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Healthline: deprecate or blacklist?

A May 2023 RSN discussion about Healthline raises the question about whether Healthline should be deprecated as generally unreliable or blacklisted as fabrication and spam on many of its health-related article pages.

Healthline: [1]

Healthline is frequently used by novice editors to source medical, nutrition, and lifestyle content. Its name implies health expertise, and its author(s) or editors are identified as having "medically reviewed" articles, despite most having no medical expertise (BS or MS degrees in non-medical fields). Healthline commonly cites individual primary studies to extrapolate to an anti-disease effect or "health benefit", a term used in many of its articles on foods, phytochemicals, and supplements.

Previous RSN discussion: Feb 2022 goji berries

Examples of spam health misinformation are Healthline articles on coffee antioxidants ("Many of coffee’s positive health effects may be due to its impressive content of powerful antioxidants"), anti-disease effects of black tea, "proven health benefits" of ashwagandha, and "proven health benefits" of blueberries, among dozens of others. Search "antioxidant" on Healthline and browse any retrieved article for the extent of misinformation (where only vitamins A-C-E apply as antioxidants for the human diet).

Diffs on goji - this talk discussion on goji nutrition and health benefits; continued further here.

Numerous others under my history, here.

It may be justified to blacklist Healthline as a perpetual source of fabrication and spam. Similar to reputations in scientific publishing generally, blatant misinformation destroys confidence permanently in the rest of the source.

Seeing an edit containing a Healthline source is WP:REDFLAG for revising or reverting the edit. There are no circumstances where a Healthline source could not be MEDRS-sourced.

Healthline should be blacklisted. Zefr (talk) 19:26, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

What's the evidence that Healthline is actually spam ("the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, for the purpose of non-commercial proselytizing, for any prohibited purpose (especially the fraudulent purpose of phishing), or simply repeatedly sending the same message to the same user", according to our article on the same subject), or even WP:REFSPAM ("a form of search engine optimization or promotion that typically involves the repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles by a single contributor. Often these are added not to verify article content, but rather to populate numerous articles with a particular citation")?

It sounds like the only thing happening here is that editors use a source that they believe is reliable, but that better informed editors disagree with them, not to mention the few especially strict MEDRS supporters such as yourself. That doesn't actually make it spam. It's a health news website. It shouldn't be used for any purpose that we wouldn't use a newspaper article for, but I've seen no evidence of it being eligible for inclusion in the MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. You could ask admins like Kuru or Ohnoitsjamie, but we don't normally add things just to keep people from complying with WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT.

P.S. Of course blueberries have "proven health benefits". One might wish for a Wikipedia editor to write something staid and obvious like "Blueberries, like basically all fruits and vegetables, contain Vitamin C, which is essential to human health" rather than something breathless about blueberries being uniquely near-magical, but it's still true that they have "proven health benefits", especially for anyone who doesn't fancy a case of scurvy. (Mmm, blueberry season is just starting here...). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I always go to the medical topics I know best to check the source. For Tourette syndrome (FA Tourette syndrome), the following healthline statements are utterly wrong (not just subtly wrong) -- samples only:

• It is a syndrome that involves recurrent involuntary tics, which are repeated, involuntary physical movements and vocal outbursts. Vocal tics need not be outbursts at all; gulping is an example of a vocal tic. This information furthers a stereotype about TS.
• The symptoms include uncontrollable tics and spontaneous vocal outbursts. Ditto, plus see Tourette syndrome for how wrong the "uncontrollable" is.
• People diagnosed with Tourette syndrome often have both a motor tic and a vocal tic. No, they must have both for a TS diagnosis.
• Symptoms are generally most severe during your early teen years. Concocted from I don't know where ...

Stopped there. Moving on to Lewy bodies (FA dementia with Lewy bodies):

• Dementia with Lewy bodies, also known as Lewy body dementia, is caused by protein deposits in nerve cells. 1. Lewy body dementia and dementia with lewy bodies are not the same thing. 2. The cause of DLB is unknown.

So, again stopped there. Adding this to Zefr's examples, yes, this site is rubbish and should be blacklisted. We shouldn't have to run around removing potential rubbish added by unsuspecting or new editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

While I agree that it's not spam per se, there is a precedent for blacklisting poor sources that are frequently misued as references, NaturalNews being the first example to come to mind. Now NaturalNews is in a category of its own in terms of being complete rubbish. Healthline's own article suggests that there is mixed opinion as to it being a "good" source. I'm OK with blacklisting a link on the grounds of it being a frequently misused poor source, but on the conditions that (1) we have a strong consensus that it has no use in Wikipedia as a references and (2) the existing 500+ links are cleaned up prior to blacklisting. Neither of those conditions are currently met as far as I can see. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the Natural News discussion (not an RfC) resulted in adding to the spam blacklist. And Beetstra changed the spam-blacklist guideline to add "some sites which are persistently abused for shock effects, and some sites which have been added after independent consensus" after I had objected about adding ancient-origins.net. A more recent example is that my request to remove Breitbart from the spam blacklist (since spamming if it ever existed was stopped) was archived. Thus there are indeed precedents, and I regard them all as bad. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:19, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

John's right about it being a big jump from nothing to deprecation or blacklisting, but another option is an AbuseFilter that says something like "Healthline.com is generally not a reliable source for medical information".

Another option would be to have a bot post individual messages ("I see you added <badsite> to [[Possibly medical article]]. This is generally considered a poor source for health-related content. Could you please replace it with a better source?") WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

it seems like overkill to jump immediately to deprecation or blacklisting. Why not start by clarifying on RSP that it is unreliable? I think we now have the necessary discussions and consensus for that. John M Baker (talk) 23:22, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it technically qualifies until this RFC closes, but I've boldly added it as GUNREL for now. If anyone wants to amend or remove, feel free. As for an edit filter... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm not really sure. Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:48, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, get rid of it.

Their articles are written almost entirely by random freelance writers with zero qualifications, and then "medically reviewed" by "medical advisors" who are very frequently quacks:

• This reiki [2] was written by a yoga teacher and "medically reviewed" by "doctor" with a PhD in psychology from for-profit online Walden University (their psych PhD program is unaccredited!). Her bio asserts she's a holistic nurse, professor (at Walden), reiki master, clinical hypnotherapist, and expert in "complementary and alternative therapies, autoimmune disease, stress and coping, and obstetrics". She was also the advisor for this pro-homeopathy article and this throat chakra article that starts out "Chakras play a role in the flow of energy in your body. Running from the base of your spine to the top of your head, the seven main chakras each correspond to specific nerve bundles and organs in your body."
• This pro-chiropractic article reviewed by a DPT (with degree from for-profit University of St Augustine) who has no publications and whose professional qualifications list is so weak he included CPR certification. The article cites case studies, Frontiers junk, and weak reviews in weak journals.
• This credulous piece on homeopathic arnica spends a lot of text uncritically summarizing its health claims and mechanism while minimizing the fact that there's no evidence it works ("however, more research is needed"). It was written by a dietitian and personal trainer and underwent expert review by another dietitian.
• What Are the 7 Chakras and How Can You Unblock Them?, written by someone with a master's in counseling and medically reviewed by a yoga instructor. JoelleJay (talk) 23:57, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Based on your post, I went back to look at the Tourette syndrome healthline author, and what I found is really weird. She appears to be a legit neurologist, but that doesn't mean she knows anything about TS. But as an indication that there are deeper problems at healthline.com, here she wrote a mostly accurate article for healthgrades.com. At about the same time (2022). If she's capable of writing (generally) acceptable content about TS, what went wrong at healthline? Are they just paid to rubberstamp rubbish without really checking, or what the heck? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:12, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

The TS healthline author is actually a nurse practitioner; the article was just "reviewed" by a legit neurologist. JoelleJay (talk) 06:16, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I was just coming to correct that, and you beat me to it ... correct ... I was referring to the reviewer. In other words, she didn't even review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:02, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes I would agree Healthline should be deprecated, or at least considered generally unreliable. I think I've probably been duped by the "medically reviewed articles" bit in the past, I bet I've added it somewhere I shouldn't have as a result, thinking it was high quality as an RS. But these examples and the general evidence above has convinced me we should not consider it reliable, as what they consider "medical expert" is clearly not what Wikipedia considers expertise. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:25, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

• I think Healthline suffers from a problem with many health websites that see their audience wanting health-enhancing advice and not just health-fixing advice (compare with NHS). So they overstate the benefits and are overly credulous in much the same way as newspapers tend to be. Outside of that area, are they terrible? I know Sandy has VERY high standards for the topics she is concerned about, and many sources (including authors of reviews in professional journals) don't meet them. I had a look at their article on tuberous sclerosis and it is IMO absolutely fine. I had a look at epilepsy and didn't finish reading it but what I read seemed absolutely fine too. The language and style of the articles is heavily dumbed down. This has advantages (the general reader, wanting to add some sourced info on a disease, can at least understand the source) compared to what MEDRS might recommend (an -- often paywalled -- review using jargon and aimed at other neurologists). But when you start with dumbed-down source, it is difficult to raise the language level back up to more formal writing. But then that's not much different to the NHS website, and I wouldn't want to blacklist that.

Perhaps the best thing is to warn about its use for "wellness" topics. For general medical issues, it probably is ok, not ideal but not terrible. If someone wrote about "First aid for seizures" and cited Healthline, I don't think Wikipedia would be improved by an editor removing the source, removing the content or tagging the content as unreliably sourced. It would be fine, and a whole lot better than most people know about how to do first aid for seizures.

Btw, I get that blueberries are over sold as a superfood. But it isn't like someone is selling something harmful or just water or placebos. The claim above that they have "have meagre nutrient content" just just bunk. Of course fruit is mostly water, but these berries are packed with more of certain nutrients than other common berries and fruit that people eat as snacks or sides. We certainly want people/readers to eat them as part of a fruit & veg rich diet. Telling people their nutrient content is "meagre" is just as false as claiming they are "super" and more dangerous because the risk then is people think eat fruit-flavoured sweets or chocolate bars for their snack instead, telling themselves that blueberries are no better.

Another complaint. A "dietician" is a proper medical professional. Zefr's comment might make one think a GP or a cardiologist or a neurologist, being "properly medically qualified", might be better placed to talk about health effects of food. A dietician is absolutely the qualification one would want, and anyone who's dealt with a hospital dietician will know how professional and knowlegable they are. But like with anything, especially perhaps in the US, qualifications and learning can be put aside if one gets paid to write gushing articles about super foods. But I've been burnt by so called doctors writing on Wikipedia way beyond their area of expertise, to the point where what they write is nonsense and unintellible and they clearly don't understand the source text at all. So a "medical qualification" isn't a guarantee that someone is competent to write about all areas of medical knowledge. A cardiologist who once took a few lectures on epilepsy medications, aged nineteen and thirty years ago, is not imo an expert on epilepsy.

Lastly, wrt Healthline "cites individual primary studies". The rule against citing primary studies is a Wikipedia quirk because our editors are not assumed to have medical knowledge themselves. Applying that rule to other publications is wrong. The Lancet review that we might prefer to be used as a source also "cites individual primary studies", it just, hopefully, isn't so credulous and gushing. -- Colin°^Talk 09:44, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Colin - addressing the nutrient content of blueberries, 1) compare the analysis of our blueberry article where the Daily Values (for a 100 gram amount) only of vitamin C, vitamin K, and manganese are at moderate levels vs. a more nutrient-rich plant food like spinach. The blueberry nutrient contents are meager.

2) Then read again the sensationalism of unproven anti-disease benefits for blueberries in the Healthline article, "medically reviewed" by a dietitian (not a medical expert). One needs no better example of fabrication and misinformation than this for deprecating/blacklisting Healthline, and there are dozens of Healthline articles with similarly deceitful anti-disease claims.

3) Note also that anti-disease effects of the Healthline article derive from primary research and leaps of interpretation from preliminary unconfirmed findings to a headline on disease prevention. That is WP:SYNTH.

4) on your comment, "For general medical issues, it probably is ok": find one WP medical article or statement where a Healthline source exists now, and where a better MEDRS source isn't readily available. This is where WP:MEDASSESS and WP:MEDORG sources are needed; reviewing them proves that Healthline has no place in any of these guidelines. Zefr (talk) 14:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I hear you, Colin, but by allowing hosting of these marginal and sensationalized and inaccurate sources, we allow them to continue to exist (and in this case, they are doing nothing but paying professionals to rubberstamp rubbish). Wikipedia is big enough and important enough that we can be the factor that keeps them in business. If the student editors don't find these sources, they'll have to move on to real sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, readers would have no idea that we only consider Healthline "good enough" to cite for basic non-wellness things; what they would glean from a Healthline source being used in a medical article is that Healthline is an acceptable website for all medical information.

I also maintain there is a huge difference between a "medical professional" and a "medical expert", and another gulf between "expert" and "expert in the relevant field". A member of the American Society for Nutrition is what I would expect for the expert adviser on a medical nutrition article, not someone with a bachelor's in nutrition + internship (all that's required for an RD) or a master's. And I definitely would not want a dietitian who went anywhere near the Integrative and Functional Medicine scam. The blueberry article makes some egregious extrapolations from primary studies--like claiming a 4-week blueberry/apple juice regimen led to a 20% reduction in oxidative DNA damage when actually the study tested single-strand breaks induced by H2O2 tx in ex vivo lymphocytes collected after avoiding all antioxidant foods for 5 days and then again after the diet regimen (there was no separate control group), and the study itself states within the whole study population effects were modest and strongly biased by large inter-individual differences. Despite this, we did find a significant protection against H2O2-induced oxidative DNA damage. However, we also observed a significant increase in BPDE-DNA adducts induced ex vivo upon intervention.

Likewise, someone with a PsyD/PhD in psych is not qualified to be reviewing articles on TS written by a freelance writer, health reporter, and author with zero credentials. Predictably, there are several issues with the TS Healthline article, including the claim that There’s no known cure for TS, but most people can expect to have a normal lifespan. There is not enough longitudinal data to assert that "most" TSC patients will have a normal lifespan (certainly not without medical treatment! This source states Furthermore, although TSC patients are known to experience higher mortality than the general population, there are few reports on the death rate, standardized mortality ratio (SMR), and estimated life expectancy), and the article operates under the assumption that the patient is a child and will receive all necessary early interventions (as if universal healthcare is available everywhere). The writing suffers from the lack of sophistication expected of people with no training in biology, delivering such clumsy and ambiguous lines as Scientists have identified two genes called TSC1 and TSC2. These genes can cause TS, but having only one of these can result in the disease. Is this trying to say that a mutation in only one of the genes is needed for disease, or is it alluding to the fact that only one mutant allele of either gene is needed (autosomal dominant)?

There is legitimately no reason for Healthline to be used as a source anywhere when there are far better non-scammy sources available for every imaginable use-case. JoelleJay (talk) 23:13, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Zefr compares blueberries with spinach and cites USDA raw data. The reason we don't allow editors to conduct original research is that they come up with misleading falsehoods based on their interpretation of primary sources, like "meagre" for the nutrient content of a healthy berry or do wrongheaded things like comparing a berry you eat as a snack with a leaf you typically eat in a cooked meal (compare instead with raspberry, strawberry or grapes if you want to consider an alternative). You cherry pick three nutrients out of dozens and compare 100g of each, when one might typically eat different weights of such things. If a source you wanted to attack did that, you'd use those mistakes against them. Later you accuse them of WP:SYNTH. Em, SYNTH is a Wikipedia only thing. Nobody outside of Wikipedia can ever commit that crime. They are allowed to do it. They might not be any good at it, but we let our sources do it, and if we didn't nobody would ever be able to draw conclusions.

You ask "find one WP medical article or statement where a Healthline source exists now, and where a better MEDRS source isn't readily available". That isn't how "reliable sources" or WP:V or even WP:MEDRS works. We have no rule anywhere on Wikipedia that editors can only ever use the best sources. Your opinion of "readily available" likely differs from most people and most potential editors. You might know to to use PubMed to find recent reviews that are freely available and to recognise decent journals from the predatory and dubious. Do you think many people using Pubmed to search for blueberry nutrition are going to pick the good stuff? Most people use Google, and that's what "readily available" means to them. And even assuming they find a good medical source, it may use jargon. Often it might just contain low-level information (like those USDA tables) that we absolutely can't just glance at and write things like "meagre" in our own words. In other words, those "MEDRS" sources are hard to find, hard to use and very easy to misuse. A source that tells it at a level our readers understand can have advantages for many editors wishing to write but as I said above, there can be problems with sources that lack depth.

Wrt picking holes in the TS article. These are minor flaws. Anyone here want me to review one of their Wikipedia articles and I can guarantee to find similar and write a whole paragraph about the flaws in one sentence. Again, that's not how we judge sources. For the record, I agree the two quoted sentences about the genes are wrong. It should say "A fault in one of these two genes can cause TS". (Essentially, you need both of these genes to be working to avoid TSC).

Wrt lifespan, its complex. The sentence you quote is essentially ok, and widely repeated in the literature (The NHS says the same thing). It used to be thought everyone with TSC was badly affected and all had learning disability, epilepsy and skin manifestations. But that was only picking up people in hospital or institutions. Population studies show more have it and don't know until they have a child who gets it worse. The whole question of what percentage of people with TSC (in a population) have X, Y or Z symptoms is difficult to ascertain if you only really get studied if you present in hospital. So the extreme variability of the condition makes it hard to write one sentence about lifespan. This paper attempts to estimate and comes up with a lifespan from birth of 70 years. I don't know their statistical methods enough to know if they attempt to include people with TSC who didn't end up as TSC patients in their hospital. I don't know how they work that out for people dying age 70 then (2019) who would have been born in 1949 and faced a remarkably different medical outlook (no MRI, limited brain surgery capability, few epilepsy drugs, life in an institution). My mind boggles really about how you might work out how long someone diagnosed age 1, say, with TSC might live? You'd have to, for a start, assume there no more medical advances, which based on recent advances, seems both unlikely and unfairly pessimistic. They compare this to the US average of 79 using this source and it was indeed correct in 2019 but has fallen since to 76. This UK source shows how going back even to the 1980s shows a big drop, particularly for men. But what is "normal". You could put your statistical pedant's hat on, or you could say well I guess it means I will likely grow old. And, em, 70 is old.

But would a MEDRS sourced claim "The lifespan for people born with TSC in the US in 2019 is 70 years" be any more educationally helpful or better than what Healthline say in their whole section. Our reader thinks, "Wow, my child with TSC is going to live to be 70. That's not bad." But that's just not true though. If their heart tumour is too big, they'll die shortly after birth. They may develop a blockage in their brain ventricle that requires a shunt, and then that gets infected and they die. In early teenage they may get a tumour growing in the brain that needs removed and they die on the table. In their twenties, they might get sudden death in epilepsy. In their thirties, their blood-rich tumour on their kidney might suddenly burst and they bleed to death on the way to hospital. If female, in middle age they may well get LAM and may die horribly or get a lung transplant, with all the risks of that. Or they may be lucky and rich enough to get one of the newer $$$$ TSC-specific drugs like everolimus. And even if medically physically healthy, they are prone to neurological and psychological issues, with all the risks to health and self harm that involves. I'm actually struggling right now to think of another condition that comes with more "ways you might die, but might not".

Yes, Healthline is aimed at a US/Western audience who are encouraged to get the best healthcare and with that they might live a long life. The Healthline article has a section "What Is the Long-Term Outlook for People with Tuberous Sclerosis?" and does say "Because symptoms vary so greatly in each person, so does long-term outlook" but you didn't quote that bit, because it doesn't help the case against them. It doesn't differ, fundamentally, from the "Outlook" section in the NHS page.

So, apart from missing "A fault in one of " when they mention the genes, what's the problem. You claim the "The writing suffers from the lack of sophistication expected of people with no training in biology". Well, for a start it is aimed at a general audience. Please read some of the NHS pages and you'll find extremely unsophisticated writing, and deliberately so. But do you really think "training in biology" comes with a "writing medical/scientific articles for a lay audience" module? I've reviewed and read enough Wikipedia articles written by doctors to know that is no guarantee of quality writing (or even, seeming to understand what they are writing about, and not getting basic stuff like prevalence and incidence confused). Look, any one of us can rant and pick faults, and their Wellness material is definitely to be avoided, but I think in terms of Wikipedia's requirements for sources, for standard medical content, I'm not seeing a general problem that is sufficient for a blacklist. -- Colin°^Talk 09:44, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you would address more specifically whichever editors you're calling "you" since I did not say many of the things you claim "I" (or any one person) said.

Drawing clinical generalizations from single studies is discouraged for all tertiary health information providers, not just wikipedia. Healthline purports to be a tertiary source, not a secondary review article or medical journalism outlet (but medical reporters guidelines also strongly emphasize citing secondary evidence-based reviews over primary case control studies), so it should be held to higher standards in how it justifies an intervention. Wikipedia editors who do not know how to find and recognize high-quality readily-available biomedical sources should not be editing biomedical information in the first place, but when they do then having a filter to flag bad sources of info prevents us from unintentionally endorsing those sources.

Wrt picking holes in the TS article. These are minor flaws. Anyone here want me to review one of their Wikipedia articles and I can guarantee to find similar and write a whole paragraph about the flaws in one sentence. Again, that's not how we judge sources. For the record, I agree the two quoted sentences about the genes are wrong. It should say "A fault in one of these two genes can cause TS". (Essentially, you need both of these genes to be working to avoid TSC).

Stating in the first paragraph of a tertiary health information source aimed at laypeople that "people with TSC can expect to have a normal lifespan" is bad. The NHS source is orders of magnitude better because it faithfully reflects the heterogeneity in lifespan and morbidity and presents a realistic picture of potential treatment burden all in the same section:

The outlook for people with tuberous sclerosis can vary considerably.
Some people have few symptoms and the condition has little effect on their life, while others – particularly those with a faulty TSC2 gene or obvious problems from an early age – can have severe and potentially life-threatening problems that require lifelong care.
Many people will have a normal lifespan, although a number of life-threatening complications can develop. These include a loss of kidney function, a serious lung infection called bronchopneumonia and a severe type of epileptic seizure called status epilepticus.
People with tuberous sclerosis may also have an increased risk of developing certain types of cancer, such as kidney cancer, but this is rare.

This is in contrast to the outlook section on HL which is the last section. And the study that found a lifespan of 70 wouldn't be a MEDRS source anyway as it's primary (and focused on LAM), so how a hypothetical editor would use it on wikipedia is irrelevant. (Oh, and please do review my contributions to stable theory ;)).

If the extent of the problems with Healthline was just the tendency to dumb down material on disease overview articles to the point of ambiguity I wouldn't advocate for its deprecation. Of course I don't believe training in biology corresponds to effective lay medical writing; what I do believe is that a source that claims to provide "medically reviewed" medical information should be held to a higher standard than "psychologist/nurse with zero research background/expertise in anything relevant to the topic reviewing the output of an unqualified freelance health writer". The big issue is wikipedia implicitly endorsing the site as a whole by citing it for mundane statements that could easily be sourced from higher-quality MEDRS by any competent editor. Even if it has some accurate unobjectionable content, HL still contains thousands of articles directly platforming, promoting, or at least failing to criticize CAM nonsense (like natural treatments for Lyme disease, this What are the bet homeopathic treatments for tinnitus? article with the summary Homeopathy for tinnitus is not considered the first line of treatment, and research is mixed on its effectiveness (no, research is NOT "mixed"), or this mind-bogglingly uncritical and falsely-balanced article that presents debates over the safety and efficacy of administering diluted rabid dog saliva to a child (or as its blindingly disinformative search result summary states A homeopathic physician in Canada used saliva from a dog with rabies to treat a boy who was having behavioral problems after contracting rabies himself) as merely a difference in opinion among experts (quoting homeopaths (of course referred to as doctors) and a virologist as if they're on equal footing)). If a news site was spouting this type of shit it would be blacklisted immediately, we should not have a lower standard for MEDRS. JoelleJay (talk) 19:55, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I thought it was fairly obvious who I was talking to about blueberries and who about TSC. But sorry if it was confusing. You say "Healthline purports to be a tertiary source". Does it? I can't see that term anywhere on the site or on our Wikipedia article about them. WhatamIdoing can probably comment better on this matter, but in my understanding the PST source categorisation is down to what exactly the writer is doing in those sentences we might cite and not in what JoelleJay or any editor thinks they are. Our examples of what each of these three source categories tend to include are just examples and a given source may be primary for some things and secondary for others. That HealthLine is taking primary research science papers and writing about them when extolling the virtues of blueberries, say, makes them a secondary source for that particular set of facts (dubious or otherwise) and there's nothing you and I can do to say "No, you can't do that, because I say you are a tertiary source".

The "Hierarchy of Evidence" that the guidelines you link don't correspond with Wikipedia's WP:SYNTH or WP:OR or guidelines about generally avoiding primary sources. That there is a hierarchy of evidence quality should of course be considered by any health writer, but their concern is not PST but the accumulation of weight of evidence in a statistically valid way using a scientific method of analysis.

At the top of the pyramid are "Systematic reviews and meta-analyses". These only cover, I don't know, a small percent of medical knowledge. Essentially, does it work, what harm does it do, and maybe when should I use it or avoid it. A meta-analysis might tell you that everolimus shrinks kidney tumours in TSC but won't tell you what percentage of people with TSC get them, why they get them, what they look like on a path slide or ultrasound or MRI scan, what the guidelines are for monitoring them, what the surgical approach is for handling a bleed... A systematic review won't tell you, other than as an aside perhaps, about the two genes involved and how TSC2 is contiguous with PKD1 so some people have faults affecting both. For that kind of information, we need literature reviews, fact sheets, advanced textbooks, etc. And those aren't mentioned in your journalism guidance because they aren't sources of news for a journalist to write about.

In medical writing outside of Wikipedia, there are no banned sources. Nobody wagging WP:SYNTH at you. There is indeed a hierarchy of evidence just as I suppose journalists have their views on whether they are being told political porky pies or reliable facts by their sources. But the point is whether someone is any good at it. The difference between the BMJ's news features covering the latest research findings and HealthLine's news features covering the latest research findings is down to how good their are, their degree of professionalism, and whether and how their readers respond to that quality or lack. They might both cite the same studies/sources. -- Colin°^Talk 09:20, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

So far, what I've learned from this discussion is that our articles on foods are missing information about serving sizes. A typical serving of blueberries weighs about three times as much as a typical serving of spinach. The 100-gram standardization lets you quickly compare berries against berries, but not berries against leafy greens. One serving of spinach has approximately the same amount of protein and many vitamins (but more fiber, some vitamins, and most minerals, except for Zinc and Phosphorus) as one serving of blueberries. For a healthy person (e.g., not on Coumarin, no iron-deficiency anemia), the real-world effect of eating some blueberries and eating some spinach is not very different. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:53, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I just noticed someone had replaced a Healthline source with a ClevelandClinic source. So I followed that and found them pushing a story What You Should Know About Sugar Alcohols. That article cited several research studies of quite varying quality and size. For example "But a recent study shows that one sugar alcohol, erythritol, may be much worse for your health than anyone realized. It found that erythritol is closely associated with an increased risk for “major adverse cardiovascular events,” including heart attack and stroke." I can't read the whole paper, but just the abstract made me nervous. The Science Media Centre tears it apart. Another Are Spray Tans Safe at the bottom cites this study. Guess where that study sits at the hierarchy of evidence pyramid? I assume some medical editors think that source is fine as it is a big non profit health organisation, rather than just some money making website.

Wrt the Tuberous Sclerosis claim about "most people can expect to have a normal lifespan" your arguments now seem to boil down to a complaint that the section that fully covers the "outlook", mentioning that the disease "vary so greatly in each person, so does long-term outlook", is the "last section" as though putting "outlook" last in the order of sections is a crime worthy of blacklist. And you complain about the one sentence summary of that section being in the lead section (or as you put it "first paragraph of" -- it isn't the first paragraph, but actually the sixth, the very end of the lead). I'm not quite sure how the practice of summarising the body in the lead is also a crime worthy of blacklist.

The point of the 70-year-lifespan source wasn't that I thought a wikipedian should directly cite it, just that there is some evidence that 70-years might be an average. I'll leave citing a secondary source for that fact as an exercise for the reader, not important to our argument. I'm merely saying that we could describe the lifespan of TS in many ways and doing so in one short sentence is unlikely to give a full picture, and could be criticised. But then that's why it pays to read down to the end of the article.

Heathline sure has a lot of problems. But I think editors commenting here need to be very careful that their complaints stack up (e.g. there really wasn't anything wrong with the "normal lifespan" claim, and that's repeated by reliable sources) or that they are being used fairly (e.g. Cleveland Clinic is doing exactly the same thing as Healthline and while it likely isn't as credulous about the latest wellness rubbish, it makes exactly the same journalistic mistakes when citing weak studies and making bold claims). The Cleveland Clinic doesn't even name the "medical professional" who wrote/reviewed the work, so you can't go google them to trash their credentials. -- Colin°^Talk 13:36, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

The Cleveland Clinic is well-known as a pseudoscience apologetic and shouldn't be cited for these claims either. JoelleJay (talk) 17:59, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

well-known as a pseudoscience apologetic, as evidenced by the fact that they fired the guy? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

With all due respect, I do think JJ is right about that particular point (otherwise not wading into this entire back and forth). I think there's quite a few HQRSes whicsh support The Cleveland Clinic is well-known as a pseudoscience apologetic.

E.g. scholarly and otherwise HQRS mentions that Cleveland Clinic has a long history of promoting pseudoscience

Moreover, contrary to what is implied in the SIO's response, reiki and homeopathy are far from irrelevant to the practice of integrative oncology. Reiki, in particular, is offered to cancer patients in many academic medical centres (for example, the Cleveland Clinic)... The Cleveland Clinic, ranked the 2nd best hospital in the United States by U.S. News and World Report in 2017,40 runs multiple CAM centres, including the Wellness Institute, Centre for Integrative Medicine, Centre for Personalized Healthcare, Centre for Functional Medicine, and a Chinese herbal therapy clinic.41 Some of its CAM centres have received significant criticism over the years for having leaders that hold non-evidence-based beliefs that can cause harm to patients. Nevertheless, Reiki treatment, training, and education are now available at many esteemed hospitals in the United States, including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Cleveland Clinic, New York Presbyterian, the Yale Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Sources

CC is not alone in this, of course. But the overall trend for well-regarded academic medical centers to promote pseudoscience is precisely why we don't prefer such lay-facing sources in WP:MEDRS, as both you and Colin are definitely aware! — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:19, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

The comment above that banning a source prevents us from unintentionally endorsing those sources makes me think the community might have a difference in fundamental values – a different concept of the point behind citing sources.

Given the way that citation metrics are used in career advancement decisions, I understand that some academics are trying to cite only papers that they think are "deserving" (e.g., you cite the paper that already cited the hoax, instead of the hoax paper itself, to avoid boosting the citation impact for the hoax), and in some fields, to promote what's sometimes called citation equity by choosing papers, when you have a choice between reasonably equal options, that aren't from people who are already well up the existing structures of power and privilege (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing/Events/April&May23#Citation equity & justice and https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/ask-dr-editor/diversity-in-citation-practices-auditing-your-list-of-references-contributes-to-better-science/ for a little more on this). This has some tangible academic benefits (e.g., if you're writing about fertility, why wouldn't you mention the existence of single mothers, or poor people, or gay people, or teenagers, or child marriage, or religious minorities, or racial minorities, or immigrants, or prisoners, or all the other subgroups? Could it be that you didn't think about that subgroup because that's not part of your own personal background? Maybe if you took an hour to deliberate look for, e.g., what the women of color in your field are writing, you might discover something that would enhance your own work) but also has some non-academic effects (e.g., the authors of the paper you cite might have a slightly higher chance of getting tenure).

In this sense, I think there may be, among scholars, a sense that to cite a paper is, at some level, to endorse it.

On wiki, though, I think that we have traditionally cited sources just because they're convenient. Citing any plausible source (assuming it says the same thing that you put in the article) proves that your contribution is not original research, because even if the source is wrong or unsuitable, you didn't make it up yourself. Our significant bias towards open access sources is driven by practical forces: those are the sources that most editors can actually read. Citing a source isn't endorsing the source; it's just completing a relatively unimportant item on a basic checklist and moving on. After all, "smoking cigarettes raises your risk of lung cancer" is 100% true and WP:Glossary#verifiable regardless of whether the sentence is followed by a good source, a bad source, or no source at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

What does any of this have to do with the reliability of Healthline.

Wikipedia deprecates use of publications that routinely provide false or misleading material, even if not every article they put out suffers those issues. HL has a clear history of promoting harmful medical quackery, which is about as bad as you can get source-wise, and offers zero unique coverage that would warrant a whitelist since its articles are written by unqualified freelancers whose subjective interpretations we definitely DON'T want. JoelleJay (talk) 22:55, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

We may not want it to use it, but I object to claiming that Wikipedia is "endorsing" any source that we cite. We use sources, but we don't endorse them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. We aren't endorsing a source by using it. We also are not defaming a source in a legal sense by calling it "unreliable for our purposes". We, as a community, are making no claims wrt whether such sources are useful for other purposes outside of Wikipedia.

I think, in a colloquial sense, one could say that a pass at RSN is the community "endorsing" the source's general use in Wikipedia. But not an endorsement in any other meaning of the word. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:22, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I support a blacklist of Healthline. Healthline (which as a Red Ventures company has sister sites Medical News Today, PsychCentral, and Healthgrades) is not reliable. First, many of their articles will reference articles from PubMed Central with the annotation "Highly respected database from the National Institutes of Health". This is misleading because a listing in PubMed or PubMed Central does not indicate that a paper is reliable.

Second, many articles are low quality and "teach the controversy" about pseudoscientific topics. For example, Healthline has a "medically reviewed article "What Is Qi Deficiency, and How Is It Treated?" about a condition that does not exist. There are other articles legitimizing the pseudoscientific concept of Qi like this one "5 Acupressure Points for Gas and Bloating"

Third, Healthline has commercial ties to a number of dubious companies, and refers people to buy their products, sometimes contrary to mainstream medical recommendations. See this one: The 10 Best Vitamin B Complex Supplements, A Dietitian's Picks or their prominent supplement section. Worse, they have run sponsored content like this one: 5 Reasons To Love Integrative Therapeutics or this Here’s How This Next-Generation Probiotic Strain Can Transform Your Gut. There are also commercial links to some dubious at-home testing companies like Everlywell. Some tests, even if technically valid, should not be run without a doctor recommendation and high pre-test probability.

Fourth, many articles seem to have been created for SEO and social media sharing purposes rather than for any legitimate purpose. See examples by searching the site for the word banana.

ScienceFlyer (talk) 17:23, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

More on Red Ventures and its priorities: Healthline was purchased by Red Ventures in 2019. To the extent that Healthline may have been reliable prior to the change of management, it is clearly not reliable now. Red Ventures also owns Bankrate, The Points Guy, CNET, Medical News Today, PsychCentral, Lonely Planet, and Healthgrades. After Red Ventures purchased CNET, it was reported that CNET was creating AI-generated content and content that was favorable toward advertisers and affiliates. In a 2021 NY Times article, a former Red Ventures employee said the company is “all about profit maximization.” Further:

The company [Red Ventures] found itself in the publishing business almost by accident, and is now leading a shift in that industry toward what is sometimes called “intent-based media” — a term for specialist sites that attract people who are already looking to spend money in a particular area (travel, tech, health) and guide them to their purchases, while taking a cut.

It’s a step away from the traditional advertising business toward directly selling you stuff. Red Ventures, for instance, plans to steer readers of Healthline to doctors or drugs found on another site it recently acquired, HealthGrades, which rates and refers doctors. Red Ventures will take a healthy commission on each referral.
— New York Times, 2021

ScienceFlyer (talk) 22:31, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Compelling information that speaks to how we evaluate reliability. CNET is already red-listed at WP:RSP; it sounds like we should be looking at all of Red Ventures rather than just Healthline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:26, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support blacklist. Healthline have been cranking out articles and videos supportive of cholesterol denialism and also publishing dangerous misinformation that saturated fat consumption is not a risk factor for heart disease. They have also published articles supporting alleged benefits of coconut oil which are based on weak evidence [3], the ketogenic diet [4], [5] etc. Not a reliable source for medical claims about health. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:51, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support deprecation and blacklist. Another Red Ventures-acquired content mill. Like CNET and so many other Red Ventures properties, chances are quite a lot of this is actually being created by AI now. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:43, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
• Support deprecation and blacklist The risk from allowing this source that I see is that it easily hoodwinks unknowing people into trusting its "medical review" and believing it's a reliable source, when it clearly isn't. (t · c) buidhe 00:47, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
• Comment. During the discussion, I noticed User:Zefr, who proposed the blacklist, had replaced a HealthLine source with one from ClevelandClinic. When I accused the latter source of some of the editing approach that voters here had criticised HealthLine for, User:JoelleJay appeared to suggest that one should be binned too for being " well-known as a pseudoscience apologetic". Maybe we should ban the Lancet as well for being a well known promoter of fraudulent MMR research. I think the statement above "Wikipedia editors who do not know how to find and recognize high-quality readily-available biomedical sources should not be editing biomedical information in the first place" indicates what's going on here. Elitism. Well Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit. What we've got here is a willy waving game by experienced Wikipedians with access to the finest sources who would rather that the great unwashed weren't allowed to edit here and pollute their articles with citations to publications they wouldn't be seen dead reading. I mean, HealthLine and Cleveland are clearly aimed at the general reader, not "experts like us". Finding flaws in others writing is an easy game and but this forum isn't here to boost our egos that we are better than that lot over there. They're the competition and so it seems we mustn't be seen to endorse them.

If folk want a medical encyclopaedia where only experts are allowed to edit, try MDWiki. I don't think Wikipedia should just give editors a bigger hammer with which to hit other (new) editors who haven't reached their level of expertise in policy and enjoy their privileged access to sources. This is not what Wikipedia is about. It is here for anyone to edit, and we live with that. -- Colin°^Talk 11:27, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the right analogy. Lancet and Cleveland Clinic are top-notch at what they do (or at least in other areas of what they do), and make occasional mistakes (as does the NEJM from my typical Jankovic example). Lancet corrected their mistake (the NEJM didn't, but I digress). They aren't reliant on Wikipedia or search engine optimization to push their visibility or reputation or to gain links or clients.

These sources like Red Ventures publications gain traction via links on Wikipedia.

Regarding your concerns of elitism, I don't have journal access unless I travel an hour one-way. These days, there is so much open access publishing, and so many books available at archive.org or via google book excerpts, that I'm not convinced that there is as big of a problem in finding good sources as there was ten years or so ago. Yes, several times a year, I have to ask people if they can email me a journal source, but that's usually because I'm trying to take existing content to a higher level of sourcing (as opposed to the average student or new or casual editor). If a new or casual or student editor is doing a major rewrite or content addition to sources like healthline, the sooner their efforts can be reoriented, the better for all; they learn better sourcing sooner, we don't have to clean up later. I realize (and am frequently reminded that) I'm not a "typical" editor, but then those that are apparently considered "typical" don't seem to stick around for the long haul anyway (eg, Special:Contributions/Sm999). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:51, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I stand by my statement that editors who lack the competence to edit medical articles shouldn't be editing medical articles. Part of that competence is understanding MEDRS. With sooo many open access sources, plus the likes of scihub, we don't have any reason to permit poor-quality sources just because they might be the ones hypothetical new editors will use. There is a gigantic difference between "knowing how to use and find MEDRS" and "being a topic expert", so don't act like expecting the former is elitism.

Regarding Cleveland Clinic, several of its centers peddle alt med propaganda.[6][7] JoelleJay (talk) 21:13, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

You are not going to find a medical journal or website dealing with nutrition that is entirely devoid of fringe science or pseudoscience. At some time or another journals make mistakes and publish nonsense, it is all down to quantity (in this case how often they do it). The British Medical Journal has a good tract record but have published a minority of papers supportive of acupuncture and have an editor who promotes vaccine misinformation. This does not mean the journal is unreliable. Cleveland Clinic may have published an article supportive of functional medicine but this doesn't invalidate the website or the good work they do, just like The BMJ is not invalid because they published some stupid papers on acupuncture. 99% of the time they are not doing this. Healthline is different because they are promoting fringe science, pseudoscience and nonsense about nutrition pretty much all of the time, similar to Frontiers Media. I don't think we should compare Healthline to the Lancet, BMJ or Cleveland Clinic. Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:49, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I didn't compare HL to any journals. I'm just saying the Cleveland Clinic panders to alt med junk with its functional medicine centers and therefore is not a good source for anything touching on the fringe stuff it offers. JoelleJay (talk) 17:53, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Sandy, the accusation of elitism was specifically at JoelleJay who quite explicitly stated that until editors reach their standard they should not edit at all. That isn't how Wikipedia works. Look, I get it that Healthline is awful for wellness stuff. But I also get that someone adds to our article what the symptoms excess sweating are or whether a drug is legal in the US or some other non-wellness fact, and currently they are having their edits removed or their source removed (making the claim unsourced) with a notice about "Healthline SPAM" which is a bad-faith accusation. When this proposal passes, as it seems to be, presumably they'll be unable to press the Save button or something like that. So, totally unable to edit Wikipedia with a non-contentious fact.

Did this edit improve Wikipedia? The article was unsourced entirely. The citation to Healthline was added six years ago by an editor who is a general practitioner and it appears a highly experienced Wikipedian (on multiple projects). We now again have an article that is entirely unsourced. I clicked on the source that was removed. It has a fantastic 3D diagram of the muscle in the neck that you can rotate about. Are their pages (they appear to have many) on the "Human Body" unreliable. I suspect not. Are their pages on general human body processes and diseases and disorders unreliable. I reckon generally they are not. But we are now going to prevent new editors from improving Wikipedia until they've achieved expert MEDRS status.

When I started on Wikipedia, I was translating a patient information leaflet that was in French into English (with Google Translate) and adding information about a drug that wasn't available anywhere in English. I made lots of mistakes about sourcing. It took me a while to realise you needed to read the whole paper and which kind of paper we wanted. I don't think I'm alone in having that kind of editing path. But the attitude of some here is to attack the newbies for not being perfect. In the fight against wellness nonsense and alternative crap, we end up making this the encyclopaedia only experienced exiting editors can edit, and the encyclopaedia with entirely unsourced random stuff. WP:MED went bad when it forgot to allow people to be imperfect. When having a list (as Zefr has linked to above) with which to go around removing good faith contributions and accusing others of adding "SPAM" to Wikipedia. Remove the wellness shit because it is shit, not because you are concerned with SEO.

Wrt open access, those editors with easy access to paid journals continue to have a huge advantage. But elitism is not just about access. It is about drawing up the ladder once you've made it. About denying a new editor base a chance to get on board. WP:MED went really bad in that regard, praising editors who spent all day bashing newbies. I don't want that mentality to return. Sure, we have a battle against misinformation and promotions of nonsense, but we also have a project that simply does not have enough editors to write and maintain what we have built. -- 09:52, 12 June 2023 (UTC) Colin°^Talk 09:52, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Look, I get it that Healthline is awful for wellness stuff. But I also get that someone adds to our article what the symptoms excess sweating are or whether a drug is legal in the US or some other non-wellness fact, and currently they are having their edits removed or their source removed (making the claim unsourced) with a notice about "Healthline SPAM" which is a bad-faith accusation.
@Colin, it seems to me this is a good argument for classifying Healthline as "Option 2" or "Option 3", but not blacklisting it. Particularly "additional considerations" option 2. Since it could still be useful for uncontroversial health claims outside of the wellness sphere. And, most of all, that it's use as a MEDRS has a lot more to do with the credentials and reputation of the author rather than HealthLine. Fair? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:24, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Pretty much all articles on HL are written by freelancers with no expertise in medicine or science at all, let alone the specific subject. Each article is supposedly "medically reviewed", but the HL network of "experts" includes acupuncturists; people with degrees from Bastyr, Walden, Saba, Capella, etc; personal trainers; NPs; physician assistants; RDs; RNs; "holistic nurses"; social workers; yoga teachers; and plenty of people with real doctorates who nevertheless also promote quackery. JoelleJay (talk) 02:19, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Restricting usage of an, at best, low-quality lay-source is not gatekeeping wikipedia editing, come on. No one has to be a MEDRS expert to find alternative sources for the very basic information someone would be using HL to cite. The "spam blacklist" explicitly encompasses links that were never spammed (some sites which have been added after independent consensus), so a notice saying

Your edit was not saved because it contains a new external link to a site registered on Wikipedia's blacklist or Wikimedia's global blacklist. [...] Blacklisting indicates past problems with the link, so any requests should clearly demonstrate how inclusion would benefit Wikipedia. The following link has triggered a protection filter: healthline.com

is not a "bad-faith accusation" of anything, it's a non-judgmental request to replace the offending link with a better source. JoelleJay (talk) 00:49, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Em, the bad faith accusation was fairly clearly pointed at Zefr, who proposed this, based on their edit summaries that accuse editors of adding SPAM links. And the "gatekeeping" was about your explicit statement: "Wikipedia editors who do not know how to find and recognize high-quality readily-available biomedical sources should not be editing biomedical information in the first place". If the green text you have above is a correct reproduction of what potential editors will see, have you actually tried clicking on the link about blacklist. It links to Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. For real? They are told Healthline, one of the biggest health sites on the web, is SPAM? Not that it is "low quality" or "peddles wellness nonsense" but that the link they tried to add was SPAM. Is this really what you are proposing? And the second link is to some regexp list that only a nerdy programmer would love. That editor is going to think Wikipedia is nuts. How on earth are they going to get from receiving that message to linking to a better (but still readable) source? They aren't. They've just been told they tried to break the rules, by adding a spam link, and were blocked from doing so.

Wrt Shibollethink comment leading to JoelleJay's attacks on the authors, Well JoelleJay is talking rubbish when we step outside the wellness articles we all agree on. The muscle source was written this chap who seems far more qualified to talk about muscles than well any of us. And the Cleveland Clinic and Drugs.com and NHS and many other lay-friendly websites we aren't blacklisting don't mention their authors at all. What annoys me the most about this discussion is attack-shit about the authors or rubbish about these sources not being allowed to cite primary research and so on. This is nonsense argumentation, like saying anything just to attack something you hate. We can be better than that. There are articles on that site written by people qualified to do so and qualified to cite the research literature. We should separate the wellness rubbish from the other stuff. -- Colin°^Talk 07:50, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

"Fairly clearly addressed to Zefr"...in your response to MY comment, which you start by addressing Sandy...

And I stand by my statement that some bare minimum competence should be expected of editors editing biomedical articles. It is not difficult to find lay material on the basic concepts a non-med-savvy editor would be adding.

The text I quoted is not all the blacklist filter says. It gives way more instructions and information than that, and it doesn't "accuse" the editor of trying to break rules. And obviously I've visited the spam blacklist page, that's the origin of the green text stating that some blocked links are not spam but instead were blacklisted by consensus.

I don't see where the author is listed for the anterior tibiotalar ligament; the byline just says "medically reviewed by the Healthline Medical Network" and "by the Healthline Editorial Team". That doesn't mean it was written or reviewed by any particular person. And it's not only limited to "wellness". JoelleJay (talk) 20:07, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

What gets me is that intelligent folk here are complaining about a site that, in parts, spreads mistruths and exaggerations and such, and in order to attack it, they spread mistruths (the blueberry "meager nutrient content" nonsense) and claim, I don't know, that articles on brain function are being written by herbalists. Two wrongs don't make a right. You focus on the wellness stuff to ridicule them but have failed to land any serious blows on them wrt tuberous sclerosis or neck muscles. And all Zefr has done is demonstrate he doesn't know how to compare the nutritional value of blueberries and spinach. I'm just getting "Boris Johnson vs the EU" vibes, where really any old crap is written to attack something you hate, and it doesn't seem to matter that the crap isn't true or isn't really a proper criticism. Like the idea they can't cite the primary research literature.

I see this sort of thing over the years at MEDRS when folk want to raise the bar really high to win a particular argument they are in (usually against alternative medicine), forgetting that all the other sources they used on another article didn't meet that bar. You know, most of western medical practice is not supported by meta analyses of randomised controlled trials, ... the evidence is missing or lacking. But if you are in a fight, suddenly anything the other guy claims must be supported by meta analyses of randomised controlled trials. The same thing here. Suddenly, it seems, nobody can write an article on the brain unless they are a not only a neurologist or brain surgeon but have published many research papers on that specific issue with the brain. That's not the rule we apply to other sources we accept. For example, you attack their TS article for being reviewed by "a psychologist/nurse with zero research background/expertise in anything relevant to the topic reviewing the output of an unqualified freelance health writer". According to Healthline it was reviewed by "-- ----, PhD, PsyD board-certified as both a geriatric and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and is also a licensed psychologist." JoelleJay, perhaps you aren't aware that tuberous sclerosis is a very multi-disciplinary condition, and I'd expect someone with his qualifications to know something about it just as a neurologist or nephrologist or geneticist or so on. It is the most common single-gene cause of ASD and often comes with numerous behavioural issues. One specialist isn't going to know the whole thing. A geneticist wouldn't have made that mistake about genes but then they'd perhaps have screwed up when writing about autistic spectrum. Since when did we demand that the authors of our sources actually published research directly on the topic, as you just did. That's a bar so high it makes me boggle? Have you read any Cochrane reports? Because many that I have read are written by people who may well know how to do a meta analysis, but are not even in that field of medicine, never mind published any research on it. And yet we consider Cochrane reports as one of the best sources.

The discussion here has yet to established that outside of wellness and nutritional claims, and health-news stories, the body of material at Healthline on the human body, and human diseases, is so seriously lacking in reliability that it needs put on a spam blacklist. I would be happy to see it barred in some form for the former stuff. For the latter, no, you really need to do a lot better than that, like finding me an article that shows they don't know their arse from their elbow. -- Colin°^Talk 08:35, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

An article being certified as "medically reviewed" is a stronger claim than mere authorship, especially when the article itself is written by someone with zero credentials. We should expect expertise in the relevant domain for such a claim. And again, it's not limited to "wellness" topics. This article on the "vaccine debate" uncritically gives the views of antivax loons more space than those of what it calls "vaccine proponents", presenting it as if there are reasoned arguments on both sides.

I also have no idea what you're referring to re: HL pieces on neck muscles (or muscles in general). The only article you linked was a non-bylined one on a completely different tissue. JoelleJay (talk) 19:34, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Depracate and blacklist per this article: [8]. This article does nothing but push pseudoscientific nonsense. In my opinion, Healthline does not maintain a lot of rigor. NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 04:19, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

• We're getting into TL;DR territory here, so I just started querying various topics that could be problematic, following the indications at the top. First test: crystals. Crystals for Sleep says there's no scientific evidence, but spends most of the article interviewing a "modern alchemist" as though they're an expert. Crystals for Manifestation. [...]. Next test: Reiki. How to use Reiki Principles to Boost Well-Being doesn't address the [lack of] science. Next test: GMOs. GMO Apples, Potatoes Hitting Store Shelves appears to serve the primary purpose of casting doubt on the safety of GMO foods. This one isn't too problematic, but does spend a lot of time talking about things that it then says aren't backed up by research (e.g. The main concerns around GMOs involve allergies, cancer, and environmental issues — all of which may affect the consumer. While current research suggests few risks, more long-term research is needed sure makes it sound like there are substantiated concerns). None of this is particularly promising, even if it's not as bad as the worst offenders in this space (Natural News, etc.). The thing is, it's already a site that focuses on biomedical content which fails WP:MEDRS, so the only reason to deprecate/blacklist is if (a) there aren't other uses for it (I haven't seen any), and (b) it's frequently added (that sounds like the case). Support deprecation, no strong opinion about blacklisting. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:50, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
• Depracate for sure and likely need blacklist. Pretty plain as day based on the evidence presented here it's more than just not reliable and pushing fringe ideas quite broadly. It's not clear why so much text has been deidcated to such a WP:SNOW case either. Not really much more that needs to be said that hasn't been said already. KoA (talk) 04:54, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
• Deprecate Colins argument that "it publishes good content some of the time, therefore it should't be deprecated" misses the point of why sources are deprecated in the first place. The Daily Mail certaily publishes good content some of the time, but this is heavily outweighed by its other coverage. The same is true here. Red Ventures is a company whos business model is essentially to create voluminous content farms for SEO, rather than to produce carefully written advice by actual medical experts. The stuff brought up by other contributors is shocking, and doesn't appear to be confined to wellness. This source should really not be used for any reason. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:26, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Trans Safety Network

Website: https://transsafety.network

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13739860

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13739860/officers

The website in question is operated by a Community Interest Company (CIC), which is managed by four officers, as per the provided link.

The central concern surrounding this source is its lack of independence and neutrality, which are crucial attributes for reputable journalistic or blog media. It is essential to note that this website is a commercial venture based in the UK and is actively managed by LGBTQ activists. These circumstances potentially render it unfit to be classified as an "independent source" for contentious claims in the LGBTQ sphere, given its inability to maintain impartiality and objectivity on the topics it discusses. A pertinent example can be observed in its critique of other organizations, such as SEGM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Evidence-Based_Gender_Medicine

The article in question has been cited six times on the page: https://transsafety.network/posts/segm-uncovered/

In the aforementioned instance, an activist from the organization makes contentious remarks about members of a different organization. This doesn't align with journalistic norms or the standards of an expert-authored article. Rather, it appears as a form of activism and personal opinion from an actively involved organization, devoid of neutrality on the discussed subject matter. Consequently, the reliability of this organization as a source of contentious opinions or statements on LGBTQ topics is highly questionable, which leads me to advocate for its revaluation as an appropriate source on Wikipedia for contentious topics in the domain of the LGBTQ. ParisDakarPeräjärvi (talk) 19:13, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

As an activist group, they're definitely not a neutral source but that's different from not being an independent source. See WP:BIASED (vs WP:INDY). A source isn't independent if they have a direct conflict of interest: so for instance, SEGM isn't independent of itself, but other activist groups both for and against are independent of it. This is regardless of whether they have strong opinions on the topic. As WP:INDY says Independence does not imply even-handedness. An independent source may hold a strongly positive or negative view of a topic or an idea.

I can't tell from a glance whether they're reliable for facts but my instinct from skimming is "yes, more-or-less". I don't think we should source them without attribution, though. Loki (talk) 19:27, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

TSN is a WP:SPS with no corrections policy and IMO should be treated on par with any highly opinionated blogpost. For just one example of factual issues, in one article it is claimed that it was "misinformation" (and in the conclusions, "transphobic disinformation") to suggest a case in which a trans woman was hired was possibly unlawful, since "the job advertisement merely specified “women”". However as this post by employment and discrimination expert Naomi Cunningham makes clear (with screenshot of the ad), it went beyond that and explicitly invoked Schedule 9 of the EqA, which is the single-sex exception. I don't consider them reliable for factual matters or legal opinions. Void if removed (talk) 15:24, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Looking at its usage in the article, there are times when it may be mis-cited (such as the claim that ROGD by "the majority of the worlds' major psychological bodies" when the source only refers to it as a "broad coalition"), but for most uses it looks like it could be appropriate source under WP:BIASED. Note that I am not saying it is reliable, just that the reasons you point to, that it has a POV and that it is "commercial" (as most of our sources are) do not disqualify it. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

As others have said it's WP:BIASED but that doesn't mean it's not independent. I note in it's about us it doesn't claim to be a journalist endeavour. It's fine as long as it's attributed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:24, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Loki, Nat Gertler, ActivelyDisinterested.

This is precisely the point I've been making - given that the Trans Safety Network is an activist organization, I maintain that it shouldn't be cited for contentious subjects that are heavily disputed, or employed as a reference on Wikipedia pages of organizations whose views conflict with those of the Trans Safety Network's activists. For instance, the Trans Safety Network has been used to make several claims on SEGM's page (presently, reference #9: Moore, Mallory. "SEGM uncovered: large anonymous payments funding dodgy science"):

1. Aviva Stahl stated they were "pushing flawed science"[8] and Mallory Moore stated they have "ties to evangelical activists".[9]

Comment. However, it's not verified that the entire organization is linked to evangelical activists (we require at least two independent sources for this). I discovered that one member of the SEGM was cited by a newspaper associated with evangelists - that's all. Whether being connected to them is positive or negative is not for me to judge, but I've made my point.

2. In it, they advanced the controversial idea of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), which suggests a subtype of gender dysphoria caused by peer influence and social contagion. ROGD has been condemned as unevidenced and nonscientific by the majority of the worlds' major psychological bodies.[9][13]

Comment: Once again, for some unknown reason, we have a statement about ROGD (not SEGM itself) bolstered by another activist organization. This is unrelated, but the second source also refers to the concept of ROGD, not directly to SEGM, leaving us wondering how this information ended up on SEGM's page while it should most probably be on the ROGD Wikipedia page: 2nd source used (it seems for ROGD only): Coalition for the Advancement & Application of Psychological Science.

3. SEGM is closely affiliated with the non-profit organization Genspect: Julia Mason, Marcus Evans, Roberto D’Angelo, Sasha Ayad, Stella O'Malley, Lisa Marchiano, and Avi Ring are advisors for SEGM and are on Genspect's team or advisors; O'Malley is the founder of Genspect.[10][25][9]

Comment. While I don't dispute this, I assert that it's very usual for scientists and academics to be part of multiple organizations simultaneously. The question is, "Does it count as affiliation between two organizations" if some individuals are members of both organizations at the same time? This is something I'm curious about.

4. Trans Safety Network (TSN) reported that NHS pediatrician Julie Maxwell has been an advisor for SEGM since its inception; that Maxwell also works for the Christian anti-LGBT and anti-abortion sex education charity LoveWise UK and has offered to help push abstinence-based and anti-LGBT sex education in schools; and that since 2012, Maxwell has been a member of the Family Education Trust, a campaigning charity that promotes anti-LGBT views. TSN also reported that in 2019, SEGM Secretary William Malone co-authored a letter challenging the Endocrine Society's clinical practice guidelines on transgender healthcare with Michael K Laidlaw, Quentin Van Meter, Paul W Hruz, and Andre Van Mol, who are all members of the SPLC-designated anti-LGBT hate group the American College of Pediatricians. In addition, Van Meter is a board member of the International Federation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice (IFTCC), an organization that openly supports conversion therapy for LGBT people. TSN reported that these authors frequently cite and collaborate with each other.[9]

Comment: This claim is the most contentious as it's highly disputed and solely based on one source - the same LGBT activist organization. Does the WP:BIAS policy not apply here?

5. In August, Trans Safety Network described SEGM as "an anti-trans psychiatric and sociological think tank" and fringe group and reported that most of SEGM's funding came in donations greater than $10,000.[25][9]

Comment: The situation is the same here. If I were to use SEGM (another activist organization or "research institution" as they claim) as a source for the Trans Safety Network, would it be accepted as an unbiased source? I believe the same principle should apply here.

In general, given that SEGM's Wikipedia page carries a "neutrality disputed" tag, and there's an ongoing active dispute regarding sources, should we be employing an active LGBTQ organization for contentious statements on SEGM or other organization's pages?

ParisDakarPeräjärvi (talk) 16:09, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

We use well-resourced groups with a reliable history as sources on things they oppose all the time. The Southern Poverty Law Center is expert on the hate groups they oppose. The Centers for Disease Control opposes diseases, but are considered a reliable source on them. "Biased" does not mean "inaccurate." The idea that we should discriminate against a group for being LGBTQ is a rather sad one. Which statement in 4 do you claim to be highly disputed, and what reliable sources dispute it? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:18, 8 June 2023 (UTC) Oh, and as for "ongoing active dispute", all of the Talk page posts of the past week were focused on whether someone should be described as "the" founder or merely "a" founder... and that discussion has been closed. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

This website has been previously discussed on this board here, where many editors (correctly) noted that it's essentially a self-published source. I don't see why this should be used for contentious claims/labels or for facts about living people. Moreover, if it doesn't claim to be a journalistic endeavor, as has been noted by one editor above, then why is it any more reliable than XYZ substack blog? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:13, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Can you clarify on the SPS point? It struck me more as an advocacy group than say a group blog or SPS. It should definitely be used with attribution, so it's problematic in points 2 and 3 above as it's unattributed. Also 4 is overlong and strays towards BLP territory, which should possibly be tone down. However 1 and 5 aren't an issue, it's attributed and it's not BLP. If there's arguments about whether some of the content is due, then that's not an RS issue and should be handled on the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 23:06, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

This looks like a group blog more than anything else; I don't see any evidence of editorial policies, fact-checking policies, editorial policies, et cetera. We still need to evaluate editorial control, and looking through the website I can't find any evidence of there being any semblance of editorial oversight. Their values page doesn't mention anything related fact-checking or editorial independence, nor does their about page. Absent some sort of editorial review process, we're left with something that's essentially a self-published group blog. And it's not one that is run by University professors or other sorts of people with the sterling credentials of subject-matter experts; the director seems to have written very little outside of TSN, and Mallory Moore (another frequent contributor) seems to tout only previous publications on TruthOut in her TSN bio, but there doesn't appear to be all that much on her TruthOut author page. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:56, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

You may have a point, but even then WP:SPS would only exclude them from BLPs not article about organisations. I can see their use in other sources that are considered reliable (PinkNews, Huffington Post, Independent, etc), so reliable sources consider them reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:38, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

It would exclude them from statements about living people, whether the article is a BLP or not. As such, they could not be used here for the so-and-so-is-also-on-the-board-of-the-Meanie-Group statements. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:24, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

No matter what Moore touts, she has written elsewhere. Here she is writing on relevant material for i (newspaper), and here for Freedom (that later one cited in a The Sociological Review monograph.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:53, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Having written an opinion piece in the i doesn't make one an SME, though the post published her Medium blog that was later republished as analysis by Freedom News is a bit more interesting. (I'm a bit disappointed that both Moore and The Sociological Review didn't find easily searchable uses of the term "gender ideology" in radfem contexts that predate the March 2016 comment section Moore highlights in the analysis, and which seems to refute the exact claim for which Moore is cited in that piece from The Sociological Review, but I digress.) — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:54, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

The last time this came up, I did post an array of links that I felt established Moore as a SME. See my comment on 18:44, 28 June 2022 for those links, but she has been cited in other scholarly sources than The Sociological Review.

As for Moore and The Sociological Review missing the Trouble and Strife blog entry, there's a few plausible reasons for that. The simple one is that the site itself might have not been indexed by Google at the time. Also the term gender ideology doesn't actually show up in that article's text verbatim, though it does in one comment. Transgender ideology does appear in the article text, but Google's verbatim search isn't always perfect at that sort of expansion, though it is better now. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:59, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Where is the policy on subject matter experts? Your post from above linked to an essay on the "Super-Mario Effect". Adoring nanny (talk) 04:26, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware it's part of WP:SPS, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 09:05, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Considering WP:USEBYOTHERS, PinkNews seems to use TSN as a source quite consistently: [9], and they have an article about the organization, which mostly consists of quotes but does treat them quite favourably.

The perennial claim that queer sources are non-independent concerning the anti-queer movement is just as patently unfounded now as it was before, as Nat Gertler has outlined above. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:49, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Difficult one. It's probably going to need attribution for anything but the simplest of facts, and it is an exceptionally partisan source, so will need to be included with context from other sources most of the time. Factual data regarding medical matters and anything social that might have been studied by academics will have better sources out there. However, I can see a lot of cases where its opinion might be useful, when presented in context. Reliable for its own opinions and uncontroversial facts, WP:DUE decides whether it gets in a particular article? Boynamedsue (talk) 07:13, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Is FossForce.com a reliable source for Free and open-source software (FOSS) articles?

Is FossForce.com a reliable source for Free and open-source software (FOSS) articles?

1. Generally reliable
2. Additional considerations apply
3. Generally unreliable

With these edits at Libreboot, PhotographyEdits removed cited info, claiming FossForce.com (and others) is not a WP:RS: one, two, and 2021 article purge and proposal to merge

Prevous RSN discussions: None found.

Talk discussions : one found in 2019; thin consensus, including me, was not reliable. Newslinger called it a "group blogs with no reputations".

An author "Christine Hall" is cited on a few editor talk pages, but I don't think it is the same Christine Hall.

About a dozen articles cite FossForce.com.

Three cites that have been removed from Libreboot over time include:

• September 2016
• January 2017
• April 2017

• Option 2: Additional considerations apply: While the articles are mostly by one author/editor, I contrast FossForce.com with somewhat similar (at a glance) liliputing.com, which was deemed generally unreliable blog, self-published source in this RSN discussion and RfC. FossForce, to me, covers FOSS topics with more insight than just re-publicizing a single press release or vendor post, and discusses the info in some detail. FossForce also covers FOSS topics - not just new products up for sale - over time, as shown by the three cites above. While the FossForce website does show advertisements, it again contrasts with Liliputing by NOT being affiliate-spam directly connected to PR announcements about products being written about. Therefore, I feel this otherwise marginal source should be allowed, particularly for FOSS articles with few generally reliable sources.

The present intention is to use the 2017 cites to support statements about the History of Libreboot without the personal WP:BLP info. They have been used differently at Libreboot previously. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option #1 (invited by the bot) My actual answer is that I generally reject all such over-generalizations.....it should be about the objectivity and objectivity of the particular piece/authot/source with respect to the text which cited it. But if forced to make a generalization, that source looks to be good. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:37, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
• Summoned by the notification at WT:COMPUTING. Yae4, I again respectfully disagree with going straight from a one-on-one content dispute to an RSN RfC, without discussion on the article's talk page (WP:RFCBEFORE). At Libreboot, PhotographyEdits removed text cited to two sources, and you reverted it, agreeing they're not WP:GENREL, but arguing they should stay because they weren't discussed at RSN and are widely used at Wikipedia (FossForce is cited in 13 articles), and asking PhotographyEdits to point to a consensus discussion before removing.

But Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. No one needs a consensus discussion, or an RSN RfC, to remove citations that they deem unreliable from an article. If you disagree with a removal, that should first be discussed on the article's talk page; if that doesn't solve it, you can start a non-RfC discussion here to ask for input on whether the source is good enough for the claim. RSN RfCs are for repeated disputes across several talk pages, or sources in widespread use, not to resolve mundant content disputes. BTW, I searched, and FossForce is only used in five articles (ItsFoss, the second source, is used in 2 articles).

When a specific statement is challenged, the WP:ONUS is on you to gain consensus on the article's talk page to keep it. Skipping directly to an RfC here implies inclusion is all-or-nothing, where an outcome other than "generally unreliable" would mean the claim stays in the article. This is undesirable from a process standpoint. Best, DFlhb (talk) 23:58, 13 June 2023 (UTC) updated 02:32, 14 June 2023

@DFlhb:

> (FossForce is cited in 13 articles)

> I searched, and FossForce is only used in five articles

I agree with 13, based on my Wiki-search linked above. I disagree with 5, but what's a factor of 2 to 3 difference?

I considered discussing this and doing an RfC at Talk:Libreboot. IMO, having it here makes it more likely to get uninvolved opinions, from editors with broader perspective, makes it easier to find later, and may carry more weight later. I think the small proportion of FOSS-related articles to all Wikipedia articles needs to be considered, relative to "widely used". There are also related issues at Libreboot, particularly how to handle the "fork", what sources are primary or secondary, etc., and I'm hoping some editors with broader perspective may notice and have suggestions. Thanks for your comments. -- Yae4 (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

13 indeed; I fixed the first mention (see my edit summary), forgot to fix the second mention. DFlhb (talk) 02:32, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

At VeraCrypt, A cite to Fossforce is used to support the claim "VeraCrypt is considered to be free and open source by [...] DuckDuckGo's Open Source Technology Improvement Fund".[10]

OSTIF does consider Veracrypt to be open source[11] and DuckDuckGo did make a $25,000 contribution to the OSTIF with the funds earmarked for the VeraCrypt project,[12] but it appears that the "DuckDuckGo's" claim is an error that is not in the FossForce source. Could someone please change the claim to "VeraCrypt is considered to be free and open source by [...] The Open Source Technology Improvement Fund" and change the cite from Fossforce to OSTIF? OSTIF Cite:[13] I don't edit articles for reasons I won't get into here. Guy Macon (talk) 23:00, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Guy_Macon, I'd consider making the change for you if someone hasn't already, if you give a more direct opinion on the question at hand. Thanks. PS. Now and then I look at your User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer, and find it useful. Sadly, User:Guy_Macon/Yes._We_are_biased. looks good on the surface, but is it really accurate? (rhetorical). Cheers. -- Yae4 (talk) 22:21, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Option 1. In my opinion, Fossforce is a reliable source on the topis of free and open source software, an area where there are few good sources. I am also concerned about the possibility that this RfC was not posted because of a genuine question about Fossforce's reliability, but rather to win a content dispute that should have been worked out on the article talk page. I would encourage those who are involved in the dispute to ignore the result of this RfC and work it out through consensus and if necessary through a focused RfC on the talk page comparing the preferred content of both sides.

Regarding WP:YWAB, the purpose is not "accuracy". Any "we are biased against" / "we are biased towards" list is by nature subjecticve opinion. The purpose of the page is explained at User talk:Guy Macon/Yes. We are biased.#The purpose of this essay, and it is quite effective for that purpose. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:05, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

More Perfect

Hi, I'm commenting to see what others think about the reliability of More Perfect Union (particularly within labor). I'm looking for input from others who are well versed in labor issues. LoomCreek (talk) 00:10, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

It looks no more nor less reliable than any other newsmedia source. I don't think Wikipedia should use newsmedia sources at all but so long as Wikipedia uses NYT I see no reason why this one should be excluded. At least it's honest about its biases. That's more than most of these news outlets do. Simonm223 (talk) 12:29, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

(Summoned by bot) @LoomCreek: You'll probably have more luck asking "is More Perfect Union reliable for [some kind of claim] in [one or a category of articles]". It's hard to offer a judgment on the whole without specific examples. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:58, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

More Perfect Union appears to be a joint venture between a 501(c)(4) political organization, and a 501(c)(3) that it controls. It is led by a political operative and a former NowThis/HuffPo person, which isn't exactly the sort of sterling editorial credentials that one would expect for a reliable news group. I'm unsure of whether it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, but it seems more like an advocacy org than a newsorg based off what I can find. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

How to search for a URL or phrase in refs

Sorry, this is a stupid thing to make a thread for (feel free to just remove it after answering). I seem to remember there being some way to search (like insource: or intitle:) that would return if something was specifically in a reference in an article, i.e. you would be able to search and see what articles had billys-discount-buttscratchers.com or whatever in ref tags. Is this true, or am I misremembering? jp×g 05:06, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

billys-discount-buttscratchers.com   Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:14, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Help:Searching seems to have your answer. Heart ^(talk) 05:14, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Also insource:/billys-discount-buttscratchers\.com/ would also yield many useful results. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:03, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you all. I seem to have been mistaken (I thought there was a specific ref-tag search separate from insource:), but this works fine for what I want to do anyway. jp×g 18:42, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Airline fleets- Planespotters.net

The reliability of this source has been called into question on almost every airline article at some point since at least 2018, yet it is continually used. Almost every article on an airline lists Planespotters.net as a source regardless. Recently, some editors have questioned it on Qatar Airways, Air Zaire, British Airways fleet, BA EuroFlyer, Air Canada fleet, Emirates fleet, Etihad Airways fleet, among several others. These editors claim that it is unreliable, yet continue to link to previous discussions that have no consensus on the issue. Pinging @Jetstreamer: as relevant editor. SurferSquall (talk) 02:53, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

It was discussed here in February and nearly every experienced editor said it's not reliable. Woodroar (talk) 03:47, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Again, that discussion doesn’t seem well-completed. Someone suggested it could be WP:EXPERTSPS but this was ignored completely by everyone else SurferSquall (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

That would appear to be a misrepresentation. See for example "I concur. I think it might be possible to demonstrate planespotter is WP:EXPERTSPS, but it hasn't been demonstrated yet." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:24, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, it would appear that it might be, so what gives SurferSquall (talk) 15:33, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Presumably you missed that part of the discussion, hence the misrepresentation of consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:56, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

What gives is that no-one has shown that it is an EXPERTSPS. I found some uses of it in that discussion, but not enough for me to think is passes, and no-one else found anything better. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:01, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Did anybody try to find anything better, though? SurferSquall (talk) 03:38, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Since you seem to believe that it is an EXPERTSPS, why don't you provide some evidence in this discussion, rather than worrying about how thoroughly people did or did not look in the previous one? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 06:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Are we even sure it’s an SPS? Is it physically possible for one guy to update all of that every day? SurferSquall (talk) 04:44, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

The About page lists only one person. If it's not an SPS, that's up to you to prove. Woodroar (talk) 12:35, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I’m going to email that guy, maybe he himself will provide some form of an answer SurferSquall (talk) 21:44, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I cannot know the minds of other editors, I assume they made their own assessments of the source and weren't convinced by what they found. If you want it to be treated as an expert source you will need to convince others of that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

My reading of that discussion is that a number of folks thought it was unreliable, and no one really provided evidence to the contrary. There are ways to assert WP:SPS and no one did so. Mackensen (talk) 03:59, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

news.com.au

Is news.com.au reliable? It is owned by the same large corporation which publishes the Herald Sun and has some good articles, but I've noticed that it also publishes a lot of clickbait articles and stuff which might not be considered due weight. — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 10:35, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

It's an umbrella site for the Australian Murdoch tabloids. Treat with caution as a tabloid site, I wouldn't cite claims about living people or science to it - David Gerard (talk) 21:02, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of a 1901 and 1931 census

See chat here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dagamerzat#Draft:Arthur_H._Shore

Can we use census data for biographical information? CT55555(talk) 12:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I would argue not, as we do not know if it is this Arthur H Shore or another. Slatersteven (talk) 12:31, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I had not considered that. The likelihood that there are two Arthur Herbert Shores in the same place and time seems so low as to be close to statistically impossible. Having searched extensively about him, I've never found anyone in the world, at any time, with the same unusual name. CT55555(talk) 12:35, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Is this the same bloke [[14]]? Slatersteven (talk) 12:45, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

No it is not. Arthur Herbert Shore never went to the USA. only a few places he lived all in Ontario. Stirling (Near Campbellford), Belleville in the early 40's and in Bancroft for a while. Dagamerzat (talk) 13:03, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Source? Slatersteven (talk) 13:10, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:USEPRIMARY says Many other primary sources, including birth certificates, the Social Security Death Index, and court documents, are usually not acceptable primary sources, because it is impossible for the viewer to know whether the person listed on the document is the notable subject rather than another person who happens to have the same name. Censuses are also not perfectly accurate records, as much as we would like them to be. If no reliable secondary source has reported a fact which is only derivable from census data, it's worth considering if it's important enough that we need to include it in Wikipedia's article at all Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:10, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't find the name-confusion argument very convincing in this particular context, but I think there are plenty of other reasons to be wary of using census records for biographical information. IMO it's more of a original research problem than a reliability one. But it's also a scope issue: if the only source for a biographical fact is a census return, that fact is likely to be unsuitable for inclusion. To the extent those concerns don't apply, I'd say census returns might be adequately reliable for limited WP:ABOUTSELF purposes. But in my off-wiki (and US-based) experience, census records are often surprisingly unreliable and might e.g. have the ages or relationships among family members wildly misstated as a result of the census taker getting the information from a neighbor. There's a reason for the traditional genealogical practice of requiring three sources for every biographical fact -- a practice that is criticized these days for not being rigorous enough. It's one thing to occasionally rely on a primary source of the same kind that experts in the field would ordinarily rely on, but it's considerably more problematic to rely on a source that experts would not rely on. So I guess on balance I'm pretty skeptical of this. It seems like the valid use cases for census records, if any, would be even more limited than those for birth and death records. -- Visviva (talk) 16:00, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Not for biographical details. That would just have been what an enumerator recorded on the day and there is plenty of possibility of error - never mind that we aren't even certain it's the same Arthur H. Shore. Censuses are valid for the number of people living in a community and other broad demographic data but not individuals' details. But I'm more concerned about the scanned newspaper clipping at Arthur H. Shore. Any obituary published in 1958 would still be in copyright per Copyright law of Canada as it is neither 70 years after the death of its writer, nor 75 years after anonymous publication. Daveosaurus (talk) 18:43, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree that census records are primary sources and should not be used. I also agree with Daveosaurus about the copyvio. But not just the newspaper clipping but all the other photos too. I will be deleting them from the article, and if the uploader doesn't do it themselves, will request deletion from Commons. Slp1 (talk) 16:27, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I also encouraged the uploader to tag the photos correctly. They are new, seem to be young (source: User:Dagamerzat), and still learning Wikipedia. I'd encourage others to provide supportive advice here:

User_talk:Dagamerzat#Draft:Arthur_H._Shore CT55555(talk) 17:19, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Use of words of high-ranking clergy on personal website

A question regarding the use of experts, in this case a high-ranking Bishop of the Catholic Church, to reference their own words in an unpublished article they wrote that appeared on their personal website. For example, can I say, "According to Bishop Roman Danylak, ..." and reference the article on his website?

I know that generally personal websites are not RS, however this is the personal website of a high-ranking member of the clergy explicitly specifying it is the personal website of Bishop Roman Danylak and the content is written by him. This archived article for example: [15] Arkenstrone (talk) 18:35, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

SPS by an acknowledged expert (on the subject) are acceptable, as long as they are attributed. Slatersteven (talk) 18:37, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that Roman Danylak is an acknowledged expert on any relevant subject in the way Wikipedia understands it, though. Being a bishop is not evidence of expertise. The fact that Danylak believed that Maria Valtorta's poetry was dictated to her by Jesus rather disqualifies him from being considered a reliable source, I would suggest! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:02, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, he was Bishop of Toronto, and appointed titular bishop of Nyssa by Pope John Paul II, and also canon of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, a very high-ranking position in the Church, which few attain. Not to mention receiving a doctorate of canon and civil law. Looks to be someone of high qualifications and expertise. Surely he would be considered an expert on Church doctrine and matters of canon law?

Another way to look at it is, the fact that he was an expert on Church doctrine and matters of canon law, and became a supporter of Maria Valtorta's works, suggests that there is nothing contrary to Church doctrine, faith and morals in those works. In other words, instead of de-legitimizing him, it legitimizes the works in question. Arkenstrone (talk) 20:00, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia has guidelines on what makes someone an expert: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. If he has a PhD in canon law and has published articles on canon law in reliable sources, he may be an expert SPS when it comes to canon law. I can't find any evidence that he does have such a record of publication, but he at least has relevant training so it's conceivable.

If he has a record of reliable-source publications on Maria Valtorta's poetry, then maybe he's a reliable source re. Maria Valtorta. I can find absolutely no evidence that this is the case. Nor can I find any reason to think that he has such a record that I have missed. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:12, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Are you trying to prove that "there is nothing contrary to Church doctrine, faith and morals in those works."? See WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:28, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

No, I'm not actually trying to prove anything, those are his own words. Just making the point that, given his qualifications, it is highly unlikely that he is not an expert in matters pertaining to canon law (doctoral thesis) and Church doctrine (Bishop of Toronto/Nyssa). Therefore, he is well-suited to weigh in on matters including works that may or may not be in accordance with Church doctrine, faith and morals. Arkenstrone (talk) 05:40, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

There is a catch-22 in situations like this. If the whatever is only found in WP:SPS, it's often easy to argue it fails WP:DUE/WP:PROPORTION. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest to avoid the old website of a no longer living bishop on a subject that is highly controversial. It will add nothing to Wikipedia, except contention, edit wars and negative feelings. It is better to get solid WP:RS sources than to go grave digging on old websites on controversial matters. It is best to avoid these types of outdated, questionable websites on controversial issues. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:27, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Key question: why is there a quest to dig up and add the old Danylak items to Wikipedia? They are exaggerated statements anyway, compared to the mainstream. This reminds me of an episode of David Letterman 15-20 years ago when some political party could not find a presidential candidate. The top 10 Letterman list ended with "We will just dig up Grover Cleveland and run him again". There is no point in digging up old Danylak items of questionable quality and adding them to Wikipedia. There have been multiple attempts at doing so, and they need to stop. We should use WP:RS sources, not old personal websites. Let the Danylak nightmare end here, please. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 13:24, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Presumably for the same reason that the rest of the article The Poem of the Man-God looks as it does. I can only assume that it's due to the influence of editors who are more concerned with presenting Valtorta's poetry as truly divinely inspired than ensuring the use of high-quality reliable sources for contentious claims. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Caeciliusinhorto, you can not guess the exaggerations that are to come next month, if that extreme fascination with Danylak does not end. That article is a very controversial topic and using "inuendo" to suggest that the Catholic Church approves it as orthodox and all scientists agree that it is supernatural is of course daydreaming. I have started a new section on this noticeboard on "yet another path" being used to get Danylak into that article via a book by J.F. Lavere. I would not use the word "fetish" about this fascination with getting Danylak into Wikipedia, but the interest is extreme, for sure. Danylak's old website quotes can not be declared reliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:06, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

MyNorthwest.com

I wish to use it for some information about rural Washington. Is it a reliable source? QuicoleJR (talk) 20:16, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Hey QuicoleJR,

I've only seen the site used as a source a handful of times in my rabbit-hole travels here. While it is a repository of Seattle radio news, the site does have a good deal of talk radio/opinion "articles", too. So beware of that. Also, I've noticed that the articles aren't that deep, on average, so using it as a backup or supplemental choice could be a good route, but that's just my two cents, not adjusted for inflation.

Good luck!

Shortiefourten (talk) 17:16, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Generally fine for non-political articles, especially those written by KIRO Radio staff, but avoid those written by KTTH staff. They usually cover news items that have already been reported by more reliable regional sources anyway. SounderBruce 19:14, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

It seems like an established local/statewide WP:NEWSORG. The opinion pieces seem to be well-labeled (see one from KIRO and one from KTTH), and the news reporting's quality is generally consistent with that of the typical local/regional newsradios and television news broadcasts. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:45, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with most of the other assessments; most articles under KIRO Radio are fine, but you will need to heed caution on opinion articles, especially from talk shows hosted on it and KTTH. For what it's worth, I consider articles written by Feliks Banel reliable for history-related topics or retrospectives since he is significantly involved with MOHAI and the Washington State Historical Society. CascadeUrbanite (talk) 02:48, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

AllMusic

I was attempting to cite AllMusic as a source for a Japanese rerelease when a notice popped up declaring that it was a deprecated source. I don't believe it's unreliable, I just wanted to get consensus. Sincerely, Key of G Minor. ^Tools: (talk, contribs) 17:57, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

AllMusic is not deprecated, but WP:ALLMUSIC says There is consensus that RhythmOne websites are usable for entertainment reviews with in-text attribution. Some editors question the accuracy of these websites for biographical details and recommend more reliable sources when available. Editors also advise against using AllMusic's genre classifications from the website's sidebar. Probably for the simple existence of a Japanese re-release it would be fine. I'm not sure what the deprecated source notice you encountered was... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Your problem is not Allmusic but the last.fm link, which is deprecated. Black Kite (talk) 18:37, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Then what about the last.fm link? Can I use that? Sincerely, Key of G Minor. ^Tools: (talk, contribs) 19:18, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

According to WP:LASTFM, last.fm is deprecated on Wikipedia; the discussion to add it to the deprecated sources edit filter was this one from 2019. What do you want to use last.fm for? It is apparently a user-generated source, and therefore absolutely not reliable. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:24, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

To confirm the existence of a Japanese rerelease Sincerely, Key of G Minor. ^Tools: (talk, contribs) 19:55, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

No, you can't use it (silly as it may sound, as it clearly exists). If you can't find another English source, it may be worth trying to find a Japanese speaker who can find a Japanese source. Category:Japanese_Wikipedians or WikiProject Japan may help. Black Kite (talk) 20:24, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

filmcompanion.in

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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• filmcompanion.in: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

This site had been blacklisted for a significant time. Editors at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard#Set 1252 to disallow have mentioned that unequivocal consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Film Companion has allowed them to remove the site from our blacklist and are now requesting that an edit filter be made to support the site's inclusion. I could not see consensus clearly at the discussions they referenced, therefore, I am placing this to the community:

Is www.filmcompanion.in to be considered a reliable source from hereon?

Thank you, Lourdes 07:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (filmcompanion.in)

• No, as per my assessment. It's a movie news/review site run by the wife of a famous Indian film producer, seems to have a few journalists, and seems to also have op-ed contributors apart from reviews by this lady who runs the site. Lourdes 07:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: The site in question (FC, here onwards) was blacklisted for spamming; not for concerns of reliability.
  FC has been a Rotten Tomato-approved publication since years. Anupama Chopra, who helms the site, has impeccable credentials having written multiple highly-cited works on aspects of Bollywod (consult GScholar) and even winning the National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema (2000). The Film Critics Guild of India, as of today, consists fourty-seven film critics including resident-critics from MSM like The Hindu, The Wire (India), Scroll.in, Deccan Chronicle, and The Indian Express; notably, Chopra is the incumbent Chairwoman and beside her, there are four reviewers who are exclusively associated with FC!
  Additionally, Lourdes might not be able to see the clear consensus but six editors were in support — Krimuk2.0, Shshshsh, Kailash29792, DaxServer, Ravensfire, and me — and none against. Of them, the first three, who were most vocal, has (cumulatively) accumulated 20 FAs, 28 FLs, and 20 GAs, almost exclusively on topics concerning Indian films. I hope that my implications are clear. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:37, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Filmcompanion.in was added to the spam blacklist because spammers were adding links to it indiscriminately. Recent discussion at WP:ICTF, among experienced editors working in the relevant topic area (Indian cinema), suggests that there may be legitimate uses of the website as a source. Therefore, it has been proposed that we replace the spam blacklist entry, which disallows all links to the website, with an edit-filter that disallows (say) only non-ECP editors from adding links to the website. This would hopefully prevent the spamming, while enabling citing of articles on the website on a case-by-case basis. So IMO, we don't really need to decide whether filmcompanion.in is generally considered reliable but only whether there are any legitimate uses of the website as a source. Abecedare (talk) 21:44, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: Per TrangaBellam. And Anupama Chopra is more than just "the wife of a famous Indian film producer". Another of its long-time writers, Baradwaj Rangan, is a National Film Award winning critic. Kailash29792 (talk) 02:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
• Yes: "wife of a famous Indian film producer" is such a vile and sexist trope, that I'm shocked people even say such things in 2023. As stated above, Chopra has incredible credentials and is a foremost film journalist in India, and her website Film Companion is miles above the cookie-cutter PR circus of mainstream media. As for the spamming, why should the majority of readers suffer due to the deeds of some misguided spammer? Krimuk2.0 (talk) 06:04, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Notes

• Query: Does Anupama Chopra's position as the wife of a film producer, as the Chairperson of the Mumbai Film Festival, and as the Editor/contributor to her own media youtube / entertainment channel filmcompanion put the channel's output in a conflict of interest? If Anupama were to write in New York Times, I would expect a good amount of peer review. But if she is curating her own media output through an entertainment journalism platform, then would the independent peer review process still be the same? I would look forward to comments from the editors who utilise the channel for referencing (or wish to utilise). Journalists such as Baradwaj Rangan, while no longer associated with the channel, have written for her though. Good to get your thoughts. Thanks, Lourdes 06:25, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

She has said that she does not review her husband's films due to conflict of interest. Also, she is not the chairperson of the Mumbai Film Festival, it is Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Before that, it was Deepika Padukone. Krimuk2.0 (talk) 06:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Noted. She is the Festival Director of the Mumbai Film Festival as per their own website. Semantics. Also, her acceptance that their exists a conflict of interest is good. While she is only narrowly adjudging it to her husband's movies, her reviews of her husband's competitors/or rather industry players, could raise the same questions. How does she ensure partiality? Lourdes 06:40, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• Selective messaging comment: I also note that after this RSN section was started, Trangabellam has gone and selectively messaged the supporters from the past discussion, some of who have come here and expressed their support post his messaging.[16][17][18][19][20] More will follow. I am disappointed at their canvassing attempts and realise that in such a case that support is being sought for exclusively and so aggressively, this exercise may become moot, as they seem to be wanting to muster support any which way. Lourdes 06:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  I do not see this as canvassing. I only asked Trangabellam whether they were still pushing to whitelist FC, and they told me about this discussion soon after, apparently as response. Kailash29792 (talk) 07:11, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  That's definitely canvassing. Leaving a {{subst:Please see|Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#filmcompanion.in}} at a talk page or WikiProject talk page would be the proper way to do this without violating WP:CANVASS. The user talk messages literally say please do !vote. Quite a bad look. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:17, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  I messaged every single individual who commented at the film-project discussion. Including Ravensfire who would (later) not be very supportive of de-blacklisting. Please open an ANI thread if you feel that I breached CANVASSING in letter or spirit. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you Kailash, TrangaBellam. Your responses are not supported by the timeline. Kailash, you asked Trangabellam on 16 June on their talk page, to which they responded many days after, after my RSN post. Crucially, they notified you separately on your talk page to !vote right after I started this RSN section.[21] So your justification comes off illogical. TrangaBellam, you also selectively notified all supporters to !vote, including Ravensfire, who clearly is also a support for you, per the diff from the very discussion you are alluding to.[22] Your past linked discussion strangely with only supporters and no naysayers also seemed very off -- one reason I said earlier that consensus is not evident. VOTESTACKING is not preferable. This is deeply disappointing. Thanks, Lourdes 07:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  So, you accept that the linked discussion had "only supporters and no naysayers" yet go on to charge me for violation of CANVAS? When you say the discussion seem to be "very off" what do you imply? TrangaBellam (talk) 07:55, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

onnik-krikorian.com

On the WP:BLP Garnik Asatrian, a source from website Groong was removed due to WP:RS, whilst debatable, the reliability comes from the website being unreliable versus the source itself, which is found here at the interviewers own site. Due to the rv of source due to Groong being unreliable, especially that O.Krikorian has no said bias, can the rv be reversed? Many thanks. Volkish Kurden (talk) 01:21, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Pinkvilla is unreliable for box office figures

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Pinkvilla is unreliable for box office figures regarding whether Pinkvilla is reliable or not for box office figures (Indian cinema). Some box office figures from Pinkvilla have been removed from the associated articles ot the Pinkvilla website. The primary concern and the argument is that removal of box office figures from articles on the Pinkvilla websites means that citations of those articles can no longer be trusted and therefore Pinkvilla cannot be trusted for any reports of box office figures.  — Archer1234 (t·c) 12:45, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Filmcompanion.in (2)

Filmcompanion.in was added to the spam blacklist in Nov 2021 because IP spammers were adding links to it indiscriminately. Discussions at WP:ICTF (Apr 2023, Oct 2021, Nov 2020, Aug 2019) and elsewhere (Nov 2022), among experienced editors working in the relevant topic area (Indian cinema), suggest that the spamming campaign aside, the site may be a good-quality resource. Therefore, it has been proposed that the spam blacklist entry, which disallows all links to the website, be replaced by an edit-filter that disallows (say) only non-extended confirmed editors from adding links to it. This would hopefully prevent the spamming, while enabling citing of articles on the website on a case-by-case basis.

The question for this board, arising from discussion at EFN, is whether there are indeed any legitimate uses of Filmcompanion articles as a source that would justify such an approach? Abecedare (talk) 18:38, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Super quick reply. As noted, there was a spam campaign for FC in 2021. The links included parameters like "utm_source=Wikipedia&utm_medium=ReviewSeeding". This wasn't just IP's adding links. This was an organized and orchestrated spam campaign from FC (or from a company hired by FC). This was a pure attempt to use Wikipedia to promote the site. That's a negative and a big one. FilmCompanion was started by Anupama Chopra. Just going by her article here, she's a respected film critic, having reviewed films for several newspapers in the past, has several books on Indian films and had a weekly television show reviewing films. The website doesn't have any information about editorial staff, but Chopra's page on FC(www.filmcompanion. in/author/anupama-chopra) lists her as editor. So positives there. There is at least one section of FC that should never have anything on Wikipedia - Readers Write. Pretty self-explanatory there. I think there absolutely is some good content on the site, especially film reviews. You do see their reviews mentioned by other sources, also a plus. This may be a site where some parts of the site should be permitted, but not everything? Ravensfire (talk) 17:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

What appears to be the case here is that there is a reliable source that also has a spam problem. The proposed solution (removing it from the spam blacklist and implementing an abuse filter to restrict this source to autoconfirmed editors only) seems to be a more narrowly tailored way to deal with this problem than an outright blacklist. If this does not work, then we can always return to the spam blacklist (or implement a 30/500 restriction through abuse filter), but I don't think we'll come to that point. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:20, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

The abuse filter option may be ideal. Preventing IPs and unconfirmed users from adding FC, but letting long-time and honest editors add it. Kailash29792 (talk) 15:58, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

National Bridge Inventory

I've seen people cite the National Bridge Inventory for the year of construction of bridges, including on some current featured articles, but I have determined from personal research that this source often gets the years of construction wrong. For example, NBI claims this bridge was built in 1977, but multiple first-hand sources (1, 2, 3) confirm it opened to traffic in 1974. Another example, NBI claims nearly all of the bridges on I-24 between Nashville, TN, and the Kentucky state line were built between 1970 and 1973, but aerial imagery shows them under construction in 1974. These are just a few examples I have observed. Bneu2013 (talk) 18:47, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

chemicalbook.com

Very many articles related to Chemistry have references from chemicalbook.com. The site is a commercial marketplace for chemicals and reagents but show no evidence of any editorial oversight. The purpose for any editor using this site is to allow chemicalbook.com to sell its produts. The site contains easily found copy-vios as for example at Photographic film, this reference is a direct copy vio from this 1977 paper by Meredith and from a 1968 book by Meredith here. Any source that itself contains copyright violations cannot, in my view, be an acceptable source for Wikipedia.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   16:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a bad source that should not be used on WP. JoelleJay (talk) 23:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Is Physics Essays a reliable source.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Wiki says that Physics Essays is a reliable source. Physics Essays - Wikipedia

ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

No. They publish utter nonsense. In just the most recent issue they published an article that claims to refute Einstein's relativity. As explained elsewhere, you have misinterpreted. That we have an article about the journal does not mean it is a reliable source. We have an article about Fox News, too. MrOllie (talk) 00:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Will you read the Dr. Hansson's paper and discuss any errors in the physics you find? It's only 3 pages long. Here's the article:FULLTEXT01.pdf (diva-portal.org) ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:44, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

If you persist in spamming this comment like a BASIC program with an extra GOTO 10 line [23][24][25][26], you will probably be blocked from Wikipedia for disruptive editing. XOR'easter (talk) 00:48, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

A casual skim of their home page finds not just one, but at least eight articles claiming to refute relativity in one way or another. XOR'easter (talk) 00:59, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Dr. Hansson's article uses Special Relativity. He certainly makes no attempt to refute it. ScooterMcGruff (talk) 01:05, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

The point is that a "journal" which merrily publishes one supposed refutation of relativity after another is thoroughly untrustworthy. The fact that it has no standards is empirically proven. And that's before we get to the guy claiming that biological beings consist of a physical body in the physical universe plus entangled bodies in the three nonphysical universes [27]. Or the paper claiming that bodiless consciousness perceives the physical world as nonlocal 4D as revealed by a special kind of perception that takes place in near-death-experiences [28]. Or the paper asserting that the conservation of energy and the hydrogen spectrum can be derived from an equation that says "The universe equals the sum of all things" [29]. XOR'easter (talk) 01:22, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

No. It's garbage. XOR'easter (talk) 00:43, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

No, Physics Essays is a crank journal for relativity deniers and similar. It used to have better standards in the past, but it's utterly unreliable these days. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:48, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

The OP has been blocked as a sockpuppet of an LTA. Canterbury Tail talk 13:29, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

O'Keefe Media Group and Project Veritas

Now that James O'Keefe has split from Project Veritas and is continuing his stings under O'Keefe Media Group, should the entry on the RS list be updated to include O'Keefe Media Group [30] underneath Veritas's entry? I reverted an IP edit that attempted to cite his website as a source for a BlackRock sting [31] but was wondering if this needs to be mentioned as it would seem unlikely that O'Keefe has changed his journalistic practices since leaving Veritas. Mfko (talk) 03:58, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Clearly unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:33, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Unreliable. A new entry at RS is probably appropriate. Woodroar (talk) 12:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

RfC on reliability of pinkvilla

Editors may be interested in this RfC on reliability of pinkvilla  — Archer1234 (t·c) 13:19, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Academic book reviews

At Talk:Alessandro_Orsini_(sociologist), User:TrangaBellam expresses the view that the authors of the following book reviews may not be sufficiently knowledgeable to have their reviews cited and quoted in the Wikipedia article about Alessandro Orsini (sociologist). Views on each?

Jeffrey Herf

• Jeffrey Herf, "Reviewed Work: Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists by Alessandro Orsini, Sarah J. Nodes", Journal of Cold War Studies, MIT Press.

Lawrence D. Freedman

• Lawrence D. Freedman: "Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-set of Modern Terrorists; Mastermind: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed", Foreign Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations.

Paul J. Smith

• Paul J. Smith: "Reviewed Work: Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists by Alessandro Orsini", Perspectives on Politics, Cambridge University Press.

Others

I would also be interested in editors' views on the following reviews that similar objections might be raised against:

• John R. Hall: "Reviewed Work: Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists by Alessandro Orsini", Contemporary Sociology, American Sociological Association.
• Tobias Hof: "Alessandro Orsini, Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 317 pp.", Cold War History, Routledge.

I would also be grateful if interested editors could review the paraphrases presented in this section and compare them to the underlying quotes. Thanks, Andreas JN466 16:27, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

• Comment - We have ten reviews by specialist scholars, who have some kind of expertise in the topics covered by the book. So, we need not scrape the barrel by adding capsule-reviews from Foreign Policy. Additionally, neither Lawrence D. Freedman nor Paul J. Smith has any subject expertise to make their reviews worth DUE. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:41, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  Nobody has questioned Tobias Hof's or Jeffrey Herf's creds or suggested that their reviews be kept out; so, I don't know why their reviews have been selected by Andreas. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:42, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  I thought from this edit yesterday that you intended to question Herf's credentials as well.

  As for Hof, you're right; he's cited in the article. Though I don't agree with the summary I found in the article. It seemed to take considerable liberties with what Hof actually wrote (Wikipedia library link for reference). Andreas JN466 18:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  Last I checked, RSN is not the place to dispute or even discuss whether content has been fairly summarized or passes WP:INTEGRITY. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:23, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  • Lawrence Freedman: "Terrorism as a Strategy", Government and Opposition, Cambridge University Press.
  • Paul J. Smith contributed a chapter on the precise same topic Orsini's book is about to Armed groups : studies in national security, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency, published by the U.S. government (U.S. Naval War College). (H/T to WO member eppur si muove.)

  Andreas JN466 18:49, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  You appear to believe that anybody who works on terrorism — from al-Qaeda to revolutionary terrorists of colonial Bengal to the Italian far-left — is adept to review each other's works? Wow. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:53, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  If a peer-reviewed journal like Perspectives on Politics, or a journal like Foreign Affairs, decides to publish their review, then why should Wikipedia ask TrangaBellam's opinion about the author's qualifications before including a summary of the review?

  What makes TrangaBellam more qualified than these publications' editorial boards and reviewers, who decided to publish the reviews for their readership?

  The journals, their publishers, and their authors are known quantities, with international reputations. TrangaBellam is not. Andreas JN466 21:25, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

  For precedence, see the protracted discussions at this t/p thread. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:30, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Another useful source might be 'Comments on Marc Sageman's Polemic "The Stagnation in Terrorism Research"' by Alex P. Schmid. Not a review as such, but he mentions that "More researchers, and more good researchers, have joined the field in the last decade and the results begin to show in excellent works like Alessandro Orsini's Anatomy of the Red Brigades (2011). Andreas JN466 19:17, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

This is not the article t/p, where you suggest sources for generic improvement. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

choicely.com

• Miss Universe Iceland 2020 [32]
• Elísabet Hulda Snorradóttir [33]
• Miss Supranational 2023 [34]

choicely.com looks like some kind of crowdsourced vote-tally system, I'm not sure exactly what it's doing. Homepage says "Powerful apps, built without coding" suggesting it's a Weebly-style self-publishing host.

The site is used at the articles noted above, all are beauty pageant-related. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:44, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

RfC at List of fastest production cars by acceleration

Please join the RfC at List of fastest production cars by acceleration about if there's enough evidence to consider it sourced that 25 Rimac Nevera have been sold. Drachentötbär (talk) 23:30, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

The reliability of the book Enigma Valtorta

I would like to start a discussion on the reliability of the book "L'énigme Valtorta : Une vie de Jésus romancée?" by J. F. Lavere, published in 2012 [35]. This is due to the use of several quotes from this book on Poem of the Man God article. I have tagged these quotes as "unreliable". The book'a level of support for the extraordinary features of Valtorta's writings is extreme and exaggerated.

Here, I would like to state that this book is not WP:RS on scientific or theological matters, given the author's lack of track record on the subject.

There are a few issues:

1. The back cover of the book states that J. F. Lavere is a retired engineer in France. I have read elsewhere that he was a chemical engineer, but let us just assume that he was just some type of engineer. Did he publish any books on engineering? Not that Amazon knows about. [36] In fact this was his frst book ever for all we know. He wrote other things later, but here he was fresh from the engineering field and his lack of experience is obvious.

2. Would J. F. Lavere be even a WP:RS source on some type of engineering? Obviously not, gven that he has no track record we know of. So he is certainly not an authority on theology. But he is being used as such. That must stop.

3. His book is quite open about the fact that many items he quotes come from web sites and blogs. For instance, he mentions quotes from Roman Danylak and bases them directly on Danylak's personal website. That issue is currently being debated on this noticeboard. And there seems to be no support for the reliability of that.

4. The book includes unsourced and clearly contradictory statements are being quoted in Wikipedia, e.g.

"In January 1962, Fr. Berti was given an authorization to publish by the Vice Commissioner of the Holy See, Father Marco Giraudo: “You have our[who?] total approbation to continue the publication of this second edition of The Gospel as revealed to me by Maria Valtorta," concluding with, "We shall see how it is received."

It is absolutely impossible for Giraudo to have written that, given that in the book Lettera a Claudia, the publisher Emilio Pisani states that the title "The Gospel as revealed to me" was invented in the 1970's with the publication of the French translation. TThe title did not exist in 1962, and Lavere gives no indication of where ho obtained that quote. But the quote is floating on all kinds of blogs. There are other obvious errors exaggerations in that book, too many to discuss, but it is largely a claim of exceptional origin for the writings of Valtorta, sprinkled with exaggerated theological claims.

5. In that book Lavere has walked out of the enginerring world and has commented on topics such as botany where he has no expertise. The book can not be considered reliable, unless it includes the chemical formula for a new shampoo. Lavere would probably know about that, but not the topics in this book.

The real problem is that unless this book is declared as unreliable, 30 more incorrect and exaggerated claims from it may be added to Wikipedia. This must stop. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 19:41, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

The problem is you are using your original research to determine whether the book is reliable or not. You should provide a secondary source such as a review essay to determine the reliability. 95.12.119.26 (talk) 20:25, 24 June 2023 (UTC)