Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

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

RfC: Tamil Centre for Human Rights

In edit 1026680246, the source Tamil Centre for Human Rights was provided by IP Address 84.209.141.236 as WP:RS in the Article Sri Lankan Civil War, to support the original edit 1006099297.

Which of the following best describes the reliability of the Tamil Centre for Human Rights

• Option 1. The source is generally reliable.
• Option 2. Additional considerations apply when citing the source - specify which.
• Option 3. The source is generally unreliable, but may be used in exceptional cases.
• Option 4. The source is not reliable and editors should not cite it.

Thanks for your time. --Jayingeneva (talk) 22:52, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. You may want to use Template:RfC so that people could see that you have posted an RfC. Other than that, I have nothing to say on the topic. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:12, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks! --Jayingeneva (talk) 19:14, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment, it is an advocacy group but taken that into consideration, it's usable although for things such as casualty figures attribution is necessary. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 05:28, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - the most desirable sources would be ones written by neutral third parties, e.g., some international organisations or whatever..with that said, if that cannot be done and all of the data must needs come from parties to the conflict, you cannot only include only sources from one side. Since what appears to be the vast bulk of references are directly from the Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka, the Tamil sources cannot be excluded simply because they lost the war (and therefore conflicts with the so-called "official" data, which is accorded its official status solely for the grace of having been the victor in a military conflict). if there are comflicting data, just give both versions, with attributions. Firejuggler86 (talk) 21:56, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: I'd suggest removing the RfC format here. I don't think we'll list this source at WP:RSP just based on some edits to a single article. MarioGom (talk) 17:16, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
• Comment Nothing about the formatting on the website inspires confidence in me, and seeing the last modified date on some of the pages it's not an older website that just withered away. I'm not comfortable saying it's WP:GREL owing to its seeming lack of maintenance. There's a list of press releases on the website that indicate that this is an advocacy group, and some of the material regarding living people seems to be extreme. It's not clear to me that it has a history of fact-checking or accuracy, but also I really can't find much about this group from reliable sources (google news search returns very few results for their name), and the UN seems to not have looked favorably upon the group's objectivity or neutrality. None of this points towards reliability. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 22:39, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

  Mikehawk10, on a closer look, you seem to be pretty correct. I had the impression that it was related to the May 17 Movement and didn't check further, apparently it is not. It is an affiliate of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which makes it a primary source. There's a Frontline article which mentions this. The website's likely not maintained because LTTE is pretty much dead. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 23:12, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

• Don't use Avowedly partisan, and the name itself suggests something fishy, would be right up there with "Communist center for anti-gulags" or "Hamas center for the prevention of rocket attacks on civilians". Additionally, no one has brought to the table any evidence that they have a reputation for accuracy or fact-checking. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

RFC — TheBlot

What do you think of the reliability of TheBlot? --DrIlyaTsyrlov (talk) 23:32, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

TheBlot website (launched in 2013 by the businessman Benjamin Wey is a tabloid magazine based in the US. https://www.theblot.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Wey

(Website link)

I submit that theBlot should not be considered a reliable source for the following reasons:

1) According to the above Wikipedia page about Benjamin Way (in Summary and Career Sections):

“Since 2016 he has been facing a defamation suit stemming from statements in his website The Blot,[12][13] which he has used to attack journalists.”

The links: *https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/12/court-orders-online-tabloid-not-to-post-any-articles-about-former-obama-nominee-to-the-federal-cftc/ * https://www.reuters.com/article/lawprof-defamation-case/judge-lets-georgetown-law-professors-defamation-case-against-online-magazine-proceed-idUSL2N16B2BR * https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-benjamin-wey/

2) The website is proved to be used by Benjamin Wey as his personal retaliation and defamation tool (see the above sources from The Washington Post, Reuters and Bloomberg) and there cannot be considered as “reliable source” of information.

Here is the list of the people attacked by theBlot (journalist and politicians)

• Chris Brummer, a banking expert and Obama nominee for a governmental position

(See Reuters and Washington Post above)

• Here is one about Roddy Boyd, a former journalist for The New York Post. The journalist exposed Wey’s dubious activity and was attacked by theBlot tabloid https://web.archive.org/web/20160620135300/https://www.cjr.org/analysis/shadowy_war.php

Source: Columbia Journalism Review

• John Carnes and Francine McKenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carney_(politician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francine_McKenna

https://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2014/04/benjamin-wey-threatens-investigative-reporter-francine-mckenna/

• Here is more information from the Wikipedia article about Benjamin Wey with all the sources verified in his Career Section:

Wey also publishes and writes extensively for the digital publication TheBlot (launched in 2013), where he describes himself as an "investigative reporter."[31][32] In 2015, he was named as defendant in a defamation suit stemming from his attacks on a FINRA regulator and Georgetown University law professor Christopher Brummer in the magazine. An injunction was issued preventing The Blot from writing about Brummer while the suit was pending.[33][34] In September 2017, the Electronic Frontier Foundation called on New York Court to vacate unconstitutional injunction against offensive speech.[35] On November 15, 2018, the New York Court of Appeals, First Division ruled in favor of The Blot magazine against Brummer “on the law and the facts.”[36][37] In 2016, Bloomberg Businessweek and the Columbia Journalism Review, reported that Wey used The Blot magazine to defame and threaten investigative journalists Dune Lawrence (Bloomberg Businessweek) and Roddy Boyd, who used to work for The New York Post and later founded the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation. Wey falsely accused Boyd of ties to organized crime

• Hanna Bouveng (won defamation and sexual harrassment lawsuit). She is a former employee of Wey and was personally attacked by his tabloid (later the post was removed by the court’s order) after filing a lawsuit for sexual harassment: https://nypost.com/2016/04/08/intern-accepts-reduced-5-6m-payout-from-horndog-ceo/ https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2016/04/01/403993.htm https://www.cosmopolitan.com/career/a44618/hanna-bouveng/

The case of Hanna Bouveng is in particular worrying, to tell the least.

3) Furthermore, the source is a yellow press tabloid in character, similar to Daily Mail or The Sun but much worse as it covers the topics related to spam websites border-lining with indecent topics and sensationalism just to catch any reader’s attention.

I'd be glad to hear any opinion from the experienced editors here. --DrIlyaTsyrlov (talk) 23:32, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

@DrIlyaTsyrlov:, can you provide a link to the article or articles which are using The Blot as a source, in a way you object to? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:40, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot:, sorry for the delayed respnse. Here are the Wikipedia articles where TheBlot has been used:

1)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Walken

2)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_mystery

3)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dikran_Tulaine

4)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Da_Costa

5)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_City_of_America

6)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_%26_Mercy_(film)

7)https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diona_Reasonover

8)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Israel

9)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_mystery

I believe there are more.--DrIlyaTsyrlov (talk) 23:05, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

• @DrIlyaTsyrlov: What is your brief and neutral statement? At over 4000 bytes, this RfC is far too big for Legobot to handle; the resulting entry at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia proposals consists of a heading only and the RfC will not be publicized via WP:FRS. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 02:47, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Mikehawk10: Good point, but easily fixed because it was already there, just not signed. I normally only post messages like that when no brief statement can be discerned at all - such as if that nine-word sentence had not been present. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:15, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

• Not Reliable' TheBlot is an obvious mouthpiece for Wey dressed up with some churnalistic content. It is not used in many articles (en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3Atheblot.com&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go&ns0=1) and sometimes it is not used poorly (example play review) but it is not a reliable source and anything where it is the only possible source is probably not NPOV. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:14, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
• Not reliable. Just another political "influencer" personal opinion vector, with a clear agenda of going after mainstream journalists. It's part of the "the mainstream media are a leftist conspiracy" theory. So also WP:FRINGE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:19, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
• Not reliable Most of the post are not from a reliable source and are poorly written. Sea Ane (talk) 21:08, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
• Deprecate. The about page notes that The feature that sets us apart from other online publications is that you the readers can have your own voices heard, in any way or style that you would like. We welcome sensational and opinionated articles from you – the readers. You write, we publish, as long as the articles are in compliance with our Terms of Use. The Terms of Use notes that TheBlot does not edit their [user-submitted] content, therefore is protected under the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. All of this indicates that it is no more reliable than an WP:SPS and it reflects poorly upon the site's editorial standards, as there are zero editorial standards. The terms of use seem to imply that the site doesn't issue retractions under legal threats, and will keep content—even false or fabricated content—on its website, stating that for any reason if anyone is threatened with legal actions, you should know TheBlot Magazine does not settle any claims, we fight them, expose them till you the bully types drop dead. This sort of material appears to be never due, and indicative of worse editorial standards than The Daily Mail. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 16:39, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
• Probably not reliable, but given the limited usage and apparent lack of previous disputes in Wikipedia, I see no reason to deprecate it or list it at WP:RSP ([WP:RSP] is a non-exhaustive list of sources whose reliability and use on Wikipedia are frequently discussed.). MarioGom (talk) 10:57, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Using an anonymous Twitter account that translates announcements by the Taliban as a source for a live situation map of the war in Afghanistan

1. Source: An anonymous twitter feed (@RisboLensky) that (apparently) translates announcements by the Taliban as to which towns/villages it has taken in Afghanistan. I say "apparently" as it itself is not clearly attributing these announcements to the Taliban - it's not clear who it is attributing them to. See here for an example: https://twitter.com/RisboLensky/status/1409930228261085185

2. Article: This is used as a source for creating this situation map on Wiki Commons that is in turn used on the page Taliban insurgency and others.

3. Content: The map shows specific territory as having fallen to the Taliban. For example it shows the city of Balkh near Mazar-i-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan as having entirely fallen to the Taliban (this seems to have been added to the map in this edit dated 23 June 2021). Reports from Reuters date 22 June 2021 do not match this, instead referring to Taliban sources as saying that the Taliban entered the suburbs of Balkh before retreating (the most recent news report from the area). FOARP (talk) 20:06, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Of course it's not reliable and the creator(s) of the map should review WP:RS. Even if this map was created on Commons, our sourcing requirements are enforced as soon as it is used on an article here. This isn't even acceptable in an WP:ABOUTSELF sense of "the Taliban claims..." because there's no assurance of who or why the account is being operated. I hope that helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:20, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

I would not consider this a reliable source even if we knew for a fact that the translations were accurate and the source was unquestionably Taliban announcements. Propaganda is a weapon, and not exactly an uncommon one, either. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:31, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

There is some usage of their tweets by other media such as India Today, ANNA News, however I'm not sure if the use sufficiently widespread to apply WP:USEBYOTHERS. Alaexis_¿question? 10:33, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Even if it were that widespread, I'd still not trust it. Propaganda can be newsworthy, after all.

Note that I'd say the same if the original source were the US Army. Trusting a military (professional or otherwise) to be publicly honest about its actions and successes in the moment (as opposed to 20 years later) is a recipe for disappointment. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:54, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

If the account was verifiably representing the Taliban in some official capacity, then I would be fine for using it a SPS to verify that what we report they are claiming is something they actually claimed (e.g. "Taliban sources claimed on date that they had captured the city of Balkh" [cite: representative-on-twitter]) (whether such our reporting such claims is DUE will vary and is anyway outside the scope of this board). As the connection to the Taliban is uncertain in this case we can't use it even for that though, as we don't know whether the Taliban are actually claiming that. If the tweets are reported in reliable sources though we could use phrasing like "India Today reported Taliban claims that ..." or better yet "Multiple sources reported Taliban claims that..." to make it clear we aren't saying the Taliban claimed the thing, we're just saying India Today (or whoever) are claiming the Taliban claimed the thing. Directly verifiable sources though are obviously preferable. Thryduulf (talk) 23:17, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I think Twitter would be an SPS, so are they an acknowledged...Ohh no we do not know who they are. No it's not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 10:37, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Like Slatersteven, these may be used some, but we know nothing of the Tweeter's process and oversight.--Hippeus (talk) 09:18, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Not a reliable source. Spudlace (talk) 09:25, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Skift

This has been used on many pages. The Wiki page of this has a paid tag which is clearly a bad sign. But, that shouldn't necessarily mean that it can't be considered a reliable source at all in any case (I guess). This has stemmed from a discussion with an editor who wants to use this [1] as a source. Since there is no existing discussion on Skift, I thought would be good to start one and have it archived for future references. Nomadicghumakkad (talk) 09:22, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much for initiating this Nomadicghumakkad. As I suggested on your talk page, I think there is an overall need for us to (perhaps) redefine what is acceptable as a source. Shiji and a great many other businesses operate in a niche that is not so well covered in mainstream newspapers etc. Also, Forbes and nearly every other media source in the world now rely on either sponsored content or native advertising to get revenue. Skift, and just about every other hospitality and tourism resource on Earth, monetize in these, and other more "creative" ways. For us, especially less experienced editors like me, it is important to learn to differentiate without limiting the scope of Wikipedia. (I hope that made sense). Anyway, thanks in advance, for everyone's advice/input on this. Philbutler (talk) 10:41, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

File/image sources

Not sure if this is the best place to ask (and if there's a better place, please chime in) but there's been some discussion about whether or not to use IMP Awards (worth noting that that is, currently, and likely to remain, a redlink) as a source for movie posters/images. Specifically, at File:Black Widow (2021 film) poster.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Initially a Twitter source from the official Marvel Studios account was used (https://twitter.com/MarvelStudios/status/1409919596736356354/), but this was removed and replaced with an IMP Awards link (http://www.impawards.com/2021/black_widow_ver21.html) with the justification being WP:SOCIALMEDIA. It would seem that nobody involved has actually read WP:SOCIALMEDIA, specifically that it says (notes I've added in red/superscript):

Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

1. the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;^{A movie poster is hardly an "exceptional claim" and certainly not "unduly self-serving"}
2. it does not involve claims about third parties;^{definitely not}
3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;^{definitely not}
4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity^{these types of tweets track with other tweets made by the account in the past}; and
5. the article is not based primarily on such sources.^{definitely not, the article where the image is used is filled with a variety of secondary sources}

This policy also applies to material published by the subject on social networking websites such as Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Facebook.

I discussed this on the talk page of the reverting editor, however they protested that IMP Awards is used as a source for a large number of other posters in movie-related articles. This rings of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and my feeling is that these are actually WP:LINKSPAM (which gets us to WP:OTHERSPAMEXISTS). Clearly the images are high quality, likely from media/press kits from the studios, and the actual source of the image would correctly be (in this instance) "Marvel Studios" (no need for an IMP Awards link or a link to the @MarvelStudios tweet). IMP Awards is filled with banner ads and even with ad-blocking turned on, they have affiliate links to Amazon and eBay to "search for posters" prominently displayed. Alexa rankings has them ranked at #31,742 of all sites (and part of me wonders if that high ranking is because of all the inbound links they get from Wikipedia), and there's no indication they are used anywhere else. One argument has been that IMP Awards has higher quality images, however, per our fair-use criteria, at the resolutions we work with, the Twitter source still exceeds that. Thoughts? —Locke Cole • t • c 17:54, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Why not just go to the studios website and use their poster?Slatersteven (talk) 17:56, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

True, they have a variation on the poster here. The bottom section of the poster mentions Disney+ and theaters, but it's still technically a "poster". I'm more concerned with what status IMP Awards has here given the spammy-vibe it gives off. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:02, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Sourcing for non-free content - that is, where the image was originally obtained to show previous publication - does not need to follow RS sourcing rules. It should be from a source that either would have likely copyright ownership or would be a reasonable entity that would distribute that work. For example, if I used a movie posted from an article posted at Variety, that would be fine as Variety would be expected to be reasonable distributor.

That said, whether the image shows what is actually being described may require an RS-type source. We're not going to doubt the movie poster case, for example. However, if we are talking a picture of a long-dead person, who's appearance wasn't well known, a random source likely would not work, we'd want a source that is reliable that affirms this person's identity (like a historical society). --Masem (t) 04:33, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Masem. Any source that would reasonably be expected to be republishing posters would be fine. SOCIALMEDIA doesn't really apply in this instance. The official Marvel Studios twitter account would absolutely be a reliable as a source for an official movie poster. If that is where the uploader got the image from, then that is what the source should be documented as in the file description. -- Whpq (talk) 14:49, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

@Masem and Whpq: Thank you both for your responses. Any thoughts on the IMP Awards source in particular in so far as it's reliability (and is my assessment that it seems to be self-promoting/spammy be accurate)? —Locke Cole • t • c 01:55, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

@Locke Cole: Unless you believe that the posters are fan-made or hoaxes, I don't see why the site would be unreliable for the purposes of getting a movie poster. As for its spammyness, that's a separate issue and I have no opinion on that. -- Whpq (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

If you have a "more official" source that is otherwise clearly the same image, I would use and/or add that (no reason we can't have two or more sources for the same image). But I definitely would be concerned wholly separate if a user is going through to replace sources to one specific website if that's a COI-type editing issue, which is beyond the scope of this original question. That would be a problem if they were doing that wholesale across dozens of images. --Masem (t) 15:25, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Adult industry sources

Are the following two sources generally reliable for news reporting and WP:RSOPINION statements in their area of expertise (the adult industry)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:35, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

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

AVN (magazine)

• Option 1 As far as I'm aware, here hasn't been any particular controversy in regarding to AVN magazine and its journalism. It is a the prime source for the subject area and so seems one of the most appropriate sources to use. Silverseren^C 21:16, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, I think: as we quote in our article on the magazine, The New York Times called it "an industry magazine that is to pornographic films what the trade publication Billboard is to records" in 2000. We currently consider its awards significant on bios. It seems of comparable quality to a trade publication in any other subject area. If we reject AVN, I'm not sure what better sources there are on the sex industry. — Bilorv (talk) 19:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 - Additional consideration in that AVN does publish press releases as is, but does mark them as such. (Compare the labeled articles in this AVN search[2]) Those press releases can not be relied on. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:19, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 for non-sponsored content and non-press release content as per Morbidthoughts. Otherwise needs an Option 2 disclaimer. I would say this is analogous to the sponsored content produced in many other news venues like The New York Times, The Economist, Wired, and others. [3] We should not trust such content as RS, but for the rest, I think it's probably okay.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:39, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 for any content that is not a copy of the press release. Reprints of press releases are only reliable for the press releaser stating something.--Hippeus (talk) 09:20, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 for any non-sponsored content, which (per Morbidthoughts) can be distinguished from their own content. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:13, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

XBIZ

• Option 1 Being responsible for one of the main award competitions for the adult industry and not seeing any issues reported elsewhere regarding their journalistic side, I see no reason why they aren't a top level source for this specific subject matter. They aren't schlock celebrity news or anything like that. Silverseren^C 21:16, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1, I think: this one I've used in GirlsDoPorn (warning for sexual abuse: you need a really strong stomach to click that link) and found it as reliable as all the internet culture websites (The Daily Beast, Vice) and local coverage (NBC 7 San Diego) that broke the story and the mainstream sources that re-reported it (New York Times, Sydney Morning Herald). The Washington Post asked the president/publisher for a quote in their article. As with AVN, it's a trade publication and if we reject it there's not much we can write about the sex industry. — Bilorv (talk) 19:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 - XBIZ publishes press releases as is, but does not mark them as such. They used to. They're somewhat easy to catch since they list no author (like AVN), but I would not rely on XBIZ for anything contentious. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:19, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2 as per above, I think the issue is that they can produce sponsored content and not give it much definition to separate it. I would say that this means we should not use it for controversial matters, but otherwise GR. The industry is so extremely ad-based, that it makes sense that these considerations are a bigger problem here than elsewhere. Even more than typical journalism outlets which have a higher proportion of donors and subscribers.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 2, as they do not clearly mark reprinted press releases.--Hippeus (talk) 09:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
• Option 1 for their own content. The GirlsDoPorn GA Bilorv links above extensively uses this (same warning for sexual abuse) source which is a thorough and good piece of news reporting. Their other work also seems to be reliable (ie not fabricated). It's not great that they don't mark reposted press releases clearly, but it can still be identified, and that content should be unreliable (this would be the "additional consideration" I suppose). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:13, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

BGlobal

Over at Talk:Britannia (TV series) a request has been made based upon a story published in something called BGlobal. I have no idea what it is (and am having trouble finding it). So is it in fact an RS for (what are) claims of Plagiarism and Fraud?Slatersteven (talk) 16:58, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Slatersteven, please see previous discussion on this board. Schazjmd (talk) 17:04, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Cheers.Slatersteven (talk) 17:07, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

So is britannia-news.org (which seems to be the actual source for the article being cited) an RS for the claim?Slatersteven (talk) 17:09, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

BY the way the claim is it was in BGlobal; #1; 21.08. - 20.09.29; pp 123-125; BGlobal Media Ltd; EAN 9770273869611.Slatersteven (talk) 17:11, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Britannia-news.org is Ben Krushkoff's personal website on which he posts content in support of his claims. As I said in the previous discuss (that I linked above), I found BGlobal's website but was unable to find any evidence on that site that there was such an article published. If it was in a paper-only publication, I don't know how we could go about verifying that. Schazjmd (talk) 17:14, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

But we can access it general reliability, what is its over all reputation, is it good enough for what is a claim of criminal action?Slatersteven (talk) 17:20, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

It is talking up a huge amount of time and effort, and it would be best if we could give an answer.Slatersteven (talk) 17:28, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Take a look:BGlobal. It's a Bulgarian business magazine. I would not accept it as sufficient WP:WEIGHT for a WP:BLPCRIME claim. I haven't even found unreliable sources (WP:DAILYMAIL etc) that give even the briefest mention to this claim. Everything goes back to Ben Krushkoff's personal websites. There is no independent recognition of his accusations of fraud and plagiarism. As he has apparently been unable to get any media attention to his claims, he's been trying for over a year to get it documented on Wikipedia. As you can see from the previous discussions here and on the article talk page, multiple editors have gone through this whole thing before. Schazjmd (talk) 17:33, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Taht would be my take, but the user is not listening to me, so thought I would get a few more opinions.Slatersteven (talk) 17:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Engaging in that talk page discussion is basically entering the suck zone. Schazjmd (talk) 17:46, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

This shit again? Really? Looks like Arbcoms decision to unblock was a mistake. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:51, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I could not agree more, Hemiauchenia. Schazjmd (talk) 17:55, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Not the place for that discusion.Slatersteven (talk) 17:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

For an actual discussion of the source, it fails WP:EXCEPTIONAL criteria #1. Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:07, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I have only just noticed this, which I admit could be used as a valid argument against my point. However, I'd counter it by pointing out that the Bglobal is a mainstream source (magazine) in its country of origin, that the University of Westminster is mainstream and reliable (in the context of academia), and that Industrial Scripts are considered mainstream, in the context of being recognised subject experts by the majority of people who know about scriptwriting and editing. If it's the British or American mainstream print and televisual media that are only to be considered as a mainstream source, then fair enough, but to me that wouldn't seem to be the case and would not be considered inclusive for a global website. Furthermore, if multiple mainstream media sources do write about this, then surely it would warrant an article on its own? Please confirm SethRuebens (talk) 08:33, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Same small clique of editors trying to stop the article accurately representing all significant views on the subject. Hmmmm....

It, the article, was featured in the printed version (BGlobal; #1; 21.08. - 20.09.29; pp 123-125; BGlobal Media Ltd; EAN 9770273869611), which meets Wiki guidance on being WP:PUBLISHED. I believe there is an exchange board here that I could post it on for you (even though it's been republished elsewhere online). The fact that nobody has asked to see a copy tells me enough, in spite of the fact it comes from a respected magazine with a strict code of ethics.

You can group together and trash the sources myself (in the past) and now others are using to fairly justify inclusion of this dispute in the article, all you like. But they exist for the world to see and come from highly reputable experts. Have any of you written an Academy Award nominated script? Ran the Scriptwriting course at the UK's pre-eminent Creative Writing University? Owned the world's leading script editing company? Worked at a faculty that specialises in IP Law training future IP lawyers? I'm seriously interested. SethRuebens (talk) 18:09, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

This is not the place to rehash the arguments, only to access the reliability of the source.Slatersteven (talk) 18:11, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Same small clique of editors trying to stop the article accurately representing all significant views on the subject ignores the fact that WP:NPOV actually says which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic, and the objection is that the viewpoint is one that's completely ignored by reliable references. Personal websites are no use. Even if this magazine article is deemed reliable, there are WP:WEIGHT issues. I'm unsure why they even bothered to unblock a single purpose account with an axe to grind that's only ever edited one article that they are now banned from editing. FDW777 (talk) 18:49, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

The academic opinion, from what was the nation’s leading course of its kind (run by one of the world’s most highly regarded Creative Writing faculties), is that Britannia was based on an unauthorised copy of my work. Fact. The letter from the Head of Scriptwriting there (an internationally recognised subject expert) is significant and reliable unto itself.

1. Why are you suggesting that source isn’t reliable?

2. Who wrote and published the letter in the first place? (clue, not me).

The expert opinion of others (the world’s leading script editing company and a number of other academics and subject experts) also agree.

3. Why are you suggesting these are not reliable, even when Wiki’s own guidance says they are?

The fact that I have collated and republished them on a website does not mean I was the person who originally published them. You can check the links I provided there myself.

In the past, I’ve had several editors saying that if I could produce one reliable, independent media source, featuring news of this case, then it should be featured?

4. Why, having done so (the BGlobal article), is it now being ignored?

If/as/when this is picked up by other media sources, then surely it would warrant an article of its own (which I’m not arguing for).

You have said I am a single purpose account. Naturally, when I read a Wikipedia article that says somebody else has created my work (certainly on this scale), I am going to object to it. Who wouldn’t, in my shoes? I have proved that it is not just me that thinks this Britannia was based on my work, but a growing number of academics and experts, and now thousands of other people. Either way, I’ll happily edit other articles, and have started to do so, to avoid more WP:LAWYERING but having this article correctly represent the truth, remains a major focus.

The Arbitration Committee looked at the case and my arguments and agreed to let me continue the debate on the talk page and that’s what I’m doing now. Perhaps they could see what I could see is happening here? The fact that a small group of editors are seemingly intent on trying to discredit me, get me banned and hide the truth from the article - what hundreds of thousands of people already know about - speaks volumes.

I’m quite certain that this dispute will continue to go on in the real world and therefore talking about it on the talk page is pertinent to the article. The sources, including a reputable business magazine with a strict code of ethics, is one of them. It is reliable. If you don’t want to join in the debate or read my comments, then don’t. SethRuebens (talk) 12:01, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

"This Week in Virology" (TWIV) Podcast

• Source: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/
• Article: Investigations into the origin of COVID-19
• Content: The Podcast regularly hosts experts in Virology commenting on news and recently-released scientific papers and reports about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 . For example, a recent episode (No. 774) hosted Kristian Andersen, who said it was important to "get more data from full-length genomes from early cases in Wuhan" when discussing a recent preprint about early unearthed viral sequences from Wuhan.

Please discuss whether the statements and opinions of experts hosted in this podcast's episodes are reliable as sources. In particular, comment on how high this source would rank vs: newspapers, scientific journals, other non-science podcasts, etc. Forich (talk) 19:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Survey (This Week in Virology)

• Reliable for attributed statements to content experts. On the same level as journalistic outlets without an editorial board.

Personally I would categorize this like other secondary sources that are only useful for attributed statements. I think we can and should use quotations and paraphrases from these episodes. I actually love this show, and listen to it whenever I get the chance. I've seen him record it a few times, like when Vincent Racaniello (the host) was invited to give the keynote at the annual American Society for Virology conference in 2017, and was the president of ASV in 2015. He's a very well respected expert, and writes some of the most important textbooks in the field.

That being said, as far as I know, TWIV does not have an editorial board, or any kind of peer review, etc. So it should not be put on the same level as, say, Science-Based Medicine, which does have those things, and definitely not as high as peer-reviewed publications.

It's very widely listened to among young virologists and those in training, but not really among practicing professor-level virologists in my experience. That has changed during the pandemic, when its clinical update episodes have become a staple of discussions among my fellow virus-people and have been cited by several primary care docs I know as key to staying up to date on the literature. Anecdotally, I would say the majority of its listeners are non-experts, but that experts who are aware of the show, on the whole, do respect the show and its guests.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:37, 2 July 2021 (UTC) (edited 20:12, 4 July 2021 (UTC))

• Comment. I had not heard of this show up until now as it's not something I would listen to. Having said that, with regard to its use as a source, IMHO it should be treated as we would an editorial in a journal or a press interview. It's okay for quotations, but should not be used to support any (contentious) factual statements. Graham Beards (talk) 08:32, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: This is a podcast run by highly respected virologists, and for topics related to virology, it is probably far more reliable than popular media like newspapers (including newspapers of record like the New York Times) or TV news. However, it is still a podcast. These are long discussions in which people speak rather freely, and they possibly express themselves much less precisely than they would in a written medium. They do also, at times, think out loud, discuss speculative ideas, and so forth. That's the problem with these sorts of natural, largely unedited formats. So while the people talking in these podcasts do know what they're talking about when it comes to virology (as opposed to, say, most journalists covering the pandemic), I would be wary of picking out a statement from a podcast and including it in an article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:01, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
• Reliable per WP:EXPERTSOURCE. These guys really are experts, so their views matter. But this is a podcast, not a peer-reviewed publication, so we need to bear in mind that they might make off-the-cuff statements or express opinions, both of which would need to be attributed if found the be DUE. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:07, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

"Titles, Styles, and Honors" sections/articles are inundated with garbage sources

Almost every vaguely-noble person has a section listing their titles, styles, and honors. These are invariably riddled with awful sources (the most common are bare images posted on royalty forums where someone has identified the sash being worn (or worse: <ref>For the sake of identification of the Order of the Golden Heart, here is a page about another recipient</ref>, but there are also tons of blogs, tumblr, pinterest...even just bare statements like <ref>King Carl XVI is a known worldwide supporter of scoutism</ref>) that were introduced in the early 2010s by a now-inactive editor. Each of these "honors" also has its own page listing all recipients, with the same trash sources. I've managed to rid wikipedia of references to noblesseetroyautes.com (a glorified blog) and am working through theroyalforums.com, but this is a problem across probably tens of thousands of articles and involving hundreds of different sources. And since each article contains at least a dozen honors etc. it takes a lot of time to comb through their references -- for example, the above Swedish honours article featured 15,000 bytes of bad refs, and Princess Benedikte had 10,000. Even the reliable sources for many of these honors are problematic -- see the refnote here with the instructions <ref>Portuguese Presidency Website, Orders [http://www.ordens.presidencia.pt/?idc=154&list=1 search form] : type "RAINHA SÍLVIA" in "nome", then click "Pesquisar"</ref>.

As an aside, it's not clear to me that these honors sections are actually DUE, especially since 99% of the good references are primary with zero coverage outside the awardee's website and/or the awarding government's database of recipients. But that's an issue for another noticeboard.

Anyway, I'd like to know if there is a more automated way of dealing with this junk, and if not I would request some help clearing it out. I have a small list of the worst blog/forum offenders here, which I do insource: searches on to find articles, and then manually go through all the references to get rid of the "s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com"-type refs and images hosted on reliable sites that would return a lot of valid uses if searched. JoelleJay (talk) 22:13, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, listing all the titles and honors is a form of WP:NOTCV, in the very same way that exhaustive lists of all the awards received by scientists and academics are not acceptable. This is especially the case in this context since the titles and honors do not recognize any achievements are just empty medals that they award to each other. 95% of them are WP:UNDUE, so we can dispense with finding and evaluating reliable sources. JBchrch talk 22:30, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for cleaning these up! I try to help when I notice this type of things, but I don't have great ideas for a systematic way of finding them. German "nobility" is especially terrible, as the concept of German nobility has been abolished 100 years ago, but many editors still like to decorate Mr Prinz von Preussen with various fantasy titles and styles. —Kusma (talk) 22:45, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

these are as official as Wikipedia Barnstars Love it. JBchrch talk 01:04, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Kusma, I am definitely considering just deleting those sections when I come across them, but since they're so widespread I have to wonder whether they're considered basic, primary-sourceable biographical information in the same way we include where an academic went to undergrad etc. sourced only to their university website. I suspect deleting outright would warrant an RfC, but if you haven't encountered any pushback on this maybe the only editors who really cared retired long ago. Pinging Dr.K. who would have more background. JoelleJay (talk) JoelleJay (talk) 18:57, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: Not sure whether there are any conventions there, but given that defunct titles shouldn't be used (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)), I don't quite see why defunct styles and honours should be used. You've already posted at WT:ROY, probably the best place for the question. —Kusma (talk) 20:44, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Kudos to you for cleaning these up. --JBL (talk) 20:26, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Vice on Bret Weinstein

Bret Weinstein who made headlines back in 2017 due to the 2017 Evergreen State College protests, has returned as one of the main champions of Ivermectin an, anti-parasite drug that has been promoted as an effective cure for COVID-19, in the same way that Hydroxychloroquine was earlier in the pandemic, despite there being no good evidence for its effectiveness. Bret Weinstein's promotion of Ivermectin has been covered in two articles in Vice, Why Is the Intellectual Dark Web Suddenly Hyping an Unproven COVID Treatment? from the 24th of June and The Ivermectin Advocates' War Has Just Begun from the 1st of July. An IP on the talkpage is claiming that Vice is a low quality source than should not be used on BLP articles, and therefore these articles should be excluded. I am just not seeing the issue here. The claims that the Vice articles are making are not contentious. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:46, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I would definitely say that VICE is fairly low quality (although just on the “reliable” side of the line) … It is prone to click-bait. There are far better sources that talk about both the drug and Dr. Weinstein’s recent promotion of it, use them instead. Blueboar (talk) 23:01, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Unless there are factual inaccuracies in this specific case, there is no reason to not use it. Headlines are not reliable and everyone especially publishers on the internet are prone to click-bait, that doesn't make them either high or low quality on its own. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 23:14, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

The headline is irrelevant and I agree with you regarding click bait titles. The problem in my opinion is using VICE as a reliable source given the pretty obvious narrative and selectively ignoring certain pieces of it. For example, a new vice article that came out yesterday by the same author as this one associates Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss with weinstein and their quackery, yet I imagine I would face severe backlash if I wanted to add relevant sections to their living biography entries detailing how they are spreading misinformation (according to vice entertaining the idea ivermectin is valid is quackery and there is no censorship occurring). I elaborated here with a much more detailed breakdown of my opinion on the NPOV noticeboard. I was the IP user that Hemiauchenia is referring to and just registered. FrederickZoltair (talk) 23:44, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

There is one glaring issue with the Vice article "The Ivermectin Advocates' War Has Just Begun". It cites Roman et al.'s recent meta-analysis to "prove" that Ivermectin doesn't work. Except that meta-analysis actually says that Ivermectin reduces deaths by 63%. If some editors feel that the Vice article is a "hit piece" designed to make the subject look bad, then it should be excluded from a BLP article. I've been complaining about this publicly and consider myself recused from the topic in article space. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:35, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

that meta-analysis actually says that Ivermectin reduces deaths by 63% ← a most unfortunate mis-statement. To quote from the conclusion: "In comparison to SOC or placebo, IVM did not reduce all-cause mortality" [my emphasis]. Alexbrn (talk) 07:12, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

If only. The pre-print at Medrxiv of Roman et al. comes to the conclusion that IVM did not reduce all-cause mortality (your emphasis) based on data that showed RR 1.11, ie 11% more deaths in ivermectin patients. Except their data was wrong in the pre-print. When corrected, it showed IVM had RR 0.37, ie 63% fewer deaths. They forgot to update their conclusions. Vice absolutely cannot rely on Roman et al. to claim that Ivermectin is ineffective and that Weinstein is spreading "misinformation". (I must note there are other, more reliable sources that can show Bret Weinstein's "ivermectin is more effective than vaccines" claims are ludicrous). You could also note (accurately) that the meta-analysis only looks at 5 studies for death-rate and one has the ludicrously low N=24; that's just more evidence that Vice should not be using that study for anything. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:25, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Why are you citing a preprint? The source cited is plain in its wording, and your statement about it was just wrong. Mistakes are okay, but persistent misrepresentation of sources might start people wondering. Please don't insert your WP:PROFRINGE fancies into Wikipedia. Alexbrn (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm citing the pre-print to explain how the mistake happened. Are you claiming that "reduction in deaths by 63%" is in fact no reduction at all, or are you claiming the study doesn't claim there is a reduction in deaths by 63%. If you feel WP:PROFRINGE means that all rigor and logic is abandoned for studies which make politically correct conclusions, I will have to suggest that you are the one in error. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:35, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm suggesting (no, in fact, I'm telling you) that Wikipedia likes to reflect high-quality, scholarly, reputable, peer-reviewed sources; not the WP:PROFRINGE reckonings of random editors dumbly churning out talking points from social media. Alexbrn (talk) 17:39, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Authors of a peer-reviewed meta-analysis forgetting to change a statement in their abstract is an extraordinary claim that would require extraordinary evidence. (The revision in their Table 2 between preprint and published is to a line where the certainty of the evidence is marked "very low" and the studies in question had high risk of bias; it seems more likely that the authors of the meta-analysis corrected their numbers and found their qualitative conclusions unchanged.) I'm finding it hard to take Vice to task for pointing to a study because it is recent (This week, a meta-analysis and systematic review was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, on the same day Weinstein’s channels were dinged) while refraining from calling it definitive (e.g., a very large clinical trial conducted by Oxford University is expected to shed much more light on ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, when concluded). XOR'easter (talk) 19:28, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

It is an extraordinary claim, but I need no evidence beyond what I have already provided. If the meta-analysis itself says a 60% reduction in deaths with "very low" certainly, how can they possibly conclude that it is definitely not effective at all in reducing deaths? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:34, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

The change is to one line in a table, referring to a specific subset of studies and circumstances, not to the overall result. XOR'easter (talk) 20:02, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't believe you're serious. When the one-line change is from a top-line "deaths increased by 10%" to "deaths decreased by 60%", it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT; in comparison it is all the other lines in the paper that don't matter. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:06, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

A change from an increase to a decrease would be significant ... unless it's a figure that they say they can't trust very much either way, which seems to be the case. They say up front in the revised version that all-cause mortality in three RCTs at high RoB was reduced with IVM (emphasis added); the change between versions is to the high risk-of-bias subgroup, and the confidence interval for all-cause mortality vs. controls includes 1. Ultimately, though, it's not our job to second-guess the meta-analysis peer review process. If the paper is revised or retracted later, then so be it. And even then, I find it hard to fault Vice for reporting on (and not drawing a definitive conclusion from) a meta-analysis before a problem with it was formally identified. XOR'easter (talk) 20:23, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

As there was also a post at BLP/N, there's two things being sourced to Vice: one is in the lede about "spreading COVID-19 misinformation" and the second in the body about he and his wife taking the "medication" on a live stream and what they said during that, and subsequently YouTube demonetizing the channel. While Vice is a lower-quality source, on the latter claims, these are not contentious information from the standpoint that both points are easily verified (watching the video and reading the tweet - though argubly the YT demonetization should be "According to Weinstein, YouTube demonetized...") and thus are fine. The claim that is misinformation however is tenacious, as well as having both potentially UNDUE and RECENTISM problems for being a focus in the lead. If anything, using Vice for this should 1) not be in the lede but can be in the body and 2) should be in-line attributed to Vice. --Masem (t) 00:51, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I had concerns about the lead claims being undue editorialising, but that's a wording issue that has nothing to do with the reliability of Vice. I should note that there is no need to attribute the demonetisation to Weinstein, as a YouTube spokesman confirmed the demonetization to Vice. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:05, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, to a degree, yes, Vice's lower-quality reliability means we should be careful with claims they make verses more factual statements, in contrast to a work like the New York Times. And claims only made by one or two lower-quality sources shouldn't get highlighted in the lede of any article. --Masem (t) 04:39, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Given the VERY short length of the lead I have to say this really looks problematic in the lead. I also have a lot of issues with Politifact as I have a list of perhaps 5 or 6 cases where their assessments are questionable. For example, the presented facts seem reasonable but they either don't support the conclusion or they could reasonably support an alternative conclusion vs the one PF used. I strongly agree with Masem's comment here [[4]] that the problem here is the lead is applying a scarlet letter in Wiki-voice without actually providing a full telling of Weinstien's position/arguments etc. Springee (talk) 02:29, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I just got around to finishing the JRE podcast in question with Kory and Weinstein that inspired my original comments on the weinstein talk page (It aired on June 22nd, 2021). It is pretty obvious they are not being deceptive nor spreading misinformation, and go out of their way to be very clear regarding the controversial nature of both claims and the very obvious lack of clear factual evidence and go on to confirm that they are looking for answers and not peddling them and their primary interest is saving lives. If you have spotify the exchange begins at 132:51 and lasts several minutes. The Vice article is definitely being unfair in their representation of Weinstein, Kory, and their claims in general. I added specific information to [4 in the NPOV noticeboard] section regarding the specifics. It should call the credibility of VICE into question, as well as be a reliable source that this exchange occurred itself and as of yet has not been censored or removed by Spotify. FrederickZoltair (talk) 02:55, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Err what? From the sources we know that Weinstein has said the vaccine is "dangerously" cytotoxic, that he and his family aren't getting vaccinated but instead taking ivermectin - and indeed he took it live "on air" in a piece framing Big Pharma's cover-up of this supposed wonder drug as the "crime of the century". So it's a plain mix of antivaxx, quackery and conspiracism. For his pains he got removed from Youtube (unsurprisingly). Not surprisingly this has been picked up by some sources. The only "fair" representation of this stuff is to contextualize it with what we know from reliable, respectable sources: the vaccines work, and are not dangerous; ivermectin has no benefit for preventing or treating COVID-19 and is not a vaccine alternative. Saying otherwise is misinformation. It's is not Wikipedia's job to indulge nonsense, but to call it what it is in line with relevant sources. Alexbrn (talk) 07:23, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry let me clarify: Even if you do not want to entertain weinstein's/Dr. Kory's ideas and recent claims personally about their motivations or perspectives you should at minimum listen to the the JRE podcast timestamp I linked because the context offered about the recent controversy being covered is extremely important to the overall landscape and in addition is a core guiding principle behind NPOV. Secondly, JRE/Bari Weiss/Ben Shapiro are very large and popular sources of news and media not known for quackery or deceptive practices (Some people may disagree, I do not follow any of them) and per Wikipedia:BALANCE, should have their views accounted for in relation to this controversy (They both have BOLP entries already that do not associate them with quackiness or misinformation). Even if you do not want to include them, the fact that all of the mentioned personalities in the VICE article are unanimously saying weinstein and co claimed X not Y and are indeed being censored means that opinion should be represented in some capacity if the lede is to stay as is. Individually any one of them alone tip the balance out of being an outlier opinion and altogether comprise a loud chorus with a significant following. Weinstein himself, and all of his recent guests (like Dr Malone, Dr Kory etc) are saying "we claimed X, not Y, and would never claim Y because it would be irresponsible to do so and furthermore we made a distinction between the data we have and the data we need". What reason do you have for failing to entertain the possibility of those statements being true or being made in good faith as neither is previously notable for quackery and their credentials are valid and not in question in addition to Kory being a practicing MD? To proceed with the entry as is, requires an investment into a particular narrative. Wikipedia cannot change reality, but alleging that VICE and other heavily biased media sources (left or right) that coincidentally support a specific narrative that somehow supersedes the claims of the subject directly, should be the only representative of reality in a BOLP is the problem in my opinion and ignores very vital context and in addition also ignores that this is a currently developing situation. At minimum it calls for removal until this information is certified factually incorrect which given the disagreement between both sides about what was claimed I think is fair. Per WP:GEVAL, academia relies on peer reviewed research and clinical trials to establish scientific consensus (Not individuals like Dr Goreski or twitter posts by doctors, or their blogs etc) which as of this moment have not been completed yet. Note I am not calling for removal of the covid section, just the troubling statement in the lead. As a side note, using what Youtube administration does as evidence for or against something is a bit silly. Youtube is currently embroiled in a controversy for suppressing information regarding the Uyghur genocide in China reported by international human rights activists and the UN. You can read that Reuters article here. FrederickZoltair (talk) 14:43, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I haven't listened to the podcast in question but if Vice is misrepresenting what was said (removing qualifying/limiting statements, making a passing comments into pillars of a claim etc) then we can say *this* Vice article is not a RS. Having heard Weinstein talk about this general subject in other context I think he has been very careful to say what is and is not known. I think some of the claims in the PF article would be inconsistent with statements I have heard in other Weinstein discussions. This is a case where an ABOUTSELF quote may be needed given the nature of the claims against him and their so-so sources. Again, for this to be in the lead is very problematic in my book. Springee (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

• The biggest problem we have here is WP:RECENTISM. When events are unfolding, we run the risk of making more of the event than it merits. Will it matter in a year or two? At this point we don’t know. Thus, one solution is to not mention the event at all… at least until we have a clearer picture as to how it plays out. Blueboar (talk) 15:04, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

The articles are correct and show their working. Vice aren't liars, as far as I know (despite their questionable founder, who they kicked out). I see no reason why these aren't completely usable sources on Weinstein's behaviour, even if as general press they may not be MEDRSes - David Gerard (talk) 23:33, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Part of this reason I believe this noticeboard claim is valid is because VICE does appear to be intentionally misconstruing the claims in favor of sensationalizing them (or at least selectively including certain information they prefer, and leaving out information they disagree with In my opinion) and I made a case for this above and on the weinstein talk page. For example to restate a little: The JRE podcast the VICE article cites specifically includes detailed clarification of claims by both weinstein and kory regarding the backlash, yet any attributed quotes directly dealing with those clarifications or distinctions made between their claims and what the mainstream media is reporting on, or even their own calls for more evidence and caution are entirely absent from either VICE article, why? At best Vice's claims are in called into question and should not be used per WP:Recentism and WP:Balance. Its a bit silly to me that the claims made directly by either of the three subjects on the podcast in question are being superseded in favor of second hand sources like VICE which is behaving like a hit piece and not a reliable source of events. FrederickZoltair (talk) 02:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The Vice article pushes the association between Weinstein defense of the rights to ask questions about Ivermectin being effective, and " old claims about an effective cure being suppressed by secretive and sinister forces are rising again". This is a straw man argument, because the fact that the old claims (not made by Weinstein) were debunked have no power on corroborating Weinstein 2021 specific Ivermectin claim. A second argument that is evidence of poor journalism, is to push the link of Weinstein to the Intellectual Dark Wave Web to stain his reputation by association, basically a weak version of an ad-hominem. Finally, Vice saying "[Ivermectin] is at best a mediocre treatment for COVID-19" is not a strong push back against the fact that "[Weinstein is] asking why is not allowed to ask questions about Ivermectin". It is big stretch to go from that premise to the conclusion that "Without, perhaps, even realizing it, they’ve acted as foot soldiers for something entirely commonplace: a politicized and pseudoscientific response to a deadly disease." So, to sum my position up, this Vice piece was good at: citing correctly the medical consensus on Ivermectin, including Weinstein and his wife responses to their questions, correctly being skeptical of Hydroxichloroquine, and their ability to pick up political nuances that transpires in Weinstein defense of Ivermectin. They got wrong the main issue: straw man and guilt-by-association arguments are weak attacks on Weinstein's claims, IMHO, and also there seems to be a big stretch in how they arrive to their conclusions from someone promoting public debate on an at best mediocre treatment. Overall: I'd recommend to avoid using Vice in the article. Forich (talk) 06:47, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

A most peculiar response. Weinstein is quite happy to be identified as a member of the "intellectual dark web". There's no good evidence that ivermectin has any utility for COVID-19 according to multiple top-level WP:MEDRS, and some concern it can cause harm. I'm not sure how you can view a claim that ivermectin is "a drug that’s good enough to end the pandemic at any point you wanted" as anything other than rank quackery, compounded by the claim its true worth is being suppressed by "business interests", which is pure conspiracy theory. Alexbrn (talk) 07:06, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I trust you on "There's no good evidence that ivermectin has any utility for COVID-19 according to multiple top-level WP:MEDRS, and some concern it can cause harm", I've not dived into the literature but I know you are super sharp at scientific reviews. If Weinstein is advocating a questionable treatment I support we mention it and include the proper adjectives to denounce him. Just don't rely too much on this Vice piece, I'll try to give it a second look to see what can be rescued. Forich (talk) 07:33, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Alex/Forich are either of you able to find another source besides Vice for the "You have a drug that’s good enough to end the pandemic at any point you wanted,” claim, or a reference timestamp anywhere? It struck me as a bit off so I put it into Google with quotes and this vice article is the only source that shows up for that quote. I also recently listened to the podcast in question, and I do not recall the line as quoted in the context being implied (I will need to listen again). Also Happy 4th if you are in the USA. FrederickZoltair (talk) 13:56, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

You're handwaving frantically, but it doesn't distract from the fact that the Vice article's claims are true and well researched public interest journalism: Weinstein is loudly and blatantly advocating dangerous quackery and conspiracy theory. Attempting to shoot the messenger doesn't make that go away - David Gerard (talk) 09:32, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Forich's assessment aligns with what I have seen in discussions with Weinstein. Does Vice provide quotes or links to the original statements? If not I think an this is a strong case for ABOUTSELF and include actual quotes (perhaps in a footnote to avoid a long in text quote). The content should be removed from the lead. Springee (talk) 12:31, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Vice provides quotes (from an "emergency podcast" with Rogan, Weinstein and Kory apparently available on Spotify). XOR'easter (talk) 16:42, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Which quotes are you referring to? If its the "you have a drug that is good enough to end the pandemic", I am having difficult verifying it other than via VICE. FrederickZoltair (talk) 22:46, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

This is my concern. Vice may provide a quote but if they don't provide a source or if editors here either cannot find the source quote or can point to sourced quotes that suggest critical context was removed from the sourced quotes then this is a problem with Vice as a source. Having listened to Weinstein he seems very careful to state what is known, what is unknown and what would need to be proven. Saying "X appears to be a good cure for Covid... we need more data to prove it/why aren't we running studies" is not the same as saying "X is a good cure, start using it off label". Many of the replies to that I've seen regarding ivermectin are of the form, not proven effective. That isn't the same as "proven not effective (to the extent that we can prove a negative)". Someone saying "preliminary data on ivermectin looks very promising, why aren't we doing more trials?" is not the same as someone saying, "it's proven safe, take it to cure COVID". Years back the anti-vaxers scored PR hits when they were arguing with scientists. They would ask if the scientist can prove the vaccine is safe. The scientist would say, "no" because they knew it was impossible to prove a negative. The anti-vaxer could then point and say, "see this person isn't willing to say this is safe". I'm concerned Vice may be doing something similar here based on what I've found on Youtube clips with Weinstein. He seems very careful about putting things in scientific context. If a listener or Vice takes them out of context and says "well what he really meant is this" (a dog whistle to those who are suspicious of the vaccine) then that is on Vice, not Weinstein. It would make Vice the specific Vice article unreliable. This is why the source is very important in this case. Springee (talk) 01:27, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

• Please remember the context here… we are discussing this in the context of a biographical article about Bret Weinstein… NOT a medical article on Ivermectin or Covid.

So… we have to ask: how significant is any of this to the life of Bret Weinstein? Are his views on Ivermectin a significant part of his story, or are they a relative minor chapter in his life? THAT isn’t a reliability issue, but a matter of DUE/UNDUE WEIGHT.

If his views on the drug are not that significant, should we mention them at all? And if his views are significant enough to mention, how can we best summarize them (and what are the best sources to support that summary)? Can we simply say that he holds controversial views - without going into details?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I do think we might be “missing the forest for the trees” here. I urge everyone to take a step back, and at least think about CONTEXT and how that impacts both what information we should present, and how we should present

it. Blueboar (talk) 15:07, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

you appear to be asking for a phrasing to whitewash this. Again, there is no reason to do so - David Gerard (talk) 17:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I’m just concerned that we are “making a mountain out of a mole hill” by giving this more coverage than it actually deserves. Blueboar (talk) 12:25, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Blueboard is making an excellent point that relies on policy that supersedes the whitewashing argument in my opinion. Using the Evergreen controversy as an example: It is notable to weinstein's BLOP because it involved him and his actions directly (he was the catalyst that ignited the controversy), and it led to a hyperactive news cycle, litigation which was settled in his favor, and had far reaching effects on the school years after he left as noted at Evergreen_State_College#2017_protests. That is a hugely notable event that if not acknowledged to be a core part of Weinstein's life and Evergreen's history is a disservice to both entries and history in general. The same is not true for the current Ivermectin debate and the only variable they share is being partially covered by a hyperactive and still evolving news cycle. The Ivermectin controversy lives on if weinstein and his wife up and disappear right this moment. The issue has been championed primarily by Kory and the FLCCC, and he is responsible for testifying in the senate hearing. As I understand it, weinstein only joined in support recently. FrederickZoltair (talk) 14:42, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Blueboar's suggestion to say "there is a controversy" but not what it is, is ridiculous. And your entire argument here has been an attempt to shoot the messenger on a newsworthy story. I note also your bizarre misunderstandings of Wikipedia sourcing elsewhere on this page also - David Gerard (talk) 20:37, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Please WP:AGF, and keep in mind I am very new to Wikipedia and learning. If you feel I am misusing policy then please point out where so I can learn and be better rather than dismissing me. Additionally, can you clarify your meaning regarding "shooting the messenger" as your statement does not make sense to me. Finally as I see it, your contributions to this discussion thus far have been in the form of authoritative and pointed one-liners without significant supporting arguments other than imply that you are correct as evidenced above where you failed to respond to both Forich and Springee. FrederickZoltair (talk) 03:47, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Blueboar is saying maybe we wait a bit (per RECENTISM) to see if there's more than just pretty much one single RS (the Vice source) to discuss events related to a BLP that happened within the last few weeks that certainly is contentious and not necessarily clear if it would impact Weinstein's career. If in a few more weeks no other sources ever appear, then we shouldn't include it. If more RS coverage does appear then including it makes sense but still needs to be with some type of UNDUE consideration. What we have here is back to the "scarlet letter" problem that pervades WP - a person already seen in the negative light by the media does something "wrong" that can be documented, and WP editors rush to include it without considering the RECENTISM and WEIGHT problems. That's absolutely not our purpose. Even if the single source was the NYTimes, we'd still wait to see if that got additional coverage or if it had a clear impact on the person (eg like being fired from their job) before adding. --Masem (t) 04:01, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

There are several sources. As I understand it, Weinstein's principal "job" was as a pundit on Youtube, and Youtube did shut down/demonetize his channel after his ivermectin stunt. Alexbrn (talk) 05:25, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes. The key problem is that, if you don't want the Weinstein article to contain the bit about him loudly and publicly advocating a dangerous conspiracy theory, the first thing you need is for Weinstein not to loudly and publicly advocate a dangerous conspiracy theory. You act like he's ashamed of it, and he's absolutely not, it's a thing he does now. I concur that it's extremely embarrassing and bad for Weinstein's image, but Weinstein sure doesn't seem to think so - David Gerard (talk) 08:18, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Massem sums up my argument well. I don’t care about Weinstein’s image or how embarrassing his statement was. Image and embarrassment are not factors in determining whether a bio article should cover an incident involving the subject. What IS a factor in that determination is the amount and degree of coverage the incident receives. If lots of sources cover the incident, then of course we should cover it in his bio. However, if only a few sources cover the incident, and most ignore it, then I think there is a good argument to be made that we should ignore it as well. If they don’t think it is important, why should we?So… let me ask: what sources other than Vice have discussed this particular incident? Is it a mole hill or a mountain? Blueboar (talk) 12:28, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

You act like he's ashamed of it, and he's absolutely not, it's a thing he does now. Even if the person shows zero apologetic behavior for promoting pseudoscience or anything like that and stands by their beliefs when things happen to them, it is still our job as editors to keep Wikivoice neutral, impartial, and dispassionate, and particularly on a BLP, that means waiting for multiple quality sources to identify a criticism rather than trying to cherry pick something. Now, Alexbrn is correct that the demonetization aspect given that his primary "career" appears to be a YouTube pundit is an issue, and it is certainly possible (as I've said either here or other threads that were opened about Weinstein) that the Vice article is sufficient to say that after he posted these live streams that YT demonetized him. That's non-contestable facts that Vice is not opinionating about. That said, YouTubers are always getting their channels demonetized on YT for various reasons, so this could still be a mountain-out-of-molehill aspect as well given little followup about it from any party involved. Hence RECENTISM to see if there's more to this. --Masem (t) 14:44, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

5 minutes' Googling turned up discussion of Weinstein's ivermectin advocacy outside his expertise on ABC Radio National (open transcript, and they quote Weinstein literally saying the words - and that's the national broadcaster, on the local equivalent of Radio 4, in a ridiculously libel-friendly country), and his YouTube near-suspension on this matter decried by Bill Maher in Yahoo News and The Hill. This is international news - David Gerard (talk) 15:47, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and some sources were also posted at Talk:Bret Weinstein.[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Alexbrn (talk) 15:54, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

And yet Megyn Kelly interviewed weinstein less than 24hrs ago and essentially certified the rebuttal to that representation of weinstein in the public media. For example, mentioned here in yahoo news ""One of the joys of the show is, you don't have to rush through the conversations. Today we dropped an episode with Brett Weinstein. He's very popular on the web," Kelly details. "This Evergreen State professor out of Washington State who was forced out of his job. It's a very progressive campus. So, yes, I wanted to talk about getting fired from the University, and he's been banned from YouTube for his vaccine talks. I really went hard on him." Its not so clear and unequivocal that he is a quack ivermectin proponent. Interestingly, Megyn Kelly specifically mentions how the VICE claims directly misrepresent the narrative in this same interview. You can listen to it on Spotify for free. FrederickZoltair (talk) 16:27, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Keep in mind several of those sources listed only mention Weinstein in passing and are not directly related to the events of the last week of June tied to the video about taking ivermectin that led to YT demonetizing him. (a couple are). Eg: the Hill and Yahoo articles linked by David Gerald aren't helpful over the Vice one since they just iterate this point and don't speak any further on it. One thing to stress: as Weinstein article already has it, per MEDRS, it definitely must be stated that ivermectin is not yet proven as a COVID remedy, after stating that Weinstein has promoted it. So we can still talk to all this back and forth but still fundamentally stick to the requirement set by MEDRS to make sure it is clear that Wikipedia in no way claims Weinstein is right. --Masem (t) 16:53, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Elon Musk's Tweets

Elon Musk's tweets are often used in SpaceX articles such as SpaceX Starship. He is the owner of SpaceX and often announces things before anyone else. Can these be used as sources? Here are examples of Elon Musk's tweets about SpaceX: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1410670645948653568/photo/2 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1410537991236243461/photo/1 Elon Musk Tweet Elon Musk Tweet 2StarshipSLS (Talk), (My Contributions) 14:22, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

As an SPS they can be used for statements that are uncontroversial. But should be treated like any other corporate press accmo8uncment, as non-neutral.Slatersteven (talk) 14:20, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Didn't we have this discussion recently? They are primary sources from SpaceX (or Tesla, ...), so they are fine for statements like "SpaceX plans ...", "SpaceX/Musk announced..." (explicitly, or implicitly if it's obvious/uncontroversial). --mfb (talk) 14:32, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

@Mfb: Just so everyone knows, I will be on vacation starting today. I don't plan to return until the end of August. I won't be editing Wikipedia during that time. This is probably my last edit until I come back. StarshipSLS (Talk), (My Contributions) 14:46, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

They should be fine as long as the announcement is reasonably uncontroversial and not self serving.--70.24.249.16 (talk) 18:16, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Musk's tweets are often noteworthy, and are the best source for statements about what Musk has tweeted. I would try to avoid them for any other purpose; if Musk is pre-announcing something related to SpaceX it is better to wait for an official announcement. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:18, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

There generally is no official announcement though... Especially for topics relating to Starship it basically all comes from Musk and unofficial sources. I previously discussed on this topic here. Leijurv (talk) 19:31, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Elon's tweets, even for announcements related to SpaceX/etc. should be taken with grains of salt compared to official company releases, due to his propensity to be overexcited about things. If Elon tweeted "SpaceX will be on the moon by 2024!" that should not be read that Space plans to have a moon mission by 2024, until SpaceX's actual business releases something to that degree. He may not be lying, but it could be an exaggeration that it is better to wait for a clear statement from the company than from Elon. --Masem (t) 20:11, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Attribute as a primary source? But really we should only cover the tweets if the individual tweet is newsworthy - and many of Musk's tweets are - David Gerard (talk) 23:34, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

News Guard + Media Bias Fact Check Redux

- Wikipedia:MBFC and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewsGuard (The news guard entry needs updates to reflect the below sources)
- Current consensus: "There is consensus that Media Bias/Fact Check is generally unreliable, as it is self-published. Editors have questioned the methodology of the site's ratings."
- Most recent noticeboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_271#Media_Bias/Fact_Check_at_Toronto_Sun (Aug 2019)
- Reason for this noticeboard post: I am new and do not want to make sweeping changes to a topic like this without consensus. Since the last noticeboard, NewsGuard has partnered with the World Health Organization, Microsoft, and 800 public libraries in cities around the United States. This makes News Guard notable, reliable, and trusted by local governments and global health organizations like the WHO to certify credible and reliable sources. NewsGuard certifies Mediabiasfactcheck.com with their highest credibility rating of 100/100 (Example of badge here) which indicates "Green: A website is rated green if it generally adheres to basic standards of credibility and transparency. (If the site adheres to all nine of our criteria, we note that in the rating. If it has significant exceptions among the criteria, we note that too.)". The only source that exists for the claim that MBFC is unreliable is the one currently in the Wikipedia entry for MBFC via RS/PS and that source is this article from the Columbia Journalism Review from 2018 located here. I feel that as though WP:RS/MC and WP:USEBYOTHERS, and WP:MEDORG applies based on this new information.

I am re-posting some of the sources I originally posted on the MBFC Perennial sources article:
1. The World Health Organization is the strongest source I have located thus far: https://www.newsguardtech.com/press/newsguard-statement-world-health-organzation-partnership/ or https://strategichcmarketing.com/health-care-marketing-healthguard-fighting-disinformation specifically: "In late August, the company announced a partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Sylvie Briand, director of WHO’s Infectious Hazards Management Department, stated in the press release: “It is vital that people everywhere get the right information at the right time to protect themselves and their loves ones. That’s why we are looking forward to working with NewsGuard and other platforms to fight misinformation and disinformation.".
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/health/wikipedia-who-coronavirus-health.html
Mr. Pattison said he had a staff of only five, although the agency subscribes to NewsGuard, a service that hunts for new rumors springing up on the internet. His staff examines NewsGuard alerts, consults medical experts, posts accurate information on the W.H.O. website and then calls its contacts at social media agencies and asks them to link to it.
3. https://www.wired.com/story/newsguard-extension-fake-news-trust-score/
"Adding this service on computers used by our patrons continues the long tradition of librarians arming readers with more information about what they are reading,” Stacey Aldrich, the state librarian of Hawaii, said in a statement.". Wired is a strong source according to RS/PS. This led me look for more sources and I found that NG has partners with many libraries and public education organizations. For example, Library.Alaska.Gov links to it here: https://lam.alaska.gov/covid-19.
4. https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/08/23/defending-against-disinformation-in-partnership-with-newsguard/
Earlier this week, we launched Microsoft AccountGuard, a new service designed to help political campaigns and other organizations that underpin democratic processes protect themselves from cyberattacks. Today, we are further broadening the work of our Defending Democracy Program by announcing a new partnership with NewsGuard Technologies, which will empower voters by providing them with high-quality information about the integrity and transparency of online news sites.

Your thoughts?

Thank you. FrederickZoltair (talk) 23:51, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

NewsGuards Front Page states "750+ Libraries Globally" that they partner with, how do you get 800 in the United States alone? All the best Trevey-On-Sea (talk) 01:17, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Apologies, the claim is here and actually says "Microsoft’s Defending Democracy program—through which more than 800 public libraries provide NewsGuard to their more than seven million patrons in the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy. NewsGuard plans to expand the program into new countries, including Australia and Canada, later this year.". I have been reading about NewsGuard all day and its hard to keep it all straight. FrederickZoltair (talk) 01:35, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Please review WP:RSN very carefully. Press releases are not the type of sources that demonstrate reliability. --Hipal (talk) 15:34, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for pointing that out I was unaware. Alternative source: (Politico) "Microsoft was the first technology company to offer our ratings and labels by integrating them into its mobile Edge browser, and providing users of the Edge desktop browser free access. Internet providers such as British Telecom in the U.K., health care systems such as Mt. Sinai in New York and more than 800 public libraries and schools in the U.S. and Europe provide our ratings and labels through access to a browser extension that inserts red or green labels alongside news stories in social media feeds and search results.". This source also indicates it is not just public libraries. It is an opinion piece but valid per WP:PRIMARYCARE and WP:RSEDITORIAL FrederickZoltair (talk) 22:36, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

This topic has been discussed so extensively here that it would be an encumbrance to relitigate it entirely. However, the crux of the argument to change the reliability of Newsguard in this latest iteration seems to be that it is now "trusted by local governments". Whether a government agency authenticates a source or not is irrelevant to whether WP considers a source reliable. A government stamp of approval is neither required for us to use a source, nor is the lack of such a stamp preclusive of that source's use. Chetsford (talk) 15:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I can appreciate issue fatigue and you are correct it has been discussed to death in the past, but not recently or with the recent new information in mind and noting that on WP:CCC that previously closed issues are primarily re-classified by discussion. I would like to draw attention to the fact that WP currently maintains consensus on the Poynter Institute and Politifact being extremely strong sources typically because of the Poynter Institute's own International Fact-Checking Network reviews and certification (and they are not free of [| controversial mistakes] either). Also keep in mind, we currently have several entries with sections claiming Covid medical misinformation is being spread and to certify those claims we are using VICE Motherload as a reliable second hand source which has no standing consensus on WP per Wikipedia:RSP and are currently live on entries as of this minute. Other extremely strong sources that are counted among the gold standard for reliable wikipedia sourcing like Reuters and the BBC cover and link to the WHO both as a source of news and as a reliable source for authoritative medical and scientific claims consistently. This lends itself again to WP:MEDORG and WP:USEBYOTHERS and I think that it is generally safe to assume the WHO is reliable regarding medical claims and misinformation. Microsoft is notable within the Healthcare sphere per Forbes and has been certified as a healthcare provider by the Hitech actand separately certified and audited by Fedramp for NIST security compliance which they maintain certification for. These factors combined make both Microsoft and the Who's use of NewsGuard specifically for combating health and political misinformation notable and verifiable. The WHO using it for real-time alerting and for identifying misinformation and for assistance with disseminating correct and recommended health information instead on social media per the New York Times and local governments that run public libraries and schools also trusting Microsoft and news guard further drive home the reliability of the information provided by NewsGuard in my opinion. I appreciate your commentary! FrederickZoltair (talk) 22:36, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Your are saying that Reuters quotes a government agency, therefore, said government agency can determine which media outlets WP considers reliable? That doesn't make any sense. It's just the reverse of this argument which advanced the position that, if a U.S. Government national security agency disapproved of a media outlet, it should be banned from WP. You can go through that door in either direction, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus on WP to recognize or derecognize the reliability of media outlets based on the decrees of government authorities. And, frankly, I'm very concerned that we have editors who keep pushing the notion that the state should be a partner in determining which sources are usable on WP. Chetsford (talk) 01:39, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

I should have done a better job of clarifying as I can see where you are coming from and that was not what I was trying to communicate. My overarching point is twofold. Reuters is partnering with WHO (is what that Reuters link showed) to combat misinformation specifically medical and political categories of it and this after all is Reuters bread and butter and what their reputation is hinged upon and we are currently using news articles it publishes as authoritative non-bias sources on many many entries across Wikipedia and is generally understood to even be reliable when dealing with extremely controversial information and recent events. The same goes for BBC who was a major player in the Who's Stop the Spread campaign detailed here. NewsGuard partners with WHO for the same goal and furthermore is a tool used by parts of the WHO's teams internally both to directly identify misinformation and secondarily to disseminate corrections on that information using WHO provided and certified information in return. Reuters is extremely reliable (both in my experience and per existing WP consensus), and the world health organization plays a pivotal role in public health and is generally reliable per all linked sources thus far and is in fact a multi national health cooperation initiative created by the United Nations with its recent prominent goals being emphasized as to counter misinformation and disseminating reliable and trusted medical information to the public by scientists and scientific consensus and is funded by governments across the globe. Their methodologies are known and their credibility is not generally in question especially in regard to medical claims, research, and treatments and additionally by Wikipedia's own policies is reliable (unless there is evidence to call that into question, which I do not feel there is here). WHO, Reuters, and NewsGuard are all working toward the same goal using the same tools and relying on sources they feel are credible, and using a mix of AI and experienced journalists to vet and verify claims and to respond accordingly not unlike SNOPES/Politifact/The poynter institute etc and other sources we currently certify as extremely strong per RSPS for fact checking and misinformation verification. Microsoft is a large player both with regards to healthcare, technology for healthcare professionals and is itself a certified and audited healthcare provider and this is not new or controversial and as evidence of this I reference how the federal government of the USA who enforces the Hitech act, HIPAA, and NIST compliances (all which Microsoft are compliant with and externally audited on and also provide as a service to their own customers) are evidence of Microsoft's notability in the field and their reliability as a trusted source to manage misinformation specifically political and medical categories of it. When you take into account Microsoft makes Windows, internet explorer, and the Edge browser which are the default web browsers included with Windows that most people use (I am using it to type this reply to you) it makes a great deal of sense why federal (not just the USA) and local governments(Also not just the USA) are interested in partnering with Microsoft who has based this feature they offer on NewsGuards licensed data and methodology, the same as the WHO. That was long winded but hopefully I have provided the relevant associations and evidence to support it regarding all involved sources. I am not saying we run all sources through media bias fact check or NewsGuard before we allow or disallow use, merely that NewsGuard should be upgraded to a level of reliability at least on par with Politifact/The Poynter Institute and other fact checking organizations that WP cureently certifies and additionally that MBFC whom NewsGuard has certified with a perfect credibility rating regarding factual and fair information should be as well. If not equal to existing sources that are generally reliable, then at least as a potential to be valid rather than immediately discounted because of RSPS. None of this inherently changes our guidelines or policies nor does it suggest favoring one source over the other that is not already subject to consensus changes and reasonable discourse via talk page to work out specific useful context based on any Wikipedia policy or guideline. On a personal note I find the abundant use of sources like VICE as reliable and bias free sources detestable, yet we work with a Wikipedia that apparently has no issue in doing so. This is in my opinion is a step toward more fact oriented coverage of entries and certified reliable information in general which I believe is very much in line with our standing policies and guidelines and a good thing overall as sinister media bias continues to infect and influence global health and politics. FrederickZoltair (talk) 03:26, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Is the Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship a reliable source? Found here online. Epachamo (talk) 03:37, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable: This journal's self stated purpose is scholarship that increases faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known colloquially as Mormons. A major focus is on finding ancient sources and evidence to support fringe ideas such as a group of Native Americans are descended from Israelites per Book of Mormon, that other translations of Joseph Smith such as the Book of Abraham is a legitimate Egyptian translation derived from an ancient source, that the Book of Moses was written by Moses and revealed to Joseph Smith later. The Interpreter Journal is a great source for noting Latter-day Saint beliefs, pronunciations of Latter-day Saint themed material, and other narrow defined topics. In various rankings of Journals such as SJR, JQRS or Google Scholar rankings. I could not even find it listed in JSTOR. Epachamo (talk) 03:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The Sportster

Would The Sportster be considered a reliable source for professional wrestling or court case articles? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:05, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Last I looked, it was being rejected as reliable in the few discussions where it came up. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Professional_wrestling/Sources#Unreliable_sources. --Hipal (talk) 15:40, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

International Confederation of Art Critics

A new draft points the reader to "analyses" such as this on the website of the "International Confederation of Art Critics" (based in "Unicorn House", Potters Bar). The ICAC hawks Artist Promotional Packages. The whole business smells to me as if selling a service to bedazzle the befuddled (eg the more naive among Wikipedia editors). Am I too harsh? -- Hoary (talk) 00:45, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely not! The befuddled and well-off collector seems the main target. Certainly not RS; the site is clear that these analyses are paid-for PR. Johnbod (talk) 01:03, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Not reliable. Please see Pay to play#In the visual arts. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:11, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Personal website as a source for Linux "missing GUI API standardization"

A certain user is insisting on using a personal website as a source for the claim that "Linux" lacks standardization on "GUI API" (whatever that exactly means is left for users to wonder about). I do not, however, see how the author would be an expert on the subject of GUI programming, let alone an established one. I do not see how any sane college professor would accept that page as a source on a this kind of issue. Wikipedia does not need to document every online drama. --213.216.211.142 (talk) 07:54, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Greek City Times

@Bogazicili: removed my edit on Turkish people page, because they said that Greek City Times is not a reliable source. Could you please share your thought on whether it is a reliable source? Thanks.--V. E. (talk) 13:06, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Very much legitimate removal. That article is obvious bullshit. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:42, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Judging by your earlier edits here, I can see that you show a pattern of not liking sources on Turkey related articles. Your attitude and word choice do not help to the discussion either. So, I would like to state that from now on I will ignore your opinions.--V. E. (talk) 13:50, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• It's not a reliable source. There's no masthead with named editors and most of the articles are anonymous or by non-professionals with blank by-lines. Very few reputable news outlets cite them in Google News. Their articles are a mix of gossipy "celebrity X was in Greece", clickbaity sensationalist headlines, but everyone else passes away peacefully. Oh, and they like to say that with Greek heroes who died 150+ years ago as well. That's the type of stuff you see from low-quality location-specific churnalism. And then you've got anti-Turkish Greek nationalism, like articles on genetics by experts in religion and geology (your source). Woodroar (talk) 14:29, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Woodroar: If you think a source is unreliable, you need another source to confirm that it is unreliable. Reliability is about whether info given in a source is accurate which you didn't seem to prove in this case. Even all these Turkish newssites from different political specturms[16] (leftist) [17] (pro-government) [18] (kemalist) [19] cite Greek City Times as a source. Every source can have its bias (Greek nationalism, Turkish nationalism etc.) but this doesn't mean it is unreliable. See reliable sources may be non neutral for more information.--V. E. (talk) 14:45, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Look, I've been doing source analysis on Wikipedia for more than a decade. It's part of my actual job, too. What you're saying here is a mixture of wrong and irrelevant. I suggest you listen to other editors when they say that this source is unreliable. Woodroar (talk) 15:05, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Woodroar: That's what you say but another editor Chetsford who also parcitipates in RS dicussions states that "as editors, we aren't qualified to engage in media analysis. A source is reliable if reliable sources indicate it is, and unreliable if they say otherwise."[20]--V. E. (talk) 15:20, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood. Part of that is likely because we're talking about two meanings of "source" here: general (at the publisher level) and specific (articles, news broadcasts, etc.). Chetsford is saying that we don't analyze the claims being made by a specific source to determine if they're correct or incorrect. It's not up to us to say that a video was edited to discredit someone or fact-check an anchor's findings. And they're correct, that's covered by WP:PRIMARY, which is part of our WP:NOR policy. But Chetsford does consider A Haber's gatekeeping process in their first reply to you and a source's physical presence in another discussion. These are things that we can and should consider when looking at a general source's reliability. Woodroar (talk) 16:15, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your opinion. Just one thing confuses me. I said to Chetsford that the source contained clickbaity titles just like you did for this source (my 3rd bullet point) but I think his comment of "media analysis" also referred to that part as well as the video part. Of course I am not expecting you to read somebody else's mind but was I right when saying "They have titles like "Burcu Yazgı Coşkun surprised everyone! Nobody knew this." which reads like a tabloid newspaper."? Was it a valid argument? What is your personal opinion about that? @Woodroar:--V. E. (talk) 16:49, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

For me, clickbaity headlines are a red flag, absolutely, but they're just one factor to consider. Unfortunately, a lot of sites rely on outrage op-eds, affiliate links, and churnalism to stay in business. That's just how web publishing works now. But sources with good reputations know how to separate their legitimate journalism from everything else. Likewise, the best sources tend to avoid sensationalist headlines unless it's a really shocking story, but that's also changing. In fact, our WP:HEADLINES guideline says to ignore claims in headlines because they're often exaggerated or lack context. Woodroar (talk) 18:03, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• Not a reliable source. This topic requires scholarly sources, not random news sites citing scholars with random opinions. –Austronesier (talk) 14:44, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Scholarly sources are already present in the article which show genetic relation between Turks and Central Asia. Greek City Times is used as a supplementary to quote Celal Şengör.--V. E. (talk) 14:47, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

But why quote a non-expert (Celal Şengör) from a non-reliable source (Greek City Times) with a statement that is just as simplistic as false? (Those "Greeks" were Hellenized ancient Anatolians with multiple ethnic backgrounds). –Austronesier (talk) 20:49, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• There is an older discussion on this website, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 320 § greekcitytimes.com. It appears, the founder created the website after he was kicked from his job at a different news org for being a stormfront contributor? Yeah, this is probably the last thing one should be using for genetics or for the matter anything else. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:58, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
• Just want to chime in to say not a reliable source pretty obviously, mostly for the reasons Woodroar invoked above. No named staff, little indicia of reliability or fact checking, and as far as I can tell, no wider reputation for accuracy. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:08, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
• Visnelma, as others have said, Greek City Times is not a reliable source. Also, Celal Şengör is a geologist and is not a subject matter expert with respect to genetics. You can't quote every random interview of every random "scholar" in all articles. This [21] is an example of a high-quality source that would meet WP:MEDRS, and one of its authors - Omer Gokcumen - is an example of a subject matter expert, as he is actually in biological sciences with research focus on genomes and human biology. Bogazicili (talk) 18:48, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Roman et. al. Ivermectin Meta-Analysis Abstract Inconsistencies

Context: I am a new editor to Wikipedia and interested in clarity on how WP:MEDRS applies in a case where a study is presented in an otherwise high-quality journal where the conclusions do not seem to follow from the underlying data data. Please let me know if I am overstepping my bound here but I would like some further clarity on how sources are handled.

Abstract:

Ten RCTs (n=1173) were included. Controls were standard of care [SOC] in five RCTs and placebo in five RCTs. COVID-19 disease severity was mild in 8 RCTs, moderate in one RCT, and mild and moderate in one RCT. IVM did not reduce all-cause mortality vs. controls (RR 0.37, 95%CI 0.12 to 1.13, very low QoE) or LOS vs. controls (MD 0.72 days, 95%CI -0.86 to 2.29, very low QoE). AEs, severe AE and viral clearance were similar between IVM and controls (all outcomes: low QoE). Subgroups by severity of COVID-19 or RoB were mostly consistent with main analyses; all-cause mortality in three RCTs at high RoB was reduced with IVM.

References

I read the fulltext Roman et al. paper and I am not sure I understand how their conclusions follow from the data. For all cause mortality they report risk with ivermectin 2 per 100 vs 6 per 100 with control; RR 0.37 (0.12 to 1.13) with very low certainty of evidence. This contradicts an earlier version of the paper where all-cause mortality was reported as RR 1.11 (0.16 to 7.65) - their conclusion of "IVM did not reduce all-cause mortality vs. controls (RR 1.11, 95%CI 0.16-7.65, very low QoE)" makes sense for the earlier version with RR 1.1 but the latest revision just does not make sense. "IVM did not reduce all-cause mortality vs. controls (RR 0.37, 95%CI 0.12 to 1.13, very low QoE)" Can someone please explain how a RR of 0.37 for all-cause mortality is not a reduction? I understand that the confidence interval is wide but based on my reading of the data they present, their conclusions do not follow from the data they present.

Relative risk is "the ratio of the probability of an outcome in an exposed group to the probability of an outcome in an unexposed group." If all-cause mortality RR for ivermectin-treated patients is 0.37 the conclusion of IVM not reducing all-cause mortality is false. From Relative_risk#Statistical_use_and_meaning "RR < 1 means that the risk of the outcome is decreased by the exposure, which can be called a "protective factor."

I have tried discussing this at Talk:Ivermectin#Roman_et_at:_Ivermectin_for_the_treatment_of_COVID-19 but my concerns were dismissed with WP:NOTAFORUM. I don't think it's a stretch to question a study if the actual abstract seems to include an apparent inconsistency. "IVM did not reduce all-cause mortality vs. controls" does not seem like an accurate interpretation of the data they present; "IVM reduced all-cause mortality, but the reduction was not statistically significant" would be an appropriate interpretation. I see this has also been discussed under Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Vice_on_Bret_Weinstein where 力 brought up the same concerns and think it warrants a further dedicated discussion. Caprilyc (talk) 17:19, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

The author is "Roman" not "Romat" and it's a systematic review, not a case study. The place to ask would be WT:MED but it's likely you'd get the same answer there: it's not for Wikipedia editors to think they know better than the authors, whose conclusions are quite clear. Alexbrn (talk) 17:24, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Apologies for typo in section heading; I fixed that. And I didn't write "case study" I wrote "in a case where a study." I'm sorry if the wording wasn't clear but my understanding was that a meta-analysis is a type of study which summarizes existing research as opposed to providing novel experimental results. Caprilyc (talk) 17:34, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I think you answered it yourself. While RR equals 0.37 the 95% confidence interval is 0.12 to 1.13, so for all we know it might increase the mortality. We need to wait for studies with larger samples. Alaexis_¿question? 17:32, 6 July 2021 (UTC)