Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

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

More on the reliability of BtVA

The Anime and Manga Wikiproject does not consider Behind the Voice Actors to be a reliable source. Can the perennial sources list stop calling it reliable now? Eldomtom2 (talk) 15:20, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the discussion where the reliability was discussed? The most recent such discussion here, From March, 2022 concluded that it was reliable. While such discussions don't have to happen here; they need to happen somewhere and if there is a new consensus, we all need to see what discussion came to a new consensus. --Jayron32 15:48, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Near as I can tell, the discussion is in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga/Online reliable sources/Archive 1 and consists of two users. It's from more then a decade ago and as mentioned has only two participants, including the person who asked if it's a RS. --(loopback) ping/whereis 16:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and also per WP:TIMETRAVELISN'TPOSSIBLEASFARASWEKNOW, an older discussion in a less-broadly-attended corner of Wikipedia cannot override an existing consensus which was established later. If Eldomtom2 wants to start a new discussion over the reliability of the website in question, they can feel free to do so, but unless and until someone does that, it appears the March 2022 discussion is the prevailing one.--Jayron32 16:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

The second one is a red link. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

It's a blue link if you're browsing from before 2015. After The Fracture happened and Dr. Nixon broke the timeline with her first trip we deleted it. When there's a timeline collision we sometimes get people from 2008 linking to it when we try to warn them about the snakes. --(loopback) ping/whereis 21:26, 2 February 2037 (UTC)

Don't tell people about the snakes. It destabilizes the time loop and every time it happens we have to revdel the entire 2040s. jp×g 10:54, 9 April 2051 (UTC)

It won't be if you go back in time and fix it. --Jayron32 13:31, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I have made multiple attempts at starting discussions here and they have failed to receive attention.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there was a well attended RfC for it here less then a year ago. It seems the community here largely doesn't feel like it needs to be reopened at this time. Is there something that's changed about the source in the last year, or do you just disagree with the conclusion? Because the former may catch more discussion but the latter is likely to elicit crickets if editors don't feel anything is substantially different to when we did this before. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with the conclusion. It was waved through with little investigation.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, are we looking at the same RfC? I would like to draw your attention specifically to Compassionate727's fairly exhaustive dive into their structure and editorial methods. That is exactly the the type of examination we expect around here, and it did seem to hold quite a bit of weight with participants. If you were talking about a different RfC that's understandable, but if you meant the March 2022 one and think there was 'little investigation' then I don't think you are quite on the level. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:02, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

If you think it was an "exhaustive dive" you can think that, but I don't think "they say they have some sort of standards (that they won't clarify) that they apply to user submissions" is good enough to say something is a reliable source.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 20:49, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Just want to point out that WP Anime does consider Behind the Voice Actors to be reliable in most circumstances. You would see this if you actually read the entry at WP:ANIME/ORS#Situational. Link20XX (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

It actually says "Roles and lists that are not check-marked (covered by a screenshot), despite being listed under that actor, cannot be used", which means that BtVA is unreliable, since the only thing it is considered reliable for is providing screenshots of the primary source that is a show's credits.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

How reliable are Iranian government news websites for articles about history?

Articles like Operation Revenge, Operation Commander-in-Chief, or Operation Karbala-2 are supported only by Iranian news press websites. Considering the IR's track record (and Censorship in Iran), wouldn't it be preferable to boycott such sources from articles related to history (or politics)? Fad Ariff (talk) 12:08, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Those three articles have terrible sourcing. I don’t know enough to say if the sites should (all) be deprecated but certainly a np article on a conflict should never be sourced entirely from press releases from one party to the conflict. Might be helpful to list each website and discuss reliability. Some (eg Tasnim News) have been discussed here before, others not. BobFromBrockley (talk) 01:47, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

BobFromBrockley, yes, that's what I'm also finding.

This is a list of all the "sources" used in the article Operation Revenge:

• nasrnews.ir
• aparat.com
• aja.ir
• isna.ir
• mashreghnews.ir
• aparat.com
• jonoubnews.ir
• jabeh.com
• tasnimnews.com
• defapress.ir

Fad Ariff (talk) 12:08, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Nasr News about page: seems borderline SPS and regulated by Iranian government, local focus on NW region. At best weak source.

Aparat: video sharing service, equivalent to YouTube, i.e. SPS/not reliable.

aja.ir: official website of Islamic Republic of Iran Army, only reliable for routine facts about self, e.g. statements of spokespeople, where due

ISNA: Iranian Students' News Agency, possibly borderline reliable

Mashregh News: semi-independent pro-government source, accused of Holocaust denial. Particular article cited here is very sensationalist and partisan. Not reliable.

Jonoub News: unfamiliar to me, but from masthead is clearly government-loyalist

Jabeh.com: appears to be similar to Aparat

Tasnim News Agency: semi-official. Previous discussion at RSN has considered it generally unreliable, possibly could be used for sourcing government perspective where due.

An article based on these sources definitely needs better sourcing! @Fad Ariff:. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:35, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: this appears to be a constant problem throughout Wikipedia. Perhaps a RFC determining which Iranian government press websites are reliable for content related to Iranian politics and history would solve this? Fad Ariff (talk) 12:18, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Rfc on Irish Central

We use this website in a number of articles.[1]. Its own article was deleted via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IrishCentral. My latest encounter with this was at [2] where it uses a reliable source to push the idea of Egyptians in Ireland by using it alongside a fringe video. I think at best this should be classified generally unreliable. Doug Weller talk 08:44, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Meh. People shouldn't be using a light news source for such material in any event. Do you have evidence that the website willfully or negligently has a habit of publishing known falsehoods, or is this one story (which shouldn't be used in any event, even if it covered things that weren't WP:FRINGE, because this is not that kind of source) the only thing that makes you want to eradicate the source from Wikipedia? --Jayron32 11:19, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jayron32There's this:John F. Kennedy's uncanny coincidences with Abraham Lincoln]. See Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences urban legend. [3] claims ancient Irish culture was polygamous and implies gender equality, but see Ancient Celtic women (maybe some but not much polygamy). No time for more, sorry. Doug Weller talk 16:10, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Like I said, it's a light reading source. The "Kennedy-Lincoln" coincidences are a cultural meme that predates the internet by some years, I remember it from the 1980s for goodness sake, so much so that we have the Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences urban legend article. As I said, the source shouldn't be used in places where obviously better sources do, but that's not special to this source that makes it different from other fluffy listical-y websites. There's thousands of such websites, and I'm not sure this board's resources are well spent discussing each and every one. Go ahead and remove the bad uses, WP:SOFIXIT means you don't need permission to do so. It is not the sort of thing that we need to have a formal vote on or anything like that. Self-evidently bullshit articles can be removed from Wikipedia without any prior permission or discussion about the publisher of those articles. --Jayron32 16:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Kirkus reviews

On KirkusReviews, our Perennial Sources page says: "Most content by Kirkus Reviews is considered to be generally reliable. Kirkus Indie is a pay for review program for independent authors, its content is considered to be questionable and to not count towards notability, in part because the author can choose whether or not the review is published."

Kirkus' own site is more explicit about the indie reviews, and I wanted to repeat it here in case anyone forgot...

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/indie-reviews/

"As an unpublished or self-published author, it can be a relentless struggle to attract a significant amount of attention to your book or manuscript. By purchasing a Kirkus indie review, authors can have the opportunity to build some name recognition and get noticed by agents, publishers and other industry influencers. ... While we do not guarantee positive reviews, unfavorable reviews can be taken as valuable feedback for improvements and ultimately do not have to be published on our site. With our most popular review option priced at $450, ..."

It ends with this:

"KEEP YOUR REVIEW PRIVATE OR PUBLISH IT FOR FREE ON KIRKUS.COM

You may choose to publish your review on KirkusReviews.com where it can be discovered by industry influencers, agents, publishers and consumers. If it is a negative review, you can request that it never see the light of day by simply not publishing it on our site." [Emphasis added]

How does an editor know if a review is from Indie Reviews or from the "regular" Kirkus Reviews? Do all editors know the difference? This "indie" practice by Kirkus seems kind of shady, and the difference with the Indie reviews seems easy to overlook.

Thoughts? David10244 (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

From looking at the site, once an Indie review is chosen to be "published" by the book author, it appears to join the non-paid-for reviews and become indistinguishable. But I can't tell for sure. David10244 (talk) 20:09, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it matters. The process that Kirkus describes is for a way for an author from an obscure or self-published imprint to get someone to review their book. They can pay Kirkus to do a review, which then Kirkus will have its staff perform independently. There is no reason to suppose that a paid review is going to be any less dispassionate than one Kirkus decides to do on their own (actually I can think of reasons why I'd be much more enthusiastic about reviewing a book I wanted the read than one I'm reviewing because somebody had to pay me to review it.) The author can then decide whether they want Kirkus to print the review or not. Obviously, if Kirkus does a favorable review, the author should want to publish it. If the review is unfavorable, the author probably won't want it published. A "paid" review is no more or less reliable than an "unpaid" review. But, because authors can pay to have a review done, having a review on Kirkus doesn't establish notability. Banks Irk (talk) 20:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

There's a very obvious incentive for reviewers to be more generous when they are paid to review something – if they give a good review, the person paying them is more likely to pay them to review more things in future, and more likely to recommend the service to others. That's exactly why ethical reviewers disclose when a review is compensated in any way. If we can't tell which reviews are paid-for, we should absolutely consider Kirkus' reviews as a whole to be less reliable.

That said, it looks like at the moment reviews published through the "Kirkus Indie" program are marked as such – e.g. this review has "Review Program: Kirkus Indie" at the bottom of the page, with a link to their explanation of what the Kirkus Indie program entails. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:32, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

And for WP:N? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:16, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång Are you asking if these reviews contribute to notability? I would lean to the "no" side, but I'm still thinking. If a truly impartial reviewer gives a book a good review, that might count for something. My brain is dithering... David10244 (talk) 06:37, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Banks Irk If the "bad" reviews are not published, and the "good" ones are, does that devalue the good reviews? I'm honestly not sure. David10244 (talk) 06:29, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

IMO, it makes them not independent, and not-WP:N relevant. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:36, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Banks Irk Excellent points. David10244 (talk) 06:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@David10244, this [4] is marked "Review Program: KIRKUS INDIE", this [5] is not. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:15, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång I see that now. Not very prominent. People won't realize that it's from the "good half" of the paid-for reviews. Better than nothing, I suppose. David10244 (talk) 06:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Taking Kirkus at its word, individual reviews can still be reliable as the critic has still had the choice to review positively or negatively and given honest feedback. However, I am disappointed to read this as I have been treating Kirkus as an iron-clad go-to source that always counts towards notability. If most negative reviews are suppressed then it does undermine reputation, though at least the site reports which reviews are paid for. The signs were there—I've found negative reviews on the site to be few and far between. I think the RSP entry is fine at present in providing the information about the Indie programme and still declaring the source to be generally reliable. — Bilorv (talk) 20:36, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this article on www.learnreligions.com a reliable source?

I want to cite information contained in this article authored by Sukhmandir Khalsa, who is a "Sikh author, educator, and the president of Dharam Khand Sikh Academy" for some Sikh Wikipedia articles related to historical personalities. Can this be article from this site be used as a reliable source on Wikipedia? ThethPunjabi (talk) 16:26, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't look like a high quality source to me. It belongs to Dotdash Meredith for whose reliability status there is currently no consensus (see here). On the positive side learnreligions does have editorial review. I would treat it carefully and only use it if no better sources are available. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 02:21, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Random person no 362478479 Thank you for providing your evaluation. I found the information in other more reliable sources so I decided to forgo using the one above. Cheers, ThethPunjabi (talk) 02:32, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@ThethPunjabi@Random person no 362478479 I may be grumpy here, but "dedicated to helping readers deepen their faith" is a bit of a red flag to me. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:02, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång I don't particularly like that either. But since they deal with all kinds of religion and not pushing one particular faith I wouldn't categorise it as obviously unreliable. Clearly they are very pro-religion, and many of the authors seem to be clergy of one kind or another. But that may be an overly broad reason for excluding it. What about Newspapers published by religious institutions (e.g. vaticannews), or books by theologians? That being said, I strongly suspect that for anything relevant on learnreligions there will be much better and significantly more reliable sources available elsewhere. So I would treat it carefully and avoid if possible, but not necessarily classify it as generally unreliable. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 13:00, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:04, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

OurtimeBD

Saw this publication used in several Wikipedia pages. I cannot find anything on the website that lists editorial standards and the homepage URL says "beta" which leads me to believe this is just a blog. Hoping to get another set of eyes in case I am missing something as I do not see it as a reliable sources. CNMall41 (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I found the name Nayeemul Islam Khan on the website as its editor. There is a page for Nayeemul Islam Khan who is a journalist and likely the same person who is named on the website. That page is now at AfD as I don't believe he is notable based on the available sourcing. Would still like anyone's feedback about OurtimeBD. Unless someone is able to tell me it is realiable, there is nothing indicating that it is. --CNMall41 (talk) 04:06, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

OurtimeBD seems to be the online edition of an English language newspaper from Bangladesh. I think it is the same as the Daily Our Time listed here with a circulation of 39,998. I found no further information about the quality or reliability of the paper. I assume that the "beta" in the URL refers to the version of the homepage. They may be testing a new design. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:56, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I am still leaning as it being non-reliable. I cannot locate any editorial standards at all. I also cannot see a connection between the publications. They look possibly connected but then again it could be someone creating a blog to make it seem like they are connected to a more notable publication. --CNMall41 (talk) 07:02, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I have found the person listed as the editor mentioned as the editor of the Daily Our Time, e.g. here and here. The lack of further information about editorial policy or relevant information that you would expect any reputable WP:NEWSORG to display does not inspire confidence. Looking around on the page I found that most of the content seems to be taken from other sources (including The Guardian and cnn). Even a lot of the specifically Bangladeshi content is taken from other Bangladeshi news sources. There are some articles that are attributed to "correspondents". All in all it seems to be a very small publication. Given that they take a lot of content from other sources some of the references on Wikipedia may be salvageable by digging for the original sources. I seriously doubt that any of the site's original reporting contains notable information that cannot be found in better sources. So I see no reason not to err on the safe side and regard it as non-reliable. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 12:57, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Probably best. I will take a look at them all this afternoon and see if they can be replaced. --CNMall41 (talk) 16:16, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Concern regarding independence of an editorializing reporter

A discussion is underway regarding the use of reports by a specific freelance reporter, Steven Monacelli, whose primary claim to fame is that he runs a Twitter parody account of Greg Abbott, https://twitter.com/stevanzetti (his identity is noted on the linktree posted therefrom, with about a half dozen links soliciting donations.

Monacelli was sued over his coverage of Monty Bennett, a conservative commercial real estate figure who bought the "Dallas Express" website from another conservative figure, Brian Timpone. Outrage at Timpone's use of the name Dallas Express (previously the name of a black-owned newspaper that ceased publication in 1970) was expressed in an editorial by D Magazine (which found it "maddening to see what has now landed at the URL"). Bennett acquired the website, and Monacelli directed similar editorializing his way. Bennett sued D Magazine and Monacelli for defamation and prevailed in the trial court, but was overturned on appeal, specifically because the various statements objected to were defended as Monacelli's opinions, not factual reporting.

An editor in the discussion noted in defense of this content that a footnote at WP:V was removed in 2020, said footnote relating to the proposition that "material (including but not limited to news reports, books, articles and other publications) involved in or struck down by litigation in any country, or released by parties involved in litigation against other involved parties, during, before or after the litigation" constituted a "conflicted source". That discussion was not a determination, however, that such litigation can never be considered as an issue. This case goes beyond content being litigated; WP:RSEDITORIAL notes that editorials "are rarely reliable for statements of fact", and editorializing dressed as journalism should be treated as editorializing, including where an editorializing reporter publishes his opinions in multiple outlets (in this case, Monacelli later wrote a similar criticism of the website in The Texas Observer also cited as a source in the article).

I note that other entirely unproblematic sources exist that can be used to source contentions about the website bought by Bennett. My concern is solely directed at the use in a BLP of editorial writing by a subject of litigation, whose defense to that litigation was that their assertions about the BLP subject were not factual. BD2412 T 22:57, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Looks like an off-Wiki argument between the two parties which doesn't need to be litigated on Wikipedia. The parody account shows bias although I am not sure it would disqualify him as a source per se. However, the fact that he was personally involved in the lawsuit and is now using his journalism as a way to editorialize it would indeed fall under WP:RSEDITORIAL imho. --CNMall41 (talk) 04:17, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

On a separate note, Brian Timpone page looks like a heavy WP:COAT.--CNMall41 (talk) 04:20, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

My concern about the parody account (and the "donate to me" links) is not so much about bias as it is about the individual appearing to be a rather self-promoting opportunist, rather than a serious journalist; which, in turn, raises questions about the quality of the the rather low-level local venues that publish his work. BD2412 T 15:48, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Is he used here? Slatersteven (talk) 15:51, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, with pieces in two local papers (as is a straight-up editorial by another writer from one of the same papers). Monacelli's parody Twitter account is actually cited as a source in List of 2021 Women's March locations (for the number of people attending the Dallas rally), which I have called out on that talk page. They are cited as a source in about a half dozen other articles. BD2412 T 16:04, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Surley fails wp:sps? Slatersteven (talk) 16:07, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I would think so, yes. BD2412 T 16:54, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Apparently, Monacelli was fired from the Dallas Observer over either careless or false reporting. I would consider this as putting the nail in the coffin of accepting the reliability of reporting by this person. BD2412 T 23:44, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

The link from Othersidedallas.com has the original article from the Dallas Observer. The correction at the top adds "this article has also been edited to remove a reference to and characterization of the Dallas Express." I am unsure of how we can see his current reporting on the topic accurate or factual. --CNMall41 (talk) 06:59, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Usage of reliable sources and verification in a BLP

I'm interested in finding out if I am wrong in my understanding regarding reliable sourcing, verification and BLP. There's a discussion at Talk:Cases of Stübing v. Germany regarding a paragraph sourced to a BBC article. The statement made within that BBC article attributes the claim mentioned in our article to an unnamed Der Spiegel article. The BBC source itself is here [6]. The Der Spiegel source the BBC mentions cannot be found by me.

The sentence from the BBC article reads "According to Spiegel online, while Patrick was in prison Susan had a fifth child with another man."

By my understanding of reliable sourcing, BLP, and verification, the BBC source in this case isn't acceptable and the statement needs to be attributable, cited, and validated to Der Spiegel. In this case, as the BBC article doesn't link to the Der Spiegel article and nobody has yet been able to find it, the statement fails validation. Is my understanding of this incorrect?

I should add the discussion is actually resolved now as nobody found the paragraph (now deleted) from the article particularly important, but I want to know if I'm completely wrong about my view on this. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 00:34, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

The original article seems to be this one: "Während Patrick seine Strafe absitzt, lernt seine Schwester einen anderen Mann kennen, den 49 Jahre alten Jürgen B. Mit ihm bekommt sie ihr fünftes Kind - Sophira." Sam Kuru (talk) 00:55, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

I would call that confirmed. BD2412 T 01:44, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for that. I'm really just curious if my position regarding verification was correct. Assume the Spiegel article was no longer available. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 14:16, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

If BBC reports that Der Spiegel reported something, that is a solid source for the proposition that Der Spiegel actually reported that something. Absent the final point of verification, we could say something along the lines of, "The BBC noted that Der Spiegel reported that..." BD2412 T 15:50, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

That is very helpful, thank you. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 16:31, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree with BD2412's suggestion - similar to WP:SAYWHERE. JennyOz (talk) 05:05, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd say that both Der Speigel and the BBC are reliable enough that if one attributes a fact to the other we can just report that fact without any attribution or caveats, unless there is a reliable source contradicting it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:38, 4 April 2023 (UTC) (In other words, we don't need to do the original research of checking the quote. If BBC says "Der Speigel says", we can trust BBC to be reliably quoting Der Speiegel and we can trust Der Speigel to be reliable, unless there is e.g. another strong source saying they got it wrong or there was a subsequent retraction of the original. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:40, 4 April 2023 (UTC))

Use of WNXX as a reliable source in rail articles

I've been wondering about the use of [7]https://www.wnxx.com as a source of UK rail information for a while. It is being used across UK rail articles as a source for ownership, location or livery of vehicles.

The site is completely paywalled, with no transparency whatsoever as to the source of their information. I discussed this briefly with @TimMassey on their talk page, as they had been using the site as a source in a few places (for example here and here). Tim's reply to my message reads "Some info obviously comes from peoples first hand observations. Some is clearly 'inside' info the website host has obtained from industry sources". Personally, I wouldn't think that a site that either doesn't list its sources, or where the information is being obtained from original research, should be allowable on Wikipedia.

My apologies must go to TimMassey here - this is not in any way intended to be an attack on or me hounding you - you are simply the most recent person I noticed using this source that I could use for diffs and who potentially had some information about the origin of the information on the site. Danners430 (talk) 17:38, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

• The fact that information is paywalled is not in itself problematic. How reliable that information is can be the only issue here. Black Kite (talk) 17:44, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  Apologies, I should have been clear - that is the concern I have, the paywall has simply hampered my ability to work out whether the site is reliable or not - that's why I messaged TimMassey in the first instance. Danners430 (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  Looks like a hobbyist page to me. They ask people to submit reports and pictures and the physical address seems to be the private home address of the person in charge. Doesn't seem like a reliable source. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 19:43, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

  Seconded. Might fall under self-published too. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 02:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• I like the use of the selective quote here, may i publish it in full. "I cannot vouch for the sources that are used, but what I do know is that the information posted to the site is accurate. Some info obviously comes from peoples first hand observations. Some is clearly 'inside' info the website host has obtained from industry sources; this is almost without exception accurate." I have been a paying subscriber to this site for some time, and as I noted, the inof on it is accurate. If a mistake is made, it is corrected, and usually pubilicy so. Form the tone of some of the articles, multiple sources are consulted and confirmation sought before something is published. I trust it absolutely, which is why i cite it. Livery of vehicles is usually confirmed by a photograph. I have used it in refernce to Class 57 ownersbhip recently, and actually some of the reference confomra what is already in the relevant article on Wikipedia. Some ofof the info obtained by the site is from inductry sources who prefer not be be named, but this does make the info less accurate. Losing the site as a reference would, in my view, lessen the quality of the relevent articles.--TimMassey (talk) 21:13, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Personally I would counter this by stating that accuracy doesn’t matter as much as reliability does - Wikipedia has specific policies on user generated content, as linked above. This is why I only partially quoted your original response - to me, accuracy comes second to reliability when discussing sources. Danners430 (talk) 21:24, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  WNXX is very well sourced from leading industry insiders and far more reliable / accurate than a lot of other media sources quoted as references on Wiki. It is far from a “hobbyist site” or “self-published”. The site only publishes info the owner knows is from trusted sources (often very senior ones hence the anonymity) and/or can be supported by other evidence, eg photos) Given Wiki’s info on UK railways isn’t always the most accurate and up-to-date, it’s ironic that folk are questioning one of the most reliable and up-to-date sources of info on the topic out there…! 2A02:C7C:9A68:AD00:6927:90A:45B8:2013 (talk) 21:37, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not meant to be “up to date” - it’s meant to be a cited encyclopaedia. If something can’t be backed up by a reliable source, then it doesn’t belong on Wikipedia.

  Stating that the sources are “anonymous”, and only known to “the owner” rings massive alarm bells for me in terms of source reliability. Danners430 (talk) 21:46, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  A hobbyist or self-published source can be high quality and accurate. But unfortunately that doesn't mean it meets Wikipedia's criteria for reliable sources. I don't doubt the page's quality -- in my experience people interested in this kind of thing are sticklers for accuracy. But it seems to fall at least partially under user generated content. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 22:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  I'm finding myself somewhat torn. The extent of the paywalling is quite extreme, for a start – it's pretty much impossible to even get a feel for the nature of the content without stumping up for access; yet by longstanding consensus paywalling is not in and of itself a disqualification as a reliable source (and rightly so, IMO). Neither is the fact that some or all contributors are anonymous – after all, respected newspapers and magazines often conceal the identities of their reporters' sources – but that form of acceptable reporting is differentiated from unacceptable user-generated content by the presence of editorial oversight, and that's something we're obviously struggling to assess. Additionally, some contributors are likely submitting information that's been scraped directly from TOPS, TRUST, the National Vehicle Register, and other such primary databases, rather than their first-hand observationsl; and that would have the effect of elevating it a certain level above, say, a trainspotter's blog.
  I'll do a bit more thinking on it. XAM2175 ^(T) 12:31, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• Are there other sources that cite or refer to WNXX? Blueboar (talk) 22:00, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Not that I’m aware of - I didn’t know the site existed until finding it on Wikipedia. Danners430 (talk) 22:09, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Mathematics Genealogy Project

Some biographies use the Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) as a source (for example: William Littell Everitt, Eric Zaslow, Louis Boutet de Monvel, Alexander Bogomolny, Leonard Blumenthal). However, the MGP article itself notes that the content is "self-reported."

I can't find any recent discussion about the reliabilty of MGP as a source, which appears to violate WP:UGC.

References

76.14.122.5 (talk) 19:52, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

"Where do you get your data?

We depend on information from our visitors for most of our data. In cases of partial information, we search Dissertation Abstracts International in an effort to find complete information. We have also entered a considerable amount of data found on lists of graduates maintained by individual departments. If you have data to provide, our submission form is the best way to submit it. For large quantities of data, you may contact us about other means of submitting." ([8]https://www.mathgenealogy.org/faq.php#sources) I tend to agree that while a lot of the information may be properly checked, it does not qualify as a reliable source. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 21:04, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

"Self-reported" is a bit vague: much of it is reported by institutions (which should know to whom they've awarded degrees, etc.). It has editorial oversight, but it is rather limited (at one point in the past I believe the situation was that one PhD student at ND State would keep an eye on it each semester in lieu of TAing a class) and certainly not up to the quality that one would want if one were trying to do real historical work (like [9] or whatnot). I would urge caution in using it. --JBL (talk) 18:17, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it's generally fine for reporting that a certain person got a degree from a certain institution in a certain year with a certain dissertation title, especially in cases where searching for that title finds other sources backing it up. It's also pretty good for listing doctoral advisors, but should be used with caution because it often misses some nuance (for instance, it may list multiple advisors but has no way of specifying what their different roles might have been). It is not WP:UGC because data submitted to them is vetted somehow (by a process that is obscure to me) rather than being added directly by that user. However, it is not reliable for claims like "so-and-so advised 17 doctoral students" because it often misses some of the students. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:40, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Indeed it usually takes a few weeks after you report something for it to become public. I have never reported bad data, so I do not know what happens when they reject something. As the definition of "advisor" isn't very clear (multiple advisors, different historical advisor-advisee relations before 1900) much of the content should best be reported by saying "according to the MGP", as it is in some of the examples above. —Kusma (talk) 06:22, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

It's reliable enough for the purposes for which it is typically used: so-and-so graduated from such-and-such a university in the year 19XX, where their PhD thesis advisor was Bob Notable. I would not trust it for more nuanced points, like the roles played by multiple listed advisors. And, as David Eppstein points out, its information can be incomplete. XOR'easter (talk) 15:39, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Stacker

Is Stacker considered reliable? I suspect it is a different organization than Stack Exchange (Stack Overflow, MathOverflow, Ask Ubuntu) which are unreliable according to WP:RSP. I'd like to link this specific article from Minneapolis#Demographics, but this question is a little broader. I've searched the noticeboard archives, and the WP:RSP archives and came up empty. Maybe Stacker could be differentiated from Stack Exchange at WP:RSP if it is different. Thank you in advance. -SusanLesch (talk) 23:37, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems to be a journalistic entity. They call themselves a "newswire" and "storytelling platform".

"We’re a team of entrepreneurial thinkers, media-minded nerds, and advocates of tech-forward journalism.

Our full-time newsroom includes over two dozen data journalists, editors, and writers who have worked with and been published in leading national publications." [10]

Today, Stacker is read by millions each month on Stacker.com as well as across our vast network of publishing partners. Our newswire of local and national features provides a sustainable source of engaging content for thousands of newsrooms across the country, including MSN, Newsweek, and Hearst Newspapers. [11]

"Every Stacker story is created using reliable information from vetted, credible sources and objective, data-driven reporting that has been fact checked by our newsroom. Studio clients and Stacker readers can rest assured that these principles serve as the common thread through all Stacker content.

Stacker’s editorial team maintains the final say on every story we publish. Even when research is underwritten by a third party, Stacker content will never advertise or promote products, services, or brands.

We promise full transparency. Every piece produced through Stacker Studio clearly communicates the underwriter and cites the original source data and research methodology in the article. We do not integrate promotional content into our pieces." [12]

Looks fine to me. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 00:08, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• This is one where WP: NEWSORG can be applied. Established independent organization with significant staffing that provides original reporting to multiple news publishers all regarded as clearly reliable per WP:RSP, experienced and respected senior editorial staff. Banks Irk (talk) 01:28, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Can this be added to WP:RSP because the name can so easily be confused with Stack Exchange? We have three other possible cases of confusion given there now, and as Banks says the staff of Stacker is respected. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  @SusanLesch I posted a request for comments to see if we can get consensus for that: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Adding Stacker to list of reliable sources Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:32, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Random person no 362478479 . Every article can be republished under CC BY-NC 4.0. NC isn't quite convincing. I'll just use Slacker as a source. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:27, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I am slightly confused on the business model. Correct me if I am not seeing this correctly, but it is a news aggregator correct? Does it publish original content and if so who are the writers (employees of Stacker or freelance writers)? --CNMall41 (talk) 06:21, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

They have a full-time news room. They publish original data-driven content. Some of it is sponsored, but written by them. The sponsors only get to chose the topic and to check for factual errors. See their editorial standards page and their about page for more details. And here is an article with interview from the PressGazette. The editor-in-chief is Micah Cohen, the former Managing Editor of FiveThirtyEight. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 06:28, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Do the actions of a Jezebel writer reflect on the source?

Recently a writer for Jezebel was suspended from Twitter for impersonating Justice Samuel Alito's Twitter account (cached copy [13], new account stating the suspension [14], writer's page on Jezebel [15]). Does this reflect on Jezebel that this is the sort of person they employ as a "senior reporter covering abortion access, reproductive health and politics". Would this disqualify the writer's specific work as unreliable based on clear and overwhelming bias/bad judgment? I'm really asking more than telling. I do think it reflects very badly on the source to employ someone who was willing to mislead readers in public. However, I'm not sure it fits one of our specific criteria we typically use to judge reliability. Springee (talk) 02:23, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

If Jezebel has not commented and distanced itself from the writer, or some statement of apology, I would definitely question their reliability. That type of post-incident event is associated with editorial oversight we expect to see. Masem (t) 02:26, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

So, no actual article on Alito by the person involved here? A lot of people, including journalists, did the fake impersonation thing back when Musk bought Twitter as well. And this account didn't even change their bio or any other information. I don't see why Jezebel would have to care? This sounds like you're trying to get a certain political viewpoint downgraded for something irrelevant to reliability. Silverseren^C 02:44, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Not sure how messing with the ever-changing Twitter blue tick system much affects the reliability of either Jezebel or the individual writer. CMD (talk) 02:50, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this reflects on Jezebel's reliability at all. A twitter impersonation suspenspension on April Fools Day is hardly the type of fabricating content we depreciate sources for. Plus they posted clarifying it was a joke in your second link. A journalist being silly for a bit doesn't depreciate their published work. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 02:51, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

A writer doing something funny and/or stupid on Twitter does not cause a source to be downgraded. If it did, we'd run out of sources. Not that it even matters in this case; WP:JEZEBEL is already considered a questionable source that shouldn't be used for anything contentious or controversial. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Very little that happens on twitter could have an impact on the reliability of a person who lives in the real world. This is certainly isn't one of those cases, there is no reason to consider the writer to be unreliable due to this incident. Boynamedsue (talk) 19:53, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Daily Mirror

What exactly is the consensus regarding quotes from The Daily Mirror. I'd like to include the following quote box on piri (the information from which had previously appeared in reworded form in an earlier version of the article but I think really needs to stay in quotes):

I’m from a middle class family so my maintenance loan was the lowest possible. My parents are good earners but they didn’t have spare cash to lend. I was £2,000 short on rent in my third year so I had to come up with money. Over the three years it just got worse and worse. I worked all summer at Asda but still ended up negative. It was really bad. By the third year I’d maxed out my overdraft, I owed two people £200 and I could barely buy food.

—piri on her OnlyFans

Launchballer 09:25, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

WP:DAILYMIRROR says The Daily Mirror is a tabloid newspaper that publishes tabloid journalism. There is no consensus on whether its reliability is comparable to that of British tabloids such as the Daily Mail and The Sun. The most recent discussion linked from RSP is this one. Personally I wouldn't bother with the quote – the Times article we already cite covers the same material without any concerns about relying on a questionable tabloid, and I don't see how that particular quote is that important. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:09, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

References

Requesting inputs (encyclopedic legal coverage)

• Requesting inputs. A discussion is initiated @ Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Legal#Attention to updating of MOS guidelines
• Since already a guide line was mentioned there @ WT:MOS/legal besides for discussion on legal aspects it's usually beneficial if one is already informed or exposed to legal terminologies at least in early stage discussions. But few users have suggested me WP:RSN or WT:LAW to be better forums for policy discussions. Whether , at what point and which forum? is better to shift the discussion, if at all, without attracting forum shopping objections. Please guide on this point too.

Bookku (talk) 11:18, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Is The Ditch a reliable source for political news?

Recent edits by Seanodeorain have added controversy sections to biographies of Irish politicians (Cathal Crowe and Niall Collins) based on reporting from The Ditch. I question whether this site constitutes a reliable source, given that it is run by two rather unknown journalists, and backed financially by Paddy Cosgrave, known for controversial opinions (based on his wiki article content). Given that the site is being used to verify some rather controversial content, I think an assessment of its reliability is in order. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 19:48, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

The Ditch undertakes investigative journalism. Anyone following Irish politics in the last number of months cannot fail to have noticed that it has been responsible for breaking numerous stories that have been picked up by other news outlets and have ultimately led to the resignation of some politicians. The Ditch broke the story that led to Damien English resigning from his ministerial position. It also uncovered information about Robert Troy that led to his ministerial resignation. The fact the ministers resigned in both cases underlines the credibility of The Ditch's reporting. The Ditch is already cited in the Wikipedia page on Damien English. In the case of The Ditch's allegations regarding Niall Collins, it is clear that what has been uncovered about Collins' dishonesty when filling out a planning application form is true. Collins has repeatedly chosen to avoid answering key questions related to the matter. The Ditch's reporting in the public interest in recent months has uncovered a lot of important information about politicians, etc. breaking the law. All these politicians could sue The Ditch for defamation if they so wished. The Irish Times reported only last week on the severity of the Irish state's defamation laws and their chilling effect on journalists. Seanodeorain (talk) 20:22, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Adding Stacker to list of reliable sources

Should Stacker be added to WP:RSP as a reliable source? Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Stacker is a newswire and "storytelling platform" focussing on data-driven journalism. The Editor-in-Chief is Micah Cohen, the former Managing Editor of FiveThirtyEight.[16][17] Their "full-time newsroom includes over two dozen data journalists, editors, and writers who have worked with and been published in leading national publications."[18]

For more information see:

• Discussion above
• Their about page
• Their editorial standards page
• This report and interview on Press Gazette

Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose This isn't to say Stacker is or isn't a good source. Instead, we simply don't have enough discussions about it. It should still be handled on a case by case basis with no presumption that it is or isn't acceptable for what ever specific claim it is being used for. Springee (talk) 23:37, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  My hope was to have that discussion here. This was not just intended as a vote. I have now split this into a Survey and a Discussion section to make that clearer. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Agree with Springee. This is not how RSP works. If it turns out that there are multiple discussions about Stacker in the future, those discussions will resolve if, how and when it is listed at RSP. At this point there isn't even a single dispute, let alone a perennial dispute A RFC is not the correct path to RSP. Banks Irk (talk) 01:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  "For a source to be added to this list, editors generally expect two or more significant discussions about the source's reliability in the past, or an uninterrupted request for comment on the source's reliability that took place on the reliable sources noticeboard." (WP:RSPCRITERIA)

  I think it is significantly more efficient to establish a source's status once, instead of discussing it several times before coming to a result. Why have multiple discussions when one will do? Random person no 362478479 (talk) 01:33, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think that's a bad way to handle RS questions. First we need to remember that no source is considered always reliable and few are considered never reliable. Second, we really need to be looking at a case by case basis. One of the big issues with the RSP page is it leads to a level of gaming where it becomes important to get this site listed as "green" vs "yellow". Certainly a passing mention at the bottom of a "green" article is more important than a well crafted discussion in a "yellow" article. How dare an editor would try to use a yellow article to show that my green article is wrong! Also, people tend to think "green" means DUE vs just, "generally reliable". Part of the benefit of having multiple discussions about specific uses of a specific source is we get a better feel for the source over time. We also avoid the case, where just a few discussions result in a "conclusion" that is then enshrined in the RSP list. Personally, I think the standard should be at least 5 discussions but certainly not when we don't have any previous discussions. Springee (talk) 02:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Further, there is no actual dispute over the use of the source in any article. I can find only one article in which it is currently being used as a reference. There is zero context for an RFC. Banks Irk (talk) 02:21, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, not only has there not been enough discussion on the site, but they don't have a page of their own and are known for making listicles and sponsored content so it fails to pass WP:SPONSORED. Scu ba (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support this only because I was confused by searching for Stacker in the chart at WP:RSP and hitting only Stack Exchange. Don't know if anybody else would have the same problem. I'm not impressed by the site's content but only by the editor, Mr. Cohen. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Unreliability of Hasht e Subh

A source that is often cited on articles relating to modern Afghan politics is Hasht e Subh, either via its current 8am.media or former 8am.af domain. It should be seen as an unreliable source, based on a clearly identifiable trend of it propagating fake news. Three prominent examples that demonstrate this are listed below.

• On 15 May 2022, Hasht e Subh claimed on its website that it had been "confirmed" that the then-deputy head of the 205 Al-Badr Corps Mawlawi Abdul Ghafar Mohammadi had been killed in Panjshir province on 13 May. On 26 October 2022, it was reported by Bakhtar News Agency that he had been appointed to head the Air Force of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. On 30 October 2022, the Afghan Ministry of Defense reported that he attended a ceremony in which he passed on his position as deputy of the 205 Al-Badr Corps to Mawlawi Bari Gul "Talib." On 30 November 2022, Radio Television Afghanistan published images of Mawlawi Abdul Ghafar Mohammadi visiting Ghor, having assumed his new position as head of the Air Force. It is obvious from this that the original claims made by Hasht e Subh of him having been killed were wrong, despite the source claiming it was "confirmed." As of 4 April 2023, the original article from Hasht e Subh has not been amended, nor has any correction been issued.
• On 5 January 2023, Hasht e Subh claimed on its website that Pakistan had launched a set of airstrikes on Gushta district, Nangarhar province. This was promptly refuted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, which called the claims made by Hasht e Subh “utterly baseless and malicious.” No evidence of these strikes has been published, nor has any official confirmation of them taking place been made by either side. Despite this, as of 4 April 2023, the article remains published without any correction or amendment being made.
• On 29 August 2022, Hasht e Subh claimed that General Kenneth F. McKenzie had stated that American forces were likely to return to Afghanistan. This claim is entirely fabricated, and a simple Google search of the quotes provided in the article shows that they are not found in any other source. There is not even one other source, let alone a reliable one, that corroborates McKenzie making such a statement. This is despite the fact that such a statement would usually attract media attention and be widely reported. As of 4 April 2023, the fake claim remains on the website.

Taking the above into consideration, using Hasht e Subh as a source for anything relating to Afghanistan should be heavily discouraged. I suggest that it is removed from all articles that it currently appears in.

References

Daniel222potato (talk) 04:46, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Case 1: "The Taliban said that it isn't true" is not the best argument I can think of.

Case 2: Neither is "the Pakistani government denied it".

Case 3: They attribute the claim to Al Arabiya.

Accusing them of "propagating fake news" rings some alarm bells given that that is the reason the Taliban gave for shutting them down.[19][20][21] Random person no 362478479 (talk) 06:20, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Case 1: There's evidence of him alive, it's not just a claim. You can see the MoD's post for example, along with the later RTA tweet. He even appeared in a video denying the claims that he was killed, denouncing it as fake news.

Case 2: When such events actually take place they are reported on by both governments, not denied and described as malicious.

Case 3: Yes, they do. The problem is that there is no Al-Arabiya report. One can search all they wish, but they will not find it. Searching the topic in general brings up only their article.

The Taliban did indeed ban them, but that does not change the fact that they do actually propagate fake news. Daniel222potato (talk) 06:37, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

McKenzie retired in 2022 and gave a lot of interviews that are in line with what Hasht e Subh reported. E.g. here: https://aamajnews24.com/mckenzi-3/ Random person no 362478479 (talk) 07:03, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Sourcing summaries of non-fiction texts (in articles on those texts)

This is a general question about articles on non-fiction texts, in particular philosophical texts. How should the section summarizing the text be sourced? I can find no guideline on this.

I have looked at several articles on notable philosophical texts, and in each case the summary of the text is sourced directly to the original text (and that often sparsely). This includes all the articles in the list below. Is there clear guidance on this?

By comparison: For non-fiction there is a clear guideline, WP:PLOTSOURCE, which states: "The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. However, editors are encouraged to add sourcing if possible, as this helps discourage original research." Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? (talk) 11:08, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Examples of articles on philosophical texts

The following articles on philosophical texts cite directly to the primary text (or do not cite at all) when summarizing:

• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In the main section, describing the contents section by section, the only sourcing is to the original book. Only where comparisons are made to other works are other sources quoted.
• Principia Mathematica. Nearly the whole of the content description is unsourced or sourced to the original text, though occasionally other texts are included
• Critique of Pure Reason
• Critique of Practical Reason
• Critique of Judgment
• Apology (Plato)
• Phaedrus (dialogue)

Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? (talk) 11:08, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

There is WP:RSPRIMARY. Beyond that I don't know whether there are any recommendations. Personally I would say that the more controversial the interpretation of a text is the more you should use secondary sources. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:24, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I disagree, Quotes should be quotes, interpretation we always leave up to RS, if RS do not say it neither can we. Slatersteven (talk) 11:26, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Who interprets the interpretation? There are philosophical texts where summarising the content does not require more interpretation than summarising a secondary source. An example would be J. L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:35, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

wp:rs via wp:v, if RS say it so can we, if RS do not then we cannot. Slatersteven (talk) 11:37, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

And a book can actually be a reliable source on what is written in that book. Otherwise you'd have to get rid of WP:PLOTSOURCE and the idea that it is possible to understand a text (admittedly there are people in the Hermeneutics tradition, not to mention Postmodernists who would underwrite that). Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:46, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes of course hence why I said "Quotes should be quotes". Slatersteven (talk) 11:51, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? should have notified me of this thread. It is about my efforts to edit The Philosophy of Freedom.

The editors of The Philosophy of Freedom seemed to be content with an article which did not WP:CITE any WP:FRIND source. The citation to Rawls is original research. Just show me that Rawls wrote a single line of text about Rudolf Steiner. One line of text would be enough for WP:V purposes. Otherwise Rawls isn't WP:RS for The Philosophy of Freedom. Just because Steiner used the words "moral intuition", it by no means follows that he was an adept of moral intuitionism.

Hitler's art wasn't ugly, but it was 18th century art, not 20th century art. Same can be said about Rudolf Steiner's philosophy: he did not belong to 20th century philosophy, but his home was in 18th century German Idealism. And moral intuitionism is a 20th century ethics. Hint: moral intuitionism could also mean deontology, but Steiner was a declared adversary of deontology. Non-deontological ethical intuitionism is a 20th century ethics.

If citing Rawls is on the table, then citing Marco Pasi's book about Aleister Crowley is also on the table. You can't have one without another. Otherwise it's "rules for thee, but not for me".

So, yes, if the Anthroposophists are allowed to WP:CITE Rawls, although there is no evidence that Rawls ever read Steiner, then I should be also allowed to WP:CITE Pasi's book (the difference being that Pasi did read Steiner to some extent).

It is a shame that the first WP:FRIND source has been introduced only in 2023. That is, the article waited more than 17 years for a WP:FRIND source. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:55, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

The problems are clear: violations of years-old wikipedic consensus. You might be amazed that it was the creator of that article himself who told me about such consensus.

I did not invent such consensus, but I'm thinking coherently what it entails, instead of "rules for thee, but not for me." The reason for the consensus was cogently explained to me at [22]. But of course, it only applies to my edits, not to his edits. Kindergarten morality.

Who decided that when the pro-Steiner faction cites Rudolf Steiner, it isn't controversial, but when I call it "Law of Thelema" it is highly controversial? Since both are WP:OR.

Even more clearly expressed at [23]. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:33, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Rawls and Pasi

The pro-Steiner editors will have to decide: either they allow me to WP:CITE Marco Pasi's book about Aleister Crowley inside The Philosophy of Freedom article, or the citation to Rawls gets deleted.

So, either Rawls and Pasi are both allowed, or they are both disallowed. Citing only one of them is a textbook case of a double standard. Since if citing Pasi is original research, by the very same standard citing Rawls is original research. And there is no overarching policy applicable, such as WP:PSCI dictating that the scientific orthodoxy gets explained through a bit of WP:OR in order to situate the pseudoscientific view in the context of mainstream scientific thought. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:02, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Rudolf Steiner's writings

The consensus during the WP:ARBCOM case (now rescinded) and afterwards is that Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophists do not write WP:RS. The argument for it is that their works are extremely difficult to interpret, so their interpretation should be left to mainstream academics and to debunkers of pseudoscience. Has such consensus changed? tgeorgescu (talk) 16:41, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

The sheer idea of treating Steiner and Anthroposophists as reliable sources is a bit of a howler. It's a bit like using L. Ron Hubbard and his disciples as reliable sources for an article on Scientology. Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:10, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Yup, as shown above, the discussed article violates the very same standards which the creator of that article preached unto other Wikipedians. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:34, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

@Butterfly or Chuang Tzu? and Thewikibeagles: It is manifest that this RSN topic is about Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophists. They are a special case, unlike Kant and Hegel. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:47, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Hegel is pretty hard to interpret, too. Sennalen (talk) 17:39, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I think that Steiner's ethics, aka the Law of Thelema, is a valuable contribution to philosophy. While I reject his spiritual idealism from the book, I approve of his ethics.

Unfortunately, here at Wikipedia it never is about my personal opinion, but about what Wikipedians consensually consider as WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:22, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Are all these sources reliable?

[24] and [25] -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 15:58, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Who is K M George? Slatersteven (talk) 16:01, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• Reliable for what? See my post at your talkpage. Banks Irk (talk) 18:55, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  @Banks Irk: Because I want to make an article on historian Rawat Saraswat. -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 04:42, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

  That covers only one of the three things we need to know. You also need to tell us (1) what is the specific text in these two sources that you want to cite as references in your proposed article and (2) what is/are the specific statement(s) that you wish to include in your proposed article using those references. Banks Irk (talk) 11:24, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I think the editor is probably talking about K. M. George (writer). Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 06:00, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: PrivacyTools.io or PrivacyGuides.org websites reliability?

Which of the following best describes PrivacyTools.io or PrivacyGuides.org technology articles?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

Disclaimer: I may have previously cited either or both of these. Mea Culpa. Summary: Option 3: Generally unreliable for both. Background: As far as I know, neither website has been discussed here previously, but PrivacyTools was previously mentioned (by me) to support a different source. Privacy Guides is a "fork" of Privacy Tools circa 2021. There was Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/PrivacyTools in 2019, result: Delete. Oddities: The PrivacyTools article creator, User:UnnamedUser, was blocked for puppetry. The only Keep came from User:JonahAragon, who requested Draft restore in 2021 Special:Diff/926083267, and has recently worked on Draft:Privacy Guides (with declared COI). They also cited Privacy Guides to add critical comparative statements (negative towards CalyxOS) to CalyxOS and GrapheneOS, and cited or mentioned PrivacyTools or PrivacyGuides elsewhere: Special:Diff/1146474677, Special:Diff/1146473478. Privacytools.io has been cited a few times[26]. Summary: Both websites are group (or individual) blogs (and advocacy sites) without evidence of editorial oversight, and as such are unreliable. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• A RFC seems unnecessary. Of the articles in which it shows up on Wikipedia per the search lined above, one article references a blog, another references Reddit, the third uses it as an external link, not a reference, and the fourth is a false hit - the reference is actually to a similarly-named site on Harvard.edu. Clearly the blog and the Reddit references should be removed. The external link isn't an issue. There isn't really a live question as far as I can tell. Banks Irk (talk) 20:20, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Is ZDNet still reliable?

The last discussion about ZDNet was stale because it happened in 2018. However, since September 2020, the marketing company Red Ventures has acquired ZDNet. I feel like new issues have been caused by Red Ventures in the same way that they did to CNET when they acquired it in October 2020. 96.53.67.242 (talk) 19:28, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Definitely one to be very cautious of, for this reason. My subjective feeling is that ZDNet's become a much worse and shallower source, and it didn't start so great. Though some of their stuff can still be very good. Has ZDNet done anything noteworthily egregious, as CNet did with AI articles? - David Gerard (talk) 20:22, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure. However, the problem isn't CNET using AI to write articles; it's them not telling anyone and not fact-checking them thoroughly (if at all!) before they get published to the website. Maybe it was reliable pre-2020? 96.53.67.242 (talk) 21:10, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I raised this same question here. No evidence yet, but given CNET's deterioration from a reliable to an unreliable source under Red Venture's ownership, I think concerns about ZDNet are not unfounded. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 16:18, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

The book Legacy of Ashes

The book Legacy of Ashes has been critized by various people, including academics. Is it really an acceptable source for CIA-related articles? I don't think we should take criticism by the CIA itself in particularly serious, but it seems to have quite some issues. See the following quote:

>Loch K. Johnson and Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones wrote that "as for scholars, the consensus seems to be that the work lacks both objectivity and thorough research";

Could or should this book be deprecated as a reliable source for Wikipedia? PhotographyEdits (talk) 21:07, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the book, and modern intelligence history is well outside my usual wheelhouse, but, with those caveats in mind, I don't think this rises to the level of deprecation. According to our information page on deprecation, most deprecation to date has focused on sources that promote known falsehoods, particularly debunked conspiracy theories, and I'm not seeing that here. It's a book by a journalist, published by a mainstream non-academic press, so we should prefer academic works written by subject-matter experts, but none of the reviews cited in the article seem to be criticising factual inaccuracies rather than the author's biases and conclusions. So long as it's used with caution, with appropriate regard to WP:Weight and the author's biases, I don't see that it's unusable as a source; certainly not to the point where it needs formal deprecation. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 07:11, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto That makes sense, thanks for explaining. I agree. PhotographyEdits (talk) 08:01, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Non-historical sources on 150 year old topic

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.

---

There's a problem with a new article Arrest of Ulysses S. Grant. The story is dubious. There are no contemporary sources for it, and it is based solely on a single person's report decades later in 1908. As far as I can find, there are no historical notes on the topic. Instead, the closest you get is people like the DC police chief of 2012 or some blogger for Grant's estate saying it's real, but they always cite back to the single source. I've left plenty of messaging on the talk page already, but will repeat a bit of it here. I've put the request for deletion on, but was reverted in 30 minutes without the comments addressing the issues.

In the wake of people salivating over Trump's arrest, we have numerous "reliable sources" repeating it the story over and over, and then they are cited on WP. WP recognizes this as a major problem: WP:citogenesis. The heavy dependence on modern political articles about Trump's woes, while using this 150 year old story that claims an event of huge significance is a WP:REDFLAG. We want to call these sources WP:GREL, but they are outside their Areas of expertise on this. The WaPo source cannot be relied upon here. This shows in their own citing. The WaPo leans on Cathy Lanier, the DC police chief in 2012, which leans on the DCist, which cites nothing except a bathroom reader from the 80s. And all of them are not historians. The rest are blog level sources or sourced for ancillary topics. The closest I can find is a blog (currently source 8) citing "The Marion Enterprise (NY), June 20, 1885". No one knows what that is or where to find it. It looks like it might be a close to contemporary newspaper. There's also the supposition that Lanier was referencing the DC police logbook, but that is not clear. I even put in a few emails, no reply, and it doesn't seem like the logbook has been digitized nor is available for public view. Further still, I have yet to find any authoritative historical sources citing the story. Only mostly modern news and blogs.

Without reliable sources in their area of expertise, I recommend deleting the article. 76.178.169.118 (talk) 22:24, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

When has contemporary coverage ever been needed to establish notability? Philipnelson99 (talk) 22:27, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy tagging @Tamzin since they contested PROD. Philipnelson99 (talk) 22:33, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Where do I say notability is the problem? On the contrary, the story does have value, but as it's own article, and certainly not based on flimsy modern revisionism. I note on Ulysses S Grant talk that the story deserves a mention there. A mention, since it is a neat little bit of American folktale. But the idea that it actually happened appears very dubious right now. 76.178.169.118 (talk) 22:36, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Your WP:PRODtag necessarily implicates WP:N. Banks Irk (talk) 22:58, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Exactly. Philipnelson99 (talk) 23:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• All of the sources are reliable. They, and the text of the article, clearly identify the provence of the story. The objection to the sourcing is meritless. Banks Irk (talk) 22:36, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  Have you looked at it? They all lean on each other first WP:citogenesis, then on other loose places (blogs from 2012, a bathroom reader from 1982), which all fall on a single retelling 35 years later: The supposed arresting officer talking to a newspaper. There are no contemporary newspaper sources and no historical authorities address it. The current sourcing is a wp:redflag. They are not reliable for this article. 76.178.169.118 (talk) 22:40, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I have read the article, all of the sources, and your numerous objections in multiple venues. Your arguments are meritless. Banks Irk (talk) 22:58, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• To summarize what I said on talk: No reliable sources I have seen, including ones that have taken critical looks at the story, dispute that Ulysses S. Grant was arrested by William H. West in 1872. There is some dispute as to how accurate West's narrative is—not even that anyone's identified any issues with it, just that much of it is unverifiable—and the article does not present those aspects of his narrative as fact. As far as I know, that's the only way you can write this sort of article: Say what the primary sources claim, and say what the secondary sources say about them. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 22:40, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  Where have you found a reliable source "that have taken critical looks at the story"? The closest I found to a critical take was DCist saying "The story struck us as perhaps a bit apocryphal, but it all checks out." But it is not at all clear how "it all checks out", except maybe they just take Lanier at her word. BTW, they are one of the people I've emailed, no response. 76.178.169.118 (talk) 22:55, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  As the "Assessment and legacy" section explains: Rosenwald acknowledges possible issues with the Star's reliability but still concludes that the arrest happened. And that level of analysis distinguishes him from the litany of clickbait articles I've taken pains to not rely on here. Marszalek, as a respected historian in the field, can be assumed to have not accepted the story at face value. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 23:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm not seeing an issue here. The secondary sources both recent and historic, like The Washington Post, The Washington Star, Sports Illustrated and Texas Law Review, clearly have sufficient editorial over-site to pass our standards for reliable sources. Would it be preferable to have a historian's account of the event? Absolutely. But is that essential to demonstrate the topic is notable and passes WP:SIGCOV? No. The sourcing dating back prior to the Trump era would be sufficient on its own to pass our notability and referencing criteria for inclusion on wikipedia. The reporters were able to verify the arrest took place through public records made by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia. The fact that the only eye witness account recorded by journalists was by the arresting officer doesn't to my mind create a problem as those publications had editorial review. The arguments made here seem to be entirely motivated by personal politics, and the attempt to WP:CENSOR information.4meter4 (talk) 22:59, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  Firstly, I state in several places for the story to be somewhere on WP, so claims I'm trying to scrub it from WP is not a sensible argument. WP:AGF.

  Secondly, when you say "The reporters were able to verify the arrest took place through public records made by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia" where are you getting that from? From DCist and Lanier only? But they don't cite any public record as the source for the story. 76.178.169.118 (talk) 23:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  76, can you be more clear here: What do you think the article should actually say? It already says that West's account is unverified. It would be WP:OR/WP:POV to say that the arrest itself is disputed, when no reliable sources dispute it. What's your preferred version? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 23:17, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  WP:SECONDARY covers this, a public record would be considered a primary source so the coverage in WP:RS based on the record is fine. Philipnelson99 (talk) 23:18, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  What public record is this you refer to? 76.178.169.118 (talk) 23:16, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

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

FilmFreeway

I find many informations on FilmFreeway about movies and my fav actors, like informations about the subjects which provides way more informations than "reliable sources". Is there a way someday that it could be seen a reliable as independent artists may not be on famous sources as the guardian? They may not be enough noticed by these sources while sources like FilmFreeway, British Urban Film Festival, Winter Film Awards have more informations. They're independent so of course it's not like teen choice Awards but it doesn't mean it's not reliable. It would help so much underrated artists if that could be seen reliable Veganpurplefox (talk) 00:54, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

• Not reliable. All of the content is user-generated/uploaded. The hosts review it before posting, but that's not enough to make it a reliable source. Banks Irk (talk) 02:04, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

  Everything written is confirmed by interviews and their social medias, why isnt it considered reliable? They're the ones who worked on the project Veganpurplefox (talk) 03:27, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

  It looks more like a PR site that publishes the press releases of different film festivals. Could be alright for basic details under WP:SPS but not for anything contentious or for notability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:00, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

• Not reliable, its UGC and unlike ActivelyDisinterested I don't really see the use under SPS... Unlike PR which is published by the individual or entity we can't use PR published by FilmFreeway for anything other than information about FilmFreeway. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:41, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

The National (newspaper, Scotland)

The National is a newspaper in Scotland owned by the US media conglomerate, Gannett. It was created for the purpose of proving a news outlet committed to Scottish political independence in a media landscape dominated by news outlets with the opposte editorial policies, and to campaign for independence where this is the main political issue which divides voters in Scotland. It initially had a very small budget. It has been reported that its paid-for circulation is in the low thousands (e.g. 3000 in 2017). It was eventually purchased by Gannett, who also own the Herald newspaper in Scotland. It exists today with a small staff which takes advantage of its link with The Herald in respect of news gatheridng and so forth. It is written in good-faith for the independence supporting community (around half of the Scottish population is pro-independence). However, this means that its stories are often highly nuanced in favour of independence and its approach to stories lead to statements and presentation of facts which can be unreliable in respect of a readership which goes beyond it's core political support base. Notably, this is not an editorial line - these can change as newspapers come across new political conditions - it is the newspaper's raison d'etre. Should The National be regarded as a partially deprecated, or evern fully-depredated source? My own instinct is that it should be deprecated for the purpose of anything policial, but taken on a case by case basis for anything else. https://www.thenational.scot https://www.heraldscotland.com. All the best, Emmentalist (talk) 11:23, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

• Well, it certainly shouldn't be fully deprecated - a swift perusal of the newspaper shows that it carries many stories that are irrelevant to Scottish independence, whether they be international stories or ones that are irrelevant to politics. And even political stories (i.e. this) are often simply ones that have been covered by every other newspaper. Obviously one needs to be careful, but unless there is a history of The National actually printing severely biased or untrue stories, I don't think it's an issue. Black Kite (talk) 11:40, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

  It seems to me that particularly in respect of political stories which involve independence, a newspaper created to campaign for independence with a paid circulation of a few thousand independence supporters may well be best regarded as a part deprecated source on a case by case basis. In respect of other stories, since they come from The Herald directly in many cases, they are quite likely entirely legit. Emmentalist (talk) 12:54, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

• Unless there is some evidence of unreliable reporting beyond that which is typical of the British mainstream press, then The National should be considered reliable on all topics. All British newspapers have strong political positions, The Times and Telegraph are pro-Tory and pro-union, The Guardian is centrist to social-democratic and pro-EU and pro-Union for example.

The "unreliable presentation of facts" argument applies to all of these newspapers, it is ALWAYS necessary for editors to be aware of this and attribute where necessary. As it stands, the National should be considered a mainstream reliable source, however, if the original user wishes to see it downgraded an RfC would be one way to present these arguments. Boynamedsue (talk) 13:12, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. No evidence has been presented here substantiating the claims/problem being articulated by Emmentalist. I would think we would need to see evidence of unreliable reporting to even discuss this problem. Given that we do accept Gannett's other publications as reliable mainstream RS; I am not seeing any reason to divert from that practice with this particular publication at present.4meter4 (talk) 22:04, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

• None of this provides evidence why it shouldn't be regarded as an ordinary WP:NEWSORG as it appears to be. Do you have anything specific other than "it's biased"? - David Gerard (talk) 22:04, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree. This is a typical WP: NEWSORG. Every newspaper has an editorial POV of one kind of another; having an editorial policy favoring Scottish independence just happens to be theirs. It doesn't render their news reporting unreliable. Banks Irk (talk) 23:47, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

• None of that would warrant deprecation, if thats the outcome you seek you actually need to make an argument for it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:43, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Craft Coffee Spot

A discussion here raised a question about the use of a site called Craft Coffee Spot (craftcoffeespot.com) as a source. According to their website, it was started in 2011. Its founder is also listed as its "managing editor"; there are also two writers and a production/marketing person. What is the opinion of others here on its editorial policy? I'm not sure if it meets the standard of a RS. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 16:28, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

• The short discussion linked above seems to focus on the site having marketing affiliations, which is a concern. If a website is getting paid for promoting a product or service, it pretty much destroys the credibility of any reviews they are doing on that product or service. On the other hand, there may be other content on a site which is reliable - I can think of lots of examples of reliable sources which also do product reviews that are clearly the product of marketing affiliation. We can cite the reliable content, but not the reviews, from those source. What about this site? The problem with that is that its founder/editor/chief cook and bottle washer identifies himself only as "Marcus L". I got no idea who Marcus L is, or what qualifications he has. And nothing in the short bios of its staff generates any confidence. I view this as pretty much a WP:SPS by someone with not demonstrated expertise an no prior publication history in independent reliable sources. Banks Irk (talk) 19:20, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

• I would consider this an unreliable source. The website specifically states at the bottom, "This site contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases." Basically, the site is a marketing platform that features products for sale that the owner of the website gets kickbacks from. There's absolutely a financial motive here. The website isn't reviewing products that they don't like, and they are making money from the ones they do review. A reliable source would review products with a chance of a giving them a negative review, and would not have financial ties to the products that do give a positive review to. Further, there's nothing to indicate that the writers of the website have any relevant professional expertise and it is unclear what editorial oversight is in place. I concur with Banks Irk that this should treated as an WP:SPS by a non-expert.4meter4 (talk) 21:49, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

This is a side note but participation in Amazon's affiliates program or a similar program is not automatically problematic (it can be done ethically). What you described would be, but thats only one of nearly infinite possibilities. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:46, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

• Unreliable in my opinion. Just because the founder labeled himself "managing editor" doesn't mean their is "editorial oversight." It simply means that person controls what is published. It's a commercial blog that runs reviews linked to Amazon and gets money from referrals to Amazon. --CNMall41 (talk) 16:20, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
• Unreliable, it seems to be a group blog and as far as I can tell nobody directly involved is a subject matter expert and their coverage isn't used by others. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: WION

Following these previous discussions from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 335#WION News, and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 315#Is WION a reliable source?, what is the reliability of WION (wionnews.com  )?

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

Surveyor Mount 04:25, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

@Surveyor Mount you have not formatted this to be a formal Request for Comments. If you want to do that take a look at the help page here: WP:RFC. Also pinging contributors from the two earlier discussions: @Morgengave @Tayi Arajakate @Thucydides411 @Horse Eye's Back Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

The Wire (Indian Publication) and Meta Controversy

FYI

 – Unarchived to close. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 19:39, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

With the increasing use of The Wire as a source for citation for various articles, we should assess The Wire as a reliable source for Wikipedia. Attached are some links below to go over the controversy.

Scroll Explainer

Meta's Report SpunkyGeek (talk) 03:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm a little confused here. Is there any reason anyone on this planet should believe anything Meta says? I mean, come on.

If there's more to this, we certainly need a much better source than Meta. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Are there other issues with Wire that require an assessment of their use on Wikipedia? Wire-Meta seems premature for the community to discuss as even the tech community appears to be divided/confused as to what's going on, per the scroll source. Slywriter (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The Wire has conceded that there was a breach of moral conduct. The printed story seemed politically motivated because it was pursued with fabricated evidence.

Hence the question that the story it publishes is reliable enough to cite as a source.

https://thewire.in/media/the-wire-editorial-to-our-readers-an-apology-and-a-promise

https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/10/27/the-wire-issues-apology-cites-deception-by-a-member-of-our-meta-investigation-team SpunkyGeek (talk) 04:55, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• We obviously can't just take the fact that Meta itself (as a primary source) disputes the Wire's coverage as evidence that there's some problem the Wire is unreliable; this, at least, is an obvious WP:MANDY situation - if the simple fact that the subject of a piece denied things was enough to render a source unreliable, no source that reports on anything controversial could be reliable. And even if there was secondary coverage saying that the Wire got this particular thing wrong (and the Scroll article - which isn't particularly impressive as a source - says no such thing, it just reports competing claims), that wouldn't necessarily impact their status as a WP:RS, because a source's reliability is based on its overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and not one particular incident. Do you have any reason to think that the Wire's overall reputation has been harmed by this, as opposed to them just saying some things that Meta disputes? --Aquillion (talk) 04:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed we cannot take Meta's statement as the truth. However, the issue is that The Wire conceded that there was a breach of conduct from one of their employees (fabricating the evidence). Reporting something wrong and fabricating something to prove a story are different things. SpunkyGeek (talk) 04:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  It's not just meta saying things; it's The Wire fabricating things and destroying their reputation. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Is there any indication (ideally from a reliable source) that we should consider this to be more than a deplorable, yet individual incident? Der Spiegel is by consnesus generally reliable, inspite of the mass fabrications by Claas Relotius. –Austronesier (talk) 06:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Austronesier: See The Economist, which notes that The Wire destroyed its reputation in this whole affair. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:33, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Still reliable They did a story and took it back with a notice. There is nothing wrong with that. Capitals00 (talk) 06:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

  The Economist provides credible information that there was an intentional breach of journalistic morals (fabricating evidence). SpunkyGeek (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Every source screws up at least once. It's only the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior that matters, not a singular event. The Wire's response seems appropriate as to what a reliable source does when one of its employees engages in bad practices; this is a sign that they are reliable, not the other way around. --Jayron32 13:45, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Deprecate Generally unreliable Poorly worded opening post, which lacks any background. The issue is not that Meta disputed their report. MANDY is horribly misapplied here. The issue isn't that they made a "mistake", either, or that they were hoaxed by an employee (which happened to the most reliable outlets). The issue is that

• an employee completely fabricated evidence used in news stories that had multiple senior editors on the byline
• that this fabrication was so blatant that the most basic fact-checking mechanisms would have caught it
• that these senior editors publicly stood by the story, saying that it was based on two separate sources.
• that the outlet as a whole (not just the fired journalist) vociferously quadrupled-down on the fabricated story
• and that this "explosive" news story is exactly the kind of story that actual WP:RS would either jointly investigate with other WP:RS, or at least scrutinise very deeply. A good example is this competent joint reporting by The Guardian and other outlets.

This fiasco could never have happened at a reputable outlet. The Wire's editors admit that they never bothered to verify the sourcing, despite public claims otherwise, and despite that being journalism 101. We judge reliability based on the level of editorial scrutiny. This story shows that The Wire has none, and firing the at-fault journalist does not address this. The Economist says The Wire fell for a "massive conspiracy", and blames The Wire's partisanship. WaPo notes growing questions about The Wire’s integrity and accuracy. The Editors Guild of India, their national journalistic association which had previously stood by The Wire, now calls out their circumvention of journalistic norms and checks.

We simply cannot treat an outlet that lacks proper "journalistic norms and checks" as reliable. Let's not be lenient on this. DFlhb (talk) 15:22, 17 February 2023 (UTC) changing from Deprecate to GUNREL, since this isn't an RFC 22:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

India has no reputable outlets left, not a single one. The irony is that even after all of this The Wire is probably still the most reliable Indian news source... If we were to move to prohibit the use of every source as reliable or less we would be prohibiting the entire Indian media industry. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Only 194 to go.

More seriously, thanks to those who have clarified this is more than a simple dispute. Based on the above fact set, I would support some form of downgrading of the Wire, though not sure we are in deprecate territory yet. Slywriter (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I have to kindly disagree. India has many reputable sources and reliable outlets like The Indian Express, The Hindu, etc.

Breach of journalistic ethics by The Wire in the above case contradicts your argument. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with most of the points presented.

Will make sure more background is provided in the future. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@DFlhb: For what it's worth, deprecation can only be achieved by formal RfC. I'm not sure that I would support outright deprecation (this is probably fine for run-of-the-mill facts) but I do think the question deserves discussion. Do you think that it would be wise for me to open up a standard four-option RfC below? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:56, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

In that case, I'll change my !vote to "generally unreliable". It's indeed pretty reasonable for outlets to be declared GUNREL before being considered deprecated, so proper scrutiny can be applied for each "downgrade". Also, I'll likely have little time to contribute over the next few weeks, except watching my watchlist, so I won't be able to do the kind of more in-depth analysis I like to do in RFCs. DFlhb (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

• Not generally reliable. Like Jayron32 says above, the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior matters most when determining whether a news group has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. But, looking at the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior here, I am struggling to draw lines between The Wire's response and that of Rolling Stone following its publication of A Rape on Campus; for various reasons including the lack of rigor in Rolling Stone's editorial standards for that topic area, we have WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS. DFlhb lays out a persuasive case that The Wire no longer possesses the reputation for fact-checking that generally reliable sources do, and the reputation of The Wire seems to have taken a hit inside of even the more reliable Indian newsrooms, following both its fabricated October reporting about Meta and its fabrications relating to Tek fog:
  CNN-News18 and NewsLaundry give a decently long summary of the extent to which evidence was fabricated for the October story regading Meta:
  1. The Wire had alleged that an Indian government official more or less had the power to remove posts on Instagram. Meta denied the story.
  2. When Meta initially denied the story, The Wire posted fabricated screenshots stating that a user had "X-check" privileges. Meta responded by stating that the "X-check" privilege did not actually allow what The Wire said it did (previous reporting did not indicate that the privileges could actually be used to take down posts), and that the screenshots contained a fabricated url on a page designed to look as if it were something related to Instagram.
  3. After Meta responded saying that the url and website were deceptively fabricated and the privileges shown in the previous screenshots did not do what The Wire claimed, The Wire released a doctored video to back up its reporting that falsely claimed to show one of its journalists having access to Instagram's backend.
  4. Aside from all of this, both experts The Wire claimed it received access to an email from Meta executives, which the Meta executives denied. The Wire claimed that it had conducted checks with specific experts in cybersecurity to verify that the content of the email was legitimate, but those experts themselves say that they never talked to The Wire or that they explicitly refused to run the verification. The Economist, linked below, notes that the email was written in painfully broken English, which is not exactly expected of senior anglophone Meta executives, and this should have been a bright red flag for The Wire.
  5. Within two weeks of publication, the entire meat of the story had been publicly shown to have been a total and utter fabrication, and CNN-News18 notes that The Wire has been accused of fabricating evidence to validate its report after the fact.

After this whole fiasco, The Economist wrote that The Wire had shattered its own credibility and criticized the Indian news website's editors for their stupidity of choosing partisanship over process. If you have access to The Economist, I hope you read the whole article, as it's truly eye-opening regarding this news source. The Washington Post, in their esposé on the issue, also tore into the doubling-down and tripling-down, suggesting that basically every attempt by The Wire to provide evidence just kept raising more questions in The Wire's reporting.

Next, let's look at a summary of the (under review but not officially retracted) Tek Fog story, which India Today correctly notes is even more damaging than the Meta controversy:

1. The Wire, in January 2022, published a story alleging that a secret app, called "Tek Fog" was allegedly being used by the BJP and by the Indian government to harass female journalists.
2. The story was quickly picked up internationally, particularly in the opinion sections of Washington Post and Bloomberg, a academic blog post from London School of Economics, as well as nationally on Indian TV and among other Indian news organizations.
3. At the time, the Editors Guild of India expressed significant concerns regarding the treatment of women journalists in India.
4. After the whole Meta scandal, news organizations systematically re-evaluated the reliability of the Tek Fog reporting. In light of the battered reputation for fact-checking within The Wire's investigative reporting, the issued a statement saying that serious questions on the veracity of their reporting and called upon news groups to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks. Bloomberg news even retracted(!) an opinion article on Tek Fog because it had been based on reporting from The Wire.

Both of these stories alleged extremely serious violations—and wound up being of extremely questionable factual accuracy. The response to criticism of the October investigation into Meta was simply to double- and triple-down on the fabrications that they had published. And so too was their response to Tek Fog; until the Meta story completely and utterly fell apart in front of their very eyes ten months after they published the Tek Fog piece, The Wire's editorial staff had refused to issue a correction—despite the report being extremely factually dubious. This is a sign that the organization has irresponsible oversight from editors, and the organization frankly does not have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy in its investigative journalism. For reasons of having systemic deficiencies in editorial oversight and editors from the paper repeatedly and publicly insisting that false and fabricated content was true until the weight of criticism against them became too great to handle, and several well-respected publications more or less saying that The Wire's credibility is totally shot following this charade, this should source not be considered to be generally reliable—and I would have great concern about using this whatsoever with respect to WP:BLPs. This isn't a case where we're dealing with simple errors or misinformation; these stories well appear to be intentional political disinformation attempts. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. This is a case of intentional manipulation for political goal-scoring where it seems even the top leadership has a role. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC: The Wire (India)

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

This is a request for comments on the reliability of The Wire, and Indian news website. Last year, The Wire published a story, fabricated by one of their employees, alleging that an Indian politician had been given the power to delete other users' posts on Instagram. No participant in the discussion questioned the seriousness of this incident. However, editors provided evidence that The Wire has previously been considered reliable. Most participants agreed that this was an isolated incident, the likes of which happen to many reliable sources. The publication's reaction to criticism was central to the discussion; editors who consider The Wire unreliable argued that they "quadrupled down" on their mistakes before admitting them, and that there was no evidence of a change in their editorial practices. Editors who consider The Wire to be generally reliable compared this incident to other similar incidents involving reliable publications, and argued that The Wire's reaction was appropriate, and that their retraction and apology speak to the website's reliability. Of these groups of editors, the latter was significantly more numerous. As such, I find a consensus that The Wire remains generally reliable for factual reporting. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 19:39, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

---

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Indian news website The Wire (direct url)?

• 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

— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Survey: The Wire (India)

• Option 3. As I've noted in my large comment above, what we have here is a website that was exposed for creating hoaxes out of whole cloth in order to engage in political disinformation. The set of fabrications published by The Wire are of such a complex scale as to be compared to infamously fabricated Rolling Stone piece "A Rape on Campus", and many of the same deficiencies that plagued Rolling Stone at the time appear to be plaguing The Wire. When Meta contested the reporting from The Wire, the website outright accused Meta of fabrication rather than admitting its mistakes promptly. They only withdrew the story after doubling- and tripling-down on baseless allegations that were supported by fabricated evidence; rather than doing their due diligence before making extraordinary claims about Meta, The Economist correctly observes that The Wire's editorial staff undertook the stupidity of choosing partisanship over process and in the process shattered its own credibility. Responsible news organizations don't attempt to cover up their mistakes by continuing to fabricate evidence; after being asked to retract the piece, as The Washington Post notes, The Wire also published screenshots of emails it said were from independent experts vouching for its authenticity, but those emails showed incorrect dates from 2021. The images were edited to show the correct dates [(i.e. 2022)] after the story published, but not before readers caught the error. And lo and behold, those emails were indeed fabricated; everyone who The Wire claims to have sent them an email either explicitly stated that they refused to work with The Wire or stated that they had not been contacted by The Wire. This is a total failure of editorial integrity, from the reporters who initially made the incorrect reports, to the editors who knowingly allowed a doctored email to be published in an attempted cover-up rather than admit their mistake.
  It isn't just foreign observers who lack confidence in The Wire following these revelations. The Editors Guild of India has noted that issues with factual accuracy extend deeper into the website's investigative reporting, noting serious questions on the veracity of their reporting in The Wire's investigation of Tek fog, an alleged app that allegedly allowed people to send automated messages to harass female journalists, and reminding the media organization to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks.
  All in all, this was a total and utter failure of fact-checking on topics that allege significant (and perhaps criminal) wrongdoing against specific parties, on multiple occasions, both on topics with explicit political relevance. This goes beyond sloppiness or misinformation—this was disinformation that appears to have been conducted and approved by both the journalists who wrote the original report as well as the editors who initially attempted to cover that very same report up. I would never want to cite this source for facts about a WP:BLP, nor for contentious facts. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

No reliable secondary sources accuses the editors of covering up or political disinformation nor do they mention accusations on those lines by any third party. To the contrary, the Washington Post article features a comment by the main person (the CIS co-founder) who unraveled the fabrications, where he says that the editor "maintained his personal integrity". This is pertinent because you have missed a key fact that we would not be certain that those emails were fabricated if the editor had not co-operated and disclosed the identities of the senders (they were kept anonymous).

If they really wanted to, they could have forgone accountability and easily rode on their reputation and it would have remained a debated issue among tech experts. Most of the retractions and commentary came after their own retraction. The structural conditions, i.e pressures on journalistic organisations, the need to protect sources, outstretched resources and the state of press freedom is in far severe condition in India than in the United States (read this article by NYT), so any comparison is misguided.

And saying that "foreign observers lack confidence in The Wire" (or reliable Indian ones) is inaccurate and there isn't much substantive evidence for it. It should be noted that The Economist piece is an opinion column that is making an appeal to The Wire and in general, and compares their reporting to things like Russian interference in US elections and the Cambridge Analytics scandal related to Brexit, describing them as similar mistakes, as far as I understand these are still debated over if not accepted. The full EGI statement is also a reference to the reporting on the Tek Fog app specifically; it says "Since the Wire has removed those stories as part of their internal review following serious questions on the veracity of their reporting, the Guild withdraws the references made to all those reports". It shouldn't be conflated as a judgement of The Wire general reporting. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 09:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 Fabrications and deception by one of their employees (who was subsequently sacked) shouldn't be conflated with the news publisher as a whole. Both the stories whether Tek Fog or the one on Meta were retracted and an apology published. This is standard practise when journalistic misconduct does occur and is an indication of a reliable source.

They otherwise have a solid track record of investigative journalism and reputation as a high quality news publication, consistently receiving both major Indian and international awards. A lot could be written on this but I'll give one prime example that shows that they are considered authoritative and clearly demonstrate that it's a reliable source. BBC News has the most extensive coverage of any high quality international news publisher in India and they regularly, in nearly every major (and extremely contentious) story on India, use The Wire as a source for important related facts, without seeing the need for any attribution or qualification (such as describing it as a claim) and simply with hyperlinks directly to "thewire.in", some instances (note that these are hard to collect since they don't come up in searches, but are rather abundant):

1. hyperlink at "ensure that Muslims stop wearing skullcaps"
2. hyperlink at "called Muslims demons", another one at " people have been held over tweets" and another one at "held for putting up posters"
3. hyperlink at "criticism"
4. hyperlink at "a vendor was beaten up", etc etc

Other international outlets have a similar practise, using it as a source and present its reporting as facts, a few instances below.

1. this report in Columbia Journalism Review on threats to journalists during the 2020 Delhi riots, it was used as a source for facts (see "...fifty-three people, the majority of whom were Muslim, had been killed..." ("fifty-three people" is hyperlinked to a thewire.in article).
2. this piece (hyperlink at "disaffection") in the The Diplomat uses it as a source for facts on jurisprudence regarding the sedition law in India
3. this Coda Media report (hyperlinks to 4 articles at "rebuke", "had", "observed" and "maintained") uses it as a source for facts regarding migrant workers during COVID-19 pandemic and inconsistencies in the government's claims
4. this piece in The Verge on net neutrality
5. this report from The Independent on the Haridwar hate speeches, and many more.

In addition, to give few examples of their reputation, as in how they are described, in the Columbia Journalism Review report on news media in India, The Wire was extensively covered and specifically described to have carried "award-winning reporting", the International Press Institute in a a report during the pandemic had stated that it "is providing some of the best coverage in the Asia-Pacific region on the impact of the coronavirus and the lock-down on disadvantaged and disempowered Indians", Foreign Policy in one of its columns described the publication as "Indian's most respected online news service", etc. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 06:54, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

All of these links are from before the controversy. DFlhb (talk) 11:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Kindly Disagree. This was not journalistic misconduct. It is a case of fabrication of evidence for political goal-scoring. All the cases that you have provided where The Wire has been cited as a source is before October 2022. I highly doubt that any credible news agency has used their story after this expose. SpunkyGeek (talk) 12:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

It demonstrates that they had a reputation for fact checking and accuracy and any determination of the source as unreliable would mean one would have to discard all articles from this period.

It also doesn't appear anything has changed post—October 2022, in December 2022, they won 2 Red Ink Awards, one for their contribution in the Pegasus Project collaboration as it's Indian partner (which they still are, and it includes reputable publications from around the world) and one for their report on transgender prisoners. The BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question (which is very high stakes), released in January 2023, features the editor of The Wire in an authoritative capacity. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

India: The Modi Question documentary is a controversial documentary. The Wire has a known history of political bias against the present government in India hence much of its reporting is in that particular space. The documentary is a critique of the present Indian government's domestic policies. Most of the journalists who are currently part of The Wire have presented their critical analysis on the then Gujarat government (2002) and the present Indian government, therefore are part of the documentary. (We are not discussing the authenticity of their analysis here)

The Wire fabricating a piece of evidence to pursue a story with biased editorial oversight is a whole different case. Why I said 'biased' is because there have been no repercussions for senior editors or the board members of The Wire. SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

It was controversial with supporters of the present Indian government, but it was also accurate and reliable. What exactly is the issue you take with it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:18, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

What issue I have with the documentary is irrelevant to the discussion. The Wire has practiced unethical journalism is the story here. SpunkyGeek (talk) 00:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3, see my detailed reply in the pre-RFC discussion, which I won't summarise here. The Meta story was genuinely ludicrous; all the tech experts I follow on Twitter immediately questioned its veracity. Why didn't the outlet? This is far worse than A Rape on Campus, which was at least a little plausible. The Meta story had several senior editors (including a founding editor) on the byline. When Meta said sources were fabricated, these senior editors should have checked (indeed, any outlet would have done so before initial publication). Instead, they vociferously quadrupled-down, called Meta's denials "obfuscation", and wrote about Meta's denial in a shockingly combative way (alleging that Meta was trying to "goad" them into revealing their sources). The Wire's editorial failures go far beyond the fired journalist, and four months later, still haven't been addressed. They pledged "transparency", yet haven't publicly announced any changes to their editorial process. Firing a journalist doesn't solve their lack of editorial oversight. The Tek Fog story hasn't been corroborated by other outlets, relied on the now-fired journalist, allegedly has "glaring holes", and yet is still not retracted (only "removed from view"). It's on them to prove they addressed their editorial issues, not on us to assume they did.

Let's see what third-parties think:

• "Unprecedented polarization, the trumping of ideology over facts, active hate-mongering or pamphleteering, and the death of nuance — particularly in prime time television — all make up the new normal. Journalists are increasingly either chamcha ya morcha: sycophants and shameful supplicants to power, or activists dreaming of regime change." (Semafor)
• "a once-dependable news website", "sheer irresponsibility" (Slate)
• URLs shown in the report didn't actually exist (a MarketWatch reporter)
• "The Wire did not ask Meta for comment [...] ahead of publishing" (a Buzzfeed News reporter); that's egregious!

I'm not alleging that this was a deliberate hoax on The Wire's part. But I don't need to. I evaluate sources based on their editorial practices, and theirs just aren't good enough. DFlhb (talk) 12:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

This is easy to say in hindsight but the fact is tech experts were uncertain and divided. Even Sophie Zhang, someone who had understanding of Meta's systems was for a time convinced by the journalist's conviction despite her initial doubts. It's also inaccurate to say they have announced no changes, they did in the apology they published.

In the end there's a simple question, can you (or anyone) bring any news report of theirs or any reliable secondary coverage that questions their reporting and is not in the context of this controversy, this one journalist, or these retracted and/or withdrawn (or "removed from view" if you will) reports?

There is so much evidence that demonstrates that they have a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy" which is how we determine which sources are reliable, not on our own ideas of their internal workings (based on one episode that is), one should at least be able to show a pattern across the organisation. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Zhang had left Facebook two years earlier, and had no understanding of Facebook's then-current systems. She also falsely claimed that the docs must have been faked by a Facebook employee, which is... understandable, given her dislike of the company, but was completely baseless. Meanwhile, independent observers and proper journalists were skeptical from the start, and were harassed by The Wire's supporters.

The fact is, trust is earned, not given. It's true that they're among the better Indian outlets, but declaring them GENREL means they can be used as sourcing in BLPs, and everywhere else. Here, "business as usual" is not tenable. The polarisation pointed out by Semafor means that it's no longer a case of outstanding independent journalists on one side, and government propagandists on the other side; sadly, the independent side is no longer fully trustworthy either. DFlhb (talk) 14:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

That doesn't answer my question, you are just showing me twitter comments and opining on them. With the evidence you have the only articles that shouldn't be used for BLPs and elsewhere are the ones that can't be used anyways because have been withdrawn/retracted. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The argument that a news outlet is printing against a government can be termed as a reliable source is meaningless in this context.

Here we have a specific case where it seems that the top leadership of The Wire has participated in the intentional fabricating of evidence. Giving them amnesty would not only set a wrong precedent but will also put a question mark on WP:RSP guidelines. SpunkyGeek (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The Wire was also ordered to take down 14 (not 1 or 2) of its stories by the Telangana Court for reporting against Indian vaccine manufacturers (Bharat Biotech, COVAXIN). Yet no action was taken by the "internal editorial board" of The Wire.

(Such were the violations that Telangana Court also barred The Wire from further reporting)

See:Telangana Court orders The Wire to take down its stories

If you are claiming this is to be a one-time incident then I have to kindly and strongly disagree with that. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

An Indian court ordering a news source to take down a story does not mean that story is not true; indeed, given recent events, it may even be more likely that it is. Black Kite (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

If the stories were authentic, don't you think The Wire would have gone to the higher courts?

Also, many other publications would have supported them to pursue this. SpunkyGeek (talk) 23:13, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

DFlhb In fact, the very Slate article you quoted here shows them having a solid reputation even in midst of the controversy. I hope you read it in its entirety. Some full quotes from it:

1. "The Wire has done important, noble work under duress, and its best writing remains a brilliant exemplar of what Indian journalism can do best. But going forward, it’ll be so much harder to do this type of journalism."
2. "To be clear, informed analysts of the saga did not tend to believe the Wire acted maliciously in order to defame Meta. Rather, they said this was probably the result of an elaborate scheme planned by someone with a vendetta against the Wire. Or, as Stamos put it, “an extremely successful op against opposition journalism.”"
3. "Misinformation from BJP foot soldiers at all levels make it so sites like the Wire are the only way anyone outside India can get an accurate view of one of the world’s most important countries."
4. "Wire had become one of the most dynamic Indian publications of the Modi years, a singular bulwark against the flood of false and propagandistic “news” that took over so much of Indian media. Along with outlets like the Caravan, Scroll, Alt News, the Print, and Cobrapost, the Wire offered detailed, incisive reporting on the realities of modern-day Indian life and politics."
5. "The pressure is high in the subcontinent, and the Wire’s most intrepid writers doubtlessly face daily threats of the kind few American journalists are familiar with. Yet that also makes their rectitude all the more imperative."

They are treating it like a reputable publication that has made a mistake, which is exactly what we should be doing. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I did read it in its entirety, and this misdirects us into the weeds. The fact that The Wire faces threats by the government, or that they weren't outright malicious, or that "their best writing" is good, has nothing to do with their editorial standards, which is what we judge here. The two Slate quotes I give earlier do address The Wire's reliability. Note that beyond publishing an apology, "promising" to vet their stories better, and retracting the Meta story, they still haven't shown any evidence of changes. They still haven't retracted or re-examined their TekFog story, and the founding editor on the Meta byline is still employed. DFlhb (talk) 14:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

It has everything to do with "editorial standards" and is exactly what we should be looking at. Coverage from reliable secondary sources is how we determine their reputation and their editorial standards. It doesn't matter whether you find it trustworthy or what you imagine their editorial standards to be. The article is more or less describing their journalism as one of the best and one of the few where you can get actual news in the country, that very very clearly shows that they are considered a reliable source.

WP:REPUTABLE and WP:USEBYOTHERS are guidelines on reliable sources, and by now it's clear that they more than comply with both. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

There's a difference between a website's stated editorial standards and the extent to which they are put into practice. If extremely senior people are disregarding editorial standards (such as happened in "A Rape on Campus"), then that reflects much, much more broadly on the quality of the organization's editorial oversight than a mere blurb of text that the news organization claims to adhere to. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I second your point @Red-tailed hawk. The leading editors in this fiasco have faced no inquiries or consequences. The same editorial board is now reviewing the misconduct. This alone should be shocking for an editor with some journalistic standards. SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:58, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Observation What would be the optics of Wikipedia declaring a news source unreliable, when that news source has been one of those recently harrassed by the Modi Government (the most recent was the BBC, whose Indian HQ was invaded by "tax inspectors") because it prints news that show the Government in a bad light? I suggest those optics would be very poor. Black Kite (talk) 15:03, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  Nobody here is arguing that the source unreliable because it shows the Indian government in a bad light. We're arguing that it's unreliable because of failures of editorial control and fact-checking, and that responsibility for this goes all the way up to the top. I hope that answers your question. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The irony here is that BBC itself seems to be find them reliable. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 16:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Why are we considering optics here? Whom are we trying to satisfy here? The only thing that should matter is if a news outlet has participated in journalistic malpractice that too intentionally on the highest level, then there should be repercussions for it.

Those who want to consider optics should also consider that if grave misconduct by a news outlet is gone unscathed what precedent are we setting here? SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

My concern is that two (yes,two) incidents are being used to turn one of the few reasonably neutral Indian news sources into "unreliable" and put it on the same footing as actual Indian fake news sites such as Republic TV. This isn't the Daily Mail or Russia Today that we're talking about here. Black Kite (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

See:Telangana Court orders The Wire to take down its stories

Another violation for your reference.

Also, your argument does not provide any substance to nullify points made by @Red-tailed hawk and @DFlhb. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I see. Well, on the same subject, perhaps you could give us a run down of this edit of yours, explaining why the mainstream news services there are unreliable (I am well aware that Reddit and forums are no good, it's the other sources I'm interested in). Black Kite (talk) 22:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The context of this forum is The Wire's reliability.

However, the content written was opinion based rather than having encyclopedic language. I would be happy to work with you on that article if you have some suggestions. SpunkyGeek (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 per Tayi_Arajakate. They have a lot of quality content and the response to the Meta incident shows that they have editorial standards and act upon them. Alaexis_¿question? 20:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1. It's the response including take down and corrective measures that test a publication's reliability. The case where a publication themselves intentionally fabricates is where it is deemed unreliable. The Wire was deceived by one of their own thus causing a fiasco, the publication didn't intentionally fabricate. They took it down and took corrective actions. Unreliable sources don't — DaxServer (t · m · c) 21:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 I think arguments made by @Red-tailed hawk and @DFlhb are spot on. There has been no accountability for the senior editors in this incident. What can be more shocking is the same team is reviewing this debacle. (Not the first time that The Wire is under severe scrutiny). An impartial inquiry is needed which seems highly doubtful here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpunkyGeek (talk • contribs) 23:10, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1. The Wire has screwed up big time, but their ultimate response has been that of a reliable news organization, and the tenor of the most detailed pieces, such as the Slate article, suggest they have been hoodwinked rather than that they've engaged in intentional malpractice. If something similar happens again in the future, it might suggest that there's a systemic issue here, but otherwise it's too soon to deprecate. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  The Slate article is a Future Tense column. We recently discussed these sorts of columns on this very noticeboard; the pieces are characterized by Slate itself as daily commentary published on Slate, and the piece from Slate isn't exactly straight news reporting. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 06:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

It's quite inaccurate to charecterise Future Tense as a column (columns are personal or editorial opinion sections of particular columnists). This is a newsletter under a wide collaboration, which includes commentary (and reportage) and brings in expertise with it. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 11:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 we shouldn't rush to judgement on the basis of one incident allegedly involving one rogue reporter. The wire has been painted as an anti-Mohdi publication and is therefore subject to intimidation, demonization and propoganda including from pro-Mohdi sources in the same way as many other respectable sources have been including the BBC. See these two articles from The Guardian for some context here and here, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1: for an organization that won prizes for its journalism in the past, and issues corrections when they make mistakes. Mottezen (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1: The situation that led to this RFC is very bad, but it is still singular. The organization took the steps one would expect such an organization to take when the problem became known. Long-term, institutional problems have not been demonstrated beyond this event. Yes, it is not good, but it is still just one incident. --Jayron32 14:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Then how about Option 2: exercise additional caution for tech-related reporting? That’s a small minority of their stories; and the founding editor admitted that the main reason for this fuckup was a general lack of tech expertise among their staff, who would have caught it if they had better domain-knowledge. This would also allows us to keep using them for Indian politics, since it’s true that they’re one of the few independent publications left in India, and have done some good work. DFlhb (talk) 07:33, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

No, that's a bad option and just unnecessary, it would bring into question their coverage in the Pegasus Project collaboration, for which there is no evidence that there's anything wrong with it. The rest of their other tech related news coverage is just very basic "who said what" reporting; for example this report or this report, there aren't any problems with these either.

After what happened, it's highly unlikely that they are going to try to pursue any tech related story on their own again, for the foreseeable future. And if any issue arises in the future, we can always revisit this. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 09:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 The Wire has retracted the problematic reporting in question. You can find problems in just any source which has published thousands of articles until now. Unless there is a pattern of biased reporting I don't think we should be really discussing this. Capitals00 (talk) 02:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 - It is reliable enough for a news website. I don't see evidence to the contrary even after reading the whole discussion above. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 04:49, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 Per Tayi and Atlantic306.
  Even giants like NYT (Jayson Blair) and WaPo (Janet Cooke) have fell victim to hoaxes courtesy rogue reporters but such episodes are blips in a stellar record of journalism across the years. Much has been made out of the fact that the outlet had "quadrupled down" on the story in face of adverse comments (before coming to retract it) but such a defensive response is natural when one considers the sorry state of media freedom in India — anyway, for a comparison, Cooke's story had raised quite a many red flags in the newsroom and even by external observers but her editor chose to not buy them and instead nominated it for a Pulitzer!
  On the overall, I have a hard time believing that the OP has followed any media scandal in the past couple of decades. The RfC is misguided and unless The Wire develops a track record of producing similar dubious stuff, we shan't be revisiting this. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:49, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

• Let us see what a domain-expert who aided in debunking the fake story says:

  I do not think that The Wire as an organisation was complicit in this, if nothing else, because their behaviour was not consistent with that assumption. For instance, The Wire provided the identities of the experts to other people to verify. If you knew that these were forged, it is unlikely you would do that—you would make up an excuse about their safety and say, “We can’t tell you who it is,” or something like that.
  — Zhang, Sophie (2022-12-01). "What the Wire-Meta saga means for the future of tech-reporting". The Caravan.

• It is blindingly obvious that the publication was taken by a reporter — who has since been documented to have highly dubious antecedents and a propensity for pathological lying — for a ride. This gullibility does reflect poorly on the organization but it was possible only because — as Zhang notes — tech journalism has not yet developed in India. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:44, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

• I am also fascinated by the OP's attempt to discredit the Slate article in reply to V93 while bandying about the opinion-column in the Economist by Dominic Ziegler. Maybe they do not know about the "Banyan blog" but given their unusual confidence, I doubt it. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:02, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

  Are you saying that the piece from The Economist isn't from their newsroom? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:33, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

  Yes. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:07, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

  I had been thinking that it was. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:52, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1. Even the best publications like The Lancet (the Wakefield "vaccines cause autism" hoax) and The New York Times (the Jayson Blair incident) have, at some point or another, had these kind of screwups. What tells us if they are reliable is not that they never make an error, even a big one, as over enough time, they will. Rather, it is whether they own up to it, appropriately publish corrections and retractions, and generally seem to care that they made the error and commit to doing better going forward. If this becomes a pattern, we can revisit the issue, but that hasn't happened yet. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 The best of news organizations get taken in by a story that's too good to pass up (Hitler diaries and the venerable The Sunday Times and Stern (magazine) come to mind). Unless there is a pattern of misreporting and poor editorial judgement, there is no reason to downgrade an otherwise respectable source. --RegentsPark (comment) 16:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

  With all due respect, but Stern doesn't belong in the league of "green" sources. I've checked WP:perennial sources with relief not finding it there. They fell for Kujau's forgeries for a reason, and would have fallen for all other Kujaus to come; they were just spared because other potential Kujaus wouldn't choose Stern because of its borderline reputation, thus being a bad venue for propagating "high-quality" hoaxes. –Austronesier (talk) 21:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 per Tayi, TrangaBellam etc. I have asked in the pre-RfC discussion if there is "any indication (ideally from a reliable source) that we should consider this to be more than a deplorable, yet individual incident?" and since then haven't seen anything that comes even close. Instead, I see a narrative that attempts to present The Wire in an undifferentiated manner as a wilful agent of fabricating false information, when no source actually support such a claim. Yes, it was reputation-shattering event, but no-one has provided evidence of a pattern of low editorial standards in their previous or subsequent output. –Austronesier (talk) 21:14, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 - The problems that arose were in one narrow section of technology invesigative reporting, where the editorial board lacked sufficient expertise. I judge that The Wire handled it responsibly after problems were discovered. There is nothing here to castigate the media house. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: I am not familiar enough with the source and haven't looked through all of the links but it seems to me that nobody arguing for options 2 or 3 is basing it on any pattern pre- or post- the recent Meta reporting. Use by others up to October 2022 suggests it was widely considered reliable until then. The very upfront and prominent apology suggests that lessons have been learnt. For us to move to anything other than option 1, I'd need to see evidence outside of the Meta stories. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1, they had a serious issue and according to the reliable sources they adequately addressed those issues and they are not indicative of widespread issues with their other reporting. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1. It is absurd for us to be even considering deprecating an otherwise reputed and trustworthy news website as unreliable for a solitary instance of a slip-up, where they not only retracted the story and formally acknowledged the oversight, but took corrective measures to guard against future recurrence of it. That, if anything, reflects credit on thier journalistic ethos. The Wire, indeed, for long have distinguished themselves, amongst all the partisan noise, with thier elaborate reportage, critical and erudite commentary and critique, high journalistic and writing standards. It would be a travesty to downgrade this eminently reliable source of information. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 19:42, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 per SpunkyGeek, Red-tailed hawk and DFlhb this is not a one time incident. Its reporting is very controversial it has been subject to several ongoing defamation suits by businessmen and politicians the number of cases disproportionately high for a website of its size.Here for example Bharat Biotech has filed 100 Crore ongoing suit against it here and Telangana court ordered them to take down 14 articles hereand herePharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 02:03, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

  Oh, come off it. That's such an absurd proposition and a travesty. Defamation suits by rogue "businessmen and politicians" ought not be construed a blemish on the The Wire's character; it is, if anything, a testament to their bold, intrepid and undaunted investigative journalism. Those are the earmarks that beckon amidst the jarring context of a conspicuous decline in press freedom in the country, where, paradoxically, an obtrusive section of the predominantly docile media hobnobs with a rogue, Hindu nationalist regime to boot, and disseminates disinformation to bamboozle a credulous populace. The Wire's investigative journalism has, notwithstanding the context, stood out as a torchbearer of journalism in the country. MBlaze Lightning (talk) 07:28, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Being a target of legal cases is no evidence of unreliability, if this is so then most independent press in the country would become unreliable. Do you have any secondary reliable source documented anything wrong with the articles related to these cases? To my knowledge, there is none whatsover. To the contrary secondary reliable sources (including scholarly ones) describe them as instances of harassment, intimidation, attacks on press freedom, strategic lawsuits against public participation, etc.

Here the takedown order isn't even any kind of judgement, it's an ad interim ex parte injunction, i.e a temporary order (for the duration of the case) granted solely on the basis of one party's concern. In 2017, the same injuction was applied on a different case and dismissed after two years, it means absolutely nothing. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 10:00, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 (Weak vote) I am definitely not informed enough to make a unqualified !vote on this. There's clearly editors with agenda participating in this discussion, which seems to have driven up the back-and-forth engagement through the roof. However just reading all the arguments (and not having done enough background research of my own), I'm not convinced at all by any argument in favour of Option 3. There's a few facts that are being recycled through over and over in the hopes of convincing others, without addressing most of the core issues brought up by others. I'd request any closing admins to scrutinise policy behind the arguments very heavily. Soni (talk) 04:29, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3: I am moved by Red-tailed hawk, especially his reference to one of the most credible media outlets out there, The Economist, which not only lambasted The Wire's coverage on Meta and Tek Fog for "choosing partisanship over process", but also defined it as an anti-BJP religious bigot with the following, "wanting to believe is a fine quality in a pilgrim but a lousy one for holding power to account." Fayninja (talk) 10:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Fayninja: The Economist did not "defined it as an anti-BJP religious bigot" at all, you're radically misinterpreting an idiom. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:55, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1 There is no evidence that The Wire is any worse than British news media, which have all had screw ups. For example, one of the BBC's journalists admitted to the Hutton Inquiry that he had ascribed something the journalist had guessed to his source.^[27][28][29] One possible way of reacting to this is to mark such media as unreliable sources. But it is an over-reaction.-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:00, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Discussion: The Wire (India)

• @SpunkyGeek, Horse Eye's Back, Jayron32, Capitals00, Austronesier, Aquillion, Slywriter, and Bloodofox: I'm pinging you to notify you about this RfC, as you have all contributed to the discussion immediately preceding it. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
  • @DFlhb: as well. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  If I've missed someone who participated in the preceding discussion, feel free to ping them. I tried to go from bottom to top and think I got all the users who participated in the discussion, but it doesn't hurt to check. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Note, I've left notices at Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Journalism regarding this discussion. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• I never got your ping. Capitals00 (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

  That's odd. You're in the list above (and I think other editors got their pings?). Has this issue affected anyone else? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:29, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I didn't get mine. Wasn't an issue though. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk, I suspect that your ping failed for everyone. This page lists the triggers for pings to work. Because your edit began with a change to an existing line—even though you added lines later on—I'm guessing Echo skipped it. The same thing probably happened with this edit as well. Woodroar (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, I guess I've learned what not to do. Thank you for the link; I'll keep it in mind the next time I try to send a mass ping. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:46, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

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

Fox News summary judgment

I read two caveats around published data on Fox's knowing promotion of the Big Lie raised in the last RfC - that it was court filings, not established facts, and that it was from opinion sources, not news. The legal situation has developed, not necessarily to Fox's advantage. Summary judgment has been granted in part to Dominion (https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167526374/judge-rules-fox-hosts-claims-about-dominion-were-false-says-trial-can-proceed). The arguments that this was either opinion or accurate reporting of notable claims are both rejected in the judgment (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23736885-dominion-v-fox-summary-judgment). It is clear from the facts established that the problem was not opinions, or reportage around a false narrative, but provably false statements of fact.

In the Karen McDougal lawsuit, Carlson's (successful) defence was that no reasonable person would take anything he says seriously - very much the Wikipedia consensus that has governed use of Fox as a source for some time. The judgment forestalls that argument. Whether they were uttered with actual malice remains a question for the jury, as it relies on their assessment of the state of mind of the various individuals involved, but this distinguishes the Big Lie from the habitual use of hyperbole by opinion hosts.

It's also bigger than the opinion shows, regardless of whether anyone would mistake them for news. We now know that when Neil Cavuto cut away from a White House presser in which Kayleigh McEnany aired Big Lie claims, Raj Shah notified senior Fox News and Fox Corporation leadership of the 'Brand Threat' posed by Cavuto’s action. Cavuto is a news anchor, not an opinion host. When Jacqui Heinrich, a reporter, tweeted "top election infrastructure officials [confirmed that] there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised", Carlson texted "Please get her fired [...] Seriously… What the fuck? I'm actually shocked… It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke." Heinrich then deleted her tweet. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott wrote to Lachlan Murdoch: "It's a question of trust the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them" and "We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer."

This shows a Fox exec team determination to steer its content to what the viewers wanted to hear (because they were deserting Fox for NewsMax) rather than objective fact. With hindsight, this was obvious the day they sacked Chris Stirewalt for correctly calling AZ for Biden. Benkler et. al. described exactly this dynamic in Network Propaganda - in my view it has always been a "when, not if" thing. We have been working on the basis that Fox's obvious dishonesty applies only to opinion programming, but I would suggest that we now have sound evidence that - at least since 2020 - it also infects editorial policy, and that this is acknowledged by those responsible. Notwithstanding the "boiling frog" problem of the creeping radicalisation of Fox leading to endless RfCs after each new outrage, it would be a mistake to think that 2023 Fox News is the same beast as 2019 Fox News. It's not. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:28, 8 April 2023 (UTC)