Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Start a new discussion

Can we please adapt the Daily Mail consensus to reflect a position on Mail on Sunday?

The applicability of the Daily Mail ban to the Mail on Sunday has bee raised multiple times, and yet many editors are labouring under the impression that it does. These are the facts (briefly):

1. The Daily Mail (including its website) was proscribed in 2017 in an RFC: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_220#Daily_Mail_RfC. There was no mention of Mail on Sunday being subject to this ban.
2. This ban was reaffirmed the following year: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_255#2nd_RfC:_The_Daily_Mail. Again, there is no mention of the Mail on Sunday.
3. The examples brought forward that led to the ban came from The Daily Mail or Mailonline, not the Mail on Sunday from what I can see.
4. Mail on Sunday is not just a sunday edition of The Daily Mail, it is editorially independent i.e. different editors, different writers. Occasionally they even adopt opposing positions (such as on Brexit). They are different newspapers but with a common ownership.
5. Mailonline publishes content from The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and its own stuff.

The question of the Mail on Sunday has been raised on several occasions:

1. At Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_278#Does_WP:Dailymail_apply_to_the_Mail_on_Sunday the prevailing opinion (summarised by Andy Dingley) is that the ban does not cover the Mail on Sunday namely because it is not stated to apply.
2. At Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_280#Daily_Mail_(sigh,_yes,_again) Newslinger also notes that Mail on Sunday is unaffected by the ban.
3. At Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_311#Clarification:_Does_Daily_Mail_RfC_apply_to_the_Mail_on_Sunday? we have a discussion that explicitly tackles this question, but does not explicitly answer it. Mazca observes that the two publications are editorially independent. He also comments that there is an argument that MoS shares many of the same reliability issues as its sister publication, and that the ban that applies to the online platform acts as a "de facto barrier" to MoS.
4. We now have a situation with David Gerard purging Mail on Sunday references from Wikipedia: see [1], [2], [3] just for a few examples. There are dozens more.

I certainly don't dispute that an argument exists that the Mail on Sunday shares the same reliability issues as its sister publication, as noted by Mazca, but the key word here is argument. The case has not been successfully prosecuted, which must surely mean that the ban does not apply to the MoS if we accept the prevailing opinion they are editorially independent publications. I also don't dispute Mazca's statement that the proscription of the online platform (that houses some MoS content) acts as a de facto barrier. It is statement of fact. If we can't cite Mailonline then the print version of the newspaper must be consulted directly. But Mazca does not state whether the Daily Mail ban explicitly applies to the Mail on Sunday or not. It is certainly being interpreted as such by David Gerard.

I am pinging in all the editors who closed the two Daily Mail RFCs: @Yunshui, Primefac, Sunrise, Jo-Jo Eumerus, Tazerdadog, Vanamonde93, and Ymblanter:.

I appreciate everybody is tired of debating these damn newspapers but can we PLEASE reach a point where the Daily Mail ban either explicitly states it applies to the Mail on Sunday or explicitly states that it does NOT apply to the Mail on Sunday?? If the ban is to encompass the Mail on Sunday then we should proceed with replacing the sources in an orderly fashion. Ripping out content (which is probably 99% good) is not constructive and detrimental to building an encyclopedia. Betty Logan (talk) 09:56, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

As the asker of the clarification request, I understood the result of the discussion as: “MOS is not included in the DM RfCs, but may suffer from the same issues. A new RfC will be required to come to a determination on its status.” Obvious question is: what until then? If it’s got the same reliability issues, we wouldn’t want it being used on wiki, and I doubt there’s much community energy for an RfC on this niche case. I think it’s thus appropriate to treat it with questionable reliability, but not as explicitly deprecated. But I don’t care enough either way. Someone like Newslinger may be better placed to answer the procedural issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:27, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your concerns. I have seen David Gerard's newest approach to the Daily Mail topic. He has now proceeded to strip anything published by the DMG Media company in the past two week. He his now removing the Mail on Sunday, Irish Daily Mail, and Irish Mail on Sunday. The reliable source noticeboard needs to deal with this topic, since numerous long term editors, who have spent years on this project, are being insulted left and right by this automated process. Since, the reliable source noticeboard is what is providing the cover for these actions, the board needs to be very precise about the decisions it is taking. And as far as the Mail on Sunday, no it is not included under the Daily Mail deprecation. Many of us editors who create the content obviously have access to outside newspaper databases and do not need to use the website www.dailymail.co.uk --Guest2625 (talk) 11:02, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

This seems like an overly procedural argument. If they have the same reliability, why the need for endless debates on it? According to WP:RS, part of the core content policy, unreliable sources should not be used (with narrow exceptions, but that's not what we're dealing with here). (t · c) buidhe 11:36, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Also note that there is no assumption that a source is reliable, the WP:ONUS is on those seeking to restore disputed content is to show that the source is reliable. So I ask, what is the evidence that Mail on Sunday, Irish Daily Mail, etc. are reliable sources? (t · c) buidhe 11:38, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Have we not just had this very discussion?Slatersteven (talk) 12:30, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

The prohibition on citing dailymail.co.uk in practice provides a significant de facto barrier to using the Mail on Sunday as a source is what the last discussion said, and your laughable content (which is probably 99% good) flies in the face of reality.

numerous long term editors, who have spent years on this project, are being insulted left and right by this automated process I'd say that the Wikipedia readers are being insulted by the numerous long-term editors using shitty sources, and I know whose side I'm on. --Calton | Talk 12:49, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Citing dailymail.co.uk is indeed a barrier to citing the Mail on Sunday. But it is a technical barrier. In the same way if Wikipedia were only to insist on hardcopy citations. It is misguided to suggest that the MoS is not reliable purely because some of its content is reproduced at MailOnline. On the other hand, it may be reasonable to suggest that it is not reliable because it is plagued by the same problems as Daily Mail. In fairness I am putting a simple question to the administrators who closed the two Daily Mail RFCs: does the consensus also apply to the Mail on Sunday? Some of you may consider this overly procedural. Maybe it is, but I wouldn't be asking if an editor were not deleting vast amounts of content on entirely procedural grounds. Betty Logan (talk) 13:32, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

If anybody in that discussion had made that "barrier" argument, it would have been countered, just as Betty Logan has done, by saying there is a print edition. But nobody did make that argument, or anything remotely similar to it, so "barrier" is not a reflection of consensus, it is merely the closer's opinion. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:18, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that the MoS is a reliable source for anything? Reassuringly, the Sunday Mail doesn't seem to be subject to the restrictions, but as it's a tabloid I wouldn't tend to think of it as a RS. . . dave souza, talk 14:43, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Betty Logan has neglected to link the cause of the present discussion: she used this unreliable tabloid source to reinsert controversial claims about living people, sourced only to this unreliable tabloid, at List of snooker players investigated for match-fixing - apparently in the belief that using this trash source is acceptable as long as it isn't specifically deprecated.

I mentioned this in talk, Betty Logan blindly put the content back after without responding to the material having been challenged (thus not meeting WP:BURDEN, and then claimed the question I raised in talk was about WP:DAILYMAIL rather than her deliberately edit-warring in a reference to an unreliable source when making claims about living people.

I would suggest that even if the MoS is not covered by WP:DAILYMAIL - and not a word of either RFC's conclusion supports it being excluded, and nor does the result of the discussion, which concluded a carve-out would likely need a fresh RFC - that this is WP:POINTy behaviour, and material concerning living persons is absolutely not the place to be doing that - David Gerard (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

My primary concern is your interpretation of the RFC consensus. I have raised this same issue with you prior to this latest incident: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_299#dailymail.co.uk_reversion:_eyes_wanted. Your contribution history shows you were engaged in a purge of the Mail on Sunday and justifying it using the Daily Mail RFC. I don't see any attempts to locate an alternative source or raise the issue on the talk page. Removing content in this manner is destructive. Betty Logan (talk) 17:18, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

If you ever think unreliable tabloids are a suitable source for material about living people, you have greatly misunderstood Wikipedia sourcing, and what constitutes "destructive". You appear both unable and unwilling to back up the content you want to edit-war back in, under WP:BURDEN - David Gerard (talk) 17:39, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

You keep calling it "unreliable" but I have not seen any evidence for that position. During the Daily Mail RFC examples were presented of The Daily Mail or its website fabricating stories. Are you able to provide such examples of the MoS doing so? THis IPSI report (page 18) shows that in terms of upheld complaints it is comparable to other other publications in its category. The Sunday Times had more complaints upheld than MoS but I don't see you objecting to that title. It is fairly obvious to me that your actions are motiviated by an agenda against The Daily Mail rather than any objective assessment of MoS's reliability. Betty Logan (talk) 08:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Speaking as a closer rather than someone who had an a priori opinion on the source; no, the DM RfCs do not extend to the Mail on Sunday, and citing the DM proscription as a reason to remove the Mail on Sunday source isn't appropriate. Conversely, just because it isn't proscribed by the DM RfC does not make the Mail on Sunday a reliable source by default, and the spirit of WP:BURDEN still applies to any content that it is used for, in that the person seeking to include that content needs to demonstrate verifiability. To be honest, for contentious material sourced to the news media, I would want multiple corroborating sources always, unless the first source is of unimpeachable quality. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:02, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

  I've already spoken (and answered) this exact question, but to (again) reiterate, I'm with Vanamonde on this: the RFC related to the Daily Mail and the Daily Mail only. The fact that they share a website is problematic, but if a reference is for the Mail on Sunday then it is inherently not a reference for the Daily Mail. Primefac (talk) 17:59, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

  Agree with Vanamonde and Primefac above - The Mail on Sunday was not covered in the RFCs, and it can be argued seriously (and probably correctly) that it is a fundamentally different source. Therefore the DM RFC does not cover the Mail on Sunday. If you think that the Mail on Sunday is a bad source that should be deprecated or otherwise restricted, you are free to open a fresh RFC to find consensus on that. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:45, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

  I still stand by my comment at User talk:Primefac/Archive 29#The Daily Mail RfC, Again, i.e no unless MoS is part of DM the RfC on the latter does not apply. That's a separate question than whether it's a good idea to use MoS as a reference for something. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:00, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Mail on Sunday

What is the reliability of The Mail on Sunday?

• 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

Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Responses (Mail on Sunday)

• Option 4 The content on mailonline (at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/mailonsunday/index.html) seems to be no different and inseparable from the rest of the outlet, Peter Hitchens has reported favourably on the Douma chemical attack leaks, which are discredited by most mainstream sources. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Even for news stories, there's no separate subdomain for MoS stories and the bylines say "for Mailonline", the only way you'd be able to definitively know whether it was a MoS story would be by checking the actual physical newspaper, which wikipedians aren't going to be citing anyway. The TV&Showbiz section which editors find to be the most problematic is displayed right with the news on the MoS section. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:53, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

The MoS has its own separate domain, https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/, but it's only been cited 11 times per mailonsunday.co.uk  , and provides no separation from the TV&Showbiz section https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/tvshowbiz/index.html, which appears to be the same as the rest of the mailonline, and the website functions as more of a mirror than anything else. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:58, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

As I write this on a weekday, The content of mailonsunday.co.uk is identical to that of dailymail.co.uk, making it for all intents and purposes a mirror of MailOnline, and so therefore mailonsunday.co.uk should be added to the deprecated domains list regardless of the outcome of the RfC. If the Mail on Sunday is not deprecated, it should be allowed to be cited as a print reference only. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:18, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 I regard Mail on Sunday reliable for the following reasons:

1. It has editorial oversight. independent from The Daily Mail and the website.
2. It has been established that the DM ban does not apply to MoS.
3. During the Daily Mail RFC, examples of the DM fabricating stories were presented. I do not recall any from the MoS.
4. Other reliable sources reference it.
5. The number of complaints upheld by IPSI report (page 18) is comparable to other publications in its category that are generally regarded as reliable sources. The Sunday Times, for example, had more complaints upheld than MoS.
6. MailOnline (which is already proscribed) is a separate entity. It houses content from The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday but also publishes its own content. This does not confer unreliability on the MoS. This is nothing more than a technical barrier and the print edition can be cited directly.

It may get things wrong occasionally but no more than other comparable titles. No evidence of it fabricating stories has been presented and an objective measure shows that its level of accurate reporting is comparable to other titles deemed reliable. The arguments presented in the above discussion invariably boil down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT and a misunderstanding of the relationship between the Sunday and daily editions and the website. Betty Logan (talk) 09:31, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

There's a couple of lists now of egregious fabrication - please address these (with more case by case specifics than "I feel like it's no worse than others"), even a little bit of this sort of thing seems a massive red flag that would rule it out as being treated as an ordinary WP:NEWSORG - David Gerard (talk) 12:34, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

There are no lists of fabricated stories, just lists of stories that were proven to be factually inaccurate. For example, the story about a "Muslim" gang attacking a van was not fabricated. The incident happened! The MOS was forced to adjust the article because the religion of the perpetrators was based on conjecture. The story about climate change that was prcolaimed "fake news" wasn't fabricated if you look at the article, it was simply inaccurate. Again, the level of complaints upheld against it is not significantly different to other titles, such as The Sunday Times. Betty Logan (talk) 13:33, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

They've been provided right here in this discussion - fabrication of claims, extensive fabrication of quotes, etc - but if you want to pretend they don't exist and think "lalala I can't hear you" and "but whatabout that other paper we're not discussing" is a refutation, you can certainly stay with that. If you want to discuss the Sunday Times, you should start an RFC on that. (And if you didn't actually want to discuss the Sunday Times, then your discussion of it so far is indistinguishable from throwing up chaff.) - David Gerard (talk) 13:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, the meat of Betty's argument isn't so much that there isn't any incorrect information, just that there isn't any more incorrect information than papers we tend to consider reliable. They aren't saying they 'feel like it's no worse than others' but that there's empirical evidence that it isn't. Bringing up other papers we consider reliable isn't irrelevant. The problem is that the empirical evidence presented is extremely flimsy: the IPSO report is on the number of articles which received complaints, not how accurate they are. The report itself says "newspapers with the highest circulation [...] received the most complaints." It doesn't tell us anything. I was unable to find any empirical reports on the reliability of the Mail on Sunday specifically (if there were any I imagine there'd be no discussion), and all fact-checking websites treat it alongside the Daily Mail. Wikipedia seems to be alone in considering it separately. I think the false information already presented is egregious enough to warrant Option 4 and if other sources we consider reliable have done the same we should stop considering them reliable too. Iesbian (talk) 18:36, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

You're making this seem a lot more reasonable than it is. An outlet that bases significant information on conjecture is not reliable. Other outlets we consider reliable don't do that. Iesbian (talk) 18:42, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 - it's the same trash from the same sewer, and it always has been - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. Obviously. Examples of false stories published specifically in the Mail on Sunday: In all cases, they only ever published corrections months later when forced to by the Independent Press Standards Organisation. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 10:56, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

These are not fabricated stories. They are stories containing inaccuracies. Statistically speaking, the MOS on average contains no more inaccuracies than something like The Sunday Times. It had two complaints upheld in 2018: https://www.ipso.co.uk/media/1823/ipso-annual-report-2018.pdf#page=10. Should we proscribe The Sunday Times as well because five complaints were upheld over the same period? Betty Logan (talk) 13:38, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

The false claims are central to the story in every example I've given. IPSO only deals with cases that get referred to them by members of the public and the inaccuracies they investigate can vary in severity which is why we're looking at specific examples. If you can find similarly many examples of egregious journalism in The Times, we can have a discussion about them as well. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 17:49, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

False or misrepresentative claims usually are central to inaccurate stories. I am not defending these articles. I am pleased the beautician won her case! But are any of your examples more egregious than this sequence of Times stories: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43887481. It is worth noting that of the 69 stories that received complaints only two were ultimately upheld. The remainder were either not taken up, resolved through other means, or IPSO found in favor of the MoS. I take on board your point that the IPSO cases are just a sample and not a comprehensive vetting of MoS's output, but that is true of the other publications they have ranked too. I think these examples would carry more weight if this were a discussion about a class of sources i.e. a discussion about raising the bar on what constitutes a reliable source. But this is not about raising the bar; it is about purging one particular source that sampled evidence shows is not disproportionately worse than rival titles in the market. Betty Logan (talk) 23:53, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 The above is enough for me to say 4, rather then 2 or 3.Slatersteven (talk) 11:10, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 Complete trash, per ReconditeRodent and others. This is lipstick on the Daily Mail. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:22, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 – these are not just "stories containing inaccuracies", on the global warming "pause" it made allegations of malpractice while ignoring evidence, and as noted above was eventually forced to publish online the IPSO finding that instead it had based the article on misrepresenting a blog post. Similar misreporting appeared in the MoS in 2012. . . dave souza, talk 17:38, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

References

• Option 4: There are dozens of examples of Mail on Sunday fabrications, but I will list just one, featured in Vogue: Meghan Markle Responds to a Set of Tabloid Rumors --Guy Macon (talk) 20:22, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Bad RfC. The list from dave souza above looks like 11 transgressions until you notice that 7 are about the same David Rose article in 2017. The list from David Gerard below is over-the-top with its accusations, e.g. being in fifth place for complaints just ahead of The Guardian doesn't show anything as others have already indicated, and there were no "fabricated claims of anti-Semitism" (the Mail on Sunday did not say Mr Livingstone was anti-Semitic), etc. But the lists do show that Mail on Sunday publishes corrections, and (see WP:RS) "publication of corrections" is a good signal. They are sometimes forced by IPSO but that is a good thing too, the British newspapers that refuse to join IPSO are the contemptible ones if that's what matters. Mail on Sunday is a "well-established news outlet" so WP:NEWSORG tells us it "is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact", so voting to censor it is a demand to violate WP:RS. Option 4 should not have been proposed. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 01:22, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Here is the article Peter Gulutzan is referring to: Ken Livingstone stokes new Labour anti-Semitism row after dismissing problem as 'lies and smears peddled by ghastly Blairites'. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:43, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Bad counting. Peter Gulutzan at 01:22, 13 September 2020 wrote "The list from dave souza above looks like 11 transgressions until you notice that 7 are about the same David Rose article in 2017" The list was started with 7 items by ReconditeRodent at 10:56, 12 September 2020, and I added four items, two of which were articles covering the same incorrect article by David Rose already covered in item 3 on the list, and mentioned along with other incorrect articles of his in item 4 on the list. I'd already researched it independently, so added my items and tried to indicate two were on the same topic, but evidently not clear enough. In total, the list of 11 items covers 12 transgressions, that is 12 separate articles published by the MoS, some of them repeating false claims by David Rose. Appreciate it's a bit complicated, so miscounting is understandable if rather careless. Hope the following list helps to clarify things. . . dave souza, talk 18:27, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

list for clarification:

1. 31 August 2014, ‘The Mail on Sunday’ featured an article by David Rose which claimed that the rate of decline in Arctic sea ice extent had slowed.

2. MoS accusation "Muslim" gangs 25 July 2015, corrected to just a "gang of youths" 18 September 2015

3. 4–5 February 2017 MoS alleged "World leaders duped by manipulated global warming data", 18 September 2017 MoS forced to publish IPSO correction

4. as 3., plus two subsequent articles on February 12 and February 19 repeated the claims, 22 April 2018 page 2 of MoS print edition concede incorrect, "Corrections to these articles have been published online."
Article also noted IPSO complaints upheld against two other articles.

5. MoS 29 September 2018 "Number 10 probes Remain MPs’ ‘foreign collusion'"

6. MoS June 2019 false claim about "Labour's tax plans", IPSO ruled inaccurate in November, publication of the correction delayed until after the election.

7. MoS December 2017 "rogue beauticians" story, IPSO upheld complaint but correction on wrong page, June 2019, Associated Newspapers agreed to pay damages.

8 article and correction as 3

9 article and correction as 3

10 MoS 29 January 2012 "no warming in last 15 years", refuted by Met Office

11 MoS 14 October 2012 second article claiming "no warming in last 15 years", refuted by Met Office

dave souza, talk 18:27, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

References

• Option 2 - depends on context and whether the discussion is conflating items. The article says this the largest WEIGHT such publication so seems a bit much to exclude it, and seems in the category of popular press so I’m thinking it reasonable to cite for that context and folks are trying to consider it outside the context it would/should be used. Seems obviously “Generally” reliable in the sense of usually having the criteria of editorial control and publication norms and accessibility, and the bulk of stories factual correctness is not in particular question. I don’t think anyone here has put it as the category of 3 generally self-published or blog or sponsored pieces. Category 4 seems excessive - false or fabricated doesn’t seem a correct characterization if people are having to go back to 2012 and 2014 for cases to discuss. Also, much of the discussion above seems to be confusing https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/ and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/mailonsunday/ with https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ or that none of these are actually The Mail on Sunday. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:09, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
• Categorise the same as the Daily Mail: there's no substantial difference between the two paper's journalistic values and fact-checking processes, and hence this RfC should not be able to override the stronger, more global consensus to deprecate the Daily Mail. As a second resort, if we are to categorise the Mail on Sunday differently then we must categorise it as option 4 per the compelling evidence presented by ReconditeRodent and David Gerard that it is established practice at the paper to lie and suppress corrections wherever legally possible. — Bilorv (talk) 21:43, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 – 2 - Requires scrutiny but a respected paper that has done much serious reporting unavailable elsewhere. The majority of advocates for "deprecating" the MoS are the same "it's the Daily Mail" line even though it in fact has its own website i.e. Mail on Sunday and a totally separate editorial staff. Ownership by the same company has little if any relevance. Basing your vote on carefully ignoring the facts seems unreasonable to me. Cambial Yellowing❧ 07:02, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4, same or substantially the same editorial policy and authors. Stifle (talk) 12:18, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

This is an incorrect statement. It has been stated multiple times that the Mail on Sunday is its own independent newspaper. This means it has its own staff, journalists, and editorial board. Please read the Mail on Sunday wikipedia article to inform yourself about the newspaper. These are the "authors" as you call them of the Mail on Sunday:

Peter Hitchens

Rachel Johnson

Olly Smith

James Forsyth

Robert Waugh

Piers Morgan

Craig Brown

Tom Parker Bowles

Chris Evans

Ruth Sunderland

Sebastian O Kelly

Liz Jones

Sally Brompton

Sarah Stacey

Mimi Spencer

Jeff Prestridge

John Rees

Ellie Cannon

Jane Clarke

Katie Nicholl

Oliver Holt

Stuart Broad

Patrick Collins

Glenn Hoddle

Michael Owen

Nick Harris

Andrew Pierce

You have also chosen option 4, which means that you are stating that these journalists as a group are involved in writing "false or fabricated information". You have provided no proof of your statement. --Guest2625 (talk) 12:33, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 The Mail on Sunday has a completely separate editorial oversight, staff, office and so on. They are completely different newspapers that compete with each other, but simply have a similar name. I do, however, see the risk of their content being hosted on the MailOnline/DailyMail.com, as they do not have their own website. In which situation I would endorse Option 2 with the condition that the Mail on Sunday remains a reliable source but that the print edition must be the one cited, with online links unacceptable. Ortolan57 (talk) 18:38, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
  • It's hard to see how it's an option 1 given its cited record of fabrication - surely this should be addressed in an opinion worth taking into consideration - David Gerard (talk) 21:11, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4, just as completely divorced from the truth as the regular Daily Mail, despite being nominally seperate. They clearly have the exact same record of lying constantly. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:05, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 No evidence that this source is any more reliable than the regular DM, and considerable evidence to the contrary. Remember, the onus is on those who are arguing the source can be used to demonstrate that it actually has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy per WP:RS. (t · c) buidhe 08:11, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 or 4 Although the MoS may not be in Breitbart/National Enquirer territory it is clearly generally unreliable as per above comments. A note on comparisons of complaints: if we look at the nature and scale of the inaccuracies in the MoS presented in the lists above and below, and not just how many there were in a given year, it is clear that most of them are serious and relate to central news stories not just marginal human interest stories (major inaccuracies about electoral candidates not corrected until after election, major mischaracterisations of data about climate change) and also that they fit into a pattern of repeating false allegations as part of an ideological campaign (e.g. around climate change, where false statements were repeated despite earlier corrections) or systematically misrepresenting religion/ethnicity (e.g. to generate clickbait buzz by plugging into anti-Muslim panic), and not simple mistakes such as mistyping the number of arrests at the Appleby fair. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:45, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 since not proof has been offered to show the Sunday edition of the mail any more reliable than the daily --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 14:19, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 I wouldn't want anything on Wikipedia based solely on a MoS article, it is too unreliable. If it is valid information it will also appear in more reliable papers like the the Guardian or the Telegraph. Boynamedsue (talk) 14:09, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Putting aside the paper's politics, all wikipedians should recognise that newspapers should never be our first choice for sourcing content and we should prefer neutral academic sources. Use of newspaper sources should usually be a last resort and guided by exercising good judgement. Large parts of what the Mail on Sunday (and the Daily Mail) content are reliable and well-written and were the same content published elsewhere we wouldn't even question it - such as this for example [4]. This pogrom of Daily Mail content has already seen sources being blindly removed even when for our purposes they would be reliably sourced and well-written and it's often to the detriment of articles - and anyone who questions this is shouted down. Editors should be allowed to exercise judgment on a case by case basis, I am firmly opposed to blanket pronouncements such as this related to mainstream media. WCM_email 16:32, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
  • So you're fine with the list of blatant fabrications? - David Gerard (talk) 17:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Apparently you're fine with the "fabrications" of the newspapers you judge to be reliable? Please quit this obviously disingenuous and facetious line of argument - the output of a media outlet should be judged as a whole and not based on cherry-picked examples. FOARP (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

The argument "but whatabout these other newspapers that aren't the topic here" isn't regarded as a useful argument on RSN. If you want to discuss those, you should start an RFC about them, listing their fabrications. This discussion is about the Mail on Sunday - David Gerard (talk) 17:50, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Responding to "but the MoS is not less reliable than the Sunday Times according to the metric that you've chosen to ban it" with "then you should start an RFC on banning the Sunday Times" is clearly not an argument made in good faith. We all know that the outcome of such an RFC would be a snow-close for "Option 1" and a possible trip to ANI for whoever chose to waste everyone's time by proposing it. FOARP (talk) 12:11, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

David you clearly chose not to read my comment, so I will reply to your strawman with emphasis added. "all wikipedians should recognise that newspapers should never be our first choice for sourcing content and we should prefer neutral academic sources. Use of newspaper sources should usually be a last resort and guided by exercising good judgement. .... Editors should be allowed to exercise judgment on a case by case basis. You appear obsessed by the Daily Mail and removing any reference to it, often to the detriment of article quality and blind to the reliability of the article. You would remove this for example and are you suggesting that an opinion sourced to David Attenborough becomes unreliable simply because it is published in the DM? WCM_email 16:12, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 As per Curry above and the fact that MOS has a separate editor. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 06:22, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

  @The C of E: Seeing as you were opposed to the deprecation of the Daily Mail itself (arguing that there was "no need to blacklist a whole publication because of a few opinion pieces that may not be to some tastes") and then argued just two years later that the ban should be lifted because they had "changed", what possible relevance could The Mail on Sunday's editorial independence have? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 04:49, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

This argument essentially boils down to trying to exclude anyone who was in the (substantial) minority in the DM Ban RFC from ever having a say in any future issue related to banning media. FOARP (talk) 12:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I question who this IP is @FOARP: given he seems to have only started editing this year so how can he know about whom said what back when? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:30, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't recall having participated in a previous RfC on the use of the Daily Mail as a source. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm merely questioning the particular argument being used here. Given what The C of E has said in the past, supporting option 1 is consistent, but given their premises, I can't see what relevance the publication's editorial independence could have. Perhaps The C of E can clarify.

But I don't see how what I'm saying would exclude anyone who participated in the past RfCs from having a say here. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

It is a clear attempt to daisy-chain RFCs. "But you didn't agree with the concept of these RFCs so you can't vote Option 1 in this RFC" the argument goes, resulting in a more extreme and less balanced result. FOARP (talk) 12:46, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 (preferred) because it shares DM staff, history of fabrications, and has the same website as the Daily Mail, complete with "sidebar of shame" and its obsession with objectifying (see also "all grown up"). Failing that, then go with print edition only as no worse than the average tabloid, but still best not to use because tabloid. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:45, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
  • FWIW, not really seeing why the print edition should be presumed less deprecable than the online version - is there a convincing reason? - David Gerard (talk) 11:49, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, convincing? Not sure: depends who you're trying to convince (and obviously here I exclude Brian K Horton and his hosiery drawer). The bar to inclusion means that most of the churnalism on the website doesn't make it into print. The print edition is exactly as biased, and has undoubtedly printed some egregious bollocks, but the level of oversight is at least marginally higher. But you'll note that is my second choice, because my strong preference is to exclude altogether. You cannot trust anything you read on the Mail websites, and that fatally undermines any claim to journalistic integrity for any of its output IMO. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:58, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

fair - I'll certainly agree that if there was an Option 4½, Mail Online would warrant it - David Gerard (talk) 12:26, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Bad RFC (or Option 1 if the RFC still goes ahead) - These "let's ban media outlets we don't like" have no link to any actual issue in an article on Wikipedia. They always turn into a forum-style discussion on the perceived good-ness or not of the source itself rather than its reliability in relation to any subject matter. Editors should be free to decide what sources they use through consensus on a case-by-case basis, rather than these pointless blanket bans. Comparisons to reliable sources with exactly the same failings that the news outlet to be deprecated displays are always batted away with "why don't you start an RFC on banning the New York Times then?" (or similar facetiousness). The outcome is pre-determined as soon as the typically right-wing nature of the publication to be banned is highlighted. Rampant double-standards abound especially between UK and US publications. FOARP (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

  Seeing as your issue is with the writ-large deprecation of sources generally, isn't that an argument better suited to WT:RS to have Wikipedia:Reliable sources § Deprecated sources amended? I don't see how it's relevant here when we're trying to apply the existing guidelines. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 05:06, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Since I oppose these blanket bans of regulated media with well-established editorial teams based in countries with robust freedom of speech, then I also oppose banning the MoS and hence am voting on those grounds. FOARP (talk) 12:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

hence am voting on those grounds These discussions are not votes; so you appear to be declaring that your statement here is explicitly not about the MoS as a source, and hence meaningless in the discussion. The process of deprecation was itself ratified in an RFC; if you want to remove it, then you would need to run an RFC to do so - David Gerard (talk) 14:45, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

You're trying to make any opposition to this steady banning of sources invalid ab initio. Sorry, doesn't work that way. I note you haven't answered my point below about your deletion campaign deleting even WP:ABOUTSELF statements by the MoS (explicitly allowed even under the DM 2017 RFC close) which is a prime example of how this isn't about content, or what has been specifically decided in RFCs, but about getting something you can use to justify a mass-deletion campaign against a publication you dislike. FOARP (talk) 15:26, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Your other question is you whatabouting the issue - this is a discussion of the Mail On Sunday, not of me. If you have a point to make about the Mail On Sunday, it needs to be a point about the Mail On Sunday. If you can't make a point about the quality of the Mail On Sunday as a source - and you've just said above that you're not making a point about the Mail On Sunday, you're trying to reverse the idea of deprecation of sources, which is an action that's been ratified at RFC. You can keep on trying to flail about to distract from the point, but if you're not addressing the question then you're just making noise. You don't even understand that this isn't a vote, so I can't say that you are even proceeding in bad faith, but you don't appear to be proceeding competently - David Gerard (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

1. It's not 'whatabouting' the issue. You're trying to referee the discussion, which given the magnitude of your involvement is totally inappropriate. If you fail to understand this, then that would render you patently unqualified to have any weight be given to your statements regarding reliability (since that would mean that you lack a fundamental understanding of what reliability even is).

2. Comparisons with other sources are NOT irrelevant to this discussion, and telling editors to 'go start an RFC about The Times' or whatever is flat out disruptive. GENERAL RELIABILITY is RELATIVE. We should not be applying different sets of standards to sources we don't like than the sources we like. Furthermore, your 'suggestion' is a non sequitur, and is clearly in bad faith, because every one of us knows that will NEVER happen. Firejuggler86 (talk) 23:28, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Agree with FOARP. It's unfortunate because blanket bans will come back to haunt us in the future for a number of reasons. This is not to say there are not problems with sources, but every source article should be evaluated and never site banned. -- GreenC 16:12, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 As per ReconditeRodent. Autarch (talk) 15:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 per others, they make corrections and the volume of problems is not severe. -- GreenC 16:12, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 - generally reliable newspaper. The Mail on Sunday had a relatively low number of complaints based on the ipso statistics. The number of complaints was similar to its competitor the Sunday Times. It’s a respected newspaper that has a number of notable contributors. Other newspapers quote it. The paper is conservative leaning so care is required on political topics. --Guest2625 (talk) 05:48, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3, prefer 4 I kept being surprised that this was still being employed as a source following the Daily Mail deprecation. Tabloids are bad sources, and this is on the bottom layer of tabloids, sharing staff and large amounts of content (and apparently its philosophy and veracity) with the Daily Mail. The above examples of fabrication and evasion require some pretty dedicated scampering to ignore. We are an encyclopedia and must be able to exclude material that has a high chance of being misrepresented or made up. If an item is of wider impact, we can use one of many other sources; if it is MoS exclusive, we run the risk of it having been blown up into some chimaera in order to add another five points to the headline size. Do not need. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:29, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. The list of issues above is persuasive. The reason why full depreciation rather than unreliability is called is twofold. First, the "errors" highlighted above are all in one direction and all reflect the biases of the Mail's owners (its "errors" are inevitably stuff that eg. downplays global warming, paints Muslims or Labour in a bad light, bolsters the Tories, and so on); this, combined with the tendency to slow-walk corrections or neglect them entirely, suggests that, regardless of the (still uncited?) claims of editorial independence, it is subject to the same forces, in the same way, that make the Daily Mail itself unreliable. Bias is acceptable in a source, and occasional errors are not an issue; but repeated errors, in the same direction, which consistently reflect the biases of the owner suggest a systematic problem that makes it hard to justify using them as a source - there is simply every reason to think that their overriding goal is to advance their owners' political agenda at the expense of fact-checking or accuracy. Second, they fit the same criteria that made depreciation of the original Daily Mail necessary in that they are clearly not reliable due to the above, yet a vocal minority of editors insists that it can be used - and not merely that it can be used, but that it is somehow an exemplary source (note how the opinions here split between overwhelming numbers of people favoring depreciation and people saying it is generally reliable, with so little in-between.) That is the sort of situation that requires a decisive conclusion, since it is plain some people will continue to try and use it as a source everywhere unless there is an unambiguous decision saying they can't. Finally, in case it comes up - given that this discussion focuses on the parallels between the Mail and the Mail on Sunday and how those seem to stem from its ownership, I would suggest that whatever decision we reach here ought to apply to any outlets owned by Daily Mail and General Trust, at least by default (Metro, the other major paper they own, is already listed as generally unreliable.) It is clear from these discussions and the examples above that the root problem is the owners and not the individual editorial boards. --Aquillion (talk) 21:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

To deprecate a whole media publishing group is very problematic. It's merely indicative of the slippery slope that Wikipedia is heading down with its whole deprecation process. The next thing to appear on this board will be an attempt to ban the Rupert Murdoch publishing group. The problem with this board and its perennial sources list is that it has a legitimacy problem. Were all the editors individually notified on their talk page who will be directly affected by this upcoming Mail on Sunday decision? If not, this local group decision has a legitimacy problem. And a vague RFC advert in the wiki-jungle doesn't cut it. Those editors who used the source have a right to defend their decision. And, the only way to defend your decision is to be notified. I know for a fact that a group of editors who are in the middle of a content dispute over the Mail on Sunday have not been notified. This is very problematic.

It's not complicated for me. The complaint statistics of the the Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday are the same. The Sunday Times has also made a number of significant corrections. All this information was provided below. What the Sunday Times does better is that it has a more sophisticated writing style, since it targets the professional upper class. The Mail on Sunday is targeted towards the middle class. Option 2 I certainly can understand, since this is similar to how many American editors view Fox (which has some parallels to the politics and biases of the Mail on Sunday). Even option 3 would be understandable for people who cannot bear any publication which makes an error. But option 4 would mean the newspaper is worse than a self-published source. It would mean the highest selling Sunday newspaper, which won newspaper of the year in 2019 and has a number of notable writers, cannot be even used for its review of a theatre play which is gross and absurd. Fortunately, what is happening with the British media market on this board cannot be done to the American media market which has a much larger and more diverse pool of Wikipedia editors who use it. --Guest2625 (talk) 07:08, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Whole heartedly agree with this view. That the editors who have actually used the MoS as a source have not been notified is a legitimacy issue with this RFC. That they are excluded is an inevitable product of this RFC being completely divorced from actual content issues with articles. Engaging with the actual use of the MoS on Wiki would mean acknowledging that a lot of the present use (which is not high) is simply WP:ABOUTSELF (e.g., the edit by David Gerard linked above where he deleted even the mere mention that a book had been MoS book of the week, claiming that this was justified by the DM ban which explicitly allows "about-self" use), or completely uncontroversial. The double standard between UK and US media outlets, let alone between UK outlets and those of China or Iran, is as palpable as it is absurd. Responding to clear evidence that the MoS has had no more complaints upheld against it than the Sunday Times with "well then you should start an RFC to ban the Sunday Times" is not arguing in good faith. FOARP (talk) 12:41, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 - I would think that because The Mail on Sunday is just the weekend branding of Daily Mail that it'd fall under the existing restrictions there, but nonetheless, they still seem to have a desperate use of trigger words, sensationalism, low-quality fact checking and having been the source most sanctioned by UK regulators (source which says "The Daily Mail is used here to include the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday...") three years in a row (source). ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 01:59, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

It has been explained multiple times that the Mail on Sunday, Metro, i (originally a sister newspaper of The Independent), and also Daily Mail are all separate newspapers. This means that the newspapers have separate staff, journalists, and editorial boards. These different newspapers are published by DMG Media which itself is owned by the media company DMGT. It is normal for media companies to own multiple titles. See for instance Rupert Murdoch's News Corp which owns Dow Jones & Company (publisher of 'of the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and Barron's), News UK (publisher of The Sun and The Times), and book publisher HarperCollins.

Also it is not clear why you provided links to two blogs about the IPSO statistics, when below is the complete IPSO table for 2018. The table clearly shows that the Mail on Sunday did not rank poorly. Please uncollapse the green bar below that says table and trust your own eyes. The only thing I do want to quote from one of your blogs is the following:"Sunday Times Forced to Admit to Fake Antisemitism Smears". That sounds like a major faux pas that the Mail on Sunday's competitor made, just like that little faux pas that the New Statesman made in regards to the Roger Scruton interview that we just discussed on this reliable source board. It is unfortunate that generally reliable sources sometimes make faux pas. --Guest2625 (talk) 10:27, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@Guest2625: Would you be able to link to the discussion that ended in a consensus that the staff etc are different and that there's absolutely no commonality between the two? I think you'll also notice that the source I provided is from 2019, not 2018. Associated Newspapers Limited, which owns Metro, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Mail Online, even says in their annual report that Mail Online shares editorial content, lawyers, and replies to complaints to IPSO on behalf of Mail on Sunday. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 06:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on the Mail on Sunday explains that it is its own newspaper. It is stated there that the newspaper has its own staff and editor. The blog you provided is from 2019; however, it's referencing the IPSO complaint statistics from 2018. This is a quote from the blog:[5] "In terms of total number of sanctions, the top seven reached 90 between them across 2018. This is slightly better than 2017’s total of 115, but up on the 62 offences committed in 2016." As you'll note the blog's most recent numbers are the 2018 IPSO statistics, which are provided in clear detail in the table below from the 2018 IPSO report on page 18. So for clarification again, the chief editor of the Mail on Sunday, as stated in the Wikipedia article, is Ted Verity and these are the current writers for the newspaper:

Peter Hitchens

Rachel Johnson

Olly Smith

James Forsyth

Robert Waugh

Piers Morgan

Craig Brown

Tom Parker Bowles

Chris Evans

Ruth Sunderland

Sebastian O Kelly

Liz Jones

Sally Brompton

Sarah Stacey

Mimi Spencer

Jeff Prestridge

John Rees

Ellie Cannon

Jane Clarke

Katie Nicholl

Oliver Holt

Stuart Broad

Patrick Collins

Glenn Hoddle

Michael Owen

Nick Harris

Andrew Pierce

Since the owners of the Mail on Sunday have multiple papers, it would not be surprising, if they used the same legal staff for the different papers. I read the Associated Newspapers Limited 2019 annual report hereand here, but I wasn't able to find your statement about sharing editorial content and complaint reply in the report. Could you provide me with a link to the annual report that you read and the relevant page number. --Guest2625 (talk) 08:33, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 How much confidence can really be taken from a debate where even basic pertinent details, such as whether or not the Sunday edition has a separate editorial staf , cannot seemingly be settled a priori? I note too, the complete lack of impeccable sources like the Columbia Journalism Review. These have been used when debating the reliability of Fox and the New York Post in this foraaa , so their absence here, given the claims that basically cast the MoS as a step change worse, rings alarm bells as far as the potential for bias goes. Jack B Williamson (talk) 18:32, 3 October 2020 (UTC) — Jack B Williamson (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  The Columbia Journalism Review is a US based outlet and generally doesn't cover the UK press so the lack of coverage by that outlet is irrelevant. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:43, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

  I have struck the contribution from the boring sockpuppet. --JBL (talk) 21:22, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 I think generally news media shouldn’t be considered reliable by it self. Citing facts from news is not how it works in the real world. You need to also consider other sources. A body of news sources together give weight, but it is still in the news. I read newspapers and enjoy, but that is mostly because I think. The narrative that we need to fact check the media is a construction. This RfC I think is created to ease some admin work, and that is perfectly OK. They already banned publications that can easily be mistaken, because of the architecture of the web address. I understand it’s a mess. I don’t like the options. I think option 1 and 4 are divisive provocations for the trenches. And option 2 and 3 are vague. What does even option 3 mean? Mysteriumen•♪Ⓜ ^•♪talk _{♪• look} 22:41, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
  • If, as you say, you don't in fact understand the question, it's not clear this helps form an informed consensus - David Gerard (talk) 06:39, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 It is clear that the Mail on Sunday, while technically independent editorially, shares ownership and agenda with the Daily Mail. While this alone is not enough to deprecate the paper, it is relevant because the Mail on Sunday also appears to share the bad habits of fabricating claims about living people and publishing lies, bad information and untrustworthy speculation. I am sure that they often publish good and true information, but I am also sure that they publish outright false information which, I believe, they often know to be untrue. For the use of the MoS as a source on Wikipedia, they surely therefore have to be considered unreliable and deprecated. It would be inconsistent to come to any other conclusion. I think it is also important to acknowledge that the Daily Mail as well as the MoS make their 'mistakes' in a very particular direction, which is aimed propping up the Conservative party (and perhaps occasionally offshoots of it) and putting down Labour as well as any right-wing movement which may become a threat to the Conservative party. Downfall Vision (talk) 13:30, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 per Aquillion and others. Glee^anon 06:46, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 – Notwithstanding ReconditeRodent's links, which would be reason enough by themselves, the Mail on Sunday should still be excluded due to its association with the Daily Mail. Even if it were more reliable than its parent newsletter, the fact that it's owned by the same company will inherently detract from its credibility as a source. Kurtis ^(talk) 08:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

This argument about deprecating a source because of company ownership makes no sense. Rupert Murdoch's News UK owns The Sun and The Times. Do you feel that The Times should be deprecated because Wikipedia has deprecated The Sun? This is the argument that you are making. --Guest2625 (talk) 08:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

This argument actually makes complete sense in my opinion. Perhaps an unconventional view, but I would argue that indeed The Times should be viewed with suspicion given its shared ownership with a deprecated source and perhaps should be seen as unreliable based on that fact alone. It is not that The Times should be deprecated because The Sun has been deprecated, but that The Times should be viewed with suspicion based entirely on its strong association with a deprecated source. I think we should set the precedent that when media outlets share ownership, they should be viewed to share reputation. Rupert Murdoch and his media empire obviously do not take issue with their papers printing falsehoods, so why should we trust them? In the same vein, the MoS shouldn't be deprecated only because of its association with the Daily Mail, but it should be viewed as unreliable based on that fact alone. Separately, the MoS should be deprecated because it has be shown to have published multiple falsehoods and lies. I think Wikipedia could benefit from a more suspicious outlook on news media in general. Downfall Vision (talk) 11:42, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, this is the argument under which the MoS is basically getting taken down: guilt by association. Stating that THE newspaper of record - The Times - should be banned, basically just because it's British and leans to the right politically. FOARP (talk) 11:41, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I probably should have made this clear from the start, but I was referring more to the fact that there is significant overlap between the editorial control over the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. Murdoch does own the Times, but he makes it clear that he has no control over the stories they print. Kurtis ^(talk) 22:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 There is nothing in there that you can't find through a more reliable source in the UK. There is no loss to wikipedia to not having this as "source". Albertaont (talk) 04:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 or 4, it is the same publisher as the Daily Mail. There are better sources in the UK. Vici Vidi (talk) 05:35, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3; pushing 4 Daily Mail and MoS may share the same publisher but IIRC editorial staff are different Nightfury 10:21, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 the Mail on Sunday may technically have different editorial staff but clearly has very similar outlooks on how a paper should behave. The editorial oversight does not appear to be 'meaningful' and the opinions often seem to be on the fringes of British politics. On the other hand, where it is worth citing viewpoints from columnists especially where they are part of a significant minority it should be considered reliable for their opinions. For example, Hitchens is a experienced foreign commentator who has won the Orwell Prize and as such his views on Syria may be worth mentioning. El komodos drago (talk to me) 13:14, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 I agree with most of the other voters. It's owned by the same company that owns Daily Mail. Although their editorial stuff is different, it looks like it has the same quality and the tendentious writing Daily Mail has.Lordpermaximum (talk) 18:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4: This needs to be the end of it. No more Daily Mail discussions. It's not an acceptable source, ever, and anything in its domain is unreliable as well. Toa Nidhiki05 20:55, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

That people keep raising this topic is not, at all, a logical reason to block a source that is not the Daily Mail nor managed by the same people. It will also not end the discussion because the people who keep raising this topic can not stop raising it - they simply move the goal-posts. Hence the recent discussion on the DM in the past being an RS because banning the DM of recent decades wasn't enough for them. Additionally, saying "we should ban this source to stop discussions about banning it" is essentially a WP:BLACKMAIL position.

The only thing that will end these discussion is requiring an actual link to an actual issue with the actual content of an actual article that is actually on Wiki, since none of these discussion are related to article-content and none would go forward if it were a requirement. FOARP (talk) 10:47, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not even remotely a blackmail position, for starters, it isn't threat and it isn't tied to the outcome of the RFC. It is perfectly fair for editors to be left with a bad taste in their mouth from past Daily Mail discussions, not least because it published an article slamming the editors that !voted for its removal the first time. El komodos drago (talk to me) 20:28, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with FOARP. No argument has been provided in this opinion for deprecation. In this request for comment, two flawed arguments have been presented for deprecation: the mutual ownership argument and the cherry-picked complaint argument.

The mutual ownership argument states that because the Mail on Sunday is owned by DMGT, which also publishes a deprecated newspaper, that the Mail on Sunday should be similarly deprecated. This argument is flawed when it is realized that the Mail on Sunday's competitor the Sunday Times faces this same issue. The Sunday Times is owned by News UK, which also publishes the deprecated newspaper The Sun. No one is proposing to use the mutual ownership argument to deprecate the Sunday Times.

The cherry-picked complaint argument presents a few complained about articles from the newspaper (in the past ten years the Mail on Sunday has published over 400,000 articles) and then concludes that the newspaper should be deprecated. This argument is flawed given that the full IPSO complaint statistics have been presented below. The full set of complaint statistics indicate that the Mail on Sunday had few complaints and ranked similar to its competitor the Sunday Times. No one is proposing to use the cherry-picked complaint argument to deprecate the Sunday Times even though a number of cherry-picked complaints against it were presented below.

Just to re-emphasize the flawed nature of the second argument, let's use the argument to cherry-pick the IPSO complaint database on another competitor the Daily Telegraph. Here's is a set of serious article complaints against the Daily Telegraph: multiple cases of falsification to inflame hatred towards Muslims, falsification to inflame racial hatred, multiple cases of falsification to label others as antisemitic, falsification to smear environmentalists, distortion to harm the Labour Party, multiple cases of falsification to support Brexit, blatant antisemitism (article stated: “Only three countries on the planet don’t have a central bank owned or controlled by the Rothschild family”, and listed: Cuba, North Korea, and Iran.), numerous cases of bad science. Does this board really plan on deprecating the Telegraph. We should avoid bad science (i.e. the cherry-picking argument) and use the full IPSO complaint statistics that have been presented below. --Guest2625 (talk) 07:32, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Sources
References

• Option 2 This is a bad/malformed RfC. Judge each reference on its own merits seems to be the best option of those presented. Mike Peel (talk) 18:47, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• Same as the Daily Mail. Currently, this means option 4. Substantially similar content. The "sidebar of shame" on the Mail on Sunday (named "Don't Miss") includes the same articles as the "sidebar of shame" in the Daily Mail (titled "Femail Today"), except in a different order. The articles listed in https://www.dailymail.co.uk/mailonsunday link to other subdirectories on dailymail.co.uk; none of the ones I checked had any identifier that would distinguish them from Daily Mail articles. The community has already deprecated the Daily Mail in the high-participation 2017 RfC, and the decision was reaffirmed in the high-participation 2019 RfC. As the Mail on Sunday publishes substantially the same content, and even reuses articles (e.g. the sidebar articles) from the Daily Mail, it should be treated the same way. — Newslinger talk 09:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Mail on Sunday)

• I am tired of discussing the Daily Mail as much as anyone else, so hopefully after this there will be no more need for any RfC's on the topic. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Please specify that this covers all editions at all URLs for all purposes - otherwise someone will be along making excuses as they already do with the DM: "oh, the Shetlands edition has some different staff", "but you didn't specifically mention articles on trainspotting", "but I like this guy", "but exceptions exist so I'm claiming this as an exception", etc., etc., etc - David Gerard (talk) 12:40, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

If the Mos and Daily Mail are both deprecated, it automatically covers all DM domains. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:34, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Including This is Money? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

This Is Money is in its own words the "financial website and money section of the MailOnline", so is covered by WP:DAILYMAIL - David Gerard (talk) 22:11, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

In fact, I see that you already asked this precise question before, and that was the answer then too, so it's entirely unclear why you're asking again - David Gerard (talk) 22:12, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

That was one response from you that was not mentioned in the closing statement. I am open to hearing from other editors. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:21, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Here's about half an hour's quickest casual search. I'm sure if I put actual effort in, the list would be far longer. If anyone has their own lists of the MoS's mission to spread nonsense that we absolutely cannot trust as a source for encyclopedic content, please post them.

• A pile of distorted and fabricated claims about the EU: [6]
• Fabricated front-page claims of "foreign collusion" by Remain MPs [7]
• Fifth in the list for PCC complaints, 2013 [8]
• Fabrication about claimed BMA guidelines for doctors [9]
• Capital gains tax fabrication, IPSO rules as "serious breach" [10]
• Fabricated claims of anti-Semitism [11]
• Defamatory attack on individual [12]
• IPSO: "significantly misleading" [13]
• Fabrication of quotes in interview (the MoS cannot be trusted for quotes any more than the DM) [14]

The MoS is lying rubbish just as much as the DM is, it just pretends not to be. A trash-tier tabloid that tells gullible readers it's a newspaper of record - David Gerard (talk) 10:38, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Some of those are not the best sources but I find (5) and (8) to be particularly alarming at a glance. Would you/someone mind digging up if the paper version, ie not MailOnline, has the same issues? And can we clarify if we’ve got this issue just in politics-related reporting or in other topics as well? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:56, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

No idea if it's in the paper version, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't distinguish on that - some of the above are paper version specifically. Nor on politics, e.g. the irresponsible lies about the beautician - David Gerard (talk) 12:33, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

David observe how I presented the errors made by the Sunday Times. Now look at the way you presented the errors made by the Mail on Sunday. I have used completely neutral language. I merely stated these are some errors made by the Sunday Times. And then quoted the completely neutral ruling of the IPSO committe. You on the other hand have used completely loaded language. Do you think that me or anyone else could not also use such loaded and over-the-top language that you are using? Your language is reaching for the reader's senses, my language is intended to reach for the reader's mind. I believe it is better when we are trying to find the truth through debate that we use the language of reason. --Guest2625 (talk) 02:12, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I haven't studied yet the different sources that David Gerard has provided for his case, but I did look at Betty Logan's table which is quite rigorous and not prone to cherry picked examples. I provided a copy of the IPSO table below.

Table

IPSO Annual Report 2018 No. of articles complained about No. of Rejected complaints in remit Rejected Not pursued by complainant Resolved by IPSO mediation Resolved directly with publication Upheld Not upheld 1 MailOnline 503 213 135 5 16 34 9 14 2 Daily Mail 313 129 112 2 4 6 1 4 3 thesun.co.uk 178 88 53 1 6 22 2 4 4 The Sun 155 96 59 3 3 17 6 8 5 The Times 124 92 68 3 5 6 2 8 6 mirror.co.uk 102 48 25 1 2 13 4 3 7 The Daily Telegraph 78 58 37 7 2 4 1 7 8 Metro.co.uk 75 37 27 1 2 7 0 0 9 express.co.uk 71 50 28 1 4 12 5 0 10 The Mail on Sunday 69 37 27 2 2 2 2 2 11 The Sunday Times 58 52 33 2 5 2 5 5 12 Daily Express 48 30 21 2 0 1 3 3 13 Daily Mirror 40 20 13 0 1 2 2 2 14 dailyrecord.co.uk 36 22 16 0 1 1 0 4 15 Daily Record 34 22 15 1 1 2 2 1 16 The Argus (Brighton) 29 7 5 0 0 1 0 1 17 Metro 28 16 13 1 0 1 1 0 18 The Spectator 25 18 15 0 0 0 2 1 19 walesonline.co.uk 25 10 7 0 0 2 0 1 20 Telegraph.co.uk 24 9 9 0 0 0 0 0

The results are quite informative. --Guest2625 (talk) 14:10, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but MailOnline includes the MoS's online content, and we aren't citing the physical newspapers. Using single digit "Upheld" is a weak metric for reliability. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

We have in fact cited the physical newspapers quite a lot - most content before 2000 isn't on dailymail.co.uk, for example - and I'd have expected the RFCs covered those - David Gerard (talk) 14:33, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

That's getting into "was the Mail more reliable historically" territory, which was discussed in the last RfC. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for table, but I don’t get it. There’s plenty of reliably sourced examples above of unreliable reporting by MOS, so why are numbers relative in table (which should be quite complete) so low? Are reports in MailOnline including problems with MOS (“paper edition”)? To clarify (as I don’t get their structure personally), is MailOnline actually the digital version (ie, word for word) of the paper newspapers? Or is it separate reporting? Further, are all stories in the MOS available word for word on MailOnline, and all MOS stories on MailOnline word for word the ones in the paper edition? And there’s no stories on MailOnline credited to MOS which don’t appear in the paper edition? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Because IPSO complaints are not the be-all and end-all of whether a source should be deprecated in Wikipedia, and IPSO is widely regarded as a captured regulator. I don't know how many stories from MoS make it into one of print and paper but not the other, but either would count as MoS - David Gerard (talk) 22:15, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Sure but I just expected the number to be higher, or at least the number of filed complaints to be higher (in table, it's comparable to The Sunday Times, which doesn't seem right). I think any reliability of the paper copy is relevant though. If it's just MailOnline (which is covered under existing RfCs anyway) it shouldn't be a big issue and this RfC is moot. If the paper copy has reliability issues too, then the RfC is important. So if there's a distinction of content, really this RfC should be focused on if the paper version is equally as crappy. I've never read a copy of the MOS (tabloids with gossip covers aren't quite my thing) so I'm not saying if it's reliable or not, just that the focus should be on the paper component (if it differs). At a skim, looks like a couple of the links by dave souza above are content also included in the paper copy, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:30, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• I'm confused David. In your above critique, two of your points use IPSO to criticize the Mail on Sunday. Now after the IPSO table for 2018 is presented, you state that "IPSO complaints are not the be-all and end-all of whether a source should be deprecated". This is truly some ironman logic. --Guest2625 (talk) 06:47, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Since, some people are advocating for deprecating/banning the Mail on Sunday, I thought it would be useful to provide a sampling of some notable journalists and writers who write or have written for the Mail on Sunday.
Some notable Mail on Sunday writers:

• Peter Hitchens
• Liz Jones
• Piers Morgan
• Tom Parker Bowles
• Chris Evans
• David Mellor
• Dan Hodges
• Anna Mikhailova
• Derek Draper
• John Junor
• Julie Burchill
• Austin Mitchell
• Norman Tebbit
• Suzanne Moore
• Rachel Johnson
• Frank Barrett

It would be a loss to the neutrality of Wikipedia if editors were not able to mention the opinion of some of these notable writers from the right-leaning Mail on Sunday, which is the highest selling Sunday newspaper in Britain. It's hard for me to believe that the Quillete or Iranian Press TV, which both received option 3 from this board, are of better quality than the Mail on Sunday. I cannot see how the Mail on Sunday is equivalent to Breitbart News or the National Enquirer, which received option 4 from this board. Wikipedia which is neutral does its readers a disservice by not allowing the opinions of conservative British commentators to be voiced. --Guest2625 (talk) 06:23, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

These are opinion pieces, not quality journalism about facts, and as such are subject to the care needed when using any opinion pieces. Wikipedia:Deprecated sources#Acceptable uses of deprecated sources states that "Deprecated sources can normally be cited as a primary source when the source itself is the subject of discussion, such as to describe its own viewpoint." If the viewpoint of these commentators is valuable, they can be "voiced" subject to the conditions in WP:ABOUTSELF. It's not a blanket ban. . . dave souza, talk 03:49, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

As a side note: it is not ok to cherry pick corrections to build one's case, when there is a very clean and precise comparative table available with complaint and accuracy data. I believe many of the above editors are not aware at how problematic their method of analysis is. I believe the best way for me to show the problem with cherry picking reported errors is to provide cherry picked counter examples of how its competitor the Sunday Times has made similar reporting errors. This is a counter list of reporting errors by the Sunday Times. The table above is the proper way to compare the complaints and accuracy of the different newspapers supervised by the IPSO committee. I'll note that the Guardian is not monitored by anyone, or for that matter, any other newspaper in the English-speaking world. --Guest2625 (talk) 11:32, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Your note that the Guardian is not monitored by anyone, or for that matter, any other newspaper in the English-speaking world is incorrect. See Independent Press Standards Organisation#Membership: "Several of the broadsheet newspapers, including the Financial Times, The Independent and The Guardian, have declined to take part in IPSO. The Financial Times and The Guardian have established their own independent complaints systems instead." The latter has long had a "readers’ editor – who is appointed, and can only be dismissed, by the Scott Trust – [and] can comment on issues and concerns raised by the public. There has also been an external ombudsman to whom the readers’ editor can refer substantial grievances, or matters concerning the Guardian’s journalistic integrity." That includes a feature of corrections and clarifications, not waiting for months or a year for IPSO judgment on public complaints.[15][16] . . dave souza, talk 04:07, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes. You are correct. I made a slight mistake. I meant to say that no other set of English-speaking newspapers is monitored by an outside regulatory agency. Most newspapers have procedures in place to deal with corrections, and many bigger newspapers have a newspaper ombudsman who deals with questions of journalism ethics and standards. The position is independent of the control of the newspapers's chief-editor and perhaps owner. Frankly, I think wikipedia should think about getting a centralized corrections "ombudsmen" who the reader could easily deal with in order to ask for corrections. For many wikipedia readers the talk page and how to ask for corrections is a mystery. --Guest2625 (talk) 07:17, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

The Fox RFC was also full of people going "but whatabout this other paper that isn't the subject of discussion". If you and Betty Logan want to start an RFC on the Sunday Times, that should be its own discussion. If you don't, then you need to discuss the MoS - whataboutery about other papers really isn't an argument. And nor is going "this is numbers, therefore they are the end of the discussion" - David Gerard (talk) 15:58, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Good point David. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Bad point. Clearly the number of corrections/complaints are relevant if you're using them in this RFC as a ban-rationale. Clearly it's relevant if the MoS receives no more complaints/corrections than sources that are recognised as reliable sources. It is simply facile logic to say "but those reliable newspapers aren't under discussion - you should open an RFC on blocking those reliable sources" because everyone knows that an RFC on the reliability of the Sunday Times would be snow-closed and the nominator would be at risk of a ban for wasting everyone's time. FOARP (talk) 13:52, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Sources
References

Most of the information appears to be anecdotal. The New York Times and other mainstream media pushed the false narrative that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, deliberately helping to start a war that foreseeably would kill hundreds of thousands of people, displace millions and cost trillions of dollars. That is more serious than the MOS publishing defamatory information about a beautician that they retracted after an IPSO complaint. The fact that IPSO upheld 9 complaints against them in one year is not statistically significant considering that they publish 52-53 issues each year. That works out to 1 error every six weeks, which is subsequently retracted. We don't expect that news media is 100% correct in reporting. We expect a small error rate and that the most significant errors will be corrected on a timely basis. The New York Times for example publishes error corrections every day. The MOS of course is not in the same league, but its accuracy rate is close to 100%. TFD (talk) 03:20, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Regrettably, this RfC conflates the Mail's website and the printed Mail on Sunday newspaper.

While I have no time for the company's owners, nor their outlets' politics, I recognise that, like most newspapers, the reliability of its coverage varies. Large parts of the content of the Mail on Sunday - especially outside the spin of its political columnists - are both reliable (in the Wikipedia sense) and well-written; some of it by guest contributors whose relatability we would not doubt if published in another newspaper (most recently, for example, David Attenborough). Sadly, I've seen too many cases of the DM being blindly removed as a source even where its coverage is both reliable and unique, leaving statements unsupported or, worse, substituting source which do not support the valid statements made. This RfC, if it passes, will see the same happen to the Mail on Sunday. Wikipedia editors should - and should be allowed to - exercise judgment on a case by case basis, just like other adults. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:51, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

• I'd like to respond to the point that the proposers "are tired" of arguing about the Daily Mail and newspapers related to it in some way: there was absolutely no reason at all given here to propose this ban now. The reason why people keep arguing about the Mail is because you keep opening these RFCs - there is no other reason, especially no actual content-related reason, why it is still being discussed. In this entire crusade against the DM, not a single issue with an actual article has been discussed. The impression is of a group of people for whom the DM ban was their greatest moment and as such they wish to revisit it again and again. FOARP (talk) 08:15, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
  • In this entire crusade against the DM, not a single issue with an actual article has been discussed. If you read the discussion above -probably a useful step if you're going to weigh in on a discussion - you will see that your statement here is trivially incorrect - David Gerard (talk) 09:25, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

David, where is an actual issue with an actual article actually referenced in this entire farago? You deleting MoS references from articles is not an "issue with an article". You need to show that people are relying on MoS as a source and that this is causing actual problems (eg., it is being used to push fringe or incorrect views above and beyond what may happen with reliable sources), not "people are occasionally relying on MoS as a source and the problem is I keep deleting it because this is what I choose to prioritise". FOARP (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

PS - David, whilst we're at it, please explain this edit. Even if you think the DM ban applies to MoS why are you deleting statements from the MoS about what the MoS book of the week is - i.e., a situation where the MoS is talking about itself, a scenario which is explicitly allowed for by the DM 2017 RFC close ("the Daily Mail may be used in rare cases in an about-self fashion")? To me it doesn't look like the problem is with people citing the MoS here. FOARP (talk) 16:06, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Closure?

Is there any particular reason that this specific debate is lingering on this board, stale to the point of mouldy, and long overdue a summation? HangTenBangTen (talk) 13:24, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I believe the traditional thing to do is go to the admin's notice board and make a request. If someone does this can they please make it just a request for closure without all the palaver about how this is a contentious subject and how the closing Admin will need a "thick skin" or to be "flame proof" that some people like to put in? Admins don't need to be told how to do their job. FOARP (talk) 13:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure is the place to list this. Woody (talk) 13:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Put in a closure request. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:04, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

HYPR sources, are they good enough to start an article?

Hello, I have a couple sources and I don't know if they are considered reliable independent and sig coverage, I tried to create the article through AfC but it got deleted. I am not happy with the explanation. These are the sources I would like to know if they meet WP:NCORP, thanks to everyone :). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kriptocurrency (talk • contribs)

Sources

Ivan (Jovan) Radonjic letter to Queen Catherine 2

Hello, there is an ongoing long discussion without concensus on Vasojevic talk page [17] about the letter send by Radonjic (2 letters in 1788. and 1789.) to Queen Catherine 2 , is it reliable source and does it goes under WP:AGE MATTERS since there is also reference of the letter from an autor from 1900. Thank you. User:Cobalton (talk) 15:24, 20.September 2020 (UTC)

Indymedia

Hi I think we need to have a proper discussion about using Indymedia as a source. I'll try to give a breakdown of the situation as I see it. The Independent Media Center (also known as Indymedia, IMC) was an early use of the internet by left-wing anti-globalisation activists in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There was a boom and bust, as corporate social media took on all the facets of the new phenomenon of open publishing, a newswire, a website accessed for free from anywhere etc etc Hundreds of indymedia websites sprang up for different local collectives and most have folded, although some continue eg indymedia NL and indymedia Ireland and many sites are archived. So when I am talking Indymedia, I am talking about many different, mostly city-based news networks, mainly from the 1990s and 2000s.

Indymedia is therefore is proudly self-published and do not worry I will not attempt to argue otherwise. However, I will argue that in specific circumstances, indymedia is a useful and reliable source. Not least because of the specific point made by WP:SOCIALMEDIA but also for other reasons. Wikipedia has changed a lot since the 2000s regarding referencing and verifiability and that is of course great. We need to be sure we are correct, especially regarding BLP issues. Yes if it appeared in indymedia, it probably is in other sources too if it was notable (and some things are, some things aren't), but many of these other sources are lost or paywalled. The 1990s and 2000s are a bit of a deadzone for social movement history since many websites have expired and gone without archives, before the advent of the wayback machine and other means of archiving stuff. So when writing about many of the marginal (and not so marginal) historical events, then I would argue the indymedia service can be useful with specific caveats.

Indymedia is currently listed on perennial sources as "generally unreliable" with the blurb: "The Independent Media Center is an open publishing network. Editors express low confidence in Indymedia's reputation for fact-checking, and consider Indymedia a self-published source." I would dispute that and prefer to see a warning for "No consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply" and a link to this discussion, or whatever else people decide. There have been previous discussions and I can link to them here (two are linked at perennial soources) already. I am struggling to see any sort of consensus formed there at all. 17, 23, 275. 23 and 275 are mentioned on perennial sources.

As a final point, indymedia articles are used judiciously in academic literature and we shouldn't forget that either. I find it strange to contemplate all use of indymedia on wikipedia being deleted when academics will use it with discretion. Here's a quickly compiled list of articles which reference indymedia from my recently read pile, just to illustrate my point. I'm not talking about pieces ABOUT indymedia, I'm talking about academics using indymedia as a source on social movement history.

• "Autonomy in the city?" in City Stuart Hodkinson & Paul Chatterton http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccit20
• "When cops “go native”: policing revolution through sexual infiltration and panopticonism in Critical Studies on Terrorism Michael Loadenthal https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17539153.2013.877670
• "Neoliberalism out of joint: Activists and inactivists in London’s social centres" in Subjectivity Peter Conlin doi:10.1057/sub.2014.8
• Truijen, K. (2019) Architecture of Appropriation – On Squatting as Spatial Practice ISBN|9789083015200
• Mudu & Chattopadhay Migration, Squatting and Radical Autonomy (Routledge) 9781138942127

If it helps to clarify, let's end with a specific example:

• I have a discussion with Graywalls at Talk:Dutch_squatting_ban#Sourcing where they want to delete an indymedia source about banners being put on buildings as being "disreputable", i want to keep it alongside a mainstream media article since it's the only available photographic evidence of the banners. I think it makes wikipedia a better encyclopedia to have that link. The source is not being used to say anything controversial, it only evidences the specific event, which is notable as attested by the newspaper article from Volkskrant. In short I see no good reason to remove it and no consensus here to do so. I think it's clear by now I think indymedia is a useful and reliable source under a limited context. Thanks for any opinions. Mujinga (talk) 11:16, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Ping to @Graywalls: as promised. Mujinga (talk) 11:17, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Everything is primary source at first. Scholars, journalists and academics all use their direct interview, blog sites, anecdotal evidence and all in their research; but this doesn't mean we should use it. Also, adding contents at our own discretion based on POV fringe source goes against the idea of WP:NPOV and due weight. I saw a dog do its business inside a Walmart a while back and this is the sort of thing that would find itself on people's blogs. Even if you were to attribute it "according to John Doe, a dog did its business in Walmart and he went on as if nothing happened", introducing contents from a blog is an undue coverage of absolutely non-notable thing. Graywalls (talk) 12:41, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Generally unreliable. Indymedia is self-published, and does not exhibit sufficient editorial control to be considered a reliable source. Journalists and academics use all kinds of data sources, including sources that would be considered unreliable on Wikipedia, as primary sources for research. In contrast, original research is prohibited in Wikipedia articles, and we are not able to use Indymedia on Wikipedia the same way that journalists and academics can in their work. — Newslinger talk 14:07, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable per Newslinger: academics also cite Breitbart and InfoWars, does that make those sources reliable? However, being generally unreliable doesn't prevent it from being cited alongside reliable sources when it contains primary source evidence, such as photographs, where editors have determined that this is useful. (t · c) buidhe 00:08, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

  even that's being extremely generous. I couldn't remember which article it was, but there was a Wikipedia article with the incorrect type of a bird or something and went unnoticed for a long time. When you cite dubious source, you exponentially increase the risk of having pictures that do not depict the stated caption. POV sources also often selectively photograph and publish things to push their agenda. The times when questionable sources, such as but not limited to Independent Media Center (Indymedia.org and many other domains), infowars.org, wordpress.org should be very very rare. An example of special circumstance they're useful. A credible media comments on something that was on Indymedia, for example, some criminal incident. Due to copyright reasons, they're not able to post the whole thing in verbatim, but if the news story includes a link, then posting that link alongside would be acceptable, IMO. Graywalls (talk) 00:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable to me this does not seem to be a reliable source. Consistency appears to be key here. If we allow this self published sources to be legitimated as a reliable source, then there is nothing stopping one from legitimating other self published sources as well. That does not seem to me to be a can of worms that we would want to open. Fortliberty (talk) 23:15, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable It is essentially user generated contents. Using something there isn't a whole lot different from putting things on Wikipedia directly without reference as you could put whatever you want on there, then reference to it as if it was legitimately published. "What will happen with your contribution: Anyone can publish on Indymedia through the links to the forms under 'publish yourself!' to use. All contributions appear almost immediately on the website. The collective tries to read through most of those contributions. The collective can leave the contributions on the basis of the criteria, delete them or move them to another category." (Google translation of https://www.indymedia.nl/node/16) Graywalls (talk) 02:43, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Comment thanks for the replies that are coherent, Graywalls you are doing yourself no favours talking about dogshit. I feel my point is being misread slightly since I am not disputing that indymedia is self-published. I am talking about how many social movement actors published manifestos, listings and so on at indymedia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This means that as other sources are lost / disappear / get paywalled, indymedia will become a useful source for wikipedia since it will be all we have as a record of projects and groups, and this is what makes it different to the given example of Breitbart and Infowars. That's why I brought up academics using it, but I should have realised that would have got us sidetracked into a primary sources discussion which was not my intention. I suppose I'm happy for indymedia to stay marked as generally unreliable and I can see an emerging consensus for that, as long as we have the caveat of WP:SELFSOURCE, referred to by "The source may still be used for uncontroversial self-descriptions, and self-published or user-generated content authored by established subject-matter experts is also acceptable". This allays my fears of all indymedia links being wiped from wikipedia. Regarding my specific example, I only see an answer from Buidhe so far, although I note Graywalls has already deleted it referencing this discussion which seems odd, since I see no consensus for its deletion here. Mujinga (talk) 10:39, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable as self-published, possibly useful for attributed statements. If a group used it to publish their manifesto, then it would be a primary source for that. Or for the opinion of notable contributors.--Hippeus (talk) 11:07, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Comment @Mujinga:, the reference to the dog thing was an example that just came to mind, because I saw it happen not long ago. It's one of those things people tend to post on social media about. This was an example of something that's undue to add onto the store's article. This could have been any other example. For instance, first hand account details of something that happened at an establishment that has a Wikipedia page, but was not covered by mainsteram media. Anyone can post about such thing wordpress, Twitter, Indymedia and my point here is that contents from such citizen journalism do not belong in Wikipedia pages. Such contents being present in squatting was the main point of contention. There already was a consensus without this discussion being created. Sources do not get listed as generally unreliable in RSP list without a consensus. It is better to not have information than have a mountain of information from unreliable sources. Graywalls (talk) 16:04, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• Copyright violation So, just as Scribd, another issue with Independent Media Center is that they sometimes host copyright violations, such as entire books, as in this one which I removed, Special:Diff/982713865. This isn't just a a snap shot of a page or two of a relevant part. A PDF of an entire copyrighted book. Sometimes they're user written posts, sometimes they're copyright violating news paper article copy and paste. Graywalls (talk) 21:32, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Indymedia as self-published source

I can see an emerging consensus for that, as long as we have the caveat of WP:SELFSOURCE, referred to by "The source may still be used for uncontroversial self-descriptions, and self-published or user-generated content authored by established subject-matter experts is also acceptable".

Before this goes into the archive, it should be clarified that there is no such consensus. What editors said above is that self-published sources can be used on the condition that they attribute authorship but the nature of Indymedia is that authorship is rarely attributed nevertheless authenticated. Indymedia is marked as unreliable in the above discussion particularly because it does not, as a publication, have an editorial process to confirm the details or authorship of its posts. As an encyclopedia, a tertiary source, we only report that which has been reliably stated in reliable, secondary sources. Primary sources are only used to fill out necessary, uncontroversial details that for some reason were excluded from the topic's general, reliable source coverage. But if we need to rely on a primary source to source, e.g., a manifesto, then editors should question why we're mentioning the manifesto at all, since it wasn't covered by reliable sources, especially if the manifesto cannot be attributed by a reputable source to the individual/group. Academics are welcome to discern for themselves whether a primary source is authentic, but that task is outside of our purview. As a tertiary source, we rely on the judgment of such secondary sources and the editorial process that reviews their work in journals to decide how to cover a topic. We specifically avoid the whole authenticity discussion by relying on the reputation of the publisher to decide what to include in an encyclopedia article. The whole point of this discussion and WP:SELFSOURCE is that Indymedia should be cited only under the rarest conditions, not regularly, and not certainly not carte blanche. czar 17:59, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable The consensus here is that Indymedia is unreliable.PatrickGuinness (talk) 13:21, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I would call it Twitter of 2000s before the days of smart phones of social media. So the decision to use should be treated similar to including Twitter links. Graywalls (talk) 00:13, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Sherdog.com

http://sherdog.com

Is it reliable?

I found it completely unreliable and unverifiable. It has no about page. The website in question's person (mixed martial artist) profiles are all over the place, seems outdated and and have huge discrepancies between other reputable sources such as the sport organizations themselves, UFC, Bellator, One or their media partners like ESPN, CBS, Fox, BT Sport, Independent or even the Athletic Comissions that organize competitions. But nearly all of the Mixed Martial Arts-related content have sherdog.com as the main source instead of the reputable sources that were mentioned above. A few editors seem to enforce it as the sole reliable source for thousands of biographies of living persons and their infoboxes. Even more various reputable sources that contain high-quality recorded footages or images or statistics or commission reports are disregarded in favour of sherdog.com. Conor McGregor's Height section of the Talk:Conor_McGregor page have a rather more detailed discussion about its reliability.

The site is reliable. I guess Sherdog is "self-published" but it has a very good reputation among mma fans. Likely, like many data-heavy sites, it introduces minor errors in its data to discourage scraping and republishing. Ofc, not all stats are equally reliable; for a top fighter like McGregor, you can expect most data to be accurate, but not for a no-name fighter that fights in a regional league somewhere. Regarding the height, why can't you use a range? E.g 5 ft 8 in to 5 ft 11 in ImTheIP (talk) 01:35, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Like you said, it's self-published. It has no about page. The data provided by the site tend to conflict other reputable sources' content although other reputable sources tend to share similiarity between them. Some of those reputable sources that I mentioned are ESPN, Fox, UFC, BoxRec, Independent, NSAC, BT sport, CBS, Independent. As an example, in McGregor and Alvarez's cases, those reputable sources' listings are also defintely closer to what other video footages and images provide. Sherdog.com on the other hand doesn't seem consistent or reliable. Especially considering they don't update fighter profile pages for decades, even after public becomes certain that data in most of those pages are clearly wrong. After an MMA competition where everyone can compare physical attributes for example. The most obvious example is the McGregor vs Alvarez match. As for using a range for height, weight etc., what should we do for a person that has 7 different listings for each attribute? Implementing height, weight, reach etc. ranges like 5'6 to 6'0 or 70 kg to 80 kg or 160lbs to 190lbs for every single person that has Wikipedia page would not be ideal and appropiate.Lordpermaximum (talk) 02:11, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

If it's self published it has no business being on BLPs per WP:BLPSPS. Nil Einne (talk) 08:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

We've reached a consensus to disregard Sherdog as a reliable source and use the reliable, independent and secondary sources, such as The Independent and CBS in the case of Conor McGregor's height, in the Talk:Conor_McGregor page. The consensus was only for the height of Conor McGregor but I think it was a very lengthy and detailed discussion with a lot of sources which had the participation of 7 editors, one being an administrator, so that sherdog.com should be considered unreliable site-wide. Nil Einne also agreed to consider sherdog.com unreliable here and I also want to inform another administrator Woody who also found self-published sherdog.com which has no about page unreliable in the Talk:Dan_Henderson page after another lengthy discussion.

Does anyone including ImTheIp who found sherdog.com reliable here previously before the achievement of consensus for Conor McGregor's height, has any objections to sherdog.com being considered an unreliable source?Lordpermaximum (talk) 10:36, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I just learned thanks to Nil Einne that there's a strict policy to avoid any self-published source on BLPs per WP:BLPSPS. Not only sherdog.com is an unreliable source, it cannot be used at all on BLPs because of the policy in question. This seals it.Lordpermaximum (talk) 11:07, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I've an objection to finding it unreliable just yet - the previous discussion (11 years ago, IIRC) that found it to be reliable was flawed because it was literally three or four editors deciding it, after one asked the question, over a very short space of time, and that led MMA editors being able to declare "It's a reliable source, as agreed by WP:RS/N!". I understand your desire to move quickly on this, but there's no rush. And yes, I know that can be frustrating... I've learnt patience after having people stall decisions by creating 30-day Requests for Comment over issues that are obviously only going to go one way, but hey, patience is a virtue!

As to the substantive issue: lack of bona fides for sherdog, such as an 'about' page, and it's demonstrable lack of accuracy (whether deliberate or not) would preclude it from being a reliable source where other, more reliable, sources exist. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:05, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course Sherdog is a reliable source. I don't know where 'it's (sic) demonstrable lack of accuracy' has been shown or proven. Occasionally, sources differ slightly on things like height. It's hardly a crisis. In fact, Sherdog's just as likely right and the others wrong as vice versa. After all, it's the largest dedicated MMA database in the world. Before editors jump aboard here could we please consider that the vast majority of less high-profile fighters won't have a listing elsewhere. I would ask Lordpermaximum please to chill out a bit and stop saying things like 'We've reached a consensus' after two comments and 'that seals it' after three. Sherdog has not been shown to be unreliable at all. It's also a source that contains accurate method of finishes, provides a reliable and verifiable source of nicknames (more of an issue than you might think). Its strengths are massive and the fact that some other sources disagree on stuff that none of us knows anyway (not that it'd make any difference if we did) is no reason to conclude that it's wrong. In the McGregor example, if you Google 'Conor McGregor height' is says 5'8. Since Sherdog is also the source used for all infoboxes on MMA fighter pages, it might have been nice to inform editors that this discussion is taking place. I have neither the time nor inclination to comment further as I'd rather edit. There are lots of editors who edit MMA page regularly and their contribution should be sought. I have made my thoughts clear simply won't read and reply to another series of WP:BLUDGEON posts.NEDOCHAN (talk) 16:16, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

My dear NEDOCHAN, Google lists Conor McGregor's height as 5'9" now thanks to our consensus, like I told you before that it would. Have a good day.Perm 20:50, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

More of than not, Google takes its profile information from English wikipedia so that's where Google took it from. The change in Conor McGregor's Wikipedia profile will soon reflect on Google also. We'll try to reach at least a rough consensus here as I don't see any reason why we shouldn't expand the consensus we've reached for Conor McGregor. Also NEDOCHAN, I remind you and others to stop using sherdog.com as a source on any BLP as it looks there's a mass violation of biographies of living persons (BLP) policy per WP:BLPSPS. It literally involves thousands of pages. I'll report it in WP:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard, pretty soon. I'll RfC for deprecation of sherdog.com next as it requires immediate action because there's mass violation of BLP policy which is taken very seriously.Lordpermaximum (talk) 17:16, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Please don't ping me. You have absolutely no right to start telling another editor what source they can and cannot use.NEDOCHAN (talk) 17:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Sherdog is not self-published. Their "contact us" page is their "about us" page.[18] Morbidthoughts (talk) 17:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

As per WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works, "if the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same.". Sherdog.com is a clear example of that, it has no about page, you can't volunteer to be an editor and it's not clear who's producing the content since there's no author sign in their articles, pages etc.Lordpermaximum (talk) 19:25, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

No, it is clear from that link I gave that they have an editorial staff, radio staff, and writers (contributors). Their publisher is Evolve Media. There is no requirement that their editors be volunteers. Their news articles do have authors.[19] It may be an ugly site, but you didn't do your due diligence in looking up this stuff. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:08, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Having authors doesn't mean it's not self-published. Please read the quote from the policy again. Sherdog.com is a clear-cut example of a self-published site. Although the violation of BLPs is important, our main topic here is the reliability of Sherdog.com. We don't even know where they get their info from and according to archive.org, they very rarely update the profiles of fighters if at all which makes it outdated also.Lordpermaximum (talk) 21:09, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand that the concept that the authors cannot publish an article without the approval of the editorial staff. The editorial staff is also not the publisher which is the company itself. Your reliance on WP:USINGSPS is misplaced since it is neither policy or guideline, and your arguments for strict adherence to that quote would render newspaper reporters to be SPS if their employer is the newspaper.[20] Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

One instance of a fighter's height not matching what CBS and The Independent lists does not make sherdog unreliable. More often than not, sherdog lists the correct information. There isn't one individual authority that measures all fighters; they're measured by different people (networks or promotions) using different methods (a wavy measuring tape or stadiometer) at different times in different places. Common sense says there will always be discrepancies in such cases. Sherdog is as reliable as a sporting database can be when there is no single source to pool all its stats from. As for the site being self published, says who? I think the fact that their news section is filled with articles by multiple journalists says otherwise. – ².O.^Boxing 19:24, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm a total outsider to this topic, but Sherdog is obviously not self-published, and it seems likely to be reliable:

• it's published by Evolve Media, which has over a hundred employees per their LinkedIn page
• they have a seven person editorial team and a twenty-two person team of contributors

Gbear605 (talk) 21:13, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You and a couple others only cofirm the quote in WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works: "if the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same." What are we even debating here?Lordpermaximum (talk) 21:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Lordpermaximum, you're misapplying your quote - by your definition, all news agencies are self-publishing. Gbear605 (talk) 23:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not my quote. It's a direct quote from WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 23:56, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

"This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." That's the quote you need to focus on. Morbidthoughts (talk) 00:07, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

No doubt Lordpermaximum will still claim they are self-published because their website doesn't have an "About" page, even though it does. FDW777 (talk) 21:15, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You should focus on the content and comment on the reliability of sherdog.com instead of reading my mind. About page is just an anecdote.

Sherdog.com is "completely unreliable" because it's self-published, they don't share how they get their information, their information usually contradicts other well-known reliable sites such as UFC, ESPN, Fox, Independent, CBS and those sources agree eachother and sherdog.com's "contact page" is the definition of ameteurish.Lordpermaximum (talk) 21:47, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You should focus on what you're being told, instead of saying what you think. Repeating the same mistake over and over again doesn't stop it being a mistake. There is zero to little support for your position, see WP:BLUDGEON. FDW777 (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Please be civil and relax. In the mean time, check Proof_by_assertion, WP:RS and WP:V. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 22:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You should in turn checkout, WP:FORCEDINTERPRET and WP:STONEWALL Morbidthoughts (talk) 00:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable. I suggest Lordpermaximum reads WP:SPS, since none of them apply to Sherdog. FDW777 (talk) 21:15, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Sherdog.com

What is the reliability of Sherdog.com?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Reliable, in the absense of generally reliable sources
• Option 3: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 4: Generally unreliable
• Option 5: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

Lordpermaximum (talk) 23:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

User Notifications about the RfC:

• Cassiopeia who voted for option 1, mentioned and pinged 21 other editors at WT:MMA#Reliability of Sherdog, and wanted those editors to ping other editors about this RfC. So far from that list only Gsfelipe94 joined the RfC and they voted for option 1.
• FDW77 who voted for option 1, opened a section at WT:MMA and informed other editors of the RfC.
• I voted for option 4, informed 4 of those who hadn't already participated in the RfC that were involved with the height discussions at Talk:Conor_McGregor which eventually reached consensus that I agreed with and had lead to this RfC as an expansion of the consensus. Out of those I invited, Cassiopeia voted for option 1, Bastun and Hunterb212 voted for option 2 or 3, GirthSummit hasn't voted yet. I also informed an administrator, Woody, who was involved with similar discussions at Talk:Dan_Henderson and voted for option 2 or 3. I also opened sections about the RfC at WT:BOXING, WT:SPORTS, and WT:WPBIO.

Please report invites, pings, mentions of any kind and newly opened sections that inform other editors about this RfC, so we can list them here in the spirit of transparency.Lordpermaximum (talk) 14:31, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• User:Lordpermaximum or "Perm" has been blocked by 3 admins for many reasons - see here. Cassiopeia^(talk) 10:19, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

False Reports:

Anything below that is meaningful has already been covered above. Everything else is only disruptions and false reports that aren't related to the RfC.Perm 04:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I think you forgot to add this fabulously neutral invite. But I really need your vote no matter what it is at WP:RSN#Responses_(Sherdog.com) if we are to stop them from using sherdog.com as the sole source....lol. – ².O.^Boxing 00:30, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

All of this because of our first encounter at Talk:Conor_McGregor where I had shared my suspicions about you and your friends? I didn't notify that user there, first. I actually invited him before and mentioned him here as one of the 2 editors that took part in the consensus we reached atTalk:Conor_McGregor but had not participated here yet. What you took out of context was from a discussion about Tony Ferguson which wasn't even started by me. You didn't even post the entire discussion deliberately in order to remove the context and blame me again for something I did not do again. Please don't turn this into another war and let people get sidetracked, again. You're extremely disruptive under this RfC. But I know you don't care as long as Sherdog.com becomes a reliable source because of your personal vendetta.Lordpermaximum (talk) 01:35, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll strike it and put it this way then: I think there's an option for your thoughts such as "reliable in the absense of generally reliable sources" which seems to suit your opinions or another option if you like, and, But I really need your vote no matter what it is at WP:RSN#Responses_(Sherdog.com) if we are to stop them from using sherdog.com as the sole source, are highly inappropriate comments to somebody you've previously invited to an RfC. And just to note, I have no vested interest in Sherdog whatsoever. I have never, in my 15,000 and something edits, used Sherdog in a citation. – ².O.^Boxing 02:06, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

You took them even more out of context to make me look even worse. They're cherry-picked from answers to a user that was bothered by the use of sherdog as the sole source. The discussion which I didn't start is here at User_talk:Hunterb212#Tony_Ferguson.Perm 04:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Background (Sherdog.com)

Sherdog.com has generally been used as "the sole reliable source" on thousands of articles which are related to MMA and mostly WP:BLP. In favour of Sherdog.com, all reliable sources such as The Independent, CBS, ESPN, UFC, Fox, BT Sport, BoxRec, Bellator, One and Athletic Commisions such as NSAC have been disregarded. Lordpermaximum (talk) 15:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

And the point of this is? None of that has anything to do with deciding whether or not Sherdog is a reliable source. But anyway, no. Just no. Sherdog has not generally been used as "the sole reliable source" on thousands of articles which are related to MMA and mostly WP:BLP. I task anybody to find me at least a start class MMA BLP that uses Sherdog as its sole reliable source. – ².O.^Boxing 16:30, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

If it's not clear enough, what that means is those editors who generally edit MMA articles favour Sherdog.com over other generally reliable sources. Those reliable sources have only been used when there's no info about that particular topic on Sherdog.com. For example if one editor references ESPN as a source in an MMA page, it will be reverted by some hardcore MMA editors in favour of Sherdog.com as the only source if sherdog has info about that. This is against the WP:RS policy and it's the main reason this discussion has been started in the first place. But I wanted to hear the community's opinion about the reliability of sherdog.com first so I opened an RfC about that first. That's why this section is titled "Background".Lordpermaximum (talk) 16:42, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

So, basically, your addition of this subsection has nothing whatsoever to do with evaluating whether or not Sherdog is reliable? Thanks for confirming that. – ².O.^Boxing 16:56, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

As I said, it gives some background to the discussions that were happened before the RfC since it's still under the main section. The starting point of these dicussions was pointed out at the top of the main section and this section only refers to that background. It's up to other editors to bear this in mind or not while evaluating sherdog.com's reliability but I thought it was important since it's going to affect thousands of pages because of the fact that Sherdog.com is relied upon very heavily in those articles.Perm 13:53, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Responses (Sherdog.com)

• Option 4 - There doesn't seem to be any evidence for reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS). It doesn't look like there's a detailed about page of any sorts and it seems to fit the criteria of self-publishing. Its fighter infocards looked outdated when I checked the history of those from archive.org. Its runners don't seem to share how they get their information; therefore I think it violates WP:V and makes Sherdog a questionable source. After checking other reliable sources that create MMA-related content such as CBS, ESPN, Fox, BT Sport, The Independent, BoxRec, UFC, Bellator, One and Athletic Commisions such as NSAC more in detail and making thorough comparisons, I found out that those reputable sources generally agree with each other, unlike Sherdog which has a clear tendency to contradict them. Besides that, none of sherdog.com's fighter profiles has any author mention. We know it's generally used on BLPs although it probably violates the BLP policy per WP:BLPSPS by likely being an SPS according to the definition in WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works. Considering some editors' tendency to use Sherdog as the sole source on many BLPs without evaluating other possibly more reliable sources, it's dangerous for Wikipedia and makes the Encylopedia open to many lawsuits, in theory at least. Espcially if the runners of sherdog.com decides to manipulate Wikipedia by adjusting some of the information on their website since it's relied upon very heavily. We've previously reached consensus to disregard sherdog.com and use other reputable, likely more reliable sources instead at Talk:Conor_McGregor which eventualy had lead to this RfC. That page has detailed discussions about the reliability of sherdog.com if anyone's interested.Lordpermaximum (talk) 23:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

"if the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same."

• That's a direct quote from WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works. That's the reason I think sherdog.com is an SPS if we go by that.Lordpermaximum (talk) 09:21, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 Addressing each repeatedly made incorrect point one at a time.
  • It's self-published No, it's not. It's published by Mandatory, part of Evolve Media, LLC. Self-published means "man with blog" or "man with website", not a publishing company with 150 editors and writers across more than 40 websites.
  • it has no true about page The about page is right there, and it lists the editorial team.
  • runners of the site don't share how they get their information and this clearly violates WP:V I can look at any newspaper right now and they won't say where they got their information from either, it doesn't make them unreliable. WP:V does not require a reference to have a footnote for every single piece of information.
• Since there is no evidence to back up any of the other spurious claims made without evidence, I will simply dismiss them without evidence. FDW777 (talk) 07:33, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: Not self published as per above. All the articles in the 'News' section are attributed to their authors. As for the fighter profiles not having citations for the information given or an "author sign" on the pages, that's just silly. BoxRec, ESPN, and Fox have been given as comparisons (besides UFC, which is a primary source, they are the only three out of the nine sources mentioned that have fighter profiles); just like Sherdog, none of them have citations for the information given in fighter profiles nor do they have an "author sign". Finding two or three fighter's profiles, out of thousands, whose heights are disputed and reported at different measurements by multiple sources is by no means a reason to deem a source unreliable. – ².O.^Boxing 09:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Having an author on some pages doesn't mean it's not self published. According to to the rule in WP:Identifying_and_using_self-published_works:

"if the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same."

From this alone it's clear that it's self-published, thus it openly violates WP:BLPSPS and on top of that it violates WP:RS along with WP:V too, when we consider the other reasons in the first response.Lordpermaximum (talk) 09:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You've already been informed that what you're quoting is not policy or even a guideline. So the quote, which you've used three times already in this RfC, five times in the whole thread, and many more at the BLPN discussion (where far more experienced editors have disagreed with your interpretation of SPS as well as flat-out dismissing any BLP violation), doesn't hold much weight at all. You can copy and paste the same quote all you like, it won't make it any more relevant. Calm down with the relentless WP:BLUDGEONing. – ².O.^Boxing 12:07, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Please calm down and see Proof_by_assertion. The discussion you're referring to on the BLPN is still ongoing although you claim it's ended in one way. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 15:02, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2: I've struck my previous vote following more research. After trying my hardest to find some evidence for a reputation for fact checking, I couldn't find enough to personally satisfy my initial vote. There's multiple instances of reliable sources using Sherdog's fighter stats and match results, but there's also a few articles that discuss discrepancies in that area. And to my surprise I couldn't find a reliable source that discussed the site in detail. As for the news they report, I'd consider that generally reliable. There's a bob load of instances where reliable sources have accredited Sherdog with breaking an MMA news story that the reliable sources in question would cover a week or so later and Sherdog articles are repeatedly quoted in multiple reliable sources. – ².O.^Boxing 11:35, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Not an SPS I have no opinion on the reliability of Sherdog since I haven't looked into that, and don't plan to. But I said above "if" since 2 editors had suggested it was an SPS. However now that I've seen more commentators and also read our article and looked into some other details, it seems clear to me Sherdog isn't an SPS. Some parts of it may be, e.g. obviously its forums but most of it doesn't seem to be. Nil Einne (talk) 12:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Nil Einne, could you check Sherdog.com a bit and/or read some of the discussion that's going on here? I would really like everyone that participated in the discussions to choose an option no matter what it will be. I also added a very short background for why these discussions started in the first place. If you could read a bit more about it, do you think there's enough evidence in favour of sherdog.com to give it a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy? I and a few others claim there aren't. If there are not, thousands of pages are affected by it for the worse because of MMA editors' tendency to use it as the sole source. Thanks for participation anyways even if you don't want to choose an option. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 18:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC).

• Not an SPS per Nil Einne. No opinion as to it's general reliability, but even The Irish Times and other papers of record get their facts wrong sometimes. That said, Sherdog is not the sole definitive source for MMA stats, and other sites, equally reliable, can absolutely be used as sources, too. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:51, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Bastun, I added a section about the background of these discussions and the RfC that highlights your concern. But it can be adressed indirecly here by this RfC so that we won't need another consensus for your and my concern about that, in the future. I think option 2 or 3 is close to your thinking so you can always choose option 2 or 3. I would really like you to choose an option, no matter what it will be if we are to reach consensus here. Thank you for your participation even if you don't choose an option anyways. Best wishes, Lordpermaximum (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2020 (UTC).

• Option 2 or 3. I would have questions over its sourcing and accuracty and all of those "staffers" listed on the 'Contact us' page certainly aren't full time, as linkein searches show. That said, nothing to stop it being used as a source. Just not exclusively. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 19:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3: Not self-published, but I couldn't find significant evidence of reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS). It may well be popular among MMA fans and have a small editorial team, but there needs to be significant independent evidence to make it generally reliable. It's probably usable but established high-quality sources (e.g. existing green WP:RSP sources) would be preferred. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: It's the leading source for such data globally and there's no evidence whatsoever that it's not reliable. This RFC was started by an editor who thought it was self-published. It isn't.NEDOCHAN (talk) 15:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, it's self-published. I want to remind you of WP:OWN, WP:But I'm an administrator!, User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles #2, WP:Equality, WP:Newbies aren't always clueless.Lordpermaximum (talk) 10:02, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: It must be incredibly frustrating for those who edit mma fighters' pages and knows what Sherdog is to have to deal with this. ImTheIP (talk) 15:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3: It has been made clear to me after stumbling into MMA pages during an edit war on Dan Henderson (see Talk:Dan Henderson for extended discussion about a similar height issue to McGregor above) that the MMA community places Sherdog above other sources but without any consensus or discussion as to it's reliability. This RFC is the perfect place to develop a consensus which can be used to justify it's inclusion going forward. I agree with MarkH21's thinking here above. It isn't self-published under our own guidelines but at the same time there isn't any evidence whatsoever that it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS) which is what we need to deem it a generally reliable source. The page itself doesn't make this clear. Sherdog is not the sole definitive source for MMA stats, and other sites, equally reliable or green WP:RSP, should be used where available. (Note: I was invited/canvassed to participate in this discussion by User:Lordpermaximum with this edit but I was intending on bringing this site up here at some point) Woody (talk) 16:47, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the disclosure. I have issued a canvassing warning on Lordpermaximum's talk page.[21] Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• It wasn't canvassing because Woody has participated in sherdog.com's reliability dicussions before. I suggest you to read this quote: "Editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics)" It's from WP:CAN and that's placed under "Appropiate notification" section. If it was canvassing it wouldn't be your problem because Woody as an administrator would handle it before you or anyone else. I reverted your edit and I will report you for vandalism if you do that again in my talk page.Lordpermaximum (talk) 19:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

In the warning, I also included the links of who you selectively recruited to participate, not just Woody.[22][23][24] You should review WP:VOTESTACKING and WP:BATTLEGROUND again. Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:18, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is the place to discuss the reliability of sources when weighed against our policies and guidelines. Please take discussions of editors away from here. Let's try not to get side-tracked here. Woody (talk) 19:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)The wording was entirely neutral but the selection of individuals could be seen as trying to back up your point of view. Canvassing can be a pretty grey subject. I noted I was invited to this discussion to avoid any accusation of impropriety. @Lordpermaximum: next time I would give a neutral notification to key wikiprojects/editors that are closely related to the discussion eg WP:MMA (This has been done at WT:MMA#Reliability of Sherdog though the pinging of individual editors to this discussion is a bit borderline). If any doubt leave a notification at the beginning of this RFC to say who has been notified (similar to the many found at AFD). Woody (talk) 19:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Morbidthoughts, it's not true because I only tried to reach out to those who hadn't participated in this discussion at RSN. Others who were against my proposal in the beginning did participate here except just one editor who admittedly said she needed a week to reply to the ongoing discussions that started this RfC in the first place and she was very busy, just yesterday. Next time do your research properly.
• Woody, please see above. He's just making an empty accusation and hiding the other side of the truth. Only 2 editors that participated in the previous discussion were'nt notified because one of them wanted us to give her some time, around a week. The other editor that I didn't notify was an administrator that involved in the discussions as neutral in the beginning and we were in the same side of consensus in the end. So if anything, I hurt my case by not inviting him/her.

Thanks to you I learned that they pinged every one of those editors that have been using sherdog.com as the sole source on anything MMA-related. He was blaming me for canvassing and then I learned this. It's funny though the one that pinged all those users is that one editor who said she needed time to respond to previous discussion in the talk page of Conor McGregor. It looks she simply tried to stall and deny consensus but she failed.Lordpermaximum (talk) 19:35, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: Per fellow editors comments. I believe Sherdog serves as a common ground for most of the information. Obviously they are not the ultimate guide to it. If we have other reliable sources, we should take that in account and use it as the most reliable option for that case. We use it as means to add fight results, but they're not always right. To me they are still a reliable source, but I never took them for the only option available. I believe such cases require discussion and people should be open to consider other sources as more accurate than Sherdog itself. That being said, Sherdog is definitely one of the most reliable sources in MMA media regarding database and news as well. Gsfelipe94 (talk) 19:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• You chose option 1 but it sounds like option 2 suits your opinions more. Can I ask why did you choose option 1 with those thoughts then? Is it because they who use sherdog.com as the sole source pinged you and tens of others to come and vote here at WT:MMA#Reliability of Sherdog?Lordpermaximum (talk) 20:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You probably didn't see my comment Gsfelipe94. Don't you agree me with me that your opinion sounds more like option 2? Choosing option 1 with those opinions sounds like a mistake.Lordpermaximum (talk) 00:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 or 2: It is not a self published source, and it is written by sufficiently specialized people (I navigated here [25]) . The tone of the information is perfectly fine. Also, I don't think they need to disclose how they get information, as I have never seen this being required on any sort of newspaper. Overall, I think all three points of WP:SOURCEDEF are quite fine, with maybe the publisher being a little subpar. I'd say the website still qualifies under WP:RSEDITORIAL. Best, Walwal20 ^{talk ▾ contribs} 05:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1: Besides certain point have maked by other editors, I here add (1) Sherdog is largest independent MMA media site in the world and (2) Sherdog is the official content partner

of ESPN reported by Sprot Illustor. As ESPN is considered reliable - reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS), and they partner with Sherdog (use Sherdog's coentent) that would make Sherdog a reliable source. (3) Sherdog is not a self publishing firm for it is own by Evolve Media LCC, thus Sherdog is not a self publishing company. (4) There was also discussion in the past in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard with the outcome that Sherdog is a reliable source - see here and this RFC would be the updated version. (5) overall, Sherdog do meet in term of content/tone/NPOV, WP:RSEDITORIAL and WP:SOURCEDEF. (6) Site note: Sherdog is voted by MMA fighters the leading source of breaking news, fight reviews and in-depth features sites - see [https://www.worldmmaawards.com/mma-awards-category/mma-media-source-of-the-year/ HERE. Cassiopeia^(talk) 12:19, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• There's no outcome that found Sherdog reliable before. The link to that RSN discussion shows it was almost a decade ago it was attended by a couple editors who were like "it looks kinda ok" and that was all about it. As for the ESPN deal, the link states it was made 13.5 years ago. It also says "As part of the agreement, ESPN will highlight exclusive, in-depth Sherdog content contextually within ESPN.com, including news, interviews, videos, event listings, and more. ESPN.com's new Mixed Martial Arts section index will also feature Sherdog's Fight Finder module, which allows users to search the largest fighter database online for stats and personal information. Sherdog's weekly online Radio show will be offered at ESPNRadio.com and for download via the ESPN PodCenter." None of those things that were mentioned in the quote are found on ESPN right now and they haven't been found on ESPN for years. ESPN (along with other reliable sources) and Sherdog have been contradicting each other for a long time and any time you can check for those discrepancies between them, now or then thanks to archive.org. So bearing all of this in mind, it's pretty clear that deal wasn't for a lifetime and it ended a long time ago. Probably years ago.Lordpermaximum (talk) 12:37, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that deal wasn't for a lifetime and it ended a long time ago. Probably years ago. WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH is not permitted. Do you have a source to say that it probably ended years ago? To add to what CASSIOPEIA said on fact checking; the UFC's The Ultimate Fighter series used Sherdog as a source for checking contestants records, as seen here. "You MUST have a minimum of 3 Professional MMA fights to be considered. All records will be verified on sherdog.com & mixedmartialarts.com. If we cannot verify your record on either of these sites you will NOT be eligible to tryout." The world's most prominent MMA promotion seems to think that Sherdog has a good reputation for fact checking. – ².O.^Boxing 13:04, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• An insignificant news article from 2.5 years ago which was about TUF entrance which is not considered an official UFC fight. As for other acussations, it doesn't even worth answering. As an administrator already pointed out "This discussion is the place to discuss the reliability of sources when weighed against our policies and guidelines. Please take discussions of editors away from here. Let's try not to get side-tracked here."Lordpermaximum (talk) 13:16, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Cassiopeia, for 1) above, do you have a source rather than an assertion? For 2), that article you've cited is from literally ten years ago, and that same article also states that UFC had pulled Sherdog's press credentials; and also that they hadn't had access to the UFC for most of the preceding five years! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:18, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Bastun First of all, I come and comment here in good will. UFC is a private company and not a sport organization like FIFA, as such they do what the want - we all remember well Ariel Helwani and his associates were pulled form UFC press credentials for being just doing their job as good journalists would and should do. The source is from Sport Illustrator and being pulled the credential has nothing to do with the source reliability and independent. I have placed my vote and for those who disagree, they can give evidence/comment/guidelines of why they think Sherdog is not reliable or independent. I am rather sad to see one inch height different of Conor McGregor in source would lead to so much uncomfortable and unpleasant discussions in so many articles and editors' talk pages. Do note content of the MMA articles come from many different sources and the infobox which is an optional is sourced by Sherdog. Those parameters in the infobox (such as style, stand, trainer, rank, university and etc) which could notvbe obtained from Sherdog fighter profile would need to sourced elsewhere if info is added. This is just a normal practice in other sport as well to use a sport specific database in the infobox / game /sportsperson record / results. Changing a fighter height for one more inche higher is not big deal, but it would effect thousands of thousands of MMA articles in Wikipedia would not only the height but the fight records, team, fight out of, nick name and etc. If it does not effect in such a big scale, I would not comments for I have invited to settle a numbers of edit warrings/content dispute and it was not pleasant just to read those comments from editors for some of them were not there to discuss/understand/collobrate/support each other/learn from each other but just fight, troll just because they wanted to win the arguments due to the fighters are from their countries/same ethnicity/just riding the hype train and lack of Wikipedia guidelines and communicated as if they are in twitter /utube. Stay safe Bastun and best. Cassiopeia^(talk) 11:47, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I just asked for a citation for 1) above; I didn't and don't doubt your good faith. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:52, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

2.0 boxing's comment clearly refers to the reliability of the source and none of it relates to you or any other editor. They're right, only WP:OR is behind your argument re ESPN.NEDOCHAN (talk) 13:22, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Exactly what NEDOCHAN said. I'm addressing your argument, which is original research, which is policy. But anyway, all fights within The Ultimate Fighter series are officially sanctioned bouts, promoted by the UFC. So the requirement that a fighter's record is confirmed by Sherdog relates to an official UFC bout. Which gives credibility to Sherdog's reputation for fact checking. – ².O.^Boxing 13:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3: I believe Sherdog is somewhat reliable in the sense that it is up to date with match statistics and fighter's records. However I believe the info such as height and weight of fighters is not always the most accurate. Comparing Sherdog to ESPN's website you will find that ESPN lists the height and weight measurements of most current fighters in the major promotions such as UFC and Bellator just like Sherdog does. And it updates these measurements after every weigh in. Sherdog on the other hand does not update these measurements therefore you have outdated information such as some fighters being listed at different weight classes than which they currently fight in. So in my opinion a compromise would be to use ESPN stats for height and weight of any fighters whose information is available there, and match records and stats for fighters unavailable on ESPN's website still be cited from Sherdog. Hunterb212 (talk) 7:10, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 I'd say. They're not ESPN-type reliable, but for general uncontested information like who won a fight or the card for an event, then they're useable. I also agree with what Hunterb212 says above. Red Fiona (talk) 21:56, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 or 2 I lean towards option 1 because I generally use sherdog for fight information and results because they get that basic information correct. It appears there may be less reliability in their height and weight statistics. It certainly isn't self-published and the fact that McGregor's height varies depending on the source is not that unusual. Many athletes in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL have official heights and weights that are generally believed to be incorrect. My doctor's office measured my height differently in successive visits in the past year, but it doesn't make them unreliable (though it might say something about my posture sometimes). Note that option 1 says "generally reliable" not "always correct". Even the best media sources make errors. Papaursa (talk) 00:35, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 I hadn't planned to comment here, but I'm rather alarmed at the idea that we would accept Sherdog's figures regardless of what other sources say. I don't have a problem with using it as a handy go-to source for information that would be hard to get elsewhere, and even with a general agreement that it is more reliable than (insert name of alternative MMA database here), but when multiple RS like the Guardian and CBS all say one thing, and Sherdog is the only source saying something else, we surely have to go with the other sources - we can't have a situation where the content at a bunch of BLPs can only come from one source, regardless of what others say - no source is that reliable. GirthSummit _(blether) 11:14, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 I've come across this issue once or twice before - this modestly-staffed entity (it looks like a small core staff and a range of enthusiastic part-timers, nothing wrong with that) does keep a massive database, mostly, as I understand, robust but it seems updating is not always done - and then the odd stat (like the height of Conor McGregor) is just perhaps off (weights change per fight, styles and finishes shift, but not height). I see no problem in using it, but it cannot be some "unique source" for MMA BLPs - however, especially for less-known fighters, it may be their only solid listing. NO clear evidence of major problems has been given, ertainly not against the 10s of thousands of data points it supplies - and it seems the MMA area is a bit "hot" in terms of debate, a pity, and something which I see has made a straightforward discussion hard. So I believe it can be considered Generally Reliable, but capable of being over-ruled by other RS - and as a side benefit, I believe this process also reminds that while a WikiProject may make recommendations, no project can declare that some source is "the only source" for something, nor does a Project "own" the content in its area of interest (which may cross multiple other projects anyway); none of this takes away from recognition of the hard and often rather thankless - but critical - work done by WP MMA or any other project or contributor. SeoR (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I have to say I think this is a superb response from SeoR.NEDOCHAN (talk) 23:59, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Comments

Really? You've started discussions at two different noticeboards (which are still active), both of which are currently showing consensus against your opinion that the source is unreliable and somehow a serious BLP violation, and now you open an RfC? This is getting a bit daft now. This all stems from you saying sherdog is basically shit because you found a video source that says Conor McGregor is 5'11, contradicting sherdog. Shall we also start an RfC to attempt to get CBS Sports and The Independent deprecated as well? They also disagreed with your video source after all. – ².O.^Boxing 23:45, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Those are two different topics on two noticeboards. One is about the reliability of sherdog.com, the other you mentioned is about the BLP policy violation on one particular article. They have loose connection. One of them stems from sherdog.com being the sole source on thousands of BLPs with its very questionable, unreliable data which violates WP:RS, WP:V and the other stems from one particular website's self-publishing identity which violates WP:BLPSPS on a BLP article... If you want to response on the reliability of Sherdog.com, please do. Best, Lordpermaximum (talk) 00:09, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry this is madness. Lordpermaximum is now going through and editing their old comments retrospectively and therefore riding roughshod over the discussion and replies. This cannot be permitted. Admin attention is required and I think ANI might be necessary.NEDOCHAN (talk) 11:43, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I edited my vote comment without changing my vote to make it more precise after getting new information from everyone involved, and made multiple consequent edits to fix grammar mistakes and typos because admittedly I'm not a native English speaker. Because of that I often try to fix my comments later because I generally realize those mistakes later. I don't even get what are you acussing me with here? But I'm not surprised since you're doing that all the time because I don't agree with your opinion.Lordpermaximum (talk) 13:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

What's your first language out of interest? I am an EFL teacher so am curious.NEDOCHAN (talk) 13:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

This is not the place to ask another editor about their first language, and they are, of course, under no obligation to answer. In any case, there are several editors participating here who do not appear to have English as a first language - and that's fine! Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:22, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I edited my vote comment without changing my vote to make it more precise after getting new information from everyone involved...which is something that definitely should not be done. Other editors will read the comments and votes in the RfC. There's no need to refactor your comment to include other people's points, especially when you haven't looked into those points yourself. There's also the bludgeoning issue which is rather tedious. You don't need to reply to every comment you disagree with to repeat your points over and over and over again. – ².O.^Boxing 13:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I suggest Lordpermaximum reads WP:STICK and does something more productive instead of the constant arguing here, since there is absolutely zero support for their claim is self-published. FDW777 (talk) 15:10, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

You should tell that to your friend Squared.Circle.Boxing who had extremely disruptive behavior under this RfC and tried to damage it as best as he could.Perm 04:22, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: The above used "Perm" is User:Lordpermaximum (see in source edit mode) not sure why they choose to use Perm name suddenly in the disussion. Cassiopeia^(talk) 08:10, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

It was too long.Perm 10:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

References

Byline Times

What is the reliability of the Byline Times? This article could be of relevance in the Great Barrington Declaration article. GPinkerton (talk) 00:37, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• They have an explicit strong bias, but they are also trying to do journalism properly. I don't know of any red flags about their past coverage ... but I'm sure someone will now post some - David Gerard (talk) 09:42, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
• Byline Times are signed up to IMPRESS [26] which, in my opinion, does a good enough job of fining papers for misleading stories and getting them to promptly publish corrections that it forces them to either do the RS level fact-checking beforehand or go out of business. El komodos drago (talk to me) 08:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

To add to my above comment, here is an Independent live page using it as a source and here is a Guardian/Observer opinion peice using it as a source. El komodos drago (talk to me) 20:23, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• I cannot comment on the specific reliabilty of the publication, but I can see that the editorial team and senior reporters are all extremely experianced journalists with excellent reputations and a history of working in mainstream legacy media, so I would expect high standards. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:03, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
• I recently evaluated whether to use this source for a BLP I'm working on. In that very particular case, I decided to use this source, so there's one datapoint. From what others say, it sounds like this might be a generally reliable source beyond my very specific use case. Jlevi (talk) 17:31, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and for your particular question, I think Nafeez Ahmed is a great general journalist on environmental issues, and the article you link would be strong enough for a BLP. Jlevi (talk) 17:34, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Just saw this, i was the one that questioned Byline Times, near as i can tell it's not signed up for IMPRESS, Byline is. byline.com it's prior iteration was "a platform not a paper" ("we don’t edit our journalists"). The rebranding claims "four part-time editors" and more like a “proper organised news site”[27]. The about page has run by a small, dedicated team of journalists providing a platform for freelance reporters and writers. Hardeep Matharu and founder Peter Jukes the editors, both contributors to the site and other publications. No real evidence of oversight or fact checking, and the division of stories into "Fact" and "Reportage" is not explained. Based on the story in question and the opinion pieces in the "Reportage" section, articles there are more the byline.com model of "we don't edit our journalists". fiveby(zero) 15:10, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess the "Fact"/"Reportage" division doesn't really imply any difference in editorial oversight, there are articles which are clearly author opinions under the "Fact" section. fiveby(zero) 15:38, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Huh. Yeah, I'm surprised that that site isn't in the IMPRESS registry. It looks the the other sister site, 'Byline Investigates', is in the registry, but no trifecta. Regardless, it's pretty clear at least from what they say that they're not using the byline.com model: "Jukes said Byline Times is 'completely different' from Byline.com, which is crowdfunded with no top-down editorial control"[28]. The associated article has a variety of nice things to say about the source, though I'm not familiar with it myself. Jlevi (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Acording to them fact is articles predominantly based on historical research, official reports, court documents and open source intelligence while reportage is immersive and current news, informed by frontline reporting and real-life accounts. From that I gather that the difference is that fact is based off documents while reportage is mainly informed by interviews. El komodos drago (talk to me) 20:01, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• The credibility and notability of the publication seem negligible, so I would say "not reliable." GPRamirez5 (talk) 16:51, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Generally reliable source whose contributors are serious and experienced journalists. Cambial foliage❧ 17:02, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• I checked the first 10 pages in Google search results, and that what I found:

1. An article in Full Fact last year attributing false claims to the Byline Times about companies taking short positions in the market when Boris Johnson ran for Conservative Party leadership. The article also said that Byline Times claimed these companies dominated by firms that donated to the Vote Leave campaign, and refused to release the names of the firms for legal reasons. According to the article the Financial Times also found many issues in the same claims.. I also found another article also calling the Byline Times for the same claims.
2. An article in BizNews.com (apparently right wing media) mentioning that Peter Jukes had to apologize after being threatened to get sued for smearing.. With some searching, it turned out it was an article in the Byline Times (couldn't be found and likely deleted) that accused Douglas Murray of instigating violence against Muslims which Peter Jukes apologized for allegedly after being contacted by the lawyer Mark Lewis.

So, I won't really consider it a reliable source specially when talking about secret IRS document that only the writer was able to see. Regarding the article in question, the writer claims that there was a donation of $68,100 made two years ago from the Koch brothers to American Institute for Economic Research while also claiming that American Institute for Economic Research's capital is $284,492,000 which amkes the ratio of the donation to the value 1/4000. Assuming all this is true; if I donated $100 to an organization valued at $400,000 this doesn't make them part of my network or responsible in any way of what I do. Now as the title claims that a climate denial network is behind the Great Barrington Declaration; this can only be true if the Koch brothers knew in advance that a pandemic will hit the world and all the events that will happen after so they made this donation in 2018 in anticipation that the declaration will happen. This by itself raises big question mark about the reliability of the source, specially in the context of secret documents which nobody knows how they got access to them. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 08:58, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

The Full Fact article is basically a question of accurate but incomplete reporting. Byline Times says 'the number of shorts taken out for after the end of the conservative nomination rose sharply after Johnson announced his candidacy' to which Full Fact replies 'of course it did, most shorts are taken out in the short term and there wasn't any great rise in the number of shorts being taken out after Boris announced' to which one might reply 'that is irrelevant, all we care about is shorts taken out for after the end of the conservative leadership race and besides your own data shows a slight spike' at which point Full Fact replies 'we never said you were inaccurate, only that you should have reported the rest of the data' at which point the argument dives deep into a level of economics and logic that is not really relevant here.

I think it is fair to say that the Byline Times did not give enough credence to conflicting data and should at least have mentioned this. On the other hand, this is not a factual error but an omission of an important fact as such at most it would suggest the source should be given in text attribution in some cases. El komodos drago (talk to me) 12:23, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The Spectator is an extreme-right magazine who's recent articles include one calling upon parents of university students to "do anything, just stop them voting" and asking for the election to be held on a Muslim holy day to stop them from voting. It has been described by ABC News as "far-right" and has had one of its columnists described by the Private Eye as a "fascist". I'm not saying to take an allegation about exactly what a tweet may or may not have said coming from the person who was criticised by the tweet with a pinch of salt (I'll leave that job to the Spectator's WP:RSP entry) I'm just saying that a Spectator columnist trying to "foment violence" against a specific ethnic group would not be entirely out of character.

I can not speak for the reliability of Biznews but the whole thing reads like an opinionated sweary blogpost.

Whatever your view on the matter, however, this was a tweet and not an article in Byline Times. El komodos drago (talk to me) 13:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Requiring article talk page notifications for RfCs that would remove references used in those articles

There is an increasing trend to hold an RfC here to deprecate a source, which is then followed up by editors removing existing references to that source from articles. However, there are currently no notifications on articles or their talk pages that a source is being considered for deprecation (unlike templates, where {{tfd}} appears in the articles affected). This is effectively a fait accompli - editors working on article content that aren't watching this page don't hear about the discussion until it's too late to participate in it.

I propose requiring that notifications linking to the RfC are added to the talk pages of affected articles so that article editors can participate in the RfCs before they are closed. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:44, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Survey (talk page notifications)

• Support as proposer. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:44, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Some sources are used in hundreds or thousands of articles. To put notices on every talk page would be spam. (t · c) buidhe 18:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Buidhe. It's not practical to send up to tens of thousands of talk page messages every time a source is discussed. Many RfCs on this noticeboard do not result in deprecation even when it is presented as one of four options. As an alternative, RfCs on widely-cited sources have been promoted on the centralized discussion template, which is displayed on most noticeboards. Editors can opt into receiving updates by watchlisting Template:Centralized discussion. — Newslinger talk 19:14, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Newslinger and Buidhe: Perhaps a notice could only be triggered if the source is likely to be deprecated? If it affects so many articles then it's even more important to provide some sort of notice. I can't see how watchlisting Template:Centralized discussion would help, since the discussions aren't in the edit summaries, and most editors wouldn't know to look at it (first time I've seen it in 15 years!). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:22, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  I can't support this kind of trigger, since it would interfere with consensus-building (and only when the RfC is likely to find a certain result). Here's an analogy: when an article is nominated for deletion, we don't automatically notify all of the editors (potentially hundreds or thousands) who have contributed to that article, even though the deletion discussion might result in the removal of their contributions. Doing so would be disruptive due to the number of notifications and would be considered improper canvassing, since in most cases, an editor who has invested time and effort into an article is more likely to defend the article than an editor who has not done so, regardless of whether there is a good reason to keep/delete the article. Implementing automatic large-scale notifications for sources being examined on this noticeboard would be similarly disruptive, and result in a similar influx of editors who are more likely to defend a cited source because they have invested time and effort into bringing an article to its current state, regardless of whether the source is reliable. However, I can support notifying related WikiProjects about RfCs on this noticeboard, which would be similar to the article alerts that are generated by deletion discussions. — Newslinger talk 05:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that CENT is not as visible as it should be, but ultimately the objective should be to make CENT more visible, rather than trying to make templates appear across thousands of pages, which is impractical. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:26, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Support I appreciate the idea of having more invested eyes on discussions, however I feel this may be a solution looking for a problem. My impression with this board is sourcing specialists commenting on potential sources.
  Adding dozens, or hundreds of invested comments will unlikely change the outcomes and instead will likely add grief to those monitoring the board. Glee^anon 19:33, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Gleeanon409: I'm raising this because it is a problem - I've seen multiple sources removed from articles I've worked on without being able to participate in the discussion (for the latest, see Talk:Nan Rendong). Wikipedia doesn't work by 'specialists', it works by consensus, and if you don't involve the editors affected then you shouldn't be claiming consensus. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:04, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  Looking at Talk:Nan Rendong you appear to be talking about CGTN. The CGTN discussion was extremely well attended and the consensus was overwhelming, there really isn't much of a question about whether CGTN has published misinformation so deprecation was a no-brainer. Are you suggesting the discussion was somehow deficient or that consensus would have been different with even greater participation? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:18, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back: This isn't about a single reference (which is why I didn't mention it at the start of this discussion), it's about the general approach that is taken when deprecating a source. If this page decided to deprecate NASA, how would I know about it until the references start to be removed? Or if you want to focus on CGTN and this specific article, it was unexpectedly removed, I checked it and it looked OK, so I restored it, it was then removed again, and I restored it with a request to discuss it on the talk page, after which it was undone again and I started a discussion on the talk page. I'm still waiting for a link to the discussion about CGTN. Can you provide it, please? Mike Peel (talk) 20:35, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  You might want to try going to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources and then ctrl f-ing until you find it. Why am I having to tell you how to find something so basic? Aren’t you an admin or something? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:46, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back: Link 1 is to [29], it was a discussion to no consensus. Link 2 is to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#"CGTN"_and_"CGTN_America",_both_Chinese_media_outlets, which is, um, this page but a section that doesn't seem to exist. No link to a consensus discussion, let alone a discussion that I can contribute to? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:53, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  The relevant RfC is Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_312#RFC:_China_Global_Television_Network. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:58, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  Click on the blue arrow box/2020 above link 1 and 2 or just click the link provided by Nikkimaria. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:59, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back and Nikkimaria: Ah, I see! It was above the links I was looking at, and just saying '2020' wasn't too helpful. You hid the link well. So the next step is that I should add a comment at [30]? Except, of course, that discussion is now closed - so what should I now do to be able keep the reference in the article? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:05, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  After consideration it does seem to be a valid concern of cultural imperialism, among other factors, leading to a partial or full depreciation of sources that actually may have valid sourcing issues on Wikipedia but are being dismissed wholesale.

  I also think it’s unrealistic that the editors who are building articles would be watching CENT or other project pages but they might see a notice on the article talk page that’s on their watchlist. At the end of the day we want to make the best decision and those using the sources might have un-obvious knowledge.

  I suggest a trial of a bot notification triggered after a 7-day period or so if it seems some sort of depreciation is likely. The bot could target a mix of articles 1) with the most use of the source, and 2) most actively edited articles. Glee^anon 18:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, if none of us respected consensuses we weren’t personally involved in then things would fall apart here pretty quickly. This is a bad idea both on a practical and philosophical level. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:23, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support The more general issue here is setting a best practice for notification when some robot is making editorial decisions at scale. Should this discussion only happen at the established Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group or should there be some broader Wikipedia community discussion? When the BAG was established the bot activity was relatively low and more about maintenance. Increasingly bots are making editorial decisions, which is unlike prior bots managing templates or administration. Just to throw out an idea: if a bot is going to execute editorial decisions, then as a pilot, it should post messages on the talk pages. Perhaps a good scale would be
  • First 10 articles - post on talk page of all
  • 100 - 1000 articles - post on 10% of them
  • More than 1000 - post on 100 talk pages

A diverse editorial conversation should happen before operating at scale. I do not think the conversation should be endless, but the conflicts between humans and automation in the editorial space are growing. We need to have a well developed process which people trust for this. Limiting conversations to mostly technically minded editors is not viable when the effect is an editorial, and not only maintenance, decision. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:51, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

No one is talking about bots executing editorial decisions, and this isn't a particularly technical-focused board. It's not clear how this post relates to the discussion at issue. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

No Bluerasberry this has nothing whatsoever to do with bot editing, there are no bot removals going on here - David Gerard (talk) 21:58, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with bots, and no bot has ever made an editorial decision wrt to content. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:13, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

It is challenging for me to imagine a situation where someone wants to remove 100s or 1,000s of citations and does not consider using bots to execute. I anticipate a future where bots facilitate the removal of deprecated sources. If consensus is in opposition to that then great. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:16, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. While I'm sympathetic to the principle at issue - I would actually say TfDs and similar have the same problem, since even though there is a visible notice it doesn't trigger on watchlists unless you watch the affected template itself - I agree with commenters above regarding the practical issues with this proposal. In most cases it would be more trouble than it's worth, and in the few cases where deprecation does result I'm concerned it would bring more heat than light. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support: At least until a credible solution to ensure higher impact depreciations see sufficient audience; taking the "short-cut" effectively excludes most contributors from discussion. It takes very little effort to depreciate a source, it takes a far far far greater effort to repair the damage. If a lot of talk page need to contacted then the same number of article pages will also need edits; One might argue Template:Unreliable-source?Template:Unreliable source? or Template:Self-published source? should be applied to the same number of pages after the decision to alert readers to the problem. So if its going to have a wide impact then widespread warnings should be given. Just because it looks "too hard" doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Djm-leighpark (talk) 21:10, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

It appears there is no template for “Unreliable source”. Surely this would be a better solution than something on the talk page. Downsize43 (talk) 00:45, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I'vw fixed the typo in the "unreliable source?" template. That can only be applied post-discussion, ie after the discussion result, which is too later to enter the discussion.00:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I don't think the problem is the deprecation of sources per se, it's that some editors then remove the citations, or worse the citation and the content it cites, without apparently making any serous effort to find a suitable alternative citation, or without reading the surrounding text and considering the effect on it that such a removal of content has. I've seen this happen, even when RfCs have said that the source may be used if no alternative is available. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:24, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Pigsonthewing: Agree. We need to take WP:PRESERVE and WP:CAUGHT UP more seriously than we currently do. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:43, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - we have a central place to advertise RFCs already, and the RFCs go there; and this proposal would trivially not scale, as noted already. And the proposal turns out to be a procedural objection to the slam-dunk deprecation of CGTN after an attempt to edit-war it back in, which, um. Can you show a better example of claimed harm that quite such a wide-ranging response as this would clearly be proportionate to? - David Gerard (talk) 22:01, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per buidhe. This would only serve to annoy the vast majority of editors, especially in snow cases. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support - Not notifying editors who are going to be directly affected by a RFC is highly problematic. In fact, failure to notify nullifies the local group decisions that are made on this board. As has been stated by many editors the perennial list of sources is simply advice for editors. Please note the quote at the top of that page "This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." Many of the individuals who oppose the notification process are the same individuals who are highly active on this noticeboard. These individuals unfortunately have gained too much unchecked decision making power. The Wikipedia community is going to have to deal with this problematic concentration of power. Notification of the wider community of editors who will be affected by these endless RFCs on this board is one step in the right direction. --Guest2625 (talk) 10:40, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This is a public notice board everyone can look at and edit. Nor are editors affected by these decisions, content is. These are not "your" articles, they are ours. Source only get brought here (and deprecated) when their use becomes an issue with accuracy or fairness.Slatersteven (talk) 10:49, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Some deprecated sources are used in tens of thousands of articles, and notification like this would basically amount to WP:CANVASSing in some cases. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Strongly support — the trend to deprecate news sources from countries considered to be strategic rivals of the Anglo-American world (e.g. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela) has been accelerating. Often, editors here represent a small and not necessarily representative subset of the larger Wikipedia community, and decisions to deprecate are not based on falsification of the news itself, but instead upon editorial views. I'll be blunt: the removal of international sources is converting an international encyclopedia into a parochial and politically biased source of information, and this trend is destructive to Wikipedia.
  • First, it cannot be a bad thing to involve larger numbers of people in these discussions. The idea that people working on articles where these sources are used are naturally biased contributors is an admission that the decisions being made here might not be supported by the broader community.
  • Second, what has happened to the longstanding practice of using this board to evaluate sources and claims on a case-by-case basis? Those discussions were fascinating and helpful. By contrast the deprecation discussions appear to devolve into us-versus-them, black-and-white groupthink where the Cold War is invoked as a positive model.
  • Third, the deprecation trend, and the manner in which it has become popular, needs a broader and high-level discussion on Wikipedia. The proposal here is a good stop-gap measure, but more input is needed on how and why large numbers of international papers from major countries — including the word's two nuclear superpowers that aren't the United States, and the world's most populous country — are suddenly being removed from this site. -Darouet (talk) 14:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Perhaps @Mike Peel:’s suggestion that if depreciation looked likely then bot talkpage notifications should go out deserves more consideration. Maybe triggered at the 7-day mark so there’s time before the discussion ends? Glee^anon 15:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Buidhe as plainly impractical; it'd make the InternetArchiveBot spam seem mild by comparison. But I do think it's important to have adequate notification for the bigger discussions here at places like WP:CENT and perhaps the WikiProjects of the countries where the news outlet is based (to address Darouet's point above). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:40, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with Slatersteve, JzG here; also WP:NOTBURO. Major proposed deprecations can go on the centralized discussion template. Neutrality^talk 17:49, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  Neutrality, absolutely agree: we need to make sure that participation in deprecation RfCs is meaningful. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, patiently unworkable and would frequently spam massive numbers of articles. We regularly have centralized discussions that will affect large numbers of articles and generally do not post notifications on each of them. --Aquillion (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support. I would like to re-emphasize Darouet point. The zeal with which people remove content from articles that are only tangentially related to why the source was deprecated also shows that they are not here to build an encyclopedia. Mass blanking of pages is exactly the censorship we often rail against.Albertaont (talk) 04:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support within a reasonable, practical limit. If you know that it's used in 10 (or maybe 20?) articles, then you can copy and paste a one-sentence template notice to those talk pages. If it's 50 or 100 articles, then we can't do that manually, and maybe we either don't do it, or we have a bot do it. Also, hopefully this would make it obvious when editors try to ban sources that aren't being used at all, which is a pointless and WP:CREEPy waste of everyone else's time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  To give an example, at the top of this page is an RFC about The Mail on Sunday. The person who started the RFC writes "it's only been cited 11 times". Surely we could notify eleven talk pages? The other current RFCs involve more (those URLs are in approximately 100 to 3,000 articles), but when the numbers are so low, it seems only appropriate to notify the potentially affected articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

As I stated in the RfC, the Mail on Sunday situation is complicated, there were many hundreds of citations to print references to the Mail on Sunday, and some of the citations from the Daily Mail website were likely based on MoS content, but it's impossible to know by just looking at the url. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:00, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• WhatamIdoing, at time of deprecation there were 2,000 citations to royalark.net and over 3,750 to worldstatesmen.org. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:52, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

  Those are good examples of when not to post thousands of notices. If the RFC is about subject-specific sources, then it might be useful to notify a relevant WikiProject, or maybe to tag a couple of pages, but I don't think we should post thousands, or even hundreds, of notices. When the source is only used in a few articles, I see no reason why those few articles can't be notified. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose as not practical and biased. Notifying hundreds of talk pages would cause more trouble than any potential gain. It would also lead to the question of a biased selection of respondents, as pages that avoided using the potentially unreliable source would not be notified. Vici Vidi (talk) 05:54, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support as practical and reduces bias. Practical efforts to improve and widen community participation in sourcing policy decisions should be supported. This is a great example. We should not discount a proposal such as this based on one technical (and extremely dubious) argument about it being time-consuming or requiring a bot. Page watchers who both support and are against the use of a source will be notified. Cambial foliage❧ 13:20, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  "requiring a bot" should not be seen as a barrier here - it's straightforward to code one that looks for a given URL and posts notices on the talk page. I could easily code a bot to do this, but I wouldn't want to operate it. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:22, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I symphatise with Guy here. It's not practical as it would lead to living with the chore of puting notifications on thousands of articles in some cases and it would "definetely" lead to canvassing(WP:CAN).Lordpermaximum (talk) 17:45, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• I'm open to changing my vote if the bot idea of Gleeanon409 is feasible.Perm 09:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose generally, even if feasibly possible, as we risk veering into spam/disruptive territory when CENT does it fine. If it's, say, less than 20 pages, then I can be considered neutral as to whether this should be done. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:33, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Some of the deprecated sources were used in thousands of pages. Requiring thousands of notifications to be written is a time-consuming action, without a guarantee that it would broaden the number of editors who choose to participate in the discussion. Dimadick (talk) 09:10, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Mass removal of content on China-related articles

As a consequence of the RfCs on Global Times and Xinhua, some users have been stripping citations from large numbers of China-related articles, which will probably lead to the eventual removal of large amounts of information about China. To give a few examples of items removed just in the past day by one user:

• [31]: Removal of a source describing how delegates for the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party were selected.
• [32]: Removal of a source describing production of Type 055 destroyers.
• [33]: Removal of source describing criticism of a famous Chinese actress' performance in a particular movie.
• [34]: Removal of source describing visa regulations in China.
• [35]: Removal of source describing the command structure of Chinese police.
• [36]: Removal of source describing the performance of a Chinese athlete in an international competition.
• [37]: Removal of source describing the Chinese premiere of an Indian film.
• [38]: Removal of source describing Chinese audience reaction to a major Chinese film.
• [39]: Removal of source documenting that a Chinese official was under investigation by a Communist Party anti-corruption agency.
• [40]: Removal of source documenting where a 2015 conference between the Communist Party and Kuomintang was held.
• [41]: Removal of source describing which routes are flown by a Chinese budget airline.
• [42]: Removal of source that lists Alibaba's sales revenue on China's unofficial "Single's Day" holiday.
• [43]: Removal of source documenting a Chinese film industry award won by a Chinese actor.

These are all Global Times sources, but I've seen similar things happening with Xinhua, which wasn't even deprecated. When the discussions occurred here about Global Times and Xinhua, I don't think most users realized just how much completely mundane, factual information would end up being unsourced (and could end up being scrubbed from Wikipedia). I think there should be a pause on these mass removals of sources, and a discussion about whether or not this is what Wikipedians really want to happen. In my opinion, much more focused guidance should be given, particularly about Global Times. Broad deprecation is damaging to the encyclopedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes poor sources need removing.Slatersteven (talk) 10:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Wrongthink surely. Surely where there are poor sources the object should surely be wholelistic to try to improve the encyclopedia in the most efficient way. This may at times mean replacing sources, at times tagging sourcess to assist others to improve, at times removing content. And the approach may be context dependent. It takes little effort to delete content; and somewhat more to replace it. If we take a thepeerage.com source a section or two above, remove it completely and very difficult to find the underlying source it cites unless one knew it was there and trawled through history. There are those who come to Wikipedia to build an encylopedia, there are those come to feast on destroying others efforts, though few are probably totally at that extreme.Djm-leighpark (talk) 11:00, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I consider it worse to include things that may not be true then to remove them.Slatersteven (talk) 11:21, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

But they aren't removing "things that may not be true". They are removing the citation and leaving the "things that may not be true" right there in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

The issue should be what do we gain or lose, if we remove dodgy sources and content our overall reputation for accuracy might improve,, If we allow it to stay we keep our reputation for inaccuracy.Slatersteven (talk) 11:25, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

We're not risking anything by relying on the Global Times for information about the command structure of Chinese police, the routes flown by a Chinese budget airline or the date of a conference between the CPC and KMT. By stripping GT and other Chinese sources, however, we are at risk of losing a lot of content, and ending up with a narrow view of Chinese issues that comes entirely from the outside. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:30, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes we are, you are seeing it here, "but its reliable for this..., thus why not for that". We need to discourage the use of bad sources.Slatersteven (talk) 11:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

How are we seeing it here? Whether a source is reliable is not an absolute all-or-nothing question. Sources can be reliable in some contexts but not in others, and a blanket rule is rarely constructive. The diffs I gave above show that the Global Times is being removed as a source for large numbers of articles in which I would contend there are not serious concerns about its reliability. Context used to be a key factor considered at WP:RSN, but the recent move towards RfCs and official deprecation of a growing list of sources has led to a much more black-and-white framing. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:05, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Well the first link can be seen as an example of party propaganda "look how we are tackling corruption". Second "launched in the Dalian", not built by, it may be pedantic but it failed verification, Third do we really need to know what one media outlet thinks? its trivia. I stopped at three, none of this is needed or useful or really needs better sourcing.Slatersteven (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

The first source was simply used to reference the fact that the Central Committee approved a selection procedure for the 19th National Congress. That's a simple factual matter, and I don't see how its inclusion constitutes propaganda. The second edit summary does not say "failed verification." It says the source is deprecated. Global Times would be a perfectly fine source for claiming that a ship was built by a certain company and launched on a certain date. For the third edit, the issue is how Chinese audiences reacted to a certain film. In this case, the Global Times is accurately summarizing the widespread reception of the film in China (largely unfavorable). Many sources could be used for this particular claim, but it's an example of accurate reporting from the Global Times on an apolitical issue. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:57, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

No you think it is, the community disagreed. The fourth link, I cannot see any mention of connecting flights.Slatersteven (talk) 14:07, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

The community expressed worries about political propaganda, but I don't think most people had mundane factual matters on their minds, like who won a particular acting award. The mass removal of such straightforward information from articles, which I think will be highly unexpected to many who took part in the RfC, is why I'm raising this issue here.

About the fourth link, the source was apparently being used to reference the change in outbound visa policies, not the detail about connecting flights. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

If the community thought that the sources were unusable for politics but could be used for simple factual statements, they could have gone for generally unreliable or even "other considerations"; they went for full depreciation, which is unequivocally stating that no, it cannot be used for "who won a particular award." I agree with the statement below that this reads like you are trying to re-litigate the RFC - the usage of these sources you are arguing for here is one that the community has clearly and unequivocally rejected. There is a little room to discuss the best way to go about removing these sources, but the community consensus is unequivocally that our ultimate goal should be to get our usage of them down to nearly zero - used for nothing at all outside of the tiny slivers of usage allowed under WP:ABOUTSELF and the like. If you disagree with that, you need to start another RFC, because it doesn't sound like you accept the outcome of the previous one. --Aquillion (talk) 21:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Of your first four sources two should have been tagged anyway, two (it can be argued) are trivia. So I am gona say if this is an example of what we are losing I do not see an issue, and in fact would argue this may be one reason it was deprecated. It is either being misused or used for stuff we really do not need.Slatersteven (talk) 09:25, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Djm-leighpark, the default is to exclude poorly-sourced material. Anyone who wants to restore it after replacing the source with a reliable one, can do so.

In practice what happens is the same old circus of a handful of people insisting that people who remove bad sources bear the burden of supporting the content by finding a better source. No, that is not how it works. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:32, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Global Times is not a poor source for most of these cases. There were concerns about GT being used for political purposes, but that does not mean that it's unreliable for all sorts of mundane information. What is going to happen is that as more and more Chinese sources are deprecated or otherwise deemed unreliable in broad spheres, there will be very few sources left for many Chinese topics. Xinhua is still considered broadly reliable, which at least means there's some coverage of Chinese issues, but some users have argued that the RfC close is essentially a deprecation (which is a gross misreading of the RfC result, in my opinion), and are also systematically stripping Xinhua from articles.

We really are going to end up in a situation in which we will have an exclusively American or European view of China and Chinese topics, and many topics that are poorly covered in American and European sources (i.e., broad swaths of Chinese issues) will simply be removed from the encyclopedia. I think that what's unfolding here was not intended by the community, and that much more focused guidance on usage of Chinese sources is necessary. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• We shouldn't cover topics at all if there aren't reliable, independent sources that report on them. It is better than repeating propaganda which may (or may not) be at all accurate. If Wikipedia existed in 1970 and we were trying to report on the Soviet Union, we would have to choose between Soviet propaganda and the writings of Western anti-Soviet writers, who didn't turn out to be much more accurate. If a country bans reliable sources from operating on its territory, yes, that does substantially reduce what can be said about them. Maybe they should consider allowing press to operate freely? (t · c) buidhe 11:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

The issue is that some of the judgments have been too broad, and some of the deprecated sources are actually highly reliable for wide ranges of uses. When the Global Times reports that Spring Airlines services a route between Shanghai and Ibaraki Airport, or that Chinese actor Wen Zhang won the Best Male Lead award at the Hundred Flowers Award, there's no serious doubt that those reports are factual. I can understand avoiding the Global Times to make factual statements about contentious political topics (e.g., statements about the US-China trade war should carry in-line attributions), but stripping out all sorts of simple factual reporting about movie awards, airlines, film premieres, dates of conferences, etc. is destructive. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:17, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I saw some of these removals in my watchlist earlier today and am very troubled, both by the removals and the cavalier and unprofessional attitudes used to justify them. -Darouet (talk) 14:23, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Good riddance to bad sources, the solution here is for the Chinese government to allow independent media to operate in mainland China. We also have plenty of reliable regional papers in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and India which provide significant coverage of China, heck theres even the Hong Kong papers which may I remind you are Chinese so I don’t see the argument for including joke level unreliable (in the case of Global Times) sources as a means to balance out American and European sources as we already have a ton of good non-American and non-European sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no influence over the Chinese government's media policies, and one of my concerns here is indeed that deprecation RfCs are being used to make the political point you just expressed, regardless of the impact on the encyclopedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:05, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Exactly, we have no influence over their media policies, we only react to them. The point I just expressed is not political, it wasn’t even close. On a side note please retract your WP:aspersions that I am engaged in tendentious editing or provide diffs which support your argument, thats just about the most serious accusation that can be leveled at a WP editor by another. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Your comment directly above mine was overtly political. We can't influence Chinese government policy. That doesn't mean we should remove large amounts of simple, factual material like which cities a given airline serves. Proposing Chinese governmental reform doesn't do anything to address the concerns I've raised here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Its procedural not political, editorial independence is one of the core components of our reliability policy. China currently does not tolerate or allow editorial independence on the mainland (HK is for now an exception to the rule). I guess technically I was wrong, there is another solution: we could completely change our reliability policy. Why that would be more reasonable than the Chinese government allowing their citizens basic human rights is beyond me though. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:00, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

^ Now that statement right there, that one *was* a little bit political. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, you can see why I'm worried that deprecation discussions are being influenced by a desire to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you also see how the way you’ve gone about saying so is a personal attack? I’l revert it for you if you don't do it speedily, you cant just make such serious allegations on a noticeboard and then refuse to back them up. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:05, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• That doesn't mean we should remove large amounts of simple, factual material like which cities a given airline serves. As far as I can tell, no one is doing so; they are just removing depreciated sources and leaving a fact tag on material that lacked a valid source (which is what fact tags are for) so the statement can be properly-cited in the future. The fear you're expressing here (that the text will later be deleted) is entirely hypothetical... and if you're deeply worried, your time would be better-spent finding valid sources for those unsourced statements rather than trying to throw red tape in the face of people who are making commendable efforts to improve our sources by removing depreciated sources according to the RFCs requiring such removals. --Aquillion (talk) 21:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - this is an attempt to relitigate the RFC deprecating CGTN. If you want to un-deprecate CGTN, you need to start an RFC with any chance of doing so - David Gerard (talk) 15:02, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

This isn't an RfC, so I don't know what you're opposing. I'm asking for Wikipedians to consider the effects of some recent RfCs, which are now becoming apparent, and which I believe are quite different from what most commenters at the RfCs would have intended. Additionally, this is about a number of sources. I gave examples from the Global Times, but I could also give examples from Xinhua. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:02, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Well I have, and I agree with it.Slatersteven (talk) 16:29, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard: I'm guessing you mean Global Times rather than CGTN (which wasn't mentioned here, although both are deprecated)? — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Global Times content that isn't political shock jock isn't high quality reporting anyway, and similar content will likely be found in Xinhua and other Chinese language sources. CGTN's written content is also quite shallow and better reporting will be found elsewhere. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Let's impose some order on this process. I propose that we start by adding a {{better source needed}} tag wherever the deprecated source exists (without initially removing the deprecated source); and then, after some reasonable period of time (I would think a few weeks), remove the deprecated source and switch the tag for {{citation needed}}. BD2412 T 19:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• I wouldn't want to set a hard and fast rule, since it is very contextual. Obviously anything related to a WP:BLP without a proper citation must be removed on sight, and anything WP:EXCEPTIONAL without a proper citation should almost certainly be removed on sight (in both cases an editor could, if they choose, alternatively search for a valid source to immediately replace it, if one exists; but simply removing the text is always justifiable for those.) Beyond that there's a range of options - immediately replacing the source with {{citation needed}} tag is fine, as is adding a {{better source needed}} tag. Editors can also remove even unexceptional, non-WP:BLP-sensitive text cited to a depreciated source immediately if they're confident a source cannot be found or if they feel there's something else objectionable about the text. I would say that it's generally down to the judgment of individual editors; removing depreciated sources and addressing text cited to them is important and already difficult as-is, so we should avoid tying it down in red tape. --Aquillion (talk) 21:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• As Aquillion has pointed out previously in discussion of the Daily Mail (I can't quickly find the link), RSN can't require editors to treat deprecated sources more leniently than merely bad sources. Your proposal literally protects a deprecated source more than it does a mediocre source, and that straight-up contradicts the provisions of WP:NOR concerning reliable sources, which deprecated sources almost never can be, and definitely shouldn't be presumed to be - David Gerard (talk) 22:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• The entire purpose of depreciation (as opposed to mere unreliability) is that the source adds nothing and cannot be used on Wikipedia. Therefore, it is almost always valid (and, in fact, desirable) to replace a depreciated source with a citation needed tag. There's a little room to discuss the best way to go about it, but I would strenuously oppose anything that would add red tape or formal restrictions to the process. I also disagree with your implicit assertion that this will lead the text to be deleted - lots of text retains a citation needed tag for years, and most people perform at least a basic search before deleting article text. The most likely effect of replacing depreciated sources with CN tags is that editors will replace them with better sources, if they exist. Since a depreciated source harms the reputation of the article by its presence, and could mislead a casual reader into thinking that a statement has a valid source, replacing it with a CN tag is always an improvement. Finally, I object to the way you titled this section - "sources" are not "content", at least in the way we usually use the terms here, so stating that content is being removed makes what is happening sound far more alarming than the uncontroversial changes you actually list. Please retitle the section to state that sources or citations are being removed. --Aquillion (talk) 21:32, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  Is it? I thought that we used words like "banned" or "prohibited" when we meant that something could not be used on Wikipedia. Deprecation has quite another meaning to me – much closer to "eventually, this needs to be upgraded" than "wholesale removal will happen in 3, 2, 1..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• As many editors have expressed already, it's fine to tag deprecated sources (like Global Times and CGTN) with {{better source}} or replace them with {{citation needed}}. If it was Xinhua (which is WP:MREL with specifics given in the WP:RSP entry and is not deprecated) then intext attribution and/or {{better source}} and/or {{citation needed}} is appropriate depending on the context. — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  Pinging Amigao, since OP's given examples are all their edits and they haven't been notified yet. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:37, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

  The right tag to use here is {{Deprecated inline|certain=yes}}. BFG (talk) 09:07, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Note that this ongoing. Amigao has removed over 250 instances of Global Times just in the past day. Scroll through to get a sense for how much completely mundane factual information that Global Times is actually reliable for is being removed: [44]. For example, the existence of a railway station in Zhejiang, China is now unsourced: [45]. The Global Times is obviously perfectly reliable for this sort of information. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:31, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Global Times isnt actually reliable for that though, no deprecated source is. I’m confused here, are you challenging the deprecation of the Global Times? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

In real life, yes, Global Times is perfectly reliable for this sort of mundane information, unless you can show they have a track record of inventing fake Chinese high-speed rail stations. I don't think most people participating in the RfC realized that this is the sort of information that would be removed, as the discussion was almost entirely about fears of political propaganda. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:23, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Maybe in your life but not mine. Its a little insulting to suggest that your fellow editors who participate in that RfC didn't understand what they were doing, don’t you think? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

With all due respect, Horse Eye's Back, I think it is bad faith to assume questions about sourcing that arise when users like Amigao go on a crusade against a deprecated source are completely fair, and saying GT isn't reliable because it is a deprecated source seems to be circular, or some sort of is/ought fallacy. WhinyTheYounger (talk) 02:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

This discussion isn't about GT’s reliability, thats as close to a settled fact as anything on Wikipedia is. If you want to know exactly why editors (myself included) consider the Global Times to be unreliable you can peruse the RfC. I cant parse what you’re saying before the second comma. Can you maybe rephrase it or correct any typos? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• • So look for better sources, I did and now its not unsourced.Slatersteven (talk) 13:36, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • And again, one source (arguably it was primary, now its a trivial mention), so there is a question of notability.Slatersteven (talk) 13:49, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

It's the main train station serving a county of over half a million people. Of course it's notable. But this is exactly my point - one user alone is stripping sourcing from hundreds of articles a day, which will lead to a lot of content being removed. It's great that you found a source for this one example, but are you going to go out and find replacements for the hundreds of other sources this one editor has stripped just today? Unless the Global Times is actually unreliable for information like the existence of a railway station, then these mass removals are purely damaging to the encyclopedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:01, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

If it is notable RS would have noted it, that what notability is. Again, you are the people who want this information, you are the ones whop make the case and find the sources. I think it is clear I do not see how mush of this is valuable or encyclopedic, we are not a (for example) directory.Slatersteven (talk) 15:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You've now nominated the article in question for deletion, making exactly my point for me: [46]. An article about the main high-speed railway station for a county of over half a million people, which would be considered a major city in most parts of the world, is now up for deletion. A lot of information about China is going to get deleted if this goes on. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:46, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You might want to recalibrate your expectations there, 500k wouldn’t even get into the top 100 most populous counties in the US. I know to some extent its apples and oranges but your arguments do seem to be getting a bit hyperbolic and overwrought. The sky is not falling. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Number 100 on that list is the county containing Jersey City, which is a major city by anyone's definition. If you'd be okay with deletion of the article describing Jersey City's central transportation hub, then you won't have a problem with the deletion of Changxing railway station. There's a bit of arrogance in brushing off the deletion of an article about a major transportation hub like this. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Most stations around the world don't have a unique article, they get covered on the page for the line overall. It doesn't seem like Changxing railway station is much of a hub, regular speed trains use a completely different station (which doesn't have a wikipedia page) and it has no local metro connection. Of the 11 stations on the Nanjing–Hangzhou Branch of the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway only five have wikipedia pages. If the lack of pages worries you find enough coverage to meet WP:GNG and there will be little opposition at all to creating a page for all 11. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

The more Chinese sources get deprecated, the more difficult it will be to establish notability for things that are obviously highly notable in China, such as high-speed rail stations serving major cities. Your argument is circular: there's no problem deprecating Chinese sources, because that will only lead to articles like Changxing railway station getting deleted, which is no problem because it's not notable, which we know because there are no non-deprecated sources that discuss it, which is why there's no problem deprecating Chinese sources. If my goal were to remove content about China from the encyclopedia, I couldn't think of a better way to do it than getting all the major English-language Chinese sources deprecated for mundane facts. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:19, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

What exactly are you suggesting as a solution? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Horse Eye's Back, I think this is a rather mistaken view of things. It's true that for station articles that do not exist yet, they are listed in line articles. However, the movement is toward making station articles, not consolidating them in line articles. Individual station articles are generally kept at AfD. The standard that you are suggesting here is not the standard used at AfD or elsewhere, and certainly isn't applied to stations in Western countries. I would also note that government sources are considered perfectly acceptable for such articles. Mackensen (talk) 15:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

As can be seen from my vote on the relevant page I don't support the deletion of that page, I do however support the removal of the GT source from the page and I reject Thucydides411’s argument that it would be perfectly acceptable to use GT on this article. As I told them I will tell you “The sky is not falling,” Changxing railway station is not going to be deleted. There isn't going to be some sort of Saturday night massacre of China-related pages, you might notice that many of the people removing CGTN and GT references are some of the most active wikipedia editors article creation and expansion wise in the China space. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I think there's a lot of room between "perfectly acceptable to keep" and "so bad as to justify robotically stripping it from every article it's in". The sky isn't falling, but the mass-removal approach to this seems unnecessarily brusque. As Masem says below, if the original RfC didn't plan out a mass removal, it seems like a non-sequitur to perform a mass removal justified solely on the outcome of the RfC (and for what it's worth, this seems like an absurdly unfair criterion for rail station inclusion being applied solely to Chinese stations). jp×g 17:50, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• The meaning of "deprecated", again, does not mean that these sources must be immediately flushed and removed per Wikipedia:Deprecated sources. New additions should not be added, but existing ones need to be evaluated to see if the content they were supported can be backed by a more reliable source, but there is no deadline for their removal, period. A mass removal done without the planning of community consensus (of which neither RFC in question that I see had discussed) is within the WP:FAIT territory and that editors see this as disruptive is a problem. If the community wants to see all such links removed "quickly" then a separate RFC to set a grandfathering plan ("You have 3 months or until Jan 31, 2021 to handle these links in articles or otherwise we will remove them and the content they support en masse") would be needed. Or those that want to see these links remove need to be showing they are taking semi-human involved steps to review each removal to make sure there's no other possible method with minimal disruption (which here could be simply tagging with {{better source needed}} or similar inline templates.) --Masem (t) 16:39, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • You've made proposals similar to your "grandfathering plan" for deprecated sources repeatedly. They've been rejected every time. Do you understand why they've been rejected every time? What's different about this one? And if you're making an accusation of bot removals, you need to actually make the accusation, and actually back it up - David Gerard (talk) 17:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Because everywhere else on WP where "mass" actions are done of this scale and where there is not clear consensus for removal or the action, there is usually an RFC to establish this type of grandfathering and/or the editor that initiates the action rolls back their actions until they're told its ok, or if they refuse, they are admin-acted against as being disruptive. Again, key is the language of "deprecated" which is not the same as "banned". If the RFC said "banned" that would be different allowing for this mass action. Otherwise, a careful plan to remove the links is only warranted, which what has been demonstrated is clearly not. --Masem (t) 19:13, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
      • What is the appropriate path here? Keep in mind the users being discussed have been doing "mass action" for about 100 articles a day or more, so in the time of our discussion, another several hundred articles have been stripped of sources. {{better source needed}} seems to be a reasonable request directive for now, as there clearly is a hunt to strip out data from across wikipedia on mundane topics. Apparently, someone thought it was offensive to cite CGTN for the fact that china was developing a 600km/h maglev, when there are videos of it circulating online you can easily find. The user didnt even bother to put the {{citation needed}} tag. Albertaont (talk) 00:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• I too have been concerned with Amigao's warpath against Global Times, especially given their persistent refusal to engage with anyone on their talk page about the issue. I'm offering another recent example of an instance where I used GT in my intermittent overhaul of Censorship in China: Special:Diff/977243274. In that particular edit, GT provided a) details of a phenomenon reported on in Western media, but with added specificity (i.e. naming the companies involved—Mango TV/Hunan Broadcasting) and b) novel information about censorship and morality germane to the subsection overall, namely, noting a Chinese study that indicated consumption of pornography was on the rise in China despite government campaigns against it. GT is a very flawed (and often obnoxious) source, but even saying nothing of the language barrier, the inaccessibility of CNKI means that lots of Chinese research cannot be incorporated into Wikipedia. It can also be useful in obtaining biographical information for notable interviews, e.g. Dong Mingzhu, who was interviewed by GT in September. Again, the benefit here is verifiability, insofar as the source is in English and does not require fluency in Mandarin to check. This is why I still support a designation of GT as "generally unreliable" except for specific circumstances, such as when it adds to details events/topics already covered in reliable sources. Even without another RfC, I believe that Amigao's continued mass deletion of GT is not particularly constructive, particularly given their uncommunicativeness. WhinyTheYounger (talk) 02:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree. CGTN is IMHO a propaganda outlet, and reducing reliance on them as a source can only be a good thing. Removing sources outright is however counterproductive, it is better to mark them clearly as being deprecated, (eg. {{Deprecated inline|certain=yes}}), and work to replace them. This also places the article in and can be handled from there. When you want to replace an unreliable source, having the unreliable source at hand is a good thing, and marking it as such. An alternative would be to create a template that handles a reference inline, and thus hides the reference from public view, while maintaining it for editors. If you find material that is unverifiable, by all means remove it. BFG (talk) 09:19, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
    • People keep advocating tagging instead of removal of deprecated sources - that is sources that should not be used in Wikipedia at all - but it has one big problem: it doesn't work. Nothing ever happens. The tag sits there for months or years. We've literally tried your proposal, and it results in nothing happening. Functionally, this sort of proposal just tries to replace doing something about the deprecated source, that should not be used in Wikipedia at all, with doing nothing about it - David Gerard (talk) 09:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
      • I will actually advocate for removing unverifiable information. If you put in an effort to check a source, and see there is no reputable source to back the claim, please remove the content. Leaving it with a {{citation needed}} or just removing the unreliable reference is not improving Wikipedia. BFG (talk) 09:43, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

      David Gerard, if this were the Daily Mail I'd probably agree with you. I submit that the original discussion for this source is flawed and being used for mass removals in a way that was not foreseen. It's quite a jump to go from "this source is too bellicose to be trusted editorially" to "we must remove its non-controversial statements about railway stations immediately." I'm not sympathetic to taking a hard line here; show your work please, and as it applies in this case. Best, Mackensen (talk) 03:36, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• The September RfC found strong consensus to deprecate the Global Times. In fact, the consensus here is about as strong as the consensus to deprecate Breitbart News (RSP entry) in its 2018 RfC, and there are only eight uses of breitbart.com   in article space compared to the 129 uses of globaltimes.cn   and 375 uses of huanqiu.com  , which indicates that there is more cleanup to be done with regard to the Global Times. When a removal is disputed, one solution is to discuss the removal on this noticeboard, as we are doing now. WP:BURDEN states that "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material" and that "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source", so removals of deprecated sources are consistent with policy unless an exception such as WP:ABOUTSELF applies (and even that exception is subject to an evaluation of due weight). — Newslinger talk 09:32, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Looking back at the RfC discussion, I don't see any discussion at all of the effect of deprecation on countless mundane subjects, or of Global Times' reliability for simple, non-political facts. The discussion was overwhelmingly focused on the role of Global Times in voicing hawkish foreign policy views. The consequences on articles like Changxing railway station and countless other non-political China-related articles was not discussed, and does not appear to have occurred to anyone in the discussion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:15, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

So just to be clear you’re telling people who participated in the RfC that they didn't understand what they were doing? I voted 4 and it was always my understanding that GT would be removed from articles like Changxing railway station. Because thats literally how deprecation works, if I didnt think it should be deprecated I would have voted 3 or better like I did for Xinhua. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I am saying that there was no discussion of the implications for countless articles about mundane, non-political subjects, just like Changxing railway station. Whether or not some editors (other than yourself) had that in the back of their minds is impossible to tell, but it definitely was not raised or discussed. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:01, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Why would it be? Its inherent in the deprecation of a widely used source, as far as I can tell you are the only one who didn't understand what deprecation meant. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:05, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

As per WP:DEPS, deprecation is not banning or blocking a source, it simply means it should not be used further and further attempts to use the source at a reference are cautioned against. I'm reading some taking "deprecation" as "we must remove the source immediately from Wikipedia", which is nowhere in policy of how we treat deprecated sources. We do want to remove deprecated sources in time, but that should be managed without disruption, which is implicit by making a source deprecated. --Masem (t) 17:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Removing deprecated sources isn't a “must” (unless its a statement about a living person not covered by about self in which case it *is* actually a "must") its a “can” and as such removal is voluntary. Its voluntary removal by multiple editors thats being complained about here, not a bot or something like that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:33, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

We don't use Breitbart News for uncontroversial content, either, unless there is a valid exemption under WP:ABOUTSELF. There was no consensus in the RfC to carve out an exception for the Global Times's coverage of railway stations, so it is also considered generally unreliable for this topic. — Newslinger talk 02:39, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Folks, can we please take it down a notch? The discussion above is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not familiar with the Global Times, and I will defer to those who say it's the Daily Mail of China or whatever have you, but when we wind up with abominations like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Changxing railway station I think it's okay to admit that we made a mistake somewhere along the line. This has the potential to exacerbate our existing problems with systemic bias. Mackensen (talk) 12:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  GT is actually significantly less reliable than the Daily Mail (although both are too unreliable for use on WP), at least the DM has editorial independence and operated in a system that respects basic human rights. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I am not sure that comments like "abominations like" are taking it down a notch. That AFD sums up what many are saying, that article was a one line stub with one source until the one source was removed, and now (thanks to efforts to keep it) has been massively improved (note, this is not saying its passes GNG). Tagging it would have just meant it would have remained a one line directory entry.Slatersteven (talk) 13:20, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  But what this is is disruptive. The actions being taken to remove the sources without any attempt to find replacements is against the intent of deprecated sources and is a WP:FAIT action that needs to be stopped immediately, until the community can decide what the proper approach is for dealing with these links. The bot-like actions and lack of communication by Amigao (based on the minimal discussion on their talk page) is very disconcerting and that's the issue. (At least with something like David Gerald and the DM link purge David was extremely responsive and appears far less bot-like in their review of the links). --Masem (t) 15:39, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  There is no requirement to find a replacement though, however if its a BLP there is actually a requirement to remove the source and all sourced text. In my opinion removing a deprecated sources is almost always an improvement. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I disagree its disruptive, no more so then arguing for their retention without finding better sources. But you are right, we are not required to remove them. But I would suggest that those who want this material sourced do what was done at Changxing railway station and find them (but this time without pushing). Hell if the amount of effort put into this "not an RFC" was put into replacing sources this might not even be an issue (again I refer back to the rash of work over at Changxing railway station).Slatersteven (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  It's disruptive as first, multiple editors have complained about the actions here and directly to the editor in question, and that the actions have triggered some "irreversible" processes (per WP:FAIT) that are difficult to reverse or correct en masse. While tagging for "find a better source" may be an issue, that's not the same as that's not an irreversible process, so nowhere close to being the type of disruption that removal of sources considers. I'd still strongly urge that all such mass actions stop and a community agreement to some process to untangle the deprecation be figured out before any further mass action be taken. --Masem (t) 15:58, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  And others have said they have no issue (or even agree) with their actions. On the other hand they have said this thread is problematic and an attempt as at a back door relaunch of the RFC that deprecated the source (which they see as disruptive). But if you want an RFC, launch one.Slatersteven (talk) 16:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  Again, deprecation doesn't mean banned. Those criticizing this aren't challenging the close of the RFC in my read, they're challenging the rush to remove the links against what "deprecated sources" means on WP and general policy against creating disruption. --Masem (t) 16:39, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  All the edits I’ve seen so far have been 100% reversible either mechanically or through a direct revert. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  AFDs are, however. That's exactly where FAIT originated from. --Masem (t) 16:36, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  AFDs are actually reversible although you need some admin help. This is a discussion about removing deprecated sources though not AFD, the only AFD discussion referenced here is well on its way to a snowball keep which suggests that our current system works. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  The issue though is that if these source deletions cause a lot of AFDs in a short time that would require the same group of editors to have to run around to find fixes for, that's a fait accompli action that we do not want an editor to create for others and is strongly strongly discouraged. The original situation was an editor that nominated numerous articles for AFD a day for numerous days in a row, which is what ended in an ArbCom case and the creation of WP:FAIT to warn against this type of behavior. Now, yes, many of these source deletions aren't creating AFD-worthy situations, but there is enough concern about AFDs being raised that FAIT 100% applies here - that one editor is potentially forcing a group of other editors to have to act quickly to save/keep their articles or their content. That's the whole point about avoiding disruption. --Masem (t) 16:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I see 13 articles here (at least) only one has been AFD'd. Sorry not seeing how this is leading to a mass of AFD's.Slatersteven (talk) 16:52, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  If the hypothetical you describe ever occurs then WP:FAIT would apply, it has no bearing on the issue we are currently discussing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Per Wikipedia:Deprecated sources#Acceptable uses of deprecated sources, source depreciation is not a blanket ban, and there are reasonable uses for using them, for example in articles specifically about the propaganda mouthpiece, or in articles about propaganda related to the mouthpiece. Indiscriminate and overzealous tagging such as this is counter-productive, in my opinion. This article is specifically about Chinese propaganda, of course it would need to cite what Chinese propaganda outlets say. --benlisquare_T•C•E 23:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  This particular use of the Global Times (tagged in Special:Diff/983674054) is in a gray area, since it cites a study conducted by the Global Times about the content of the People's Daily. Although both are state-run media organizations, they are separate entities with different leadership and editorial objectives. I would not consider this citation a valid application of WP:ABOUTSELF. — Newslinger talk 02:52, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  This case is less about WP:ABOUTSELF, and more about WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, which is the second sentence of the first paragraph of Wikipedia:Deprecated sources#Acceptable uses of deprecated sources. Contextually, the topic of this Wikipedia article makes the usage of the CCP mouthpiece reasonable. Yes, I also strongly consider Global Times to be a generally terrible source that spreads misinformation and should be avoided as much as possible, however, let's use some common sense here: For what purpose would this reference intentionally spread misinformation about the sentence being cited? It currently feels like there's a giant Wikipedia-wide kneejerk reaction against CCP-sources like the Global Times, Xinhua, People's Daily, etc. without properly considering the context they are being used in. I agree that for 99% of cases these sources should not be used, but if we are to approach this issue sensibly and not reactively, editorial discretion is necessary for the remaining 1%. --benlisquare_T•C•E 03:23, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  I strongly suggest that if you're trying this hard to come up with excuses to use a deprecated source - that is, a source so bad that a broad general consensus has found that it shouldn't be used in Wikipedia at all in general - then you're doing Wikipedia sourcing wrong - David Gerard (talk) 07:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  I've been courteous, so I'd appreciate an appropriate level of reciprocity please. I've been around for almost the same amount of time as you, I'm no newcomer, and your tone can be interpreted as condescending. How context affects the usability of a partisan reference also depends on how the Wikipedia article presents the position being cited. Consider the following three example sentences:

  Barack Obama is an enemy of humankind.^[REFERENCE]

  A 2009 editorial from Der Führer's Lügenblatt made the claim that Barack Obama is the enemy of humankind.^[REFERENCE]

  According to a 31 December 2009 editorial from Der Führer's Lügenblatt, Barack Obama is the enemy of humankind.^[REFERENCE]

  Here, you see three different hypothetical scenarios where a partisan CCP source might be used, however they are written with different nuances and provide contrasting implications. The first example attempts to pass off a statement as fact using a Der Führer's Lügenblatt citation, and thus is unacceptable; the second example makes it extremely clear to the reader that X is sharing a position on Y, and thus (from my perspective) is an acceptable use of a Der Führer's Lügenblatt reference; the third example pretends to be impartial, but is ambiguous as to whether it is attempting to state a position as fact, and can potentially be written with the aim to deceive the reader, and thus is unacceptable. Now, back to the article Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people, the prose already clearly explains to the reader that the People's Daily, China Daily, Global Times and Xinhua News Agency are all state-owned media organisations owned by the government of China, and it clearly presents all statements from the PD, CD, GT and XNA as claims made by those outlets, rather than facts. Based on this, I would like to argue that the use of the Global Times source is editorially ethical and responsible from a contextual perspective. --benlisquare_T•C•E 07:45, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  Just a point of order, PD, CD, and GT are all party owned media organizations not state owned. I admit that the totalitarian single party state nature of the PRC makes this one slightly challenging but Xinhua is the only organization on your list technically owned by the Government of China. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:27, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  That is true, though the article prose can be adjusted where necessary to reflect such technicalities. --benlisquare_T•C•E 16:04, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  Xinhua News Agency (RSP entry) was determined to be a situational source that can be used with in-text attribution. It is not comparable to the Global Times, which publishes a much larger proportion of propaganda that sometimes does not even reflect the Chinese government's position. — Newslinger talk 03:52, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  Replace the hypothetical reference in my example from Xinhua then. It doesn't change the point that I'm bringing across. Focus on the point I'm expressing, and not the media outlet I use as an example. --benlisquare_T•C•E 07:36, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  The initial comment listed 13 links to edits that removed citations of the Global Times. I don't see any issue with these removals, since the Global Times was determined to be a low-quality propaganda outlet in the September RfC. Citations of the Global Times are being removed because the publication is unreliable, not because it is pro-CCP. The Global Times is only the second Chinese source to be deprecated, and this measure was long overdue. If you are arguing against the removal of Xinhua citations, I would agree that Xinhua is sometimes an appropriate source to use, but Xinhua is not deprecated and editors in this discussion have yet to provide any evidence that citations of Xinhua are being systematically removed. — Newslinger talk 08:32, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  The focus on Xinhua is straying from the original point that I was trying to make. I am not talking about Xinhua. If you're making a statement relating to my use of Xinhua within the examples, then please pretend that I never ever mentioned Xinhua in my 07:45, 16 October 2020 post, because otherwise it's literally focusing on one thing I've said while ignoring everything else. To remind you of what my original point was:

  One: Exceptions to community rulings should be enforced on a case-by-case basis, based on the situation and literary context. The world does not exist in black and white, edge cases will always exist, and it is unconstructive to work in absolutes.

  Two: Whether or not the specific usage of a citation causes harm to the Wikipedia project should be determined on what the cited claim is, and how it is worded within the Wikipedia article prose.

  Three: I do not dispute that the Global Times is an obscenely malicious source, 90% of the time. However, a broken clock is correct two times a day, and if an editor can prove to the Wikipedia community that a specific instance of citation usage is not problematic, it is counterproductive to continue to prohibiting the usage within that specific instance, just because "the rules say so".

  If there's something wrong with these points that I've raised, feel free to point them out. But, please, do not bring up the Xinhua RSP entry again. It is 100% unrelated to the points I am attempting to make. --benlisquare_T•C•E 09:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  Many unreliable sources publish some correct information, yet the sources are still unusable for that information because it is not possible to determine when an unreliable source is telling the truth. Because of this, the verifiability policy uses whether a source is reliable as a threshold for inclusion, and not whether the source is correct. Borrowing your example, if Breitbart News claimed that "Barack Obama is an enemy of humankind", we would not be able to cite Breitbart News for this information because it is an unreliable source. Even with attribution, we would not be able to include this information with only a citation to Breitbart because the views of unreliable sources are considered undue weight. However, if reliable sources cover Breitbart's claim, we would be able to cite those sources for the claim, with attribution to Breitbart. Likewise, a claim made in the Global Times that does not qualify for WP:ABOUTSELF can be included into an article if reliable sources cover it. In this case, citing the Global Times as a supplemental primary source would be optional, while citing the reliable sources would be mandatory. — Newslinger talk 09:58, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  In the article in question, the only thing being cited are a bunch of analytical numbers, for something very benign and uncontroversial. Would you be able to able to take a look at Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people#Phraseology and point out exactly how the use of the Global Times cite (QUOTE: "The Global Times published an analysis in June 2015 which concluded that... there were 237 articles published by the People's Daily between May 15, 1946 and May 1, 2015 which made accusations of hurt feelings against 29 different countries; among these, 9 targeted India, 16 targeted France, 62 targeted the United States, and 96 targeted Japan.") is harmful to the Wikipedia project, outside of "the rules say so"? This is purely based on my opinion on how subjective all of this is, and not based in any Wikipedia policy, but surely prohibiting something this benign falls within the realm of a rule preventing the enhancement of Wikipedia content. The content harmed nobody, but excluding the content brings gain to nobody either. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:11, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  You could make the argument that the claim qualifies under WP:ABOUTSELF, since some sources consider the Global Times a subsidiary of the People's Daily. It would have been better if the People's Daily published the analysis itself, but the Global Times report might qualify if editors do not find the claim controversial. Applications of WP:IAR are still subject to consensus, which can be established with a discussion at Talk:Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. — Newslinger talk 10:25, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  Per Wikipedia:Deprecated sources#Effects of deprecation:

  The source is designated as generally unreliable. Citing the source as a reference is generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. - emphasis on "generally unreliable"; this page suggests that depreciated sources may be used under unusual edge cases.

  The source may only be used when there is a demonstrable need to use it instead of other sources. - surely it would be acceptable for me to seek community consensus on a talk page (for example, what we are doing now) to gauge whether this depreciated source can be used under this particular edge case based on a demonstrable need? There are more eyes here on WP:RSN (according to pageviews, nobody visits the talk pages for relatively obscure articles like this one), so this discussion thread seems like a more appropriate place to seek this kind of consensus. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:34, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

  Discussing this here is perfectly fine, although this discussion section sprawls across many different topics, and you may receive higher-quality feedback with a new discussion that focuses specifically on this use of the Global Times. To be completely clear, I don't have any objection to this use, and the intention of my initial reply was to make the case that the removal of the citation was also defensible under policy. I probably wouldn't use the Global Times for this claim, but it's not a particularly strong preference and other editors might disagree. — Newslinger talk 10:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: As far as I can see, the problem is that people like Amigao are mass removing unreliable sources, like GT, from Wikipedia articles, without attempting to provide replacement sources. Have I got this right? Techie3 (talk) 10:13, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Part of the problem is the mass removal of sources without any replacement. Part of the problem is that while deprecation discussions about Global Times focused almost entirely on the possibility of it being used for political propaganda, the actual effect of deprecating it appears to be the removal of sourcing for all sorts of simple factual issues. There was no discussion of Global Times' reliability for mundane facts (like whether or not a train station exists), but there was lots of discussion of the hawkish foreign policy views expressed in Global Times editorials. But the main effect of the broad deprecation has been on the former type of content (mundane facts), rather than the latter (propaganda/opinions). This was completely unforeseen in the RfC on Global Times, and is something that the community should consider. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Can you please stop saying "This was completely unforeseen in the RfC on Global Times?” I’ve told you thats not true at least three times (as have other editors) so you’re telling a fib and you know it. Please WP:AGF and don’t incorrectly summarize the opinions of other editors. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

It was completely unforseen in the RfC on the Global Times. It was not discussed, and if it was on your mind, that wasn't reflected in the discussion. Yet an RfC in which political propaganda was discussed is now being used to remove mundane information like who won the award for best supporting actor at a Chinese film festival. If that was the intention of commenters at the RfC, someone should have mentioned it and there should have been a discussion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:40, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Undiscussed does not mean unforeseen, like I said its literally inherent in the conception of deprecation. You seem to be the only person who doesnt understand that we dont want to use deprecated sources, even for mundane information. Go and try to use the Daily Mail, The Grayzone, or RT for “mundane information” and see how far it gets you. Just because you don’t understand deprecation doesnt mean you get to repeat lies and cast aspersions on the other editors who participated in that discussion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:51, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

To add, maybe they are mundane facts, from an organ controlled by the state telling us what the state has done (and often how fantastic what is has done is). Its not a third party source for any information about China, not even mundane facts.Slatersteven (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I fully supported the RfCs to depreciate CGTN and the Global Times, given that their editorial takes on geopolitical issues are consistently full of polemic disinformation that can be used to cause disruption on Wikipedia if used as a source. My point, however, is that we should not be looking at the enforcement of new rules strictly in terms of black and white, because the real world does not work in absolute binaries; there will always be edge cases that exist, and a hardline enforcement goes against the spirit of the law that community consensus has built upon.

I am not arguing that the consensus gained during the RfC was somehow invalid; rather, I am arguing that the consensus established was that these problematic sources would fall within the well-established frameworks we already have for dealing with depreciated sources—that is—usage of these sources is heavily discouraged, however not outright banned for all circumstances. A depreciated source is not a blacklisted source.

Still unconvinced? If you read the section at Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people#Phraseology that uses the Global Times citation, can you please clearly explain precisely how the GT reference is problematic or harmful to the project? I can understand telling lies about COVID-19 or Taiwan, but why would the GT tell lies about how many countries were mentioned within People's Daily articles? I am arguing that our existing rules on depreciated sources do not dictate a strict, hardline enforcement on preventing these sources from being used; even if these rules were somehow supposed to be rigidly enforced without mercy (they aren't, by the way), surely such enforcement would clearly be preventing us from improving Wikipedia, and thus is a net detriment to the project? --benlisquare_T•C•E 00:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Much of this has little or nothing to do with what the Chinese state has done. The existence of a train station in Changxing is a mundane fact that no reasonable person would argue the Chinese government has any strong stake in misrepresenting. The broad-brush attitude being taken towards China and Chinese sources here goes against the basic ethos of WP:RS, which is to evaluate reliability of sources in context. Going from "Global Times publishes nationalistic editorials" to "Global Times is unreliable for every type of fact" to "Chinese sources are unreliable for any fact" (something that some editors are arguing) is, I think, unreasonable and not in line with WP:RS. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

"Chinese sources are unreliable for any fact” Who is arguing this? I haven't seen anyone make that argument here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:29, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

You have been arguing this: I would support depreciation for *every* mainland news source besides Xinhua. ([47]) When I pointed out that this would mean disqualifying Caixin, which has done some excellent journalism, you elaborated on your reasoning for deprecating all Chinese news sources other than Xinhua: Like all other non-government media organizations Caixin is banned from doing independent investigative journalism and primarily publishes rewrites of stories from state media, sometimes they do add their own reporting to these stories but thats not what people in a free country would consider investigative journalism. The problem here is Chinese law, not the companies themselves. If the law changes then we can reconsider. ([48]) -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:05, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

In that same discussion, Donkey Hot-day had a detailed reply to your argument about Caixin, taking issue with your blanket approach to Chinese sources: [49]. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:11, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

So are you saying that Xinhua isn't a Chinese source? Or are you saying that Hong Kong isn't a part of China? I cant both reject the use of all Chinese sources and endorse Xinhua, HKFP, SCMP, etc those are mutually exclusive. Nor is that statement about China or Chinese sources in general, its specifically about the mainland. I understand that you were mistaken but please correct your offensively bad characterization of my argument. Clearly I’m not arguing what you say I am arguing, are any editors? Or did you just make it up like usual?Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:08, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Please don't accuse people of making stuff up; I think it's fairly clear what they meant by that post. You don't think "I would support depreciation for *every* mainland news source besides Xinhua." can be interpreted to mean that you'd support deprecation for *every* mainland news source, minus literally one exception? jp×g 17:58, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• There are countries where every source is controlled by the state (and in those countries thedistinction between the party and the state is insignificant). . Should we therefore eliminate all articles unless people from outside that country write on them? This was not the meanign of deprecated in that discusion, which covered only political propaganda. And If it is being misinterpreted to this extent, we need a new RfC on it. DGG ( talk ) 21:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

  Removing citations to the Global Times (RSP entry) is different from removing citations to Xinhua News Agency (RSP entry), just as removing citations to Breitbart News (RSP entry) would be different from removing citations to a hypothetical US government-run news agency. Not all Chinese sources exhibit the same level of reliability, even when they are state-run. As one of the least reliable Chinese sources, the Global Times should be treated similarly to other sources of the same quality. — Newslinger talk 08:51, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I think a problem is the way how Chinese media operates. Many times an official media published an article and then every other media are simply being asked to copy and repeat the exact same report in their paper. Which make it difficult to tell who really wrote the original report without careful inspection. C933103 (talk) 03:25, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: While I don't have any opinion about the reliability of the Global Times on general statements, the point of confusion for me on the issue is diffs like this, in which @Horse Eye's Back: removed a Global Times citation from the sentence An article in the Communist Party of China–affiliated tabloid paper Global Times quoted Wu Hongying, director of the [...], replacing it with {{cn}} and reverting me as well as another editor who tried to put it back in. As far as I can tell, this section was absolutely not citing it as an authoritative source of fact, but rather as a source of "what Chinese propaganda said about the whole thing". Whether or not GT's reliable for governmental proceedings or plane routes, I thought that WP:DEPRECATED unambiguously permitted citing biased outlets when the statement was "here's what these biased dudes had to say". What other source could possibly be used for a citation like "The propaganda outlet 'Global Times' said such and-such"? Reading through this discussion, it seems like a few editors disagree with this, and are in favor of removing it in literally all articles (including when they're WP:ABOUTSELF). Am I misunderstanding, or is that really what's being said? I'd appreciate if someone could clarify this. jp×g 17:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@JPxG: I reverted you a single time, but no-one else as far as I can see from the edit history. Either provide diffs or retract. The question on VivaTaiwan is one of due weight, its also not covered by WP:ABOUTSELF as GT is being used to make a statement about the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations which is a separate entity. Specifically we have the GT reporting a comment from their director Wu Hongying, a BLP, which complicates matters. We could use the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (not GT) for ABOUTSELF but then we would *still* have a due weight issue. As for your larger question you appear to be confusing statements where WP:ABOUTSELF would apply with directly attributed statements, just because the format is “X reported _____” doesn't automatically mean its a statement *about* X. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:47, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there is a hard-and-fast boundary between ABOUTSELF and simple in-text attribution. Reviewing the article, yes; you only removed that part twice (not reverted it twice, as I mistakenly said). My concern here isn't entirely limited to that diff, though; it was one of twenty-five removals you did in a 30-minute period that day (after participating in this discussion), including two [50] [51] where GT was used as a source for the Chinese censors having censored something, and six [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] that were either in your definition of ABOUTSELF, or had explicit in-text attribution where it was noted as being a state-run propaganda outlet (and in most cases was being cited as an example of what propaganda outlets had said). I don't understand how that violates the guidelines for citing deprecated sources. jp×g 18:39, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

You are mistaken, the Global Times is a *party* run propaganda outlet, CGTN is a *state* run propaganda outlet. The Global Times is not part of the Chinese government therefore it can’t be used for about self when it comes to the actions of the Chinese government (let alone part of the "Jiangxi Provincial Public Security Department” as it would have to be for [58] to be about self, for example). A good example of how to include the Global Times in an article can be found in the Pishan hostage crisis article *after* my edit, that is when mentioned by a WP:RS (in this case the NYT) we can say what the reliable source says about the deprecated source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:07, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by this. Are you saying that a Global Times citation can or can't be used with in-text attribution, in a statement about it being run by the party/state? jp×g 19:25, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

See #2 “it does not involve claims about third parties" and #3 "it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source” at WP:ABOUTSELF, its written really clearly. Also note that the context of ABOUTSELF is "usually in articles about themselves or their activities” which doesn't apply to any of the diffs you’ve shared so far. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:37, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Mises Institute articles

I would like to discuss the usage of articles from Mises Institute, a lot of which appear in right-libertarian articles, and sometimes in articles related to economics. I would like to propose that this source should only be used as a primary source about the Institute itself, and opinions of its members, but it's an unreliable source of information for anything else.

Background

Mises Institute is a non-profit "think-tank" promoting right-wing libertarian economics. Most of its content are op-eds, but also some "educational" content and definitions.

Mises Institute

Should Mises Instute articles be allowed for anything else apart for quoting opinions of its members/writers? BeŻet (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• No / Generally unreliable. Think tanks are not generally reliable unless there's a strong reason to think otherwise, since the "default" structure of a think tank does not include any sort of fact-checking or accuracy - most think tanks exist to advance particular agenda by hook or crook, so to speak, not to cover things accurately the way a news or academic source would. Some think tanks do exist that have earned enough of a reputation that they could be considered reliable for stuff other than their own attributed opinion (eg. probably the Brookings Institution), but the Mises Institute is not among them. They reflect the opinions of the people who own and fund it and nothing else - citing them would be like citing an ad campaign. See the numerous past discussions about using think tanks as sources, which have generally reached the same conclusion. --Aquillion (talk) 21:10, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
• LOL no - opinion that is not notable unless it has been noted in RSes separate to Mises. I would tend to apply this to opinions of its posters too - not worth noting unless they are so notable themselves that even their blogposts would carry weight as sources - David Gerard (talk) 22:21, 13 October 2020 (UTC}
• Hell no. Their mission is to promote an agenda, and that is orthogonal to our purpose. A dark money funded unaccountable "institute", and a perfect example of why our sourcing policy requires reliable independent secondary sources. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:31, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Aside from your conspiracy theories and mockery of the name do you have an actual argument? Are you still mad that they have a coat of arms? Pelirojopajaro (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

    Pelirojopajaro, I am not up for a discussion of the objective merits of sealions.

    And, for the record, they don't have a grant of arms, as they themselves make clear. Their corporate logo is the Mises family coat of arms, which is not at all the same thing. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:07, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Prior practice is that they should be considered unreliable if their articles advocate for something which is generally disapproved of here. DGG ( talk ) 04:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Definitely not. Certainly not reliable for statements in Wikivoice or statements of fact. Even use for statements of attributed opinion should be avoided/very rare: because the institution is on the fringes, promoting offbeat or unsupported notions about economics, law, and history, the due-weight test would seldom be passed. Neutrality^talk 05:25, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable: It's a fringe advocacy group so its opinions are unlikely to be DUE. For most economics articles, reliable sources may include peer-reviewed articles and standard textbooks, but not think tanks or advocacy groups of whatever stripe. (t · c) buidhe 08:23, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• I am not sure how this request should be answered. To answer directly, I would say no, the institute should not be used for anything else apart for quoting opinions of its members/writers (that is to say, for statements of facts). But yet, this does not appear to be what is originally asked/said which is that the publications by the institute is an unreliable place for information. This seems to me to be a very different question altogether and we would need more than a few cases to show that Mises is an unreliable source. I would also like to point out that there are think tanks which the wider community here has found to be acceptable despite their strong political views (or "partisan agenda" as some people would say). To me, it would appear that consistency in deciding whether Mises's views on political matters are acceptable would be key here. Fortliberty (talk) 16:28, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable if you are careful. They are often just excerpts from reliable books. The rest should be treated like every other blog. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

But in this case the book should be quoted then, not mises.org BeŻet (talk) 21:54, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• No because they are not a reliable source. So absurdly selective in their use of evidence and narrow in its interpretation, that in relation to serious scholarship they are disconnected to the point of autism. Cambial foliage❧ 22:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Evidence please and (name) calling something autistic doesn't help either your argument or the argument your arguing for. Flickotown (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I didn't though, did I. Mischaracterising other editor's comments is not a form of (counter-)argument. Cambial foliage❧ 13:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not a mischaracterization when that's what you actually did. When you say that something has reached the point of autism, it is literally the same thing as calling something autistic. Maybe you would have been able to do what you should have already done and produce evidence of how they (Mises) is unreliable instead of devoting that energy to playing semantics. Flickotown (talk) 23:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment this isn't an RS issue, it's a WEIGHT issue. If you think it's unreliable then you have to explain why - specifically you have to give examples of things they've done/work they've produced that makes them unreliable; just saying Mises is biased (presumably because you don't share their politics outlook) isn't nearly good enough. There are other sources which are equally as biased as Mises and they aren't redlisted. (Cf. CATO, CEPR, MEMRI, on the WP:RSP noticeboard) Flickotown (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Genuinely cant believe that MEMRI hasn’t been deprecated yet, the Israel-Arab partisan's continual refusal to see reason when it comes to reliable sources is a pain in the ass. That being said two wrongs dont make a right, no way in hell should we be using Mises. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:31, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

As I told OP so I will also tell you. If you think Mises is unreliable then you have to explain why. Specifically you have to give examples of things they've done/work they've produced that makes them unreliable; just griping about Mises and how there is no way in hell anybody should be using Mises (presumably because you don't share their politics outlook) isn't good enough. Flickotown (talk) 23:55, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Ummmmm... I don’t think theres much of a debate (this is pretty much a snowball at this point) but in a situation like this the burden is on those who seek to *demonstrate reliability* to do so not the other way around. Its also not an RfC. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:25, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not a snowball situation and it is also an rfc (that's how it's being treated even if it doesn't adhere to the formal requirements). If you think Mises is unreliable then you have to explain why. Don't bother responding to me if you won't. Flickotown (talk) 23:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Lol, two weeks ago when I wrote that it wasn’t a RfC. Do you mean besides for the neo-confederate stuff? Please review WP:FRINGE and WP:NONAZI, Mises has never been mainstream or respected. Its a low quality source with a hard-on for racist dog whistles at best. Interesting and thought provoking sure but they have no business being used as a source on wikipedia, they simply are not a WP:RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Most of the content they post are opinion pieces, and their definition pieces are not written in a neutral way, but from a fringe point of view. This is also clear in the language that is used. It is quite obvious why they are not a reliable source of information. BeŻet (talk) 13:39, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

That's real original. Mises is "fringe". That's coming from a person with a photo of Gramsci, a person whose views was all about the fringe, whose views were regarded as fringe and whose views are still regarded by many as fringe. The absurdity of your character assassinations of Mises is amazing. What you have to do is not hard to get: if you think Mises is extreme then you need to prove it. And if Mises is as extreme as you say it is, then that should be easy to do. Maybe would you have been able to do that already instead of devoting that energy to responding to every objection to your RFC as if your base-covering will somehow make it easier for the closer to rule for you. Flickotown (talk) 23:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• • Designate as No consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply if I have to choose. This is in keeping with how other sources similar to Mises's profile has been treated. Flickotown (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
• No Self-published borderline fringe advocacy site. Reliable for their views, but that's about it. Ravensfire (talk) 00:22, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
• Like all of the others, there should be no such generalization Beside, the criteria argued above (and organization with an advocacy type agenda) would rule out nearly all organizations. North8000 (talk) 00:45, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  North8000, no, there is a specific issue with think-tanks which is not seen in other sources. Think-tanks are built from the ground up to look like scholarly institutions, and their purpose is to create a veneer of legitimacy around an agenda, often paid for by people who will directly benefit if that agenda is advanced. We should exclude all think-tanks, regardless of ideology. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:13, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I don't agree. Unfortunately Wikipedia core policy & guidelines do not require expertise or objectivity or actual reliability to be a wp:rs. But let's say that we do want those things. If we generalize about sources that would disqualify most modern-time media, starting with the New York Times, most books on political topics and figures, all advocacy organizations etc.. A more useful attribute is expertise and objectivity with respect to the item which cited it A think tank, especially since they generally do research, could be a very reliable source on matters of fact. But in areas of opinion, their writings are opinions and should be handled as such. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 09:35, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  North8000, er, yes they do. The R in RS is "reliable". Guy (help! - typo?) 23:03, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

  I wish that you were right. North8000 (talk) 00:44, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

  But they are not a reliable source of information, because they embody a very specific, fringe point of view when it comes to economics. This is not maths, chemistry or biology. BeŻet (talk) 13:42, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable Has anyone checked the information in the main article? This is a mouthpiece of the far-right. :
  • "A 2000 "Intelligence Report" by the Southern Poverty Law Center categorized the Institute as Neo-Confederate, "devoted to a radical libertarian view of government and economics." "
  • "In 2003, Chip Berlet of the Southern Poverty Law Center described the Mises Institute as "a major center promoting libertarian political theory and the Austrian School of free market economics", also noting Rothbard's opposition to child labor laws and the anti-immigrant views of other Institute scholars."
  • "In 2017, the president of the Mises Institute, Jeff Deist, gave a speech at the Mises University conference, where in his concluding remarks he stated that the ideas of "blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people". Nicholas Sarwark and Arvin Vohra, then the chair and vice-chair of the United States Libertarian Party, condemned Deist's speech, with Vohra stating that "the Mises Institute has been turned into a sales funnel for the White Nationalist branch of the Alt Right". Vohra further accused the Mises Institute as a whole of being "authoritarian, racist, nazi"." Dimadick (talk) 07:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

References

• Reliable Sources don't magically become unreliable just because they go against some editors political biases. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Just a point of order, to "become unreliable" Mises would have had to by definition first needed to be reliable and I see no evidence which supports that argument. I think you mean “sources aren’t magically unreliable...” which is a completely different argument. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:42, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Sources are also not magically reliable when you put "institute" in a group's name. What reliable information can you find there? BeŻet (talk) 11:16, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• No / Generally unreliable per Aquillion. It's a fringe ideological advocacy organization, whose positions are often on the extreme fringe of even libertarian opinion (let alone any widespread/consensus perspective). Its use should generally be restricted to WP:ABOUTSELF contexts regarding itself, its contributors, and the ideologies they espouse (and such statements should be attributed). Any other type of statement must use a better source than it. - GretLomborg (talk) 20:51, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary sources means we should treat Mises Institute as reliable as a primary sorce for its own views. I came to this rcf by the grapevine this as a result of encountering one of the editor's who voted here on a separate wiki article. @Horse Eye's Back: i am taken aback by your comments here. You said a lot of cool-headed things in the discussion page on the Maplewashing page and you also did the same for the "Mass removal of content on China-related articles" section to, so I am kind of struggling to see your opinion that this institute is not a reliable source for information. I had not heard of Mises before and am no an expert on economics, but from what I have read off theirwebsite, i strongly dispute against your argument that the institute should be banned from use on wikipedia. Using just one exmple here, i cannot se anything remotely beyond the pail about saying slave economies thwarted entrepreneurial innovation (https://mises.org/wire/why-slave-economies-thwart-entrepreneurial-innovation) Festerhauer (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Thats because this is a discussion on the use of Mises as a source in contexts *besides* as a primary source for its own views, e.g. whether or not they are in general a WP:RS. I’ve followed them for at least two decades and have even been invited to (and attended) social events sponsored by them, its a political rather than academic organization and doesn't have any of the hallmarks we expect of a reliable source nor do I think that Mises has ever claimed to be the sort of organization which would be a WP:RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:58, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Also note that the piece you linked includes the disclaimer "Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.” Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:00, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

But even deprecated sources can still be used to talk about them (WP:ABOUTSELF), so nobody's questioning that. The point of this whole discussion is concluding whether Mises is reliable for anything else apart from sourcing someone's views and opinions. BeŻet (talk) 16:15, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable based on whats already been expressed by myself and others, I dont think this actually is an RfC despite having RfC in the name but if it is I support deprecation. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:49, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Is it okay?

Is it okay if I ask: where can I find someone or something who or which can quickly check some 450 cites on Cleavage (breasts) to see which cites are unacceptable? It is alright if there is no one or nothing that can help. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 18:12, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I just removed some HTML errors and ran the Organize References bot on the page.

It would help a lot if you took the following steps.

• For each cite, follow the link (if there is one) and verify that the source supports the claim. Remove all unsourced claims with the edit summary "failed verification".
• For each cite, use the "Search the noticeboard archives" feature on this page to see if we have discussed it before. If we found it unreliable, remove the claim and the cite with an edit summary containing a link to the RSN discussion

Let's see how many cites that gets rid of, then we can discuss the ones that are left. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:00, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

My assessment is that the article is simply too big and should have several larger sections spun-off into their own articles. On each spun-off article the volume is more reasonable for checking each ref, rather than the 400+ currently.

With each spin-off you can aim to get GA status, and solicit WP:GOCE to help. Glee^anon 15:28, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

A faster way to check at a glance whether any sources are considered generally unreliable or deprecated is to use a script from Headbomb that highlights and underlines such refs. JoelleJay (talk) 21:45, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@Guy Macon, Gleeanon409, and JoelleJay: How good is this one: "McCombe, Richard; Ginsburg, Cora & Haverfield, Kay (1982). The Undercover Story. New York: Fashion Institute of Technology. p. 11. ASIN B006A9QUU4."?

One thing: I myself have put almost all of those cites. I am sure that they do cover the article text, no chance of verification fails. But I am unaware of the credibility of some of the sources, and unsure of some. Aditya^{(✉ • ⚒)} 01:04, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

That book should be OK, as it was published by a legit academic institution. However it is very obscure[59] and therefore carries less WEIGHT. Also, you should ideally use ISBN or OCLC to identify the book rather than ASIN. (t · c) buidhe 06:31, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Undercover Story is being used to support the claim "Falsies evolved from the bosom pads of the 17th century that were often made of stiff rubber." A quick search on the authors brought me to this NYT obituary[60] which says Ginsburg was "a prominent dealer in antique fabrics and clothing" and "She helped develop the field of costume in the worlds of antiques and museums, sharing her knowledge with a number of museums in the United States and elsewhere." So you have citation from a recognized expert in the area of antique clothing supporting a claim about antique clothing, so on that basis I would say that this is a high quality reliable source for that claim.

I also looked for info on Richard McCombe but there are too many websites about the English barrister and judge. Also, if [61] is correct, McComb wrote the introductory essay. I couldn't find any info on Haverfield. Quiestion: is the passage you are using attributed to all three or just one? If it's under the name of just McCombe, Ginsburg, or Haverfield (some multi author books say who wrote each chapter, some don't) you should just use the one name as the author. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I doubt that we are going to find a less obscure source for the claim "Falsies evolved from the bosom pads of the 17th century that were often made of stiff rubber". There aren't very many sources that discuss 17th century bosom pads. Our article section Falsies#Bosom pads has no sources at all. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Today I also learned how to check the quality of a source. Aditya^{(✉ • ⚒)} 06:17, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Assessment of Scotland's newspapers

Can we make some assessment, for the perennial sources board, of The Scotsman, The Herald, The National, and the other Scotland-only papers? GPinkerton (talk) 20:55, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• I would rate the first two generally reliable (not the greatest sources in existence, but will do the job). IDK about The National. (t · c) buidhe 22:51, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with buidhe about The Scotsman and The Herald - they're both heavyweight papers, I'd treat them similarly to the Guardian or the Times. I'm on the fence about The National, don't know enough about it. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:38, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
• Agree, The Scotsman and the Herald are reliable sources, haven't read The National Atlantic306 (talk) 23:12, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Agree on the Scotsman and the Herald. I'd be wary about using the National for anything regarding Scottish independence and/or associated issues, but I'd say it's otherwise reliable. Black Kite (talk) 23:18, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Agree: this was mostly my feeling: Herald and Scotsman reliable, National politically biased and to be used for quotidian events and quotations of public figures but not for uncorroborated or unattributed statements. Can we write this up? GPinkerton (talk) 01:40, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
• It would appear to me that these sources are reliable. From just a basic search of these sources, I have not seen them engage in bottom-of-the-barrel journalism involving deceptive reporting (or what one would call "fake news") and their reporting on Scotland seems to be well researched. I would like to say however one word of caution: as these sources appear to cover the extreme ends of political spectrum, consistency of the evaluation appears to be key here. Fortliberty (talk) 18:21, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

New York Times article on paid reporting

Not sure if this belongs here or on the talk page. This New York Times article article mentions many items that are of interest to us. For example:

Maine Business Daily is part of a fast-growing network of nearly 1,300 websites that aim to fill a void left by vanishing local newspapers across the country. Yet the network, now in all 50 states, is built not on traditional journalism but on propaganda ordered up by dozens of conservative think tanks, political operatives, corporate executives and public-relations professionals, a Times investigation found.

ThatMontrealIP (talk) 22:47, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Look at what happened to Newsweek on WP:RSP after International Business Times bought it in 2013. It's certainly possible for the newspaper to have different reliability depending on era. Graywalls (talk) 23:09, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

And that article is published by the NYTimes? The same NYTimes that endorsed Joe Biden for US president? No way! ^[stretch] Atsme 💬 📧 00:19, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

You know better than that on this page. O3000 (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Better than what? Trying to point out that a competitor is concerned about opposition to their POV? What's your point? Atsme 💬 📧 00:25, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Don’t even start... We don’t need to hear it all again. We know that your personal opinions on what constitutes a reliable source differs greatly from the current consensus, you don’t have to keep reminding us when its only vaguely on topic. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

CJR reported on this back in 2019: https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/hundreds-of-pink-slime-local-news-outlets-are-distributing-algorithmic-stories-conservative-talking-points.php (t · c) buidhe 06:28, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I suggest that we view all Metric Media sites as, at best, questionable sources. This reporting indicates that the sites have minimal editorial controls, are directed by people buying articles, and are generally content farms. This clearly fails WP:RS and WP:V standards. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:45, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Right, just as we wouldn't want to consider Courier Newsroom sites to be reliable sources of news, it doesn't sound like these Metric Media sites would qualify either. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:00, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• Good work by the Times there, I'd say. This looks like an open and shut case: these sources should not be used. In fact if anyone has a full list of domains there should probably be an edit filter. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:35, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Here is a start. Metric Media.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• Here is a list with over 1,000 domains belonging to Metric Media: https://github.com/MassMove/AttackVectors/blob/master/LocalJournals/sites.csv (t · c) buidhe 06:25, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• New York Times has now published the complete list of the fraudulent "news" sites on Google Docs. I believe this these should be added as deprecated sources on WP:RSNP (do we need an RFC for that?), and a bot may be needed to create a list of wikipedia articles where they are currently used. Abecedare (talk) 18:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Does that mean they will be added to a filter of sorts? I can imagine that it will be hard for editors to keep up with all the different sources. Might be better to just block the URLs like a spam filter to pretty users from accidentally adding these pseudo-news sites. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 21:32, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• As noted above, we need to be careful about blanket removal because these papers existed before being subsumed by 'pink slime'. -- GreenC 18:55, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Though it's certainly far too common among established media, it's also fair to note that they violate the copyright of Wikipedia contributors (see this talk page message I left one user whose CC-BY 3.0 image of a local school wasn't attributed) Vahurzpu (talk) 05:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Rebel News

An editor has attempted to add Rebel News to the Jessica Yaniv article. I consider Rebel News to be a highly unreliable web site, that's never usable for facts, and definitely not facts about a living person. It's fairly well known in Canada, and it's likely others would also try to use, so I feel it should be added to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. As discussed on the Talk:Jessica Yaniv#Rebel News is not reliable, but is SPAM, they actually use articles like this about the subject of the article, to fundraise for a court case against them. The owner/operator of the Rebel News, Ezra Levant has repeatedly lost libel cases against himself (see article for sources). The site is really a commentary site, not a news web site.

At the moment, nobody seems to be arguing the site is reliable. The editor who added it, seems to be arguing that it's not blacklisted, and is therefore allowed. --Rob (talk) 07:24, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Just to be clear Thivierr/Rob, it was this paragraph and source from the Washington Times[62] that you first objected to and you deleted. Your action based on ??? saw the need to seek another secondary source covering the LifeSiteNews topic, meaning RebelNews remained as the only secondary source left. There is also a primary source covering this confirmable topic (i.e. they are back up on Twitter) but you would have objected to that as well. CatCafe (talk) 07:49, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

LifeSiteNews, Rebel News on a BLP? uh - David Gerard (talk) 08:10, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

The only sources for that information are the Washington Times and this? I certainly say I completely agree with Rob on how that sourcing is unacceptable, especially for a BLP. Devonian Wombat (talk) 08:57, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

No that's not all, as the sentence is about LifeSitesNews' interactions with Yaniv, it probably would have been preferable to use the LifeSitesNews own primary source[63] for "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source" as per WP:ORIGINAL - & the Primary also includes a screenshot that explains the sentence editor Wisefroggy was trying to add at the time. I sort of would have expected the editors to change the source to the primary and amend the sentence to the "straightforward, descriptive statement" as is allowed. CatCafe (talk) 09:08, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, considering this discussion is not about the reliability of LifeSiteNews, but Rebel News, I fail to see how the ABOUTSELF defence is relevant. Devonian Wombat (talk) 10:11, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Great, and thanks for that and pointing me toward WP:ABOUTSELF. Appreciated. CatCafe (talk) 10:22, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• For the avoidance of doubt, Washington Times is also an entirely inappropriate source for a BLP. ABOUTSELF is also a qualified exception: we should not use it to include anything remotely controversial, it's there to cover cases where a subject provides additional minor details like a town of birth rather than a state. Highly partisan sources of low reputation (e.g. LSN) are an absolute no-no in biographies. We would not use Daily Kos as a source on a right-wing grifter, either. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:33, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

For a BLP mainstream sources are required for anything controversial, but this would probably be removed even if the section was "Twitter controversies". Without additional mainstream sources like AP or Reuters to support the content, Rebel News and Washington Times (or Truthout or Huffpo) are often the only source for the contentious content they publish. It impacts the "brand" of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. Spudlace (talk) 04:54, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

"We would not use Daily Kos as a source on a right-wing grifter, either." Daily Kos is not a news website, nor does it claim to be. When news items are cited there, they are mostly republished from other sources. Dimadick (talk) 09:51, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable. Rebel News (a.k.a. Rebel Media) is the Canadian equivalent of Breitbart News (RSP entry), according to Cas Mudde's The Far Right Today. For consistency with Breitbart, I would support deprecation of Rebel News if this were ever proposed in an RfC. — Newslinger talk 10:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Reliability of a UNESCO-published webpage

In University of the People, Weatherextremes has repeatedly inserted the following sentence: "According to UNESCO the University works with other universities and governments to advise, teach and partner with them on how to launch an online education system to meet the current need and demand in light of the Covid-19 pandemic."

It's obvious that the source is published on a UNESCO website but I cannot find any other information about its reliability. The information certainly reads as if it's written by the university and not an independent third-party. Except for a statement at the bottom of the page that says that "UNESCO does not endorse any product, service, brand or company," I cannot find any information that says how the information was written, whether it was fact-checked, how errors are corrected, or any other information that would allow us to know if it's reliable. ElKevbo (talk) 18:03, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

My read of that information looks like information made by the university entity supplied to UNESCO (hence the disclaimer) to publish, and thus should be taken as primary and of limited reliability. UNESCO itself is a UN entity and would be normally reliable but this is not UN "generated" information. --Masem (t) 18:29, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

To spotcheck (given the question of this below), other pages show text with "we" language eg Save the Children, Errison, etc. which is not something I would expect to see in text if it were generated by UNESCO themselves - they would use third-person. This drives the point that UNESCO likely asked each company to provide statements for the website to promote. --Masem (t) 00:00, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

ElKevbo, Weatherextremes is an assiduous promoter of UofP. Any source - primary, affiliated, whatever - that promotes them, will be added, and unless you have several hours per day to spend arguing it will end up crowbarred in. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:47, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Masem that this is not from UNESCO. I would also say even if it was that there is a significant a difference reliability wise between the official publications of a UN organization and random pages on their websites or their social media accounts. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:01, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Masem and Horse Eye. This looks like re-hosted content, and thus cannot be used except for WP:ABOUTSELF content (which the sentence at issue is not). The use of the source/sentence is thus inappropriate. Neutrality^talk 00:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

My take is that the UNESCO source is credible and reputable. I don't see any evidence that it is actually written by UoPeople. I mean I doubt that any organization can dictate anything to UNESCO. The source is reputable and should stay Weatherextremes (talk) 23:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

On what basis are making those judgements? Simply being published on a UNESCO website does not mean that the source is reliable. Who wrote it? Why was it published? Do they have a reputation for fact-checking and corrections? How can we consider any page on that website a reliable source when UNESCO itself says that "UNESCO does not warrant that the information, documents and materials contained in its website is complete and correct and shall not be liable whatsoever for any damages incurred as a result of its use." ElKevbo (talk) 23:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

The fact that the information is published in the UNESCO websites makes it reliable information. We are talking about an highly reputable organization. Of course UNESCO is right to point out that they do not endorse anyone. The main question is how can you prove that this information was written by UoPeople when it originally appears in the UNESCO website? Weatherextremes (talk) 00:25, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

No, merely being published on the UNESCO website does not make it reliable. Meeting our standards for reliability is what makes a source reliable. And the burden of proof is on an editor who inserts new information and claims that the supporting source is reliable. So please stop repeating yourself and dodging the central question: What evidence do you have that this source is reliable (other than the website that hosts it)? ElKevbo (talk) 00:35, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• I don't have a problem using the source, the problem is with the wording it's being used to support: it doesn't match the source. It's not UNESCO saying it, and that's not what the website says. Moreover, the UoP is the last-mentioned in a long list on the website. Furthermore, the source says curious things like "UoPeople is a non-profit, tuition-free, accredited American online university ... Students pay a minimum assessment free [sic] of $100 per course" which makes me question whether it was merely emailed in and never checked. A better idea would be to write "the UoP is among more than one hundred members of UNESCO's Global Education Coalition" and cite it to this list page on the same site: [64]. GPinkerton (talk) 01:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
  • How can you be non-profit if you charge for courses and don't offer tuition (i.e., no staff costs)? And can I start my own online non-profit non-tuition university too? Achar Sva (talk) 02:52, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Well I beg to differ. The burden of proof lies with the editor who has doubts on the content of a credible source such as UNESCO. ElKevdo should be the one to provide sufficient evidence that the statement is actually written by UoPeople when it appears originally only in the UNESCO website. The source is credible until we see proof otherwise. Please include it in the article. Weatherextremes (talk) 08:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

No, it's foolish to insist that we assume sources are reliable until proven otherwise. The burden of proof is always on the editor who claims that a source is reliable. ElKevbo (talk) 13:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

No, what is actually foolish is to assume that UNESCO is not a reliable source Weatherextremes (talk) 14:30, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Weatherextremes, what is foolish is to keep promoting a thing and then arguing endlessly against anyone who pushes back. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Also what GPinkerton suggests seems a fair compromise and I could go with that.It actually makes it more neutral in terms of wording.Weatherextremes (talk) 08:52, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we're not considering the context of this source enough. Yes, this statement was probably written by the university and UNESCO probably asked for the members of the coalition to write their own statements. That being said, the context of this statement is that the University of the People is a member of the Global Education Coalition, an entity which deals with revamping learning in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This isn't something that's disputed and while I don't believe the current wording is supported by the source (specifically the part about how they're advising others on how to launch an online educational system) I do believe that the general idea that UofP is working with governments by means of the Global Education Coalition to support education during and after the COVID-19 pandemic is supported by the source above. That's explicitly outlined by the Global Education Coalition website which outlines the objectives of the coalition and that the only people who can request assistance from the coalition are national governments. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 21:12, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Chess, and the inevitable riposte is: who cares? Did they self-nominate? Is it exclusive or inclusive? We deal with this by reference to reliable independent secondary sources. In the absence of those it's WP:UNDUE, added by a user whose history shows about a quarter of all their edits being to this article, its talk page, and the complaints that editing has generated. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:19, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy I have been a wiki editor for the past decade and I have consistently edited mostly around meteorology and climatology and occasionally on education. I have repeatedly said that I have been impressed by UoPeople and I have been researching this institution for the past 5 years. I do not see how this is an argument you can use on the reliability of the UNESCO source. To answer your question I believe a lot of people care! Especially in light of Covid-19.I am proposing to change the wording in the article according to what Chess has said. It will make it more neutral and given that it is from a reliable source it will improve overall the quality of the article Weatherextremes (talk) 00:44, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

References

José Bustani on The Grayzone

The Grayzone is a deprecated source; however, José Bustani has been recently interviewed there and made several noteworthy claims. Would it be acceptable to use the interview as a source of the claims, clearly attributing them to The Grayzone and Bustani? This looks like something allowed by WP:DEPREC. BeŻet (talk) 13:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Have these claims been repeated by any secondary source? If not, they may well be undue since ABOUTSELF is a pretty limited exception. (t · c) buidhe 15:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

If the comments are specific replies to things said about Bustani and he is replying via The Grayzone interview then I think they qualify as "about self". So if a number of sources have noted that Bustani, for example, hates cheese then a comment from Bustani from The Grayzone interview saying he likes cheese despite the rumors to the contrary would be allowable as ABOUTSELF. Since The Grayzone is not a RS (I assume based on the question) then it can't establish weight for a topic but it can act as Bustani's point of reply to DUE topics raised by other sources. In this regard it would be similar to a personal blog with replies to some public comments about Bustani. Springee (talk) 15:34, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Springee, not unless other people have decided they are sufficiently credible to merit discussion. We're not a newspaper. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:13, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies so far. For instance if we were to say: José Bustani claimed during an interview with The Grayzone that he has been spied on while working at the OPCW - would that require a secondary source which talks about said interview, or do we feel that the primary source in this case is enough? BeŻet (talk) 17:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

If no other source has covered him saying that he has been spied on, leave the claim out. If there is such a source, include that source and what that source says, and you can then also link to the interview as a source for a direct quote. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:06, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

This is a pretty extraordinary claim from Bustani. If there is no evidence but the fact that he stated it during an interview, it's pretty hard to be WP:DUE. If it is covered in a secondary source, then cite that source rather than Grayzone. (t · c) buidhe 18:21, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Buidhe. That sentence would either need secondary sourcing talking about this subject or it would need to be clearly in reply to something said about him. Given the nature of the claim it would have to be something like "RS says Buidhe's private information was found online during the time he worked for the OPCW." It would have to be a really solid RS statement to allow this as an ABOUTSELF reply to something. TLDR/ as presented here I think it should stay out. Springee (talk) 00:59, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

If the only source for something is Grayzone, then it shouldn't be in Wikipedia. If it's literally the video of Bustani saying something, that would be an ABOUTSELF primary source, and might be usable with due weight - David Gerard (talk) 08:05, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

J. H. Field on American Journal of Physics

Volunteer at dispute resolution noticeboard has redirected the discussion to this noticeboard. This is the requested information:

1. Source: Field, J. H. (1 March 1999). "Two novel special relativistic effects: Space dilatation and time contraction". American Journal of Physics. 68 (April 2000): 367. arXiv:physics/0004012. doi:10.1119/1.19439.
2. Article: Time contraction
3. Content: [65]

84.120.7.178 (talk) 15:00, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

See relevant discussion at Talk:Time dilation#Time contraction. Notifying users Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk · contribs) and Coldcreation (talk · contribs). - DVdm (talk) 09:28, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• As discussed above, the American Journal of Physics, although a reliable source, cannot guarantee the reliability of every paper that it publishes. Mistakes happen in the peer review process. The author of the paper in question, J. H. Field, has published many WP:FRINGE "Einstein was wrong" papers in the non-refereed arXiv. The paper in question, which the IP editor wishes to use as a source for the novel concept of "time contraction", appears to be in the same vein. There are no secondary source references to "time contraction" which would establish the notability or validity of that subject for inclusion in Wikipedia. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 23:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

This source has been cited nine times at least. Among them, J. H. Field published two articles:

• Field, J. H. (2001). "Space-time exchange invariance: Special relativity as a symmetry principle". American Journal of Physics. 69 (5): 569–575. doi:10.1119/1.1344165.
• Field, J. H. (2006). "Derivation of the Lorentz force law, the magnetic field concept and the Faraday–Lenz and magnetic Gauss laws using an invariant formulation of the Lorentz transformation". Physica Scripta. 73 (6): 639–647. doi:10.1088/0031-8949/73/6/018.

And another author about time contraction specifically:

• Sharp, Jonathan C (2016). "Symmetry of the Lorentz boost: the relativity of colocality and Lorentz time contraction". European Journal of Physics. 37 (5). 055606. doi:10.1088/0143-0807/37/5/055606.

There was no mistake in the peer review regarding time contraction. This work is in harmony with mainstream view in special relativity. Perhaps the problem is that we have not talked about the topic. May I explain the source to you at WP:RDS? 84.120.7.178 (talk) 00:10, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

This is pretty clear failure to get the point. Per WP:Primary, A single research paper, even one published in a reputable journal that isn't supported by any other literature clearly isn't WP:DUE weight for inclusion in the article, in the same way that a primary medical study isn't Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:27, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Time dilation is an old topic. I read about it in high school in the books of George Gamow and Rolf Nevanlinna. In other words, there are plenty books (popular expositions for the scientifically informed layperson, text-books, and monographs) in which the topic is discussed, books that have been vetted for WP:DUE. What appears in journal articles but has not appeared in books belongs to footnotes or subsections about a controversy or new developments. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:09, 27 October 2020 (UTC) Updated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:47, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

However, "Time contraction" is not an old topic. J. H. Field has published numerous non-refereed articles in arXiv where he flatly denies the validity of well-established special relativistic phenomena such as the relativity of simultaneity and length contraction. In the article whose validity for use as a source is being questioned, J. H. Field introduces the notions of time contraction and length dilation. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 18:59, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

It is a 20-year-old topic. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 00:20, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

• Besides your mistake about not being supported by any other literature, this is not a primary medical study. It is not a new experiment either. In this work, the author analyzes the inverse Lorentz boost, evaluates it for different space-time points, interprets the results under certain observation conditions, and synthesizes these results into the effect. This is not a primary source. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 00:20, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Cinema cats

Hello! I have a source called Cinema Cats (here is the home page [66]). It is a self described blog [67] and there is no evidence that the information that is posted on it is reviewed or checked for reliability. I don’t think this would be considered a reliable source for information about movies or cats, but I just thought I’d stop by and check! Thank you in advance for your comments. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 17:17, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Obviously not a reliable source. Schazjmd (talk) 17:58, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Not obvious to me. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 22:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

You are right. It isn't obvious. It is blindingly obvious. See [68] and WP:SPS. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I did read the about page and checked an entry. The blog states to be peer-reviewed regarding some claims. So, depending on the claim, it may be a reliable source. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 23:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

A blogger might get someone else to "review" their blog posts, that doesn't make anything on it sufficient to support encyclopedia content. An argument could be made if this blogger was a known expert in their field, but that's not the case here. Schazjmd (talk) 23:20, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you need to be an expert to claim that a pixel is red or that two plus two is four? I do not think so. As I said, it depends on the claim. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 23:30, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Your opinion is noted. Let me put it to you this way: if you use Cinema cats as a source anywhere on Wikipedia after being told that it not a reliable source, you are likely to be blocked for disruption. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

But no claim has been provided, thus there is no reason to get blocked. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Currently used in eleven articles. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 00:37, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I wasn’t planning to. That’s why I came here. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:19, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Then which content do you plan to remove? What is the purpose of this discussion? 84.120.7.178 (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I was talking about what will happen if you, 84.120.7.178, ever use Cinema cats as a source anywhere on Wikipedia. This was based on your refusal to accept that it isn't a reliable source. Lima Bean Farmer simply asked a completely reasonable question about a source. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:38, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: So I am not likely to be blocked; I will certainly be blocked according to your threat. I had no interest in Cinema Cats. However, if you are looking for conflict, I will please you. If you remove anything referenced by Cinema Cats, you notify me of such removal, and I think you are wrong, then I will revert your edit and go through dispute resolution despite of what you have said so far. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 11:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

IP, anyone removing any material sourced to Cinema Cats would be doing the project a favour - it describes itself as a blog, it's not reliable. Don't personalise this, nobody has threatened you, they've just told you what will happen if you cause disruption by reverting people who are removing unreliable sources. GirthSummit _(blether) 12:02, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

As I said, if you notify me of any removal, then you are asking for my response. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 12:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Why even raise it - why would anyone notify you? GirthSummit _(blether) 12:28, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

If anyone does, you may ask them the reason. 84.120.7.178 (talk) 22:15, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, well someone made this hostile and personal for no apparent reason (not you obviously). Anyways, I won’t get into the IP user who thinks they will be notified if someone deletes cinema cats and ask you which articles are they sourced to? I’d be happy to delete them if you have not done so already. To be clear, out of respect for reliable sourcing and not just to feed the suspected troll above. Thank you! Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:46, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

SPS by none expert, not an RS>Slatersteven (talk) 14:40, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

"there is no evidence that the information that is posted on it is reviewed or checked for reliability" Even if it was verified, the source emphasizes only on the use of cats in various films. How would we use the information? By noting the presence of a cat scene in a larger narrative? Dimadick (talk) 15:56, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I see a list.Slatersteven (talk) 15:57, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

MusicNotes and Vocal Registers

There is an issue across Wikipedia song articles of songs sung by males where many of them list the vocal register as being an octave above what it actually is. This is due to an error in MusicNotes transcriptions where they do not differentiate between the octave of a male vocal melody and a female vocal melody. Because of this there are a number of Wikipedia song articles that list male vocalists as singing in the vocal range of sopranos, when in fact the actual pitches that the males sing in each song is an octave below that. These articles incorrectly state the singer of the song as singing in that high range, when it is that MusicNotes incorrectly transcribes the vocal melody as being an octave higher than it is. I outline a number of examples of Wikipedia song articles with this issue in this previously had discussion, as well as further expand on the issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Songs#Music_Notes_Reliability_As_A_Source

The reliability of MusicNotes as a source has been brought up here before, however the issue in that discussion was of a different nature. They were discussing the general credibility of Music Notes but didn't actually have any issue with the content that it was providing and they all agreed the information offered from Music Notes was correct. The issue in that discussion was whether it was reliable enough to speak to the recorded version of the song but did not have any specific grievances with any of the information itself from Music Notes. What I'm pointing out is a bit of a different matter since it is evidence of demonstrably incorrect information that we are using rather than being correct information that comes from a source we aren't entirely confident in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_56#Musicnotes.com

It is likely quite evident that I am unfamiliar with the mechanisms of Wikipedia editing and thus do not feel that this is an issue I am fully-equipped to undertake. I merely have the knowledge necessary to bring forward this issue in hopes that it is able to be resolved, as I have seen a number of people confused as to why Wikipedia lists so many songs as incorrectly having such a high vocal range. My apologies if anything in my formatting or protocol is incorrect here, I was referred to take this issue here when my previous efforts of correcting this were not effective. Chukulem (talk) 19:44, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• 99.9999999999999% of sources ascribing vocal ranges to pop singers are bullshit. If you're not a classically trained singer then vocal range is almost always a matter of fans guessing. This is no exception. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:11, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

  This is partly true, but on the other hand it's unlikely that male pop singers are really singing in the soprano range without using falsetto. This is a commercial company, it's probably accurate enough for the melody of a song (in general—it could be in a different key or octave) but not more than that. (t · c) buidhe 23:55, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah the vast majority of sources talking about pop vocalists range are extremely generous with what they consider a correctly sung note (I myself am a classically trained singer but that's neither here nor there), but that's not actually the issue here with MusicNotes. They correctly transcribe the vocal melody, the issue is that they notate it in the treble clef an octave above where the male is singing (rather than using the treble clef with an 8 underneath that indicates the pitch is to be performed an octave lower than written, which is the clef generally used for tenors in choral writing or often for guitar). The melody itself is correctly transcribed, just it is notated incorrectly designating the pitch as being an octave higher than it actually is. This leads to Wikipedia articles such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shut_Up_and_Dance_(Walk_the_Moon_song)#Composition_and_lyrics stating that the male singer reaches an F6 (A perfect 4th above soprano C) which is very obviously incorrect. This issue is evident in all 28 Wikipedia articles I listed in my previously linked discussion, and I grabbed those links after a cursory glance so I am certain this issue is present in many more song articles across Wikipedia. Chukulem (talk) 02:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Yep, it's definitely an extraordinary claim that a male singer hits F6. This is also the sort of intricate detail that isn't likely to belong in an article (opera makes a big deal over high notes, pop music not so much). (t · c) buidhe 04:46, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Per Buidhe, even if scrupulously referenced, this is the sort of WP:TRIVIA that likely is not necessary in the articles in question. Being well referenced is a necessary but not sufficient condition for inclusion of some fact. Merely being verifiable and true is not enough, there also needs to be consensus that the fact is relevant to the narrative, and not some trivial detail that is unnecessary. I would say that the specific notes hit during a particular song ventures into the "trivial" category, and should not normally be included even if it were well referenced. --Jayron32 14:35, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

So would the proposed solution then be to delete the incorrect ranges entirely, to correct those ranges, or to get rid of the vocal range sections across all song articles? Chukulem (talk) 18:42, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Also is it worth noting that I have reached out to MusicNotes to correct the issue and they have responded saying they'll forward the feedback and propose either acknowledging the issue or making an amendment to their vocal range listing? It is unlikely they would be able to change their system quickly but it would give us reliably correct information to help fix the errors if they actually do change it. Chukulem (talk) 20:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Sources about Pokemon

I want to create an article about Sirfetch'd, but I'm not sure where to start. Can someone help me out? UB Blacephalon (talk) 02:06, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Articles on Pokemon species generally should not be created unless there is evidence of independent notability separate from Pokemon itself, like real world coverage of the specific pokemon that is independent from Nintendo/GameFreak. The vast majority of Pokemon species do not pass Wikipedia's notability guidelines, and I think it is unlikely Sirfetch'd passes. With 47 entries Category:Pokémon species is arguably due for an AfD wave. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:47, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Wasn't sirfetch'd a long awaited evolution that was rumored in Gen 2? Or the fact that its in Pokemon go, or even its reveal video getting tons of reactions? I'm sure I can find something. I just.....don't know what to look for. UB Blacephalon (talk) 02:52, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

This is not a place to ask where you can look for sources. But wp:rs might give you some idea about what is and is not acceptable, as would wp:rsp.Slatersteven (talk) 13:37, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes fans have been clamouring for an evolution to everyones favorite leek/onion wielding duck for a long time. But it is unlikely to have been specifically called out even in videogame-specific media. Your best bet is to take a look at the wikiproject:videogaming list of sources here, then do a search to see if they have any articles that specifically focus on it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:01, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

This is probably what I needed to do my Sirfetch'd article on. So if I look up Sirfetch'd and any of those sites appear, I can use them in my article? That really helps! UB Blacephalon (talk) 15:52, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Chuck Hill's blog

Some contributors demand a blanket blacklisting of any online publication that includes "blog" in its title - even highly respected online publications like SCOTUSBLOG. While I agree we shouldn't use online publications written by non-notable people, or non-notable organizations - over 99 percent of blogs shouldn't be used. But I think we shouldn't be blinded by these so we exclude using the tiny fraction of things called blogs that do merit being considered reliable sources.

Scotusblog should be an open and shut case. Journalists from respected print publications assigned to report on the SCOTUS, the US Supreme Court, routinely cite SCOTUSBLOG, and defer to the opinions voiced there.

IMO Chuck Hill's blog falls into less than one percent fraction of things called blogs that should not be dismissed because it is called a blog.

Hill is a retired USCG officer who comments on maritime, naval and military matters. This Coast Guard page, full of related links, links to his blog. [69]

This September 2020 article from the US Naval Institute Proceedings cites his blog. [70]

The Center for International Maritime Security has published Hill. Their author's biography of him said [71]:

Chuck retired from the Coast Guard after 22 years service. Assignments included four ships, Rescue Coordination Center New Orleans, CG HQ, Fleet Training Group San Diego, Naval War College, and Maritime Defense Zone Pacific/Pacific Area Ops/Readiness/Plans. Along the way he became the first Coast Guard officer to complete the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) course and also completed the Naval Control of Shipping course. He has had a life-long interest in naval ships and history. Chuck writes for his blog, Chuck Hill’s CG blog.

Does this respect shown his blog by RS mean we should consider it generally reliable? Geo Swan (talk) 16:23, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• What is this source being cited for and which user said you are not supposed to cite it? It depends a lot on what it is cited for. There are certainly some reliable blogs, such as Lawfare and Verfassungsblog, although most of them are published in cooperation with a university or other well-respected institution. (t · c) buidhe 17:41, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• Yesterday and today I cited one of his articles in XM1204 (HEAB-T) and XM1203 (APFSDS-T)

Chuck Hill (2019-04-21). "50mm Chain Gun, More Detail". Chuck Hill's blog. Archived from the original on 2020-10-23. Retrieved 2020-10-23. Comparison of 50mm Bushmaster III with the 30mm Bushmaster II. By comparison the 25mm's length over all is 105.2 in (2.672 m) and its barrel length is 85.6 in (2.175 m).

The two articles are about new advanced munitions for a 50mm version of the US military's widely used 25mm M242 Bushmaster autocannon.

I've used articles he wrote about half a dozen times over the last three or four years. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?target=https%3A%2F%2Fchuckhillscgblog.net&title=Special%3ALinkSearch Geo Swan (talk) 22:44, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• No one challenged this particular non-blog blog, but I see other contributors denounce non-blog blogs pretty regularly. Geo Swan (talk) 00:45, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Chuck Hill is pointing to another blog with power point slides from 2014, the Bushmaster III#50 mm version. The first XM913 was unveiled October, 2019. Sure they are the same length? fiveby(zero) 02:32, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• Fiveby, clarification please, your comment here isn't intended to be about whether or not Chuck Hill should be considered an RS, correct? Aren't you making a comment that would best belong on the talk page of the relevant article, possibly Talk:Bushmaster III?

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 18:19, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, sort of related to reliability, was just following links from the blog. The Bushmaster III/50 was first demoed in 2014, Chuck Hill points to the other blog w/ a power point slide and dimensions and from that year. The XM913 was first shown in 2019, i see blog comments saying the XM913 is the Bushmaster III, but more reliable sources say it is based on the Bushmaster III. I have no idea myself, guess you just have to trust Chuck Hill. By the way, the dimensions in the power point slide are given in inches, you added as cm to the two articles. fiveby(zero) 23:33, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Okay, if there are no further replies I am going to consider Hill's articles on maritime, naval and military topics to be generally reliable, given his experience, and that what he writes seems consistent with other RS. Geo Swan (talk) 00:16, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Are Las Vegas Weekly and Uproxx acceptable sources to confirm Alexis Texas co-hosted the AVN Awards?

• Mancini, Vince (27 January 2015), "'I Have A Lot Of Tricks, But I'm Not Your Dog': An Interview With AVN Awards Co-Host Alexis Texas", Uproxx, retrieved 22 October 2020, Before she started working in porn in 2007, Alexis Texas grew up in Texas. ... As if to confirm that she's attained a level of pornstardom reserved for only the super elite, Texas was named co-host of the 2015 AVN Awards.

Is Uproxx an acceptable source to use, to confirm that Alexis Texas co-hosted the 2015 AVN Awards?

Thank you, Right cite (talk) 16:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

It’s a rather unexceptional claim so the bar is a bit lower. Has another editor contested its use? Glee^anon 17:10, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

@Gleeanon409:Yes. Removed. Twice. One and Two. Right cite (talk) 17:11, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

There is a LOT more contested there than the reliability of the source. Indeed, neither of those removals are about the reliability of sources. It's important to remember that verifiability is only ONE of the criteria for including information in a Wikipedia article. Having a reliable source is a necessary, but not sufficient reason to include text in an article. It must also be text which is relevant and not excessively trivial or WP:UNDUE. Now, I'm not saying one side or the other is right or wrong here, but what I am saying is that the person who is contesting your additions to that article is not doing so based on the reliability of the source material, but they are contesting the information being added on other grounds. You would do well to address their concerns directly, and not ignore them. You may very well be right in this dispute (and saying that doesn't mean you are. I leave open an equal probability you are wrong). What I am saying is that redirecting criticism and addressing objections that were not made, while ignoring objections that were made, are not a good look. --Jayron32 17:20, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you. But the user is also ignoring these sources. Right cite (talk) 17:22, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Look. The user is saying that the material you are adding is either irrelevant to the biography or overly promotional in nature. I'm not saying they are right. I'm saying that is a matter you should address on the article talk page, and if you can't come to an agreement with that particular person, seek dispute resolution per WP:DR. By focusing on the reliability of the sources, you're missing the main point they are trying to make. Again, not saying they are in the right. Just saying you aren't addressing the concerns. --Jayron32 17:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

We both agree we want to use reliable sources and the user had removed the entire lede based on that. Twice. So that's why I was seeking out input from previously uninvolved third party editors. Thank you. Right cite (talk) 17:26, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

It looks reliable enough for this purpose. I can find no evidence that Uproxx has fabricated stories or interviews in the past. It seems as reliable as any other entertainment news website. Furthermore, wouldn't the actual awards show serve as its own source for who hosted it? That seems like a clear WP:ABOUTSELF sort of thing; if the awards show itself was publicly available, (broadcast) it qualifies as a public source, and the video of her actually hosting the show should be sufficient for the claim that she actually hosted the show. --Jayron32 17:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

---

• "Porn Convention: AVN Fan Awards Voting, AEE Talent Lineup and More", Las Vegas Weekly, 5 December 2014, retrieved 23 October 2020, AVN also recently announced that comedienne and actress Danielle Stewart would be joining AVN Awards co-hosts Alexis Texas and Tommy Pistol as the awards show's comedic co-host.

---

• @Gleeanon409 and Jayron32:What about in addition to Uproxx, we also have this cite, Las Vegas Weekly. Can we use those 2 citations in the article 'Alexis Texas to state the fact that she co-hosted the 2015 AVN Awards? Right cite (talk) 17:17, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Definitely. Glee^anon 17:21, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Gleeanon409 and Jayron32:So can we keep the fact that Alexis Texas co-hosted the 2015 AVN Awards in the article -- backed up to the 2 citations to Las Vegas Weekly and Uproxx? Right cite (talk) 17:23, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  The sources are clearly reliable enough for this sort of unexceptional claim; Uproxx and Las Vegas Weekly are unlikely to be lying about this, Also, an actress in the industry co-hosting an industry awards show clearly passes WP:WEIGHT. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:47, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Guy Macon:, thank you. If you feel that "an actress in the industry co-hosting an industry awards show clearly passes WP:WEIGHT" -- can that be mentioned in the lede? Right cite (talk) 22:51, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  Do you mean just saying that she cohosted the show in the lead?[72] Because we don't put our reasons for including things in the article. That's for the talk page.

  I have no opinion about whether it belongs in the lead[73] or later in the body. I don't know enough. I don't know whether AVN is a big deal like the Academy Awards or whether it is more like the Golden Reel Awards. And how much screen time does a co-host get? Sorry, but you will have to ask someone who is more familiar with the subject. (I actually have "worked in the porn industry" but only in the sense of "one time I showed up on the set after the actors had gone home and fixed an annoying buzz in the audio recording system"...) --Guy Macon (talk) 23:39, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Guy Macon:Okay thank you very much, I really appreciate your time and thought here. And by lede I was more referring to WP:LEDE. What do you think after reading the intro of AVN Awards -- they are called the "Oscars" of their industry -- notable enough to include in the lead / lede / intro of the article for Alexis Texas? Right cite (talk) 01:03, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

  I am still going to leave it to editors who are interested in this topic. I find it about as interesting as I would find an awards show that is "the Oscars of forklift driving". ( I tried to get into pornography, but I couldn't find anyone who would sell me a pornograph... ) --Guy Macon (talk) 04:39, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Is this peer reviewed paper sufficient to say that M269 originated on the Pontic-Caspian steppe?

User:Peleio Aquiles changed R-M269 by replacing its origin (Neolithic Expansion) with Pontic-Caspian steppe. This is mentioned nowhere in the article, he didn't source it or leave an edit summary although he later said he did it on his mobile and had planned to source it later. I went to his page and having seen that he'd already had an argument with User:Drmies about sourcing, so told him it was a bad idea to continue not to source. He exploded there, which doesn't matter, but then went to Talk:Haplogroup R-M269#Administrator insists on owning the entry despite not understanding the subject saying he wasn't going to edit the article again, claimed that Neolithic expansion wasn't sourced (it is, in the lead) but at least helpfully giving this article as a source.[74]. My problem is that looking at that source, it only mentions M269 twice - it does however say " all 7 Yamnaya males did belong to the M269 subclade". And of course the Yamnaya were a steppe tribe. But this is just a bit of data in the article and not in the results, which do however start with "Our results support a view of European pre-history punctuated by two major migrations: first, the arrival of the first farmers during the Early Neolithic from the Near East, and second, the arrival of Yamnaya pastoralists during the Late Neolithic from the steppe." But the article is not about R-M269. Oops, dinner's almost ready, this[75] might help. As he also went to Talk:Haplogroup R1b#Administrator insists on keeping outdated theses in an article on R-M269 to complain and an editor responded, I'll invite User:GenQuest to see if he has any insights. Doug Weller talk 17:07, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Many papers since then have demonstrated that R-M269 is a mark of descent from the Pontic-Caspian steppe peoples, who only spread throughout Europe in the Bronze Age, bringing the Indo-European languages along. This is not a particularly new find - it has become common knowledge in the field of population genetics for several years now. Haak 2015 was the first paper to publish the now widely known fact that Yamnaya men overwhelmingly belonged to haplogroup R-M269, that R1b could hardly be found in Europe prior to the Bronze Age, and that most European R1b today is a result of these Bronze Age, Indo-European expansions. The Neolithic expansion, instead, is linked to haplogroup G2a. You're aggressively misinformed for someone for so aggressively ignorant of this subject. I'm again on my cell phone, so it would be tiring to look for, copy, and paste all of the DOZENS of articles now linking R-M269 to the Pontic-Caspian steppe. But I did direct you to look in other pertinent Wikipedia entries, namely R1b and Yamnaya, as they contain the information I passed on to you and are richly sourced. Peleio Aquiles (talk) 17:48, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Care to give some examples of these papers?Slatersteven (talk) 17:50, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

They vary. Looking at the Yamnaya culture article [76] says" R1b-M269 [12], which is carried at high frequency into Northern Europe by the Late Neolithic/Bronze Age steppe migrations". This one[77] uses Haak et al to say "each Bronze Age sample (all male) exhibits the Bronze Age-associated Y chromosome lineage R1b-M269, the appearance of which has been strongly linked with Steppe incursion into Central Europe." That's more promising. But Haplogroup R1b seems to only use Haak as source (hardly richly sourced for the origin issue), and a quick search turns up a paper published about the same time as Haak[78] - and doesn't seem to agree, but I'll let others take a look. I have no more time tonight, there may be more stuff on the Yamnaya article. Doug Weller talk 18:30, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• Linking of archaeological culture (a categorization of material goods and cultural practices) with the origins of a haplogroup is itself fringe and needs strong sources and an editorial distance, especially based on seven individuals. GPinkerton (talk) 18:41, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
• I think it is incumbent upon Peleio Aquiles to calmly show links to documents indicating such a change is due. Please AGF. Additional RS are needed for a disputed change of this nature. I don't want to come across as being obstructionist or elitist here, and I don't believe other editor(s), whether admins or not, are either; but the onus of providing verifiable, indisputable proof is on the editor adding the additional or changed information. A reference to one paper alone does not justify this kind of a change, in my mind. Especially if articles with conflicting information exist. This field is rapidly changing, and confirmation of breakthroughs is lagging behind initial announcements, so caution is indeed called for where RS is concerned. This can be done, even using a cell phone to edit if must be. Unfortunately, because we are tied to 'reporting the reports' of such information (secondary sourcing), Wikipedia is not set up for dispensing the "cutting-edge" knowledge in articles involving many fast-changing fields, especially in the sciences, genome-based genetic research being one of them. Sometimes patience is called for. When enough sources of such new information become available to override previous scientific consensus, then those changes will be made to a wiki-article. If PA has knowledge of such sources existing now, I humbly ask that he point us to them so we can add that information to our knowledge-base and update the article, and then we can all move on. Regards, GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 18:10, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

GCatholic.org

What is the reliability of GCatholic.org? There are a lot of citations to it, supporting articles of bishops and things. The Wikipedia page itself has recently been deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GCatholic.org. GPinkerton (talk) 00:02, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

so, here's the text from the recently deleted article on GCatholic:

GCatholic.org is an nonprofit organization the provides comprehensive information about the Catholic Church[2][3][4] via its online database of bishops and dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Catholic Churches. The website is not officially sanctioned by the Church. It is run as a private project by Gabriel Chow, journalist for Salt + Light Television, in Toronto. It also provides information about the performance of the Catholic Church itself in different countries and territories and provides biographical information on current and former bishops of each diocese, such as dates of birth, ordination, and (where applicable) death. When created, the site name was Giga-Catholic Information due to the fact that there are around 1 billion Catholics in the world (billion = giga).[5] It is used as a source for information on Catholic bishops and diocese, current and historical, by various news organizations[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and authors.

Personal site, but used as a source by outlets listed: a couple of Catholic news sites, various small mainstream news sites. So I dunno. Is the info actually pretty solid? - David Gerard (talk) 00:07, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• I don't think it would be good enough for BLP; no opinion otherwise. (t · c) buidhe 00:59, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable in view of the many news organisations that use it. There needs to be evidence of unreliability imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:21, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Tapology

I couldn't find a definitive list of reliable sources for MMA on Wikipedia and I was wondering if https://www.tapology.com is considered one. It seems to have a vast database of fighters and stats seem very up to date they have the last weigh in info of almost fighter.

Not usable as a source on Wikipedia, because [79] says:

"Directly Posting Fighter and Event Info"

"Can I edit the fighter or event info in Tapology's database?"

"MMA fighters, gym owners, and promoters can claim their page and directly manage their information on Tapology. Visit the Info Management page for more information."

So, if indeed the person doing the editing is who they claim they are, it would be like a blog or personal web page, so WP:ABOUTSELF would apply. Alas, we don't know how tapology verifies identity, so we need to apply WP:SPS instead.

That being said, sites like these tend to get the facts straight, simply because when they don't multiple readers report the errors. So you as a Wikipedia editor can start with tapology, then look for reliable sources. The particular tapology page might even list a reliable source. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:54, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable per the above. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The Von Pip Musical Express

The Von Pip Musical Express is a long-running music blog that features news and reviews, as well as interviews with many notable bands. Several of the interviews are already used in many of our articles. The site and its founder has been featured in several mainstream sources, such as The Guardian and the BBC. According to the site itself, it "has been voted in the BT Digital Music awards top ten music blogs and nominated in the Record of the Day Journalism and PR music awards, being named as runner up in 2009. Andy was also a member of 'The BBC’s Sound Of 2010 taste-makers panel' and has had press accreditation for numerous gigs and festivals including Liverpool Sound City , The Great Escape And Glastonbury." I'm unfamiliar with the site and more used to working with more mainstream sources. I'm particularly interested in opinions on its use for:

• News
• Reviews
• Interviews

It seems to me that using the site for news and other facts might be a problem owing to the lack of editorial oversight, and the founder might not be quite notable enough as a critic to feature his reviews, whereas we may have more leeway with the interviews. Thanks for any and all advice given. Steve ^T • C 12:16, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable -- @Steve: I concur that this one should not be used. Blogs are concerning as sources and generally unreliable. The exception to this is if The Guardian or the BBC uses them...we can cite and quote their articles as there is reputable editorial oversight. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:12, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Genocide Watch: Unreliable source?

On the Talk page of 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, some members raised concerns about the reliability of the NGO Genocide Watch. In response, sources were provided to highlight the reliability of this NGO. There were as well comments made about it being "minor" and hence not reliable, which to my reading is irrelevant as size of an entity should not have a bearing whether its claims are reliable or not. However, even the size question has been answered. Here is key part of the comment I made which for me adequately answers the concerns. Happy to hear more from the community (tagging @Armatura:, @Գարիկ Ավագյան:, @Rosguill: please tag others as you see fit)

• Even if for a moment we accept that "too minor" organizations cannot be cited in this article, GW is not a minor organization. It is not only a member of the Alliance Against Genocide which includes more than 60 International NGOs but also their Chair. As to its credibility, here are sources in the Guardian (1, 2 and 3) and CNN (1 and 2) quoting Genocide Watch with one going back to 2002. NOTE: the cited topics are NOT related to the NK conflict. --Sataralynd (talk) 20:16, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Having read through the list of organizations affiliated with the Alliance Against Genocide, I'm not sure that's a strong indication of reliability. The participation of groups like Knights of Columbus, Armenian National Committee of America, and Christian Solidarity International give the impression that the coalition is a political coalition rather than a scholarly endeavor. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:39, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill:With all respect, but again a personal opinion but so far not even a single reference on a reliable third party source that would criticise Genocide Watch as "political" or "unreliable". And if singling out the above-mentioned affiliated organizations had the aim for claiming a pro-Christian bias, then seeing affiliated organizations for protecting Muslims from genocide like "Arakan Rohingya Union (US, UK, Myanmar)", "Burmese Rohingya Organization UK Free Rohingya Coalition (UK, US, Canada, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia, South Africa, Japan", "International Campaign for the Rohingya (US)" , should take any such thoughts away for a neutral reader.

I don't think they have a Christian bias, but these specific groups give me pause. Christian Solidarity International has a reputation for myopia and exaggeration when it comes to human rights, an Armenian political committee is hardly an impartial party to coverage of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Knights of Columbus is literally named for someone who presided over a genocide. The inclusion of Rohingya and Darfur groups in the coalition suggests to me that this is a political coalition comprising various organizations that claim to represent groups harmed by genocides, and NGOs that recognize those specific genocides as having happened. Their causes may be noble, but this doesn't automatically establish a reputation for reliability. As for the extent to which this is my opinion, this pair of comments are intended as a rebuttal to the implied argument that being a member of the Alliance Against Genocide is a sign of reliability. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 05:29, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• Genocide watch is a major NGO and they are immensely respected and looked up to in the human rights space, however like with most NGOs I would strongly advise attribution. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:52, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• I will cite Wikipedia itself to demonstrate the source credibility. "Genocide Watch, founded in 1999, is an NGO campaigning against genocide based in Washington, D.C. It is the Chair and Coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide, which includes 70 organizations in 24 countries, including the Minority Rights Group, the International Crisis Group, the Aegis Trust, and Survival International. Its board of advisers includes former commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda Roméo Dallaire, former Nuremberg Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz, and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Stanton#Genocide_Watch It is a large international organization which is neither Armenian nor Azeri, I don't see the logic of reverting it as "POV", "insignificant" and "redundant". I think it should stay. I am inviting the editors of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Stanton#Genocide_Watch to kindly provide their opinions @Eurofan88:, @Mr.User200:, @Tobby72:, @GevHev4:, @MarshallBagramyan:,@Ymblanter:, @Eggishorn:, @Expertwikiguy:, @Kentronhayastan:, @MarioLemieux999:, @Jackyd101:, @Hibernian:, @Mark Arsten:, @Omnipaedista:, @ZappaOMatic:, @Fa suisse:. Best regards, Armatura (talk) 22:13, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• Samuel Totten in his article in Genocide at the Millennium (Routledge, 2017) includes Genocide Watch in a list of twelve major NGOs that address genocide. So I would see them as reliable and their opinions significant. Bear in mind that no source is perfect but it there are specific claims or opinions they publish that someone wants to question, they need to do this by comparing their specific statements with what similar groups say. TFD (talk) 22:47, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• You only need to read the article to see how unreliable and biased this source is. It starts off the article about Karabakh with how Armenians were ethnically cleansed by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in early 20th century and even mentions September Days but says zero words about March Days and fails to mention at least one of the many ethnic cleansings done towards Azeri populations of that time (e.g. ethnic cleansings of Andranik). It goes on to give place for the Stepanakert shelling, yet says absolutely nothing about anything done towards Azeris (massacres, forced deportations and etc.). It goes on to give a level 9 and 10 genocide warning.. based on what? It mentions Azerbaijan shelling civilians, which it correctly points out is against Geneva conventions.. but says literally nothing about bombing of Azeri cities, like Ganja, where 26 people died in one night? Not even going to mention the fact that Azerbaijan currently has 25 more civilian deaths and almost 200 more injured civilians than Armenia? It even proposes embargo on Azerbaijan but nothing for Armenia. This source is obviously biased towards the Armenian side. And no, just because Guardian cited it one time, doesn't make everything they have published reliable and Non-POV. — CuriousGolden (talk·contrib) 06:46, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Beshogur: ; @Solavirum: ; @Geysirhead: You might be interested.

@CuriousGolden:As I said before, this discussion is not about the content. In other words, The discussion ideally shouldn't mention Azerbaijan or Armenia. The sources provided above in CNN and Guardian don't mention NK. This thread was opened because you raised concerns about the reliability of GW, and you have to provide third party sources and not just your opinion, that put that reliability under question. Just because GW is condemning the action of one side, it doesn't automatically make it unreliable. Reliability is not earned by blaming both sides. That's not how it works. Please answer to the first comment on this thread, and I would advise strongly to tag people from only one side of a particular issue. As @Solavirum: rightly points out WP:NOTADEMOCRACY--Sataralynd (talk) 14:18, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not here to discuss the overall reliability of GW as a whole. My concern was about the specific article put out by GW, which is clearly biased. — CuriousGolden (talk·contrib) 14:45, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I hope CuriousGolden and everybody here agrees that "the specific article put out by GW is clearly biased" is an opinion, point of view / allegation / claim but not a fact, . Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of facts, not user opinions. If one just doesn't like some piece of information, it does not mean that it should be erased from WP. And for facts, one has to provide published third party sources. Best regards Armatura (talk) 15:35, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Genocide Watch is as reliable as it can get and I’m quite surprised that it has even been brought to this board. For one, it’s cited by a plethora of scholarly works. This increases its reliability substantially. Also, this seems to be contested by one user here who has made no attempt to provide any professional or academic critique of the GW. Instead, we just hear WP:JDLI remarks and a total rejection of basic WP:RS criteria that helps us determine whether or not this source is reliable. Étienne Dolet (talk) 09:11, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Amnesty International...."Genocide Watch’s intentions for predicting, preventing, stopping, and punishing genocide and other forms of mass murder are admirable. But the tool they use to advance this work – the Ten Stages of Genocide – is thin on transparency.".--Moxy 🍁 14:41, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Moxy: could you provide a link for this? I couldn't find anything online from Amnesty--Sataralynd (talk) 04:36, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Eight stages of genocide, Scholar lists some citations. fiveby(zero) 14:59, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• It is certainly an influential site, and can be cited for its attributed opinion where WP:DUE. However, I've personally found incorrect or outdated facts on the website and would be hesitant to rely on it if I couldn't confirm the information. Stanton is often cited in media for his opinions on some or another man-made tragic event, and its probably better to use such quotes than cite the website directly because it shows that a secondary source considers them relevant. (t · c) buidhe 18:52, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

  I think that given the measured criticism from Amnesty International and the source's nature as an advocacy group, we should be careful about using it as a source for an ongoing conflict. If we use it, should be used in a paragraph alongside other advocacy groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc. I'm skeptical of directly stating claims about their 8 stages or 10 stages methodology, as the framework is not familiar to most readers and is better paraphrased as a description that doesn't mention the stages (e.g. instead of saying that they're at Stage 10 – Denial, we'd say that according to Genocide Watch, Azerbaijan actively denies past genocidal acts). Glancing at AI and HRW's coverage, AI is currently criticizing both Armenia and Azerbaijan for the use of cluster munitions and targeting civilians ([80], [81]) and HRW is primarily criticizing Azerbaijan for the same ([82]). Neither of them has mentioned genocide yet in its coverage. Given that Genocide Watch appears to be the only organization raising the specter of genocide at this moment, it's probably not due to include the accusation that Azerbaijan is in the process of committing a genocide, but may be due to paraphrase GW's contribution as being a condemnation of Azerbaijan's actions exclusively as part of a longer paragraph surveying these organizations' perspectives, with more weight given if secondary sources cite their opinions. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:08, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: Do you have the link where AI is criticizing GW? I couldn't find anything online--Sataralynd (talk) 04:36, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Rosguill: As a matter of fact, AI does not confirm use of cluster munition by Armenia in the provided links. It is not only Genocide Watch that uses the word Genocide, but also Armenian Government . Genocide Watch being an advocacy group, it is natural that it would be the first organization to find the courage to call things by their names, while others are being slow with their definitions. As of the staging classification of Genocide Watch, adding their whole classification system to " 2020 NK conflict" article would perhaps make it too long, users are able to find it on website if they follow the citation link. Whats stage 9 and stage 10 mean I explained in situ. Putting statements from other advocacy groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc. along the statetement of GW, under the section Humanitarian Organisations, would make sense and be reader-friendly, but this is a discussion for talk page already Armatura (talk) 20:07, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

  It makes perfect sense for a watchdog to be on the vanguard of raising concern about potential genocide. That doesn't mean that we should be rushing to use them the moment they release a report. It is Genocide Watch's job to warn about things before they happen; it is our job as Wikipedia to report things only after they can be verified. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:32, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

  @Rosguill: Thank you for agreeing about the standard role of a watchdog organisation. However, they do not use the word "potential". And, their statement about Artsakh does not state "before it happens" but that it genocide is "already happening", there is a big difference. Hence I see no point in delaying the addition to WP, as delays in condemnation of genocide serve the purposes of genocide. Anyway, we drifted away a bit from the subject - the credibility of Genocide Watch, and I am glad to see that the consensus so far sees no issues with it. Armatura (talk) 21:29, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

  The problem people in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict talk page had was about the specific article about Karabakh that GW published and its inclusion still seems to be contested by several editors here. Speculation about such a serious thing as genocide without any valid proof has no place in a Wiki article. You mentioned that it doesn't speculate for the future, but is saying that it is happening, which is even more absurd. So far there are 25 more Azeri civilian deaths and 197 more Azeri civilians injured than Armenians. To claim that this is a genocide right now is clearly absurd and speculations about very serious things such as genocides in the future with no valid proof have no place in an article. — CuriousGolden (talk·contrib) 16:18, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@CuriousGolden: Injured civilians is always a tragedy, and I understand the emotions on both sides, but Wikipedia is not a place for emotions and not every tragedy is a genocide. Genocide has a clear definition and timeline (see the 10 stages on GW website), but this discussion is not about it. I can only see "this is absurd" and "that is absurd" kind of remarks in the comment above, clearly a POV in the category of WP:IJDLI, with no reference whatsoever to a reliable neutral source that would criticise GW as "absurd" or "unreliable" or "unilaterally biased" or "pro-Armenian" or "pro-Christian or "anti-Azerbaijani" or "anti-Muslim". Scrutinizing reliability of source on WP is fine, as long as it is based on reliable sources, not POVs and emotions and name-callings. Regards, Armatura (talk) 16:55, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Armatura: Exactly as you pointed out in your first 2 sentences, not all death of civilians is genocide as the GW portrays it to be. I provided reasons why I think it's absurd, instead of moving away from the points I've made, reply to them. The source gives no reason to why it gives it stage 9 and stage 10 assessment other than "yeah Azerbaijan has denied a massacre 100 years ago" and "Azerbaijan threw bombs at Stepanakert". As I stated in my points in the latest comment, which you ignored, Azerbaijan currently has 25 more civilian deaths than Armenia, so if GW is claiming that death of 40 civilians (on Armenian side) death is genocide, then yes, it is absurd.

@CuriousGolden: I don't work for GW. You are welcome to write directly GW and ask all your questions to them and cite their answer here. If you don't like GW and if you are an academic, write a scientific article (or find one who will write), publish your thoughts there and cite it against GW citation, no problem. If you find an organisation that would call Azerbaijani civilian losses in this conflict a genocide you are welcome to bring it to discussion as we are doing one for GW. If you want to keep something that you don't like away from Wikipedia just because you don't like it then, sorry, but it is not WP policy as I am sure you are well aware. If you have problem with WP rules, you are welcome to write WP admins to change the WP rules the way you like it. If I have not answered any of multiple questions of yours, it is because I am not obliged to answer all questions, especially if I (subjectively) sense anything provocative or abusive in them, as per WP rules. Best regards, Armatura (talk) 17:29, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Sataralynd, I was going off Moxy. Having done some research myself, it seems like that exact quote comes from an analysis piece in Africa Check [83], that both appears to be a reliable source in its own right and cites various academics. I'm a bit miffed that it wasn't from the source that I thought it was, but my impression of the source's usability remains the same: usable for attributed opinion alongside other human rights orgs, and better off paraphrased. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 05:33, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• No one disputes that Azerbaijan denies the Armenian genocide, but it's of questionable relevance on an article about a conflict more than a century later. (t · c) buidhe 19:23, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Buidhe: Genocide Watch has genocide emergency report specifically referring to this 2020 conflict in Artsakh https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/genocide-emergency-azerbaijan-s-attack-in-artsakh; we are not referring to century-old Armenian Genocide here (although in Armenia people view one as the continuation of the other, due to Turkey's involvement).Armatura (talk) 20:07, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• I've found that being an advocacy group generally means it may well be the first to hyperbolize any given event unfavorable to its goals. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 20:55, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@GenQuest: It is a personal research / opinion, though, and others may not share it, would you agree?. My personal (subjective) perception is that advocacy groups are the first to call things by their names, while the others (less passionate about the cause) are waking up and feeling the direction of wind. As long as Wikipedia allows citing Amnesty International, Humans Rights Watch and other humanitarian / advocacy groups, then there is no reason why Genocide Watch cannot be cited, will you agree? And nobody hides from the public that they are advocacy groups, hence it is up to the reader to have personal feelings towards a statement from advocacy group. Regards Armatura (talk) 21:09, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Summary: WP:NOTADEMOCRACY but nevertheless most of you think GW is as reliable as it could get. Again I reiterate, the intention of this forum is to determine whether GW is reliable or not, and nothing to do with the Nagorno Karabakh topic. However, a valued feedback is to paraphrase what they always claim without mentioning the stages. @Armatura: do you want to do the edit? If anyone else has anything to add on the topic of GW's reliability or not, please do so

References

newsarawaktribune.com.my

• https://www.newsarawaktribune.com.my/

This appears to be squatting on a site formerly belonging to New Sarawak Tribune which went out of publication circa 2006. I suspect it is a Wordpress blog, based on the site icon. They seem to reprint news wire items but add some local content which may be promoted or paid. Second opinions are sought. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:24, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bri: Looking at the page source confirms that it is a wordpress website. Is there any evidence that New Sarawak Tribune folded that you are aware of, Bri? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:16, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

See [84] ☆ Bri (talk) 00:18, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

GNews.org - deprecate?

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

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GNews.org is a site run by Guo Wengui. His Wiki article descibes him as a corrupt figure who is pals with Steve Bannon. His site has been used to spread COVID-19 disinformation (see Guo Wengui#GNews. This morning, some IPs have tried to add a BLP smear at Talk:Joe Biden and Talk:Hunter Biden (also at WP:RFPP now that the talk pages have been semiprotected) using gnews.org links. This site was briefly discussed here but no action was taken. I would like to see the source formally deprecated so that these links cannot be added, including to talk pages. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:28, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Not sure speedy depricate is a thing. Probably just start a normal RFC for it. PackMecEng (talk) 17:34, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, wasn't sure. I'll edit this to make it an RFC. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:07, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Support deprecation It takes some doing to get removed from YouTube on the basis of misinformation. Note, the website still calls it the "CCP Virus Pandemic" [https://gnews.org/452228/] (t · c) buidhe 18:24, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate extreme fringe source of no use to an encyclopaedia, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:39, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate as fringe.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:57, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Deprecate as fringe and a source of disinformation. That being said, @Muboshgu: WP:BLPCRIME applies to all editors on all pages... I believe you have a word beginning with c to redact. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:32, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Blacklist. GNews uses articles with titles such as "Who Did The 9.5-Inch-Penis Pierce Through?", and contains polemic such as the following excerpt written by the author "Gundam0078":

We apologize if this picture has caused you any serious discomfort! But it is for the sake of justice that we, the New Federal State of China, have made this picture public. Because the friends of the communist are our enemies.

We will not allow anyone to steal from the Chinese people!
We will not allow anyone to enslave the Chinese people!
We will not allow anyone to abuse our children!

This picture shows only the tip of the iceberg of what is important in the Chinese Communist Party’s Blue-Gold-Yellow (BGY) program. They take advantage of all those Western politicians, celebrities, and their families who are greedy for Chinese wealth, and threaten them by getting hold of and recording their sex and drug videos, forcing them to sell out their countries and people, and even their own national security in order to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party’s world domination.

Citing just about anything on GNews would constitute a violation of the living persons policy. There is no valid use case for this website, and it should be blacklisted. — Newslinger talk 07:56, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

It has come to my attention that, if GNews's unverified claims are correct, GNews may be hosting child pornography. Out of an abundance of caution, I have added GNews to the spam blacklist. See WT:SBL § gnews.org. — Newslinger talk 08:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Blacklist, per all the above. Glee^anon 08:12, 26 October 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.

John Cummings - yes, an unelected candidate, but he measures up o GNG

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

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This noticeboard isn't the right place to ask a question about notability. (t · c) buidhe 18:38, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Yipes! Senior moment! Cut and pasted to WP:BLPN#John_Cummings_-_yes,_an_unelected_candidate,_but_he_measures_up_to_GNG Geo Swan (talk) 19:16, 25 October 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.

Exclusion of reliable sources for expert treatises

China–United States trade war (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

There's been an ongoing dispute about an editor excluding general reader RSs and replacing them with only some non-U.S. sources and economics treatises. A discussion today about this can be read here. The following sources are included now in a replacement section:

• Guo, Meixin; Lu, Lin; Sheng, Liugang; Yu, Miaojie (2018). "The Day After Tomorrow: Evaluating the Burden of Trump's Trade War". Asian Economic Papers. 17 (1): 101–120. doi:10.1162/asep_a_00592.
• "What is the US-China trade war?". South China Morning Post. April 13, 2020. Retrieved August 16, 2020.
• Chong, Terence Tai-leung; Li, Xiaoyang (2019). "Understanding the China–US trade war: causes, economic impact, and the worst-case scenario". Economic and Political Studies. 7 (2). doi:10.1080/20954816.2019.1595328.
• Bekkers, Eddy; Schroeter, Sofia (February 26, 2020). "An Economic Analysis of the US-China Trade Conflict". World Trade Organization. Retrieved October 23, 2020.

Among the reliable sources deleted are those below. And along with those cites, the entire former "Background" section was also deleted. Any opinions on this replacement of generally acceptable sources with only a few selected expert economists would be helpful. All of the cites above and below also had links to the articles. Thanks.

• Friedman, Thomas. "The U.S. and China Are Finally Having It Out", New York Times, May 1, 2018
• "Normalizing Trade Relations With China Was a Mistake". The Atlantic. June 8, 2018.
• "President Grants Permanent Trade Status to China". www.whitehouse.archives.gov. December 27, 2001.
• "Background Information on China's Accession to the World Trade Organization", Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Dec. 11, 2001
• "China's end of certainty", The Age, Victoria, Australia, Sept. 28, 2000
• Shi Guangsheng. "China and the WTO - marching towards a new era", The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia) Sept. 13, 2000
• Clinton, Bill. "Full Text of Clinton's Speech on China Trade Bill", Federal News Service transcript, March 9, 2000
• Winn, Howard (November 7, 2005). "Accession has brought change to China and WTO". New York Times. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
• "President Donald J. Trump is Confronting China’s Unfair Trade Policies", White House, May 29, 2018
• "China will lower import tariffs on over 850 products from January 1, finance ministry says", CNBC, Dec. 22, 2019
• Blancher, Nicolas R.; Rumbaugh, Thomas (March 1, 2004). China: International Trade and WTO Accession. International Monetary Fund. ISBN 9781451845488.
• Halverson, Karen (May 1, 2004). "China's WTO Accession: Economic, Legal, and Political Implications". Boston College International and Comparative Law Review. 27 (2).
• "Task Force to Combat Trading Violations", Los Angeles Times, Sept. 16, 2003
• "US, China trade conflict was 20 years in the making", Washington Times, May 15, 2019
• "EU steps up WTO action against China’s forced technology transfers", European Commission, Dec. 20, 2018
• "Trump's tariffs: What they are and how they will work", Fox Business, July 9, 2018

Light show (talk) 01:52, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Light show has misrepresented the issue here. Light show has been arguing that Trump administration press releases and opinion columns by political commentators are reliable sources for factual claims about the US-China trade relationship. I have been arguing that any claim from the Trump administration or an opinion column needs in-line attribution, and that the background section of China–United States trade war should rely primarily on economics publications that summarize the trade war and news articles (not opinion pieces). I've explained this in detail at the article talk page, so it's disappointing to see Light show come here and misrepresent my argument. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

The sources cited look better than the ones they replaced. In addition, one should avoid citing sources published before the event as it indicates WP:OR. (t · c) buidhe 11:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Buidhe. Part of the reason there has been so much disagreement about NPOV and due weight in the background section is the repeated insertion of large passages based on sources that don't discuss the trade war. I'll also note that Fox News and the Washington Times are partisan sources with questionable reliability on this topic per WP:RSP. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:00, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Most government sources relating to trade wars are going to be of questionable use due to bias as they are created by parties to the conflict in question. For example, the source "EU steps up WTO action against China’s forced technology transfers" is written by the European Commission and isn't exactly a reliable source on whether China actually is doing forced technology transfers. Likewise with a White House speech, a page from the office of the US trade representative, and some of the other sources mentioned above. Newspapers based in the countries that are party to the conflict are also going to be biased. The SCMP, Fox Business, the New York Times, etc. They're not biased to the extent of a government source but they still have bias.

Another issue is that any opinion piece is valuable for opinion much more so than facts. People who write an opinion piece have a very strong incentive to present the facts in a light most favourable to them. Oftentimes when there's a dispute over facts, opinion pieces will present the facts as definitively true or not true when the reality is that the facts are disputed. The "Normalizing Trade Relations With China Was a Mistake" article from the Atlantic flatly states that "Beijing chose to transfer wealth from ordinary Chinese citizens to its politically powerful export sector". This statement would be almost certainly disputed by the Chinese government and using that piece to support the claim that "China has transferred wealth from ordinary citizens to the export sector as a result of PNTR" would be wrongheaded, as an example. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 03:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

cinephiliabeyond.org/

Fantastic website with lots of great in-depth info about films but...is it reliable? It has an about and press section, seems pretty legit but I need to know before I use it in an FA. Thanks Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:28, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Album of the Year

There's some disagreement about the reliability of this source over at WikiProject Albums, so I thought it would be useful to get a consensus on it over here. It is being used across quite a few album articles as a source of review aggregation. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 00:25, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Definitely a WP:SPS, and thus not usable. From the FAQ on that site:

Frequently Asked Questions

Why aren't my ratings showing up on an album page and why don't they have an effect on the overall score?

The most likely reasons are:

You rated an album that isn't available yet. (i.e. it hasn't leaked, it isn't streaming, etc.)

You have multiple accounts

Creating multiple accounts for the sole purpose of gaming the overall user score is not allowed. Once these ::accounts are discovered, the ratings will be removed and the account will be banned from participating on the ::site.

--Guy Macon (talk) 01:01, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

^ That section of the FAQ refers to the "user score" found on every album page—the registered users rating an album. This has nothing to do with the "Critic score", which is calculated using professional ratings. I'm not gonna vote either way, but I thought I'd point this out. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 02:39, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Comment: I believe this source is reliable in the way it is used, since only the critic score is cited on articles. --K. Peake 07:26, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

No. A count of what critics say is, in general, something we allow in film articles, but the count has to be in a reliable source, not a self-published source. There are two major reasons for this:

First, how was it decided which critics to count?

Second, how do you know that the count wasn't just made up out of whole cloth?

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:22, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable they even consider unreliable self-publications such as The Young Folks and Fantano. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 12:21, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Fanatano is the world's most prominent contemporary music critic, as evidenced by multiple profiles in notable publications. Fantano arguably satisfies the "subject matter expert" criterion. Whether Fantano should be considered a notable enough music critic to be included in an average score alongside professional music publications like Pitchfork is a due weight question, not a reliability one. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:25, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable. The site was previously discussed at WT:ALBUMS in August 2019 and February 2020 (after it had been added to the Album ratings template), but no consensus was established for its usage and the editors' concerns were not addressed. AOTY fails to meet Wikipedia's standards for notability and verifiability. One of the first pages I looked at included a user review from the website sputnikmusic among the professional reviews. There's no way of ascertaining the site's level of editorial oversight; nothing in the way of a list of staff, anyway; and users can generate the content they wish, meaning only super-high (or -low) professional review ratings might appear. It's a hobbyist's site, not a professional reviews aggregator. Album of the Year appears to have received nothing in the way of significant recognition from third-party sources, as say, Metacritic does; barely any recognition at all, in fact. I've just proposed our article on the site for deletion, for the same reason. Thanks to Torchiest for bringing this here, btw. JG66 (talk) 17:19, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: as I stated in the other thread, a big problem with this site compared with other aggregator sites is that it has no minimum number of reviews in order to create an overall score, and in some cases it's only based on a single review, which of course then makes it useless as an "average score". It then falls to Wikipedia editors to decide how many reviews are enough to make a reasonable average, and I don't believe we should be doing this, it would be WP:OR. Richard3120 (talk) 17:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable because users can change the data. Binksternet (talk) 19:04, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable as per all of the above. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 21:22, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable per the above. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:19, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable - per my comments at past discussions. Sergecross73 msg me 23:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
• Unreliable per comments above – zmbro _(talk) 23:38, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Trifkovic, Srdjan

Book of Trifkovic Srdjan, "The Krajina Chronicle: A History of Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies"[85]. According to WP:FTN comment (here[86]) there is an opinion that this book is not RS (if I understood correctly), so I'm interested in what you think about that source. According to editor @Fiveby: "Trifkovic is executive director of the foundation which published his work". Mikola22 (talk) 11:59, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

To expand a bit, the publisher, Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies is obviously not reliable. Their blog has posts from Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, Thomas Fleming, RTTV, Diana Johnstone, Rodney Atkinson, Scott Taylor, Strategic Culture Foundation contributors Anna Filimonova and Stephen Karganovic, James Bissett. The author Srđa Trifković is executive director.. I think it is safe to say the publisher has an agenda. Trifković does cite another work for the text in question, it's the catalog (sh:Tradicionalna kultura Srba) of an exhibition by the Ethnographic Museum, Belgrade, documenting the centuries-old existence and culture of Serbs in Croatia according to the SH article. fiveby(zero) 14:05, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Fiveby:, his source is found in some other articles as a source of informations. If that source is not RS then all that informations must go from the articles. Mikola22 (talk) 14:58, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The Krajina Chronicle is used in other articles? Anything published by Lord Byron Foundation should not be used for statements of fact anywhere on Wikipedia. That does not mean the article text must be immediately removed (see WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM), but this source definitely should be removed. fiveby(zero) 15:21, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• No good for this article, no good in general. The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies is an extremist group without two pennies to scratch together of academic merit. WP:FRINGE WP:NONAZIS etc. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Mikola22 (talk) 16:23, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Infoteka24.ru

A couple of days ago I came across Russian news site Infoteka24.ru. While its bottom shows the website's placement in some external ratings (e.g. Rambler Top 100 and Yandex Webmaster), the content's reliability looks dubious, in addition to evident Armenian bias. E.g. they use some Twitter account named notwoofers for the claim about the involvement of a certain Adel al-Shahir in Casualties of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Their Authors section states that anyone can become their author, while the editorial staff includes just four people. Brandmeister^talk 14:01, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Rajasthan Patrika

I found few sources cited in Hindi to some of the India Related Articles, I want to Know that |This from Rajasthan Patrika is considered as reliable or not? Dtt1^Talk 18:29, 27 October 2020 (UTC)