Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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

RfC: Deprecation and blacklisting process

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

This is a complicated close, due to the nuances of the proposals being made. A sizable majority of editors voted to support all proposals, although many did so while simultaneously acknowledging that they are not active in this field of work and implying deference toward editors who are more familiar with it. A minority of editors opposed either due to a perceived potential for harm, due to feeling that these issues require further discussion, or on the principle that these proposals introduce unnecessary bureaucracy.Given the level of broad support, I see a consensus to implement proposals 1 and 3. A few editors that are actively involved in managing blacklist requests objected that the proposed changes that were included in proposal 2 could hamstring administrators' ability to respond to urgent cases, and/or proposing further modifications to its language. While some changes were adopted over the course of the RfC, some suggestions, such as limiting its scope depending on why a given source is being proposed for blacklisting, did not receive much discussion. Given how many of the support voters made a note of a lack of experience on their part, I am uncomfortable closing proposal 2 as passed, and thus will recommend further discussion and/or workshopping of proposal 2 while noting that a significant majority of editors voted in favor of it. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:42, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

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To increase transparency and robustness of the process for classification of sources, increase the review requirement for actions that prevent use of a source. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Detail

Proposal 1: Add the following to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/Instructions:

A project-level RfC is required for the following:

• Any source that is proposed for deprecation (see also the list of deprecated sources);
• Any source that is widely used in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) that is proposed as generally unreliable (see also the list of perennial sources).

RfCs should be registered at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard using {{rfc|prop}}.

Proposal 2a: Add the following to the instructions for editors at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist:

You must initiate a project-level RfC when requesting blacklisting of any entry that is widely used as a cited source in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) other than those added by the spammer(s). The RfC may be initiated concurrent with after requesting blacklisting where there is ongoing abuse. RfCs should be registered using {{rfc|prop}} at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.

Proposal 2b: Add the following to the instructions for admins at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist:

A project-level RfC is required when blacklisting any entry that is widely used as a cited source in articles (per {{insource|$SOURCEDOMAIN}}) other than those added by the spammer(s). The RfC may be initiated concurrent with after addition to the blacklist where there is ongoing abuse, with the expectation that it will be removed if the RfC decides against blacklisting. RfCs should be registered using {{rfc|prop}} at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Proposal 3: Add the following to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard:

Requests for comment for deprecation, or for blacklisting or classification as generally unreliable of sources that are widely used in articles, should be registered here using {{rfc|prop}} and should run for at least 7 days. Contentious RfCs should be closed by an uninvolved administrator and consensus assessed based on the weight of policy-based argument.

This does not affect existing classifications or blacklisting. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Opinions

1. Support 1, 2a, 3 (first preference); 1, 2b, 3 (second preference) as proposer. Discussions on source classification at WP:RSN typically have few participants, but may have substantial impact if problematic sources are widely used. This also applies to spammed sites that are targets for blacklisting. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
2. Support the proposal in principle, but I can't comment on the particulars simply because I don't have much experience of this area. Deprecating and/or blacklisting a widely used source can have long-term effects on the verifiability of content in the relevant topic area and it should be done with a stronger consensus that one achieved by one or two editors. The one case that I've been involved in in the past didn't leave me with the impression that the process was a sane one: a website used in a few hundred articles was blacklisted on the strength of opinion of three editors (with a fourth one disagreeing), where the major issue appeared to be not any demonstrable unreliability, but those editors' dislike for the fact that the website was generating a profit from running ads while using public domain data. If a discussion is more widely advertised (like with an RfC), then the impact of personal whimsy should be less noticeable, and the outcome better defensible. – Uanfala (talk) 11:45, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
3. Support per Uanfala, the basic principle that deprecating a source is a sufficiently significant step to take that it needs many more eyes on the discussion to do so. Otherwise a walled garden dictates. Is the occuramce also uncommon enough to warrant a notice at CENT? ——SN54129 11:54, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
4. Support all: significant steps ought not be taken without discussion. But this is not my area of expertise, and so I am also unable to comment on the particular mechanisms of each proposal. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 12:29, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
5. Support Like Uanfala I was involved in a case where a website was blacklisted on ideological grounds. In addition to the benefits list above, this proposal will provide us with an audit trail detailing when and why a site was blacklisted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
6. Oppose - because I cannot in clear conscience fully support it. I'm also of the mind that such a proposal should go to VP for wider community input. There would have to be clearly defined parameters before blacklisting/deprecating any source in an effort to eliminate potentially harmful ideologically based decisions. --^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:23, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
7. Oppose Based upon the village pump suggestion only, such drastic measures need to be more fully discussed with a wider audience.Slatersteven (talk) 08:51, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
8. Support per Uanfala and SN. Deprecating a source and similar actions affect many articles and should follow our usual procedures for establishing consensus for proposals that have such broad effects (i.e., well-advertised RfC, left open for a minimum period of time, etc.). Prefer 2a over 2b. Since this proposal has been advertised on CENT and elsewhere, I don't see a problem with it being here as opposed to VP or another page. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
9. Going on a segue here but feel free to count it as "Neutral" or rather, "why is this instruction creep needed?" vote: there are already discussions that take place on RSN and they are handled just fine (not seeing the demonstration of a problem). Similarly, if something is blacklisted by unilateral discretion, it can easily be removed from the blacklist before or after discussion (and again, not a demonstration of a problem). There's no need to add more instruction when we already have WP:ANRFC backlogged and tons of RfCs ending up with no result. The current approach of solving blacklisting with WP:BRD (make an edit, take issue, discuss!) and the fact that RSN handles these with/without "formal" RfCs is just fine. No point drawing a line in the sand, imo. --qedk (t 心 c) 20:39, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
10. Support for all this. Regulations of websites is serious business over time it can have big impacts across the project. Also RfCs should be broadly advertised not just in RS/N which can become insular. -- GreenC 22:02, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
11. Support,with the possible modification that sources of general interest require a community-wide AfC, not just one at the project level. We need a more realistic approach to RS: No source is entirely reliable, almost no source is totally unreliable. The best news sources, such as the NYTimes, have on occasion carried invented stories; the worst, like the Daily Mail, have on occasion carried genuine news that they were the first to report. The scientific journals of the highest prestige, such as Nature, have sometimes carried nonsense, such as the discovery of Polywater, or Duesberg's denial of HIV. Thesame goes for book publishers, and television networks, and almost anything else.. We properly take a skeptical approach to priary sources, for they need itnerpretation; the same is true for secondary sources as well. There is no substitute for intelligence and impartial investigation ofindividual cases. DGG ( talk ) 09:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
12. Support Per above. --Puddleglum^2.0_{(How's my driving?)} 14:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
13. I have mixed thoughts on these proposals:
    • Proposal 1: Deprecation already requires an RfC by definition, so proposal 1 would not change how sources are deprecated. Requiring RfCs for designating sources as "generally unreliable" is interesting, and I wonder how this would be implemented. Currently, new entries are created in the perennial sources list after discussions on this noticeboard are archived or formally closed. With this proposal, if a new entry would be classified as "generally unreliable", it would be put on hold until an RfC takes place on this noticeboard. This encourages editors to create RfCs for "generally unreliable" sources that were just discussed, which means that editors who participated in the previous discussion would need to repeat their arguments in a new RfC. While input from more editors is nice to have, I'm concerned that the repetition from back-to-back discussions would cause fatigue among the editors who participate in both the discussion and the RfC – especially for editors who frequent this noticeboard. There are two classes of sources for which I think the RfC requirement is unnecessary: self-published sources (by authors who are not subject-matter experts) and sources with a large proportion of user-generated content.
    • Proposal 2: I support proposal 2a/2b for cases involving reliability, but I don't think RfCs are necessary to blacklist sites that contain a large quantity of copyright violations or sites that dox Wikipedia editors. Also, would these RfCs take place on the spam blacklist noticeboard or the reliable sources noticeboard?
    • Proposal 3: This proposal reduces the minimum duration of RfCs on this noticeboard from 30 days to 7 days. It serves as a counter against proposal 1 (which increases the number of RfCs here) by making them more manageable. However, closers on the request for closures noticeboard typically put requests of RfC closures on hold until they are 30 days old, so there needs to be some cross-coordination to make this work. If proposals 1 and 3 were both implemented, and RfCs on this noticeboard were not closed promptly, we would end up with a large backlog of stale RfCs here. Despite this, I think RfC closers should be advised to wait until an RfC on this noticeboard is inactive for at least a few days before closing it, if the RfC is between 7 and 30 days old, to prevent the abbreviated RfC period from excluding opinions from editors who don't frequent this noticeboard.

      — Newslinger talk 11:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

14. Support proposal 1 and 2b but oppose proposal 3 as 7 days is too short, keep to 30 days as per RFC common practice, in my view Atlantic306 (talk) 23:08, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
15. Support 1. We deprecate way too many sources. Neutral on the other proposals. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:16, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
16. Oppose all the proposals about the spam-blacklist. Spammers need to be stopped as soon as possible, and this proposal adds needless bureaucracy to the process without any reason to believe that it will actually change the end results. By the time the RFC closes, the source will have been removed by any article that was edited while it was open. Furthermore, these RFCs will very likely just amount to rubber-stamping the decision made by our anti-spam admins, and if it turns out to be a bad idea (e.g., an overbroad entry), then we'll have a mandatory minimum seven-day waiting period before the RFC can be closed. Process for its own sake, whether in the name of "community participation" or "transparency" (by putting the information on this page in addition to the pages where these decisions have been discussed for years), is not a Wikipedian value. What is a Wikipedian value is saying that we trust Guy, User:Beetstra, User:Kuru, User:GermanJoe, and all the rest to do their best, and to listen to us when/if we think their first choice wasn't the best choice. AFAICT that system has worked pretty well for us, and we should avoid tinkering with it.
    On a separate point, this page is so large that some editors can't participate on it. (Imagine trying to edit this on a smartphone. Or even to read this page.) So if you all really want to continue having endless RFCs to say that bad sources are bad – even in uncontroversial cases or about sources that nobody is actually using, both of which I think are inappropriate uses of the RFC system – then they really ought to be on a separate page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

    WhatamIdoing, I will blacklist material, reliable or not, where I see it clearly spammed by multiple editors that do not respond to warnings (or where I deem warnings futile like in cases of a handful of IPs with 1 edit each). I will not blacklist if the only reason that is given is ‘it is unreliable’, except if there is community consensus, and I think that this proposal is about that: sites that are not spammed, but should hardly ever be used as they are, generally, grossly unreliable. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

    Dirk, Proposals 2a and 2b don't even mention unreliable sources. It's all about what should happen if a blacklisted link is present in a relatively large number of pages. Proposal 3 applies even when blacklisting for pure spamming behavior is the only thing going on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:51, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

    Also: Why here? If the disputed site is used only in medicine-related articles, then any RFC about it probably ought to happen at WT:MED. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

17. Support for any material where there is no evidence of spamming, which do not fall under the criteria of WP:ELNEVER, and which do not have a high potential for abuse (redirect sites). —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:57, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

I believe we should also tighten up the guidance on the conduct of RfCs, e.g. to ensure that they primarily address reliability of a source. This is especially important for politics articles, where there is asymmetric polarization in the media that causes frequent and heated arguments on Wikipedia. There are also credible reports of a repeat of the 2016 Russian social media and disinformation campaigns whose very existence is denied by previously mainstream conservative sources. It's not Wikipedia's problem but it's a problem for Wikipedia, and I think we should be ready for the heightened scrutiny we are likely to receive even when it is from bad-faith actors. Guy (help!) 13:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• I would generally oppose any language that imposes arbitrary cut offs. There is nothing special about "100", but if you include that type of language, people are going to treat it like gospel, as if there is something substantive that separates sources with 99 and 101 citations. GMG^talk 13:34, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  GreenMeansGo, I thought about that. I don't mind adding an option to strike the numerical example. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• @JzG: what is your brief and neutral statement? At over 3,500 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The RfC will also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:13, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  Oh, heaven forfend that a complex issue could not be rendered in a way that pleases the bots. Guy (help!) 17:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you this is the effect. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:33, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• I think proposals 2a and 2b should be restricted in scope to apply only to blacklisting domains for reasons related to reliability. An RfC would be unnecessary to blacklist a domain that was widely spammed in clear violations of the external link spamming guideline (excluding the reliability criterion). — Newslinger talk 03:29, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

  ^This. After having manually removed almost 1000 occurrences of "lepidoptereason ra.eu" from articles before having it blacklisted. It rarely happens, but it does. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 05:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

  I also agree with this. We should put as much emphasis on verification and reliability as we can as some users can easily be confused with bias vs. reliability.----ZiaLater (talk) 08:26, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

OK, so lepidoptera.eu was spammed. So was ZoomInfo (and I nuked all links). Playing devil's advocate, should we not blacklist and then have an RfC, as I propose, to ensure that there is broad support for removal? At least if it's used in pre-existing (clarification added) reference tags (which could have been more explicit, so I fixed that). External links is different. 1,000 articles is a big impact on the project. Even if the source is clearly unreliable, it's going to be better to have solid consensus for any automated removal. And in fact if we do it right we can probably get approval for a bot to remove all references to a site that has been through this process, which will save a massive amount of time. Guy (help!) 10:06, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this. Let's not give spammers a target to meet. Being used in reference tags is not particularly relevant, WP:CITESPAM is the default nowadays I believe. MER-C 12:12, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

This sounds backwards to me... I would think we would need an RFC prior to placing a site on the blacklist (whether due to reliability or some other reason) To determine whether the site should be added to the blacklist or not. Once a site is on the blacklist, however, we can automatically remove (and I don’t see a need to have additional RFCs before automatically removing).

Deprecated sources, on the other hand, are a different issue... these are discouraged, but NOT blacklisted (as they often have nuanced exceptions and carve outs attached to the deprecation)... so automatic removal is not the best solution. These need to be examined on a case by case basis, and additional RFCs may be needed. Blueboar (talk) 12:58, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist has over 8300 entries. Having an RFC "prior to placing a site on the blacklist" in 15 years would have required an RfC more frequently than every 16 hours. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I am confused... How do you determine if something is spam vs legit sourcing without an RFC? Is there some alternative process? Blueboar (talk) 15:32, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Counter-question: How does one determine if a user needs to be blocked without an RFC? Or if a page needs to be protected? The point of electing administrators is to let some people enforce the community's policies in uncontroversial situations without having an RFC for every single action. The spam blacklist is primarily used to deal with the worst and most obvious cases of spam reported at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, just as WP:RFPP and WP:AIV are used for simple protection and blocking requests. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:41, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

ToBeFree, not that it's especially relevant but actually it's analogous to the proposed blacklisting response. Abuse is dealt with expeditiously but is then subject to review either by the user appealing the block (up to ArbCom if necessary) or by the admin posting the block for review on WP:ANI, one of the most watched pages on enWP. Guy (help!) 12:34, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, the default for a deprecated source is to remove it. My standard approach would be to tag with {{deprecated inline}} and then after some time go back and remove the tagged sources. We should not raise enormous bureaucratic obstacles to removal of a source we have decided is crap. My issue is that the process for deciding it's crap is vulnerable to groupthink. And I say that as one of the group.

The reason for blacklist then RfC when there are significant numbers of references is to control abuse. We should not allow a spammer to run rampant for a week while we think about it. The blacklist controls abuse, most abuse does not involve substantial numbers of references in mainspace, because it's usually a simple matter of rolling back the edits of the spammers. The example that clarifies this for me is ZoomInfo. This was absolutelt spammed. I then checked the existing references and found a mix of good and likely bad faith additions, including what was almost certainly their people adding their archive url to a lot of references. Those archives are all now defunct, according tot he checks I did, so are worthless. The rest of the information cited to ZoomInfo was generally trivial and likely to be self-provided. I still think, in retrospect, an RfC would have been a good idea. It was discussed here in some detail, but only the usual suspects show up.

Bear in mind that the existing process for deprecation is a short discussion here, often with few participants. The default for blacklisting is even quicker. Turnaround can be close to real time and in some cases the person proposing addition, also actions it (not best practice but necessary to control spamming, same as speedy deletion nominations by an admin are sometimes done in one step rather than being tagged and left for a second pair of eyes).

It seems to me that best practice is to be more deliberative when significant numbers of existing references are affected. And recent experience, for me at least, backs that up. As an aside, I would also like to see a parameter in the {{cite}} templates to link to any discussion showing consensus to include an apparently dubious source (e.g. specific self-published books). A small and discreet checkmark could be displayed to say it's a qualified reference despite appearances to the contrary. Guy (help!) 12:45, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

• This is confusing two different things - whether a source is reliable and whether a source is being spammed. Sources which pass all the requirements of reliable sources can still be spammed (whether by/on behalf of the owner/creator of the source or by unrelated third parties), and not all unreliable sources are spammed or otherwise added maliciously. The Spam Blacklist should concentrate on sources that are being spammed - the determination of which does not require an RFC as it depends on behaviour here (and on other Wikimedia projects) rather than the quality of the source. If we on en:wiki want to keep a separate blacklist covering sources that are unwanted for reasons other than spamming (such as unreliability or copyvios, then that is a different thing entirely.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

  Nigel Ish, no it's not, it's handling two scenarios whereby sources might be rejected: blacklisting (which can happen due to spamming but may affect large numbers of references if the site has been abused, as was the case with ZoomInfo), or deprecation / "Generally Unreliable". Both of these can happen as of today with virtually zero input. I think that's a bad thing if the site has been widely used. Given your decision to reinstate vanity presses and blogs lately, I think you are of the same view: we should not be adding a site to a list which qualifies it for large scale removal from Wikipedia without some more input than we currently get. Guy (help!) 12:32, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Updated

Since I am the only one to !vote so far I have updated the proposals per comments above:

• Removed the number of references per WP:BEANS etc.;
• Clarified that links added by the spammer(s) don't count when blacklisting, so only pre-existing links.

Does this help? Guy (help!) 12:57, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Are you essentially proposing that we expand the scope of the blacklist to cover deprecated sources as well as spam? If so, I would oppose. While deprecated sources ARE usually removed, there are nuanced exceptions when they should not be... and thus deprecated sources must be dealt with on a case by case basis. Blueboar (talk) 13:37, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, no, I am saying that when a site has been spammed but is widely used as a source, we should follow up with an RfC to decide what o do about the existing uses, part of which will be to assess whether it was, in fact, reliable in the first place. Guy (help!) 20:13, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Ok... my confusion stemmed from the fact that your proposal #3 focused on deprecated sources, and not spammed sources... but if you are now limiting the discussion to just spammed sources I can shift from opposition to neutrality. Blueboar (talk) 02:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with Guy's statement We should not allow a spammer to run rampant for a week while we think about it. In this regard, I think that 2b is a bit better than 2a; I like the sound of The RfC may be initiated concurrent with addition to the blacklist where there is ongoing abuse more than The RfC may be initiated concurrent with requesting blacklisting. But, to me, neither option really seems clear about the chronology that is being envisioned here. XOR'easter (talk) 19:02, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

  XOR'easter, sure. And I am happy to tweak it, but I think you understand my intent: blacklist then discuss. Controlling abuse comes first. Guy (help!) 20:14, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

• My concerns are that it opens the door to POV creep, inadvertent or otherwise, and it does so in a big way, particularly in controversial topic areas like AP2, climate change, religion, etc. Perhaps if there was stricter adherence to including only the facts rather than opinions, and we paid closer attention to RECENTISM, NOTNEWS and NEWSORG, we'd be just fine. All of WP should not be run on the same premise as Project Med; i.e., strict adherence to WP:MEDRS. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:47, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, I think you may have entirely missed the point. Right now, blacklisting and deprecation can happen with minimal oversight, sometimes only one or two people opining, and they are rarely advertised outside a narrow bubble of editors. The intent here is to impose a minimum requirement where noe corrently exists, and to require thorough review for blacklisting where currently there may be no consideration of usage in articles.

  In other words, not doing this makes the thing you say you fear, which is the current practice, continue to be the standard.

  If you think it's not robust enough then feel free to propose alternatives. Guy (help!) 17:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

  Guy, there are some things on which we agree, others I will study. Thank you for the explanation. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:06, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The number of RFCs

My main concern is about the number of RFCs we've been holding, and the relatively poor justification for most of those RFCs. I'd like to see rules that focus attention on sources that have both of these qualities:

1. are actually being used (including proposed uses, e.g., on the talk page), and
2. the resulting disputes (please notice my intentional use of the plural) have been difficult to resolve.

That means that we have RFCs on Daily Mail and similar sources, but that we use our long-standing, normal, non-RFC discussion processes for whichever website popped up last week. If that means that they don't end up on the source blacklist, that's okay with me. We do not actually need a list of what editors thought, generally at a single point in time, about hundreds and hundreds of sources.

This RFC doesn't address any of my concerns, and I'm concerned that it will have even greater Tragedy of the commons-like effects on the overall RFC process. Y'all need to use the sitewide RFCs when they're important, not as your first approach to resolving a dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

We often spend more time and energy debating a single AfD. I'd rather get it right than worry about a relatively small number of consensus discussions. Regulating entire websites is serious business it can impact thousands of articles and even result in articles being deleted if their sourcing is knocked out. -- GreenC 21:56, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

I very strongly doubt your claim that a single AfD discussion "often" gets more participation than RFCs on this page. It looks like the one below (Poynter) has 15 editors and more than 3,000 words in it. That's not something we experience "often" at AFD. That's three times the length of last week's attempt to delete an article about Wikipedia, which was an unusually popular subject for an AFD nomination.

This page is running an average of about a thousand page views per day. The RFC subject pages get maybe a hundred. If the first thousand page views aren't good enough for you, then the next hundred probably isn't going to make a big difference to you. But they can make a big difference to the RFC process. That's why I want you all to be judicious about this. Not every single discussion needs to start out as an RFC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

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

Newslaundry on OpIndia

Is Newslaundry (newslaundry.com) a reliable source for the following content in the OpIndia article, removed in Special:Diff/944447105?

A January 2020 report by the media watchdog Newslaundry noted the portal to contain several inflammatory headlines targeting the leftists, liberals and Muslims. Mainstream media and the political opposition (esp. Indian National Congress) were oft-criticized; posts published by OpIndia Hindi from November 15 to 29 were located to be invariably situated against any criticism of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. On February 12, OpIndia had organised an ideological seminar featuring prominent figures from right wing intelligentsia; Newslaundry noted the seminar to have spread communally charged conspiracy theories about the Kathua rape case, equate the Shaheen Bagh protests to formation of mini-Pakistan and engage in other Islamophobic discourse.

References

See related discussion on Talk:OpIndia. — Newslinger talk 15:04, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Do they have an editorial policy? I cannot find it.Slatersteven (talk) 15:07, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics, Talk:OpIndia. — Newslinger talk 15:09, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• Newslaundry is an unreliable source with a clear bias and no indication of factual reporting. We should not allow Wikipedia becoming a platform to document feuds between the partisan sources in question. Shashank5988 (talk) 19:44, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable: According to this, they won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards for their "investigative reporting".--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 20:07, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable According to their about page they have won a lot of awards recently on the subject of investigation reporting and their work covering gender and human rights. But I couldn't find an editorial hierarchy. According to their hiring page, it looks like their reporters cover a variety of areas rather than having a "beat" and there isn't information about leadership. But I think the awards count for a lot. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable - No information on leadership or editorial policy. As a new media site much like OpIndia, no certification from IFCN regarding fact-checking (which AltNews, cited in the article under criticism, has).Pectore^talk 06:00, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable We have no way of knowing if the editor also writes for it, they appear to have no editorial policy.Slatersteven (talk) 09:16, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
• They do provide some information at this webpage. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:08, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable No published editorial policy. Clear trait of bias as noted by some wiki editors. No redressal mechanism in case of feedback, I tried approaching them with no success. --Jaydayal (talk) 10:12, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable for OpIndia and other Right wing portals atleast. They’re in dirty spat with each others and regularly publish such stories which don’t have much factual accuracies. If we’re going to consider OpIndia (I think we already did) as unreliable then this also falls in same line. — Brihaspati (talk) 11:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable and generally reliable. Newslaundry was awarded the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2015 for their extensive coverage of a political scandal in which members of parliament (in both the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party and the centre-left Indian National Congress) and other well-known people misappropriated US$15 million of taxpayer money through public sector undertakings for their personal or business interests. This five-part series is archived below:
  1. RTI Investigation (part 1): How politicians use PSUs as cash-vending machines
  2. RTI Investigation (part 2): How Vijay Darda used power ministry to further his business interests
  3. RTI Investigation (part 3): How ministers milk PSUs for ads and sponsorships
  4. RTI Investigation (Part 4): Corruption allegations surface against a BJP MP
  5. RTI Investigation (part 5): PSUs are an easy pool of money for politicians to dip into

The extent of the corruption exposed in this report is impressive, and the research involved multiple Right to Information requests. "The Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards, the most prestigious annual event in the Indian media calendar, is a recognition of the highest standards of journalism" in India, just as the Pulitzer Prize is the most renowned form of recognition for American journalism. Newslaundry also won two Red Ink Awards, in 2018 for their coverage of the Kaveri River water dispute, and in 2019 for their coverage of a police cover-up of civilian casualties in Sukma.

It's misleading to compare Newslaundry to OpIndia just because neither is certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Newslaundry is a news site, not a fact-checking site, and the IFCN only certifies fact-checking sites that are "dedicated solely to checking the discourse of politicians or detecting viral hoaxes in social platforms". Additionally, OpIndia was explicitly rejected by the IFCN in 2019, while Newslaundry never applied for certification.

Finally, Newslaundry puts a byline with an author name on each of the pieces they publish. That's better than The Times of India (RSP entry), and it's sufficient for a generally reliable publication. Newslaundry is like the Indian version of The Intercept (RSP entry), and has even more prestigious awards. — Newslinger talk 12:48, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable - per Newslinger. In addition, it also doesn't sum up that they would be factually inaccurate while also winning high prestige awards, I've yet to come across an allegation of misreporting against them which even mainstream media agencies face from time to time. Though there may be a degree of editorialisation in their content so care should be taken regarding that. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable has a dedicated staff, uses bylines, has won awards for its journalism, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable - No editorial policy available on the website. Concocted click-bait stories based on imagination. Retracted after clarification from the office of President of India. It published fiction instead of fake news. Not trustworthy.
  1. Newslaundry spreads fake news about president's puri visit Shubham2019 (talk) 08:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

     Newslaundry was covering an alleged event that was initially covered by The Times of India, News18, and Times Now – other reliable sources. When the press secretary to the President denied the incident, Newslaundry officially retracted the story, demonstrating a strong reputation for error-correction, which is identified in WP:NEWSORG as a hallmark of a reliable source.

     As an aside, you're using "The True Picture" (thetruepicture.org, formerly thetruepicture.in), a site that was thoroughly discredited as a questionable source by a 2018 investigation from The Indian Express and a 2018 report from Boom (a fact checker that is certified by the IFCN). The Quint has additional coverage of the exposés. These analyses show that "The True Picture" is closely affiliated with BlueKraft Digital Foundation, a company that "has been involved in promoting various government initiatives, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book ‘Exam Warriors.’" From this, it's clear that "The True Picture" is unreliable and has a strong conflict of interest. — Newslinger talk 09:57, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

     This reply is clearly not satisfactory, Newslaundry concocted a casteist angle in the issue. None of the articles cited give a hint of this angle. This was the reason they had to retract their imaginative story while others did not. It was clearly written to promote enimity between the communities and cater to a certain narrative to attack the government.As a side note, this kind of ideological reinforcement is being done by portals like Newslaundry, Altnews,Wire,Quint,Boom,NDTV. All of which are reinforcing each other's position and being cited in a circular manner to counter/manage the narrative or ideological resistance being provided by the portals of contradictory ideology. OpIndia, Republic,Swarajya, TheTruePicture,MediaBias fact check, Fact Hunt all are being campaigned against in wikipedia. The articles which attack the left wing portals are certainly written in Right Wing Portal and vice versa. Yet only one way citations are allowed i.e. against Right Wing Portal. Therefore there is no WP:NPOV.

Either wikipedia has a policy of not allowing different ideological point of views or we seriously need to re-evaluate why all right wing portals are outright dismissed as unreliable/deprecated/questionable and left wing portals are treated as gospels which can't be wrong and don't need to be questioned. Shubham2019 (talk) 16:21, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Bias is not a reason to reject a source. We dismiss sources that can be shown to knowingly and willingly publish falsehoods which they do not retract.Slatersteven (talk) 16:24, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Your argument against Newslaundry depends solely on criticism from a questionable source ("The True Picture") against a properly labeled "opinion" piece from Newslaundry. As the piece from Newslaundry was retracted before it was archived, your claims are unverifiable. The fact that Newslaundry is willing to retract errors is a positive attribute. Compare that to OpIndia, which has yet to retract their coverage of a fake letter falsely attributed to a Muslim body president, for example.

If the right-wing sites you listed were reliable, they would be recognized with awards and favorable coverage from other reliable sources. But, the IFCN – a politically neutral organization – rejected OpIndia in 2018, while it certified Alt News in 2019 and Boom (boomlive.in) in 2019. Newslaundry won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award and two Red Ink Awards, while OpIndia has never won any significant awards. These are some of the reasons Newslaundry, Alt News, and Boom are considered reliable, while OpIndia is not. Media Bias/Fact Check (RSP entry) was discussed three times on this noticeboard, and is considered unreliable because it is self-published, not because it had any discernible overall bias.

The neutral point of view policy requires us to represent "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic" (emphasis added). — Newslinger talk 16:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

• I wrote to the Newslaundry editorial team and this is what I heard back...I don't think there is any problem sharing the relevant portion of the email message:

Thanks for reaching out.

We are currently redesigning our website and we'll have a page explaining our editorial policy on the upgraded site.

Of course, like any credible news organisation, our work goes through a series of editorial filters before it is published. I believe the quality of our work testifies to this. Mr Raman Kirpal, cced in this mail, is our managing editor. He's an award-winning journalist with several decades of experience in the industry and he takes the final call on what appears on Newslaundry.

Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I inspected the source code of older versions of Newslaundry's home page, and noticed that Newslaundry switched its content management system from a (possibly in-house) platform based on AngularJS as of 16 January 2020 to Quintype as of 22 January 2020. While most of the site has already been migrated to their new platform, there are a few pages that are currently only accessible through archived versions. This includes Newslaundry's About Us page, which includes a list of Newslaundry's staff and a list of Newslaundry's owners (with percentage ownership specified for each owner). This transparency reflects favorably on Newslaundry, and I expect to see the editorial policy when the site finishes migrating to the Quintype platform. — Newslinger talk 01:08, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

• Generally reliable per Newslinger and others. I'm impressed by the apparent transparency (website transition confusion not withstanding) and their response to Liz. My only comment is that it might be, perhaps, that we should take any news items towards OpIndia (and similar sites) with a grain of salt per the concerns about an apparent on-going spat. Waggie (talk) 02:14, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable Do they have any Editorial Policy? Half baked stories with facts missing in most of there reporting, completely biased source. Santoshdts (talk) 10:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable They don't have a well defined editorial policy. The news reporting is mixed with biased opinions. They generally lampoon and criticises other media sources. There is a clear lack of objectivity. They have also published fake news in the past.IndianHistoryEnthusiast (talk) 21:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

  Do you have a reliable source to back up the "fake news" claim? — Newslinger talk 06:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

  They published a news story on the President of India, which was denied by the President's office. Newslaundry is not important enough to be covered by other reliable media portals. There are a few sites like these which are engaged in trashing each other online based on ideological differences, they publish hit-pieces on each other at random intervals, their editors and reporters fight on twitter. There's a clear lack of objectivity.IndianHistoryEnthusiast (talk) 08:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

  Your comment strikes a false balance between Newslaundry and the near-unanimously condemned OpIndia, and excuses OpIndia's unreliability as "ideological differences". Unlike OpIndia, Newslaundry corrects or retracts all of its stories that need doing so. — Newslinger talk 04:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

• Unarchived from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 288 to request closure at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 01:41, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Published editorial policy

Per WP:NEWSORG news organizations do not have to have a published editorial policy. Thus, it looks like many of the above comments are irrelevant. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:21, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

True they may not publish them, it does not say they do not have to have them. Thus any argument based upon "I have no idea what their editorial policies are" are valid, they may not be strong arguments but they are still valid. Our criteria is "has a reputation for fact checking", whilst no publishing editorial policy is not an indicator they fail this, the lack of one is a good indicator they may not have such a reputation. After all if I have no idea how they decide what to publish I cannot know it is fact checked.Slatersteven (talk) 13:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Jewish Virtual Library

Is Jewish Virtual Library[1] a generally reliable source, across all the areas it covers? It is currently used on 985 pages throughout Wikipedia. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The summary at WP:RSPS states that "The Jewish Virtual Library is a tertiary source with a strong reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", and has no warnings about it being run by the American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, a lobby group run by a former AIPAC media editor. It is also misrepresentative of the discussions in the WP:RSN archive and at Talk:Jewish Virtual Library, which point out both the propaganda-connections and that many of its articles were sourced originally from Wikipedia.

The entry at WP:RSPS has the "Stale discussions" label, as there has not been a discussion about this topic for a number of years. It was added here, four months ago, without discussion. I have deleted the entry for now subject to this discussion.[2] Pinging @Guarapiranga and ToThAc: who added the entry, for their comments.

Onceinawhile (talk) 17:44, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

• Wikiproject notifications: [3],[4],[5],[6] on 16 April. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The discussions regarding the reliability of JVL at Talk:Jewish Virtual Library feature 2 IP editors with a grand total of 6 edits between them [7], and one pronouncement from a now-blocked sock-puppet[8]. Beyond that, there is a section debating reliability with a 3:3 split. I don't see anything resembling a consensus that it is not a reliable source. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:01, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Nor is the opposite true. There is no overall consensus. And there is consensus that for articles relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it is not reliable. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:39, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

So you assert, but have yet to demonstrate such a consensus exists. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 19:06, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

• The source's organizational affiliations aside, I remember having some concerns about its accuracy when working on articles related to Jewish history a while back due to contradictions between it and more academic sources. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact examples, and I wasn't able to find them in a five minute search of likely parts of my editing history. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:44, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I was able to find this evaluation of the source in Religious Studies Review written in 2006: Second, the Jewish Virtual Library (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org), managed by the American–IsraeliCooperative Enterprise, has an excellent range of articles andsources on Jewish history, Israel, Zionism, the Holocaust, Jewish religion, and a number of other topics. As its sponsor’s nameimplies, the Jewish Virtual Library represents a Zionist viewpoint.However, the vast majority of its secondary sources are reliableand written from a scholarly standpoint. The Jewish VirtualLibrary offers one of the best single sites on the Internet forJewish historical and cultural information. That's older than I'd like for evaluating an online source, but I think that based on this praise I would say generally reliable for Jewish history outside Israel/Palestine, evaluate case-by-case and use with attribution for claims related to Israel/Palestine while still maintaining our preference for secondary sources over tertiary sources. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:25, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

• The "Myths and Facts" section of the Jewish Virtual Library is a list of strawmen and "rebuttals", entirely one-sided in a highly complex and disputed topic area. It reads like a set of AIPAC talking points. Most of the answers link to sections of Mitchell Bard's version of the book "Myths and Facts" (Bard heads the organization which runs the JVL). That book was reviewed in 2002 by Donald Neff as follows:[9]

The Arab-Israeli conflict is littered with propaganda masquerading as information. Both sides are active in this black art, where distorting the facts to one side’s favor is considered success. In general, Israel and its supporters have been more adept in this poisonous pursuit, mainly because of their wide media access in the United States. The latest edition of Myths and Facts, however, is not one of the better efforts by the pro-Israel side, mainly because it is less adroit than usual at twisting the facts to the benefit of Israel... The original Myths and Facts was published as a byproduct of the Near East Report, a pro-Israel newsletter begun in the 1950s by Si Kenen, a tireless propagandist for Israel. Out of Kenen’s propaganda work grew the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), today the most powerful Israeli lobby... The current version of Myths and Facts is curiously without specific mention of its debt to AIPAC, although it acknowledges the pioneering role of the Near East Report. This is hardly encouraging since the latter is a reliable source of myths but hardly of facts. Author Mitchell G. Bard is a former editor of the Near East Report and a coauthor of the 1992 edition of Myths and Facts... Bard is now executive director of yet another pro-Israel group, the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), founded in 1993. Among its seven board members are Bard, Arthur Bard, and Eli E. Hertz. Hertz left the Israel Defense Forces as a captain after seven years and moved to New York to found a technology company. He is listed as sponsor of the latest Myths and Facts and chairman of the board of AICE.

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:26, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

And Donald Neff was a writer for Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, described as "the guidebook to the Arabist lobby in the United States," that "specializes in defaming Israel". We could do this all day. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 22:57, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable they cite Wikipedia and iMDB as sources [10][11][12] and may copy directly from Wikipedia. That said I don't think that pro-Israel slant is a good reason to disqualify a source, accuracy is. buidhe 23:34, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Good catch, changing my assessment. If they're citing us then we can't use them. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:52, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Nonsense. If citing Wikipedia was a basis for disqualifying sources, we'd have to eliminate every major newspaper as a reliable source

• The Guardian [13]
• The New York Times [14]
• The Washington Post [15]
• ...you get the idea. This argument is not convincing.JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 00:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  JungerMan Chips Ahoy!, there's a difference between a one-line claim that says "According to Wikipedia" and listing a source as a reference for a broader article. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 00:04, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

No, there really isn't, especially when the articles that User:Buidhe pulled up list additional sources, alongside Wikipedia. I hope I don;t need to show you that aside from those sentences that are explicitly described as "according to Wikipedia..." newspapers routinely rely on Wikipedia articles, often copying entire sentences word for word, without attribution. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 00:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@JungerMan Chips Ahoy!: This article cites Wikipedia as its only source and is a word for word copy of an old revision of the wikipedia page: [16]. buidhe 00:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

And as such, that article is not a reliable source, just like you could say the items attributed to Wikipedia by the New York Times or Washington Post can't be used in articles. But you can't blanket-disqualify the entire project as non-reliable on the basis of that article, or others like it. At most, you could say that articles that list Wikipedia among their sources are not reliable .JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 00:32, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable: I've used the Jewish Virtual Library in the past for sources for topics unrelated (or not directly related) to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it just seems that it isn't a good source. It is not completely accurate and mostly cites other sources that can or should be accessed by Wikipedians who follow Wikipedia's policies. I stopped using it when I realized it cites Wikipedia sometimes.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 00:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable. The only occasion where I'd consider citing this source is when there is an article written by a named author who is an acknowledged expert. Even then I'd be super-careful since JVL is perfectly willing to alter the text. Once there was a discussion about using an article in JVL cited to Encyclopedia Judaica (a reliable source), but some of it I knew to be nonsense. So I consulted the original EJ article and found that JVL had silently inserted some rubbish sentences of their own into EJ's verbatim text. Regarding Myths and Facts, which is part of JVL, a review of an early edition in an academic journal (Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol 16, No 3, p165) includes the lovely sentence "The reason this book is undocumented is because one cannot document lies." It is nearly always possible to consult the sources JVL cites directly, so we don't need the unreliable filtering. In the case that triggered this discussion, JVL provided 19th-century demographic figures but when I looked at the source I found that the information came from the Israeli government Press Office and the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. Zero^talk 01:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable given the above comments. And of course if we can't find another source, then WP:UNDUE comes into play. Doug Weller talk 09:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable for IP area One has to wonder about "pre-state Israel (1517-1948)" which takes it a step further than mere bias, parroting propaganda. Imagine if WP everywhere changed Israel to "post-Palestine".Selfstudier (talk) 10:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable If they use us verbatim for even one article that means (to my mind) they are not an RS, as how does that demonstrate a reputation for fact checking? There are better sources they use, so lets use those.Slatersteven (talk) 10:20, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: The last RSN discussion I can remember concluded that, as JVL articles were of variable quality, some unsigned, some written by reputable authors, whether to cite them or not should be decided on a case-by-case basis. That seemed sensible. Contrary to the entry on RSPS, the JVL has no obvious process, such as peer review, for fact-checking. My guess is that there's not much evidence for objectively measuring its reputation for accuracy. The decision to remove the RSPS entry looks reasonable to me. Do we actually need a new RSN discussion on the JVL?     ←   ZScarpia   11:21, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the JVL articles cited by four Wikipedia articles from among the first returned search results, they all have similar problems: no author is given; the contents don't cite sources; better sources for those articles should have been available. The Wikipedia articles were: Nazi human experimenting (which cites the JVL Nazi Medical Experiments: Freezing Experiments article [also the Documents regarding Nazi medical experiments article, which may be regarded as a collection of copies of primary sources]); Jesus (which cites the JVL Jesus article); Timeline of the Holocause (which cites the JVL Wilhelm Marr and History and overview of Aushwitz-Birkenau articles, among many others); Sweden (which cites the JVL Raoul Wallenberg article).     ←   ZScarpia   17:28, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• This does look problematic, per the information above. We should move it to a no-consensus statement ASAP, I think, and perhaps review it more thoroughly. Guy (help!) 11:33, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Not Reliable I don't (and won't) edit in the IP area since it is all just politics. I wouldn't (and have not) use JVL in my Jewish history area editing. warshy ^(¥¥) 15:55, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Contextual reliability The New York Times used the site in a 2019 discussion on settlements in the West Bank and to source biographical details based on an interview with the site for a 2016 obituary. These are some of the most sensitive areas discussed here (bios and IP), so WP:USEBYOTHERS seems to imply at least some use based on authorship and article quality. Similarly, CNN used JVL to source biographical statements about Israeli officials in a 2002 article, Slate recommends this page as a good source of information on postwar interstate agreements, and Reuters cites it in a 2008 article on a Jewish ambassador to Bahrain. The source seems to be used infrequently, but widely. I agree that lots of its pages are terrible, of course, but it seems like a blanket statement is a step too far based upon its support in other contexts. Jlevi (talk) 16:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Interesting. How is WP:USEBYOTHERS measured? I could bring multiple equivalent references from reputable news agencies linking to Breitbart, Daily Mail, and even Wikipedia itself. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Use by other reliable sources is one factor that is considered when evaluating a source's reliability. This factor carries more weight for less popular sources (e.g. a non-notable publication with a small editorial team), and less weight for major publications (whose articles receive comment from reliable sources due to the publication's popularity). The context of the use is also important: coverage of the publication's content (e.g. this article on InfoWars's media bias chart) does not count as WP:UBO. I consider WP:UBO a minor factor compared to what reliable sources say about the publication's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. However, for smaller or less controversial publications with little to no direct coverage in reliable sources, WP:UBO may be the only data points available, and that would be sufficient to justify the publication's use on Wikipedia. Self-published sources and user-generated content (including Wikipedia) are unacceptable in most cases regardless of WP:UBO.

Looking at the provided links, "A Look at the West Bank Area Netanyahu Vowed to Annex" is a weak case of WP:UBO, since the article frames the statment as something the JVL said: "The Jewish Virtual Library, a website run by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, said that...". "Doris Roberts, Mother on ‘Everybody Loves Raymond,’ Dies at 90" does not count as WP:UBO, since the article treats the JVL as a primary source: "She made this plain in a Jewish Virtual Library interview". But, "Sources: Sharon taps new defense minister" and "Bahrain picks Jew as U.S. envoy, local media critical" do count, because they use "according to the Jewish Virtual Library"; "according to [publication]" is the one of the best indicators of WP:UBO if used as an attribution of a straightforward assertion, and not in a context that portrays the publication negatively. — Newslinger talk 00:57, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

In the current language of the RfC, I agree that this source is Not reliable in general. I add these uses above in large part because I have not seen this point included yet, and it seems worthwhile to consider. Jlevi (talk) 14:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable. JVL is a propaganda tool with a clear agenda to falsify history and reality. It was created by the American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise: [17]. JVL has several maps showing the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as being "Israel", see pages 65, 74 and 77:[18] --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 05:05, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
• One man band: despite our puff-piece articles on the Jewish Virtual Library and the grandly named "American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise", both of which are replete with WP:ABOUTSELF references, I have found no detailed information on this organization from third party sources. So I looked up the AICE tax filings (here for 2018 and 2017). In 2018 they had revenues of $196 thousand dollars (p.1), of which $164 thousand went straight to pay Mitchell Bard (p7) and $23 thousand went to "occupancy" (p.10, which presumably is for the usage of his home-office). The Vice President/Secretary is Mitchell Bard's son, Arthur (last page). The 2017 report also includes a section explaining the Jewish Virtual Library, which states: "THE JVL ALSO INCORPORATES OUR PUBLICATION, MYTHS AND FACTS: A GUIDE TO THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT, AN ESSENTIAL RESOURCE FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING THE DISPUTE, KNOWN AS THE PRO-ISRAEL ACTIVIST'S "BIBLE". THE JVL ALSO INCLUDES MATERIAL FROM OUR STOPBDS.COM SITE THAT PROVIDES VITAL INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND, RESPOND AND COMBAT THE CAMPAIGN TO BOYCOTT AND DELEGITIMIZE ISRAEL.

Onceinawhile (talk) 11:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

A bit of a digression, but looking at WP's article on the JVL, there's a fairly horrible bit of original research in the Reception section, where it's claimed that the JVL is "regularly cited" by various sources. To try to justify the claim, it links to webpages in some of the listed sources. The one for the BBC appears to be from a member of the BBC Club in the Compton Road Library section of that part of the website. The information taken from the JVL is in a 'Facts' sidebox above which is a warning that, "The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites." It then goes on to make the same kind of claim for its being "listed as reference" by a number of universities. The "reference" listed by Purdue University is an inclusion of a virtual tour of Prague in an Internet Resources section.

Returning to the main point, there are probably many articles in the JVL whose contents are not touched by the controversies of the the IP conflict. For those that are, there is an underlying problem of how to edit neutrally in Wikipedia when much of the source material is politicised, sectarian and affected by denialism, falsification, omission, misrepresentation and distortion. The problem then is that you're dealing with different narratives of which the JVL is transmitting one.

    ←   ZScarpia   12:18, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I would be hesitant to delist something that is being used in a content dispute in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict area and note that delisting it would add more bias to articles in that area. I would also ask people to note that many people here have no problems with using Applied_Research_Institute–Jerusalem in the same IP area. People are also conflating subjects in the general Jewish area and in the IP area. I think a distinction can be made. We should not remove this resource from the encyclopedia merely because people don't like it in one area. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I have an image in my head of this one guy behind AICE/JVL sitting at his home-office in his pajamas occasionally updating an entry or writing a new one. It seems to, in practice, be a glorified blog. Sure he occasionally gets credible writers to write attributed articles, but even then who fact-checks them? This guy is an expert in public relations advocacy and nothing else. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:53, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

• Self published in addition to there being no fact-checking process (since it is a one-man website), it turns out that JVL is also an WP:RS/SPS. The book that is incorporated into the JVL, "Myths and Facts", is published by CreateSpace. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

  This is clearly false. - [19] JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 14:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I also found that impressive at first. But the "Board of Directors" are paid zero (per the tax return) so likely don't do much (that may be ok for a real charity, but given the amount Bard is paying himself it seems unlikely they would do meaningful work pro bono), the "Advisory Board" are wealthy people who donated, and the "Honorary Committee" look like a list of political types that Bard knew from his time at AIPAC. In summary it is clear that none of these people do any work, there is no office or similar – i.e. as mentioned above this is just a glorified blog. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

It is not clear at all, and non-paid work is the norm for the boards of small non-profit organizations. Do you similarly think that ARIJ, for example, is a "one person" shop, given the list of people they have on their staff, here: [20] ? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 15:47, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• Hi Onceinawhile, I see that you've converted this discussion into a request for comment. RfCs are more restrictive than ordinary discussions on how the initial comment should be worded. Could you please add a signed "neutral and brief" statement immediately below the {{rfc}} template to meet WP:RFCBRIEF? — Newslinger talk 12:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Newslinger I have done so. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks great, thank you. — Newslinger talk 13:51, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Newslinger, I oppose this people when commented didn't now this an RFC.If someone want to start an RFC it should start a new discussion Shrike (talk) 16:57, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Shrike, I don't think this is an issue since an RfC extends the discussion to a minimum of 30 days, and neutrally publicizes it through the feedback request service. In the past, discussions on this noticeboard have been upgraded to RfCs once they turned out to be more controversial than initially expected, to attract participation from a wider section of the community. If there is consensus here to downgrade the RfC back to an ordinary discussion, it can be done. — Newslinger talk 01:16, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Comment I agree with Sir Joseph.The JVL is valuable source but like any source that may have some slant should be used with care..No one yet proved any proof of unreliablity. And the fact it used by multiple scholarly papers as source [21] and this our sign of reliability as per WP:RS--Shrike (talk) 16:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable in large parts, though some things it can be used as a convenience link for when they have copies of hard to find documents. But things like Myths and Facts is straight up propaganda and the articles that cite and or duplicate Wikipedia show the generally low quality of much of the material on the website. nableezy - 14:54, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable - Per nableezy's rationale. NickCT (talk) 02:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable: frequently uses Wikipedia as a source. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:14, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable: If they are (whomever "they" are) citing Wikipedia, there's clearly an issue with the reliability of such a source, regardless of use by others. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 01:38, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
• Mostly not reliable. Using Wikipedia ss a source is a red flag. Not seeing it cited much n my quick glance at Scholar/Books. I think in some cases it may be used with due care as a PRIMARY source, and I think it may host copies(?) of some possibly, and I stress, poissbly (I need to look into this further) reliable articles ([22]), but those uses would be an exception to the rule. PS. On second thought, I am not sure JVL has permission to even reprint that article, so even its use as a mirror might be problematic due to a possible copyvio angle.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:28, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable, at least not for anything concerning Palestine/Palestinians (It might be reliable for things concerning Judaism.) Take the Deir Yassin massacre, which becomes "The capture of Deir Yassin": a total white-wash which ends with: "References to Deir Yassin have remained a staple of anti-Israel propaganda for decades because the incident was unique." (My bolding)

That is simply complete bulls..t. There were several other massacres, some larger that Deir Yassin (see eg Al-Dawayima massacre); what was unique about the Deir Yassin massacre was that it was the most publicised of the massacres, Huldra (talk) 23:06, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable any site that duplicates content from Wikipedia can't be considered reliable. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:22, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: The Indian Express

Given that references to The Indian Express are used in a lot of India-related articles, editors are requested to comment on its reliability.

Please choose from the following options:

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Reliable, but may require further investigation
• Option 3: Unreliable for certain topics (such as those which may be considered controversial)
• Option 4: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 5: Publishes incorrect or fake information and should be deprecated.

Regards,— Vaibhavafro ^💬 06:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Survey (The Indian Express)

• Option 1 More discussion needed/unclear. I am not sure one regional government decrying a source is enough.Slatersteven (talk) 12:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC) Seems that it is only one regional government not being happy about bad publicity, not enough to say this is unreliable.Slatersteven (talk) 12:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:11, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1— Brihaspati (talk) 14:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 - A solid, centrist newspaper that runs excellent op-eds by prominent specialists. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1. To affect our assessment of its reliability, evidence of factual inaccuracies would have to come from independent commentators. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2 depending upon particular article, topic area, and the claim being source. I list option 2, not because I am off-hand aware of IE intentionally spreading "fake news", but because even the best Indian newspapers need to be read critically due to their (understandably) greater reliance on unnamed sources; not always clear separation of reported facts and analysis; and, fluffy coverage in the non-hard news sections like entertainment, lifestyle etc (eg, articles such as [23], [24] etc). Abecedare (talk) 21:32, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1: Even though that report[25] still appears fishy to me, I am willing to ignore it on the basis of the fact that it has been quoted in other mainstream media([26],[27]). The Indian Express often gets quoted ([28],[29],[30]) in mainstream international media; therefore, it may be considered to have a "reputation for reliability" that characterizes a reliable source. Regards,— Vaibhavafro ^💬 14:05, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Fowler knows what he's talking about. Still, it's a fallible WP:NEWSORG and editors should use common sense before assuming that it's right. buidhe 00:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 It remains one of the independent, reliable publications in India and qualifies as a WP:NEWSORG. Governments accusing media organisations of being "fake news" doesn't make them so especially in India. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 04:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 they definitely meet the WP:RS threshold for WP:V,and also WP:NEWSORG.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 05:36, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 the question of reliability depends not only on the source, but on the context. Even questionable sources may be reliable for statements about the source itself. Conversely, even a top quality newspaper is not a reliable source for a biomedical claim. --RexxS (talk) 16:39, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 per above. ~ HAL333 21:57, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (The Indian Express)

I would want to see more than an accusation by a government, such as a NGO. But this is enough to say we should attribute anything they say.Slatersteven (talk) 08:53, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Vaibhavafro, if you would like to make this discussion a formal request for comment, could you please use a "neutral and brief" statement as explained in WP:RFCBRIEF, and then apply the {{rfc}} tag with at least one RfC category? Wikipedia:Requests for comment has a full description of the process. — Newslinger talk 09:26, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Newslinger for the reminder. I am pasting the non-neutral statement here: The Indian Express has been recently accused([31],[32]) of spreading fake-news([33]) by the Gujarat government, I think it would be appropriate to invite comments on its reliability.— Vaibhavafro ^💬 12:04, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

And thank you for reformatting the RfC, Vaibhavafro. I've added the standard survey/discussion sections. Slatersteven, I placed your comment in the discussion section since it didn't specify an option, but feel free to move it to the survey section if it belongs there instead. — Newslinger talk 12:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics. — Newslinger talk 12:16, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not sure The claim here is that a newspaper journalist interviewed a representative of a hospital. The hospital representative claimed to have 1) orders from the central government 2) and on those orders provided separate treatment wards for patients based on religion. There is some heavy social conflict here. I recommend no particular action right now but it is fine to record this case, and see if in the future there are more similar instances. We would not typically make a judgement based on one case. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Indian Express is one of the (better) mainstream newspapers in India and as such Option 1 or 2 would apply. However, I don't think we even need an RFC yet especially just based on these tweets. A governmental denial does not fake news make. The IE article quoted the hospital's medical superintendent and an (unnamed) patient for its claim, and then solicited and quoted statements from the states's Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, and city Collector who all "denied knowledge" of the segregation. The state's health department later issues a "reports are totally baseless" statement (which is provably incorrect, since the superintendent's statement, at a minimum, provide a basis for the reporting), and we start an RFC questioning the publication's credibility? Abecedare (talk) 13:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Even though Indian governments aren’t quite press-friendly (press freedom in India is quite low), they don’t usually react to criticism by singling out certain media reports. The claim published by Indian Express has the potential to communally charge the atmosphere in Ahmedabad and has also received coverage in international media([34]). If there was nothing wrong with that claim, I don’t think that the government would have reacted so pointedly. Also note that The Indian Express’s estranged sibling The New Indian Express has already been caught spreading fake news[35]. In view of this, I thought a RfC would be necessary.— Vaibhavafro ^💬 13:54, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Not sure this is true [[36]], [[37]], [[38]], its rather more than "quite press-friendly". They may not ALWAYS respond to criticism, its clear they are not beyond stifling the news media if it is critical. Thus any claim by any Indian government body must be taken with a bucket full of salt.Slatersteven (talk) 14:05, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1. I can't speak to the details of the one report mentioned by the nominator, but The Indian Express is a generally reliable Indian newspaper. It belongs, in my view, with The Hindu, which is the best, the Statesman and the Kolkata Telegraph, to the top four Indian newspapers.) It might not be always reliable for the minor reports but its major reports, its independence, are impeccable, of a piece with the world's best. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1. Indian Express is one of the prominent newspapers in India. I don’t think government denial makes newspaper unreliable. Government has its own claim while reporter did their own duty. These things are not repeating after every interval.— Brihaspati (talk) 14:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

We do not need "votes" in both sections.Slatersteven (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Are there previous discussions at WP:RSN about this? What is the WP:CONTEXT of this particular dispute? Are we willing to assess the reliability of this source as a whole based on a single story? --MarioGom (talk) 14:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@MarioGom: The Indian Express was accused of spreading fake-news by a regional government of India. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to discuss its reliability (even though most editors already consider it quite reliable). That's the context, nothing much. Regards,— Vaibhavafro ^💬 20:22, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Burden of proof for disputed

Where a source has been appropriately tagged in good faith as disputed, e.g. using {{sps}}, {{dubious}}, {{better}}, on whom does the onus fall? Guy (help!) 12:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

1. On those seeking to include the source, to show that it is reliable as used, per WP:ONUS;
2. On those seeking to remove the source, to show it is unreliable, per WP:PRESERVE.

Opinions (burden of proof)

• 1, because anything else is a POV-pusher's charter. Guy (help!) 12:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• 1, since WP:PRESERVE depends on WP:ONUS. WP:PRESERVE states that:

Likewise, as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), Verifiability and No original research.

The words "would belong" link to WP:ONUS, and WP:ONUS is part of the verifiability policy. WP:ONUS takes precedence over WP:PRESERVE regardless of cleanup tags, so the cleanup tags aren't really relevant here. — Newslinger talk 13:17, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

• 3. Neither, because this is a false dilemma that attempts to misrepresent/strawman the actual issue, as several editors have raised in the discussion section. No one is arguing with JzG about the purported subject of this RfC. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• It depends, as we have had cases of editors in the past that have mass-tagged with these types of labels which have been shown where the tagging is wrong. Where there is consensus that the tag applies, then the onus does fall on those that which to retain the source and/or information to ultimately deal with it, though the process of how that happens depends on numerous factors. So it's not a simply-answered question here. --Masem (t) 13:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• 1 - this is a rather straightforward application of existing policy, as Newslinger points out. A converse rule also faces the problem of proving a negative. Neutrality^talk 15:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• 1 - WP:BURDEN is policy, the countervailing claims aren't. This is straightforward application of fundamental Wikipedia editing policy. Anyone claiming otherwise needs to do the reading - David Gerard (talk) 21:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• 1: I just took the time to carefully read all of the linked policy/guideline pages (always a good thing to do when one is already pretty sure what they say) and choice 1 is indeed a a rather straightforward application of existing policy. Plus, the person posting it is named "Guy" which I am sure everyone will agree^{[Citation Needed]} is always a big plus. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• 1 per Newslinger and others, and per WP:BURDEN and WP:DON'T PRESERVE. Also, it's better for Wikipedia to not say a thing than to say a false thing, which is why we insist on reliable sources. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• 1: WP:ONUS's statement that The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is upon those seeking to include disputed content is a clear unqualified statement.
  On the other hand, WP:PRESERVE's statement is qualified by if they meet the three article content retention policies, which is predicated on demonstrating that the material indeed completely satisfies WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR. Whether a claim that the material satisfies those policies is assessed, naturally, by consensus. Once consensus determines that these are satisfied, then the content should be preserved. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:43, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• 1, unless the source appears in green on the list of perennial sources. If there is already consensus about the source’s reliability then all that editor needs to do is note that consensus (perhaps in the edit summary of a revert) and the onus transfers to the challenger. I’ve seen instances in which the reliability of a source like the NYT or Telegraph is questioned on the talk page and the challenger actually expects to be taken seriously, there is a limit to onus. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:07, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• Not a valid question as posed, are we talking about new or long standing content? Is the tag in dispute? I agree with The Drover's Wife that this isn't a valid A/B question and with Masem's thinking. Certainly if something fails V then it can be removed. However, if a difference citation that passes V is found then we should treat that content the same way we would any other reliably sourced material (sink or swim based on WEIGHT, CONSENSUS etc) and if it was long standing content it should be assumed to have consensus for inclusion. What if the tag is in dispute? If there is no consensus on the validity of the tag then I think we follow the same rules as consensus, that is lack of consensus means keep as is. Else editors could game the system by tagging the sources that support content they don't like as suspect and use that as reason to remove long standing text. So while #1 is the correct answer in many cases it is not the correct answer in all cases. Springee (talk) 17:24, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (burden of proof)

This is one of two interlinked issues above - they need to be picked apart. This is my attempt to distil the central point The Drover's Wife is making, which seems to me to be a valid question. Guy (help!) 12:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

This is not, in any way, the point I was making. You've got a bad habit of deliberately misrepresenting the explicit points your critics make so you can shoot down your own straw-Wikipedian. As I said below: this is a false dilemma, because sources being tagged as self-published does not mean they're being tagged as "disputed", they're being tagged as self-published, and we have specific guidance as to what to do in those situations in WP:SPS. If you don't want to follow Wikipedia guidelines regarding self-published sources, you need to propose an RfC to change those - not to engage in this bizarre attempt at wordplay circumvention where you claim all self-published sources are "disputed", therefore allowing you to ignore existing guidelines. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:51, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

False dilemma? If the problem is serious enough, the whole text being referenced should be removed, not just the source. --MarioGom (talk) 12:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

This seems to me to be a false dilemma for a different reason - the addition of a tag to an article does not necessarily imply a substantive dispute about the article's content. Quite a bit of tag-bombing is gratuitous IMO and represents one editor's ideosyncratic opinion rather than an actual dispute. So I would say that content isn't "disputed" unless there is a Talk page discussion underway, in which case BRD, BLPDELETERESTORE and ONUS would be among the competing principles at play. Newimpartial (talk) 12:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

False dilemma, as for the others. A source being tagged as self-published means that it has been tagged as self-published, not that it has been tagged as "disputed" or "unreliable", and so Wikipedia has always provided the guidance in WP:SPS as to what to do in those situations. JzG evidently disagrees with WP:SPS, so he's been trying to turn this into a burden of proof issue to allow him to sidestep that guidance. He doesn't have to show that it's unreliable, he just has to follow Wikipedia's existing guidelines regarding what self-published sources are appropriate and when even if he doesn't want to. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Can we please not rehash this again in a new thread?Slatersteven (talk) 12:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm good with closing this WP:POINT nonsense and sparing the rehash, yes. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

At this point you are involved, and that we not be appropriate.Slatersteven (talk) 12:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I said I was good with closing it, not that I would do it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:14, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Don't know the context this arose from (update: what I get for looking at most recent first -- reading through the other discussion now; in any case, it doesn't affect what I write here), but my thoughts are similar to Newimpartial's here. It's unclear what the implications of this RfC would be. Is a tag considered valid by default? Is the burden on the tagger to present an argument first? Is this about tagging, removal of tags, removal of sources, removal of sourced content, etc.? Why is this based on tagging at all? What difference does that make to a challenged source? Ultimately, WP:PRESERVE is a good idea to keep in mind, but doesn't trump WP:ONUS/WP:BURDEN when material/sources are challenged, but I don't think there's any neat way to frame that in an RfC given the amount of gray area there is. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I think this might be better if rather than this we had a discussion (maybe at village pump) about having a clearer definition of when to use SPS.Slatersteven (talk) 13:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

• I am OK with that as well. But there are different kinds of SPS. Blogs, vanity presses and predatory journals are all kinds of SPS. Guy (help!) 15:46, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

True, but the issue is not "is it an SPS" but "can we uses this SPS". So either the tag "SPS" must mean its a dodgy SPS or it just means its an SPS. What we need is clarity on what the tag is for.Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:SPS and WP:ABOUTSELF between them cover just about any situation in which I'd think it logical to use an SPS, and both of them are plenty specific - I'm not convinced that we'd be even having this discussion if JzG (and anyone else in that boat) just read the damn policies and acknowledged that they understand that they exist. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

just read the damn policies Your assertion that he literally hasn't is frankly bizarre - David Gerard (talk) 22:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, well, to be fair, they do get edited over time, and not always by people looking to retrospectively make their edits compliant. Guy (help!) 22:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The whole crux of this dispute (at least the portion of it that I'm involved in) involves JzG removing self-published sources that are compliant with WP:SPS and WP:ABOUTSELF. It is impossible to resolve it if neither if you will acknowledge that they exist and engage in any way with why you are not following them. There would be no point having this noticeboard at all if everyone responded in every case "I refuse to engage with the existing written consensus guidance on this source or group of source, I argue that it's unreliable anyway and demand that you prove me wrong", which is what the various responses amount to an attempt to do. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:29, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

The Drover's Wife, {{citation needed}} Guy (help!) 23:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, no one is saying SPS can never, ever be used. Just that those who want to use it have the burden of demonstrating why it can be and getting consensus for it. Concerns over tag bombing seem irrelevant because the tag is really a side issue - SPS are SPS regardless of tagging. Just because one can tag an SPS instead of removing them does not imply that SPS should be left in place - material can be tagged as unsourced or OR as well, but the same material can also be removed per WP:BURDEN and WP:NOR. Tag vs. removal is optional based on whether you think the content may be reliably sourceable/due and that someone else may find a source. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:14, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

We already have in/out policies in this area: WP:SPS and WP:ABOUTSELF, both of which are long-accepted. Refusing to acknowledge that those policies exist and claiming that there's a "burden" of convincing a random editor that they should have to follow said policy is a stance that, if adopted more broadly, would make this entire noticeboard essentially moot: why bother establishing clear guidelines on the usage of sources if they can be ignored on a whim when someone disagrees with them? The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

If a self-published source can be shown to be written by a subject-matter expert, or if the use of the self-published source can be shown to qualify under WP:ABOUTSELF, then WP:BURDEN is satisfied. — Newslinger talk 10:51, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Is African Independent a reliable source?

Can we use https://www.africanindy.com/ as a reliable source? Anders Kaas Petersen (talk) 14:14, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

According to their about us page, they are also publish as a paper magazine sold in airports and major hotels in a number of African countries. They also have contact information, so I think they should be OK. But they have only been used as reference on four pages, so I would like to know if they can be used as source or not. I'm thinking to use https://www.africanindy.com/culture/taher-jaoui-delves-into-africas-artistic-diaspora-26134293 on the page [[39]]
I'm doing that page as paid editing Anders Kaas Petersen (talk) 14:14, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Survey (African Independent)

• Huh. Specifics please? Articles, content? Any input from the relevant Wikiprojects? Guy (help!) 22:21, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Seems OK. I looked through their website and didn't see any red flags. It's an actual print magazine published by African News Agency. Their stories seem well-researched and not inflammatory. I don't see anything click-baity or agenda-driven. Looks good to me. Kaldari (talk) 18:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable as run by a reputable news agency, no evidence of problems with unreliability, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (African Independent)

• Here's an article from the well established Cape Times on the publication's launch as a magazine in 2018: [40] (both are presently owned by the same media company). Since African topics aren't very well covered here and the publication is so young, it makes sense that there have been so few uses of it so far.-Indy beetle (talk) 07:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa, Wikipedia talk:Africa-related regional notice board. — Newslinger talk 06:10, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikitree

• wikitree.com  

Being used as a reference for the ancestry of lots of people. Looking at a random example the entries appear to have "Profile managers", and looking at the profile manager for that page there's no evidence he has any kind of professional experience. The various member types on the website are detailed here, and I can see nothing that convinces me this is a reliable reference at all. FDW777 (talk) 16:59, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

No, it's not reliable. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:14, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

With 562 articles using it as a reference, it looks like a big cleanup job. Does anyone think it should be blacklisted? FDW777 (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to say that they have a Wikipedia article (WikiTree).--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:54, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

FDW777, it can be added tot he edit filters, ask at WP:EFN. Guy (help!) 18:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

This absolutely should be blacklisted imo. There is no value outside of the article about it. @Primefac: could a bot run be done to remove the link and replace with {{cn}} or something? Praxidicae (talk) 19:03, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

• Blacklist and if possible use a bot as above. Doug Weller talk 14:30, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I have to admit I didn't look too closely at the random example I gave above. The entry is for a Lennis (Lowe) Washington, born in 1924. It's good on who her parents, sister and husband were. It's less clear on who her son was, describing him as [private son (1950s - unknown)]. Perhaps if I mentioned the husband's name it would be more enlightening at who her son was, Denzel Hayes Washington Sr? Denzel Washington is her son according to our article, despite Wikitree's investigation not being able to provide a name or birth date, or even year, for her son. FDW777 (talk) 18:03, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Filmreference.com

There really needs to be a discussion with a goal of adding to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. It has been previously discussed here, here, here, and here (likely partial listing). There is general consensus that the site is not reliable because there is no editorial oversight. Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Resources#Repository of resources notes: "Not a reliable source for article use; use only for research purposes". -- Otr500 (talk) 12:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

It's already blacklisted. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:02, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Otr500 (talk) 05:01, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Is the Florida Bulldog reliable?

Is the Florida Bulldog online news outlet reliable for Biographies of Living Persons or other topics?
ToeFungii (talk) 09:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• The Florida Bulldog is an online news outlet that focuses on investigative reports according to its mission statement (See Here).
• Began as a county reporter in 2009 and starting in 2015 began covering South Florida news.
• Reported extensively, including FOIA lawsuits, regarding 9/11 (although not used on any Wikipedia 9/11 articles).
• Has: published conflict of interest policies, a full-time editor, a Board of Directors, a Board of Advisors, and a donor list; a 501C3 operation that does not post its IRS Form 990s.
• The exact size of its staff and their level of employment is difficult to determine.

Note: The primary reason this source is being listed is due to content on Gregory Tony. The Bulldog published an unfavorable article about Mr. Tony who contradicted statements in a traditional & online newspaper, the Sun-Sentinel.
The two articles are: Bulldog article | Sun-Sentinel article.

Comments
Well its does seem to have a clear line between editor and writer, but I note a disturbing obsession with 11/9. I would need to see that have a good reputation.Slatersteven (talk) 09:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment Not exactly answering the question, but does he even merit an article? not sure what category Sheriffs fall under to check the notability requirements. Certainly doesn't show WP:GNG at present - its a BLP, with only two references! Curdle (talk) 13:32, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• That seems to be wrong Sun-Sentinel link posted above. The Sun Sentinel article discusses the Florida Bulldog article for what it's worth.[41]. Not only this, the underlying decades old Philadelphia Daily News news story about the shooting is discussed here.[42] Morbidthoughts (talk) 16:47, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

* Biased - The Bulldog appears to be similar to the Washington Examiner and Times in that it leans/slants its reporting. In looking through the Bulldog's staff, directors, and advisors they all appear to lean a particular political way based on past position (incl elected/appointed) and donations. Its historically top donor is Michael Connelly who according to the FEC has donated frequently to liberal/Democrat candidates and organizations (he's donated over $40,000 per year since 2014 and over $10,000 since the site began.). See donors and FEC Contributions, but others are also liberal/Democrat contributors. So while it has a better structure than a blog, it has a definite political viewpoint that is expressed in its articles. Also the Bulldog's biggest claim to fame is its 9/11 reporting as it devotes a significant portion of its site to it, but none of its reporting is used as a cite here on Wikipedia.

For the article in question, Tony was appointed by a Rep, so even though he is a Dem, he's not the chosen Dem. The Bulldog article never lists its story sources, and it's since been picked up by other news outlets. If Tony had in fact been charged, there would be a paper trail and it's never sourced in any article. Tony can't prove a negative, ie he wasn't charged, so all he can do is make statements. as proposer ToeFungii (talk) 19:33, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The Jewish Week reliability?

How reliable is The Jewish Week? It reports that Shai Reshef is the son of Polish-Jewish Holocaust refugees. A Wikipedia user who says they are a content manager for his university started this discussion, stating that the info is incorrect (from first hand experience). How should this be handled? TJMSmith (talk) 12:57, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

His first hand experience is wp:or.Slatersteven (talk) 15:24, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• It is a respected NYC publication. Doesn't mean it is universally right, The New York Times has errors on occasion as well. If you can't find a second source, you might as well leave it out as it is a small detail.--Bob not snob (talk) 07:04, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Not fully weighing in here, but it appears that its recent coverage is deemed pretty good by the New York Times for investigation of a case of sexual misconduct [43] [44]. There are other significant stories, but at the very least it has gotten respect from other institutions for its investigative journalism in this particular case. ([45] Jpost, too) Jlevi (talk) 02:59, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

So we're opening up an RS and removing cited stuff from an article because an anonymous person on the internet claims to be employed by a university and says the information in an RS is false? In that case, I just happened to have met Joe Biden at the local Acme and he confirmed that he will be picking me as his running mate. Feel free to edit that into his article. Even if the person is the person claimed, there still is RS. Regardless, the Jewish Week is an RS as shown here, it has a history of reliability, use by other sources and covers a niche market when necessary. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:05, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

• Per Jlevi's findings, a fair amount of search results on Google Scholar and the lack of any obvious controversies, I think we can consider it to be a RS for its coverage of Jewish topics. As far as Shai Reshef is concerned, the editor in question needs to make an argument based on available sources, and until then I'll see you at the Biden-Joseph campaign rally. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:12, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable no compelling evidence of unreliability, one uncorroborated example is not sufficient imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:45, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

(Infomercial voice) But Wait! There's still more!! (News about The Daily Mail)

• Daily Mail fakes own historical front pages --Guy Macon (talk)

Quote from WP:DAILYMAIL: "The Daily Mail may have been more reliable historically"

We need to modify our handling of old pages from The Daily Mail to say that care must be taken to cite the original historical material and watch out for modern, edited versions. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:23, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Christ on a stick, what is wrong with them? This is exactly why some of us do not think the "discouragement" goes far enough.Slatersteven (talk) 15:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Strongly suggest removing the text "Some editors regard the Daily Mail as reliable historically, so old articles may be used in a historical context" from WP:RSP, or cautioning also that they literally fake their own historical articles. Never trust the DM - David Gerard (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

That's bizarre. Instead of using their own historical material, they took the trouble to invent fakes that look "old-timey" (and they buried a vaguely-worded disclaimer four pages down). Do they think that slightly yellowed images won't bring in the clicks? Is fabrication simply their instinctive course of action? In any case, I support David Gerard's suggestion. XOR'easter (talk) 19:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I could formulate a rewording ... but idiots try to drive trucks through anything that looks like an exception. So I'd suggest this behaviour is egregious enough to remove the sentence. If people want to argue it case by case they can show they went to a microfilm archive or something, 'cos we literally can't trust the online version or reprints not to make stuff up - David Gerard (talk) 22:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

That would be my take, There are archive versions not held by the Daily Myth. Thus any use if the DM must be independent of the DM.Slatersteven (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:, in this case BoingBoing seems to be insinuating that the Mail may have been trying to make themselves look less pro-Nazi, so there is a motive beyond a contempt for journalistic integrity. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

To be fair it looks more like a case of "our readers are so shallow they cannot understand anything not couched in modern terms and style". What I do not understand is why bother to make so much effort to create a "Fakesimalie". They could have done a "Yay for us 70 years ago" without "faking" a front page so totally (such as "for King and Empire").Slatersteven (talk) 09:44, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Remove wording. This is yet another reason why we cannot trust this source. buidhe 01:10, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Done.[46] --Guy Macon (talk) 12:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I would rather this had been given more time for wider feedback, not that I disagree.Slatersteven (talk) 12:53, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

• I am tempted to revert that for 2 main reasons: 1. The inclusion there is the result of two RFC's. The wording is a summary of those RFC outcomes. By changing the wording fundementally in that manner, it no longer reflects the RFC. What that change does is prohibit (at least that is what it will be taken to do) all uses of Daily Mail historical material. It certainly needs a bigger discussion than the brief one here. 2. Its using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The Daily Mail despite its more recent faults has plenty of decent reporting over the decades previous. We cite the original publication, not The Daily Mail's reworked version of it. A more appropriate response would be adding wording to ensure the material cited has been verified from copies of the orignal. We take it on good faith anyway that written sources we dont have access to say what the editor says they do, and any editor using this as an excuse to misrepresent sources would be rumbled pretty quickly. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:07, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Personally I would we rather used a nuclear bomb over such blatant crappyness, but I get your point, and said as much myself early on. Yes I would rather you reverted and this was made a formal RFC to overturn the last two.Slatersteven (talk) 09:04, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

See [47].

Looks like I need to start a new Daily Mail RfC in order to make any changes to the Daily mail entry in the perennial sources list. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:51, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

See below - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

So we are using a situation source (Boing Boing) to determine the RSP entry of the Daily Mail, that seems rather odd. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 11:58, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

It would if that were an accurate summary of the above. Fortunately, it isn't - David Gerard (talk) 12:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The term for it is historical negationism which has an illustrious history of practitioners. It is beyond the pale given it is an attempt to rewrite their own history as Nazi sympathizers. -- GreenC 13:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

RFC: Remove "reliable historically" sentence from WP:RSPDM summary

The WP:RSP summary on the Daily Mail includes the sentence "Some editors regard the Daily Mail as reliable historically, so old articles may be used in a historical context". However, the Daily Mail also presents altered versions of its historical content, as documented above. (At the bottom of the altered content was a small single-sentence disclaimer noting it had been "specially edited and adapted" - which was not noticed by many members of the general public.) This leaves readily available historical versions of Daily Mail content questionable - as well as its untrustworthiness per the 2017 WP:DAILYMAIL RFC and its 2019 ratification, the site dailymail.co.uk appears not to be trustworthy about the Daily Mail's own past content.

Suggested options:

1. Remove the "reliable historically" sentence from the summary on WP:RSP
2. Add a qualifier: "Note that dailymail.co.uk is not trustworthy as a source of past content that was printed in the Daily Mail."
3. Do nothing
4. Something else

10:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Suggested action on WP:RSPDM

• Remove the sentence - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove as the material they did publish might be reliable, they are just not reliable for having published it. But if it is reliable someone else would have written about it. Thus (and given the possibly of accidental or deliberate abuse) I have to change to remove, if they cannot be trusted over what they themselves have published they cannot be trusted over anything.Slatersteven (talk) 10:14, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove per David Gerard's reasoning below. As a secondary consideration, we should be discoraging use of historical newspaper sources anyway. buidhe 10:39, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove, with the caveat that the print edition may pass, so a print archive might be acceptable? Guy (help!) 11:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

So (in essence) remove and add qualifier?Slatersteven (talk) 11:59, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't even add suggested ways to use the DM, they'll be taken as blanket permissions - David Gerard (talk) 12:54, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't look likely to pass, but an official WP consensus opinion that dailymail.co.uk is not a reliable source for the content of the Daily Mail would certainly be interesting - David Gerard (talk) 19:11, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

• Remove the qualifier, per Slatersteven, and also the notion that these sort of qualifiers confuse the situation. --Jayron32 14:29, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Add a qualifier (though perhaps not needed as obvious). If the dailymail is unreliable, that may extend to their own historical content. But if you pull a dailymail piece off a microfilm archive or online archives not run by the mail ([48], [49]) then there shouldn't be any problem in that regard.--Hippeus (talk) 14:32, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• In my opinion, the best answer is [A] just remove all mention of historical from the Daily mail entry of RSPDM, and [B] have the closing summary of the RfC you are reading now specifically mention that a microfilm archive or online archives not run by The Daily Mail is as good or as bad as the source where you read it. Having this subtlety in the RSPDM will indeed lead to misuse. Having it in the RfC closing summary will allow any editor to use the historical page (assuming that her local library's microfilm collection or www.historic-newspapers.co.uk are reliable sources for what was printed all of those years ago; if some other source starts faking historical newspaper pages we will deal with that specific source in the usual way). So I !vote Remove. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Bad RfC I will not say "support" or "oppose" because that might suggest respect for the WP:RSP essay-class page, which I do not have. It is in fact quite easy to see document images for back copies of the Daily Mail via Gale. (I did so for the May 2 1945 front page via my local library site for free, I assume that others have good library sites too.) WP:DAILYMAIL makes it clear that editors have a right to use such material in some circumstances, regardless what people say in this thread. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove the sentence, and add a statement that historical content on dailymail.co.uk may have been significantly modified from its original version. XOR'easter (talk) 00:08, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Add a qualifier It is possible to trust archives that were archived by trusted sources such as a national library, at the time of publication. Trustworthy archives exist as evidenced by the original BoingBoing post that found the original. -- GreenC 13:24, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on WP:RSPDM

I think we should just remove the sentence. It's ill-defined and not well supported in the RFCs themselves - when, precisely, was the DM not terrible? By what measure? - and IMO, encrusting a qualifier with further qualifiers is not clear. And qualifiers have historically been used by editors who want to use bad content as an excuse to add otherwise-unusable content - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking that there are things they are notable for (such as the photo of St Pauls), but then if its notable others would have noted it, we don't need to use the (well this) Daily Myth).Slatersteven (talk) 10:19, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

If the result here is "Remove", it would probably also make sense to include an explanation that prevents this from being interpreted as contradicting the original conclusions. Maybe something like, "The original WP:DAILYMAIL RfC left open the possibility that it may have been more reliable historically, but a subsequent RfC [link to this discussion] determined..." Sunrise (talk) 12:56, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

certainly - it'll be linked as a third listed RFC, link it from WP:DAILYMAIL which is the 2017 RFC ... there will be various sensible ways to handle it. The present text has been modified in uncontroversial ways before, e.g. I noted other "dailymail" domains which aren't the DM, and dailymail.com used to be a proper newspaper, the Charleston Daily Mail, which is in fact used as a source in Wikipedia, before the DM bought it from them - David Gerard (talk) 14:19, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

certainly not - that would modify the closed and archived WP:DAILYMAIL RfC even though the subject here (read the topic, read the questions) is not about that, and even if it were it would not be legitimate here. If you want to overturn what the closers concluded in WP:DAILYMAIL your recourse is WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I think WP:RSPDM in general is not as well written as it could be, and undermines itself in significant ways. In particular, it does not cite its sources or attempt to justify its objections. In order to find those sources we are presumably expected to trawl through a total of 45 separate discussions.

The Daily Mail is a well-established newspaper with relatively wide circulation. It is well known that it is biased, and it is also well-known to be disliked by precisely the sort of demographic that (one would assume) would edit Wikipedia. Given the zeal with which the DM is removed, it is quite easy for someone not intimately involved in the debate to conclude that the issue is not so much that the DM is unreliable, but that editors who denounce it do so for POV reasons. Particularly when the text being removed is something inherently subjective (e.g. a movie review) or where it is used as an example with explicit attribution (e.g. in a section on press coverage of an event).

It might therefore be useful to augment WP:RSPDM and WP:DAILYMAIL with a new essay, putting the reasons for our attitude to the DM and giving appropriate examples so that editors less familiar with the history can catch up and understand why it is being removed. Kahastok talk 15:10, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

No, that's nonsense. The DM has similar politics to the Times and the Telegraph, but - and this is the key point - those behave rather more like papers of record that aren't given to fabrication.

The primary objection that Wikipedia-type people have to the DM is that they are repeated, habitual liars who make stuff up, and are extensively documented as doing so. Do you really not understand that that's the problem? - David Gerard (talk) 22:24, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I suppose it's probably too much to expect you to actually read what I wrote before writing an abusive response. Kahastok talk 10:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Additional RfC Question: Under what conditions can we trust The Daily Mail?

(Background discussion moved from section above. See below for the actual additional RfC question)

Let's talk about the basic error in thinking that led us here. Again and again I see people claiming that they "just know" that:

• The Daily Mail wouldn't lie about a direct quote,
• wouldn't fabricate an interview,
• wouldn't lie about whether the person who's name is on the top of an editorial is the author who actually wrote those words,
• wouldn't lie if that "author" has a sufficiently famous name,
• wouldn't lie if doing so would result in a lawsuit or fine,
• wouldn't lie about material being original and not plagiarized with a few errors thrown in to make better clickbait,
• etc., etc.

Those who "just know" that there are times when the Daily Mail isn't lying expect the rest of us to find, not just multiple examples of The Daily Mail lying. but examples of them lying in every conceivable situation. Last week I had no idea that The Daily Mail might lie about the contents of their own historical pages but I knew from experience that they lie in all situations. Now I have an example of them lying in this new specific situation. I am getting sick and tired of playing Whac-A-Mole. At what point do we simply conclude that those who "just know" that The Daily Mail doesn't lie in some situations "know" no such thing and that The Daily Mail will lie about ANYTHING? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

You will of course believe that this is precisely a problem I keep hitting in DM removals. "Surely it's reliable for his words!" No, why would you think that, it's the DM - David Gerard (talk) 17:17, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Based upon the above, I propose the following:

There are no situations where the post-1960 Daily Mail is reliable for anything. See below for claims about itself.

• If TDM publishes an interview, that does not establish that the interview happened or even that the person interviewed or the person doing the interviewing actually exists.
• If TDM publishes material under a byline, that does not establish that the person named wrote it, even if the person s famous or a paid TDM contributor. TDM can and will fabricate any material and publish it under any byline.
• If TDM publishes material, that does not establish that TDM has the right to publish it or that it was not plagiarized from another publication. All material published by TDM should be treated as a possible copyright violation.
• If TDM plagiarizes material from another publication, that does not establish that TDM did not edit it, introducing false information.
• Regarding using TDM as a source about itself, we can write "On [Date] The Daily Mail wrote X", but we cannot use any internet page controlled by TDM as a source for that claim. TDM cannot be trusted to not silently edit pages it publishes without changing the date or indicating that the page was edited. We should instead cite the Internet Archive Wayback Machine snapshot for that page. For printed pages, we need to cite a source that TDM cannot modify, such as an independent online archive or a library's microfilm collection.
• (added on 19:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)) In particular, the dailymail.co.uk website must never be used as a citation for anything, including claims about the contents of the dailymail.co.uk website or the print version of The Daily Mail. We are not to assume that what we read on any dailymail.co.uk page is the same as what was there yesterday, nor are we to assume that the content will be the same tomorrow, nor are we to assume that there will be any indication that a page was edited. We also are not to assume that users in different locations or using different browsers will see the same content.
• Even in situations where we have yet to catch TDM publishing false information, TDM is not to be trusted.

Note: I picked post-1960 because 1960 was when David English started his career at TDM. If anyone has evidence of TDM fabricating material before then, we can change the cutoff date. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Additional RfC Question Discussion

• Support as proposer. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support As it is becoming clear that they cannot even really be trusted for their own opinions.Slatersteven (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• The "1960" date - or any other date, or possible or impossible excuse - will absolutely be taken as a green light for open slather on filling Wikipedia with DM cites - I base this claim on the spectacular examples of DM fans trying to find loopholes in the words "generally prohibited", including one earlier today who claimed that "generally prohibited" didn't mean completely prohibited, therefore his use was probably good.

So I would not support listing a date without strong support for the DM ever having been good at any previous time - that is, clear positive evidence, rather than a lack of negative evidence.

Examples of all the things they do would probably be good too.

I would also explicitly note that the dailymail.co.uk website (by name) literally cannot be trusted as a source for the contents of the Daily Mail, amazing as that sounds - David Gerard (talk) 17:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Point well taken. I just removed the "post-1960" wording. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:41, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I also added a paragraph covering the possibility of TDM serving up different content to different users. There are documented cases of e-commerce sites giving you a high price if you are using an iPhone and a low price if you are using Windows XP, higher for Beverly Hills and lower for Barstow, etc. It would be technically possible for TDM to serve up different content regarding, say, Brexit to UK, US, and EU readers, and really hard for us to detect them doing so. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:07, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

See below for what DM advocates are like in practice. I could do with backup here from those who can actually read policy - David Gerard (talk) 23:34, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support without the post-1960 wording - David Gerard (talk) 19:46, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support without the post-1960 wording, per above. Let's not waste any more time on this garbage source. buidhe 20:37, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
  • BTW, if people really want to get rid of DM references - talk on WP:RSN doesn't have any effect against dedicated DM warriors (and there really are dedicated DM warriors). The refs need to be got rid of, one edit at a time, and their removal defended (using literally our actual policies). This search is a good start - just start at the top and work down, judging usage and removing or replacing per the RFCs. If a few people even did ten a day, that would help improve Wikipedia greatly - David Gerard (talk) 20:43, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Is this unique to the DM?

Do other news sources do this? If so, we probably need to address it at the policy (WP:RS or WP:V) level. Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Ish, I seem to recall that mock newspapers are common enough, but something tells me they are rather more obvious about not being genuine. But yes I can see this may need to be more general.Slatersteven (talk) 14:12, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

We would have to find a source that [A] Is willing to lie about/fake anything at any time, and [B] has been around for over 100 years. Infowars will lie about anything but nobody is going to believe a claim that something was published by Infowars in 1917. The New York Times might say "we published X in 1917" but they haven't shown themselves to be willing to lie about anything and everything. As far as I can tell, there is only one source that fits both [A] and [B]. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:06, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Typically you'll see a scan or image and then the actual original text as text - you won't see the actual thing the DM did, which was to say in the headline:

Read history as it happened: Extraordinary Daily Mail pages from the day Adolf Hitler died 70 years ago this week

and then - as a tiny text box in the bottom right corner of the fourth cover image:

SPECIALLY adapted and edited from the original Daily Mail editions of May 2, 1945 and April 30, 1945

without even the original images. And with the text of the articles changed from the 1945 text.

If you wanted to claim this is something that other newspapers do, requiring a general solution, I think you'd need to first provide evidence of other papers doing this - David Gerard (talk) 17:21, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

No this is totally not unique. If you are from the USA, hear this, people know in the UK and Ireland that the tabloids are sensationalist. Sensationalism is not a dirty word in the newspaper media over here. All national sized newspapers are openly biased in one way or another. The least sensational is the London Times (not the Irish Times, the Irish-only national papers are almost as bad as the British ones). This does not mean they are like the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News. That is not what a tabloid is over here. The newspapers are all walking the sensationalist line over here. Like your TV news. Ours is the other way around. Our TV news is almost impeccable. Newspaper news used to feature a teenage girl with her boobs out every day. Get it. Understand. It's not a secret. Our TV news over here is like your National Geographic. They are impeccable, documentary style, highly esteemed. Our newspapers are like, boobs out, SPLASH SHOCK EVERY SINGLE DAY HEADLINES, every single day. You can rely on them for daily gambling news. Newspapers here are the actual authority on that. One of the less popular daily tabloids, the Daily Sport, is nothing but gambling and boobs. There have been sitcoms about British tabloids since maybe forty years ago. They are not ashamed of what they are. It is simply what they are. ZOMG LET ME ASK YOU AGAIN CAN I HEAR THIS RIGHT???? Yes. Just like that. It has muted over the years, but it is still obvious. They run conflicting stories, they sensationalise, *they are often an important informative part of culture*... not simply nonsense like the Weekly World News, always based in fact... but that is as far as they can be surely trusted. If they say a bomb went off, you can be sure one went off... If they say the sky has fallen down, yes, get your umbrella out. Do they receive letters from Elvis on Pluto... no that is not what people are saying about them. Can you trust them to word and check facts as an impeccable source of information? No!! They are sensationalist. They actually try to walk the line between being honourable and being in court. They are not ashamed of that. They exhibit personality, bias, seriously... people do not respect them at all... people love them... You've watched or seen Japanese gameshows, and thought, maybe a lot of the Japanese are actually crazy, right? But RTG... how is newspaper culture supposed to compare to crazy Japanese gameshows??? Well... we can't do Jerry Springer and Oprah like you can... can we. It's like having a different accent. We stress different words. We have different attitudes about different individual things. Overall, it's pretty much the same insofar as it can be. It's like getting to know a different city. It might be north-south. It might be east-west, or it might be none of the above. ~ R.T.G 17:34, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Re "Our TV news over here is like your National Geographic. They are impeccable, documentary style, highly esteemed", see [50] and [51]. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:02, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay, well you can't win them all, but the non-regional newspaper press defaults to popular sensationalism, not impeccable documentarianism. We rely on these sensationalist journals because they are popular and free on the internet, but they are off the cuff, and that is not what Wikipedia is trying to be. Good grief, did I delete the part where I pointed out that we have "newsagents" instead of "drugstores"? Newspapers are very useful to culture over here to inform people of incidents and events in the world around them, but they exist to sensationalise. ~ R.T.G 14:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

dailymail.co.uk reversion: eyes wanted

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

---

Problem at For Your Eyes Only (short story collection) - see reversion with dismissive edit summaries, ignoring obvious policy issues, and personal attacks on Talk:For Your Eyes Only (short story collection). More eyes needed.

I'll flag more of these in this section as they come up - I assure you, this is an absolutely typical example of the genre: ignore all policy and guidelines, dive straight into the personal attacks - David Gerard (talk) 22:56, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Stop being a disruptive little edit warrior and stop with the outright lies. If you’d bothered to read the bloody message on the talk page, you’ll see that I said I would replace the source. Stop being such a dramah monger. - SchroCat (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Please desist in your personal attacks - these are a violation of the policy WP:NPA. I believe my claims are fully supported by the material in the history and on the talk page - you reverted against policy and strong consensus, and made personal attacks. You also responded to citation of policy with citation of essays. Have you considered following Wikipedia hard policy, such as WP:BURDEN? - David Gerard (talk) 23:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

No personal attacks, and stop being so disruptive. I have said I will find a replacement in the morning (I first said it about 5 or 6 posts ago, but you've ignored it and kept disruptively pressing your point). Take your little crusade elsewhere until I've had the chance to look properly. It's 12:40am and I'm off to bed, but (for the nth time), I will look again in the morning. In the meantime, reflect that there are ways and means of doing things, and you are not doing things terribly well. - SchroCat (talk) 23:39, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

www.dailymail.co.uk is not an acceptable source. You say you have a better source? Then use that source. Do not re-insert any citation to The Daily Mail. Also, please don't make obviously false claims like "No personal attacks" when 23 minutes earlier you posted a personal attack ("Stop being a disruptive little edit warrior... Stop being such a dramah monger.") --Guy Macon (talk) 01:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

FFS... You really don't bother reading what people say, do you? "You say you have a better source?" I've not said that at all. On several occasions I have said that I will look for one,after a night's sleep. If you are looking for the best way to piss people off with your little crusade, you've found it: an inflexible approach of edit warring to instantly remove information that has been in place for several years, without allowing a few hours for that information to,be replaced? Get a fucking sense of perspective. As to the supposed PAs: I have given a fair description of your approach to this situation. Now back the fuck off for a few hours to allow for a search for a new source. - SchroCat (talk) 04:10, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Or you know, you get a sense of perspective and re-read WP:BATTLEGROUND/WP:CIVIL. Leave the unreliably sourced information out until you have reliable source to back it up. Like everywhere else on Wikipedia. The world will not end if those passages are missing from the article for a few hours. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Seconded. SchroCat, I don't even need to leave this thread to see you ignoring policy and being combative and disruptive. Guy Macon clearly read what you wrote, he fucking quoted your personal attacks! If "dramah monger" really does fall under WP:SPADE, then it would be perfectly reasonable for the rest of us to suggest that you're the one starting the drama as if out of some sense of blind entitlement, and being a hypocrite in expecting others to give you a few hours to bring in a replacement source instead of just letting the page not have that information during that time. Ian.thomson (talk) 05:26, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• He obviously didn't read it, given what I've said, but if you want to back up a disruptive process by using personal attacks to call me a hypocrite with a "sense of blind entitlement". then I guess the blindness is thick on the ground here and the PAs are fine to throw around. As I said on the talk page, the information has been in the article for several years, and to a source that is not banned (and yes, Headbomb, the world will also not end if those passages remain in the article for a few hours while an alternative is sought - particularly as some was removed and some left with a cn tag - no logic there at all. And I'll let you strike your sentence saying the information was "unreliably sourced": it wasn't). I had acknowledged that I was going to look for an alternative source, and yet that still gives someone the right to edit war, rather than a few hours grace to find an alternative? Common sense has been replaced with the crusading zeal way too much. You lot have an apexcellent way of pissing people off by not bothering with common sense and choosing the most inflexible and disruptive path that inconveniences readers. - SchroCat (talk) 05:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

BTW, I've struck the lie in the title: I am not an advocate for the Mail and never have been. I voted in favour of the ban of the source and I'm glad to see it being removed, but it's the manner and method of that removal that is disruptive. Find a different way to deal with it, rather than edit warring and then calling me a "DM advocate". (That also falls under NPA, but I don't expect anyone will bother with leaving stupidity messages to warn Gerard about civility with name calling). - SchroCat (talk) 05:54, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the 2017 RFC and 2019 RFC, I don't see you on either. Did you change usernames? - David Gerard (talk) 19:56, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This edit removed a reference to the Mail on Sunday. Has the Daily Mail ban been extended to the Mail on Sunday? While they have the same owner they are editorially distinct as far as I am aware. From what I recall of the discussion all the evidence of falsified stories/quotes related exclusively to The Daily Mail title and its online presence. Betty Logan (talk) 06:38, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Neither WP:DAILYMAIL or WP:DAILYMAIL2 covered the Mail on Sunday and there has been no RfC since then that would mean the source is unsuitable. Nice to know the disapprobation of the above (not to say the edit warring and grief) has been over the illicit removal of information cited to a source that is not deprecated. - SchroCat (talk) 07:06, 9 May 2020 (UTC) p.s. I've tweaked the title again to reflect the reality. - SchroCat (talk) 07:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

SchroCat,

• Did you make this edit?[52]
• Did that edit add the source www.dailymail.co.uk?
• Did you also add "work=Daily Mail" in that same edit?
• Is www.dailymail.co.uk the URL for The Daily Mail?
• Did I revert you with this edit?[53]
• Was my edit summary in any way unclear?
• Did you then edit war to re-insert the source www.dailymail.co.uk?[54] again?

These are simple questions. You should be able to provide yes or no answers to each of them, but please do feel free to explain, in detail, why your edits actually added (and were reverted for adding) The Daily Mail] but you are now claiming[55][56]that they only added The Mail on Sunday? --Guy Macon (talk) 08:56, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Was this or this removing a banned source? Yes or no? Did this whole annoying mess start with the boundaries of WP:DAILYMAIL and WP:DAILYMAIL2 being pushed to delete information removed from a legitimate source? Why, when you removed the www.dailymail.co.uk source (rightly), do you feel it suitable to edit war to delete information cited to a legitimate source? These are simple questions. You should be able to provide answers to each of them.

And again, it comes down not just to the removal of information (some of which was removed illegitimately, some legitimately), but in the crass and inflexible way it was done. As the information has been there for over a decade, was it urgent that it was removed immediately, even after I had said I would look for an alternative after a night's sleep? Again, this is a simple question. You should be able to provide an answer for it. - SchroCat (talk) 09:04, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

A less easy to answer question is how many illicit removals have been made of information sourced to the Mail on Sunday? I do hope that a concerted effort is made to replace the information that should not have been removed. - SchroCat (talk) 09:27, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Evasion noted. I will take your refusal to give a straight answer as an admission that in this edit[57] you did indeed insert a citation to The Daily Mail. Again, please stop claiming that you only added a citation to The Mail on Sunday.

Re "Why, when you removed the www.dailymail.co.uk source (rightly), do you feel it suitable to edit war to delete information cited to a legitimate source?" First ONE REVERT IS NOT EDIT WARRING. Please retract your false accusation and apologize. Second, I am not required to carefully examine your edits and remove only those portions that violate Wikipedia policy. It is your responsibility to make edits that follow policy. If someone reverts an edit of yours that contains a policy violation along with other material, It is your job to create a new edit that only contains non-violating material. Instead you purposely re-inserted the citation to www.dailymail.co.uk -- a citation that you yourself admit is not allowed. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:15, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

"One revert is not edit warring": yes it is, despite the shouty caps and bolding, if there has been a back-and-forth a couple of times and you join in, then you were as guilty of edit warring and me and Gerard. So no, no retraction, and certainly no apology. As you seem to be trying to avoid any responsibility for removing information cited to a legitimate source, there is little I can (or wish) to say or do. But you keep telling yourself you are perfect and I am the bad guy, if that's the way you want to go. You were in the wrong for some of these actions. Your evasion on the question of how much legitimate information has been removed is noted. No surprises. I'm off; I'll leave you to have The Last Word - I'm sure you'll enjoy that. - SchroCat (talk) 11:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

And again you misrepresent Wikipedia policy. WP:EW says "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions... What edit warring is: Wikipedia encourages editors to be bold, but while a potentially controversial change may be made to find out whether it is opposed, another editor may revert it. This may be the beginning of a bold, revert, discuss (BRD) cycle. An edit war only arises if the situation develops into a series of back-and-forth reverts." (emphasis added). Making false accusations against other editors is a form of personal attack. I think it is becoming clear that your behavior is something that needs to be dealt with at WP:ANI. Given the previous blocks in your block log for edit warring and personal attacks, an indefinite block is likely. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I misrepresent nothing. I was actually blocked for undertaking one revert in an edit war between two others, so feel free to take that case up on my behalf. And if you honestly think that going to ANI is a beneficial step, crack on and do just that. Or is it an empty threat and a way to raise my block log? Don't ping me to this page again, I really have no desire to discuss anyone so willfully obtuse who refuses to acknowledge that they have erred even in the slightest (I have admitted it, by the way: it's just you who are trying to evade any sense of doing anything wrong.) - SchroCat (talk) 12:31, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Follow-up comment I think there are two issues that emerge from this discussion:

1. It appears that Mail on Sunday is not proscribed by either RFC, and as such citations to it should not be removed without further discussion.
2. There is then the manner in which the sources to The Daily Mail are being culled. While a consensus exists to remove it as source I cannot honestly say this edit exemplifies good practice. The problem with The Daily Mail is that it is untrustworthy, but much of what they report is still accurate. This was acknowledged in the RFC, and one of the arguments advanced by editors in favour of a ban was that an alternative source could be located for credible claims in most cases. Unfortunately this solution is being thwarted by an aggressive culling campaign. This edit removed legitimate encyclopedic information, which is probably to the detriment of the article. In the case of non-controversial claims that are not about living people would it not be better practice to simply remove the source and replace it with a {{citation needed}} tag? While SchroCat technically shouldn't have restored the source I get the sense from him that what he was really doing was restoring the information, and he eventually located alternative sources. Is this not the most desirable outcome?

Betty Logan (talk) 19:40, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Betty Logan, the Mail is deprecated. That means it's untrustworthy. If something is only in the mail, we can't use it; if it is in another source as well, use that instead. Don't use the Daily Mail as a source. Or any tabloid, for that matter. The print edition of the MoS may be considered reliable case by case. But is still a tabloid so a better source is always preferred.

I have two particular problems with the Mail as a source for Wikipedia. The first is how it's used, which is often for trivia, especially salacious trivia (that's their speciality, google "all grown up"). The second, and related, is the notorious "sidebar of shame". I have a serious problem with linking to any site carrying that kind of bullshit from any Wikipedia article. Guy (help!) 10:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

So a "quality broadsheet", e.g. The Times, The Daily Telegraph, etc., which quotes the Daily Mail as it's sole source would be acceptable? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:42, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Martinevans123, yes. They can be expected to have fact-checked it. But calling the Telegraph a "quality broadsheet" is a bit of a stretch these days. Guy (help!) 11:26, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

How would you describe it? Next on the list to be a banned? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy, no-one is claiming that the Mail should be retained as a source. Two RfCs (in which I voted to ban its use both times) have confirmed that. What we are talking about is two different things here: 1. Much of this grief started because Gerard edit warred to remove a citation from the hard copy Mail on Sunday. That should not have been removed, and he has still to account for that. 2. The process when information from the Damily Mail or dailymail.co.uk is flawed. In this case the information has been in the article for over a decade, and yet it was suddenly necessary to delete it immediately without providing an adequate window to find a replacement? No. That's just dumb. It doesn't help our readers and it annoys the crap out of people. I said on the article talk page right at the start that I would find a replacement, but this was ignored, and the edit warring continued. How does that help anyone? As it was, the information was finally left in the article overnight (UK time) until I was able to find a replacement in the morning. I cannot see any benefit in the inflexible, unthinking immeditate removal-without-the-option approach. The information is still in the article, and all now connected to a reliable source (two sources at one point). The best outcome has been achieved despite the fervour for the inflexible and immediate approach. - SchroCat (talk) 10:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I had always assumed that anyone removing a DM source was supposed to search for an alternative source, or add a {{cn}}, or both. Not just remove both DM and the info itself wholesale in one edit. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I do not recall that ever being said, and will make more work as at some point the unsourced material might have to be removed (per wP:v.Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

As opposed to "make more work" by having to search for the info and a fresh source all over again? Isn't one expected to search for a better source for information sourced to any unreliable source? Isn't that normal procedure? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Tagging with {{Deprecated source}} would also have had the desired effect of highlighting the problem. If such a tag had been left on there for a day or so, that would also have avoided all the kerfuffle; as it is there has been a lot more work invoved because someone edit warred to remove a source that is entirely legitimate`. - SchroCat (talk) 11:07, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

True, but it is a users choice if they wish to remove badly sourced information or tag it. There is no policy that even implies you should add back badly sourced information. We gain nothing with tags all over the pace saying "bad source" "dodgy information" "BorisJophnsonsaidit", we do however (I would argue) lose. Wikipedia has a reputation for unreliability. If our articles are littered with crap even we think is unreliable that image is hardly going to improve.Slatersteven (talk) 11:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I certainly wasn't suggesting we "add back badly sourced information". Quite the reverse. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:35, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Martinevans123, no, the onus is on the person including content to find reliable sources. It's an instance of BRD. There have been attempts to claim this by people who fundamentally oppose the entire idea of deprecation, but it's not policy. Guy (help!) 11:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Some of this information was added when the DM was still considered to be WP:RS? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:35, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

So? If it is now a dodgy source its a dodgy source.Slatersteven (talk) 11:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

So Guy said "the onus is on the person including content to find reliable sources". I'm just saying that when it was originally added the person may well have been justified in using the DM as a reliable source. A person just removing the source now isn't adding anything. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:09, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

No they are removing something we now know cannot be trusted for information. What Guy said applies just as much to wanting to add information back (or indeed retaining information). This is why the DM was deprecated, because of its massive over use. We now have to clean up that mess.Slatersteven (talk) 12:16, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

But there is absolutely no need to do it in such an inflexible and disruptive way. When Gerard removed a legitimate source and edit warred on it, there was no mess to clean up. When two editors decided to delete information supported by the Press Association and a Scottish newspaper, we're crossing a line between responsible housekeeping and disruptive editing. The orginal title of this section was "‎DM advocate". I'd rather be called a cunt that a DM advocate, but such is the mindset of a small group of zealots that anyone who asks for an 8-hour moritorium on removal is the subject of abuse and lies. Your call on whether you think this is an ideal pathway for the inhabitants of the RS board to behave, but I suggest the approach needs a rethink. - SchroCat (talk) 12:24, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

We seem to be talking at cross purposes. It looks to me to be a rather odd case of WP:BRD. I'm just suggesting that removing material and a DM source wholesale, without any attempt to find an alternative source, might do more harm than good. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

True, but wp:brd is clear that once material, has been removed it is down to those who wish to include it to make a case at talk, not just add it back with a change of source (you are right, by the way, the new sources should have been enough as far as I can see). Thus (whilst) the DM part of this debate is about RS, the rest is not.Slatersteven (talk) 12:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah. So all those instances where I've followed David Gerard round and re-added stuff with a good source (and which he's consistently thanked me for), I should have instead taken to the Talk page? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC) And it's not like I've really "followed him round" at all. I've seen his standard edit summary about DM pop up in my watchlist and when I've gone to look at the deletion I've thought "oh that looks like a very reasonable claim, there must be at least one other RS source that supports that...."

That's taking a misreading of BRD too far for any common sense approach. If the source is being challenged, then replacing the source is sufficient, even if that is just replacing exactly the same information, including qquotes. - SchroCat (talk) 12:50, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

We also have wP:agf, I have no idea abvout this case but I have had trouble finding sources others have found. You are assuming no effort was made.Slatersteven (talk) 12:52, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

A more useful edit summary might say "I've looked for a better source and I can't find one, so am removing"? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Three things: firstly, I was talking in general about providing a different source when material is challenged. (Don't forget that the verification policy says that @Material that fails verification may be tagged with {{failed verification}} or removed". There is, written into policy, a way that information does not have to be unthkingly removed as a matter of course. It can be tagged for a short period to allow for a replacement to be made. Secondly, If it is removed, there really is no reason to have to discuss replacing it with an alternative source on the talk page. Replacing the information with a new source is entirely appropriate. Thirdly, it seems that a few people have said they can't find the information (although raising AGF is a bit of a straw man here). I found it in two sources and Sarah SV found two sources using variants of the quote made to different journalists; I also found another variant on the official Bond site. Just because the person desparately removing as many DM sources as quickly as possoble didn't find an alternative (and yes, that does pre-suppose they bothered looking), it doesn't mean the infomation isn't there to those who know how to look for things properly. - SchroCat (talk) 13:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

SchroCat, Oh, so David's actions resulted in better sourcing. So we're good then. Shall I close this? Guy (help!) 11:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, may as well gloss over the removing of a legitimate source and the sub-standard way people are demanding the immediate removal without thought to the loss of legitimate information. The lack of flexibility is always a given when a crusade is in progress. - SchroCat (talk) 11:49, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Can we please only discuss the DM, anything else just confuses the issue.Slatersteven (talk) 12:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

As long as we are clear that the Mail on Sunday (paper version, not online) should not have been removed. At. All. Neither should the other sources. Part of the problem is that I have seen no comment from Gerard to acknowledge that they were wrong to remove it in the first place and doubly wrong to edit war to remove it a second time. I hope this disruptive approach is not something that is going to be repeated. In terms of the DM info, allowing a short moritorium on finding a new source seems to be a common sense way of approaching this, rather than such an inflexible approach that is currently in favour. - SchroCat (talk) 12:44, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

This RFC is about the daily mail, only the DM and just the DM. If you have other RS issues start a new thread. If you have issue about user conduct this is not then place.Slatersteven (talk)

Actually this sub-thread is (currently) titled "dailymail.co.uk reversion: eyes wanted". Since its opening post it has been nothing to do with the RfC (as such it should never have been a sub-thread of the RfC in the first place; the topic of discussion has not essentially changed since the first post, given we are still discussing matters relating to the opening post). We can change it from a sub-thread to a full thread if you prefer? - SchroCat (talk) 13:10, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

As this is not (and does not appear to be) an RS issue, but rather an issue over user conduct this is not the right venue anyway.Slatersteven (talk) 13:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Very true. Once has to question way it was opened in the first place, and why a personal attack was used as the original title. Never mind - but I really don't have high hopes that this has made any difference, and will not be surprised when it inevitably happens again. - SchroCat (talk) 13:19, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

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

Another unreliable source? (www.dailymail.co.uk and www.mi6-hq.com)

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

---

In this edit,[58] SchroCat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) replaced a citation to [ www.dailymail.co.uk ] with a citation to [ www.mi6-hq.com ]

[59] says "We are a not-for-profit fan website, maintained by men and women passionate about the subject."

[60] says "Want to join a community of Bond experts that has been growing since 1998? MI6 is made more diverse, engaging and current thanks to it's regular contributions by guest authors. We are constantly on the look out for authors, photographers, artists, videographer, podcaster or reviewers, all with a passion for James Bond in print or on the screen. If you have an original idea for a feature, or some tidbit to share, please get in touch with our team."

So, generally reliable or self-published fan site?

The quote "it relates to the fact that if you don't have that Quantum of Solace in a relationship" comes from [ www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-510171/Live-Let-Dye-Daniel-Craig-turns-clock-darkened-hair-007-photocall.html ] (25 January 2008). mi6-hq.com published it at [61] on 30 January 2008. This highlights one of the problems with replacing citations to The Daily Mail; if you search for other sources that say what DM said, you find a bunch of low-quality sources that pretty much parrot what was on the DM page a few days earlier. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Pretty obviously not an RS, no - David Gerard (talk) 22:25, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I am getting the usual insults and refusal to follow Wikipedia policies at Talk:For Your Eyes Only (short story collection)#Replacing one unreliable source with another? (www.dailymail.co.uk and www.mi6-hq.com). Normally I would report this at ANI, but I am still recovering from my recent Cardiac Arrest and I don't think the stress would be good for me. Would someone else here be willing to file it? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:30, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

It gets worse and worse. He now claims that in the last few days you went to a library, found not just one but two sources that by an amazing coincidence just happen to contain the exact same quote from The Daily Mail that he edit warred to keep in, and yet for some inexplicable reason he cannot remember who Daniel Craig said it to or when he said it. Meanwhile, the person he says authored the source (Noah Sherna) doesn't seem to exist, but in yet another amazing coincidence, Sherna Noah writes for The Daily Mail.[62] --Guy Macon (talk) 01:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Don't lie. I have claimed nothing of the sort. I have also made no comment on who Craig said it to, so I am unsure where these falsehoods come from. I have advised exactly how you can verify the source, so try reading what I have said properly and use the link provided. - SchroCat (talk) 01:48, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, Sherna Noah works for the Press Association. The Guardian also has a version of the same quote; I've left it on the talk page. It appears to be the same point made during an interview with a different reporter. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:08, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, someone needs to read WP:FANSITE. Guy (help!) 10:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy, no they don't. Macon needs to ensure he posts all the facts and 1. doesn't miss out key points (like two other reliable sources were added shortly afterwards), and 2. he doesn't lie, like he has above (I did not claim I went to the library and I did not say anything about who Craig was talking to; feel free to look at the article talk page to find out where I have said either of those things. They are entirely false). BTW, FANSITE shortcuts to Wikipedia:External links, which isn't the guideline you are after - you mean WP:UGC, which advises against, but it certainly doesn't provide a blanket ban against all such sites. - SchroCat (talk) 10:50, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

SchroCat, mi6-hq.com isn't a fansite, then? Someone should tell the person who maintains it. Wikipedia isn't a fansite either. These articles would mostly be improved by being about half as long. Guy (help!) 11:25, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy, that's not what I said. I was pointing out the link you provided, to FANSITES, actually discusses the addition of fansites in external links, not within articles. The pertinent link on this occasion WP:UGC, which advises against, but it certainly doesn't provide a blanket ban against all such sites. - SchroCat (talk) 11:46, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

When you tell a person to verify a sources by going to a library, meanwhile refusing to say where you checked the source, a reasonable person would conclude that you checked it in a library. (later you decided to reveal that you checked in using an online source). When you repeatedly refuse to answer the simple question of where and when Daniel Craig said that, a reasonable person would conclude that you most likely can't answer the question. When you quote WP:UGC, claiming that it allows use of fansites (the actual wording is "Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is also generally unacceptable") a reasonable person would assume that you are either incapable or unwilling to follow Wikipedia's rules (something we have already seen with Wikipedia's rules againstr personal attacks). When you repeatedly claim that if you make an edit that violates Wikipedia's sourcing policies, the person reverting you is somehow required to carefully search your edit for any portions that don't violate Wikipedia's policies, and you just flat out ignore it when you are told again and again that there exists no such requirement, a reasonable person would assume that you are either incapable or unwilling to even discuss whether you are following Wikipedia's rules.

This all started with you edit warring to retain [ www.dailymail.co.uk ] as a source and with David Gerard asking you to follow our rules.[63] and correctly identifying [64] that your behavior is typical of someone who fights to keep The Daily mail as a source. Your subsequent behavior here has demonstrated that he was right. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

"When you tell a person to verify a sources by going to a library": I didn't. I told you to go to THE library - the one we have on WP. I even fucking linked it for you. If you're not able to click on the link despite it being handed to you a second time, I do begin to wonder just why you are being so obtuse. Other inaccuracies here include "you quote WP:UGC, claiming that it allows use of fansites": you'll have to read what I said a little more closely. I said "WP:UGC, which advises against, but it certainly doesn't provide a blanket ban against all such sites", and actually there is some deliberate leeway in the wording of the guideline (for example, if such a site was being written by one individual who was a published expert in the area, then it would be a point for discussion). "incapable or unwilling to follow Wikipedia's rules" another tedious PA you like to throw out, and hopelessly wrong too, ditto the link to IDHT - all tiresomly inaccurate.

More nonsense follows; "This all started with you edit warring to retain [ www.dailymail.co.uk ] as a source". Again, that's a straight lie. This started when Gerard removed a reference from the paper version of the Mail on Sunday. A legitimate source. I'll keep repeating that a legitimate source was removed until it finally sinks in and you stop telling porkies. "your behavior is typical of someone who fights to keep The Daily mail as a source" Another straight out falsehood. I don't know how many times I have had to say that I support the ban on the Mail (that I voted for twice) and the idea it should be removed: it's the crass and inflexible way it is being done that it disruptive. Now, if you're done with trolling and telling lies, I'll leave you to it. There is nothing contructive to be had in listening to more falsehoods from you - you appear to be in competition with the Mail to see how many inaccuracies you can cram into each line. - SchroCat (talk) 15:46, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

[self-reverted] --Guy Macon (talk) 16:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, this is thoroughly out of order. SchroCat, it would be better not even to respond. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:51, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• I have already asked you once not to ping me to this page. Stop. You are behaving like the worst sort of disruptive troll. Stop. - SchroCat (talk) 16:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• mi6-hq.com? Is that Mike Corley? Guy (help!) 10:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Mike Corely appears to be focused on conspiracy theories involving MI5 persecution. I don't think he has much interest in James Bond, but of course mi6-hq.com is a fansite where anonymous users can post content, so you never know. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Can we please not discus 15 different sources in one thread?Slatersteven (talk) 15:34, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

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

Daily Mail: The halving

In Q3 2018, there were 27,336 uses of the Daily Mail as a reference on Wikipedia. At this moment, there are 13,630.

The cleanup of the backlog of bad sources continues. Please use a search something like this one, and help improve Wikipedia. If a few people can each do even ten a day, that'll make Wikipedia a noticeably better place - David Gerard (talk) 21:13, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

CGTN (China Global Television Network)

CGTN is an international news channel and website, that is ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Its widespread availability makes it comparable to Russia Today. It has only been briefly discussed once a few months ago where it was noted to not be used in any articles. This number is now over 500 articles  . CGTN has attracted controversy for airing forced confessions. My questions about its reliablility are:

• 1. Is it a generally reliable source?
• 2. Does it have a history of mixing factual reporting with propaganda, as with Russia Today?
• 3. Is it reliable for reporting on China and Chinese politics?

Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:21, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

• 1=No. 2=Yes. 3=No. There shouldn’t be too much debate over this one, the general tenor of the reporting can be summed up by this piece,"By following CNN, we find how they make fake news about Xinjiang” [65]. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:28, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable in very limited contexts (to support the fact that the Chinese government issued a statement about events, for example). But in-text attribution is needed. Blueboar (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
• 1. CGTN publishes a lot of good material on many topics, comparable to other national broadcasters for non-controversial topics. 2. I don't know, it may be better than Russia Today for some topics, but see the next point. 3., use WP:INTEXT attribution for contentious topics (e.g. Xinjiang re-reducation camps), not for routine stuff (e.g. date of the appointment of an official). --MarioGom (talk) 00:02, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

  By the way, skimming through the list of articles that use it as a source, I think a lot of them (majority?) are good examples of contexts in which CGTN is perfectly usable. MarioGom (talk) 00:10, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

• More or less the same as other state-owned media:
  1. For topics that aren’t as politically sensitive like tourism information or uncontroversial cultural highlights, it’s somewhat acceptable. For politically sensitive topics, it’s only reliable in very limited contexts, e.g. for statements on government statements as Blueboar mentioned.
  2. There’s a fair amount.
  3. Only in limited contexts as mentioned in 1: mostly only reliable for government statements. Assessments and criticisms given by CGTN can be carefully mentioned with attribution.

As usual, it should be used with care and WP:INTEXT attribution if the topic is remotely controversial. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:43, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

• CGTN tends to be generally reliable for non-political contexts. Articles such as this are just as good quality as articles from other news sources, on topics that English language news sources rarely themselves cover. For political or controversial contexts, statements made by CGTN should be attributed to CGTN themselves. CGTN should rarely be used for politically sensitive or controversial sources without attribution. To specifically address the questions of Hemiauchenia: 1. Generally reliable for non-political contexts, such as culture and tourism. 2. CGTN will likely present politically sensitive or controversial topics in a way to support the Chinese government. Claims made by CGTN should be attributed when they are made, and CGTN should not be used in these contexts very often. 3. It seems to be reliable reporting on China-related topics, although topics on things like government activities should always be treated with caution and attributed when used (as I mentioned in point 2). Khu'hamgaba Kitap ^talk 14:01, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable (1. No; 2. Yes; 3. Not for controversial topics or politics in any geographic area). China Global Television Network (CGTN) is a propaganda channel owned by the Chinese government. It is modeled after the Russian propaganda channel RT (Russia Today) (RSP entry), and should – at best – be treated similarly. Other similar sources discussed on this noticeboard include the Chinese state-owned magazine Sixth Tone (RSP entry) (which is classified like RT), the Russian state-owned news/radio service Sputnik (RSP entry) (which is considered generally unreliable), and the Bolivarian propaganda channel Telesur (RSP entry) (which is deprecated).

  CGTN's broadcasting of forced confessions places CGTN lower on the reliability scale than all of the other aforementioned sources. Here is an excerpt from the Associated Press (RSP entry) describing alleged victim Simon Cheng's account of the most recent incident:

Cheng's account of forced confession

In his 14-page complaint made public on Thursday, he says he was shuttled between detention and interrogation centers while hooded and handcuffed, and interrogated while bound in a “tiger chair,” a metal seat with arm and leg locks. He says he was also shackled in a spread-eagle position for hours and forced to assume stress positions for lengthy periods. Eventually, Cheng says he agreed to confess to the minor offense of soliciting prostitution to avoid harsher treatment and a heavy sentence on national security charges. He says his captors filmed him reading out two letters of repentance that they made him write, and then filmed him multiple times making his confession, based on a script they gave him. “CGTN was well aware that the recording they used in their broadcast was extracted under extreme duress and distress,” Cheng said, adding that the broadcaster falsely said he went on trial, when in fact he was in extrajudicial “administrative detention.” "Hong Konger complains to UK about China TV forced confession", Associated Press

UK regulator Ofcom is currently investigating CGTN for at least five (four as of September 2019, plus the most recent one) incidents of forced confessions. If a Chinese source is needed to cite the Chinese government's view on a topic, Xinhua News Agency – which is analogous to Russian news agency TASS (RSP entry) – is superior to blatant propaganda outlets such as CGTN and the Global Times (RSP entry), a Chinese state-owned tabloid. — Newslinger talk 02:30, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

In light of the new RfC on RT, I would support deprecating CGTN as well if this were ever proposed. — Newslinger talk 23:41, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Overall unreliable CGTN is a mouthpiece of Chinese Communist Party as noted by CNBC.[66] It should be deprecated. Mohanabhil (talk) 05:52, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• 1. No, 2. Yes, 3 No. There's a lot of presumptions of reliability working against it. First that it's owned by the state (not disqualifying in of itself), second is the role of the state in imprisoning journalists. And if that didn't seal the deal, the lack of political freedom there more generally. Ultimately, it comes down to ownership and control. There might be some narrow exceptions where there's no independent sources who can speak to an issue (given the lack of press freedom). If I were to recommend a guideline, I'd say a presumption of removal, which could be overridden by WP:CONSENSUS, with the state control noted if the reference is used. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:20, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable Like other government funded sources without independent unreliable editorial board --Shrike (talk) 15:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Two genealogy sites

• royalark.net  
• worldstatesmen.org  

Most of List of current pretenders seems to be drawn from two web 1.0 sites: Royal Ark and World Statesmen.

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 103#Self-published royalty websites showed consensus against using Royal Ark in respect of living individuals (all entries on the pretenders list are living). Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 171#Kekoolani predicated much of its argument on the assumption that this consensus holds. If anything, World Statesmen looks worse.

There are nearly 2,000 citations to royalark.net and over 3,750 to worldstatesmen.org.

It looks to me as if these should be deprecated and added to the unreliable sources filter, as this is functionally indistinguishable from spam at this point. Guy (help!) 18:30, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I think we can also add thepeerage.com   to this list, which has nearly 10,000 citations and appears to be a self published source. What's your opinion on the reliability of Burke's Peerage and the Almanach de Gotha? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:37, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia, ech. Burke's used to be worthwhile but it's hard to say now. That said, both are storied institutions so don't fall into the same bracket as these self-published nobility fansites. Guy (help!) 11:34, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Three genealogy sites

Deprecate the following self-published sources:

• royalark.net  
• worldstatesmen.org  
• thepeerage.com  

Despite being widely used, these do not meet the tests for reliable sources. Guy (help!) 11:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support all as proposer. Guy (help!) 11:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support all per Guy ~ HAL333 21:52, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• This feels like mission creep in terms of the source deprecation process. It was originally created for fake news sites / sites that routinely publish fabricated information, such as the Daily Mail, and not self-published sources like these ones. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 14:28, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

ourcampaigns.com

(ping -A-M-B-1996-) A number of US election redirects (1978 United States Senate election in Kansas, ...Iowa, ...Idaho, ...Oklahoma) have recently been turned into articles using ourcampaigns.com as the primary (and for three their only) source. Previous threads here have not nailed down whether this source should be considered as reliable, but www.ourcampaigns.com/about.html indicates that it is user contributed (though somewhat patrolled?). This source is currently used in about 2700 articles, but does not appear at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources. I believe that it should be listed there, and that at minimum the site's use should be restricted if not deprecated. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 10:07, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

My two cents are that OurCampaigns is a perfectly (and I stress the word perfectly) reliable source for election results and polling; I have cross-checked thousands of results there on other pages and they are always correct. (Contrast this with US Election Atlas, the other commonly-used site, where I have found a small number of mistakes.) On my reading, previous discussion of OurCampaigns appears to be centered on skepticism over its endorsement listings, which mingle actual official endorsements with user post-hoc endorsements, designed to show who a user would have voted for if they were voting in that election. I agree that otherwise-unsourced endorsements should not be cited from OurCampaigns.

However, I agree that the pages are overly-reliant on OurCampaigns and am adding other primary and secondary sources where possible. (e.g. I am transcribing the official Senate Clerk Report from the main pages (e.g. 1978 United States Senate elections to each individual page. I am also working to find primary sources to construct the campaign narrative for each race, but as you might imagine, this is a lot of work.) My schedule does not make this easy right now, but I will work to get it done. Primary elections are a bit more challenging, as the Clerk does not officially report them. But each OurCampaigns page lists a primary source for the results; those could be scraped as well if necessary.-A-M-B-1996- (talk) 15:42, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi -A-M-B-1996-. If their stats and results are reliable then that's good -- my concern was triggered by the description at [67] which could well be accurate, but which I doubt can be considered sufficiently reliable to be used (hence why I believe usage of the site should at least be "restricted"). The risk is that because the site has such editorial material attached to its stats that that may get used, hence why if the stats material is available officially or otherwise without directly attached editorial I believe it would preferable to use that (hence the possibility of "deprecated"). And one way or another, it would be good to have some clear consensus on its usage listed at WP:RS/P for the benefit of WP:NPP. I've posted an invitation to comment at WT:WikiProject_Elections_and_Referendums. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 04:56, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Hydronium Hydroxide, I definitely support restricting use in that sense; the editorial content on the pages is absolutely not reliable as a primary source, thought it could be a good place for editors to start researching narratives about the race and finding actual sources that support those claims. I support restricting the use of OurCampaigns to strictly within the candidate lists and election boxes. Good catch! -A-M-B-1996- (talk) 17:46, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• The primary source should be used whenever possible. While generally accurate, ourcampaigns is still a user-generated secondary source for election results, and we should cite perhaps what they cite. Moreover, bulk production of articles for individual elections is not encouraged. Even for US Senate, a redirect should be maintained for the results in the main article unless there is further prose content warranting a separate article for the election. Wikipedia is not ourcampaigns or ballotpedia and does not automatically need independent pages for each seat contested. Reywas92^Talk 02:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Are '"The Sporting News" articles after 2015 considered reliable sources?

I ask this because I read a specific article today that is rife with inaccuracies, and then I learned that the actual publication went under in 2012, and sometime between 2012 and 2015 the Perform Group basically turned the website into a promotion vehicle for their streaming service DAZN. Reading this part of our article on the topic gives some idea of what happened but not a complete picture.
As a side issue and example, the specific article I'm talking about is here. It states that "Communist countries used professional players while the United States played amateur players" before 1992 - this is misleading, because only NBA players were barred from the Olympics, and any pros from European leagues could play in the Olympics, not just Communist countries'. It also says that after 1998, "USA basketball worked with NBA commissioner David Stern to allow professional players to play" - this is 100% wrong; FIBA voted to change the rule, and USA Basketball actually voted against the rule change; that's well-documented. All of that made me question how such a piece gets printed on a previously-venerated sports publication. Then I learned about the takeover. JimKaatFan (talk) 15:59, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

It looks like the article you link is indeed sloppily written, and perhaps you should point this out to the author and perhaps they will correct any inaccuracies. As for Sporting News as a reliable source, it still is for college basketball. Their college basketball coverage is overseen by Mike DeCourcy, who is a highly-respected journalist. Their All-American team is still considered by the NCAA as one of the four “official” ones used to determine consensus All-American status (and the only publication used). I can’t speak for any other sport (including NBA), but I feel that their college basketball coverage is accurate and should be considered reliable. Rikster2 (talk) 16:54, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Rikster2, I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that's sloppily written. There's currently a problem with an anonymous IP who is attempting what I think are very POV edits to three articles:

Basketball at the 1988 Summer Olympics

Basketball at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament

2004 United States men's Olympic basketball team

They've been using that poor article as justification for a couple of those edits, while simultaneously removing references and the verbiage that relied on those references. Can you take a look and tell me what you think? JimKaatFan (talk) 17:28, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

You're lying. I'm using an article from USA Basketball that clearly states that all pros except for NBA pros were allowed to compete, and you want to delete that and insert a twisted statement that FIBA changed the rules and that lead to Dream Team's dominance. You clearly have some agenda and your attempts to conceal it are weak. 89.113.98.96 (talk) 17:56, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

On my talk page, 18abruce advised me that this IP might be User:Max Arosev. I don't know how to proceed at this point. JimKaatFan (talk) 18:45, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like this discussion is moot, since the IP in question was blocked from editing further. I thank 18abruce and Rikster2 for their help. JimKaatFan (talk) 20:04, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

A publication can be generally reliable yet still publish an unreliable statement or article here or there. In that case, apply WP:DUE if it conflicts with other sources.—Bagumba (talk) 01:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Urban Dictionary

Urban Dictionary is a site that consists solely of user-generated content. Its definitions are attributed only to usernames, which are pseudonyms, and there is no indication that any of its content is written by subject-matter experts.

Urban Dictionary is currently used in 30 articles  . Here are several examples of how the site is being used, all of which are inappropriate according to the verifiability policy:

• Supercut: (A sugar shaker generally is a female's rear end.)
• Keysmash: [Keysmash] has garnered user generated definitions on Urbandictionary since 2007. In May of 2017 Urbandictionary began tracking an increase in activity level on pages related to the term keysmash, and, as of March 2020, recorded the highest peak in activity in October of 2018.
• Nanalan': The show focuses on Mona, a two-year-old girl with a big imagination and a tendency to repeat short words or phrases while also pronouncing them incorrectly.
• Riff: More recently the term rift has entered usage as a mistaken pronunciation of riff [68].
• Lillian Gish: 'Lillian Gish' is sometimes used as rhyming slang for needing to urinate and was referenced by Winston, a character in the Scottish BBC comedy, Still Game.

References

Definitions in Urban Dictionary are also sometimes included as external links, as seen in the Out of Bounds (2019 film), Aftabeh (toilet pitcher), and Internet troll articles. These external links should not be in these articles, as point #2 in WP:ELNO states that "factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research" should generally not be linked to.

Should citations and external links to Urban Dictionary be purged from articles, and should Urban Dictionary be added to the spam blacklist? — Newslinger talk 05:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

As an alternative to blacklisting, an edit filter set to "warn" and scoped to article and draft space can be applied in conjunction with entries on XLinkBot's RevertList and the RevertReferencesList. This would warn editors (and auto-revert non-autoconfirmed editors) who attempt to add an external link to Urban Dictionary in articles and drafts, but not in talk or project space. — Newslinger talk 23:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I added skargasm as EL to Alexander Skarsgård once. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't help it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:37, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

The definitions in Urban Dictionary are usually OK but it is not a blue chip source. It is similar to WP:RS/IMDB in this respect.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:43, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's reliable. I remember using it in a Telegram group, it was making some jokes definitions, not real definitions.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 06:51, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support edit filter: Sites that anyone can contribute to (Wikia, ComicBookMovie, Urban Dictionary, IMDB, user scores, comment sections, forums, "leaks", etc) are not reliable and definitely should not be used as citations. This even includes citing Wikipedia itself. I actually parodied this in a joke page a while back. Except in specific circumstances, anything user-generated is generally off the table in terms of citations. UD is solely user-generated and many of the listings are troll posts anyway, so I can't think of any reason we would ever need to use them as a source. DarkKnight2149 07:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable. Under any circumstances, user generated content.Slatersteven (talk) 09:50, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Obviously not reliable, but why are we even discussing this? Is there anyone that seriously contends otherwise? I oppose blacklisting, simply because it's useful to be able to link to UD in discussions or project pages. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:50, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

  Headbomb, we could EF it though, for main and Draft. Guy (help!) 14:03, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

  Absolutely, yes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:11, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

  I started this discussion because I am seeking consensus before purging all links to Urban Dictionary from article space. Thank you for bringing up the talk/project space usage, because I had overlooked this. I've added a note on edit filters to the initial comment. — Newslinger talk 23:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. Canonically so: user-edited, full of trash, spammed by people who add entries. Blacklist this shite and move on. Guy (help!) 14:02, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable: Indubitably so, but I'm not fully convinced that a blacklist is necessary. I would support an edit filter, though. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 14:23, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable A blacklist may be more drastic than needed, but an edit filter seems reasonable. XOR'easter (talk) 14:48, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support blacklist: confession, I did not know there was a URL blacklist until I read this discussion and clicked the link, but if any site qualifies for a Wikipedia blacklist, it's Urban Dictionary. Unlike imdb, which may be user-generated content but might contain useful information, I cannot think of a single situation in which an Urban Dictionary link should be present in a Wikipedia article. If we're still able to link to it in discussions or project pages (as Headbomb pointed out) then I don't see the problem with blacklisting it. JimKaatFan (talk) 16:14, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

A blacklist would prevent links in discussion, so that's why the edit filter is preferable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:21, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I'm not clear on if a blacklist can have exceptions in talkpage space. Am I really voting for "Edit filter in mainspace"? What's the difference? Honest question. JimKaatFan (talk) 19:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable but useful in some circumstances so I don’t think we should blacklist it. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Edit filter in mainspace per Headbomb. buidhe 20:32, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable, edit filter is fine. BD2412 T 21:03, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable per abov (but i've seen RSes name UD for new words (eg [69]) so can be used only in conjunction with such 3rd parties. --Masem (t) 19:58, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Highly amusing and almost wholly unreliable. An edit filter would seem very sensible. Note: some entries can be quite accurate. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:01, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I protest. It calls Wikipedia "the best argument against democracy". Wikipedia is not a democracy. DarkKnight2149 20:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I'll vote for that. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:16, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable, edit filter Mathglot (talk) 02:07, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable. Some of the stuff there is clearly tongue in cheek.--Bob not snob (talk) 05:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable Surprised this isn't already filtered. ~ HAL333 21:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable It has user-generated content created only for helping people understand definitions more quickly at times. Nothing to do with reliability. Tessaracter (talk) 15:45, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable, edit filter. At least they don't take themselves too seriously, as exemplified by the Urban Dictionary's definition for Urban Dictionary.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 22:45, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• Comment While the content is user-generated, the page-view statistics might be a useful primary source. Koopinator (talk) 15:43, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Media Research Center and its arms (CNS, Newsbusters, MRCTV)

Which of the following best describes the reliability of the Media Research Center and its various arms (CNSNews, Newsbusters, MRCTV)? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:57, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

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

Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:57, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey (MRC)

• Option 3 or Option 4. The organization (and its arms) has no reputation for fact-checking or accuracy. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, MRC is "propaganda clothed as critique"[70]. The MRC rejects the scientific consensus on climate change and has been characterized as part of a movement that seeks to obscure the scientific evidence on climate change.[71] CNSNews falsehoods:[72][73][74][75][76] Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:57, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

• MRC content on climate change:

• Claiming that the real threat is not global warming, but global cooling: "ABC, CBS, NBC news programs ignore scientists and studies warning of potential cooling threat."[77]
• "There's no more clear religion in the mainstream media than the religion of global warming"[78]
• Pushing the discredited Climategate faux controversy long after it was debunked: "Five Years Since ClimateGate: Ten Credibility-Killing Quotes from the Data Files the Media Ignored"[79]
• "ClimateGate 1 Year Later: Networks Barely Cover Scandal, But Defend and 'Exonerate' Accused Scientists"[80]
• "Networks Do 92 Climate Change Stories; Fail to Mention ‘Lull’ in Warming All 92 Times"[81]
• Uncritically citing prominent non-scientist climate change deniers[82][83]
• "Media Myth: Networks Stick to Warming Theme Despite Avalanche of Chilling News"[84]. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 or Option 4. Is there a legitimate use for this source at all? - David Gerard (talk) 21:34, 8 May 2020 (UTC) - nah, let's go straight Option 4 - David Gerard (talk) 22:47, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 or Option 4. Some of the arms, at least CNSNews and Newsbusters, should probably be deprecated regardless of what we do with core MRC content. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 21:38, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Commenting with additional information.

*Newsbusters and MRCTV were proponents of the fringe idea birtherism a few years back, and they were criticized by The Atlantic for this behavior in 2009 [85]: "Conservative media watch group Newsbusters argued, 'Anti-Bush 9-11 'Truthers' get a fair hearing from the New York Times, but anti-Obama 'Birthers' are harshly criticized.'" In a NYT blog, conservative commentator Ross Douthat notes in 2009: "Mark Finkelstein of the ever-vigilant Newsbusters pounced on this last comment, accusing me of pandering to liberals by suggesting that conservatives who 'question Barack Obama’s place of birth are too dense to realize that Hawaii is a state of the union.' I’m not entirely clear on why Newsbusters feels compelled to defend the honor of the birther movement, but no, I don’t..."

*On the other hand, The Daily Dot describes them in 2020 as one of the best partisan fact-checking sites, as well as: "a website that devotes itself to 'combating liberal media bias.' NewsBusters was launched by the Media Research Center in 2005, the same group behind CNSNews.com. It has been criticized by Media Matters and others for its questionable fact-checking techniques."

*AP News seems to include perspectives from Newsbusters as an example of a conservative viewpoint: [86] [87] [88] This only seems to have been done in a handful (<10) articles, and the coverage is minimal (a sentence or two). The AP does not comment on the quality of Newsbusters. Bloomberg does something similar occasionally.

*Adding to Snooganssnoogans's collection of factcheck failures, here is a piece of evidence showing a lack of actual fact-checking: [89]: "We contacted Newsbusters and indeed, their executive editor Tim Graham told us they had regurgitated the story from another source without trying to contact Nance before posting". In addition: [90] [91]

Jlevi (talk) 22:48, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4. Bad enough that there is no legitimate use. XOR'easter (talk) 22:58, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or Option 2 - as with all news media, we proceed with caution and stick to the facts, unless we're citing the opinion of a renowned expert and using intext attribution. I challenge what appears to be partisan criticism as the reason to downgrade these sources. In today's polarized media environment, we can expect to see media being critical of each other because they're typically agreeing with different sets of facts based on their POV. Our job is to maintain neutrality, and we cannot accomplish that if we discredit all conservative views because left-leaning media is critical of them. Also, keep in mind that fact-checkers may have to be critical of the sources they're fact-checking, which means they're not making friends. As editors, we look at the facts and corroborate the material we intend to add or remove in our articles. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:33, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• This editor has provided nothing to indicate that MRC and its arms have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Bizarrely enough, the editor's sole argument for the reliability of MRC is that actual reliable sources have found MRC to be unreliable (!). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Atsme, that's a statement of principle based on repudiation of (e.g.) https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2017/08/mediacloud, but is not specific to this particular source, which is clearly inaccurate. CJR rejects this source entirely, and its statements on things like climate change clearly indicate that it can'ty be relied on.

  I understand that you want conservative sources to be considered reliable. The problem is that mainstream sources are reliable first and political second (e.g WSJ, WaPo) whereas a considerable body of academic research shows that conservative sources are conservative first, last and all points in between. There used to be a time when conservative-leaning media behaved like liberal-leaning media, but that is pretty much over. The conservative media bubble is unmoored from fact. Guy (help!) 23:50, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  I disagree with the two arguments presented directly above that are aimed at discrediting my iVote. With regards to the gentlemen's opinions as to what is or isn't a RS, I remain openminded and responsive to constructive criticism - no one is perfect - and I probably would be more inclined to pay attention to your opinions as to what is or isn't a RS after I see the NYTimes and WaPo return the coveted Pulitzers they were awarded for what the Pulitzer Board described in USA Today as: "deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration." Until then, I choose to trust my instincts and experience as a WP editor, coupled with what I've learned after a very successful 30+ year career as a media professional. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:46, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  You realize you just sunk everyone who had built there argument on yours by going full WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS right? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:51, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  I do not see a right great wrongs argument above. Please explain. PackMecEng (talk) 01:09, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  I believe they’re saying they disagree with the entire way wikipedia defines reliability and that they do not consider NTY and WaPo to be reliable sources. Such an argument would be well beyond the bounds of this discussion. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 01:34, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  That is not what I said or what I meant. There is no RGW on my end - the focus is and should be on using sources in context not deprecating everything and anything, or labeling it unreliable because it doesn't align with a one's political POV - such an argument presented is an argument lost. WP:RS - that's our guideline...WP:NEWSORG, WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS...that is what we follow and use to make our determinations about what sources we cite, depending on context. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:43, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  Ok, @Atsme: what did you mean then? It seems like you’re suggesting that they did inaccurate reporting RE Trump and Russia and as such would be inappropriate to use in that context, did you mean to suggest something else entirely? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:11, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  What you said, and presumably meant, was that you saw the problem as being that we discredit all conservative views because left-leaning media is critical of them - so yeah, that is what you appeared to say and mean. If you seriously claim the NYT or WaPo is "left-leaning", then words have stopped meaning things - David Gerard (talk) 10:31, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  David, CJR is a trusted source - read the linked article if you haven't already seen it. My thoughts about your presumptions and analogy would probably put you to sleep, so with a bit of levity, I invite you to read this article but scroll down to the list #1 - #12. I think Walden may be onto something. 😂 ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:37, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  They are left of say the AP, NPR, BBC, and such.[92] Being left of sources that are closer to the center is what left-leaving means. Though I suspect you already knew that and your comment was just hyperbolic. PackMecEng (talk) 15:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  Your source there says they’re centrist (*slightly* left of center) and are in the same narrow range as the AP, NPR, and BBC. Also just FYI Wikipedia doesn't "discredit all conservative views because left-leaning media is critical of them," you seem to be operating as if that were a statement of fact and not hyperbole. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:11, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

What gives you that impression? I made no mention of it. PackMecEng (talk) 16:14, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I apologize then, thats my mistake. On the core issue I’m still struggling to see Atsme’s point here and I’m pretty sure we share a party affiliation. The MRC family of outlets may be conservative but they have some serious reliability problems, in particular related to misinformation and fact checking. I’ve voted to deprecate RT and CGTN on the exact same grounds elsewhere on this page so the argument that there is no meat on the bones here and its all a liberal charade just doesn't fly with me. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:26, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 or Option 2 per Atsme. Too much eagerness on this noticeboard to make use of powerful tools like deprecation, which should be used in a highly sparing matter. Loksmythe (talk) 22:42, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or Option 2. Many RS outlets refer to MRC as, for instance, a "conservative media watchdog". https://www.google.com/search?biw=2048&bih=1062&sxsrf=ALeKk01xy2gcdRAiOirM0ysvsYKhhdRkbA%3A1589073340798&ei=vFW3XrexMIaoytMP1OK6sA4&q=%22media+research+center%22+site%3Ausatoday.com&oq=%22media+research+center%22+site%3Ausatoday.com&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQA1DMC1iUEGCmEWgAcAB4AIABOogBtAKSAQE2mAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwi3__-_j6jpAhUGlHIEHVSxDuYQ4dUDCAw&uact=5 Wikipedia should follow the lead of the typical RS, not the lead of a handful of critical stories. Bigger picture, Wikipedia is increasingly in danger of deprecating any voices that disagree with the dominant cultural narrative in the United States. If someone has done a study or analysis showing MRC to be less factually reliable than other outlets, we should look at that. Otherwise, options 3 or 4 would merely make Wikipedia less neutral. When there is a factual dispute between MRC and another fact checker, editors on a given page should look at the respective arguments (and potentially present the two viewpoints to readers, if appropriate.) --MaximumIdeas (talk) 01:18, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• If the "typical" appearance in reliable sources is a superficial mention, like a three-word description with no deeper analysis, then Wikipedia should not rely upon that, but instead focus on the analyses which have looked more carefully. XOR'easter (talk) 17:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 or Option 2 as per Atsme, let us not try to get rid of all conservative media on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sir Joseph (talk • contribs) 01:25, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• First, nobody is trying to do that, and second, this argument does nothing to establish the reliability of MRC specifically. XOR'easter (talk) 17:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 or Option 4. Has none of the indications of a reliable source; it's a partisan media criticism website that promotes, e.g., climate change denial. Mann 2012 at page 64 describes "Web sites like Newsbusters" as "willing accomplices in the campaign of deceit ... that often propagate climate change disinformation." On extremely rare occasions it might be cited for its own opinion with in-text attribution, but in most cases that would be undue weight. Neutrality^talk 17:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2 per above. ~ HAL333 21:55, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Per what above? MRC organizations' confirmed history of pushing falsehoods and fringe rhetoric? Does that make it generally reliable in your opinion? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 or maybe 4. This is a parody of fact-checking. Guy (help!) 23:43, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• 3–4 The organization promotes fringe disinformation and conspiracy theories including global warming denial and birtherism. buidhe 00:42, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4, especially Newsbusters. Partisanship trumps facts. -- Valjean (talk) 01:32, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or Option 2 largely per Atsme. The sweeping generalizations posed in the RFC are not always applicable, especially when examining the context. If there are issues with sourcing affecting a certain claim, it can be discussed and handled specifically. Is this even really a big problem here or a solution in search of one? Mr Ernie (talk) 15:20, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3. While I would stay away from this source due to its skewed and contrarian fact-checking, I see that it is fairly relevant to the conservative media, and it could be used to cite opinions of prominent conservatives, but that is all anyone can use it for. Everything from MRC needs to be attributed. FreeMediaKid! 20:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 because they are awful. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:37, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (MRC)

• I've upgraded this discussion to an RfC, as it potentially conflicts with consensus established in two prior RfCs:
  1. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Media Research Center, Media Matters for America, Newsbusters (2010): No consensus on Media Research Center
  2. RfC: CNSNews.com (2019): Consensus that CNSNews.com is generally unreliable

Additionally, a deprecation proposal requires an RfC by definition. See the perennial sources list entries for Media Research Center and CNSNews.com for past discussions. — Newslinger talk 23:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Nino Oktorino at Free Republic of Nias

I'm in the process of reviewing Free Republic of Nias and would like input on the usability of the works by Nino Oktorino, particularly Jejak Hitler di Nusantara - Petualangan, Intrik dan Konspirasi Nazi di Indonesia, which the vast majority of the article is based on. I haven't been able to find out much about the author or publisher, but am concerned that I can't find any other coverage of the subject on Google Scholar, whether in English, German, or Indonesian, although the article does have some online citations. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:23, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

At my initial perception, the title alone sounded like a weird conspiracy book, but an examination of the book itself suggests that the content is, at least at the surface level, legitimately researched so I cannot dismiss it outright. Better sources definitely corroborate the part where 67 German prisoners are in Nias (e.g. [93]), but all mentions of the "Republic" specifically I could only find in the books Hitler's Asian Adventure and A Gecko for Luck: 18 years in Indonesia which are both self-published books by the same author. The author is certainly acting in good faith with regards to the article and it isn't a deliberate hoax, if it turns out to be one. Regarding the publisher, Elex Media Komputindo is a huge "general" publisher in Indonesia - not academic per se but it's not a self-publication platform either. They do publish all types though. Juxlos (talk) 01:05, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Correction: I missed that the tirto.id source quoted Rosihan Anwar's book Sejarah Kecil La Petite Histoire Indonesia. Anwar was a rather well-known journalist and he can be probably considered a reliable source. Other books mentioned in the tirto.id link are Nederlands-Indië 1940-1946: Gouvernementeel intermezzo and Batavia Seint: Berlijn which unfortunately has no GBooks preview. Juxlos (talk) 01:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jeromi Mikhael: just as a courtesy. Do you think you can scrounge up further sources? Being aware that this article is on DYK it would be a shame if a yellow tag gets slapped on and the DYK is postponed. Juxlos (talk) 01:14, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Juxlos: Well, maybe the only thing that could support this is the website vanimhoff.info. This website was made by the survivors of the sinking of the SS Van Imhoff. The timeline has several documents relating to the sinking, and some relating to the republic. The article about the Sinking of SS Van Imhoff is quite interesting.

There is one photo in this article from 1965 (?).--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 01:31, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Here is the Sejarah Kecil book.

Yeah, they have a whole chapter on the incident. The initial Oktorino source may be pop history but it certainly isn't false history. Juxlos (talk) 01:38, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Update: This book referenced about the coup d'etat in page 488 (actual) and 510 (pdf). They referred the republic as Centraal Bestuur (Central Government), and stated that the government was established for about two months.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 01:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Juxlos: Rosihan's Anwar book might be enough to replace Nino's book. Do you think I should do it?--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 01:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Would certainly recommend using Anwar's source where possible, though I'm aware Nino's book goes in more detail. Juxlos (talk) 01:50, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Juxlos: Honestly, Nino's book entirely plagiarizes the timeline. Check out. He's only translating the website.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 01:52, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, not everything. Juxlos (talk) 01:55, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Regardless, Jeromi Mikhael, certainly incorporate the new sources. Juxlos (talk) 02:42, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Juxlos: Quite confused about This book. The book certainly justifies the coup d'etat, but the date is entirely wrong.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 03:10, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I have followed the sources given in the German Wikipedia article. The sinking of the Van Imhoff, the refusal of the captain of the Boelongan to rescue the victims, with enventually only 67 survivors, can be well traced from sound sources (Walter Spies was among the vicitms of that incident). This includs reports by the investigative journal Der Spiegel in the 60s (cf. the link by Jeromi Mikhael above). The "Free Republic of Nias" is however not mentioned in the Der Spiegel-series. The German WP article mentions the Freie Republik Nias in subjunctive mood (which equals using katanya in Indonesia, and it is said in English) with only this self-published blog as citation. In a further web search, I have only found the books by Horst H. Geerken mentioned by Juxlos, which I would not count as fully reliable historical sources. –Austronesier (talk) 15:17, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I've attempted to contact the Nias Museum regarding this issue. Hopefully I could get some first-hand info.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 15:29, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The Der Spiegel is a German investigative journal, and they wouldn't mention the republic, because there's nothing controversial about it. If they talked about it, their investigation may backfired at them, due to the fact that the Germans kidnapped and imprisoned Dutch. Instead, they rather just focused on the Van Imhoff incident themselves, and stating that the Dutch didn't save them. Besides, your assesment regarding to the books by Horst H. Geerken is quite subjective; how do you suspect a book as not fully reliable? I'm interested.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 15:34, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Al-Fassi family

Are these reliable sources for the family tree? [94][95][96] I noticed this when I saw this series of edits[97] which frankly I can't figure out. Thanks. I won't be surprised if no one wants to touch this! Doug Weller talk 09:25, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Someone's CV is by definition a self-published source, so not reliable. The two other sources apparently originate from Daily News (Sri Lanka). One of them discusses a visit by "His Holiness Al Seyyid Ash Sheik Ajwad Abdullah Al Fassi Al Macci Ash Shazulee" to Sri Lanka in 2004 apparently to discuss Sufism and tolerant Islam, and provides little overall detail on the family. The other piece in the paper is apparently by Dr. Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi, (who the aformentioned CV belongs to) a Historian at King Saud University Riyadh discussing the family and history of Shazuliya Tariqah, apparently an obscure (at least in english language sources) group of the Shadhili order of Sufism, the piece cites no sources so I would treat it with caution, even though it appears to be by a well established academic. I think that the Ip address is adding adding missing kinship related portions of the names (See Arabic name). The ip address is Sri Lankan for reference. My guess is that it is a member of the family or of Shazuliya Tariqah who is making the edits, as often happens on wikipedia. I think the citing for the piece by Hatoon should be attributed in the lack of any other correlating sources. I have concerns that the family fails the GNG because by far the most substantial source. Hatoon al-Fassi appears to be a member of the family, which would violate "Independent of the subject" criterion in the GNG. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

CleanTechnica, again

Some days ago I created an article stub on CleanTechnica. Its talk page now has a question from QRep2020 whether the article should be deleted as unreliable, with reference to an earlier discussion on this Noticeboard. We certainly have articles on news media that is non-reliable, so the talk page question is easily answered. However, I noticed that the discussion of CleanTechnica as reliable source was very brief, started by the aforementioned QRep2020 and with just two comments, from Masem and Springee. Among the points raised by the previous discussion is that the source favours one technology over another (to the detriment of hydrogen as an energy carrier) and that the source "content appears to summaries of reports and press releases". While there objectively are challenges with hydrogen, it was easy to find an article South Windsor High School, where the CleanTechnica writer is themselves interviewing the person cited and where Fuel Cells "save the day". (It's not explicitly stated that the Fuel Cells are using hydrogen, but hydrogen is basically only usable with fuel cells, so it is as a minimum supporting the main hydrogen use case). This specific source citation was validated by Ser Amantio di Nicolao.

Prairieplant, Minesweeper, Varnent, rodw, Back ache, Mariordo, N2e, Rfassbind: Wikipedia has 200+ articles that cite CleanTechnica and the editors of each of these citations has made the determination to quote CleanTechnica in support for the added information. While we can not ask the opinion of everyone who previously made such a determination I am now asking a few of you for your opinion regarding the reliability of this source. Lklundin (talk) 10:07, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

We can have articles on notable sources that are not reliable for being used on WP. (That said, what's on CT's article right not isn't going to pass the GNG....) The problem with the site is not so much a specific focus on a type of clean energy but that generally it looks like a industry-promotional site. The writers there may seek out stories but it looks more like they are tipped to stories from companies that want them to be written up, which are the types of sites we generally avoid. As i noted, they will provide links to actual reports of use which should be the sources to be used instead. --Masem (t) 13:47, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

My feeling is might be able pass WP:NOTE but the number of reliable sources about CT are going to be very limited. My concern with CT as a RS is largely based on what I've read from sources that don't pass WP:RS criteria but none the less make strong arguments. I generally feel CT is very promotional and is likely feed select bits of information from companies. Conflicts of interest are not clearly identified. In general I would be wary of using CT as a source for much of anything and would generally assume any reliable fact reported in CT could be sourced elsewhere. Still, I think the site is often cited by mainstream reliable sources as sort of the opinion of an industry watcher. I would be reluctant to remove any citation to CT without some reason to be suspicious of it. I suspect most of the material cited to CT is going to be non-controversial claims. Springee (talk) 03:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: RT (Russia Today)

Which of the following best describes the reliability of the RT (TV network)? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:42, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

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

Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:42, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Per the WP:RSP, there is "no consensus on the reliability of RT" on general topics but a consensus that "RT is generally unreliable for topics that are controversial or related to international politics." This strikes me as a strange status, given that RT pushes disinformation, conspiracy theories and falsehoods (per the citations in the RSP list). RT also pushes constant climate change denial content in its "news" section.[98][99][100][101][102] In 2009, the news section of RT uncritically quoted renowned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as if he were an authority on climate science.[103] In 2011, the news section of RT uncritically quoted two prominent non-scientist climate change deniers without any pushback or additional context.[104] This leads me to wonder whether there isn't sufficient reason to deprecate RT?

Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:42, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey (RT)

• Option 4 per "wait, we haven't done that already? it's a propaganda machine, for crying out loud". XOR'easter (talk) 14:45, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4: State sponsored propaganda machine without any independent editorial oversight --Shrike (talk) 14:51, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 - how heavily used is it? Also, would this include SputnikNews? - David Gerard (talk) 14:53, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard: It's around 3,700   articles Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:01, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

gawd, one to kill with fire - David Gerard (talk) 15:10, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, that's amazingly bad. XOR'easter (talk) 18:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4, but... I want to say on non-political stories of news events within Russia, like natural or man-made disasters, RT tends to have more coverage than we'd get out of other international sources and they have little reason to mask this information. But this is more where I'd see a carve out for when only RT can be used and nix the rest if that's a reasonable approach. --Masem (t) 15:08, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 - See RT_America#History (last 3 paragraphs), other reliable sources do not consider it a reliable source. However it can have an important place on Wikipedia for demonstrating the official views and positions of Russia, even if those views are blatant denialism so long as they are framed correctly. Unfortunately, #4 is supporting a complete and total wipe of every RT sources on Wikipedia regardless of its context and content (see what is happening to DM). -- GreenC 15:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

  The way you talk about wiping every Daily Mail source from Wikipedia regardless of its context and content you make it sound like a bad thing. Alas, there exists no context or content that makes The Daily Mail trustworthy in some situations. They are never to be trusted. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Additional RfC Question: Under what conditions can we trust The Daily Mail? for detailed reasons why we can never trust The Daily Mail. RT is another matter. They are completely unreliable on many topics, but take a look at [105]. That's the sort of thing RT covers in more detail than other sources. So I choose Option 4 but I also hope that we can find wording to allow limited use for things like the death of Yevgeny Mikrin. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:59, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

  This is my stance too, where the topic is fully apolitical, RT usually is not doing anything weird and is the most detailed source. --Masem (t) 16:01, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

  Thats kind of the catch-22 with state sponsored propaganda outfit like these, if it wasn’t somehow political they wouldn’t produce/run the story by definition. *Nothing* they publish is “fully apolitical.” Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

  Yes. Having some proportion of the content be seemingly unobjectionable is a means of veiling the misinformation behind superficial respectability. XOR'easter (talk) 17:50, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4: per XOR'easter and Shrike. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 15:15, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 A quick google search brought up multiple lies. Nor am In sure it can be even used as an "official" Russian moth piece as it pretends its not.Slatersteven (talk) 15:19, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 for a while it was argued that RT would get better or is useful in some circumstances. I don’t think those arguments hold water anymore. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:38, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 Not sure why anyone would want to censor On Contact. ^^ Here they are interviewing Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Wire (India). https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/482554-right-wing-populism-india/ -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 16:29, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 - well established that RT is a propaganda/disinformation outlet of the Russian government. Neutrality^talk 17:52, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 Aside from the problems I identified in OP, RT promotes 9/11 Trutherism ("911 Reasons why 9/11 was (probably) an inside job"[106]), birther conspiracy theories ("Obama’s birthplace mystery raises doubts"[107]), coronavirus disinformation ("Russia Today... broadcast that hand-washing was ineffective against coronavirus"[108], Seth Rich conspiracy theories[109], Hillary Clinton health conspiracy theories[110], Bilderberg conspiracy theories[111], and random-ass 4chan conspiracy theories[112]. RT has no reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Rather, it has a reputation for falsehoods, conspiracy theories and disinfo. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:02, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate for any factual information (per above—that's too much disinfo to trust for much of anything), but can be used for the views of the Russian government where WP:DUE. buidhe 19:07, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• 4 - Is propaganda. Even if some of its articles are not propaganda, that others are propaganda, is why we should not use it for anything. We don't need to cite to RT to show the positions of Putin. We can cite to reliable sources discussing Putin's positions and/or how RT is propaganda. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:44, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 very biased Atlantic306 (talk) 21:27, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2/3 Agree with some of the above commenters that RT can be useful for non political content related to Russia, otherwise I would avoid using it due to disinformation concerns. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:46, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 for most things. Not better than 3. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:18, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. Cannot be trusted. Guy (help!) 22:28, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. As discussed in Talk:RT (TV network)/Archive 11 § RfC: Propaganda, at least 30 in-depth reliable sources describe RT as a propaganda outlet. The list is reproduced below:

30 in-depth reliable sources describing RT as a propaganda outlet

Warrick, Joby; Troianovski, Anton (December 10, 2018). "Agents of doubt". The Washington Post. Adee, Sally (May 15, 2019). "The global internet is disintegrating. What comes next?". BBC. Ward, Alex (March 12, 2019). "When a Dissident Becomes a Collaborator". The New Yorker. Paul, Christopher; Matthews, Miriam (2016). The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model (Report). RAND Corporation. Norton, Ben; Greenwald, Glenn (2016-11-26). "Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group". The Intercept. Retrieved 2019-05-30. Peinado, Fernando (16 April 2018). "La campaña de desinformación de Rusia sobre la guerra en Siria". El Pais. Flock, Elizabeth (May 2, 2018). "After a week of Russian propaganda, I was questioning everything". PBS NewsHour. "RT's propaganda is far less influential than Westerners fear". The Economist. January 19, 2017. Manthorpe, Jonathan (May 2, 2019). "All the news not fit to print". Asia Times. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help) Arrowsmith, Kevin (May 7, 2019). "Blame politicians for fake news, RT chief tells Whitehall media forum". The Sunday Times. Bidder, Benjamin (August 13, 2013). "Putin's Weapon in the War of Images". Der Spiegel. Riley-Smith, Ben (13 May 2019). "Kremlin propaganda arm RT America warns over dire health impacts of 5G networks". The Telegraph. Schwartz, Jason (February 6, 2018). "Russia pushes more 'deep state' hashtags". Politico. Seddon, Max (October 9, 2017). "Russia threatens severe curbs on US media". Financial Times. Graham, David A. (7 September 2017). "What the Russian Facebook Ads Reveal". The Atlantic. DiResta, Renee (30 August 2018). "Free Speech Is Not the Same As Free Reach". Wired. Shuster, Simon (March 5, 2015). "Inside Putin's Media Machine". Time. Aleem, Zeeshan (10 November 2017). "RT, Russia's English-language propaganda outlet, will register as a "foreign agent"". Vox. Morris, David Z. (17 September 2017). "Inside RT, Russia's Kremlin-Controlled Propaganda Network". Fortune. Retrieved 2019-07-18. Weir, Fred (17 January 2017). "Inside the belly of Russia's 'propaganda machine': A visit to RT news channel". The Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2019-07-18. Yochai Benkler; Rob Faris; Hal Roberts (2018). Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-092362-4. Jamieson, Kathleen Hall (24 September 2018). Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President. Oxford University Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-19-091582-7. Marcel H. Van Herpen (1 October 2015). Putin's Propaganda Machine: Soft Power and Russian Foreign Policy. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 73–74. ISBN 978-1-4422-5362-9. Snyder, Timothy (3 April 2018). The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. Crown/Archetype. pp. 161–162, 209–212, 306. ISBN 9780525574484. Retrieved 18 July 2019. Nance, Malcolm (2016). The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781510723337. Retrieved 18 July 2019. Ajir, Media; Vailliant, Bethany (Fall 2018). "Russian Information Warfare: Implications for Deterrence Theory". Strategic Studies Quarterly. 12 (3): 70–89. ISSN 1936-1815. JSTOR 26481910. Oates, Sarah; Steiner, Sean (17 December 2018). "Projecting Power: Understanding Russian Strategic Narrative". Russia's Public Foreign Policy Narratives (PDF). 229. Vol. 17. University of Bremen: Research Centre for East European Studies. pp. 2–5. doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000311091. Retrieved 18 July 2019. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help) Orttung, Robert; Nelson, Elizabeth; Livshen, Anthony (19 January 2016). "Measuring RT's impact on YouTube". Russian Analytical Digest. 177 (8). Center for Security Studies. Retrieved 18 July 2019. Abrams, Steve (2016). "Beyond propaganda: Soviet active measures in Putin's Russia" (PDF). Connections: The Quarterly Journal. 15 (1). Partnership for Peace Consortium. Retrieved 18 July 2019. Reire, Gunda (2015). "Euro-Atlantic values and Russia's propaganda in the Euro-Atlantic space" (PDF). Rocznik Instytutu Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej. 13 (4). Retrieved 18 July 2019.

It is important for Wikipedia to take a hardline stance against state-sponsored disinformation, which RT regularly broadcasts. When the perspective of the Russian government is needed in an article, news agency TASS (RSP entry) is a superior source. — Newslinger talk 23:34, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3.999 Propaganda outlet. But if they interview Putin or Lavrov then I think they can be trusted not to mangle Russian officials.--Bob not snob (talk) 05:36, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1. It’s my main source for news. Very professional approach with some great presenters on its TV network and incredible diversity of opinions. Its web service is reliable and has a wide coverage of events and places. Its coverage of my small corner of the world is invariably accurate. Ruptly provides unmatched video from all parts of the world. Burrobert (talk) 07:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2.5 Seems a bit of a gap from 2 to 3. I think deprecation is OTT and attribution is as usual sufficient to deal with potentially suspect material. I just rolled over to rt.com and I don't see anything too outrageous there (other than the usual anti-US spin).Selfstudier (talk) 10:10, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 per above. ~ HAL333 21:54, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3/4 per above. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 This is simply a propaganda outlet concerned with promoting the Russian government, not truth or verifiability. Of course, there are very specific situation were it can be useful as some people have mentioned, but those can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Zoozaz1 (talk) 23:22, 11 May 2020 (UTC)~
• Option 4. In Russia, source deprecates you! —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 14:30, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. Any story they post which may be true and reliable would be reported by a more reliable source that isn't a government stooge. For any story or perspective of which they are the only source, I wouldn't trust them any farther than I could throw them. Usual exceptions carved out for direct quotes and for demonstrating the positions of the source itself in direct attributions. --Jayron32 14:43, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. Like the Devil, RT spouts lies and falsehoods with the intent of causing chaos and political strife. Even when they do report accurately, there is no reason to use this Kremlin mouthpiece when independent journalism exists. Also, I do not care whether Russia bans me for saying this or even tries to hack my Wikipedia account, but I think that if Hitler were possessed by a demon, Putin is possessed by Satan. He and his news outlets are that bad. That may be greatly exaggerated, but I know no other words that describe my frustration with the government. I could have said worse. FreeMediaKid! 19:53, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Snow Option 4 As RT just tweeted more antisemitic conspiracy theories. Reywas92^Talk 23:10, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3.999: Per Bob the Snob. The standard has to flow from WP:RS. And there's massive issues with accuracy and independence here. It remains possible that a state-owned media isn't necessarily state-controlled. We'd want to look for legal protections that guarantee press freedom, and see if those rights are safe-guarded by the directing state. We'd also want to look for the rights of opposing media and opposing parties more generally in that state, the literal "free market of ideas". The fact that list of journalists killed in Russia is still a thing should put things in context. The presumption should be to remove the material cited to RT. If there's a discussion that leads to a consensus to include the source for some good reason (like describing the state's views, or describing a situation that no independent journalist has access to), we should note the source's ownership and control where we refer to it in the article. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:48, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (RT)

• I've upgraded this discussion to an RfC, as a deprecation proposal requires an RfC by definition. See the perennial sources list entries for RT (general topics) and RT (controversial topics, international politics) for past discussions. — Newslinger talk 23:27, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• I don't see how reporting unpopular opinions makes a source reliable, particularly when those opinions have already been published in reliable sources. What makes sources unreliable is when they treat opinions as facts. For example, your first example quotes climate change denier James Taylor in an article from 6 years ago in Forbes, which is America's foremost business magazine. It's doesn't present his opinion as a fact. Conservative media, such as Forbes, Fox News Channel, the Wall Street Journal, the Telegraph, the New York Post and the Washington Times pay too much attention to lots of unpopular positions, but are still considered reliable sources. What puts RT in a different category? Incidentally, I watch RT occasionally: Lee Camp, Rick Sanchez, Chris Hedges, Mike Papantonio, and formerly Larry King and Ed Schultz. None of them are climate change deniers. On the other hand, CNN once had climate change deniers Glenn Beck AND Lou Dobbs on for four hours every night. PBS hired William F. Buckley, Tucker Carlson and Pat Buchanan. Ann Coulter was a correspondent on MSNBC.TFD (talk) 03:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  The Four Deuces, what makes RT not a reliable source is that they do not have independent editorial oversight. Yes, they have editors, but their editorial oversight is ultimately Putin (and by extension the Russian government). It's true that not everything RT puts out is propaganda, or false. I also sometimes watch RT for news, and sometimes they cover stories in an objective and factual way and provide a different perspective than what you find in mainstream US media. But that doesn't make them a reliable source for Wikipedia. IMO, no government-controlled media can be a reliable source, because politics will always cause the editorial oversight to not be independent. We can't separate the propaganda from the "clean" content, so we can't trust it. Unlike, say, The New York Times or Wall St Journal, where we can be confident the editors aren't taking their marching orders from the President. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:39, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

NRG360 - formerly nrg

Is NRG360, formerly nrg, an Israeli news site, reliable for claims about pollution and subsequent restoration of a stream in Israel and the West Bank? The specific article in question is [113], in Hebrew, and is used to source the claim that for the first time in 50 years, Tilapia are swimming in a previously polluted stream. It was written by Adi Hashmonai, a journalist (currently at another media outlet - Walla) who covers environmental issues in Israel. This is being challenged on the grounds that the source is "a religious nationalist settler rag". JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:31, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Setting the reliability of Makorrishon aside. The site is question was operated by Maariv (newspaper) wp:newsorg till 2014 so there no reason to doubt it reliability as the article is from 2011 --Shrike (talk)

Agreed, and I'll add that it's not even operated by Makor Rishon today as it was subsequently sold to Israel Hayom , another reliable source. The whole Makor Rishon thing is irrelevant here. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:46, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Dont use it in I/P area the article is from 2011 and it was operated by Makor Rishon which "is an Israeli newspaper. Religious and nationalist, it is affiliated with the conservative right-wing Israeli parties." This source shouldn't be used in West bank Israeli Palestinian conflict. I don't have an opinion about the reliability on other areas.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 17:54, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

  It was not operated by Makor Rishon in 2011. Read Shrike's comment, above. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:55, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

  Yes it was, please read the article. "operated in cooperation with the newspaper Makor Rishon."--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

  SharabSalam, It had no connection to MakorRishon till 2014 and anyhow we use partisan sites(but that beyond the point) Shrike (talk) 18:01, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

So then with attribution, not for statements of fact?Slatersteven (talk) 18:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Errr, why are we here?Slatersteven (talk) 18:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Because we're trying to determine if a 2011 article in NRG is reliable for claims about fish in a stream. You seem to think it requires attribution, and I'm wondering why. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:25, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Why would a mainstream news site not be reliable for facts? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:04, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Because it is biased and partisan.Slatersteven (talk) 18:05, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

If it was makkorishon original article then yes but its not .Here is the original article from archive.org [114] --Shrike (talk) 18:06, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I still think attribution is best when there might be doubt.Slatersteven (talk) 18:15, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

what is in doubt , exactly ? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:18, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Errr, we are here discussing some users doubts?Slatersteven (talk) 18:21, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

doubts about what? The chronology of the ownership of NRG in 2011 is not in any serious doubt, you just need to read the relevant articles. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:25, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but I am not that up on the whose and wheres of historical Israeli political thought. Nor can I read Hebrew. So I am left with user A says B and user B says A. Thus I say Attribute, you get to use it they get to says its not a fact.Slatersteven (talk) 18:51, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

There's no need to be able to read Hebrew - we have English articles on Wikipedia for NRG360, Makor Rishon , Maariv (newspaper) and Israel Hayom, which lay out the ownership history, and indicate that in 2011, Makor Rishon did not own or manage NRG. If you can't be bothered to read the articles, and by your own admission you are "not that up on the whose and wheres" - perhaps you should consider not commenting on things you are not really familiar with? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 00:48, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

And Maariv had (or did) forsaken "the right-wing readership that was loyal to it for years", yet above it we also say "political center", which is not right. This tells me its political leaning is not quite as clear cut as is being presented. As I said I have no idea who or what is right.Slatersteven (talk) 09:57, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Having a right wing readership is not, and never has been, a factor in determining the reliability of a source. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I did not say it did, I explained that I am not sure of where its politics or bias lies so would rather we attributed its claims.Slatersteven (talk) 17:40, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm struggling with the logic of this argument- you don't know much about this source, so all of Wikipedia needs to attribute it? Wouldn't it be simpler if you just stay out of discussions you can't meaningfully contribute to? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I know that it has been accused of bias, in an area where there are two very distinct and aggressive sides both trying to push a political agenda (see much of below). I have seen no argument that proves it is not, just that it might have changed it politics (might not has). I do not have to know much about this source to know even the best IP sources should be used with caution in this topic area. Added to which this source has had a shifting political position. So when I say "I not know the source" I mean I am not sure just how unbiased it is. Thus (as with any source whose bias I am unsure about) I say attribute. IN fact I think you will find I have said that whenever we have had statements sourced to just one source, even when they are pretty much top line. But this is my last word here. I have said Attribute and that is what my opinion will remain and there is nothing more to be said.Slatersteven (talk) 18:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Ma'ariv has been accused of bis? Where? By whom? JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 19:57, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven, you also have no proof that it is biased, other than Nishidani who said it is a "settler rag." Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• SharabSalam, is CNN, MSNBC, BBC, Haaretz, Ma'an, Al-Jazeera, etc, reliable? Where in RS does it say that being conservative means you can't be RS? RS means RS, not that you may have a slant. Further, NRG360 was operated by Maariv until 2014, so unless you're claiming Israeli sites aren't RS, not sure what we're doing here. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:08, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  Sir Joseph, IMO, Israeli sites are mostly unreliable. Also, I have pointed out "nationalist" and "religious" bias. I am not sure about those sources that you have added.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  "IMO, Israeli sites are mostly unreliable." -as this has absolutely no basis in Wikipedia policy, your personal opinion can safely be ignored. But with this kind of self admitted bias, you should probably stay out of discussions involving Israeli sources, and other editors should ignore you if you do participate. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 02:30, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  User:SharabSalam, I'm not sure you realize how much this unwarranted generalization undermines your credibility. Drmies (talk) 00:21, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

  When did I generalize? I literally meant they are mostly unreliable in I/P area. See my vote above. Also, that wasn't my argument, I was responding to the misinterpretation of my argument by SJ who said "so unless you're claiming Israeli sites aren't RS, not sure what we're doing here"--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 00:26, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment I guess we are being asked whether all the material that was produced before it was a dead site is an RS? Look where it's archive went...Makor Rishon. I'd say material from this place, then or now, is of doubtful value as a contribution to the IP area, if the factoid it is being used for is of such import, cannot it be found somewhere else that is at least semi-respectable?Selfstudier (talk) 18:40, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Selfstudier, We do use partisan sites like btzelem so there is should be no problem but its not the case here as the article belong to Maariv --Shrike (talk) 18:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

B'tselem is a human rights NGO with a very good reputation, not to mention that it provides content in English (and is not a dead site). Apples and oranges.Selfstudier (talk) 18:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

B'tselem is an advocacy group, and clearly partisan If we can use it in the article, we can use other biased sources. But that's not the issue here at all. NRG, which is the source in question, is not Makor rishon and was not part of Makor rishon in 2011. Shrike has provided a wayback link that make any association with Makor rishon a non-issue. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 18:53, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

You still asking for a dead site to be assessed as an RS and the only reason you are doing that is to get cover for a single relatively unimportant factoid (which I assume has proved impossible to source in any current respectable rs, partisan or not). And you cannot just ignore the connection to Makor rishon, if they didn't approve of the content they wouldn't host it.Selfstudier (talk) 19:00, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

wayback links are used all over Wikipedia , as I am sure you are aware. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 19:07, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable the site was associated with Maariv and then Israeli Hayom, both RS in their own right. The claim that it's conservative or religious, and/or associated with people from the government (if that is the claim), and therefore can't be RS isn't policy and would require a good chunk of RS to be marked non-RS, especially 99% of those in the non-western world. I also think this is just another ploy to mark Israeli sources that don't agree with a certain POV as non-RS. I don't see those people marking as non-RS Ma'an News a site known for fake news and where the former CFO of that agency admits to not being able to report accurate news. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:12, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  Sir Joseph, it shouldnt be used in I/P area since it is a nationalist site. If what they said is accurate then there should be other sources more reliable sources.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:08, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  SharabSalam, where in the policy does it state that? And further, are you now saying that all Palestinian sources are not valid in the IP area? Your post above that said that "Israeli sites are mostly unreliable" shows that your opinion shouldn't count for anything. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 02:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  Sir Joseph, I said "in my opinion" (IMO) and "are mostly". I see lots of false information coming from Israeli sites. I didnt say Israeli or Palestinian sources are not valid, this the second time that you put words in my mouth or misinterpret what I said . I said it's a nationalist site that is affiliated with right-wing parties in Israel. We should not use in P/I area for this reason.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  SharabSalam, Firstly, I didn't put any words in your mouth. Secondly, the paper is not affiliated with any parties in Israel. Where does it say it's affiliated with any parties? Is CNN or NYTimes affiliated with the Democratic party? Is Fox affiliated with the Republican party? Your assumption is OR. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 02:29, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  You said "are you now saying that all Palestinian sources are not valid in the IP area?" when did I say that? and above you said "so unless you're claiming Israeli sites aren't RS, not sure what we're doing here." I didnt say that nonsense you said, I then replied to you and told you that in my opnioin israeli sites are mostly unreliable.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:36, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  SharabSalam,You didn't say that, that is a question I'm asking you based on your opinion of Israeli sites being mostly not-reliable. Are Palestinian sites mostly non-reliable? And you also made an assertion that the newspaper is affiliated with the right wing party in Israel. Where does it say that anywhere? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 02:39, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) I have no opinion on that. I am not making my argument based on that. I have said that the site is a nationalist site and therefore should not be used in I/P area, not that I am saying it is unreliable. Although this was not my argument you misinterpeted what said "are you now saying that all Palestinian sources are not valid in the IP area?". NO, I didnt say that this is why I think this source is unreliable in P/I area, you are the one who is saying that I am saying that. So I dont really want to waste time with you.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:49, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  You said Israeli sites are mostly non-reliable, not nationalist Israeli sites. So, I'm asking you again.

  Are Palestinian sites mostly non-reliable? I didn't ask "all" I asked same as you said for Israel.

  Or, are you now taking back your statement of Israeli sites being mostly non-reliable? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 02:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  Okay, examine what happened. Here are the events in order

  1- I said this source is unreliable because it is operated by "an Israeli newspaper" that is "Religious and nationalist, it is affiliated with the conservative right-wing Israeli parties."

  2- Your reply was this "unless you're claiming Israeli sites aren't RS, not sure what we're doing here." totally puting words in my mouth that I didnt say

  3- I then said that in my opinoin most Israeli sites are not reliable and I also said "I have pointed out "nationalist" and "religious" bias."

  4- Your reply was "are you now saying that all Palestinian sources are not valid in the IP area?".

  Tell me who is wrong here.SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 03:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  Your point #1 is wrong, nrg was not operated by Makor Rishon when this article was published. And your point#3, which is a personal opinion having no basis in Wikipedia policy and indicating bias, should disqualify you from commenting here. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 03:07, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  it was operated by Makor Rishon and no, I respond to that statement by SJ about Israeli sites being unreliable. Most israeli sites are unreliable in I/P area.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 03:10, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

No, it was not operated by Makor Rishon in 2011. Please don't make false claims here. could you pint to any policy , or WP:RSN finding that supports your claim that 'Most israeli sites are unreliable in I/P area"?JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk)

He didn't just say they are non-RS in the IP area, he said Israeli sources are mostly non-RS in general. That would mean Haaretz, Maariv, Jpost, etc. in his opinion would be non-RS for everything in Wikipedia. I think that should be good enough for a TBAN from RSN. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:24, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph Again, puting words in my mouth, I never said "in general". I clarified that I am talking about sites and I/P area. I have never said in general. In any conflict between for example, Iraq and Egypt, Iraqi sites will mostly be biased or the other way around.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 03:43, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

SharabSalam, I put no words in your mouth, I quote you directly, "IMO, Israeli sites are mostly unreliable." Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:45, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

and this: "3- I then said that in my opinoin most Israeli sites are not reliable and I also said "I have pointed out "nationalist" and "religious" bias." Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

You said "he [SharabSalam] said Israeli sources are mostly non-RS in general". When did I say that they are not reliable in general. Even my vote says "Dont use it in I/P area".--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 03:57, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• SharabSalam,

  1. You didn't answer my question. Are Palestinian sites mostly non-reliable?

  2. You didn't answer my question. How is this site affiliated with any political party?

  3. How is being religious not make you RS? Is the Deseret News a RS?

  4. It was not operated by Makor Rishon at the time of that source. It really does seem that your bias is clouding your judgement here and I think you might want to step back a while. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:19, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  You first said that you never said "all" and accused me of puting things in your mouth and then deleted what you said here, you actually did say all here. You are now accusing me of being biased. I think you should should step back since you forget what you say. Religious nationalist sites should not be used in I/P period. I already I answered your irrelevant, pointless questions like "is CNN, MSNBC, BBC, Haaretz, Ma'an, Al-Jazeera, etc, reliable?", my answer was this, listen carefully so you dont ask me again, "I have no opinion on that" and "I am not sure about those sources that you have added".--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 03:34, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  SharabSalam, I'll repeat it again since you keep forgetting. You said, most Israeli sites are non-RS. Did you not? That had nothing to do with nationalist or religious. That was another edit of yours. This is your quote, "IMO, Israeli sites are mostly unreliable. "

  So I'll ask again, "Are Palestinian sites mostly unreliable?" Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:40, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  Read the whole comment, IMO, Israeli sites are mostly unreliable. Also, I have pointed out "nationalist" and "religious" bias. I am not sure about those sources that you have added. That was a reply to the statement that you made to my vote, your statement was "unless you're claiming Israeli sites aren't RS, not sure what we're doing here."

  My vote was *Dont use it in I/P area the article is from 2011 and it was operated by Makor Rishon which "is an Israeli newspaper. Religious and nationalist, it is affiliated with the conservative right-wing Israeli parties." This source shouldn't be used in West bank Israeli Palestinian conflict. I don't have an opinion about the reliability on other areas.

  I am not going to answer again pointless questions, I have already answered.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 03:52, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  SharabSalam, OK, even if we take that to be true, so now answer the other questions you still haven't addressed.

  1) It wasn't operated by Makor Rishon in 2011. (Even if it were true, that still wouldn't be an issue). A read of the Wiki article would show you that. If you can't be bothered to read it, you really ought not be commenting on this.

  2)Where is your proof that it is affiliated with any political party in Israel?

  3) Where is any policy on Wikipedia that being religious or nationalistic means you can't use that as a source? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:59, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  So you are going to stop the misinterpetation now?. The site was operated by a right-wing nationalist religious newspaper according to the Wikipedia article. We can not use this site for facts per WP:BESTSOURCES and WP:QUESTIONABLE.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 04:12, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  SharabSalam, maybe you should read the article.

  If you still have problems, CIR might come into play. Secondly, you still haven't answered the questions.

  1. You said it's affiliated with a political party. Are you now walking back that claim?

  2. Where in Wikipedia policy does being religious mean you can't use it as a source?

  4. You have no claim that the site was operated by a "right wing nationalist religious newspaper" so that is all OR, after all, the article says, at the time of the above article, the site was owned by Maariv.

  Any other statements of yours you wish to change? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 04:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  Also, your statement that Israeli sites are mostly unreliable still stands, your "also...." is a second sentence, so I'm not misinterpreting anything. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 04:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  Sir Joseph, from Makor Rishon that operated the site "Makor Rishon is an Israeli newspaper. Religious and nationalist, it is affiliated with the conservative right-wing Israeli parties." and "Makor Rishon is associated with the Settlers positions and is considered to have a qualitative impact on senior Likud and Jewish Home." I have pointed all of your misinterpretations that you have made above. I am not going to repeat that conversation.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 04:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  SharabSalam, as I said, if you can't be bothered to read the NRG article, you shouldn't be commenting on it. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 04:30, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable. Weekly broadsheet with respected editorial team, and respected by its competition as "serious, independent newspaper with a respectable readership": Haaretz in 2017 [115]. The former Maariv (newspaper) is reliable as well.--Bob not snob (talk) 05:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Anonymous opinion piece, lol. It's also talking about Makor Rishon (ie not NRG or their "archive") which editors above have been keen to avoid associating with (quite right, too)Selfstudier (talk) 09:57, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Selfstudier, so B'Tselem shouldn't be used either, right? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

B'tselem is a high reputation RS, look in the archives if you don't believe me. If you think that status has changed you can always list it again.Selfstudier (talk) 17:04, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Look in the archives of WP:RSN -anything controversial sourced to B'Tselem needs to be attributed to them. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:17, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not comfortable with using any newspaper or website associated with either side as a source for claims around the disputed areas. Certainly not as a sole source, because we don't know what the other side said about it, and virtually nothing from either party in I/P can be taken at face value. Guy (help!) 11:11, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  JzG, So you propose not to use sources like Btzelem too?Or Ma'an News Agency? And btw its not sole source there are plenty sources from one side this is to bring some NPOV especially as Maariv is respected WP:NEWSORG Shrike (talk) 13:18, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Stop with the distractions, this is about NRG360, not anyone else. B'tselem is a highly respected RS and if you want to contest that, list it for comments.Selfstudier (talk) 17:07, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Look in the archives of WP:RSN -anything controversial sourced to B'Tselem needs to be attributed to them. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:17, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Shrike, in this area, anything sourced to only one side, is likely not an accurate reflection of the facts on the ground. Guy (help!) 22:18, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable per Sir Joseph and Bobnotsnob. However, "when in doubt, attribute". buidhe 00:34, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable, certainly so for Tilapia in a stream. Both Maariv (a leading daily newspaper back in the day) and Makor Rishon (a "respected conservative weekly" [116][117]) are reliable.--Hippeus (talk) 10:20, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

outhistory.org : is reliable ?

i want to add source as reference on Zora Neale Hurston. on second thought i decided to ask opinion here first. even though it looks like a regular website without serious content, "main sources" on above given source hyperlink caught my attention. it was started by an author, please see about page and Contributor Guidelines page. Leela52452 (talk) 02:22, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• I don't see any particular issue with it, it has editorial control and a respected figurehead, but it will depend on the exact content: I would not be inclined to use it for contentious or extraordinary claims, but that article looks like an entirely straightforward biography. Guy (help!) 11:17, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Allow a small number of YouTube channels as reliable sources?

I'm seeing a lot of independent YouTubers doing research about particular topics, and in turn, being cited on Wikipedia, as they are most certainly reliable, but currently the only policy on Wikipedia about citing YouTube is that they are typically an unreliable source (correct) but could potentially be reliable with a publisher (or a video from the subject of the article's official channel).

Should there be an exception to this? I introduce these two YouTubers. All of them do independent work, all are considered reliable to those who watch it, and all are neutral in tone. Heck, you could even find some more of these people if you look hard enough.

• Lemmino
• Ahoy

Are these reliable people? dibbydib ^boop or _snoop 04:02, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I would only use YouTube channels if there are other established reliable sources that point them them and talk to them as a point of authority. Word of mouth is not sufficient; it needs to be documented in other sources. --Masem (t) 04:14, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. I have a potential candidate. which I will discuss in a new section below. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:57, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

YouTube is a self-publishing platform, and its content is as reliable as the publisher - Bloomberg videos are as reliable as Bloomberg, expert videos are as reliable as an expert WP:SPS, crank videos are as reliable as a crank WP:SPS. I don't see a reason for a carveout - David Gerard (talk) 10:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

In this case "Lemmino" is self described as "Documentaries and list videos narrated by a 20-something Swedish guy." and Ahoy is "Insightful gaming videos." I don't see any indication of editorial controls, so I'd say not reliable in this case.--Hippeus (talk) 10:37, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I actually agree with David Gerard - he nailed it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:46, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

EEVblog

In the section above this one, it was proposed that we allow a small number of YouTube channels as reliable sources, if there are other established reliable sources that point them them and talk to them as a point of authority. I would like to examine the EEVblog TouTube channel[118] and ask whether it qualifies as a reliable source.

Sources that mention EEVblog:

• Makers at Work: Folks Reinventing the World One Object or Idea at a Time
• Interview with David L. Jones
• Sun Tracking and Solar Renewable Energy Harvesting: Solar Energy Harvesting (also [119]).
• (16 hackaday articles abour EEVBlog)
• The EEVBlog: "No Script, No Fear and All Opinion"
• EEVblog #13 Part 1 of 2 – Digital storage Oscilloscope Tutorial
• Negative Feedback - Attack on a YouTube Channel

The main problem (and I suspect that this will be a problem with any YouTube channel) is that many of the sources that mention it are themselves not high quality sources.

On the other hand, here is what it takes you get a YouTube channel mentioned in The New York Times:

• Caleb Cain was a college dropout looking for direction. He turned to YouTube.
• How a Bollywood Music Label Conquered YouTube
• The New York Times YouTube Channel :)

If the decision was mine to make, it would be "maybe, but I am leaning towards no", even though I really like the channel. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 06:57, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I think a YouTube channel could be reliable, but it depends on editorial controls. In this case: https://www.eevblog.com/about/ they describe themselves as basically a one-man blog + sidekick. I don't think this shows sufficient editorial oversight.--Hippeus (talk) 10:25, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The question isn't whether it is a self-published source -- it clearly is -- but whether it meets the requirement...

("Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.") --WP:SPS

...and is to be considered a reliable self-published source, or whether he fails that test.

I think that it is pretty clear that David L. Jones (video blogger) is a "established subject-matter expert whose work in the relevant field has previously been published". He also easily meets the "published by independent publications" requirement. but does he meet the "published by reliable, independent publications" requirement? As I said before, I am leaning towards "no".

This relates to the "Allow a small number of YouTube channels as reliable sources?" question above. Nobody has a problem with some random person's YouTube channel, Twitter account, or Facebook page not being an allowable source. And nobody has a problem with allowing anything Anthony Fauci says/writes as an acceptable source, whether he publishes it on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, or in The New York Times -- he is a recognized expert on infectious diseases in general and COVID-19 in particular. But unlike Fauci, Jones is an established subject-matter expert because of his YouTube channel, not an established subject-matter expert who just happens to be using YouTube. And if Jones doesn't make the cut (only examining the list of sources above can answer that question) then nobody can. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:05, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I think EEVblog would be considered a self published expert often cited by others. However, EEVblog covers a wide range of topics and Jones probably exceeds his specific knowledge in at least some cases so we should be careful about how/when Jones's views are cited in articles. I think his commentary on things like PCB design or layout would be expert. His commentary on why a solar road is not a reasonable idea probably still in his wheel house. Commentary on if solar subsides are effective, no as that moves from engineering opinion to public policy opinion. BTW, I'm offering these as generalized examples of things Jones has discussed. If I got details wrong that's because I'm discussing it from memory. The take away is may be a self published subject matter expert on a case by case basis. Springee (talk) 13:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Supercars.net

This website seems like a personal website and is managed by one person named Nick D. It doesn't meet the criteria to be considered a reliable source and seems to be a fan site with inaccurate information in some cases.U¹ _quattro TALK 06:45, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Carfolio.com

This site has been used on many pages related to automobiles at Wikipedia and contains self made content. There is no source mentioned on the site as to where it gets its information from and has no editorial control.U¹ _quattro TALK 06:49, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Here is the carfolio.com page for the Honda Freed Hybrid Crosstar. I'm not a car expert by any means but the info on the carfolio site looks as though it has been compiled by someone who knows what they are talking about.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:57, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Here is the carfolio.com page for the Maserati 420 S and you can see how wrong it is. A saloon is a 4-door car, not a 2-door car. The power output figures are also questionable as well. There are a lot of other instances where this site is wrong.U¹ _quattro TALK 07:21, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I'll have to leave it to car experts. I know that cars usually have four wheels and an engine, but that's about all:) Seriously though, being a reliable source does not mean getting things right 100% of the time, because this is impossible, but the overall accuracy of carfolio.com as a source should be looked at by car experts.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:47, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I understand that there are other criterions for a source to be called reliable and I have started this discussion based on that. Cheers.U¹ _quattro TALK 10:16, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

This strikes me as a fact aggregation site. The sort of thing where they simply crawl the web and copy content on to their own site. It seems like the sort of place where almost all facts could be cited to other, better sources. I wouldn't assume the content is wrong but likely copied with no consideration for accuracy. I also wouldn't make a fuss out of "2 door saloon" Car people seem to love to argue about precise definitions (roadster vs convertible, sports car vs sporty car, AWD vs 4WD etc). Terms like sedan, coupe and roadster all predate the the automobile and mfrs often about terms (Mercedes and BMW with 4 door coupes). If Mercedes calls a 4 door sedan a coupe or Chrysler calls a particular engine a "HEMI" I think we just accept it even if those names abuse the commonly understood definitions. Springee (talk) 13:27, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Thing is that Maserati called the 420 S a saloon/sedan. Not a coupe. 4-door coupe is a different term and is precisely defined on Wikipedia as well as else where. The real bone of contention is that this website doesn't tell the viewers where its getting information from, who are the owners and whether there is any editorial control or not, which doesn't seem the case for any visitor to the website.U¹ _quattro TALK 00:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Romilly Lunge and his biographical entries from family members

Dear Wikipedia, My great Uncle Romilly Lunge has an entry in your online Wikipedia pages. I am his biographer and family member who spent 25 years studying his life, logging recording and discussing his life and experiences with him personally between 1969 and 1994 and have many of his personal and family effects. From time to time I add or expand on his bio as time allows. For some reason just recently a Wikipedia admin called Arjayay talk: 2A00:23C4:E1B2:5101:8884:61C7:77C:BF4F. This person keeps removing all the facts and biographical entries I make and has totally removed his historical events. He/She says to: Please stop adding a mass of unsourced person reminiscences - comments like "I recall working for him" and "I remember him thinking" do not belong in an encyclopedia - Arjayay (talk) 14:04, 11 May 2020 (UTC)...

I never said “I recall working for him” I never said “I remember him thinking” If those entries existed they would be corrected. I’m not sure what he means by: “unsourced person reminiscences”. Please advise what can be done about my Great Uncles entry and can I be assured that re-entering his biographical accounts will remain as an interesting historical account of his life. Thank you for your attention in this matter. Regards, Christopher Kirsten.

Wikipedia has its "rules" (policies and guidelines etc.). One of the most important of these is verifiitability WP:V based on reliable sources (WP:RS). In short, Wikipedia articles should be based on what the published sources say (preferably with a footnote to the source), not on unpublished memories of family members. Eg. you can use and cite a book or newspaper article as a reliable source. The text you added to the article is exactly a kind of content unsuitable for an encyclopedia. Note as a family member, you may have a conflict of interest, so edit carefully (WP:COI). Hope that helps. Pavlor (talk) 07:11, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: PeoPo.org

PeoPo.org is a Chinese (Taiwanese?) "citizen journalism platform" "encouraging citizens to register as users and report on public issues".[120] In other words, it is a site for user-generated content, which according to WP:USERGENERATED is "generally unacceptable". I tried removing it as a citation from North–South divide in Taiwan, but was reverted and asked to bring the issue here. Kaldari (talk) 16:07, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey (PeoPo.org)

Generally unreliable for factual reporting, I can see some cases where it could be used with attribution but they are not numerous. In general citizen journalism has issues from WP’s point of view. Also definitely Taiwanese not Chinese, this sort of thing is literally illegal in China. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:15, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

• Indeed, generally unreliable unless the author of the particular article is a subject expert, in which case treat it as a self-published source. — Bilorv (talk) 17:13, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Generally Unreliable - Most of the articles on PeoPo.org appear to be written by users with little to no credibility themselves. As the Chinese-language version of the code of ethics states, writing on the site is open to anyone (except for governments and for-profit companies):

1.2 不論年齡、職業、性別、國別，任何人皆可免費申請本平台發稿帳號，報導各地事件和議題；唯有非政府組織(NGO)及非營利組織(NPO)可以用組織身分申請發稿帳號。

1.2 Regardless of age, occupation, gender, or country, anyone can apply for a journalist account on this platform for free to report on events and issues in various places; only non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profit organizations (NPOs) can apply for journalist accounts as an organization .

—"PeoPo公民新聞平台使用規定" [Regulations for the Use of PeoPo Citizen News Platform]. PeoPo (in Chinese). Public Television Service Foundation. Retrieved 12 May 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

The articles by approved NGOs and NPOs may be of higher quality than those of most of the citizen journalists however, due to the specific rules regarding their contributions. Articles by PTS Taiwan and the Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation are likely vetted by the organizations themselves, with both publishing (seemingly reliable) news on their own websites. The articles by citizen journalists should generally not be used in place of higher quality sources, although in some situations such as articles from approved NGOs or NPOs, the articles may be reliable as sources. K^{ʜᴜ'ʜᴀᴍɢᴀʙᴀ} K^{ɪᴛᴀᴘ (parlez ici)} 14:45, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (PeoPo.org)

I am uncertain about the quality of all content from PeoPo but I would suggest that "just looking into the specific news coverage that is cited by North-South divide in Taiwan". We do not need to make effort to completely review PeoPo, which can be exhausting to us. Dormantor (talk) 1:48 am, Today (UTC+8)

If we make a conclusion, the conclusion is for PeoPo, not only for specific new cited by North-South divide in Taiwan. So I think we need to check PeoPo, not specific PeoPo news. --Wolfch (talk) 23:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Pride.com

There was a discussion back in January on the talk page of the article for ContraPoints, in which the reliability of Pride.com was briefly discussed. In the discussion, I asserted that the reliability of the website should probably be taken on a case-by-case basis. The site is said to prominently feature user-submitted content, but it also has an editorial director, and features content by established figures. For example, Jessie Earl, who has also written for The Advocate, has written articles for Pride.com. Fellow editor Bilorv agreed that the Pride.com article used on the ContraPoints page was an acceptable source in that case. However, I'd like more editors to weigh in, so perhaps a consensus regarding the site's status as generally reliable, generally unreliable, or marginally reliable could be listed at WP:RSP. This is my first time starting a discussion on this noticeboard, so I hope I'm doing this correctly. —Matthew - (talk) 16:39, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

• Marginally reliable or generally unreliable per discussion below, pending further information. Similar to Buzzfeed in style, which is categorised as "marginally reliable" on RSP. Potentially usable when the article in question is authored by a journalist known for their work at respectable publications. — Bilorv (talk) 18:46, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

@MatthewHoobin: Do you know what the process of having an article published on Pride.com involves? Do all articles have to be reviewed by an editor before being published, or can people just post content on demand, similar to Medium.com? Are there published editorial guidelines? Kaldari (talk) 19:28, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Matthew. For this to be a formal RfC, I think you need a template at the top of the section with the right category: {{rfc|media}}. You might want to move these comments into a discussion subsection after adding that. As for the source, I'm not even sure Pride.com has an about page. Learning more about its editorial policies would be good, but my inkling is that it's like Buzzfeed, where our consensus is "yellow" and begins Editors find the quality of BuzzFeed articles to be highly inconsistent. I think articles are only usable when written by a journalist known for writing for other respectable sources. A lot of their content wouldn't be usable by WP:NOTNEWS, yet more would be better sourced elsewhere and that leaves its main uses as reviews of TV/film/whatever made by significant critics and special cases, so far as I can see. — Bilorv (talk) 22:08, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Pride.com does seem reminiscent of Buzzfeed in its presentation. I haven't been able to find an About page on the website either. I've tried reaching out to Here Media, the company that owns Pride.com, via email to ask if they have any publicly available editorial guidelines. Hopefully they do and we just haven't been able to find them. The key term there is "publicly available" or "published", because if I get an email response just telling me about their editorial guidelines without providing me with any links, that won't be much help. —Matthew - (talk) 17:23, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Hyena-project.com

At Spotted hyena (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), there is a new account -- Redstoneprime (talk · contribs) -- edit warring over including hyena-project.com as a source. The editor believes that hyena-project.com is a reliable source, and is not taking the time to read and comprehend our WP:Reliable sources guideline. Discussion on this is at Talk:Spotted hyena#Hyena-project.com, etc.. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 17:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't intentionally edit-warring at all. I was just confused, since I initially thought scientific research was a reliable source (which I have now found out it isn't). Do you know any reliable sources that say a clan can be lead by a male? I imagine Hyena-Project comes under "Self-published sources"? In that case, I imagine the only difference that they have to, say, Supercars.net, is that their information is accurate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redstoneprime (talk • contribs)

Redstoneprime, not intentionally edit warring? I told you on your talk page to cease and desist, and you reverted me again anyway. Your source is poor, and something like "however, research done by Hyena Project at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania has confirmed that females may also disperse from their natal clan, although this is very rare, and has only been recorded once" is WP:Undue weight if "has only been recorded once" is true. You should revert all of what you added. The way you are editing makes sense if you are truly a newbie, but still. You need to take the time to actually listen when a more experienced editor is telling you what is wrong with your edits, and read the policies or guidelines you are pointed to.

On a side note, sign your posts using four tildes. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 18:26, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I will make sure not to edit-war again in the future. Speaking of which, can we discuss such topics regarding hyena hierarchy on the articles "talk" page, since we can find other valid sources that way?

Also, how do I sign my comments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redstoneprime (talk • contribs)

I see that Kleuske reverted you. This is your chance to not edit war on this again.

As for signing your posts? Type four tildes (~), like this: ~~~~. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 18:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Also, sorry for the edit warring. I just got a little confused. (I have asked in the "tearooms" about the issue regarding reliable sources, however). Also, can my change to the Zimbabwe section of the "range and population" remain, since it's more accurate to say that they aren't protected outside of nature reserves, rather than essentially "they aren't protected at all". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redstoneprime (talk • contribs)

Adding New Bank & Financial Institutions

Dear Wikipedia Pros,

I started to write about banks & financial institutions for adding into Wikipedia. I found a missing bank but has a good notability on various finance magazines. There are some reliable sources which I want to ensure before start writing. Need your advice about the reference sources and notability before start writing.

Ripple Has Signed Up A Bank To Use XRP For Payments. So What? Could Ripple's XRP replace correspondent banks? This bank says yes Financial Services Regulatory Authority - Regulated Entities Financial Conduct Authority Carribean Association of Banks Inc EURO EXIM BANK LIMITED - Overview (free company information from Companies House) [121] [122] [123]

I also need your support/help in learning to do things right as its my first step in Wikipedia.

I think this is more a case of wp:n, of the sources you list most are either not suitable to establish notability (listings with regulators for example) or seem to actually be about something else (such as XRP).Slatersteven (talk) 12:44, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

ahaha, this is in my wheelhouse.

The Forbes link is a contributor blog post. I know Frances Coppola and she knows her stuff - but I'm not sure she's famous enough for it to pass Wikipedia muster as an expert self-published source.

Not sure about American Banker - trade publication, of the sort that runs all sorts of nonsense, and this is definitely that and about crypto.

FSRA St Lucia is the local regulator, so is authoritative for its scope. Same for the FCA.

CAB is an industry association which explicitly states its mission is promotion - not an RS.

I'm not sure we use direct Companies House info much. In any case, it's user-submitted content and generally not checked by Companies House.

CFI.co, says it's a news outlet - I'm not sure how good a one.

You appear to be writing something on Ripple, XRP and Euro Exim Bank. This is a fascinating topic, and I really wish there were more solid RSes on it (and that Martin C.W. Walker and Frances Coppola would write about it for more of them - and tr0lly's blog nails the whole Ripple thing hilariously, and is utterly unusable on WP). But given it's WP:GS/Crypto material, I'd suggest that, as for most crypto material, stick firmly to the financial press - Bloomberg, WSJ, Financial Times (FT Alphaville counts, and has had a few things to say about Ripple), and the larger mainstream RSes with good finance coverage (NYT, Reuters) - David Gerard (talk) 16:46, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Reliability of Norway Heritage

So, doing some research for new wiki pages, I came across a website that I've seen several times, but wondered if it was reliable. It is www.norwayheritage.com. I haven't started it yet, but the article I am going to use it for is S S Graf Waldersee, a ship owned by the Hamburg-America line. The website has all kinds of ships from the 19th and 20th centuries. It looks a little iffy, but has a lot of great information, pictures and articles on genealogy. For example, it has the weight and years of service of the ships. I have seen it used as a reference a few times on other ships. Thanks for the help, Ghinga7 (talk) 20:48, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

WhatCulture

WhatCulture, the website where contributors "do not need to have any relevant experience or hold any particular qualifications", probably deserves an edit filter. Last month, I took the issue to MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist because its use on Wikipedia is being a problem. It is generally specifically used for lists, celebrities, films, video games, and especially wrestling, and one can obviously tell the format of the coverage just by looking at its homepage. Frankly my blacklist suggestion was declined due to the lack of actual spam (the raison d'être of the blacklist), and during that time I came to better understand the use of edit filters. I then realized that I could either take the issue here on RSN or on WP:EFN, in which case the former is obviously correct. Normally, I do not request for putting warnings on links that should be avoided, but when those links become widely used, they become more or less an epidemic that needs to be curbed. I am not sure what I would be using that website for, if anything, so it would help if anyone can tell me why the source is at least useful. FreeMediaKid! 21:40, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable and would love to see it blacklisted. I'd put in the pile of "humor-based publications" like Mad and Cracked that are meant to be fun to read but have zero journalistic merit and should not be used for any real claims. --Masem (t) 21:55, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable Top 10 clickbait garbage absolutely a terrible source. Watchmojo should also be added the list for the same reason, it is currently used in 30 articles   Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:04, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Apple Daily

Given that references to Apple Daily are used in a lot of Hong Kong-related articles, editors are requested to comment on its reliability.

Please choose from the following options:

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Reliable, but may require further investigation
• Option 3: Unreliable for certain topics (such as those which may be considered controversial)
• Option 4: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 5: Publishes incorrect or fake information and should be deprecated.

Thanks. 23:12, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Survey (Apple Daily)

• Option 4 or Option 5: It's a tabloid that regularly relies on poor sources, such as using a tweet from Solomon Yue a protest conspiracy theorist to cover which Hong Kong officials are on the U.S. list of sanctioned individuals in this article (now being added en masse to articles). A recent example of it producing false news (bolding mine):

  For example, a protest supporter last month posted a misleading image depicting Lam using her mobile device during the enthronement of the Emperor Naruhito, a sign of disrespect. Within hours, the post was shared thousands of times, including by prominent activist Agnes Chow and local news outlet Apple Daily. It turned out the image was actually taken before the event started, according to a report from Annie Lab, a fact-checking project at HKU’s Journalism and Media Studies Center.
  — An article by The Japan Times

  It's been described by academic sources as producing sham news, among a host of other journalistic issues:
  • A Wall Street Journal article: describes it as giving readers a heavy diet of sex and violence and having been attacked for bringing tabloid journalism into Hong Kong homes
  • A Far Eastern Economic Review article (Taiwan — Lai's Next Move: The publisher with the Midas Touch hits new highs. But mainland China remains a dream (2001)): describes it as a racy tabloid
  • An EJ Insight article: describes it as having never claimed to be objective or unbiased, particularly in reference to the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests
  • A journalism book published by the The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press: criticizes it for breaches of privacy and paparazzi-like conduct.
  • An academic reference book by Berkshire Publishing Group: its sensational style and use of checkbook journalism as well as paparazzi led to controversy among journalists and the public. The boundary between entertainment news and hard news in Apple Daily was blurred
  • An academic book on HK media by Routledge: Apple Daily has been described as 'well known for its brazen, sensational news coverage ... Legitimate political and social topics have been supplanted ... by sex, sensational crimes, the rise and fall of celebrities, scandalous paparazzi investigations, rumors, and even sham news.

To its credit, it's an example of press freedom in Hong Kong with extensive coverage of the protests, and is a rare publisher in HK that is willing to take on the Chinese government. Nevertheless, it's a tabloid that engages in the usual poor journalism practices across all types of content. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:39, 12 May 2020 (UTC); modified 02:22, 13 May 2020 (UTC); expanded 08:44, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Apple Daily)

• @MarkH21: please either source or retract, the statement that Solomon Yue is a conspiracy theorist violates WP:BLP no matter what space its made in unless backed up by a WP:RS. I noticed its unattributed on their page, it has been removed. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:07, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye Jack: Sorry, I took the statement from the WP article lead at face value too quickly. Digging in further though, sources do prescribe him as tweeting conspiracy theories:

  It’s a theory that seems to be somewhat related to the Wuhan lab conspiracy. One tweet by Republican Party official Solomon Yue, who has more than 100,000 followers, said: “#coronavirus is stolen from Canada by espionage & sent to Wuhan to be weaponized to kill foreign enemies.”
  — Article from Vox

  The problem of containment gets worse when power users such as politicians give this false information a boost. In US, Trump helped amplify tweets from the support of QAnon, the conspiracy group active in spreading Corona virus rumors. Republican party official Solomon Yue tweeted to more than 100,000 followers that the virus was stolen from Canada for use of a Bio weapon
  — Article from Rising Kashmir

  I’ve struck the label about him as a conspiracy theorist above, but the main point still stands about the article being based on his tweet. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:22, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

  The points a good one, I agree that Apple isnt generally reliable but we have a very high standard for calling someone a conspiracy theorist. Tweeting or re-tweeting conspiracy theories doesn’t count, we need a WP:RS to say in black and white “X is a conspiracy theorist” or “X is the originator of the Y conspiracy theory." Horse Eye Jack (talk) 02:26, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

  I agree, and thanks for removing the statement from his article. — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:36, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Is PoliticusUSA a reliable source?

I've seen this website referenced in a bunch of places in Wikipedia. It seems to be that it is rather opinionated but is it reliable in general? [124] dibbydib ^boop or _snoop 23:48, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

No - This looks like the sort of partisan angle-shooting "news" site we should explicitly avoid, not least because there are undoubtedly far better and more mainstream sources for anything this might publish. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:51, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

The Reliability of "Bounding into Comics"

Bounding into Comics promotes itself as "your destination for comic books, gaming, movies and more!", like your typical entertainment news site. I've seen it used as reference on several articles, such as this, this, and this. However it has been accused of having and promoting right-aligning views, such as this article (which I have painful memories of), this article, and likely the whole "Censorship" section (just look at this article!). This Vulture article calls Bounding into Comics "a Comicsgate news-hub where progressive creators and critics are regularly accused of harassing or silencing conservatives". This could make Bounding into Comics untrustworthy for some people.

However, these views do not take up a significant portion of the site (mostly restricted to articles concerning politics and individuals), and the articles referenced in the linked Wikipedia articles seem to not have any bias and are rooted in fact, though they can replaced with articles from more trustworthy sites. What are your thoughts on this? Slap Bounding into Comics with a yellow rating? PrincessPandaWiki (talk) 01:04, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like nothing more than a glorified fan site with little editorial control (Team page leaves much to be desired, no standout names with experience to back it up). Definitely towards unreliable. --Masem (t) 01:12, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Yikes! I'm glad I have an adblocker. ¶ I read a few of their comic book reviews, most of which were informative with decent writing. So I don't think the site is always unreliable, but caution is certainly warranted. ¶ I don't know if this is relevant, but their affiliate disclosure is buried in the footer, which clearly violates Federal Trade Commission requirements that disclosures be "clear and conspicuous".   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 02:47, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Independent student journalism

Can this review of a play be discussed in the "Reception" section for the play in question? AndrewOne (talk) 02:31, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I would say "yes". Most university newspapers adhere to traditional journalism standards and ethics. For example, the review you reference states, "All of the show's on stage music was composed and arranged by senior theater student Wesley Hortenbach" followed by complimentary prose about the play's music. And the paper also includes this disclosure: "Editor's note: Wesley Hortenbach is a former Minnesota Daily employee."   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 02:55, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

TrekNation

Is TrekNation a reliable source? Its sites have been cited in WP:GA articles (Blood Oath (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Code of Honor (Star Trek: The Next Generation)) and yet it seems to have received little scrutiny besides an older RSN post which got no replies. TheAwesomeHwyh 03:15, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Federal News Network Comment

• I am proposing this website to be included as a generally reliable source, with the following exceptions:

1. Pod casts
2. Analysis of issues
3. Opinion Piece

• This website covers all US federal departments (and only). No diffs to use.

Link: Federal News Network

Thanks! Galendalia _{CVU Member} \ ^{Chat Me Up} 17:57, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

They’re part of Hubbard Broadcasting, what is the context for the question? Has their reliability been challenged? I can’t say I’ve ever seen the Federal News Network used as a source. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for that information, but I do not see Hubbard Broadcasting on the list either (unless I lost eyesight or still waking up). It is a website/app I use and they have the topics that relate to the federal government and all offices with the fed's and I see no department left out. It may not be cited now, however, there is page for it located at WFED. Galendalia _{CVU Member} \ ^{Chat Me Up} 18:21, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• I've listened to Federal News Network broadcasts and podcasts intermittently for several years. As far as I can discern they are an objective, traditional journalism outfit. (By "traditional" I mean striving to report facts; seeking balance; and adhering to a strong code of ethics.) I would not exclude podcasts or analysis.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 21:05, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Foreign Relations of the United States (book series) in First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House

At First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House there is a dispute about using the US Foreign Relations of the United States book series. The book is cited for the line United States Chargé d'affaires Wells Stabler reported in a confidential despatch that when the Iraqi army arrived, the Israeli operators of the plant blew up some of the electricity generators (alternators) in the plant and the plant was subsequently looted by the Iraqi troops and for a longer quote. Is this an acceptable use of this source? nableezy - 22:15, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Per my comments there, quite obviously not. To repeat: The FRUs are a collection of source documents. The Stabler cable being quoted there is a primary source. In it, he makes a claim no other reliable source has made. WP:OR, in discussing WP:PRIMARY sources, says that if they are used, it should be used with caution, and has an explanatory footnote that says that any such source making an exceptional claim requires exceptional sources. In WP:EXCEPTIONAL "exceptional claims" are then further defined as, among other criteria, "Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources" - which this surely is, and "Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest" - which also fits this situation. In summary: policy is clear that you may not use the Stabler cable (alone) to support the claim that the dynamos were initially blown up by the plant's workers, as that is a challenged exceptional claim supported purely by a primary source. In addition, the primary source is used for a lengthy (1500 char) block quote , which again runs contrary to WP:RSPRIMARY: "Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided.. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 22:24, 13 May 2020 (UTC)