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RFC: The Cradle

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a clear and overwhelming consensus to deprecate The Cradle website as a source for Wikipedia, based on strong and evidence-based arguments. The other options received little or no support, and the arguments for them were weak or challenged. Therefore, I suggest that The Cradle website should be deprecated as a source for Wikipedia, and that this consensus should be communicated to the relevant WikiProjects. (non-admin closure) --Vanderwaalforces (talk) 08:31, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

---

What is the reliability of "The Cradle" website?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

The last discussion regarding this website can be found here. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 03:56, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• Option 4: Deprecate

I have explained how "The Cradle" operates as a disinformation outlet in the previous discussion. I am posting that comment here again.

"The cradle" is not a news organization, it is just another pro-Russia, pro-Assad, pro-Iran, pro-Maduro disinformation site which peddles numerous conspiracy theories. That outlet doesnt have any fact-checking policies and allows anyone who is approved by it's operators to publish articles in the site. "The cradle" is a self-published source which should be deprecated.

The regular columnists listed in its website, include:

• Pepe Escobar, who is a pro-Kremlin conspiracy theorist (see past discussion)
• Sharmine Narwani, another pro-Russian propagandist who used to write at the pro-Russia outlet "RT"

Narwani appears to be the main contributor of this website.

Some of the conspiracy theories promoted by that website include:

• its claim that Kurds collaborated with IS in the Yazidi genocide (here)
• its claim that the chemical attacks launched by the Assad regime in Syria are all "false flags" orchestrated by the Syrian opposition
• its claim that "Israel controls British foreign policy"

Propagandistic, conspiratorial sites are widely deployed as sources all across the articles of "The cradle" website. These conspiratorial sites include:

• Al-Mayadeen (here)
• RT (here)
• Sputnik (here)
• Press TV (here)
• The Grayzone (here)

"The cradle" is simply another disinformation, conspiratorial website masqueraded by its financiers as a news outlet.

Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 04:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@Shadowwarrior8: Two questions: first, do you have sources stating that the material contained in the stories labelled conspiracy theories above is the stuff of conspiracy theory? And secondly, it seems like the site attributes sources correctly - so what is wrong with it mentioning the claims of non-RS with proper attribution? Iskandar323 (talk) 19:56, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The site regularly runs fake news stories solely based on the claims by these propaganda sources. For example: "Recent ISIS attacks in Syrian desert carried out with US support", "CIA recruits ISIS fighters from SDF-run prisons in Syria to fight in Ukraine". Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 20:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The unquestioning nature of these brief news pieces in their relaying of information from untrusted sources makes them not great, but they still properly seem to be attributing those untrusted sources, without making additional claims on the part of the Cradle - merely relaying that some sources said X. These headlines all end in ": source" or ": report", so even the headlines are couched. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:46, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

"The Cradle" explicitly endorses the POV of these conspiratorial sites as well, including in the two articles linked above. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 14:32, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

• Deprecate with prejudice. I have already mentioned my position in the previous discussion. Just a bunch of crackpots under the same masthead. I do not know to what extent we're using it, but we shouldn't, at all. I wouldn't trust it to tell us what day it is. (note: I'm on mobile so if this message ends up where it shouldn't, feel free to move it to the appropriate part of the RfC) Ostalgia (talk) 07:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
• Deprecate, per Shadowwarrior here, and Red-tailed hawk and The Kip in the original discussion. There's a significant overlap between this source and Globalresearch (a worthless conspiracy site) through writers Escobar, Narwani, and Bhadrakumar. I don't think 'bias' is the problem; the problem is that their purpose seems to be to support the propaganda of various state actors, which makes them inherently unreliable. I'll note that the website was recently created, and first indexed by Google 5 months ago. They're pro-Assad[1] (and attribute the chemical attacks to a Saudi "false flag"[2]). They've echoed Russian propaganda[3] and Iranian propaganda[4]. Not remotely usable in any context. DFlhb (talk) 07:55, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4: Deprecate, other editors proved why it should be deprecated. Parham wiki (talk) 08:18, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4: Deprecate. Site with very weak record of fact checking, the evidence provided by Shadowwarrior8 and DFlhb suggest this is not an appropriate source for a credible encyclopedia. Marokwitz (talk) 13:39, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2: Additional considerations.I'm not convinced by the arguments for deprecation:

  "Propagandistic, conspiratorial sites are widely deployed" - well the Grayzone for example is mentioned 9 times. Whereas for example the NYT [5] is mentioned 416 times.

  "Simply another disinformation, conspiratorial website masqueraded by its financiers as a news outlet." - any reliable sources to back up that specific claim?

  "Pepe Escobar, who is a pro-Kremlin conspiracy theorist (see past discussion)" - on my reading the passing mention in the previous discussion wasn't actually backed by the source. Mujinga (talk) 14:32, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Mujinga (sorry if I shouldn't have pinged you, I'm still getting the hang of this): Your argument that the NYT is mentioned 416 times doesn't mean anything, necessarily, for a few reasons.

  One: One of the results was Western Media Whitewashes Israel's Murder of Al Jazeera Journalist. They're not citing the New York Times, they're using it to say it's an Israeli tool. Heck, the first result of that search doesn't cite the New York Times, it's saying it fired a Palestinian journalist!

  Two: If I cite the New York Times 60 or 70 times, and the Daily Stormer once or twice, non-jokingly/not as a way to say "the Daily Stormer is an unreliable, Nazi, antisemitic, anti-everyone thing which words fail to describe", in a news article, I would support my deprecation. Yet by your criterion (and correct me if I'm wrong), it's "Additional Considerations". (Honestly, if it's the Daily Stormer, I would support my disqualification from the human race.) Just because they cite an RS more than a bullshitty site doesn't mean much. The NYT has a much higher profile than Grayzone, they're probably going to cite it more.

  Three, they might be twisting things. Some searching on another website, The Conversation, gave me a good example: Ordinary Russians are already feeling the economic pain of sanctions over Ukraine invasions. If I wanted to, I could probably twist it into pro-Kremlin, anti-sanction, propaganda ("The Conversation says ordinary Russians are suffering from Western/Israeli sanctions--punishing them for fighting Nazis!")

  Your question about reliable sources backing up the "disinformation, conspiratorial website masqueraded by its financiers as a news outlet": if you're denying well-documented genocides and citing Russian propaganda while claiming to be a news outlet, I think it's fair to describe you as that, and it doesn't have a very high profile. A search for "the cradle news" here has only 199 results, and that's including, say, a Google Books result for "The Four-Track News", published 1905. No one's gotten around to describing it that way yet.

  Regarding your claim about Pepe Escobar, the Wikipedia article on him linked to a few of those claims; it cites the US Department of State describing it here as this: "RT and Sputnik have mutually beneficial relationships with writers for proxy sites, including Finian Cunningham, Pepe Escobar, and Christopher Black."

  71.112.180.130 (talk) 15:08, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  Pepe Escobar is literally a regular columnist at the Russian propaganda-conspiracist outlet "Sputnik". Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 16:26, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4. This is a conspiracy website that provides "revelations" on various subjects. While some of their claims may have a merit, others seem to be an outright "disinformation". Unfortunately, an unsuspecting contributor can not say which is which, unless she/he has a sufficient expertise on the specific subject. I assume some contributors have such expertise, but then why would they need such source? My very best wishes (talk) 17:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 or worse. I'm not a fan of deprecation without smoking gun evidence of deliberate publishing of falsehood. If problems keep appearing we can deprecate the source later. In addition to the issues the listed above their About section has ominous mentions of "The Other" which is hardly compatible with a RS. Alaexis_¿question? 19:11, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4/Deprecate primarily owing to its heavy reliance on already-deprecated sources. Not doing so would effectively allow a loophole to get these sites’ claims on WP. The Kip 18:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  Deprecation doesn't mean that claims made by unreliable sources can't be stated on wikipedia. Eg CNN, which is an RS, reported on claims made by RT[6] and PressTv[7].VR _talk 18:51, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  Wording mistake on my part, I moreso meant “getting their claims” as legitimizing their positions (ex. conspiracy theories) rather than simply reporting what they’ve said/done. The Kip 19:58, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3+ It depressing to see another "news" source peddling the antisemitic canard that jews are controlling the west. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:24, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  @ActivelyDisinterested: Is this based on the piece cited by shadow warrior? And did you read it? The claims are specific to two lobby groups and influences on two pieces of UK policy. This is a few orders of magnitude from trope. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:05, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

  As Alaexis has noted above, their editorial page contains a multitude of references to something they call “The Other” supposedly using states as pawns to cause regional chaos, and the goal of the Cradle to “fight” this “Other.” While it may not outright say it, that’s a pretty classic dogwhistle to those familiar with antisemitism. The Kip 03:07, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  "The Cradle" website literally claimed in that article:

  "Israel now controls British Foreign policy through a highly-infiltrated, ferociously active network of organizations, campaigners, and relationships"

  Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 03:54, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  That's the standfirst/sub-headline, and the precepts of WP:HEADLINES apply to it. Often these lines are not even written by the writer. The content of the body is what's important. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:15, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  Sure, the article’s author may not have written it, but the site finding that to be an acceptable headline is still a rather significant issue. The Kip 09:35, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  OK. That clears the writer. Maybe. But we still need to accept these options: 1) The Cradle (or its staff) wrote the headline. In which case it's an at best severely anti-Israel, probably antisemitic, trashy news site. 2) They approved the headline, but didn't write it, which indicates a remarkable lack of editorial oversight (or option 1). 3) They did not write or approve the headline, which calls into doubt how much of the stuff on their website they write, and makes it not a reliable source. I don't see a way for them to wriggle out of this remotely reliable. 71.112.180.130 (talk) 18:14, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  As others have already said, saying that there are Jewish lobby groups or that those lobby groups may push for policies that are positive for Israel is not an issue and is well documented, but saying that such groups "control" such or other isn't backed up by anything is just stating an antisemitic canard with extra words. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:12, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

• Deprecate as The Cradle is a classic disinformation operation. - Amigao (talk) 19:15, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

  Source and/or evidence? Iskandar323 (talk) 20:45, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

• Deprecate - Option 4 per explanations provided above specifically by Shadowwarrior8 Homerethegreat (talk) 08:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
• Deprecate - Option 4 due to many publications (some mentioned in the linked discussion), especially those from several months ago or more, that haven't been /corrected/ from "errors". TaBaZzz (talk) 09:25, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 - per several users, doesn't have a good record at checking facts. Dovidroth (talk) 11:11, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
• Deprecate - Option 4 - yet more grist from the Putin/Assad/Iran/Maduro disinfo/propaganda mill. Neutrality^talk 23:09, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3+ - evidence in this discussion and the archived one is very clear that this is a generally unreliable source. I am not a big fan of deprecation, especially of a site not previously discussed at this noticeboard, but it might be worth considering in this case given it is used in several articles as an unattributed source for facts. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:05, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Notifying all editors who were involved in the recently archived discussion.

@Longhornsg @Selfstudier @BobFromBrockley @Mujinga @Ostalgia @My very best wishes @Alaexis @Red-tailed hawk @The Kip Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 04:19, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

• First off "RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed" - I don't think that's really the case here. Are there any pertinent examples of its use on wikipedia? Secondly, having had another look at the site and the previous discussion, perhaps there's a distinction to be made between news and the opinion pieces published by the columnists? Red-tailed hawk I don't tend to check pings so I missed your question, yes indeed Ostalgia was right I took masthead in the Br-Eng way. In the US-way, it does seem to be missing and thus editorial oversight is a concern, alongside the bias, but then for our purposes here it would surely depend upon what claims The Cradle is actually being used to back on wikipedia. Mujinga (talk) 14:32, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  PS it occurs to me perhaps there's more editorial info on the arabic version of the site as opposed to the english one Mujinga (talk) 14:42, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  "The Cradle" has been deployed as a "source" in 62 articles across wikipedia. Thats alarming. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 16:10, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  I’m not a big fan of deprecation but it might be appropriate here because of the usages the site seems to have gained. The first use in that list is a very uncontroversial historical claim in the Afghanistan article but the cited piece, by Escobar, is a bizarre piece of pseudo-history that makes all kinds of racist and orientalist claims (“Pashtuns have a natural aversion to the Westphalian notion of the nation-state”, “Afghans as a whole may be defined as the quintessential Natural Born Muslims”, etc) and that cites no sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:24, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

  Skimming through the other uses: the third (in BRICS) is an article that reports "US sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline" as a fact; the sixth (in Kommando Spezialkräfte Marine) is a dead link but the article (from October) speculates that German and Dutch troops were about to start fighting in the war on Israel's side; the same weird Escobar piece used in Afghanistan is also used in History of Afghanistan. Almost all of the uses are in contentious topic areas - Israel/Palestine, Syria. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:30, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

  62 articles is not "widely used" -- The Weekly World News used to be cited in 80 articles, it took one person (me) a few days to clean it up. --JBL (talk) 00:52, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

• Marking as deprecated in WP:UPSD. Ping me if the closure is different. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:01, 22 December 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.

Russian propaganda telegram channels

User:Alexiscoutinho insists on using Russian propaganda channels from Telegram as a source [8]. When I tried to remove these (a good bit of info was double cited anyway) I was told to, quote, “get over it”.

This particular channel specifically was anonymous, until an outside investigation revealed its ties to Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin (yes, the mercenary group full of neo Nazis, who then mutinied against Putin etc.). The administrators of the channel have repeatedly made false claim, including who they were, putting forth fake identities.

The administrators of the channel themselves have said that “They work(…) in the field of information warfare and counterpropaganda in the name of the interests of the Russian state.” [9]

Call me crazy but that does not appear to be anywhere close to being a reliable source, and an editor who insist on using such sources probably should be kept away from the topic area altogether. Volunteer Marek 21:09, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

We can't trust Wikipedians individual judgement with anonymous Telegram posts like this. This is what journalism is for. Basically zero reason to ever cite Telegram directly. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:19, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

There were better ways to fix that issue instead of just deleting everything like that without any discussion. I've mostly used it as a support source together with ISW reports in that cities list page to explain specific dates when the ISW wasn't really clear about them in the reports. If one requested for me to substitute them, I could do it no problem when I had the extra time. Your assessment should take into account this context and my history of helpful edits in that page. Please don't fall in the "witch hunt" trap. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 21:35, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: You are over generalizing this. Despite all those problems, which I'm not going to deny because I don't know them very well, it is still a generally reliable source for territorial changes. And I'm not talking about the Wikipedia definition of reliable, I'm talking about the common sense/casual usage of the word. I follow that channel and ISW's reports almost daily and I can attest that those sources go inline with each other almost all the time. There's been a long time that I don't hear something (territorial changes) that Rybar said that was debunked by ISW. When they diverge, it's usually when there isn't a lot of geolocated footage constraining the maps. Rybar is also one of the most conservative Russian milbloggers when it comes to territorial changes. In fact, he was one of the few if not the only one who originally denied the Russian claim that Marinka was captured on December 1. So yeah, I understand your point that he isn't the best source for Wikipedia main space articles, that's why I put {{bsn}} in the battle page, but in that list page I really don't see a problem. In fact, I don't even think the RS guideline really applies to such pages. It was never really meant to be perfect and it will probably be deleted in the future when all the info contained in it goes to the individual mainspace articles. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 21:27, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I am not “over generalizing” anything. Very specifically and particularly, Rybar, a self proclaimed Russian nationalist propaganda channel, is not reliable source. I don’t know what “common sense” or “casual” definition of reliable source you have in mind, but that’s actually irrelevant as on Wikipedia we have an established policy, WP:RS and this source doesn’t satisfy it. Not even in the least.

Of course WP:RS applies to such pages. We’re getting into WP:CIR territory here. Volunteer Marek 21:31, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

That page was never meant to fully conform to Wikipedia's quality standards. It's a fast paced page aimed to help the map Module. When the war is over, it will probably be deleted. When the situation of each battle cools down, those citations could all be substitutes with actual reliable sources. I've done that multiple times in battle articles (the battle of Marinka is the only exception that I remember because I was simply confident that when the ISW report comes withing a few hours it would fully confirm those claims). I could be wrong, in which case I would obviously correct it, but that seems quite unlikely as geolocated footage exists and clearly confirms the claim. When the report comes, I planned to substitute it with the report as source, hence the correct usage of {{bsn}} to portray the temporary nature of that citation. Going back to the list page, even if those Rybar citations weren't substituted when better sources were available, it wouldn't be a problem because most entries are deleted anyways when the frontline moves far away from those villages and cities. Thus, I think you guys are overblowing the proportion of this and also not "assuming good faith". Dialogue is always a good first step when you find something wrong, not accusing others of "pushing propaganda" and threatening to sanction the editor. About the "get over it" comment, I'm sorry about that, what motivated it was the shock of such a huge revert without notice/warning. Once again, I think "assuming good faith" there and starting a dialogue there would have been the best action. Also note that several editors there showed no concern with those edits of mine for months. Thus I was quite "angry" at your bold revert. Once again, it doesn't justify the "get over it", but I hope you understand where I (that mindset) was comming from. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 21:48, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

If a "page was never meant to fully conform to Wikipedia's quality standards", then it shouldn't be part of Wikipedia; it's that simple. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, not a repository for breaking news, not a collection of primary sources. Verifiability is one of our pillars. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:50, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

👍 Alexis Coutinho (talk) 12:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Deprecate Russian telegram as they are never reliable, and should not be used for ANYTHING. Andre🚐 21:47, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

All rules/guidelines exist for a reason/motif. Simply repeating/parroting it for any and all contexts doesn't seem very helpful and productive. Please familiarize yourself with the context. But with that being said though, I am indeed willing to stop using it from now on there if it indeed is deemed unfit (after a proper analysis of context). But I vehemently disagree with any form of sanction ignoring WP:AGF. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 21:53, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Anonymous Telegram channels obviously can not be used as reliable sources. Sometimes these "Z military correspondents" channels get referred to by reliable sources (not by sources which only report social media), then I guess they can be mentioned. Ymblanter (talk) 21:35, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Do you even know the context of those edits? Alexis Coutinho (talk) 21:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:RS applies to all mainspace pages. Andre🚐 21:48, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Literally nothing on Telegram would be a reliable source, nor would anything on any other social media outside of BLPs in an WP:ABOUTSELF piece of info or, in rare occasions, official news accounts on social media reporting on something. Other than that, anything on social media would not be reliable unless a reliable source, such as the news, reports on it. And, in those cases, you would be citing the news article instead. Silverseren^C 21:50, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• I agree with the other editors here: Telegram channels like these are certainly not RS (and I'm strugglng to think of any "context" that would make these acceptable). Look for reliable secondary sources (like Reuters) instead. Neutrality^talk

• Guys, I know Telegram in general is not a RS according to Wikipedia guidelines. Please consider the context of where they were used. That page is a dynamic and fast paced list and pretty much all information there is temporary (settements far from the frontline are deleted and the whole page will probably be deleted when the war is over and individual main space articles are created). It is also not linked in any article and its only purpose, afaik, is to support the map Module, as a "writing board" (because it's much better to use wikitext and tables instead of writing citations and keeping track of historic changes in Lua comment strings). With that being said, I think the most adequate solution would be to make that page an exception/make it exempt from these more rigorous RS rules (i.e. let those lesser sources be usable, but obviously recommend substituting them with better sources when available). The map template doc itself said something like "big claims require great evidence", but no "big claims" were made there using only these "unreliable" sources (these big claims are kept as wikitext comments, check them yourselves). With all this in mind, I don't see a reason to make such "a big fuss" over this. I already give preference to citing ISW anyways. Thanks. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 00:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I think someone should add “…not a OSINT aggregator” to WP:NOT. Yes, that’s a more general problem with some of these articles. But regardless, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and we stick with our WP:RS policy. Volunteer Marek 00:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

But regardless That's the problem, you don't want to consider the context. It's like a judge who already has a veredict in mind and just applies the sentence without even looking at the evidence and defender's statements. That's just applying rules for the sake of applying them. It doesn't make Wikipedia any better because nobody is even reading that page (just editors) and because the map will still be the same (it doesn't show references for each marker). Alexis Coutinho (talk) 00:52, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

There's no rule on RS only applying to readers, not editors. I understand what you're saying that it's for internal use, but if that's the case, create a page in Project space or User space. Andre🚐 00:54, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Alright. One last doubt, does purposely keeping the {{unreliable}} banner on that page make it exempt from these more rigorous rules? Alexis Coutinho (talk) 01:04, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

No, those are cleanup tags. They don't exempt articles from policy, especially one as fundamental as this. They exist to provide cleanup tasks in a maintenance queue. By putting that tag, you're telling a volunteer to COMEFIXIT. Andre🚐 01:12, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

👌 Alexis Coutinho (talk) 01:25, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Quite aside from that Alexis, we shouldn't be providing readers an off link to a source of propaganda that is unreliable, as a reference let alone any kind of external link. I'm not saying you need a sanction or anything for this, just please adjust and move on accordingly, there's a clear consensus not to use Telegram links from Russia for anything, and I wonder if we should consider adding them to the spam blocklist. Andre🚐 00:47, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

👍 Thanks for the well rounded response. I mostly agree, but there is a caveat/I have a question: we shouldn't be providing readers what readers? That page is not really meant to be accessed by readers. It's more like a dev/internal page. For us editors, being shown such questionable sources is not potentially harmful in any way. We as editors know how to treat those sources and we know their limitations. Already answered above Alexis Coutinho (talk) 00:59, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

You write that the list is “dynamic and fast paced” and “pretty much all information there is temporary.” But that’s not a reason to suspend, or even loosen, application of our RS policy. In fact, the whole point of the RS policy is to be conservative: if a reliable source is not available, we simply don’t cover it in the encyclopedia. Put differently, it’s better to be slow and deliberate — to wait for sources to develop — than to rush (and thus risk inaccuracy, or even the appearance of unreliability). Neutrality^talk 02:13, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

👌 I've already addressed the issue. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 02:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• In no way is this a reliable source. Wait until independent reliable sources pick it up. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:14, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. I agree with everyone above that such Telegram channels are not RS, but there is a wider issue. I think that after Russian 2022 war censorship laws, which resulted in a significant number of convictions, all sources published in Russia starting from 2022 are not RS on the subjects related to wars conducted by Russia. My very best wishes (talk) 18:42, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Mega claim. You can't just generally try to sanction all sources from a country. Don't forget that Ukrainian sources are also censored. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 19:04, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  We routinely deprecate sources that are simply mouthpieces for repressive states. Black Kite (talk) 19:30, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Correct, but their point isnt wrong that we cant blanket sanction all sources from a country. Case by case, if they are acting as mouthpeices of any state we can and should sanction. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 08:42, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  While we don't have an article about it, the Ukrainian government has imposed quite a lot of restrictions on the media as well (see here). It doesn't mean that we shouldn't use them at all. Our editors can and should exercise judgement and decide whether a given source is reliable for a specific claim. For the avoidance of doubt, anonymous telegram channels are certainly not reliable. Alaexis_¿question? 08:55, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  👍 Alexis Coutinho (talk) 12:38, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. But, as usual, we can cite secondary RS that cited such Telegram channels. My very best wishes (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Newsweek and Business Insider (low quality mainstream news sources) have occassionally used Rybar as a source, with a pinch of salt. Where they have done, I guess there might be a reason to cite them, with clear attribution, but we should never cite Rybar directly. Some background: https://en.thebell.io/pro-war-media/ https://thebell.io/unmasking-russia-s-influential-pro-war-rybar-telegram-channel https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/11/18/who-s-behind-rybar https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/11/19/the-bell-releases-the-name-of-the-creator-of-telegram-channel-rybar https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/10/14/russian-military-command-complains-about-fake-news-from-pro-kremlin-war-bloggers https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/russian-war-report-pro-kremlin-telegram-channels-twist-iaea-words/ https://www.ndc.nato.int/research/research.php?icode=794 BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:58, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: Social media outlets are self-published channels and are not used as sources in wikipedia. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 23:09, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• I don't know on what planet any competent editor could ever consider anything on Telegram to be reliable save for WP:ABOUTSELF and even then I'd have really big doubts given the difficulty with verifiability and services like Telegram. I was recently doing some NPP on a article about a Kurdish neo-Nazi group and the article was littered with links to Telegram and I didn't think twice about removing every last one of them even though it could have been argued that they might pass WP:ABOUTSELF precisely because of my concerns about verifiability. TarnishedPath^talk 11:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree, outside of a few edge cases mentioned by others that do not appear to be met here, nothing from a telegram channel can be considered a WP:RS.

If it is actually important and verifiable information, it would have been reported by a reliable source. FortunateSons (talk) 18:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

http://www.genocid.lt/Leidyba/1/arunas1.htm

can anyone give me a read on this source? I am going inclined to say yes, because the author is an expert, but I am not and possibly this is a forum, and Holocaust in Eastern Europe is definitely a contentious topic. I will probably have other questions btw. The sentence is was formed by the German occupation government and was subordinate to Einsatzkommando 9 and later to Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo) in Ypatingasis būrys. Thank you all.Elinruby (talk)

It would definitely need attribution at least, as the author and this work specifically have been accused of revisionism of the holocaust. If possible I would find a better source. No comment on the specific details, I'll let someone with more knowledge of the area step in. Also you signature needs a timestamp, otherwise the talk page reply function doesn't work. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I would not consider this a reliable source on Lithuanian collaborationism. There are far better sources to cite. (t · c) buidhe 02:20, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

open to suggestions for alternatives, but I mostly agree. The problem is that there are a lot of accusations in the area, including of both the Polish and the Lithianian national archives. It's marginally better than what it replaced, but that is a very low bar. The part about "subordinate to Einsatzkommando 9" seems uncontroversial but its formation is also attributed to the Provisional Government, thus the caution. If all else fails I will report both with attribution. When I am back at that page I will take another shot at this. Ypatingasis būrys seems to have three different origin stories so far.

Apart from Bubnys, though, what about the website? That's the real question. Lithuanian Holocaust wiki-articles seem to rely on it pretty heavily and there may ube an uproar if I remove all references to it at once. Can anyone verify that it is in fact a forum? that apparently mirrors archivist articles? Elinruby (talk) 07:32, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

My comment was on the author and the work that your link is an excerpt from. If the only source for a detail is a work criticised for its Holocaust revisionism, that details is best left out. The website and organisation itself seems to suffer from the same problem, and criticism of it are not hard to find. Attribution isn't enough in instances like this, as it's verges on false balance. This isn't to say the Polish sources are necessarily better, see the last discussion about IPN for instance. I can find complaints from Holocaust organisation about it dating back at least to 2019, might be that earlier work was less og an issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:07, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

That's pretty much exactly what I am struggling with. Several wikipedia articles come across as extended apologia, and that's after giving Bubnys credit for having some of the receipts. As for the Polish pogroms, check out Jedwabne pogrom; some of the statements about it at the last Arbcom case were scathing. It doesn't begin to meet the sourcing requirements for Poland, for a start, and that's after featuring in an Arbcom case. The ones that haven't been touched in a while are quite a bit worse. I take it the forum doesn't especially even meet RS let alone academic sourcing. I was checking because it superficially resembles a Science-Po database that I think does. But yes, I am aware of the criticism of Bubnys, and have been looking at alternate sources for some of the articles that rely on him extensively, more than would be healthy for any author. In other news the sourcing requirement for Lithuania looks like it is passing with 7 supports and 2 abstentions Elinruby (talk) 13:56, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree sourcing in the area is problematic, sometimes extremely so, but the solution isn't balancing Holocaust revisionism with other Holocaust revisionism. If there isn't any reliable sourcing, the best case could just be to leave out those details. The Lithuania case looks to be a good addition for the subject ares. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I know that's the answer, but the answer isn't satisfactory. We have an article heavily cited to an out of print, not-online source in Polish, that calls a man a war criminal, although no other source does as far as I can tell, and another article about the same man, largely cited to Bubnys, that calls him the most important figure of the country's resistance. I realize I am whining. Working on the other-source theory. Tell me these accusations of revisionism come from somewhere other than the IPN though? Elinruby (talk) 07:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

No it was Jewish and Holocaust remembrance organisations. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:20, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

ok thanks that helps Elinruby (talk) 01:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Two branches of the same tree: OW-JP-AH and WCE-WRD/WCD

Operation World, Joshua Project and Asia Harvest

Asia Harvest (https://www.asiaharvest.org/) is an American Christian missionary organisation focusing on Asia and especially on China. They produce extremely detailed (and overestimated) fantasy statistics about Christians for each one of the smallest administrative divisions of the country.

Let's take, for example, the purported 2020 statistics for Shanghai (https://www.asiaharvest.org/christians-in-china-stats/shanghai). As you can see, they extrapolate absolute numbers on the basis of the very same percentage values for the total population numbers of most of the districts, and then the resulting numbers are divided according to the various statistical subcategories. Amongst the numbers in the tens of subcategories, they cite sources for only three of them, and they are some journals (probably missionary journals) dated to 1990, 1991 and 1992, while the general data are presented as being dated to 2020. The source for some of the totals is, otherwise, Operation World (https://operationworld.org/), "the definitive volume of prayer information about the world", associated with the Joshua Project, which is already classified as unreliable in the WP:RSP list.

I propose that Asia Harvest and Operation World be added to the Joshua Project entry in the WP:RSP list. Besides, on the Wikipedia article about Operation World it is written that the subject is related to the World Christian Encyclopedia, the predecessor of what is now published as the World Christian Database and World Religion Database, themselves thoroughly discussed in 2018 and 2022-2023, and listed in WP:RSP. Æo (talk) 18:09, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I ping Erp who raised doubts about the extreme precision of WCD/WRD data in the abovementioned 2022-2023 discussion, since the same argument applies to this case. Æo (talk) 18:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Besides, on the Wikipedia article about Operation World it is written that the subject is related to the World Christian Encyclopedia, the predecessor of what is now published as the World Christian Database and World Religion Database, themselves thoroughly discussed in 2018 and 2022-2023

The meaning of this point is somewhat lost on me. According to the close of the linked 2023 discussion, There is no consensus to deprecate these sources (bolding added). If consider Asia Harvest or Operation World is/are affiliated with/comparable to the WCE as a source, that would suggest not deprecating them, but instead merely advising editors to use them with prudence while favoring, where available, stronger, more certainly reliable sources. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:43, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

They are clearly not the very same as the WRD/WCD (which is nonetheless questionable, and this is why it is in the perennial sources' list and the closing statement also says that there is rough consensus to attribute it and prefer better sources), at least according to what I have been able to find, although they cross-reference to each other (it is unclear to what extent). Asia Harvest and Operation World are on the other hand directly related to the Joshua Project, which is classifed as unreliable in the perennial sources' list: The Joshua Project is an ethnological database created to support Christian missions. It is considered to be generally unreliable due to the lack of any academic recognition or an adequate editorial process. The Joshua Project provides a list of sources from which they gather their data, many of which are related evangelical groups and they too should not be used for ethnological data as they are questionable sources.. Æo (talk) 19:41, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Addendum:

• In The Ethos of Operation World we can read the following statement: We pray that these statistics and prayer points present a reasonably balanced account of what God is doing in our world and of the challenges facing us as we press on to complete the Great Commission. Apart from Operation World, only the World Christian Database/World Religions Database shares our ambition (folly?) in attempting so massive a task as compiling a comprehensive body of data relating to the world’s religions, denominations, and churches, as well as to the progress of the Great Commission.. Here, Operation World and the WRD/WCD are clearly defined as confessional, evangelical entities working together for the "progress of the Great Commission", which is unclear whether it refers to the doctrinal concept or to the American fellowship of evangelical groups which disbanded in 2020.
• In this paper by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, some of whose members are also the editors of the WRD/WCD, on pp. 16-17 the methodologies of the latter are compared to those of Operation World.

Æo (talk) 20:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for this, but you seem to be saying two different things simultaneously. First you say that They are clearly not the very same (bolding added); then you say they are clearly defined as confessional, evangelical entities working together (bolding added). Are they together, or are they not; and in either case, why is that a reason for depreciation of Asia Harvest (which is the source I thought was under discussion).

In any case, it is not so clear to this reader as it is to you. The Ethos statement does not seem like evidence of organizational collaboration. Rather, it reads as an observation that they share a field of study: both are attempts at compiling a comprehensive body of data relating to the world’s religions, denominations, and churches. To use another example, both Michael Burlingame and Ronald White shared the ambition (folly?) in attempting so massive a task as narrating the life of Abraham Lincoln in single-volume biographies. But they were not collaborators.

As for the "Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020" document, the comparison drawn is moreover a contrast, pointing out how Operation World's definitions of "evangelical" inflate their numbers compared to the World Christian Database.

Finally, simply as a note, you emphasize connections between GCTS faculty and the World Christian Database but have left out how World Christian Database is published by Brill, an academic publisher that employs editorial and peer review. (Likewise, World Christian Encyclopedia was published by Oxford University Press, also an academic publisher that employs editorial and peer review.) That, plus their relative contemporaneity (as both were published in the twenty-first century) instills a great deal of confidence in WCD and WCE as sources.

In any case, this has been a digression. The posted discussion at hand pertains to Asia Harvest and Operation World, which have different publishers and different traits. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:45, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

It is ascertained that WCE and OW originated as two branches of the same tree, and that they maintain some connections, as hinted to in the statement above about the "Great Commission" and underlined especially in the sentence in that paper Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background which I have quoted below (17:04, January 2 addendum): There has been a long history of close collaboration and mutual sharing of information among Operation World ... and the World Christian Encyclopedia. This is what I meant, and I am still investigating to find further, clearer evidences. Besides, AH and OW appear to be related as well, given that the few references showed by AH are mostly to OW statistics, and in turn OW is clearly connected to the Joshua Project (they are authored/edited by the same person, Patrick Johnstone), which is acknowledged to be a completely unreliable source.

Amongst the many discussions about the JP, read this 2008 one, which was particularly animated (and which highlights that already back then there were strange waves of spamming of this type of sources, as I myself noticed more recently); some quotes: [JP is] a very aggressive evangelistic project. ... Linking or even mentioning this project on this kind of scale should be considered as fundamentalist Christian spam. (Jeroenvrp); All links to the Joshua Project should be deleted immediately and without question. The information on the site is often original research and totally incorrect. It is not a reliable source at all. The fact that someone can't find alternative information on Google is no excuse: get out of your chair and head to a library. (Caniago); Here is another example which illustrates the sort of disinformation they are spreading. They invented a whole range sub-ethnic groups of the Javanese ethnic group, yet there are no published academic sources (in books or peer reviewed papers) which mention these sub-ethnic groups at all. There are a plethora of other examples of their disinformation if you compare their website against reliable sources. (Caniago); The project site is not an academic source. ... The Joshua Project has an religious agenda. Anyone should agree on that. This is very clear on the site and not even that, it is also very offensive. Not only for people of these ethnic groups, but for anyone who condemn these kind of aggressive evangelisation practices. I even find it very scary how they present the data (e.g. see the column "Progress Scale"). It's like: "evangelism meets the Borg". ... The data on the Joshua Project is unreliable, like others before me have proved. ... Information from the English Wikipedia is easily translated to other Wikipedia projects. Although people who translate should double check these kind of sources, unfortunately sources like the Joshua Project are spreading like a virus to those other projects. That's why I am here now, because I noticed the Joshua Project was listed as a source on the Dutch Wikipedia and learned that they came from here. So know your responsibility! ... To conclude this: I am not accusing individual Wikipedians for "fundamentalist Christian spamming". No, what I mean that on a larger scale it's "fundamentalist Christian spamming". (Jeroenvrp); There are no cases where there Josuha project is the best source of data. A bunch of evangelical missionaries are the last people who can be trusted to present non-biased reliable ethnic data; the examples we have given proven the case. (Caniago).

Regarding the fact that some of the sources we are discussing here (WCE and its successors) have been published by renowned publishing houses, this does not make them reliable. This was already pointed out in the 2022-2023 discussion. The "peer review" and "editorial process" is very often carried out by people belonging to the very same agenda and organisations (those American evangelical organisations). Take for instance the paper Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background that I quoted below: it was written by D. A. Miller, peer reviewed/edited/co-authored by Patrick Johnstone of the WEC International, and published on the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion founded by Rodney Stark (known for his publications which were very supportive of Christianity); the journal's editorial board includes Massimo Introvigne, whose CESNUR and related publications are themselves currently listed as unreliable in the WP:RSP list (and I personally consider CESNUR, or at least some of its publications, as much more reliable than the sources we are discussing here). Regarding the fact, and the problem, that the WCE and its successors have been published as seemingly academic resources, there are some further considerations expressed in a recent critical essay which I will cite and quote in a separate section below (cf. #World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database). Æo (talk) 00:06, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I would agree that CESNUR and its related publications are more reliable than the assessment listed on Wikipedia's current Perennial Sources page would suggest. I think the generally unreliable characterization is inaccurate and that the academic field of religious studies has a much more favorable impression of CESNUR than Wikipedia's Perennial Sources page does.

Patrick Johnstone was not a peer reviewer of "Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census". Blind peer review means the reviewer is anonymous. Johnstone and Duane Miller are listed co-authors of the paper. The two peer reviewers would have been two other scholars whose identities neither of us know.

Your impression that renowned publishing houses like Brill and Oxford University Press are somehow being subverted by a conspiracy of Evangelical authors who defy the consensus of the field of religious demography stretches this editor's credulity. The peer review process is more robust than that.

That information is shared between World and WCE does not necessarily make one unreliable merely because the other is. Different sources can use the same raw data to arrive at different conclusions, such as how WCE and Operation World arrive at quite different total numbers, projections, etc.

In any case, I think that an earlier comment in this discussion from Erp rings true: for this particular discussion, we should concentrate on whether Asia Harvest and/or Operation World are reliable. There is not a consensus between us about WCE or WCD or WRD. Maybe there can yet be a consensus between us about Asia Harvest and Operation World. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 00:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes. I agree with P-Makoto: "Your impression that renowned publishing houses like Brill and Oxford University Press are somehow being subverted by a conspiracy of Evangelical authors who defy the consensus of the field of religious demography stretches this editor's credulity. The peer review process is more robust than that." There is no evidence that the process is somehow compromised and is just speculation. Borders on conspiracy theory actually. In fact they show divergence of data too per already quoted differences in numbers in the sources. They are not equivalent or the same. I also agree that we should concentrate on whether Asia Harvest and/or Operation World are reliable. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

P-Makoto, I never wrote about "a conspiracy of Evangelical authors who defy the consensus" and are trying to subvert academic publishers. Apart from this, you wrote that the Ethos statement does not seem like evidence of organizational collaboration, but the statement in the Miller & Johnstone paper clearly tells us about a long history of close collaboration and mutual sharing of information. Also re-read Erp's comment below, with an excerpt from the Operation World book (2010 edition, p. 25) telling us that ... the Joshua Project List, the World Christian Encyclopedia and a handful of other resources are at the heart of this information, which is both fuel for prayer and data for mission strategy, and on that page the discourse of the author is general, about the shared project in which OW, the JP and the WCE are all actors. In my opinion, there is enough evidence to affirm that the WCE and the OW, and their affiliated projects, are still closely related. The discussion about the WCE and its successors, however, continues below (cf. #World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database). Æo (talk) 18:39, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Regarding P-Makoto, I never wrote about:

You wrote that Regarding the fact that some of the sources we are discussing here (WCE and its successors) have been published by renowned publishing houses, this does not make them reliable. This was already pointed out in the 2022-2023 discussion. The "peer review" and "editorial process" is very often carried out by people belonging to the very same agenda and organisations (those American evangelical organisations) (bolding added). P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The next question is the reliability of "Operation World", multiple editions by Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk with the latest being the 7th edition, published 2010, plus a web site. It is explicitly a prayer guide and does not seem to be peer reviewed. I note in reference to the Joshua Project that Operation World's website states: "The Joshua Project is our default site for people group information." https://operationworld.org/prayer-resources/helpful-resources/ Looking at the google preview of the book has "...Joshua Project List, the World Christian Encyclopedia and a handful of other resources are at the heart of this information" Given the dependence of "Operation World" on Joshua Project a "Generally unreliable source" and lack of peer review for the work itself, I would say Operation World must also be listed as "Generally unreliable source". Erp (talk) 20:13, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and the WRD/WCD should be re-assessed as well, given its connection with Asia Harvest/Operation World. In Darrell L. Bock (2013), The Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith, A Call to Action: Bibliographic Resources, p. 32, we read: These two books come from the same stable. While up to the mid-1990s the databases behind Operation World and the World Christian Encyclopedia were virtually identical, they began to diverge in the 1990s, partly because Operation World took a more generous definition of the word 'evangelical'. In 2010, World Christian Encyclopedia said there were 300 million evangelicals worldwide, whereas Operation World said there were 550 million.... On the same page, the World Religion Database/World Christian Database and the Atlas of Global Christianity are identified as the continuations of the World Christian Encyclopedia, while The Future of Global Christianity is identified as built on the database of Operation World. Other minor publications associated with them (listed on the same page) are: World Christian Trends – AD 30-2200, World Churches Handbook, Global Religious Trends 2010 to 2020, Megatrends and the Persecuted Church, Global Restrictions on Religion, Global Pentecostalism, The New Faces of Christianity, The Next Christendom, Barna Updates (https://www.barna.org), and Global Mapping International (https://www.gmi.org). Ultimately, they are all affiliated with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, the same who launched the 10/40 window concept. Æo (talk) 21:17, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The assessment of the World Religion Database and World Christianity Database strikes me as a separate question. If they are re-assessed, I would encourage re-assessing them "upward" rather than "downward". The source you cite, Cape Town Commitment, even identifies how the two sources are different: Operate World took a more generous definition of the word 'evangelical'. In 2010, World Christian Encyclopedia said there were 300 million evangelicals worldwide, whereas Operation World said there were 550 million. You speak of WCE/WRD/WCDs' connection with Asia Harvest/Operation World; however, what seems to be demonstrated is their disconnection; if Operation World and Asia Harvest are overstating, WRD/WCD/WCE apparently are holding back in comparison. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 01:23, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that the WRD/WCD should be re-assessed "upwards"; their problems, which are still different from those of the AH/OW discussed here, were pointed out and thoroughly discussed with extensive quotes from critical sources in the specific 2022-2023 discussion. AH/OW and WCD/WRD are ultimately two branches of the same tree, dedicated to "the progress of the Great Commission" (cf. above), and this does not mean that if one of the two branches is unreliable the other is reliable, and vice versa. Both of them have problems, albeit differentiated. Æo (talk) 01:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

There appears to not be consensus between us. The specified 2022-2023 discussion also had extensive references from laudatory sources which reviewed the Encyclopedia positively. I developed an impression that the listing of WRD/WCD/WCE as "additional considerations" may have been excessive and not the right call.

But that would be a discussion different from that of the present one about Asia Harvest. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 03:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I think we should concentrate on whether Asia Harvest and/or Operation World are reliable. Given that Operation World depends on the already listed as generally unreliable, Joshua Project, and Asia Harvest depends on Operation World that both should also be listed as generally unreliable. In addition neither seem to be peer reviewed. Does anyone disagree? Erp (talk) 03:38, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Before leaping to "Generally Unreliable", may I ask whether "Additional Considerations" would be appropriate, and if you do not think so, why not?

I would note that peer review, while a gold standard, is not Wikipedia's only standard. Many sources subject only to editorial review and not peer review (newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books published with non-academic but still reputable presses) are accepted on Wikipedia, so the lack of peer review is not itself necessarily a point against. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 06:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

P-Makoto, True. Your observations are accurate with respect to the additional comments you have brought up. Indeed the jump to generally unreliable is why the RFC for WRD/WCD/WCE failed depreciation petty badly across the board. The academic sources did not support such a claim. Context matters to what Asia Harvest is being used on. Also numbers on China are hard to pin down. All polls are estimates for that. Ramos1990 (talk) 08:20, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Erp that AH/OW should be classified as "generally unreliable" given the precedent represented by the related Joshua Project. The latter was the subject of eleven discussions on this noticeboard, and it was decidedly assessed as unreliable; just read how editors commented here and here, for instance: ...some argue based on the idea that they wouldn't have any reason to give inaccurate figures. This isn't a useful argument. There's also strong opposition to using them as a source. According to their list of data sources, a solid majority of their sources are just other evangelical groups... They shouldn't be ranked beside census counts as equivalent... They should be considered unusable due to a lack of verifiable methodology and recognition for statistical or academic contribution, even when setting aside all questions of advocacy and bias. (Elaqueate); We have no idea where they get their data, it's not part of their primary mission, and there's no significant penalty to them for errors, so I see no reason to consider them as a reliable source for population statistics. (Mangoe); I looked at the source, and I believe you. It's a hobby site by three random religious enthusiasts. Certainly not a reliable source for population data. (Alsee). Regarding the use of non-academic sources ("newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books published with non-academic but still reputable presses"), P-Makoto, yes, I think they should be eschewed and I always try to eschew them when I contribute to Wikipedia. Besides, other considerations apply in this specific case, given that we are dealing with a field of information, statistics, for which there are official censuses and statistical institutions which provide "hard data" — i.e. precise numerical results which constitute "facts" subject to minimal interpretation —, and even in the case we need "soft data" — i.e. unofficial and not always accurate data —, there are still impartial and reliable survey agencies to rely upon. In said field of information, we do not need WP:SPECULATIONs produced by organisations with blatant agendas of evangelism, proselytism or propaganda through unclear methodologies (in our case the methodologies are declared, indeed: word of mouth from priests, pastors and other church staff). Æo (talk) 14:08, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Addendum: Here other users expressed other clear evaluations of the quality of the JP: Religious advocacy group, cites unreliable data sources. (PaleoNeonate); Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated. You cannot trust any of that website's claimed population numbers for ethnic groups even to an order of magnitude. (anonymous IP); Very obviously unreliable. Attempting to use it as a source is absurd. (Tayi Arajakate). The use of the Joshua Project on Wikipedia even caused the creation of an article about a non-existing ethnic group: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jawa Pesisir Lor. Æo (talk) 15:06, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the use of non-academic sources ("newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books published with non-academic but still reputable presses"), P-Makoto, yes, I think they should be eschewed and I always try to eschew them when I contribute to Wikipedia.

As individual editors, we all I suppose have the option to hold ourselves to higher standards than Wikipedia's; however, it is not consensus to, as a project, eschew newspapers, magazines, and nonfiction books published with non-academic but still reputable presses for being such. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:29, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Looking at https://www.asiaharvest.org/christians-in-china-stats/china Multiple sources, I initially thought the TSPM and CPA figures were accurate since they are possibly official government sources (these are registered and recognized churches) except notes 3 and 4 indicate that the registered protestant number is from a 2010 survey that found 23 million registered protestants and that the numbers were adjusted to include non-adults and presumably the decade since. The number has been adjusted to 39,776,275 for 2020. In addition the table apparently took the 2010 Operation World figures of 86,910,600 protestants in 2010 (unregistered House Church and TSPM) and apparently projected forward to 2020 and got 109,650,630 (split between the 39,776,275 registered and 69,874,355 unregistered (note the increasing specificity during the data manipulation). I decided to look at what might be the overall source "2020, Hattaway, The China Chronicles, no page number given" which seems to be a 7 book series "The China Chronicles" by Paul Hattaway and published, by as far as I can see, "Asia Harvest" an organization Hattaway co-founded with his wife. I'm guessing he or his organization is also responsible for this table published on their website. Both count as self-published and not at all peer reviewed. They might accurately cite other sources. Erp (talk) 19:37, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Here we can read that the book Operation China by Paul Hattaway has <...a foreword by Patrick Johnstone, author of the best-selling Operation World, who "I have relied much on the information in 'Operation China' during compilation of the section on China for the latest edition of 'Operation World'. May this unique book go a long way to focus prayer on the need for the gospel among these peoples.'>. Patrick Johnstone is mentioned in your comment above (20:13, January 1). AH and OW are definitely related. Æo (talk) 02:00, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I found 54+ references to "Asia Harvest" in Wikipedia. A lot have to do with descriptions of people/languages where Asia Harvest in turn is citing another source (I suspect the "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Chinese Linguistics" for at least some which is a 1991 work in Chinese [Zhongguo yu yan xue da ci dian 中国语言学大辞典]). My guess is that Asia Harvest was used by wiki editors because it has translated some of the information into English. I suspect editors would be better off for a comprehensive work relying on Ethnologue (which has some faults but is generally accepted by scholars) though it does require a subscription. Glottolog is also useful especially for references to works on a language (less so for numbers of speakers).

Operation World is also cited (oddly enough mostly in articles about Baháʼí such as Baháʼí_Faith_in_Nigeria) which has "Estimates of membership vary widely - a 2001 estimate by Operation World showed 1000 Baháʼís in 2001 while the Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 38,172 Baháʼís." Another source had about 15,000 in 2000 (Lee, Anthony A. (2011). The Baha'i faith in Africa: establishing a new religious movement, 1952-1962. Studies of religion in Africa. Leiden ; Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-22600-5., page 107, itself citing an unpublished article). I'm inclined to go with the peer reviewed book. Erp (talk) 05:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Duane Miller's Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census (n.b. edited by Patrick Johnstone, WEC International), questioned on this noticeboard in 2017, was built on Operation World and Joshua Project data. On pp. 3-4 we find further details about their parent organisations (as of 2015) and author: The results of this massive, multidecade data collection effort were eventually made available in the form of the religious data on the Operation World website, which is hosted by Global Mapping International, and the ethnolinguistic data on the interactive website of the Joshua Project, for which Johnstone was a senior editor. Therefore additional details on the sources of our information can be found at the website of the Joshua Project, which is currently managed by the U.S. Center for World Missions.. If my understanding is correct, based on our previous findings, Johnstone was ultimately behind both Operation World and the Joshua Project. Æo (talk) 16:23, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Addendum: Let's keep this secondary, as suggested above, but on the same p. 3 we read: There has been a long history of close collaboration and mutual sharing of information among Operation World, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, and the World Christian Encyclopedia.. Æo (talk) 17:04, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

The Miller and Johnstone source clearly supports that Operation World is a reliable source by the way. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Johnstone is the editor/author of the OW and JP themselves. Therefore, that paper is a completely unreliable source. Besides, in the 2017 discussion one of the commentators correctly pointed out that the study misused the word "census" (which has a very precise meaning) in its title, misleading readers to think that the statistics presented were really from a census, when they were not: The author declares that he has published "a global census": the problem is that a census is "an official enumeration of the population, with details as to age, sex, occupation, etc.". So no, it's clearly not a census of any kind. Far from that. (AlessandroDe). Æo (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Heartily disagree, you can't point to a walled garden as evidence of reliability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed with AEo and Erp, these publications should really just be grouped together in one GUNREL entry here. They're all interdependent and interrelated using the same evangelical propagandizing. JoelleJay (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: I agree that they should be grouped as a single WP:GUNREL entry. Would you also support a deprecation? I decided to open this discussion since a few days ago I noticed that the OW-JP, through AH, is still being spammed throughout various articles without attention to its problematic nature and classification as unreliable in the perennial sources' list. This has been ongoing since the 2000s, unfortunately, and even on other Wikipedias, as the user Jeroenvrp from the Dutch Wikipedia complained in the comment quoted above from 2008: unfortunately sources like the Joshua Project are spreading like a virus. This is why I think that, perhaps, it is time for the further step of deprecation.

Also, what is your opinion about the related World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database discussed below? Æo (talk) 01:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Grouping all three together under a single GUNREL entry seems straightforward enough, its a compact ecosystem and all of them are generally unreliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• I think it is worthwhile to open a new RfC for the deprecation of the OW-JP-AH datasets. Back in 2021, Alaexis, who opened that year's RfC, which resulted in the classification of the JP as "unreliable", complained that it was still being used. Things have not changed since; just take a look at these September 2023 additions (of OW-JP data via AH), complete with a map (and this is not the only case).--Æo (talk) 21:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database

Our latest discussion about the World Christian Encyclopedia and its successors, the World Religion Database and World Christian Database, currently also presenting their statistics through the platform of the Association of Religion Data Archives, was in late 2022-early 2023. As demonstrated in the section above (see comments 20:13, 1 January by Erp; 20:16, 1 January addendum by Æo; 17:04, 2 January addendum by Æo; 18:39, 3 January by Æo), the WCE and its successors have some connection and/or collaborate and share information with Patrick Johnstone's Operation World and Joshua Project and their network (incl. Paul Hattaway's Asia Harvest, et al.), and ultimately the WCE and OW branched out around the mid 1990s from the same statistical database, and they all seem to be affiliated with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (see comment 21:17, 1 January by Æo).

A new critical essay about the WCE and its successors, which adds to those already mentioned in the foregoing 2022-2023 discussion, was published right last year: Adam Stewart's Problematizing the Statistical Study of Global Pentecostalism: An Evaluation of David B. Barrett's Research Methodology, in Michael Wilkinson & Jörg Haustein's The Pentecostal World (Routledge, 2023, pp. 457-471). It criticises the methodologies of David B. Barrett, a Welsh Anglican priest and the creator of the WCE, which were used to compile the WCE itself. Todd M. Johnson and Gina A. Zurlo, who are also mentioned in the essay and are the theorists and directors of "Global Christianity" studies at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, are otherwise the continuators of the WCE in the form of the WRD/WCD.

Within the essay, the author elaborates: <... what I call the “Pentecostal growth paradigm,” initially promulgated by David B. Barrett, and now ubiquitous within the field of Pentecostal studies, as well as four common critiques of the paradigm ... the complicated typology conceptualized by Barrett in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia in order to classify and measure Pentecostals around the world ... the – very limited – information that Barrett provides regarding the data collection techniques that he used to gather the data contained in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia ... the construct validity threats contained within Barrett’s typology of Pentecostalism and data collection techniques, which, I argue, provide sufficient evidence to substantiate previous claims that the Pentecostal growth paradigm lacks the methodological rigor required to provide valid research results ...> (p. 457).

Other quotes:

• pp. 457-458: Stewart explains that some Christian authors have pushed for: <... a trend of steadily increasing estimates of global Pentecostal adherence ranging anywhere from 250 to 694 million ... The genealogy of this authorial ritual can be traced back to David B. Barrett’s original attempt to enumerate all of the various forms of global Christianity published in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia in 1982, which, he argued, revealed the substantial numerical growth of Pentecostalism between 1968 and 1981. This is confirmed by Johnson who writes that “virtually all estimates for the number of Pentecostals in the world are related to Barrett’s initial detailed work”. Barrett persisted in this project for another two decades, which was continued by his closest academic successors, namely, Todd M. Johnson and, more recently, Gina A. Zurlo, who continue to record the ostensibly boundless growth of Pentecostalism around the world, a perspective which I refer to here as the Pentecostal growth paradigm ...>;
• p. 458: He explains that such a paradigm was adopted and fueled by church leaders: <... who flaunted estimates of Pentecostal growth in an attempt to legitimate their particular religious organizations, proselytistic efforts, beliefs, and/or practices. Non-Pentecostal scholars of Pentecostalism, of course, also played no small role in reifying the Pentecostal growth paradigm. Estimates of the dramatic numerical growth of Pentecostalism served “to legitimate their work among their disciplinary peers who largely understood Pentecostalism as either a social compensatory mechanism for the poor, uneducated, and oppressed or – from the opposite perspective – an oppressive form of cultural imperialism that homogenizes vulnerable poor and uneducated global populations” ...>, and explains that <Some scholars of Pentecostalism – even when sometimes citing the continually ballooning estimates of global Pentecostalism themselves – are critical of the Pentecostal growth paradigm, and, especially, of Barrett’s contribution to this discourse. In my review of the academic literature, I detect four common critiques of the Pentecostal growth paradigm. First are concerns that Barrett’s early research methodology might not have been sufficiently sophisticated to provide valid results. Second is the charge that Barrett’s use of the three waves metaphor carries an ahistorical, Americentric, and teleological bias ... Third, is a more specific critique closely related to the more general second critique, which asserts that, although the increasing prevalence of Pentecostal adherence around the world is not seriously debated by scholars of Pentecostalism, a significant portion of increasing Pentecostal growth estimates are the result of definitional sprawl rather than an increase in the actual number of adherents ...>;
• p. 459: He cites, amongst others: <Allan Anderson, who has characterized Barrett’s estimates of global Pentecostalism as, variously, “wild guesses,” “debatable,” “inaccurate or inflated,” “considerably inflated,” “wildly speculative” “controversial and undoubtedly inflated,” “inflated wild guesses,” and “statistical speculations” ...>;
• p. 463: <Barrett’s description of the data collection techniques that he used in order to gather the data contained in the frst edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia was incredibly short – just two paragraphs ... Another notable characteristic of the data collection techniques employed by Barrett is a very liberal approach to estimation. He wrote, for instance, “The word ‘approximately’ is the operative word in this survey; absolute precision and accuracy are not to be expected, nor in fact are they necessary for practical working purposes. This means that although the tables and other statistics may help readers who want specific individual figures, they are mainly designed to give the general-order picture set in the total national and global context. To this end, where detailed local statistics compiled from grass-roots sources have not been available or were incomplete, the tables supply general-order estimates provided by persons familiar with the local statistical situation.” Barrett even admits to extrapolating estimates of the total national populations of those Christian organizations that largely recorded only either child (e.g., Catholics who mainly record baptized infants) or adult (e.g., Baptists who mainly record confessing adults) adherents. He explained, “the missing figure … has been estimated and added either by the churches themselves or the editors.” Barrett explained, for instance, that he estimated the total number of Catholic adherents within a country “by multiplying total affiliated Catholics (baptized plus catechumens) by the national figure for the percentage of the population over 14 years old”.>;
• p. 464: Stewart comments that: <... his [Barrett's] cavalier approach to data collection and estimation raise significant red flags regarding the validity of his work.>;
• p. 467: <The presence of significant monomethod bias represents a catastrophic failure of Barrett’s research design, which, as a result, does not meet the minimum standards of valid social scientific research. In addition to this more fundamental construct validity threat, the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia also contains evidence of five other threats to construct validity relating to data collection techniques, namely, reactivity to the experimental situation, experimenter expectancies, attention and contact with participants, cues of the experimental situation, and timing of measurement.>;
• p. 468, Stewart concludes: Unfortunately, the research methodology employed by Barrett – specifically his typology of Pentecostalism and data collection techniques – was simply too flawed in order to provide valid social scientific research results that can be trusted and longitudinally or geographically compared. My analysis confirms Anderson’s claim that, “Scholars should no longer assume that there are some 600 million pentecostals in the world without further qualification”>.

I have also found further older papers containing negative critiques of the WCE and its successors:

• Marta Reynal-Querol & José G. Montalvo's A Theory of Religious Conflict and its Effect on Growth (Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, 2000): On p. 10 we read: <For the sake of comparison we also collected data directly from the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) using its division of groups. This data set has the advantage of being a time series, providing information for 1970, 1975 and 1980. However, as we pointed out before, this source has several shortcomings. ... Comparing to the other source of information we realize the data is biased towards Christian religion. ... The distribution of religious groups between 1970 and 1980 does not change in many countries. There are only about seventeen countries that present change in proportions. But those changes occur in countries where there is double practice and they usually imply an increase in the percentage of Christians ... Because of these reasons we take the data coming from the WCE with a lot of caution.>.
• Andrew McKinnon's "Christians, Muslims and Traditional Worshippers in Nigeria: Estimating the Relative Proportions from Eleven Nationally Representative Social Surveys", Review of Religious Research, 63(2): 303-315 (Sage, 2021). In it we read: <... those assessments that make use of multiple sources of data, such as the World Christian Database (WCD), have not tended to make their calculations publicly transparent, nor clarified how they have squared the differences between contrasting indicators.>; <Figures in the most recent edition of The World Christian Encyclopedia (Johnson and Zurlo 2020) draw on figures assembled and updated as part of the World Christian Database (WCD) ... None of the particular calculations are provided, nor is there any accounting for methodological decisions in any particular case; neither transparency nor replicability are in evidence, which makes social scientific evaluation of how they reached their conclusions impossible.>; <... they also note that the Database does seem to overestimate the Christian identification, and expressed concern about what appears to be uncritical acceptance of figures provided by religious groups of their membership. With reference to one denomination in Nigeria McKinnon (2020) has recently found evidence that supports the criticisms offered by Hsu et al (2008). WCD estimates for Anglican identification in Nigeria were found to be dramatically over-estimated due to The Church of Nigeria's un-evidenced membership claims.>

--Æo (talk) 18:48, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I see that Wilkinson & Haustein argue there are meaningful flaws in the methodology of Barrett and WCE. This criticism in a reliable source of the demographic methodology and technique is the first indication to me that there is substantial reason to be cautious about using these sources. (I remain unconvinced that the socioreligious affiliations of certain authors and editors is as much reason for alarm as you have seemed to imply.)

With Wilkinson & Haustein's detailed criticism focusing on Pentecostal demographics, would we say that additional considerations must be taken when citing WCE for specifically Pentecostal demographics?

For now, I will pause my earlier musing that WCE/WRD/WCD could be re-assessed to "Generally reliable" and would consent to them being left listed as "Additional considerations". I would suggest the description in the table be changed to emphasize that the reason for such an assessment is that reliable sources have criticized the sources on methodological grounds and that the demographic conclusions require "further qualification". P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 10:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Context matters here.

These databases are global debases from academic publishers and they provide useful data that others simply do not have. All major undertakings like this will have some methodological issues and no survey or census is immune to it. No survey or census is definitive on religion. All provide pieces of the puzzle. Two examples one on another global demographic attempt and another on a country:

Actual estimates on the "atheism" demographics show how multiple surveys do not agree on the numbers or method per each country or globally. There are many reasons why this would be the case - countries vary in understanding of religion and diverse methods each one contains. For example you would think that determining atheist rates is easy (yes/no) but its more complicated. Zuckerman's study (Cambridge Companion to Atheism) [10] states "Determining what percentage of a given society believes in God – or doesn’t -- is fraught with methodological hurdles. First: low response rates; most people do not respond to surveys, and response rates of lower than 50% cannot be generalized to the wider society. Secondly: non-random samples. If the sample is not randomly selected – i.e., every member of the given population has an equal chance of being chosen -- it is non-generalizable. Third: adverse political/cultural climates. In totalitarian countries where atheism is governmentally promulgated and risks are present for citizens viewed as disloyal, individuals will be reluctant to admit that they do believe in God. Conversely, in societies where religion is enforced by the government and risks are present for citizens viewed as non-believers, individuals will be reluctant to admit that they don’t believe in Allah, regardless of whether anonymity is “guaranteed.” Even in democratic societies without governmental coercion, individuals often feel that it is necessary to say that are religious, simply because such a response is socially desirable or culturally appropriate."

At the end he had to sift through a grip of surveys his estimate ranges from 500 million 750 million atheists worldwide from this paper. Pretty wide range. His country by country ranges are complex in p. 15-17 using numerous databases. WCE and even Operation World are used in a few without issues by Zuckerman.

Even the census data can show wide divergence with other surveys in other countries like Britain. Voas and Bruce (2004) "Research note: The 2001 census and christian identification in Britain" [11] state "Results from the 2001 population census suggest that nearly 72% of people in England and Wales may be identified as Christian. This figure is substantially higher than the proportion found by the British Social Attitudes survey and other national studies. It is also higher than the broad estimates of the size of the ‘Christian community’ previously produced by the Christian Research Association, the leading source of religious statistics in the UK (Brierley, 2003:2.2)." And even note issues with census data collection ”Another problem seems more serious. Unlike opinion polls which ask questions directly of respondents, census forms are generally completed by one individual on behalf of the entire household. There is no rule about who should take responsibility, but typically it is the head of household or at least a senior member of it."

On the WCE, The Andrew McKinnon's source does state The editors of the World Christian Encyclopedia provide reasonable methodological reflections on the different sources upon which scholars may draw in order to estimate the different religious populations of the world, as well as some of the issues that crop up as one tries to reconcile sources that disagree (Johnson and Zurlo 2020: 897–914)."

And the Marta Reynal-Querol & José G. Montalvo source does say ”For the sake of comparison we also collected data directly from the World Christian Enciclopedia (WCE) using its division of groups. This data set has the advantage of being a time series, providing information for 1970, 1975 and 1980.”

Other sources like Hsu et al. 2008 deal with methodology directly and state [12] state "Scholars have raised questions about the WCD's estimates categories, and potential bias, but the data have not yet been systematically assessed. We test the reliability of the WCD by comparing its religious composition estimates to four other data sources (World Values Survey, Pew Global Assessment Project,CIA World Factbook, and the U.S. Department of State), finding that estimates are highly correlated....Religious composition estimates in the WCD are generally plausible and consistent with other data sets."

For WRD "Given the limitations of censuses, including incomplete and irregular global coverage, potential political bias swaying the findings and the absences of many religious groups from censuses, any religious demographic analysis must consult multiple sources.[13] They state their sources which include census and surveys as well and say they are transparent to the scholarly community p. 1. Ramos1990 (talk) 15:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Ramos,

Regarding your claim that these databases are global debases from academic publishers and they provide useful data that others simply do not have: this is simply false; there are statistics produced by national censuses, national statistical institutes, and independent reliable survey organisations. Regarding your claim that no survey or census is definitive on religion: censuses are official countings of the characteristics of the whole population of a country, and in the case they have any shortcomings there are other surveys produced by national statistical organisations or independent reliable survey organisations. "Independent reliable" organisations necessarily means non-confessional, non-missionary, non-evangelistic, while "survey" organisations necessarily means that they actually conduct polls among populations. The WCE/WRD/WCD, given the evidence, is neither the first, nor the second thing.

Regarding Zuckerman's study of worldwide atheism, I do not understand what it has to do with the case being discussed here: Zuckerman does not claim that his study is a census, and in any case I would not use it in Wikipedia articles in place of census statistics. Regarding Voas & Bruce's research, I also don't understand what it has to do with our case: statistics from the British Social Attitudes Survey and the Christian Research Association have never been given precedence either in Wikipedia or elsewhere over census statistics. I think that the 2001 British census finding that 72% of the population identified themselves as Christian was correct, and in any case their number has shrunken to 59% by the 2011 census, and to 46% by the 2021 census; I trust that these are the correct proportions of self-identifying Christians within the British population in the three census periods.

Regarding your excerpt from McKinnon's paper, it continues with the sentence that I already quoted above: None of the particular calculations are provided, nor is there any accounting for methodological decisions in any particular case; neither transparency nor replicability are in evidence, which makes social scientific evaluation of how they reached their conclusions impossible..

Regarding your excerpt from Reynal-Querol & Montalvo's paper, it continues with the following conclusions, also already partially quoted above: However, as we pointed out before, this source has several shortcomings. First, and probably the most important, the data does not consider the possibility of double practice, very common in Sub Saharan Africa and Latin America countries. Comparing to the other source of information we realize the data is biased towards Christian religion. A clear example is the case of Kenya in which the distribution of religions is considered to be similar to Spain or Italy. The distribution of religious groups between 1970 and 1980 does not change in many countries. There are only about seventeen countries that present change in proportions. But those changes occur in countries where there is double practice and they usually imply an increase in the percentage of Christians and a reduction in the size of animist followers. Because of these reasons we take the data coming from the WCE with a lot of caution..

Regarding Hsu et al., their full paper can be read here, it was already widely quoted in the 2022-2023 discussion and it is mostly critical of the WCE/WRD/WCD. I hope it is not necessary to repeat the same findings already explained in the 2022-2023 discussion. However, your quote is missing the following parts: ... however, the WCD does have higher estimates of percent Christian within countries. ... we find that WCD estimates of American Christian groups are generally higher than those based on surveys and denominational statistics. ... the WCD counts tiny religious minorities, classifies some Muslim groups within the neoreligionist and ethnoreligionist categories, and has higher numbers of nonreligious. (p. 680); the conclusions about correlation with other datasets: ... the WCD tends to overestimate percent Christian relative to the other data sets. Scatterplots show that the majority of the points lie above the y - x line, indicating the WCD estimate for percent Christian within countries is generally higher than the other estimates. Although the bias is slight, it is consistent, and consequently, the WCD estimates a higher ratio of Christians in the world. (p. 684); and the final conclusions: We find some evidence for the three main criticisms directed at the WCD regarding estimation, ambiguous religious categories, and bias. The WCD consistently gives a higher estimate for percent Christian in comparison to other cross-national data sets. ... We also found evidence of overestimation when we compared WCD data on American denominational adherence to American survey data such as ARIS, due in part to inclusion of children, and perhaps also to uncritical acceptance of estimates from religious institutions. ... we find the WCD likely underestimates percent Muslim in former Communist countries and countries with popular syncretistic and traditional religions. ... Data on percent nonreligious are not highly correlated among the five data sets..

Regarding the WRD's own methodology paper, it is a self-published source (n.b. Brian J. Grim is another member of the Gordon-Conwell team) and it is quite simply false that they use census statistics; their data definitely do not correspond to the statistics provided by censuses. This is obvious and anyone can demonstrate it, given that census statistics are public and accessible to anyone. Stewart's paper (p. 463) also mentions census statistics dated 1900 to the 1970s, which are obviously obsolete, and some improbable unpublished data from “unprocessed” or “incomplete” national censuses. Æo (talk) 17:00, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Addendum: We must also remember and underline another important, critical point, which is that WCE/WRD/WCD data are speculative projections (WP:CRYSTAL) ranging from 1900 to 2050, not even survey outcomes, actually. Æo (talk) 17:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

P-Makoto, I would agree with your proposal to add that "reliable sources have criticized the sources on methodological grounds and that the demographic conclusions require further qualification" to the description in the table.

I would not restrict the scope of the source to Pentecostalism alone, however, owing to the fuzzy definition of Pentecostalism itself (cf. Stewart) and to the fact that its alleged 600+ million adherents, purported by the sources being discussed here, add a lot to the overall number of Protestants and Christians worldwide, and also owing to the fact that (cf. Stewart; Reynal-Querol & Montalvo; McKinnon) this demographic "athorial ritual" (as Stewart calls it) apparently originated among Anglicans and also involves the overestimation, and often self-overestimation, of the populations of other Christian denominations, including Anglicans themselves and Catholics, and therefore of Christians as a whole.

I would also agree with your proposal that the source be kept in the "additional considerations" category; otherwise, if other users think it would be more appropriate to downgrade it to the "generally unreliable" or even "deprecated" category (given the continuous spam campaigns of which they are, and will likely continue to be, the subject), I would agree with them. Æo (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I would not agree with downgrading the sources under discussion to "Generally unreliable" or "Deprecated". I have proposed neither, and I oppose both.

You would not restrict the scope of the source to Pentecostalism. But why then does the author make Pentecostalism and the "Pentecostal growth paradigm" the scope of the argument? I would be more comfortable being cautious about how far we extrapolate those conclusions.

To clarify, I do not mean to simply add "reliable sources have criticized the sources on methodological grounds and that the demographic conclusions require further qualification" to the description in the table. Rather, I would propose replacing the present description in the table with such a sentence. The current description of editors considering the source WP:PARTISAN etc. is based on editor assessments, rather than reliable secondary sources. There is not consensus on whether or not the sources are partisan. But perhaps there can be consensus that a reliable source has said that the projections require further qualification and have methodological flaws. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

P-Makoto,

I agree the depreciation is unreasonable. But I certainly would question the Petacostal paper when Hsu et al. 2008 [14] clearly does an actual wider assessment and concludes "To address the criticisms mentioned above, we compare the religious composition estimates in the WCD to four other cross-national data sets on religious composition (two survey-based data sets and two government-sponsored data sets): the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department). In our analysis, we find support for some of the criticisms made by reviewers, but on the whole we find that WCD estimates are generally consistent with other data sets. The WCD is highly correlated with the other data sets, estimates for percent Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu; however, the WCD does have higher estimates of percent Christian within countries." and "In sum, we find that the WCD religious composition data are highly correlated with other sources that offer cross-national religious composition estimates. For cross-national studies, the WCD may be more useful than other sources of data because of the inclusion of the largest number of countries, different time periods, and information on all, even small, religious groups.”

Additionally, Hsu 2008 also explicitly says "We ran correlations of the five data sets with each other on the percentage of adherents to the major world religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) as well as the nonreligious (Table 2). The WCD is highly correlated with the other four data sets, with most correlations near 0.90, which suggests that its data for percent Christian, percent Muslim, percent Buddhist, and percent Hindu are generally reliable.

Also I think that there are methodological issues with other sources like census data as is exemplified with Britain. Many countries do not even have religion questions on the census either. But no one tries to depreciate those sources. It seems too much to require more from WCE than other sources when the evidence shows it is reliable and consistent with other databases on the whole.

I think removing partisan and leaving the wording as is for in text attribution makes more sense for middle ground on the table.

Also these databases are respected by diversity of scholars and authoritative sources such as scholars of Islam (e.g. The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies (2022)), scholars of nonreligion / irreligion (e.g. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7 (2016)), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (2007)), Pew Research Center's uses it in own methodology and database (see Pew's methodology, The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa (2020)) and also Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies (2022), Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Religion (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe (2022)

- Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable" [15] - "Despite these criticisms, we can appreciate the editors’ achievement in applying a relatively consistent methodology across the world. Furthermore, the WRD estimates are highly correlated with other cross-national estimates of religious distribution, a conclusion supported by an article by Becky Hsu and others." and also "Still, despite my criticisms, I will eagerly use these data in my research. I do not know of any better data available on such a broad scale and am amazed at the editors’ ability to provide even tentative estimates of religious distribution by province and people group."

- Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!" [16] - "The WRD is a truly remarkable resource for researchers, Christian workers, church leaders, religious academics, and any others wanting to see how the various religions of the world impact both the global and the local scenes. It is always easy to criticize any grand compilation of statistical material by looking at the detail in one particular corner and declaring, "That number doesn't seem right." The sheer scope of this database, however, is incredible, and the fact that it exists and can be extended even further and updated as time goes forward in the framework of a respected university deserves huge applause for those responsible for it. Praise where praise is due, even if I am about to critique it."

If it is good for demographers it certainly good for Wikipedia. Ramos1990 (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ramos1990 Those are old sources. Have you evidence the situation is the same 13 or more years later? Doug Weller talk 15:29, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi. Well, not sure if you looked at the Handbooks I linked, but some are from the 2020s. For example here is an extract of an authoritative source The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa (2020):"The 2010 Pew Report is notable in terms of its comprehensive research design. Pew utilizes demographic sources from the World Religion Database as well as extensive survey data for nineteen African states. This mixed methods design of both quantitative and qualitative sources is important because it provides a substantive way to ground truth our understanding of religious affiliations and attitudes. Published demographic data alone on religion is usually drawn from censuses which can be fraught with design problems, but Pew utilizes field tested, empirical observations." Ramos1990 (talk) 18:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you realise that that book is discussing the Pew Research Center, and that the WRD is just mentioned in a note about the sources upon which the Pew builds its estimates? The book is neither citing the WRD directly nor discussing it. And the Pew's own criteria about its use of WRD data have already been quoted in my <19:44, 6 January> comment below. Æo (talk) 21:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

It does not need to. It merely incudes it as part of its positive assessment of the quantitative (WRD) and qualitative (survey data) combination. It certainly does not support your view at all (that is its worthless and useless). Pew's methodology page does not either. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

P-Makoto,

In my opinion the outcome of the previous community consensus should not be altered, and Firefangledfeather's closing summary should be kept, with its reference to WP:PARTISAN, or WP:BIASED, and WP:CRYSTAL, and just altered to add your new sentence, possibly also adding Stewart's conclusion that the source lacks the methodological rigor required to provide valid research results, and a reference to the fact that these results systematically overestimate Christianity (as found by all the critical papers quoted above) and underestimate other religions (as found by Hsu et al.). Regarding WP:BIASED, I think that it is important to keep it because in my view it is quite clear that the source is biased; for me, the relationship that it has with the OW-JP, its origins as a Christian missionary project, the fact that it is edited by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (which, by the way, is itself directly related to Billy Graham and his Lausanne Movement), are all indicators of a clear bias, and in any case, this is clearly stated by Reynal-Querol & Montalvo where they wrote we realize the data is biased towards Christian religion.

Moreover, in his essay, p. 459, Stewart further explains that Barrett directly addresses and emphatically rejects what he calls the “folly of triumphalism” ... Despite this assurance, Barrett’s occupation as a missionary, stated belief that all of the world would be evangelized by the end of the twentieth century, and, not least of all, his development of a “theology of Christian enumeration” that explains the purpose of his work as helping “the followers of Christ to discern at what points to commit their resources in order to implement their commission” serve to make this, probably, the least debatable criticism ... The particular strength of this last critique might also possibly explain why, in his recent dismissal of the critiques commonly levied against Barrett’s work, Johnson [of the GCTS] elects not to address the accusation of triumphalism..

The previous quote adds to both the problem of non-neutrality, bias, of the source and to the question of the scope of the source. In his own words, Barrett theorised a "theology of Christian enumeration", not of Pentecostal enumeration. Furthermore, Stewart on p. 460 is clear when he writes that: To describe Barrett’s enumeration of Pentecostals – let alone of Christians as a whole – in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia as confusing would be a drastic understatement. Guiding the entire work is Barrett’s conceptualization of Christianity ...; and again on p. 466: Barrett's ... collection techniques in order to enumerate Pentecostals and other Christians around the world. Therefore, Barret's project affects Christianity as a whole, and not merely Pentecostalism. Stewart clept it "Pentecostal growth paradigm" apparently because such a paradigm was ... adopted and more widely disseminated by Pentecostal clergy and scholars – mostly in the Global North ... (p. 458). This is probably a reference to the OW and its affiliated networks; I remind that the book Operation World (2010, p. 25) declares that ... the World Christian Encyclopedia and a handful of other resources are at the heart of this information ....

Of course you have not proposed to classify the source as "generally unreliable" or "deprecated", I did not mean that, but I would propose it if any other users agreed, since this would help stem the ongoing spam of this source throughout Wikipedia (which has continued despite its addition to the perennial sources' list last year). Æo (talk) 00:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Considering the discussion here, which is very quite long, I concur with the original 2022-2023 consensus against depreciation of these sources. They are definitely used by academic researchers and the sources presented do verify that they are good for use in Wikipedia. Robert D. Woodberry's confirmation of Hsu findings of general reliability across 4 datasets are certainly notable here as multiple sources converge on overall reliability. Keeping in mind that there are many problems with all sources including census data (WRD methodology states that only about half of the world's censuses even ask about religion and that this is declining further) certainly means that many other sources need to be used by default. This is verifiable in the US, which has nothing on religion for so many decades. And numerous other nations have removed such questions for privacy and expense reasons.

I do see room for BOTH (World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database) and numerous other databases to be used on Wikipedia. After all, these are all just estimates at the end and the Pentecostal and Atheism examples here exhibit the need to use multiple sources to make some sense of adherents (upper and lower estimates). I will say that polls, surveys, etc also fail to predict verifiable things like political elections [17] so I can only imagine the difficulty in religion demographics.

I think a good median on the perennial table is to keep the wording as is minus "The methodology of these sources has been questioned as WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL." since these pass on comparison with multiple other datasets. Twice with this noticeboard by the same proposer AEO. The wording would sound neutral, very basic, inclusive, and not too specific. "Preference" does not mean "removal" or "prohibited". It allows coexistence of sources. Thus I think this is reasonable. desmay (talk) 01:28, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

After all, these are all just estimates – No, there are precise statistics from censuses and national surveys, possibly integrated by other good-quality statistics from independent neutral survey organisations, for most countries. We do not need speculative projections from non-neutral organisations of Christian evangelism. But this has already been widely discussed. The WCE/WRD/WCD are regularly spammed on Wikipedia and this causes a lot of nuisance for editors in the field of religion statistics like me, Erp and others (see here, here, etc.).

... polls, surveys, etc also fail to predict verifiable things like political elections so I can only imagine the difficulty in religion demographics – Actually, I think that a cultural identifier such as religion is much more verifiable and measurable than fleeting opinions such as political votes.

Twice with this noticeboard by the same proposer AEO – I did not open the 2022-2023 discussion myself, and, in any case, what is the problem? I also opened a discussion about WP:STATISTA last year, which resulted in its categorisation as WP:GUNREL. I read a lot, I noticed that the WCE/WRD/WCD were still being spammed throughout Wikipedia, I found new evidence of their problematic nature (the new papers presented in this discussion), and therefore I decided to open this new discussion. Æo (talk) 02:14, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Taking in what has been said so far, at this time, for WRD/WCD/WCE, I am inclined to support user desmay's recommendations. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 05:17, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Me too. I think it is a balanced recommendation. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:40, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I have to partially correct what I expressed in my <00:08, 5 January> previous comment, given that the clause with a reference to WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL was not present in Firefangledfeather's original closing summary, but was added by Folly Mox when they created the entry in the perennial sources' list. Yet, the new evidence (Stewart et al.) introduced with the present discussion fully justifies Folly Mox's addition, and I continue to support P-Makoto's original proposal to add a further sentence as expressed in her <10:25, 4 January> comment, and my own proposal of further additions and of category re-assessment as expressed in my <00:08, 5 January> comment, rather than desmay's proposal to return to the original closing summary. Æo (talk) 15:52, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I placed the entry at the RSP table because I had to do some citation repair regarding these sources, I think at List of religious populations. I've found that most places these are cited in articles seem to be infoboxes and tables, which don't lend themselves easily to additional explanations about methodology etc. My sample may not reflect the total citation population.

The words I used in the entry at RSP (the only one I've ever added) were probably intended to be a summary of the close of the lengthy enormous discussion. I have no objection to the wording being changed if I've misconstrued the conversation or the close. I'm not sure if I see Firefangledfeathers bluelinked above, so courtesy ping in case they have input. Folly Mox (talk) 18:55, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I continue to support P-Makoto's original proposal to add a further sentence

I believe this misrepresentation is accidental on Æo's part, but it is a misrepresentation of me. It was never my original proposal to add a sentence. It was my proposal that the description in the table be changed (bolding added), which I later clarified to replacing the present description in the table (bolding addeed). Any proposal which merely adds a sentence about a reliable source identifying methodological flaws while retaining the reference to WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL would be contrary to my original position in this discussion. Such a proposal originates from someone other than myself; I suppose it would be best described as Æo's proposal, inspired by an inadvertent misunderstanding of my proposal.

Additionally, my current position (as I expressed in this diff), is support of desmay's proposal: keep the wording as is minus "The methodology of these sources has been questioned as WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL."

I think the reference to WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL in the table as it exists is not a consensus assessment by editors. See statements in the above discussion from myself, desmay, and Ramos1990 for examples of editor expressing consideration of the WRD, WCD, and WCE to be academically valid.

It is also not consensus that the sources are unquestionable; Æo and Erp have made clear their impression of the sources as unreliable.

"Additional considersations" seems to be an appropriate assessment, inasmuch as there is not consensus for "Generally reliable" or "Generally unreliable". P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree that the close of the RFC by Firefalgledfeathers did not include partisan and crystal phrase. Since Folly Mox is ok with restoring the close wording. We can remove that phrase. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Let's not rush things. The discussion has only been open for a few days, and few people have taken part in it as of today. Moreover, Folly Mox has written that they would have no objection to the wording being changed if they had misconstrued the conversation or the close. And I think they have not misconstrued the essence of the 2022-2023 conversation. Æo (talk) 22:29, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Folly Mox: "The words I used in the entry at RSP (the only one I've ever added) were probably intended to be a summary of the close of the lengthy enormous discussion." and pinged closer Firefalgledfeathers. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

P-Makoto,

Apologies. I originally misunderstood your use of the word "change" as implying a change by addition and not by replacement, but your clarification in your <21:22, 4 January> comment was already very clear. What I meant with my previous message is that I would support the addition of the clause formulated in your original proposal, together with other critical considerations, to the current description formulated by Folly Mox, keeping the latter as it is. Also notice that other users took part, and expressed their opinions, in the 2022-2023 discussion.

I opened the present discussion to provide further evidence, from new critical essays, about the questionability of the sources under discussion; let's focus on the merits of the new evidence provided, rather than on quibbles about the current description in the perennial sources' list. Æo (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I have considered the new evidence presented. Seeing the new evidence presented prompted my earlier expressed decision to withdraw my suggestion to re-assess WRD/WCD/WCE as "Generally reliable" to instead support their assessment as "Additional considerations" (see my comment containing For now, I will pause my earlier musing that WCE/WRD/WCD could be re-assessed to "Generally reliable" and would consent to them being left listed as "Additional considerations". P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 04:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I would suggest:

There is no consensus on the reliability of these data sources. Rough consensus developed that the sources should be used with in-text attribution and to prefer the use of stronger sources. Some editors questioned their methodology and consider them to be partisan.

The order and tone matches many other "no consensus" RSP listings. The partisan issue was discussed more thoroughly than the point about their projections, but I wouldn't strenuously fight against including a short mention of the latter. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:53, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Firefangledfeathers, I am not sure this captures everything form both sides because multiple editors are also not convinced of partisan and multiple editors think the methodology is appropriate and consistent with multiple databases (sources and quotes for those provided too). Even in the original RFC you closed, the same thing happened (most said "No" to depreciation 10 vs 5). Ramos1990 (talk) 02:25, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

As you look through RSP, you don't see a lot of "... but others disagreed". I think we just briefly state the most impactful concern, so that it's considered in future discussions when evaluating the source. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

On second thought, I'd support including a brief statement about one strength of the sources. The one that stands out the most to me in the prior discussion is that these data sources are so commonly cited by high-quality sources. Something like:

There is no consensus on the reliability of these data sources. Rough consensus developed that the sources should be used with in-text attribution and to prefer the use of stronger sources. Some editors noted that data from these sources is commonly used by high-quality publications, while others questioned their methodology and consider them to be partisan.

Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for that! I support this balanced version. It captures both sides and the sources that were used in this discussion and the RFC you closed. Ramos1990 (talk) 02:45, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to hear out some thoughts on this, and to reword the description. This version has improvement that I appreciate. I am inclined to suggest rephrasing "commonly used by high quality publications" to instead say "numerous high-quality publications"? It's a subtle difference, but there are high quality publications in topics unrelated to religious demographics that don't use these sources, so to say a source is commonly cited in high quality publications feels not quite on the mark. Saying that editors have noted that they are used in numerous high-quality publications, that seems fair and demonstrably true. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 04:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Works for me. Not looking to make this change too soon, so you (and any others) should feel free to suggest changes or propose alternatives. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

P-Makoto, works for me too. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers: I continue the discussion, with an alternative proposal, further below. Æo (talk) 19:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm leaning in agreement with AEo here, that the summary by FFF should be retained and editors cautioned about using these as sources. The issues over methodology are compounded by the real concern of religious advocacy/promotion/bias raised by Stewart and others. I'm also of the opinion that the very limited use of WRD by Pew Research is rather telling: they opt to cite it (as one among several databases) only in circumstances where basically no census/survey or granular data exist, rather than incorporating WRD reports into all of their estimates. JoelleJay (talk) 22:00, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Pew uses WRD for 57 countries at least. That is a good chunk. Considering that they use "large scale demographic surveys" for 43 countries, and "general population surveys" for 42 countries, it is quite useful to complete the picture for their global estimates. Ramos1990 (talk) 22:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Look at which countries though... It is a rather limited use. I would not lean on Pew to establish reliability for this source, I'd find someone who actually endorses it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:47, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. I have multiple academic sources in purple and stuff like recent Handbooks above on it. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:24, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

But those 57 countries comprise only 5% of the population covered. JoelleJay (talk) 18:47, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Religious demography is about studying different countries and the beliefs of the people there. I am sure you will agree that each country is a different culture with diverse beliefs and histories and that these people matter - no matter how much on a global scale they are. Approximately 4.6 billion people live in ten countries, representing around 57% of the world's population [18]. I don't think that looking at only 10 out of 232 countries are representative of the cultures of the the remaining 222. China and India alone are 38% of the world population (~3 billion). Besides if you you calculate 5% out 8 billion, its 400,000,000 people from 57 nations with diverse cultures, histories, and beliefs. That is substantial and researchers do not just throw their hands up and ignore them. Most of nonreligion research focuses in Western nonreligious populations (Europe (12%), North America (5%)), but the overwhelming majority of the nonreligious are in Asia and in particular China alone (76%) from Pew. I don't think North America should be ignored just because it is 5% of the global nonreligious population. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:17, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

It's 5% of the population because for that 5% Pew couldn't find any other sources besides WRD and some other databases. If WRD was being treated as completely reliable by Pew they would incorporate WRD data into the other 95% of their estimates. JoelleJay (talk) 23:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Pew does not go by % people. It goes by Countries (25% of their countries used WRD, whereas large surveys (18%), general surveys (18%), and census (38%)). Good coverage. Each country has different understanding of religion and instruments of measure are diverse. You can read Pew's methodology to see that they say they used multiple quantitative and multiple qualitative sources for each country. Its inevitable because all sources are limited. Pew says "variation in methods among censuses and surveys (including sampling, question wording, response categories and period of data collection) can lead to variation in results". So adjustments need to be made (e.g. one source may have some data and but another source may have the missing data, but needs a third source to refine everything). In general there are 3 broad categories for religion (belief, belonging, and behavior). Some sources may have affiliation data, but not belief, or they may have belief data, but low sampling or poor wording. To keep it short, see Zuckerman in purple text, where he shows examples of massive hurdles to get a usable count on the number of atheists in any given country. Sometimes researches use more math to standardize (weighted or non-weighted). In any case, WRD is a database and it collects sources and is just one tool, among others, that researchers of every stripe do use. You can see the WRD methodology. It is available, not hidden. Also it used on continental Europe [19] by others. Hope this helps. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

In the methodology you linked previously, Pew says Together, censuses or surveys provided estimates for 175 countries representing 95% of the world’s population. In the remaining 57 countries, representing 5% of the world’s population, the primary sources for the religious-composition estimates include population registers and institutional membership statistics reported in the World Religion Database and other sources. JoelleJay (talk) 03:44, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Pew breaks it down further "Censuses were the primary source for Pew Forum religious composition estimates in 90 countries, which together cover 45% of all people in the world. Large-scale demographic surveys were the primary sources for an additional 43 countries, representing 12% of the global population. General population surveys were the primary source of data for an additional 42 countries, representing 37% of the global population." With 57 countries for WRD, they covered more countries than large scale demographic surveys (43 countries), and general population surveys (42 countries). Population wise, large scale demographic surveys (43 countries) was 12% of the global population, which is very comparable to WRD. Of course % of people covered is irrelevant because each country has different practices and beliefs, histories (religious beliefs from China and India do not reflect most of the world despite them being 38% of the global population.) It would be odd to dismiss 57 countries out of 232, 43 countries out of 232, 42 countries out of 232, or 90 out of 232. They also state "Pew Forum researchers acquired and analyzed religious composition information from about 2,500 data sources, including censuses, demographic surveys, general population surveys and other studies – the largest project of its kind to date." Though I can see where you are coming from, I am afraid the view that there should be 1 magical super source that applies to all 232 countries is not quite possible. They had more than 10 times 232 sources analyzed and mathematically adjusted to come up with their final product for just 232 countries. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:57, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I am in agreement with the proposal put forth by Firefangledfeathers and P-Makoto. It is neutral and on point. desmay (talk) 14:23, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

In her comments, Ramos quoted the abstract from Brierley's World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief! (2010) emphasising the author's seemingly positive evaluation of the source. However, reading through the essay one finds that in the conclusions the author points out that: ... This illustrates the dilemma for the compilers of the WCE and WRD. The Church of England may claim 26 million people, roughly the number living in the UK who have been baptized in the church either as infants or adults. The WRD treats this as their official source. However, not all of these now regard themselves as belonging to the Church of England and so did not tick the "Christian" box on the census form. Result? The WRD puts the Christian percent as 81 percent, the census as 72 percent, with the difference virtually entirely in the group of people who have left (as other research has shown). Which source should the WRD trust or use? This is their statistical nightmare, and the WRD in this instance opts for denominational information and does not judge between the two (though perhaps it should). This perhaps explains why some highly erudite commentators, such as Philip Jenkins, whose books on the world Christian scene have been so powerful and helpful, criticize the numbers in the WCE (and doubtless will those found in the WRD). Jenkins sometimes uses the CIA data instead, but there is no guarantee that that is more reliable.. This was written in 2010 with the data from the 2001 British census in mind; fourteen years later, things have not changed: compare WRD UK 2020 data with the 2021 UK census data.
The strength of the database, according to Brierley, merely consists in its unprecedented ... attempt on a worldwide basis to compile numbers for the different religions in a broadly compatible manner for each country.. Moreover, Brierley also concludes that: ... Christian and religious commentators have no option but to use it, despite hang-ups on definitions and individual numbers. ... These figures are not just for academic reflection and analysis but for strategic use and application. "Strategic use and application" refers to Christian mission, since Brierly is a Christian minister and/or missionary himself.
Ramos also quoted from Woodberry's World Religion Database: Impressive—but Improvable (2010); on the first page of the paper (unfortunately, I can't access the full text) we read: ... the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals. Denominations, however, typically overestimate the number of members they have, and liturgical (and state-sponsored) denominations generally count anyone who has ever been baptized as a member—even infant baptisms of people who no longer claim Christian identity or attend church..
There is also another paper of the same series, Arles' World Religion Database: Realities and Concerns (2010), but I can't access its full text.
Brierley's, Woodberry's and Arles' papers were all published on the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, and Brierley, Arles and probably Woodberry as well, are/were Christian ministers and/or missionaries, and therefore I think it is important to underline that these papers belong to the Christian missionary environment to which the WCE/WRD/WCD itself belongs. Such papers are missionary sources which recommend the use of another missionary source, highlighting its strength as an unprecedented attempt to quantify the world's religious populations, while at the same time criticising its flaws. Other "high-quality publications" might be uncritical in their use of the WCE/WRD/WCD, and indeed essays like those of Brierley, Woodberry, Arles, and also Hsu et al., Stewart, and the others already discussed, were published precisely to warn against the uncritical use of such sources.
Liedhegener & Odermatt's Religious Affiliation in Europe (2013), already quoted in the 2022-2023 discussion, pointed out that (p. 9) the WCE/WRD/WCD ... is not an unproblematic source, because its data, gathered originally from the World Christian Encyclopedia, result mostly from country reports prepared by American missionaries. Therefore, a systematic bias of its data in favor of Christianity is a major, although controversial point of criticism..
As pointed out by JoelleJay hereabove, the Pew Research Center itself is very cautious in its use of WCE/WRD/WCD data, also considering that Pew mostly bases its studies on its own (real) surveys. On p. 53 of Pew's The Global Religious Landscape (2010) we read about their criteria for their use of WRD data: In cases where censuses and surveys lacked sufficient detail on minority groups, the estimates also drew on estimates provided by the World Religion Database, which takes into account other sources of information on religious affiliation, including statistical reports from religious groups themselves..
Folly Mox, in their <18:55, 5 January> comment, correctly warned that the WCE/WRD/WCD are still widely cited throughout Wikipedia in a great number of articles, mostly in infoboxes and tables and without further explanation about their nature, methodology and probable bias. This has been going on for years: many articles still uncritically report WCE/WRD/WCD data referenced to the ARDA or Gordon-Conwell websites; many of them are articles about countries and the data are reproduced directly in the country infobox, passed off as 2020 data despite the fact that they are speculative projections. Therefore, I think that it would be important that WP:CRYSTAL be mentioned in the description in the perennial sources' list.
That being said, my proposal for the description in the perennial sources' list is the following one:

There is no consensus on the reliability of these sources of data about religious populations, and concerns have been raised that they may be WP:BIASED and that they are WP:SPECULATIVE projections. Rough consensus developed that the sources should be used with in-text attribution and to prefer the use of stronger sources (e.g. censuses and national surveys). While these data sources have been used in some high-quality publications, others have questioned their methodology and consider them to be partisan, and especially prone to an overestimation of Christianity.

Æo (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The RFC that Æo opened on this in 2022-2023 already had all of this commentary and MORE, and after all of that Firefangledfeathers was able to come up with a balanced closure wording to take into consideration ALL sides. I would say that Firefangledfeathers proposed wording, and P-Makoto's adjustment, is certainly very balanced and NPOV again and to the point. We should go with that as Firefangledfeathers is an uninvolved editor.

I also would just like to note that AEO seems to be an aggressive POV pusher against WCE/WRD/WCD sources. Seems to have an obsession to get these removed from wikipedia at any cost. To the point that he opened the 2022-2023 RFC and attempted to close it himself after the results were not in his favor (10 "No" vs 4 "Yes" - his count) with such biased wording emphasizing his view point and the minority and ignoring the majorities views (see here [20]). I thought that this opening and closing was unethical (conflict of interest) and requested an involved editor (see here [21]), which turned out to be Firefangledfeathers. His closure was much more balanced and at least took into consideration everyone's views (majority and minoirty) (see here [22]). As such, I do not trust AEO's POV pushing biased wording.

Based on this, I trust the uninvolved editor Firefangledfeathers balanced NPOV wording and P-Makoto's adjustment.

Addendum: Plus all of these quibbles were taken into account in Hsu 2008 - the only source to empirically assess these databases with 4 others: the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department) and found "The WCD is highly correlated with the other four data sets, with most correlations near 0.90, which suggests that its data for percent Christian, percent Muslim, percent Buddhist, and percent Hindu are generally reliable". Also about half or less of all countries in the world even ask about religion at all in any census. With inconsistent wording and on voluntary basis too. You have to use other sources by default to compensate. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Actually, the only quote in my comment above that I have recovered from the 2022-2023 discussion is the quote from Liedhegener & Odermatt. Brierley's and Woodberry's texts were not quoted directly back then, except for their abstracts, and therefore my argument above provides new evidence and perspectives. Everything else in your message constitutes an ad hominem WP:PA (and I already forgave you for last year's identical one). What I have written hereabove is just my proposal building upon Firefangledfeather's one, takes into consideration all the views which have been expressed by both critical essays and editors in our discussions, and in any case I am not going to close the discussion myself. Æo (talk) 21:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Addendum regarding your addendum with the quote from Hsu et al. and the consideration about census data: the WVS is not a survey specifically about religion, and it is a survey of relatively small samples (of few thousands in about 100 countries); the CIA and the US SD are not survey organisations, they collect data from some other sources (cf. Brierley himself where he states that it is not guaranteed that the CIA website is reliable); the Pew's own views are quoted in my comment above. You have to use other sources by default to compensate — yes, there is plenty of neutral statistical sources to fill gaps where we don't have data from censuses and surveys from national statistical organisations, and therefore we don't need the WCE/WRD/WCD or any other sources produced by Christian missionaries. Æo (talk) 22:04, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I also noticed the following recently. The ARDA page for the Republic of the Congo https://www.thearda.com/world-religion/national-profiles?u=58c#IRFDEMOG has the WRD estimates as Christians making up 89.32% of the population and then breaks the Christians down as unaffiliated 9.97%, Orthodox 0.01%, Catholic 61.62%, Protestants 11.42%, and Independents 10.87%. Unfortunately adding the subdivisions up yields 93.89% which is considerably more than 89.32%. Also 89.32% fits better with the figures for other religions so it is the 93.89% that is wrong probably at least in part by overestimating the percentage of Catholics (other sources claim Catholics at 32% or 55% [taken from the State Department religious freedom report https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religious-freedom/republic-of-the-congo/ which also states which 2012 government sources it got the figures from [a census and a survey]). The 2022 State department report had 47.3% Catholic and used a 2010 Pew Research Center report. The WRD database itself, which I have access to, lists 89.32% as Christian. Finding the subcategories took some work but it shows that the Christian subdivisions overlap (i.e., some people are counted in two or more Christian groups though not which groups overlap, my guess is many of those who were baptized Catholic and became something else later are counted in both which would explain why the Catholic figure is so high). However this is a guess because nowhere I can find does WRD describe their methodology (And ARDA dropped the overlap category). The list of what I assume is the sources for WRD for the Congo includes the 1960 and 2007 censuses and a 2005 survey but not apparently the 2012 government census and survey. A check on Angola also shows the double counted category missing on the ARDA listing of WRD results though it does show in the actual WRD database; however, most wiki editors do not have access to the latter. Note stuff like simple pie charts require no overlap in their data. This is even when assuming the WRD data is otherwise good data which I don't. So one can make a pie chart for the Congo using WRD data for the major religious categories (Christian, Muslim,...) but not one trying to show Catholic, Protestants, etc as well because the numbers will add up to more than 100%. Erp (talk) 01:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Hey Erp. Hope you are doing well! Glad you were able to use WRD data on the Religion in Republic of Congo page. Yep, that is demography. Did you see Voas and Bruce (2004) "Research note: The 2001 census and christian identification in Britain" [23]? According to them, the British census may have overestimated Christians (71.7%) vs a common British Social Attitudes survey (54.2%). Aren't they all British who took both? Why the difference? The way a question is asked, the way a person interprets and responds play a role in differences we see in the numbers. Its more complicated with sub-divisions like denominations like "Catholic" or "Pentecostal". So I expect the variation on "Catholic" you mentioned (61.62%, 47.3%, 32%, 55%). Makes sense. With all of these numbers, it is best to let experts do the calculations than us wikieditors. They know how to use these databases better than us. In particular, sociologists of religion. Ramos1990 (talk) 03:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I used it in the Congo article only because the previous editor used it and I didn't want to make too radical a change in one step. First show that the WRD data is inconsistent with itself so drop the Christian subdivisions which at least removes the inconsistencies. Then look for better sources. I'm not sure there is any really authoritative source in this case so it might be better to remove the pie chart (pie charts look nice but they lend the patina of authoritativeness which may be misleading) and discuss the different sources in the article (note some editors use multiple pie charts but that clutters up the article).

And yes how the questions are asked will affect the answers and how the survey or census is done (only resident citizens, all residents, only those with land lines...). However, the WRD isn't doing surveys or taking a census instead it is more a meta study using multiple sources (surveys, censuses, self-reported numbers, other projections) then projecting. My objections to it are several. First, it isn't clear what its sources are. The actual WRD data has a section called "Survey List" which I'm assuming is the list of sources; I have noticed in some cases that later sources than those on the list exist. Second, nothing describes the methodology it is using for a particular country; how is it calculating the projections when did it last update the projections (one can take a stab by looking at the latest item in the "Survey List" for when it likely last updated). Third there is no indication of how accurate they feel they are. Every percentage is to 4 significant digits (or counts to the individual person even when the sources aren't that precise, such as 386 people practicing Chinese Folk Religions and 237 Buddhists in the Republic of the Congo but no Daoists or Confucionists) even when that level of precision is impossible given the sources (projections should not become more precise then the sources). Another fault though common to many other sources is little account for religious syncretism such as in countries like Japan where many practice both Buddhism and Shintoism. Less important there are the oddities of definitions which make them seem not exactly neutral (for instance Confucianists have to be non-Chinese which might explain how they only get 1.8 million Confucianists in China). On another note given the use of the World Religion Database in Wikipedia for better or for worst, it is high time it had its own article complete with critiques from reliable sources so the reader can have some chance of evaluating it. Erp (talk) 16:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't know what the standard is in social science but in my field metastudy results should be reproducible by others, not shrouded in methodological mystery. That's another big knock on the WRD. JoelleJay (talk) 18:55, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Erp,

The problems you have encountered regarding the "double counting" and "inconsistent estimates" in WCE/WRD/WCD data are addressed in some of the papers we have discussed. For instance, in Hsu et al.: p. 688, analysing WCE/WRD/WCD data about US Christians: The WCD reports the total adherent count within Christian denominations and movements is 226 million, of whom 20 million are estimated to be doubly affiliated, leaving 206 million unique adherents. An additional 46 million claim to be Christians but are not affiliated with a church, for a total of 252 million affiliated and unaffiliated Christians. The 2005 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches’ tabulation of official church membership is 163 million. In contrast to the WCD, the Yearbook does not count members of independent churches or adjust for doubly affiliated adherents. This difference of 43–63 million adherents between the Yearbook and the WCD warrants further examination. ... The WCD adjusts for “doubly counted” adherents, who may be on multiple membership lists, when aggregating up from denomination level statistics to religious blocks and total religious adherents. However, we do not know how the WCD derives its estimate of 20 million doubly counted U.S. adherents. Current WCD estimates of American Christian populations are generally higher than those based on survey evidence and denominational statistics. The WCD estimate of the total Christian population does not sufficiently reflect the recent downward trend in the percentage of Americans professing Christian identity in surveys.; pp. 689-691, analysing inconsistent estimates of Christians in other countries: We find two major groups of countries with inconsistent estimates: African countries with religious syncretism or a history of social disorder, and formerly Communist countries. ... African countries with very inconsistent estimates for percent Christian (Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) have some populations that mix religious practices. ... For India, which others have cited as problematic, the WCD has a higher estimate for percent Christian than the other data sets ... the difference comes from Christian believers in high and low castes identifying themselves as Hindu for various reasons, ... and the existence of “isolated radio believers” who do not affiliate with particular denominations. The WCE does not explain how it estimates the number of isolated radio believers, presumably a particularly difficult population to measure.. Æo (talk) 14:56, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948#RfC on what result is to be entered against the result parameter of the infobox

An argument is being made that all sources listed in the article reporting a result that is a stalemate/inconclusive are passing mentions that fail WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Further input at the RfC would be appreciated. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:30, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: it would be better if we listed the sources here, one by one, and then let the community opine on their reliability. VR _talk 16:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Night attack at Târgoviște

There is a discussion at DRN about Night attack at Târgoviște, and the question is whether page 42 of the following source, in Turkish,

https://acikerisim.kku.edu.tr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.12587/15704/419132.pdf

supports the claim that the Ottoman army consisted of 15,000 men.

Notifying @Super Dromaeosaurus and Keremmaarda:.

Robert McClenon (talk) 15:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

yes, the source is Turkish Keremmaarda (talk) 20:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The nationality of the source has nothing to do with whether it's reliable or not. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:28, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The relevant section (translates by Google) appear to be:(bolding mine)
Fatih Sultan Mehmet personally went on a Wallachian expedition to punish Vlad the Impaler. Meanwhile, since the voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia were at odds with each other, the voivode of Moldavia supported the Ottomans. The Ottoman army of 15 thousand people gathered in Plovdiv and moved towards Wallachia from there. The Sultan crossed the Danube from the Black Sea and reached Vidin with 25 galleys and 150 transport ships. Meanwhile, the Ottoman army under the command of Mahmut Pasha entered the lands of Wallachia, and Vlad the Impaler did not come across them. Evrenosoğlu Ali Bey started to raid the lands of Wallachia with his raider forces. Vlad the Impaler was applying the guerrilla warfare method. He even aimed to kill the Sultan with a night raid, but he was not successful in this. As a result, the army of Vlad the Impaler, who started to flee, could not hold on against the Ottoman raiders and was dispersed. Vlad the Impaler took refuge in Hungary. Because the Hungarian king did not want to open relations with the Ottomans. He imprisoned Vlad the Impaler. Thereupon, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror declared Vlad's younger brother Radul the voivode of Fflak. After Radul's death in 1479, Vlad came to Wallachia again, but he was unsuccessful. He was killed two years later by one of his own slaves.
Which is referenced to "Osmanlı Ansiklopedisi, İstanbul–1996, C. 2., s. 73–74". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:26, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The work is a doctoral thesis, which would fall under WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and appears to have at least a few citations. [24] -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:47, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Per my comment at ANI, while the source describes an Ottoman army of 15,000 men, it does not mention Targoviste or the year 1462. Even if this source does refer to the correct event, given that the source refers to a force of 15,000 in Plovdiv and then mentions a separate force under Mahmut Pasha, it is not clear that we can infer that 15,000 corresponds to the number of Ottoman troops present at Targoviste. I'm surprised that this is being discussed at DRN given the ongoing ANI case. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Rosguill - Thank you for calling my attention to the WP:ANI proceeding. I have closed the DRN case as pending in another forum. Survivors can discuss at the article talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:57, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Actually I think it's even weaker than that. 15,000 men at Poldiv, but the article makes clear there was raiding and skirmishing going on. So there can't have been the same number later on when the night attack occured. I'm also concerned by the comment above, as it doesn't show good judgement on the reliability of sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The other numbers given are not those of the night attack. These are the armies he gathered when he was going to go on a campaign. Keremmaarda (talk) 22:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes he gathered 15,000 people for the campaign, not those present at the night attack. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:03, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Also having read a few comments at DRN, and looked into the author İbrahim Akyol, they are a professor in Turkish language and literature not history. The thesis is similarly about language and culture not history.
I don't believe that it's reliable for the specific claim, and I don't believe the work is reliable for exceptional historical claims (one's that are in conflict with other academic works by professional historians). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

My own assessment is largely along these lines... If the thesis was about political/military history I would likely support inclusion with attribution but it appears to be largely tangential information. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

A non-subject expert disagreeing with subject experts should always be handled with caution, false balance could get involved. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:18, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, RSN editors. I have closed the DRN case as being discussed at WP:ANI. I see that the conclusion is that the source in question is not reliable in this context. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:57, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Thank you all for your help, I had stopped replying in the dispute resolution pages as the other party appears to be heading towards a topic ban, however now we have consensus for removing the source too. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 12:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Rosenblatt's Deans Database at https://lawdeans.com/.

This popped up in my feed this morning, and my immediate instinct is to add it as a reference to just about every American law school dean article, since it seems rather nicely put together. I wanted to run it by this noticeboard first to make sure that this seems reasonable. BD2412 T 16:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

If the question is whether this source is reliable—a law school—the Mississippi College School of Law in Jackson, Mississippi—hosts the RDD. An academic host generally prompts confidence.

On the other hand, the message on the home page apparently indicates that Jim Rosenblatt, emeritus dean of the Mississippi College School of Law, runs the website himself. He asks for people to send any updated information for your law school or law school dean to me [i. e. him] directly. It's not clear if the site has other staff, such as folks fact checking and doing editorial review (I do recognize that the home page indicates corrections are made when new information arises). And since the statistics are about current law deans, the Biography of living persons policy indicates we must tread very cautiously about what sources are appropriate. This is no judgment on the quality of RDD—I get a good impression from it, too—but even very reputable self-published subject matter experts are subject to BLP policy.

Perhaps its aggregate data could be cited (e. g. "According to Rosenblatt's Deans Database, 43.2% of law deans at schools in the United States are women"), treating Rosenblatt as a subject matter expert for such, since that is not about specific living persons? But citing RDD for specific persons is something I would be cautious about.

Additionally, adding this source to every American law school dean article might verge on inadvertently seeming to other editors like one is spamming, or promoting the source. Even if it were concluded that RDD has sufficient review processes and is reliable for law dean articles, it would make more sense to cite the database as one goes about edits, rather than mass-populating it across the Wiki. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 17:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

There is so little information there about how the data are compiled, curated, revised, etc. that it's impossible to provide an affirmative answer, especially if the intent is to use this as a source in BLPs. What have other publications said about it? ElKevbo (talk) 22:45, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

That is a good question. From a rather superficial search, I find that according to Google Scholar, it is cited in about a dozen scholarly articles (excluding one by Rosenblatt himself), such as:

• Patricia E. Salkin, The Role of the Dean in Ensuring a Sustainable Law School: Everything Comes Down to What I Learned in Land Use Planning and Sustainable Development Law, 46 U. Tol. L. Rev. 375 (2014-2015)
• Susan Handley Duncan, Karen Lott, and Catherine Pettis, Law School Dean Wanted: A Woman for All Reasons, 65 Vill. L. Rev. 1083 (2020)
• Laura M. Padilla, The Black-White Paradigm's Continuing Erasure of Latinas: See Women Law Deans of Color, 99 Denv. U. L. Rev. 683 (2022).

In books in print, it is cited in:

• John C. Alessio, The Intentional Dean: A Guide to the Academic Deanship (2017), p. 204.
• George Justice, How to Be a Dean (2019), p. 87.
• Mari Koerner, The Successful Dean: Thoughtful Strategies and Savvy Tips for Today's Evolving Leadership (2020), p. 42.

So far as I can tell, all reference to the site is as an authority, and no critical analysis of its quality has been conducted. BD2412 T 01:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

AP News with plagiarism

So if you don’t check the news often (like me), you might have missed it. Earlier this morning, the Associated Press (AP News) ran a story where they stated the following: Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism (via post on 𝕏). The news article’s headline today originally was titled Harvard president quits: Claudine Gay resignation highlights new conservative weapon, which has since been changed to be titled Plagiarism charges downed Harvard’s president. A conservative attack helped to fan the outrage.

This isn’t an RfC as one isn’t warranted, given AP isn’t a source on the plagiarism article. Per very clear Wikipedia consensus combined with actual academic study consensus, AP News is widely considered to be accurate. That said, given the development today, I think we need a discussion about whether or not AP should be considered unreliable on the topic of plagiarism (i.e. no future usage on that article only).

Several sources have posted articles on this AP News headline as well: Fox News (considered unreliable), Daily Wire (considered unreliable), Independent Journal Review (No discussions on WP:RSP), New American (considered unreliable), Pipa News (Nothing at WP:RSP), Disclose.tv (On 𝕏), Elon Musk commenting after the AP News post on 𝕏 linked above was community noted.

If you haven’t followed the Harvard President’s topic over the last month, there is a lot of articles (from RS sources) about the plagiarism. Here are the ones linked in that Community Note: PBS, Axios, NY Times, The Hill, Harvard University.

Given the weird article from AP News, I personally think we (Wikipedia) should consider them unreliable on the sole topic of plagiarism, as they seem to be the only RS source considering it to be political. Even sources known to be on the American “political left” (NY Times is an example) don’t make it political and just say she was wrong. Again, this is not an RfC as AP is not currently even a source on the plagiarism article, but the discussion is better to have now for the future. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:06, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

You don't consider the Claudine Gay situation to be "political"? Here's an RS, Politico, with the headline yesterday "Republicans claim victory for Harvard president’s resignation". – Muboshgu (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I do. However, even Politico says, “Republican lawmakers welcomed Harvard University president Claudine Gay’s resignation after weeks of calling for her to step down over her response to antisemitism on campus — and her testimony on the topic at a fiery House hearing in December. That is about the antisemitism remarks. That aspect is political. Until the AP News article today, I had yet to see RS about the plagiarism (not antisemitism) to be political. That is what I mean. AP News made the plagiarism independent of the antisemitism political, which was a first. That is what this discussion is for. Ignore the President Gay/antisemitism controversy for this discussion. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the AP article has it completely right. NY Times calls it a the plagiarism a "proxy fight", and Politico (different article than the above) sees it as well. This was the work of Christopher Rufo, who used the idea that Gay committed plagiarism to erode faith in an Ivy League university. Time magazine refers to this as Rufo's Alarming and Deceptive Crusade. Rufo has admitted to all of this. "We launched the Claudine Gay plagiarism story from the Right. The next step is to smuggle it into the media apparatus of the Left, legitimizing the narrative to center-left actors who have the power to topple her. Then squeeze." (tweeted on December 19). – Muboshgu (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Muboshgu's summary of this. I think AP News remains reliable, including for the topic of plagiarism. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I, too, have no problem with APs reliability regarding plagiarism. In my view, this entire matter has been thoroughly politicized and weaponized from the very beginning. Cullen328 (talk) 19:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good y'all! Amid the political dispute then, I thought it best to bring it up here at least. Consensus remains that AP is reliable in all topics. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 20:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a good example of why we disregard headlines... Especially in the modern era when multiple titles can be A-B tested in real time. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

As originally published the article read: "On X, formerly Twitter, he wrote “SCALPED,” as if Gay was a trophy of violence, invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans." Later on "and also used by some tribes against their enemies." was added. Whether this was changed because of the ridicule on X or someone at AP independently realising what ahistorical nonsense this was would be interesting to know. The authors would have done well to glance at Scalping. —Simon Harley (Talk). 10:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

That isn't "ahistorical nonsense," both statements are true one just has more context. What the heck are you talking about? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, headlines are unreliable. It should also follow—in my opinion—that social media posts by an organisation promoting an article are unreliable. Only the article itself is what we should be using for factual claims. — Bilorv (talk) 11:55, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't find the AP article weird. I see nothing in it to make us consider it unreliable. The headline and tweet is never the source, so I see no problem here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

As a general and unfortunate principle, anything can be political - e.g. Climate Change. I don't see anything exceptional about AP's report. BilledMammal (talk) 13:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

There's usually a shortcut for all instances, and it's true in this case WP:HEADLINES. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to reinforce what others are saying - a headline isn't a source, and reputable organizations routinely tweak headlines for a variety of reasons. Absolutely no reason to consider discouraging use of AP on any topic as proposed in OP. VQuakr (talk) 17:21, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with most other comments, the headline is questionable, but AP should be still be considered a reliable source for plagiarism. FortunateSons (talk) 18:16, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Can blackpast.org be considered a reliable source for the purpose of BLP, including Claudine Gay?

There was a debate whether or not blackpast.org can be used to verify biographical information on the talk page for Claudine Gay (in this case, regarding her DOB)

Why it matters: Blackpast has some information that is otherwise very difficult to verify with reliable sources, particularly for academics and other people noteable in their respective fields.

The primary counterargument: A significant amount of content is originally submitted by users, making it potentially user-generated

The Arguments in Favor of Blackpast:

-They are considered reliable by other generally reliable sources

-the founder is considered an authority in his field

-there are internal review processes that meet or exceed the standards expected of most news papers

(-the specific entry in question is written by an expert in their field)

What is the reliability of blackpast.org in such cases?

Option 1: Generally reliable

• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

(Voting options removed per suggestion)

FortunateSons (talk) 22:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Specifically for the purpose of verifying Claudine Gay's date of birth on the Claudine Gay page, I would go with Option 1: generally reliable. The existence of an editorial review process run by the site administrator, and the fact that the entry in question is written by an expert in the field of Black history (Malik Simba, a trained professor) lends confidence in the source. One gets the impression that as a scholar, Simba conducted research to confirm that date of birth (perhaps interviewing Claudine Gay, or verifying with a birth record), and in light of the review process, his article on Claudine Gay received editorial review. As such, for the purpose of verifying Claudine Gay's date of birth, this source is independent, not self-published, and reliable. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much. May I assume that this also generally applies to articles from blackpast.org unless there is an indication otherwise? FortunateSons (talk) 10:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I think my answer is sufficiently clear for the purposes. I have refrained from weighing in on all of BlackPast, since it's not necessary for answering your question. Reliable source questions are answered in context. My answer is that my sense is that this article from BlackPast, authored by Malik Simba, can be considered generally reliable for the topic of Claudine Gay. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 13:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thank you FortunateSons (talk) 13:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I would say its likely reliable for that information but would caution against including any BLP info which can only be found in a single source in an article outside of ABOUTSELF. Sorry if "reliable but don't include without a second source" is the most frustrating possible answer you could possibly have gotten, I know I used to hate getting it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:41, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you.

There is no (significant) issue verifying the year of birth with a reliable source, but finding the actual DOB is rather difficult because the DOB of a former president of a university is not really printed outside of niche or denigrated sources. Could I use the general sources for the year and then use blackpast.org for the month and day? FortunateSons (talk) 10:18, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

So then just use YOB. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I would assess biographies here on a case by case basis (so I guess option 2 in general) and that this would be a reliable biography based on the author and other factors so I think it would be fine to use (option 21 for this specific use). I'm not sure I see a reason to seek an additional source for a non-contentious fact. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC) [I just corrected my numbering as what I wrote doesn't make sense. But this shouldn't really be an RfC. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:21, 5 January 2024 (UTC)]

From what is written above, I'd say WP:DOB might be reasonably held to apply. We have a year, easily sourced, which is almost always all that is of any significance for an academic, and thus all the article really needs, and having to look to a single possibly questionable source for an exact date suggests to me that we needn't include that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

She is (for now) so well known that I do not believe that she meets the description of a borderline or relatively unknown person. In addition, there are other sources, they are just depreciated and therefore cannot be used.

Therefore, I will add the date as the source is considered reliable in this case. FortunateSons (talk) 12:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:DOB. The standard for inclusion of personal information of living persons is higher than mere existence of a reliable source that could be verified. What encyclopaedic purpose exactly is being met by including an exact date of birth for someone known in a field where such information is not considered of significance, and thus not generally discussed? AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

If you are posing a question about whether this information is due (as in due weight), that seems to be a separate question from whether or not Malik Simba's article for BlackPast is reliable. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 13:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not 'posing a question'. I'm pointing out that WP:BLP directly addresses the inclusion of exact dates, and that being reliably sourced is not on its own sufficient grounds for inclusion. This is a direct response to FortunateSons stating that they intend to include it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:12, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

By that logic, almost all DOB should be removed. It is generally significant insofar as people use Wikipedia for information, such as her current age. Therefore, there is no reasonable argument against inclusion according to DOB and BLP. FortunateSons (talk) 13:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

If you wish to argue that WP:BLP policy stating that we "err on the side of caution" regarding including exact dates of birth etc be changed, you are welcome to do so. But not here. Meanwhile, that policy stands. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think it should be changed, I just don’t think it is an issue with the inclusion of the exact DOB here and not at all most every other page FortunateSons (talk) 14:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't give a damn about whether you personally 'think it is an issue'. I have pointed out the policy, and you have given no policy-based justification whatsoever to include the exact date. The onus being on those wishing to include content obtaining consensus to do so is absolutely fundamental to the way Wikipedia works. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:35, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The benefit is knowing the exact age, which can be useful, for example insofar as it is included within news articles. FortunateSons (talk) 14:39, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The people who have an exact DOB without an apparent reason including the other involved people Elise Stefanik, Christopher Rufo, her cousin Roxane Gay or her academic advisor Gary King. If you believe they all shouldn’t, than that is a perspective that you can advocate for, but it is clearly standard practice to include exact DOBs. FortunateSons (talk) 14:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Since you clearly haven't read WP:OTHERCONTENT, I suggest you do so. And I don't need to 'advocate' for existing policy. Not for WP:BLP. Not for WP:ONUS. Not for any of it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

You are right, I hadn’t.

Per WP:OTHERCONTENT, While these comparisons are not a conclusive test, they may form part of a cogent argument; an entire comment should not be dismissed because it includes a comparative statement like this. While comparing with other articles is not, in general, a convincing argument, comparing with articles that have been through some kind of quality review such as Featured article, Good article, or have achieved a WikiProject A class rating, makes a much more credible case, if the review does not pre-date policy changes that affect the material.

Good Articles featuring a DOB include Jeff Bezos, Guido Imbens, Richard Goldstone and many others.

Featured articles include Ben Affleck, Katy Perry, Buzz Aldrin, Liz Truss and others.

So, this is a clear indication that inclusion of a DOB is not generally an issue (except in cases of borderline significance or complaint, which are not apparent).

Therefore, there needs to be an argument in favour of including it, which is

Age is important for people including academics and public persons, which Claudine Gay is. Outside of public discourse, a use case may include news articles, many of which are quoted in the article. FortunateSons (talk) 15:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

This is not an argument, it is an assertion. I don't see a coherent argument in your posts above, just repeated assertions. Exact birth dates are of trivial significance in almost all biographies; with long-dead people there's no harm in including that kind of trivia, but with living people there's a good reason not to, namely, protecting the privacy of individuals. Nothing you've said gives an argument of even vaguely similar weight for including the information, even if it could be reliably sourced. --JBL (talk) 20:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Therefore, I believe that the standard described in WP:BLP and WP:DOB is met. FortunateSons (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

More WP:OTHERCONTENT. You have still provided precisely zero evidence to support any claim that Gay's exact date of birth is 'important'. Per WP:ONUS, please explain why you think her exact date of birth merits inclusion, beyond the fact that you have sources for it. As of now WP:ONUS has not been met. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I quoted WP:OTHERCONTENT to strengthen my arguments, with, to quote WP:OTHERCONTENT, a much more credible case.

Per WP:ONUS, I explained that including it is standard (use in articles considered excellent by Wikipedia), that it is information generally considered important (proof: use of her age in news articles) and that there is no argument for exclusion (per WP:DOB). Thereby, I have met the standard set forth by WP:ONUS. So, now you have to provide an argument why it shouldn’t be. FortunateSons (talk) 16:26, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Repeating exactly the same poor arguments you have already given doesn't constitute 'proof'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:32, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Can we move this to the actual talk page where it belongs? FortunateSons (talk) 16:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

How about no? This is an ongoing discussion, and it would be far better, given that even the initial question as to the reliability of blackpast.org for the DoB seems not to have been resolved, to see whether anyone else has anything to say. There is no urgency over this, and most noticeboards leave discussions open far longer. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:23, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Sure; just to clarify, what would an argument for the inclusion of a DOB for an academic or politician valid in your eyes? FortunateSons (talk) 20:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

A very good argument for inclusion of an exact DOB in a biography would be if either (1) there is something specifically birthday-related in the biography, or (2) if there were something specifically age-related in the biography (youngest such-and-such, or whatever). Of course it would be easy to source the exact date in these cases because it would inevitably come up in sources that discuss that aspect of the subject's life. These circumstances are rather rare -- but that's obvious, exact birthdays are almost always unimportant (imagine you found out that you were actually born 16 hours earlier or later than your parents had told you -- what would change?). --JBL (talk) 00:31, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense, if that is the standard, then the DOB should not be included here.

Maybe that’s a dumb newcomer question, but why is it then included in so many other BLPs? FortunateSons (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally I do not edit biographies a lot, but I imagine for the same reason that many Wikipedia articles have a tendency to attract trivia and cruft: someone comes along and says "I know a piece of information, let me add it to the article" without thinking very hard about what makes a good encyclopedia article. --JBL (talk) 19:21, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense. If I see them, should I suggest removal or just leave it be? FortunateSons (talk) 19:30, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

My personal view is that going around trying to systematically fix something like this is likely to cause conflict and aggravation because some removals will be objected to by people not party to this discussion. (E.g. this happened a few times in the course of my efforts to remove Weekly World News as a source everywhere on Wikipedia, which was a fairly small job (just 100-200 articles) and about as clear-cut as such a thing can be.) I personally don't have the patience or temperment to deal well with that, so I instead work on integrating that kind of improvement into my normal editing. Other people may feel differently. (My approach is not good for solving a problem globally -- but Wikipedia is so big that that might be hopeless anyhow.) --JBL (talk) 21:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

You’re probably right, thank you for your patience! FortunateSons (talk) 21:26, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

If a subject complains about our inclusion of their date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year, provided that there is a reliable source for it. This is the standard for including the specific date, which is met (no complaint, not borderline). As far as I can see, there is no other consideration except sourcing, which is the question at hand. FortunateSons (talk) 13:30, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I am preferably looking to include a full DOB (which I believe is permissible under WP:DOB). The current sourcing is using logic from 2 ages in articles with some distance between them, which isn’t great as there is an appropriate source with blackpast.org FortunateSons (talk) 12:40, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable possibly deprecate. This site strikes me as very dubious. A quick look at some of the entries raises some red flags as well. For example, this entry on the Nation of Islam makes no mention at all of the group's notable antisemitism. The monetized nature of the site, where individuals, groups, and companies can "sponsor" entries (like the LDS church), also raises questions. Looking at their rosy LDS page, it would seem coverage may be influenced by sponsor. I see no statement about editorial independence or anything comparable. Entries on figures like Jay-Z read like press release puffery. If you can't find a better source, I would advise not including it in English Wikipedia. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  With a Quick Look, I agree with your concerns regarding the articles in question, and the one on the Nation of Islam is very concerning. However, most other articles appear to be fine; is there a specific issue with the article on Claudine Gay? FortunateSons (talk) 18:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to note that WP:DOB requires that dates of birth have been widely published by reliable sources. Unless it's from an ABOUTSELF statement it's best to leave it out unless it's found in multiple sources.
Also this shouldn't be an RFC as it's hasn't been discussed before and an RFC isn't required for this one issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

This was not intended to be an RfC, just a general discussion using the same weighting. Did I use the wrong template? FortunateSons (talk) 17:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussions don't involve voting (Option 1, Option 2, etc). All you need to open a thread is a question, and it's best if it's one about a specific context. So "Is this[link] entry at Blackopast.org reliable for Claudine Gay birth date?" would have been a better setup. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:40, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah, thank you, will do it the next time. Would “Is [source] reliable for information about [person]?” be a an acceptable format when discussing multiple articles, or do I have to ask separately? FortunateSons (talk) 17:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

"Is [source] reliable for [specific type of information]?" Would be fine, it's just better to be as specific as possible. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 18:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The Perspective articles are likely reliable if possibly primary, as would be the hosted primary documents and transcripts of speeches. The biography entries I'm unsure of, and they would be a teritary source. There is some amount of user generated content going on, but I'm unable to tell exactly how that works. They do state sources, so tracking those down and using them instead could work. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:35, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the user-generated contest is still reviewed through an editorial process:

https://www.blackpast.org/frequently-asked-questions-about-blackpast-org/

The criteria for submitting Perspective articles is more restricted. The contributor must possess a specialized academic knowledge or an extensive personal familiarity with the subject of the article.

''How are BlackPast.org entries and articles evaluated?

All submissions by contributors are reviewed by the website director and on occasion by members of the BlackPast.org Advisory Board. Each entry or article is also reviewed by copy editors to ensure they are grammatically and stylistically acceptable.

Does that provide enough information for an informed decision? FortunateSons (talk) 17:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The first part you're quoting is about Perspective articles, not biography entries. The biography entries could be written by anyone. The from their How to write for Blackpast.org page Our contributors are in three broad categories: academic scholars, those who hold a faculty appointment in a two or four year college or a university; student scholars, those who are currently students in a two or four year college or university; and independent scholars, those who are at least 18 years of age and who have good research and writing skills.
Also from the same page All BlackPast.org articles are vetted for historical accuracy and copy-edited before they appear. BlackPast.org reserves the right to refuse any submitted entry that does not meet its standards for accuracy and objectivity. (all bolded in the original).
I would expect from that that the biography entries are reliable, but are still a WP:TERTIARY source when secondary are preferred. Also this still wouldn't overcome the "widely published" requirement for the specific date of birth -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

So, just to clarify: reliable but tertiary, so I would need more (how many?) reliable sources to include the DOB? FortunateSons (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The requirement is widely published, I would take it as a sentiment rather than apply a hard limit to it. If you can find enough sources to satisfy you that that requirement is met, then it's met. Editors discretion and good judgement is encouraged. Other editors could disagree, in which case discussion is always a good thing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thank you FortunateSons (talk) 18:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable, per Bloodofox, cites like that are prone to citogenesis. – SJ + 19:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable, per Bloodofox, user-generated content is as WP:RS as Wikipedia itself is. Deprecate.XavierItzm (talk) 17:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Generally reliable for the reasons described in my earlier comment: the existence of editorial review by the site administrator and the author, particularly in the case of the article being cited, being a subject matter expert in Black studies. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment. Given that this isn't a properly-formatted RfC on blackpast.org as a general source, that there seem to have been no significant previous discussions of the site on this noticeboard, and that most of the discussion above concerns the merits of the website as a source for one specific item, I don't consider it at all appropriate to make any general determination as to the reliability of the site at this time. The notice at the top of this page stating that RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed exists for a reason. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:08, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, this was a poorly used template by me, as discussed after the comment from ActivelyDisinterested at 17:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC). I intentionally did not call it RfC, but formatted it poorly, sorry about that. FortunateSons (talk) 19:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  FortunateSons can I suggest you strike (<s></s>) the Options in your original post? It would help avoid any further confusion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:29, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  Good idea, I will FortunateSons (talk) 22:12, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. Agreed with Andy that this shouldn't be an RfC, however I also don't see any reason to stop discussing it here in a general sense. The sponsorship and promo concerns brought up by bloodofox are extremely concerning if the source is being cited for material elsewhere.

JoelleJay (talk) 20:59, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I’m new at this, and unfortunately don’t know how to search explicitly for citations in the English wiki.

There is this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Missing articles by dictionary/BlackPast, some sourcing on the German wiki such as https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opal_Tometi (which of course is a seperate project), some minor sourcing on the article of the founderQuintard Taylor and for example here Associated Negro Press, here John E. Nailand here Louisianian (newspaper).

Most of those are historical and not BLP, so I’m not sure how much of an issue it really is FortunateSons (talk) 21:41, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

You can use this to search for uses of particular sources on WP. --JBL (talk) 21:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

That shows 1,940 result, can that be right? FortunateSons (talk) 22:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Looks right to me. And you're welcome! --JBL (talk) 17:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I consider many of those pretty minor, do I/someone else have to do something about that? FortunateSons (talk) 17:32, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

That's a funny question to ask for a fully volunteer project -- none of us has to do anything here :). If you don't feel a sense of urgency (reasonable) then you are very free to not worry about it and spend your time here working on other things instead. --JBL (talk) 21:03, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

That is a good point. I might do it at some point, but it’s probably not very urgent :) FortunateSons (talk) 21:08, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 22:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

You can search for the website's appearances on wiki with insource:blackpast.org. JoelleJay (talk) 21:58, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 22:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Kotaku source for GA

Article in question - Please Hold to My Hand I am reviewing a GAN and amoung the sources used is a Kotaku review from 2023. The WP:VGRS says that Kotaku from 2023 onwards is on a case by case basis. I looked at the article nothing jumped out as being AI but given that its a GA I thought it best to bring it up here. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 08:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

There's a by-line and the author seems to have written for The New York Times, Vice and Wired. The article has a lot of concrete claims about the plot of the episode and comparisons to the video game so if it was AI-generated I'd expect it to be easily detected by someone who's watched the episode. — Bilorv (talk) 12:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I would consider Kotaku a marginal source, the there is some advice on the source at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources. However so in the Metro which is also used in that article. Ultimately in my opinion both are reliable for how they are used in context. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay I'll continue the review, thanks Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 22:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Land Transport Guru and SG Trains

Why it matters?: LTG is a self-published source, as stated by previous discussions regarding it. And as me, @ZKang123 and other users opined (I will not mention their usernames), it is an unreliable source. It has been used in multiple articles, and there was a period of time where exit information (a no-go, as it treads into travel guide territory) was added with LTG as a source. I mentioned SGTrains as it is a similar source, albeit more reliable in my opinion.

But my justification is now over, so here are the options

Option 1: Reliable

Option 2: Situational (it will be good if you can lean towards 1 or 3 if voting Option 2)

Option 3: Unreliable

Option 4: Deprecate

Brachy08 _(Talk) 08:50, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Land Transport Guru is clearly unreliable, I would limit this discussion to just that source rather than to try and shoehorn SG Trains in their as well (they're also most likely unreliable but it helps to have separate discussion especially if as you say they are of differing reliability). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 09:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Option 3. Both source are clearly unreliable. Search through both usages, majortive are used to source materials that are unsuitable for Wikipedia regardless of sourcing, while for some like #52 on East West MRT line are replaceable with similar reporting such as this by The Straits Times. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 12:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Previous discussions in case anyone is interested: September 2023, December 2023 -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I might lean towards deprecating, but I'm fine with Option 3. Both LTG and SGTrains are user-based blogs and wikis.--ZKang123 (talk) 01:58, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3/4 per ZKang. SPS, should be fairly cut and dry. The Kip 23:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Using unreliable/semi reliable source on a contentious topic

I would like to explore the possibility of using a semi reliable/unreliable source like WP:TOI in a contentious topics such as Ram mandir, especially in the controversies section of it. I got into a disagreement with an editor who used it ans I don't want to invoke 1RR. Thanks. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 12:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Always down to explore, what would be the rationalization? That Times of India publishes a significant POV even if it isn't super reliable? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:18, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The article is not under 1RR. Times of India is semi-reliable according to WP:TOI, and it can be used for statements which are simply undisputed or unlikely to be disputed. Ironically, you are asking me to avoid using TOI for the statements that they have reported against the ruling Indian government[25] contrary to WP:TOI which urges against using the TOI articles that have "bias in favor of the Indian government". Abhishek0831996 (talk) 14:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Additional considerations apply to Times of India, specifically bias towards the current government of India and undisclosed promotional reporting. If neither is involved then it is still generally reliable (questions could still be raised about specific articles, but that is true of all sources). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:24, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested If Trump wins, would that apply to WAPO, NYT, CNN etc? Doug Weller talk 11:34, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

It would depend on how those sources react to a Trump victory, and the results of any RSN discussions. My comment is based on the Times of India's RSP entry. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:19, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested Damn, misread earlier post. Being pro Hindutva is like being pro MAGA. My bad. Doug Weller talk 16:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

An author of a book on the movie - self published but SME?

An author of a book on a old box-office movie has a blog (wordpress) and a twitter feed. The author has tweeted that a member of the movie's cast has died. Can I cite the tweet as a source for this SME in the cast member's web page? At this time, no other media sources exist for a citation. DarkStarHarry (talk) 18:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

No, because that still falls under WP:BLPSPS. Even if we were to think the source is likely telling the truth, BLP extends for a short while after death. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

So even though the author (whose book has been cited several times in Wikipedia's entry on the movie) is apparently an SME, we cannot attribute their twitter feed as a source for the information? Do we have to wait for another source to quote that author in saying the person has died? DarkStarHarry (talk) 18:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

"Quoting his twitter feed" is not the only way for this news to come out, and indeed, I see a number of other sources already pointing out the claim (yes, I've figured who you are talking about), just not ones that meet our requirements for reliable sources. Death hoaxes are common, and it is to our interest to take extra care that we do not propagate them. I expect we'll see coverage in reliable sources wtihin 24 hours; patience is good at this time. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a problem that has come up before, but no self-published source (that isn't from the subject themselves) can be used in a BLP and that extends to the recently deceased. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

And if the subject themselves posts that they are recently deceased, we should approach that with a wee bit of caution as well. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I see that a usable source has now been found, and we don't have to be concerned any more. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

militaryhallofhonor.com

This website is WP:SPS and WP:UGC and I think that it should never be used. See https://militaryhallofhonor.com/membership.php

• It is a self-published source: "Who is responsible for the Military Hall of Honor? Charles A. Lewis, a veteran that honorably served in the U.S. Army, is the founder of MHOH. With a hobby as a military researcher / historian, he has compiled thousands of biographies ..."
• When it is not a self-published source it is UGC: "MHOH limits editorial rights for Honoree Records to Registered Members only. ... A community of users interested in honoring those who have honored us will ensure that these records are as accurate as possible." Further, on the homepage: "Here we provide members a place to create Honoree records that are available for anyone to view, free of charge"
  • See user profiles:
    • "Deemax"
    • "bakerd13"
    • etc.

So Charles A. Lewis has created some entries, various registered users have created others, and the commuinity of users works to ensure accuracy. It is used in dozens of articles, but perhaps not that many for me to start an RfC. What do you think? —Alalch E. 18:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

It appears clear from their membership FAQ that this is user generated content, Joining is easy, simply click on the register link above and enter a first and last name, a user name, password, and e-mail address. An e-mail will be sent to you with a link to follow for verification purposes. Now just log in and start entering an Honoree record! I can't find evidence that Charles A. Lewis meets the requirements for WP:SPS either. This is another hobbiest/enthusiast sites that falls short of being a reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Seconding AD, this appears to be another dime-a-dozen milhist enthusiast site. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Third for AD., I would strongly recommend against using it a reliable source. FortunateSons (talk) 18:13, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

NBC News for Wąsosz pogrom

• Wąsosz pogrom (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Is NBC News a suitable source for the following statements?

• In 1951, Marian Rydzewski was tried and acquitted for participating in the pogrom before a communist court.
• In 2014, Polish Jewish leaders were reportedly divided regarded exhumation of the bodies of the Jewish victims. Some, such as Poland's chief rabbai Michael Schudrich, are opposed due to the dignity of the dead. Others, such as Piotr Kadicik, the president of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, support the exhumation.

I think the first item needs some improvement but not changes that will impact factual accuracy or pertinence of the source. Please note this is a WP:APL subject area. VQuakr (talk) 18:59, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:RSP, NBC News is generally reliable so you should be fine. The Kip 19:11, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Although academic sources are always preferred, I would say that it's reliable for those statements. The area is under sourcing restrictions so consensus is required, but unless I'm missing some other issue I can't see the issue in this specific case. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:58, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

yeah, sourcing is restricted, and for good cause. I removed NBC because the article is about a pogrom, more precisely a group accused of carrying one out. Not a film, which if notable should have its own article, and its own separate debate about whether it glorifies killing Jews. NBC is also not academic, as noted, and while it's sufficient for supporting the casting, that's not what the article is about. Or should be about. Notable as Daniel Craig may be, due weight would have us devote column inches to the dispute over who did the killings if anything.

other source I also removed presents a disputed statement of fact as an accurate premise (the IPN announcing that it wasn't Poles who did the killing, bthe ut Nazis). I think this is actually a great example of RL meeting policy though.

TL;DR the article is about horrifying racist carnage and should not be discussing fiction in any way shape or form. The word I am looking for is Disneyfication. Elinruby (talk) 08:09, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@Elinruby: nearly your entire reply was about another source in another article. The NBC article is indeed about the pogrom, and certainly doesn't present Polish disbelief in Polish involvement in murder as fact. VQuakr (talk) 18:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Elinruby are you looking at the right reference? This is about this article, which isn't about a film, but specifically about the Wąsosz pogrom. Also the context isn't about responsibility of the polgrom or any comments from IPN, only whether a certain trial happened in 1951 (there's probably an academic source for this) and the differing views of two Jewish organisations (for which this NBC article is reliable). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:00, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with The Kip and ActivelyDisinterested that for these statements, on this article, the NBC News article looks reliable. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

NBC, not to be confused with MSNBC and CNBC, is one of my preferred news sources. I would exercise normal precautions, and when in doubt, use attributed opinions (especially for NBC News THINK, their opinion section) InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 23:01, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Is the Carnegie Foundation reliable?

It is sourced in the article on Hamas-Russia relations. StrongALPHA (talk) 20:58, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm guessing that you mean Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the use of this article in Russia–Hamas relations. It looks to be reliable for the content it's supports in that article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:09, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Fairly solid thinktank that uses subject matter experts to write for it. I'd say yes. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:38, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree on reliability, but as always, take care to attribute as required by WP:Biased when necessary FortunateSons (talk) 16:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Is this source reliable? (Aromanian language)

ShockedSkater, pinging in case they want to participate, has added a 2024 source to Aromanian language presenting a new oldest known text in Aromanian [26]. I am excited about this since I am active in this topic area, however, from what I see, the paper [27] is not from any journal, if I understand correctly what that means it would look self-published to me. The author is Edion Petriti, I can't find much information about him, I did find some articles by him in Albanian newspapers [28], also this paper [29] which seems to be published in Hylli i Dritës, which might be the magazine we have a Wikipedia article for (Hylli i Dritës). I'd rather not delete this source and information as it would represent an important discovery, but the fact that the 2024 paper is not published in any scientific journal from what I see is a bit worrisome for me. Also, when searching in Google the paper's title, only the Wikipedia article on the Aromanian language shows up to me, not even the paper at academia.edu. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 23:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I suggest you learn Albanian, or at least try Google translate. The original manuscript can be accessed here: [30]; the manuscript was dated by Peter Schreiner, German Byzantinologist [31], to the 16th-17th centuries, and is probably correct, if you have a look at internal evidence. The paper also offers a transcription and certain linguistic conclusions. It's all there, links, bibliography, references. ShockedSkater (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

This looks to be analysis of a primary source plus one or more self-published papers on a pre-print site. Unless I missed something, I'm not seeing peer-reviewed scholarship published in a reputable journal. Per WP:EXCEPTIONAL, there's no way we should base an "oldest known text" claim on primary and self-published secondary sources. Woodroar (talk) 00:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Woodroar that this looks like a situation where WP:EXCEPTIONAL would apply. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 01:12, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

OK, maybe we should remove the claim and just state the (sourced) age of the manuscript, dated to the 16th-17th centuries. ShockedSkater (talk) 01:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I consider the chain of sources sketchy. Right now, the source is Cristina Neagu in the Christ Church Library Newsletter citing Peter Schreiner speaking at the Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Despotate of Epirus in 1990. (Thank you, Google Translate.) What do we know about the Schreiner source? Was the symposium well regarded? Were its presentations peer-reviewed or based on working papers? And even then, Schreiner is a single source, which raises questions about due-ness. I would suggest waiting until multiple peer-reviewed sources directly date the manuscript. Woodroar (talk) 02:15, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Cristina Neagu's article, from the Christ Church Library Newsletter of the Oxford University, cited above seems more reliable to me. Could we use it as a source to briefly mention in the Aromanian language article that there is a document dated to the 16th-17th centuries as ShockedSkater suggested or is it better to completely remove this until more sources appear? Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 11:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The manuscript was in England already in 1727, meaning it had finished being written, a couple of years before the Ardenica Engraving was published, in 1731. I do not think it's an entirely exceptional claim. ShockedSkater (talk) 13:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I still think it's probably UNDUE until there's more coverage in reliable, secondary sources. We can't cite Peter Schreiner because we don't have that source, right? What we do have is the Christ Church Library Newsletter. That's from Oxford, yes, but it's a newsletter, not a peer-reviewed journal article. Its author, Cristina Neagu, doesn't appear to be a subject matter expert because she cites Peter Schreiner rather than her own analysis. Then we have Neagu's comments on page 22 of the newsletter, where she comments on the lack of scholarship on MS 49. If our best near-source is saying "look, this needs to be studied more", that should be a red flag to us. Woodroar (talk) 15:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe @Super Dromaeosaurus can help us; if he is presently in Greece, he can go in a library and find Peter Schreiner, Το αρχαιότερο χειρόγραφο του Χρονικού των Ιωαννίνων, in: E. Chrysos (ed.) «Πρακτικά Διεθνούς Συμποσίου για το Δεσποτάτου της Ηπείρου (Άρτα, 27-31 Μαΐου 1990)». Arta, 1992, 47-51. Some photos of the pages in question are more than welcome. ShockedSkater (talk) 10:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, I am in Spain, so that is simply not possible. I can however get the paper by requesting access to it at WP:RX. But this could perfectly take months and I am not guaranteed to receive it (or I might after waiting three months). ShockedSkater, would you agree to removing this info from the article and readd it if I receive the paper considering the long wait, so as not to drag this for months? I can also send it to you if I receive it if you want. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 12:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I've requested the document, but it is hosted in few libraries, so it is unlikely that I will get it. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 13:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Why do I have to agree on something that has to do with a digital manuscript of the 15th-18th centuries, that is available online? I mean, if you have doubts regarding the discovery and lack of peer-review, there is still the manuscript itself, and various sources that state it was already in England in 1727, years before the Ardenica document (1731). You can add "a transcription of the material can be found here"... pointing to Edion Petriti's paper etc. If you send me the article, that would be most welcome. ShockedSkater (talk) 14:29, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, a tertiary source. We don't analyze primary sources, and we don't synthesize sources to support claims that neither source makes.

The only source currently supporting this claim at Aromanian language is Edion Petriti's paper at academia.edu. As mentioned by Super Dromaeosaurus above, this source does not appear to be published in any peer-reviewed journal, and, as far as I can tell, Edion Petriti does not appear to be a subject matter expert. I'm also concerned about an apparent conflict of interest here.

If someone can get their hands on the Peter Schreiner source, that would be a starting point. In particular, I'm interested if it goes into whether the paper (or the symposium itself) is peer-reviewed or if the source is simply a working paper. At that point, we can (hopefully) answer questions about reliability and discuss whether or not the claim is DUE. But until then, the claim should be removed from the article. Woodroar (talk) 16:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

If you want to remove the "oldest", fine by me. ShockedSkater (talk) 17:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Please verify these sources

• If this source [32] is reliable then please verify this quotation THE Arab expedition against Thana was a success and not a failure. For had it been a failure, it would have resulted in a disaster for the Arabs. Who knows that they might not have been killed to a man? But as it is, nothing of the kind took place. As a matter of fact, they returned home (evidently with flying colours) with not a single soul lost, as is clear from the speech of the Caliph to 'Uthman ath-Thaqafi, who was responsible for the expedition. The Arabs did not proceed further, not because their arms were not victorious, but because they were not allowed to do so by the Caliph 'Umar himself. The reason for the Caliph's action is not far to seek.. as this seems WP:OR
• Does this source [33] come under WP:AGEMATTERS?
• Lastly this source [34] quotes In 15/636 the Caliph appointed Usman bin 'As, the governor of Baihrain and Amman. He was a daring and dashing conquerer. Seeking new laurels, he sent his brother Hakim bin Abil 'As to attack India in the same year. A fierce battle was fought resulting in the first Muslim victory on Behruch (Gujarat) and Thana (Bombay). This victory was followed by a second victory over Daibal and Thatta (Karachi) under the seasoned generalship of the second brother of the governor named Mugirah bin Abil 'Asi. and its primary source is futuhal buldan which is according to other historians like Rc. Majumdar [35] is silent here

Jonharojjashi (talk) 13:45, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

What page are these sources being used for? What quotations are these sources being used for? Where can one access the Dacca University Bulletin? Is another user citing the Dacca University Bulletin, or are you? Is there any reason we shouldn't be taking the citation on good faith (which is what Wikipedia encourages; that is to say, is this claim being contradicted in other reliable sources)?

My inclination is to think that the first and second sources are both quite old to be cited (1955 and 1924 respectively). I would hope there are better sources for the content under consideration than a hundred-year-old monograph. That said, context matters. What is the content, and for what page? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 15:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

These sources have been used to cite Battle of Thane. The quotations are used for showing Arab victory in the Battle of Thane. I have not brought or cited these [36],[37] sources on that page, I just wanted to know whether this old source can be used for quotation or not (If it's not WP:OR) though these two quotations/sources contradict other reliable sources which are cited on the Battle of Thane. If the source is old and non accessible and contains possible original research so it can be removed boldly from the article? Also pinging User:ImperialAficionado as only he can tell from where he gets access to the Dacca University Bulletin Jonharojjashi (talk) 17:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I had a Pdf of [38]. And I have read the same on [39]. Surprisingly, the texts of these two books and Dacca Bulletin are the same. Imperial^[AFCND] 17:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I am a little confused by the original research question. The rule limiting original research applies to us as Wikipedia editors. It is okay if a secondary source "contain[s] original research". The authors of secondary sources we cite are free to do original research; that's precisely what secondary sources are about. We look to reliable sources that have done the research and summarize their findings, rather than do original primary source research ourselves. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:30, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

It was not like that. The secondary sources used here didn't mention Rashidun Caliphate, but did mention Arabs made this raid. So, making a conclusion that those Arabs were Rashidun just because it was Rashidun era won't be an OR? Imperial^[AFCND] 04:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• I did some research in a while, you're right here it has nothing to do with any original research but what about WP:OLDSOURCES? Please give your conclusion whether both of these sources [40], [41] can be used for citing Battle of Thane or not.
• Now User:ImperialAficionado is saying that Rashidun Caliphate isn't explicitly mentioned by sources but can't we WP:UCS? If we look carefully Caliph Umar was a Rashidun Caliph and during his reign the Battle of Thane occurred. User:P-Makoto Note that User:ImperialAficionado is familiar with WP:CALC [42] isn't original research. (Though it's not relevant here)

Jonharojjashi (talk) 06:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

We can use WP:UCS, but if there is no mention that the Caliph sent the raid; as I read through some sources, I found that the raid was directed by the Governor of Bahrain without the consent of the Caliph. So OR has a significant importance here using for the belligerent. Imperial^[AFCND] 07:56, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Unreliable sources?

Are these two sources Times Now and FirstPost reliable for stating the following in wikivoice?

In August 2023, large-scale demonstrations erupted in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan, currently under Pakistani control. Protesters are fervently chanting 'Let's go to Kargil' and expressing a desire to unite with India

None of these news sites have a reputation for fact checking per their own pages and may have an apparent conflict of interest w.r.t. the Govt of India. They also have a history of reporting latest events in Pakistan based on social media posts that later turned out to be fake. (Also noting that this is about a viral twitter video, not actually verifiable per any news websites in Pakistan or other reliable and independent international media sites.) Codenamewolf (talk) 20:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Per their About Us page, Times Now is part of the same media conglomerate as The Times of India, which RS/P describes as biased toward the Indian government and somewhere generally toward unreliable. It's not quite as clear-cut for FirstPost, but with their usage of "Pakistani-occupied" rather than "disputed" or similar for the regions in question, I'm not sure if I'd trust them as an objective source on Indo-Pakistani territorial disputes.

In short, I wouldn't consider them reliable for this topic. The Kip 23:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

"Readers Say"

I cannot determine the reliability of Boston.com's "Readers Say" articles. The site earns some cachet as a sibling of The Boston Globe, and the quality of material seems acceptable, but I can't tell what the editorial rubric is for these articles. Are they unvetted authors getting to write amok, or are they developed by the site from prompts or comments sent in by their readers? Can I get a ruling on this? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 04:17, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The authors of those pieces seem to be staff writers, but I wouldn't lend too much weight to the opinion surveys and quotes of random people — that is best left for specialized pollsters. Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:29, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks so much! — Fourthords | =Λ= | 16:45, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree, but would be extra careful wherever WP:BLP is involved, up to and including using a different source. It’s probably also best to cite the actual source in the text, not just in a footnote. FortunateSons (talk) 18:10, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

What is the reliability of Mondoweiss?

What is the reliability of Mondoweiss?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

WP:RSP has 8 discussions on Mondoweiss, but not an RfC I can see. It is cited somewhat frequently in the Israel-Palestine conflict topic area. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Survey (Mondoweiss)

• Option 4 I’m starting this RfC because since the October 7th attacks on Israel, Mondoweiss pushes extremism and disinformation. Like WP:COUNTERPUNCH or WP:UNZ, it has published extremist opinion pieces; in this case acclaiming attacks on Israeli civilians (typically considered to be war crimes). In terms of disinformation, the main propaganda narrative Monodoweiss pushes is that there is no evidence that Palestinians raped Israelis on October 7th. [43] [44][45][46]

According to The BBC, NBC news, The New York Times, AP news, The Washington Post, and Human Rights Watch, mass rapes were committed by Palestinians against Israeli civilians on October 7th. The consensus of all reliable sources is that this happened, and that there is verifiable evidence to show this. Mondoweiss is the outlier here with rape denialism against the vast majority of overwhelming sources. This is typical historical negationism; these are disingenuous claims that there is 'no evidence' for well-documented atrocities akin to Holocaust denial tactics.

Mondoweiss also published extremist opinion pieces glorifying the acts of terrorism on October 7th. Counterpunch, Unz, and the Electronic Intifada [47] were declared unreliable for similar reasons, so I believe this is fair game to criticize the source on. This also provides the 'why' as to Mondoweiss' denialism of atrocities in the ongoing war. So I’ll just grab a few choice quotes from opinion pieces to show my point.

• From the moment those fighters flew in on paramotors, disrupting the parallel reality that was this music festival, they accomplished something profound (one must wonder what it felt like for these fighters to see a party just outside where they have been trapped under a suffocating blockade). in reference to the Re'im music festival massacre. [48]
• In some ways, then, we can see the attack on the festival as the most violent of anti-colonial refusals — a refusal to let the children of a nation that ethnically cleansed one’s family party on that stolen land in peace. It violently reasserts that this land is stolen and that it can only be returned to its rightful owners through bloodshed. [49]
• Nothing can hide the determination and courage of those young people who returned to their land on October 7.[50]
• They have failed to mention that those targeted were, are, colonizers, settlers, the primary agents, actors, impellers of the colonization and genocide of Palestine. They have failed to mention that the resistance targets colonial settlements, established atop ethnically cleansed and razed Palestinian villages; it targets colonial settlers that live in stolen Palestinian houses, on stolen Palestinian land, urinate on our corpses and dance on our graves. They have failed to highlight that the term “Settler-Colonialism” is not without reason, and that a colonizer is a colonizer, in uniform or out.[51]
• The inhuman and annihilating excess of organized state force, whose untold destructive powers are now unfolding in total violence on the helpless people of Gaza, can never be morally equated with even the most atrocious acts of the colonized committed in the hope of liberation from an unbearable colonial regime. Any demand that the colonized desist from the use of armed force, a right in any case guaranteed to them under international law, becomes arrant hypocrisy in the face of the technical storm inflicted by state powers. [52]

To summarize, Mondoweiss is extremist and encourages hatred/terrorist attacks against Israelis. It argues that the killing and raping of civilians is not only justified, but actively heroic if done to advance Palestinian interests. Any of these opinion pieces, if posted by an editor on Wikipedia, would probably result in an indefinite block for racism per WP:NONAZIS. We can and should ban racist publications as sources as they have a tendency to fabricate information to fit their viewpoints. Mondoweiss proves this by publishing disinformation about the well-evidenced mass rapes committed on October 7th and repeatedly alleging that there is no evidence for these war crimes. Using it as a source would be giving credence to WP:FRINGE viewpoints. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't have time to go through all your evidence so I picked the first link, read it entirely, followed through to the Hebrew links and used machine translation to verify that Mondoweiss is indeed correct. At no point did I find the article said what you claimed it did ("pushes is that there is no evidence that Palestinians raped Israelis on October 7th"). Instead, it cast doubt on the rape of one particular victim: Gal Abdush. Their reporting is corroborated by Channel 13 (Israel) quoting that Abdush's brother-in-law says "No one knows if it [rape] happened". VR _talk 16:48, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Gal Abdush is the woman in the black dress filmed with her groin covered in blood. Virtually every reliable news outlet agrees that the video shows evidence of rape. Mondoweiss, which admits it has not seen the video, says the video proves nothing. Do you want me to post the video here? You can find it on Yandex in a few seconds. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

No, Mondoweiss article doesn't say "the video proves nothing". It says, "The newspaper did not link to the video but released a distant, indistinct image from it that revealed nothing". This is the image from the NYT article (article reproduced here). Indeed the image is quite unclear.VR _talk 20:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3, though would not oppose Option 4. Even in its news articles Mondoweiss has published false and misleading information, and when we consider its lean towards antisemitism it is not a source we can rely on.

For example, it has stuck to the narrative that Israel is responsible for the al-Ahli explosion. This is most obvious in opinion articles but it also occurs in news articles. They have explicitly stated that Israel is responsible in:

1. Do not dismiss the Gaza genocide allegations from November 19. It makes the indisputably false claim that Israeli claims as to complete Palestinian culpability have been largely debunked.
2. ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 39: Health official says Israel ‘sentencing Al-Shifa hospital to death’ as doctors dig mass grave from November 14
3. ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 15: Gaza aid trickles in amid uninterrupted airstrikes, West Bank arrests continue from October 21
4. etc

They have also implied it in a number of other articles, such as by referring to the explosion as a "bombing" and by linking to an article from the immediate aftermath of the explosion which is headlined "Massacre: Israel kills over 500 Palestinians in Gaza hospital attack" and describes an airstrike as being the cause.

1. Activists hold Israel responsible for drive-by-shooting at homes of detained demonstrators in Umm al-Fahm from December 13
2. Israel’s criminalization of Palestinian protest from November 23
3. ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 36: Al-Shifa hospital at epicenter of Gaza fighting as fleeing civilians are killed by Israeli strikes from November 11
4. etc

Their falsehoods aren't limited to that topic; they also present them on others, such as the tunnels beneath Al-Shifa. For example, in ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 46: Israeli tanks besiege Indonesian Hospital as bombardment of Gaza continues from November 21, Mondoweiss says The claims [that Hamas has tunnels underneath the Indonesian Hospital] mirror previous allegations Israel made about Al-Shifa Hospital that it has yet to provide concrete evidence of. This is false; on November 19 independent media had confirmed that tunnels existed beneath Al-Shifa.

Elsewhere, they misrepresent their own sources. For example, in Western media’s reference to the ‘Hamas-run’ Health Ministry is another dehumanizing tactic enabling Israel’s genocide they say that Reuters says that three Al-Shifa employees were abducted; what Reuters actually says is that three are missing.

In addition, I have concerns about antisemitism at Mondoweiss. For example, in "‘Atlantic’ rebrands new editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, leaving Israel, Jews, and Iraq off his resume" Philip Weiss, who is the founder and co-editor of the website, makes the problematic statement The word Jew made no appearance in the Atlantic announcement; while most of the piece is acceptable criticism of a new editor, with this line it swerves directly into antisemitism by suggesting that ones status as a Jew is relevant to ones position as the editor-in-chief of a major news organization - see Antisemitic trope#Controlling the media. Reliable sources have also documented this, such as in this Atlantic article. BilledMammal (talk) 09:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Exploring the source more generally, I find:

First, they widely use deprecated sources; see #Discussion (Mondoweiss) for details.

Second, I've found additional evidence of them misrepresenting their sources, going beyond their sources, and even making basic errors with their sources.

Misrepresenting sources:

1. In "Sadness and anger as 4 Jewish victims of Paris attack are buried in Jerusalem" they claim that The bodies of the deceased were interred in a Jerusalem commemoration after an invitation to host the burial was extended to relatives of the slain by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which later sought payment from families of $13,000 each for the ceremonies. The source they link says something very different; that the Hevra Kadisha burial society demanded Tuesday that the families of four Jewish men killed in a Paris terror attack and buried in Jerusalem each pay NIS 50,000 ($12,500) for their burials.
2. In "How the Taliban chased the West out of Afghanistan", they attribute the statement They tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac to Reuters; Reuters is careful to avoid saying so in its own voice and instead attributes it to a Russian spokesman.
3. In the same article, they cite an ODI report to say that Surveys regularly found Afghans saying that they believed corruption levels were lower in Taliban areas. However, the source makes no such claim; the source doesn't even include a survey regarding corruption.
4. In "Israel’s national airline El Al is an intelligence front for the Shin Bet" they claim that Israel uses its airlines as an intelligence front, in which Israeli security services work for the airlines as undercover employees. As evidence for this, they cite an undercover investigation conducted by Aljazeera. In doing so, they make a significant misrepresentation of the source, which discusses no undercover investigation, and avoids saying in its own voice that the airline is used as a front, instead attributing that claim to specific individuals and leaked South African cables.
5. In "Palestinians bid farewell to journalist Khalid Amayreh". It claims that he urged the Palestinian people to reject the two state solution. However, in the source provided he makes no such claim; instead, he reports that Palestinians consider it to be dead.

Going beyond their sources:

1. In "Arms, oil and Iran – Israel’s role in Nagorno-Karabakh" they say Around 75,000 ethnic Armenians fled their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh – more than half of the population. The source they use, DW, provides that number - but attributes it to a Artsakh spokesperson and does not put it in their own voice.

Making errors with their sources:

1. In "Gulf crisis could push Hamas closer to Iran, or cause it to fold under the Palestinian Authority" they say Moreover, Qatar has paid the salaries of 40,000 Hamas employees in 2016, a bill that totaled $20 million and required careful coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. What their source says is that Sheikh Tamim bin Hamd al-Thani will pay $31,030,752 for the July salaries of Gaza’s public sector employees - these are significant errors, getting both the period and the value significantly wrong.
2. In the same article, they say Last week Egypt gave 220,000 gallons of fuel to Gaza’s power plant, raising daily electrical supplies to eight hours, up from four the week before. Their source states the opposite; Despite the plant's partial resumption, residents will continue to receive four hours of electricity followed by about 14 hours off.
3. In Netanyahu bolsters Sudan’s military leaders in attempt to save normalization they claim that 72% of Sudanese oppose normalization; the figure their source gives is 68%. It's a minor mistake, and in a more reputable organization would be something we could safely ignore, but it's another piece on the pile of evidence against Mondoweiss. I misread their source BilledMammal (talk) 13:19, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Third, they have defended deprecated sources such as Russia Today and The Electronic Intifada:

1. They defend RT in a number of articles; in "The Russiagate farce" they go beyond defending it and present the claim that Russia influenced the 2016 election as conspiracy theory.
2. In "A salute to ‘Electronic Intifada’", they describe EI as a source that continues telling indispensable truths.

Fourth, they have published misinformation:

1. In "Palestinian Authority blocks dozens of websites critical of Abbas government". This source claims that QNN is an independent news source with no political affiliation. This is false; it is affiliated with Hamas (The Guardian, Al Jazeera, JNS, US State Department, VOA, ToI, etc). Bizarrely, they originally got this correct; they issued a "correction" to say that their initial statement that QNN was affiliated with Hamas was incorrect.
2. In Inside the “Wasps’ Nest”: the rise of the Jenin Brigade they claimed that Israeli attacks killed 51 people. The actual figures for the conflict is 49 killed overall, with 30 killed by Israel. See also Al Monitor.

This is not a source I am familiar with, so most of the issues I could identify were when they were contradicted by their own sources. I suspect an editor better versed in this source and the topics it writes on would find far more falsehoods.

I still prefer Option 3, but given all this I would support Option 4 as a second choice. BilledMammal (talk) 05:02, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

An overall problem with this approach is treating as "sources" what are merely links. They refer to other coverage, but that's not to say it's the sole basis of their reportage. And in any case, many of these are either cases of semantics, cherrypicked/selective quotation, or not errors at all, e.g.:

2. The Afghanistan article: I don't think it's necessarily a misrepresentation; you've quoted selectively. MW also sources the information to the Russian embassy in Afghanistan: When he fled the country, press secretary of the Russian embassy in Kabul Nikita Ishchenko told RIA Novosti, his people drove four cars filled with money to the airfield. “They tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac,” according to a Reuters report. It's clear they're quoting Reuters' coverage of Ischenko's remarks.

3. The report you link says (p. 17): "most [Afghans] pointed to government interference and corruption and occupation of and theft from clinics by Afghan security forces and militias as being more problematic than Taliban interventions." The fact that this came from interviews rather than "surveys" is semantic ("survey" also means To investigate the opinions, experiences, etc., of people by asking them questions which is what that report was about)

5. The Khaled Amayreh article: MW says Amayreh urged Palestinians to refuse its [the two-state solution's] false promise. In the AJ article, Amayreh says: There is just no time left for a Palestinian state. How can a state be a viable proposition when it has no control over its borders, when there is a military occupation, and when towns are cut off from each other by a system of roads and checkpoints? The two seem entirely consistent.

"Going beyond their sources": this is just a case of MW willing to say in its own voice what another source decided to attribute. It's inclined to believe the official from Nagorno-Karabakh, no different from how Israeli sources frequently parrot IDF talking points without attribution.

"Making errors with their sources"

2. The "Gulf Crisis" article: the BBC article was published four days prior to the MW article, and it's linked for the "220,000 gallons" point (not the hours of power point). An engineer interviewed by BBC stated his hope that the remaining two generators could be made "operational before the festival of Eid al-Fitr", which, in 2017, began on June 25 (the day before the MW article was published).

3. The 72% figure comes from Figure 27 of the linked article. You might have gotten it confused with Figure 26, "Attitudes towards the Palestinian cause". There was no error, minor or otherwise.

Regarding the attempt to tether MW to deprecated sources, I don't think that's compelling reasoning. As you concede below, this is only grounds for Option 3 or 4 in the context of the other evidence [you] have presented, which is amenable to various interpretations.

"Published Misinformation":

1. None of the sources you provide explain exactly how QNN is "affiliated with" Hamas; is it "affiliated" in the same way the Health Ministry is "controlled by" Hamas?

2. The Russiagate piece is presented as "Media Analysis" which is different from its News section; it has the cadence of an op-ed. I doubt this could be cited for statements of fact even if it was published in an RS, per WP:RSEDITORIAL.

So this alleged evidence is not particularly damning in any case. WillowCity^(talk) 12:40, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

First, you're right about Sudan; I have struck that, thank you for the correction.

Second, you've only addressed about half the issues I raised. Even if you were right about all of them that still leaves too much to allow us to consider this source reliable - it is relevant to point out here that these are just the tip of the iceberg; I found them in only a couple of hours.

However, you weren't right about all of them; half of the issues you raised could go either way, but the other half your argument is very weak (eg, arguing that Mondoweiss is right and everyone else is wrong), or I have found additional sources to disprove your interpretation.

Specific responses
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Misrepresenting sources 2. I can see how you can interpret it that way, but the sentence structure leads me to believe that it is attributed to Reuters. Reasonable minds could differ. 3. It's not only that there wasn't a survey; its that that source doesn't support the claim. It makes no statement about the level of corruption in Taliban areas, and it makes no comparison in their beliefs as to the level of corruption. 5. He's not urging anything there, in my view, he's stating his own view. Going beyond their sources: Then the correct thing to do is source the official directly. Making errors with their sources 2. Possible, but I felt it was unlikely, so I looked into it. Reliable sources from around the same time as the Mondoweiss article also gives four hours; New Arab, Al Jazeera. 3. Fair point, I misread; I've struck that line. Defended deprecated sources 1. Your point seems to be "Mondoweiss is right, every other reliable source is wrong"; that isn't a good argument. Published Misinformation 2. Their articles explicitly labeled "news" also tend to have the cadence of an op-ed. I don't consider this distinction a defense.

As you concede below, this is only grounds for Option 3 or 4 "in the context of the other evidence [you] have presented", which is amenable to various interpretations.

I don't think you understood what I was saying there. If this source was otherwise impeccable, the reliance on deprecated sources would still be enough to make a valid argument for Option 3 or Option 4, but it would be possible to argue for Option 2 - and as you implicitly concede, this source about is far from impeccable as you can get. BilledMammal (talk) 13:19, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2. Mondoweiss is primarily a publisher of op-eds. Since there is no evidence that Mondoweiss interferes with what its authors write, the reliability of each article depends on the author only. Our rules for citing opinions are perfectly adequate for dealing with it. If the author is a subject-area expert, there is no reason to exclude him/her from citation. We cite op-eds in the Israeli press which are no less biased on average. The concern being expressed here is not really about reliability; note how the two comments before this one quite openly emphasise that articles in Mondoweiss don't follow a pro-Israel line. Zero^talk 11:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  note how the two comments before this one quite openly emphasise that articles in Mondoweiss don't follow a pro-Israel line Unless you consider "not antisemitic" to be equivalent to "pro-Israel", I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of my comment. BilledMammal (talk) 12:17, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's true that I ignored the weakest part of your argument, which quotes out of context and avoids mentioning that Philip Weiss is Jewish. Zero^talk 12:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

While not disagreeing with parts of your vote,

avoids mentioning that Philip Weiss is Jewish

The idea that being Jewish automatically precludes one from holding antisemitic views is a false one. The Kip 23:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

What about Wall Street Journal, which published an editorial "Islamophobia isn't real", calling Islamophobia "normal human reaction to terror"? Even RS sometimes (unfortunately) give space to prejudice. VR _talk 04:32, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2: Per the above, it is only a host, so IT may not (technically) be an RS, the stuff its hosts might be. Slatersteven (talk) 13:38, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  FYI, that’s inaccurate; it publishes op-eds, but it also publishes its own news stories, such as most of the articles I linked in my !vote. BilledMammal (talk) 13:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  Technicaly my comment still takes that into account, it is not an RS what it hosts (hosts, not publishes) maybe. Slatersteven (talk) 13:42, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  If I have understood you correctly, you are saying Option 2 for the opinion articles it hosts (ie, consider self published with reliability dependent on the author), Option 3 for everything else? BilledMammal (talk) 13:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  So it can be treated as a WP:SPS? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 but also wouldn't be opposed to option 4. The alleged falsehoods, at least to me, seem to be more based out of strong POV rather than outright fabrication (ex. multiple Palestinian and/or human-rights groups still blame Israel for the hospital explosion as well, and claim that the sources (mainly western intelligence/media) attributing blame to PIJ are inherently biased against Palestinians). The op-eds are also subject to author reliability on a case-by-case basis. As a result, deprecation seems a tad strong of a response.

All of that said, however, and while I understand WP:BIAS doesn't inherently make a source unreliable, the opinions expressed in the above pieces (primarily, the glorification of terrorism) and Mondoweiss' willingness to publish them strikes me as WP:FRINGE and make me heavily question the reliability of their own content and its usefulness as a proper info source on Wikipedia. The heavy usage of especially inflammatory rhetoric ("a colonizer is a colonizer, in uniform or out," "[the land] can only be returned to its rightful owners through bloodshed.") backs this up; as the nom stated, an normal editor expressing these views would more than likely find themselves the recipient of a WP:HATESPEECH complaint. Considering its in-practice status as Philip Weiss' personal blog, the news pieces seemingly amount to a WP:SPS as well, which further decreases any possible reliability. Finally, the limited overlap with Ron Unz (as described below) doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. The Kip 23:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Reading the perennial sources list, this overall seems like a pretty similar situation to Counterpunch; effectively an SPS with little oversight of opinion pieces, and some entries promoting extremist content. That one is currently listed as WP:GUNREL. The Kip 23:50, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

And further, as noted below; like the recently-deprecated Electronic Intifada and The Cradle, it appears Mondoweiss also has considerable reliance on multiple deprecated sources, especially Al Mayadeen and RT, as well as hosting articles from Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone. This makes me a bit more sympathetic towards deprecation. The Kip 01:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree, those are highly concerning FortunateSons (talk) 11:50, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 They primarily produce opinion pieces and the poorly articulated arguments above for deprecation seem to come down to bias arguments because of opinionated statements and not issues of actual falsehoods being produced as news. BilledMammal's is especially egregious in this regard, trying to use articles saying that Israel has some responsibility in events prior to and after October 7th (which is a longstanding topic of consideration in both the news and more academic settings) as some sort of negative factor, when it is not.

Then using the 500 dead argument, which the entirety of the news media got wrong (largely because the original health ministry reporting in Arabic said 500 casualties and the first breaking news reporters in English of that mistranslated it as 500 killed, an unfortunate case of inter-lingual telephone and why breaking news pieces should be sparingly utilized). Then BilledMammal tries to use the discussion about tunnels under Al-Shifa, which are again a matter of quite public debate, especially considering the tunnels we know Israel themselves built under there in the 1980's.

Lastly, the piece about the Atlantic is quite clearly focusing on how the Atlantic editor is extremely biased toward Israel (and promotion of lies helping start the Iraq war) and uses that bias on Israel and their cultural identity as a reason to point out said person's unreliability. Now, the article may possibly be making a very oblique reference to the nonsense conspiracy about Jewish people owning the world, but that is very unclear from just a single line like that and the article itself just seems to put that in context of the editor's massive Israel propaganda supporting in the past, including in their own book publication. So, again, the Mondoweiss article seems biased against Israel and such information, but I'm seeing no evidence of anything outside of opinions being made, because it's an opinion-publishing site. Meaning that what matters is who is making said opinion in regards to WP:RS policy. Silverseren^C 00:01, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

trying to use articles saying that Israel has some responsibility in events prior to and after October 7th Can you clarify where you got that impression, because that's not my argument?

Regarding the specifics, I also did not use the "500 dead" argument; the closest I came is noting that they continued to refer to a "Breaking News" article that uses that figure months after it stopped being breaking news - although, I would note that we normally consider failing to correct inaccuracies when the inaccuracies are identified evidence of unreliability.

Finally, the existence of militant tunnels under al-Shifa is no longer a matter of debate - specifics of them are, such as whether they housed a command and control center and whether they connected to the hospital wards - but their existence was confirmed by reliable sources two days prior to the publishing of the article where Mondoweiss claimed Israel had presented no concrete evidence that they existed. BilledMammal (talk) 01:20, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Most news articles didn't correct the figure across all media, though some did flip flop across multiple different claims afterwards as statements by both the IDF and Hamas were debunked back and forth (such as the IDF originally using the video of a missile from a year prior). Nothing about the hospital blast is a negative for a specific source, because everyone got it both wrong on numbers and no one still knows who exactly is responsible, particularly after the New York Times investigation showing the missile came from the direction of Israel and not the opposite direction as originally claimed.

The usage of the tunnels is very much a matter of debate. As noted, the tunnels already existed, made by Israel in the 1980's. Whether they were at all used in a militant manner remains up for debate and is still debated in the media. Especially since those tunnels in question aren't connected to the hospital complex, but to a separate set of buildings nearby. The Washington Post continues to point out the lack of actual evidence presented by the IDF in an article from December 21st, a full month after the Mondoweiss one.

So, again, you're not bringing up anything of actual falsehoods, but open points of debate in the media in general, which only present Mondoweiss as being biased against Israel by their articles. Silverseren^C 01:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Even if you want to argue that it's reasonable to argue that Israel is the culprit despite reliable sources being in consensus that this is extremely improbable, Mondoweiss goes beyond doing that. Specifically, they claim that the evidence of complete Palestinian culpability has been largely debunked - that, at the very least, is indisputable false.

Regarding the tunnels, you're right that the usage is very much a matter of debate - but Mondoweiss' claim was not about the usage but the existence. BilledMammal (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2. The nom raises what are essentially accusations of bias, but this does not address reliability. Essentially, a variation of "WP:IDONTLIKEIT (so it should never be used as a source for anything, ever)". The fact that some coverage may be distasteful to certain sensibilities does not make the source as a whole unreliable. It is hard to see this as anything other than an attempt to stifle or deprecate sources that depart from a preferred POV. In-text attribution is likely appropriate to address concerns regarding bias (as has been the community's conclusion in numerous prior discussions). Advocates for deprecation should familiarize themselves with what WP:RS actually requires. WillowCity^(talk) 02:55, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  With all due respect, while the original complaint has elements of IDLI, I feel as if though the nominator has since raised genuine concerns of fabrication/exaggeration in responses to Silverseren, and more importantly, as elaborated below in response to my own question, a worrisome degree of overlap with a wide variety of already-GUNREL and/or deprecated sources. This latter issue played a significant role in why Electronic Intifada and The Cradle were recently deprecated, and I would encourage you to take this into account.

  Also, regarding the sentence beginning with "It is hard to see..." I recommend you reword or strike so as not to violate WP:ASPERSIONS. Remember to WP:AGF. The Kip 03:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  Did you actually read through nom's evidence? If so, please respond to my comment under theirs. VR _talk 16:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  Your comment you're referencing under my !vote starts with I don't have time to go through all your evidence, so I'm not sure what the point of accusing other people of not having read the evidence is. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think The Kip may have confused me with the nom, given I was the one who had the discussion with Silverseren and replied them them below. BilledMammal (talk) 02:43, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  That would be it, my bad. The Kip 04:00, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 for NPOV sake, and because bias complaints like this would knock out basically all sources in the I/P area (as is well known, for example, one large German news publisher requires its European employees to take an editorial stand on Israel). All sources have bias, all sources are wrong sometimes, and all sources fail in their job from time-to-time. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. What I'm seeing in the OP's diffs can be addressed by Wikipedia's policies for op-eds/opinion pieces, rather than by total blacklisting or deprecation. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:08, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, the same isn't true for the pile of diffs that I have provided; most of those are labeled "news", and they have considerable inaccuracies - they are also the result of only a couple of hours of research, I have no doubt that are more detailed search would reveal far more. BilledMammal (talk) 16:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 Listed on RSP as NoCon after a bunch of discussions. Walls of text notwithstanding, this RFC appears out of the blue, rather than being referenced to some particular usage or ongoing discussion? Has MW been cited on WP for something alleged as fabrication? Biased certainly but that is not a reason to deprecate and deprecation should usually follow GU first. Its another of those news sites that mixes opinions with news so attribution will usually be necessary.Selfstudier (talk) 16:42, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  I thought now was a good time. We haven't had an RfC about this yet and it's cited heavily in the topic area, so I'd rather get consensus before I start ripping citations to it out of BLPs/articles. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:18, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3. The website used to be essentially a blog, first a personal one and then a group one, and older articles should be judged through that frame. In more recent years, it has professionalised to some extent. It now includes content it calls "News", most of which is summarised from other sources (both reliable and unreliable, including deprecated sources) but with some original content. The latter may be occasionally useful with attribution, but I'd say if this is the only source it's not reliable enough to use alone and if there are other sources why use this one. Then there is content it calls "Opinion", and on the whole I'd say the fact it's published at this outlet is an indicator that it is not likely to be sufficiently of note for us to include it per due weight. However, some contributors are more significant (e.g. Mitchell Plitnick is a fairly significant voice that often publishes there. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 while a few articles may indeed covered by “just” WP:Biased and/or a concerning proximity to Hate Speech, the regular presentation of things that are WP:Fringe at best and intentional misinformation at worst is worthy of depreciation, particularly in combination with the frequent use of sources that are depreciated by Wikipedia really does not help either. I am uncertain whether it can really by fully considered WP:SPS by someone who isn’t a subject-matter expert, but if it really is, that would just be the a secondary problem. In addition, based on some of the past statements linked, a use for BLP or politicised situations within the fog or war would be very reckless at best. While the concern regarding a lack of pro-Palestinian RS brought up by some is understandable, there are definitely better and more reliable sources that have the desired political leaning without the habitual misinformation.FortunateSons (talk) 01:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3. I'm against deprecation which should be an exceptional measure reserved for sources regularly publishing deliberate falsehoods. My !vote is mostly due to the list of errors from u:BilledMammal's comment above (most of these errors are in news rather than opinion pieces). If they had been meticulous with their reporting, we could've lived with their extreme bias and other issues, but they aren't, and I'd rather not have to recheck their sourcing each time their articles are used. The association with and financing by Ron Unz doesn't help either. Alaexis_¿question? 12:58, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (Mondoweiss)

• With the caveat that I've never read Mondoweiss in my life; the vast majority of links I'm seeing above are to opinion pieces, already covered by WP:OPED. Is there evidence that Mondoweiss's journalistic pieces contain misinformation? Vanamonde93 (talk) 07:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Vanamonde93: These opinion pieces are cited in talk pages in the topic area to support claims about the conflict. [53] [54] [55] [56] They are also cited in multiple articles. [57] [58] [59] [60] Ditto for their "media analysis" pieces. [61] WP:RSEDITORIAL is a guideline and you can say that it should cover this, but in practice it has and does not. An WP:RSP entry would make it clearer. How would you feel about deprecating their opinion pieces? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  More examples of their opinion pieces being cited in Wikipedia articles. [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] These are all 2023. I can find more if you'd like. I think 'media analysis' should also be deprecated if that is a workable compromise. I think we should be explicitly deprecating Mondoweiss opinions in order to prevent their improper use in articles. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not opposed to adding an RSP entry about their opinion pieces assuming there is sufficient discussion here, but what would that achieve? Bad sources that are marked as such at RSP are frequently used in talk page discussion and in articles, and deprecation won't stop that, only blacklisting would. I don't yet see evidence of the need to deprecate media analysis pieces. The one you link [67] appears to be based on an opinion piece in Haaretz; certainly it shares a POV with that opinion piece. Are we talking about deprecating Haaretz too? I assume not; we just treat their OpEds with caution as well. Vanamonde93 (talk) 08:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  It would achieve a blanket rule that Mondoweiss opinion pieces are bad and make them easier to remove in a very contentious topic area. I don't think we should treat Mondoweiss OpEds with caution, I think they're so extreme and contain enough disinformation that we should be blanket discouraging them from articles. Sort of like how WP:COUNTERPUNCH had to be explicitly declared as unreliable despite exclusively being a vehicle for opinion pieces, as it was heavily used in this topic area as a source. [68] Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  Their efforts to cast doubt on the allegations of sexual violence extends beyond their opinion articles; for example, CNN report claiming sexual violence on October 7 relied on non-credible witnesses, some with undisclosed ties to Israeli govt BilledMammal (talk) 09:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Wanted to share something I found while researching this. Mondoweiss has received grants from Ron Unz. This comes from a conservative think-tank but I checked one of the 990 forms and Mondoweiss is indeed there. Of course he's a well known Holocaust denier whose Unz Review has been deprecated. Interestingly, Mondoweiss stopped disclosing their donors lately [69]. Alaexis_¿question? 10:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

That same 990 shows a $10,000 donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. The UNZ Foundation was dissolved in 2017 and Mondoweiss did not receive money from it in that year or since. Zero^talk 13:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation to my knowledge has not acclaimed the killing of Jewish people. Mondoweiss on the other hand shares that with Unz, so it's a more plausible they've been financially influenced by neo-Nazis. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Speculation. Selfstudier (talk) 19:11, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Both Mondoweiss and neo-Nazis agree that murdering Jewish people in Israeli is OK. They have a lot more in common. Weiss has also cited Unz News before, [70] including noted Holocaust denier Philip Giraldi to say that Jews control the United States. [71] [72] Weiss is a fan of Unz on a personal level as well and published opinion pieces supporting him after the big donation. [73] Columnists such as John Mearsheimer have published in both Mondoweiss and Unz. [74] [75] People in this discussion are going to bring up that Philip Weiss is Jewish, but so is Ron Unz. That didn't stop Unz from creating a news site with columnists like Andrew Anglin denying the Holocaust and it doesn't mean Philip Weiss' site can't be part of the same antisemitic network as well. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Putting Mondoweiss and neo-Nazis in the same basket is really quite disgraceful. But anyway this is just a distraction. Do we investigate the writings of the editor of the NYT to decide whether the NYT is a reliable source? Zero^talk 07:06, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The editor of the NYT also has considerably less power over what the paper doesn’t and publish as opposed to Philip Weiss and his personal blog. This also again leads into (in my opinion) one of two genuine issues here that present an argument for GUNREL, rather than just bias - Mondoweiss is in many ways a WP:SPS, rather than a proper media outlet.

The other issue is its considerable overlap with other GUNREL and deprecated sources, but BilledMammal’s entry below elaborates further on that. The Kip 08:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

You have no evidence that Weiss changes the content of articles that Mondoweiss publishes, except those he writes himself. He probably chooses which articles to publish, but that concerns bias and not reliability. The bottom line is that authors are responsible for what they write and there is nothing written so far to challenge that. Zero^talk 12:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, your position is to treat it like we treat WP:COUNTERPUNCH? BilledMammal (talk) 16:01, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• I suppose this is somewhat covered with the above information on Unz, but one thing I do have a question about: one of the key things that led to the recent deprecations of The Electronic Intifada and The Cradle, which covered the same topic area as Mondoweiss, was their overlap with/reliance on other already-deprecated sources, such as RT, Sputnik, The Grayzone, Al Mayadeen, and others. Is there any similar overlap between Mondoweiss and other deprecated sites? The Kip 23:26, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  It seems they do.

  They cite Electronic Intifada regularly, in both news and opinion articles (eg. 1, 2) and in 2021 published this salute to ‘Electronic Intifada’, where they described their activities as "truth telling".

  References to the Grayzone are less frequent but they do still happen (eg. 1). They also share a number of authors with that site, including Dan Cohen (Mondoweiss profile, Grayzone profile), Hamzah Raza (Mondoweiss profile, Grayzone profile), and Max Blumenthal himself (Mondoweiss profile).

  They make frequent reference to Al Mayadeen (eg. 1, 2, 3, 4)

  They republish works, both in whole and in part, from Counterpunch under their "News" header (eg. 1, 2, 3)

  They make frequent reference to Press TV (eg. 1, 2, 3)

  They make frequently make use of Russia Today, including through extensive excerpts, and have defended the source (eg. 1, 2, 3)

  Effectively, it seems if we have a deprecated source that aligns with their bias, they have almost certainly have a connection to it; for example, it seems they also use Telesur and The Unz Review - this last one is particularly relevant, given the evidence Alaexis presented above them receiving donations. I wasn't able to check for Sputnik or The Cradle, as both of those terms returned too many irrelevant results when searching for them.

  I will note that I haven't checked the accuracy of the claims they are using these sources for - but I don't think that's overly important as relying on extremely problematic sources is a huge red flag. BilledMammal (talk) 01:05, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well, that’s rather concerning. The Kip 01:49, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  I agree, that reliance is highly concerning. FortunateSons (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  I don't see how this calls for deprecation. I really dislike this daisy-chaining approach. This doesn't seem like grounds to deprecate the source as a whole; rather, an editor could simply go to the MW source that's cited, see if it relies on/cites to a deprecated source, and then, if so, use that as a basis to remove individually-offending pieces. We're all grown-ups here who shouldn't be afraid of a little legwork. WillowCity^(talk) 18:21, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  Part of being a reliable source is knowing how to identify sources which peddle misinformation; if you’re unable to do so then that raises serious questions about your own reliability, as it suggests that the editorial process behind all your articles, including those that don’t explicitly rely on such sources, is flawed.

  On it’s own, perhaps this wouldn’t be enough to justify Option 3 or Option 4 - reasonable minds could differ - but when we consider it in the context of the other evidence I have presented, of Mondoweiss misrepresenting sources and peddling misinformation, it is. BilledMammal (talk) 02:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  Are you saying unreliable sources or deprecated sources are false 100% of the time? Of course not. So could Mondoweiss not be citing Press TV etc when these sources are true and not citing them when these sources are not? VR _talk 07:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  How do you know when a deprecated source, a source that peddles misinformation, is presenting factual information? BilledMammal (talk) 08:07, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  It could be, but I don’t think it is here. Citing something critically can be done well, but based on the size of the org and what is linked here as well as the regular reliance on only one or two unreliable sources, it doesn’t appear to be good enough at determining truthfulness to be considered even close to reliable. FortunateSons (talk) 16:11, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of news reporting

Since a few editors have noted that many of the examples come from opinion pieces, I've looked specifically at news published by MW. They have reporters on the ground in Gaza and in Israel, and I'm sure that most of what they write is true (however that's also the case for RT). The problem is their news also read like a blog rather than a normal news source. In particular they are prone to making rather extreme statements in their news articles too. Here are some examples, I don't think this is something we'd want to add to Wikipedia based on MW

• all Zionist parties ... can be proud of ... converting Israel to a Full-Dictatorship [76].
• There is apparently intensification of fascist persecutions against critical voices in Israel [77]

They write that Mondoweiss editors select content for the site on the basis of our shared commitment to news professionalism as well as justice for Palestinians. This is more fitting for an advocacy organisation rather than a media outlet. Alaexis_¿question? 13:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• The full quote is When the last Netanyahu – Ben-Gvir government was established, they proudly labeled themselves a Full-Right government. Now, with full public unity between all Zionist parties for the destruction of Gaza, they can be proud of a much bigger achievement, converting Israel to a Full-Dictatorship.
• The second quote is an editor's comment explaining why the author of an article requested that their name not be published. Using the term "fascism" is provocative, but reliable outlets have published stories about the backlash against those outside Israel who have criticised Israel's actions. Some have termed it McCarthyism.[78] [79][80] The relationship between McCarthyism and Fascism has been remarked upon.[81][82] The Intercept has published articles about censorship/crackdown within Israel. It reported that there are "eight subjects the media are forbidden from reporting on in Israel". Also, "Since Israel’s war on Hamas started, more than 6,500 news items were either completely censored or partially censored by the Israeli government". Full censorship is not required because "People self-censor, people do not even try to report the stories they know won’t get through ... And that is really showing right now in how little regular Israelis are seeing in the press about what is happening in Gaza to Palestinians".[83] In November last year the Israeli Chief Military Censor "issued a complaint with senior IDF officers that sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have exerted extraordinary pressure on him to prevent publication of various events in the media".[84]
• The support for "justice for Palestinians'" is admirable and an indication of the outlet's bias, which editors would take into account when assessing its articles. A similar bias exists for Jewish outlets. For example, The Forward states that it "acquires and publishes informative, enlightening content that expresses its enduring commitments to social justice, Yiddish and Jewish culture, and the welfare of the Jewish people worldwide ".[85] Another admirable sentiment. The Times of Israel says "We aim for the site to serve as a platform for constructive debate regarding the challenges facing Israel, the region and the Jewish people.[86] Nothing wrong with that attitude, just a bias that editors would assess when using the outlet. Burrobert (talk) 15:32, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  Re the first item, this is the full quote indeed, but my concern was with the characterisation of Israel as a dictatorship. This is a pretty extraordinary claim, as fascist dictatorships are not usually known for allowing courts to strike down the dictator's powers [87]. Of all criticism levied at Israel (human rights violations, apartheid, etc), this is pretty rare. I'm not sure whether they mean it as a rhetorical device or as a serious characterisation - but that's precisely the problem as reliable sources usually don't use such language without really strong evidence or attribution. And it's their reliability that we're discussing. Re the third point, fair enough. Alaexis_¿question? 19:28, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Burrobert, you're right that many reliable sources focus on a certain region or topic and it's perfectly okay. The issue here is that MW only focus on one aspect of justice for Palestinians. Having looked at dozens of their news articles I haven't seen any criticism of Hamas and the criticism of PA, when it does appear, is mostly about their collaboration with Israel. Alaexis_¿question? 09:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

What is interesting is that "news" and "opinion" are intermixed. For example, "Tracing my queer consciousness from Palestine to the US, and back again" is labeled as "news" but it is quite self-evidently nothing of the sort. I think at the very least we need to treat the entire site as opinion pieces. BilledMammal (talk) 16:32, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Alaexis: plenty of news reporting is often biased and mixed with opinions. For example, Israeli newspapers (including Times of Israel) have been casually calling "terrorist" any Palestinian who acts violently (sometimes even said Palestinian is not affiliated with any group[88]). That's obviously POV language we wouldn't use on wikipedia per WP:TERRORIST. This is in contrast to more professional news organizations, like BBC News, which explain that using such words implies taking sides in a conflict. VR _talk 17:03, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I have very little faith in their editorial review which go beyond WP:BIAS and regularly WP:Fringe. At best, they really shouldn’t be used for anything related to BLP, Russia and Israel, at worst (and IMO this part is most likely) a full depreciation may be in order. FortunateSons (talk) 16:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

planecrashinfo.com

Hello all, After the consensus that Simple Flying is unreliable (I've summarized in an essay here), I've been slowly working on purging citations to the site. In the process, I came across information sourced to planecrashinfo.com which also does not strike me as a reliable source. I removed the citation but checked and saw that the site is cited over 300 times on Wikipedia. Given that, bringing it here for discussion to make sure others agree with my assessment of the source. Avgeekamfot (talk) 18:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

planecrashinfo.com's disclaimer page:

While every effort has been made to ensure that the information on this website is correct, information in the database is compiled from numerous sources that may be in conflict or error. The data contained on this website should not be used for anything other than general interest information. PlaneCrashInfo.com makes no guarantees, stated or implied, regarding the validity of the information found on this website or any website linked to this site. Neither PlaneCrashInfo.com or its operator will be held liable for any information, omissions, improper use of the information presented, or any violations of any law which may occur as a result of utilizing this resource. Information contained on this web site does not necessarily reflect the conclusions, opinions or official position of any government agency, airline, aircraft manufacturer or organization. All images on this website may be subject to copyright. Upon verification, copyrighted material will be removed or credited when requested by the copyright holder.

Avgeekamfot (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it appears to be effectively a personal website run by one person, and as the disclaimer says, cannot be regarded as reliable. Black Kite (talk) 19:05, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Such disclaimer appear on most websites, so I wouldn't give it to much weight. However the website is self-published by Richard Kebabjian, and I can't find anything that would show that he has previously been published as a subject matter expert. So the site wouldn't be reliable per WP:SPS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:38, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• Unreliable and copyvio. What the disclaimer says. It is just a bunch of copyvio Internet scrapings. Definitely give this one a miss. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Based on the information provided, it appears to be unreliable unless there is any indication that it’s from a subject-matter expert, which I can’t find. FortunateSons (talk) 23:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Something strange is going on with ZDNet

Okay, here is a somewhat tangled tale. This (archived here) is a ZDnet article claiming to have been "Written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Senior Contributing Editor and Jack Wallen, Contributing Writer Sept. 20, 2023 at 1:53 a.m. PT". It's got significant errors -- first of all that it links to the distros' webpages with the ludicrous text "See price at", creating sentences like "See price at Linux Mint". As for the rest... I will have to excerpt (emphasis is present in the source).

Linux users who grew up with the GNOME 2.x style interface will also love Cinnamon due to its ____ and ___. Another worthwhile alternative for people who are fond of GNOME 2.x that is also integrated into Mint is MATE because of _____. While Cinnamon rests on the foundation of the GNOME 3.x desktop, MATE is an outright GNOME 2.x fork WHAT DOES 2.X FORK MEAN? Explain that. MATE is also available on Mint.
See price at Linux Mint

Yes -- it really says "due to its ____ and ___", bolded, in an article from September 20th last year which has not since been updated.

Additionally, when I was putting this URL into archive.is, I noticed something quite strange: it said that URL had already been archived... in 2022, over a year before its publication date. That article is here: it's a very similar article with somewhat different information. That one is "Written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Senior Contributing Editor and Taylor Clemons, Staff Writer on May 26, 2022, Reviewed by Elyse Betters Picaro".

The 2022 version of the article, which "was published" in May 2022 and archived in August 2022, doesn't have any editor notes in the body text, but it does have something very strange in the lead:

Today, the easiest desktop of all, Chrome OS, is simply Linux with the Chrome web browser on top of it. The more full-featured Linux desktop distributions are as easy to use in 2021 as Windows or macOS.

2021? What?!

Note that they did not just move the URLs around: a Google search for the headline and page title of the 2022 version ("The 5 best Linux distros for beginners: You can do this" and "The 5 best Linux distros for beginners in 2022", respectively) brings up nothing at all. This suggests that the article itself is just having its title and publication date changed every year.

Anyway, all of that aside, the more pressing issue is why they've had an article with TKTK filler text and editor's notes live since September (? - apparently the publication dates don't actually mean anything).

What could this mean? jp×g🗯️ 20:00, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@JPxG: It means that ZDNet has also fallen victim to Red Ventures, which does this with every outlet they acquire including CNet and Healthline. [89] [90] I don't think the discussion we should be having is about ZDNet, it's about whether or not we should just list content published by Red Ventures as generally unreliable. This is the third time one of their publications has come here for becoming a blatant content mill and we shouldn't bother rehashing it when it's obvious what the common denominator is. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:32, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, this would actually be the fourth time we've had to mark one of their pubs as generally unreliable or below. [91] Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:38, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I didn’t know about that, but it is highly concerning regarding the quality. Would it be possible to have an RfC for an entire group, even if the editorial teams are formally unaffiliated? FortunateSons (talk) 00:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Red Ventures strikes again. At this point I would support listing anything owned by Red Ventures as unreliable. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

If this is compatible with wiki rules (which I don’t know, to be honest), it sounds like a very reasonable proposal FortunateSons (talk) 01:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:Ignore all rules is also a rule, and there's a precedent for blocking spam networks. Dotdash is an example of a network of sites that are given special considerations. The difference with this spam network is that it has a revenue of $2 billion a year. It's pretty telling that none of their sources listed at RSP have anything above "unreliable" (CNET is only reliable pre-Red Ventures and the last ZDnet discussion was also pre-Red) and imho we might even want to deprecate the whole network so we have it in the edit filter for newer editors. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 03:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

There are underlying issues of concern, such as blacklisted Healthline having brand websites - Greatist.com (recently pruned by me; 8), Bezzy (new; 19), PsychCentral (319), and Medical News Today (MNT, 914) - all of which have links to one another and back to Healthline (parentheses: number of WP articles containing the Red Ventures-Healthline brand links).

Removing the individual links requires an editor(s) to manually remove it, i.e., an onerous task for PsychCentral and MNT. Zefr (talk) 01:38, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

That is very unfortunate, I’m sorry to hear that. I am in favour of finding a functional solution to this, the status quo is clearly untenable FortunateSons (talk) 02:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I’m not sure if a formal RFC is proper procedure, but I’d be in favor of a blanket deprecation of any Red Ventures-owned sites. The Kip 03:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Social Media reliablity

I know for the most part social media posts are not reliable sources, but what about if someone posts on their Twitter or Instagram account wishing someone a happy birthday and the person in question responds? Is that an exception or is that considered unreliable as well? Kcj5062 (talk) 22:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Just in case someone finds this later: In my opinion, this would be fine per WP:DOB: A verified social media account of an article subject saying about themselves something along the lines of "today is my 50th birthday" may fall under self-published sources for purposes of reporting a full date of birth. It may be usable if there is no reason to doubt it. FortunateSons (talk) 23:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

EDIT: NVM. I read the Instagram post I'm referring to wrong. It's actually the subject's account. Kcj5062 (talk) 22:55, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

References

is there a list?

is there somewhere i can see a simple list of refillable vs depreciated?

Irtapil (talk) 02:41, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:RSP, also linked near the top of this page. The Kip 03:52, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

RSP only includes regularly discussed sources, it doesn't include all reliable or unreliable sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:01, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

German Institute for Japanese Studies

Today 2 IP addresses, namely 43.224.233.204 (talk · contribs) and 150.249.219.26 (talk · contribs) added a lot of new text on various articles of Japan which universally cite journals from Taylor & Francis Online, within a short amount of time which raised my alert. I am also uneasy with the fact that the links provided by the IPs are shorthanded redirects, which I believe is a discouraged practice on Wikipedia. Due to the suspicious editing nature of the two IPs, I decided to do a blanket revert of all of their edits of today. However, I am interested to have a third party to investigate if their edits are problem-free and the sources they cited are reliable. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 09:14, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I looked at one[92] which you reverted without comment. What exactly do you see as problematic from a RS perspective here? Bon courage (talk) 09:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

My issue is that the author of the source, Igor Prusa, is a rather unknown figure on the topic of Japan from Czech. His writing was never cited on English Wikipedia until today by the same two IPs on multiple articles. This led me to suspect self-publication and attempt to abuse Wikipedia as a platform to establish prestige for the author. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 09:37, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

But the cited articles are from diverse authors are they not? The journal is the journal of the German Institute for Japanese Studies, and reputable. Bon courage (talk) 09:48, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Japanese Wikipedian ja:user:Keeteria has detected that 150.249.219.26 is an IP used by the German Institute for Japanese Studies, so there is the concern of conflict of interest editing. Moreover, can you give me more info about the reliability of the said institute? -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 10:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Material published in reputable journals is usually reliable, and certainly reliable for attributed statements of what it says. If there is an WP:UNDUE/promotional aspect, that is another matter, not relevant to this noticeboard. Bon courage (talk) 10:25, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I am afraid this is just circular reasoning (it's reliable because it's reputable). What I want is other reliable sources which cited articles by Igor Prusa/German Institute for Japanese Studies. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 10:47, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

https://www.dijtokyo.org/institute/

Not quite what you are looking for, but they are funded by a German ministry and a charitable foundation, so that is generally a positive indication (I.e. not self-published, not aggressively political). In addition, they seem to have a history of publications in reputable journals and with scholars from good universities https://www.dijtokyo.org/?hpcat=publications. Could you elaborate on what you are specifically concerned about? FortunateSons (talk) 11:40, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh, and I found a second source. I would call them reliable unless proven otherwise https://gerit.org/en/institutiondetail/55539458 FortunateSons (talk) 11:44, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

As I have pointed out earlier, there is suspicion of undisclosed COI editing. I believe it's acceptable to preemptively revert possible COI editing even if the source cited could be considered "reliable". A reputable source really doesn't require such mildly aggressive COI editing strategy to boost traffic of the organization. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 12:14, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Again, I do not believe that reputable source and COI editing are inherently contradictory. They are reputable by any reasonable standard (unless I missed something, feel free to make me aware of that). The indication of COI editing can be investigated, but the source is still reliable. If you are willing to take the time, I would encourage you to look over the reverted edits on whether or not they are actually harmful and restore those that aren’t. However, as @Bon courage said above, the issue of this noticeboard is unrelated to COI. FortunateSons (talk) 12:30, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I stand by my decision to implement blanket rollbacks of their edits. In one of their revisions on Shinzo Abe, it reads "(...)however observers have also noted that "Abe Shinzō represented religious nationalism in Japan (...)",[93] However, this point of view is attributed solely to the single author of the cited journal,[94] Ernils Larsson. It seems to be a somewhat deceptive attempt to present the perspective as an academically accepted idea. I find this approach unacceptable, and I feel no obligation to fix each of their edits individually. If you believe their changes have merit and consider my rollbacks unjustified, kindly fix their edits by yourselves before considering restoration. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 14:02, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I don’t disagree with the questionable quality of the edits insofar as you have presented evidence for it; this is simply a question of the text, not actually of the source.

Unfortunately, while I am generally aware of the institutions and their reliability, I cannot make the changes due to the fact that I am uninformed of the general scientific consensus on the topics discussed. FortunateSons (talk) 15:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with BonCourage and FortunateSons. I don't see anything about the journal Contemporary Japan itself that would make me think it's an unreliable source. If you have concerns about whether the sources were summarized properly, or if someone involved with the journal may have added the citations, that's a matter for different boards than this. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:42, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Health effects of microplastics

See the discussion here: are the sources cited in this section not reliable? Jarble (talk) 15:40, 9 January 2024 (UTC)