Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 426

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Journal of Public Space

This journal [1] is used on a new page Al-Qaed Ibrahim Mosque and I noted that it was marked as unreliable/blacklisted by a user script (CiteHighlighter) but could not find any reference to it anywhere on the site. Would like clarification. Reconrabbit 18:19, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

It's flagged because the link goes to ResearchGate. A paper hosted on ResearchGate may or may not be reliable. (I may use a different ref warning tool, to me it only shows as a questionable ref, not as an unreliable/blacklisted ref.) Schazjmd (talk) 18:27, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I see my mistake: I had corrected the URL to link directly to journalpublicspace.org, but it was changed back to ResearchGate due to an edit conflict. Thanks. Reconrabbit 18:51, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Zach Panning/Running Websites

I've just started working on a draft article for Zach Panning and have found extensive sources from two websites that I'm not sure qualify as reliable citable sources. They are https://www.flotrack.org/, and https://citiusmag.com/ I feel strongly that they do qualify - they have staff, function officially within the track world, etc. but I just want to be sure. Wondering what you (all) think. AdmiralAckbar1977 ^{talk contribs} 23:36, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@AdmiralAckbar1977, "Zach Panning is..." is not really a start. You used ten references for that. Also, the following, "Using draft bc I think this could be an article created without me, therefore sandbox# would not be ideal" could get it deleted if you're not going to put any effort into working on the article. If you start an article in draft, you should do the bulk load of the work working on it to get it ready for mainspace. It's fine to ask for assistance with working on the article.

Now onto the reason to sites in question. Looking at FloTrack and they do have writers who follow track. They report results and other news in the sport. Use it for that and that only. Don't use "five you need to know about (insert name here)" or other non-news or result article. As well, I came across an article from posted from another source ie: Race Results Weekly. Looking at Race Results Weekly and you have to subscribe to get any news and results. You can't even read an excerpt. With that, someone with FloTrack must have a subscription.

CITIUS Mag has articles you can cite with a number of writers. Looks good.

Articles on both sites are not just a paragraph or two. They go in depth. Good to go with both. Mr. C.C.^{Hey yo!}_{I didn't do it!} 18:08, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

@Mr. C.C. thank you so much! I appreciate the help. How I usually start articles is with a big dump of citations like here and more recently here, what I meant was that the article isn't the usual obscurity I dabble in. I full expect to do 99.9% of work in the article but wanted it to be a clear space for anyone else wanting to help create the article. Again, thank you! AdmiralAckbar1977 ^{talk contribs} 18:30, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

@AdmiralAckbar1977, instead of talking about the draft here, I'll take it to your talk page. Mr. C.C.^{Hey yo!}_{I didn't do it!} 18:56, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

www.onthisday.com

I'm being told by newish contributors that this is a reliable source simply because it isn't on the list of unreliable sources. It seems obvious to me that it's a mirror site, and I feel sure it has been discussed before but it doesn't appear in the archive (or in the List of mirrors and forks). Can anyone point me to a previous discussion? If not, what do people think? Deb (talk) 09:32, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Looking though their about page, it seems that some editors have a background in history, but I don't see how its better to cite this source than when more reliable non-pop history websites exist. Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:10, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Pretty obvious that onthisday.com is a WP:MIRROR. Amazing it isn't on WP:RSP already. Certainly nowhere near reliable enough for any type of personal info like WP:DOBs where the standard for inclusion of personal information of living persons is higher than mere existence of a reliable source (if that site was a reliable source). Toddst1 (talk) 05:15, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, Even the editor who you reference above acknowledges it's unreliable: " it's not always 100% accurate". Continuing to use it, knowing it's unreliable, is indeed problematic. Toddst1 (talk) 00:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

adobo magazine

Is the adobo magazine reliable? I keep seeing it during looking for sources on my draft. - Dents (talk2me 🖂) he/him btw!!! 08:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Apparently founded 2006, based in the Philippines. I don't find much about it beyond its own puff. Its about page has "A three-time record-breaking third Philippine Quill Top Award, an Asia-Pacific AdStars International Lifetime Achievement Awards, numerous Stevie Awards Asia Pacific Awards". It seems to have been mentioned some 346 times in Wikipedia. 73 results in google scholar. Note I haven't dug down much into how they were mentioned. I would say insufficient information so far and someone from the Philippines might have a better idea. On the whole I would be wary. Erp (talk) 02:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Is Christian Parent Reviews a valid source?

Considering that they literally say "we rely on Jesus, not common sense", they don't seem like a very reliable source. Goldside852 (talk) 19:43, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

That's certainly not a good start, but do you have any more specific examples, or the context this source would be used in? The Kip 19:45, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe for a section about a book or movie's ratings, one could include their review, but would it really be valid if it's based off of what "Jesus" says? Goldside852 (talk) 19:49, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

If you're not sure in what circumstance this source would be used (and is it being used at all?), I don't think any particular decision is needed at this time. As the top of this page states, this noticeboard is primarily for asking about sources' reliability in context—in the context of particular pages, in the context of particular statements. If this source isn't being cited somewhere, then there's not really any context for making an assessment of how it's being used. In any case, what determines whether a source is or isn't reliable is not its religious or irreligious affiliation, but whether it meets the guidelines of WP:RS: Evaluation of reliability of a source considers the fact for which the source is cited, the context of the fact and cite in the article, incentives of the source to be reliable, the general tone of credibility of the source for the specific fact, etc. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 20:24, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Outside of WP:ABOUTSELF I don't see how they would be usable... They don't have a positive reputation for fact checking and accuracy nor are they widely respected in their field. They also don't have any incentive to be reliable if they're relying on a higher power (which are famously unreliable). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with P-Makoto. There is none of the required context in this request needed to evaluate reliability, and the discussion thus for consists of idle pot-shots based on its affiliation, which are of no value. I could perhaps see it used with attribution to represent its point of view, but that really depends on the context. As it stands, this discussion is moot: WP:RSN is WP:NOTFORUM. GretLomborg (talk) 22:16, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Sources for people in the Book of Mormon

Are publications from Herald House, the Maxwell Institute, and Deseret Book a primary source for people in the Book of Mormon?

Ongoing discussion on the talk page for King Noah has not been able to come to a consensus about if sources published by Herald House, the Maxwell Institute, and Deseret Book are primary sources for pages about people in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is sacred writ for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and other church in the Latter Day Saint movement, including the Church of Christ. I know this isn't the primary sources noticeboard, but I believe that some of the concerns about primary sources overlap with reliability in this case. Herald House is the publishing house for the Church of Christ. The Maxwell Institute is sponsored by Brigham Young University, which is owned by the LDS Church. Deseret Book is owned by the LDS Church. I believe that books published by these publishers/institutes are secondary sources and should be attributed in-text for interpretive information, but not for summary of Book of Mormon narrative. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:51, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to RSN. To better summarize (from the talk page) "The question is whether or not the Church is a primary source when it comes to describing its own texts, doctrines, and traditions." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:41, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to @Big Money Threepwood, Left guide, and Jfire: who participated in the talk page discussion (P-Makoto did as well but has already been pinged below). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The only thing that is truly a primary source for people in the Book of Mormon is the Book of Mormon itself. In this context, the sources in question are neither primary nor independent; they are secondary but they fall under the purview of WP:COISOURCE, so they likely don't count towards notability. Limited uses with in-text attribution would be reasonable, ideally being contextualized against fully independent perspectives. Left guide (talk) 02:44, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

In a thread with a similar theme at the WikiProject Christianity noticeboard, @Pbritti: expressed that Wikipedia relies on similar sources for its coverage of Catholicism, Hinduism, and many other major world religions, so as a courtesy I have pinged Pbritti, out of the sense that this conversation could have implications for what are considered secondary and reliable sources for religious text topics beyond Book of Mormon studies and these particular presses.

Although not policy, the popular essay WP:IS describes primary sources as original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. This is a conventional and reasonable definition that also matches the understanding taught in the humanities. Primary sources for King Noah would be sources close to the "event" of King Noah and written by people directly involved. Since King Noah is known via being a figure in the Book of Mormon, primary sources would be the Book of Mormon and manuscript materials from its production.

I also disagree with the suggestion that sources from a publisher like the Maxwell Institute should always and necessarily be considered WP:COISOURCE. The Maxwell Institute as a publisher does have a conflict of interest with itself and with BYU, but the connections to the Book of Mormon are cultural and religious, not institutional or financial (King Noah doesn't bankroll the Maxwell Institute, and he of course is completely unable to). As a publisher for Book of Mormon studies, the Maxwell Institute seems comparable to publishers in biblical studies like Yeshiva University Press and Baylor University Press: they're all academic institutions that are part of religious traditions/institutions, and they might have biases about these topics, but bias is not the same as COI. (In other words, I consider Baylor University Press not independent for the Baptist General Convention of Texas but think it is independent for the Bible or Paul the Apostle.) [edit: Struck part of the sentence I had a further think about and am not so sure of. However, it does seem sensible to say Baylor University Press has a COI with Baylor University. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:21, 8 February 2024 (UTC)]

I also think the characterization of all these institutions as a monolithic "the Church" (even when Herald House is affiliated with an entirely different denomination than the Maxwell Institute) risks being misleading. There is a clear difference between the Maxwell Institute's academically informed output (written by scholars with advanced degrees and training) compared to, say, a Sunday School manual literally published by the denomination (like the Come, Follow Me manuals). Maxwell Institute books say on the inside: not made, provided, approved, or endorsed by Intellectual Reserve Inc. or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 20:37, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the courtesy ping, P-Makoto! The next couple days are busy for me, so I'm going to regrettably miss this important discussion. I reiterate my original sentiments but don't offer any additional support for my position, for what it's worth. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:49, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Brant Gardner's Book of Mormon commentary a RS for BoM people pages?

Brant Gardner's commentary on the Book of Mormon is the source for the first paragraph about perceptions of Lamanites. Garder's interpretation of Zeniff's words are attributed in-text. It is published by Kofford Books, a publisher independent of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and other churches within the Latter Day Saint movement. There is an ongoing discussion on the talk page for Zeniff about if Brant Gardner is a reliable source for interpretation of Book of Mormon people. HEB argues that he is "not respected or mainstream scholarship". I argue that his work was foundational to Book of Mormon Studies. P-Makoto provides several secondary sources from within Mormon studies that judge Gardner's work favorably. FyzixFighter writes that this use by other scholars is sufficient to establish his commentary as reliable. HEB says that this does not establish reliability. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:08, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

When it comes to Brant Gardner I see an amateur (whose day job is software consulting and product management, not academics) who has been published within a walled garden of apologetics. Publishing in Mormon Studies Review (pre-2018), FAIR (Mormon apologetics organization), and Kofford Books (a minor LDS religious publisher, presumably related to V. Lewis Kofford) doesn't make you a published expert as we understand them. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:33, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to @FyzixFighter and P-Makoto:. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:39, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I really don't see how this would be a big problem: even if we're dealing with a minor scholar and a minor publisher, we're talking about an in-house interpretation about an in-house matter, so to speak, properly attributed. Drmies (talk) 17:45, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The problem is that much of it is pseudoscience, someone whose academic background (a BA from BYU and a MA from University at Albany, SUNY) is in Mesoamerican studies isn't a Book of Mormon expert unless you subscribe to a particular brand of Mormon literalism which believes that the Lamanites were literally American Indians and that much of the Book of Mormon takes place in Mesoamerica (see Archaeology and the Book of Mormon and Proposed Book of Mormon geographical setting for more). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:53, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Brant's wiki page draws heavily from a bio of him on the church website. This is equivalent to saying a preacher is an expert in the hostoricity of the old testament. Maybe, but maybe not. If you think Native Americans spoke Egyptian, you aren't much of an expert in matters of nonfiction. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 03:44, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

A Baptist preacher (just to give an example) might not be an expert in the historicity of the Old Testament (unless they are, hypothetically, simultaneously a published and respected expert on that subject) but could very plausibly be an expert in the Christian Bible's theological, interpretive, and literary qualities, uses, meanings, etc. Though I admit I find the comparison to a preacher a little forced; the OP isn't asking about citing a sermon. Second Witness is a commentary published by a denominationally unaffiliated and independent press.

By way of aside, no one in the thread has made claims about speaking Egyptian, nor do such claims appear on either the Zeniff or King Noah pages. I'm genuinely a little confused; what's that comment supposed to be about? Is that supposed to be an accusation or claim about the OP, via riffing on elements of the Book of Mormon setting? I'd invite us all to careful to WP:AVOIDYOU. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

The person you said is an expert is an amateur psuedoarcheologist. He is used as a source on the King Noah page, which is where this discussion came from. The person you claim to be an expert is someone who believes that Native Americans spoke Egyptian. This author makes a lot of other pseudoscientific claims, and is clearly not trustworthy when it comes to matters of fact. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 03:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I'd point out that The person [I] said is an expert was a spin off the preacher example you gave; the "expert" I spoke of is a hypothetical Baptist preacher that doesn't exist; he's certainly not cited on the Zeniff or King Noah pages.

If you're talking about Brant Gardner, I don't know what he believes about Native American language. I haven't cited him or Second Witness for the subject of Native American languages (why would I?) and I care much less about a privately held belief and much more about a published source and what it's used for. The Evangelical historian Mark Noll believes in the virginal conception and birth of Jesus Christ, but the unsuitability of miraculous virgin birth claims for the parthenogenesis or pregnancy articles doesn't somehow make Noll or his In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783 unreliable for pages about the Bible or Christianity. Per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, The very same source may be reliable for one fact and not for another. Evaluation of reliability of a source considers the fact for which the source is cited.

Second Witness probably isn't a reliable source for Native American linguistics (why would it be? It's not about that topic), and it's good that neither OP nor I are trying to cite it on such pages. That, however, doesn't stop it from being reliable for other facts, like the setting, narrative, etc. contained in the Book of Mormon. In the context of the OP's question and the use on Zeniff and King Noah, Second Witness has been cited as commentary on the Book of Mormon as a literary text with significance in Mormonism and religious studies, and in that context it's a reliable source.

Being direct, I worry your criticism as phrased so far is based less on knowledge of or familiarity with the Second Witness book and more on circulating humor about Mormons. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 09:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

As one might expect, I agree with FyzixFighter that the favorable WP:USEBYOTHERS I provided on the Zeniff talk page demonstrates the sufficient reliability of Second Witness as a WP:RS source for analysis of the text of the Book of Mormon. So long as other policies like WP:NPOV are also followed in the writing of the page, I think the use is fine.

Next, I have a few comments about some of what's been brought up in this thread. As far as Gardner's degree goes, it's true a degree is informative for what someone is an expert in and something worth regarding and considering, but I would be more careful about the limits one draws. The humanities are interdisciplinary, and interpretive skills can transfer across topics. Someone trained on one topic is capable of going on to produce respected scholarship on a different one. To use another example, the historian Richard Bushman was trained in the sociopolitical history of eighteenth-century America (his PhD was for the history of American civilization, and his first book was From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765), yet he later in his career became a respected scholar in Mormon studies and Book of Mormon studies, bringing his analytical training to bear on religious studies and literary studies (such as in his "Nephi's Project: The Gold Plates as Book History"). If we went solely by his degree, we might say Bushman isn't a reliable source for literary studies like Book of Mormon scholarship, but that would be a misunderstanding of Bushman and of the field.

Finally, as for Greg Kofford Books, although Horse Eye's Back calls it a minor LDS publisher, it is quite respected in the field of Mormon studies. Sociologist of religion Armand Mauss wrote that Greg Kofford Books of Salt Lake City (www.koffordbooks.com) also specializes in Mormon Studies (in "The Emergence Of Mormon Studies In The Social Sciences", in American Sociology of Religion, ed. Anthony Blasi, Religion and the Social Order vol. 13 [Brill, 2007], 121–150, here 124). And academic organizations have recognized Greg Kofford Books publications with several awards, including Best Biography (from the John Whitmer Historical Association in 2016 and from the Mormon History Association in 2012), Best Book (from the Mormon History Association in 2015 and from JWHA and MHA in 2011), Best International Book (from MHA in 2013, 2014, and 2015), and Best Religious Nonfiction (from the Association for Mormon Letters in 2014). P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:24, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of The Barony of Ynys Fawr

Hello. Can I use The Barony of Ynys Fawr to cite "In the Battle of Kauthal, the Bahmanis had a force of almost 40,000 whereas the Vijayanagar forces numbered almost 540,000", by taking from "In the battle of Kauthal 40,000 Muslim troops of the Bahmani Sultanate defeat possibly 540,000 troops of the kingdom of Vijayanagar by superior cavalry"? Imperial^[AFCND] 13:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

That's an SCA site, a hobbyist site. I would not use it for anything except WP:ABOUTSELF. Schazjmd (talk) 13:51, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The Verge

Our current RSP entry on The Verge says that it is reliable for articles relating to technology, science, and automobiles. I think this should be upgraded to being a reliable source in general, as it is owned by Vox Media, which also operates Vox which RSP says is broadly generally reliable, and from my experience reading it I would consider it to be a largely impeccable source.

I ask this specifically because of the Eugene Gu article. Eugene Gu is a doctor who garnered considerable attention as a Twitter personality. In 2019, The Verge ran an investigative journalism piece on Gu, covering a number of controversies he had been involved with. [2]. The same allegations were also covered in a Vice News article published the year before [3]. The result of two RfCs conducted in 2021 and this month is that sexual assault/harrassment and domestic violence allegations mentioned in these pieces should not be included in the article due to the lack of wider coverage in other articles.

However @TarnishedPath: has been using the result of these RfCs as an excuse to excise all uses of The Verge article as a reference, even for uses that are not related to those covered in the RfCs, such as the allegation that Gu used sockpuppets on Twitter to attack critics, which heavily features in The Verge and Vice News articles. I think this is a misrepresentation of the result of these RfCs which did not cover this content. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:26, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia, this is not a question about what WP:RSP says. The RfC, which you closed as WP:SNOW at Special:Diff/1204650217 had clear consensus about not including the accusations contained in that Verge article. You introducing an edit trying to skirt around the RfC including it as a source with text reading "Gu became embroiled in a number of controversies relating to his tweets". Notably "number of controversies" is inclusive of the allegations which were covered by the RfC. You are trying to circumvent consensus. TarnishedPath^talk 05:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

When I wrote that controversies bit I had different controversies in mind than the sexual harassment/assault and domestic violence allegations. Specifically I was thinking of controversy Gu's claim that Dr. Glaumerflecken has a racist avatar as mentioned in the Vice piece, and the Kaepernick tweet which got him into trouble with his employer. I've modified by RfC close to make my opinion more clear, but my reading of the consensus in that discussion is that it was only for the exclusion of the allegation by "Allison"/Dr. Meowskis of sexual harassment/assault, and did not rule on any other material included in the piece. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:32, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be good to propose something a little bit more specific then in article talk, because the way you wrote it was quite broad and could easily be construed to include what was covered by the RfC. TarnishedPath^talk 05:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the RfC did not exclude other material in the piece, however your wording in that sentence I removed is very inclusive. TarnishedPath^talk 05:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Hemiauchenia that the Verge and Vice News are reliable sources. Vox Media is precise with its journalism and serious about editorial oversight, fact checking, and error correction, and both Verge and Vice News share that. These are high quality journalistic sources news enterprise known for solid investigative journalism.

For the record, TarnishedPath, pertaining to the Eugene Gu talk page comment that If we don't use primary sources in articles, we shouldn't be using them in our arguments in RfCs., WP:NOR explicitly does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 05:23, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@P-Makoto, this is about the outcome of an RfC which was clear that the allegations in the verge article should not be included in the article per WP:BLPCRIME. Editing to introduce wording which includes "number of controversies" when one of those controversies is exactly what the RfC covered and then using the same source which was proposed in the RfC in support of the proposal is an attempt to circumvent consensus. This is not a question for WP:RSN. TarnishedPath^talk 05:30, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

The question about whether or not the Verge can be considered generally reliable in general and not only for articles relating to technology, science, and automobiles is a question for WP:RSN. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 20:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

• The consensus on WP:RSP for Vice is yellow; it's not generally considered a BLP-quality source and shouldn't be used for clearly BLP-sensitive things (which these obviously are.) The Verge might be usable but there's plenty of reason to be cautious about something BLP-sensitive that only a single usable source has covered; and the fact that multiple RFCs about very similar allegations, cited to similar sources, have failed overwhelmingly on talk suggests that this might not be worth pursuing. Something else I'd point out is that the first RFC on this happened in 2021 (and these ultimately all concern the same related incident) - given that it has been three years, there should be additional sourcing now. If there isn't then it seems unlikely that there's WP:SUSTAINED coverage, which is an additional reason not to include it. --Aquillion (talk) 09:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Gu openly admitted to having access to one of the sockpuppet accounts in question in The Verge article, and the sockpuppetry allegations were briefly covered by an Ars Technica article in 2020, which treated them as factual [4]. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:00, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

• These aren't appropriate sources for anything BLP-sensitive. It's undisputed not to include serious allegations that have been denied and have not received wider coverage. In this context - trumped up charges of Twitter sockpuppetry against someone who is a well known critic of Donald Trump - for me it is a definite no on using these as RS. Cornsimpel (talk) 10:05, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Gu openly admitted to operating the account. To quote The Verge article: On Twitter, [Gu] claimed that Mary Laury’s account was “an anonymous account people close to me created to address the trolling issues I was encountering from Trump supporters on Twitter. After a while I also shared access of this account to help combat the trolls.” If Gu openly admits to it it's hardly "trumped up" is it? Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:16, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Trumped up is what it is if you don't care, which I don't. The only RSN question is whether RSN or talk page consensus should decide this issue. If Gu admitted it, then it's no longer a BLP issue, and editors at the article should decide if its worthy of including in an encyclopedia article. Cornsimpel (talk) 10:20, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

• This appears to be a content issue rather than a reliability one. That content can be reliably sourced is not in itself a reason to include it in an article (that instead is a matter for talk page discussion and consensus building), instead reliable sources guide the discussion on what should be in an article and anything that is in the article must be reliably sourced. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:42, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Precisely. TarnishedPath^talk 01:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  The header of this noticeboard reads: Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context! Emphasis mine. There was some discussion of The Verge article in Archive 2, and one user questioned whether the RSP label saying that the The Verge was reliable for technology, science, and automobiles meant that it was less reliable for other topics, which in my opinion is not the case. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  The RFC on the Verge was for Is The Verge generally considered a reliable news source for use in articles relating to technology, science, culture, and cars?and the close was that it was. That is all that can be taken from its entry on RSP. Whether it is reliable for anything else is not something that RSP can answer. RFCs answer only the question they ask, editors may have completely different answers to a different question. This would also apply to the RFC about the allegations by "Allison" against the subject. Just because those allegations shouldn't be included doesn't give reason to remove other instances of The Verge being used as a reference.
  If someone wants to state what those references where and what content they supported per WP:RSCONTEXT, it should be discussed here. Overwise I'll stick to my comment about this appearing to be a content dispute. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 01:50, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

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

In populating the infobox result parameter, we would use X victory if this was the consensus of sources and this was also reflected by the body of the article. In this case, we have sources that would refer to this as an Indian victory and sources that would refer to this as a stalemate or inconclusive. In such a case, MOS:MIL and the template documentation would instruct us to populate the result parameter with See Aftermath section where the various views in the sources would be discussed. There is no dispute regarding the guidance.

An assertion 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 and consequently are to be discounted en masse. I have copied to here, the citations as they appear in the article and also included those supporting an Indian victory for comparison.

While there has been some commentary regarding some of these sources specifically in the pre RfC discussion, there has been no detailed analysis documented that would substantiate that all of these sources are not reliable in that they fail WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.

If participants in the RfC feel they must comment, then please indicate that they are involved. For the record, I initiated the RfC. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Question Which (if any) of the sources cited are reliable for asserting that the result of the war was inconclusive or a stalemate?

Sources appearing in article to support that the result was inconclusive or a stalemate

1. Lamb, Alastair (1997). Incomplete Partition: The Genesis of the Kashmir Dispute 1947–1948. Roxford Books. pp. 181, 197. Following their open intervention, of course, the Indian strength on this sector, once established, increased rapidly; but never to such an extent as to threaten to overwhelm the Azad Kashmiri defenders. During the course of 1948 a stalemate was reached which has persisted more or less to the present day. A front line was stabilised which ran south from the Indian controlled Poonch salient, passed just west of Naoshera (which remained in Indian hands), and reached the old Punjab border (now that of Pakistan) a few miles to the west of the Chenab River. The Jammu & Kashmir State town garrisons to the west of this line were unable to hold out against Azad Kashmiri siege, many falling during the course of November 1947. The extreme south of this sector was really an extension of the Punjab plains; and here fighting could take place on a surprisingly large scale, so that in successive Indo-Pakistani Wars this was to be the scene of great clashes of armour and the use of tactical air power, at times of a magnitude which would have aroused notice in World War II
   As 1947 drew to a close, it was already possible to detect a pattern in the Kashmir conflict. The combination of the Azad Kashmiris and the Gilgit Scouts, with varying degrees of assistance both moral and material from Pakistan, had produced the beginnings of a stalemate, and this the cleverer soldiers on both sides appreciated. India now had over 90,000 regular troops in Jammu & Kashmir and yet no quick military solution was in sight. There would, of course, be much fighting in the future. 1948 saw both the epic struggle for Poonch and, later in the year, the Indian victories at the Zoji La and Kargil which achieved control over the Leh-Srinagar road and not only gave India Possession of the Ladakhi capital but also access to the desolate Tibetan borderlands without which the Sino-Indian conflict of the late 1950s would certainly have assumed a rather different form. By the beginning of 1948, however, astute observers could well have concluded that some kind of partition.
2. Kapur, S. Paul (2017). Jihad as Grand Strategy: Islamist Militancy, National Security, and the Pakistani State. Oxford University Press. pp. 49–50. ISBN 978-0-19-976852-3. Despite its inconclusive ending, the first Kashmir war had two major results. First, it demonstrated that nonstate actors could enable Pakistan to challenge India in a manner that limited the prospect of direct military confrontation ... Second, the war enhanced Kashmir's importance to Pakistan, extending the dispute well past the time of partition and transforming it into a contest of national resolve with India.
3. Margolis, Eric (2001). War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet. Routledge. p. 121, 157. ISBN 0-415-92712-9. Meanwhile, in typical tribal fashion, the Pathans delayed their attack on Srinagar and its airfield in order to devote themselves to looting and pillage. This delay allowed India time to mount an air bridge to Srinagar. The Indians used their entire inventory of thirty Dakota military transports to airlift a battalion of Sikhs, blood enemies of the Pathans, to Srinagar's airfield. A three-thousand-man army brigade was rushed up the terrible roads from the plains to Kashmir. After a month of chaotic fighting, the Pathans and Muslim irregular forces were pushed westward by arriving Indian Army troops. Further inconclusive fighting, which was joined in 1948 by regular Pakistani army units, sputtered on until the United Nations imposed a ceasefire in January 1949 between India and Pakistan.
4. Khan, Feroz Hassan; Lavoy, Peter R.; Clary, Christopher (2009). "Pakistan's motivations and calculations for the Kargil conflict". In Lavoy, Peter R. (ed.). Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict. Cambridge University Press. p. 71. Kargil was a pivotal battleground during the First Kashmir War. In October 1947, Gilgit Scouts, assisted by Muslim soldiers in the Kashmir state army, mounted a successful coup d'etat in the Northern Areas. The so-called Azad (Free) Forces set up headquarters in the valley town of Astore. The rebels then recruited additional volunteers in the Gilgit and Baltistan regions and moved along the valleys and Indus River while pushing back the Kashmir state army. In February 1948, the "Azad Forces" besieged the garrison in Skardu where non-Muslim civilian and military personnel had taken refuge. In response Pakistan's motivations and calculations for the Kargil In the end, the fighting proved inconclusive, and Pakistani and Indian forces reached a military stalemate in Kashmir. The negotiated Cease-Fire Line was codified in the Karachi Agreement of 1949
5. Fortna, Virginia Page (2017). Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Duribility of Peace. Princeton University Press. pp. 59–61. ISBN 978-0-691-11512-2. The war escalated toward the end of 1948, when Pakistan moved troops up from Lahore to fight in Jammu province, exposing itself to possible attack in the Punjab. However, before the war spread beyond the Kashmir territory, and before a conclusive military outcome was reached on the battlefield, a cease-fire was arranged by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), a five-member body send by the UN to help resolve the conflict.
6. Khan, Saira (2009). Nuclear Weapons and Conflict Transformation: The Case of India-Pakistan. Asian Security Studies series. London and New York: Routledge. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-20389176-6. The first fifteen years of the India-Pakistan conflict witnessed violence of different intensities. Even before institutionalizing their independence, India and Pakistan were locked in a crisis which led to their first war from 1947 to 1949. Pakistan showed no hesitation in starting the war and India reciprocated in kind. Though inconclusive, the war has left a permanent mark on the India-Pakistan conflict.
7. Mohan, Surinder (2022-10-06). Complex Rivalry: The Dynamics of India-Pakistan Conflict. University of Michigan Press. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-472-22063-2. Later, when the outcome of the First Kashmir War did not favor either side, the resulting stalemate led to a puzzling division of Kashmir between the two adversaries.
8. Kennedy, Andrew (2011-12-29). The International Ambitions of Mao and Nehru: National Efficacy Beliefs and the Making of Foreign Policy. Cambridge University Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-1-139-50193-4. Although certain minor operations were possible, India was essentially confronted with a stalemate.
9. Fair, C. Christine (2014). Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War. Oxford University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-19-989270-9. Although the war ended in a stalemate with international intervention, Pakistan may have rightly concluded that the strategy of using irregular fighters succeeded.
10. Gardner, Kyle J. (2021-01-21). The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846–1962. Cambridge University Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-1-108-84059-0. In the stalemate that followed the first Indo-Pakistani War...
11. Alagappa, Muthiah (2008). The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia. Stanford University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-8047-6086-7. That effort failed, and the ensuing war in 1947 – 48 ended in a military stalemate.
12. Ganguly, Sumit (2004-03-01). The Kashmir Question: Retrospect and Prospect. Routledge. p. 94. ISBN 978-1-135-75658-1. In January 1948, with a military stalemate at hand, India referred the Kashmir dispute to the UN.
13. Chari, P. R.; Cheema, Pervaiz Iqbal; Cohen, Stephen P. (2009-03-19). Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-8157-1386-9. With British officers present in both armies and the international community urging restraint, the conflict ended in a tactical and strategic stalemate.
14. Sprague, Stanley B. (2020-11-12). Pakistan Since Independence: A History, 1947 to Today. McFarland. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-4766-8151-1. A stalemate developed, with neither side able to win an overwhelming victory.
15. Snedden, Christopher (2015). Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris. Oxford University Press. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-84904-342-7. In the south of J&K, the war situation was essentially a stalemate by 1949.
16. Quackenbush, Stephen L. (2014-08-12). International Conflict: Logic and Evidence. SAGE. p. 323. ISBN 978-1-4522-4098-5. The first Kashmir War between India and Pakistan lasted from October 1947 to January 1949 and ended in a stalemate...
17. Ankit, Rakesh (2016-06-17). The Kashmir Conflict: From Empire to the Cold War, 1945–66. Routledge. p. 63. ISBN 978-1-317-22525-6. The outcome was a stalemate in which India's democratic desires and Pakistan's security aims were stymied on the altar of greater concerns
18. Behera, Navnita Chadha (2007-05-01). Demystifying Kashmir. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-8157-0859-9. The 1947 war ended in a military stalemate
19. Ray, Jayanta Kumar (2007). Aspects of India's International Relations, 1700 to 2000: South Asia and the World. Pearson Education India. p. 208. ISBN 978-81-317-0834-7. With the onset of winter and the consequent problems of maintaining the supply lines, the military situation reached a stalemate.
20. Duschinski, Haley; Bhan, Mona; Zia, Ather (2018), "Introduction "Rebels of the Streets": Violence, Protest, and Freedom in Kashmir", in Duschinski, Haley; Bhan, Mona; Zia, Ather; Mahmood, Cynthia (eds.), Resisting Occupation in Kashmir, Pennsylvania University Press, p. 2, ISBN 978-0-8122-4978-1, Since India's independence from British colonial rule and the subsequent partition in 1947, India and Pakistan, both of which claim sovereign control over the region, have found four inconclusive wars over Kashmir.

Sources appearing in the article to support that the result was an Indian victory

1. Ali, A. (2021). Pakistan's National Security Approach and Post-Cold War Security: Uneasy Co-existence. Routledge Studies in South Asian Politics. Taylor & Francis. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-000-37239-7. Retrieved 2023-12-22. In the first Kashmir war, India occupied two-thirds of the disputed territory and Pakistan was clearly defeated during its first war with India.
2. Wilcox, Wayne Ayres (1963). Pakistan: The Consolidation of a Nation. Columbia University Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-231-02589-8. The war for states had not only ended in Indian military victory but had given its leaders enormous self-confidence and satisfaction over a job well done.
3. New Zealand Defence Quarterly, Issues 24–29. New Zealand. Ministry of Defence. 1999. India won, and gained two-thirds of Kashmir, which it successfully held against another Pakistani invasion in 1965.
4. Brozek, Jason (2008). War bellies: the critical relationship between resolve and domestic audiences. University of Wisconsin—Madison. p. 142. ISBN 978-1-109-04475-1. the 1947 First Kashmir (won by India, according to MIDS classification)
5. Hoontrakul, Pongsak (2014). The Global Rise of Asian Transformation: Trends and Developments in Economic Growth Dynamics (illustrated ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-137-41235-5. Victor: India, Defeated: Pakistan
6. David H. Kaplan, Guntram H. Herb (2008). Nations and Nationalism [4 volumes]: A Global Historical Overview [4 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 1235. ISBN 978-1-85109-908-5. Pakistan lost all three wars, which is a major source of humiliation for Pakistanis. The first war (1947-1948) was fought over Kashmir, a predominately Muslim region that remained in India when India was portioned into two states. The war failed to secure Pakistan's sovereignty over the region as it left the majority of it under India.
7. Hughes, G. (2012). My Enemy's Enemy: Proxy Warfare in International Politics. Liverpool University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-83764-186-4. Retrieved 2023-12-22. Pakistan has fought and lost four wars with India (1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999)
8. Brower, D.R. (1988). The World in the Twentieth Century: The Age of Global War and Revolution. Prentice-Hall. p. 257. ISBN 978-0-13-965526-5. That war represented a defeat for Pakistan. Hoping to conquer Kashmir, the Pakistani leaders had sent their best troops into battle against the Indian army. Military victory proved beyond the means of the smaller state, though it was by the mid - 1960s a militaristic regime.
9. Ahmed, T. (2020). Literature and Politics in the Age of Nationalism: The Progressive Episode in South Asia, 1932-56. Taylor & Francis. p. 128. ISBN 978-1-000-08394-1. based on the disaffection of a layer of army officers reeling from their defeat in Kashmir.
10. Shaikh, Farzana (2018). Making Sense of Pakistan. Oxford University Press. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-19-006206-4. Though swiftly crushed, it pointed to the presence of a simmering debate in the army unleashed by Pakistan's military defeat in Kashmir.

Comments

• I can't see anything immediately wrong with any of these sources, either for stalemate or Indian victory. Generally pointing to WP:CONTEXTMATTERS won't do, someone opposed to the sources will need to make arguments against each source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:51, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Notified at WP:NPOVN. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

North Korea ‎ ‎Government Type Infobox

Can we get some experience editors over at Talk:North Korea#‎Government Type Infobox. Moxy- 05:12, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of Washington City Paper, Washington Blade, and Washingtonian

I reviewed William Keiser at AfC and decided to accept the draft because I felt it would have a half decent chance in an AfD if it were to be nominated. Before accepting the draft I provided my analysis of the sources and their reliability on the talk page (in this diff). I'm curious what other editors thoughts are on the sources from the Washington City Paper, the Washington Blade, and the Washingtonian. Are these sources reliable enough to contribute to the notability of Keiser? TipsyElephant (talk) 01:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Reliable? Probably. But they're still city papers covering a local subject, which I personally give very little weight. Beyond the reliability issue, I wouldn't consider these anything close to significant coverage of Keiser himself. In the Washington City Paper, parts of paragraphs three and nine are about Keiser; the Washington Blade talks about him for part of a sentence in the second paragraph; the Washingtonian in part of paragraph three. Virtually all of the content is about the podcast itself, though these articles are short enough that I don't think I'd consider them significant coverage about that, either. Woodroar (talk) 14:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Woodroar: I know most editors seem to dismiss local news coverage, however, I'm unaware of any policies or guidelines that reflect this opinion (WP:AUD seems to apply specifically to companies). Are the sources less reliable because they are local? Regarding notability perhaps I'll have it renamed/moved to the name of the podcast. I was of the opinion that it was borderline, but your reaction suggests otherwise. TipsyElephant (talk) 03:42, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Do most editors dismiss local/regional news coverage? I figure the best measure of reliability are reputation for factuality and editorial oversight. The New York Post has national circulation but I consider it much less reliable than, say, the Salt Lake Tribune with its award-winning journalists—or, for that matter, perhaps the Washingtonian. I'm just not personally familiar with these Washington newspapers. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 03:51, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@P-Makoto: I was under the impression that it was a widely held opinion, but I suppose I don't have any specific examples. In regard to the Washingtonian specifically, they have a list of staff on their website as well as some guidelines for pitches. Looks like they frequently publish listicles and tabloid news, but the news and politics column looks decent. According to the Washington Post they won two National Magazine Awards in 1985 and their about page claims they've won 5 in total. TipsyElephant (talk) 05:03, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Looks like the contact us page also includes an email address near the top of the page specifically for sending them corrections, which makes me think they are willing to make corrections to their articles when mistakes are made. TipsyElephant (talk) 05:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I couldn't say how many editors dismiss or give lesser weight to local/regional sources, but I know that some editors !vote that way and I personally agree with it. My rationale is that it's like a geographical version of WP:SUSTAINED: if a subject never receives coverage outside a city or regional area, how important can it be? I readily admit that it's not in any policy or guideline. I see it like WP:IAR in reverse, akin to the personal, subjective standards that we all have—for example, paragraph requirements for WP:SIGCOV or the point when sourced but (potentially) WP:UNDUE content should be removed.

I also agree that some local media is better than others. The New York Times is probably one of the best, but like most papers they still run local obituaries and wedding announcements—and they can come across like similar content in a small-town paper. You know, paid placement, written by the family, not edited, etc. It's all contextual. Personally, I'd want to see broader coverage before considering Keiser or the podcast to meet the WP:GNG, but you're welcome to disagree. Woodroar (talk) 05:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I mean, Keiser is based in LA, right? So local coverage seems reasonable to use here either way. Even if he isn't it's probably fine... I think the usual objection to local coverage is more when people try to use it in situations where higher-quality national, international, or academic coverage exists. In that case there are potential WP:DUE issues for anything that is only cited to local news, especially local news from a location unrelated to the topic, since it creates "why are we weighing this small local paper equal to CNN or the NYT" problems. But using local news from the subject's locale to cover a subject that lacks significant higher-tier coverage seems reasonable to me; that's the sort of thing local news sources are for if we're going to use them for anything. --Aquillion (talk) 12:17, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Are Official US Government Letters To A Community's Website Reliable Sources?

I am new to Wikipedia. I would like to add information stating that there have been consultation requests from certain government departments to this Native American Tribe on the Tribe’s Wikipedia page.

The government letters are official documents that the Tribe received, and they posted copies of the letters on their website.

I guess these letters would be considered primary sources that contain information on different government projects they wish to inform or consult with the Tribe about.

The letters I want to use are all on government letterhead, written by an official representative of the department, signed by the official, and contact information is included.

They are not replies to previous communications and they do not state opinions.

I’m thinking that I want to state that a particular government department requested consultation with the Tribe on so-and-so project then cite the statement with the letter posted for this department on the Tribe’s website.

If done like this, would this be considered a reliable source?

Context information: The Tribe’s webpage that contains the letters is Government Agencies Relationships and Consults with the Tribe. If this is considered an acceptable source, then it will be added under Government Agencies Relationships and Consults with the Tribe.

The first letter linked to on this page would be an example showing that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission requested comments from the Chairman of the Tribe on a South Texas Project. I have not yet edited anything on the Tribe’s Wikipedia page because I want to be sure that the Tribe’s webpage with the letters I use are reliable sources.

https://www.lipanapache.org/LAT/assets/PDFs/G2G/2020-05-04_US_NRC.pdf

Using this example of a letter I would cite on the Tribe’s webpage, I would add to the Wikipedia page in an appropriate place that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has requested comments that the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas may have to offer on the scope of the environmental review.” Whitewolfdog1 (talk) 04:44, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

== RfC about the validity of government documents on a community’s website ==

What do you think about the validity of these government documents if hosted on a community’s website? ~~~~ Whitewolfdog1 (talk) 06:01, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a properly-formatted RFC but I suggest you don't start one yet anyway. See WP:RFCBEFORE for why. --Aquillion (talk) 12:46, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

• The issue is that they're likely to be WP:PRIMARY documents. Primary documents can be used in certain cases, but there's a lot of restrictions on them because you have to be careful not to perform WP:OR / WP:SYNTH; generally, if any interpretation or analysis is required, or if you're using them to try and prove or demonstrate something in a particular context, then you would need a secondary source for that aspect instead. There's also often WP:DUE weight issues when it comes to "raw data" primary sources like this. In this case the obvious question is - why does it matter that they requested environmental review? (And this is sort of a trick question because almost any answer to that is going to lead to "well, you need a secondary source demonstrating that it matters in that context.") --Aquillion (talk) 12:46, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

TV Guide re: Film, Actors, Directors, Bios., etc.

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#TV_Guide says:

TV Guide is considered generally reliable for television-related topics. Some editors consider TV Guide a primary source for air dates.

Two separate questions:
(1) Is TV Guide a reliable source for the matters named in the subject line above? 20:08, 10 February 2024 (UTC) --David Tornheim (talk) 20:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
(2) Is TV Guide reliable for the list of films acted in by Torin Thatcher [5] --David Tornheim (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, there's been nothing to suggest it's not. I myself used it fairly extensively for citing Lance Reddick's filmography upon his passing. The Kip 02:56, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Arcadia Publishing

I have written an article Reardon Building using several Arcadia Publishing books as sources. I need a second pair of eyes to let me know if these citations are reliable. This building is part of the Carmel-by-the-Sea, California Historic Commercial District. Greg Henderson (talk) 23:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

 Comment: see Talk:Reardon Building#Notability tag for recent ongoing discussion about the source, and WP:ARCADIA for an archived community-wide RSN discussion. Left guide (talk) 23:50, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

The WP:ARCADIA discussion is about four-years old and involved just a handful of editors; seems worthwhile to revisit.

A review essay in the academic journal Ohio Valley History has this to say about Arcadia Publishing: some of the books are somewhat superficial and deserving of the denigrating term "coffee table" volumes. On the other hand, many of Arcadia's authors are well-respected professionals with a lifelong interest in their communities. As co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky (forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky), I have proudly worked with nearly all of the authors reviewed in this essay, many of whom have contributed entries to the encyclopedia. They include librarians, historians, a professor, two historic preservationists, two planners, a medical doctor, a nurse, and a journalist/publisher. See page 85 of Tenkotte, Paul A. (Summer 2007). "The Blossoming of Regional History and the Role of Arcadia Publishing". Ohio Valley History. 33 (1): 85–91.

From this, I gather that Arcadia Publishing's books span a range. Their reliability should be assessed on a case by case basis, not unilaterally disregarded. Reviews of the books and professional backgrounds of the authors would be good cues to look at. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 00:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Local history is a field where standards can certainly be variable. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:20, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Is this author reliable?

It just came to my realization that virtually all of the Arcadia books I've been dealing with are written by "Alissandra Dramov", who's three Arcadia books (and one book self-published by AuthorHouse) are cited en masse across articles related to Carmel-by-the-Sea. I could not find any evidence of her writing under other publishers, nor any evidence of her work being vouched for by independent reliable sources. Is this author reliable in accordance with WP:RS criteria? Left guide (talk) 05:11, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Seeing what's out there for one author simplifies the question, and helps us make a narrower decision that doesn't unnecessarily sweep up other books or sources. From my own look around, I found the following, ordered chronologically:

• Clark Coleman, "New Book Explores Carmel's Beginnings", Monterey Herald, April 1, 2014, is a review of Dramov's first book (the one self-published through AuthorHouse), Carmel-by-the-sea, the Early Years (1903–1913). The Monterey Herald said of the book, For anyone interested in local history, this book is a good start, offering an overview of Carmel's first 10 years without getting into extraneous details.
• Maria C. Brandt and Diane M. T. North's "A Selected Catalogue of World War I Memorials and Cemeteries Honoring Californians", California History 97, no. 3 (Fall 2020): 162–194, here 186n16, cites, without criticism or qualification, Dramov's Historic Buildings of Downtown Carmel-by-the-sea (Arcadia, 2019) for information about the World War I Memorial Arch and Bell there. Seeing that authors of a peer-reviewed academic article evidently regard the book as a reference text to use without criticism is reassuring. (It's also a relatively minor use.)
• Lisa Crawford Watson, "Local Books: Consistency amid Change", Monterey Herald, March 19, 2023, is a profile of Dramov and reports on her four books about Carmel-by-the-sea. The Monterey Herald reported that Dramov had a career in broadcast journalism, described as follows: she went off to University of San Francisco, where she majored in government and minored in history, before heading to law school. One year in, she decided law was not her field, and pursued broadcast journalism instead [...] Dramov became the producer of the 6 o’clock news at KION. More interested in working on air, she pursued new markets in Arizona, Ohio, and Nebraska [...] In late 2001, she came home to Carmel and continued her broadcast career in Monterey County. And then wrote four books.

P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 06:22, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

How much weight do the voices of Clark Coleman and Lisa Crawford Watson carry in scrutinizing the author for WP:RS purposes? Unless I'm missing something, I see run-of-the-mill news reporting by run-of-the-mill news reporters from the adjacent small town/county paper. ("hey, this book is out now and I think it's cool") I imagine that many self-published books routinely receive such coverage upon release. Left guide (talk) 07:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I also see run-of-the-mill reporting (as in "ordinary"), but I wonder a little at the seeming implication that ordinaryness is a problem. I see conventional, sensible journalism providing conventional, sensible coverage. Unorthodox and editorially irregular newspapers would not be useful for analyzing if a source is WP:RS.

We could both imagine many things, but I'm not sure what imagining has to do with the matter. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 08:19, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, isn't heavily depending on Alissandra Dramov and Lynn Momboisse Historic Homes and Inns of Carmel-by-the-Sea

to establish article notability of notability of numerous building articles undue? Many of numerous articles about houses and buildings in Carmel-by-the-Sea are created by the same editor and significantly dependent on Dramov or Momboisse book. That same editor has also previously inserted Momboisse's BLOG and voicemap.me travel guide as sources and I was even starting to believe possible COI.

The photo caption of those books remind me of the pokemon character book and I believe using those caption to assert notability is similar to using this book to https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/pokemon-super-deluxe-essential-handbook-9781338230895.html create numerous pokemon articles. Graywalls (talk) 07:50, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Graywalls: I do agree that it's undue at best, even if somehow discussion here concludes that it's reliable. I know you invoke WP:POKEMON often, see also WP:INDISCRIMINATESOURCES if you haven't already, which is probably more policy/guideline-based.

@Others: we have been dealing with a widespread systemic issue of Dramov/Arcadia sources being used to "support" notability claims across dozens of articles (see this template), basically every public building in a small town of 3,000 people, and so I think this centralized discussion should also aim to help settle that issue. Left guide (talk) 08:40, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Pokémon Super Deluxe Essential Handbook: The Need-to-Know Stats and Facts on Over 800 Characters was directly produced by the Pokémon Company; they're credited right on the copyright page. As such, that wouldn't be an independent source for Pokémon characters; instead it's a primary source. I don't think the comparison quite holds to Arcadia Publishing books. WP:PUBLISHED doesn't establish a word minimum for what makes a source reliable for a topic.

I'm not very familiar with Voicemap.me, but it looks like they actually do have editors and an editorial process? (i. e., it's not pure self-publication).

It's true that multiple publications from the same author don't contribute as much weight to determining notability as multiple publications from multiple different authors do. I think that may be getting beyond the question of reliability, though, which is the purpose of the RSN. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 08:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Dramov is a councilperson of Carmel; she has a vested interest in promoting the town and its real estate holdings. This may affect the neutrality of her writings on Carmel. [6] Given this political connection, there could be some Boosterism of the importance of certain buildings to acquire historical status. Netherzone (talk) 11:20, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Then WP:COISOURCE certainly applies, in addition to the other factors in play here. Left guide (talk) 11:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Dramov's election seems to postdate some of her books, leaving me less sure of the cause and effect. The link you shared states Dramov was elected in November 2022, and Pam Marino, Four Candidates Are Vying for Two Open Seats on the Carmel City Council", Monterey County Weekly, September 22, 2022, confirms that Dramov was a challenger for the seat—she was not yet a city councilor at the time. To the extent that this applies, I think it makes sense to apply it just to books that postdate her November 2022 election to the city council. And that itself we can understand in the context of Arcadia Publishing being a press independent of Carmel-by-the-sea and its city council. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 17:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

One of Dramov's platforms seems to be fighting against affordable housing in Carmel. Lynn Momboisse has a financial COI, as she's run a for-profit tour business in Carmel for at least 11 or 12 years. Both have a vested interest in promoting the historical homes, mansions, and buisinesses. To my way of thinking, these sources are not neutral, and should be used with caution if at all. Netherzone (talk) 19:42, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Is Followchain a reliable source

idk :DragonflySixtyseven said it is not Dr Jackson is not rweal (talk) 21:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

https://www.followchain.org/about/

I would say it is, the writer Lim How Wei has 8+ years of expertise in social media marketing.

The site also provides a lot of information regarding social media, it would be very helpful. Formerlychucks (talk) 11:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

• For what content, exactly? There's no evidence of review, so it's unclear that it rises above the level of a blog, but it could be usable for uncontroversial facts. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:56, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

  For social media related content. Formerlychucks (talk) 18:29, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

For reference, the specific claim under dispute here is whether this constitutes a basis to include soyjak.party in the "Soyjak" section of Wojak. Without getting into too much detail, this is a website whose users are remarkably badly behaved, even by the standards of imageboards (indeed, even by the standards of imageboard in 2024, which are lower still). The diff of the content that's being sourced to this site is Special:Diff/1205403768, which seems like obvious SEO slop.

With that out of the way, and looking at the site itself, it is more or less entirely SEO slop: most recent articles include "How to Fix Error Code 5 1 503 in Helldivers 2", "How to Fix “Server Request Failed” Error in Helldivers 2", "How to Fix Helldivers 2 Failed to Join Game Lobby Error", and "What is the purpose of a “staking pool” in a Proof of Stake blockchain?", which is maybe the sloppiest slop ever slopped. I'd be inclined to say that this is some kind of marketing/content mill site. jp×g🗯️ 20:56, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Bristol Live

I left a message at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2024 February 5 regarding a copyright issue at Ian Lavender but as it seems to be an issue with Bristol Live instead of the Wikipedia article I should have posted it here instead. A paragraph at https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/dads-army-star-ian-lavender-9078725 published today is identical to one in the article dating from at least 2013. The publication has editorial oversight but it seems that the article lifted information straight from the article so a discussion over how reliable the publication is and other's related to its parent company Reach PLC would be helpful. Suonii180 (talk) 22:29, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately lots of other websites (not to mention books) lift content from Wikipedia. That's allowed, and it becomes a real issue only when that information is used to back up "facts" in Wikipedia. Deb (talk) 09:45, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Facts are not copyrightable but structure and wording can be. Attribution is needed to reuse content from Wikipedia; as Wikipedia is not a reliable source, any source that uses it as the basis of information is tainted by association. "Citogenesis" is the name for an article using a source that (surreptitiously) is based on a previous version of the article. — Bilorv (talk) 23:19, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Orlando Brown

This source: https://www.naijanews.com/buzz/people/orlando-brown-actor-wife-girlfriend-boyfriend-children-net-worth/ was used in Orlando Brown (actor) to support the claim that his fiance is Omena Alexandria. This source seems questionable, and so I wanted to get some input on it. Specifically, the website say wiki, which suggests that it might be user generated, but I could not find confirmation for that. GrayStorm^{(Talk|Contributions)} 17:06, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

@GrayStorm, not a reliable source. As a rule of thumb, any source with "boyfriend girlfriend net worth" in the page title is a junk site that should never be used on WP:BLPs. Schazjmd (talk) 17:17, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the tip. GrayStorm^{(Talk|Contributions)} 17:19, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Daily Telegraph

Oh man. I have been noticing a decline in their editorial oversight recently, but this is just ridiculous. Scorpions1325 (talk) 16:03, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Which part of this article are you saying is false? Slatersteven (talk) 16:10, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I can't access it now. It is stuck behind a paywall. I am pretty sure there was something about bundling that seemed false. I don't quite remember. Scorpions/1325 (talk) 16:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Here is yahoo's reprint. Looks to me like a first-person essay, wouldn't be reliable for anything except ABOUTSELF if Emma Pruen had an article. Schazjmd (talk) 16:41, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Two suggestions, 1) clear your browser's cookies for The Telegraph's domain, and 2) if that doesn't work, it's always worth checking if the article has been archived on a site like the Wayback Machine or archive.today. Sometimes those sites archive the full text of articles behind paywalls. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I already tried archive.today. It is too soon. Scorpions1325 (talk) 16:45, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

If archive.today doesn't yet have an archive of the article, ask it to archive it. Worst case, it archives the paywall, best case it doesn't. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:15, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

There's a lot that's false in this. The article itself seems to be a transcription of an interview with a mother who refused to vaccinate her children, with the exception of a tetanus vaccine. She talks a lot about the potential harms of giving her children the MMR vaccine, and though while she sidesteps Wakefield's claims about autism she does express concerns about the supposed dangers of overloading a child's immune system from the combined MMR shot.

She then talks about how her younger child caught measles when he six, and tried to treat this with homeopathy. Her older child, who was 16 at the time and sitting his GCSE, upon seeing how poorly his brother was doing made the decision to get vaccinated himself so that he wouldn't miss time from school due to the exams. She then writes about how her older son, upon receiving the vaccine, became so ill – with flu-like symptoms and terrible headaches that went on for ages and how that "vindicated [her] opnion" not to vaccinate her children.

When read as a whole, the article itself is very much a promotion of anti-vaccines and pseudoscientific alternative medicines. While that's bad, it's not the worst thing. Ordinarily Telegraph opinion articles are clearly marked as such with the header "Comment" above the title, for example here's an opinion article on electric cars. This article however, while it is clearly the opinion of a mother, and one who has absolutely no medical training (the article states she's a relationship coach) is not marked as such. It's been placed in the Health/Parenting/Children section of the paper. Thankfully the article itself uses first person language throughout, so it's otherwise easy to identify as an opinion, but the lack of the clear identifier present could easily mislead readers not paying attention that this was an ordinary article.

If this is a sign of things to come from the paper, then we need to start being a lot more careful when citing them to differentiate their factual reporting articles from their unmarked opinion articles. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:41, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't know how I forgot the claim about homeopathy. My memory sucks. Scorpions1325 (talk) 16:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

It does sometimes have some wacky stuff about medicine but that's what you tend to get with rightwing newspapers. their audience doesn't like taking advice from experts and having immunization to save others sounds like socialism to them. I don't think any particular action is called for in this case as it is obviously a personal opinion. NadVolum (talk) 17:21, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

The lack of an Opinion label on this is disturbing. We're going to have to keep an eye out. If they start doing this more broadly, especially if it's in other sections of the paper, that would really call into question their general reliability for articles after the time period they started doing that. Silverseren^C 17:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

If anyone wants the TL;DR: a "health" (not "comment") article in The Telegraph can be summed up as "Doctors who want to vaccinate your kids are bullies who want to jab babies. I didn't vaccinate mine. He got sick, but so what? Just use homeopathy and live 'chemical-free'." It's not the first trash I've seen in the Telegraph, but I don't recall how often it's labeled as opinion. Doing a search right now for 'telegraph vaccines' shows that the overwhelming number of stories from the UK Telegraph are about the harms of vaccines (at least those delivered by google in a no-history browser window). On the other hand, their vaccines topic page shows most are about a surge in measles and other more reality-based coverage. I was going to comment here to say that the "no consensus" label for The Telegraph at WP:RSP should probably mention health content, but was surprised to see it as "generally reliable". The big RfC linked from RSP for that determination is ... specific to a particular domain (transgender issues), yet we consider it generally reliable beyond that scope. Hmm. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

It is worth noting that "Health" sections is British papers are usually fluffy Saturday supplements detailing personal experiences. If you go to the Guardian, click on "lifestyle" and under that you get the option "health and fitness". None of the articles there are anything other than human interest stories where people relate their story. I don't believe the fact the Telegraph allowed a vaccine hesitant parent to do this is a problem, unless she was presented as an expert or her opinions approved of editorially in some way.--Boynamedsue (talk) 04:42, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

• Anything in the Telegraph that refers to right-wing conspiracy theories or random bigotry, such as climate change, vaccines-are-harmful, transgender issues, should not be used. The Tele is going downhill fast and I don't think it will be too long before it ends up in the same bin as the Mail or Express. It's a shame. Edit: I forgot about the homeopathy thing. Perhaps we should just bundle everything into the "random nonsense and bigotry" category, regardless of political view. Black Kite (talk) 18:33, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Regardless of which categories, it probably shouldn't be green at RSP... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:09, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    • Agreed, especially if it's gone full Wakefield! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:58, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

      Being marked in full green as "generally reliable" does surprise me. "Additional considerations" or "no consensus", at the very least, seem more suitable. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 20:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

It's green because we've had numerous RfCs on the topic, and the consensus of users is generally reliable. Largely because bias does not make something unreliable, even when it is bias that lots of wikipedians find icky. I don't see that changing because of an interview in which a rando displays her stupidity.--Boynamedsue (talk) 13:35, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

It's green because we've had numerous RfCs - links? I see exactly one RfC, and it was only about transgender topics. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:58, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: You don't spend as much time on this board as I do. The last RfC on the reliability of the Daily Telegraph was closed all the way back on the 8th of January, the closer summed it up thusly: Once again, Wikipedians reach a clear consensus that the Daily Telegraph is a reliable source--Boynamedsue (talk) 21:05, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

• I feel like this is a common fallacy when discussing biased sources - people focus on the bias and say that that doesn't make it reliable, without engaging with the fact that a source that is mostly famous for being biased lacks a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. In effect it is almost like some people read WP:BIASED as saying that bias alone renders a source reliable, as opposed to being something that does not necessarily render a source unreliable. And certainly publishing actual fringe positions goes beyond just being biased. --Aquillion (talk) 13:04, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

• We can always hold another RFC, but it may be worth surveying secondary coverage first. Adding a small note to their RSP entry about the lifestyle section being opinion-based is simple enough, but changing a source's categorization will probably require more in-depth analysis of how they're covered and what their reputation is. EDIT: Doing a quick search for secondary coverage that has taken issues with the Telegraph's health and medical reporting, this leaped out at me: Canadian Medical Association Journal. Covers an article in the Telegraph entitled secondhand smoke does no harm, in the scathing manner you would expect (The story she filed about a small, run-of-the-mill study involving exposure to secondhand smoke consisted mostly of tobacco-lobby spin and a lot of egregious mistakes.) Another source (pg. 354) covering conspiracy theories about vaccines notes that, of the sources they surveyed, ...only in one case does the author endorse conspiratorial thinking. This is an article published in 2010 by The Daily Telegraph and significantly titled “The hidden hand of powerful forces”; while discussing the GMC’s ruling against Andrew Wakefield [...] The author is here claiming that Andrew Wakefield and his colleague were not struck off the British medical register because of scientific and medical malpractice, and that this ruling is actually an attempt to silence them on the part of the so-called “medical establishment”. --Aquillion (talk) 13:04, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Rhododendrites is correct. The Telegraph has become markedly less reliable since 2015, not just due to the ownership shenanigans. Private Eye has always called it the "Dreary Torygraph", which is picturesque but largely accurate. Since Brexit, it has become a full-on cheerleader for the worst excesses of the British far-white. There was an op-ed promoted with a picture callout on the front page where a columnist said that Britain needs "an insurgent like Trump", and it routinely publishes abject nonsense about immigration, Brexit, the awesome job the Tories are doing (set for electoral annihilation this year), and promoting people like Farage and Toby Young - they seem to see themselves as leading the "anti-woke" charge of the culture insurgency.¹

I would support downgrading it to at best "use with caution" for anything to do with politics, climate change, the culture insurgency (especially gender issues).

But this article is not even run-of-the-mill Telegraph garbage. It's an op-ed by someone who is still on Planet Wakefield, fourteen years and six days after his fraudulent paper was retracted. So this article is probably not the vehicle for that discussion, because it's obviously not fit for inclusion on numerous grounds.

¹I maintain that it's a culture insurgency, not a culture war, in that it is prosecuted only by one side, who are fanatically determined to undo any progress that erodes the privilege of the most privileged group in the West: affluent straight white Christian men.

Guy (help! - typo?) 12:13, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be relying heavily on op-eds, which are different from news reporting. Not liking reporting or opinions that favor Brexit, Trump, conservatism, etc., is no reason to deprecate or downgrade an entire publication (and reeks of a purity crusade to purge all 'wrongthink' from Wikipedia regardless of publisher). I'm not a regular reader of the Telegraph, but perhaps it's similar to the Wall Street Journal (green per WP:WSJ) with op-eds considered case-by-case per WP:RSOPINION and WP:WEIGHT? --Animalparty! (talk) 23:26, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I sometimes wonder what is going on with people posting on here. Is anybody saying that there is a false claim in this article? This is absolutely obviously an opinion article, relating one individual's personal interpretation of their own experience. It would not be RS for anything relating to medicine (or indeed anything not the opinion of the writer), and would not be WP:DUE for anything else. Also, there is no evidence of a single false claim here so far. I can't read it, as it's behind a paywall, so we need direct quotes on here please.Boynamedsue (talk) 21:51, 8 February 2024 (UTC) This particular article doesn't really raise issues to me. It's very obviously a personal story. It's not opinion; it's more "human interest". I don't think its a concern it doesn't have the word "opinion", because it's from a "Health" section, not a news section. I can't imagine a single conceivable instance where someone would think to use this article as a source in Wikipedia. Even if someone did, we could just remove it on the basis of WP:MEDRS. I do agree that the Telegraph is not a great source for culture war topics (e.g. gender, critical race theory), and maybe some words of caution should be inserted into RSP, but I'm not sure it's worth removing its green status for that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I now have access to the source. There is some nonsense about how 3 vaccines (MMR vaccine) in one will overload their child's immune system. That is the exact same argument that many of Andrew Wakefield's supporters make. Scorpions1325 (talk) 22:30, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Right, so it would seem no false claims are made? She does think that.--Boynamedsue (talk) 04:22, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure. The question is, why would anyone care? It's a random personal opinion by a non-expert, in the lifestyle section, whining about the medical establishing not giving enough credence to the biggest scientific fraud of the 20th Century. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:15, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Okay, so I've read this now, and I'm baffled with the response. It's a "one woman's personal story" article. It would never be used. The Wakefield adjacent claim is actually this And I didn’t want my child’s system overloaded by dosing them with three illnesses at the same time, especially since they are very low risk diseases. which is preceeded by My main concern with the MMR vaccine was giving it all at once to young babies, it wasn’t the link with autism (which has since been debunked) that scared me. The whole article is simply an interview detailing an individual woman's experience in the first person, she is not presented as an expert. There is no claim whatsoever about the safety of vaccines in the article.

Interviewing a vaccine-hesitant woman does not have any bearing at all on whether a source is reliable, it is hard not to see this discussion as part of a culture war in and of itself. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:02, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

If it were a real interview, the interviewer's/journalist's voice would be in there. This is a piece simply promoting an anti-vaxer's point of view without qualification and labeling it as "health". By the logic I'm seeing here, a source can publish absolutely any misleading trash they want, put it in the same section as non-opinion content, and still be reliable as long as, what, the author of the piece "does think that"? I see a couple people focus on whether it made "false claims". The fact that it doesn't go out of its way to use declarative sentences saying homeopathy works, doctors don't know better than you, vaccines aren't worth getting, and the rest of the anti-vax tropes doesn't mean it's not misinformation. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:10, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

This type of first person narrative interview is common in the lifestyle sections of British papers, and the label "health" indicates it is not news coverage in the UK. It is labelled "As told to Susanna Galton", which indicates it is one person's view recounted to a journalist. Nothing in the article is the journalist's voice, here is a similar example from the Guardian, less controversial but equally completely unusable for us. Boynamedsue (talk) 08:12, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Wait, hold up, anything labeled "health" in the British press is opinion and should never be used for statements of fact in the article voice? This is not at all going to be obvious to people elsewhere and needs to be clearly indicated in relevant RSP entries. I have absolutely seen the Telegraph's health section in particular used to cite statements of fact in the article voice before, sometimes even entire paragraphs. Beyond that, the fact that they publish WP:FRINGE perspectives in that section is significant and is an obvious thing to caution editors about even when they're just considering using it with attribution via WP:RSOPINION. --Aquillion (talk) 13:31, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I would absolutely be very careful about using anything labelled "health", "fitness" or "health and fitness" in a British newspaper. These sections are mostly opinion, have a similar reliability to a fitness magazine and are often largely opinion. There are lots of similar sections in the UK press, for example "beauty", "money" or "home and garden" which are similarly fluffy but often usable, however, health related areas would collide with WP:MEDRS. Stuff in the news and politics sections, often labelled "health news" should be fine though.--Boynamedsue (talk) 20:46, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Just to endorse (as a UK newspaper reader) what Boynamedsue is saying. Reliable sources should not be downgraded because they have supplements full of human interest fluff. I would see that MEDRS is a robust enough tool to keep that stuff out of our project. If there's a genuine problem of non-UK WP editors filling our medical related pages with content from human interest sections of UK papers, then we need to add a comment in the RSP listing for all of the UK broadsheets, not just the Telegraph, but I'd need persuasion this is a widespread problem. BobFromBrockley (talk) 20:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• The issue here is that it's advancing a WP:FRINGE perspective and is not clearly labeled as opinion (I agree that it clearly is opinion, but the unclear labeling is a problem.) Usually we don't judge a source by what it says, but promoting fringe views is the one exception. I think the correct thing to do might be to update the Daily Telegraph's RSP entry to note that its "lifestyle" section is opinion-based and should not be used for statements of fact in the article voice, plus possibly noting that that section has published fringe views and should be used with caution even for opinions. Someone citing it casually might see a page like that and think that it's as reliable as the rest of the Telegraph and is non-opinion (since the fact that the lifestyle section contains opinion is sort of tucked away in its description, which is a bit vague by calling it Unmissable features, opinions and experiences from across The Telegraph’s lifestyle sections. I definitely feel like I've run into this before and have had disputes with editors who argued that the wording means that only some parts of the lifestyle section are opinion, which doesn't seem defensible if they're publishing stuff like this there. --Aquillion (talk) 12:56, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  That sounds reasonable to me; clearly it doesn't affect the broader reliability of the source, but it is beneficial to make it clearer to editors what sections they put their nonsense in. BilledMammal (talk) 13:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Aquillion: Would you mind linking to a discussion similar to this, so we could look at it?--Boynamedsue (talk) 20:51, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

• I read that as a one-in-a-time fluke rather than any indicator of the overall paper's quality. It is clearly an opinion piece being written in first-person and the end by-line ("as told to...") supports that its more opinion than a researched news piece. This is where DUCK comes in to mark that specific piece as unreliable for facts simply how its presented as an op-ed. --Masem (t) 13:36, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
• The current top story in Telegraph Health is entitled: The vaccinations timebomb – and what to do if you’ve missed them btw, if they are attempting to push an antivax agenda, they are not doing a very good job.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:51, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
• Remember, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Has anyone articulated where this particular Telegraph article is, has been, or might be used as a reference on Wikipedia, or is this whole discussion just moral outrage that some people with differing (even dangerous) opinions on vaccines get their opinions mentioned somewhere in print? I'm glad that there are editors savvy enough to recognize an opinion article even when the word "opinion" is not explicitly stamped at the top. From my casual browsing of the Telegraph website, many articles under the "Health & Fitness" category are human interest articles (sometimes autobiographical) focusing on one person's perspective ("Despite having a rare disease, I'm a world-champion athlete", "I learnt to love food despite my mother's eating disorder") that would be inappropriate anywhere but an article about that human. Others are general news articles "(Aspartame: The billion dollar battle to keep sweeteners in our drinks") that might be used or considered for WP:DUE. Don't forget that virtually all serious newspapers serve fluff along with substance to their readers (The New York Times today has an article "Super Snacks for the Super Bowl": but what if I don't like those snacks!?). We are not beholden to treat every article as an immediately usable source, nor should we reject a publication entirely because it also publishes fluff, comics, horoscopes, and trivia. --Animalparty! (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Hindustan Times

Hindustan Times is an Indian English-language newspaper that is used as a source in lots of articles (I used the source sometimes). I tried searching up for its reliability, only to get a primary source about its reliability (positive) and a Quora post (negative). Since both can’t really establish anything about its reliability, I thought it would be good to bring this up here. P.S. There is this discussion where Hindustan Times mirrored Wikipedia here if I’m not wrong.

Options:

• Option 1: Reliable
• Option 2: Situational
• Option 3: Unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Brachy08 _(Talk) 07:51, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I want to wait for editors who know more about it before I choose one of the above options. I don't consider it WaPo level reliability but I don't know enough about it to say if it is unreliable. Certainly if I saw this cited I would want to see other sources alongside it. Cornsimpel (talk) 10:47, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Is there a reason this requires an RFC and not a simple discussion, has there been a separate discussion elsewhere on the project that lead up to this RFC? The most recent discussion was this RFC Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 418#RfC: The Hindustan Times which went nowhere. Has an issue come up or some chronic issue with the source been identified? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Not really. Brachy08 _(Talk) 00:15, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of the Herald Sun

Colddays underwater uses it as a source in nearly all of their edits Interestingly, the source has never been checked for trustworthiness. ''Flux55'' (talk) 03:24, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

We've discussed the Australian Murdoch tabloids here before. I'm not sure there's been enough for a WP:RSP entry - but rough consensus was that they should be treated with a bit of caution, and certainly not for opinion columns. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_280#Herald_Sun_and_Andrew_Bolt, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_138#Herald_Sun_columnist_blog - David Gerard (talk) 08:52, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

• I'm glad the user was blocked, and David is right: edits like this [7], introducing serious allegations based solely on a Murdoch tabloid, are obviously inappropriate on a WP:BLP. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:59, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

There's been a number of discussions here in the past where the Herald Sun may not have been the primary topic but it has been brought up and its reliability has been commented on:

• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 280#Herald Sun and Andrew Bolt - it was noted by a one edited, with a couple of others agreeing, that the Herald Sun is "not known for fact-checking, and with a right-wing bias"
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 309#The Australian - In this RfC on The Australian an edited noted that the publication was generally reliable unlike the Herald Sun.
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 384#The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) - In this discussion of the The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) it was noted by an editor that Murdoch tabloids across Australia share content and that therefore one could reasonably assume they are all generally unreliable. They raised The Australian as an exception as long the publication was not reporting on climate change.
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 408#news.com.au - An editor notes that news.com.au is part of Murdoch's Australian tabloids. To treat it as a tabloid. That they "wouldn't cite claims about living people or science". I take this in its broad meaning to be inclusive of all Murdoch newspapers as that's what is clearly intended.
• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_321#The_Advertiser_(Adelaide) - In this discussion about The_Advertiser_(Adelaide), an editor noted that an 2009 analysis undertaken by Media Watch and found that 23% of the content passed of as journalism by the Herald Sun was PR content "where no significant journalism work was done".
• Of note (WP:WINARS aside because I'm sure people can check the sources in an article) Herald_Sun#Ethics_and_coverage_controversies details extreme political bias in regards to LGBTIQA+ reporting and the publication of unambiguous fake news about political parties during election campaigns.

A search reveals that the Herald Sun is used in 8,804 articles and just on the first page I spoted number of high profile BLPs which I think is concerning.

Given the pattern that's emerged from comments across different discussions on related tabloids as well as on the tabloid itself, What do people think about an RfC? TarnishedPath^talk 11:30, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Note that depending on where you live The Herald-Sun may be more familiar. Also, are there examples of challenged or problematic citations? Mackensen (talk) 12:30, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Just going through the search results I provided above. The second person that's alive on that list, Arnold Schwarzenegger, there's a passage at Arnold_Schwarzenegger#Divorce which reads "After the scandal, Danish-Italian actress Brigitte Nielsen came forward and stated that she too had an affair with Schwarzenegger during the production of Red Sonja, while he had just started his relationship with Shriver" which is supported by the Herald Sun. I'd call that problematic. I didn't have too look hard, it was literally the second BLP I looked up from the search results of all BLPs using heraldsun.com.au. I've obviously put a better source needed tag on it because Herald Sun is generally unreliable, especially for BLPs. TarnishedPath^talk 13:32, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Is Left Foot Forward a reliable (of course not impartial) source?

I'm asking because I wanted to assign the political position to a movement and I don't know if the source is reliable. Monito rapido (talk) 20:21, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I thought it was a group blog, but its about page describes a proper journalistic effort. Is there any known bad journalistic behaviour from LFF? (I haven't heard of any.) - David Gerard (talk) 22:34, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

The front page of its web site seems to be hacked but I'd say it is definitely reliable (if partisan). It clearly differentiates between news and opinion. Opinion published there is not likely to be noteworthy in terms of due weight, but its journalistic standards are high. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Informally named dinosaurs

The article List of informally named dinosaurs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is, unsurprisingly, a cruft magnet. At present, a non-trivial number of entries are supported solely by the blogs of Darren Naish. Naish does publish books, and these are cited, and I think unproblematic, but should we really include entries sourced solely to his blog, or his "Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week" (svpow.wordpress.com / svpow.com)?

I guess my concern is single-sourcing as much as the unreviewed nature of these articles. If only one person attests an "informal name", that seems to me to be a bit of an open door for nonsense. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:53, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Naish is a subject expert, and his blog is therefore generally reliable for our purposes. He does do spoof articles sometimes, but always owns up, so that is one condition to take into account. However, his blog, excellent as it is, is still just a blog and probably shouldn't be assumed to confer WP:NOTABILITY in deletion discussions. Furthermore, I don't think Naish giving something a nickname on his blog makes that nickname necessarily WP:DUE for inclusion in our pages. But that is beyond the scope of this board, and should be dealt with in the talkpage of the relevant article.Boynamedsue (talk) 15:28, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Naish is enough of a widely respected expert that his blog will often be a high-quality source for palaeontological claims. But I'd prefer more than one source, yeah - David Gerard (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I went through the entire list and didn't find any entry cited only to Darren Naish's personal Tetrapod Zoology blog. I'll be happy to be corrected, but it makes me think that at the least, the amount is more trivial than Guy's OP on this thread implied. Additionally, I'm only seeing five reference notes cited to Darren Naish's Tetrapod Zoology blog, plus one citation to a post he wrote for Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week. There are four total citations to Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week, with the posts having various authors. This is on a list of 113 items with 254 citations. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 22:48, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I've previously brought up my concerns about this article being a cruft magnet on the talk page, and I agree that this article needs much more rigorous standards of inclusion. A particularly egregious one is "Cryptotyrannus", which was a working name that was accidentally included in a figure before being removed from the final version of the paper. I think that it should be a requirement for any name included in the list to have been used in at least one reliable secondary source independent of the person who first used the name in print, in order to demonstrate that the informal name is in any form of widespread use. I also think that purely descriptive names (e.g. "Angeac ornithomimosaur") are of questionable appropriateness for inclusion. Ornithopsis (talk) 00:04, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree that there are several names on this listed that should be removed. In my mind, "informally named" implies that the list should include proposed scientific names. Thus, nicknames ("Alan the Dinosaur", "Archbishop", etc.) and, like Ornithopsis said, descriptive names (which could be literally any unnamed dinosaur fossil) should not be included. What determines which "descriptive names" should be included? It seems like that is any combination that happens to be published of a descriptor and clade. Take, for example, two papers published within the past week that describe (but don't name) new dinosaur specimens. Surely the "Pisdura noasaurid"[8] and "Kirtland caenagathid"[9] shouldn't be included, even if those names were established? Perhaps a helpful solution to the cruft issue would be to remove the last inclusion point, "Nicknames or descriptive names given to specimens or taxa by researchers or the press." Proper inclusions should satisfy the nomen [nudum / manuscriptum / ex dissertationae] requirements, being a proposed species name. -SlvrHwk (talk) 01:01, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

We at WikiProject Dinosaurs have had various discussions about sourcing criteria for this list, see Talk:List_of_informally_named_dinosaurs#Sourcing_requirements. Naish's blog was for a long time published on the Scientific American website, for what that's worth, and some of the early articles were published as a book [10]. SVPOW is run by Michael P. Taylor and Matt Wedel, two well-respected sauropod paleontologists, and not Naish. There has been disagreement on the talk page about whether specimens given nicknames by Naish (which I largely added) should be included on the list. That's something really to be discussed on the talkpage, as others have mentioned. (Full disclosure, I have corresponded with Naish on a handful of occasions years ago and went to his convention TetZooCon a decade ago). Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:07, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

• Note that as long as the source cites a reliable authority figure, it doesn't matter whether it's a Blogspot or Scientific American website we cite for it. As for descriptive names, we have never concluded that they shouldn't be used, they're informal names and often used in the scientific literature, as in the case of the White Rock spinosaurid.[11] Names found in sources that have no authority attached to them should be removed, but should be discussed on a case by case basis, no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. FunkMonk (talk) 08:54, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  Per WP:LISTCRITERIA, Wikipedia should not include indiscriminate lists, and I think this list has become an indiscriminate cruft magnet. The various names cited to blog posts are only the beginning of the problem. Some names on this list (e.g. "Cryptotyrannus" and "Sousatitan") appear to have been working names that only made it into the paper by accident, and have been removed from the final copy-edited version of the paper, thus no longer appearing in the cited source! There are a few names from recent theses, which is slightly dubious from a reliable source standpoint (WP:RELIABLE indicates that theses should be used with caution) and I find slightly skeevy since the author of the thesis may be actively trying to get the name published properly and might not appreciate having their results publicized prematurely. Quite a few entries on the list are cited to the Dinosaur Facts and Figures books, which have been considered unreliable sources by WikiProject Dinosaurs editors in the past. Getting beyond the issue of reliable sources, there is also the problem of the vagueness of inclusion criteria. I think that many "names" on the list (e.g. "Angeac ornithomimosaur" and "White Rock spinosaurid") are just descriptions, the same way I might say that Alamosaurus is "the North American titanosaur", and should not be included. A careful search of the literature may well turn up hundreds more such "names" that could be added to the list. Rather than continuing to pour more bathwater onto the baby, I think that it's time for us to dry this baby off. Ornithopsis (talk) 02:30, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

YouTube and Spotify sources, are these reliable?

This is regarding a discussion I had with Phastolph regarding the sources they were providing for their edits in Drowned World Tour, regarding a remix in the Set list section. These are the sources they had provided for the talk page discussion we had:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axlNwcRga7Q
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_K54-27qFY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdULo9N7A0Y
• https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/track/6vyD1F1OTTo85aVMP6CGBt?si=619788f4561e40b4

They insist that the YouTube account is official (it's topic), but I have a feeling that it may be original research. Are these sources they provided reliable? HorrorLover555 (talk) 20:52, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

If no reliable sources cover it, not at all. See Wikipedia:YOUTUBE-EL. ''Flux55'' (talk) 20:40, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Is this book reliable or self-published?

At the John James Cunningham article, there are currently 19 citations to this book (Google Books link) being used to support what looks like more than half of the article's content. I was unable to find any information online that vouches for the credibility of either the author (Alice Putnam Erskine) or the publisher (Anava Designs). Is this book reliable or self-published? Left guide (talk) 09:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

It looks like Alice Putnam Erskine may be this person, whom the Oakland Tribune describes as having been an art historian who was a curator for the Mills College Art Gallery and California Historical Society and a dean at the San Francisco Art Institute. To know that she at least was a trained expert in the field of art history is encouraging. If it did turn out that Anava Designs is a self-publishing service, would this be a case of a self-published expert? P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 10:56, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

P-Makoto, can you provide a link to the Oakland Tribune material you speak of for others to review? On its own, the obituary you cited above probably isn't worth much in establishing an author's credibility. Left guide (talk) 11:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

The obituary was published in the Oakland Tribune; it says so on the page: Published by Oakland Tribune on Dec. 24, 2006. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 11:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Interesting, sorry I didn't catch that at first. I initially thought the reliability of that obituary was tied to that of legacy.com. Left guide (talk) 11:29, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Here is a direct clipping from the Tribune. Having done that, an obituary like this is likely written by the family and is not an indicator of the subject's notability, nor is it in itself "reliable" per Wikipedia terms (but we're not using it for what we call for reliability on.) The only other mention of her that the newspapers.com search brought up was the mention of the selling of her historic house. Worldcat does not find the book in any libraries based on an ISBN search. Amazon does not have it for sale nor has it ever, based on an author search. BookFinder finds no copies for sale in the used market, and a Google search does not pop up anything that would not come from a basic ISBN listing. Searches find no other books by Anava Designs. All in all, there is not only no good sign of WP:RS for this book, there is a strong question whether it meets our verifiability requirement; if no copies of this book can be found, how can one verify its content? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I can't find anything on Avana designs, and their website is dead and was never archived. WP:SPS requires that experts have been previously published by reliable sources, something that should be true for Erskine given her career but finding anything has proofed harder. It appears she wrote 'Joseph Lee. Painter', Antiques, vol.95, no.6, June 1969, but that's all the details I can find about the article. It's likely there are other works, but because they are obscure and in print media from before the internet age it may be impossible to find them.
So the book is probably generally reliable unless specific issues are raised, the subject was a friend of the author so matters of tone could be an issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:13, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested, since the subject was a friend of the author, does that mean it's considered a WP:COISOURCE? Left guide (talk) 16:24, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Possibly but they also appear to be an expert in the area. So it's a bit of on and the other. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

For details of the subject it's probably reliable, but I'd be careful with anything that seems overly serving of the subject. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:25, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

The hurdle for WP:EXPERTSPS is higher than this. Someone with relevant degree working a relevant job is not a pass. It would have to a routinely cited and someone other academics would go to as an authoritative figure as proven by being cited by others as expert in highly credible academic journals and such. Graywalls (talk) 03:27, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Re: Anava Design, this is the only book they ever published. I searched to see if they are or were a publishing house or actual press, but came up cold. There was nothing on Wayback Machine for their long expired website. This self-published book is a memoir on the artist written by his "lifelong friend" (Erskine), and based on: "correspondence between Cunningham and various friends". Seems there was no editorial oversight. I'd strongly caution against using this as a reliable source, as the contents may be anecdotal as a memoir of a lifelong friend rather than a serious art historical analysis published by a real press. Netherzone (talk) 00:11, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

That sad, are there any WP:REDFLAGs to worry about? I am leaning to call it a self-published (realistically) work by a somewhat-expert, per ActivelyDisinterested above. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:00, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

One being that it's MASSIVELY UNDUE, especially when the book written about is a biography of someone the author is closely acquainted with. Graywalls (talk) 03:29, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

The REDFLAG is: Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest.

Half of the article is sourced to this self-published COI book, many of the claims are trivia or puffery, and cannot be verified by other sources. For example: A trivial factoid for a non-notable “award”” In 1951, Cunningham won the First Honorable Mention in the seventieth annual exhibition; Filler that he was simply a person doing paid odd jobs like: He worked as a decorator for Gimbels department store. as well as the rest of that entire paragraph that’s about showing at non-notable venues; Also, the entire first two paragraphs of “Early life” including his education; and there is this fluff from when he was a student: During his time at Berkeley, he created the official senior class ring for the University of California. In 1927, he was responsible for creating the sets for the Senior Extravaganza held at the Berkeley Theater. The play titled High Hat was written by playwright Elaine Ryan.; etc. etc. This type of content is pure filler and fluff. Netherzone (talk) 14:16, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment - Hi, I wrote the article without realizing that the book might be self-published. Upon reading the book, it becomes evident that it contains a substantial amount of factual information that would be lost if entirely dismissed as an unreliable source. It appears that the author, Alice, engaged in conversations with Cunningham and recorded his oral history for the book. Fortunately, I'm discovering alternative sources to substitute for the Erskine source. Greg Henderson (talk) 23:35, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Heavily-"affiliated" websites

There is an increasing prevalence on some websites of having a) a cookie policy that not only makes it difficult to opt out, decline or refuse cookies, but also b) uses a separate "legitimate interest" basis for including cookies, even as they claim they care about our privacy. The cookies are for a lot of what they call "affiliates." We're not just talking Google Analytics/AdWords and equivalents, we're talking over 1,500 listed affiliates on some sites! I wanted to check the content of one such page just now - a page on the Comic Book Resources website used ten times as a reference on Daredevil: Born Again, but to do so without accepting affiliates' "legitimate interest" cookies (the "legitimate interest" is "we want to advertise stuff to you and track the other sites you visit to do that"), I had to click over 100 times to opt out of receiving such cookies, and in doing so, I had only got as far as the letter D, before I gave up. Not every affiliate had the 'legitimate interest' option, but any that did have it were opt-out rather than opt-in. I'm guessing it would have taken over 500 clicks to decline them all and get to the content. There was no 'Reject all' option.

What would peoples' thoughts be on declaring such sites to be non-reliable, by default? I've come across them mostly on pop-culture topics - movies, music, games, "celebrities" and similar. While they are legitimate sites, their content rarely seems to be in-depth, and it may just be confirmation bias, but the standard of content seems to have dropped since the trend of "legitimate interest" has come along, as they're presumably getting increased income per page view and are using SEO tactics to have many smaller, related articles rather than longer, more in-depth ones. I want to get a general feel for opinions here, before possibly posting a formal RfC. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Against. Calling possibly-reliable sites unreliable would be dishonest. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:55, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

The proliferation of Internet cookies and advertising bothers me as much as the next person, but I don't think that on its own is cause for deeming a source unreliable. The quality of the content and editorial method remain what we should assess. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:50, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Can't access the site to judge the content and editorial method without accepting all the cookies or spending 15 minutes and 500 clicks rejecting them... Anyone got a number for Alanis? ;-) Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:57, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

And WP:SOURCEACCESS which is part of WP:V says "Do not reject reliable sources just because they are difficult or costly to access." But a new entry for The link note template could say "beware of cookies"? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

That's an idea! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:57, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I would need to see more evidence for the strength of affiliates/reliability correlation before using it as a test for reliability, but this could be good. Or could we set the automatic cite thing to default to putting an archive link first for such links? GordonGlottal (talk) GordonGlottal (talk) 23:42, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

This is an adtech problem, not an editorial problem. It is annoying and bad for the internet in general but is completely orthogonal to reliability. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:38, 11 February 2024 (UTC)