14:31, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• User:Lordpermaximum or "Perm" has been blocked by 3 admins for many reasons - see here. Cassiopeia^(talk) 10:19, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

False Reports:

Anything below that is meaningful has already been covered above. Everything else is only disruptions and false reports that aren't related to the RfC.Perm 04:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I think you forgot to add this fabulously neutral invite. But I really need your vote no matter what it is at WP:RSN#Responses_(Sherdog.com) if we are to stop them from using sherdog.com as the sole source....lol. – ².O.^Boxing 00:30, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

All of this because of our first encounter at Talk:Conor_McGregor where I had shared my suspicions about you and your friends? I didn't notify that user there, first. I actually invited him before and mentioned him here as one of the 2 editors that took part in the consensus we reached atTalk:Conor_McGregor but had not participated here yet. What you took out of context was from a discussion about Tony Ferguson which wasn't even started by me. You didn't even post the entire discussion deliberately in order to remove the context and blame me again for something I did not do again. Please don't turn this into another war and let people get sidetracked, again. You're extremely disruptive under this RfC. But I know you don't care as long as Sherdog.com becomes a reliable source because of your personal vendetta.Lordpermaximum (talk) 01:35, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll strike it and put it this way then: I think there's an option for your thoughts such as "reliable in the absense of generally reliable sources" which seems to suit your opinions or another option if you like, and, But I really need your vote no matter what it is at WP:RSN#Responses_(Sherdog.com) if we are to stop them from using sherdog.com as the sole source, are highly inappropriate comments to somebody you've previously invited to an RfC. And just to note, I have no vested interest in Sherdog whatsoever. I have never, in my 15,000 and something edits, used Sherdog in a citation. – ².O.^Boxing 02:06, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

You took them even more out of context to make me look even worse. They're cherry-picked from answers to a user that was bothered by the use of sherdog as the sole source. The discussion which I didn't start is here at User_talk:Hunterb212#Tony_Ferguson.Perm 04:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Background (Sherdog.com)

Sherdog.com has generally been used as "the sole reliable source" on thousands of articles which are related to MMA and mostly WP:BLP. In favour of Sherdog.com, all reliable sources such as The Independent, CBS, ESPN, UFC, Fox, BT Sport, BoxRec, Bellator, One and Athletic Commisions such as NSAC have been disregarded. Lordpermaximum (talk) 15:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

And the point of this is? None of that has anything to do with deciding whether or not Sherdog is a reliable source. But anyway, no. Just no. Sherdog has not generally been used as "the sole reliable source" on thousands of articles which are related to MMA and mostly WP:BLP. I task anybody to find me at least a start class MMA BLP that uses Sherdog as its sole reliable source. – ².O.^Boxing 16:30, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

If it's not clear enough, what that means is those editors who generally edit MMA articles favour Sherdog.com over other generally reliable sources. Those reliable sources have only been used when there's no info about that particular topic on Sherdog.com. For example if one editor references ESPN as a source in an MMA page, it will be reverted by some hardcore MMA editors in favour of Sherdog.com as the only source if sherdog has info about that. This is against the WP:RS policy and it's the main reason this discussion has been started in the first place. But I wanted to hear the community's opinion about the reliability of sherdog.com first so I opened an RfC about that first. That's why this section is titled "Background".Lordpermaximum (talk) 16:42, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

So, basically, your addition of this subsection has nothing whatsoever to do with evaluating whether or not Sherdog is reliable? Thanks for confirming that. – ².O.^Boxing 16:56, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

As I said, it gives some background to the discussions that were happened before the RfC since it's still under the main section. The starting point of these dicussions was pointed out at the top of the main section and this section only refers to that background. It's up to other editors to bear this in mind or not while evaluating sherdog.com's reliability but I thought it was important since it's going to affect thousands of pages because of the fact that Sherdog.com is relied upon very heavily in those articles.Perm 13:53, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Responses (Sherdog.com)

• Option 4 - There doesn't seem to be any evidence for reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS). It doesn't look like there's a detailed about page of any sorts and it seems to fit the criteria of self-publishing. Its fighter infocards looked outdated when I checked the history of those from archive.org. Its runners don't seem to share how they get their information; therefore I think it violates WP:V and makes Sherdog a questionable source. After checking other reliable sources that create MMA-related content such as CBS, ESPN, Fox, BT Sport, The Independent, BoxRec, UFC, Bellator, One and Athletic Commisions such as NSAC more in detail and making thorough comparisons, I found out that those reputable sources generally agree with each other, unlike Sherdog which has a clear tendency to contradict them. Besides that, none of sherdog.com's fighter profiles has any author mention. We know it's generally used on BLPs although it probably violates the BLP policy per WP:BLPSPS by likely being an SPS according to the definition in WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works. Considering some editors' tendency to use Sherdog as the sole source on many BLPs without evaluating other possibly more reliable sources, it's dangerous for Wikipedia and makes the Encylopedia open to many lawsuits, in theory at least. Espcially if the runners of sherdog.com decides to manipulate Wikipedia by adjusting some of the information on their website since it's relied upon very heavily. We've previously reached consensus to disregard sherdog.com and use other reputable, likely more reliable sources instead at Talk:Conor_McGregor which eventualy had lead to this RfC. That page has detailed discussions about the reliability of sherdog.com if anyone's interested.Lordpermaximum (talk) 23:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

"if the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same."

• That's a direct quote from WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works. That's the reason I think sherdog.com is an SPS if we go by that.Lordpermaximum (talk) 09:21, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 Addressing each repeatedly made incorrect point one at a time.
  • It's self-published No, it's not. It's published by Mandatory, part of Evolve Media, LLC. Self-published means "man with blog" or "man with website", not a publishing company with 150 editors and writers across more than 40 websites.
  • it has no true about page The about page is right there, and it lists the editorial team.
  • runners of the site don't share how they get their information and this clearly violates WP:V I can look at any newspaper right now and they won't say where they got their information from either, it doesn't make them unreliable. WP:V does not require a reference to have a footnote for every single piece of information.
• Since there is no evidence to back up any of the other spurious claims made without evidence, I will simply dismiss them without evidence. FDW777 (talk) 07:33, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: Not self published as per above. All the articles in the 'News' section are attributed to their authors. As for the fighter profiles not having citations for the information given or an "author sign" on the pages, that's just silly. BoxRec, ESPN, and Fox have been given as comparisons (besides UFC, which is a primary source, they are the only three out of the nine sources mentioned that have fighter profiles); just like Sherdog, none of them have citations for the information given in fighter profiles nor do they have an "author sign". Finding two or three fighter's profiles, out of thousands, whose heights are disputed and reported at different measurements by multiple sources is by no means a reason to deem a source unreliable. – ².O.^Boxing 09:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Having an author on some pages doesn't mean it's not self published. According to to the rule in WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works:

"if the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same."

From this alone it's clear that it's self-published, thus it openly violates WP:BLPSPS and on top of that it violates WP:RS along with WP:V too, when we consider the other reasons in the first response.Lordpermaximum (talk) 09:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You've already been informed that what you're quoting is not policy or even a guideline. So the quote, which you've used three times already in this RfC, five times in the whole thread, and many more at the BLPN discussion (where far more experienced editors have disagreed with your interpretation of SPS as well as flat-out dismissing any BLP violation), doesn't hold much weight at all. You can copy and paste the same quote all you like, it won't make it any more relevant. Calm down with the relentless WP:BLUDGEONing. – ².O.^Boxing 12:07, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Please calm down and see Proof_by_assertion. The discussion you're referring to on the BLPN is still ongoing although you claim it's ended in one way. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 15:02, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2: I've struck my previous vote following more research. After trying my hardest to find some evidence for a reputation for fact checking, I couldn't find enough to personally satisfy my initial vote. There's multiple instances of reliable sources using Sherdog's fighter stats and match results, but there's also a few articles that discuss discrepancies in that area. And to my surprise I couldn't find a reliable source that discussed the site in detail. As for the news they report, I'd consider that generally reliable. There's a bob load of instances where reliable sources have accredited Sherdog with breaking an MMA news story that the reliable sources in question would cover a week or so later and Sherdog articles are repeatedly quoted in multiple reliable sources. – ².O.^Boxing 11:35, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Not an SPS I have no opinion on the reliability of Sherdog since I haven't looked into that, and don't plan to. But I said above "if" since 2 editors had suggested it was an SPS. However now that I've seen more commentators and also read our article and looked into some other details, it seems clear to me Sherdog isn't an SPS. Some parts of it may be, e.g. obviously its forums but most of it doesn't seem to be. Nil Einne (talk) 12:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Nil Einne, could you check Sherdog.com a bit and/or read some of the discussion that's going on here? I would really like everyone that participated in the discussions to choose an option no matter what it will be. I also added a very short background for why these discussions started in the first place. If you could read a bit more about it, do you think there's enough evidence in favour of sherdog.com to give it a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy? I and a few others claim there aren't. If there are not, thousands of pages are affected by it for the worse because of MMA editors' tendency to use it as the sole source. Thanks for participation anyways even if you don't want to choose an option. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 18:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC).

• Not an SPS per Nil Einne. No opinion as to it's general reliability, but even The Irish Times and other papers of record get their facts wrong sometimes. That said, Sherdog is not the sole definitive source for MMA stats, and other sites, equally reliable, can absolutely be used as sources, too. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:51, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Bastun, I added a section about the background of these discussions and the RfC that highlights your concern. But it can be adressed indirecly here by this RfC so that we won't need another consensus for your and my concern about that, in the future. I think option 2 or 3 is close to your thinking so you can always choose option 2 or 3. I would really like you to choose an option, no matter what it will be if we are to reach consensus here. Thank you for your participation even if you don't choose an option anyways. Best wishes, Lordpermaximum (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2020 (UTC).

• Option 2 or 3. I would have questions over its sourcing and accuracty and all of those "staffers" listed on the 'Contact us' page certainly aren't full time, as linkein searches show. That said, nothing to stop it being used as a source. Just not exclusively. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3: Not self-published, but I couldn't find significant evidence of reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS). It may well be popular among MMA fans and have a small editorial team, but there needs to be significant independent evidence to make it generally reliable. It's probably usable but established high-quality sources (e.g. existing green WP:RSP sources) would be preferred. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: It's the leading source for such data globally and there's no evidence whatsoever that it's not reliable. This RFC was started by an editor who thought it was self-published. It isn't.NEDOCHAN (talk) 15:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, it's self-published. I want to remind you of WP:OWN, WP:But I'm an administrator!, User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles #2, WP:Equality, WP:Newbies aren't always clueless.Lordpermaximum (talk) 10:02, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: It must be incredibly frustrating for those who edit mma fighters' pages and knows what Sherdog is to have to deal with this. ImTheIP (talk) 15:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3: It has been made clear to me after stumbling into MMA pages during an edit war on Dan Henderson (see Talk:Dan Henderson for extended discussion about a similar height issue to McGregor above) that the MMA community places Sherdog above other sources but without any consensus or discussion as to it's reliability. This RFC is the perfect place to develop a consensus which can be used to justify it's inclusion going forward. I agree with MarkH21's thinking here above. It isn't self-published under our own guidelines but at the same time there isn't any evidence whatsoever that it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS) which is what we need to deem it a generally reliable source. The page itself doesn't make this clear. Sherdog is not the sole definitive source for MMA stats, and other sites, equally reliable or green WP:RSP, should be used where available. (Note: I was invited/canvassed to participate in this discussion by User:Lordpermaximum with this edit but I was intending on bringing this site up here at some point) Woody (talk) 16:47, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the disclosure. I have issued a canvassing warning on Lordpermaximum's talk page.[21] Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• It wasn't canvassing because Woody has participated in sherdog.com's reliability dicussions before. I suggest you to read this quote: "Editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics)" It's from WP:CAN and that's placed under "Appropiate notification" section. If it was canvassing it wouldn't be your problem because Woody as an administrator would handle it before you or anyone else. I reverted your edit and I will report you for vandalism if you do that again in my talk page.Lordpermaximum (talk) 19:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

In the warning, I also included the links of who you selectively recruited to participate, not just Woody.[22][23][24] You should review WP:VOTESTACKING and WP:BATTLEGROUND again. Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:18, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is the place to discuss the reliability of sources when weighed against our policies and guidelines. Please take discussions of editors away from here. Let's try not to get side-tracked here. Woody (talk) 19:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)The wording was entirely neutral but the selection of individuals could be seen as trying to back up your point of view. Canvassing can be a pretty grey subject. I noted I was invited to this discussion to avoid any accusation of impropriety. @Lordpermaximum: next time I would give a neutral notification to key wikiprojects/editors that are closely related to the discussion eg WP:MMA (This has been done at WT:MMA#Reliability of Sherdog though the pinging of individual editors to this discussion is a bit borderline). If any doubt leave a notification at the beginning of this RFC to say who has been notified (similar to the many found at AFD). Woody (talk) 19:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Morbidthoughts, it's not true because I only tried to reach out to those who hadn't participated in this discussion at RSN. Others who were against my proposal in the beginning did participate here except just one editor who admittedly said she needed a week to reply to the ongoing discussions that started this RfC in the first place and she was very busy, just yesterday. Next time do your research properly.
• Woody, please see above. He's just making an empty accusation and hiding the other side of the truth. Only 2 editors that participated in the previous discussion were'nt notified because one of them wanted us to give her some time, around a week. The other editor that I didn't notify was an administrator that involved in the discussions as neutral in the beginning and we were in the same side of consensus in the end. So if anything, I hurt my case by not inviting him/her.

Thanks to you I learned that they pinged every one of those editors that have been using sherdog.com as the sole source on anything MMA-related. He was blaming me for canvassing and then I learned this. It's funny though the one that pinged all those users is that one editor who said she needed time to respond to previous discussion in the talk page of Conor McGregor. It looks she simply tried to stall and deny consensus but she failed.Lordpermaximum (talk) 19:35, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: Per fellow editors comments. I believe Sherdog serves as a common ground for most of the information. Obviously they are not the ultimate guide to it. If we have other reliable sources, we should take that in account and use it as the most reliable option for that case. We use it as means to add fight results, but they're not always right. To me they are still a reliable source, but I never took them for the only option available. I believe such cases require discussion and people should be open to consider other sources as more accurate than Sherdog itself. That being said, Sherdog is definitely one of the most reliable sources in MMA media regarding database and news as well. Gsfelipe94 (talk) 19:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• You chose option 1 but it sounds like option 2 suits your opinions more. Can I ask why did you choose option 1 with those thoughts then? Is it because they who use sherdog.com as the sole source pinged you and tens of others to come and vote here at WT:MMA#Reliability of Sherdog?Lordpermaximum (talk) 20:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You probably didn't see my comment Gsfelipe94. Don't you agree me with me that your opinion sounds more like option 2? Choosing option 1 with those opinions sounds like a mistake.Lordpermaximum (talk) 00:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 or 2: It is not a self published source, and it is written by sufficiently specialized people (I navigated here [25]) . The tone of the information is perfectly fine. Also, I don't think they need to disclose how they get information, as I have never seen this being required on any sort of newspaper. Overall, I think all three points of WP:SOURCEDEF are quite fine, with maybe the publisher being a little subpar. I'd say the website still qualifies under WP:RSEDITORIAL. Best, Walwal20 ^{talk ▾ contribs} 05:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: Besides certain point have maked by other editors, I here add (1) Sherdog is largest independent MMA media site in the world and (2) Sherdog is the official content partner

of ESPN reported by Sprot Illustor. As ESPN is considered reliable - reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS), and they partner with Sherdog (use Sherdog's coentent) that would make Sherdog a reliable source. (3) Sherdog is not a self publishing firm for it is own by Evolve Media LCC, thus Sherdog is not a self publishing company. (4) There was also discussion in the past in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard with the outcome that Sherdog is a reliable source - see here and this RFC would be the updated version. (5) overall, Sherdog do meet in term of content/tone/NPOV, WP:RSEDITORIAL and WP:SOURCEDEF. (6) Site note: Sherdog is voted by MMA fighters the leading source of breaking news, fight reviews and in-depth features sites - see [https://www.worldmmaawards.com/mma-awards-category/mma-media-source-of-the-year/ HERE. Cassiopeia^(talk) 12:19, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• There's no outcome that found Sherdog reliable before. The link to that RSN discussion shows it was almost a decade ago it was attended by a couple editors who were like "it looks kinda ok" and that was all about it. As for the ESPN deal, the link states it was made 13.5 years ago. It also says "As part of the agreement, ESPN will highlight exclusive, in-depth Sherdog content contextually within ESPN.com, including news, interviews, videos, event listings, and more. ESPN.com's new Mixed Martial Arts section index will also feature Sherdog's Fight Finder module, which allows users to search the largest fighter database online for stats and personal information. Sherdog's weekly online Radio show will be offered at ESPNRadio.com and for download via the ESPN PodCenter." None of those things that were mentioned in the quote are found on ESPN right now and they haven't been found on ESPN for years. ESPN (along with other reliable sources) and Sherdog have been contradicting each other for a long time and any time you can check for those discrepancies between them, now or then thanks to archive.org. So bearing all of this in mind, it's pretty clear that deal wasn't for a lifetime and it ended a long time ago. Probably years ago.Lordpermaximum (talk) 12:37, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that deal wasn't for a lifetime and it ended a long time ago. Probably years ago. WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH is not permitted. Do you have a source to say that it probably ended years ago? To add to what CASSIOPEIA said on fact checking; the UFC's The Ultimate Fighter series used Sherdog as a source for checking contestants records, as seen here. "You MUST have a minimum of 3 Professional MMA fights to be considered. All records will be verified on sherdog.com & mixedmartialarts.com. If we cannot verify your record on either of these sites you will NOT be eligible to tryout." The world's most prominent MMA promotion seems to think that Sherdog has a good reputation for fact checking. – ².O.^Boxing 13:04, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• An insignificant news article from 2.5 years ago which was about TUF entrance which is not considered an official UFC fight. As for other acussations, it doesn't even worth answering. As an administrator already pointed out "This discussion is the place to discuss the reliability of sources when weighed against our policies and guidelines. Please take discussions of editors away from here. Let's try not to get side-tracked here."Lordpermaximum (talk) 13:16, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Cassiopeia, for 1) above, do you have a source rather than an assertion? For 2), that article you've cited is from literally ten years ago, and that same article also states that UFC had pulled Sherdog's press credentials; and also that they hadn't had access to the UFC for most of the preceding five years! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:18, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Bastun First of all, I come and comment here in good will. UFC is a private company and not a sport organization like FIFA, as such they do what the want - we all remember well Ariel Helwani and his associates were pulled form UFC press credentials for being just doing their job as good journalists would and should do. The source is from Sport Illustrator and being pulled the credential has nothing to do with the source reliability and independent. I have placed my vote and for those who disagree, they can give evidence/comment/guidelines of why they think Sherdog is not reliable or independent. I am rather sad to see one inch height different of Conor McGregor in source would lead to so much uncomfortable and unpleasant discussions in so many articles and editors' talk pages. Do note content of the MMA articles come from many different sources and the infobox which is an optional is sourced by Sherdog. Those parameters in the infobox (such as style, stand, trainer, rank, university and etc) which could notvbe obtained from Sherdog fighter profile would need to sourced elsewhere if info is added. This is just a normal practice in other sport as well to use a sport specific database in the infobox / game /sportsperson record / results. Changing a fighter height for one more inche higher is not big deal, but it would effect thousands of thousands of MMA articles in Wikipedia would not only the height but the fight records, team, fight out of, nick name and etc. If it does not effect in such a big scale, I would not comments for I have invited to settle a numbers of edit warrings/content dispute and it was not pleasant just to read those comments from editors for some of them were not there to discuss/understand/collobrate/support each other/learn from each other but just fight, troll just because they wanted to win the arguments due to the fighters are from their countries/same ethnicity/just riding the hype train and lack of Wikipedia guidelines and communicated as if they are in twitter /utube. Stay safe Bastun and best. Cassiopeia^(talk) 11:47, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I just asked for a citation for 1) above; I didn't and don't doubt your good faith. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:52, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

2.0 boxing's comment clearly refers to the reliability of the source and none of it relates to you or any other editor. They're right, only WP:OR is behind your argument re ESPN.NEDOCHAN (talk) 13:22, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Exactly what NEDOCHAN said. I'm addressing your argument, which is original research, which is policy. But anyway, all fights within The Ultimate Fighter series are officially sanctioned bouts, promoted by the UFC. So the requirement that a fighter's record is confirmed by Sherdog relates to an official UFC bout. Which gives credibility to Sherdog's reputation for fact checking. – ².O.^Boxing 13:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3: I believe Sherdog is somewhat reliable in the sense that it is up to date with match statistics and fighter's records. However I believe the info such as height and weight of fighters is not always the most accurate. Comparing Sherdog to ESPN's website you will find that ESPN lists the height and weight measurements of most current fighters in the major promotions such as UFC and Bellator just like Sherdog does. And it updates these measurements after every weigh in. Sherdog on the other hand does not update these measurements therefore you have outdated information such as some fighters being listed at different weight classes than which they currently fight in. So in my opinion a compromise would be to use ESPN stats for height and weight of any fighters whose information is available there, and match records and stats for fighters unavailable on ESPN's website still be cited from Sherdog. Hunterb212 (talk) 7:10, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 I'd say. They're not ESPN-type reliable, but for general uncontested information like who won a fight or the card for an event, then they're useable. I also agree with what Hunterb212 says above. Red Fiona (talk) 21:56, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 or 2 I lean towards option 1 because I generally use sherdog for fight information and results because they get that basic information correct. It appears there may be less reliability in their height and weight statistics. It certainly isn't self-published and the fact that McGregor's height varies depending on the source is not that unusual. Many athletes in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL have official heights and weights that are generally believed to be incorrect. My doctor's office measured my height differently in successive visits in the past year, but it doesn't make them unreliable (though it might say something about my posture sometimes). Note that option 1 says "generally reliable" not "always correct". Even the best media sources make errors. Papaursa (talk) 00:35, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 I hadn't planned to comment here, but I'm rather alarmed at the idea that we would accept Sherdog's figures regardless of what other sources say. I don't have a problem with using it as a handy go-to source for information that would be hard to get elsewhere, and even with a general agreement that it is more reliable than (insert name of alternative MMA database here), but when multiple RS like the Guardian and CBS all say one thing, and Sherdog is the only source saying something else, we surely have to go with the other sources - we can't have a situation where the content at a bunch of BLPs can only come from one source, regardless of what others say - no source is that reliable. GirthSummit _(blether) 11:14, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 I've come across this issue once or twice before - this modestly-staffed entity (it looks like a small core staff and a range of enthusiastic part-timers, nothing wrong with that) does keep a massive database, mostly, as I understand, robust but it seems updating is not always done - and then the odd stat (like the height of Conor McGregor) is just perhaps off (weights change per fight, styles and finishes shift, but not height). I see no problem in using it, but it cannot be some "unique source" for MMA BLPs - however, especially for less-known fighters, it may be their only solid listing. NO clear evidence of major problems has been given, ertainly not against the 10s of thousands of data points it supplies - and it seems the MMA area is a bit "hot" in terms of debate, a pity, and something which I see has made a straightforward discussion hard. So I believe it can be considered Generally Reliable, but capable of being over-ruled by other RS - and as a side benefit, I believe this process also reminds that while a WikiProject may make recommendations, no project can declare that some source is "the only source" for something, nor does a Project "own" the content in its area of interest (which may cross multiple other projects anyway); none of this takes away from recognition of the hard and often rather thankless - but critical - work done by WP MMA or any other project or contributor. SeoR (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Comments

Really? You've started discussions at two different noticeboards (which are still active), both of which are currently showing consensus against your opinion that the source is unreliable and somehow a serious BLP violation, and now you open an RfC? This is getting a bit daft now. This all stems from you saying sherdog is basically shit because you found a video source that says Conor McGregor is 5'11, contradicting sherdog. Shall we also start an RfC to attempt to get CBS Sports and The Independent deprecated as well? They also disagreed with your video source after all. – ².O.^Boxing 23:45, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Those are two different topics on two noticeboards. One is about the reliability of sherdog.com, the other you mentioned is about the BLP policy violation on one particular article. They have loose connection. One of them stems from sherdog.com being the sole source on thousands of BLPs with its very questionable, unreliable data which violates WP:RS, WP:V and the other stems from one particular website's self-publishing identity which violates WP:BLPSPS on a BLP article... If you want to response on the reliability of Sherdog.com, please do. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 00:09, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry this is madness. Lordpermaximum is now going through and editing their old comments retrospectively and therefore riding roughshod over the discussion and replies. This cannot be permitted. Admin attention is required and I think ANI might be necessary.NEDOCHAN (talk) 11:43, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I edited my vote comment without changing my vote to make it more precise after getting new information from everyone involved, and made multiple consequent edits to fix grammar mistakes and typos because admittedly I'm not a native English speaker. Because of that I often try to fix my comments later because I generally realize those mistakes later. I don't even get what are you acussing me with here? But I'm not surprised since you're doing that all the time because I don't agree with your opinion.Lordpermaximum (talk) 13:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

What's your first language out of interest? I am an EFL teacher so am curious.NEDOCHAN (talk) 13:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

This is not the place to ask another editor about their first language, and they are, of course, under no obligation to answer. In any case, there are several editors participating here who do not appear to have English as a first language - and that's fine! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:22, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I edited my vote comment without changing my vote to make it more precise after getting new information from everyone involved...which is something that definitely should not be done. Other editors will read the comments and votes in the RfC. There's no need to refactor your comment to include other people's points, especially when you haven't looked into those points yourself. There's also the bludgeoning issue which is rather tedious. You don't need to reply to every comment you disagree with to repeat your points over and over and over again. – ².O.^Boxing 13:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I suggest Lordpermaximum reads WP:STICK and does something more productive instead of the constant arguing here, since there is absolutely zero support for their claim is self-published. FDW777 (talk) 15:10, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

You should tell that to your friend Squared.Circle.Boxing who had extremely disruptive behavior under this RfC and tried to damage it as best as he could.Perm 04:22, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: The above used "Perm" is User:Lordpermaximum (see in source edit mode) not sure why they choose to use Perm name suddenly in the disussion. Cassiopeia^(talk) 08:10, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

It was too long.Perm 10:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

References

Byline Times

What is the reliability of the Byline Times? This article could be of relevance in the Great Barrington Declaration article. GPinkerton (talk) 00:37, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• They have an explicit strong bias, but they are also trying to do journalism properly. I don't know of any red flags about their past coverage ... but I'm sure someone will now post some - David Gerard (talk) 09:42, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
• Byline Times are signed up to IMPRESS [26] which, in my opinion, does a good enough job of fining papers for misleading stories and getting them to promptly publish corrections that it forces them to either do the RS level fact-checking beforehand or go out of business. El komodos drago (talk to me) 08:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• I cannot comment on the specific reliabilty of the publication, but I can see that the editorial team and senior reporters are all extremely experianced journalists with excellent reputations and a history of working in mainstream legacy media, so I would expect high standards. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
• I recently evaluated whether to use this source for a BLP I'm working on. In that very particular case, I decided to use this source, so there's one datapoint. From what others say, it sounds like this might be a generally reliable source beyond my very specific use case. Jlevi (talk) 17:31, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and for your particular question, I think Nafeez Ahmed is a great general journalist on environmental issues, and the article you link would be strong enough for a BLP. Jlevi (talk) 17:34, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Just saw this, i was the one that questioned Byline Times, near as i can tell it's not signed up for IMPRESS, Byline is. byline.com it's prior iteration was "a platform not a paper" ("we don’t edit our journalists"). The rebranding claims "four part-time editors" and more like a “proper organised news site”[27]. The about page has run by a small, dedicated team of journalists providing a platform for freelance reporters and writers. Hardeep Matharu and founder Peter Jukes the editors, both contributors to the site and other publications. No real evidence of oversight or fact checking, and the division of stories into "Fact" and "Reportage" is not explained. Based on the story in question and the opinion pieces in the "Reportage" section, articles there are more the byline.com model of "we don't edit our journalists". fiveby(zero) 15:10, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess the "Fact"/"Reportage" division doesn't really imply any difference in editorial oversight, there are articles which are clearly author opinions under the "Fact" section. fiveby(zero) 15:38, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Huh. Yeah, I'm surprised that that site isn't in the IMPRESS registry. It looks the the other sister site, 'Byline Investigates', is in the registry, but no trifecta. Regardless, it's pretty clear at least from what they say that they're not using the byline.com model: "Jukes said Byline Times is 'completely different' from Byline.com, which is crowdfunded with no top-down editorial control"[28]. The associated article has a variety of nice things to say about the source, though I'm not familiar with it myself. Jlevi (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Acording to them fact is articles predominantly based on historical research, official reports, court documents and open source intelligence while reportage is immersive and current news, informed by frontline reporting and real-life accounts. From that I gather that the difference is that fact is based off documents while reportage is mainly informed by interviews. El komodos drago (talk to me) 20:01, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• The credibility and notability of the publication seem negligible, so I would say "not reliable." GPRamirez5 (talk) 16:51, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Generally reliable source whose contributors are serious and experienced journalists. Cambial foliage❧ 17:02, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Clarification about applying WP:IAR for interviews done by Daily Mail on Great Barrington Declaration due to lack of media coverage

AS per the advice of Newslinger, I am proposing applying WP:IAR to using the Daily Mail as a source for interviews with the co-signers who are not getting enough media coverage or the opportunity to express their views. In WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_255#2nd_RfC:_The_Daily_Mail, the following paragraph said "Some editors suggested that the previous RfC needed to be overturned because there were non-controversial facts which were reported in the Daily Mail and nowhere else. We note that the use of the Daily Mail as a source in such instances, in addition to being allowed explicitly by the previous RfC, would be covered by WP:IAR in any case.". Right now, the Great Barrington Declaration article is in a very bad shape; a reader who reads this article won't get any context about the declaration or why the people who signed the declaration did it, and will have to go elsewhere on the Internet due to the lack of information in the article. In addition to the lack of WP:NPOV, the article in its current status will fit more with the title "Responses to the Great Barrington Declaration" than the current title. Consequently, I feel it is warranted to apply WP:IAR to include more context about the declaration and the reasons the signers/co-signers signed it for. Since many of the co-signers didn't get the chance to appear in main stream media due to the highly politicized nature of the subject, I feel that this is one of the exceptional cases that WP:IAR should apply to WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_255#2nd_RfC:_The_Daily_Mail specially that it includes only interviews with co-signers (window for co-signers to express their opinions) not factual information. What do you think? And will it help if I added an introductory statement like "In an interview with the Daily Mail" to warn the reader about the source? Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 19:59, 11 October 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. David Gerard (talk) 08:13, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

The CheckUser scan in Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Brian K Horton § 11 October 2020 determined that Knowledge Contributor0 was not a sockpuppet of Brian K Horton, so I've unstruck their comments. — Newslinger talk 16:13, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Knowledge Contributor0: Quoting from the Daily Heil is not going to reduce politicization; quite the opposite. It's an extremist propaganda outlet with an egregiously poor reputation for fact-checking, accuracy, and misreporting interviews and misquoting interviewees. That, among other reasons, is why it is not allowed. COVID-19 is not a niche topic, and plenty of reliable sources that are not screeching tabloid horrowshows cover the subject at hand. We have no need of words printed on such rags as this. GPinkerton (talk) 20:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

This is not about COVID-19 which I feel it is going this way but it shouldn't. This is about the title of the article which is the declaration, and trying to present information about the context the co-signers signed it for. When better sources are available to get their views, we won't need to quote the daily mail, but until enough media coverage - if it happened - is available I believe that WP:IAR is applicable in this case to provide the reader with the context information. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. David Gerard (talk) 08:13, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

That's poor reasoning at best, allowing a notoriously unreliable source because we can't find reliable sources. No way, no how. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:19, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

+1. This is an attempted end run around verifiability, notability, etc. To my mind, not a good exemplar of a WP:IAR situation. Reasonable minds may certainly differ. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:21, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

That's why I suggested adding "In an interview with the Daily Mail" to the text to highlight this fact to the reader. Given that some of the co-signers already expressed similar views in other verifiable sources, I see that the main reason that the source was deprecated doesn't apply in this case and the exception mentioned above in the RfC should apply. Applying WP:IAR will add to the quality of the article without compromising much about verifiability.Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2020 (UTC) Blocked sock. David Gerard (talk) 08:13, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Just an fyi, this is another brand new account looking to discuss the Daily Mail in as many days, I suspect that this another Brian K Horton sock, though considerably less conspicuous than last time, I am happy to be proven wrong though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:54, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Knowledge Contributor0, it is hard to think of a worse case for IAR than inclusion of content from a right-wing tabloid that nobody else has seen fit to cover.

Also, a request here citing IAR with your eighth edit is more than a little suspicious. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:58, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

If the coverage is for the opinions of tens of prominent scientists including a Nobel Prize winner that many main stream media outlets chosen to ignore because the proposal defies the approach favored by the scientists that the media used to regularly quote, then many media outlets may be in direct conflict of interest with the declaration coverage because it undermines public trust in the media outlet's coverage of scientific issues given that the public and governments already acted based on the previously mentioned approach. This situation is kind of a once in lifetime situation that I didn't see before, and that's why I made this proposal to apply the WP:IAR exception to get enough coverage that for apparent reasons many main stream media outlets may be unwilling to cover. I hope that my proposal be evaluated based on its merits not on the person who made it. And after all, it is just a proposal, so if the majority are against it, I would consider it rejected and no harm is done anyway. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

The Daily Mail has been caught fabricating direct quotes and entire interviews multiple times. If the interview is only found in The Daily Mail you have no idea whether or not it actually happened. If it is also in some other source, use that other source. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:00, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't dispute that, but given that some of these scientists already mentioned their views in the declaration and in some other media outlets, the chance that the daily mail will fabricate an interview to confirm the declaration view is negligible given that it will make more sense to make the actual interview than to fabricate it. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, it likely shouldn't have its own article. I don't see what it's longstanding notability will be anymore than any other think tank declaration made every 2 to 3 weeks. Koncorde (talk) 21:01, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

A think tank can make any declarations they want and it may go unnoticed. But tens of scientists including Nobel Prize winner declaring a new public policy proposal related to the field they are specialized in may not go unnoticed. For this declaration to be dismissed, it must have been dismissed in collective systematic reviews as per WP:RS/AC, otherwise Wikipedia editors will be making personal elections that is not theirs to make. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Lots of words, very little meaning. RS/AC is irrelevant - this is not a question of whether their statement is or is not consensus and whether it is "Academic" is debateable, it's a statement rather than an academic point of view being presented even if the people at the bottom are academics with a background.

The question is it significant enough outside of its own primary source nature to warrant an article that seems to just be there to promote a particular view point (and to do making requests to use the Daily Mail to support it).

Secondly, is the statement in and of itself particularly significant beyond what has already been said / tried by countries such as Sweden?

Thirdly is it treated as a significant / valid POV by other sources (i.e. peer review).

The answer is "not particularly", "not particularly" and "not going to happen as it's just a statement by a think tank paid for by the remaining Koch". Koncorde (talk) 02:03, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

First, it is an academic view not just a statement. It was published as the editorial of the BMJ in May after the lockdowns were over under the name "Stratified Shielding". About its significance, if WHO thinks it makes a good point, and the US government met with its scientists, it is a matter of debate between tens of scientists, and UK updated its guidance today to shield the vulnerable after hinting to this few days ago; then it looks like it is significant. But the real question is: who decide how significant it is? us as editors or we need an external source? And how do we decide about its significance? If we were able to measure its significance and decided that the article should be deleted because it is not significant, should we remove other Wikipedia articles of less significance?

Second, yes the statement is significant beyond what was applied in Sweden which was the do nothing or education approach, no shielding of any kind was applied to any group in the society. Sweden top epidemiologist Anders Tegnell already expressed his regrets for not doing enough to shield the elderly in nursing homes.. But I don't really think that what's new about it is our call to make. We are supposed to be just editors summarizing information for the reader.

Third, yes, and actually peer reviewed studies are already being published on the effectiveness of the approach and how to identify individuals who should be shielded. This again highlights the important point of not passing our scientific judgements to the readers, and instead sticking to Wikipedia spirit of trying to provide comprehensive coverage to the readers with WP:NPOV.Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 00:16, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

A public statement asking for mass signatures is not the same as an editorial in the BMJ which is not the same as being an academic statement. Everything after that I stopped reading because if you are misrepresenting right from the first instance I am not trusting anything else you link to as I am going to assume you are going to try and use unrelated sources in the same way. Koncorde (talk) 00:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

You said that whether it is "Academic" or not is debateable, and I wanted to show one reference to their statement being academic by showing it in the editorial of a scientific journal. If that doesn't fit your definition, then please give me an example of an academic statement declaration so that I can check if this declaration fits the definition or not. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 01:29, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

To be clear, you are saying because someone published an editorial in the BMJ that anyone sharing that POV (unclear, original research) is therefore publishing an academic source per RS/AC. After the fact you are backfilling the things associated with that viewpoint that may or may not have happened as a result of the BMJ editorial, or a.n.other study or source.

My point of view is that a statement by academics is not under the purview of RS/AC. It's simple. For example, Academic Consensus states:

A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view. Otherwise, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources.

I struggle to see how a statement that can be signed by anyone, and has been, could possibly be considered a reliable source other than for those who signed the bit of paper at the top, and certainly should be attributed solely to them and not some broad spectrum of scientists (especially in the absence of any significant scientific content within the letter; which instead just states some broad stroke policy ideas).

Anyone signing what is effectively a glorified petition is subject to scrutiny in any case because it's easily spoofed. Koncorde (talk) 02:35, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

No, I am saying that it is an academic point of view but I didn't say it is an academic source. I already gave examples of peer-reviewed papers that concluded that focused protection for the vulnerable can reduce the number of the deaths, these are academic sources. I included these only to demonstrate it is not a think tank making a statement which was your argument as to why this declaration shouldn't have an article. So, the statement as you said is a reliable source about the 3 signers/44 co-signers and it is attributed to them not to a think tank. Does it deserve its own article which is your original question? I would say yes given the weight of the signers/co-signers. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 02:23, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Then that is original research. Does it deserve its own article? Does 3very statement by a think tank deserve an article? There are lots of them. The WHO puts out lots of statements, we don't create an article for each one then opine on who does or doesn't agree with it either. Koncorde (talk) 02:37, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

No, original research is research paper published without/before peer review, and this declaration is not presenting a research paper for review. There are already peer reviewed papers who talked about the focused protection approach under many names, and this declaration is mainly a statement and petition of what was presented in many other peer-reviewed published papers. So to answer your question, does every statement by a think tank deserve an article? No, not every statement deserves an article because it will depend on the weight of signers/co-signers and the nature of claims they make. If WHO made a declaration petitioning the whole world saying that many people globally will die needlessly, then it will need to have its own article. Tens of top scientists making a declaration that they can save many people from dying, petitioning the world to join them, and governments meeting with them; deserve their own article. Actually if this declaration doesn't deserve its own article, many many articles should be deleted from Wikipedia to avoid double standards. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 03:09, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

For the record, we WP:IAR'd already in the Great_Barrington_Declaration#Authors section, citing an interview in Jacobin and pointing to some editorials the authors had published, some of which i did not see mentioned in other RS. fiveby(zero) 21:05, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• The DM can't be used for attributed opinions and quotations... because they have been proven to fabricate them. Not for any other reason. (t · c) buidhe 07:49, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

True, but in this case, it would be easier for Daily Mail to make the real interview than to fabricate, given that some of these scientists already expressed these views before. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

No, per the above - David Gerard (talk) 08:07, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

If its important RS will have picked it up, if they have not neither should we. The Daily Myth makes up quotes, alters it own historical content. It cannot be trusted.Slatersteven (talk) 12:59, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

That's the exceptional situation in this case. Many main stream media outlets that represent the RS already promoted an approach favored by the scientists that the media used to regularly quote, the public and governments already acted based on it. It will be very hard for many media outlets to provide coverage of the declaration without undermining public trust in the media outlet's coverage of scientific issues. And that's why I think that the WP:IAR exception should apply in this case. At the very least, Daily Mail doesn't have this conflict of interest in this case and it is in their own benefit to make the actual interview and not fabricate unless they want to sabotage their own goals. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Given that we're talking content that also falls into the realm of MEDRS (that is, the proposed Declaration appears to have numerous medical experts calling it a Bad Idea (TM)) FRINGE likely applies and we should be wary of necessarily giving too much weight to the rational/science behind the declaration unless those are also backed by MEDRS-type sourcing. Which the DM is clearly not. --Masem (t) 16:29, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

There seem to be numerous medical experts on the side of the declaration with even more notable scientific output as well to the point that there is no proof so far that their view is a minority view in the absence of systematic reviews that explain the current landscape. Given the latest attack from WHO on lockdown approach favored by some experts who called the declaration a bad idea, and given that one of the WHO scientists said that the declaration makes a good point, I don't believe it is up to Wikipedia editors to dismiss the declaration as a fringe scientific view. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Even if the DM were not banned, it usually violates weight to include information that is only included in one publication. The reasoning is that readers want to know about important aspects of a topic, not unimportant or trivial aspects, and we determine what is significant by the degree of coverage. TFD (talk) 23:25, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Actually using the Daily Mail here is balance the weight since the quotes of the critics of the declaration are quote by many media outlets while the signers/co-signers of the declaration don't have much window to express their views. This skew in the media shouldn't be reflected in the article. Given that there are no systematic reviews published to explain the current landscape of theories and hypothesis and their weights (makes sense because COVID-19 is still new), the only option that I see is to provide a balanced view is weighting by the number of scientists which is not possible if some scientists are being ignored in main stream media outlets. The proposal is not quote only Daily Mail, the proposal is to quote daily mail when there is no better source to guarantee balanced weight based on the number of scientists until systematic reviews are available that can guide us towards the right weight.Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 00:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Everyone has a bias which is reflected among other things by what information they find most important about a topic. Wikipedia has decided that weight be assigned to information "proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." Since in every article editors will disagree with what is most important, some criteria for deciding are necessary. To you, neutrality is achieved by balancing corporate media with the extreme right. But I really think that we would need a change in policy to do that. By the way, in may opinion, IAR means that we should ignore the letter of policy or guidelines when doing so would go against their spirit. That principle is the basis of equity law and is part of accounting standards in the UK. But the spirit of neutrality (which I always thought was misnamed) is reflecting mainstream bias. TFD (talk) 01:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

If spirit of neutrality is reflecting mainstream bias in media coverage of scientists' views, did we apply that when creationism/ID was dominant in media (due to bias) and non-existent in Science? Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 01:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

If there is "no better source" than the Daily Mail for a particular point-of-view, then that point-of-view is irrelevant and should not be cited in this project. Zaathras (talk) 01:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

So when do you think the WP:IAR exception to the DM mentioned in WP:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_255#2nd_RfC:_The_Daily_Mail should apply? Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 01:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I just don't understand why we need to touch the DM here at all. I look through google news hits and I'm seeing a rather healthy (ha) discourse in sources on both sides (more tending to downplay the document obviously) that necessarily the interview with the three behind it isn't adding much, DM or not. This is where my NOT#NEWS soapbox comes out - not that this isn't a notable topic, but think about writing this as what the article will be like in 10 years time, not what is important "now". --Masem (t) 15:31, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

If Google decided to censor the website without explanation, then when the news went public they removed the censorship also without explanation, then how do you know that what you see in the search results is not biased given that the search engine already took a side? By the way, the interviews I am referring to are not with the 3 main signers but with some of the co-signers, but it may happen in the future that one of the signers speaks to the Daily Mail and we will have to omit what was said if WP:IAR is not applied. Thinking long term, the article in my opinion will be in a state of continuous development giving the continuous development of events. So the article should summaries everything known about the topic right now, and definitely in 10 years things will be different because knowledge about the subject will be totally different. Imagine how Coronavirus disease 2019 will be in 10 years, and think if you should eliminate anything right now because it may not have value in 10 years. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 01:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

You have neglected the conditional clause of IAR, namely If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining WP, then (and only then) does IAR apply. Adding quotes which may be fabricated and have no reliable source is not an improvement or maintenance of WP. Therefore in this instance IAR does not apply and the rule not to include information sourced to the Daily Mail should be followed. Cambial foliage❧ 12:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

That's true if it is fabricated. But as I mentioned above, in this case the Daily Mail has direct interest in publishing the real interview rather than fabricate. Why fabricate if the real interview will say more than you hope for? Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 01:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

This is a forum for gathering wider opinion of the community, not for individuals to hammer away at the same point endlessly to all who differ. You opened a proposition for discussion, and within 3 days more than ten editors responded firmly in the negative, with barely a flicker of support. You have your answer. Cambial foliage❧ 22:39, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

You are right, I have my answer. But before I conclude and list all arguments made for and against, I want to see if there are any more arguments I can include in the summary. This whole discussion would be pointless, if it doesn't end up with a summary of all arguments raised to save other Wikipedia editors from going into the same discussion again. What do you think? Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 02:23, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Summary

As I believe I waited enough to hear all arguments that can be raised, I think that the result is: almost every user rejected the proposal. For the sake of reference for any future discussion specially about policies, here is a summary of all arguments raised against and for the proposal.
Against:

1. Daily Mail can fabricate the interviews.
2. If no source other than the Daily Mail caught an interview then it may not be worth including in Wikipedia.
3. Wikipedia WP:NPOV means reflecting the bias in main stream media, so anything included in the Daily Mail and not in main stream media shouldn't be included in Wikipedia.

For:

1. Given that the interviewee expressed similar views in other sources, it is in Daily Mail's best interest to make the interview and not to fabricate.
2. If main stream media outlets already took a position claiming that science said something based on the opinions of some quotes scientists, then they can't quote scientists who declare different opinions because it undermines public trust in these media outlets. That's a direct conflict of interest that will prevent main stream media outlets from covering any opposing view to the view they already adopted, but Wikipedia's WP:NPOV shouldn't be affected by this bias in main stream media.
3. At many points in time, the bias in main stream media gave an unbalanced view that was not reflected in verifiable sources about certain subjects e.g. when the public perception of the scientific weight of creationism/ID was different from that reflected in academic sources, when homosexuality was perceived to be a disease … etc. Wikipedia WP:NPOV was never perceived to be aligning to main stream media, and so Daily Mail should be sued as a source when main stream media are biased.

Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

References

Requiring article talk page notifications for RfCs that would remove references used in those articles

There is an increasing trend to hold an RfC here to deprecate a source, which is then followed up by editors removing existing references to that source from articles. However, there are currently no notifications on articles or their talk pages that a source is being considered for deprecation (unlike templates, where {{tfd}} appears in the articles affected). This is effectively a fait accompli - editors working on article content that aren't watching this page don't hear about the discussion until it's too late to participate in it.

I propose requiring that notifications linking to the RfC are added to the talk pages of affected articles so that article editors can participate in the RfCs before they are closed. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:44, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Survey (talk page notifications)

• Support as proposer. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:44, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Some sources are used in hundreds or thousands of articles. To put notices on every talk page would be spam. (t · c) buidhe 18:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Buidhe. It's not practical to send up to tens of thousands of talk page messages every time a source is discussed. Many RfCs on this noticeboard do not result in deprecation even when it is presented as one of four options. As an alternative, RfCs on widely-cited sources have been promoted on the centralized discussion template, which is displayed on most noticeboards. Editors can opt into receiving updates by watchlisting Template:Centralized discussion. — Newslinger talk 19:14, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Newslinger and Buidhe: Perhaps a notice could only be triggered if the source is likely to be deprecated? If it affects so many articles then it's even more important to provide some sort of notice. I can't see how watchlisting Template:Centralized discussion would help, since the discussions aren't in the edit summaries, and most editors wouldn't know to look at it (first time I've seen it in 15 years!). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:22, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  I can't support this kind of trigger, since it would interfere with consensus-building (and only when the RfC is likely to find a certain result). Here's an analogy: when an article is nominated for deletion, we don't automatically notify all of the editors (potentially hundreds or thousands) who have contributed to that article, even though the deletion discussion might result in the removal of their contributions. Doing so would be disruptive due to the number of notifications and would be considered improper canvassing, since in most cases, an editor who has invested time and effort into an article is more likely to defend the article than an editor who has not done so, regardless of whether there is a good reason to keep/delete the article. Implementing automatic large-scale notifications for sources being examined on this noticeboard would be similarly disruptive, and result in a similar influx of editors who are more likely to defend a cited source because they have invested time and effort into bringing an article to its current state, regardless of whether the source is reliable. However, I can support notifying related WikiProjects about RfCs on this noticeboard, which would be similar to the article alerts that are generated by deletion discussions. — Newslinger talk 05:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that CENT is not as visible as it should be, but ultimately the objective should be to make CENT more visible, rather than trying to make templates appear across thousands of pages, which is impractical. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:26, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Support I appreciate the idea of having more invested eyes on discussions, however I feel this may be a solution looking for a problem. My impression with this board is sourcing specialists commenting on potential sources.
  Adding dozens, or hundreds of invested comments will unlikely change the outcomes and instead will likely add grief to those monitoring the board. Glee^anon 19:33, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Gleeanon409: I'm raising this because it is a problem - I've seen multiple sources removed from articles I've worked on without being able to participate in the discussion (for the latest, see Talk:Nan Rendong). Wikipedia doesn't work by 'specialists', it works by consensus, and if you don't involve the editors affected then you shouldn't be claiming consensus. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:04, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  Looking at Talk:Nan Rendong you appear to be talking about CGTN. The CGTN discussion was extremely well attended and the consensus was overwhelming, there really isn't much of a question about whether CGTN has published misinformation so deprecation was a no-brainer. Are you suggesting the discussion was somehow deficient or that consensus would have been different with even greater participation? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:18, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back: This isn't about a single reference (which is why I didn't mention it at the start of this discussion), it's about the general approach that is taken when deprecating a source. If this page decided to deprecate NASA, how would I know about it until the references start to be removed? Or if you want to focus on CGTN and this specific article, it was unexpectedly removed, I checked it and it looked OK, so I restored it, it was then removed again, and I restored it with a request to discuss it on the talk page, after which it was undone again and I started a discussion on the talk page. I'm still waiting for a link to the discussion about CGTN. Can you provide it, please? Mike Peel (talk) 20:35, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  You might want to try going to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources and then ctrl f-ing until you find it. Why am I having to tell you how to find something so basic? Aren’t you an admin or something? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:46, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back: Link 1 is to [29], it was a discussion to no consensus. Link 2 is to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#"CGTN"_and_"CGTN_America",_both_Chinese_media_outlets, which is, um, this page but a section that doesn't seem to exist. No link to a consensus discussion, let alone a discussion that I can contribute to? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:53, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  The relevant RfC is Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_312#RFC:_China_Global_Television_Network. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:58, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  Click on the blue arrow box/2020 above link 1 and 2 or just click the link provided by Nikkimaria. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:59, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back and Nikkimaria: Ah, I see! It was above the links I was looking at, and just saying '2020' wasn't too helpful. You hid the link well. So the next step is that I should add a comment at [30]? Except, of course, that discussion is now closed - so what should I now do to be able keep the reference in the article? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:05, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  After consideration it does seem to be a valid concern of cultural imperialism, among other factors, leading to a partial or full depreciation of sources that actually may have valid sourcing issues on Wikipedia but are being dismissed wholesale.

  I also think it’s unrealistic that the editors who are building articles would be watching CENT or other project pages but they might see a notice on the article talk page that’s on their watchlist. At the end of the day we want to make the best decision and those using the sources might have un-obvious knowledge.

  I suggest a trial of a bot notification triggered after a 7-day period or so if it seems some sort of depreciation is likely. The bot could target a mix of articles 1) with the most use of the source, and 2) most actively edited articles. Glee^anon 18:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, if none of us respected consensuses we weren’t personally involved in then things would fall apart here pretty quickly. This is a bad idea both on a practical and philosophical level. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:23, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support The more general issue here is setting a best practice for notification when some robot is making editorial decisions at scale. Should this discussion only happen at the established Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group or should there be some broader Wikipedia community discussion? When the BAG was established the bot activity was relatively low and more about maintenance. Increasingly bots are making editorial decisions, which is unlike prior bots managing templates or administration. Just to throw out an idea: if a bot is going to execute editorial decisions, then as a pilot, it should post messages on the talk pages. Perhaps a good scale would be
  • First 10 articles - post on talk page of all
  • 100 - 1000 articles - post on 10% of them
  • More than 1000 - post on 100 talk pages

A diverse editorial conversation should happen before operating at scale. I do not think the conversation should be endless, but the conflicts between humans and automation in the editorial space are growing. We need to have a well developed process which people trust for this. Limiting conversations to mostly technically minded editors is not viable when the effect is an editorial, and not only maintenance, decision. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:51, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

No one is talking about bots executing editorial decisions, and this isn't a particularly technical-focused board. It's not clear how this post relates to the discussion at issue. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

No Bluerasberry this has nothing whatsoever to do with bot editing, there are no bot removals going on here - David Gerard (talk) 21:58, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with bots, and no bot has ever made an editorial decision wrt to content. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:13, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

It is challenging for me to imagine a situation where someone wants to remove 100s or 1,000s of citations and does not consider using bots to execute. I anticipate a future where bots facilitate the removal of deprecated sources. If consensus is in opposition to that then great. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:16, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. While I'm sympathetic to the principle at issue - I would actually say TfDs and similar have the same problem, since even though there is a visible notice it doesn't trigger on watchlists unless you watch the affected template itself - I agree with commenters above regarding the practical issues with this proposal. In most cases it would be more trouble than it's worth, and in the few cases where deprecation does result I'm concerned it would bring more heat than light. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support: At least until a credible solution to ensure higher impact depreciations see sufficient audience; taking the "short-cut" effectively excludes most contributors from discussion. It takes very little effort to depreciate a source, it takes a far far far greater effort to repair the damage. If a lot of talk page need to contacted then the same number of article pages will also need edits; One might argue Template:Unreliable-source?Template:Unreliable source? or Template:Self-published source? should be applied to the same number of pages after the decision to alert readers to the problem. So if its going to have a wide impact then widespread warnings should be given. Just because it looks "too hard" doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Djm-leighpark (talk) 21:10, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

It appears there is no template for “Unreliable source”. Surely this would be a better solution than something on the talk page. Downsize43 (talk) 00:45, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I'vw fixed the typo in the "unreliable source?" template. That can only be applied post-discussion, ie after the discussion result, which is too later to enter the discussion.00:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I don't think the problem is the deprecation of sources per se, it's that some editors then remove the citations, or worse the citation and the content it cites, without apparently making any serous effort to find a suitable alternative citation, or without reading the surrounding text and considering the effect on it that such a removal of content has. I've seen this happen, even when RfCs have said that the source may be used if no alternative is available. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:24, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Pigsonthewing: Agree . We need to take WP:PRESERVE and WP:CAUGHT UP more seriously than we currently do. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:43, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - we have a central place to advertise RFCs already, and the RFCs go there; and this proposal would trivially not scale, as noted already. And the proposal turns out to be a procedural objection to the slam-dunk deprecation of CGTN after an attempt to edit-war it back in, which, um. Can you show a better example of claimed harm that quite such a wide-ranging response as this would clearly be proportionate to? - David Gerard (talk) 22:01, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per buidhe. This would only serve to annoy the vast majority of editors, especially in snow cases. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support - Not notifying editors who are going to be directly affected by a RFC is highly problematic. In fact, failure to notify nullifies the local group decisions that are made on this board. As has been stated by many editors the perennial list of sources is simply advice for editors. Please note the quote at the top of that page "This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." Many of the individuals who oppose the notification process are the same individuals who are highly active on this noticeboard. These individuals unfortunately have gained too much unchecked decision making power. The Wikipedia community is going to have to deal with this problematic concentration of power. Notification of the wider community of editors who will be affected by these endless RFCs on this board is one step in the right direction. --Guest2625 (talk) 10:40, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This is a public notice board everyone can look at and edit. Nor are editors affected by these decisions, content is. These are not "your" articles, they are ours. Source only get brought here (and deprecated) when their use becomes an issue with accuracy or fairness.Slatersteven (talk) 10:49, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Some deprecated sources are used in tens of thousands of articles, and notification like this would basically amount to WP:CANVASSing in some cases. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Strongly support — the trend to deprecate news sources from countries considered to be strategic rivals of the Anglo-American world (e.g. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela) has been accelerating. Often, editors here represent a small and not necessarily representative subset of the larger Wikipedia community, and decisions to deprecate are not based on falsification of the news itself, but instead upon editorial views. I'll be blunt: the removal of international sources is converting an international encyclopedia into a parochial and politically biased source of information, and this trend is destructive to Wikipedia.
  • First, it cannot be a bad thing to involve larger numbers of people in these discussions. The idea that people working on articles where these sources are used are naturally biased contributors is an admission that the decisions being made here might not be supported by the broader community.
  • Second, what has happened to the longstanding practice of using this board to evaluate sources and claims on a case-by-case basis? Those discussions were fascinating and helpful. By contrast the deprecation discussions appear to devolve into us-versus-them, black-and-white groupthink where the Cold War is invoked as a positive model.
  • Third, the deprecation trend, and the manner in which it has become popular, needs a broader and high-level discussion on Wikipedia. The proposal here is a good stop-gap measure, but more input is needed on how and why large numbers of international papers from major countries — including the word's two nuclear superpowers that aren't the United States, and the world's most populous country — are suddenly being removed from this site. -Darouet (talk) 14:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Perhaps @Mike Peel:’s suggestion that if depreciation looked likely then bot talkpage notifications should go out deserves more consideration. Maybe triggered at the 7-day mark so there’s time before the discussion ends? Glee^anon 15:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Buidhe as plainly impractical; it'd make the InternetArchiveBot spam seem mild by comparison. But I do think it's important to have adequate notification for the bigger discussions here at places like WP:CENT and perhaps the WikiProjects of the countries where the news outlet is based (to address Darouet's point above). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:40, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with Slatersteve, JzG here; also WP:NOTBURO. Major proposed deprecations can go on the centralized discussion template. Neutrality^talk 17:49, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  Neutrality, absolutely agree: we need to make sure that participation in deprecation RfCs is meaningful. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, patiently unworkable and would frequently spam massive numbers of articles. We regularly have centralized discussions that will affect large numbers of articles and generally do not post notifications on each of them. --Aquillion (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support. I would like to re-emphasize Darouet point. The zeal with which people remove content from articles that are only tangentially related to why the source was deprecated also shows that they are not here to build an encyclopedia. Mass blanking of pages is exactly the censorship we often rail against.Albertaont (talk) 04:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support within a reasonable, practical limit. If you know that it's used in 10 (or maybe 20?) articles, then you can copy and paste a one-sentence template notice to those talk pages. If it's 50 or 100 articles, then we can't do that manually, and maybe we either don't do it, or we have a bot do it. Also, hopefully this would make it obvious when editors try to ban sources that aren't being used at all, which is a pointless and WP:CREEPy waste of everyone else's time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  To give an example, at the top of this page is an RFC about The Mail on Sunday. The person who started the RFC writes "it's only been cited 11 times". Surely we could notify eleven talk pages? The other current RFCs involve more (those URLs are in approximately 100 to 3,000 articles), but when the numbers are so low, it seems only appropriate to notify the potentially affected articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

As I stated in the RfC, the Mail on Sunday situation is complicated, there were many hundreds of citations to print references to the Mail on Sunday, and some of the citations from the Daily Mail website were likely based on MoS content, but it's impossible to know by just looking at the url. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:00, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• WhatamIdoing, at time of deprecation there were 2,000 citations to royalark.net and over 3,750 to worldstatesmen.org. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:52, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  Those are good examples of when not to post thousands of notices. If the RFC is about subject-specific sources, then it might be useful to notify a relevant WikiProject, or maybe to tag a couple of pages, but I don't think we should post thousands, or even hundreds, of notices. When the source is only used in a few articles, I see no reason why those few articles can't be notified. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose as not practical and biased. Notifying hundreds of talk pages would cause more trouble than any potential gain. It would also lead to the question of a biased selection of respondents, as pages that avoided using the potentially unreliable source would not be notified. Vici Vidi (talk) 05:54, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support as practical and reduces bias. Practical efforts to improve and widen community participation in sourcing policy decisions should be supported. This is a great example. We should not discount a proposal such as this based on one technical (and extremely dubious) argument about it being time-consuming or requiring a bot. Page watchers who both support and are against the use of a source will be notified. Cambial foliage❧ 13:20, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  "requiring a bot" should not be seen as a barrier here - it's straightforward to code one that looks for a given URL and posts notices on the talk page. I could easily code a bot to do this, but I wouldn't want to operate it. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:22, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I symphatise with Guy here. It's not practical as it would lead to living with the chore of puting notifications on thousands of articles in some cases and it would "definetely" lead to canvassing(WP:CAN).Lordpermaximum (talk) 17:45, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• I'm open to changing my vote if the bot idea of Gleeanon409 is feasible.Perm 09:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose generally, even if feasibly possible, as we risk veering into spam/disruptive territory when CENT does it fine. If it's, say, less than 20 pages, then I can be considered neutral as to whether this should be done. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:33, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Some of the deprecated sources were used in thousands of pages. Requiring thousands of notifications to be written is a time-consuming action, without a guarantee that it would broaden the number of editors who choose to participate in the discussion. Dimadick (talk) 09:10, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Mass removal of content on China-related articles

As a consequence of the RfCs on Global Times and Xinhua, some users have been stripping citations from large numbers of China-related articles, which will probably lead to the eventual removal of large amounts of information about China. To give a few examples of items removed just in the past day by one user:

• [31]: Removal of a source describing how delegates for the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party were selected.
• [32]: Removal of a source describing production of Type 055 destroyers.
• [33]: Removal of source describing criticism of a famous Chinese actress' performance in a particular movie.
• [34]: Removal of source describing visa regulations in China.
• [35]: Removal of source describing the command structure of Chinese police.
• [36]: Removal of source describing the performance of a Chinese athlete in an international competition.
• [37]: Removal of source describing the Chinese premiere of an Indian film.
• [38]: Removal of source describing Chinese audience reaction to a major Chinese film.
• [39]: Removal of source documenting that a Chinese official was under investigation by a Communist Party anti-corruption agency.
• [40]: Removal of source documenting where a 2015 conference between the Communist Party and Kuomintang was held.
• [41]: Removal of source describing which routes are flown by a Chinese budget airline.
• [42]: Removal of source that lists Alibaba's sales revenue on China's unofficial "Single's Day" holiday.
• [43]: Removal of source documenting a Chinese film industry award won by a Chinese actor.

These are all Global Times sources, but I've seen similar things happening with Xinhua, which wasn't even deprecated. When the discussions occurred here about Global Times and Xinhua, I don't think most users realized just how much completely mundane, factual information would end up being unsourced (and could end up being scrubbed from Wikipedia). I think there should be a pause on these mass removals of sources, and a discussion about whether or not this is what Wikipedians really want to happen. In my opinion, much more focused guidance should be given, particularly about Global Times. Broad deprecation is damaging to the encyclopedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes poor sources need removing.Slatersteven (talk) 10:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Wrongthink surely. Surely where there are poor sources the object should surely be wholelistic to try to improve the encyclopedia in the most efficient way. This may at times mean replacing sources, at times tagging sourcess to assist others to improve, at times removing content. And the approach may be context dependent. It takes little effort to delete content; and somewhat more to replace it. If we take a thepeerage.com source a section or two above, remove it completely and very difficult to find the underlying source it cites unless one knew it was there and trawled through history. There are those who come to Wikipedia to build an encylopedia, there are those come to feast on destroying others efforts, though few are probably totally at that extreme.Djm-leighpark (talk) 11:00, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I consider it worse to include things that may not be true then to remove them.Slatersteven (talk) 11:21, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

But they aren't removing "things that may not be true". They are removing the citation and leaving the "things that may not be true" right there in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

The issue should be what do we gain or lose, if we remove dodgy sources and content our overall reputation for accuracy might improve,, If we allow it to stay we keep our reputation for inaccuracy.Slatersteven (talk) 11:25, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

We're not risking anything by relying on the Global Times for information about the command structure of Chinese police, the routes flown by a Chinese budget airline or the date of a conference between the CPC and KMT. By stripping GT and other Chinese sources, however, we are at risk of losing a lot of content, and ending up with a narrow view of Chinese issues that comes entirely from the outside. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:30, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes we are, you are seeing it here, "but its reliable for this..., thus why not for that". We need to discourage the use of bad sources.Slatersteven (talk) 11:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

How are we seeing it here? Whether a source is reliable is not an absolute all-or-nothing question. Sources can be reliable in some contexts but not in others, and a blanket rule is rarely constructive. The diffs I gave above show that the Global Times is being removed as a source for large numbers of articles in which I would contend there are not serious concerns about its reliability. Context used to be a key factor considered at WP:RSN, but the recent move towards RfCs and official deprecation of a growing list of sources has led to a much more black-and-white framing. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:05, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Well the first link can be seen as an example of party propaganda "look how we are tackling corruption". Second "launched in the Dalian", not built by, it may be pedantic but it failed verification, Third do we really need to know what one media outlet thinks? its trivia. I stopped at three, none of this is needed or useful or really needs better sourcing.Slatersteven (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

The first source was simply used to reference the fact that the Central Committee approved a selection procedure for the 19th National Congress. That's a simple factual matter, and I don't see how its inclusion constitutes propaganda. The second edit summary does not say "failed verification." It says the source is deprecated. Global Times would be a perfectly fine source for claiming that a ship was built by a certain company and launched on a certain date. For the third edit, the issue is how Chinese audiences reacted to a certain film. In this case, the Global Times is accurately summarizing the widespread reception of the film in China (largely unfavorable). Many sources could be used for this particular claim, but it's an example of accurate reporting from the Global Times on an apolitical issue. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:57, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

No you think it is, the community disagreed. The fourth link, I cannot see any mention of connecting flights.Slatersteven (talk) 14:07, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

The community expressed worries about political propaganda, but I don't think most people had mundane factual matters on their minds, like who won a particular acting award. The mass removal of such straightforward information from articles, which I think will be highly unexpected to many who took part in the RfC, is why I'm raising this issue here.

About the fourth link, the source was apparently being used to reference the change in outbound visa policies, not the detail about connecting flights. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

If the community thought that the sources were unusable for politics but could be used for simple factual statements, they could have gone for generally unreliable or even "other considerations"; they went for full depreciation, which is unequivocally stating that no, it cannot be used for "who won a particular award." I agree with the statement below that this reads like you are trying to re-litigate the RFC - the usage of these sources you are arguing for here is one that the community has clearly and unequivocally rejected. There is a little room to discuss the best way to go about removing these sources, but the community consensus is unequivocally that our ultimate goal should be to get our usage of them down to nearly zero - used for nothing at all outside of the tiny slivers of usage allowed under WP:ABOUTSELF and the like. If you disagree with that, you need to start another RFC, because it doesn't sound like you accept the outcome of the previous one. --Aquillion (talk) 21:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Of your first four sources two should have been tagged anyway, two (it can be argued) are trivia. So I am gona say if this is an example of what we are losing I do not see an issue, and in fact would argue this may be one reason it was deprecated. It is either being misused or used for stuff we really do not need.Slatersteven (talk) 09:25, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Djm-leighpark, the default is to exclude poorly-sourced material. Anyone who wants to restore it after replacing the source with a reliable one, can do so.

In practice what happens is the same old circus of a handful of people insisting that people who remove bad sources bear the burden of supporting the content by finding a better source. No, that is not how it works. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:32, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Global Times is not a poor source for most of these cases. There were concerns about GT being used for political purposes, but that does not mean that it's unreliable for all sorts of mundane information. What is going to happen is that as more and more Chinese sources are deprecated or otherwise deemed unreliable in broad spheres, there will be very few sources left for many Chinese topics. Xinhua is still considered broadly reliable, which at least means there's some coverage of Chinese issues, but some users have argued that the RfC close is essentially a deprecation (which is a gross misreading of the RfC result, in my opinion), and are also systematically stripping Xinhua from articles.

We really are going to end up in a situation in which we will have an exclusively American or European view of China and Chinese topics, and many topics that are poorly covered in American and European sources (i.e., broad swaths of Chinese issues) will simply be removed from the encyclopedia. I think that what's unfolding here was not intended by the community, and that much more focused guidance on usage of Chinese sources is necessary. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• We shouldn't cover topics at all if there aren't reliable, independent sources that report on them. It is better than repeating propaganda which may (or may not) be at all accurate. If Wikipedia existed in 1970 and we were trying to report on the Soviet Union, we would have to choose between Soviet propaganda and the writings of Western anti-Soviet writers, who didn't turn out to be much more accurate. If a country bans reliable sources from operating on its territory, yes, that does substantially reduce what can be said about them. Maybe they should consider allowing press to operate freely? (t · c) buidhe 11:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

The issue is that some of the judgments have been too broad, and some of the deprecated sources are actually highly reliable for wide ranges of uses. When the Global Times reports that Spring Airlines services a route between Shanghai and Ibaraki Airport, or that Chinese actor Wen Zhang won the Best Male Lead award at the Hundred Flowers Award, there's no serious doubt that those reports are factual. I can understand avoiding the Global Times to make factual statements about contentious political topics (e.g., statements about the US-China trade war should carry in-line attributions), but stripping out all sorts of simple factual reporting about movie awards, airlines, film premieres, dates of conferences, etc. is destructive. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:17, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I saw some of these removals in my watchlist earlier today and am very troubled, both by the removals and the cavalier and unprofessional attitudes used to justify them. -Darouet (talk) 14:23, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Good riddance to bad sources, the solution here is for the Chinese government to allow independent media to operate in mainland China. We also have plenty of reliable regional papers in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and India which provide significant coverage of China, heck theres even the Hong Kong papers which may I remind you are Chinese so I don’t see the argument for including joke level unreliable (in the case of Global Times) sources as a means to balance out American and European sources as we already have a ton of good non-American and non-European sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no influence over the Chinese government's media policies, and one of my concerns here is indeed that deprecation RfCs are being used to make the political point you just expressed, regardless of the impact on the encyclopedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:05, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Exactly, we have no influence over their media policies, we only react to them. The point I just expressed is not political, it wasn’t even close. On a side note please retract your WP:aspersions that I am engaged in tendentious editing or provide diffs which support your argument, thats just about the most serious accusation that can be leveled at a WP editor by another. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Your comment directly above mine was overtly political. We can't influence Chinese government policy. That doesn't mean we should remove large amounts of simple, factual material like which cities a given airline serves. Proposing Chinese governmental reform doesn't do anything to address the concerns I've raised here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Its procedural not political, editorial independence is one of the core components of our reliability policy. China currently does not tolerate or allow editorial independence on the mainland (HK is for now an exception to the rule). I guess technically I was wrong, there is another solution: we could completely change our reliability policy. Why that would be more reasonable than the Chinese government allowing their citizens basic human rights is beyond me though. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:00, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

^ Now that statement right there, that one *was* a little bit political. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, you can see why I'm worried that deprecation discussions are being influenced by a desire to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you also see how the way you’ve gone about saying so is a personal attack? I’l revert it for you if you don't do it speedily, you cant just make such serious allegations on a noticeboard and then refuse to back them up. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:05, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• That doesn't mean we should remove large amounts of simple, factual material like which cities a given airline serves. As far as I can tell, no one is doing so; they are just removing depreciated sources and leaving a fact tag on material that lacked a valid source (which is what fact tags are for) so the statement can be properly-cited in the future. The fear you're expressing here (that the text will later be deleted) is entirely hypothetical... and if you're deeply worried, your time would be better-spent finding valid sources for those unsourced statements rather than trying to throw red tape in the face of people who are making commendable efforts to improve our sources by removing depreciated sources according to the RFCs requiring such removals. --Aquillion (talk) 21:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - this is an attempt to relitigate the RFC deprecating CGTN. If you want to un-deprecate CGTN, you need to start an RFC with any chance of doing so - David Gerard (talk) 15:02, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

This isn't an RfC, so I don't know what you're opposing. I'm asking for Wikipedians to consider the effects of some recent RfCs, which are now becoming apparent, and which I believe are quite different from what most commenters at the RfCs would have intended. Additionally, this is about a number of sources. I gave examples from the Global Times, but I could also give examples from Xinhua. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:02, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Well I have, and I agree with it.Slatersteven (talk) 16:29, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard: I'm guessing you mean Global Times rather than CGTN (which wasn't mentioned here, although both are deprecated)? — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Global Times content that isn't political shock jock isn't high quality reporting anyway, and similar content will likely be found in Xinhua and other Chinese language sources. CGTN's written content is also quite shallow and better reporting will be found elsewhere. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Let's impose some order on this process. I propose that we start by adding a {{better source needed}} tag wherever the deprecated source exists (without initially removing the deprecated source); and then, after some reasonable period of time (I would think a few weeks), remove the deprecated source and switch the tag for {{citation needed}}. BD2412 T 19:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• I wouldn't want to set a hard and fast rule, since it is very contextual. Obviously anything related to a WP:BLP without a proper citation must be removed on sight, and anything WP:EXCEPTIONAL without a proper citation should almost certainly be removed on sight (in both cases an editor could, if they choose, alternatively search for a valid source to immediately replace it, if one exists; but simply removing the text is always justifiable for those.) Beyond that there's a range of options - immediately replacing the source with {{citation needed}} tag is fine, as is adding a {{better source needed}} tag. Editors can also remove even unexceptional, non-WP:BLP-sensitive text cited to a depreciated source immediately if they're confident a source cannot be found or if they feel there's something else objectionable about the text. I would say that it's generally down to the judgment of individual editors; removing depreciated sources and addressing text cited to them is important and already difficult as-is, so we should avoid tying it down in red tape. --Aquillion (talk) 21:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• As Aquillion has pointed out previously in discussion of the Daily Mail (I can't quickly find the link), RSN can't require editors to treat deprecated sources more leniently than merely bad sources. Your proposal literally protects a deprecated source more than it does a mediocre source, and that straight-up contradicts the provisions of WP:NOR concerning reliable sources, which deprecated sources almost never can be, and definitely shouldn't be presumed to be - David Gerard (talk) 22:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• The entire purpose of depreciation (as opposed to mere unreliability) is that the source adds nothing and cannot be used on Wikipedia. Therefore, it is almost always valid (and, in fact, desirable) to replace a depreciated source with a citation needed tag. There's a little room to discuss the best way to go about it, but I would strenuously oppose anything that would add red tape or formal restrictions to the process. I also disagree with your implicit assertion that this will lead the text to be deleted - lots of text retains a citation needed tag for years, and most people perform at least a basic search before deleting article text. The most likely effect of replacing depreciated sources with CN tags is that editors will replace them with better sources, if they exist. Since a depreciated source harms the reputation of the article by its presence, and could mislead a casual reader into thinking that a statement has a valid source, replacing it with a CN tag is always an improvement. Finally, I object to the way you titled this section - "sources" are not "content", at least in the way we usually use the terms here, so stating that content is being removed makes what is happening sound far more alarming than the uncontroversial changes you actually list. Please retitle the section to state that sources or citations are being removed. --Aquillion (talk) 21:32, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  Is it? I thought that we used words like "banned" or "prohibited" when we meant that something could not be used on Wikipedia. Deprecation has quite another meaning to me – much closer to "eventually, this needs to be upgraded" than "wholesale removal will happen in 3, 2, 1..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• As many editors have expressed already, it's fine to tag deprecated sources (like Global Times and CGTN) with {{better source}} or replace them with {{citation needed}}. If it was Xinhua (which is WP:MREL with specifics given in the WP:RSP entry and is not deprecated) then intext attribution and/or {{better source}} and/or {{citation needed}} is appropriate depending on the context. — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  Pinging Amigao, since OP's given examples are all their edits and they haven't been notified yet. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:37, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  The right tag to use here is {{Deprecated inline|certain=yes}}. BFG (talk) 09:07, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Note that this ongoing. Amigao has removed over 250 instances of Global Times just in the past day. Scroll through to get a sense for how much completely mundane factual information that Global Times is actually reliable for is being removed: [44]. For example, the existence of a railway station in Zhejiang, China is now unsourced: [45]. The Global Times is obviously perfectly reliable for this sort of information. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:31, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Global Times isnt actually reliable for that though, no deprecated source is. I’m confused here, are you challenging the deprecation of the Global Times? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

In real life, yes, Global Times is perfectly reliable for this sort of mundane information, unless you can show they have a track record of inventing fake Chinese high-speed rail stations. I don't think most people participating in the RfC realized that this is the sort of information that would be removed, as the discussion was almost entirely about fears of political propaganda. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:23, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Maybe in your life but not mine. Its a little insulting to suggest that your fellow editors who participate in that RfC didn't understand what they were doing, don’t you think? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

With all due respect, Horse Eye's Back, I think it is bad faith to assume questions about sourcing that arise when users like Amigao go on a crusade against a deprecated source are completely fair, and saying GT isn't reliable because it is a deprecated source seems to be circular, or some sort of is/ought fallacy. WhinyTheYounger (talk) 02:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

This discussion isn't about GT’s reliability, thats as close to a settled fact as anything on Wikipedia is. If you want to know exactly why editors (myself included) consider the Global Times to be unreliable you can peruse the RfC. I cant parse what you’re saying before the second comma. Can you maybe rephrase it or correct any typos? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• • So look for better sources, I did and now its not unsourced.Slatersteven (talk) 13:36, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • And again, one source (arguably it was primary, now its a trivial mention), so there is a question of notability.Slatersteven (talk) 13:49, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

It's the main train station serving a county of over half a million people. Of course it's notable. But this is exactly my point - one user alone is stripping sourcing from hundreds of articles a day, which will lead to a lot of content being removed. It's great that you found a source for this one example, but are you going to go out and find replacements for the hundreds of other sources this one editor has stripped just today? Unless the Global Times is actually unreliable for information like the existence of a railway station, then these mass removals are purely damaging to the encyclopedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:01, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

If it is notable RS would have noted it, that what notability is. Again, you are the people who want this information, you are the ones whop make the case and find the sources. I think it is clear I do not see how mush of this is valuable or encyclopedic, we are not a (for example) directory.Slatersteven (talk) 15:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You've now nominated the article in question for deletion, making exactly my point for me: [46]. An article about the main high-speed railway station for a county of over half a million people, which would be considered a major city in most parts of the world, is now up for deletion. A lot of information about China is going to get deleted if this goes on. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:46, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You might want to recalibrate your expectations there, 500k wouldn’t even get into the top 100 most populous counties in the US. I know to some extent its apples and oranges but your arguments do seem to be getting a bit hyperbolic and overwrought. The sky is not falling. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Number 100 on that list is the county containing Jersey City, which is a major city by anyone's definition. If you'd be okay with deletion of the article describing Jersey City's central transportation hub, then you won't have a problem with the deletion of Changxing railway station. There's a bit of arrogance in brushing off the deletion of an article about a major transportation hub like this. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Most stations around the world don't have a unique article, they get covered on the page for the line overall. It doesn't seem like Changxing railway station is much of a hub, regular speed trains use a completely different station (which doesn't have a wikipedia page) and it has no local metro connection. Of the 11 stations on the Nanjing–Hangzhou Branch of the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway only five have wikipedia pages. If the lack of pages worries you find enough coverage to meet WP:GNG and there will be little opposition at all to creating a page for all 11. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

The more Chinese sources get deprecated, the more difficult it will be to establish notability for things that are obviously highly notable in China, such as high-speed rail stations serving major cities. Your argument is circular: there's no problem deprecating Chinese sources, because that will only lead to articles like Changxing railway station getting deleted, which is no problem because it's not notable, which we know because there are no non-deprecated sources that discuss it, which is why there's no problem deprecating Chinese sources. If my goal were to remove content about China from the encyclopedia, I couldn't think of a better way to do it than getting all the major English-language Chinese sources deprecated for mundane facts. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:19, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

What exactly are you suggesting as a solution? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Horse Eye's Back, I think this is a rather mistaken view of things. It's true that for station articles that do not exist yet, they are listed in line articles. However, the movement is toward making station articles, not consolidating them in line articles. Individual station articles are generally kept at AfD. The standard that you are suggesting here is not the standard used at AfD or elsewhere, and certainly isn't applied to stations in Western countries. I would also note that government sources are considered perfectly acceptable for such articles. Mackensen (talk) 15:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

As can be seen from my vote on the relevant page I don't support the deletion of that page, I do however support the removal of the GT source from the page and I reject Thucydides411’s argument that it would be perfectly acceptable to use GT on this article. As I told them I will tell you “The sky is not falling,” Changxing railway station is not going to be deleted. There isn't going to be some sort of Saturday night massacre of China-related pages, you might notice that many of the people removing CGTN and GT references are some of the most active wikipedia editors article creation and expansion wise in the China space. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• The meaning of "deprecated", again, does not mean that these sources must be immediately flushed and removed per Wikipedia:Deprecated sources. New additions should not be added, but existing ones need to be evaluated to see if the content they were supported can be backed by a more reliable source, but there is no deadline for their removal, period. A mass removal done without the planning of community consensus (of which neither RFC in question that I see had discussed) is within the WP:FAIT territory and that editors see this as disruptive is a problem. If the community wants to see all such links removed "quickly" then a separate RFC to set a grandfathering plan ("You have 3 months or until Jan 31, 2021 to handle these links in articles or otherwise we will remove them and the content they support en masse") would be needed. Or those that want to see these links remove need to be showing they are taking semi-human involved steps to review each removal to make sure there's no other possible method with minimal disruption (which here could be simply tagging with {{better source needed}} or similar inline templates.) --Masem (t) 16:39, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • You've made proposals similar to your "grandfathering plan" for deprecated sources repeatedly. They've been rejected every time. Do you understand why they've been rejected every time? What's different about this one? And if you're making an accusation of bot removals, you need to actually make the accusation, and actually back it up - David Gerard (talk) 17:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Because everywhere else on WP where "mass" actions are done of this scale and where there is not clear consensus for removal or the action, there is usually an RFC to establish this type of grandfathering and/or the editor that initiates the action rolls back their actions until they're told its ok, or if they refuse, they are admin-acted against as being disruptive. Again, key is the language of "deprecated" which is not the same as "banned". If the RFC said "banned" that would be different allowing for this mass action. Otherwise, a careful plan to remove the links is only warranted, which what has been demonstrated is clearly not. --Masem (t) 19:13, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
      • What is the appropriate path here? Keep in mind the users being discussed have been doing "mass action" for about 100 articles a day or more, so in the time of our discussion, another several hundred articles have been stripped of sources. {{better source needed}} seems to be a reasonable request directive for now, as there clearly is a hunt to strip out data from across wikipedia on mundane topics. Apparently, someone thought it was offensive to cite CGTN for the fact that china was developing a 600km/h maglev, when there are videos of it circulating online you can easily find. The user didnt even bother to put the {{citation needed}} tag. Albertaont (talk) 00:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• I too have been concerned with Amigao's warpath against Global Times, especially given their persistent refusal to engage with anyone on their talk page about the issue. I'm offering another recent example of an instance where I used GT in my intermittent overhaul of Censorship in China: Special:Diff/977243274. In that particular edit, GT provided a) details of a phenomenon reported on in Western media, but with added specificity (i.e. naming the companies involved—Mango TV/Hunan Broadcasting) and b) novel information about censorship and morality germane to the subsection overall, namely, noting a Chinese study that indicated consumption of pornography was on the rise in China despite government campaigns against it. GT is a very flawed (and often obnoxious) source, but even saying nothing of the language barrier, the inaccessibility of CNKI means that lots of Chinese research cannot be incorporated into Wikipedia. It can also be useful in obtaining biographical information for notable interviews, e.g. Dong Mingzhu, who was interviewed by GT in September. Again, the benefit here is verifiability, insofar as the source is in English and does not require fluency in Mandarin to check. This is why I still support a designation of GT as "generally unreliable" except for specific circumstances, such as when it adds to details events/topics already covered in reliable sources. Even without another RfC, I believe that Amigao's continued mass deletion of GT is not particularly constructive, particularly given their uncommunicativeness. WhinyTheYounger (talk) 02:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree. CGTN is IMHO a propaganda outlet, and reducing reliance on them as a source can only be a good thing. Removing sources outright is however counterproductive, it is better to mark them clearly as being deprecated, (eg. {{Deprecated inline|certain=yes}}), and work to replace them. This also places the article in and can be handled from there. When you want to replace an unreliable source, having the unreliable source at hand is a good thing, and marking it as such. An alternative would be to create a template that handles a reference inline, and thus hides the reference from public view, while maintaining it for editors. If you find material that is unverifiable, by all means remove it. BFG (talk) 09:19, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
    • People keep advocating tagging instead of removal of deprecated sources - that is sources that should not be used in Wikipedia at all - but it has one big problem: it doesn't work. Nothing ever happens. The tag sits there for months or years. We've literally tried your proposal, and it results in nothing happening. Functionally, this sort of proposal just tries to replace doing something about the deprecated source, that should not be used in Wikipedia at all, with doing nothing about it - David Gerard (talk) 09:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
      • I will actually advocate for removing unverifiable information. If you put in an effort to check a source, and see there is no reputable source to back the claim, please remove the content. Leaving it with a {{citation needed}} or just removing the unreliable reference is not improving Wikipedia. BFG (talk) 09:43, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

      David Gerard, if this were the Daily Mail I'd probably agree with you. I submit that the original discussion for this source is flawed and being used for mass removals in a way that was not foreseen. It's quite a jump to go from "this source is too bellicose to be trusted editorially" to "we must remove its non-controversial statements about railway stations immediately." I'm not sympathetic to taking a hard line here; show your work please, and as it applies in this case. Best, Mackensen (talk) 03:36, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• The September RfC found strong consensus to deprecate the Global Times. In fact, the consensus here is about as strong as the consensus to deprecate Breitbart News (RSP entry) in its 2018 RfC, and there are only eight uses of breitbart.com   in article space compared to the 129 uses of globaltimes.cn   and 375 uses of huanqiu.com  , which indicates that there is more cleanup to be done with regard to the Global Times. When a removal is disputed, one solution is to discuss the removal on this noticeboard, as we are doing now. WP:BURDEN states that "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material" and that "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source", so removals of deprecated sources are consistent with policy unless an exception such as WP:ABOUTSELF applies (and even that exception is subject to an evaluation of due weight). — Newslinger talk 09:32, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Looking back at the RfC discussion, I don't see any discussion at all of the effect of deprecation on countless mundane subjects, or of Global Times' reliability for simple, non-political facts. The discussion was overwhelmingly focused on the role of Global Times in voicing hawkish foreign policy views. The consequences on articles like Changxing railway station and countless other non-political China-related articles was not discussed, and does not appear to have occurred to anyone in the discussion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:15, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

So just to be clear you’re telling people who participated in the RfC that they didn't understand what they were doing? I voted 4 and it was always my understanding that GT would be removed from articles like Changxing railway station. Because thats literally how deprecation works, if I didnt think it should be deprecated I would have voted 3 or better like I did for Xinhua. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I am saying that there was no discussion of the implications for countless articles about mundane, non-political subjects, just like Changxing railway station. Whether or not some editors (other than yourself) had that in the back of their minds is impossible to tell, but it definitely was not raised or discussed. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:01, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Why would it be? Its inherent in the deprecation of a widely used source, as far as I can tell you are the only one who didn't understand what deprecation meant. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:05, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

As per WP:DEPS, deprecation is not banning or blocking a source, it simply means it should not be used further and further attempts to use the source at a reference are cautioned against. I'm reading some taking "deprecation" as "we must remove the source immediately from Wikipedia", which is nowhere in policy of how we treat deprecated sources. We do want to remove deprecated sources in time, but that should be managed without disruption, which is implicit by making a source deprecated. --Masem (t) 17:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Removing deprecated sources isn't a “must” (unless its a statement about a living person not covered by about self in which case it *is* actually a "must") its a “can” and as such removal is voluntary. Its voluntary removal by multiple editors thats being complained about here, not a bot or something like that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:33, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

We don't use Breitbart News for uncontroversial content, either, unless there is a valid exemption under WP:ABOUTSELF. There was no consensus in the RfC to carve out an exception for the Global Times's coverage of railway stations, so it is also considered generally unreliable for this topic. — Newslinger talk 02:39, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Folks, can we please take it down a notch? The discussion above is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not familiar with the Global Times, and I will defer to those who say it's the Daily Mail of China or whatever have you, but when we wind up with abominations like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Changxing railway station I think it's okay to admit that we made a mistake somewhere along the line. This has the potential to exacerbate our existing problems with systemic bias. Mackensen (talk) 12:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  GT is actually significantly less reliable than the Daily Mail (although both are too unreliable for use on WP), at least the DM has editorial independence and operated in a system that respects basic human rights. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I am not sure that comments like "abominations like" are taking it down a notch. That AFD sums up what many are saying, that article was a one line stub with one source until the one source was removed, and now (thanks to efforts to keep it) has been massively improved (note, this is not saying its passes GNG). Tagging it would have just meant it would have remained a one line directory entry.Slatersteven (talk) 13:20, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  But what this is is disruptive. The actions being taken to remove the sources without any attempt to find replacements is against the intent of deprecated sources and is a WP:FAIT action that needs to be stopped immediately, until the community can decide what the proper approach is for dealing with these links. The bot-like actions and lack of communication by Amigao (based on the minimal discussion on their talk page) is very disconcerting and that's the issue. (At least with something like David Gerald and the DM link purge David was extremely responsive and appears far less bot-like in their review of the links). --Masem (t) 15:39, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  There is no requirement to find a replacement though, however if its a BLP there is actually a requirement to remove the source and all sourced text. In my opinion removing a deprecated sources is almost always an improvement. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I disagree its disruptive, no more so then arguing for their retention without finding better sources. But you are right, we are not required to remove them. But I would suggest that those who want this material sourced do what was done at Changxing railway station and find them (but this time without pushing). Hell if the amount of effort put into this "not an RFC" was put into replacing sources this might not even be an issue (again I refer back to the rash of work over at Changxing railway station).Slatersteven (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  It's disruptive as first, multiple editors have complained about the actions here and directly to the editor in question, and that the actions have triggered some "irreversible" processes (per WP:FAIT) that are difficult to reverse or correct en masse. While tagging for "find a better source" may be an issue, that's not the same as that's not an irreversible process, so nowhere close to being the type of disruption that removal of sources considers. I'd still strongly urge that all such mass actions stop and a community agreement to some process to untangle the deprecation be figured out before any further mass action be taken. --Masem (t) 15:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  And others have said they have no issue (or even agree) with their actions. On the other hand they have said this thread is problematic and an attempt as at a back door relaunch of the RFC that deprecated the source (which they see as disruptive). But if you want an RFC, launch one.Slatersteven (talk) 16:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  Again, deprecation doesn't mean banned. Those criticizing this aren't challenging the close of the RFC in my read, they're challenging the rush to remove the links against what "deprecated sources" means on WP and general policy against creating disruption. --Masem (t) 16:39, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  All the edits I’ve seen so far have been 100% reversible either mechanically or through a direct revert. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  AFDs are, however. That's exactly where FAIT originated from. --Masem (t) 16:36, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  AFDs are actually reversible although you need some admin help. This is a discussion about removing deprecated sources though not AFD, the only AFD discussion referenced here is well on its way to a snowball keep which suggests that our current system works. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  The issue though is that if these source deletions cause a lot of AFDs in a short time that would require the same group of editors to have to run around to find fixes for, that's a fait accompli action that we do not want an editor to create for others and is strongly strongly discouraged. The original situation was an editor that nominated numerous articles for AFD a day for numerous days in a row, which is what ended in an ArbCom case and the creation of WP:FAIT to warn against this type of behavior. Now, yes, many of these source deletions aren't creating AFD-worthy situations, but there is enough concern about AFDs being raised that FAIT 100% applies here - that one editor is potentially forcing a group of other editors to have to act quickly to save/keep their articles or their content. That's the whole point about avoiding disruption. --Masem (t) 16:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I see 13 articles here (at least) only one has been AFD'd. Sorry not seeing how this is leading to a mass of AFD's.Slatersteven (talk) 16:52, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  If the hypothetical you describe ever occurs then WP:FAIT would apply, it has no bearing on the issue we are currently discussing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Per Wikipedia:Deprecated sources#Acceptable uses of deprecated sources, source depreciation is not a blanket ban, and there are reasonable uses for using them, for example in articles specifically about the propaganda mouthpiece, or in articles about propaganda related to the mouthpiece. Indiscriminate and overzealous tagging such as this is counter-productive, in my opinion. This article is specifically about Chinese propaganda, of course it would need to cite what Chinese propaganda outlets say. --benlisquare_T•C•E 23:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  This particular use of the Global Times (tagged in Special:Diff/983674054) is in a gray area, since it cites a study conducted by the Global Times about the content of the People's Daily. Although both are state-run media organizations, they are separate entities with different leadership and editorial objectives. I would not consider this citation a valid application of WP:ABOUTSELF. — Newslinger talk 02:52, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  This case is less about WP:ABOUTSELF, and more about WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, which is the second sentence of the first paragraph of Wikipedia:Deprecated sources#Acceptable uses of deprecated sources. Contextually, the topic of this Wikipedia article makes the usage of the CCP mouthpiece reasonable. Yes, I also strongly consider Global Times to be a generally terrible source that spreads misinformation and should be avoided as much as possible, however, let's use some common sense here: For what purpose would this reference intentionally spread misinformation about the sentence being cited? It currently feels like there's a giant Wikipedia-wide kneejerk reaction against CCP-sources like the Global Times, Xinhua, People's Daily, etc. without properly considering the context they are being used in. I agree that for 99% of cases these sources should not be used, but if we are to approach this issue sensibly and not reactively, editorial discretion is necessary for the remaining 1%. --benlisquare_T•C•E 03:23, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  I strongly suggest that if you're trying this hard to come up with excuses to use a deprecated source - that is, a source so bad that a broad general consensus has found that it shouldn't be used in Wikipedia at all in general - then you're doing Wikipedia sourcing wrong - David Gerard (talk) 07:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  I've been courteous, so I'd appreciate an appropriate level of reciprocity please. I've been around for almost the same amount of time as you, I'm no newcomer, and your tone can be interpreted as condescending. How context affects the usability of a partisan reference also depends on how the Wikipedia article presents the position being cited. Consider the following three example sentences:

  Barack Obama is an enemy of humankind.^[REFERENCE]

  A 2009 editorial from Der Führer's Lügenblatt made the claim that Barack Obama is the enemy of humankind.^[REFERENCE]

  According to a 31 December 2009 editorial from Der Führer's Lügenblatt, Barack Obama is the enemy of humankind.^[REFERENCE]

  Here, you see three different hypothetical scenarios where a partisan CCP source might be used, however they are written with different nuances and provide contrasting implications. The first example attempts to pass off a statement as fact using a Der Führer's Lügenblatt citation, and thus is unacceptable; the second example makes it extremely clear to the reader that X is sharing a position on Y, and thus (from my perspective) is an acceptable use of a Der Führer's Lügenblatt reference; the third example pretends to be impartial, but is ambiguous as to whether it is attempting to state a position as fact, and can potentially be written with the aim to deceive the reader, and thus is unacceptable. Now, back to the article Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people, the prose already clearly explains to the reader that the People's Daily, China Daily, Global Times and Xinhua News Agency are all state-owned media organisations owned by the government of China, and it clearly presents all statements from the PD, CD, GT and XNA as claims made by those outlets, rather than facts. Based on this, I would like to argue that the use of the Global Times source is editorially ethical and responsible from a contextual perspective. --benlisquare_T•C•E 07:45, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  Just a point of order, PD, CD, and GT are all party owned media organizations not state owned. I admit that the totalitarian single party state nature of the PRC makes this one slightly challenging but Xinhua is the only organization on your list technically owned by the Government of China. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:27, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  That is true, though the article prose can be adjusted where necessary to reflect such technicalities. --benlisquare_T•C•E 16:04, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  Xinhua News Agency (RSP entry) was determined to be a situational source that can be used with in-text attribution. It is not comparable to the Global Times, which publishes a much larger proportion of propaganda that sometimes does not even reflect the Chinese government's position. — Newslinger talk 03:52, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  Replace the hypothetical reference in my example from Xinhua then. It doesn't change the point that I'm bringing across. Focus on the point I'm expressing, and not the media outlet I use as an example. --benlisquare_T•C•E 07:36, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  The initial comment listed 13 links to edits that removed citations of the Global Times. I don't see any issue with these removals, since the Global Times was determined to be a low-quality propaganda outlet in the September RfC. Citations of the Global Times are being removed because the publication is unreliable, not because it is pro-CCP. The Global Times is only the second Chinese source to be deprecated, and this measure was long overdue. If you are arguing against the removal of Xinhua citations, I would agree that Xinhua is sometimes an appropriate source to use, but Xinhua is not deprecated and editors in this discussion have yet to provide any evidence that citations of Xinhua are being systematically removed. — Newslinger talk 08:32, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  The focus on Xinhua is straying from the original point that I was trying to make. I am not talking about Xinhua. If you're making a statement relating to my use of Xinhua within the examples, then please pretend that I never ever mentioned Xinhua in my 07:45, 16 October 2020 post, because otherwise it's literally focusing on one thing I've said while ignoring everything else. To remind you of what my original point was:

  One: Exceptions to community rulings should be enforced on a case-by-case basis, based on the situation and literary context. The world does not exist in black and white, edge cases will always exist, and it is unconstructive to work in absolutes.

  Two: Whether or not the specific usage of a citation causes harm to the Wikipedia project should be determined on what the cited claim is, and how it is worded within the Wikipedia article prose.

  Three: I do not dispute that the Global Times is an obscenely malicious source, 90% of the time. However, a broken clock is correct two times a day, and if an editor can prove to the Wikipedia community that a specific instance of citation usage is not problematic, it is counterproductive to continue to prohibiting the usage within that specific instance, just because "the rules say so".

  If there's something wrong with these points that I've raised, feel free to point them out. But, please, do not bring up the Xinhua RSP entry again. It is 100% unrelated to the points I am attempting to make. --benlisquare_T•C•E 09:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  Many unreliable sources publish some correct information, yet the sources are still unusable for that information because it is not possible to determine when an unreliable source is telling the truth. Because of this, the verifiability policy uses whether a source is reliable as a threshold for inclusion, and not whether the source is correct. Borrowing your example, if Breitbart News claimed that "Barack Obama is an enemy of humankind", we would not be able to cite Breitbart News for this information because it is an unreliable source. Even with attribution, we would not be able to include this information with only a citation to Breitbart because the views of unreliable sources are considered undue weight. However, if reliable sources cover Breitbart's claim, we would be able to cite those sources for the claim, with attribution to Breitbart. Likewise, a claim made in the Global Times that does not qualify for WP:ABOUTSELF can be included into an article if reliable sources cover it. In this case, citing the Global Times as a supplemental primary source would be optional, while citing the reliable sources would be mandatory. — Newslinger talk 09:58, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  In the article in question, the only thing being cited are a bunch of analytical numbers, for something very benign and uncontroversial. Would you be able to able to take a look at Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people#Phraseology and point out exactly how the use of the Global Times cite (QUOTE: "The Global Times published an analysis in June 2015 which concluded that... there were 237 articles published by the People's Daily between May 15, 1946 and May 1, 2015 which made accusations of hurt feelings against 29 different countries; among these, 9 targeted India, 16 targeted France, 62 targeted the United States, and 96 targeted Japan.") is harmful to the Wikipedia project, outside of "the rules say so"? This is purely based on my opinion on how subjective all of this is, and not based in any Wikipedia policy, but surely prohibiting something this benign falls within the realm of a rule preventing the enhancement of Wikipedia content. The content harmed nobody, but excluding the content brings gain to nobody either. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:11, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  You could make the argument that the claim qualifies under WP:ABOUTSELF, since some sources consider the Global Times a subsidiary of the People's Daily. It would have been better if the People's Daily published the analysis itself, but the Global Times report might qualify if editors do not find the claim controversial. Applications of WP:IAR are still subject to consensus, which can be established with a discussion at Talk:Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. — Newslinger talk 10:25, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  Per Wikipedia:Deprecated sources#Effects of deprecation:

  The source is designated as generally unreliable. Citing the source as a reference is generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. - emphasis on "generally unreliable"; this page suggests that depreciated sources may be used under unusual edge cases.

  The source may only be used when there is a demonstrable need to use it instead of other sources. - surely it would be acceptable for me to seek community consensus on a talk page (for example, what we are doing now) to gauge whether this depreciated source can be used under this particular edge case based on a demonstrable need? There are more eyes here on WP:RSN (according to pageviews, nobody visits the talk pages for relatively obscure articles like this one), so this discussion thread seems like a more appropriate place to seek this kind of consensus. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:34, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  Discussing this here is perfectly fine, although this discussion section sprawls across many different topics, and you may receive higher-quality feedback with a new discussion that focuses specifically on this use of the Global Times. To be completely clear, I don't have any objection to this use, and the intention of my initial reply was to make the case that the removal of the citation was also defensible under policy. I probably wouldn't use the Global Times for this claim, but it's not a particularly strong preference and other editors might disagree. — Newslinger talk 10:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: As far as I can see, the problem is that people like Amigao are mass removing unreliable sources, like GT, from Wikipedia articles, without attempting to provide replacement sources. Have I got this right? Techie3 (talk) 10:13, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Part of the problem is the mass removal of sources without any replacement. Part of the problem is that while deprecation discussions about Global Times focused almost entirely on the possibility of it being used for political propaganda, the actual effect of deprecating it appears to be the removal of sourcing for all sorts of simple factual issues. There was no discussion of Global Times' reliability for mundane facts (like whether or not a train station exists), but there was lots of discussion of the hawkish foreign policy views expressed in Global Times editorials. But the main effect of the broad deprecation has been on the former type of content (mundane facts), rather than the latter (propaganda/opinions). This was completely unforeseen in the RfC on Global Times, and is something that the community should consider. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Can you please stop saying "This was completely unforeseen in the RfC on Global Times?” I’ve told you thats not true at least three times (as have other editors) so you’re telling a fib and you know it. Please WP:AGF and don’t incorrectly summarize the opinions of other editors. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

It was completely unforseen in the RfC on the Global Times. It was not discussed, and if it was on your mind, that wasn't reflected in the discussion. Yet an RfC in which political propaganda was discussed is now being used to remove mundane information like who won the award for best supporting actor at a Chinese film festival. If that was the intention of commenters at the RfC, someone should have mentioned it and there should have been a discussion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:40, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Undiscussed does not mean unforeseen, like I said its literally inherent in the conception of deprecation. You seem to be the only person who doesnt understand that we dont want to use deprecated sources, even for mundane information. Go and try to use the Daily Mail, The Grayzone, or RT for “mundane information” and see how far it gets you. Just because you don’t understand deprecation doesnt mean you get to repeat lies and cast aspersions on the other editors who participated in that discussion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:51, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

To add, maybe they are mundane facts, from an organ controlled by the state telling us what the state has done (and often how fantastic what is has done is). Its not a third party source for any information about China, not even mundane facts.Slatersteven (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I fully supported the RfCs to depreciate CGTN and the Global Times, given that their editorial takes on geopolitical issues are consistently full of polemic disinformation that can be used to cause disruption on Wikipedia if used as a source. My point, however, is that we should not be looking at the enforcement of new rules strictly in terms of black and white, because the real world does not work in absolute binaries; there will always be edge cases that exist, and a hardline enforcement goes against the spirit of the law that community consensus has built upon.

I am not arguing that the consensus gained during the RfC was somehow invalid; rather, I am arguing that the consensus established was that these problematic sources would fall within the well-established frameworks we already have for dealing with depreciated sources—that is—usage of these sources is heavily discouraged, however not outright banned for all circumstances. A depreciated source is not a blacklisted source.

Still unconvinced? If you read the section at Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people#Phraseology that uses the Global Times citation, can you please clearly explain precisely how the GT reference is problematic or harmful to the project? I can understand telling lies about COVID-19 or Taiwan, but why would the GT tell lies about how many countries were mentioned within People's Daily articles? I am arguing that our existing rules on depreciated sources do not dictate a strict, hardline enforcement on preventing these sources from being used; even if these rules were somehow supposed to be rigidly enforced without mercy (they aren't, by the way), surely such enforcement would clearly be preventing us from improving Wikipedia, and thus is a net detriment to the project? --benlisquare_T•C•E 00:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Much of this has little or nothing to do with what the Chinese state has done. The existence of a train station in Changxing is a mundane fact that no reasonable person would argue the Chinese government has any strong stake in misrepresenting. The broad-brush attitude being taken towards China and Chinese sources here goes against the basic ethos of WP:RS, which is to evaluate reliability of sources in context. Going from "Global Times publishes nationalistic editorials" to "Global Times is unreliable for every type of fact" to "Chinese sources are unreliable for any fact" (something that some editors are arguing) is, I think, unreasonable and not in line with WP:RS. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

"Chinese sources are unreliable for any fact” Who is arguing this? I haven't seen anyone make that argument here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:29, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• There are countries where every source is controlled by the state (and in those countries thedistinction between the party and the state is insignificant). . Should we therefore eliminate all articles unless people from outside that country write on them? This was not the meanign of deprecated in that discusion, which covered only political propaganda. And If it is being misinterpreted to this extent, we need a new RfC on it. DGG ( talk ) 21:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

  Removing citations to the Global Times (RSP entry) is different from removing citations to Xinhua News Agency (RSP entry), just as removing citations to Breitbart News (RSP entry) would be different from removing citations to a hypothetical US government-run news agency. Not all Chinese sources exhibit the same level of reliability, even when they are state-run. As one of the least reliable Chinese sources, the Global Times should be treated similarly to other sources of the same quality. — Newslinger talk 08:51, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I think a problem is the way how Chinese media operates. Many times an official media published an article and then every other media are simply being asked to copy and repeat the exact same report in their paper. Which make it difficult to tell who really wrote the original report without careful inspection. C933103 (talk) 03:25, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Mises Institute articles

I would like to discuss the usage of articles from Mises Institute, a lot of which appear in right-libertarian articles, and sometimes in articles related to economics. I would like to propose that this source should only be used as a primary source about the Institute itself, and opinions of its members, but it's an unreliable source of information for anything else.

Background

Mises Institute is a non-profit "think-tank" promoting right-wing libertarian economics. Most of its content are op-eds, but also some "educational" content and definitions.

RfC on Mises Institute

Should Mises Instute articles be allowed for anything else apart for quoting opinions of its members/writers? BeŻet (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• No / Generally unreliable. Think tanks are not generally reliable unless there's a strong reason to think otherwise, since the "default" structure of a think tank does not include any sort of fact-checking or accuracy - most think tanks exist to advance particular agenda by hook or crook, so to speak, not to cover things accurately the way a news or academic source would. Some think tanks do exist that have earned enough of a reputation that they could be considered reliable for stuff other than their own attributed opinion (eg. probably the Brookings Institution), but the Mises Institute is not among them. They reflect the opinions of the people who own and fund it and nothing else - citing them would be like citing an ad campaign. See the numerous past discussions about using think tanks as sources, which have generally reached the same conclusion. --Aquillion (talk) 21:10, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• LOL no - opinion that is not notable unless it has been noted in RSes separate to Mises. I would tend to apply this to opinions of its posters too - not worth noting unless they are so notable themselves that even their blogposts would carry weight as sources - David Gerard (talk) 22:21, 13 October 2020 (UTC}
• Hell no. Their mission is to promote an agenda, and that is orthogonal to our purpose. A dark money funded unaccountable "institute", and a perfect example of why our sourcing policy requires reliable independent secondary sources. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:31, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Aside from your conspiracy theories and mockery of the name do you have an actual argument? Are you still mad that they have a coat of arms? Pelirojopajaro (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

    Pelirojopajaro, I am not up for a discussion of the objective merits of sealions.

    And, for the record, they don't have a grant of arms, as they themselves make clear. Their corporate logo is the Mises family coat of arms, which is not at all the same thing. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:07, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Prior practice is that they should be considered unreliable if their articles advocate for something which is generally disapproved of here. DGG ( talk ) 04:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Definitely not. Certainly not reliable for statements in Wikivoice or statements of fact. Even use for statements of attributed opinion should be avoided/very rare: because the institution is on the fringes, promoting offbeat or unsupported notions about economics, law, and history, the due-weight test would seldom be passed. Neutrality^talk 05:25, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable: It's a fringe advocacy group so its opinions are unlikely to be DUE. For most economics articles, reliable sources may include peer-reviewed articles and standard textbooks, but not think tanks or advocacy groups of whatever stripe. (t · c) buidhe 08:23, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• I am not sure how this request should be answered. To answer directly, I would say no, the institute should not be used for anything else apart for quoting opinions of its members/writers (that is to say, for statements of facts). But yet, this does not appear to be what is originally asked/said which is that the publications by the institute is an unreliable place for information. This seems to me to be a very different question altogether and we would need more than a few cases to show that Mises is an unreliable source. I would also like to point out that there are think tanks which the wider community here has found to be acceptable despite their strong political views (or "partisan agenda" as some people would say). To me, it would appear that consistency in deciding whether Mises's views on political matters are acceptable would be key here. Fortliberty (talk) 16:28, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable if you are careful. They are often just excerpts from reliable books. The rest should be treated like every other blog. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

But in this case the book should be quoted then, not mises.org BeŻet (talk) 21:54, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• No because they are not a reliable source. So absurdly selective in their use of evidence and narrow in its interpretation, that in relation to serious scholarship they are disconnected to the point of autism. Cambial foliage❧ 22:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Evidence please and (name) calling something autistic doesn't help either your argument or the argument your arguing for. Flickotown (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I didn't though, did I. Mischaracterising other editor's comments is not a form of (counter-)argument. Cambial foliage❧ 13:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment this isn't an RS issue, it's a WEIGHT issue. If you think it's unreliable then you have to explain why - specifically you have to give examples of things they've done/work they've produced that makes them unreliable; just saying Mises is biased (presumably because you don't share their politics outlook) isn't nearly good enough. There are other sources which are equally as biased as Mises and they aren't redlisted. (Cf. CATO, CEPR, MEMRI, on the WP:RSP noticeboard) Flickotown (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Genuinely cant believe that MEMRI hasn’t been deprecated yet, the Israel-Arab partisan's continual refusal to see reason when it comes to reliable sources is a pain in the ass. That being said two wrongs dont make a right, no way in hell should we be using Mises. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:31, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

As I told OP so I will also tell you. If you think Mises is unreliable then you have to explain why. Specifically you have to give examples of things they've done/work they've produced that makes them unreliable; just griping about Mises and how there is no way in hell anybody should be using Mises (presumably because you don't share their politics outlook) isn't good enough. Flickotown (talk) 23:55, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Ummmmm... I don’t think theres much of a debate (this is pretty much a snowball at this point) but in a situation like this the burden is on those who seek to *demonstrate reliability* to do so not the other way around. Its also not an RfC. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:25, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Most of the content they post are opinion pieces, and their definition pieces are not written in a neutral way, but from a fringe point of view. This is also clear in the language that is used. It is quite obvious why they are not a reliable source of information. BeŻet (talk) 13:39, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• • Designate as No consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply if I have to choose. This is in keeping with how other sources similar to Mises's profile has been treated. Flickotown (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• No Self-published borderline fringe advocacy site. Reliable for their views, but that's about it. Ravensfire (talk) 00:22, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
• Like all of the others, there should be no such generalization Beside, the criteria argued above (and organization with an advocacy type agenda) would rule out nearly all organizations. North8000 (talk) 00:45, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  North8000, no, there is a specific issue with think-tanks which is not seen in other sources. Think-tanks are built from the ground up to look like scholarly institutions, and their purpose is to create a veneer of legitimacy around an agenda, often paid for by people who will directly benefit if that agenda is advanced. We should exclude all think-tanks, regardless of ideology. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:13, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I don't agree. Unfortunately Wikipedia core policy & guidelines do not require expertise or objectivity or actual reliability to be a wp:rs. But let's say that we do want those things. If we generalize about sources that would disqualify most modern-time media, starting with the New York Times, most books on political topics and figures, all advocacy organizations etc.. A more useful attribute is expertise and objectivity with respect to the item which cited it A think tank, especially since they generally do research, could be a very reliable source on matters of fact. But in areas of opinion, their writings are opinions and should be handled as such. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 09:35, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  North8000, er, yes they do. The R in RS is "reliable". Guy (help! - typo?) 23:03, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I wish that you were right. North8000 (talk) 00:44, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  But they are not a reliable source of information, because they embody a very specific, fringe point of view when it comes to economics. This is not maths, chemistry or biology. BeŻet (talk) 13:42, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable Has anyone checked the information in the main article? This is a mouthpiece of the far-right. :
  • "A 2000 "Intelligence Report" by the Southern Poverty Law Center categorized the Institute as Neo-Confederate, "devoted to a radical libertarian view of government and economics." "
  • "In 2003, Chip Berlet of the Southern Poverty Law Center described the Mises Institute as "a major center promoting libertarian political theory and the Austrian School of free market economics", also noting Rothbard's opposition to child labor laws and the anti-immigrant views of other Institute scholars."
  • "In 2017, the president of the Mises Institute, Jeff Deist, gave a speech at the Mises University conference, where in his concluding remarks he stated that the ideas of "blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people". Nicholas Sarwark and Arvin Vohra, then the chair and vice-chair of the United States Libertarian Party, condemned Deist's speech, with Vohra stating that "the Mises Institute has been turned into a sales funnel for the White Nationalist branch of the Alt Right". Vohra further accused the Mises Institute as a whole of being "authoritarian, racist, nazi"." Dimadick (talk) 07:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

References

• Reliable Sources don't magically become unreliable just because they go against some editors political biases. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Just a point of order, to "become unreliable" Mises would have had to by definition first needed to be reliable and I see no evidence which supports that argument. I think you mean “sources aren’t magically unreliable...” which is a completely different argument. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:42, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Sources are also not magically reliable when you put "institute" in a group's name. What reliable information can you find there? BeŻet (talk) 11:16, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• No / Generally unreliable per Aquillion. It's a fringe ideological advocacy organization, whose positions are often on the extreme fringe of even libertarian opinion (let alone any widespread/consensus perspective). Its use should generally be restricted to WP:ABOUTSELF contexts regarding itself, its contributors, and the ideologies they espouse (and such statements should be attributed). Any other type of statement must use a better source than it. - GretLomborg (talk) 20:51, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary sources means we should treat Mises Institute as reliable as a primary sorce for its own views. I came to this rcf by the grapevine this as a result of encountering one of the editor's who voted here on a separate wiki article. @Horse Eye's Back: i am taken aback by your comments here. You said a lot of cool-headed things in the discussion page on the Maplewashing page and you also did the same for the "Mass removal of content on China-related articles" section to, so I am kind of struggling to see your opinion that this institute is not a reliable source for information. I had not heard of Mises before and am no an expert on economics, but from what I have read off theirwebsite, i strongly dispute against your argument that the institute should be banned from use on wikipedia. Using just one exmple here, i cannot se anything remotely beyond the pail about saying slave economies thwarted entrepreneurial innovation (https://mises.org/wire/why-slave-economies-thwart-entrepreneurial-innovation) Festerhauer (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Thats because this is a discussion on the use of Mises as a source in contexts *besides* as a primary source for its own views, e.g. whether or not they are in general a WP:RS. I’ve followed them for at least two decades and have even been invited to (and attended) social events sponsored by them, its a political rather than academic organization and doesn't have any of the hallmarks we expect of a reliable source nor do I think that Mises has ever claimed to be the sort of organization which would be a WP:RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:58, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Also note that the piece you linked includes the disclaimer "Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:00, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

But even deprecated sources can still be used to talk about them (WP:ABOUTSELF), so nobody's questioning that. The point of this whole discussion is concluding whether Mises is reliable for anything else apart from sourcing someone's views and opinions. BeŻet (talk) 16:15, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Lifehacker

Have there been prior discussions of this site? My own opinion is that the information is unreliable unless the author of a particular piece is known asan expert, and that it's interviews exists for the purpose of PR. DGG ( talk ) 05:21, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

This site is one of the many new media outlets (disclaimer: I actually used to read it a lot a while back). I guess the key question is what editorial oversight they have, and what distinguishes them from blogs... Right now, I consider contnet from that site weakly reliable, with a note that they do have some sponsored/ad content, but I think that is easy to vet out. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:25, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• DGG see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 174 § Self-published blogs run by Gawker Media, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 102 § Lifehacker (a third mention is lifehacker.jp, which may be unrelated). I concur with your analysis of the source itself. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:48, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  JP is somewhat related. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:01, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Scholarly/academic articles: higher standard of sourcing?

• Perpetual virginity of Mary (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Dave Armstrong, National Catholic Register
• St. Paul Center
• Dr. Brant Pitre, Distinguished Research Professor of Scripture at The Augustine Institute
• Tim Staples, apologist at Catholic Answers
• "Thanks, but Dave Armstrong isn't a reliable source as defined by Wikipedia - RS for academic articles means someone with academic standing. Brant Pitre is RS, but the rest are not."
• "Here's the policy on scholarly sources - and an article like this is a scholarly article."
• I am curious to know if I read the policy document wrong. How have we defined "scholarly or academic articles" and how many I know when the heightened bar of WP:RS engages for such articles, disqualifying reliable secondary sources as worthless? Is this a situation like WP:MEDRS? Elizium23 (talk) 06:12, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

None of these looks like anything I would accept as scholarly or worth citing. Indeed, reliance on them would certainly be undue, seeing that they are clearly biased. GPinkerton (talk) 06:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

That is not what I asked. Elizium23 (talk) 06:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I think this is more of a due weight question. High-quality academic sources carry more weight than other sources that, despite meeting Wikipedia's reliability standards, are less thoroughly researched and vetted than peer-reviewed scholarship. This is most explicitly stated in WP:NPOV § Giving "equal validity" can create a false balance (WP:VALID), which prioritizes "commonly accepted mainstream scholarship" over other sources to determine the relative prominence of competing views. This does not mean that non-academic sources are automatically excluded when academic sources are available, but it does mean that less reliable sources should have a lesser emphasis if they contradict the consensus of high-quality academic sources. No comment on the specific sources listed here. — Newslinger talk 06:45, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

But see: WP:USEBYOTHERS. Encyclopaedic content on theological matters is not usually sourced to devotional websites, denominational journalism, or whatever the "St. Paul Center" is. I'm dubious that Pitre is much needed either. His seems to be a proselytizing private university in Nowheresville and for a subject such as this there really are better sources by more reputable publishers. What standard work on the issue cites Pitre? What reviews has his work generated in academic journals? Who peer-reviews it? GPinkerton (talk) 06:48, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

An organization's blog would almost certainly not be considered a high-quality academic source. No comment on Pitre. — Newslinger talk 07:23, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Elizium23, you really should have informed me that you were opening this thread. Achar Sva (talk) 07:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Newslinger, except for WP:NEWSBLOG. Elizium23 (talk) 07:28, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I didn't mean to say that an organization's blog is necessarily unreliable, but only that it is most likely considered less reliable than peer-reviewed scholarship. — Newslinger talk 07:35, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• If academic sources cover a topic, other sources should generally be replaced with scholarly ones. I have no doubt that there are many scholarly sources that discuss the concept of "perpetual virginity of Mary" so whatever can be replaced by scholarly citations should, and if it can't be sourced to scholarship should probably be deleted as UNDUE. (t · c) buidhe 09:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• What buidhe said. This is a topic that is the subject of a bazillion scholarly articles and books, we really don't need random apologists. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
• They don’t look academic in the sense of a textbook or theses, but seems to me that an academic RS is likely not WP:BESTSOURCES in this area, it depends on WP:RSCONTEXT. I’d suggest in the area of religion look for WEIGHT of prominence or mention in other publications as more important - this isn’t a domain where collegiate publications has much relevance. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:11, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Generally speaking, the best academic sources (and some of the best sources overall) are highly-cited peer-reviewed mainstream papers published in reputable high-impact journals - usually I would say that ones that summarize the overarching current scholarship on the topic are the best among those (ie. we want to avoid giving undue weight to one shocking paper.) As you get further away from each of those points, reliability decreases - an academic expert published in a non-peer-reviewed source is still an expert, but it doesn't carry quite as much weight; a paper where the author plainly acknowledges that their views are WP:FRINGE shouldn't be given undue weight (especially if they are highly-cited because everyone disagrees with them), and so on. Due to the contentious nature of religion as a topic, combined with the fact that it attracts massive amounts of high-quality academic interest, I would say that this is a topic area where collegiate publications are particularly relevant and where we should avoid giving much weight to non-academic sources - it is simply hard to justify using lower-quality sources when higher-quality ones exist. Apologetics are low-quality WP:PRIMARY sources about what a faith's adherents believe - if they say anything noteworthy than there ought to be an academic source documenting it that we can use to cover it from a more removed perspective. --Aquillion (talk) 04:31, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

The Globe Post

Is The Globe Post reliable for this edit? Please note that the content is verified by this source, too. --Mhhossein ^talk 03:06, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

No. Can't find a correction's policy on their site. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:09, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Distractify.com

Distractify is described by The New York Times as "a viral content site that fills Facebook news feeds with feel-good posts built largely on repackaging content from other websites" (NYT). Crunchbase describes it as "creates and covers what's trending on the internet", and with only 2 "current team members" (C). SimilarWeb states "specializes in content that sparks conversations around news, entertainment and pop culture" (SW). Distractify is increasingly being used as a source, including in BLPs (e.g. blp). Should brakes be applied on the use of this website as a "reliable source"? Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 09:34, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Is there a widespread dispute about its reliability, or is it just that one new user trying to edit war? I don't know that we need a large consensus discussion here over this self-evidently unreliable source if it isn't a source of widespread controversy at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 10:42, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Also, as an aside, I put extended confirmed protection on the BLP article in question. That seems like a better tool to stop this specific problem than this unnecessary discussion here. --Jayron32 10:43, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

At some point a dispute about a source's reliability is bound to arise. This here is the point about Distractify/distractify.com. It is increasingly being used as a reliable source. And this is the reliable sources noticeboard. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 06:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Pyxis Solitary, not really, no. We don't have an RSP entry for The Onion either. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:29, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Har, har. Comparing a deliberately facetious publication with one that takes itself seriously is night and day. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 09:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I Oppose the idea that there are previously-undiscussed sources that we should not discuss. It would have taken less effort to simply reply to Pyxis Solitary with "Agree. this is a self-evidently unreliable source" (which it is). That would have taken 8 words instead of the 47 words used to say that we should not talk about it.

Most discussions on this noticeboard don't result in "a large consensus discussion", Most get one or maybe two responses and die out because nobody disagrees. Then the source is findable when you search the archives. I probably search for a source in the archives 10 times for every time I post here. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:27, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

The source is not reliable. Where did you think that I might have said it was? --Jayron32 12:48, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

RfC: forces-war-records.co.uk

Which of the following best describes the reliability of forces-war-records.co.uk?

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

FDW777 (talk) 15:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Background (forces-war-records.co.uk)

Briefly discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 311#forces-war-records.co.uk, however in the course of my cleanup some additional information has come to my attention. There are pages such as Prisoners of War of the Japanese 1939-1945 which do mention using Wikipedia as a reference (scroll all the way down to where it says Some of the material on this page was also partially derived from but without saying what information comes from where, rendering all information on the page worthless. However, in addition to that there are pages such as Unit History: Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) which was being used on the Cormorant article, and which doesn't mention any references at all. However that page says;

• The college crest features a cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), a symbol of all three armed services; Britain’s largest seabird flies, swims on the sea surface and catches its fish underwater, yet builds its nest on dry land (either on cliffs or in riverside trees). The Cormorant was derived from the symbol of the Joint Service Defence College.

Our article Joint Services Command and Staff College says;

• The college crest features a cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), a symbol of all three armed services; Britain's largest seabird flies, swims on the sea surface and catches its fish underwater, yet builds its nest on dry land (either on cliffs or in riverside trees). The cormorant was derived from the symbol of the Joint Service Defence College.

Since that demonstrates they are also apparently using Wikipedia as a reference without mentioning it, potentially every single page is worthless. FDW777 (talk) 15:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Responses (forces-war-records.co.uk)

• Option 3: There is likely to be information on the website that isn't from Wikipedia, such as some of the information on the Unit History: Middlesex Regiment page for example. But it's impossible to separate the good from the bad, and know what's reliable, what's circular referencing, and what's been fact-checked. FDW777 (talk) 15:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3: for much the same reasons as FDW777.Slatersteven (talk) 15:24, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 The fact that they use WP as a source without always noting the fact is not a good sign. No evidence has been presented that it has a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy. (t · c) buidhe 18:13, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (forces-war-records.co.uk)

It may be worth distinguishing between the various sorts of info on the site - 1) The general historical background pieces and unit records hosted on the site - this seems to be mainly what people are talking about using as sources in articles - they don't make it clear where the info has come from. 2) "Historic Documents" hosted on the website - these have not been produced by the website so users will have to evaluate the sources individually. 3) Individual military records hosted by the site - these claim to have been transcribed and compiled by their researchers from various (mainly primary) sources, and seems to be core of their business.Nigel Ish (talk) 14:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I was expecting a close with some kind of caveat about being able to use the documents they host. I don't have much of an opinion either way on their transcribed records, so I'll let others sort that out. FDW777 (talk) 16:29, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Is it okay?

Is it okay if I ask: where can I find someone or something who or which can quickly check some 450 cites on Cleavage (breasts) to see which cites are unacceptable? It is alright if there is no one or nothing that can help. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 18:12, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I just removed some HTML errors and ran the Organize References bot on the page.

It would help a lot if you took the following steps.

• For each cite, follow the link (if there is one) and verify that the source supports the claim. Remove all unsourced claims with the edit summary "failed verification".
• For each cite, use the "Search the noticeboard archives" feature on this page to see if we have discussed it before. If we found it unreliable, remove the claim and the cite with an edit summary containing a link to the RSN discussion

Let's see how many cites that gets rid of, then we can discuss the ones that are left. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:00, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

My assessment is that the article is simply too big and should have several larger sections spun-off into their own articles. On each spun-off article the volume is more reasonable for checking each ref, rather than the 400+ currently.

With each spin-off you can aim to get GA status, and solicit WP:GOCE to help. Glee^anon 15:28, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

A faster way to check at a glance whether any sources are considered generally unreliable or deprecated is to use a script from Headbomb that highlights and underlines such refs. JoelleJay (talk) 21:45, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@Guy Macon, Gleeanon409, and JoelleJay: How good is this one: "McCombe, Richard; Ginsburg, Cora & Haverfield, Kay (1982). The Undercover Story. New York: Fashion Institute of Technology. p. 11. ASIN B006A9QUU4."?

One thing: I myself have put almost all of those cites. I am sure that they do cover the article text, no chance of verification fails. But I am unaware of the credibility of some of the sources, and unsure of some. Aditya^{(✉ • ⚒)} 01:04, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

That book should be OK, as it was published by a legit academic institution. However it is very obscure[47] and therefore carries less WEIGHT. Also, you should ideally use ISBN or OCLC to identify the book rather than ASIN. (t · c) buidhe 06:31, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Undercover Story is being used to support the claim "Falsies evolved from the bosom pads of the 17th century that were often made of stiff rubber." A quick search on the authors brought me to this NYT obituary[48] which says Ginsburg was "a prominent dealer in antique fabrics and clothing" and "She helped develop the field of costume in the worlds of antiques and museums, sharing her knowledge with a number of museums in the United States and elsewhere." So you have citation from a recognized expert in the area of antique clothing supporting a claim about antique clothing, so on that basis I would say that this is a high quality reliable source for that claim.

I also looked for info on Richard McCombe but there are too many websites about the English barrister and judge. Also, if [49] is correct, McComb wrote the introductory essay. I couldn't find any info on Haverfield. Quiestion: is the passage you are using attributed to all three or just one? If it's under the name of just McCombe, Ginsburg, or Haverfield (some multi author books say who wrote each chapter, some don't) you should just use the one name as the author. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I doubt that we are going to find a less obscure source for the claim "Falsies evolved from the bosom pads of the 17th century that were often made of stiff rubber". There aren't very many sources that discuss 17th century bosom pads. Our article section Falsies#Bosom pads has no sources at all. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Today I also learned how to check the quality of a source. Aditya^{(✉ • ⚒)} 06:17, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Fundamental truths found on an unreliable site

Say what you will about the unreliable source, this is excellent: 5 Easy Ways to Spot a B.S. News Story on the Internet --Guy Macon (talk) 17:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

The "bullshit" story your source complains about that was published by the Daily Mail was also published by the BBC.[50] The University at Albany, SUNY released a press release about the study that the they reported.[51] TFD (talk) 18:40, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Most of the claims in the 2012 Daily Mail article are completely missing from the 2002 press release or from the BBC report on the press release. In other words, bullshit.

None of them even give a name of any scientific paper so we can verify the claims. Fortunately, our Gordon G. Gallup page does. here is the actual conclusion of the 2000 paper:[52]

"It is important to acknowledge that these data are preliminary and correlational in nature, and as such are only suggestive. More definitive evidence for antidepressant effects of semen would require more direct manipulation of the presence of semen in the reproductive tract and, ideally, the measurement of seminal components in the recipient’s blood."

A bit different from waht rea read in The Daily Mail, wouldn't you say? -Guy Macon (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

The source was referring to the headline. It says, "Any Time You See a Headline Like..."Semen Is 'Good for Women's Health and Helps Fight Depression'" You Should Read It As ..."Bigfoot Caught Having Sex With Roswell Aliens."" The BBC headline was "Semen 'makes women happy'." The university's press release said, "University at Albany Study: Semen Eases Depression in Women." All the headlines are very similar.

So the claim that bullshit tabloids use shocking headlines while reliable sources don't is itself bullshit. The only different in the case of the Daily Mail is that it puts it on the front page, while the BBC put it in its "Health" section.

TFD (talk) 21:17, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• That's why we need subject specific guidelines for science, history, etc.—even reliable news orgs don't always get it right. The story discussed above is already be covered under MEDRS and not usable. (t · c) buidhe 22:49, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, oh man. The entire skeptic community is looking at 2020 and shouting "WE FUCKING TOLD YOU ABOUT THIS!" Guy (help! - typo?) 23:13, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that newspapers are not reliable sources for medical information, nor are isolated studies. I just find that in this example at least "Five Easy Ways" is using a headline that could have occurred in any reliable news media to discredit tabloids. That does not mean that tabloids are reliable sources, just that "Five Easy Ways" probably is not well thought out. TFD (talk) 23:35, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

One in five Mail stories is made up? This is a "fundamental truth" now is it? Who even writes such obvious nonsense? -Christine O'Connell (freelance journalist) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Christine O'Connell (talk • contribs) Blocked sock. David Gerard (talk) 21:18, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

JackTheJiller, you are honestly so bad at socking, your attempts are so formulaic, maybe be more creative next time? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:22, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Blocked. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Brian K Horton/Archive. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:51, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Sperling's Best Places / bestplaces.net for statistics in cities pages

Source: https://www.bestplaces.net/religion/city/oregon/portland
Article: Portland, Oregon
claim "Of the 35.9% of the city's residents who do identify as religious, Roman Catholics make up the largest group, at 15.8%"
The page is fully loaded with ads, does not show the source of data, when the data was gathered or compiled. There was same discussion in 2018 with no comment. Graywalls (talk) 20:28, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Looks like a mix of estate agency website and TripAdvisor. Not to be taken seriously. There is the census for these kinds of data. GPinkerton (talk) 03:12, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

The United States Census doesn't ask about respondents' religion. However, I agree that this particular site (bestplaces.net) doesn't provide enough information about its sourcing to qualify as a reliable source regarding religious demographics. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Really? Well I don't see how such data could be collected if not officially, so the origin of these statistics is even more dubious. GPinkerton (talk) 04:07, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Assessment of Scotland's newspapers

Can we make some assessment, for the perennial sources board, of The Scotsman, The Herald, The National, and the other Scotland-only papers? GPinkerton (talk) 20:55, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• I would rate the first two generally reliable (not the greatest sources in existence, but will do the job). IDK about The National. (t · c) buidhe 22:51, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with buidhe about The Scotsman and The Herald - they're both heavyweight papers, I'd treat them similarly to the Guardian or the Times. I'm on the fence about The National, don't know enough about it. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:38, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• Agree, The Scotsman and the Herald are reliable sources, haven't read The National Atlantic306 (talk) 23:12, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Agree on the Scotsman and the Herald. I'd be wary about using the National for anything regarding Scottish independence and/or associated issues, but I'd say it's otherwise reliable. Black Kite (talk) 23:18, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Agree: this was mostly my feeling: Herald and Scotsman reliable, National politically biased and to be used for quotidian events and quotations of public figures but not for uncorroborated or unattributed statements. Can we write this up? GPinkerton (talk) 01:40, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

New York Times article on paid reporting

Not sure if this belongs here or on the talk page. This New York Times article article mentions many items that are of interest to us. For example:

Maine Business Daily is part of a fast-growing network of nearly 1,300 websites that aim to fill a void left by vanishing local newspapers across the country. Yet the network, now in all 50 states, is built not on traditional journalism but on propaganda ordered up by dozens of conservative think tanks, political operatives, corporate executives and public-relations professionals, a Times investigation found.

ThatMontrealIP (talk) 22:47, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Look at what happened to Newsweek on WP:RSP after International Business Times bought it in 2013. It's certainly possible for the newspaper to have different reliability depending on era. Graywalls (talk) 23:09, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

And that article is published by the NYTimes? The same NYTimes that endorsed Joe Biden for US president? No way! ^[stretch] Atsme 💬 📧 00:19, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

You know better than that on this page. O3000 (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Better than what? Trying to point out that a competitor is concerned about opposition to their POV? What's your point? Atsme 💬 📧 00:25, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Don’t even start... We don’t need to hear it all again. We know that your personal opinions on what constitutes a reliable source differs greatly from the current consensus, you don’t have to keep reminding us when its only vaguely on topic. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

CJR reported on this back in 2019: https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/hundreds-of-pink-slime-local-news-outlets-are-distributing-algorithmic-stories-conservative-talking-points.php (t · c) buidhe 06:28, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I suggest that we view all Metric Media sites as, at best, questionable sources. This reporting indicates that the sites have minimal editorial controls, are directed by people buying articles, and are generally content farms. This clearly fails WP:RS and WP:V standards. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:45, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Right, just as we wouldn't want to consider Courier Newsroom sites to be reliable sources of news, it doesn't sound like these Metric Media sites would qualify either. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:00, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• Good work by the Times there, I'd say. This looks like an open and shut case: these sources should not be used. In fact if anyone has a full list of domains there should probably be an edit filter. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:35, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Here is a start. Metric Media.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• Here is a list with over 1,000 domains belonging to Metric Media: https://github.com/MassMove/AttackVectors/blob/master/LocalJournals/sites.csv (t · c) buidhe 06:25, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• New York Times has now published the complete list of the fraudulent "news" sites on Google Docs. I believe this these should be added as deprecated sources on WP:RSNP (do we need an RFC for that?), and a bot may be needed to create a list of wikipedia articles where they are currently used. Abecedare (talk) 18:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Does that mean they will be added to a filter of sorts? I can imagine that it will be hard for editors to keep up with all the different sources. Might be better to just block the URLs like a spam filter to pretty users from accidentally adding these pseudo-news sites. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 21:32, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• As noted above, we need to be careful about blanket removal because these papers existed before being subsumed by 'pink slime'. -- GreenC 18:55, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Though it's certainly far too common among established media, it's also fair to note that they violate the copyright of Wikipedia contributors (see this talk page message I left one user whose CC-BY 3.0 image of a local school wasn't attributed) Vahurzpu (talk) 05:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Rebel News

An editor has attempted to add Rebel News to the Jessica Yaniv article. I consider Rebel News to be a highly unreliable web site, that's never usable for facts, and definitely not facts about a living person. It's fairly well known in Canada, and it's likely others would also try to use, so I feel it should be added to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. As discussed on the Talk:Jessica Yaniv#Rebel News is not reliable, but is SPAM, they actually use articles like this about the subject of the article, to fundraise for a court case against them. The owner/operator of the Rebel News, Ezra Levant has repeatedly lost libel cases against himself (see article for sources). The site is really a commentary site, not a news web site.

At the moment, nobody seems to be arguing the site is reliable. The editor who added it, seems to be arguing that it's not blacklisted, and is therefore allowed. --Rob (talk) 07:24, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Just to be clear Thivierr/Rob, it was this paragraph and source from the Washington Times[53] that you first objected to and you deleted. Your action based on ??? saw the need to seek another secondary source covering the LifeSiteNews topic, meaning RebelNews remained as the only secondary source left. There is also a primary source covering this confirmable topic (i.e. they are back up on Twitter) but you would have objected to that as well. CatCafe (talk) 07:49, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

LifeSiteNews, Rebel News on a BLP? uh - David Gerard (talk) 08:10, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

The only sources for that information are the Washington Times and this? I certainly say I completely agree with Rob on how that sourcing is unacceptable, especially for a BLP. Devonian Wombat (talk) 08:57, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

No that's not all, as the sentence is about LifeSitesNews' interactions with Yaniv, it probably would have been preferable to use the LifeSitesNews own primary source[54] for "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source" as per WP:ORIGINAL - & the Primary also includes a screenshot that explains the sentence editor Wisefroggy was trying to add at the time. I sort of would have expected the editors to change the source to the primary and amend the sentence to the "straightforward, descriptive statement" as is allowed. CatCafe (talk) 09:08, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, considering this discussion is not about the reliability of LifeSiteNews, but Rebel News, I fail to see how the ABOUTSELF defence is relevant. Devonian Wombat (talk) 10:11, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Great, and thanks for that and pointing me toward WP:ABOUTSELF. Appreciated. CatCafe (talk) 10:22, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• For the avoidance of doubt, Washington Times is also an entirely inappropriate source for a BLP. ABOUTSELF is also a qualified exception: we should not use it to include anything remotely controversial, it's there to cover cases where a subject provides additional minor details like a town of birth rather than a state. Highly partisan sources of low reputation (e.g. LSN) are an absolute no-no in biographies. We would not use Daily Kos as a source on a right-wing grifter, either. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:33, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

For a BLP mainstream sources are required for anything controversial, but this would probably be removed even if the section was "Twitter controversies". Without additional mainstream sources like AP or Reuters to support the content, Rebel News and Washington Times (or Truthout or Huffpo) are often the only source for the contentious content they publish. It impacts the "brand" of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. Spudlace (talk) 04:54, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

"We would not use Daily Kos as a source on a right-wing grifter, either." Daily Kos is not a news website, nor does it claim to be. When news items are cited there, they are mostly republished from other sources. Dimadick (talk) 09:51, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable. Rebel News (a.k.a. Rebel Media) is the Canadian equivalent of Breitbart News (RSP entry), according to Cas Mudde's The Far Right Today. For consistency with Breitbart, I would support deprecation of Rebel News if this were ever proposed in an RfC. — Newslinger talk 10:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN)

I came upon this survey by the Group for Analyzing, &c., hereafter Gamaan. Not only are the parts of the pie chart misaligned, it also purports that not more than one third of Iranians are Shia Muslims. I have no genuine hard evidence to back it up, but based on the wealth of other similarly recent sources also provided in this article, I find this survey's results to be totally preposterous.

Another inaccuracy in Gamaan's survey results exists in this document, a segment of which reads:

68% [of respondents] stated that they do not intend to vote in the parliamentary elections (Islamic Consultative Assembly) of March 2020, while 18% said that they will participate in the elections. Approximately 14% said they haven’t decided yet.

The turnout for these elections (which were actually held in February) was 42%. Making the (unreasonable) assumption that the entirety of respondents who said they would participate in the elections in addition to those who said that they had not decided all participated in the election still results in a 10% discrepancy between the statements of respondents to the poll and the actual behavior of Iranians.

Indeed the fact that these surveys are conducted online is a major cause of their unreliability, especially in Iran which is a conservative society resulting in even more left-wing and secular bias among internet users than is found in Western countries. For example, of respondents to the question "Who did you vote for in the 2017 presidential election?", 64% had voted for Hassan Rouhani and 4% had voted for Ebrahim Raisi, despite the actual results of the election being 41% for Rouhani and 28% for Raisi.

Generally I consider that this organisation is an unreliable source and ought not be given as much precedence as it currently is. Beaneater (talk) 09:43, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Stats shows that Ahmadinejad was believed to have been voted by the majority too, which many didn't believe, thus resulting in the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests. In a country where there are no basic human rights, why should the elections of all things be genuine? One third of Iranians being Shia Muslim doesn't sound too unrealistic either. If we can use a census by a government where irreligion and other religions are not recognized and may be subject to punishment, then I see no reason why we can't use this. --HistoryofIran (talk) 10:51, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

It sounds like a wide margin of error and statistics I would rather not see relied on for statements of fact. Shi'ism being a minority in Iran is on the face of it an extraordinary claim, at least according to the normally inclusive and generous criteria used for counting religious adherents in demographics. GPinkerton (talk) 12:37, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• They appear to use the commercial platform QuestionPro [55] to conduct their research, its definitely valuable to the right users but I would refrain from using anything from GAMAAN that hasn’t been published in a peer reviewed journal. Their findings are certainly interesting but they aren’t the sort of hard numbers we could use for say demographics of Iran. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:43, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Taylor Marshall, Fratelli tutti

• Fratelli tutti (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Taylor Marshall - video podcast
• Taylor Marshall, Catholic apologist
• Veverve and Jzsj

Do Taylor Marshall's academic qualifications suffice to make his podcast reliable for commentary on Pope Francis' document Fratelli tutti? Followup: is he too biased against Francis himself to be reliable in this matter? Elizium23 (talk) 15:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• For context and the various arguments already proposed, see the conversation we have had on the talk page. Veverve (talk) 15:15, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• I would say WP:UNDUE. If he does not publish his assessment anywhere but his own podcast how much due weight does it have? I would say very little, if any, given the large number of RS that have covered the encyclical. (t · c) buidhe 16:54, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• I agree, this isn't a RS, this is a DUE issue, I agree with Buidhe and Veverve that Taylor Marshall isn't due weight for the article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:32, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• Just on principle I don't think any individual blog besides perhaps a theoretical one by Pope Francis would really make the cut here, Marshall’s blog would need to be mentioned by a WP:RS for its inclusion to be due. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:37, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Not significant enough. RS on major religions should be found in print not on podcasts and YouTube. Marshall's opinions are important if someone else says so. Otherwise it's just hot air off the internet, anyone can do it. GPinkerton (talk) 01:44, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

  Okay, this is the response I expected from Wikipedians in general; so thanks. Elizium23 (talk) 21:08, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Hindu American Foundation

The HAF is an unreliable source that has many allegations against its mission of neutrality. Here is a list of articles and references that I would point to, to argue that HAF has a history of bias, notably to Christianity.

https://www.hinduamerican.org https://theintercept.com/2019/09/25/howdy-modi-trump-hindu-nationalism/ https://theintercept.com/2019/01/05/tulsi-gabbard-2020-hindu-nationalist-modi/ http://circulate.it/r/7BUUNlbcRMitBCVM7DqFjo9PMgZKQJlIQfUQdf23YM3rOZbHFzYXkWKbdgFtWj9IAuBulBtWJNS-32yI7dl9_nVnkfs/www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/press/cag.pr.07apr2014.php (this article speaks to "Hindu American Foundation exposed as foe of human rights and religious freedom") http://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/press/cag.pr.22apr2014.php http://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/press/cag.pr.22dec2013.php http://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/press/cag.pr.06dec2013.php (this article demonstrates the HAF's supremacist ideology through smear campaign against CAG and Indian Muslims — anti-Christian AND anti-Muslim)

This source is being cited on the Gospel For Asia Wikipedia page.

The HAF is cited as a source only for the HAF's opinion, for which they are naturally a reliable source, and the citation is accompanied by a third-party source to indicate that their opinion is worthy of note.The sources that the poster is using to condemn them are from The Intercept, which is noted at WP:RSNP as a biased source, and Coalition Against Genocide, which has its own problematic history noted in its article. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

It should be removed as WP:UNDUE. Nearly any self-sourced opinion from a pressure group ought to be axed. The independent source does not mention HAF. (t · c) buidhe 19:11, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

My apologies; I was misremembering the second source there. There are certainly sources that reflect's HAF's anti-GFA stance, if of a somewhat lesser tier. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:12, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Can court documents be considered a "reliable source" for citations?

I am editing a page where some court documents are used as inline citations. I have heard -- but cannot seem to confirm -- whether such court documents can in fact be used as a reference within a wiki page. On the one hand, the document is either a complaint or a response to a complaint, and as such is a document where the two parties don't seem to agree on the facts.... so that would lead me to think lawsuit documents cannot be used. BUT - you sign them under the agreement of truth, so that should stand for something? Also, if a news outlet reports on a story and uses information from court documents, as long as that particular media outlet is reliable, then that could be used, but since it would be just a regurgitation of the court documents, doesn't that lean toward "yes" court documents are considered a valid reference in a wiki page? Help! Thanks in advance. --10Sany1? (talk) 21:56, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

What is it for? It is less tolerated for biography of living people pages. Graywalls (talk) 21:58, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

What exactly are we talking about? “Court documents” is extremely broad, something like a deposition is going to be a lot less reliable than an official ruling or judgement. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:01, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Solid primary sources, but not evidence of noteworthiness of a fact. And it also depends what they are, e.g. a judgement is far more weighty than a filing or a deposition. What's the page? This probably depends a lot on context - David Gerard (talk) 22:17, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

The page appears to be Caroline Casagrande, and the legal case appears to be this one:[56][57] or possibly this one:[58] --Guy Macon (talk) 22:47, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

If it takes specialized knowledge to read it or the interpretation can be subjective, then we can't use it, period. We'd have to leave it to secondary source to make the analysis. Joey_Gibson_(political_activist) See the reference I used for birthday. That's a reasonable way to use it to show an uncontroversial fact, however if the specific document wasn't linked from a news article, it wouldn't be acceptable, because Wikipedia editors should not be relied on to identify the correct record. Graywalls (talk) 22:57, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Especially on BLP, intermediate court documents - basically anything not representing the judgement of the court - cannot be used as a source, because for all purposes we have to presume those are self-written sources (filed statements, court transcripts, etc.) and per BLPSPS not appropriate. Judgements from the court are okay, but this should presume the case has already been discussed in secondary sources about the person, and ideally, we should use secondary sources to conclude out the case. I have found, at times, that secondary sources do start to talk about the case but the case is then quietly resolved (perhaps settled, perhaps closed by the judge with no action) and the sources don't pick up on that, and if we have included the start of such cases where the BLP is the defendant or otherwise accused, we should also close the door and cite the court documents showing the case complete if the secondary sources fail to do so. --Masem (t) 23:43, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Court documents should always be treated with care. As other said, documents submitted to the court are all but self published. Even court ruling need to be treated with care. Consider this passage from Gary Schwartz talking about the caution that must be taken when viewing court conclusions in Grimshaw_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

For reasons quite beyond the court's control, its opinion must be treated cautiously as a source of actual facts. Because the defendant was appealing a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the court was under an obligation to view all the evidence in a way most favorable to the plaintiffs and essentially to ignore evidence in the record that might be favorable to the defendant. See id. at 773, 820, 174 Cal. Rptr. at 359, 388. In fact, Ford's basic position at trial-which the court's opinion at no point mentions-was that the approaching car (a Ford Galaxie) had not slowed down at all, and had struck the Gray car at a speed in excess of 50 miles per hour. There was an enormous amount of evidence at trial supporting each of the parties' factual claims as to the Galaxie's closing speed. Had the jury accepted Ford's speed estimate, there would not have been much of an issue of crashworthiness: for the plaintiffs' position throughout trial was that even a state-of-the-art fuel system could not maintain integrity in a 50 mile-per hour collision.

Basically because of the rules and procedures related to a legal case the court's opinions/finding may be narrow or restricted vs what a researcher might conclude. Springee (talk) 03:49, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Like other editors have said for a BLP there should be secondary sources. Spudlace (talk) 04:06, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

References

The Intercept (non-staff articles)

In the RSP list, they're green, just like regular Forbes and no distinction is made between contributors and staff. What is the reliability of non-staff articles on the Intercept like this one used in Proud Boys? That author does not have a publisher issued email address and he was not in the staff roster of the time that story was originally published. Another piece I randomly chose on their website https://theintercept.com/2020/10/19/blacks-for-trump-maurice-symonette-cult/ is authored by someone with a publisher email address and rostered in their current list. Are all pieces on The Intercept treated as reliable or are their contributor pieces similar to WP:FORBESCON ? Graywalls (talk) 05:35, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

In general, I don't think non-staff contributors are automatically unreliable. Many media outlets regularly publish guest articles, and the reliable articles have undergone the same editorial oversight as staff-written articles. Contributor platforms like those of Forbes.com (RSP entry) and (formerly) HuffPost (RSP entry) are outliers because those platforms do not adequately vet content published by non-staff contributors. In 2014, the Columbia Journalism Review covered four publications with contributor platforms, and found that some publications (e.g. The Dallas Morning News) reviewed contributor pieces more thoroughly than others (e.g. Forbes.com). Since The Intercept prefers to accept pitches for articles before reviewing completed articles from contributors, I believe its contributor pieces are more reliable than those of Forbes.com's. — Newslinger talk 06:15, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Is it journalism or is it opinion? That is, did the person who wrote the article do research, perform an investigation, get corroborating evidence, build a case, have the case reviewed by the editorial staff, and have the story published? Or, did they have something on their minds and wrote an eloquent story about what they believed? Guest editorials are still editorials. --Jayron32 14:47, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Reliability of a UNESCO-published webpage

In University of the People, Weatherextremes has repeatedly inserted the following sentence: "According to UNESCO the University works with other universities and governments to advise, teach and partner with them on how to launch an online education system to meet the current need and demand in light of the Covid-19 pandemic."

It's obvious that the source is published on a UNESCO website but I cannot find any other information about its reliability. The information certainly reads as if it's written by the university and not an independent third-party. Except for a statement at the bottom of the page that says that "UNESCO does not endorse any product, service, brand or company," I cannot find any information that says how the information was written, whether it was fact-checked, how errors are corrected, or any other information that would allow us to know if it's reliable. ElKevbo (talk) 18:03, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

My read of that information looks like information made by the university entity supplied to UNESCO (hence the disclaimer) to publish, and thus should be taken as primary and of limited reliability. UNESCO itself is a UN entity and would be normally reliable but this is not UN "generated" information. --Masem (t) 18:29, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

To spotcheck (given the question of this below), other pages show text with "we" language eg Save the Children, Errison, etc. which is not something I would expect to see in text if it were generated by UNESCO themselves - they would use third-person. This drives the point that UNESCO likely asked each company to provide statements for the website to promote. --Masem (t) 00:00, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

ElKevbo, Weatherextremes is an assiduous promoter of UofP. Any source - primary, affiliated, whatever - that promotes them, will be added, and unless you have several hours per day to spend arguing it will end up crowbarred in. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:47, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Masem that this is not from UNESCO. I would also say even if it was that there is a significant a difference reliability wise between the official publications of a UN organization and random pages on their websites or their social media accounts. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:01, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Masem and Horse Eye. This looks like re-hosted content, and thus cannot be used except for WP:ABOUTSELF content (which the sentence at issue is not). The use of the source/sentence is thus inappropriate. Neutrality^talk 00:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

My take is that the UNESCO source is credible and reputable. I don't see any evidence that it is actually written by UoPeople. I mean I doubt that any organization can dictate anything to UNESCO. The source is reputable and should stay Weatherextremes (talk) 23:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

On what basis are making those judgements? Simply being published on a UNESCO website does not mean that the source is reliable. Who wrote it? Why was it published? Do they have a reputation for fact-checking and corrections? How can we consider any page on that website a reliable source when UNESCO itself says that "UNESCO does not warrant that the information, documents and materials contained in its website is complete and correct and shall not be liable whatsoever for any damages incurred as a result of its use." ElKevbo (talk) 23:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

The fact that the information is published in the UNESCO websites makes it reliable information. We are talking about an highly reputable organization. Of course UNESCO is right to point out that they do not endorse anyone. The main question is how can you prove that this information was written by UoPeople when it originally appears in the UNESCO website? Weatherextremes (talk) 00:25, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

No, merely being published on the UNESCO website does not make it reliable. Meeting our standards for reliability is what makes a source reliable. And the burden of proof is on an editor who inserts new information and claims that the supporting source is reliable. So please stop repeating yourself and dodging the central question: What evidence do you have that this source is reliable (other than the website that hosts it)? ElKevbo (talk) 00:35, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• I don't have a problem using the source, the problem is with the wording it's being used to support: it doesn't match the source. It's not UNESCO saying it, and that's not what the website says. Moreover, the UoP is the last-mentioned in a long list on the website. Furthermore, the source says curious things like "UoPeople is a non-profit, tuition-free, accredited American online university ... Students pay a minimum assessment free [sic] of $100 per course" which makes me question whether it was merely emailed in and never checked. A better idea would be to write "the UoP is among more than one hundred members of UNESCO's Global Education Coalition" and cite it to this list page on the same site: [59]. GPinkerton (talk) 01:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
  • How can you be non-profit if you charge for courses and don't offer tuition (i.e., no staff costs)? And can I start my own online non-profit non-tuition university too? Achar Sva (talk) 02:52, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Well I beg to differ. The burden of proof lies with the editor who has doubts on the content of a credible source such as UNESCO. ElKevdo should be the one to provide sufficient evidence that the statement is actually written by UoPeople when it appears originally only in the UNESCO website. The source is credible until we see proof otherwise. Please include it in the article. Weatherextremes (talk) 08:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

No, it's foolish to insist that we assume sources are reliable until proven otherwise. The burden of proof is always on the editor who claims that a source is reliable. ElKevbo (talk) 13:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

No, what is actually foolish is to assume that UNESCO is not a reliable source Weatherextremes (talk) 14:30, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Weatherextremes, what is foolish is to keep promoting a thing and then arguing endlessly against anyone who pushes back. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Also what GPinkerton suggests seems a fair compromise and I could go with that.It actually makes it more neutral in terms of wording.Weatherextremes (talk) 08:52, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we're not considering the context of this source enough. Yes, this statement was probably written by the university and UNESCO probably asked for the members of the coalition to write their own statements. That being said, the context of this statement is that the University of the People is a member of the Global Education Coalition, an entity which deals with revamping learning in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This isn't something that's disputed and while I don't believe the current wording is supported by the source (specifically the part about how they're advising others on how to launch an online educational system) I do believe that the general idea that UofP is working with governments by means of the Global Education Coalition to support education during and after the COVID-19 pandemic is supported by the source above. That's explicitly outlined by the Global Education Coalition website which outlines the objectives of the coalition and that the only people who can request assistance from the coalition are national governments. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 21:12, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Chess, and the inevitable riposte is: who cares? Did they self-nominate? Is it exclusive or inclusive? We deal with this by reference to reliable independent secondary sources. In the absence of those it's WP:UNDUE, added by a user whose history shows about a quarter of all their edits being to this article, its talk page, and the complaints that editing has generated. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:19, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

References

José Bustani on The Grayzone

The Grayzone is a deprecated source; however, José Bustani has been recently interviewed there and made several noteworthy claims. Would it be acceptable to use the interview as a source of the claims, clearly attributing them to The Grayzone and Bustani? This looks like something allowed by WP:DEPREC. BeŻet (talk) 13:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Have these claims been repeated by any secondary source? If not, they may well be undue since ABOUTSELF is a pretty limited exception. (t · c) buidhe 15:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

If the comments are specific replies to things said about Bustani and he is replying via The Grayzone interview then I think they qualify as "about self". So if a number of sources have noted that Bustani, for example, hates cheese then a comment from Bustani from The Grayzone interview saying he likes cheese despite the rumors to the contrary would be allowable as ABOUTSELF. Since The Grayzone is not a RS (I assume based on the question) then it can't establish weight for a topic but it can act as Bustani's point of reply to DUE topics raised by other sources. In this regard it would be similar to a personal blog with replies to some public comments about Bustani. Springee (talk) 15:34, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Springee, not unless other people have decided they are sufficiently credible to merit discussion. We're not a newspaper. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:13, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies so far. For instance if we were to say: José Bustani claimed during an interview with The Grayzone that he has been spied on while working at the OPCW - would that require a secondary source which talks about said interview, or do we feel that the primary source in this case is enough? BeŻet (talk) 17:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

If no other source has covered him saying that he has been spied on, leave the claim out. If there is such a source, include that source and what that source says, and you can then also link to the interview as a source for a direct quote. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:06, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

This is a pretty extraordinary claim from Bustani. If there is no evidence but the fact that he stated it during an interview, it's pretty hard to be WP:DUE. If it is covered in a secondary source, then cite that source rather than Grayzone. (t · c) buidhe 18:21, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Buidhe. That sentence would either need secondary sourcing talking about this subject or it would need to be clearly in reply to something said about him. Given the nature of the claim it would have to be something like "RS says Buidhe's private information was found online during the time he worked for the OPCW." It would have to be a really solid RS statement to allow this as an ABOUTSELF reply to something. TLDR/ as presented here I think it should stay out. Springee (talk) 00:59, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

If the only source for something is Grayzone, then it shouldn't be in Wikipedia. If it's literally the video of Bustani saying something, that would be an ABOUTSELF primary source, and might be usable with due weight - David Gerard (talk) 08:05, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

J. H. Field on American Journal of Physics

Volunteer at dispute resolution noticeboard has redirected the discussion to this noticeboard. This is the requested information:

1. Source: Field, J. H. (2000). "Two novel special relativistic effects: Space dilatation and time contraction". American Journal of Physics. 68. arXiv:physics/0004012. doi:10.1119/1.19439.
2. Article: Time contraction
3. Content: [60]

84.120.7.178 (talk) 15:00, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

See relevant discussion at Talk:Time dilation#Time contraction. Notifying users Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk · contribs) and Coldcreation (talk · contribs). - DVdm (talk) 09:28, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• As discussed above, the American Journal of Physics, although a reliable source, cannot guarantee the reliability of every paper that it publishes. Mistakes happen in the peer review process. The author of the paper in question, J. H. Field, has published many WP:FRINGE "Einstein was wrong" papers in the non-refereed arXiv. The paper in question, which the IP editor wishes to use as a source for the novel concept of "time contraction", appears to be in the same vein. There are no secondary source references to "time contraction" which would establish the notability or validity of that subject for inclusion in Wikipedia. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 23:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Cinema cats

Hello! I have a source called Cinema Cats (here is the home page [61]). It is a self described blog [62] and there is no evidence that the information that is posted on it is reviewed or checked for reliability. I don’t think this would be considered a reliable source for information about movies or cats, but I just thought I’d stop by and check! Thank you in advance for your comments. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 17:17, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Obviously not a reliable source. Schazjmd (talk) 17:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Not obvious to me. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 22:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

You are right. It isn't obvious. It is blindingly obvious. See [63] and WP:SPS. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I did read the about page and checked an entry. The blog states to be peer-reviewed regarding some claims. So, depending on the claim, it may be a reliable source. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 23:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

A blogger might get someone else to "review" their blog posts, that doesn't make anything on it sufficient to support encyclopedia content. An argument could be made if this blogger was a known expert in their field, but that's not the case here. Schazjmd (talk) 23:20, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you need to be an expert to claim that a pixel is red or that two plus two is four? I do not think so. As I said, it depends on the claim. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 23:30, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Your opinion is noted. Let me put it to you this way: if you use Cinema cats as a source anywhere on Wikipedia after being told that it not a reliable source, you are likely to be blocked for disruption. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

But no claim has been provided, thus there is no reason to get blocked. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Currently used in eleven articles. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 00:37, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I wasn’t planning to. That’s why I came here. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:19, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Then which content do you plan to remove? What is the purpose of this discussion? 84.120.7.178 (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I was talking about what will happen if you, 84.120.7.178, ever use Cinema cats as a source anywhere on Wikipedia. This was based on your refusal to accept that it isn't a reliable source. Lima Bean Farmer simply asked a completely reasonable question about a source. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:38, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: So I am not likely to be blocked; I will certainly be blocked according to your threat. I had no interest in Cinema Cats. However, if you are looking for conflict, I will please you. If you remove anything referenced by Cinema Cats, you notify me of such removal, and I think you are wrong, then I will revert your edit and go through dispute resolution despite of what you have said so far. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 11:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

IP, anyone removing any material sourced to Cinema Cats would be doing the project a favour - it describes itself as a blog, it's not reliable. Don't personalise this, nobody has threatened you, they've just told you what will happen if you cause disruption by reverting people who are removing unreliable sources. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:02, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

As I said, if you notify me of any removal, then you are asking for my response. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 12:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Why even raise it - why would anyone notify you? GirthSummit _(blether) 12:28, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

If anyone does, you may ask them the reason. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 22:15, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

SPS by none expert, not an RS>Slatersteven (talk) 14:40, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

"there is no evidence that the information that is posted on it is reviewed or checked for reliability" Even if it was verified, the source emphasizes only on the use of cats in various films. How would we use the information? By noting the presence of a cat scene in a larger narrative? Dimadick (talk) 15:56, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I see a list.Slatersteven (talk) 15:57, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Grant Proposals to a Funding Agencies

I recently came across a citation on the page Urdu language, a language spoken in South Asia. It is to a grant proposal appearing on the internet: here. There is no indication that the proposal was funded, let alone a publication resulted in a peer-reviewed journal or book. The Principal Investigator (PI) has put other proposals on the internet; in some cases, they are preliminary ones, only a little more detailed than Letters of Intent. ( Most proposals have sections on the broad subject area of the topic being proposed and a review of the previous research. It is such a section that is being appealed to in the citation on Urdu.) The PI seems to be some kind of a digitized font programmer for different language scripts; the statement moreover being appealed to is in the background section on the history of the language and the script (in which the PI is not necessarily an expert). He has all sorts of other proposals on the internet on Soyombo script of Mongolia and Japan, Maithili Script of eastern India, Elymaic Script of Western Iran. I am looking for a clear statement of Wikipedia policy about citing such proposals. I would imagine it would have been spelled out by now. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

PS I did some rummaging which makes this even more perplexing. The cited proposal on Urdu is dated 2007. The author of the proposal is Anshuman Pandey. I found him on this GitHub web page. It says he was a post-doc at Berkeley during the year 2015–16. The Berkeley lab's page says, "Anshuman Pandey is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Linguistics. He recently finished his Ph.D in History at the University of Michigan and since 2005 has been developing Unicode standards for scripts of south, south-east, and central Asia." So I checked U of M (History). It says he received his PhD in history in 2014. That means he was a graduate student when he wrote that proposal (in 2007). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:19, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Hard to see how such a dodgy source would be WP:DUE on Urdu, a language which has been extensively studied in peer reviewed sources. (t · c) buidhe 18:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

MusicNotes and Vocal Registers

There is an issue across Wikipedia song articles of songs sung by males where many of them list the vocal register as being an octave above what it actually is. This is due to an error in MusicNotes transcriptions where they do not differentiate between the octave of a male vocal melody and a female vocal melody. Because of this there are a number of Wikipedia song articles that list male vocalists as singing in the vocal range of sopranos, when in fact the actual pitches that the males sing in each song is an octave below that. These articles incorrectly state the singer of the song as singing in that high range, when it is that MusicNotes incorrectly transcribes the vocal melody as being an octave higher than it is. I outline a number of examples of Wikipedia song articles with this issue in this previously had discussion, as well as further expand on the issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Songs#Music_Notes_Reliability_As_A_Source

The reliability of MusicNotes as a source has been brought up here before, however the issue in that discussion was of a different nature. They were discussing the general credibility of Music Notes but didn't actually have any issue with the content that it was providing and they all agreed the information offered from Music Notes was correct. The issue in that discussion was whether it was reliable enough to speak to the recorded version of the song but did not have any specific grievances with any of the information itself from Music Notes. What I'm pointing out is a bit of a different matter since it is evidence of demonstrably incorrect information that we are using rather than being correct information that comes from a source we aren't entirely confident in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_56#Musicnotes.com

It is likely quite evident that I am unfamiliar with the mechanisms of Wikipedia editing and thus do not feel that this is an issue I am fully-equipped to undertake. I merely have the knowledge necessary to bring forward this issue in hopes that it is able to be resolved, as I have seen a number of people confused as to why Wikipedia lists so many songs as incorrectly having such a high vocal range. My apologies if anything in my formatting or protocol is incorrect here, I was referred to take this issue here when my previous efforts of correcting this were not effective. Chukulem (talk) 19:44, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• 99.9999999999999% of sources ascribing vocal ranges to pop singers are bullshit. If you're not a classically trained singer then vocal range is almost always a matter of fans guessing. This is no exception. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:11, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

  This is partly true, but on the other hand it's unlikely that male pop singers are really singing in the soprano range without using falsetto. This is a commercial company, it's probably accurate enough for the melody of a song (in general—it could be in a different key or octave) but not more than that. (t · c) buidhe 23:55, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah the vast majority of sources talking about pop vocalists range are extremely generous with what they consider a correctly sung note (I myself am a classically trained singer but that's neither here nor there), but that's not actually the issue here with MusicNotes. They correctly transcribe the vocal melody, the issue is that they notate it in the treble clef an octave above where the male is singing (rather than using the treble clef with an 8 underneath that indicates the pitch is to be performed an octave lower than written, which is the clef generally used for tenors in choral writing or often for guitar). The melody itself is correctly transcribed, just it is notated incorrectly designating the pitch as being an octave higher than it actually is. This leads to Wikipedia articles such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shut_Up_and_Dance_(Walk_the_Moon_song)#Composition_and_lyrics stating that the male singer reaches an F6 (A perfect 4th above soprano C) which is very obviously incorrect. This issue is evident in all 28 Wikipedia articles I listed in my previously linked discussion, and I grabbed those links after a cursory glance so I am certain this issue is present in many more song articles across Wikipedia. Chukulem (talk) 02:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Yep, it's definitely an extraordinary claim that a male singer hits F6. This is also the sort of intricate detail that isn't likely to belong in an article (opera makes a big deal over high notes, pop music not so much). (t · c) buidhe 04:46, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Per Buidhe, even if scrupulously referenced, this is the sort of WP:TRIVIA that likely is not necessary in the articles in question. Being well referenced is a necessary but not sufficient condition for inclusion of some fact. Merely being verifiable and true is not enough, there also needs to be consensus that the fact is relevant to the narrative, and not some trivial detail that is unnecessary. I would say that the specific notes hit during a particular song ventures into the "trivial" category, and should not normally be included even if it were well referenced. --Jayron32 14:35, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

So would the proposed solution then be to delete the incorrect ranges entirely, to correct those ranges, or to get rid of the vocal range sections across all song articles? Chukulem (talk) 18:42, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Also is it worth noting that I have reached out to MusicNotes to correct the issue and they have responded saying they'll forward the feedback and propose either acknowledging the issue or making an amendment to their vocal range listing? It is unlikely they would be able to change their system quickly but it would give us reliably correct information to help fix the errors if they actually do change it. Chukulem (talk) 20:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Sources about Pokemon

I want to create an article about Sirfetch'd, but I'm not sure where to start. Can someone help me out? UB Blacephalon (talk) 02:06, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Articles on Pokemon species generally should not be created unless there is evidence of independent notability separate from Pokemon itself, like real world coverage of the specific pokemon that is independent from Nintendo/GameFreak. The vast majority of Pokemon species do not pass Wikipedia's notability guidelines, and I think it is unlikely Sirfetch'd passes. With 47 entries Category:Pokémon species is arguably due for an AfD wave. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:47, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Wasn't sirfetch'd a long awaited evolution that was rumored in Gen 2? Or the fact that its in Pokemon go, or even its reveal video getting tons of reactions? I'm sure I can find something. I just.....don't know what to look for. UB Blacephalon (talk) 02:52, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

This is not a place to ask where you can look for sources. But wp:rs might give you some idea about what is and is not acceptable, as would wp:rsp.Slatersteven (talk) 13:37, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes fans have been clamouring for an evolution to everyones favorite leek/onion wielding duck for a long time. But it is unlikely to have been specifically called out even in videogame-specific media. Your best bet is to take a look at the wikiproject:videogaming list of sources here, then do a search to see if they have any articles that specifically focus on it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:01, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

This is probably what I needed to do my Sirfetch'd article on. So if I look up Sirfetch'd and any of those sites appear, I can use them in my article? That really helps! UB Blacephalon (talk) 15:52, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Chuck Hill's blog

Some contributors demand a blanket blacklisting of any online publication that includes "blog" in its title - even highly respected online publications like SCOTUSBLOG. While I agree we shouldn't use online publications written by non-notable people, or non-notable organizations - over 99 percent of blogs shouldn't be used. But I think we shouldn't be blinded by these so we exclude using the tiny fraction of things called blogs that do merit being considered reliable sources.

Scotusblog should be an open and shut case. Journalists from respected print publications assigned to report on the SCOTUS, the US Supreme Court, routinely cite SCOTUSBLOG, and defer to the opinions voiced there.

IMO Chuck Hill's blog falls into less than one percent fraction of things called blogs that should not be dismissed because it is called a blog.

Hill is a retired USCG officer who comments on maritime, naval and military matters. This Coast Guard page, full of related links, links to his blog. [64]

This September 2020 article from the US Naval Institute Proceedings cites his blog. [65]

The Center for International Maritime Security has published Hill. Their author's biography of him said [66]:

Chuck retired from the Coast Guard after 22 years service. Assignments included four ships, Rescue Coordination Center New Orleans, CG HQ, Fleet Training Group San Diego, Naval War College, and Maritime Defense Zone Pacific/Pacific Area Ops/Readiness/Plans. Along the way he became the first Coast Guard officer to complete the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) course and also completed the Naval Control of Shipping course. He has had a life-long interest in naval ships and history. Chuck writes for his blog, Chuck Hill’s CG blog.

Does this respect shown his blog by RS mean we should consider it generally reliable? Geo Swan (talk) 16:23, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• What is this source being cited for and which user said you are not supposed to cite it? It depends a lot on what it is cited for. There are certainly some reliable blogs, such as Lawfare and Verfassungsblog, although most of them are published in cooperation with a university or other well-respected institution. (t · c) buidhe 17:41, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Are Las Vegas Weekly and Uproxx acceptable sources to confirm Alexis Texas co-hosted the AVN Awards?

• Mancini, Vince (27 January 2015), "'I Have A Lot Of Tricks, But I'm Not Your Dog': An Interview With AVN Awards Co-Host Alexis Texas", Uproxx, retrieved 22 October 2020, Before she started working in porn in 2007, Alexis Texas grew up in Texas. ... As if to confirm that she's attained a level of pornstardom reserved for only the super elite, Texas was named co-host of the 2015 AVN Awards.

Is Uproxx an acceptable source to use, to confirm that Alexis Texas co-hosted the 2015 AVN Awards?

Thank you, Right cite (talk) 16:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

It’s a rather unexceptional claim so the bar is a bit lower. Has another editor contested its use? Glee^anon 17:10, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

@Gleeanon409:Yes. Removed. Twice. One and Two. Right cite (talk) 17:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

There is a LOT more contested there than the reliability of the source. Indeed, neither of those removals are about the reliability of sources. It's important to remember that verifiability is only ONE of the criteria for including information in a Wikipedia article. Having a reliable source is a necessary, but not sufficient reason to include text in an article. It must also be text which is relevant and not excessively trivial or WP:UNDUE. Now, I'm not saying one side or the other is right or wrong here, but what I am saying is that the person who is contesting your additions to that article is not doing so based on the reliability of the source material, but they are contesting the information being added on other grounds. You would do well to address their concerns directly, and not ignore them. You may very well be right in this dispute (and saying that doesn't mean you are. I leave open an equal probability you are wrong). What I am saying is that redirecting criticism and addressing objections that were not made, while ignoring objections that were made, are not a good look. --Jayron32 17:20, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you. But the user is also ignoring these sources. Right cite (talk) 17:22, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Look. The user is saying that the material you are adding is either irrelevant to the biography or overly promotional in nature. I'm not saying they are right. I'm saying that is a matter you should address on the article talk page, and if you can't come to an agreement with that particular person, seek dispute resolution per WP:DR. By focusing on the reliability of the sources, you're missing the main point they are trying to make. Again, not saying they are in the right. Just saying you aren't addressing the concerns. --Jayron32 17:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

We both agree we want to use reliable sources and the user had removed the entire lede based on that. Twice. So that's why I was seeking out input from previously uninvolved third party editors. Thank you. Right cite (talk) 17:26, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

It looks reliable enough for this purpose. I can find no evidence that Uproxx has fabricated stories or interviews in the past. It seems as reliable as any other entertainment news website. Furthermore, wouldn't the actual awards show serve as its own source for who hosted it? That seems like a clear WP:ABOUTSELF sort of thing; if the awards show itself was publicly available, (broadcast) it qualifies as a public source, and the video of her actually hosting the show should be sufficient for the claim that she actually hosted the show. --Jayron32 17:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

---

• "Porn Convention: AVN Fan Awards Voting, AEE Talent Lineup and More", Las Vegas Weekly, 5 December 2014, retrieved 23 October 2020, AVN also recently announced that comedienne and actress Danielle Stewart would be joining AVN Awards co-hosts Alexis Texas and Tommy Pistol as the awards show's comedic co-host.

---

• @Gleeanon409 and Jayron32:What about in addition to Uproxx, we also have this cite, Las Vegas Weekly. Can we use those 2 citations in the article 'Alexis Texas to state the fact that she co-hosted the 2015 AVN Awards? Right cite (talk) 17:17, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Definitely. Glee^anon 17:21, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Gleeanon409 and Jayron32:So can we keep the fact that Alexis Texas co-hosted the 2015 AVN Awards in the article -- backed up to the 2 citations to Las Vegas Weekly and Uproxx? Right cite (talk) 17:23, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  The sources are clearly reliable enough for this sort of unexceptional claim; Uproxx and Las Vegas Weekly are unlikely to be lying about this, Also, an actress in the industry co-hosting an industry awards show clearly passes WP:WEIGHT. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:47, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Is this peer reviewed paper sufficient to say that M269 originated on the Pontic-Caspian steppe?

User:Peleio Aquiles changed R-M269 by replacing its origin (Neolithic Expansion) with Pontic-Caspian steppe. This is mentioned nowhere in the article, he didn't source it or leave an edit summary although he later said he did it on his mobile and had planned to source it later. I went to his page and having seen that he'd already had an argument with User:Drmies about sourcing, so told him it was a bad idea to continue not to source. He exploded there, which doesn't matter, but then went to Talk:Haplogroup R-M269#Administrator insists on owning the entry despite not understanding the subject saying he wasn't going to edit the article again, claimed that Neolithic expansion wasn't sourced (it is, in the lead) but at least helpfully giving this article as a source.[67]. My problem is that looking at that source, it only mentions M269 twice - it does however say " all 7 Yamnaya males did belong to the M269 subclade". And of course the Yamnaya were a steppe tribe. But this is just a bit of data in the article and not in the results, which do however start with "Our results support a view of European pre-history punctuated by two major migrations: first, the arrival of the first farmers during the Early Neolithic from the Near East, and second, the arrival of Yamnaya pastoralists during the Late Neolithic from the steppe." But the article is not about R-M269. Oops, dinner's almost ready, this[68] might help. As he also went to Talk:Haplogroup R1b#Administrator insists on keeping outdated theses in an article on R-M269 to complain and an editor responded, I'll invite User:GenQuest to see if he has any insights. Doug Weller talk 17:07, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Many papers since then have demonstrated that R-M269 is a mark of descent from the Pontic-Caspian steppe peoples, who only spread throughout Europe in the Bronze Age, bringing the Indo-European languages along. This is not a particularly new find - it has become common knowledge in the field of population genetics for several years now. Haak 2015 was the first paper to publish the now widely known fact that Yamnaya men overwhelmingly belonged to haplogroup R-M269, that R1b could hardly be found in Europe prior to the Bronze Age, and that most European R1b today is a result of these Bronze Age, Indo-European expansions. The Neolithic expansion, instead, is linked to haplogroup G2a. You're aggressively misinformed for someone for so aggressively ignorant of this subject. I'm again on my cell phone, so it would be tiring to look for, copy, and paste all of the DOZENS of articles now linking R-M269 to the Pontic-Caspian steppe. But I did direct you to look in other pertinent Wikipedia entries, namely R1b and Yamnaya, as they contain the information I passed on to you and are richly sourced. Peleio Aquiles (talk) 17:48, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Care to give some examples of these papers?Slatersteven (talk) 17:50, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

They vary. Looking at the Yamnaya culture article [69] says" R1b-M269 [12], which is carried at high frequency into Northern Europe by the Late Neolithic/Bronze Age steppe migrations". This one[70] uses Haak et al to say "each Bronze Age sample (all male) exhibits the Bronze Age-associated Y chromosome lineage R1b-M269, the appearance of which has been strongly linked with Steppe incursion into Central Europe." That's more promising. But Haplogroup R1b seems to only use Haak as source (hardly richly sourced for the origin issue), and a quick search turns up a paper published about the same time as Haak[71] - and doesn't seem to agree, but I'll let others take a look. I have no more time tonight, there may be more stuff on the Yamnaya article. Doug Weller talk 18:30, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• Linking of archaeological culture (a categorization of material goods and cultural practices) with the origins of a haplogroup is itself fringe and needs strong sources and an editorial distance, especially based on seven individuals. GPinkerton (talk) 18:41, 23 October 2020 (UTC)